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atlabeth · 6 days

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dance until we're bones

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem reader

summary: you and hotch both confront a lifetime of things left unsaid when a case forces your past into the light.

a/n: so i started this. two years ago. got 1k in and left it, came back now for some reason, wrote like a freak until it was done. lol. this is quite heavy and different than most things i usually write and it is SO much longer than expected but im very proud of it 🫶 i didn't really pay attention to the canon timeline so just know that reader and hotch were in their early and late 20s in law school (90s) and early and late 30s in present day (early 2000s). title from i lied by lord huron and allison ponthier

wc: 17.1k

warning(s): a lot of angst. typical bau case stuff, murder (familicide), implied/referenced past child abuse, reader and hotch go at it basically the whole time, character death, kidnapping, slight mention of drugging, injuries, mentions of blood. i wouldn’t say a happy ending but a hopeful one

Hotch can barely stay awake.

He got the call thirty minutes to 4 a.m, and if he hadn’t already been up, he would likely be in a much worse mood. He can only hope that the rest of the team has gotten used to rude awakenings at this point.

It’s poor planning on his part—he already got out late due to extra paperwork, and once he got home, he found himself staring at the wall, and then staring at the ceiling. If he’s lucky, he’ll get to sleep on the jet. If things go the way they usually do, he won’t be out until their first night in a hotel.

He started making calls to the team on his way to the office, but to no one’s surprise, he was the first one there. He had time to wash down a shitty office coffee and get started on a second one by the time everyone’s there.

Morgan, Prentiss, and JJ all have coffees—JJ comes prepared with her own thermos, but Morgan and Prentiss fall victim to the BAU’s supply—Reid is fighting back yawns as he tries to fix a hastily made tie, Garcia is slightly less energetic than normal as she passes out files, and somehow Rossi looks the same as always.

Hotch just hopes he’s put together enough to make the team feel better about being here at an ungodly hour.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” Garcia greets, setting down the last folder in front of Reid before taking her spot next to Hotch at the front. “As lovely as it is to see all of you this morning, I’m afraid that we’ve got a grisly one on our hands, hence the hour.”

“Great,” Prentiss mutters. “How bad is it?”

“Three married couples have been murdered in St. Louis, Missouri in the past two months, with the most recent one happening yesterday,” Hotch says, and Garcia grimaces as she clicks onto the pictures. “Mom and dad are killed, but the children are spared.”

“Awful lot of similarities between the parents,” Morgan says dryly as he flips through the folder. “Looks like our killer has some family issues.”

Reid nods. “The unsub likely stalks these families once they see the similarities. I’m guessing he was abused as a child, seeing as they kill the parents but keep the children alive.”

“Probably has a grudge against his father,” Prentiss remarks. “They make it out the worst every time.”

“There’s no method to the torture,” Morgan says. “It looks like he’s just trying to make it hurt as much as possible.”

“Our guy probably isn’t trained in anything, then,” Rossi says.

Reid flips to another page in the file. “Serial killers like to see their victims suffer. If he’s not torturing the mom physically, then he’s likely making her watch.”

“He doesn’t kill children, though,” JJ notes.

“Maybe he thinks he’s doing them a favor,” Reid says.

“The unsub sees himself in the kids?” Morgan suggests. “He’s doing what he didn’t get the chance to do.”

“Whatever it is, we have to keep a tight hold on this,” JJ says. “The press eats this stuff up, and the last thing we need is a terrified city making it harder to do our jobs.”

“Especially with families being killed,” Morgan murmurs.

JJ sighs. “I’ll draft something on the jet and make some calls when we land.”

Hotch nods and he closes his file. “Wheels up in thirty. I hope you’re all ready for a long day.”

The jet is silent the entire way to Missouri, full of sleeping agents trying to delay the inevitable—save for JJ scribbling down notes on a legal pad for the first thirty minutes, but even she knocks out sooner rather than later. Thankfully, Hotch manages to fit an hour in himself, though it doesn’t do very much for him. He spends the rest of the time reading through the case file.

The team settles in quickly at the city’s precinct, and Hotch takes charge as usual. The uniforms are just as tired as they are, but he makes it work. Soon enough, JJ is off to work with the local liaison to craft a narrative, Reid has situated himself in an empty conference room to get to work analyzing maps with Garcia, and Hotch and the rest go to check out the crime scene.

It’s brutal—much too brutal for this early, but Hotch forces the emotions out of it and gets to work questioning the present officers. Morgan follows suit, with Prentiss and Rossi going to investigate the rest of the house.

They don’t learn much from the officers that they don’t already know. This is the most recent crime scene—George and Marsha Springfield, undeserving of such a grisly fate. Their two kids, 8 and 9, were off visiting their grandparents in Nebraska when it happened, and though they avoided the same fate, they’re going to deal with a lifetime of guilt.

It’s all Hotch can think about as he examines the first body. The six children left to deal with the carnage, about their past and future marred against their control.

All he can think about is Jack, and the dreary fate that awaits him if his father falls in the field.

Hotch swallows his doubt and his guilt all in one and forces every thought out of his mind. He has to be unshakable for the team, for what’s left of these families, for a city on the brink of hysterics.

They’ll find whoever did this. That’s what gets him through it.

They spent early morning at the crime scene, collecting evidence and gathering information from the officers and trying to make sense of the killer’s motive. Progress is slow, partially because of the hour, but they make enough that Hotch feels comfortable moving onto the next job.

Their four a.m. start time was too early to go knock on doors and get interviews, but now it’s a more normal 10 in the morning. After a quick stop back at the station to share information with Reid, Garcia, and JJ and down a few cups of coffee, they get right back on the road.

Hotch and Prentiss take one van and Morgan and Rossi take the other, splitting up to get what they can from interviews. It’s difficult working with kids, especially with such recent trauma, so they hold off on it for now, allowing the local uniforms that have been with them for a bit longer to set things up before the BAU tries anything.

First they go to a neighbor’s house, then an alleged eye witness. They don’t get much other than personality reads, but it at least gives them the beginnings of a profile. The third place they hit is their earliest idea of a suspect.

“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss reads off the file one of the local officers had put together. “Thirty-nine, born and raised in St. Charles, Missouri. High school degree, but never got to college because he was in and out of jail.”

“What has he been charged for?”

“Booked a few times for public intoxication and convicted three times for assault. Once was for third-degree assault, Missouri’s version of aggravated assault,” she says. “He got out of jail last year, and it looks like he’s been living in St. Louis for some of that.”

“Assault and drinking is a far cry from serial killing, even aggravated,” Hotch says. “What makes him a suspect?”

“Both parents are dead,” she says. “And from the looks of it, it was not a happy home while they were around. He’s got a sister, so it fits the initial theory of trying to replicate his family.”

Hotch lets out a loose breath and nods. “We’ll start there. Try and get a story from this guy, build a profile, see if it matches the one Morgan and Rossi have made for their guy.”

“And hope we pin something down before more bodies show up,” Prentiss murmurs.

They’re at their destination soon enough, and Hotch parks in an open spot on the other side of the road. His eyes dart around as they walk up to the front door, filing things away in the back of his mind.

The house number and last name—1432, Hartford—on the mailbox plagued with rotting wood. What there is of a yard is poorly cut, and a small garden of wilted flowers has their own corner, victims of the winter weather. One car is parked slightly crooked in a small driveway—there’s no garage, so at least he’s probably home. Two potted plants sit on either side of the door, thankfully alive.

“Remember,” Prentiss says as they come to a stop together, “be nice.”

“I’m plenty nice,” he murmurs, and she huffs the slightest laugh.

Hotch knocks on the door as Prentiss fishes around for her ID, and thankfully, they don’t wait long. The door cracks open after a few seconds to reveal a woman—certainly not their unsub, but something a whole lot more surprising.

You.

Your brows furrow at the sight of him, and Hotch has to hold back his shock.

You don’t live in St. Louis. And your last name certainly isn’t Hartford.

“Aaron?” you ask in disbelief, and he doesn’t even have to look at Prentiss to know the questions he’s going to get later.

He says your name, able to control his surprise with only the slightest crease of his brows giving it away, then corrects himself just as quickly. “Miss Hartford. My name is SSA Aaron Hotchner, and this is SSA Emily Prentiss. We’re here with the FBI.”

Your frown deepens as they show their IDs, and you actually take it from Hotch, skeptical eyes scanning over it for much too long. You glance back at him as you hand it back over. “What is the FBI doing here?”

Emily clears her throat as she puts her credentials away. “We’re here investigating the latest murders in St. Louis. Can we come in?”

“The murders?” you ask with exasperation. “What— what murders? And what do I have to do with them?”

Aaron notices the way your grip tightens on the door just the slightest bit, and a shred of sympathy strikes him before he speaks up.

“We’ll be able to explain everything if you let us in,” he says.

You swallow thickly in your throat, your gaze darting back to Aaron before you finally nod. “Okay. Sure. Why not?”

You move and Hotch and Prentiss walk inside, gesturing with a hand towards your living room as you shut and lock the door behind them. “Take a seat. Uh— do you guys need anything? Water, or coffee, or…”

You trail off, and Prentiss shakes her head. “Thank you, but that’s not needed.” She takes a seat on the sofa, but Hotch can’t stop himself from looking around the house.

It’s a small place, one story—likely rented, seeing how paintings sit on countertops and mantels rather than hanging on the wall. It has a certain charm to it, but something is off about it all.

Two styles clash—decorative pillows at odds with a filled and painted-over hole in the wall, an attempt at neutral tones ruined by dark articles of clothing scattered around, one person’s mess barely being held back by another’s cleaning efforts. You lived with someone else. Likely Lucas Hartford, possibly their unsub.

“Are you gonna sit down, Aaron?” you ask, snapping him out of his profiling haze. “Or do you want to look around some more?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, clearing his throat as he walks over and sits down in an open chair near Prentiss. “Just curious.”

“That makes two of us,” you say, and you cross your arms as you look at him. He notices that you don’t sit down yourself, and there’s still a coldness in your eyes. “You’re FBI now?”

He nods. “I had a change of heart.”

You huff a laugh. “Thought at least one of us would be a lawyer by now. I guess not.”

Hotch frowns, but Prentiss takes over before he can continue on that particular thread. “Miss Hartford—”

You interrupt by saying your first name, and it spurns something strange in his chest. It’s been over a decade since he’s heard your voice. “You can skip the formalities.”

Prentiss nods and repeats your name. “As you know, we’re investigating the murders that have been occuring in the St. Louis area.”

“And you think I have something to do with it?” you ask, the accusatory edge to your voice not lost on him.

“Not you,” Hotch says. “Do you know a Lucas Hartford?”

“He’s my brother,” you say, and your frown deepens. “You’re not saying—”

“No,” Prentiss interrupts, “we’re not saying anything. We’re just asking.”

And just like that, your entire stance, your visage, it all changes. Hotch can sense the walls slamming up around you, and he immediately realizes two things:

Getting information out of you is going to be much harder than planned, and you’re not anywhere near the same person you used to be.

Hotch doesn’t know what he expects, really. He graduated with the intent to prosecute for at least a decade—now, he’s with the BAU. It’s not fair to assume you’re that same girl he met in law school.

“My brother is not a murderer,” you state clearly.

“And we aren’t accusing him or you of anything—” she starts.

“Me?” you interrupt, and you let out a harsh laugh. “I’m a suspect too?”

“If you would allow Agent Prentiss to finish her sentences, you would be less upset,” Hotch says.

You glower at him, but you stay silent.

“We aren’t accusing either of you of anything,” Prentiss finishes. “We’re just trying to gather information with what little we know.”

“I know my rights,” you say, unflinching gaze still meeting Hotch’s. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Prentiss looks at him as well, but his eyes don’t leave yours. “That’s unfortunate to hear, Miss Hartford.”

“You know my name, Aaron. Use it.”

He does, and the letters feel strange on his tongue after so long. “This is a serious matter. This isn’t an accusation—we’re in the early days of this case and we need all the information we can get.”

“Ask away,” you say. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss starts. “He’s your brother?”

You nod. “He lives with me.”

He lives with me, not we live together. Makes him think that you pay for the place, he came knocking, and you didn’t have the heart to turn him away.

“Why is that?” Hotch asks.

You look at him, those scrutinizing eyes attempting to peer into his soul the same way they did all those years ago. But Hotch has changed since law school, and he’s much better at guarding his emotions. It seems you are, too.

“He’s a student,” you finally say. “He goes to community college. I’m giving him a place to live while he gets his associate’s.”

“Community college and living with his younger sister at 39?” Prentiss is trying to get information out of you, even if it isn’t in the kindest way. Your jaw clenches, and he knows her words have some effect. You’ve probably heard it more than once, the way things are going.

“He’s getting his life back on track,” you say defensively. “I’m the only one left that can help him, so I am.”

“What about your parents?” she asks. “Surely they’re a better option than this.”

“Both dead,” you answer. “And no one else cares enough to help him. Are you here to do anything other than dig up my past?”

Hotch feels Prentiss’s eyes on him, likely because it’s a step in the right direction for a really shitty reason, but he can’t look away from you.

“Really?”

He knows your parents are dead—it was in your brother’s profile, and by extension it applies to you—but it still hits him.

He met your mother, had countless lunches and dinners with her. Helped her move out of her old house. Spent two Thanksgivings and a Christmas with her.

And he didn’t even know when she died.

You shrug and wrap your arms around yourself, and for the first time you look something other than defensive or standoffish. You look— well… sad.

“Mom went a few years after you graduated,” you say, looking at Hotch. “Dad went five years ago.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Prentiss says.

You nod your thanks, the notion a bit numb.

“You never told me,” Hotch says with a slight frown.

“We haven’t talked in ten years,” you say. “Sorry that I didn’t know you still wanted updates.”

Hotch tries to think of something to say in response, but Prentiss starts getting a call and she stands up. “Excuse me.”

His jaw clenches for a moment as Prentiss ducks into a nearby bedroom, but he’s recovered by the time you look at him again. Your arms are crossed, but your expression is even.

“I take it this was as much of a surprise for you as it is for me.”

Hotch nods. “We came here looking for your brother.”

“Does your team know about our history?” you ask simply.

“No.”

“Do you want them to?”

“...No.”

You huff a laugh, your eyes narrowing a bit. “‘Course not. Probably counts as conflict of interest.”

You wait another beat, then ask another question. “How’s Haley?”

“Good, last I heard,” he says, and then he hesitates. “We’re… divorced.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

He nods. “This job isn’t easy for anyone.”

You look like you want to say more, but once again, Hotch is saved by Prentiss as she walks back in. Her phone is closed in her hand and she looks at him. “Morgan and Rossi have a lead. The chief wants everyone back at the precinct to go over everything we’ve found.”

Hotch nods again and stands up. Prentiss takes her card out of her pocket and holds it out to you.

“Thank you for your time, Miss Hartford. If you find out any information, or want to tell us anything else, please give me a call.”

“Pass that along to your brother, too,” Hotch says.

You reluctantly take the card, but you don’t look at it. “You can see yourselves out.”

Prentiss nods. “Thank you again. Have a good day, and stay safe.”

She leads the way, and Hotch follows after her. He fights the urge to look back before he shuts the door.

Prentiss looks at him as they walk back to the car, and he can only imagine what is going through her mind. But eventually she just shrugs and pulls out her phone again.

“Garcia?” Prentiss asks after she picks up.

“You’ve reached the office of all that is holy.” Penelope’s voice comes out through the speaker, and Hotch can’t help the smallest twitch of his lips. “What’s up?”

“Dig up everything you can find on Lucas Hartford,” Emily says, and her glance at Hotch does not go unnoticed. “And throw in his sister, too. He’s one of our only suspects, and we need to know if she’s in on it.”

“On it,” Garcia says. “I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

“You’re the best,” she says, and then she hangs up. They get back to the car, and it only takes Prentiss all of five seconds after they get in for her to start drilling him.

“Alright,” she says, buckling her seatbelt with a click before she sets her attention on him. “What was that back there? You two know each other?”

Hotch busies himself with his own seatbelt and starting the car, answering as casually as possible as the engine revs to life. “We were friends in law school.”

“Sure,” Prentiss nods. “The way you were around her, that’s not just ‘law school friend’ stuff.”

Hotch is once again reminded of how, sometimes, it was a downfall to constantly be around profilers. It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret.

“It’s nothing,” he says as he pulls back onto the road. “We knew each other, we fell apart, we’re here now.”

Emily hums. “Is it too far to ask if you were together?”

“Yes,” he says sternly, maybe a bit too hasty. “It is.”

“Fine,” she says breezily, and she looks out the window. “But that tension was thick.”

Hotch knows what she’s thinking. Hasn’t he been with Haley since high school, what kind of history did you and him have, were you together, would he be okay to work this case—

He doesn’t really want to answer any of them. You were a part of his past he hadn’t expected to resurface any time soon—if Hotch is being honest, he didn’t know if he would ever see you again once he graduated. Not after the way he broke things off.

You’ve changed a lot. So has he.

And now your brother is a murder suspect, and you could be covering up for him.

That’s the only thing that should be on his mind.

“For the last time,” you huff as you storm down the stairs, “I don’t want to deal with this.”

“Because you know that Mia is a lying bitch!” Cleo exclaims, following after you. “I’m sick of you stealing my clothes!”

“I’m not stealing your clothes,” Mia scoffs in your wake, just behind Cleo. “They’re too ugly for me to want anyways. I bet I wouldn’t even fit into them.”

“You are! And you’re stealing my fucking jewelry, too!” she yells. “All of my shit is going missing, and I know it’s not Little Miss Law School, so it’s got to be you!”

Mia draws out a mirthless laugh. “You are not accusing me of this.”

“I don’t have anyone else to accuse!” Cleo shouts.

They both look at you, and Mia says your name. “You have to settle this before I kill her.”

“Oh, I’ll kill you first!” she hisses. “At least I’ll get all my stuff back!”

You clench your jaw as your nails dig into your palms, and you’re about to bite back when the doorbell rings. You don’t even try to hide your sigh of relief.

“That’s Aaron,” you say as you grab your coat and your bag from the table. “I’m leaving. If you kill each other, don’t get blood on the furniture.”

You don’t give them a chance to say anything before you rush to the door, open it, and shut it behind you.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” you breathe.

“What’s going on in there?” Aaron asks, amused.

“My roommates are fighting again.” You roll your eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You’re much more interesting.”

“You know this is a study date,” he says wryly, and you cut him off with a kiss.

“Still a date,” you murmur against his lips. “And something seriously needed.”

Aaron chuckles as he wraps an arm around you, pulling you into his side, and the two of you walk to his car. “You’ve gotta get out of this house, honey.”

“I know,” you grumble. “But I can’t afford a place on my own.”

“Doesn’t have to be on your own,” he says as he opens the door for you. “It just has to be away from the girls that are making you miserable.”

“The lease ends at the end of the semester,” you sigh. “Just have to make it until then.”

“You know,” Aaron boxes you in against the car when you lean against the side of it, smiling softly at you, “I do live alone.”

“Oh yeah?” You ruffle his hair with your fingers and grin. “What are you proposing?”

He shrugs, letting his hands linger on your waist. “Just that you hate your roommates, and you don’t hate me. You could spend your time somewhere else.”

“Careful,” you warn. “You keep saying things like that and we might not make it to the library.”

“You keep saying things like that, and I might not mind,” Aaron muses.

You grin as he leans in and kisses you again, once, twice, three times as your back hits the side of his car and you card your hands through his hair. Mia and Cleo are probably killing each other inside, but you don’t really care at this point. They’ve made your life hell for a semester and a half—they can bother each other for once.

“Aaron,” you whisper against his lips, and he gets one more in between words, “I’ve got a test on Tuesday.”

“And today’s Sunday.” He nips at your neck and you laugh, your eyes falling shut as you lean your head back. “You’ll be fine, honey.”

“You have one on Monday,” you remind him, and he sighs. You feel his hot breath against your neck.

“Ruining our fun in the name of schoolwork,” he says. “No wonder all your professors love you.”

“Everyone loves me,” you correct. “Including you.”

You steal one more kiss before you open your door yourself and get in, and Aaron lets out a breathy laugh.

“You’ve got that right.”

He closes your door then gets in the other side, and you’re already rifling through the glove box full of cassettes. You pull out the mixtape you made for him for your six month anniversary and pop it into the player, and Aaron smiles as the first few notes of Stairway to Heaven come on.

“You’re a threat to my grades, y’know.”

“Maybe it’s all part of my plan,” you say. “Distract you with kisses to make sure I’m a shoe-in for this fellowship.”

“A dastardly plan,” he says with mock austerity.

“I’ve been told I have to be more of a shark,” you muse. “Consider this me taking down my competition.”

Aaron laughs, and you find yourself smiling just at the sound of it. You love the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, how they soften just so, how he acts like himself around you, and not some perfected or stoic image that he thinks he needs.

Falling in love with Aaron Hotchner has been the easiest thing in the world.

“Don’t let anyone know,” he says, and he reaches over to intertwine your fingers together. “But I’ll happily fall to you every time.”

“As long as you don’t tell everyone how whipped I am for you,” you tease.

“Looks like we’ve both got reputations to keep up.”

“Looks like it.”

You share a smile, yours just on the edge of a grin as you try to bite it back. You hold hands the rest of the way, just soaking in each other’s presence with songs from bands you introduced to each other floating through the air.

(It is a goddamn struggle to get any work done at the library with that face across from you the whole time.)

You had sky-high aspirations when you were younger.

Ones that would make your teachers offer a smile and tell you to shoot a little lower, that would make your friends’ eyes widen, that your father would scoff at and your mother would humor you on just to get you to move past it.

You didn’t listen. You’ve wanted to be a lawyer since you went on a class field trip to a courthouse in elementary school and saw all the attorneys hustling about, dressed to the nines, making last-minute deals outside the courtroom.

They were just… so confident. So smart, so stoic, always knowing the answer to everything. The good ones had money, sure, but more importantly they had the power to change lives for the better. And as a kid that had to cover up bruises before the school day, nothing sounded more appealing.

All you’ve ever wanted to do is help people.

And as you sit in a cold, empty interrogation room, you can’t help but wonder where the hell you went wrong.

You don’t want to be here, obviously. But you know the FBI won’t stop bugging you until you give them answers—you know Aaron Hotchner won’t stop bugging you.

Because god— what are the odds?

What are the fucking odds of your ex-boyfriend from a decade ago showing up at your door with a badge and an attempted case against your brother?

It’s ridiculous, and it’s such bad luck that you think it could only happen to you. You’ve thought about Aaron Hotchner more than you’d like to admit over the years, especially when you found your old GW crewnecks, and the box of school supplies you used for a decade, and those photo albums from what should’ve been your golden years.

It’s not like any of it matters, though. You only agreed to come in and talk because you want them off your back and you don’t want them poking around your house. You saw it in Aaron’s eyes—he was profiling you and your place the entire time.

If the cops want to invade your privacy even further, they can get a goddamn warrant.

Your thoughts are interrupted when the door opens, and you hold back a mirthless laugh, because of course it’s Aaron. He greets you with your name, and he has a file in his hands. You wonder if it’s on you or your brother. “Thank you for taking the time out of your day to come in and talk with us.”

“Well, you seem to think my brother is a murderer.” You cross your arms as you sit back. “I’m not really gonna let that stand.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked for a lawyer,” he says as he sits down across from you.

“I don’t plan to be here for very long,” you respond tartly. “But don’t worry—that can always change. I know my rights.”

