#mean that much...... what haunts me more. frankly. what haunts me so much more than my own trauma
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RED - RICKY SHEN (prologue)
shen ricky x reader
synopsis - Ricky left his entire life behind in China and rebuilt a new one in South Korea. Forget reuniting with past lovers, he wasn’t even interested in keeping contact with old friends. So you can imagine his surprise when he bumps into an old classmate and the four year old beside said classmate that shared a striking resemblance to him. Who knew attending one high school party would come back to haunt him.
tags - single parent reader, implied sexual content, cursing, ricky is kind of an asshole but he doesn’t mean it, kind of slow burn, one-sided love.
5 years ago
Shen Quanrui was the definition of perfection in your eyes. The first time you ever saw him, it was his lips that caught your attention right away. They were tinted a deep, beautiful shade of red and you could not take your eyes off.
Red has always been your favourite colour, and on Quanrui it looked even more breathtaking.
At the ripe age of sixteen, it was easy for you to fall in love. He was exciting, with his motorcycle and tattoos.
Your best friend warned you about him, she told you that he was the kind of guy who would break your heart. Looking back now, you should have listened to her and maybe you wouldn’t be in your current situation.
Crying pathetically on the bathroom floor, you have never hated the colour red more than you did right now. Now you might have been a straight A student, but this was the last test you wanted to pass.
The pregnancy test had already been trashed, as if that would erase the horrifying result it gave.
“Y/n, are you okay? What does it say?” Your best friend’s voice enquired from outside the bathroom.
You couldn’t bring yourself to answer, the only response you gave to the question was wheezing out more tears, chest heaving, your body jerking back and forth as you were physically unable to comprehend all the emotions running through you.
Your best friend continued to try and comfort you through the door, all in vain as nothing she can say would make you feel better right now. You needed to see Quanrui.
You always preferred sunrises over sunsets, once again related to your fixation with the colour red. But somehow Quanrui looked pretty as ever even in your least favourite light.
You gave him a nervous smile, he awkwardly reciprocated.
Let’s get one thing out of the way, Quanrui did not like you, in fact he never had any interest in you. Sure, you were objectively pretty but still never his type.
You were outgoing and loud, and frankly it made him a little uncomfortable how you would always approach him and try to make conversation with him because all he wanted was his peace and quiet and alone time whenever he could catch it.
Maybe it was exhaustion or maybe he just wasn’t thinking straight when he agreed to kiss you while you were drunk beyond help.
Parties were never his thing, he only agreed to attend because it was their final year before graduation. If the boy knew that he’d be stuck with you all night, he never would have gone.
At first, you talked about normal stuff such as his plans for college and whether his exams went well, which he did not mind too much, however somewhere in between you ended up with four shots of vodka down your throat, and the conversation went from normal to absolutely unhinged as you would not stop professing your undying love for him.
‘Head over heels’ does not begin to explain how down bad you were for him. You told him exactly how you felt, going as far as to admit how much you loved his red tinted lips particularly.
“Please kiss me Quanrui,” You practically begged, sparkles in your eyes.
At this point Quanrui had ended up drinking too, realising that he’s going to need the alcohol if he wants to get through till the end of this night.
And maybe we can blame the alcohol, maybe we can blame you because of how much you begged, we can even say that you asked for it.
But Quanrui knows deep down that he is to blame for why the two of you ended up in the same bed the next morning.
He was quick to run away from the scene of the crime. Even though he felt bad, he couldn’t bring himself to have feelings for you, he simply felt nothing for you.
By the time you woke up, the empty bed was unexpected. While you weren’t counting on things to change completely between the two of you overnight, you thought you mattered more than to be abandoned after sharing such an intimate experience with each other.
And you were definitely not prepared for when, two weeks later, you were draped over your toilet bowl vomiting profusely.
Quanrui had sort of expected the message from you, asking to talk, despite two weeks of radio silence.
But as the two of you stood across from each other, a good metre worth of distance apart, neither of you took the initiative to speak first, awkwardness filling the air.
“How have you been,” Quanrui suddenly felt a bit sorry for you, he did leave you all alone after taking away your dignity.
“I have something I need to tell you—” You started, but were interrupted by a sigh erupting from Quanrui’s mouth.
The boy pressed a few fingers to his temple before speaking, “Listen Y/n, I’m going to have to stop you right there, I know what this is about”. Quanrui had never looked as intensely into your eyes as he did then.
“You…do?” You replied, confused.
“I’m very sorry for…whatever happened between us at that party but I can assure you that it meant absolutely nothing”.
