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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 1 year

Text

Birthright: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.1k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

"It doesn't matter who my father was, it matters who I remember he was." - Anne Sexton

After what you and Spencer were doing in the car right before coming to work is enough to make a whore blush. You parked in the back of the parking garage just so you two could have some steamy alone time. There wasn't enough time to completely fix you two up, but you did your best with what you had. Still, that doesn't seem to be enough.

Everyone is waiting in the briefing room for JJ to come and present the next case, so you have some time to study Spencer's appearance. You two rushed to get redressed, and you can tell he missed a button. You wheel your chair closer to Spencer and nudge his side.

You reach over and quickly button his second button before anyone could comment on it. You also fix his tie to make it look more presentable. Spencer blushes slightly, and you wink at him before wheeling back over to your place. Derek is staring at the two of you, and you look up when you feel his eyes on you.

He smirks at you, and you shake your head playfully. JJ walks in seconds later with an apologetic look on her face.

"Sorry I'm late." She picks up the clicker and begins showing you victims and the crime scene photos. "Last night in Fredericksburg, a twenty-year-old woman, Molly McCarthy, was abducted. She's the third to go missing in the last six weeks. All disappeared from public places. No one's seen them since. A couple days ago, body parts with cigarette burns were recovered from a national park which was once the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville."

"Were they able to make an ID?" Hotch asks.

"Only one. The first victim, taken six weeks ago. Decomposition indicated that she had been dead just over a week."

"That shows that he likes spending time with them. How'd she end up like that?" you wonder.

JJ flips through the different photos of body parts that were taken at the crime scene.

"The M.E. found microscopic tool marks on the bone."

"I remember reading about a case like this in Spotsylvania County. There were similar markings on the bone," Spencer explains. "It was the winter of 1980, also in Fredericksburg. five women, aged sixteen to twenty-four, buried in pieces with the same markings in the same civil war battlefield."

"Were they killed at the same time of year and left at the same dump site?"

"The case is still open. Back then, the victims were drug addicts and runaways."

"If he spends that much time with them, there's a chance these two women could still be alive," Hotch says.

"Wait. We think this could be the same killer? That's a hell of a cooling-off period," Emily states.

"The BTK Killer resurfaced after a twenty-five-year hiatus."

"True, but he didn't kill anyone. He only taunted the police."

"The marks on the bone and where he dumps them is a very specific signature. It's hard to copycat details that were never made public."

"Garcia, check the M.O. against girls missing in other states. It could explain the long absence."

"I'm on it," Penelope says and leaves the briefing room to get started.

"If this is the same unsub, what's he been doing for the past twenty-seven years?" Rossi asks.

"That's what we're going to find out."

You look over at JJ to see her checked out. It takes her five seconds to notice that everyone is packing up. She snaps out of wherever she went and stands up, gathering her folders. She is out the door before you can ask her if everything is okay.

The six hour flight from Quantico to Fredericksburg took shorter than you thought. Maybe it's because of the small nap you took, but once you landed, you were eager to get to the dump site. You might get something off the bodies that were dropped. They were found on the outskirts of a farm, but the farm is so big that the owner didn't even realize the property was a dumping ground.

You, JJ, Spencer, and Hotch are together with this one while the rest of the team headed to the police station to make it your home base for the week. JJ has been silent almost for the entire ride to the farm, and you're not sure why. You want to ask her about it, but you'll wait until you get an opportunity to.

"This killer has an obvious disregard for women. He sees them as disposable and worthless. You know, he'd need a lot of time and privacy to do this to them," Spencer comments. "It's funny how he always dumps the bodies in this battlefield, no matter what the risk."

"It's a respected landmark. He's flaunting. It makes him feel important," Hotch says.

The sheriff of the town is waiting for you when you get out of the car, and JJ heads over to him immediately.

"Sheriff Ballantyne, Jennifer Jareau," she says and shakes his hand.

"I appreciate you all coming down so quickly."

"Aaron hotchner. This is Dr. Spencer Reid and agent Y/N."

"Crime scene is right up here. I figured if this is the same killer as before, I didn't want to waste any time before I got your help."

Ballantyne walks you three to where the bodies were dropped.

"The other agents are meeting John Caulfield, the sheriff from the original case. Do you know him?"

"No, not personally. I just heard stories."

"How do you mean?" Hotch asks.

"Well, you know, by all accounts, he was a decent sheriff and good man. Truth is, we don't get a lot of murders down here, and this case broke him."

"How?"

"He started drinking and his marriage busted up. Finally, they asked him to retire." The dump site is sectioned off by police tape as it's still very fresh. "There were about twenty kids partying a hundred yards that way. Molly McCarthy was taken here. We found a blanket, a sweatshirt, and a pair of shoes over there."

"How does someone not see or hear them?" JJ sighs.

"It was dark. He had the advantage. Molly's boyfriend was the last person to see her. He said she was alone for a minute, maybe less."

"He works fast, but he's patient," you say. "He's perfected his M.O."

"If our unsub is pushing sixty, he's gotta be strong enough to carry her a long way without her struggling."

JJ steps away and pinches the bridge of her nose. She isn't doing too well, and both you and Hotch notice this.

"I've seen a lot of properties on unmarked dirt roads with no visible street signs, and nothing on any maps," Spencer states.

"Yeah. If you don't live around here, it can be hell finding your way around."

"That means he's local. Can you show us the various entrances to this place?"

Sheriff Ballantyne leads the way, holding up the police tape so that your team can pass underneath it. You pass by JJ and stop before you can get too far.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah."

She's lying, but you're not going to call her out on it.

"You know that if you need to talk about anything, my door is always open, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

With that out of the way, you do what you came here to do. There wasn't much to find at the dumping site since it was only body parts, and there was more than one victim out there. The bodies were already picked up, and the elements already messed up the dump site for you. It's shitty to say, but you can't do much without another body to go off of, and just like you knew would happen, another body surfaced.

It was the next day when you heard about the unsub dropping more bodies in the same battlefield as yesterday, and you wasted no time going over there to check it out.

"I got two sets of parents waiting for an ID," Sheriff Ballantyne says when you arrive on scene.

"I can help you with that," JJ offers, walking away to where the parents are waiting.

"He didn't spread them around this time. They were in plain sight. He's taunting us. He's basically saying, 'I'm doing this and there's nothing you can do to stop me'," Spencer says.

"Nobody can get in here without showing their ID at the gate."

"JJ has a copy of that visitors list, but there's a hundred ways in. These fences back up to personal properties. He could have gotten in a dozen different ways."

"He knows these grounds as well as anyone. He could have jumped the fence, disposed of his victims, and walked right back out," Hotch backs you up.

You pause and look around when you get the feeling that you're not alone. You don't sense any spirits or see any energies, but you get the feeling like you're not alone.

"Are you okay? What do you see?" Hotch asks you.

"I don't see anything. I just have a feeling in the back of my mind. Like there are other victims, but they're not here. Like they're calling out for help. I don't know," you shrug.

"Let's head back," Hotch announces, and you turn to leave the area.

You look back once more before getting inside the car. The local police work on IDing the bodies while you head back to the station to discuss what the next steps are with the rest of the team. Emily's side of the team was talking with the original sheriff that was on the case all those years ago.

"I've got a list of violations in this county that precede the 1980 murders. A DUI, petty thefts, rape, and assault. A few of these are repeat offenders," Emily states once everyone has gathered.

"Garcia's got something."

Derek places Penelope on speakerphone so everyone can hear her.

"Don't worry, it's not contagious," she jokes. "So, I have dug across the whole country looking for this guy's MO. I found a sum total of zilch. So, I went closer to home. I found a complaint filed by Karen Foley in the next county over. The story is awful. I sent a copy to all your hand-helds. The PG version is that she was kidnapped in 1979, but then she escaped."

"I never heard that story," John Caulfield, the original sheriff on the case, sighs.

"It wasn't your jurisdiction," Rossi says to him. "What if she was his first? He figured out who and where to hunt and learned what worked and what didn't."

"Maybe careful planning has always been a part of his process."

"Where is she now?" you ask.

"Baby girl, work your magic and find us an address."

"I'm on it."

Just moments later, Penelope got Karen's address. You and Derek share one look that says you will be going with him. Hotch approves of this, so you two grab your things before leaving the station together. Derek drove the fifteen miles it took to get to Karen's house. Before you can walk up her driveway, you could feel how closed off she wants to be. You can feel how scared she is with the recent news of these young girls getting kidnapped and dying.

You walk up to her door and knock, and she opens it barely enough for you to see her face.

"Ms. Foley? I'm Y/N and this is Derek Morgan. We're from the FBI. Do you have a minute?"

"FBI?"

Both you and Derek flash your badges to Karen, but that doesn't ease her mind.

"We're investigating the murders of 2 women and the abduction of a third in Fredericksburg. Have you read about it?"

"Yes. It's awful."

"Ma'am, we think it may be related to what happened to you in 1979. Your abduction."

At your words, she completely closes herself off. She does not want to relive her experience, and she certainly doesn't want to talk about it with you two.

"I'm sorry, you're mistaken. I made it up."

"We've read your report, Karen. You were drugged, burned, beaten, and sexually assaulted. You were held against your will," you tried to tell her, but she cut you off.

"I was seventeen. I had to have some kind of excuse for where I'd been."

"Where had you been?"

"Around. I was using back then."

"You called home, ma'am. Some offenders force their victims to contact families to explain their whereabouts," Derek explains.

"There was no offender."

"A lot of the details in your report are consistent with what happened to those women in 1980."

"You calling me a liar?" Karen says, glaring at Derek.

"Karen, I know a few things about protecting yourself from memories. You don't want to keep hurting, and I completely understand that. I was you, okay? Right now, you are the only person alive who can help us. No one else has to suffer. You survived this. We're here when you want to talk."

"I'm not a lead. I'm sorry. I hope you find whoever's doing this."

Karen shuts the door in your face, and you sigh sadly. She is hurting, and she doesn't want to remember, but you have to get her to remember in order to help you. You take out your business card and slide it in her door, turning to Derek.

He shakes his head, but you know you'll be seeing her again soon.

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moonlit-raven-haven · 3 years

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The Past III

Where the reader and Harry no longer speak.

This is unedited!

Word Count: 3.6k

Warning: angst, drinking, some language, mentions of blood

A/N: Here’s part three! Sorry it took so long to update! My personal life has been quite hectic and draining and I couldn’t find the energy to write again up until a few days ago. I hope you guys enjoy it! Information regarding tag lists at the end.

Y/N is discharged in the morning just like she had told Harry the previous day. Not having a ride home, she decides to dial Gemma who picks up after only a few rings.

“Hey Gem, think you could pick me up and bring me some clothes please? Mark is at work right now.” Y/N asks and explains as she flips through the random TV channels on the small flat-screen television in her hospital room.

“Hey Y/N, I actually can’t right now…” She trails off, almost as if trying to come up with an excuse not to pick her up, but she doesn’t. “I’m sure Harry can pick you up.” She adds in to her trailing sentence. Y/N stays quiet on the other end of the line. She’s going to see Harry tonight anyways, but would she be able to spend a whole day with him without it being painfully awkward?

“It’s okay...I’ll ask Anne.” Y/N replies as she huffs slightly, going through all of the television channels for the second time, but nonetheless she starts the process all over again.

“Mum is busy with grocery shopping and whatnot.” Gemma says with an urgency to her voice, and Y/N finally concludes that Gemma, or Anne and Gemma want her to spend more time with Harry. Y/N pinches the bridge of her nose slightly before sighing.

“I’ll ring Harry.” She finally gives up, knowing it was no use trying to tell Gemma that she could see past her lies. Y/N ponders on taking the bus, but she knows she’ll get weird and concerned looks, having only the clothes from the previous night and dried blood on her hair.

“Alright, I’ll see you soon!” Gemma exclaims into the phone, the smile evident in her voice as she hangs up, leaving Y/N to hear the ringing of the dead line. She pulls her phone away from her ear and takes a deep breath as she scrolls through her contacts, finally stumbling upon Harry’s name. She hadn’t deleted the number, and she knew it was the same, receiving a text from Gemma with his number attached. Y/N clicks on his contact, an old picture of the two showing up in a small circle next to the call button. The picture is one that Anne had taken at Christmas before they stopped speaking. Y/N was curled up into Harry’s side, the Santa hat she had been wearing slowly beginning to fall off her head as Harry had an arm wrapped around her sleeping form. He was looking down at her, a soft smile on his face as his own Santa hat lit up with small Christmas lights. Y/N smiles at the picture, reminiscing back at how simple things once were.

After a few minutes of hearing the television but listening to her own thoughts, she decides to tap the green button on her screen that has been taunting her for several minutes. Y/N hears the line ring, her heart beating faster with each lengthy tone, and after only the third ring she hears a click on the other end of the phone.

“Hey Y/N.” Harry greets through the phone, his comforting voice making Y/N’s once fast beating heart slow down enough for her to feel calm once again. He knew it was her, he must have saved her number after all these years, but the thought makes her heart sting; why hadn’t he tried to reach her?

“I...Um...I was wondering if you could pick me up from the hospital?” Y/N questions through the small device in her hand as she fiddles with the rough material of the thin blanket that the hospital provided her with.

“Yeah sure...I’ll be there in 30.” Harry says, and Y/N can hear the jingling of his keys and the opening and closing of the door.

“Thank you...and be careful please...the roads are still pretty dangerous to drive on.” She mumbles, shivering slightly at the memory from the previous day.

“O’course...I’m always careful. See you soon.” Y/N hears the muffled sound of the car engine over the phone before hearing a soft click, only hearing the television quietly playing in the background. Over the next 20 minutes Y/N is discharged by the doctor and disconnected from the various monitors. She gathers her belongings, grimacing as she puts on her clothes from the previous day, some of it covered in dry blood still. She grabs her phone off the small hospital table and exits the fluorescent room, thanking the staff on her way out before waiting for Harry in front of the hospital. The floor is wet from the storm the previous day and the current light drizzle of water. She wraps her coat around her tightly, shivering slightly as a gust of wind passes by her.

“I should’ve waited inside.” Y/N thinks to herself as the cold wind bites at her skin, but she’s being courteous for Harry’s sake, or maybe she’s doing it for herself. What she knows is that a mob of fans wouldn’t be pleasant for either of them. So she waits for him outside, hoping that they could drive off as soon as he arrives at the hospital so they could leave.

Y/N is staring up at the gray clouds before she hears a soft calling of her name. She looks up, noticing the window of Harry’s black Range Rover is rolled down. He’s wearing a black hoodie with colorful letters that she can’t make out due to his distance, and some big sunglasses that make her let out a little laugh at their size. She gives him an awkward smile before walking towards the big car and getting in the passenger's seat, immediately engulfed by the warmth of the car and Harry’s scent. Y/N settles into the leather seat as she closes the door and secures the seat belt around her body as Harry begins to drive away from the hospital parking lot.

“Would you like me to drive you home?” Harry questions, his eyes focused on the slick road in front of him.

“No no…” Y/N quickly starts off. “We could go back to your place...we were meeting for dinner anyways.” She finishes her statement as Harry just hums in response. It’s silent between the two despite the words that need to be said; the words that would probably fix everything between them. The rain gently hits the windows as the heater hums in sync with the sound of the engine. The road is smooth beneath the tires as Harry drives through a series of small winding streets.

“Can I turn the radio on?” Harry is the first to speak, and now it’s Y/N’s turn to hum in response. His hand travels over to the radio, turning it on before browsing through different radio stations, but he can’t settle on anything and shuts the radio off once again, his hand settling back on the steering wheel. The car ride is filled with an almost unbearable silence, each raindrop sounding heavier than the last against the car, but finally, just as Y/N is thinking that jumping out of the car isn’t a horrible idea, they reach a small and gated house. Harry pulls up next to a small metal box, rolling down his window and quickly punching in a few numbers before rolling it up once again. The raindrops rolling off the leather interior, the sleeve of his hoodie now a darker shade of black.

The metal gates open up and Harry applies light pressure on the gas pedal of his car, causing it to move forward onto the long cement driveway, all the way to the end which connects to a house, his house. Harry presses a small clicker on the roof of his car, opening up the large garage connected to the house as he pulls into it and closes the garage door once again before turning the car off.

“Let’s get you inside so you could get showered and changed before dinner.” Harry says softly as he gets out of the car, not looking at Y/N once. He knows that it’s still early, early enough to barely eat lunch, but he figures he could try to avoid the dreaded, but much needed conversation for a few more hours. Plus, he doubts that she wants to be in the same clothes from the day of the accident, much less have her hair matted and tangled with dried blood.

“Oh yeah...thanks Harry.” Y/N says as she climbs out of the car, and takes a look at the garage. It’s like any other person’s garage, but emptier due to his constant moving around and barely being home. She gently closes the black car door and walks around to where Harry is standing, inserting a key to a door in the garage. He twists the key and handle, opening the door before pulling the key out. He walks in, holding the door open for Y/N as he motions for her to walk in. She complies and enters the house that’s lit up by the outdoor light. The place is a lot simpler than she had expected, since his career took off she expected him to change just like every other superstar, being taken by the fame and money, but he was not. He remained Harry Edward Styles, her friend of many years and who she always thought would be her first love.

His house is decorated in modern and minimalist furniture, but somehow still feels like a home. Y/N can’t tell if it’s Harry’s scent or small random things laying around that make it feel like home. Picture frames of his family and friends, a random jacket here, some shoes over there, and a few random cups scattered throughout the living room and kitchen. While she looks around, she believes that Harry has moved on from their friendship, and maybe even whatever nonexistent relationship there was between them. There wasn’t a picture of her in sight, or any clue of her ever being part of his life, but what was she hoping for? For him to dwell on her for five years? That would be selfish of her, but maybe for now she wanted to be selfish.

Harry watches Y/N intently as she looks around, noticing slight changes in her expressions, from a half smile to a small frown. Was she regretting her choice of coming with him? Would she turn around right now and ask for him to drive her home? He suddenly thinks that this is a horrible idea, and that maybe things should’ve just been left as is, but he still tries and hopes that she doesn’t want to run away like he has been wanting to do.

“Bathroom is over here.” His voice sounds a bit shaky, almost as if he is nervous. He begins walking through the house, reaching a short hallway with only two doors and some cabinets at the end. He opens the door to their left, revealing a bathroom, and then continues to take a few steps forward, opening the door to their right, revealing his room.