“I’m the last person you need to tell that to.” Hotch sets the file down and looks right at you. Though he’s obviously older—more grizzled, more hardened; harsher, sharper lines that define his face; lips set in a taut, unflinching line—you still see that young man from law school. The passion, the care he puts into everything, the penchant for striped ties.

You wonder what he sees when he looks at you.

“Your last name wasn’t Hartford when I met you,” he says. “Why is it now?”

“Not one for small talk,” you remark.

“I never have been.”

“I remember.” You hold his gaze. “It’s my mom’s maiden name. I changed it to put some distance between me and everything else.”

You can practically see the gears of his brain working, neural pathways branching off with every word you say to make sense of it and reason a thousand different meanings from it. Aaron’s always been like that, but it’s tenfold now.

You suppose one has to be like that, to try and get anywhere with the types of criminals they face.

“How long have you been living in St. Louis?”

“Seven years. I’ve had that house for three.”

“Rent or own?”

“Rent,” you scoff. “I don’t make enough for a down payment, and I don’t want a place tying me down.”

“What inspired the move?”

“Close enough to home to be familiar, far enough to not be.”

“And home is?”

“St. Charles,” you say, and you purse your lips. “Shouldn’t you already know all this?” You nod at the file in front of him. “It’s either on me or my brother, and we share a lot of the same info.”

“We prefer to get our information from the source,” he says.

“Sources can lie.”

Aaron doesn’t waver. “And we can charge you with obstruction if it harms our investigation.”

Your lips twitch for a moment, not entirely without heart. “Ask your questions, Aaron.”

He opens the folder and slides the first picture over to you—your brother’s first mugshot, taken when he was only twenty-one. You still remember riding your bike to the station in the sweltering August heat to drop off his bail and pick him up.

You had to catch the bus home together, you had to pay his fare, and his bail drained everything you’d been saving from your waitress job. But your dad refused to pay it, and you refused to be alone in that house any longer than you already had.

You swallow the memory. It still tastes as sour as the day it happened.

“Lucas Hartford is our main suspect,” he says. “He matches our initial profile—in and out of jail since his twenties, his parents are dead and he has an unstable home life, and he’s got a sister.”

“None of those sound like questions,” you say.

“Where is your brother?” he asks firmly. He’s given you a bit of leniency, but you can tell he’s getting tired of you. Some things never change, you think to yourself bitterly.

“I don’t know,” you admit.

“You don’t know,” he repeats.

“I let him stay with me, and my only requirement is that he goes to his community college classes and stays out of jail,” you say. “He’s done both, so I don’t ask questions.”

“And you’re telling me you haven’t questioned it.”

“I called him the other day after you left,” you say. “He didn’t pick up, and I didn’t get a call back until the next night.”

Aaron’s eyes sharpen. “What did you say to him?”

“I called to see where he was,” you say evenly. “I think you all are wrong, but I wanted to make sure he was okay.”

“You didn’t tell him—”

“No,” you interrupt, “I didn’t tell him about your investigation. If I think you’re wrong, why would I need to let him know?”

He still has that look in his eyes, and you know you’re getting on his nerves with the constant interrupting, the constant backtalk. But he probably deals with much, much worse.

“Good,” he nods. “You could be putting lives in danger if you do—including yours.”

“Please,” you scoff. “He won’t hurt me. He never has.”

“Why do you let him stay with you?” Aaron asks. “You’re straight-edge, he’s a borderline alcoholic that’s been in and out of jail for years. You’ve got a law degree, he never made it past high school. You’ve got your life together, his is falling apart.”

“That’s why I do it,” you say. “Our parents are dead. I’m all he has left, and he’s all I have left. I want him to get better, so I’m trying my best to help him get there. How can Luke put his life back together if he’s got no support?”

“That’s an awful lot of faith to put in someone who hasn’t earned it.”

“I’ve gotten good at that over the years,” you reply.

Aaron stares at you, and you stare back. You let the moment linger. You hope it stings, even fleetingly.

“And you’re wrong, by the way.”

“About what?” he asks. Again, unshaken.

“I don’t have a law degree,” you say. “I dropped out.”

And for some reason, that is what gets him. He frowns, and you wonder what it means that this is the most unexpected thing he’s gotten out of you.

“Why? You were only a year out. You had stellar grades.”

“My mom got cancer,” you say. “Luke was serving his second stint, Dad fucked off to some corner of the country to drink himself to death a couple months before. I was the only one left to take care of her, and I couldn’t do that from DC.”

“I had no idea.” This is the first time he looks taken aback since you’ve met him again. “And she’s—”

“Dead,” you supply without waiting for an answer. “Went a couple months after I was meant to graduate.”

“...I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. He’s just repeating what his agent said at your house, but it feels genuine, at least.

“It’s been a decade,” you say. “I’m just sorry it was her instead of my dad.”

Aaron’s brows knit together again, and less work goes into covering it up this time. “You seem to have something against your father.”

You huff a mirthless laugh. “Excellent profiling.”

“Child abuse is common for serial killers,” Aaron says. “We find it’s typically the root of their problems later in life, or plays a part in their MO.”

You stare at him again. This isn’t just an interrogation with Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner—it’s revealing parts of your past that you never told your ex-boyfriend Aaron.

“Yeah,” you finally say. “Our dad beat us. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“You know th—”

Aaron cuts himself off before he can finish whatever he wants to say, and he lets out a short sigh with a nod. “It’s valuable information for the profile.”

The room feels a lot colder all of a sudden. “Sure.”

He still looks like he wants to say more, but he bites his tongue as he takes the picture back and closes the file.

“I’ll be back,” he says. “Would you like anything? Water?”

You shake your head and remain silent. He takes the folder and stands up, and you watch him the entire way to the door. Just before he can open it, you find words escaping without you thinking.

“Look, Aaron,” you blurt out. He pauses, and he turns to look at you. “I know this is your thing, and this is your investigation, but I’m telling you—my brother and I don’t play any part in it.”

“The profile—”

“I don’t care what your profile says,” you interrupt. “He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.”

“He’s rough around the edges, I know. In and out of jail isn’t good for anyone.” You hold onto the edge of the table as you continue rambling, needing something to do with your hands. “But he’s working to get better, and he is not the kind of person to do something like this. If you believe anything I say, believe that.”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” he says evenly.

He leaves the room, and your hands fall into your lap as your nails dig into your palms. You don’t mean to be desperate, but you feel it. You’ve been defending Lucas at every chance, but you’re terrified of being wrong. You’re terrified that Aaron might be right—that he might be behind all of this.

For his sake—and your sake, honestly, because you think you deserve to be selfish when he’s all you have left—you hope you’re right.

You have to be right.

The room feels even colder.

Your stare drifts to the one-way mirror, where you know his team is watching. You saw the way Agent Prentiss watched Aaron when they came to your house—he said he doesn’t want them to know, but you think they already do.

You wonder the kind of things they’ve come up with about you and him.

Morgan whistles when Hotch walks out of the interrogation room.

“She does not like you.”

“Did you gather anything else?” he asks placidly. He sets your brother’s file down so he can fix his tie.

“Abusive dad, dead parents, criminal background,” he says. “Lucas is looking like a stronger suspect. Oh— and she really doesn’t like you.”

“If you don’t want to go back to building a file on your suspect, move on,” Hotch demands.

Morgan shrugs, clearly unfazed, but he keeps his mouth shut. Reid, meanwhile, is still staring through the glass at you. You haven’t exactly relaxed, but you’re not as tense as you were while talking to Hotch. You pick at a loose strand of thread on your sweater, and when you pull it out, you let it fall to the floor.

“Her brother feels like a prime suspect,” Reid murmurs. “I feel like I could just figure it all out if I could talk to him.”

“I told Penelope to keep an eye on him,” Prentiss contributes. “She’s tracking his cards, the car registered in his name, even called the person in charge of the AA meetings he goes to to keep an eye out—everything. We’ll know if she gets anything.”

“Serial killers want to see the damage they’ve done,” Reid says. “Things are falling apart here—the whole city is terrified. He’s gotta be in St. Louis still.”

“You’re sure that he’s still in the running.” Hotch glances back at you, and he knows he has to at least ask, for your sake. He doesn’t want to put you through anything more than he has to—not after what you’ve told him.

And Hotch knows your past is your business—he just can’t believe you never told him.

He’s turned over your relationship in his head just as many times in these past few days as he did the months after he ended things.

“I’m sure, sir,” Reid says. “I’ve read over both their files, and Lucas matches with our preliminary profile. His stressor could have been his father dying.”

Morgan frowns. “Explain.”

“Family annihilators typically go after their own family for a myriad of reasons,” he says. “Paranoia, to cover up their lies, to free themselves from what they see as oppression, sometimes just pure jealousy.”

“He’s killing the parents but leaving the children alive,” Hotch says. “Sounds like a liberator to me.”

“That’s what I think,” Reid nods. “If Lucas has been banking on killing his father for that attempt at freedom, and then lost the chance?” He shrugs. “That could be why he started going for other families.”

“Other fathers to take his place,” Morgan realizes, and he nods again.

“You should talk to her, Spence,” Prentiss says. “You’ve got a handle on the profile, and you’re pretty good at conveying info. She seems like a reasonable person—just can’t accept her brother doing something like this.”

“It’s typical for someone to deny their family member’s involvement,” Reid says. “No one wants to think their sibling is a murderer.”

“If you lay it all out for her like that, with facts and the profile, I think she’ll listen.” Prentiss looks at Hotch. “She’s too closed off with you.”

“That’s how she is,” Hotch claims.

“Maybe,” she shrugs, “but it’s much easier to hate you than it is to hate Reid.”

Hotch glares at her, and Reid clears his throat to insert himself back into the conversation.

“I’d be happy to talk to her,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be in this kind of position—I can put her at ease, sympathize with her.”

They all look at Hotch, and he wants to say no. He wants to be the one to get this out of you—some part of him wants as much time with you as possible. But he decides to swallow his ego.

“Fine.” He nods, and he hands the folder to Reid. “I trust you to handle it.”

Reid nods too, far too many times, and he takes the file. “Thank you. Uh— sir. I appreciate your trust.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, but it has no bite to it, and Reid walks inside.

He says your name and sits down across from you. “I’m Spencer Reid. I know we’ve already said it, but thank you for talking to us. It may not seem like it, but it goes a long way towards figuring out this case.”

You nod. You already seem more at ease than you were with him, and it makes Hotch…

Not jealous, because that would be insane. But it makes him upset that he doesn’t understand you the way he used to—that he doesn’t hold that key to you anymore. God, it feels like he doesn’t know you anymore.

Hotch doesn’t get why a side of his brain still thinks this way about you.

“They sent a new one in,” you say.

“You looked like you needed a break from Hotch,” Reid says. “Don’t worry. We all do sometimes.”

You huff a slight laugh and your posture eases, your expression softens just so. Reid was right, as usual.

“I can imagine.”

He starts talking to you about the case, laying out all the facts, and though you don’t look happy, you don’t cut him off like you cut Hotch off.

“She’s pretty,” Morgan offers, glancing at Hotch. “And stubborn. I see why you like her.”

“Shut up, Morgan,” Hotch mutters.

He chuckles and holds his hands up, and focuses back on the interrogation.

The rest of it passes in silence, save for the occasional input from Prentiss or Morgan to elaborate on a point. You talk much more with Reid than you did with Hotch, and you don’t stare daggers at him the entire time.

Time doesn’t always heal all wounds, he thinks.

When Reid is finishing up inside with you, Morgan glances back at Hotch. “You think she’s part of this?”

He shakes his head. “No. She has no reason to kill, nothing to gain. She talks about her past too plainly—it hurt her, obviously, but it hasn’t taken over her life.”

“What about her brother?” Prentiss asks.

“The more we learn, the more I suspect him,” Morgan says.

She nods in agreement. “We just have to find him.”

Hotch isn’t sure yet.

But for your sake, he hopes his gut feeling is wrong.

Spring has finally sprung in DC, and you couldn’t be happier.

It’s hard to feel down on your walks to class when the birds are singing and the sun is beaming down on you, when you see students sitting on blankets reading and talking and actually enjoying life for once.

You’re two years into law school, and it feels like you’ve spent 90% of your time studying in either the library or your room. A bit of a sad existence, but it’s made better with Aaron.

You’re laying down on a blanket—one you crocheted yourself in undergrad—resting your head on Aaron’s chest as he reads a book, the spring sun shining down on you. It feels like the first moment of relaxation either of you have had since classes started, and you chose to spend it together in the University Yard.

You should probably be studying or doing some kind of homework, but you don’t care. It has been too damn long since you’ve gotten to just sit around and exist with Aaron, and you’ve got at least a couple days until your next quiz. That’s far enough away for you.

It’s been a rough semester for both of you, between classes and endless homework, between your internship and your endless family issues—Luke is two years in, and his parole was denied, and your dad still insists on being the reason you stay on campus year-round.

You don’t think you’re pushing it when you say Aaron’s support has been the only reason you’ve gotten through it, your grades—and your mental state—relatively unscathed.

Aaron says your name, and you hum.

“Are you listening?” he asks.

“Of course,” you say.

“Your eyes are closed.”

“I don’t need my eyes to listen,” you say wryly. “What’s up?”

You feel him tense for a moment, feel him adjust his position slightly.

“I got a call from Haley,” he says carefully.

Your eyes open and you frown.

You know the name, but only in the way that you talked a bit about your past relationships while you were still getting to know each other. She was his high school girlfriend, and it was a big deal then, but they broke up before college because they both wanted different things.

It shouldn’t be a big deal now. But he’s treating it like one, and that makes you hesitate.

“Yeah? What’d she want?”

“…She’s in DC for the weekend,” he says. “Some conference for school. She asked if we could grab a coffee or something and catch up.”

You finally sit up, his hands falling from where he’d been playing with your hair, and you look at him.

“Your high school girlfriend wants to catch up.”

“An old friend wants to catch up,” he corrects. “I haven’t really talked to her since we graduated high school.”

“...Okay,” you say slowly. “Do you want to see her?”

He shrugs. “I thought it would be nice.”

“Do you think she thinks it’ll be more than nice?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t even know how she got my landline. I think my mom might have given it to her.”

Your eyebrows rise. “Your mom gave your ex-girlfriend your number?”

“It’s the only way I can think of her getting it,” Aaron shrugs. “Like I said, I haven’t talked to her since graduation.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, trying to think as you look at Aaron.

You’ve met his mom a dozen times. You’re insistent that she doesn’t like you, despite Aaron’s assertions towards the opposite—it wouldn’t surprise you if she gave this girl his new number in an effort to push him in a new direction.

But that train of thought feels a little crazy. You’re confident in your relationship with Aaron—you love him, and he loves you. God, he made an off-handed comment about marriage the other day. You’re not threatened by a girl from his past wanting to catch up.

“Go for it,” you finally say.

He frowns, like he was expecting the worst. “Really?”

“I trust you, Aaron,” you say. “You say she’s just a friend, I believe it.”

You lean forward to kiss him, your eyes fluttering shut, and it lasts much longer than it should. When you pull away, Aaron’s smiling softly at you.

“Thank you,” he says.

“‘Course,” you say, tipping a shoulder. “I’m known to be rational from time to time.”

He chuckles, and you smile as you lay back down on his chest. Soon after, you feel the weight of his hand on your shoulder.

“I love you,” he says. It feels more like a reminder than anything.

You entangle your fingers together and press a kiss to the back of his hand.

Sometimes you need reminders.

“I love you too.”

“Four more bodies,” Prentiss mutters. “God.”

“You can say that again,” Morgan murmurs.

Hotch is silent as he examines the father’s body. They’ve been so busy the past few days trying to nail down the profile, both on their unsub and geographically, that this happening again hadn’t been at the top of their list. There was a month between the first two, and two weeks between the second and third.

No one expected this to happen so soon.

The entire family was killed this time, and once again, the parents look similar to the other victims. It’s the work of their unsub, no doubt.

Hotch and the team had already been at the precinct for an hour going over all the information they’d found when they got the call at 8 in the morning, the bodies discovered by the family’s maid when she arrived for work.

An entire family, parents and children, senselessly slaughtered for one man’s deranged quest for liberation.

Hotch has been in this business for a long time, seen things that most people only imagine in nightmares, and he still has to take a step back when children are involved.

He sees Jack in every single one. He can’t help it.

Hotch took Prentiss and Morgan with him to the crime scene—JJ has a kid, Rossi had a kid, and he just didn’t want Reid to see it. They’ll all be more valuable working together back there anyways, and it’s imperative that JJ controls the narrative before this can break to the press.

Again, Prentiss talks to the officers at the scene and Morgan helps him examine the bodies. After all, there are double the amount.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Morgan says as he stands back up. “Our guy is killing surrogate parents to get back at his own, fine. Dad was tortured again, mom was killed with a bullet. But bringing the kids into it isn’t his thing.”

He uses a gloved hand to gingerly lift the father’s arm away from his body so he can examine the underarm. “Look at this. He’s been stabbed at least ten times, and his arm’s nearly severed from his body.”

“And his neck,” Morgan mutters. “He’s half decapitated.”

Hotch sets the arm back down. “The unsub always wants the father to suffer, but this is a new level.” He looks up at Morgan. “I don’t think he has a reason for killing the children. I think he’s getting sloppy—he’s getting overwhelmed by his anger.”

“You think he’s devolving,” he says, catching on.

“Something tells me we’re coming to the end of the line,” Hotch says. “Whatever he does next, he’s going out with a bang.”

The mood in the precinct has fallen dramatically since the last hit. The uniforms aren’t happy that they’re working around the clock, the chief isn’t happy that the BAU hasn’t figured everything out yet, and the city isn’t happy that ten murders have been committed with what they think is no end in sight.

JJ and Rossi have gone out to bring in the suspect that he and Morgan found together for the sake of covering their bases—they still haven’t been able to find Lucas, despite Reid calling you every day to check in and upping police presence around the city.

The rest of the team sits around a conference table, over a dozen coffees between them, going over everything and racking their brains for information.

“This just isn’t matching up,” Reid complains. “Lucas has just been at home for the first two, but for the third and the fourth he’s got alibis.”

“What are they?” Hotch asks.

“He was on the road all night when the third happened,” Reid says.

“And how do we know?” Prentiss asks.

“Garcia picked up his debit card being used a couple times from Des Moines back to St. Louis when the third set of murders happened,” Morgan contributes. “Must’ve been a road trip, because there are stops at a gas station, a restaurant, and a rest stop.”

“The last one happened during an AA meeting he was supposed to attend,” Prentiss says. “I called the leader and she said he was there.”

“Do we have footage from any of those places?” Hotch asks. “We need to make sure.”

Reid nods. “I asked her to check it all this morning, including the AA meeting. She must still be going through it—I can’t imagine it’s easy to get all that access.”

“What about a second unsub?” Morgan suggests.

Hotch shakes his head. “These are all meant to be personal for liberation—catharsis. Involving someone else would take away from the feeling.”

“What about your suspect?” Prentiss asks, looking at Morgan. “Could he be the unsub?”

“Patrick Fenton,” Morgan says, and he shrugs. “He fits it—dead parents, jail time, child of abuse. But he’s got two sisters, and his parents died when he was in his twenties from a car accident. I don’t see why he would start killing almost twenty years later.”

“Maybe we’ll figure something out in questioning,” Reid says hopefully.

Morgan’s phone suddenly goes off, and he hits the button to answer. “You’re on speaker, babygirl.”

“I found the security footage from those three places, the ones that Lucas was at on his supposed road trip when the third family was hit,” Garcia says, voice slightly tinny through the phone.

“And?” Hotch asks.

“I was getting there,” she says. “Lucas wasn’t there. He wasn’t on any of the footage—his sister was.”

Hotch frowns. You?

“You’re sure?” he asks.

“I’m always sure,” Garcia responds. “And I don’t know if Spencer is there, but he also wasn’t there at the AA meeting—I combed through the whole meeting, and he didn’t show up at any point. Just another guy that looked like him.”

“And you’re sure about that, too?” Hotch asks again.

“What is with this questioning of my abilities?” she asks, offended. “Yes. I’ve stared at so many pictures of Lucas Hartford over these past few days that I’ve got him burned into my brain.”

“Thanks, babygirl,” Morgan says. “We’ll call back if we need anything.”

“And you’re always welcome in this house of miracles,” she muses. Morgan chuckles before he hangs up.

“Lucas gave her his card,” Reid realizes. “It’s an easy alibi, but it falls apart when you look into it even a little bit.”

“Probably seemed solid to him at the time,” Morgan says. “He doesn’t seem like a detail oriented guy.”

Prentiss frowns. “That means he’s back on the chopping block. We can put him at the scene of every murder.”

Hotch leans over the table and grabs Lucas’s file, and he pulls out the page compiling his family. “His father died five years ago from liver failure. Hartford got out of jail last year.”

“If he’s been plotting some elaborate murder of his father for years, just to get out of jail and find out he drank himself to death?” Morgan shakes his head. “He’d snap. It doesn’t feel like justice.”

“He thinks he’s saving the kids of these parents that he kills,” Reid says. “He sees himself in them—he can’t look past his own childhood, and he assumes those kids must want their parents dead too.”

“He’s trying to get back at his dad,” Prentiss says. “We know that.”

“But that’s not his main goal,” Reid insists. “If his dad died when he was a kid, the abuse would have stopped. His mom wouldn’t be the battered wife anymore, and he wouldn’t be the battered kid.”

“His goal has always been protection,” Hotch realizes. “Yes, he’s getting his revenge by killing his father over and over, but ultimately, he’s trying to save himself.”

“But he didn’t anticipate the kids being home this time,” Prentiss says. “He had to kill them too.”

“If he‘s seeing himself in these children, recreating what he never got to do, then that means that he effectively died in this scenario,” Reid says.

“He didn’t get what he wanted,” Morgan says. “That’s gonna take a toll on him.”

“He’s coming to the end of the line,” Prentiss nods.

Hotch’s brain is working overtime as they work information off of each other. They’re so damn close—they just need the last piece of the puzzle. If they find Lucas’s next victim, they find him.

“His next crime will probably be his last before he goes out himself,” Reid says.

“You think it’ll be a murder-suicide?” Morgan asks.

“It’s common with family annihilators,” Reid says. “Hell, it’s common with anyone who sees no future beyond their murders. It’s their way out.”

And then the answer hits Hotch like a ton of bricks. Reid is still rambling next to him.

“If his dad was still alive, I’d say he would be the target. But the only one left—”

“—is his sister,” Hotch grits out, and he’s dashing out of the conference room before anyone can stop him.

“Hotch!” Morgan yells, and he turns to Prentiss with wild eyes. “Where the hell is he going?”

“The last victim,” she says as she starts following him. “The one person he never managed to save.”

“Goddammit,” Morgan curses, and he grabs his phone from the table, dialing Garcia as fast as she can while he runs. Reid is close behind him.

“What’s up, sugar?” she asks. “Got anymore leads?”

He laughs dryly. “We’ve got a big one, babygirl. Lucas has finally reached the end of the road — he’s going for his sister. I need you to call JJ and Rossi and—”

“Send them the Hartford address and fill them in on everything?” she interrupted, and he could hear her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Already on it.”

“What would I do without you?” he asks.

“Be half the man and twice as sad,” she says. “I’ve got to call JJ. Be safe, my love.”

“Always,” he responds, and he hangs up.

Hotch distantly registers Prentiss stopping by the chief to alert him of what’s going on, because he’s in the fog of a rampage. He’s in the driver’s seat before he knows it, starting the car, and he sees Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid running out after him.