Any hope you had left your body instantly.
“I don’t like you, I’ll never return any feelings you have for me, Besides I’m going to go to move to Korea so any chance of us being together is not only impractical, but also impossible”, He ended his speech firmly.
For a moment, all you could do was stare, holding your hand back from clutching your stomach, holding yourself back from holding him accountable for the consequences you were now preparing to deal with alone.
In the end, all you could utter was a meek, ‘I understand”.
And that’s the story of how you parted ways with Shen Quanrui for good.
#shen quanrui#shen ricky#zb1 ricky#ricky#zb1#zb1 hanbin#zb1 x reader#zb1 yujin#zb1 matthew#zb1 taerae#zb1 imagines#zb1 zhang hao#zb1 jiwoong#zb1 gyuvin#zerobaseone#fanfic#kpop#zerobaseone imagines#kpop imagines
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sorry but it drives me insane that a bunch of french men with the egos bigger than their tower and a whole lotta french pedophiles got together with the fuckin c i a and ivly league schools and. now. today. this. THIS is the state of the "liberal leftist" west. and you got "commies" who pretend to eat the manifesto for breakfast but who think "swerfs" exist. its like a really, really, really, Really bad joke which doesnt stop and which is real
#god has a sense of humor it is obvious#....#being an anthropology major. and not being able to stand all this. is a fucking nightmare#the fact that i feel a need to conciousness raise abt this class in any form of sort way is. a nightmare. like i do it and i do not like#that i feel i have to do this. but someone needs to fucking say something#you know. my professor held this viewpoint that there is a difference between the classroom and outside. academia and the non academic#but. there isnt. there fucking isnt and were quite literally seeing the very real life very scary impacts of it. before our eyes.#so like yea when i know that quite literally no one will say anything substantial against postmodern narratives of feminism in particular#that are taught. and that this WILL be taken as the PROPER feminism even Outside of academia. Yea i have to say something about it#and i have to provide a different viewpoint and actually i have to be like. hey? that sex work thing? a)offensive#b)harmful c) class conciousness who?#...... when it is directly taught that postmodern feminism is the feminism which is the most current. the one which is most inclusive. It#Will Be and it has been understood as the feminism outside the classroom#which sorry. everyone likes to pretend like feminism is this individual thing but I got a real damn problem with the fact#that these narratives are harming. directly. in real life. a whole lot of fucking people which are mainly women#....... if theres one thing that being really damn traumatized but getting out of it taught me. is that individual freedom really doesnt#mean that much...... what haunts me more. frankly. what haunts me so much more than my own trauma#is that its happening to other fucking people. still. .... my freedom brings me little comfort when i know this. at all times.#...... once again i say. who will care if we dont as women for one another. who. w h o. the... the? who knows maybe lets be generous 5% of#men who are genuinely. okay people who see us as full human beings?.... were half the fucking population#..... most obviously we have differences but differences and all it turns out. contrary to the western Youre Born Alone You Die Alone Bro#mentality. we are all very much tied together and quite stuck together and quite dependent on each other in a million damn ways#... and we NEED each other.#.#so. if 3 of the white kids (and noone else LMAO of course its the fucking white kids) now shoot daggers at me when i walk into class. i#dont give a shit. Because so many of the women who are antisex work will not have the opportunity and dont have the opportunity to be in a#western classroom and speak out about these things. they dont. because theyre too busy being half drugged out tryint to cope and survive on#the streets.#but i. technically. got out. and im here. so I have to fucking say something about it.
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i'll tell you what converted me to being all-in on keeping cats indoors only:
living for a year and a half in a rural area with a sudden feral cat colony explosion on the property.
i moved in with my folks for a bit and at that time, one (1) stray cat mama had taken up residence on the property, but was too feral to let my mother anywhere near her. but especially after she brought three kittens around, mom fed her and the kittens in hopes they'd grow trusting enough she could catch for spay and neuter at the minimum. momcat stayed mean and hella wary, but the kittens would hang around a little nearer and play with my mom via long stick, but still wouldn't come close enough to touch or catch.
unfortunately, two of the three kittens were girls and started having kittens of their own before further progress was made, shortly after i moved in. and that was pretty much instant doom.
there were so many kittens. SO MANY. multiple litters. every time we turned around, more kittens.
we fed them. we hunted for and located the kittens every time anywhere on the property and would move them to a repurposed doghouse anytime a mama cat had them somewhere else, so that they could grow up human-socialized and we could spay/neuter them when they were old enough. (also it was a handy tactic to push the issue of the mamas getting more used to/trusting of us themselves. only really worked with one of them, though.)