“There’s a bathroom in m’ room if you would like to use that one. You could change in my bedroom afterward if you would like, I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner so you don’t have to worry about me barging in...I mean not that I would barge in...just in case you were worried ‘bout that...not that you sh-” But before Harry can ramble on any further, Y/N cuts him off, a small laugh escaping her lips at his nervous behavior.

“I’ll use your bathroom, you go ahead and make dinner.” She says with a smile adorning her face, oh how much Harry missed that smile. He simply nods and exits the room, opening and closing the cabinets in the hallway before returning with a towel and handing it to Y/N.

“Thanks Harry.” She says softly as she begins walking to the bathroom door in the corner of his room.

“O’course. I’ll leave some clothes on my bed and then I’ll leave and close the door.” Harry explains to her as he walks over to his dresser and begins to open drawers. Y/N hums in appreciation as she walks through the bathroom door and shuts it behind her. She opens the sliding glass door, letting out a small sigh of relief when she sees the water knobs are the same as the ones in her own flat, thankful she wouldn’t have to ask Harry for help. Y/N turns the water on to her desired temperature and begins to strip off her clothing before getting into the shower, sliding the glass doors shut. As she showers, she can hear the muffled opening and closing of drawers outside in the room before she hears the shutting of what she assumes is the bedroom door.

Harry exits his bedroom, closing the door behind him as he makes his way to the kitchen. As he pulls out the necessary ingredients for spaghetti and garlic bread, his mind (once again), begins to occupy itself with unnecessary thoughts, because never in a million years did he think they would be having dinner together after five years of silence. Harry was aware of how she tried to contact him, and he saw all the missed calls and texts from her, but he was too hurt to ever pick up the phone or to even see her. Now he feels guilty, realizing that he probably caused her pain that she still hasn’t healed from. Had she moved on quickly? Did she see other people before meeting Mark? Or was Mark the person that finally allowed her to begin to move on? Harry shakes his head slightly, now beginning to serve the plates of food and pulling out a bottle of wine. Those thoughts shouldn’t make him feel jealousy, after all, he had tried to move on fast, sleeping and dating people over the past five years, and he was almost one-hundred percent sure that she saw every headline regarding his relationships, whether they were rumors or whether they were confirmed. And while Harry can’t be sure, he can only assume that it hurt to see the headlines, because when he heard of Mark’s existence in Y/N’s life, the pain he felt in his chest was too much to ignore.

Harry is closing the bottle of wine and sitting down when he hears light footsteps in front of him, and as he looks up he sees Y/N, her cheeks are slightly flushed and there is a sheepish smile on her face as she sits down across from him.

“It smells good…” She says softly as she pics up her fork and begins to eat. She’s wearing his hoodie, boxers, sweats, and even his socks, which makes her feel quite flustered, it feels too domestic, like if they are dating, and the thought makes her heart pick up slightly in speed.

What they both thought would be an awkward dinner was actually pleasant, their conversation flowed naturally, almost as if nothing between them had occurred, and as if they haven't spoken in five years. Once their plates are clean of food and their glasses are empty of wine, they clean up the kitchen and head to the living room, sitting down on opposite ends of Harry’s couch, their glasses of wine full again. Their conversation flows smoothly once again, eventually falling into a silence that was almost unbearable.

“Have you listened to any of my music?” Harry questions, as he sets down his wine glass on the coffee table. The question probably sounds narcissistic, but he needs to know, because there are songs that were written for her, messages that he hopes she received. Y/N sets down her glass of wine and tilts her head back before looking over at Harry.

“I only listened to your first album...I couldn’t really bring myself to listen to your second album.” She explains rather timidly, afraid that he would take offense to the statement, but he nods his head in understanding and gets up from the couch.

“We’ll start from the beginning then, so you could get the full experience.” He says jokingly as he walks over to his vinyls and record player. Harry pulls out his first album and sets it up before sitting back on the couch, this time a little closer to her. They fall into casual conversation again, but Y/N doesn’t really listen to the music, too invested in listening to Harry, that is until he puts a finger to his lips, his infamous rose ring glinting in the sunlight.

“One of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written.” Harry says softly as he looks at Y/N. She chuckles softly as “Woman” begins to play in the background. Y/N smiles at the opening line, Harry has always been one for romance, and she couldn’t help but wonder who he had asked to watch romantic comedies with on Netflix, and then the song begins.

I’m selfish, I know

But I don’t ever want to see you with him

Y/N then wonders who this man was, this man that made him selfish and want to keep someone to himself, and who is the person that he loves so much that he wrote a song about not wanting to see them with anyone else? But then these questions are answered when Harry begins to speak.

“Y’know...when mum told me ‘bout you and Mark, I wished desperately that it was me you were with instead of him. And I wanted to go find you, and say that I fucked up, that I’m an arrogant son of a bitch who can’t admit when he’s sorry, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bear the thought of him opening the door, and while I’m selfish for wishing that I was in his place, I also can’t ruin your happiness again…” Harry trails off and sighs, he turns away from Y/N and tilts his head back until it’s resting on the couch and he’s staring up at the ceiling.

Y/N looks at him blankly as he stares up at the ceiling. She had expected a conversation of apologies, then maybe a few words of “glad we’ve moved on,” and then things to be how they once were, but she wasn’t expecting a love confession. And as much as she wants to say that she understands, and that she forgives him, she can’t do that.

“Harry...you can’t do this to me. You can’t waltz back into my life and expect me to drop everything for you. You’re the one that left, I tried to make things right between us. I have a life of my own now, I’ve moved on from our past…” Y/N’s voice is assertive, refusing to let Harry come back into her life unannounced after everything that had occurred between them. But as assertive as she sounds, and as serious as she is about her words, she knows that her last statement isn’t true, and he knows that it isn’t true as well.

“You’re right, I left, and I know that you called...that you tried to reach me, and I blocked you out...I shouldn’t have. But I was afraid that I had ruined our friendship that night I tried to kiss you...now I reckon that I did more damage when I left unannounced.” Harry finally faces her, and while his words are directed at the girl in front of him, he knows these words are also his thoughts. When she doesn’t respond, he is fearful once again, maybe he should have left things alone. Y/N lets out a shaky breath and closes her eyes, not wanting to look at him in fear of breaking down.

“Look Harry, it’s in the past, and I want to forgive you, but I can’t...at least not right now. I spent so long getting over you, trying to forget our friendship and that spark that we once had…” She trails off and opens her eyes once again, staring directly at Harry. “But I need time, and I need space…” Her last words are quiet as she gets up from her spot on Harry’s couch and grabs her few belongings. “I would like to go home please.” Is all Y/N can muster past her lips as she walks over to the door, the very little energy she once had now leaves her body. Harry doesn’t protest, knowing that he has caused damage to the woman he loved, once again.

The drive back to her flat is silent, the hum of his car and the cars around him driving through the rain being the only sounds they can hear. And while the drive to her flat is short, it feels long and tense, making Y/N eager to get to the comfort of her own home and away from the current situation. Finally, the car is parked in front of her flat, and Y/N gives Harry a weak smile once she is out of his car.

“See ya around, thanks for lunch...maybe we can catch dinner another time.” She says as she closes his car door, and Harry’s heart flutters; he hadn’t fucked things up even more than before.

“I would like that.” Harry is quick with his response as he gives her a toothy grin before giving her a slight wave and driving off. Maybe things will be okay in time.

_._._._

A/N: There are two tag lists for Harry content! One for ALL future Harry Styles fics, and one for JUST this fic. Comment “All Harry fics” or “Just this Harry fic” if you would like to be added.

_._._._

All HS fanfic

@rachkon @tpwkhoney @girlboss99 @hilarydenise813 @eternalharry @tpwkxkiwis @wholesomestyles @indieslytherin @harryspirate @harrehiluvyeh

Just this fanfic

@darcysbxtch @makncheese1928 @urdadbtch

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calwrites · 4 years

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The Illusion (part 2)

Summary: Reader’s secrets are revealed during the worst funeral ever. Five returns with some not so great news.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Umbrella Academy!Reader

Warnings: Umbrella Academy spoilers I guess?

Word Count: 7k

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

Earlier that morning

“So what’s with the early meeting, Hotch? I thought we had the weekend off.” Derek dropped into a seat in the briefing room. The only person still missing was Y/N.

“A high profile case came up. The director wants us to look into it. As discreetly as possible.” Hotch pressed a button on the clicker and a picture of Reginald Hargreeves came onto the screen.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Y/N?” Spencer asked.

“And aren’t the news reports saying he died of natural causes?” Emily added.

“Y/N is taking a few days off, so she won’t be coming with us. I’ll give her an update on the case when we get there, so she is aware of it,” Hotch answered, his face stoic. “The coroner says Hargreeves died of heart failure. The director wants us to go in and determine whether there’s anything pointing towards foul play that the local PD missed. Considering who Hargreeves and his children are, there’s bound to be some conspiracy theorists who say he was murdered.”

“Wouldn’t the presence of the FBI just make them think that the government killed him and we’re there to cover it up?” Emily asked.

“The idea is that if both the FBI and his children say that he died of natural causes, the conspiracy theorists will have to believe it. If the government killed him, his children wouldn’t let that go. If someone else killed him, we find out who. We treat this like it’s any other case.”

“Are his children suspects?” Derek asked carefully. Hotch levelled his gaze at him.

“They grew up as vigilantes working outside the law. At least one of them still does that. They all have reasons to be upset with their father. We can’t rule them out.”

“I can’t believe I’m finally meeting the Umbrella Academy and I have to investigate them for murder,” Derek muttered as he flipped through the file.

“I can’t believe Y/N isn’t going to be there,” Spencer sighed. Immediately, everyone’s eyes were either rolling or staring at him.

“Maybe you should just ask her out already,” JJ suggested in a tone that made it clear she had made the suggestion before.

“You take her on enough dates,” Derek teased. Spencer’s face grew red, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he sped through the files.

The varying levels of knowledge about each member of The Umbrella Academy was strange. On the one hand was Allison, who was now famous enough that everyone knew everything about her life, and Vanya, who had revealed everything about her childhood in her tell-all book. On the other hand was The Illusion, who had left the team when she was 17. Nothing was known about her, not even her name. Even the other three didn’t have a lot about them in the files. One never left The Umbrella Academy. One was a vigilante. One was in and out of rehab pretty regularly.

Based on what they did know about Hargreeves’s adopted children, it could be difficult getting anything from them if they were hiding anything. Based on their childhood, it would be doubtful that they would turn one of their own over to outsiders, even if one of them did kill their father. It was more likely that they would sort it out amongst themselves after pushing the outsiders away. That would make the BAU’s job difficult.

“Wheels’ up in 30.”

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

“Nice house,” Emily commented as she, Derek, and Spencer got out of the car. They had been sent to talk to Hargreeves’s kids, while the rest of the team set up at the local PD. The three FBI agents walked up the steps and knocked on the door. They waited for a minute, but there was no answer, so Derek knocked again, harder this time.

The door flew open. “Can I help you?”

Spencer blinked in surprise. Standing before them was Allison Hargreeves. Spencer was normally pretty lost when it came to celebrities, but Y/N had taken him to a few of her movies over the years. Even though he knew that he would probably meet her during the case, it was strange to see her in person.

“FBI, ma’am,” Derek said, showing her his badge. Emily and Spencer followed suit. Allison’s eyes widened and it looked, Spencer thought, like she was worried about something. “We’re here to investigate your father’s death.”

“My father died of natural causes. That’s what the coroner told us.” Voices floated through the door. It sounded like some people in the house were having a very loud conversation.

“That’s what the coroner told us too. We’re just here to make sure local PD didn’t miss anything that could set the conspiracy theorists off. Stop them before they can really start,” Emily explained.

“Do you have to do it now?” Allison asked. “We were in the middle of trying to plan a memorial for our father.”

“We realize that this is a difficult time for your family. However, we really need to take a look around before the scene is any more contaminated than it already is,” Derek said. The voices coming from inside the house were growing louder.

“You think one of us did it, don’t you?” Spencer hadn’t noticed the woman standing behind Allison. Vanya, the normal one. She didn’t sound surprised or angry, like Spencer had expected. She just looked weary. Allison too didn’t look shocked by the news that they were suspects. It was like someone already told her.

“I think it would be better if you came back tomorrow,” Allison said firmly. “This has all been a shock to us. We just want to spread our father’s ashes and then get back to our lives.”

“We’d like to look around now. We won’t disturb you until you tell us that you’re ready to talk to us, but we really need to look at the scene now. We have a warrant.” Emily held up the warrant. Allison and Vanya looked at it with distaste, but didn’t say anything. They were trying to figure out a way to get them to leave.

The voices suddenly became screams coming from inside the house. Probably cause. Derek and Emily immediately had their guns drawn and were making their way towards the noise. Spencer followed slightly behind them. They reached what appeared to be the main living room. Two men were screaming, clutching their heads. On the ground, her back to the FBI agents, was a familiar figure. Spencer couldn’t see her face, but it looked so much like Y/N. The hair. The posture. But it couldn’t be her.

Allison made her way in front of the agents. She shook her head slightly, like she was a mom about to have to deal with misbehaving kids. “I heard a rumor that you stopped.”

Immediately, the two men collapsed on the floor. A third man was at the woman’s side quickly, keeping her from falling completely onto the floor. He handed her a drink, which she drank quickly.

“Remind me not to mess with Y/N again,” one man said. Y/N? It couldn’t actually be Y/N. It was just a coincidence.

“I guess I got a little carried away.” That was definitely Y/N’s voice. And the laugh that followed was Y/N’s laugh. Spencer looked in shock at Derek and Emily. Their eyes were wide as the two men started to laugh with Y/N.

“Y/N?” Spencer asked before he could stop himself.

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

You stared in shock at Spencer. Emily and Derek were next to him. It didn’t make any sense, though. There was no reason for them to be here. From the looks on their faces it didn’t look like they were expecting to see you either. Which meant, you realized, that they were here to investigate your father’s death.

“You can’t be serious, Luther.” Evidently Diego came to the same conclusion. “I mean, you got detectives here? Or PIs? You’re really that sure that one of us killed Dad.”

“Diego,” Luther responded harshly. “I didn’t hire any PIs. I don’t know who these people are.” Diego’s eyes widened. He and Luther both stood up quickly. Klaus helped you up. Your legs were still a bit shaky, but you tried not to let it show.

“FBI,” Derek said. The three of them showed their badges. Spencer was still staring at you. Emily and Derek were trying to focus on your brothers, but their eyes kept glancing at you every few seconds.

“Oh, maybe you know my sister-”

“Klaus,” Luther and Diego both interjected quickly.

“-my sister Allison,” Klaus corrected himself. “She’s very famous. Do you know of her?”

“Don’t worry, Klaus,” you said. “They’re on the BAU. Agents Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss and Dr. Spencer Reid. My coworkers.” You looked awkwardly between the two groups. “And these are my siblings. It looks like you’ve met Vanya and Allison. This is Luther, Diego, and Klaus.”

It was very awkward watching your friends meet your siblings. These were two groups that were never supposed to meet. Derek quickly explained that they were going to look around the house and then talk to each of you individually. It seemed like their presence made your siblings remember why you all were mad at each other in the first place. Once Derek was done talkings, you all started to go off in your own way.

“Y/L/N,” Derek called, stopping you. You sighed and grabbed a bottle of some kind of fancy alcohol from the bar before going over to your friends. You ignored the looks when you took a drink directly from the bottle. You knew what they were going to try.

“We couldn’t say anything while the rest of your siblings were here, but we obviously know that you didn’t do anything, so-”

“Morgan, stop,” you said. You were suddenly so tired. What you wanted more than anything was to just be alone. You couldn’t deal with whatever angle the BAU was trying to play. “Yes, I was with you guys working a case when he died, but I could have helped plan it. I could be helping to cover it up. I could very easily be an accessory. Not that there’s anything to be an accessory to, but whatever. I know that the team has a job to do, but I don’t want to know what it is and I don’t want you playing games with me. I’m not here as a member of the BAU, but don’t try to establish a connection with me like I’m some random victim. I just want to get through this memorial and then get back to my life. So whenever you want to talk to me about why I hated my father and what I think about my siblings, I’ll be in the courtyard.”

Without a second glance, you walked away, grabbing a second bottle on your way out. This was certainly not how you expected the day to go. You sank to the ground once you reached the gazebo, taking another couple sips from a bottle. It was hard enough dealing with all of your siblings, but now you had to deal with the fact that your team was investigating your family.

Music started playing. Coming from Luther’s room, no doubt. He had done something to his record player when you were children so it played so loudly that you could hear it throughout the house. It drove you crazy when you were young, but now it made a small smile tug at your lips as you shook your head.

It was such a familiar occurrence when you were younger. An argument would break out during training or lessons. You all would go off on your own to cool down. Someone would start playing music or watching TV or playing a game. Normally the noise would cause someone to get even more mad. More often than not it was you yelling at Luther to turn down the music. It was one of the few things you and Diego always agreed on. There was something nice about it now though. Something familiar.

Another drink and you were on your feet, swaying slightly to the music. Before you knew it, you were dancing around the gazebo. It didn’t matter that your siblings were somewhere and might think that you were crazy if they saw you. It didn’t matter that your coworkers could walk out at any minute and would definitely think that you were crazy.

CRACK

Thunder started booming around you as a strange blue light grew. A temporal anomaly, if you had to guess. Maybe a black hole. You backed up quickly as the doors behind you opened and your siblings came rushing out.

“What is it?”

“Don’t get too close!”

You huddled together. Then, Klaus came running out and chucked a fire extinguisher into it.

“Well what’s that going to do?” you asked, pulling him away from the light. Some part of your brain registered your friends come running out too.

“I don’t know,” Klaus responded. “Do you have a better idea?”

You all watched in disbelief as a figure seemed to start emerging from the blue thing. An old man, but you didn’t recognize him. Before your eyes, his face began looking younger and younger until-

“Five?” you whispered in disbelief as the small figure dropped to the ground. As suddenly as it started, the thunder and blue light stopped.

“Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me?” Klaus asked as you all moved closer to what appeared to be your missing brother.