Prentiss takes shotgun and Morgan and Reid file into the back, and they’ve all got Kevlar vests in their hands. He didn’t really think of that through his haze.

“We’ve got an extra one for you,” Reid says, reading his mind.

“Thank you. I— I know what you’re all thinking—” Hotch starts, but Prentiss shakes her head.

“Just drive.” Her lips set themselves in a taut line. “We’ve got a murder to stop.”

And he does.

You sit on the curb, surrounded on either side by a box of your things. Packing up everything made you realize how little you had at his place. You thought you’d integrated yourself into his life fully, but it really just took an afternoon while he was in a lecture to disappear.

Summer has fully turned to winter, and you’re as morose as the weather. This side of town looks so depressing without the warmer months to pick it up—the sidewalks are lined with dead trees, the grass is shriveled up and yellowing, and you feel like you’re living in grayscale.

A shiver runs through you, the weather only partly to blame.

Amy is supposed to pick you up, but as usual, she’s running late. You don’t know if it’s a personal issue or DC traffic has just struck again, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way, you’re stuck here, and your bad luck seems intent on making it worse, because you watch a familiar car pull around the corner.

It parks a distance away—there’s no space in front of the complex, and he always complained that they didn’t do assigned spots—and you have to hold back a scornful scoff.

Of course you have to deal with this now.

Aaron picks up his pace when he gets out of the car, surprise—and what you think is shame—painted on his face. He says your name when he slows down.

“You’re already packed.”

You shrug. “I’m nothing if not efficient.”

“I could’ve helped you with all this,” Aaron says, frowning.

“Why do you think it’s done already?” you ask.

His throat bobs and he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Let me save you the pain of chivalry,” you say. “I’ve got a friend coming to pick me up. I’ve already found a place. I called your property manager the other day and argued my way out of the lease, but I still paid my next month. You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says.

“You know what they say about a clean break,” you intone.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron tries again. To his credit, he looks like he means it. Against his credit, it’s about the fiftieth time you’ve heard it from him in the past two weeks.

“I shouldn’t have let you get that coffee,” you say with a grim smile, “should I?”

His lips pull into a taut line. “I didn’t cheat on you.”

“I know,” you say. It’s the one thing you do believe. “I just don’t think you ever fell out of love with her.”

Mercifully, you see Amy’s car pulling up in the distance. She’s your only friend with an SUV, so at least your boxes will fit.

“My ride’s here,” you say as you stand up, and you pick up one of your boxes. Amy throws on her hazards and she gets out to open her trunk.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she breathes. “Traffic was awful, and Jake has been so annoying—”

“Don’t worry about it,” you say with a slight smile as you put your box in the back. “You’re already doing me a huge favor.”

“I want us to still be friends,” Aaron calls. When you turn back, he has your other box in his hands, his expression shamelessly desperate. Amy glares daggers at him.

“Why?” you ask innocently. “So I can go without talking to you for ten years, ask you for a coffee when I’m in town, and then get you to leave Haley?”

“That’s not what happened,” he says, but you’re already shaking your head.

You take the box from him and smile thinly.

“Have a good rest of your life, Aaron. I hope it doesn’t involve me ever again.”

You let out a noise of frustration as you struggle to get the key into the lock, gritting your teeth as you try to fit it in. It’s always been finicky, but you just don’t have the energy to deal with this tonight. Thankfully, just when you start getting annoyed, you get it open.

You get a few steps in before your eyebrows rise, the sight of your brother at the kitchen table a surprise. He’s got his head in his hands, and your surprise turns to concern.

“Lucas,” you say with a slight smile, shutting the door behind you, “I didn’t know you were gonna be home tonight.”

His attention shoots to you immediately as he says your name, and he looks slightly out of it. “I was wondering when you were gonna get back.”

“Stole the words right out of my mouth,” you say wryly, and you ruffle his hair with your free hand as you walk past him. He swats your hand away in brotherly protest, and you snort. “This place has been quiet without you. Well— except for the cops. They were pretty loud.”

“They haven’t been back, have they?”

You look back at him and notice his leg is bobbing up and down insanely fast, and he keeps scratching at the soft wood of your table with his nail.

Your smile fades. “Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking.”

“Of course I haven’t,” he insists, but you turn on the kitchen light, then move closer to peer into his eyes against his protests.

“At least you’re not high,” you murmur, taking one last look before you pull away. “And stop ruining the table. I need it to last for the next ten years.”

He huffs, and you can practically hear him roll his eyes, but he stops.

“Did you go to class today?”

“You don’t have to act like Mom,” Lucas says, crossing his arms again with another huff.

“And you don’t have to act like a child.” You roll your eyes as you set your tote bag on the countertop and begin unpacking the groceries you bought. “I’m asking you about your day—that’s definitely not acting like Mom.”

“Yes,” he mocks. “I went to class.”

“Good.” You glance back at him. “I’m proud of you, Luke. You’ve been making progress.”

His smile is a bit thin, but he nods. “Thanks. How was work?”

You scoff and shake your head as you put a couple things in the pantry. “Don’t even get me started. I swear, Marie’s going to get me fired someday if she keeps her bullshit up.”

“She’s still on it?” Luke asks, and you can’t help but smile a bit.

“Don’t act like you know what I’m talking about,” you say. “Just agree with me.”

“I agree with you,” he says.

“That’s it,” you muse.

Your eyes fall back on your bag, and you’re reminded of what you meant to do next time your brother showed up.

“Oh—” You go back over to the kitchen table for your bag and pull out your wallet. You slide a debit card out and hold it out to your brother. “Thanks for letting me use it while I was up in Des Moines. I finally got my bank to get rid of the freeze on my card.”

“...Of course,” he says, and he takes it back. “Glad I could help.”

“I’ll pay you back, obviously,” you say as you get back to your groceries. “I just have to wait to get paid again.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “And uh— you never answered me. Did the cops come by again?”

You huff a mirthless laugh and shake your head. “You have nothing to worry about, Luke. I think they finally realized they were barking up the wrong tree.”

“…Good,” he says. “I can tell they’ve stressing you out.”

“Like that looks any different than my normal state,” you say wryly. “Besides, it wasn’t that bad.”

You recall the shock you felt when you opened the door to Aaron, and how nervous you were on the drive to the precinct. It’s almost been a decade, and yet he still has an effect on you that he has no right to.

“You remember that guy I dated when I was still in law school? Aaron Hotchner?”

“I think? I was in jail, so.”

You roll your eyes. “I know I told you about him when I visited you while we were together.”

“I remember you telling me how he broke your heart,” Luke says.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“That he’s with the FBI now. The BAU,” you enunciate, and you huff. “He’s one of the guys on this case, coincidence that it is. They came here—they even brought me in for an interview.”

He frowns. “What’d you say?”

“The truth.” You pull your cutting board and a knife out of a drawer and get to work washing your vegetables. “That I didn’t know anything, and neither of us are involved in either way.” You shake your head with a sigh. “They must believe it, because they haven’t come back.”

“What have they said about me?” he asks.

“I’m not supposed to say.” You roll your eyes. “I think you’re innocent, but I could get charged with obstruction, and I really don’t feel like dealing with that…”

You trail off into a sigh as you finish washing the peppers and set them on a towel. “I hope they find whoever’s doing it, though. It is freaking me out that there’s a murderer out there.”

You pick up your knife and start cutting them up—they’re not the freshest, but it’s all Kroger had after work—and you glance back at Luke. “You really shouldn’t be going out so often with this going on, y’know. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m careful.”

“I doubt that,” you say wryly. “Still, though. I worry about you.”

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” he asks. “I’m your older brother.”

“I worry about everything,” you say. “It’s my thing.”

You hear him huff a laugh and you smile a bit to yourself. You get through your first pepper before you remember what’s been nagging at you your whole ride home.

“Oh— can you get the TV?” you ask. “Channel 8, I think. Marcy is getting interviewed for something with her nonprofit, and I told her I’d record it for her.”

Lucas doesn’t respond, though you hear the scrape of the chair as he gets up.

“Thank you,” you say. “I think they have a fundraiser coming up or something…” you trail off and shake your head as you scrape the cut peppers onto a plate. “God. I need to start paying attention in the break room.”

Another few seconds pass, and you don’t hear the television switch on. You huff and turn your head slightly. “Luke, I’m making dinner tonight. This is the least you could do.”

“I’m sorry.”

The words come out as a murmur, but you can tell he’s much closer than he was before.

You don’t even get the chance to turn around before something crashes against your head and your vision goes dark. You feel yourself fall to the ground, and your head hits the floor hard.

Then, there’s nothing.

Hotch has been breaking every speeding law there is.

The station isn’t too far from your house, but it’s still too far. All he can see is your body, crippled and lifeless just like every other victim they’ve had to look at.

It should never have gotten to this point. Lucas has been a suspect for the first day, but they looked to other suspects, got caught up in statements from neighbors and the kids of the victims.

If Hotch just found him and booked him on the first day, this wouldn’t be happening. Your life wouldn’t be in danger.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel.

“I seriously think we’re looking at a murder-suicide if this gets to play out,” Reid speaks up from the backseat. “This is his way of ending this for both of them—the ultimate protection of his sister.”

“No one can hurt her if she’s dead,” Morgan mutters.

“Hotch,” Prentiss starts, treading carefully, “are you sure you’re okay to lead this?”

“Yes,” he says, though he wants to say what kind of question is that?

You were together a lifetime ago in law school, yes, and he might still have feelings for you that he didn’t even realize were there, yes—but he’s an agent and a professional before all of that.

It doesn’t matter that you have history. It doesn’t matter that you likely hate him.

It doesn’t matter that he thought he was going to marry you one day, and then was watching you drive out of his life after he got back with his high school girlfriend another day.

Aaron Hotchner is not going to let you die. It’s as simple as that.

Hotch’s phone rings and he picks it up and flips it open immediately. “Talk to me, Garcia.”

“JJ and Rossi are on their way,” she says. “Are you headed to their place?”

“Yes,” he says, and he puts it on speaker. “I’ve got Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid with me still.”

“Do you think there’s anywhere else he could be?” Morgan asks. “If he’s going to kill her, he might not want to do it in this house.”

“Already a step ahead of you, my love,” she says, and he can hear mouse clicks through the phone. “They grew up in a house in St. Charles—it’s abandoned, from the looks of it, some place on the outskirts. Never got another buyer after the past owners moved out. I’m sending the address to Emily right now.”

Prentiss gets a buzz on her phone and she nods in confirmation after flipping it open. Hotch immediately switches lanes and makes a U-turn, his jaw clenching.

“Tell me how to get there, Prentiss,” he says. “He’s there.”

“You need to get on I-70,” she says, and then her brow furrows. “How do you know?”

“He’s killed everyone else in their homes because he sees it as the source of it all. His sister’s rented place isn’t personal enough.” Hotch shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t he want to go back to theirs to end it all?”

“Hotch.” Penelope’s voice rings out in the car, and he doesn’t even realize he forgot to hang up.

“What?”

“Be careful,” she says, and he rushes to turn it off speaker and press it to his ear. “I… I know how important this is to you.”

Hotch’s throat bobs and his eyes burn with the beginnings of tears. He blinks them away—he can’t be weak now. He can’t let his team see him be weak now. “Dare I ask how?”

“I found an article about GW’s mock trial team,” she says. “Kind of went down a rabbit hole from there.”

Somehow, he huffs the slightest laugh. It feels like a lifetime ago—it honestly is, at this point. Before he saw carnage and gore on a daily basis and tried to solve it, when he thought the DA’s office was the endpoint, when he came home to your smiling face every night.

And now…

Hotch’s spine somehow stiffens, and he knows the other three in the car are watching him. He can’t decide whether he cares or not.

“Thank you, Garcia.”

“No problem,” she says, and he can almost hear her blink in the pause. “Uh— for what, exactly?”

For the memory, he wants to say. But he doesn’t. He can’t, not right now, so he tries his best to snap out of it.

“Keep a watch on the patrol cars,” he says instead. “Update JJ and Rossi on our plan, but tell them to stay on their path. I’m sure I’m right, but we need to cover our bases.”

“Of course, sir.” He hears her fingers flying across the keys. “I’ve got yours and the squad cars’ locations up—I’ll call them now.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“Good luck, Hotch,” Garcia says softly.

Hotch hangs up before he gets too emotional. Penelope has a way of bringing that side out of him.

“We’ll get him,” Prentiss assures. She’s been watching him this whole time, he can feel it—she’s been attuned far too keenly on this entire part of the case involving you and him. “And we’ll save her.”

His knuckles go white around the steering wheel, and for once, Hotch can’t find the words.

It feels like your head is slowly being cranked in a vice when you eventually wake up, a dull but insistent pain. Your arm stings too, but you don’t know why.

You blink a few times as you try to figure out where you are, a low groan slipping out as you fully come back into consciousness, and you move to rub the grogginess out of your eyes.

Your arms don’t move. You try again, panic spiking your heart for a moment, and that’s when you realize you’re in a chair—tied to a chair, your wrists bound together behind you and your ankles bound to the chair legs.

Now the panic fully sets in. There’s a murderer in St. Louis, but you don’t fit the victimology from what you’ve seen, but does any of that fucking matter when you’re stuck in something out of a horror movie?

Lucas was the only one there with you. So either he’s in the same situation, or he—

“You’re finally awake,” a voice murmurs. When he comes into view and sits down across from you, your heart stops.

For a moment, all you can do is stare at your brother with wide eyes. You see the gun in his hand through your peripherals, but you don’t look away from his gaze.

“I was worried I was too rough,” he says softly. “But you’ve always been resilient.”

“Lucas,” you breathe. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s finally going to be over,” he says, ignoring your panic. “We’ve been hurting our whole lives because of that bastard of a father, and I can finally make it all stop.”

Your brother is fucking crazy. He’s fucking crazy, and he’s going to kill you.

You’ve spent two weeks telling Aaron he was crazy and your brother was innocent, and now he’s going to be proven right when he finds your dead body.

You try to tamp down on your panic. You don’t have a law degree, sure, and you never officially practiced, but you’ve been a good speaker, a persuasive one, all your life.

And if there’s ever been a fucking time to be persuasive, it’s now.

“You don’t have to do this,” you whisper. “We— we can talk if you want to talk.” You tug at your ankle restraints. “This is unnecessary.”

He shakes his head. “I know you. You’d run.”

“Come on.” You manage as much of a smile as you can. “I’ve always been there for you, Luke. Why would this be any different?”

“...You’ve always been too nice,” he says, and he sets the gun down on his leg. At least he doesn’t have his finger on the trigger. “Anyone rational would’ve kicked me to the curb when I asked you for help.”

“You’re my brother,” you whisper. “I— I love you, Lucas. I’d never do that to you.”

“Family’s supposed to be everything, right?” He shakes his head. “You were the only one of us that understood that. You were there to pick me up every time my sentence was up.”

“I’ve always believed in you,” you say.

He huffs a monotone laugh as he stares at the ground. “You’re definitely the only one.”

You shake your head. “That’s not true.”

“Mom didn’t care enough to stop anything,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “And Dad wished I was dead every goddamn day. He didn’t have the guts to do it himself, but he definitely tried.”

You can’t defend your parents. Your dad’s a piece of shit, and your mom didn’t stop anything he did—but you could never find it in yourself to fully hate her because he hurt her too, with more than just bruises.

“I’ve dreamt of killing our dad every day for twenty years,” Lucas says. “And that old bastard had to fuck me over one last time and die while I was in jail.”

You remember when you got the news. You were next of kin—your mother had divorced him by then, and your brother was incarcerated—so you got the call from the hospital. You deliberated for hours before you bought a plane ticket to Montana—apparently that was where he fucked off to drink himself to death—and you don’t know if you’ve ever felt more numb than when you were sitting in some lawyer’s office, listening to him drone on about his will and how his estate would be divided.

“So you killed all of those people?” you asked. “Because you didn’t get to kill our dad first?”

“I was saving those kids!” Luke yells, and you shrink in on yourself. “Saving them before their parents could fuck them up like ours did to us!”

“You don’t have to do this,” you repeat. “You’re just letting Dad win. Proving every shitty thing he said about you.”

“And that’s the zinger, isn’t it? Luke laughs and shakes his head. “He was right. We’re a whole family of fuck-ups. An alcoholic abuser, a battered wife, a nonstop jailbird, and you…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “You should be out there prosecuting people like me.”

“He ruined us,” Luke murmurs. “And I’m finally going to fix it.”

All you can do is stare at your brother, wide and teary eyed. You can’t find the words, but you don’t have to.

Police sirens begin to filter through the air as they get closer, and Luke huffs. “Of course.” He eyes you. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” you say weakly.

When he leaves to peer out the front door, you take a second to look at your surroundings. It takes a second because they’re so decrepit, but you could never forget.

Luke brought you back to your childhood home—the place in St. Charles, rotten down to its bones. It’s abandoned by now, but the atmosphere is nothing less than oppressive. There’s a reason you graduated high school a year early, why you never came back once you got to college—except with Aaron, to help your mom move her things out.

You refuse to die here. Even if you have to claw back through the gates of Hell inch by inch—you will not die here.

You hear footsteps, and when Lucas comes back in, he has a crazed glint in his eye. He shakes his head as his finger returns back to the trigger, and you can’t help but flinch. He won’t. Not now.

“Looks like your friends the FBI are here,” he drawls. “You said you didn’t tell them anything.”

“I didn’t,” you insist. “They’re profilers—they figure things out.”

He shakes his head. “They don’t realize that I have to do this.” Luke kneels down in front of you and takes your chin in an iron grip. “This is the only way to end our pain.”

He lets go of you then stands up, moving behind you—you want to protest, but you don’t get the chance. He presses his gun to your temple and then the door is broken down. Four agents rush in, guns at the ready. Aaron leads them, and he’s got fire blazing in his eyes.

“FBI,” he barks. “Hands up.”

Lucas doesn’t seem fazed, his breathing staying the same. You stare right at Aaron, unfiltered fear in your eyes, and you feel torn bare. He’s going to watch your brother put a bullet in your head.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he says smoothly. “This is a family matter.”

“Put the gun down, Lucas,” Aaron says.

“You know my name,” he says. “I know yours too, Aaron Hotchner. My sister told me you were with the feds. She also told me you broke her heart.”

“Put the gun down,” he repeats.

“I don’t think I will,” Luke says. “You see, I don’t go around just kidnapping people for fun. I have a purpose here.” He tilts his head to the side. “But you know that, don’t you? You’re all profilers.”

“You’ve been targeting families that look like your own,” he says. “You think that killing them will end the pain inside you, and protect those kids in a way that you never got.”

“I don’t think it,” he bites, “I know it. If my dad had been shot thirty years ago, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“This isn’t going to bring you peace,” Aaron says. “Your sister has been the only person to stay by your side through every part of your life. Do you really want to lose that?”

“Trust me,” Luke says. “I’m not losing her.”

He flicks the safety off and you flinch. He’s going to kill you.

“Put the gun down,” another agent warns.

“If you all don’t leave right now, I’ll shoot her.” Your whole body stiffens as he presses the gun harder into the side of your head, your breathing going off kilter. “Except you, Aaron Hotchner. You can stay.”

“We’re not doing that,” the woman says. Agent Prentiss, you think.

“Really?” Luke chuckles. “You think you hold the cards here?”

“It’s okay,” Aaron says. “Go.”

Agent Prentiss frowns, and the other two men look different levels of puzzled. They obviously doubt the decision, but they don’t doubt Aaron, because one by one, they leave.

“Wow,” Luke muses. “They really trust you.”

“Because I know you don’t want to hurt her,” Aaron says. “Deep down, you know you’re not protecting her. Not by hurting her.”

“I’m not hurting her,” he says. “She’s always been the one to keep me safe over the years—I’m finally paying the favor back. I’m finally taking her pain away.”

“You were abused as children. Both of you.” Aaron looks at your brother. “Your sister always tried to protect you, but it never worked. It just made it worse for her, and it made you feel worthless. You’re her older brother. You’re the one that was supposed to protect her.”

“My sister said you’re profilers,” he says, and though his tone is lazy, you know your brother. You can tell it’s starting to get to him. “Is that what you’re doing right now? Profiling me?”

“You would never be good enough for your father, and your mother would never do anything to stop it,” Aaron continues. “All you had was your sister, and even that wasn’t good enough—you hurt her just as much as your dad did. At least your dad didn’t think he was a good person.”

Luke growls, and he puts a hand on your shoulder to pull you closer to him. “Shut up.”

“Your sister has told me you can be more than this,” he says. “And I think she’s right. You’re better than this—better than living between the margins and jail.”

“I’ve had a hole in my chest since I was born,” Luke mutters. “And I’ve tried to stop it, but it’s just grown and grown and grown. This— this aching pit of pain, and he caused it. You’ve got it too— I know it.”

“I— I do,” you say. And you’re not lying. You’ve had a pit of despair in you for as long as you can remember. The only difference is that you’ve fought every goddamn day of your life to keep it from consuming you. “And it hurts, Luke. Trust me, I know. It took me so long to even be able to deal with it, but I know how to. I can help you—we can both walk out of here.”

“No,” he whispers. “No—we can’t.”

“Yes, we can,” you plead. “I love you, Luke. I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life helping you if that’s what it takes to get rid of that hole.”

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. For a moment, you think you’ve gotten through to him. Aaron never takes his eyes away from you.

“I’ve never been able to protect her,” Luke murmurs. “Not from our dad, not from the world, not even from you, Aaron Hotchner.” He presses the gun harder than ever into your head, like he wants to bury the metal in your skull along with the bullet. “But that all ends now.”

You screw your eyes shut. You don’t want to see Aaron’s face when your brother kills you.

And then it happens so quickly you barely process it.

There’s two gunshots, almost at the same time. You scream, first because of the gunshots, then because of the sudden roaring pain in your side. There’s a thud next to you, your eyes shoot open, and you see your brother’s lifeless body fall to the ground.

You scream again—you can’t even control it, it just rips out of you at the sight of the hole in his head and the blood pooling beneath it—and Aaron drops his gun to rush forward. The rest of his team thunders in after him, all in guns and bulletproof vests, and they’re talking, but you can’t focus on a single goddamn thing because your brother’s dead body is right next to you.

Aaron pulls out a pocket knife and begins to cut through your restraints, and the instant he finishes you collapse. He catches you without a second thought, and you immediately wrap your arms around him.

Torrential sobs wrack your entire body as you bury your face in the crook of his shoulder, every part of you shaking as the reality of it all hits with full force.

Your brother is a serial killer. He killed ten people, he tried to kill you. And now he’s dead.

The only part you had left of your family—gone, just like that, with four other families ruined in his wake.

Aaron’s soft voice in your ear is the only thing bringing you back from the edge of hyperventilation, his own hold on you the only thing keeping you from collapsing.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs and he shrugs off his windbreaker to wrap it around your arms. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

“He’s gone,” you choke out, voice muffled as you speak into his chest. “He’s gone, and he tried to—”

A fresh round of emotions hit you, unable to get the words out, and you fully break down in Aaron’s arms.

“I know.”

Aaron’s fingers linger on your side and you feel some dull pain, but you feel his breath still for a moment.

“You were shot,” he says with your name. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

You don’t even feel it. God, you don’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing in your ears, an insistent pain in your skull, and you finally realize Aaron is right when you pull away and see the blood on his fingers.

But black spots start to fill your vision. You may not feel it, but your body holds the score. The pain intensifies in your side as your adrenaline starts to slow down, and you collapse against Aaron.