and we watched them die.
we watched litter after litter of kittens never make it to the age they could be spayed or neutered. the moms stayed, for the longest time, too skittish to more than briefly touch, much less catch and crate for a vet visit.
it sounds like a silly joke to say i have kitten-related ptsd, but i absolutely do.
too many goddamn times i'd walk out of the garage and find the carport and gravel drive strewn with tiny bodies. others simply went missing, never to be found.
one in particular, i wish i hadn't found, and the visual literally haunts me still, almost a decade later.
i saw so many kittens die of snake bite, spider bite, wild dogs, birds of prey, hit by cars, respiratory illness, covered in fleas and eyes crusted with infection.
and we loved them all. scrimped for antibiotics if the vet could be convinced to give it to us despite our being unable to bring them in. bought flea collars and ointments. we cared for them and fed them and petted them and played with them, brushed their fur and cleaned up their little faces, put ice in their water in hot summer, rigged a heating lamp in their house in the winter.
and they died. horribly. that property is pocked with unmarked graves of kittens and cats.
all the best intentions, not enough resources, and it didn't matter anyways because the population went from three to almost twenty (at times, over thirty) in the blink of an eye.
they died and died and died. our hearts broke over and over again. the stress and anxiety wore us down like sandpaper. i think, by the end of it all, we managed to find less than 10 of them all homes, including batman the disabled kitten i found a home across the country through tumblr.
it was carnage and tragedy, frankly. and we were helpless.
it only ended because they started dying faster than they could be born, and because we finally caught the two remaining mom cats in traps and got them spayed.
the points about outdoor cats being invasive predators devastating to local wildlife populations is true and valid and important.
but i know cat people, and cat people who don't know better than to let cats outdoors. what matters to you is the cat itself, generally. the cat being happy and taken care of.
keeping cats outdoors, letting them outdoors, is not taking care of the cats. it's not protecting them. it's not giving them any happiness or invigoration that couldn't be provided to them as indoor-only pets with just a little research and effort.
they die. they get ill. they get hurt. they're at risk of predators, and cars, and disease, and carelessly cruel children and deliberately cruel adults. they're at risk of disappearing on you because someone else saw a cat outdoors and intervened to give it a better, safer life not in conflict with the local environment.
and if that offends and angers you that someone would just take a cat they saw roaming outdoors, even collared, and that it sounds like i'm endorsing that, i am, but not if you intervene and be that person yourself for your own cat.
if what matters to you is doing right by your cat because it's family and a living creature whose happiness and health and safety is important to you,
keep them indoors. not part time. always. exclusively.
edit: since apparently i need to clarify this, i'm saying cats should live inside, that they should not live outdoors, even part time. visiting the outdoors supervised on a leash or in an enclosed catio is not the same as even part-time living outside, and i am certainly not advocating against it.
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Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader - We Both Know
Summary: Simon broke up with you but you both know it was a stupid choice.
Notes/Warnings: Stalker-ish Ex!Simon; Soft!Simon; Insecure!Simon (a little bit); some smut (18+), fluff, cursing, typos probably
Words: 1642
He’s here. You know he’s here. Not because you can see him or hear him or feel him—he’s too skilled for that—but because you know Simon Riley like the back of your damn hand. And Simon Riley won’t let you go. He has not proven himself capable of letting you go. Not yet, not fully, and if you can help it, not ever.
When you close the door behind you and kick off your shoes, you don’t bother turning on the lights. You’ve spent nearly two months flipping that switch in your entryway, pretending he isn’t somewhere in your apartment. Two months of going about your nightly routine as if there isn’t an intruder in your home. Two months of ignoring the soft shutting of your front door or window once you’ve settled into bed. But you’re tired of playing this game, and frankly, you miss him—the man; not the ghost who has been haunting you, trailing you, hiding in plain sight.
“You've been watching me,” you announce into the void.
A handful of beats pass but not for a second do you let yourself believe you’re crazy for attempting to converse with blackness and silence. Then the little cord on your lamp is pulled by thick fingers, illuminating the side of the apartment where he stands. He’s a shadow in the corner of your living room, drenched in black from head to toe, skull-printed balaclava included, and it takes everything in you not to rush to his side, shove that piece of fabric up over his chin, and kiss him.
“You've made it necessary,” he scolds; the first words he has spoken to you in nearly sixty-five days. It’s the longest he has forced you to go without hearing his voice, having been attached at the hip since you met; and having that smooth, deep tone in your ear is like soaking your body in a hot bath, sloughing off the wear and dirt and grime to come out renewed and refreshed.