Your brother’s explanations made more sense to you than they did to the rest of your siblings. From a young age, your father had decided that you were the smart one, so you knew all about his theories about time travel. You had tried to figure out yourself what had happened to Five after he disappeared, but you had never quite been able to fully wrap your head around the nuances of time travel.

What made slightly less sense was how nonchalant Five was. Sure, he was 58 now, but he was also your brother who hadn’t seen you in years. Yet, he acted like he couldn’t care less that he was back with his family now. It made you think that there was something Five wasn’t telling you all. Part of you was tempted to press Five about it, but it wouldn’t do any good. Even as a child, Five had been stubborn. All of that time in the future would only have made him more so.

“Well,” Luther said as Five left the kitchen, “that was interesting.” Interesting was certainly one way to describe it.

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

“Y/N, why didn’t you tell us about your family?”

You regretted getting ready for the memorial so quickly. After changing into a different outfit because the one you had been wearing got dirty during the little fight earlier, you had gone to sit in the living room. That’s where Hotch had found you.

Apparently Derek had called him after they found out you were one of the Hargreeves siblings. Now you were sitting across from him in the living room. Spencer, Emily, and Derek were also perched around. You weren’t sure if they were all there because they felt like they needed to be close, or if they were just all curious.

“I didn’t think it mattered, Hotch.”

“You didn’t think it mattered?”

“If I had known that the team was going to investigate my father’s death, I would have told you before I left. It’s never affected a case before. I never thought it would.”

“You see anything wrong with using a false background to get into the FBI?” Hotch pushed.

“Everything from college onward is true. I use a fake last name and a fake childhood. I don’t think that really changes anything. I’ve still been a member of the BAU for years.”

“You realize that it looks bad that you didn’t tell us.”

“Hotch, I really thought that there would never be a need for anyone to know.”

“You didn’t think that we should know that you have powers?”

You sighed and rubbed your head tiredly before taking another few gulps from the bottle still clutched in your hand.

“Maybe you should take it easy on the booze,” Emily suggested cautiously.

“My father just died. I have to deal with my crazy siblings. And now I’m being questioned by my friends. I think I more than deserve this.” You didn’t drink much normally, even when the team went out together. Some part of your father’s “You must always be prepared for danger” teachings had stuck with you, despite your best efforts to forget them, so you knew it was alarming for your friends to see you drinking so much. It was only with your siblings that you allowed yourself to let go. That way if your father somehow appeared to lecture you, he would have to focus on all of your siblings rather than just you.

“I never told you guys about my power because it doesn’t affect how I do my work. Today was the first time I’ve used my powers in years. Besides when Klaus visits and I talk to Ben.”

“Ben?” Spencer asked. “Isn’t he dead?”

“Doesn’t matter.” You waved your hand to emphasize moving past it. Spencer’s brow stayed furrowed. “I’ve never used my power on a suspect. I know that you guys were talking about how reading someone’s mind would be helpful when interrogating a suspect, but I’ve never done that. I do my job just like the rest of you.”

You stared into Hotch’s eyes, forcing yourself not to break eye contact. You knew what he was wondering. What they were all wondering. It was another reason you never told them about your powers. It was bad enough growing up with your siblings always wondering. You didn’t want to have to deal with your coworkers not trusting you too.

“I’ve never read your mind either,” you said quietly. You glanced at Derek and Emily before your eyes landed on Spencer. “Any of you. I’d never do that. I wouldn’t invade your privacy like that.”

“We’ll need to speak more about this back at Quantico. I’m sure they’ll want to do an investigation about this. But let’s move on.”

“Your brother Diego said that your brother Luther thinks one of your siblings killed your father,” Derek said. You rolled your eyes. “You don’t agree?”

“No, I don’t. The coroner’s report says heart failure. It looks legit.”

“You’ve seen the coroner’s report?” Emily asked.

“Diego stole it from the coroner’s office,” you told her. “He does stuff like that sometimes. The point is, I looked over the scene. No forced entry. No sign of a struggle. Luther thinks that someone killed Dad because he doesn’t want to admit that Dad died because that would mean that he has to move on. If someone killed Dad, then there’s a new mission for The Umbrella Academy, so he can hold on for a little bit longer. The rest of us, except for Vanya kind of, have moved on. We have real lives. I bet none of us, except for Luther, even remember the last time we talked to our father.”

“It doesn’t sound like you think too highly of Luther,” Derek prodded.

You thought about it for a few seconds. There was no way that your friends could really understand what it was like for you all growing up like you had. “Luther is Number One. Dad never let him forget it, so Luther never let us forget it. Even now, when the rest of us have left the team and moved on, Luther still feels the need to act like Number One. I think it’s annoying. I always have. At first, maybe it was because I was jealous because I was ranked so low. Now, it’s because I just want him to grow up, get a life, and stop trying to control ours. We all deserve to be happy. I just wish Luther would realize that before it’s too late.”

“Is it normal for your siblings to speak for each other like you speak for them?”

“Dad valued us more as a unit than as individuals. When we were young we all spoke for each other because we really didn’t know that we were different people. As we got older and began to develop our own personalities, they all stopped. Growing up, I always spoke for my siblings because I knew how they felt. I spent as much time in their heads as I did in my own. I know how they think. I knew how they were feeling about everything. I haven’t read their minds in years, but I know what they thought. I can still guess what they’re thinking now.”

“Did your siblings ever resent your father for making you train on each other?” Hotch asked.

You scoffed. The memories flashed in your head. The hand to hand combat. The agility courses. The survival training. The foreign languages. Everything. You were a master of martial arts by the time you were 6. You were fluent in 5 languages by the age of 4. You had a handful of PhDs by the time you were 13.

“Of course. We were children being forced to fight against each other and with each other. We would have much rather been going to school and playing sports or doing anything normal kids do. He stole our childhoods, which is why we all left. He wouldn’t take our adulthoods too.”

“Y/N?” Allison stood in the doorway. “It’s time.”

“Except for today.” You stood slowly. You met your friends’ eyes one more time. “He’s taking today.”

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

Of course it was raining. You all filed out into the courtyard. Klaus had managed to find a clear umbrella somewhere. Very Klaus. Luther and Diego had both forgone umbrellas for some reason. You could sense your friends standing at a window, watching you all. You tried to reign your consciousness in, but it seemed like confining it to just your mind was too claustrophobic suddenly. It was like you had remembered what it had felt like to use your powers and now they wanted more room to stretch.

You would box it all back up in the back of your mind later. Reginald would have loved it though. Even from the grave he was influencing your life.

“Did something happen?” You felt a stab of worry at your mother’s question. It didn’t take a mindreader to know that Diego was lying when he said that she just needed to recharge. Leaving your mother here with just your father and Pogo had always made you feel guilty. As far as you knew, her whole purpose was to take care of you and your siblings. What would your father do if he no longer saw a use for her? And now that your father was gone, what would she do? She and Pogo were now without a purpose, as far as you knew. If she needed maintenance, who would fix her?

Those were questions for later though.

You watched as Luther poured your father’s ashes out. They landed in a pile on the ground. You nodded slightly as you stared at them. Even in death, your father was being difficult. No doubt he wanted your siblings to have to clean it up and do it again, but right this time.

“Probably would have been better with some wind,” Luther noted. You all stood around for a second, unsure of what to do next.

“Does anyone wish to speak?” You avoided eye contact with everyone else. You had nothing kind to say about your father, but you wouldn’t make a fuss now. Pogo sighed before he started to speak. It was strange listening to what Pogo said. Somehow, despite everything that Pogo had seen, he remained loyal to your father. You could feel Diego reaching the end of his string. “He leaves behind a complicated legacy-”

“He was a monster.” Diego said simply. Beside you, Klaus laughed. “He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him.”

“Diego!” Allison interrupted.

“My name is Number Two.” That made Allison snap her mouth shut. She couldn’t argue that, to your father, you all were just numbers, ranked by how useful you were to him. “Look, you wanna pay your respects? Go ahead. But at least be honest about the kind of man that he was.”

“You should stop talking now.” Diego glared at Luther, who returned the look. Of course one fight wasn’t enough for them. There had to be another. You and Allison met eyes, silently agreeing to stay out of it.

“He had to ship you a million miles away.”

“Diego, stop talking.”

“That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you.” Luther batted away the finger that was pushing into his chest before swinging at Diego. Allison rolled her eyes. Vanya guided your mother away from the two. Klaus tried to shield you and Five, but you both pushed him off. Pogo sighed and walked off as the blows increased in power. The door behind you opened. Probably your teammates coming out to make sure no one got killed.

“Hit him! Hit him!” Klaus cheered. He grabbed your hand and squeezed. You laughed and joined in his calls. “Five bucks on Luther.”

You considered the offer. As quick and strong as Diego was, he was no match for the new monkey Luther. “Ten bucks Diego pulls a knife pretty soon.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Five muttered. You almost followed him inside, wondering what he was talking about, but you weren’t going to miss the end of this fight.

Diego managed to dodge out of Luther’s way, causing Luther to knock over the statue of Ben that your father had made after his death.

“And there goes Ben’s statue,” Allison sighed, turning to go back inside.

“Good thing Ben’s not here to see that,” Klaus muttered to you. You frowned slightly, a little upset that Ben wasn’t there.

“Diego, no,” Vanya yelled when Diego pulled a knife out. You cheered as Klaus groaned. The knife sliced the edge of Luther’s sleeve. Nothing serious. Even now, Diego wouldn't want to actually injure Luther. The yelling behind you reminded you that your teammates were still there.

“You never know when to quit, do you?” Vanya asked Diego as she followed Luther inside.

“Got enough material for your sequel yet?” was Diego’s response.

“He was my father too.”

Diego looked at you as you sat on the bench next to Klaus. “She doesn’t understand.”

“I know,” you replied. You watched as he gently took your mother’s arm and led her back inside. Hopefully she would sit, recharge, and be good as new tomorrow.

Klaus stood and walked over the pile of ashes still sitting on the ground. You couldn’t hear what he said, but you saw him stick his cigarette into the pile before walking away. He threw an arm around your shoulders as you both turned to go inside.

Your teammates were still standing by the door, shock on their faces. “I hope you understand why I didn’t want to talk about all of this,” you said as you passed them.

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

The kitchen had always been your favorite room in the house. It was one place where your father never bothered to go. Naturally, it’s where you and Klaus sat to decompress from this awful day. Five rummaged through the shelves, muttering to himself occasionally.

Without Diego and Luther, you were able to exist together without the threat of an explosion. Even when Allison came in, the four of you managed to keep a civil conversation going. Granted, it was about the lack of coffee in the house. You had to agree with Five. It was a crime that your father banned coffee from the house. You basically lived on it since joining the BAU.

You would have gone with Five to get some coffee, but he had teleported out of the kitchen before you could say anything.

“All right. Guess I’ll see you guys in, what, ten years? When Pogo dies?” Diego said as he walked through the kitchen, a bag over his shoulder.

“Not if you die first,” Allison retorted.

“Yeah, love you too, sis,” he replied. “Good luck on your next film. Hope it turns out better than your marriage, huh?” Allison’s jaw clenched as she watched Diego leave, Klaus trailing behind him.

“I’m going with Diego. Want to come?” Klaus asked as he ran through the kitchen again.

You shook your head before letting it collapse onto the table. Alone in the kitchen, you yelled in frustration. Your perfectly falsified past was now ruined. When you returned to work, you would probably have a trial of some sort to determine how much trouble you were in. Worst of all, your friends might not trust you anymore. They would be worried constantly that you’re reading their minds. They had gone back to the local PD after the fight in the courtyard, so you hadn’t had to deal with them yet. By now, you were sure Penelope had already pulled everything about The Illusion and was in the process of putting your past together.

The ringing of the doorbell pulled you out of your self pity. You weren’t sure where anyone else still in the house was, so you decided to answer the door yourself.

“Reid,” you said in surprise as you pulled open the door. Spencer stood in front of you, alone. That was maybe a good sign. If they were going to arrest anyone, they wouldn't send Reid by himself.

“Hotch wanted me to tell you that we’re going to the DC. Jet leaves in 30 minutes if you want to come back with us.”

“God, yes,” you groaned. “I just need to grab my stuff. You can come in, if you want. Diego’s gone and I don’t know where Luther is, so there shouldn’t be any more fights.” Spencer stepped in slowly. His eyes were wide as they took everything in. It was probably different getting to see the house now that he wasn’t working. “You can stay here or come up with me.”

Spencer hesitated, obviously torn about what to do.

“There’s some really cool artwork upstairs. I bet you can’t name it all,” you offered, smiling slightly. To your great relief, Spencer smiled back and followed you up the stairs. “I put my stuff in my old room. I wasn’t sure how long I would be here for, but it seems like we’re all leaving.”

Spencer slowed as you reached the paintings. It took you a second to realize why. You mom was sitting in her chair, wires coming out of her to connect her to the chair. “What-” he started to ask.

“She’s recharging,” you told him gently. Taking his hand, you led him past. “Bye, Mom,” you said softly. She didn’t respond.

“Your mom’s a robot,” Spencer said as you turned down the hallway toward your bedroom.

“Reginald made her to take care of us. Technically, I don’t know who my real mom is.” You opened the door to your bedroom. You watched Spencer take everything.

“I didn’t realize other kids were so interested in time travel growing up,” Spencer commented as he quickly read everything. An entire wall in your room was covered in everything you and your father had come with regarding time travel.

“I wanted to find out what happened to Five,” you told him. “It seems like I was surprisingly close, if I understand his explanation correctly.”

“Why,” Spencer hesitated, looking at you for confirmation to continue. You nodded. “Why doesn’t he have a name?”

“He disappeared before Mom named us.” Spencer’s shocked look almost made you laugh. Instead, you smiled sadly at your childhood room. “We were just numbers for a long time growing up. So really, Y/N is a fake name too. Just like Y/L/N.”

“Don’t say that,” Spencer said. He took your hands in his own, making you face him. “You are Y/N Y/L/N. Your childhood is just a little different than we thought. Based on what I saw today, I don’t really blame you.”

You laughed joylessly. “I hope everyone else is as understanding. I think I might have really screwed this all up.” Looking into Spencer’s eyes, you knew you weren’t just talking about your job.

“They’ll all come around. It might just take some time to get used to the fact that you’re a superhero.”

“I was a superhero. And not by choice,” you reminded him. You squeezed Spencer’s hands tightly. “I meant what I said earlier. I never read your mind. I’m not sure I’d be able to keep up with your thoughts anyway.”

Spencer smiled slightly. “I think everyone knows that you wouldn’t do that. We just have to get used to it. They all know that.”

“It’s really important to me that you know that.” You looked into Spencer’s eyes, trying to tell him what you couldn’t say the words for. You could basically see his brain moving at a million miles a minute.

“Y/N?” Allison was at the door. Spencer dropped your hands quickly and picked up your bag. Your sister looked between the two of you for a second. “Did Klaus leave? I was going to suggest getting some dinner.”

“Klaus left with Diego. He might be back soon. I doubt Diego lets him stick around for long. My team is headed back to DC, so I’m heading to the airport to meet them.”

Allison’s face fell slightly. You crossed the room to pull her into a hug. “You seriously have to come to DC sometime. I have a guest room. Whenever it’s not being used by Klaus or Diego, you can use it. If you see Five, tell him that he’s free to crash there too. I don’t know what his plans are, but I don’t think anyone will let him rent or buy any property. He is thirteen again.”

“I guess it’s just me and Luther,” Allison sighed. Your face automatically twisted into a grimace, causing Allison to blush and Spencer to look confused.

“Don’t get into any mischief,” you told her. “I’ll see you soon, hopefully.”

You led Spencer back through the house, reading to leave and go back to your normal life.

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

For the third time that morning, you contemplated taking Hotch up on the offer to take a couple more days off. They had already scheduled your trial for next week. Until then, you were stuck on desk duty. Hotch had suggested you take a few days off, but you had insisted on coming back immediately.

Yesterday already seemed like a bad dream. There was no way that half of your team had seen your childhood home the day before. No way that less than 12 hours ago you and Spencer had been standing in your childhood bedroom.

But then you would catch someone’s eyes on you and you were forced to accept that your secret was out. It seemed to have spread like wildfire through the whole FBI. There were people you never saw on this floor walking by multiple times, eyes on you the entire time. You’d think FBI agents could be more subtle.

The worst was how weird your teammates acted around you. Emily managed to act the most normal, probably because she could kind of relate thanks to her background with Interpol. But Derek could barely look at you, JJ kept starting to say something before stopping herself, and even Rossi seemed unsure about whether or not to give you any more pearls of Italian wisdom. Spencer’s eyes had been on you almost all morning. It was almost a relief when the rest of the team went into the briefing room, no doubt to go over your father’s death again. You had been told that there would be severe consequences if you even looked in the direction of anything pertaining to that case.

You heard a familiar sound, one that you had thought you would never hear again until yesterday. “This is a lot more boring than I thought the FBI would be.”

You turned to see Five leaning against a desk. “You need to get some new clothes,” you told him, eyeing the Umbrella Academy uniform he was still wearing. He rolled his eyes. “Did you talk to Allison?”

“Allison? No. I waited around your room at the house for a few hours, then Pogo told me that you left. I got some weird looks on the highway, but I made pretty good time.”

“Still haven’t managed long distance teleportation?”

“I just made it back here. The last thing I want is to end up on another continent or in a different year.”

“That’s fair. Well, I told Allison to tell you that my guest room is free if you need a place to stay while you figure everything out.”

“Actually, I need you to come back to the house with me.”

You looked at Five incredulously, waiting for him to tell you he was joking. His face was serious though. “You’re joking.” He shook his head. “Why would I do that?”

Five sighed. He moved closer to you and lowered his voice so no one would be able to overhear. “There’s something big going on. I’ve decided that you’re the only one I can trust.”

“Why me?”

“Beause you’ll listen. You’ll believe me.” There was a look in Five’s eyes that frightened you a little. You saw it sometimes in very determined unsub’s. You saw it sometimes in the mirror.

“Okay. But I get to bandage your arm while you do. I don’t want you dripping any more blood onto my desk.” Five nodded, so you pulled out a small first aid kit you kept in a drawer and began to clean the wound.

“When I jumped forward and got stuck in the future,” Five started, “do you know what I found?” You shook your head, your eyes flicking up to meet his while you worked. “Nothing.” You looked up sharply, your brows pulling together in confusion. “Aboslutely nothing. As far as I could tell, I was the last person alive. I never figured out what killed the human race, but I did find something else. The date it happens. The world ends in eight days, and I have no idea how to stop it.”