“Get an EMT in here!” he yells, keeping an arm wrapped around you. “We’ve got a GSW— she’s losing blood fast!”

You can feel Aaron’s rapid heartbeat, can feel his steady arms as he keeps you propped up. You feel the warmth of his body, feel the warmth draining out of yours.

“Aaron,” you whisper, your strength fading. You don’t think he hears you.

He helps you up and you’re suddenly hoisted onto a stretcher, and he’s beside you as the EMTs run you out of your childhood home. The night is a blurry canvas of red and blue lights, and your eyelids feel like they’re made of concrete.

“Aaron,” you try again, and you have enough left in you to grasp his cheek. “Thank you.”

And as the world goes black around you for the second time, you see his lips form your name.

It’s not a bad thing, you think before darkness overtakes you, for Aaron Hotchner to be the last thing you see before you die.

You wake up in the hospital alone.

You don’t know what you expect. You have few acquaintances, fewer friends, and the last part of your family is dead after he tried to kill you.

The real surprise is that you wake up at all.

Lucas is dead.

He tried to kill you. You thought he succeeded.

You let out a slow, even breath, accompanied only by the sounds of beeping machines. It still doesn’t exactly feel real.

You’ve spent the last two weeks defending your brother against every accusation, and you ended it in the hospital—well and truly alone for the first time in your life.

You look at the television. Some muted soccer game is playing, and you’re thankful. You were worried that you and your brother would be the topic of the day.

Who are you kidding? You’re going to be the topic of the year. He killed ten people. He tried to kill you, and you think he nearly did. He shot you, after all.

You let your head fall back against the pillow. All of your limbs feel insurmountably heavy, your side aches like hell, and you’ve got the worst headache of your life.

And you can’t stop playing it all over in your mind.

He was going to kill you.

Your own brother, your flesh and blood, the only person you had left, tried to kill you and would have killed you had it not been for the BAU.

Had it not been for Aaron Hotchner.

The door opens and someone walks through, your eyes following the movement, and when he sees it, he pauses. And so do you—apparently the devil appears even when you think of him.

“You’re awake,” Aaron says after a moment. It’s the third time he’s sounded surprised since you’ve met him again. Seeing you, finding out your mom is dead, seeing you.

But there’s relief there, too.

He has a coffee in his hand and his tie is undone, the sleeves of his white undershirt rolled up to his forearms. It makes you realize his suit jacket has been slung over the back of the chair near your bedside.

“How long have you been here?” you ask, your brows furrowing ever so slightly.

Aaron closes the door and sets his coffee on the table before he answers you. “Three days.”

“And how long have I been here?”

“Three days,” he says. “You suffered head trauma, they discovered drugs in your system, and… you were shot. You had to go into emergency surgery.”

You frown, and he answers before you can ask any of them. “…Your brother. After he knocked you out, he used something to… keep you out. And after I shot him, he still got one off—thankfully, as he was falling. The bullet hit you in the side instead of the head.”

“How bad was it?” you ask.

Aaron glances away. “You died on the table. They managed to bring you back, but…”

“I guess Luke did succeed,” you say absentmindedly. Aaron doesn’t laugh, and you glance away too. “Sorry. Bad time for jokes.”

He shakes his head. “If anyone’s allowed to joke about this, it’s you.”

Your lips twitch for a moment, but then you look back at him as he takes a seat at your bedside again. He looks— god, he just looks tired. Tired and ragged and downtrod, and you can’t imagine you look much better.

“You were out for two days after,” he explains. “This is the first time you’ve woken up.”

“Why are you here, Aaron?” you ask quietly. “Why have you been here?”

Aaron frowns. “Where else would I be?”

Your throat feels like it’s closing up, and you feel the telltale pinpricks of tears. You blink them away before they can start.

“My brother was a serial killer, Aaron.” Your hands clench into fists as you stare at the wall. “He killed ten people while he was living with me and I— and I didn’t even fucking notice.” Your gaze moves back to him. “I went against all of you because I thought I knew him, and look where it got me.”

“It’s not a crime to want to see the best in people,” he says. “Especially your family.”

“It’s a crime to fucking murder people,” you huff, and it’s only slightly unhinged. “I— I thought I knew him, and I didn’t. And if I did, maybe none of these people would’ve had to die.”

“Don’t blame this on yourself,” Aaron demands. “Lucas was lost. Mentally ill. He was on a path for revenge, for his deranged idea of protection—nothing you could have said or done would have stopped him.”

You shake your head. “It might be easy for you to say that, Aaron, but I— I can’t. He’s my brother. I gave him a place to live, I gave him easy access to families— god, I fought with you all for two weeks about his innocence, all while he was planning his next fucking murder!”

“It is not your fault,” he repeats, slower and enunciating the words. “He was the only member left of your family, and you loved him. You were just stubborn, and that’s nothing new.”

“I just don’t know what to do.” You’ve had these walls up for so long, especially this past week, and now that everything’s come to a head and you’re in the hospital and your fucking brother is dead, the floodgates have opened. “I have to plan a funeral because I’m the only one left to plan one, but— but does he even deserve one? He’s a serial killer, and he tried to kill me for god’s sake, but he’s my brother and even though he’s gone he’s still all I have left and—”

You break off as you suck in a huge breath of air, the notion shaky as you clench your hands into fists to keep the rest of your body from doing the same.

“And I just don’t know what to do,” you repeat, barely a whisper.

You meet Aaron’s eyes, almost desperately. You feel like you’ll shatter into a million different pieces if you even breathe wrong and he might be the only solid thing in your life.

“Whatever you do,” he says, “you don’t have to do it alone. Not if you don’t want to.”

“Aaron,” you start shakily, but he continues.

“I know what you think, and that’s not what I’m suggesting.” Aaron pauses for a moment, and it’s obvious how carefully he’s crafting his words. “I’ve… always regretted how we left things. And I regret losing touch with you. This isn’t the way I would’ve liked to meet you again. But I’m thankful I have.”

He pulls a card out of his shirt pocket and holds it out to you. You realize it’s his business card, and it’s got his number.

“I’m sorry for the formality,” he says dryly, “but I don’t exactly go around prepared to give out my number for purposes other than work.”

You take it without giving yourself the chance to think about it. You run your finger around the sharp edge of the cardstock, pressing the pad of your thumb against the corner.

“Years ago, you wished me a good life, and that you didn’t want to be involved in it,” he says, still treading carefully. You can’t believe he remembers the last thing you said to him. “But— but a lot has changed since then, and I hope that has as well.”

“I’d like you to be a part of my life again,” Aaron finally says, “if you want to be a part of mine.”

For a moment, all you can do is stare at him. Two and a half years of law school flash behind your eyes—coffee shop dates and endless hours spent studying at the library. Movie nights cuddled on his couch, hauling boxes out of your house at an ungodly hour to get away from your roommates. An unhealthy amount of all-nighters immediately followed by going out to celebrate a miracle of an A on an exam. Getting through every soul-sucking part of earning a J.D. together, falling apart before either of you could make it to the other side, and somehow…

Somehow, you’ve ended up on a completely different side together.

“My life isn’t going to be easy,” you say faintly. “Especially… moving through this.”

“My life isn’t easy either,” he says. “I’m divorced with a kid and I try to solve murders every day.”

“It’s not a contest.” An attempt at a joke, but it falls flat for you. Aaron’s lips still quirk at the edges the slightest bit.

“Getting through this certainly won’t be easy,” he agrees. “But I have more experience than most in these sorts of things. So if you ever need anything, call. Please.”

“I imagine you’re pretty busy,” you murmur. “Unit chief and all.”

Aaron shrugs. “I make time for the things I care about.”

Thankfully, you don’t have to figure out how to respond to that, because there’s a knock on the door, and a nurse walks in after you call a come in.

“It’s good to finally see you awake, sweetheart,” the nurse says with a smile. It warms you from the inside out.

“It’s nice to be awake,” you say. Her smile widens and she moves over to the computer in the side of the room—to add some things before she makes her checkup, you assume.

“I’ll give you some time alone,” Aaron says.

Before he can stand up, you grab his hand. It’s fully on instinct, and he looks just as surprised as you feel.

“Don’t go,” you plead, and it’s almost a whisper. “I— just— please.”

Aaron stares at you for a moment, that shock glinting in his eyes before it transforms into something a lot warmer. He nods and sits down.

“Okay.”

And he stays.

This time, he stays.

#i was truly possessed while writing this i can't understand it #i wrote 15k words in 5 days #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #criminal minds x reader #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner angst #aaron hotchner imagine #sadie writes

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uhohdad · 9 months

Text

EXPERIMENTAL - Konig Fic Pt 3

Summary: Konig helps Researcher!Reader with a new technology they’ve been developing.

Warnings: Sexual Content, NSFW, bondage, DOM!Konig, size kink, light spanking, unprotected sex, possessive!konig, praise kink, the mask stays on 😈, Reader x Konig, injury, needle torture, PTSD, talk of standard war stuff, Non-con Voyeurism. No use of y/n,

Reader gender/sex is incomprehensible cause I do it for the girls, the gays, and the theys

Word Count: 10,2k

(tbh you probably don’t need to read the first two parts so if you just wanna read this slutty chapter it should be fine lol but if you do i’ll link them)

AO3

PART ONE

PART TWO

NSFW under the cut

You’re praying that he’s getting this.

There’s a million things that could go wrong - Konig not being near his device and you’re just streaming into an empty room. Or Ghost’s device wasn’t the one that was synced with Konig’s, maybe one of the matching copies or an earlier prototype. Or worse - Konig found out about the video and leaves you to your demise as he rightfully should.

You swallow as you watch Mohawk put the his phone away in his pocket, hoping his screen wasn’t exposed to the feed’s camera, “Thanks for making me have that on my phone, by the way. Do you know how many times I was forced to watch this?”

Stop talking about it!

“What else do you want to know?” You’re more willing to give out top-secret government intel than let Konig find about that fucking video.

Ghost senses you’ve been holding back on him, and he tilts his head down to look at you from above the projection, “What’s it do?”

“Everything.” You answer, “Anything I tell it to. It’s like VR.” There’s a bit of a slur to your words. You’re still aware enough to manage the long-con, but your eyelids are getting heavier. Just have to hold out awhile longer, juggle a few things at the same time. Don’t let Konig find out about how you ended up here, but make sure he knows you’re here. Don’t let skull boy and stupid-haircut find about the transmission, but don’t let them lose enough interest to turn the device off. Don’t give away too many government secrets, but don’t give out too little to keep the soldiers from doing anymore permanent damage to your brain.

And manage all of that while coping with the current level of brain damage you have.

They look at each other, trying to figure out if they’re satisfied with your answer.

That’s good. Just keep stalling.

Everything was threatening to crash down around you, but there’s a glimmer of hope so minuscule, you think you could actually pull it off if all the pieces fall together.

You’re no longer giving up.

We can fix this. Fix all of it. Fix your mess.

You’re going to give it a fair shot, you decide, and you’ll leave it up to the universe.

Ghost cocks his head, those intimidating eyes boring into you, “And what things do you tell it to do?” You can tell he’s irritated with the meaningless answer. You steer in the opposite direction.

You give a drawn out hum, “Identify the bad guys. Heat map, heart beats ‘n all that.” You’re trying to keep your thoughts together, but there’s too many to keep up with, and the concussion still has you in its hazy clutches.

Another idea, a back up plan, you’ll call it. You can’t tell if it’s a stupid idea or not, but you’re slipping and fast, “Can I get a smoke? I’m feening.” You give a smile, the residual of the painkillers making it easy to appear unassuming.

“No. What else does it do?” Ghost is straight to the point, and it reminds you of Konig, and you wish Ghost would stop doing that because you’re trying to do something here.

Another drunken hum, “What’d’ya want it to do? I can do it.” You wave your hand at him, casually flashing your restraints so Konig would get a clear view.

Ghost steps towards you and grabs the front of your gown, yanking your face inches from his, “What does it fucking do?”

A proud smile crosses your face, “Not your mom, ‘cause I got that covered myself.”

Mohawk puts a hand of warning on Ghost’s shoulder, reminding him not to get too violent with you.

Ghost ignores the warning, his fist connecting with your temple before you had a chance to brace yourself.

Skull boy packs quite a punch.

You’re reset for a moment, blinded by a bright white and the ring in your ears makes a blaring encore.

You can tell by the warm and wet feeling under your bandages that the gash from Ghost’s gun had split open.

You don’t know how long it takes you to get your bearings, but once you do you’re almost thankful Ghost had rocked you.

You’re hoping Konig can see the urgency of the situation and your injured brain being rattled around your skull gives you an excuse to lie motionless, hindering interrogation. They know you’re not useful to them when you incapable of coherency. It’s why Stupid-Haircut is trying so hard to keep Ghost from injuring you to bad. It’s why they went through the trouble of nursing an enemy back to health. If Ghost turns your brain to soup like you’re so clearly provoking him to do, you won’t be able to tell them what they want to know.

Okay, painful change of plans.

Instead of forcing yourself to stay clear enough to manage all the details through the fog of the concussion, you’re going to force yourself into ignorance by weaponizing Ghost’s temperament against him. It’s in their best interest to keep you cognizant, and it’s in your best interest to get Ghost irritated enough to torture you until you’re unable to speak.

It’s going to be brutal, but you’ve been feeling nothing but pain at the hands of him, and you don’t think you’re far off from the cozy clutches of unconsciousness as it is - that it won’t be long until you’re unable to feel anything.

Always the masochist.

You can’t help but smile, even though it all. A genuine one, toothy and face-wrinkling, one that wasn’t for anyone else in the room, but didn’t care if they saw. It wasn’t a desperate attempt to relieve your discomfort. Not a waste of your precious energy lulling strangers into their sense of comfort. Not a weak effort to influence the opinion of you belonging to whoever happens to be in your vicinity.

You feel like you’re watching yourself descend into madness, powerless against the euphoric feeling that floods through you. Warmth coasting through your veins. You could tell it wasn’t the drugs, the concussion and the growing list of other injuries, or even the idea Konig may be rushing to your rescue any minute now.

It was because in this moment, despite everything that has happened, you can’t help but be enamored with yourself.

You?

Of course. Of course it took these conditions to pull it out of you.

It’s always the hard way with you, wasn’t it?

“If you can’t restrain yourself maybe you should let me handle it.”

“Back down, Johnny.” Ghost warns in that low, cautionary tone that can’t help leave the receiver wondering just what horrible punishment would occur if they pushed. He doesn’t even have to look at Johnny to hammer the intimidation into him. It’s only accompanied by a low extend of arm vaguely in his direction.

Neither you or Ghost noticed the way Johnny’s eye twitched or lip snarled, but he heeds Ghost’s warning.

Ghost’s eyes lock on you, and you think everyone in the room has caught on to the predicament they’re in.

Johnny, who’s been up to speed since the start, walking the tightrope of being respectful to his superior without letting him damage the value of his informant.

Ghost, who’s long lost his respect for you before he even laid eyes on you, and since meeting you has only been sinking deeper into his hatred of you. He’s used to getting information from soldiers. Out of powerful individuals that could handle a hit and that stay conscious during an interrogation session. The ones smart enough not to antagonize and beg for the brutality. Ones that grit their teeth an at least try and suck it up to maintain a scrap of dignity. Not you. He knows he needs your brain but he’d be happy to put an end to all of it, right now. Pull the plug on your project the manual way. If they can’t have it, no one can. Maybe he’d get what he wants along the way if you’re coherent enough to squeak it out, but that’d just be a bonus in his eyes.

And you. Wonderfully brilliant, even if occasionally misguided, and as much as you hate to believe it sometimes, incredibly lovable, even if Ghost is looking at you like he wants to put your head on a stick. But you don’t care about that dummy. No, you’re not even looking at him or his Johnny. Even if he takes your life from you right now, you think you could accept that. Not for any necessarily suicidal reasons, even though the concussion has definitely knocked some dark feelings loose.

You close your eyes, and the smile still hasn’t left your face, even if your sore muscles were pulling on the edges of your headache.

“Too much morphine.” Ghost says, to no one in particular, not hesitating as he forcefully grabs your forearm and digs his thumb into the skin encasing your IV needle.

You immediately hiss through gritted teeth, but he doesn’t hesitate as he takes the beginning of the needle with his other hand, roughly poking around in your arm.

You try to pull away but he’s got a grip tight enough to force your arm extended. You’re sure his fingertips will leave bruises.

He removes the needle entirely before puncturing you in a different spot on your inner elbow, shaking the needle violently beneath your flesh. You gasp, pulling against his iron grip with what little strength you have.

“Where’d your smile go?” Ghost asks in a neutral tone, his eyes dead of emotion as he removes the needle before stabbing another hole in your arm.

You let out a yelp, eyes screwed shut as your other hand jerks against the restraints. You’re too focused on the sickening feeling of skewered veins to make up a good comeback.

He does it again, and your fists clench and a high grunt escapes through gritted teeth.

“I’ve always wanted to learn how to set an IV.” Ghost says dryly, his eyes cold behind the mask as he thrashes the needle.

“Keep practicing.” You hiss, pitch warbling through the pain.

And he does.

It’s brutal, Ghost flaying the crease of your arm repeatedly. It’s been less than a minute but you’re sure the torture started a lifetime ago. You just have to take it, it’s all you can do. Your verbal stalling wasn’t cutting it, so you’re just going to have to opt for this instead and hope you can piss him off enough to get just a little too violent with you.

When he’s done, he jams the needle back where it was, managing to lay it back in your vein. “There we go.”

You study each other for a brief moment, before he leans in close, so close his projection becomes obscured through your head. You’re eye to eye now, nothing between you two but the mask your nose is almost brushing up against.

He grabs your face, his gloved fingers digging into your jaw with the same force he had held your forearm. He holds your head still and all you can do is look at him, brows pinched in fury as your nails dig into your palms, fists fight the restraints.

His eyes twitch as they flicker between each of yours.

“I am going to ruin you.”

You shake your head in an attempt to free your jaw from his clutches, but his grip is strong and he makes a point of forcing your head still, looking down his mask at you.

“You can give me all the information you like. I’m not stopping until it’s finished.”

Ghost finally lets you go with a rough shove. He takes the device from his ear and his wrist, discarding them both over his shoulder. Johnny catches the ear piece with a slight fumble, and the wrist remote hits the ground with a ting, rattling obnoxiously as it rolls to a stop. Johnny’s got his hands full as he yells but you you don’t bother listening to what he’s saying.

You’re too busy relaxing into the attack as you let Ghost carry you to death’s door.

———————————————————-

Even wincing is painful.

You're finally stirred awake by the feeling of a gloved hand on the back of your neck.

It’s hard to open your eyes, and when you finally do you see him, from the chest up, he looks just like a just a blurry figure. Two of them, actually, doubled vision multiplying the lone man that stood before you.

Even with your damaged vision you can tell it’s Konig, making out the telling shapes of his gear and those biceps you’ve studied so close you could pick them out of a lineup.

The hood that always intimidated you, but now fills you with a comfort like no other. You can see the light of your projection shielding his eyes.

A blinding bright light surrounds him, haloing your vision and it hurts, but you can help but keep your weary gaze fixed on him inbetween slow blinks.

You’re sure you’re dead. That you’re passing over and this is your brain manifesting some hallucination to comfort you as you transition.

You reach out to touch his hood, just to see if you can. You wanted to see if you could feel him, the researcher in you testing the potentials of your delusions. The restraints cut you short for a final time, before Konig quickly cuts your hands free with a knife. He takes your weak extended hand in his and you can feel it.

It engulfs yours, the scratchy feel of his glove wrapped around your hand, and he feels real.

His other hand retracts from your neck and reaches up to turn his projection off to get a clearer look at you. His hand comes back from under his hood and moves carefully to the side of your face, his thumb tracing a bruise on your cheek. His can’t believe what he’s seeing, his eyes darting around to the various injuries plastered on you.

“Meine liebe…”

He says, and you’re not sure if he’s speaking a different language or if your Ghost gave you dyphasia.

“Who did this?” He asks, horrified as he realizes there’s anyone out there cruel enough to do this to you.

You thought his stares were scary before, but the way his eyes glaze and turn cold as they follow the swells and bruises marking your face appears animalistic. It shoots a feeling in your gut so unnerving it confirms that you’re definitely not experiencing some euphoric deathbed hallucination.

When you don’t answer, your eyes just flicking around his features as you adjust, he asks again.

“Who did this?!”

His voice strikes an urgent and menacing tone the second time. On your recording he had been able to see Ghost’s point of view, but not Ghost. A front row seat to watch you get brutally attacked but not being able to identify the aggressor himself.

Always determined.

You reach up with your other hand to your saving grace, and place it on his upper arm, “Don’t leave.”

He hears how delicate your voice is, how you barely have the power to speak. How your hand quivered as you reached out to him, how you had squeezed his arm with what little might you had to encourage him to stay, to join you in a world where your aggressors and injuries didn’t matter, none of it mattered.

And how can he say no to you?

His eyes soften again and you can’t help but smile at the man behind the hood. You’re smile immediately turns to a wince as it forces an uncomfortable tug on your fresh injuries.

“Come here.” He says softly and he picks you out of the hospital bed with little effort. He’s got one arm secured around your back and the other is under the crease of your knees like he’s carrying you from the alter. He tilts you gently so your head can rest on his chest while he carries you to safety.

You’re wondering if you really are dead after all. It’s too good to be true, your plan working and Konig carrying you from the danger like he’s a fireman rescuing you from a burning building. You can discern the capabilities of his muscles as he holds you tight. You’re not even slowing him down, he’s still able to hurry through the hallways, guided to the exit by your device without fault.

The jostling hurts, but he’s doing his best to hold you steady, and being in his arms, resting the less injured side of your forehead against him, makes the pain all worth it.

You can hear the sounds of gunshots in the distance, not even your impaired hearing could muffle the loud pops. They must have had a full team come out to do an extraction. You thought it was a lot of to-do for little ol’ you.

Konig gets you to nearest exit, carefully managing the door as he opens it to ensure it didn’t hit you, and carries you out to the getaway vehicle, setting you down across the backseat like you’re made of glass.

“Liebe, they need me.” He looks back to the building, “Can you stay here?”

You give a weak nod, and he gives your hand a squeeze.

“I’ll be back, I promise.”

And you have his word.

He rushes back into the building while you try and rest in the backseat.

————————————-

The safe house was incredibly depressing. A rundown little two-room shack in the country, decorated with outdated appliances and furniture. The wall paper is peeling from the ceiling and you’re not sure if it was originally a drab yellow or if it had been stained from years of abuse. You can tell no one’s been around to take care of the water damage, judging from the large brown stains spotting the ceiling. There’s a kitchenette in the corner with an oven, a fridge that hums too loudly, and a microwave that appears never to have been cleaned. A worn beige couch outfitted with two dusty orange cushions that sag with age. A few generic paintings on the wall that hardly comfort you. No internet and no cell service, but there is a small box-shaped TV that you’re sure is from the 50s, the picture warped and cloudy.

Base placed you here temporarily until you relocate, your apartment now too dangerous to live in as your address was in enemy hands.

Judging by the way your supervisor spoke to you when discussing the transition, they must be in the dark on what caused the breach.

Your secret is safe for now, but there’s no telling when it’s going to get discovered. Waiting for the truth to come out has left a weight in your chest that sticks around from the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep.

They had assigned you a counselor to visit you and help process the trauma of the event, but you don’t trust them enough to give them the full truth. You just tell them about the violence Ghost inflicted, walking through the nightmares that result from it. You haven’t gotten a goodnight’s rest since it all went down, often waking up in the middle of the night kicking and screaming at the vivid night terrors of Ghost at the side of your bed.