You nod because you know what you’ve been doing. You’ve known your choices would bring him back to you. You hoped, at least. But you also hoped he would give himself and his stalker behavior up long before you would have to call him out. He’s usually much more possessive when you spend your evenings drinking and freely dancing amongst crowds, and the thought of you flirting with other men has always put him in a sour mood. You thought seeing it up close would make his vision go red, but he's held himself back. However, you suppose him watching and following you from a distance is better than not caring to watch or follow you at all.
“You're not being safe,” he tells you.
“You mean I'm doing things you're not happy with.”
Simon doesn't respond to that. He can’t, because you’re absolutely right and he isn’t the type to disrespect you by lying to your face.
“You broke up with me to—what was it—‘live my life’ while you're gone? Do you really have a right to be pissed at me for getting a head start?” you ask as you take steps further into the apartment and toss your purse on the counter. “If that's the case, maybe you should've dumped me a little closer to your deployment date so you wouldn’t have to witness it.”
Now you do feel him. You see him through the mask. He’s bubbling inside, the beginning of a boil, because he made a silly choice and doesn’t like to be reminded of his mistakes. He hasn’t exactly voiced that, specifically, but it’s the truth. It was silly. It’s also the truth—though again, not specifically expressed—that he regretted it the very minute he walked away from you, leaving you in tears because he is the one afraid of what will happen when the two of you face his first deployment in your relationship. He is afraid to come back home expecting a loving welcome only to find disappointment if you’ve chosen to seek out the comfort of another man. So, ‘Don’t let me hold you back, love’’ he’d told you. ‘Live your life, and I’ll figure out what to do with myself.’
Simon groans, grumbles, vibrates the room. He begins to close the distance between you until he thinks better of it and halts beside your couch. “I did it because–”
“Do you miss me?”
“That is not rela–”
“Do, you, miss, me,” you press.
He swallows hard, Adam’s apple protruding under the balaclava. His fist clenches at his side. You don’t think he's going to give you the satisfaction, but then he sighs and says, “Of course I fucking miss you.”
Your breath catches in your throat and your vision starts to blur at the edges. Those words heal the bits of your heart that he broke when he left.
“Then don’t be stupid,” you say, crossing the room until your chest is nearly pressed against his. You rest your hand on his cheek, or what would be his cheek if not for the mask. “Don't make us spend your last week here apart from one another.”
With another exhale, his shoulders loosen their rigidity, and in that moment you know you have him.
“Fuck me, Si,” you whisper.
His eyes flick to yours. A flash burns through his irises.
“It'll just make it harder.” That pathetic argument betrays his actions. One of his palms instantly goes to your waist, gently tracing the curve. The gesture is so natural between you you’re not sure if he even knows he’s doing it.
“I promise it won’t,” you say.
Then your hands slide along his shoulders to grip his biceps and you slowly turn his body until you can push him into a seated position on the couch. He lets you lead. He lets you staddle his lap. He lets you lift the mask a few inches and connect your lips as you grind your hips down, hardening him within his pants.
Simon’s fingers squeeze your thighs. They travel to your hips, encouraging your movements, before they continue a path up your spine. With his tongue in your mouth, you lose track of his touch for some time until he’s settled on a placement for his hands. One wrapped around your waist, hugging you tight; the other woven into your hair, holding you in place as his kisses swell your lips, verging on bruising.
“Come on, baby,” you mutter into his ear when you break the connection to breathe. “Don’t you want to be all warm and snug inside me? Don’t you miss how well you fit? Like my pussy was made for you, right? That’s what you’ve always said.”
You know how it sounds. It’s desperate and needy, but you don’t care. You’re begging, not just for the man who sets your body aflame, but for the man who altered the trajectory of your life when he entered it. The man you refuse to live without.
“Love–” he starts, but his groan from the nibbles you give to his neck interrupts him.
“You can rest deep in me for a while if you want. I’ll stay perfectly still for you. Or I can go nice and slow the way you like.”
Moving your head back, you stop the shifting of your hips and lock your gazes. You pointlessly wait for him to deny you. Pointlessly because Simon Riley doesn’t deny you in situations like this. The equal balance of your need for one another has made that impossible, so it doesn’t surprise you one bit when he nods in agreement.
Your thumbs delicately guide the balaclava over his nose, but you stop there. Only he removes the mask. It’s his right; his decision to show his face and to whom. You are one of the lucky ones, but you’ve never taken advantage of that gift.