You breathed out sharply, your head spinning with the implication of what Five just told you. Your head moved to the briefing room as the door opened and Hotch stepped out. “Y/N? Everything all right?” He eyed Five’s arm, which still had some old blood on it. Your brother pulled his sleeve down quickly.

“Everything’s fine,” you lied. “I think I will take those extra days off, though. I’m going to go back with my brother.” Hotch nodded and went back into the briefing room. Everyone turned to look at you, so you waved slightly.

“There’s some coffee in the break room. It’s not the best, but it’s better than nothing and I think we’re going to need a lot of coffee,” you told Five.

“You’re coming with me?” You nodded. “And you didn’t tell them about what I saw.”

“Do you want me to?”

“They would just think I’m crazy.”

“Probably.”

“But you don’t?” You considered it for a second. It would be much easier to just brush off Five’s warning as the ramblings of a crazy person, but you knew your brother. You shook your head. “Did you look already?”

“I don’t need to see your memories to know you’re telling the truth,” you told him. “Let’s go.” You packed up your stuff and began to head out when you turned back around for another look at your friends. If this was the end of the world, then…

You forced yourself to stop thinking like that as you caught Spencer’s eyes through the glass. You gave him a small smile, but you couldn’t stop the tears that welled up as you took your last look at him.

“Y/N, wait.” You paused by the elevators as Spencer came rushing out. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’ll go start the car,” Five said, slipping into the elevator and leaving you with Spencer.

“Nothing’s wrong,” you said thickly, tears still threatening to spill out. “I’m just really going to miss you guys. Especially you, Spencer.”

“Miss us? You’re not leaving forever. It’s just a few days, right? This isn’t goodbye.” Spencer’s face was concerned as he studied you. He glanced back at the rest of the team, probably wondering if he should warn them that you were acting strange.

“It’s just a few days,” you agreed. Eight days to be exact. “It’s just, between my family stuff and the trial, I’m just not sure what’s going to happen.”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Spencer insisted. He grabbed your arm gently, like he was trying to hold you there.

“But just in case it’s not, there’s something you need to know.” You took a deep breath before taking Spencer’s face in your hands. “I love you, Spencer Reid. I love going to all of your niche activities. I love listening to you talk about subjects that interest you. I love how kind you are. I love you.”

A tear slipped out of your eyes as Spencer looked at you in shock.

“I have to go now,” you said hoarsely. “I just needed you to know that.”

You pressed the button for the elevator, but before the doors could open, Spencer took your face in his hands and pressed his lips to yours. You kissed Spencer until you heard the elevator ding behind you. You pulled away sadly, aware that there was a good chance that would be your first and last kiss with Spencer. The smile on Spencer’s face broke your heart. He couldn’t know that it was a goodbye kiss.

“I love you too,” he breathed as you stepped into the elevator. You let the tears fall freely as the doors closed between you two.

At least, no matter what happened with the apocalypse, you knew that Spencer Reid loved you back.

#spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fic #criminal minds fic #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #umbrella academy #ua #calwrites

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feistypaants-archived · 4 years

Text

Between The Pipes [Chapter 21]

Rating: M Words: 1946 Pairing: Kristanna Summary: When a new owner takes over the Arendelle Ice Breakers, Kristoff isn’t sure about his future with the team. That is, until a PR nightmare throws the newest member of the media team, who also just so happens to be the daughter of the new owner, right into his arms. Kristoff and Anna can’t even stand the interviews they have to do together… how on earth are they going to fix this mess? Hockey!AU.

[Chapter Index]

Where To Read: [AO3]

Notes: This chapter is smut, mostly. There are some feelings at the end, though :^)

Also didn’t really read over this bc I’m sick of looking @ it lmao !! Sorry for any mistakes.

Enjoy!

Anna never said she had self control. So when Kristoff asked if she wanted to take one or both cars back to his house, she pretty immediately suggested they drive together in his truck.

She waited patiently while he showered and gathered up his gear before emerging from the locker room, hair still damp and cheeks flushed, and she waited patiently while he gathered up his things and spoke with Mattias about the next game. But her patience was wearing thin as he fumbled for his keys in his duffel as she bounced on her toes, absolutely ready to be in the truck.

“And men say women have bags too large,” Anna snickered as she pulled a hair tie off of her wrist and spun it between her fingers for a moment. “Why would you put your keys in there?”

“You wanna drive?” He mumbled, placing his bag on top of the hood as he dug deeper, frustration clearly etching into his features. He didn’t notice Anna pull the band between her teeth before gathering her hair up into a large messy bun on top of her head.

“No,” she hummed, tying it off, and dropping her hands back behind her, clasping them together as innocently as she could.

“Then stop — a-ha! found them!” He pulled them out of the back triumphantly, a grin wide on his face. But he paused for a second, tilting his head slightly to the side. “You put your hair up.”

Scrunching her lips to the side, Anna averted her gaze for just a moment. “I did.”

“Looks nice.” Then he shrugged and unlocked the truck, smiling as Anna scrambled into it while he threw his equipment into the bed.

She took a quick moment to undo the top few buttons of her blouse, pinch at her lips before running her tongue over them, hoping to make her mouth look more plush, and then sat up straight as Kristoff opened his door and climbed in, narrowing his eyes at her suspiciously. “... You’re up to something, aren’t you?”

Anna pulled her bottom lip up between her teeth and smiled, rolling her eyes. “Of course not.” But then she leaned across the seats, sliding her fingers through his hair and kissed him, deep and slow, tongue teasing him as he reached out to touch her. His hands were eager, one resting on her neck as the other reached to touch at the swell of her breast, newly exposed by her lowered neckline, and Anna sighed with content as he let out a small moan when she pulled away.

Her mouth found his throat, pressing two hot kisses against it before she dropped her hand to his thigh, fingertips brushing against his hardening cock. Anna lifted up slightly, her lips feather light against his as she whispered “Just drive.”

The height of his truck gave her confidence, knowing that it was unlikely anyone would see them. She leaned back as Kristoff started the truck, smirking at the sight of his shorts tenting in his lap. She turned herself to a more comfortable position in the truck, leaned forward, and started rubbing him through the fabric.

A happy sigh escaped her lips as she pulled the waistband over him, revealing exactly what she had been looking for. “God, I’m so lucky you have this,” she laughed, tongue darting out over her lips before she reached out to stroke him once, slowly, agonizingly slowly. “Best dick I’ve ever sucked.”

“Jesus Christ, Anna…” his voice was tense and she glanced up to see his jaw working and his knuckles white from his grip on the steering wheel. “Please.”

Well, since he said please…

Her soft tongue teased him, a small circle around the tip as she savored the taste of him. Then a bigger one, a long lick up the entire length of him, and then she lowered herself slowly, her lips circling the girth of him as she took as much of him as she could. A string of curses were whispered above her head, as his right hand dug fingers into her scalp.

Anna wanted this to last, wanted to make sure he was practically begging for release by the time they got to his house, and wanted him to be more satisfied than ever. So she took her time, teasing, bobbing slowly, lifting her mouth off of him and giving gentle strokes with her fingers. The drive to his house wasn’t long, but the grip of his hand in her hair tightening told her he was sick of her teasing.

“We — we’re…” his speech was broken as she sucked him, sliding up and down the length of him with ease. “A...almost there, Anna…”

Perfect.

She sped up her ministrations, hollowing her cheeks as she slid up to his head, teasing with her tongue at the slit of him, running the flat side of it back down his length as she worked her way downwards.

“Fuck, Jesus…”

That was a good sign, and she sound of him pulling off the road, pressing a clicker to open what sounded like gates, before stopping the car and squeezing his fingers tightly against his skull was even better.

“We’re here... I’m—”

He groaned when she nodded, sucking hard and faster, one hand embracing the bit of him she couldn’t reach with her lips as her other cupped his sac, playing gently with his sensitive skin. And then his fingers were drumming hard against the steering wheel, his hips thrusting slightly up into her mouth, and he tried so hard to give her the option of not taking his release on her tongue, but Anna stayed where she was, encouraging as ever.

And he came, his hot cum spilling over her tongue, Anna swallowing it with as much enthusiasm as she had during everything. She sucked him through his orgasm, cleaning off any remainder of mess left on his skin. And when she rose back up, wiping off the tiny bit of him she felt on the corner of her lips, Kristoff reached across the truck, practically pulling her into his lap as he kissed her, hard and wild, breathless as ever.

“What was that for?” He was panting, breathless and flushed as he pulled back and let his eyes dance across her face.

Anna smiled, running a palm down his now scratchy cheek. “It was… an appetizer.”

He groaned and laughed, his head dropping back against the headrest behind him. “Well… then you’ll have to be dessert.”

—

“So,” Anna hummed, leaning over the table and reaching for his hand. “You’re talented, funny, hot, kind, great with kids, fucking amazing at sex, and you can cook?” She rolled her eyes and propped her chin in her hand. “What can’t you do?”

Kristoff’s cheeks flushed but he laughed her off, letting go of her hand as he moved to clear off the table. “Ah, don’t think too highly of me, seriously.”

She leaned back in her chair with a grin. “Why not? You’re the whole package. What a shame you’re not willing to settle down.”

The way his back tensed told her she had said the wrong thing and she stood quickly. “No, I, um.” Anna fumbled to grab the rest of the dishes and came up beside him at the sink. “I didn’t mean… I just… you really are an ideal guy, Kris.” And she would give anything for him to settle down with her... “But I… I’m not saying —“

He sighed and reached over to grab the glasses from her hands. “I know…”

Anna bit at her lip before wrapping her arms around his bicep and rubbing a gentle hand against his shirt. “Do… you want to watch something?” She grinned up at him and shrugged. “Or … not watch something.”

His laughter eased her worries, and he touched gently at her hand on his arm. “Anna… are you sure you’re still…” he paused, turned to face her, and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’re still okay with this, right? This arrangement? Because if you’re not —“

“I am!” Her cheeks darkened as she answered far too quickly. “I am. Are you?”

“Yes.”

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, sliding her lips over his. “Good,” she mumbled, giggling when his arms circled around her waist and lifted her up onto the counter, settling her knees on either side of his hips.

His mouth trailed across her skin, settling for far too little time behind her ear before he found her throat, kissing and sucking at the fragile skin there. Anna could feel the mark he was leaving, knew he was being too rough on her, but didn’t care in the slightest as his hands trailed down her waist, her hips, her thighs, sneaking up under the hem of her skirt. When his fingers reached her center, brushing lightly over her damp panties, Anna sighed.

Kristoff only smirked as he got down on his knees. He kissed his way up her thighs, now bruising intentionally as she swung her legs over his shoulders, using his body as leverage to push her bottom off the countertop when he moved to pull her panties down. “Should we… go to the bedroom?”

He shook his head, nipping the skin right beside her core. “I prefer to eat in the kitchen.”

Then he dove in, feasting on her as if he had been starving.

Anna saw stars for the first time in her life.

—

They sat together on his couch, Anna curled up against his side as he ran his thumb gently up and down her shoulder. After bringing her to her climax twice with his mouth, all she had wanted to do was relax and rest for a little while. Kristoff had smiled and said of course, wiping at the remnants of her on his chin, before kissing her softly and carrying her to the other room.

An hour was spent watching whatever he happened to flip to, as they both wound down from their busy day. But it was getting late, and Anna really didn’t feel like driving home, and she let herself dare to wonder if…

“It’s getting late,” she hummed, turning her head on his shoulder to look up at his face. “So…”

He smiled, nodding. “You want me to drive you home or back to the rink to get your car?”

Oh.

She tried to ignore the ache in her chest. He had never stayed at her apartment, and she shouldn’t have been surprised at this response, but she still lost her breath for just a moment. Anna had almost thought that he was inviting her to his home for a reason. But she had to remind herself that… it really wasn’t real, then.

She had said she was still all right with this arrangement. And she was…

Mostly.

“Oh. I guess…” she sat up, letting go of him, and moved to stand. “I guess I need my car. So…”

“Yeah,” he stood as well, heading to the doorway to grab his shoes. “No problem.”

“I just need to pee, first.” He nodded and went to the kitchen to start on some dishes as she headed back to the bathroom. She wasn’t going to cry about this. She definitely wasn’t.

And when she braced her hands on the bathroom sink and stared at herself in the mirror, willing the tiny shine of tears in her eyes to go away, she almost made it happen.

She knew what she signed up for, and she knew that she could handle it.

But one moment of weakness was okay, right?

#btpfic #feistypantswrites

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shootwinterfest · 5 years

Text

Happy Hunting

Shoot Secret Santa Gift by @lizburnz!

The navigation system chimes, “You have reached your destination,” and Shaw mashes on the brakes, simultaneously as she cuts the wheel.

The car screeches to a halt, slanted in a parallel spot, ridden halfway up the curb in front of some apartment buildings and a few startled pedestrians. She slams the gear into park and bolts before the tire smoke even has a chance to settle. Anything else vehicular related is irrelevant now, as she leaves the door hanging wide open and the engine still running.

Root needs her- needs her help. With what? Specifically, Shaw doesn't know, but the short text with more exclamation points than words seemed pretty damn urgent. And since Root's phone has been going straight to voice mail ever since, she believes the threat to be serious, something that requires a second gun and Shaw's most preferred method of intervention. Shooting.

But the neighborhood is quiet. Well, not that it shouldn't be, this early on a Saturday morning, but when Root's involved in anything there's usually some degree of chaos. Oddly, nothing seems to be out of place. No smoke means no fire, no screaming means no gunshots have recently gone off. The only person running like their life depended on it, is Shaw, who's starting to wonder if she's even at the right place.

But it is the right place. 314 Avenue C. And Shaw knows this because it says so. Right there on the door. Behind Root.

The woman who cried wolf lounges casually at the foot of the stoop, without a scratch on her head or a single care in the world. And though Shaw is somewhat relieved by the sight of neither dead nor dying Root, it doesn't make her any less perturbed, being pulled out of bed at the brink of dawn because someone can't quite grasp what constitutes an emergency.

Shaw drags her feet the rest of the way, shoving her hands deep into her coat pockets so Root can't see how tightly they're balled into fists. She doesn't want to do anything she might regret, like punch a certain grin off a certain someone's face. Not until she has a valid reason at least.

“Good morning,” Root sing songs in her usual pleasant way.

“What is it this time?” Shaw asks, bypassing formalities completely. The faster she gets to the point, the faster she can turn down whatever it is and go home.

“Let's see...” Root glances to the imaginary watch on her wrist. “Fifty-eight city blocks in less than twelve minutes. Wow, Shaw! I think you broke your old record.”

Shaw's eyes flutter into the back of her head. “Why am I here, Root?”

“Isn't that the age old question?” Root ambles to her feet with a large cup of coffee in hand. “Whole milk. No sugar. Just the way you like it,” she says, extending it towards a wary Shaw.

Whether it's a hot cup-o-bribery or a peace offering, Shaw isn't sure, but she takes it anyway. “You know, this doesn't even begin to make up for-”

“Do you like hunting?” Root asks peculiarly and out of nowhere.

Shaw just blinks. There isn't enough caffeine in this coffee, or in the entire city of New York, to help prepare her for the roller coaster that is Root's cryptics.

The first thing that comes to mind is fugitive tracking of course, a literal man hunt. Now that, Shaw could get on on board with. But knowing Root, it's probably nothing so obvious and easy. It's two very different things, what Shaw thinks and what Root actually means.

“It depends,” Shaw says, reluctant to commit without details first. She's learned the hard way too many times before. “What the target is... if I can shoot them... but mostly, my mood.”

“And...” Root leans in on the tips of her toes, “What kind of mood do you currently find yourself in this lovely day?”

“The pistol whipping kind of mood if you don't cut the crap and tell me what you want.”

Root pouts half-heartedly, slipping a piece of paper from her coat pocket, to which Shaw snatches and unfolds. Written on it, in barely legible hacker scrawl, is a list of addresses that still do everything but answer Shaw's question.

“They're apartments,” Root clarifies. “I need your help finding one.”

A map could do a better job. Hell, Root's practically got a GPS system and then some squawking in her ear. But maybe it's more than that, Shaw thinks. Maybe there's a bomb planted in one, or a missing person tied to a radiator. Looking closer at the list, she finds a four digit number beside each address. Next to that, some kind of code... 2/1 1700SF W/D...

But it isn't until Shaw reads the part about “no pets” that she shoves the paper back at Root.

“This is why you 911'd me? To help you house hunt!” Shaw says, gaping in amazement. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

Root throws her an obvious look.

“I thought you were...” Hurt. Dying. Both. The potential of either could light a fire of apocalyptic proportions under Shaw's ass, and Root seems to relish the fact. “Do you know how many traffic laws I just broke?”

Root shrugs. “All of them, I imagine.”

Shaw deadpans her for a moment, mystified as she internally debates whether or not she should spoil her knuckles today with an all you can beat buffet of Root's face. Shaw nearly mowed down a group of tourists crossing the street, sideswiped about a dozen parked cars, ran every single red light while doing quadruple the speed limit. For christsake, she car jacked someone at gunpoint. And for what? For the exciting, once in a lifetime mission of finding analogue-interfull-of-shit a place to live?

“Happy hunting,” Shaw eventually says and turns heel in the opposite direction. And of course it isn't the last word. Root follows on her heals and whines in her wake, with things like please and wait and a few pet names she isn't allowed to call Shaw in public.

“You're bored, I get it,” Shaw tells her in stride. “The Machine gave you the day off, so instead of annoying relevant numbers, you've decided to annoy me instead. I get it.”

“No, that isn't-” Root groans in frustration. “Will you please just hear me out?” and she hooks an arm around Shaw's to stop her. “I called you because, one, I value your opinion. And two, I thought you'd like to be a part of a mutually beneficial decision.”

“How in the world does this benefit me?”

“Think of it like this. The sooner I get a key to my own place, the sooner you can have yours back,” Root says and places an encouraging hand on Shaw's shoulder, which is batted off not a second later when the information is really processed.

“You have a key to my apartment?”

“I made copies.”

“Wait. Copies, plural?” As in more than one? “Seriously, Root. What the fuck.”