Other than your counselor, the base associate that brings grocery to restock the noisy fridge on Thursdays, and the occasional check-up from your supervisor, you’ve been totally isolated from the outside world.

You don’t care about most.

Just Konig.

He had held you in his arms and carried you to safety at the risk of his own life. You knew you didn’t deserve it after what you did, but you can’t help but daydream.

Thinking about the way it felt to have your head on his chest, the cotton of his mask brushing your bruised cheek, his arms grasping you tight - protecting you - it definitely helps distract from the uncomfortable feeling lingering by your heart.

You wondered if he knew, if he had seen himself on Johnny’s copy of the recording, but still was kind enough to do such a favor for you.

Then you really wouldn’t deserve him.

You spend all your time thinking about Konig, bouncing between the depth of your guilt and the highs of the fantasy, just as you have been since you met him.

When he visits for the first time, it nearly triggered a panic attack. You had not been expecting visitors, and you were still haunted by the precious unexpected visitors you had. You’re delightfully surprised when you peek out the window and see Konig, looking nervously at the landscape behind him when you don’t answer right away. Your eyebrows spring up in shock and you let out a verbal exclamation at the sight.

You quickly run your fingers through your hair as a last ditch effort to appear somewhat put together before opening the door, forced to tilt your head back to look at him. His eyes widen at the sight of you, and he moves, almost like he’s about to step closer but stops himself.

You force yourself to contain your excitement at his visit, “Konig, It’s good to see you.” You look down at your clothes, still donned in loungewear, “Sorry about the jammies. Come in.” You open the door for him so he can step in before shutting the door behind him. He takes a few steps into the room before stilling, taking a moment to look around.

“Sorry for stopping by unannounced.” He says, followed by a clearing his throat. His eyes linger on the old beige couch before meeting your eyes again. “I‘ve been worried about you.”

You knew you were unreachable, he couldn’t have gotten in contact any other way, “Don’t apologize, you really have no idea how good it is to see you. I’ve been thinking about how to say thank you, for what you did, but I’m not sure there’s enough words between our languages to cover it.” You put your hand to back of your neck, looking to the floor for a moment before meeting his gaze again. You give a nervous laugh, “So I guess I owe you a bottle of wine, huh?”

You can tell he smiles under the mask by the way his eyes crinkle, “Just doing my job.”

You glance down at the arms that had held you so tight and wished they were wrapped around you again.

“Thank you, Konig. Really. I owe you my life.”

“It was my pleasure.” He says as he gives his head a little shake. His gaze shifts a bit higher, “You’re healing nicely.”

You touch a hand to the gash Ghost had left from his gun. You were most likely going to have a scar, but it had closed and the swelling had gone down significantly, the previous inflamed red now a medium pink. “Ah, well thanks for noticing. You know I made those skin cells myself?”

Huh?!

He tilts his head, “That’s good, I hear store-bought isn’t what it used to be.”

You giggle and roll on your heels a bit, not necessarily at the joke but at the fact that such a normally rigid and imitating man is now being cheeky with you, and it feels so nice to break the tension a bit.

“How are you holding up?” He says, and it reminds of the way your therapist inquires, with that gentle tone that clearly eludes to the incident without directly referring to the incident.

“Uh,” You trail off a bit, touching the nasty bruise on your inner arm, large from the spread of the internal bleeding, but now faded to a healing yellow. “Y’know? It’s actually been,” You let out another nervous laugh, “awful, actually. But that’s alright. Uhm, I think it’ll get easier with time.”

He nods and his eyes dart down to the bruise you’ve been mindlessly tracing with your finger. Something dark flickers behind his eyes but quickly subsides.

“If it’s worth anything, it does.”

You give him a weak smile and you have no way to confirm but you think he does the same.

A silence falls on you both for awhile, both of you picking a random point in the room to unfocus your vision on. The silence doesn’t feel awkward, more like you both were grieving for a minute - or maybe just lost in thought. Even if neither knew what to say to the other, you were still bonding over your traumatic experiences in your own quiet way.

You’re the one who breaks the silence, your voice a bit cracked from your dry throat, “What do you do about the nightmares?”

His eyes leave you for a moment as he considers it. “I leave a book by my nightstand. For some it’s TV, others crossword puzzles. There’s no stopping it. You just have to find what calms you down after.”

You give a nod. You knew there wouldn’t be a magic cure but you still have to take a moment to process that you’ll have to be dealing with it for the foreseeable future.

There’s a long pause before he speaks again, “You dream of him?”

You swallow again, trying to make it easier for you to speak but bail, instead slowly nodding your head.

Another silence falls over you both. A longer, more drawn out one. You both get lost in thought for awhile.

When you interrupt the silence again, the words spill out of you fast, coming out in a jumble and before you can stop yourself. He had that effect on you, making you feel so vulnerable and exposed, ready to spill your guts. Deep down you knew that it’s time to rip the bandaid off. Free yourself from the guilt and the constant fear your world is going to come crashing down around you.

“Do you know what I did?”

He studies you, tilting his head, “What do you mean? About your SOS?”

His response tells you that he truly doesn’t know. If he knew what you did, he’d have known exactly what you’d meant. Regardless, you still make a futile attempt to jog his memory, hoping you won’t have to explain yourself, “How I ended up there? What caused the breach?”

His eyes squint in confusion, “I was told we didn’t know how they received your information.”

Your head tilts down in shame, and you have to look away from him.

You take a deep breath and rest your palms flat on your thighs.

“Okay, look, I’ve done something horrible. I have not been very good to you, and… that sucks! Because I really thought we could have been,” You hesitate for a moment, “friends.” You close your eyes and take another breath, “At first I thought I could keep it a secret from you, even if I believe you have every right to know, but the truth is I just can’t handle the guilt anymore. I’m exhausted waiting for the other shoe to drop, okay?”

Konig’s whole body is tense now, standing at attention as he waits for your words. You’re worrying him.

“The day we met,” You’re choking up now, the adrenaline coursing through you, causing you to shake and perspire, mouth dry, “After our day in the shoot house, I forgot to disconnect your feed.”

Your tone shifts from serious to a bit desperate, “It was an accident, I swear, Konig.” You look at him, pleading eyes begging him to believe you, “And I should have just disconnected the feed when I found it, I know,” You’re getting exasperated, “But I’m sick and curious and to be honest I just couldn’t help myself when I saw you.”

He shifts uncomfortably in his spot, and swallows hard. He knows what you mean, but he has to confirm it with you to believe it, “What did you see?”

You look away from him and to the floor. It takes you a moment to work up the courage, “I saw you getting off.” You say it so quietly, ashamed to admit it.

“I shouldn’t have watched Konig, I shouldn’t have. It was wrong and I know it doesn’t mean anything now but I truly am sorry. But I did watch and I heard my name and I’ve been wracked with guilt ever since.“

He stands still, his breathing escalating slightly. He doesn’t say anything and the silence drapes over you both for awhile.

This silence was definitely awkward.

His eyes tell you nothing and his expression is masked by the hood.

You swallow, knowing you owe him the full truth as you force yourself to continue. If he’s already disgusted with you under that hood, this will really put you over the edge.

Your fist clenches, “In a moment of pure stupidity, I kept the video.” You break eye contact for a brief moment before returning your gaze to him. “I sent it to myself.”

“Okay?” You spit, angry at yourself, “I kept it and I’ve watched it so many times because I am just addicted to the way you moan my name, Konig. I’m sorry. I heard it and I needed more. It made me feel so good, and so so terrible at the same time.”

You’re on a roll now, rambling like you’re talking about your research.

“And I have not been able to stop thinking about you!” You laugh a bit, “And I understand how serious this is. So if you want to go straight to head of command and have me discharged, I won’t hold it against you. In fact, if you don’t even feel like filing the report, I’ll pack up my things and leave now, and you won’t hear from me ever again.”

You pause, and he doesn’t fill the silence, so you keep going, the words coming out like vomit, “But there’s something else you deserve to know. When I sent the video to my phone - for personal reasons only, okay?! I was not planning on showing anyone, if that helps. When I sent the video, it opened a vulnerable point of entry for TF-141 to hack in. They… have your video. I’m so sorry, it was a major lapse of judgement, and I overlooked so many protocols, and I put our intel at risk. I put your private moment at risk. I put us all at risk. I-“

You cut yourself off, tears starting to well in your eyes. It was relieving to get it off your chest, but you knew what was about to happen. You knew you were lighting a fuse with one hand and holding dynamite with another.

“I’m so sorry, Konig.”

The tears start flowing and you’re powerless to stop them. You hoped it wasn’t coming off as a desperate attempt to gain sympathy.

For awhile you stand there, eyes fixed at the floor as you wait for his response.

Konig hasn’t moved, hasn’t said anything, just stands in his spot, staring.

When you finally look at him, eyes full of heartbreak, he maintains eye contact for a few moments, expression unreadable.

After a moments to process, he uncrosses his arms to dig into his pocket, pulling out the device you had given him on that very first day. His boots slowly cross the linoleum floor and he gently sets your device on the dinky table behind you before removing the wristband and setting it down next to the earpiece without making a sound.

He doesn’t even look back at you before he turns his back and walking out the safe house door, shutting it with a soft click.

——————————————————————

It’s been three days since Konig left you alone in the safe house.

You’re wondering if you should cut your losses and leave. Change your name & get started with a new life.

You’ve already preemptively packed up your things to make it less painful on yourself when your supervisor comes to kick you to the curb.

Even as your life is dissolved and scattered to the wind, you actually feel a lot better than you have in months. Almost like the worrying was worse than the actual consequences. At least now you can live honestly.

Nonetheless, it was still pretty painful. Your latest infatuation finding out how you so deeply betrayed them. Watching him walk out on you had left you sobbing face down in the dusty orange couch pillows to muffle your cries.

It’s late at night on that third day, and you had managed to find some respite with a surprisingly warm shower and losing yourself in blurry reruns of a game show when you hear the light ting of metals.

At first you think it’s the ringing in your ears returning, it had been on and off ever since Ghost concussed you, but you quickly realized by the uneven rattles it had been coming from within the safe house.

Your eyes scan the room after switching the TV off, first starting with the fridge that hums too loud, but quickly dart your attention over to the movement of the safe house’s doorknob jiggling.

Not again.

You try and suppress the flashbacks enough to find somewhere to hide, but the safe house is one big open room with a small obscured bedroom that was more bed than room, and you don’t think the bed is high enough off the floor to crawl under.

So instead you freeze on the dingy couch, your heartbeat deafening in your ears as you watch your doorknob wiggle in its loose hold.

There’s a distinct click and then a long pause. You don’t even see the doorknob rotate because the door gets flung open with such speed and force it slams against the wall and bounces back.

“Konig?” You fear melds with confusion as you make sense of the figure rushing in.

He’s already closed most of the gap between you when you manage to squeak out a more alarmed, “Konig!”

It’s scary to have such a large man charge you, especially one you’re so used to being docile around you, one that usually stands hesitantly by the door until invited closer.

You don’t have a lot of time to think about it. Konig grabs you by the crest of the back of your neck with one hand, his other hand lifting up his mask to kiss you without room for arguing.

You let out a surprised gasp that was muffled by the kiss, and he takes that opportunity to have his tongue greet yours. His grip is tight on the back of your neck, his fingers digging in slightly to stake his claim. The stubble on his chin brushes roughly against your skin as he takes what’s his.

Once you catch up, you close your eyes and try to match his intensity but it’s difficult to keep up.

He finally pulls away, out of breath and letting his hood fall back over his mouth, his now free hand moving to the side of your face, “I’m sorry I left you, mein schatz.” He pulls away from your face slightly with a breath, “I needed to think.”

Your wide eyes flicker between his, mouth slightly parted as you nod. “Yeah,” your voice is breathy, the shock of the kiss having knocked the wind out you, “That’s uh, understandable.”

He brings his face closer to you. His eyes shift, and you see that dark flicker again.

“You have to understand, liebe, your deed will not go unpunished.”

Your brows retract as you swallow at the threat, looking up at him with concern in your eyes and your thighs pressed together.

You’ve been nervous around Konig before, maybe even scared, but you’ve never feared for your safety. Quite the opposite, actually. Such a large, strong soldier on your team gives you a shield of comfort - he made you feel safe.

But the way his voice had lowered and his eyes tinted with something primal shoots a tingle down your spine and raises the hairs on your neck. You’re not sure what he means, but your brain is coming up with ideas faster than you can sink your teeth into the details.

You’re almost ashamed at the warm feeling of arousal that sinks to your lower abdomen.

He kisses you again, this time closed and softer. When he pulls away his face stays dangerously close to yours, “You’ve done a very bad thing, liebe. You understand?”

His voice is low and husked but holds incredible authority. You can’t help but feel like a child being scolded in the principal’s office. You nod slowly, lips pursed and eyes still rounded in suspense.

He brings his finger up to your chin, his face close enough your noses are brushing, “I can’t hear a nod.”

The knot in your stomach doubles and your breath hitches a bit, shaking as you speak, “Yes, Konig, I understand.”

His thumb strokes your cheek, but it doesn’t soothe the mixture of fear and arousal flushing your skin.

“Would you like to right your wrong?”

You take a deep breath. You’re not sure what you’re agreeing to, but you’ve been desperate to fix what you’ve done since the moment you committed it. “Yes, Konig.” You nod your head, “I’d do anything.”

A pleased hum comes from him, and you're close enough to feel the vibration. You swallow nervously, gaze hesitantly watching his animalistic eyes stare down at you like you’re his prey.

“Stay.” He orders, pulling away from you and letting his hand linger on your face for an extra moment before turning away from you.

You obey, both fear of consequence and desperation to please not allowing an ounce of will to defy him. Your eyes are still locked on him as he steps to the dinky little table he had set the device on three days ago.

You had left it untouched, making it easier to swallow by still thinking of the device as his. As if Konig had just left it behind by mistake instead of intentionally returning your property to you.

He took both carefully in his hand before returning to you, boots asserting themselves as they slowly and confidently traverse the linoleum. He holds the devices out for you to take. “Feed on. Projection off.”

And you follow his instructions, what choice do you have? When his voice is strict and he’s standing over you, intimidating stature making you feel so small and defenseless. The shake of your hands causes your fingers to fumble as you struggle with the remote, his hand held out impatiently as you stumble with fluster.

When you finally get it, you place both devices in his palm, staring up with your eyes begging for his approval.

He gives you nothing, as usual, placing the earpiece under his hood and setting the wrist piece down simultaneously.

“You stepped out of line, liebe.” Konig takes closer to small gap between you you, “You humiliated me.”

His eyes are half-lidded now, boring into you with menace.

“And now I’m going to humiliate you.”

He touches your face with his thumb again. You can’t help but flinch at the gentle touch, on edge from unease and excitement.

He gives another light huff, reveling in his ability to intimidate you.

“On your knees.” He commands, finger pointing at the floor as he slides back to make room for you.

He huffs in satisfaction at the dumbfounded look on your face. Your mouth slightly agape and stuttering - it’s dawning on you now; exactly what you have to do to right your wrongs.

He squints at you, voice leaving no room for error, “Did I stutter, Schatz?”

That sinister glint in his eye returns again, and just the sight is enough to get you to slide quickly to the floor, assuming your position on both knees, neck slowly tilting back to take him in as he towers over you.

He leans in to to cup your face again, giving it a soft yet firm pat, “Good.”

Your heart flutters at the praise, even if simply articulated.

That’s all you want to hear. That you’re good. You want to be so good for him.

You’re dripping now, Konig already having you ache for his touch.

His strong hands slide down your face, four fingers cupping your jaw as his thumb brushes your bottom lip gently. When your lips part he slides his thumb in your mouth and you oblige, obediently sucking and showing him what you can do with your tongue.

He gives a low pleased hum before removing his thumb and reaching for his belt, the buckle jingling as he unlatches it and removes it from his waist in one swift pull.

Your stare follows the belt as he folds it in half, and he muses at your worried look. He likes the way your mind wanders, always running with the possibilities. It’s what drew you to him in the first place.

He doesn’t hit you, though, just taps it against the bottom of your chin to get you to fix your gaze back on him. Once he’s got your attention, he discards the belt and reaches down to pop the button on his pants, yanking each end to get the zipper down in one smooth move.

He slides his thumbs behind both waistbands, pulling them down just enough to expose his cock. It’s rock hard and practically springs from his pants, and you can’t help but let out a small squeak and just how big it is.

You’ve seen it before, studied it endlessly, imagined it so many times.

It did nothing to prepare you for kneeling before it. Just like the rest of him, his cock intimidated you, at full attention and already leaking precum.

“Wrap your hands around it, schatz.”

You follow his orders, softly gripping his cock. You’ve studied the video of him jerking off so many times, you know exactly how to please him. You start with a loose grip, your hand sliding from base to tip at a slow pace, as your other hand cups his balls.

At first he watches, enjoying how your hands looked so small around him. He can’t help but close his eyes and tilt his head back as he lets out a soft moan.

It sounds so much better in person, and your pace picks up, desperate to elicit more from him.

He tilts his head forward to get a better view of you.

“Suck.” He commands, and you hesitate for a brief moment, worried about the logistics, before ditching your fears and giving it your best shot.

You keep your hand steady on his shaft as you guide the tip to your tongue, a slow lick clearing the bead of pre-cum that had formed.

He lets out another low moan that makes you quiver.

You press your lips to him, slowing working the tip into your mouth as you tease with your tongue.

As you work steadily down his shaft, you have to fully unhinge your jaw to fit him in to avoid teeth, and even then it’s a close call. You’re continue carefully and he seems willing to be patient with you as you get used to his size.

You manage to somewhat comfortably fit half of him in your mouth, using your free hand to squeeze the base of his shaft. You start to move back and forth, pressing your tongue against him.

He watches in awe as you take him in, not holding back in his pleaded hums and groans.

“So good, Schatz.”

Warmth pools in your chest at the praise.

You look at him with a doe eyes and a full mouth, bobbing on his cock as you slick it up.

He moans at the sight, placing a hand on the back of your head. He follows it up with another order.

“Deeper. I want to see you choke on it.”

You’re not in a position to argue, so you oblige, letting his cock slide as deep as you can, but he’s not pleased with your attempt. He tightens his grip on the back of your head, fingers laced between strands of hair, and slowly forces his cock in until you’re squeaking out noises involuntarily, eyes welling with tears.

He starts to fuck your mouth, slowly at first, but picks up the pace. He doesn’t wait for you to get your bearings or catch your breath, savoring the lengths you’ll go to please him.

“There you go, schatz, so good for me.”

The tears are steaming now as he triggers your gag reflex, and your underwear is stained with your arousal in response to being praised and used.

He pulls out of your mouth, his cock still wet with your spit, and takes a step back to admire you. Your breath quickening to catch up, the flushed look of your face, the disheveled hair. He relished in the mess he was making of the intelligent professional he had come to know.

He gives a pleased hum at how you wait so patiently for his next order.

“Up. Clothes off.”

Your breath hitched, cheeks flushing a shade deeper. You wipe the spit from your mouth and slowly stand, hands shaking with nerves.

Your fingers dig into the hem of your shirt, desperate to grip onto something, and you hesitate at his command, nervous to let him see you even more exposed.

You ignore your nerves, too willing to please Konig, and pull your shirt over your disheveled hair and discard it on the couch. Your fingers fumble with the waistband on your lounge pants, sheepishly pulling them down your thighs and stepping carefully out of them.

You stand before him in your underwear, and you can’t help but cross one arm over yourself. The way he’s staring at you, not shy about his gaze mapping your newly uncovered features. He steps forward again, close enough his hard cock brushes against your warm skin.

He gives a low hum of approval and steps closer, his hands gently running along your sides until they find your waist, staking their claim with a firm grip. He leans in and you feel the drape of his hood caress your shoulder as he brushes his head against yours, lips in your ear.

“You’re so beautiful, meine schatz.”

You close your eyes as he plants a kiss though his hood on your neck, and you can feel his breath through the soft cotton.

It’s not fair that you’re naked while he’s still fully covered. You feel so vulnerable and exposed.

You quickly understand that’s exactly what you had done to him and let out a soft whimper at the realization that this is intentional, that he’s issuing this power play as part of your punishment. You’ve had your time to admire his body, now it’s his turn.

“Bedroom, now.” The softness leaves his voice with the demand and he pulls away from you once again to get a better view of you.

The knot is your lower abdomen doubles as you turn and head to the bedroom, giving him a good long look at the back of you.

You stand at the narrow space between the end of the bed and the wall, looking up at him when he enters, waiting for his next order. You can’t help but notice the jingle of his belt as he carried it with him. He sets it on the bed and takes his time committing your image to memory.

“On your back, liebe.” The pet name doesn’t soften the domineering tone, warning you not to dare rebel against him.

You follow his order, getting up on the bed and laying down for him, your upper half propped up by your elbows.

Konig follows, crawling over top of you slowly, his massive frame engulfing you beneath him as you lean into the bed. He appears even more menacing over top of you, strong arms and legs trapping you beneath him. You can’t help the nervous expression on your face as you stare up at those hungry eyes.

He brings a hand up to touch your face, leaning forward to plant another kiss on your lips, lifting up his mask as he does so. It annoys you that whenever he pulls away the hood falls, and you can’t even get a peek at what you assume is a strong jaw.

The hand on your face slides down your neck, fingers traversing the bumps of your collarbones before he shifts down to your chest, stopping for a moment to tease your nipples to attention. You suck in a breath and arch into the touch.

He hums again, low and devious.

Your hands reach up to touch his arms, but he doesn’t let you, removing his hands from your chest and grabbing your wrists firmly. He passes one off so he can hold both of your arms in one strong grip, and you’re amazed he’s able to subdue both of your wrists with just one of his massive hands. He leans back and uses his free hand to reach for the belt at the foot of the bed, before wrapping it around your wrists and fastening the buckle tightly.

He leans in close to your face as he places your restrained hands back above your head. He takes in the way your breath quickens through parted lips, eyes wide and cheeks flush with excitement and worry. He likes making you falter, likes watching you breakdown underneath his power.

“You’re all mine.” He reminds you, one hand keeping your bound wrists firmly above your head.

You nod, and when you speak your voice comes out quiet and broken, “All yours, Konig.”

It gratifies him, judging by his self-assured laugh and the way his cock twitches against your stomach. “That’s it, liebe.”

He removes his grip on your forearm with a firm squeeze to remind you to stay, and he scoots himself back so that either leg is straddling your thighs instead of your waist. His gaze shifts down, soaking in every inch as he cups you over your underwear, his careful touch taking advantage of your sensitivity.

You can’t help but grind your hips into his teasing, already leaking for him.

“Mm, I can tell you’re enjoying this. Such a dirty little pervert you are.”

You close your eyes and let out a whine at the teasing, both verbal and physical.

“Don’t worry, liebe, I’m getting impatient as well.”

He slips his fingers into the waistband of your underwear, sliding his fingers along your hips to tease you a bit before sliding them down, having to readjust himself as he takes them off. He repositions himself between your legs this time, letting either of your ankles at his sides.

His hands slide up your quivering thighs, spreading you open and getting a good look at you. You try and fight the embarrassment under the heat of his stare, resisting the urge to bring your bound wrists down to cover yourself.

He takes his time slicking himself up with lube - he came prepared, you noticed. Premeditated passion. Guess he has to when he’s got such a large cock.

You’re worried about the logistics, but you get the feeling Konig wouldn’t dare hurt you in this way.