With one hand, Simon grips the top of his mask and jerks it the rest of the way off his head—hair sticking out in a million directions—as he sneaks his other between your bodies to undo the button of his pants. He lifts his hips, bouncing you on his lap, before you do the same so he can push his pants down his thighs.
You don’t spend time marveling at the thick column of flesh he’s pumping with his fist. You know everything about his cock. Every ridge and valley from base to tip. Every vein. Every inch of him you have memorized, and you’re too hungry to waste another second without him where you want him most.
When Simon finally slides inside of you, you hum in satisfied delight. Like basking in the heat of the sun after the chill of Winter. Like the first bite of your favorite ice cream hitting your tongue. Like quenching a thirst. Like coming home.
Simon’s head falls back against the couch and his chest heaves with heavy inhales and exhales. His eyes are closed, but you catch a hint of a smile on his face.
“We feel so good together, Si,” you say, slowly rubbing your hand up and down his chest. “I want this when you return. Don’t you want this when you return?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Then why deprive yourself of what you love? Especially when what you love wants you so bad.”
He lifts his head and reaches up to brush his knuckle from your cheekbone to your chin. “I was trying to make it easier.”
Palms cupping his jaw, you run your thumb over his bottom lip. “Fuck easy.”
“Love, it’ll be a year. No less.”
“I don’t care,” you swear. You start to rise and then you sink back down onto him. “I'll be waiting for you, Simon.”
#simon ghost riley x reader#simon riley x reader#simon riley smut#simon ghost riley#simon ghost x reader#simon riley x you#simon riley#modern warefare ii#mw2 cod#mw2#call of duty#ghost x reader#simon riley fic#simon riley fanfic#simon riley imagine#simon riley fanfiction#simon riley fluff
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❁ Sugar (I've developed a taste for you) ❁
!!! NSFW ⋆ 18+ ⋆ Minors DNI !!!
Summary: Astarion asks for a favour and ends up getting more than what he bargained for (or: I'm a lesbian but this fictional little vampire twink can get it)
Rating: Explicit (for eventual smut)
Wordcount: 2.4k
Descriptors: I try to keep my reader-inserts fairly neutral, but let me know if anything slips through the cracks! Astarion is his usual self, pathetic and awful yet somehow also lovable as fuck.
CW: bad flirting, friends with benefits (and the benefit is bloodsucking lol), blood, blood drinking, biting, hint of praise kink, eventual proper smut, nicknames, so much innuendo
✦⋆ Main Masterlist ⋆✦⋆ If you prefer AO3 ⋆✦
༻────• ༻❁༺ •────༺
Chapter 1: My my, those eyes like fire
He could be lovely if he wasn’t so self-involved.
That is the first thought you have when you meet Astarion. He is not downright mean, but something about him just bugs you. He flirts with every creature on two legs (sometimes even those with more), but that’s not it.
Something about all his honeyed words just feels so… insincere.
You think Astarion has something to hide, and you desperately want to know what it is. So far, he has shown no signs of weakness, and he is as much as self-entitled twat as when you first met him. And this continues to be your opinion of him… up until today.
The day has been hard. Your feet hurt, your hands have blisters, and you are smeared with blood pretty much all over. Your shirt has been ripped and frankly, you don’t know when you might find the time to mend it. There is a giant bloodstain on the thigh of your trousers, and you are pretty sure your hair has become completely encrusted in blood quite some time ago.
But you have made it back to camp and that is all that counts.
As you shake out your bedroll and try to ignore the fact that this is the seventh night in a row that you’ll have had bland stew for dinner, you catch Astarion’s eyes across the fire.
His gaze is… odd.
You have seen him in the heat of battle, you’ve seen the glint in his eye when he comes up with another of his devious plans. You’ve even seen him amused, shaking with laughter when Gale recited an - admittedly very ambiguous - poem to you.
But you have never seen him like this. It’s not affection, nor is it desire that lights up his delicate features. He almost looks… desperate. Like he is starving for something, and you can’t place your finger on what it is.
As soon as Astarion notices that you have caught him, his eyes flick away. He saunters off, way too casual to not be obvious about it.
You stare after him, vaguely confused. But then, Karlach makes her way over to ask for more stew, and you forget all about it. For the moment.
Her smile makes your belly flutter, and you wish you knew more about her, and so you do your best to make conversation, joking and asking shallow questions.
Astarion’s eyes haunt you through dinner.
Even though the day was exhausting, the nights in your little camp are starting to grow on you. Gale is funny in his own, book-wormish way. You have learned that Karlach is downright hilarious in her joy about the world outside of Avernus, and Wyll is always scandalised by her, which is admittedly quite fun to watch. Lae’zel and Shadowheart keep to themselves a bit more, but even they share the meals with the rest of you.