“Look, we can stand here, arguing semantics for the next 45 seconds until your stolen vehicle is swarmed by cops, plural, or...” Root jingles a set of car keys like a carrot on a stick. “I'll even let you drive,” she adds, and Shaw doesn't have much time to mull it over, not with all the sirens wailing in the distance.

“Fine,” Shaw finally agrees, though it was a tough decision to make. The back seat of a squad car or Root's- where is her car?

She presses the clicker and follows the faint little beep across the street, to where the vintage muscle car sits. Not just any muscle car though, a cherry red, 1967 Mustang twin turbo V8 in pristine condition. And Shaw knows this, because it looks just like the car Harold has, locked in his garage. The one he brags about all the time, having spent years restoring it to near mint. The one he never drives or lets anyone else drive, for the matter.

“How'd you get Finch to lend you his car?” Shaw asks, quickly realizing how dumb her question sounds aloud. Especially to Root, who just throws her head back and laughs.

…

The first stop of the list is on the upper east side, to a twenty something story apartment building fitted with a starch press suited doorman and a security guard station, which Shaw deems is more for appearances sake. Armed with walkies, flashlights, and pens for the sign in sheet, they let Root and Shaw breeze right by with their fake ID's and concealed weapons.

It's no surprise when Root hits the “P” for penthouse button in the elevator. She's not exactly the humble type, or one to underplay any sort of small endeavor.

A well dressed blonde woman greets them right off the elevator, shining a permanent smile of all veneer that never lets up even while she speaks. Root gingerly accepts the pamphlet offered, glossing over it as she absently wanders about the main living area, which is two times bigger than Shaw's entire apartment. And white. All white. The carpets, the walls, even the staging furniture. Lord forbid anyone so much as whisper the words red wine or tomato sauce, or in Root's predictable case, blood.

“Seems nice,” Root says while Shaw shuffles alongside like a bored child.

“Then buy it.” The sooner Root signs the deal, the sooner she can get back to her regularly scheduled program of having absolutely nothing to do on her day off.

“The master bath apparently has a built in sauna...” Root gives her a little nudge, “Guess how many settings the smart shower has?”

“Enough to replace me.”

“Not likely,” but then Root lowers the pamphlet in introspect. “Unless I could program it to be mean to me...”

“Ha. Ha.”

“I'm gonna have a look around.”

“And I...” Shaw scans the room, searching for the oasis in this desert of white hell, “...will see you later,” and she branches off towards the refreshment table.

It's probably the best thing about an open house. Well, if you're Shaw and you have no intent on buying anything. The free food. And not just tired old finger sandwiches either. The last time Shaw's seen a spread like this, she was undercover at a political fundraiser for what's his name running for office of who cares.

Shaw sips a bellini from a flute as she grazes the table, helping herself to a little of this and that. At some point she does make threatening eye contact with the foolish person who tried reaching for the last salmon wrap, but all is pleasant and well for the most part. She get's to explore her pallet, Root gets to explore the apartment. A win-win so far in her book.

“God! You wont believe the offer that tacky-khaki couple just proposed.”

Inconspicuously, Shaw glances a little ways to her right. The fake toothed woman who greeted them earlier stands with another, conversing in whispers and hushed voices. Well they'd like to believe no one else can hear them.

“An open house... what was Harriet thinking? Letting anyone waltz in off the street?”

“We'll have to fumigate when this is over.”

“Would you look at all the riff-raff?”

Shaw follows the acrylic red finger nail as it not so discretely flicks across the room. Of all the people scattered about the living area, she decides to pick out Root.

“What do you think her net worth is?”

“If that ugly leather jacket's anything to go by. I saw holes in it.”

“And the hair...

“I like her boots though...”

“So did I- five seasons ago!”

Their annoying laughter eventually fades into the violin music, but Shaw's temper continues on it's high note. In her head, she's already plotted half the steps towards their accidental deaths, because no one – no one – is allowed to talk crap about Root. Except for Shaw, that is.

And under any other circumstance, she'd just go over there and confront the two women with a lesson in manners. Incidentally, fists are a great learning tool for most people.

Oh, but where would that get her? Wanted by the police, probably, if that little car jacking stunt didn't already land a warrant for her arrest. But it would be fun, well fun for Shaw, to give those rent-a-cops downstairs a run for their money.

No, she eventually decides. There are more subtle ways to exact revenge.

She sidles over to the group of young hipsters first, who have gathered by the fire place pretending to admire the brickwork.

“Did one heck of a clean up on this place, huh?” she says, cutting into their conversation at just the right moment.

They turn to her with mixed expressions. “What do you mean?” one of them asks.

Shaw leans in. “Oh, you don't know?” she says in a hushed voice, so secretive and curious, it demands the group's undivided attention. All but one.

The guy with thick rimmed glasses just scoffs at her. “What? Did some dude die here or something?”

“More like dudes. Plural,” Shaw replies and glasses guy stops laughing. “A few months back, this tech company was having their big launch party here. Well, during the party, one of the partners totally loses it and I mean loses it. I heard, it was because the other partners were trying to cut him out... guess he thought he'd beat them to it.” and she unfolds the rest of the scene, in graphic detail with complementary stabbing gestures. To the point, a few of them turn a sickly shade of pale.

But glasses guy, the apparent leader of the pack, needs more convincing.

“Come on! How do you not remember this?” Shaw says, and name drops a famous New York magazine that all the people like them claim to read but never do.

And suddenly, him and the rest of the group are singing a different tune, nodding their heads and collectively muttering things like: Oh yes, I remember that article and Such a tragedy and It's too bad, I heard they were really up and coming...

“Yeah.” Shaw gazes solemnly at the fireplace. “That's where they found the head... threw it like it was a bowling ball.”

Like before, they stare at the fireplace. Albeit, in utter silence and for new and morbid reasons now, but Shaw takes it as her cue to move on.

And move on she does, to the pleasant older couple standing by themselves in the kitchen, which is also bigger than Shaw's apartment as well. They look a bit out of place. Suburban, perhaps midwestern. Shaw isn't sure just yet, but they definitely aren't like the rest of the people who live here.

“Excuse me,” Shaw says, all smile and cheer. “I couldn't help but notice, you two aren't from around here, are you?”

“Oh, heavens no!” The woman replies. Her accent is unmistakably southern and thick as molasses. “We're visiting our daughter. She just graduated from NYU!”

“Edna, you don't gotta tell everyone we meet,” the husband grumbles. “Hell, half of New York City knows by now.”

“No, it's fine,” Shaw politely reassures them. “You two must be very proud. Are you looking to move here as well, or?”

The woman side eyes the man. “Well, I would like to... It'd be nice to live closer to our little girl. Not to mention the broadway... But Richard here's an old stick in the mud.” she leans in to whisper only to Shaw, “He doesn't take to change very well.” The man grumbles again.

“I totally understand. When I first moved here, it took me a while to get acclimated. I mean, the first time I was mugged-”

“You were mugged?” The woman clasps her chest. “Oh, you poor thing!”

“Yeah, well,” she shrugs, “You get used to it. After a dozen times or so it's just like muscle memory. Wallet, phone, jewelry, please don't kill me.” Shaw acts it out like a routine. The grand finale, pulling the bottom of her shirt. “I was stabbed a block away from here, wanna see the scar?”

Their southern manners come to a full stop and they leave without so much as a goodbye or a bless your heart. Filled with a sense of crudely gained accomplishment, Shaw blows the smoke from the imaginary barrel of her imaginary gun and sets her sights on other targets.

One by one, they're taken out. She tells the uptight newly weds the apartment had been used as a movie set for prestigious films such as Gang-Bangs of New York, and One Fuck Over the Cuckhold's Nest, and Forrest Hump.

The leader of the co-op board has a portrait of Hitler hanging in his foyer. The neighbor downstairs is prone to clanging pots and pans at odd hours of the night because the voices tell her to. The walls are coated with so much lead paint, the apartment could double as a fallout shelter from radiation. And the whole building is haunted by failed venture capitalists, Shaw said to another person, and when his back was turned, she flickered the light switches.

And alright, that last one was mediocre at best, she admits. But in her defense, the one too many bellinis were starting to kick in a that point and she was running out of material. Thankfully, Root had come full circle by then, finished with her browsing.

“What do you think?”

“I heard the foundation's crumbling-” Shaw covers her mouth, pushing back the bubbly. “Whole place is gonna level in like a year.”

Root flashes her a look of disbelief, “That's absurd,” and returns to the brochure in hand. “I think it's pretty nice,” she says, and goes on and on about all the nice features and the nice amenities and the nice view.

“You!”

They look up and see the teethy realtor clomping her heels in their direction. “Aw, shit,” Shaw whispers when the woman turns her pointed red nail to her this time.

“Just where the hell do you get off! I lost potential buyers because of you!”

Shaw blinks, unfazed by this woman practically yelling in her face. However, Root's rather confused, bordering the edge of worried.

“What is she talking about?” Root asks, one of her hands sliding to the taser tucked in the back of her pants. Hovering, like she's unsure whether or not it's going to be necessary in the next ten seconds.

“I don't know,” Shaw replies with an innocent shrug at first, until she completely abandons the concept of an inside voice. “Must be all the asbestos in the air!” she shouts and the rest of the room, the few people she hadn't managed to scare off, they all clam up and turn bug eyed in their direction.

For a moment, the realtor panics and her fake smile returns to settle the crowd. “You need to leave!” she says through gritted teeth. “Both of you need to leave, immediately!”

“Way ahead of ya, sister.” Shaw says and calls out over her shoulder, “Wouldn't want to get a stupid thing like lung cancer or anything!” At this point, Root looks like she's going to taser Shaw instead.

“Let's go, Sameen,” she says, perturbed and not in a mild way, judging from grip she has on Shaw's elbow.

And still... “Really, you think they'd shell out a few extra bucks to remove hazardous materials from the walls!” Shaw manages one last time before she's shoved into the elevator.

Root jabs the lobby button and the doors close. She turns to Shaw with a myriad of emotions, some embarrassment, a little confusion, but mostly anger in her eyes. Shaw can feel them boring into the side of her face.

“What?” Shaw eventually shrugs. “Something you wanna say, Root?”

Root crosses her arms, tightly over her chest. “Something you wanna say, Shaw?”

Shaw rolls her eyes to the top of the door, watching the floor numbers fall on the screen for moment before clearing her throat. “Your hair looks nice today.”

…

Miles later in Midtown...

Together, they loiter the sidewalk in front of the next apartment Root might potentially rent, if the realtor ever decides to make an appearance. They've been waiting over a half an hour now.

“What's taking so long?” Shaw asks, again.

“Traffic, probably.” Root shrugs. She doesn't seem to mind the waiting as much as Shaw does. Then again, she doesn't have anywhere else to be. And neither does Shaw, but that's besides the point. Tardiness is just unprofessional.

“Call them.”

“I've already called five times,” Root tells her. “No one's picking up.”

“When?” Shaw asks. She hadn't seen Root touch her phone at all.

Root just taps the shell of the cochlear implant hiding beneath her hair. Oh yes, how could have Shaw forgotten, the ethereal blue tooth connection to robot overlord.

“I still don't understand why the Machine couldn't help you with this,” Shaw says to her. “Seems it'd be a heck of a lot easier. Beep boop beep... an apartment appears.”

Root smirks at her sideways, “You know that's not how it works.”

“Why not? I mean, she can make up elaborate identities for you, reposition satellites in orbit for you-”

“She can also tell me how many times you've watched Eat, Pray, Love... this month.”

Shaw glares to the side of Root's face trying, and failing to keep the amusement all to herself. But she's distracted for a moment, there's a passerby who's taking too long to pass by Harold's car. “Keep moving! So her abilities fall just short of finding her favorite asset a place to live?”

“She wants me to be more...” Root chews the inside of her cheek, “Independent, was the word she used.”

For once, Shaw's in agreement with Root's girlfriend.

“I'm pretty sure this is the exact opposite of what she meant,” Shaw teases. That is unless, the definition of independence changed over night and no one bothered to say anything.

“She also thinks we don't spend enough quality time together,” Root quickly adds, casually with a flip of her hair.

“Yeah, right,” Shaw scoffs at that. She'd like to know what the Machine would have to say about being slandered and used as a pawn for Root's own projections. “We spend lots of time together. Too much if you ask me.”

“Numbers don't count.”

“You come over all the time,” Shaw argues. Root just lets herself right in, with all those keys she's made.

“Sex doesn't count either.”

“Then what- Hey buddy! You wanna lose that hand!” Shaw shouts at a particularly touchy admirer of Harold's car. “What does count?” she finally asks. Really, she wants to know, how she can possibly spread her time thinner than it already is. “Does this count?”

Root thinks about it for a moment. “I'm not sure yet. But I'll let you know.”

“Right.” Shaw shakes her head; Root can be impossible at times. The 'issue' can go on the back burner for now, Shaw decides. They've got to move forward with the day, which is no longer dependent on the no-show realtor.

The front door of the building is locked, go figure, but that doesn't repel Shaw. There's an intercom system right beside it with dozens of names, each having their own call button. Shaw mashes all of them and waits.

In no time does the speaker crackle with static and slews of voices, speaking all at once in a melody of Hello? Who is it? and What the fuck do you want?

“Time Warner Cable,” Shaw says into the box and almost immediately, a buzzer goes off and unlocks the door. Shaw opens it and turns to Root still waiting on the sidewalk. “You coming or what?”

Root leads her upstairs and down the short hallway. “This is the one,” she says, pointing to the lock for Shaw to pick, which she does so effortlessly.

The inside is just as bland as the outside. The walls are coated in a neutral beige color that matches the carpet in all the rooms. A single bedroom, an eat in kitchen, a reasonably sized living area with a few windows and an okay view of the coffee shop all these midtowners mill about. And that's pretty much it. Though, Shaw thinks that was Martha Stewart crossing the intersection.

“I don't hate it,” Root sums up, having toured the entire place in less than a minute.

“But you don't like it either.”

“Eh.” Root shrugs. “It's just hard to picture myself living here, without my things.”

An idea pops into Shaw's head. “Okay, how about...” she thinks aloud and surveys the area. “Your desk can be here, in the living room, since you don't watch TV anyways...” She moves to the kitchen next. “You can put a little cafe table here... coffee pot here... and hey look, extra cabinet space for things that aren't cooking related.”

“I know how to cook, Shaw.”

“Name one time you cooked anything,” Shaw asks, but immediately stops Root the second her mouth opens. “Let me rephrase. Cooked anything that wasn't eventually used as tear gas.”

“Okay, you've got me there,” Root concedes. “Please continue.”

Shaw leads her to the bedroom. “The bed can go here. Nightstand with the lava lamp right next to it. Dresser here. Bean bag- if you still want it, there. The closet's kinda small... you'll have to get rid of a few jackets, but-”

“Wait,” Root interrupts. “Go back to the part about the bed.”

Shaw back tracks a few steps. “The bed goes here and-”

“Right here?” Root asks, edging closer and closer.

And Shaw's so distracted with her fake floor plan, she thinks nothing of it. She doesn't realize Root's been methodically backing her into the wall until her back actually hits the wall.

“And, what do you imagine we'd be doing on this bed, Sameen?” Her voice drops an octave in Shaw's ear, tingling like those fingertips skirting the inside hem of her jeans.

“I can think of a few things...” Shaw whispers, tracing the heat radiating from Root's lips inches away from her own. “On this bed, and then, that bureau over there.”

Root flashes a grin and presses it to Shaw's, briefly though. The kiss was only a ruse to take Shaw's lip between her teeth and tease some more before letting go. “I want you to know...” Root sighs as her hands circle around Shaw's wrists, “I'm really sorry about this.”

What that means? Shaw doesn't know. She barely had time to process anything Root said, because as soon as Root said it, she was spun around and pinned to wall with her arms locked behind her back.

“Whatthafuck!”

“Just go with it sweetie,” Root tells her, and not a second later do they hear footsteps coming down the hall and a man's voice calling out shakily. “Hello? Is someone there?”

He double takes when he sees them, his face conveying a look of surprise and slight fear for his life. “What's going on here? Who are you?”

“Special Agent Augusta King,” Root announces. As swiftly as she got the jump on Shaw, her free hands whips out a black leather bound badge that says FBI. “We received an anonymous tip about a wanted criminal hiding out in the building.”

“Here? In this building?” the man stutters in shock.

“Are you the tipper, sir?” Root asks, meanwhile, zip tying Shaw's wrists together for the bonus effect. So tight, Shaw thinks she's actually in trouble with the federal government.

“No, I live next door, I was just going-”

“So you heard suspicious activity from the vacant apartment right next to you and didn't think to report it?” Root says, catching him off guard. “Sir, are you aware that harboring a fugitive of the law is a felony offense?”

Shaw grumbles, “Like impersonating a-”

Root silences her with a good shove.

“Woah, wait a minute,” the man backs away, hands up in defense. “I had no idea she was- I wouldn't harbor anything!”

“You'll be hearing from my offices.” Root begins escorting Shaw out into the hallway, pausing to glare at the man as she passes. “Don't leave town.”

By the time they exit the front door, Shaw is more than done with the whole charade. Immediately, she shirks out of Roots grip, fuming slightly as she strains for the folding knife in her back pocket. “I can't believe you- no wait, I can!” The zip tie snaps free after a bit of sawing.

“I'm not the one who left the door wide open.”

The few choice words bubbling in the back of Shaw's throat, simmer down. Root's right. She did leave the door open. Like some kind of fucking amateur. She rubs her sore wrists, bitter. “What are you still doing with that thing anyway?”

“I don't know.” Root jogs the badge in her hands. “It does come in handy though.”

Shaw shakes her head. From the corner of her eyes, she notices a suspicious group of hoodlums beginning to circle Harold's car like vultures on a carcass.

“Gimme that!” Shaw snatches the goddamn badge out of Root's hands and flips it out with an, “FBI! Freeze!” The little bastards bolt in all directions, and Shaw hums to herself. “How come I never got one of these?”

…

Later and lower on the east side...

Jerri, a fast talking woman from Queens who looks like Fusco's sister, hustles them up the stairs of a run down walk up. The bellinis Shaw guzzled earlier threaten to make a second appearance as they round the landing of floor number six. More so when she sidesteps a ragged baby doll lying in a questionable pool of something awful slicked on the floor.

“Not much further,” the woman tells them. “Just a few more floors!”