Once he’s nice and slicked, he lines the tip against your aching warmth, and leans down close to you.

“Are you ready, meine liebe?”

“Please, Konig.” You whine, rutting your hips to grind against him.

He closes his eyes as he slowly works himself into you. Your suspicions are confirmed as he stops just after the tip, opening his eyes again to confirm the level of comfort displayed on your features.

Your teeth are grit, but you nod your head in approval.

He’s continues, pace so careful as he pushes himself further into you. It’s been so long since you’ve got any action, especially action from someone so well endowed, you’re incredibly tight around him. He’s studying you, searching for signs of being pushed over the limit as he takes his time stretching you out.

You can’t help let out a soft moan when he’s halfway in, just at the feeling of being filled. Your eyes flutter shut, giving yourself the ability to concentrate on the cock working into you.

It takes awhile, it does. You’re so small and he’s so big, but he doesn’t seem to mind, enjoying using you as his cockwarmer, walls so cozy and tight around him. He thinks it’s so goddamn arousing that he’s so huge you have to push yourself to take him. He likes that he’s a challenge for you. He wants to train you and shape you in every sense of the word.

But for now, he allows you take the lead from underneath him, letting yourself grind your hips down on to him at your own pace as he lets low moans escape him.

When you’re finally at the point of desperately rutting your hips against him, you give him all he needs to hear.

“Fuck me, Konig, please fuck me.”

He obliges, unable to say no to your eager and breathy tone. His fingers grip onto your outer thighs as he thrusts into you. His pace is quick, but he’s still cautious not to force himself too deep inside you. He’s a disciplined man, after all.

Even without being all the way inside you, he’s still deep enough to hit the spot, forcing moans to escape from parted lips.

“Look at me, liebe.”

You oblige, and his cock twitches inside of you at the sight of your half-lidded eyes glazed in pleasure. He grunts, his pace picking up as he ventures deeper inside of you.

You can’t help the mutters and moans spilling from you. Your hands mindlessly move from above your head to his chest, tugging on the fabric of his shirt.

“You feel so good. So good for me, schatz.”

You moan in response, and he decides he’s worked you open enough to push all the way in.

You’re cockdrunk now. Breathy moans escaping without thought, eyes unfocused and body limp to his desires.

When he suddenly pulls out you whine. “Koni- please.”

“On your front.” He commands as he sits back on his knees, towering over you.

You’re flush and out of breath as you do as he says, positioning yourself the best you can with your hands bound. On all fours, head down towards the pillows as you arch your back.

The bed shifts under him as he scoots close before giving your ass a firm smack, the gasp leaving your mouth more out of surprise than pain. He gives you a few more, alternating between your cheeks. Just enough to leave handprints behind, marking you as his own.

He lines up with you again, pressing into you without hesitation.

You both let out moans at the return of warmth. He’s less gentle now, pounding into you hard enough the sound of flesh crashing together fills the room. The creaky bed is slamming against the dingy walls and your thighs are rippling on impact. You can’t help but quiver as the pleasure washes through you.

He’s got such a rhythmic pace, slamming into you while he grips your hips tight to keep you still.

“All mine.” He growls between breathy groans.

You can't even respond, practically drooling into the pillows as Konig fucks you senseless. A string of broken praises fall from your lips, mostly nonsense. Konig leans in and leaves little kisses down your back, without breaking his pace.

“Koni, I’m gon’na- fuck, Konig.”

“Come for me, meine liebe.”

Your eyes pinch shut and a broken moan leaves your lips as you ride the waves of intense pleasure washing through you. It’s enough to make your entire body clench, your walls gripping onto Konig.

He doesn’t let up, forcing your thighs open as he mercilessly pounds you through orgasm.

He gives your ass another firm smack, and your fingers are clawing desperately at the pillows, searching for any sort of stability but you’re powerless to Konig and his forceful cock.

You’re on cloud nine, feeling so far away from your body as you’re washed up on the shores of pleasure. Konig’s strength is the only thing holding you steady.

“I’m going to come, schatz.” He warns, moaning your name just like he did on the video before he fills you up and stakes his claim deep inside you.

His fingers dig into your thighs as his muscles tense under his clothes, his thrusts and moans becoming uneven as he loses himself to the euphoric gratification.

He pauses for a few moments after he slows to a stop, taking a moment to catch his breath as he lets his cock warm inside you.

He pulls out of you with a low grunt, watching the come that spills out of you. When he releases his grip on you, you’re too weak to support yourself, sliding limp on your front and basking in the afterglow of your orgasm.

He takes pleasure in knowing he marked you, completely broke you down and disheveled you. Made you feel so good you have to collect yourself afterwards.

He steps out for a moment before quickly returning with something to clean you both up with.

He’s gentle with the clean-up, wiping away the mixture of lube and come from you while minding your sensitivity, not wanting to disturb your bliss. He removes the belt from your wrists as well.

“Konig? Cuddle.” You mutter, arm stretching across the bedspread.

You don’t see the smile underneath his hood, but after he wipes himself off he joins you back on the bed, the mattress creaking for a final time as he pulls you in a spoon. You feel so safe and small, pressed into him like this. His strong arms wrapped around you. His chest on your back. You let out a pleased hum.

“That’s going to make a nice video.” He says, removing his earpiece and turning it off as he sets it on the bed.

“You can have the real thing anytime.” You say, eyes closed with a warm smile on your face.

He hums low in your ear and gives you a kiss on the cheek, “You’re forgiven, Schatz.”

“Thank you Koni.”

You both drift off, tired out from your intense finishes.

You stay close throughout the night, but having him pressed into you unfortunately didn’t stop the nightmares. When you wake up in a panic, kicking and screaming at the latest renditioning of your mind’s unresolved trauma, Konig’s there to press his hand to your heart, telling you that everything’s okay, it was just a nightmare.

Your breath is still rapid and your heart is still pounding as you steady yourself, transitioning yourself back to reality after the night terror.

He hugs you so tight, reminding you about how he’ll always be there to protect you, that no one will ever hurt you again, he will not let anything happen to you.

You steady yourself, and he knows well enough how hard it is to calm yourself after such an immersive terrifying experience.

“I brought something for that, Schatz.”

When he leaves the room you think he’s going to bring you a book, a puzzle, something to do to distract yourself.

What he brings back makes you tense, your eyes widening at the gift. He sets it down for you, getting back into the bed and resuming his position wrapped around you, protecting you. But your eyes are glued to the gift, the full implications sinking in.

Konig had set down Ghost’s mask.

“No one will find out about your secret. I took care of it.”

You don’t need him to explain further. You know Ghost will never have the opportunity to hurt you again.

“Thank you, Konig.”

He kisses your shoulder through his hood, “My pleasure, meine liebe. Sleep tight.”

And you do.

———————————————————————-

More by uhohdad:

Meine Perle: Reader is tasked with feeding enemy prisoner Octo!Konig

HIS: Konig has an unhealthy obsession with you.

Original Works Masterlist

#konig #konig cod #konig call of duty #konig modern warfare #konig mw2 #call of duty #cod #modern warefare ii #modern warefare 2 #konig x reader #smut #konig x you #x reader #fic #experimental #uhohwriting

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riboism · 2 years

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ateez headcannon | innocent things you do that drive them crazy

a/n: someone sent me this request a while back, and i’m so sorry but I think I deleted it by mistake :( I hope whoever that person was sees this, and I’m sorry it took so long to make! They never specified if they wanted this to be fluff or smut, so I kinda did both lol.

genre: fluff, suggestive (nothing crazy)

Seonghwa: When you put on makeup. Especially lipstick.

You always took forever getting ready, and that would really piss off your very punctual boyfriend. One evening, he barged into your room, annoyed to see that you were still getting ready when you two were already ten minutes late for the dinner reservation. “Do you know how hard it was to get a reservation here?” he nagged, “The restaurant is half an hour away, and that’s not including the five o’clock traffic that’s gonna…” He trailed off as he watched you apply your lipstick. The sight of you opening your mouth wide and rubbing the cherry red nub over your lips made his knees weak. From then on, he never complained about your tardiness again. Instead, he’ll lay on your bed after getting ready, resting his head onto his palm as he watches you play with your makeup. He admired how you knew just what to do; how much blush to put on, what colors to blend over your eyes, how steady your hand was as you drew on perfect black lines over your lids, and of course, how sultry you looked when you pouted your lips and rubbed the bright red color on. He especially loves it when you go over the red with a lip gloss. The way your juicy red lips moved when you talked was mesmerizing, and he’d feel only a little bad when you’d ask him if he was still listening to you. He thought your lips looked even more kissable, but you never allowed him to kiss you, afraid that he’ll ruin your makeup. But your pleas went in one ear and out the other, and Seonghwa leans in anyway for a messy and passionate kiss. You’d be so annoyed afterwards, digging into your bag for your compact mirror so that you could fix this mess. Some of the color would transfer onto his lips, but Seonghwa never bothered to wipe it off. Instead, he’ll walk around happily, proud to show off the glossy red lips that he now shared with you.

Hongjoong: When you wear something that he bought for you.

It’s safe to say that about 60% of your closet was stuff that Hongjoong bought for you. You’d tell him to go to the store to pick up a gallon of milk, and he’ll come back with a brand new outfit for you instead. One night, you arrived to the resturant where your boyfriend waited for you at the corner table. He was stunned to see you in the silky green dress he had bought for you just months ago. Of course, he was the one who picked it out, but he never imagined just how good you’d look in it. Too bad, he thought to himself, too bad I’ll have to rip it off of you when we get home.

Yunho: When you come back from a run.

Yunho was fast asleep while you went out on your early morning run. You came back half an hour later, the sound of you rummaging through the drawers for a towel awaking him from his slumber. He loved how you looked after your work out; your hair all messy with a few flyaways sticking out, your cheeks flushed from all the circulation. He admired how your sports bra always matched your leggings, and the way the pants hugged your thighs so perfectly. Yunho pretend to be asleep, opening his eyes just enough to watch you strip from your sweaty workout clothes. You’d never guess how much your sweaty, tired, and out of breath state turned him on. How badly he wanted to touch you, to give you another reason to be out of breath. But he knew you’d never let him anywhere near you when you were like this, and so he would have to reach down and take care of his hard on by himself before you come back out from the shower.

Yeosang: When you get your nails done.

The first thing you did when you got home from the salon was show your boyfriend Yeosang your new set. He stopped playing his game and took your hands into his. He examined your acrylics, admiring the pretty designs and colors on each nail. You usually did earthy or nude colors, but today you decided to do a bubblegum pink shade. Something about the color pink on your nails gave Yeosang a rush. He lost himself in a daydream, imagining how pretty your hands would look right now, gripped around his hard cock. “What do you think?” you asked, a little concerned with how quiet he was. You worried that maybe he didn’t like it. “Is it the almond shape? Or the color? I thought I’d try something different today. Is it bad?” He snapped out of his daydream and gave you a reassuring smile. “No, no. It’s pretty. I like it.” He brought your hands up to his lips, giving them a quick peck before swiveling back on his chair and returning to his game.

San: When you play with the drawstrings of his sweatpants.

You walked up behind San as he cut up some garlic. “What are you making?” you asked, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Well I wanted to make mac n cheese, but the store didn’t have any colby jack, can you believe that? So I...” your fingers twiddled with his drawstrings, untying and retying it as he went on tell you about the grocery store fiasco. It was a habit of yours to play with his drawstrings, sort of like a fidget thing. You didn’t really think much of it. Sometimes you didn’t even realize that you were doing it. Your boyfriend, however, was very aware of this habit of yours, and it never failed to turn him into putty. The feel of your fingers so dangerously close to his waistband made him a little dizzy. The confident boy you were met with when you first walked into the kitchen was now a stuttering mess “and um...and I thought m-maybe I can make something with uh...with pesto...” You let go of his drawstrings and gave him a quick peck on the cheek “Sounds great. Let me know if you need any help.” Needless to say, he did need your help, but not with dinner.

Mingi: When you play with his hair.

Mingi’s loved lazy Sunday’s with you on the couch. You were reading a book when he came into the room, and he invited himself to come sit next to you. He laid his head on your lap, signaling you to play with his hair. Without looking away from your book, you brought your free hand down and ran your fingers through his silky hair. Your fingers grazed at the side of his head, rubbing them gently over his ear lobe. That was his sweet spot and it turned him into a drooling mess. He was completely paralyzed from your addicting touch. He wished you two could stay like this forever. Although this was just a sweet and mindless activity, Mingi couldn’t help but have perverted thoughts. As you read on, Mingi thought about how good it would feel if you played with his hair like this while he goes down on you. He’d probably fall asleep right between your legs.

Wooyoung: When you're sick.

Wooyoung loved being babied. But he loves babying you even more. You're pretty independent, which was something he both adored and hated. He wanted to be able to take care of you sometimes, but you never let him. He tried to hide his excitement when you told him that you were coming down with something. Now was his chance.

Wooyoung thought you were so cute when you were weak and needy. Despite you telling him that it wasn’t a serious illness, that you had the cold under control, he still insisted on tucking you into bed, blowing on a spoonful of hot soup before feeding it into your mouth, and making you endless cups of tea. And when your sinuses kept you up at night, he didn’t hesitate to slip a hand into your panties, giving you a slow and gentle orgasm to help put you to sleep.

Jongho: When you ask him to kill a bug for you/ when you’re scared.

You hated when the weather got warmer and sticker because that meant you had to deal with seeing unwanted visitors in your home. One night, when you were getting ready to shower, you noticed a very creepy looking centipede hanging around the shower drain. A shiver went down your spine, and you immediately ran to Jongho. He looked up from his phone, instantly knowing what was wrong from the scared expression on your face. “Where is it?”

“Shower drain” you replied, your voice a little shaky. He sighed as he walked over to the bathroom to take care of the situation. Jongho would act annoyed with how frequently you came to him for help in these situations, but secretly he liked it. He liked that he was the first person you’d run to for help. He also liked how you’d hide behind him, watching nervously as he disposed of the pest. He thought it was cute how you squirmed around when he’d chase you with the napkin he used to collect the dead bug. As sadistic as it sounds, it kind of turned him on.

When it was his turn to pick a movie for movie night, he always picked horror. He loved seeing you get all tense, clinging onto his arm right before a jumpscare. He was your security blanket, and he was happy to be the one to protect you, to be the one you felt most safe with.

taglist: @hyuckilstan @ateezsatinysworld

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wreckedandpolemic · 2 months

Text

forgive me? - matty healy

prompt: lovers' quarrel

(mdni) and we continue ahead with valentine75!! ok pls do not look too closely at the argument here i suck so hard at angst i cant even half ass it as a setup for porn lol

warnings: oral (f receiving), hand stuff, idk there isn't huge amounts to this

The silence in your flat is deafening, stretching between you and Matty like a chasm, your anger welling so deeply at the bottom that you want to drown him in it.

“I’m sorry?” he ventures, and you whip around to face him. The sheepish grin he wears is, admittedly, distractingly adorable; usually, it’s enough to melt you at least a little, but this time you can barely see it through your blinding anger.

You scoff. “You’re sorry, huh? Oh, well, I guess that makes it totally fucking fine, then!” You kick off your shoes with more force than necessary, sending your expensive heels skittering across the floor. “Tonight was important to me, do you even realise that? Are you so up your own arse that you think everyone wants to be on the Matty show twenty-four seven, or do you just not care?” A sense of sick satisfaction spreads as he processes your words, expression crumbling for a split-second and reforming into a sharp sort of anger that warns that Matty isn’t going to make this easy for you.

Which suits you just fine. You’ve never been one for an easy win. Never been much for losing, either. You fold your arms as Matty rounds on you. “I’m up my own arse? That’s fuckin’ rich, comin’ from you, treatin’ me like a fuckin’ toddler all night!” He’s gesticulating wildly, accent thickening through his frustration, and it takes a tremendous amount of your self-control not to laugh. “Matty, don’t touch that. Matty, don’t talk to him. Matty, come back here.” He puts on an affectation of your voice and accent that’s equal parts insulting and hilarious, and you’re lucky he doesn’t pick up on your quiet snort of laughter. “You actually said come back here! Like I’m a damn dog!”

“Dog would’ve been better behaved, probably,” you mutter. “Wouldn’t have got belligerently drunk and accosted the press, either.” Matty steps closer, breathing hard, tongue darting out to wet his lips tantalisingly. Your traitorous eyes flicker down to his mouth, soft and pink and wet and tempting, and it’s a mission to haul your mind back on track.

“I didn’t fucking ‘accost’ anyone. I told them to get the fucking cameras out of my face, ‘cos I wasn’t gonna give them a fuckin’ story at your fuckin’ event.” Matty defends, and, okay, the sentiment is there, but he had just made everything endlessly worse.

Groaning, you bury your head in your hands. “I told you. I fucking asked you, one time, just nod your head, smile, say you’re proud of me. Was that so fucking hard for you?” You hadn’t meant to admit that part. That it stung not to have his approval.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Matty snaps. “Of course I’m fucking proud of you. You’re a fucking star. Just wish you weren’t so embarrassed of me,” he adds, and whatever part of your anger that had crumbled at first sharpens in your chest again at his attempt to guilt-trip you.

He’s not being fair — of course you’re not embarrassed by him, but his behaviour fucking embarrassed you! “You told a fucking crowd of journalists that Jamie, who I have been on a fucking months-long press tour with, and I quote, ‘acts like a massive wanker.’ And he fucking heard you!”

Matty shrugs. “Well, he does. Don’t like the way he talks to you. Could’ve called him a rude cunt, too. Would’ve been even more true.” he mutters sullenly, scowling at the ground.

“God, Matty, you are so— mmph!” You’re cut off by him surging forward, crushing your lips together in a bruising kiss. You pull his lower lip into your mouth and bite down on it, iron spilling over your tongue as the skin tears beneath your teeth. After a long, indulgent moment, you force yourself to shove him away, gasping. “You never fucking listen! You can’t just kiss me ‘cause you don’t wanna hear it,” you snap, pushing down the heat that wells instinctively between your legs.

He’s flushed, breathing hard, unfairly gorgeous like this. “You look so pretty when you’re mad, baby,” he murmurs, tucking a wisp of hair behind your ear, the gentle touch making you shudder. He’s a master at this; resolving your arguments with doe-eyed pouts and wet, needy kisses.

Your resolve is crumbling. “Matty, don’t,” you warn feebly, lust spinning dizzily in your mind and swelling until your rational thoughts are dissolved. Matty grins, predatory — he has you pinned, and he knows it.

”My pretty girl,” he murmurs against your lips. “My little star. Forgive me?” His eyes are wide, faux-innocence shining down at you as your last thread of self-control breaks. It isn’t lost on you that he hasn’t actually apologised, but as his lips press against yours and his tongue sweeps into your mouth, you can’t remember why you care.

His mouth doesn’t leave yours as he walks you to the sofa. Your stomach swoops as he pushes you down, desire thrumming in your veins. Every last thought falls out of your head as it knocks against the armrest, your back arching up towards him. “C’monn,” you whine, reaching out to him where he stands above you, his gaze hot as it roams eagerly across your skin.

Matty climbs over you, adjusting your legs so he can kneel between them, goosebumps breaking out where he slides a hand up your thigh, agonisingly close to where you need it. “Lift your hips for me, love,” he instructs, sliding your dress up your body until a puddle of satin pools around your waist, cool and slick against your heated skin. His warm fingers crook around your panties and he drags them down your legs, exposing your dripping cunt. A soft moan escapes you as he rubs a slow circle into your clit, pressing a gentle kiss to your inner thigh. “So much better than fighting, hm?” he teases, and a flash of annoyance cuts through the lust as you remember exactly how you got into this position.

”Don’t push it,” you hiss, raking a hand through his curls and tugging harshly. He whimpers deliciously against your skin, a pulse of heat spiking deep in your bones. “I’m still mad at you,” you warn, searching your rapidly-blurring mind for your long-foregone anger.

“So take it out on me,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on your cunt, your body tingling under his gaze.

”What?” Your mind is already hazy, the sight of his head low between your thighs infinitely distracting, the promise of his tongue unfathomably tempting.

“I’m going to put my mouth on your sweet little pussy, and I’m going to listen to everything you have to say until you come. Call me names, if you want. Tell me everything I’ve ever done in my life that’s fucked you off, and I won’t say a word.” It’s such a Matty way of resolving an argument that you can’t find a response. “You get to yell at me and you get to get off. Pretty good deal if you ask me.” Matty’s smirk splashes you with a bucket of cold water, latent frustration blooming under your skin — a sudden need to slap the smugness off his face overtakes you.

You beckon him, waiting until his eyes are closed and his lips are parted, a gentle breath brushing against your mouth. He relaxes, expecting a kiss, expecting to be off the hook, and you crack a hand hard across his cheek with a grin. “God, that felt good,” you say as he recoils, rolling your eyes theatrically at his punched-out moan. “Such a fucking slut. Put your mouth to better use before I change my mind.” He shouldn’t make it so easy for you to take back the upper hand.

It’s almost comical how quickly his tongue is buried inside you, a thick pulse of heat sent kicking in your cunt. Unwilling to give him the satisfaction, you swallow a moan as you bury a hand in his curls. “Wish I could fuck your pretty mouth. Shut you up proper for once.” Matty moans into your cunt, the sound deliciously gratifying as it vibrates through you. “That’s your problem, you know,” you continue, the effort of keeping your voice level monumental against the waves of pleasure rising inside you. “You never fucking shut up. You’re— mmh, so fucking arrogant. You act like— ah!” His teeth scrape over your clit and you cry out, grinding your hips against his face as heat throbs sharply under your skin.

”Go on,” he says, grinning up at you with wet, slick lips. He hisses as you yank his curls harshly, dragging his mouth back to your cunt. He licks at you like a starving man, heat pooling in your belly, your limbs trembling and toes curling.

”You act like the fucking world revolves around you,” you continue, struggling to drag the words to the forefront of your soupy mind. “You’re so fucking— God, Matty, fuck!” you whimper, the rest of your sentence lost in the mind-numbing pleasure swirling through you. Matty isn’t playing fair, licking and sucking and kissing at you sweetly, your world blurring around him.

He pulls away and quirks an eyebrow at you, like he’s waiting for your surrender. As fucking if. You take a moment to catch your breath, fingers digging into the edge of the sofa to anchor yourself before he dips his head again, licking a broad stripe along your cunt that makes you whine pathetically at him. “You’re ridiculously pretentious,” you bite out, gasping as his tongue fucks into you in an obscene, glorious rhythm. Ecstasy coils in your limbs, your body heavy at the edge of oblivion. “Disrespectful. And you just. Don’t. Fucking. Listen.” You punctuate your last words rocking your hips against his face, your cunt fluttering around his tongue.

Matty presses wet kisses to your thighs, sweet and teasing as you whine. “Are you done?”

“Repeat it back to me,” you order as he licks his lips, framed prettily by the V of your legs. “So I know you were listening.”

“I’m irresponsible.” He kisses your inner thigh. “Arrogant. Inappropriate at the worst times.” He licks at your clit and you buck your hips against his face, fighting to hold at bay the flood of heat waiting to overwhelm you. “The people you work with think I’m white trash.”

You fist a hand in his curls, tugging hard enough that you feel him hiss in pain against your skin. “Don’t be a smartarse.”

You can sense that he’s about to argue, but thinks better of it at the last second. “I’m pretentious. Disrespectful,” he continues. “And I just.” He laps at your clit. “Don’t.” Heat floods your body as Matty slides two fingers into your sopping cunt and crooks them at an angle that has molten pleasure spilling over you. “Listen.” He sucks gently on your swollen clit, the pleasure enough to pull you over the edge, ecstasy coiling deliciously around your insides. You whimper, grinding down against his face as you come, your cunt fluttering around Matty’s tongue.