You laugh when Karlach imitates Wyll’s horrified expression, but in spite of yourself. your eyes keep wandering to the silver hair of your elven companion who is sitting across from you.
Astarion is staring at you again, his eyes focused on some point below your jaw. He is watching you intently, seemingly unaware you have caught him. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away - he just stares at you as your spoon scrapes along the bottom of your bowl.
Only when you get up to wash off before you go to bed does he move again.
Sometimes, Astarion reminds you of a scared animal in the way he moves, his eyes flicking back and forth, his hands trembling slightly whenever he is not in battle. He hides right out in the open, behind his swagger and his dirty jokes and innuendos, behind his beautiful face and his beautiful body.
Tonight, though, even in all his desperation, Astarion is not prey. He is a predator. And like any talented predator, he has managed to get his prey away from the protection of the group.
You are kneeling in the small stream that runs by the camp, washing your bowl, your clothes, yourself - everything is dirty and soaked in mud, sweat and blood. You are barely wearing anything, but your companions have seen you in much more precarious situations at this point.
Astarion approaches quietly, sneaking up on you in that manner where you can never tell whether it is intentional or not. He is just… there, suddenly, shedding his clothes next to you, blood still smeared on his pale skin.
He stops short of the water, watching you from the riverbank. You try not to gawk as he undresses, but something about him seems unusually anxious. The way he pushes hit foot forward so slowly, testing the water, makes you wonder if he might not know how to swim.
Astarion smiles suddenly, taking a step into the stream and towards you, then another, his smile growing the deeper he wades into the water. Dark red streaks appear in the water where the blood is washed from his pale skin.
He clears his throat and raises a sharp brow.
“And how are you feeling tonight, sweet thing?” he inquires. His eyes flick over your body, focusing on a point below your ear for a moment before he rips his gaze away again.
“‘M alright,” you answer, brow furrowed as you scrub your shirt a little harder than you actually need to. Why he has to be so infuriating with his nicknames, you’ll never know. “Today was… a lot. I wanted to have a quiet moment.”
“Ah.”
He doesn’t seem to get the hint. He merely wades further into the stream, shimmering pearls of water running down his back. When you don’t say anything else, he turns to face you once again.
“Are you not going to ask me how I am, darling?”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” you mumble, throwing your shirt to the side, Clearly, you’re not getting anywhere with it tonight.
“Tsk, so rude. Somebody should really teach you some manners.” He clicks his tongue at you like you are an insubordinate child, shaking his head until droplets hit you.
You press your lips together. If he wasn’t so beautiful, he wouldn’t get away with half the things he does, and it frustrates you to no end. You catch yourself forgiving him on occasions where you don’t mean to, simply because his face is the prettiest things you have ever seen, and you hate it.
Astarion watches you carefully, gauging your mood. You stare back at him defiantly. What the hell could he want from you, anyway?
The hunger in his eyes is back, you notice - that desperation that you can’t quite place. There is a pained expression around his mouth, and despite all his cockiness, he is clearly not doing entirely well - his skin even paler than usual, his hands shaking a little when he crosses his arms.
Astarion yawns, his gaze raking over you in a way that makes you shiver. You tell yourself it’s just the cold of the water.
“Well, I was going to ask you for your help, but you are in a terrible mood.” He inspects his fingernails, and even though you know exactly that he is baiting you, you can’t help yourself.
“You? Need my help? Never thought the day would come.” Your voice is biting, but you can’t hide the note of curiosity that sneaks in.
“Don’t make me out to be such a horrible companion.” Astarion takes a step closer to you through the water. You take a step back. He laughs, but his eyes catch on your neck again. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
You shrug.
“Sometimes you are.”
“Hm.” He raises his brows, and takes another step towards you. This time, you don’t step back. “Well, I suppose that can’t be helped, my love. We all have good and bad days, don’t we?” He cocks his head. “And today has been quite hard for me.”
You make a non-committal noise, staring him down. What in the hells is he trying to do? Seduce you?
Your body likes that thought much more than your mind does.
Astarion is watching you intently. He stretches out his hand to take yours, and in your surprise, you don’t even pull back. His thumb rests right against the delicate inside of your wrist, and he closes his eyes.
You wait for him to drone on about how he carried your group on the battlefield, to gloat that you now owe him your life seven times over, but he doesn’t. Astarion stays eerily still, breathing deeply as his thumb strokes your wrist, pressing against your pulse point.