“She said that- three floors ago!” Shaw huffs in tow.

“Try to keep up, Shaw,” Root says, jogging the steps with ease, at a steady rhythm that's utterly baffling. Considering Shaw's never seen her so physically active at something that didn't involve

“Coming...” Shaw grumbles and picks up the pace. She reaches the top floor well behind them, out of breath. “I gotta start working out again.”

Jerri pulls out a ring of keys bigger than a steering wheel and starts sifting through them. “It's gotta be one of these,” she says and tries a few but to no avail. “Doh!” she smacks her forehead. “Silly me, we went too high! It's two floors down!”

Shaw deadpans. “Are you fu-” Root jabs her with an elbow, “Funny! Aren't you just funny!”

“Down we go!” Jerri cheers, waving at them to follow her once again. Shaw wouldn't follow this woman if she were the most relevant number of her career. But Root insists, so she has no choice but trudge back down the stairs.

The door, the right one this time, it looks like it was breached with a battering ram and glued back together. It sticks as Jerri tries to push it open. Shaw wishes she hadn't been able to unjar it from the frame, when they finally step foot inside.

Cramped is an understatement. Claustrophobia is an increasing possibility for Shaw as they stand shoulder to shoulder in what the realtor calls a studio apartment. More like a closet.

“Why don't I give you the grand tour!” Jerri says.

Shaw turns her head left, then right, then back again. “I think I've just had it.”

“Oh, she's hysterical! Does she do stand up?”

“Only when she can't sit down.” Shaw wriggles free of the pair for more space, but doesn't get much. The square footage of this place barely pushes the three digit realm.

The detail Jerri goes into as she tries to upsell this apartment gives Shaw the idea, she's either the most optimistic woman in the world or the biggest hustler in New York real estate. And if it's the latter, Root's the most patient mark, letting this con artist finish her entire spiel of blatant lies.

“Look Root, I'm in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. At the same time.”

“I think what my friend is trying to say-”

“Her friend...” Shaw interrupts, until she realizes that Root didn't actually put the word girl in front of friend first. For once. “Never mind, carry on.”

“There just isn't a lot of space,” Root puts delicately.

“Space? There's plenty of space!” Jerri fires back, jazzed and sorts. “What this place lacks in size, it makes for in compartmentalization!” and she goes on to show them, the hidden cabinets in the in the walls, the drawers underneath the diagonal slant in the staircase frame. “And!” she claps her hands together before grabbing the the lonely painting from the wide wall. Underneath is a latch like rope, which she pulls. “Tada!”

A bed flops out of the wall and Shaw stares at it, unblinkingly. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“May we have a moment please?” Root says, and Jerri the realtor goes into the kitchen, two feet away.

Shaw whispers to Root. “This whole thing is one bad pullout joke. You can't actually be serious.”

“So what?” Root replies. “It's not like I'll be around to mind it so much.”

“Well, I mind it!”

Root smiles as she bats her lashes. “Planning sleepovers already?”

“Not if I have to unhinge the bed every time I wanna-”

“Want to what, exactly?” Root teases, for a moment, until Shaw's dead serious face hits home. “Okay, okay.” She clears her throat for Jerri to end her fake phone call. “Do you have anything else available?”

“Preferably not coffin-sized,” Shaw adds.

It's like a light bulb flickers over Jerri's head. She frantically searches through the mess of sordid papers in her haphazardly thrown together briefcase until she finds the one. The holy grail of documents, she holds it up. “Yes!” she exclaims at first, then presses it to her chest, distraught. “No, I don't! Technically, the application's still pending and I can't show you.”

“Come on, Jerri,” Root says, putting on half her charm. “We just wanna look. Where's the harm in that?”

She gives it some thought. Not much. “Oh, what the heck? You've convinced me. It's only three floors down, come on, I'll show you.”

“Let's hope she's got the right building at least,” Shaw says and Jerri bursts in laughter.

“Honey, if your job doesn't involve a stage and microphone, you gotta change careers because you are-”

“Hysterical?”

…

The other apartment is nothing like the previous. It's as if they've slipped into an alternate universe on the stairwell, because there's no possible way this is the same building. Root's in awe the moment she walks in, her eyes lighting up in a way Shaw's never seen before, well, when it comes to this sort of thing.

Crown molding lines the walls, coated in a scheme of rich blues soft whites. The long paneled windows that stretch from the living room all the way to the kitchen fill the spacious interior with honest light. And the view, Shaw's never considered Midtown to be a scenic place. Then again, she wasn't looking through this window.

“You've been holding out on us, Jerri,” Shaw tells her. For the first time today, she approves.

“About that other application,” Root says, “What if you accidentally misplaced it?”

“Say no more, sweetheart.” Jerri bats a hand. “My family's from Sicily. I know all about that sort of thing. We'll go to my office, lose some paperwork, sign some paperwork, have ya in here in no time,” she says, and starts ushering them towards the door. Quickly, adamantly. Suspiciously.

“Wait,” Shaw says. There's something missing, something she's not telling them. “What's the catch?”

“Catch? What catch? You two look like a nice couple, I wanna cut you a break, that's the catch.”

“We're not-” Shaw rubs the bridge of her nose. “Look, no offense, but this is all too good to be true.” There's got to be something wrong with it, Shaw can feel it in her bones. Shit plumbing, rats in the walls, a weird smell that only comes around during certain times of the day. Something.

“Listen, I got pristine records going back thirty years on this place. You can take a look for yourselves, but we gotta go down to my office fir-”

“Shh!” Shaw holds a finger up, silencing the room. “Did you hear that?” Her ears keen to the faint, muffled noises. “It's coming from the living room.”

“Yeah, you know what,” Jerri hastily explains in Shaw's wake. “I know what that is. The neighbors are redoing their kitchen. On a Saturday, can you believe it?”

Shaw ignores her and presses her ear to the wall, listening for the noise that seems to have gone away now.

“See? What'd I tell ya? Now if you don't mind, I-”

There's a loud crash suddenly. Something had smacked against the other side of the wall with such force, it rattled the hanging lights and shook the floor.

Shaw slowly backs away as more, lesser thumps follow. Steadily, like a beat from a drum. And not seconds later, the moaning starts. Unmistakably from a man and oddly, a very strict sounding woman who seems rather disappointed in him.

“And...” Shaw turns to Root with her I told you so face. “there's the catch.”

“Rent controlled nymphos...” Jerri hisses and then smacks the wall, “Hey! Some of us are trying to work over here! Not that you care! Can't go one minute without screwing each other's brains out! Literally!”

“Are they?” Curiosity in her eyes, Root steps closer to have a listen for herself, and it's completely unnecessary. With walls so thin and neighbors so loud, she could stand in any room and still hear all the graphic details of their sexcapades. So it's really a bit extra of Root to flatten the whole side of her face against the wall like that. “Oh, Jerri, you have been holding out on us.”

Shaw rolls her eyes, “Come on, we're leaving,” and takes Root by the arm.

“No, Shaw wait! It's getting better!” Root protests as she's literally dragged to the door. “Shaw, I heard a paddle!”

….

The end in East Village.

“I don't think I've ever heard the word charming used to describe so many not charming things in my life,” Shaw says. She fiddles with the butter knife at the table while she waits for her order. They decided- well, Shaw insisted they stop for a late lunch, and the Russian owned deli on 7th was the closest eatery that wasn't a letter grade away from being quarantined. “How is a giant water stain on the ceiling charming?”

“Depends on how you look at it,” Root replies, her head in the piece of paper lain on the table top. She's been scribbling on it since they sat down. The list from earlier today looks nothing like it did, crumpled up, torn at the edges and for some reason, wet. Nearly all of the address had been crossed out, angrily by the look of it.

Shaw twirls the utensil in her fingers. “I thought it looked like Margaret Thatcher.”

“I'm not getting sucked into this argument again.” Root draws another x over something and brings the pen to her lips, chewing at the end. “It was Barbara Bush anyway...”

Shaw snatches the paper from Root's unsuspecting hands.

“Hey I need that,” Root says. Her attempts of retrieving it are all in vain. “Shaw, I still haven't decided which one I- where did you get those glasses?”

“Glove box,” Shaw replies, lifting the shades from her eyes to squint at the paper. “Didn't think I could get a hangover before I fell asleep.”

“Can I have it back, please? It's important.”

Shaw throws the glasses aside. “Root, these are all crap. You know this.”

“But I need to pick one.”

“Seriously, have you never gone apartment shopping before?” Shaw asks. Judging from the look on Root's face, she hasn't. “Root. Just make a new list.”

She sinks into the booth, whining pitifully. “But I hate this so much, Shaw. Can't I just live with you? Please?”

Root smiles, full charm this time. And Shaw jumps when she feels something crawling up the length of her thigh. Luckily the waiter comes with the food, so Shaw has a valid excuse for evicting Root's foot from her crotch.

“Independence.” Shaw reminds her before grabbing the sandwich off of the plate. She's about to take a bite, but pauses midway. An odd feeling had struck her, a feeling like she's being watched and not by a secret system.

Leaned against the wall, slumped in her seat, is Root, staring at Shaw's sandwich with a weird lust in her eyes. If she was hungry, then she should have ordered something. So tough, Shaw thinks, bringing the sandwich to mouth again and goddamnit!

Shaw cuts the fucking thing in half and slides the plate across the table. Root smiles to herself and takes a nibble and then just- chomps down. Shaw can't believe what shes seeing right now.

“This is the best sandwich I've ever had,” Root says, at least that's what Shaw thinks she says. Root's mouth is so full, and yet, she keeps trying to fill it.

“As a person who's had a lot of sandwiches, I-”

“Shut up and eat it, Shaw!”

Without further protest, Shaw takes a bite. Her eyes roll into the back of her head. “Oh my fucking god.” It is the best sandwich she's ever had. Why is Root right all the time?

“So, tomorrow...” Root manages to swallow the rest without choking. “New day, new list, perhaps a new car even? I heard Harry's got a viper tucked away in cold storage.”

Shaw chews on it. As fun as it was gallivanting around this charming city with Root... she'll have to pass. “Sorry, you're on your own for round two. I'm busy.”

“I checked. You're not.”

What is this? Slow season for criminal activity? “I'm taking a personal day.”

“Fine,” Root says, dabbing with the napkin before it's surly tossed aside. “I'll be wandering Hell's Kitchen tomorrow if you change your mind.”

“Okay, Root.” Shaw snorts, almost choking on her food. “Give your taser a good charge before you do.” She'll definitely need it for that side of town- if she were actually going.

Shaw's not stupid, she recognized the pattern as soon as she saw the list. All the stops they've made so far today were along the 4 train, which lets off near Subway HQ and coincidentally, right by Shaw's apartment.

They step outside the deli and Shaw gives the place a nod as she slips the glasses back on. The sign is in Russian, and unfortunately, none of it involves the ten words she knows. “Goodbye restaurant I don't know the name of.”

“Actually,” Root says, glancing up at the sign. “It think it says sandwich, well, bread meat bread, but you get the picture.”

“Hmm.” Shaw shrugs. She's halfway to the car, that better not be stolen, when she notices Root isn't behind her. Doubling back, Shaw finds her standing at the deli's window, staring at a sign that says For Rent – Inquire Within.

…

They inquire within.

The owner of the deli; a burly, grey bearded and rather abrasive gentleman named Vlad, throws his dirty apron over his shoulder and yells something wild in Russian to the cooks behind the counter.

“Come! We go!” he then yells to Root and Shaw, and leads them out and around the building, through several locked doors and up a rickety old freight elevator, all while cursing in his native tongue. And Shaw's sure of this because most of those words he's using, are the same ones she's used to start bar fights overseas.

“You go, I wait,” Vlad says, and shoos them off the elevator.

It's was an industrious space converted to a loft by the previous owners. The concrete floors were replaced with dark hard wood for a more domestic feel, but the steel pillars remained. Carved out to one side, the obvious kitchen accustomed with marble counter tops, a range, and a classic style refrigerator. And in the far corner, the porcelain bathroom with the large clawfoot tub, partitioned by a wall of glass blocks.

Root turns circles, marveling the expanse of open floor plan. “I have no words, Shaw.”

“I'm shocked,” Shaw replies, but it has nothing to do with this rare real estate gem they've stumbled upon by sheer luck. Root's non-stop motormouth has suddenly run out of fuel and hell has actually frozen over.

But in the weird trend of today's events, Shaw checks and double checks everything. That the light switches turn on and the water runs from the faucets. She test the sturdiness of the steel beams and the thickness of the walls. She stomps around in her steel toed boots for weak spots in the floor. In the end, everything seems to be in working order. The radiator is blasting heat, the toilet is flushing, and yes, the refrigerator is also running.

The second Shaw mentions roof access, Root's falling over to make a deal.

Vlad may be limited in English, but he understands the universal language of money and the giant wad of cash Root suddenly pulls out of her pocket. He shoves a set of keys in her hand and goes off on Russian tangent as he counts the money.

“He says...” Root pauses to listen. “No checks, no cards, rent is cash only...”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“I did some work for the Russian mob- long story,” Root tells her before she's back to translating. “I'm supposed to put the money in an envelope and slip under his door... on the first of the month, not the second, or... well that doesn't sound very pleasant.”

Shaw's eyes widen some. She tries to ask what the she means by that, but Root shushes her with a raised finger.

“There is one rule... don't bother me. If you do not bother me, I will not bother you and everything will be... cookies and cream?”

“What does that mean?”

“Sorry, I'm a bit rusty.” Root tunes back in, nodding profusely at the last part before he shakes her hand and leaves.

“What did he just say to you?”

Root turns to her. “He said, My name is Vladimir Baronov Petrovich, and I fix nothing.”

…

A week later...

Shaw picks up a bottle of wine on the way to Root's. A house warming gift of sorts, or a present depending on how you look at it, though Shaw prefers it as a celebration of mission completion and good things yet to come.

The days of Root living out of satchels and crashing on couches are finally over, and for some reason, Shaw takes comfort in that. It means things are changing, for the better, she believes. Having a safe, permanent place to lay your head, it means something.

Shaw can hear the faint music playing as she lifts the elevator gate. She expects Root sprung for a decent sound system, something to listen to while she cranes her neck over a computer for hours on end. And maybe she found a nice desk and a comfortable chair like Harold's to sit in while she does, Shaw wonders, as she rounds the corner, quietly.

Sneaking up on Root is a hit or miss, depending on the Machine's mood. But Shaw hopes she gets to catch Root doing something weird for once, even though she has no idea what that might entail.

Root's barefoot, sitting cross legged on the floor with a soldering iron, humming to herself. And Shaw thinks it's actually kind of cute- maybe, at least until she finds a better word for it. Which is never. The feeling becomes short lived, the nameless word is moot when she realizes why Root's sitting on the floor.

She has no goddamn furniture.

“Love what you haven't done with the place,” Shaw calls out, announcing her presence to Root, who flinches and then smiles bashfully to the wires in her lap. As it turns out, the Machine was in Shaw's favor this evening. It's a rare occurrence to find Root so off guard, with her hair pulled into a loose bun, with little smudges of soot on her shirt and holes in her blue jeans.

Her walk is still the same, smug saunter as it always is though. Root lets her hair down as she approaches, on purpose Shaw thinks.

“Welcome. May I take your coat?” Root offers, and Shaw does a bit of casing as she slips her arms free of the sleeves.

It was inaccurate to say Root didn't have any furniture; there's a mattress lying in the middle of the floor beside a steel column. Root had thrown some sheets and pillows on top and called it a bed. Next to that, her other Root things. A laptop, a bag, a few articles of clothing and a cell phone playing the music Shaw had heard earlier.

“Is that for me?” Root asks, nodding to the bottle of wine in Shaw's hand.

“Yeah, but uh,” Shaw rubs the back of her neck, glancing again at the great empty space. “I feel like I should have brought a plant or something, or a chair.”

“Busy week,” she says, internally debating where to hang Shaw's jacket, for a moment, until deciding to just throw it on the floor. “Haven't been home much lately-” and then Root laughs, lightly to herself. “It's strange isn't it?”

“What is?” Shaw asks, halfway to the kitchen for a pair of drinking glasses before she realizes, Root probably doesn't have any of those either.

“This place, my place... It is supposed to feel this weird?”

“Don't worry, the charm wears off pretty quick. Eventually, it'll be just another Tuesday night where you store all your things.” Shaw flops down on the edge of the mattress. “Correction, thing.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you.” Root teases.

“Awfully rude of you, not owning a couch.” There are worse problems than not having a proper place to sit. “I'd guess you don't have cork screw either, or is that me being presumptuous again?”

Grinning, Root ambles to the spot next to Shaw on the mattress. “You'll have to use your imagination, sorry. I didn't think you'd bring anything fancy.”

The label is the only fancy thing about this wine, an Italian sounding word, Shaw thinks it means something like hat. The price tag said twelve, but she got it for six.

Shaw flicks open her pocket knife and stabs it into the cork with a twisting motion.

Root leans back and lounges on her elbows. “I did buy something yesterday, now that I think about it.”

“What?” Shaw asks, straining with the knife and the cork that wont budge.

Root nods. “That.” and Shaw looks in the direction. Hanging on the opposite pillar is a crudely sketched portrait. Of Shaw.

“Um, where did you get that?”

“From the man in the park,” Root replies, like it's supposed to mean something to Shaw. “Fun fact, he used to be police sketch artist until he injured his hand in a tragic trout-fisting accident. Anyways, if you pay him twenty dollars, he'll draw anyone you describe.”

Thankfully, Shaw gets the bottle open by then. The horrible taste of it helps her forget she ever heard the words trout-fisting back to back. “Hope you like cork in your fancy wine,” Shaw says and passes it on. “My eyebrows are off, by the way.”

“Hmm...” Root cocks her head the side, “I still like it.” She takes a swig from the bottle and grimaces almost instantly.

“You know, you don't have to drink it,” Shaw says, laughing at the sour look on Root's face from the cheap wine. She has to run to the kitchen sink to wash her mouth out, it's so bad.

“Wanna see something cool?” Root asks when she returns and Shaw throws her a wary look. The last time Root tried to show her something cool, she ended up with stitches.

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

“No?”

“Then no.”

“Just close your eyes,” Root insists. “Please..”