You sigh contentedly. “Good boy,” you murmur, savouring his shudder. “So good when your mouth’s full of my cunt. Like you so much better when you’re not talking.”

Matty looks up, eyes wide and face soaked with you. “Forgive me?” he asks, wearing the same sheepish grin that had failed to sway you before.

You sigh dramatically, the seeds of an idea taking shape in your mind. “Come here,” you say, a fond smile tugging at your lips. It’s a struggle to keep it from turning cruel as he takes the bait. “Silly boy.” Eagerly, Matty climbs over you, cupping your jaw and pressing his lips to yours, gently at first, turning hungry as you swallow down the taste of yourself. He moans into your mouth, grinding his clothed cock against your sensitive core. “Needy, are you?” you tease, a faint edge of danger lacing your tone. “Want me to get you off?” Glassy-eyed, he nods down at you, sweet and pleading. “Use your words.”

He swallows thickly, blinking hard. “Want you to make me cum,” Matty murmurs, casting his eyes down like he’s ashamed. You raise an eyebrow when his gaze lands back on your face, and he adds a reluctant, “Please.”

Sliding out from under him, you lead him into your bedroom, laughing derisively as he strips out of his jeans and boxers before the door even shuts. “God, you’re pathetic,” you scoff, smirking as his eager expression falters slightly with the realisation you haven’t let him off the hook.

“Mhmm,” Matty agrees, switching tack and plying you with sweet doe eyes.

“Get on the bed,” you order, kneeling in his lap when he obeys. His hands wander to the hem of your dress, brushing over your thighs as he starts to lift it, and you swat him away. “Think you deserve to fuck me after the way you acted today?” You glare down at him, pulling at his hair to tip his head up towards you. After a long moment, his internal war clear on his face, Matty shakes his head mutely. “No. But you’re being good now, so…”

Matty inhales sharply when you wrap your hand around his cock, flushed and sticky with want. You pump him slowly, spreading precum over him, and he trembles with the effort of holding himself still, sweetly pliant under your hand. “Thank you,” he mumbles, swallowing thickly.

You lean down to press your lips against his, swallowing his needy, suppressed moans. “It’s okay, baby. Being so good. Can fuck my hand if you need to.” You’re being cruel, now, knowing how you’re going to leave him, but it’s sickly thrilling having him in your power like this.

Murmured thanks fall from his lips between sweet little whines, his hips bucking into your fist as his cock leaks over your skin. Languidly, you press your tongue into his mouth, trading long, sloppy kisses broken up by Matty’s pleasured moans.

Taking Matty apart under your skilled hands is easy, now; you’re practised in everything he likes. You dig your thumb into his slit, twist your wrist just so, swallow every sweet noise he makes. His body tenses, his groans deepening, turning rhythmic, signalling his orgasm. You let him chase his release up until the very last second, pulling away and smirking meanly down at him.

Confusion clouds across Matty’s face as he looks up at you, reeling from his ruined orgasm as if you’ve slapped him. You let him catch his breath before you take him in your hand again, working over him, pulling him to the edge again. “Do you have anything to say, baby?”

Matty’s mouth falls open, the struggle to pull any meaning from your words plain on his face. “Please?” he tries, face falling when you shake your head, a moan escaping him as you flick your thumb over his slit. “Thank you,” he mumbles thickly. “I love you.”

You cock your head, appraising him. “That’s nice. But not quite. Try to think a little bit harder, yeah? I know that’s tough when I’ve got you all stupid for me, but try,” you croon, tone sympathetic and deriding all at once.

Matty’s face scrunches in concentration. “‘M sorry!” he chokes out, whining when you press a kiss to the head of his cock.

“That’s it,” you breathe, kissing him softly in reward. “Good boy.” Arousal coils in your belly at the sight of him, breaking into a thoughtless mess under your hands. You stroke over his cock a few times more, watching his stomach tense and relax as his orgasm builds. Then you stop, letting him whine desperately into your mouth.

He hasn’t wised to your game, still hopeful through his lust-hazy gaze. “You embarrassed me today,” you chide. “Why?” You dip your head, lapping over the tip of his cock, letting him thrust into your mouth, a spit trail connecting your skin for a brief moment. You kiss the salt of him back into his mouth, devouring his desperate moans as you stroke him. “I asked you a question,” you murmur against his lips.

There’s an answer forming on his tongue, you can see, watching him struggle to swallow it down. You pull away, lifting your hand to lap the taste of him off your fingers, giving an exaggerated moan. Matty whimpers, desperate, hips rocking against nothing as you batter against his defences. A burst of pleasure licks up your spine when you drag your fingers through your still-soaked cunt. Matty’s answering moan as you wrap your wet fingers around his cock is nothing short of pathetic, low and thick with lust. Clicking your tongue disapprovingly, you repeat your question, the ensuing silence thick with the unsaid. You know the answer, but it’s no fun not to pry it out of him. “I was jealous, okay!” he gasps out.

He won’t meet your eyes, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Aw, I know,” you croon sympathetically. Your touches turn tender, coaxing. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t need to be jealous. Don’t want anyone but you. I’m yours, yeah?” you promise, lifting his head to deliver your words into his shadowed eyes.

“Mine,” he echoes faintly, rolling his hips up into your hand and whining. Your thighs clench at his possessive tone; you love being his, being the only one who gets to have him like this. “Gonna cum, fuck, please let me cum, fuck!” The last syllable crumbles into a sob as you pull away, ruining him for the final time. “‘M sorry, ‘M sorry, please let me cum,” he whimpers, so sweetly pathetic that you almost want to let him cum.

Almost. Matty’s chest heaves, struggling for breath and sanity as you climb off him, smoothing your dress down nonchalantly. Pouting down at him, you click your tongue condescendingly. “Poor baby. You don’t get to cum tonight, okay? How are you gonna learn a lesson if I give you what you want now?”

He gasps, chokes, twitching as he fights to stay still. “Please?” he murmurs, so quiet that you aren’t sure whether he’s addressing it to you or subconsciously voicing his need.

Either way, you shake your head at him with a shrug. “Get control of yourself and we can watch a movie, yeah?”

Matty gives a shuddering nod as you turn to leave, squaring your shoulders so you don’t look back at him.

After a few minutes, Matty slopes into the living room, dressed but still looking fucked-out, hair wild and eyes downcast. You rest your head in his lap when he comes to sit beside you, smiling blithely and uncaringly up at him.

“Are you still mad?” he ventures, petting your hair tentatively.

“Depends,” you answer, feeling his body tense at your words “Are you gonna pull that shit again?”

“No,” he replies without hesitation, shuddering at the thought of what you just put him through

“Then no,” you grin, and Matty relaxes under you. “But you still don’t get to cum,” you can’t resist adding.

He pouts down at you, but his eyes are shining with mischief, any lingering tension fully faded now. “Can I make you come again, then?”

Sitting up, you climb into his lap and kiss him for a long, luxurious moment, heat swelling between you as his tongue slides against yours. “Say please.”

#'fuck' count: approx. 35 #matty healy #matty healy x reader #matty healy smut #matty healy imagine #the 1975 #the 1975 fanfic #the 1975 smut #writing #smut #valentine75

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i-am-baechu · 10 months

Text

♬ Summary: Jungkook is proud that Y/N is his girlfriend and he of course lets the world know how much he loves her.

♬ Pairing: Established relationship; Jungkook x reader

♬ Rating: Explicit (18+)

♬Genre: Established relationship, comedy, angst?, fluff, and smutish

♬ Warnings: Smut angst(ish) and fluff (lol)

♬ Part of, ‘ His Fan Girl

♬ Authors note: Time jump like I know the story isn’t here yet but I couldn’t help myself lol

After being with Y/N for a while, Jungkook already knew her reaction to the song. Y/N always got mad (flustered) at him for sharing things with his members about their love life but she also thought it was cute. When Jungkook told her that he was working on his solo album, he lied to her. The lie wasn’t big but he just said he was going to do a love song for her and she couldn’t help but fall for him more. The song had two versions to it, normal (for Y/N) and explicit (for Jungkook); problem solved. The only thing he wasn’t looking forward to was Y/N scolding him.

Y/N sat in the studio watching Jungkook sing away in the booth and she couldn’t help but smile at him. She loved watching him sing because of how passionate he was about it. He opened his eyes and gave her his bunny smile letting her know he was truly happy. He put his headphones on the stand and walked outside. He gave her the hand motion to come here and she tilted her head at him. She placed her laptop on the couch and said her sorrys to the producers who just gave her a smile. She stood under Jungkook and gave him a confused look, “Is everything okay?”

He nodded his head and leaned down, giving her a quick kiss, “I just wanted a kiss from you.”

Her face felt hot and she glanced at the producers who weren’t even paying attention to them, “Yo-You can’t just kiss me in front of them...”

“Why? You don’t want my love?”

She slapped his chest gently and crossed her arms over her chest, “T-That’s not what I meant and you know that.” She looked over his body to look at the stand and a soft smile appeared, “You're doing a good job. Your English has improved, I’m proud of you.”

He kissed her forehead at this and nodded his head, “It was all because of you. You're a great teacher, you know.”

“I-I tried my best...Are you almost done?”

“Almost, can you wait another hour?”

“Of course, I can. I just need to look over the reports from work.”

He nodded his head and rubbed the back of his neck, “I’m sorry you have to wait for me.”

“Eh? It’s okay, Kook. I’m glad I can spend time with you.”

Another reason why he loved Y/N. She was always patient with him and just wanted to be with him regardless of what it was. He also knew she struggled in her life. She had clinical depression and there were days when it was so hard for her to function. It hurt him to see her like that because no matter what he did, she stayed the same. She always felt bad for doing this to him but he understood.

“Baby, are you okay?”

Y/N looked up from there to give him a small smile, “I will be...”

He gave her a small frown and sat on the bed. He grabbed her hand, rubbing her knuckles gently, “Are you having another episode?”

She sighed and nodded her head, “I am...I don’t know why though. I know you wanted to go on a date today but I don’t know...I don’t know if I can. I-I’m sorry.”

“I wish I could take the weight off of your shoulders.”

She gave him a small smile and leaned into his body, “I love you...”

“I love you more.”

Her shy nature made intimate moments between the two even better. Jungkook still couldn’t believe that she was a virgin when they met and that she didn’t really have experience with a boyfriend. It made his heart flutter to know that he was her first and her last. It was an honor that he will carry for the rest of his life. There were moments when she had to push Jungkook out of bed to go to work or even to stop him from having another round. He just couldn’t get enough of her. How could he? She was everything he wanted and more, a blessing even.

“Yo-Your fingertips are cold...”

“Let me warm them up then.” He slid his hand down her stomach to her entrance. He shoved two fingers in and she arched her back off of the bed. He looked down at her red face and couldn’t help his heart beat faster. She looked so cute even though they were doing something sinful.

He brought his head down to her breast and started sucking at her nipple making her moans even louder. He backed away and grabbed the condom off of the bed but she noticed he was different tonight. He looked nervous and she kind of knew why. She gently brought his head into her chest and kissed the side of his head, “Kookie~, It will be okay. I know your solo will be good.”

He pulled away and looked down at her and gave her a soft smile, “I love you.”

“And I love you more.”

He placed the condom on his cock and gave her another smile, “I don’t think you understand...I love you so much.”

He intertwined their fingers together next to her head and thrust into her. She let out a moan and he leaned down letting her moan into his mouth, “Kook~!”

Their tongues swirled each other and he opened his eyes to peek at her. Her face was so red that he could feel the heat off of it and with her eyes closed, it made her look so innocent. He kept thrusting into her as he placed kisses on her neck, “You give me strength...”

Today was release day. Y/N and Jungkook were in New York for him to perform at Good Morning and she was so excited to see it. She was going to be in a special area making sure no one could see her. This was the second thing on her mind, the first thing on her mind was just seeing him perform. They sat in the hotel with her laptop on the bed as she looked at him with a smile, “Are you excited?”

He gave her a nervous smile and laugh, “I’m not sure...”

She leaned forward placing a kiss on the tip of his nose, “I’m excited. You didn’t let me come with you to the filming...I’m still upset about that, you know.”

He rolled his eyes and brought her in to sit on his lap with her laptop in hers. He kissed the side of her head and chuckled, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“You know I don’t like surprises...”

“Too bad.”

She glanced at the time and looked up to see him already looking down, “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I am.”

She pressed play and she watched it as he played with her fingers. She laughed at some parts and rolled her eyes. When the video was over, she turned her body so she could straddle his waist with a goofy smile, “This just shows how clingy you are...”

“Clingy for you only baby.”

The autoplay on youtube went to the next song and she glanced to see what was playing. She turned her whole body and she squinted at the screen, “JUNGKOOK! WHY DOES THIS SAY EXPLICIT!”

He felt sweat forming on his forehead as he let out a small laugh, “I-It’s nothing.”

I'll be fuckin' you right, seven days a week. She glared at the screen with her mouth open and her face blazing. She shut her laptop and let out a groan as she brought her hands to cover her face, “Why did you make that!?”

He pouted at her and wrapped his arms around her waist, “Because I love you, plus the world knows I have a girlfriend. They know I’m talking about you.”

“Th-They don’t know it's me! OH MY GOD, THE GUYS ARE GONNA LISTEN TO THIS AND KNOW!!”

Jungkook let out a laugh and kissed her cheek, “I kiss your waist and ease your mind..”

“NOT NOW JUNGKOOK! SINGING WON’T GET YOU OFF THE HOOK!”

#bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts jungkook #bts namjoon #bts seokjin #bts taehyung #bts jimin #bts yoongi #bts x reader #bts hoseok #bts #jeon jungkook #bts jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader #his fan girl #bts social media au

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sykestarot · 4 months

Text

messages meant to reach you

1-2-3 (left to right)

I DO NOT OWN THESE IMAGES

Hi guys! heres your weekly reading :) ! I hope you enjoy this and it resonates for you, also I found these pics and thought they were so cute lol ! Thanks for stopping by! <3

Pile 1

“does it ever make you sad to know that was 7 summers ago?” (The Lovers; 7 of wands; knight of cups (rx); knight of pentacles (rx); 9 of pentacles ; 6 of swords (rx))

Hi pile 1! Before I even started channeling, my cat was very interested in my tarot set up which usually he isn’t so maybe you have a kitty? Perhaps one that passed that misses you and wants you to know they are always with you. For you guys I feel a sense of heavy grief either in the recent past or the present. I also feel like you’ve been avoiding your own feelings about the whole situation. I feel a sense of disappointment from you that things didn’t work out the way you wanted. I feel like you either broke up with someone due to differences in worldviews or you might have had someone pass recently that you thought you had more time with. First of all if someone did pass recently, I am so sorry and I’m sending you so much love and light. But I do feel like this might've been a sudden thing, without warning, and you just want to continue on with life without processing just how traumatic it was for you. This person wants you to know that they love you so much and that when you're ready to unpack your grief and trauma they will be with you whether you realize it or not. Now if you had a break up recently I see this person really missing you. They dream about you and want you all to themselves again. I feel like they have pride though and won’t approach you again. I also feel like you’re genuinely done with this person though. Like this isn’t the first time you guys have had fights about this stuff and they really pushed you to your limit. This might’ve happened a while ago too and they’re just holding onto it and pulling on your energy. I really do feel like they’re wallowing in regret about how they treated you but like not enough to change. Like they regret it but they feel like they had to which is so fucked up in its own right. But I digress. I do think an energy cleanse would be best for you, however you choose to cleanse your energy and space will do. I also say get rid of any items they gifted/gave to you. I’m proud of you for knowing your worth and letting bygones be bygones. Signs: nice house; highways; red rusty pickup truck; red in general; water; creeks; fireflies; old dock; tall can beers; sentimental views (?)

Pile 2

“i aint even got the miles to trip on you” (2 of pentacles (rx); THe Lovers (rx); 3 of pentacles (rx); Wheel of Fortune (rx); knight of pentacles; 9 of pentacles (rx)) Hi pile 2! So for you guys I actually had to restart your pile a few times it was hard for me to really connect and get a message for you guys but when I did I understood why. The message coming through is from someone you simply don’t want to hear from lol. It’s probably an old partner that’s begged and pleaded to be back in your life multiple times and you just don’t care, which is such a power move. But yea overall this person just throws a pity party for themselves and how they lost a good thing and it sucks to be them I guess. But I wanted to get a message for you from your guides at the very least so heres that! All in all your guides are very happy and proud of you!! You’ve really put in the work pile 2! I see you enjoying financial blessings and i feel like your heart and mind have found peace. Whether your with someone or not I see you ina state of stability that you never thought you’d get to. Maybe things feel a little monotonous for you but I do feel like you enjoy your life and where you’re at right now! I also feel like you guys are experiencing things you never thought you would, like an engagement or getting the promotion/job you always wanted! I keep hearing that you made life your bitch LOL!! I also see you guys paying no mind to wagging tongues and you let people think whatever they want about you because at the end of the day you just don’t care. You not only enjoy your job but you enjoy your hobby’s your house, your car, and so on and so forth. I see though that you guys should work on being proud of yourself because YOU did that! No one else did!! Go treat yourself to something nice and sit back and relax pile 2 you deserve it fr!! Signs: restart button; push to start car; nice handwriting; minecraft; jeans; interior design; iron; birch wood; big healthy plants; big windows; elevators; CAPRICORN

Pile 3

"i'm in too deep and i'm trying to keep up above in my head instead of going under" (Judgment (rx); 6 of swords (rx); 4 of swords; 10 of swords; 2 of pentacles (rx); knight of swords (rx)) Hello Pile 3!! For you guys I see that you’re a really unique person and don’t really care about people's thoughts. I feel for your message though that you might be running in the wrong crowd or with the wrong people. I feel like you choose people based on whether or not they are in the same subgenre as you, or present the way you do. Which is understandable thinking if someone dresses the same they might have the same values but I see that the people in your life don’t. I also see that they just don’t care about you as much as you care about them. I believe that you know this somewhat or you have gut feelings about this, however I think you’re hoping one day they’ll pick you. I do see though that you know that they won’t and that you know you’re not meant to be there. I see that you just want to fit in with a group of people so badly, that you need validation that people like you. But honey, lots of people like you!! They just aren’t presenting the way you are. I see that for lack of better term “conventional” people admire your bold and unique expression of yourself. I see that you have prejudice towards these people and immediately put them in a box they you guys wouldn’t get along. Lemme tell you though as much as you advocate for not judging a book by it’s cover I feel you doing that to others. Maybe this is apart of your shadow that you need to work on. I get quite a youthful energy from you though, maybe you’re in highschool? You don’t have to change everything about your life tomorrow but you can make small steps. The only person who can make active change in your life is you! So get out there and do as much as you can without regrets! I promise you’ll enjoy the things that you didn’t think you would. Plus life is meant for mistakes and learning from them. Don’t let others perception of you ruin your experience on this earth! You got this pile 3, you’re a beautiful soul, let others see it. Signs: 111 ; wizard of oz; cheshire cat; leather; vests; studs; piercings; boots; alt fashion; old sedan; empty parking lots; cigarettes; nose rings; bleached hair

#spotify #pick a card reading #reading tarot #channeled message #channeled song #channeling #divination #law of attraction #pac #pap #spirituality #spiritual #spiritualgrowth #tarotcommunity #tarot reading #tarot #tarot cards #tarot card reading #channeled art

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repulsiveliquidation · 5 months

Text

To Love Someone

Ona Batlle x Reader, Part 2 of The Best of Me, inspired by this request!

currently obsessed with Benson Boone's song To Love Someone lol

word count : 6.1k, enjoy my longest fic yet.

warnings of knifes, blood, kidnapping and SMUT.

Over the next few months, you slowly began to be more comfortable with changing around the girls. You had mentioned off-handedly to Alexia that you were getting more comfortable with changing around Ona and that you wanted to start changing with the girls in the changing room. You figure she must have said something because when you had taken your shorts off in front of them the first time there was little to now acknowledgment from the girls. Ona gave you a big smile when you pulled on your training shorts, the rest of the girls coming up to you to give you pats on the back and squeezes on your shoulder; without saying much, they had shown you their support and that they were proud of you for trusting them. The original five stayed behind, wrapping you up in a group hug as you softly cried. Ona held you face softly with tears in her own eyes, pecking your lips as she mumbled praises only for you to hear.

“I’m so proud of you, bebita. You’re so brave, the girls and I are all so proud of you.”

Alexia pulled you into her arms, hand cradling the back of your sniffling head.

“I told them that you were ready and to not overwhelm you. Was that okay? Did anyone make you uncomfortable? I’ll tell them for you if you want, you don’t need to. I’m sorry if they did.”

You grab her hands and hold them to your chest, you lean in and give her cheek a soft peck.

“You’re a right worrier, Ale. It was perfect, the girls were the best. You’re the best, thank you for looking out for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’re like a little sister to me, nena. I’d do anything for you, I love you.”

“I love you too, Ale,” you turned and faced all the girls; Ona was hugging Aitana and Lucy, Ingrid was wiping away tears as Mapi quietly teased her. Your heart swelled at the sight of them, feeling safe in their presence. You had finally learnt how to put your past in the past and these girls, including Leah, were the only reason you could, the only reason you felt strong enough to even try.

“You girls are the reason I could take that step towards being myself around the team and I cannot thank you enough. Ona, if you hadn’t unintentionally touched me that day, I wouldn’t be here today. There were days before we met where the voices in my head were too loud and quite often took control. When I allowed myself to love you, they eventually stopped. You showed me that I could love and that I could be loved. Ale, you took me in when I didn’t have anyone. You showed me that family doesn’t need to be blood. Lucy, you and Leah showed me that people really can be kind just because and not expect anything in return. Amanda has never let me pay her back for all that she did for me. ‘Just go keep Leah entertained, darling. Lord knows that child can be a right handful,’ she used to say, pushing me out the back door.” You chuckled at the memory, clearly hearing Amanda’s voice like she was right there with you. You turned to Aitana and continued.

“Tana, you showed me that love comes in many forms. I know we aren’t that close but you have stood by me because you’re close to Ona, your silent support has been more impactful than you worry about with Ona. You were there for her when I couldn’t be. Lastly, Mapi and Ingrid. You two have been like parents to me, a shining example of how two people can and should love each other. You’ve helped me try to love Ona the same way. I love you all, more than words could ever say.” You wipe a couple tears away, grinning a little. “Okay, spiel over,” You end with a soft chuckle, just as Mapi is now in tears as she pulls you in for a rough hug. You laugh and rub her back, the rest of the girls now making fun of her.

“Y/N? Could we have a word?” Jonatan asks, standing near the water coolers with Alexia and Lucy. You jog over, letting go of Ona who was hugging you.

“Yeah, Jonatan?” you reach over and grab your bottle, taking large sips. A few weeks after your affectionate confession to the girls you had finally gotten to courage to wear a short-sleeved shirt. You were still weary of being exposed so you compromised with keeping your pants long this time but a short sleeve shirt was something that you can barely remember putting on since you left home all those years ago. The breeze on your arms was something you didn’t even know you missed, not to mention being able to touch Ona with all that newly exposed skin. She snuck into your arms while you were talking to Pina and Patri, her rough palms simply rubbing over your fine-haired arms. She felt the warmth in your skin give her a sense of safety, choosing to close her eyes and listen to you talking to your teammates. When you were called over to Jonatan, you kissed the side of her head and left, jogging over towards them. She watched you carefully, trying to read his lips as he talked quite seriously with you. Alexia standing there with Lucy did nothing to soothe her worries but she trusted them to have your back should something bad happen. Pina and Patri seemed to have the same thought as Ona, they too stopped talking and watched the four of your closely. Pina spoke first, when she saw you shaking your head then nodding.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Oni. She’s okay.”