You can’t keep quiet any longer, not with the odd way he is behaving. Maybe he got hit by a spell, or…
“Any reason today was particularly hard for you?” You meant to sound sarcastic, but the question comes out sounding sincere. You scold yourself for caring so much.
Your skin burns like fire where he is touching you. Astarion’s eyes open, and he looks at you like he was a million miles away. He is so close now - much closer than you realised. You can see the fiery ring around his irises.
“I…” To your surprise, his voice is hesitant and quiet. “It’s easier to just… show you. You see, I need something from you, my darling.”
You frown.
“Why ask me? You could ask any of us, and most of them would be more inclined to help than I am. I’ve seen the way that Gale watches you at the fire-”
“Gale?” Astarion sounds genuinely amused. “Darling, do you think I’m asking you for sexual favours right now?”
“I- yes?” Your voice is full of uncertainty. “I mean… is that not what you were going to say?”
Astarion smiles, small and sharp.
“No.” He is even closer to you now, his thumb still caressing the skin of your wrist. “Even though I would not be disinclined if you offered… you are quite beautiful, you know?”
“Mh. Thank you?” You wish your heart would not beat faster at the way he looks at you. It’s a look that doesn’t fit the words that fall from his lips, a look that betrays the desperation with which he needs this favour. “What-”
“What I am asking for is simple.” He is so close now he could kiss you if you leaned in. “All I want is… a taste.”
“I- what?”
His lips are on your neck, his hand in your hair. You are not quite sure when that happened.
“Say yes, sweet thing,” he breathes. “Just a taste of your blood and-”
“My blood?” You sound more distraught than you actually feel. You are… oddly resigned. You should have seen this coming - you knew something was up with him, you knew he wasn’t telling you the whole truth.
And now, here you are. With a fucking vampire. His lips graze your pulse point, and your heart beats faster. You can feel the heat of his breath when he utters a single word.
“Please.”
It’s that one word that changes everything. Just like that, he has you. All the arrogance, all the superiority is gone from his voice, and what is left is just hunger and the fear that you might reject him. For a moment, you are sure you must have imagined it, but then, Astarion repeats himself.
“Please.” His hand tightens around your wrist, though he is trembling more than you are. “Just a taste, no more.”
Your lips are numb when you answer, your mind screaming at you not to let him- this is dangerous, this is stupid- you have already lost so much blood in the fight today and-
“Yes.” Your hands are on his shoulders, then in his silver hair. He smells so good; even after this horrid day. Your voice is softer than you intend for it to be, but his desperation makes you weak. “If you need it, it’s yours.”
Astarion makes a sound that shatters you, and before you can think too much about your own colossal stupidity, his fangs sink into your neck.
It’s not painful.
It’s uncomfortable, but the fear that bites into your heart ebbs after mere seconds. Astarion’s hands are surprisingly warm against you, keeping you upright. Your head falls to the side, granting him easier access and - oh.
Why does it feel so good?
You become acutely aware of your blood flowing from the small puncture wounds in your neck, and for a moment, you panic, stiffening in Astarion’s arms.
“There, there, sweet thing.” His lips don’t raise an inch from your neck. “It’s alright, just trust me. Just a taste, all I want is a taste…”
Your head is swimming.
“You have tasted me,” you whisper, trying to pull away. When you look into Astarion’s eyes, there is a red glint in them - and a sadness that overwhelms you.
“No taste of you will ever be enough.” Astarion looks up at you from beneath long lashes. “You are divine, my love.”
The tip of his tongue wets his lips, licking up the small droplets of blood that linger.
You stare at him, trying with all your might to focus.
“You said… just a taste. No more than you need.”
His finger traces your jaw, down your neck, and your whole body is on fire.
“If it were up to me, I would need all of you,” Astarion sighs, his lips on your neck again, his tongue lapping at the blood that flows from the wound he has given you. “I would take and take, and give you so much in return. I would have you in ways you did not even know you wanted. Taste everything you have to offer.”
You shiver when he raises your wrist to his mouth, soft lips pressing to delicate skin.
“I would cherish you, keep you. My little pet, so perfect, so beautiful in every way. So eager to give what I need. Would you give me more if I asked?”
“Of course,” your lips say even though those were not the words you were planning to utter. But how could you ever say no to him? “If that’s what you need.”
Astarion’s sigh is one of rapture and delight.
“So obedient for me… You know, all these days I thought you hated me.” He chuckles to himself. “I suppose even I can be wrong sometimes.”
His teeth sink back into your neck, and the world goes dark.