“Fine.” and Shaw covers her eyes, however, she checks for any sharp objects in Root's hands and in the immediate vicinity first. Patiently, she waits on the bed, listening to Root as she scampers around in her bare feet, for a moment until there's a loud click and the main lights go off.

Shaw opens her eyes... winding up the steel columns and along the rafters high above the bed, Root's hung strings of lights. Of all shapes, sizes and colors, they're arranged in way that makes Shaw feel like she's sitting inside a Christmas tree.

“So this is what you've been doing?” Shaw smirks to herself. The order of Root's priorities are a mystery to her.

“Livens the place up,” Root says, looking up with a kind of awe in her eyes, or maybe it's the light glowing from the red bulbs.

Root joins her on the bed again. Their legs hang off the edge, their feet occasionally running into each other.

Shaw takes another swig of the wine, biting at the taste. “So um, does this count?” she asks, and when Root turns to her mixed, she has to awkwardly clarify. “Is this part of that quality the Machine says we don't have enough of?”

Root says nothing, she just grins.

“Why not?” Shaw goes on the defense. She showed up, she brought the wine, she looked at the pretty lights and they're talking. If that isn't quality time, then what is? “I really think you should reevaluate-” and suddenly, Shaw is rendered speechless by Root, who grabs her face and kisses her.

“That's why,” Root says, giving Shaw a quick peck on the lips before pushing her down on the bed and climbing on top.

And Shaw doesn't protest either, when Root starts unbuckling her belt, she's beginning to think this may fall under another made up category in Root's head. Something along the lines of fun time.

“But if your so worried about it, Sameen,” she says, leaning in as she pins Shaw's wrists above her head, “You can come by tomorrow. I'm going to Ikea.”

#shootsecretsanta2018 #shootsecretsanta #shoot #person of interest #lizburns

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localocksmithnearme · 4 years

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winchesters-imagine · 7 years

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Dean Winchester X Reader - Infected

Imagine Gabriel putting you and Dean into a horror game. tags: whats-the-matter-with-y0u, @the-angels-stole-the-tardis

Word Count:4,146 Warnings: swearing, mild violence

Your name: submit What is this? // <![CDATA[ document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', myHandler); function myHandler() { var v = document.body.innerHTML; var input = document.getElementById("inputTxt").value; v = v.replace(/\by\/n\b|$y\/n$/ig, input); document.body.innerHTML = v; } // ]]>

You sit in front of Dean, who is reading a lore book in the library of the Bunker. You wait for him to notice you’re there, as he flips through the book, head resting on one of his knuckles. You begin to think that he’s completely oblivious, and you end up counting his freckles after you admire how they’re dusted so lightly over the bridge of his nose you almost have to squint to see them.

Between you and Sam, your feelings for Dean aren’t a secret - he teases you about it when Dean isn’t around, and you roll your eyes every single time.

You promise yourself that you aren’t going to get distracted by him, that you’ll build a wall between you and your feelings for him.

“Dude, I know you’re there,” He states, looking up slightly. You groan, losing count.

He lifts his head properly and makes eye contact with you. You see that his eyes aren’t just the apple green you saw most of the time - there are flecks of yellow, gold and brown.

“Hello? Earth to Y/N?” He waves a hand in front of your face and snaps his fingers, pulling you out of your daze.

“Yeah, sorry, what?” You ask, stumbling over your words. “What were you gonna ask me?”

You realise then that you had started a sentence, but you trailed off, leaving Dean in the dust.

“Oh, yeah. What was that game Sam was talking about earlier?” You ask, racking your memory to try and remember.

“What - The Last of Us. Why? Do you like it?” “Dude, yes. It’s one of my favourites actually,” You smile. “Do you like it?” You ask, raising your eyebrows.

“I think it’s -”

Dean is interrupted by a flutter of wings - you turn expecting to see Castiel, but instead you see Gabe.

You and Gabe have always been friends, and you loved him in a completely platonic way... which means that your secret crush isn’t so secret with him.

“Gabe!” You grin widely and jump out of your seat, before running into his arms. He chuckles as you tighten your grip.

“You still got the hots for hotshot over there?” He whispers in your ear. “Gabe!” You scold through gritted teeth - he may mean well, but you’re way too close to Dean to talk about this particular subject.

“...Yes,” You say reluctantly, turning back to Dean, who is reading the book once again with a soft smile etched onto his face.

You turn back to Gabe and notice his smirk. “Wha-”

He presses his fingers to your forehead, causing you to fall unconscious.

An unexpected gunshot sends a wave of fear throughout your body, causing you to wake up and flinch. You open your mouth to let out a short scream, but a hand was pressed over your mouth before such a thing could occur.

You freeze, analysing your surroundings. You’re sitting on the floor with your back pressed against a crate, in what looks like a small town.

A town that has been torn to ruins. Windows of buildings are boarded up, shop windows are smashed, and there are at least two large holes in every building, with a pile of debris underneath. Old, rusted cars are spread along the street, some with their wheels gone, some tipped onto their side. Leaves scatter across the floor, and the trees are bare. Must be late fall.

You turn your attention back to the hand over your mouth.

It’s not Dean’s.

When Dean covers your mouth with his hand on the occasional hunt, his hand is warm, and soft if not calloused. This hand is rough and cold, tight around your jaw.

It was then when you hear the familiar clicking sound. Your heart drops as you scan the area for any sign of Dean, but he’s nowhere to be found.

Deciding to stay calm, you slowly raise your arm and lower the hand from your face, turning to see who it is.

He has black, ruffled hair which is slightly greying, and is matched with a short beard covering his face. There are slight wrinkles in his forehead and you notice his soft jawline and the crease between his eyebrows.

He’s wearing a simple grey shirt, with a backpack on his shoulders.

“Joel?” You whisper. He says nothing but his jaw visibly hardens. You look to your other side and see a little girl, crouched behind another crate. She gives Joel a thumbs up sign and he nods, quickly checking over the crate before firing his gun one last time, and the clicking stops.

He puts his gun away before grabbing your shirt, and pushing you against a nearby wall.

“How do you know my name?” He demands, his accent exactly the same as in the game. He moves one hand onto your neck. You’re too stunned to choke out a reply, which makes him more insistent, squeezing tighter.

You bring your hands up and grab his wrist, attempting to pry his hands away.

“Joel!” the little girl, who you know is Ellie, scolds. She jogs over, with a look of worry etched on her face as Joel ignores her, a mixture of fury and fear in his eyes.

What you hear next is practically music to your ears.

“Y/N? Y/N!” Dean turns the corner, and spots you being hassled by someone who you only know to be part of a game.

“Hey!” Dean’s words are sharp, anger dripping from every one as protective mode kicks in.

“Get off her!” He pulls Joel away by the shirt roughly and shoves him against the wall next to you as you drop, holding your throat. You gasp, breathing in the sweet oxygen, recovering.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ellie asks, crouching next to you. You look up and nod, smiling softly before looking up at Dean.

“If you ever lay another finger on her I’ll-”

“Dean!” Your voice is raspy but loud, and he hears you, letting go of Joel reluctantly and dropping to your level.

“Okay, come on,” He holds your arms as he hoists you up, and you lean against the wall. “Are you alright?” He asks sincerely, his eyes staring intently into yours.

You gently grab his wrists and push them down. “Yes.”

You then turn to Joel, slightly upset that you’ve started off on the wrong foot with one of your favourite characters.

“I guess you want an explanation,” You say awkwardly, rubbing the back of your neck.

“No shit.”

Here’s the hard choice: To lie or not to lie?

Knowing you, your lie would probably be something like ‘Lucky guess - you look like a Joel,’ or ‘I though I saw your name on your shirt, I guess not. Great shot in the dark though, right?’

You decide against the idea as Joel doesn’t look like he would take any lies right now, and you know that Ellie has a built-in Bullshit Detector. You take the chance to glance over her features.

She has dark red hair, pulled into a ponytail with strands falling out in front of her ears. She has a button nose and a scar on her eyebrow, which caused the hair to stop growing. Her lips are full, similar to Dean’s, as are her eyes. They’re a bright green, darker around the edges.

“Okay, but please don’t freak out - I am pretty sure that one of our friends, who just so happens to be the angel Gabriel sent us here.” You see Joel open his mouth to speak but you cut him off.

“This is the please-don’t-freak-out part: in our world, this is a game, a video game,” You say, earning an uncertain side glance from Dean.

“Angels? They’re real?” Ellie asks in disbelief. You nod. “Do you not believe?” You ask. “I go back and forth. I mean, I’d like to believe it,” She starts. “But you don’t?” “I guess not.”

You nod in understanding. “I get that; it’s an ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ thing, right?” You smile. She nods. You look up at Joel, who has a small smile on his face after seeing you and Ellie interact with each other so easily.

“The only question is ‘Why,’” Dean chimes in, directed at you and Ellie more so than Joel.

“Alright then. If you’re messin’ around with the people upstairs, you sound like you can handle yourselves. I hate to ask, but we could use the extra help. It could be something you two do as you figure out how to get back?” Joel shifts hi weight from one foot to the other.

“Why not?” You look at Dean, who shrugs. Ellie smiles brightly, before you hear a clicking noise.

“Shit, get down!” Joel pulls Ellie behind the crate gently, and you pull Dean, who crouches next to you with one arm around the back of your shoulders, although his body is in front of yours, shielding you,

You look over the top of the crate to see a group of Clickers wandering around aimlessly.

“The noise must’ve attracted them,” Joel says.

You watch as your three allies pull out various weapons, and your heart skips a beat.

“Dean.” “What?” “My gun. I left my gun in the Bunker,” You whisper, watching Ellie as she passes an empty glass bottle to Joel, who takes aim. Before Dean can reply, Joel throws the bottle about ten metres away from all of you.

The Clickers around it start screeching and flailing their arms in the direction of the bottle smashing, which of course, led them away.

You visibly flinch along with Dean at the high pitched noise.

“Alright, go!” Joel instructs, gently pushing your shoulder so that you would go slightly faster than him.

Otherwise, you move slowly, sometimes pulling Dean back by his jacket sleeve if he’s moving too fast, as you know that Clickers use their clicks to find out where you are as they are blinded.

Once you all settle behind a fallen pile of debris for cover, Dean grabs your wrist and shoves his pistol, the pretty one with the white handle, into your hand.

“Take mine,” He instructs. “Are you crazy? No!” You forcefully give it back to him, and peer over the top of the debris, spotting a metal crowbar near one of the Clickers.

You point to it just as Joel arrives. "I'll use that," You say. Both Joel and Dean look to where you point. "Like hell you will," Joel says firmly. "Hey, I can do it. Don't get bit. Got it," You begin slowly walking in a crouch, moving fast enough that you're moving at a reasonable pace but slow enough to not alert any of the Clickers that were nearby. You glance back every now and then to see Dean watching your every step, his jaw set hard. He’s watching carefully in case something goes wrong.

You creep closer to the Clicker, who was standing stationary, head low. You look up and see it close up for the first time.

“Sweet Jesus,” You breathe as quiet as you can.

The infection had pushed itself out of the Clicker’s head, causing some type of fungus to sprout from the eyes. It worked as a sort of barrier, protecting it with the price of being blind. Its teeth were much like a humans, if not yellow and spread apart.

You slowly move your arm across the ground, holding your breath as you close your hand around the cold metal rod.

You lift it up, straining against the weight that is put on your one hand. You make sure that you don’t drag it across the floor, and you grab it with your other hand. Slowly moving back, you realise that your balance is off and you topple over, making sure that your arm with the crowbar is in the air.

The Clicker hears the small thud of your body hitting the floor and immediately looks you dead in the eyes… well, it seemed like that at least.

Your breath hitches in your throat and you glance over at Dean, who stands up whilst pulling his gun from behind his back, holding it with both hands as his thumb rests on the safety of his gun with a stony expression on his face, as you pick yourself up.

You slowly move back over to Dean, keeping ‘eye’ contact with the Clicker, whilst looking back at Dean . Something about the glances is reassuring.

Your legs begin to ache after a while of excruciatingly slow movement, crouched down, and it takes extra effort to move one leg, let alone both.

You assume that your friends can see how hard you’re trying to stay silent, as you glance up to see a bottle fly over your head, the tailwind causing your hair to blow sightly as it lands about eight metres in front of you, startling the Clicker and making it turn fast and screech, as it moves towards the bottle which had shattered on the floor.

You stand up and run, holding the hard metal tightly, and you dive over the pile of debris that your friends were hiding behind. You pull the rod into your chest as you tuck into a forwards roll.

You sit up and lean against the pile of debris, but you see that Ellie has started running down the street, Joel in tow. Dean is pulling you up, practically dragging you along with him. This comes as a shock, and it takes you a moment to comprehend what is happening.

“Pick up your feet!” Dean pants. You do as he says, keeping up with him. Your legs ache and your chest burns as you hold the metal rod in your hand.

You see Joel and Ellie slowing down up ahead, and you slow down to a jog with Dean.

You bend over, resting your hands on your knees as you catch your breath.

“See? I told...you I could... do it,” You stumble as you catch your breath.

Ellie smiles. “Yeah, teamwork! High five,” She holds her hand up and you chuckle before high fiving her.

You look behind you to see the Clickers are a mere blur in the distance.

Joel starts walking down the street, and you jog to start walking next to him as Dean attempts to make small talk with Ellie, avoiding Joel at all costs.

“Hey,” You greet. “Hey.”

“I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” You apologise, turning your wrist so that the metal rod is held just under your shoulder, against the back of your arm whilst you’re still holding it in your hand, which is a more comfortable position.

“Yeah - Sorry that I flipped my shit,” Joel apologies. You smile. “How did you find me?” You ask curiously.

“You were just lying on the floor, knocked out. You didn’t look like an infected, and I thought that Ellie and I would stay with you until you wake up - that was until that Clicker arrived,” He explains.

“And then the gunshot woke me up,” You figure. He nods. “Okay, last question; I promise. Where are we headed?” You ask once more.

“To my brother Tommy’s. He knows where the fireflies are.” “Right, of course,” You reply. “Excuse me a sec.”

You walk slower until you’re walking with Ellie and Dean. “Endure and Survive,” Ellie finishes what seemed to be a long explanation of what you figure is the comic series she’s collecting.

“Mind lending me a copy to read sometime?” Dean asks. Ellie nods.

“De, do you mind if I talk to you?” Ellie catches up with Joel, leaving you with Dean.

“Damn, that was eventful,” You sigh, rubbing your face with your free hand. “Gabriel,” You groan.

“That dick,” Dean scowls. “So I’ve been thinking; when Sam was in that endless loop of Tuesdays a couple of years back, Gabe only did it to teach him a lesson. And then when you two were sent into TV land. We just need to figure out what our lesson is,” You explain, watching your feet in front of you as you walk, sometimes stepping on leaves or small stones in the gravel.

“That’s- that’s not a bad idea,” Dean thinks about it for a moment. You bow mockingly, making him chuckle.

After a while of walking in comfortable silence and overhearing snippets of Ellie and Joel’s conversation, such as Ellie saying ‘I like them,’ the daylight seems to fade away and the sun starts to set.

“We should probably find somewhere to crash,” Joel states, looking around at the run-down buildings around you. “Over there.”

He points to one which is relatively intact with his shotgun, and he leads you inside after making sure that nobody is already in there.

There’s a large room on the second floor, and you all head into it and sit down.

It was dark and dry, the only furniture being the two large beds and a large dresser, which had pieces of wood splintering off of it.

The floorboards were slightly creaky, and you could hear the hollow space underneath as your shoes hit the floor.

You all sit in a circle and begin introducing yourselves.

“What did you do in your world? The one where you know for sure that Angels exist?” Ellie asks. You look over at Dean, who shrugs.

“We hunt monsters,” You state simply. “Not like the ones out there, though. I mean monsters like Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts, you name it,” You explain.

“Oh man,” Ellie says in awe.

After a few other conversations like this, your group splits over to opposite sides of the room, you and Ellie on one, and Dean with Joel on the other.

You glance over at the boys, and you can feel the awkward vibes practically radiating from Dean as he fiddles with his pistol.

“Tension thick enough to drown in,” You comment, referring to them. Ellie snorts. “I can’t swim anyway,” She states. “That’s alright, we can avoid you falling into water,” You smile, finding your attention wondering back over to Dean, admiring his jawline brushed with a slight stubble, even his small quiff at the front of his hair.

“Do you like him?” Ellie whispers, grinning. “Of course, he wouldn’t be my friend otherwise,” You respond. “No, I mean like. like him,” Ellie corrects herself. You let out a small laugh.

“No way,” You deny. “Bullshit.”

You turn around to look at her, and see that her eyes are full of mischief and curiosity.

“I can see the way you look at him. You look at him like he’s the most important person to you in the world - you look at him like you love him. Man, I wish I loved somebody that much,” She states. Your jaw drops slightly as she speaks.

You feel heat rising to your cheeks. “I guess I do... I know you’ll find someone, Ellie. It’s impossible for anyone to dislike you,” You smile. She nods in appreciation.

“Have you heard of the comic I’m reading?” She changes the subject. “No,” You lie. “Tell me about it,”

Meanwhile...

Dean shifts uncomfortably next to Joel, who is reloading all of his weapons. Dean decides to fish around in his jacket, to see if there’s any ammo. He sighs when he finds nothing, and releases the magazine from the gun, checking the ammo inside.

Only 11 bullets. He shoves it back in with an annoyed grunt, but takes a breath to calm down. Joel fishes in his backpack next to him, and hands Dean a spare cartridge.

“Here,” He passes it to Dean. “Thanks,” Dean replies, glancing over to look at you.

He smiles when he sees that you and Ellie are having a deep conversation, laughing every now and again as Ellie explains something in vivid detail, complete with hand gestures.

His gaze lingers on you for a second too long as he admires your features. He loves everything about you, whether it’s your hair that suits you perfectly, your eyes which he sometimes gets lost in or when his eyes flicker to your lips when he knows you aren’t looking.

He knows you have him wrapped around your little finger, and you would both do anything for each other.

“You love her, don’t you?” Joel asks suddenly, snapping Dean out of his thoughts whilst making him jump a little in the process.

“No! Maybe...Shut up,” Dean defends himself. Joel chuckles. “She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” He asks. Dean nods.

“It’s my job to keep her ass alive, and I know that she would do the same for me,” Dean responds, tucking the extra ammo into his jacket.