Ona could only nod, biting her fingernails in worry.

“Yeah, Jonatan?”

“I see that you’ve made use of our new training jersey. It looks great on you,” he compliments, knowing your story after you spoke to all the coaches a week ago.

“Thanks, I like it. What did you want to speak to me about?”

“You know our fixture next week is a friendly in England? Against Arsenal?”

“Yes sir.” “I know it was scheduled for Leigh Sports Village at our request but there’s been a mix up.”

“Okay, so?”

“It’s been changed to Meadow Park.”

You try to keep your calm and nod, feeling like the walls were closing in despite being outside. You take deep breaths and find yourself, Alexia’s arm wrapping around your shoulders. You take a big sip of water, calming down enough to keep them from being more concerned.

“I understand if you don’t want to be a part of the travelling team.”

“No, no. I want to play. I can.”

“Nena, you don’t need to push yourself too fast. You don’t need to go if you’re not comfortable yet.”

“No, Ale. I’ve been running for years. 6 years. No more, I can’t let him keep controlling me this way,” you tell her, convincing yourself at the same time. She looks at you stone-faced, eyebrows indicating that she was buying none of it. She didn’t protest it however, nodding slowly at you before turning back to Jonatan. He smiled softly, calling out to the girls to tell them that training was over for the day. Ona came up behind you and hugged you, you jumped out of your skin when she held you. You managed to brush it off with laughter, scolding her affectionately for scaring you. You lean back into her a little before putting your bottle back into the carrier before taking her hand and pulling her towards the changing rooms. The girls watched and smiled fondly, thinking that you were dragging Ona away for some private time but Alexia knew you better than they did.

Maria saw the cross look on her face as she watched you two disappear out of her sight. She watched Alexia mumble under her breath a little, shoving her bottle into the cooler a little too aggressively.

“Alexia? What’s gotten into you?”

“She’s pushing herself too fast.”

“Who? Y/N?”

“Yes,” she turns, facing Aitana, Maria, Ingrid and Lucy. “She wants to go to England with us for the Arsenal friendly next week.”

“So? The stadium and hotel aren’t close to where she used to live.” Maria says, clearly she didn’t check her email.

“You idiot, didn’t you see the stadium change? It’s at Meadow Park now.” Lucy tells her, running a hand down her face in frustration.

"Oh, Dios mío" Aitana exclaims, hand flying to her mouth in surprise.

“We must keep an eye on her, only God knows what could happen if that asshole finds out she’s coming home.”

“What’s wrong Y/N, you’re scaring me.”

“I just need you to sit,” you tell her, pushing her into an empty treatment room. She sits, pulling you into her arms wordlessly. You breakdown the moment your face tucks into her neck, wrapping your arms around her waist as she comforts you. Her hands rub the back of your neck just how you like, the other circling over your back.

“Shh, shh tell me what’s wrong bebé.”

You sniffle, mumbling into her neck a response. “We’re going to England next week.”

“Yes, I know. Nowhere near your father bebita, we will make sure of that.”

“No, Ona. They changed the stadium venue.”

“To where?”

“Meadow Park.”

She freezes her comforts, her time in London serving her with good memory of where that was. She knew the area relatively well, realizing that it was just under an hour away. The game was a big one, with Barcelona coming to England, it was widely advertised. When the game was scheduled for Manchester, two and a half hours seemed like a decent distance but an hour was not as comforting.

“Mi amor, you don’t have to go.”

“I don’t want to but at the same time I can’t keep letting him win.”

“But I don’t want you to be looking over your shoulder the whole time, cariño.”

She pulls your face out of her neck and wipes away your tears. She kisses the apples of your cheeks and smiles softly, leaning in to kiss you properly. You sigh into the kiss, melting into her arms as they wrap around your shoulders and you pull her closer to stand between her legs. They too wrap around your hips, your hands pulling her closer. She’s pressed flush to your body, before you pull away slowly and press your forehead to hers.

“I can’t keep running away from him. I want him to see who I am, the name I made for myself. The pain I turned into success. The pain that still consumes me sometimes but I am better than he ever said I could be.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, baby,” You sigh and look at her. “Thank you for being here with me.”

She cups your cheeks, you hold her wrists and lean into her palm. You press a soft kiss to it, looking up into her beautiful brown eyes. She looks at you with love you can see, her thumbs rubbing into your cheeks with love you can feel. You close your eyes again, taking in her presence and her soft breaths. It calms you, easing your worries about the thought of meeting your father again.

“Are you ready, amor?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

You’re at the airport, sitting in the departure lounge with the team. Ona was on your left and Alexia on your right. She had been following you the whole day, doing her best impression of a bodyguard. You’ve got Ona’s legs draped over your thigh, softly rubbing her exposed skin as she’s already about to fall asleep. You’re also in a heated debate with Maria, trying to figure out what to do once you’ve gotten to London.

“Maria, we are not going to all get matching tattoos.”

“Why not? I have a brilliant design!”

“That will not go near my skin.”

“Are you saying my design is ugly and that you don’t want my artwork to grace your body?”

“Sí.”

“Why you little–”

“That’s enough, elskling. Plane’s boarding.” Ingrid snaps at her, rolling her eyes as she grabs her bag, leaving Maria to gather her stuff alone.

“We aren’t done, you back stabber.”

“Oh, I’m just shaking in my boots.”

“I’ll just do the chips and a glass of water please.”

“Uh, the same for me.”

As the flight attendant hands you your snacks, Ona takes hers and waits for the flight attendant to walk away. She suddenly pulls your hand into her lap; you look up at her, smiling softly before you see the concerned look she’s got. You see that she’s got a flavor of chips she doesn’t like.

“You want to trade? I know you don’t like those.”

“Huh? Oh, Sí, gracias.”

You use your other hand to swap the chips but she looks distracted, eyebrows furrowed like she’s thinking really hard about if she should speak.

“Darling? You okay?” you ask first, squeezing her hand that you’re holding.

“Are you sure you’re okay to be there tomorrow?”

“Yes, I’ll be okay. I don’t even know if he’s alive, let alone still living there.”

“He is, he’s still there.” Alexia interjects, looking up from her iPad she was furiously typing on in front of you.

“How do you know?”

“Leah told me, I asked,” she answers simply, tone indicating that she was not about to argue with you.

You huff, leaning back into your seat as Ona softly rubs your forearm. Her thumb rubs over the cigar scar there, something that oddly gave you comfort; a gentle reminder of your strength.

“I’m sure she’s got a good explanation, bebé.”

“Yeah…”

Alexia gives Ona an apologetic look, sighing softly to herself as she goes back to typing aggressively.

“Ona, wait.”

Alexia called, hand resting on her shoulder as she caught up to her. You were walking with Lucy and Aitana, telling them about Maria’s idea for matching tattoos. Maria pokes in, pulling out her phone to show her design off and argue her case. Ona merely looks up at Alexia, a look of slight disappointment on her face. Alexia can see it, eyes going soft with embarrassment.

“I called Leah to ask her to check, I promise I’m just looking out for her Oni,” Alexia explains herself, walking with Ona towards the bus. Ona sighs.

“I know, it’s just– I can see that it’s really taking a lot out of her to be here. She’s hasn’t exactly been sleeping well. I found her sitting in the living room watching film two nights ago at 3 in the morning. She had the tv on but she was picking at her scars. The one on her forearm was bleeding because she dug her nails into it and broke the skin.”

“Fuck Oni, I’m sorry. I know it’s still hard for her but she refused to stay home and insisted she was okay.”

“She loves this team too much to be a disappointment. But, I think she needs this to fully have closure. I think it’s what she needs to put this behind her for real.”

Ona steps onto the bus, Alexia following behind her with a soft nod. Ona sees you tucked in the back by yourself, smiling as she walked over to you.

“Is that seat taken?”

“Oh yes, it’s for my beautiful girlfriend. I’m sorry.”

“I see, what is she like?”

“She’s really pretty and she’s the cutest. She lets me have an extra cookie after dinner and loves me for who I am,” you tell her proudly, a soft blush creeping up her cheeks. You hold your hand out to her and pull her into the seat next to you, grinning happily.

“Hello pretty girl.”

“You’re so silly.”

“You’re welcome.”

The ride into London was better than you thought it would be. You and Ona talked about all the places you both knew, you pointing out more places that she didn’t know about and that you promised to take her to one day.

At the hotel you’re a little jumpy, you held onto Ona’s hand a little tighter than usual but she didn’t mind. Alexia made sure that you were roomed with Ona too, Alexia’s room was right next door. You did not sleep again that night, drifting in and out of consciousness the whole time. Ona felt her heart shatter, feeling helpless at not knowing how to help you. You did fall asleep for about twenty minutes, waking up suddenly after you had a nightmare. You yelled, heart racing in your chest. It scares Ona awake too, she pulls you into her arms to soothe you quickly. You’re sobbing into her chest, hands tugging on your shirt she’s wearing.

“Shh, bebé. It’s okay.”

“I don’t think I can do this, Ona.”

“I know bebita, we don’t have to. But, you said that it would be good for you. You need to overcome it cariño, you can’t run forever.” It pained her to say it but she knew that it was what you needed to hear. You nodded into her chest, your sobbing slowly subsiding. She pulled you into her chest more, laying down slowly. You were basically on top of her, her hands softly carding through your hair. She began to silently cry too, her heart breaking yet again as she felt the pain her lover was going through. It killed her to see you scared like this, a feeling she wanted to badly to take away from you.

She knew that love and patience was all she could give you and she was going to do her best to make sure you felt it.

“Y/N!”

“Leah!”

You both ran up to one another for a big hug. You picked her up and spun her, wrapping your arms around her tighter. You’d last seen her at the World Cup (a/n let us all pretend that our beloved captain was there), going through the loss together.

You talked and talked, soon half the Arsenal girls were chatting with the Barça girls before heading in to change and warm up.

“Been a while since I’ve played against you, Lee. You ready to lose?”

She shoves you playfully, chuckling when you lose your balance.

“You wish, L/N. May the best team win.”

“I love you, Leah.” You quietly tell her, pulling her into one last hug. “You’re the reason I’m still here today.”

“You’re basically my sister, I love you too. I’m so glad you didn’t have boots that day.”

The final whistle blew, Barcelona proving to be the better team on the pitch, winning three nil with you scoring two of those goals. Leah looked a little defeated but smiled proudly when you asked for a jersey swap. She happily pulled yours on, you doing the same as you called over a photographer to snap a picture. She pulled you into the tunnel with her, explaining that she had a surprise for you.

“I swear Leah, if you pull some bullshit prank on me like you used to do when we were children I’ll call your mother.”

“Call me for what, dear?”

You turned the corner and there stood Leah’s family. You were shellshocked, stood frozen as you stared at her mother.

“Come give me a hug, you naughty girl; you never call!” Amanda quips as you literally launch yourself into her arms. She laughs and rubs your back soothingly, tears pricking in your eyes as she whispers how much she’s missed you. You pull away and she holds your face in her hands, wiping away your tears. You smile and turn to her grandmother, giving her another big hug. Her father and brother do the same, praising you for your two goals. You fall into easy conversation with them, as if time hadn’t even passed. Ona found you in the tunnel as she was walking back to the changing room, sheepishly standing to the side as she waited for you to finish your conversations. You saw her, smiling widely and holding your hand out for her to take. She shyly does, immediately introducing herself to Leah’s family.

“She’s beautiful, Y/N/N.”

“I know, she’s been so good to me. I don’t know if I could have even come here this week if it weren’t for her and the team.”

“You’re happier than I’ve ever seen you sweetheart, that makes me so happy.”

“All thanks to you, Amanda. I only have you to thank for that.” You pull her in for another hug, smiling softly as you excuse yourself to change and take showers. Amanda invites you over for tea, Leah promising to pick you up from the hotel at 4.

“Bring Ona with you, darling!” Amanda adds, a dark blush creeping up your face as you nod back at her.

Walking back to the changing rooms, Ona pulls you into her arms just before you open the door. Your hands snake around her waist, pulling her closer as you face tucks into her neck. You take a deep breath, the unique scent of Ona fills your senses. It grounds you, makes you feel at home. She kisses your cheek, hands cradling your head softly.

“I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, my love. I’m proud of you too.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, darling.”

You press your lips to hers, feeling her melt into your arms. Your lips move in sync, trapping you both in a bubble of your own. Her hands hold your face as she kisses you, your hands pulling her closer by the waist. She pulls away first, smiling at you.

“We can still cuddle in bed for a bit before Leah picks us up for tea if we leave now. We can shower in the hotel.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Ona certainly couldn’t keep her hands to herself the whole ride back to the hotel as she pulled your hands into her lap and dragged them over her thighs to get you to touch her. You were sat in the back of the bus away from everyone, the girls mostly sitting closer to the front to celebrate the win. You sat back into the seat, pulling Ona between your legs. Your hands snaked down her aching thighs, roughly kneading them in your palms. She whimpered softly, snuggling back into your chest as she closed her eyes and enjoyed your touch. Your fingers ghosted over her core, pressing teasingly around it as she whined softly. You kept your touches light and slow, soon Ona was squirming in your hold just as the bus came to a stop. She huffed, making you laugh as she urged you to hurry and grab your things. She sprinted to the room, leaving you to trail behind her. Maria catches up with you, slinging her arm around your shoulders.

“We’re going to a bar nearby for drinks tonight, hermana. Think you and your girl are up for a little celebration?”

“We’ve got plans, Maria. Tea at Leah’s house.”

“Sí, I understand. Try not to be too loud, okay?” she runs off after Ingrid, their room only a couple doors down from yours.

“María León!”

“Love you too, hermana!”

You shake your head and get to your room, seeing the door left ajar. You can hear the shower running, you check the time and smile. It’s just past 2, you had plenty of time before Leah got here.

Stripped and hair pulled out of its ponytail, you gently pull open the shower door and step in. Ona turns slowly, smiling wide when she sees you. You reach for her and kiss her, getting yourself wet under the hot shower. She moans into the kiss, hands grabbing your face to kiss you even deeper. You pick her up and press her to the wall, knee resting against her core as she grinds herself down gently. You rest your forehead on hers, feeling her warm breath as she whines softly. You kiss her neck hard, her hand pulling at your hair gently. You slowly put her down, hands caressing her soft skin while your lips begin to mark her neck.

“No marks,” she whines “Everyone will see.”

“That’s their problem,” you say, hands turning her around in your arms. Your hands begin to then caress down her sides, sending a shiver up her spine. Long fingers find her pulsating cunt, dragging themselves over her sensitive folds which elicit a long moan from her throat. You grin against her ear, fingers rubbing tight and fast circles over her wet clit. You growl nasty things into her ear, her arms grabbing your wrists as your other hand curls itself around her neck. She’s shuddering, eyes rolling into her head as you begin to push her towards her orgasm. Just as she’s about to release, your hand around her neck tightens and she goes light-headed as she reaches her high. She screams your name loud enough for people in nearby rooms to hear, holding her against your chest as she calmed down from her first orgasm.

Your quick to clean her up, stepping out of the shower with her dried body in your arms. You dump her on the bed, crawling into it to join her. She smiles and bites her lip, kissing back passionately just as your fingers find themselves back between her legs. She opens them up obediently, jaw slacking when your fingers tease her hole. A single digit dips in, teasing her again. She’s relaxed from her first orgasm as your finger slips in easily.

One digit quickly becomes three, pressing up against her g-spot that you know the location of so well. She keens and cries out your name, legs trembling in pleasure as her second orgasm begins to build behind her navel. You pull away just then, causing her head to shoot up and give you a severely annoyed look. You climb off the bed and rummage in your bag, pulling out a strap that you had hidden for emergencies such as these. She can’t even be mad at you for ruining her orgasm anymore, wordlessly scooting herself to kneel at the edge of the bed in your favorite position. You pull the harness on and look up to see her sat where you wanted her, smiling proudly at your incredibly obedient girlfriend.

You drag the tip of your cock over her folds a few times as you stand behind her, making her beg for it before it pushes into her hole slowly. She reaches back and grips your hip, steadying herself on the bed properly before giving you the nod to keep going. You hold her waist and begin to fuck her, hips pounding into her cunt with precision and determination. You push her down onto all fours, grabbing her hips and fucking into her deeper. She cries out for you, begging you to speed up your thrusts.

“Such a needy little whore, you are Ona. Do you have no shame?”

“Fuck, you feel so good…”

You plant your leg on the bed, hands pulling her back onto your cock. Your hips speed up and begin to rapidly pound into her, the moans she elicits tell you you’re hitting all the right places. She can barely speak properly, getting cockdrunk already. You chuckle, pulling her body up to press her back against your chest.

“You’re lucky we’re on the 25th floor, no one outside gets to watch you get fucking wrecked. Did you want that babe? Is that why you were being a cheeky slut on the bus? Did you want the team to watch you get fucked? I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“Fuck please, I’m gonna cum!”

“Yeah, you want to cum on my cock don’t you?”

“Yes, yes please!”

Your hand wraps around her neck tightly again as your other begins to tweak at her nipples. She shrieks, cumming hard and squirting all over the bed. You had remembered to lay a towel under her thankfully, still thrusting into her as you chased your own high. You came just as she was beginning to feel overly sensitive, pulling out of her with a shudder.

“I’m pretty sure the whole floor heard that, baby.”

“Oh no.”

“Tea was lovely, Amanda. Thank you.”

“Of course darling, you’re always welcome.”

You stepped outside for a bit with a steaming cup of tea, leaving Ona and Leah inside as they chatted with Amanda. It made you smile and your heart happy as you saw Ona get along so well with Amanda. She was the only mother figure you had in your life and she was basically family so it was like bringing your date home.

There’s a rustle in the bushes, you brush it off as a squirrel when suddenly your head hurts and there’s a bag thrown over it. You’re being dragged out the back door like deadweight. A pair of arms hauls you over its shoulder and throws you into the back of a car, speeding on off before anyone notices you’re missing.

“Where did Y/N go?”

“Maybe she went to say hi to Cathy, I thought I saw her tending to her roses.”

Ona stands, an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. She suddenly sees the broken glass, rushing out to the patio.

“Y/N!” she yells, checking the garden for any sign of you. Leah rushes out into the road, kicking the door frustratedly when she doesn’t see a car on the road at all.

Ona is sobbing, Amanda holding her as she calls the police. Leah gives her a knowing look which she gives back, thinking exactly the same thing.

“My daughter was just kidnapped. By her own father.”

“You thought you could just run away, stupid girl?”

“From you? Yes.”

“Still haven’t learned to not talk back to me, I see. I guess my old methods need some refreshing.”

“You’re a fucking coward.”

Smack. His hand comes across your face hard. Your eyes well with tears, biting your inner lip to try and stop them from falling. You watch as he cuts a fresh cigar, lighting the end till it’s nice and ember hot. You start to shake a little in fear, the adrenaline fight or flight rush crashing down.

“What did I say about talking back to me, you ungrateful shit?”

“You’re a piece of shit excuse of a father.”

His eyes turn red with anger as the end of the cigar burns a new welt on your chest. You scream and writhe, tears you tried so hard to blink away falling down your cheeks in betrayal. He finally pulls the cigar away, laughing maniacally at the sight of you tied up and at his mercy.

“You ran away and played that stupid football when I told you not to. Disobeying me and disrespecting me, you really just needed to listen to me and we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“You don’t deserve to be respected you pathetic joke of a man.” you panted out, the pain in your chest becoming an aching throb. He chuckled darkly, pulling out the pocket knife you had seen in your dream the day before. It felt like déjà vu, your mind going back to your time with Ona after you had the nightmare and how she held you close and told you that she loved you. You could only hope she was looking for and that she had noticed, and that you didn’t die before she could find you.

“I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight, Ale! I-I left her alone for 10 minutes!”

“It’s okay Ona, we’re going to find her. She’s a strong girl, she’ll be okay, she has to be.”

Ona was still at Leah’s home, having called the five girls who immediately rushed over. Everyone was being interviewed when suddenly the captain on scene got called in for a suspected location. Everyone rushed to the abandoned cabin just 20 minutes from Leah’s house, a witness stating that he had seen a man matching your father’s description in the area a few times before the game today.

At the cabin, the police found a horrifying scene; your father dead on top of you, knife pushed into his heart. You were covered in your own blood more than his, torso and back covered in gashes that were bleeding heavily. An ambulance was rushed to the scene, Ona and the girls having to be held back from running to you before Lucy managed to get an officer to let Ona in as family. She rushed into the ambulance, sobbing loudly as you were barely conscious. She held your hand and caressed your bleeding face, a light gash over your eye (a/n had to add in the badass scar over the eye.)

You managed to squeeze her hand a few times, her head shot up as you were rushed to the hospital.

“I’m here, mi amor. I’m so sorry bebita, I’m sorry.”

“I got him Ona.”

“Yes, I’m so proud of you mi guerrero. He can’t bother you anymore, my brave girl.”

“I love you,” you croak out, crying tears of relief as your nightmares were finally over.

“You rest, I’ll set up the couch for you.”

"Gracias, mi amor".

“Anything for you, Cariño.”

You were lying in bed back in Barcelona, a week after being kidnapped and killing your father. You weren’t being convicted, released based on overwhelming evidence of self-defense. Your injuries weren’t that severe; your chest, torso and back covered in over 75 stitches from all the gashes and burns your father gave you. He got through an hour of ‘punishing you’ when you had managed to untie yourself and fight him. He had severely underestimated your strength, your hours in the Barça gym had paid off as you landed blow after blow on his face and abdomen. It was instinctive, your body finally being able to defend itself from the monster that had a hold on you your entire life. You grabbed the knife and shoved it straight into his heart, watching the life just disappear out of him as he fell forward and onto you. Exhaustion caught up just as the police arrived and found you, relief washing over you like a massive cloud.

“Bebé?”

Ona pulled you out of your thoughts, your head shaking as you focused back on her. She smiled softly, opening her arms. You climbed out of bed, walking gingerly towards her.

“Your lounge is ready.”

You laugh and take her hand, walking towards the couch that had all your favorites set up. Pillows and blankets along with snacks were laid out for you. You saw the medical bag on the table, sighing softly as you knew what she needed to do before you could truly relax. She saw the change in your face, gently pulling you this time to sit on the couch. She gently pulls your shirt off, leaning in and kissing the scar on your shoulder. Your bare chest was littered with bandages, some of them a little soaked through with remnant of blood. Ona carefully redressed each one but today she had questions.

She pulled at the old dressing on your chest.

“What’s this one for?”

You look at her and smile a little.

“Being disrespectful.”

She redresses it and kisses it after she’s done. She moves to open the one just above your heart, the new cigar burn,

“This one?”

“Talking back.”

She redresses it and kisses it like before.

One by one she opens and asks, meticulously redressing and finishing with a kiss. You tell her about each one and it gives you closure, relief that the fight is finally over.

As she tapes down the last one, your hand cradle her face and you lean in to kiss her. You didn’t even know you were crying until she wiped them away, pressing your forehead to her own.

“Thank you, I love you and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I love you too. You will never have to know what it’s like without me. You’ll always know what it’s like to love someone and to be loved.”

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