“I feel that way with Ellie, she’s only fourteen - I can’t believe she was dragged into this,” Joel sighs.

“If I didn’t know any better, she could pass as your daughter,” Dean comments. Joel smiles.

“Sometimes I feel that way... it’s complicated,” Joel stands up and makes his way over to you and Ellie, leaving Dean with his thoughts.

You see Joel approaching and smile at him. “I figured I’d let you guys know that we’ll be in Wyoming in two days,” He says.

“Wait, where are we now?” You ask. “We’re close to the borders of Colorado and Nebraska, in Kansas,” Joel explains.

Your head whips around to face Dean, who stands up and jogs over. “We’re in Kansas? Son of a bitch,” Dean runs his hand down his face and then through his hair.

“You’re from Kansas?” Ellie asks. You nod. “Geez, this angel works things out to the detail,” She comments.

You notice then that the daylight had completely faded away outside, and the only light is produced by the moon and the occasionally flickering streetlights.

”How are we sleeping?” Ellie asks. “Boys with-” You cut her off by looking at her and then flicking your eyes between Dean and Joel, who are standing a good two metres away from each other.

“Oh, okay,” Ellie winks. “Dean and Y/N can go together - I’ll go with Joel,” she smirks.

You resist the urge to facepalm and look over to Joel, who shrugs and walks over to the bed closest to the door, going to sleep on the side about a metre from the door. He drops his backpack from his shoulders and sets it on the floor, taking his shotgun and placing it on the table nearby.

You watch Ellie crawl next to him, giving you a thumbs up sign when Dean isn’t looking. You roll your eyes and grin as her head disappears behind Joel’s torso.

You crawl onto your bed, feeling every spring beneath your hands and knees as your weight shifts.

You find that the pillow has lost its comfort a long time ago, and so you rest your head on your arm, feeling the bed dip next to you as Dean lies next to you.

He uncomfortably rolls on each of his sides. You roll over to be met with Dean’s eyes.

Even in the dim light his eyes still sparkle.

“Were you just staring intently at the back of my head?” You joke. He smirks.

You roll over again and begin to drift to sleep, before you feel Dean put a protective arm around your waist and pulls you awkwardly into his chest. Your stomach flips and you smile.

You hear Dean’s breathing start to even out, and as he falls asleep you feel him subconsciously bury his face in your neck, his stubble scratching your neck slightly.

**SKIP IN TIME AND SPACE TO ENTERING WYOMING**

“Soo, you said we were in a video game - have you played it?” Ellie asks casually, sparking the first conversation for about ten miles. You’re all currently walking on a mountain trail, having entered Wyoming today.

The mud sticks to your shoes, and you hold your metal rod by your side, swinging your arms a little as you walk. Dean and Joel have only shared small comments like, ‘We’ve only got twelve more miles,’ or ‘Have you got any ammo?’

“Maybe,” You tease. “Do you know what happens to us?” She inquires.

“I don’t remember much of it - I remember Tess, Henry and Sam, but that’s all I can think of,” You lie. In fact, you remember every detail, and it scares you thinking what’s to come. Could you stop it? Would you even still be here when it happens?

You shake the thoughts from your head and continue walking the trail, your gaze wondering to the back of Dean’s head as you think about how you felt safe sleeping in his arms two days ago. The wind nips your face and you smile to yourself, watching your feet sink into the mud with every other step.

Part 2/Series?

#SPN FANDOM #SPN #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #SPNFamily #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural #supernatural family #supernatural oneshot #Supernatural fanfic #dean winchester #dean #reader insert #the last of us #ellie the last of us #joel the last of us

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islandofkiwi-blog · 7 years

Text

Time’s Mirror Episode 6 - A Web Series by Steven Embers

Chapter 6

Lacey and I went back down the spiraling staircase to the first floor and into the hallway. From there we found the stairs to the basement behind one of the very few doors in the house – I’m pretty sure that the Valentine castle, even though it was twice as big as the average house, had half as many doors. Upon opening the door, the sound of a dozen, whirring machines resounded up the stairs. It sounded like an entire factory of workers lived in the basement.

When we reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, I was surprised to see that there was almost an entire factory in the basement. Several, complex machines were sectioned off all along the walls of the room like the bookshelves in the library. In the middle of the ring were three long tables with expensive looking equipment organized neatly on each of them, but there was only a single, concentrated man who was wearing a white lab coat and was gliding back and forth between three different monitors with sophisticated looking software running on each of the screens.

“Dad!” Lacey shouted across the room to get her father’s attention.

“Just a sec, hon.” The man wrote something into a notebook, but I didn’t know how he could concentrate with the constant noise of the machinery running in the background.

I looked around as we walked into the middle of the room. The ceiling lights were long, fluorescent tubes and the walls were painted grey. Two doors looked at each other from opposite ends of the room. The design was a lot less romantic than the rest of the house but it fit the atmosphere.

“Hey Lace, did you ever manage to—Oh. Hello?” He turned to talk to Lacey and noticed a stranger standing with his daughter. I recognized him as the man in the photo on Lacey’s desk. Short, brown hair that was greying along the edges and distinct facial features; he looked just a shade older than the man in the picture. His posture was strong and he was only a couple inches taller than me, but as he came closer I felt small standing next to him.

“Did you go hunting?” he asked Lacey. His voice was deep and rich and his smooth tone provided a small mask to the insinuation that I was a piece of game to be hunted.

“Dad, this is Bailey,” Lacey said, avoiding the question.

“Lacey, we’re here to restock, we don’t have time for another Brooklyn incident.” he replied, and I started to sense an argument about to erupt.

“Oh, come off it,” she said. “He’s a match.”

“You found one?” He looked surprised, but after a moment he seemed to reconsider his emotion. “Never mind that, we don’t have time. Put him back where you got him from.” He turned around to continue working.

“Come on,” Lacey prodded. “You know how lucky this is. He’s even on board.”

He wheeled and looked his daughter in the eye. “You told him already,” he stated, accusingly.

“Yes. But I thought you said you could finish the first part in a week.”

“I can. But it would take another couple months to fine tune it. We can’t just take him with us.” His gaze shifted to me, his green eyes scanning. “Can we?”

The awkward situation grew increasingly awkward as Lacey’s father began to examine me. I had to look away as he undressed me with his eyes. The standoff continued for a while before Lacey snapped him out of it.

“No. We can’t,” she said. “But you keep telling me to worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”

“Hard to argue with myself,” he admitted.

“Yeah. So you want to try that introduction again?”

He looked longingly at his equipment and then back at me. After letting out a heavy sigh, he stepped over and typed some commands into the keyboard and the machines gradually stopped whirring. The silence that followed made me feel very exposed, comparatively.

“Doctor Valentine.” Lacey’s father extended his hand. I shook it.

“You’ll have to forgive us. This operation does not run as smoothly as it should.” He made a face at Lacey. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Bailey.” I said with moderate confidence. I was beginning to think I’d started a new chapter in my life where the people I met didn’t react when I introduced myself, but some things never change. Doctor Valentine’s response was subtle ridicule which told me he didn’t share his daughter’s filter.

“Are your parents a spiteful sort of people, Bailey?”

I considered the possibility for a moment, but I knew it couldn’t be true. “They thought it was important for me to overcome some trials early on in my life,” I said.

He thought for a moment and then gave a lopsided smile that looked kind of like approval. “Oh, I smell another Brooklyn incident with this one, Lace.”

“Dad! The job.” She sounded embarrassed.

“Okay. Okay.” He turned his head to address me. “I don’t know how much my daughter has told you, but I’ll start with a short presentation. Excuse me while I set some things up.” He walked away and went to rummage through some drawers.

Lacey faced me. “Sorry about him,” she said. “He’s a little crazy.”

“Don’t apologize. You prepared me for plenty of crazy.”

She laughed. “I suppose I should be sorry for myself then.” She looked almost bashful. “No more games here. I’m not going to try to make your mind up for you, but I promise that if you stick around you’ll have that adventure that you wanted.”

She had a look in her eyes that made me believe that she was telling the truth.

“I have some things to finish up so I’m going to leave you two alone for a bit, okay?”

“You know, when I got in the car with you I thought you were trying to kidnap me. Turns out all you wanted to do was leave me in a basement with a strange man.”

A smile broke her face, but she didn’t respond to the comment. Instead, she gave me a piece of advice. “Be careful around him.”

I cocked my head. “Isn’t he your dad?”

“Just keep your wits,” she cautioned. “He can be more persuasive than I can. And I have breasts.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I said, thinking about the last few hours. “The persuasive part, I mean.”

She smirked. “You’ll see, I’m sure. Just remember that it’s your decision, and it’s up to you to make sure it stays that way.”

She disappeared up the stairs after that and I looked towards the doctor who was still preparing his presentation. I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to both my parents that I was at a friend’s house. By the time I sent the texts, the doctor called out that he was ready.

“Lacey left?” he asked as I approached.

“Yeah. She said she had something to do.”

He looked at me like he was studying me and I felt strangely aware of how I was standing. “Want my advice?” he asked.

“Okay?” I said, but I wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Be careful with her.” His voice was serious, but it felt like the standard dad-to-daughter’s-guy-friend protocol. But then he said something off script. “She’s not to be trifled with.”

“Isn’t she your daughter?” I raised an eyebrow at him. This family was clearly not normal, but I had known that from the start.

“Yes, and she makes me proud every day of the week. But you really shouldn’t mess with her, and I’m not just saying that as her father.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked. Usually, when you tell a secret you’re not supposed to stop halfway through, because that means your secret-holder has to make up fanciful tales in his head to try to fill in the holes.

“You’ll see, I’m sure.”

I guess the common denominator between this father-daughter pair was their wanting to keep me hostage to a million unanswered questions. Doctor Valentine dismissed the subject and pulled out two lab stools, inviting me to sit next to him. He dimmed the lights from a dial underneath one of the tables. A white screen lowered from the ceiling in front of us and the blue light from an overhead projector lit up the screen.

“Let’s start with what Lacey told you.” He said it plainly, but I didn’t realize that it was supposed to be a cue for me to answer until he was staring at me blankly.

“Oh.” I stammered. “Well she said you were working on some genetic experiment and that she knew I was a match because she kissed me – she explained that part, but I’m still not sure what she meant.”

“Ah.” He seemed excited. “The Clairvoyant’s Kiss: learn everything about your victim’s genetic history with a simple lipstick. Imagine a litmus test, you know that paper that changes color according to the – no wait. Don’t imagine that, it’s nothing like that. I don’t have time to explain it. It’s just a compound that responds to a certain genetic code.” He paused, and looked a little frustrated that he couldn’t explain his invention in lay-terms. “Is that all she told you?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Okay.” He sighed. “Well I guess we start from the beginning. This is the presentation that I used for my pitch meetings, revised slightly, so some of it might be over your head.”

“Good to know,” I said, sarcastically.

“Don’t interrupt,” he said shortly. “We’re going to fill the entire basic genetics section of a college-level Biology course in thirty minutes.”

I almost groaned before I realized where I was.

The doctor pressed a button on a remote clicker that he produced and a dazzling picture of shining stars in outer space popped up on the screen.

“Life,” he started philosophically. “The perpetual question. An inevitable product of the growing universe? the invention of an alien race? or the handiwork of a divine Maker? A million theories for a million observers. Ah, life.” He breathed, and I thought about his words.

“That was the first draft of my introduction. Useless words.” He fake spat in disgust. “Let’s talk real. Life is super-duper. Fantastic miracle in the middle of a cruel cosmos: breathe, eat, have sex, die. Hooray. The real question is sentience. This thing.” He tapped the side of his head. “What are we doing here? Why can we, and why do we, feel the compulsion to observe? And why does it seem like humans are so damn special when it comes to this?” He clicked the button and a new slide of the double-helix shape that I recognized as DNA appeared.

“DNA. It holds the building blocks of all life. It is the recipe for creating the proteins that make up every living thing on this planet. You want an almighty power that has a personal investment in your life? It is in your veins, in every fiber of your being, in every cell that lets you be the thing that you were born to be.

“DNA tells a story. It holds the secret to your life and the secret to every living thing around you. It says what color your eyes are, and how big your ears look, and even estimates when you die. We call the indicators for these secrets, genes. And I want to show you how genetics can answer my question.

“Everything that has life is made from DNA. That’s why some people believe that we have a connection with monkeys and dinosaurs and flowers, because we do. Life began from DNA, and life gave birth to intelligence, and intelligence sired the comprehension of morality and it breathes urgent fire onto curiosity. Which might make you think: if we go straight back to the origin of it all – right down to DNA – can we find where that curiosity comes from?

“Have you ever wondered why humans were chosen as the bearers of conscious thought? Why can we fight our instincts when most animals have to obey?” He looked at me, a long shadow cast over half of his face with the other half lit by the blue light reflecting off the projector screen. His expression was curious, and he seemed to really want to engage me.

He continued with a more intrigued tone, like he was bouncing an idea off me. “If consciousness really can be born from DNA, then maybe it was just a roll of the dice to see which species developed it first. Maybe instead of being a moody, teenage monkey, you could have been a moody, teenage fish attending fish university and discussing racial equality among plankton and rebel shark terrorism. Or maybe there is something uniquely special about human genetic structure; maybe sentience isn’t a product of genetics at all. To find the answer, we have to do science.”

I saw a strange, ecstatic glint in his eyes, but it could have been a trick of the light. His instructor’s voice returned as he pressed his clicker, and the DNA on the screen transitioned and unraveled to form a straight line that cut the screen horizontally.

“DNA is made of four, different bases which pair predictably to form a sequence. This creates the blueprint that makes up the living organism: two strands of identical data, with one just the inverse of the other.” The image on the screen was color-coded so you could see that red always paired with green and yellow always paired with blue; I was familiar with the concept from Biology class.

“The order of these pairings determines what is made from the code,” he said, “and these four bases make up all DNA that exists or ever has existed. Four bases – four building blocks that, when you shuffle them around in a certain order, construct the entire skyline of the vast and varied Tree of Life. I see beauty in the fact that, over the history of all life, DNA has never changed languages; the recipe for creating life has consistently been passed down for countless generations spanning trillions of new species and different life forms.

“I believe that if we can become fluent in this language, we can solve many of the problems that we have as individuals and even as a society in general. It’s a fairly new endeavor in the science community, only a century or two in the making, and technology has greatly helped our efforts in this field. But I have found a more dynamic solution to experimentation that I hope will forward development by decades.

“Imagine a person who can freely modify his DNA sequence. This man would be able to lift the limit that contains the size of his muscle cells to gain super-strength; he could increase the number of photoreceptor cells in his eyes to have super-vision; he might even be able to boost his genetic immunity to diseases to live a longer life. He would be a super-man.”

I could feel my heart start to race as I found myself fantasizing; I barely noticed that he was luring me in like a cultist lures his devout followers, enticing me into his way of thought with promises of grandeur.

“Well, I have developed a safe and effective way of creating that super-man. I have created a device that will allow a person to manipulate his DNA just by thinking about it. This would let us dive into a human’s genetic code to isolate and modify genes that might answer my questions about sentience.

“This is where you come in. You could become the super-man, and all I would want to do is observe. If you’re interested I can tell you how it works, but if you’re not I suppose this is just a waste of your time.” He looked at me, appearing very relaxed as he propositioned me. “What do you say?”

This is one of those moments which I look back on and just feel silly for being so easily manipulated, but at the time I remember being so enthralled by what he had to say, and I wanted to know if he could teach me to shoot laser beams out of my eyes. I was like a child, snatching at a trinket you put just out of his reach with no regard to whether it’s safe or not.

It barely took me a second to respond. “Tell me more.”

Doctor Valentine smiled, and the shadow covering half his face made the expression look almost sinister. It only lasted a moment, though, because he turned back to the screen and continued his presentation.

“Okay, then. Let me leave you with a little demonstration. I’m sure you’re wondering why we picked you, or how we picked you. Lacey told you that you were a genetic match for what we want to work with, but I’d go so far as to say that this project was made for you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Every person’s genetic sequence varies slightly,” he explained. “Tiny differences in the blueprint determine what you look like and other various nuances that make you a unique individual. That’s why DNA testing can be used for crime scene analysis, because there are indicators that are usually different in every person.

“When I constructed my project, I used a baseline of a random sample of human DNA. I calibrated everything based on this specific sample, but that turned out to be a mistake, because to safely experiment, the genetic sequence of the subject would have to be nearly identical to the master sequence. I had no idea who supplied the DNA I used so I’ve spent five years looking for people who could be matches, and more importantly, matches who would be willing to volunteer.”

He pressed the button on his clicker and the projected image dissolved and reformed. Then I was staring at my own face. Or someone very nearly identical to me. The peach-colored face was looking straight ahead against a plain, white background. He had short, light brown hair, lightly brushed to one side, and brown eyes stared at me as I studied the image. He shared my jawline, with steep slopes coming down to form my chin. The lips were pressed tightly, the edges curving downwards in a slight frown that seemed almost as natural as when I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The only noticeable difference was that I had a dimple in my nose where I’d broken it when I was a kid and ran head first into a flag pole and the boy in the image had what I assumed my nose would look like if I hadn’t broken it. I could tell it wasn’t just a computer edit of a photo Lacey could have snapped of me and prepared for this magic trick.

I tilted my head as if to get a different angle of the flat image. “Whoa,” I heard myself say. “How did you do that?”

Doctor Valentine explained. “This is the predicted appearance of the test subject we need. It’s calculated from the blueprint of the master DNA sequence, and it shows us an estimate of the appropriate test subject. The image is assembled from an elaborate database that I personally collected of reference images and genetic samples, and this is only one of the tools I created to help my experiment. It’s just the tip of what I have to show you, but I hope it helps you see that I’m not kidding about this.

“Right now you have a choice to make. Lacey and I won’t be able to stay here for very long, so you will need to decide by tomorrow. But if you choose to join us, I can give you power beyond anything you ever dreamed of and together we can solve one of life’s greatest mysteries. In exchange you will have to fully commit your time and your body to this project. I know this is a lot to take in all at once, and I want you to really think about what we’ve talked about today before you give me an answer. You have the opportunity to be something great, because the core of this project is you. You can be the catalyst for revelation. You can reveal our past and provide a glimpse into our future. You can be Time’s Mirror.”

Boy, did he know how to make a guy feel special.

TO BE CONTINUED

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