༻────• ༻❁༺ •────༺
>> Next Chapter
HELLO MY DOVES i finally found time to format this for tumblr so here you go, for those who are not in love with the bear, you can get the twink, as a treat.
@deewithani @ficsbynight @kote-wan @ariadnes-red-thread @rescuethewretched @twistedstitcher27 @kakashibabe02 @writingbylee @purgetrooperfox @basilbumble @witchklng @lackofhonor @ashotofspotchka @sailor-blossom @misogirl828 @amyroswell @darkjedipoptarts @pinkiemme @sleepingsun501 @fett-djarin @samanthacookieone @tortor-mcgee @corrabell @queen--kenobi @elegantduckturtle @felinaone @palpipeen @wild-karrde @obeydontstray @nomercyforthewarrior @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @thefact0rygirl @everythingyouwanted @equalityforcats @cagrame @ladykatakuri @snakerune @shadesofshatteredblue @100lxtters @damerondala @tachyon-girl @rintheemolion @pickleprickle @mando-amando @certified-anakinfucker @baba-fett @ulchabhangorm
#bg3#astarion#bg3 astarion#baldur's gate#baldurs gate 3#astarion smut#bg3 smut#YA WELCOME#astarion x reader#astarion x you#sugar series#gala writes
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Hiii 🫶🏼 I hope you're still up for doing an Elijah request! 🤗 I can't get this man out of my head haha
Soo it would be an idea where they met somewhere in Mystic Falls and immediately felt some bond between them, so it happens that they start falling in love (she's human but knows about vampires) but she's too afraid to get hurt so she also tries not to get too close to Elijah. One night he sees some stranger following her home from the Grill and even starts attacking her, Elijah is immediately there saving her and taking her home with him to treat her wounds (mostly some scratches) and he's just super worried. There she realizes that Elijah would never be the one hurting her and they finally share their feelings with a lot of kissing and cuddles afterwards and he holds her, telling how much she means to him.
Oh I hope this is not too weird at all 🙈❤️
Description: Upon meeting Elijah Mikaelson, the feelings start to come but in fear of being hurt, the reader decides to keep her walls up to protect herself. This changes after Elijah protects her after being attacked.
Warnings: fluff, small angst, physical assault (mild), she/her pronouns, maybe swearing?
*Requests are open, please send through as many requests as you want, check my character list and requesting rules.*
Thanks so much for making this request! I can never get sick of Elijah, this man is always on my mind and please feel free to request again if you wish :) I really enjoyed writing this, thank you again :D
Key: Y/N = Your Name, POV = Point of view
Word Count: 2,125
First Person's POV
Tonight at the Grill was a ‘live acoustics’ night, some of the performers were good and others were quite frankly not that great. Bonnie, Elena and Caroline were off on the next big adventure for the vampiric save-the-day business and while I knew about all the vampires, witches, werewolves and all that extra fun stuff. Besides Matt, I was the only human in the group and somehow I was pushed aside to be kept ‘safe; despite Matt always being dragged into the whirlpool of drama even if he didn’t want to be.
“The music is wonderful for the atmosphere tonight, don’t you agree?” That voice would haunt my dreams, haunt my every thought, I couldn’t fathom how gentle and warm a voice could sound. I glanced to the side, shooting a polite smile to the impeccably dressed man and nodded in agreement.
“I do agree, I feel like I’m in like a cute little romance story, the warm lighting and the music-“ I cut myself short, realising I was babbling to a random stranger who more than likely did not care for my ideas and thoughts.
“I can see how you would see that.” Oh, gosh- those eyes! That smile! This man would haunt me forever, picture perfect and everything I would want in a man. I continued to share a polite smile with the man, fiddling with the straw in my chocolate milkshake and turned myself slightly to face the man a little better.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you…?” Realising that he was waiting for my name, I placed my drink down and took his hand.
“Y/N L/N” He softly cupped my hand, shaking it and proceeded to share his name.
“Elijah Mikaelson.” I wish I could’ve hidden my reaction better, my eyes went wide, and my smile flattened for a moment before I quickly made sure to continue to be nice and polite. Elijah carefully rested my head on the bar, took a small sip of whatever his drink was and gazed at me with a quizzical look.
“You know who I am…” His tone was neither harsh nor hurt, Elijah seemed to have suspected my knowledge of his name and he even seemed curious by the idea of my knowledge.
“I know of your brother Niklaus… Elena told me about you, I think she might have exaggerated a bit. You don’t seem like the antagonist she kinda painted you out to be. From what I’ve heard, you’re the nicer brother… the noble one and I'm sure first glances can be deceiving but… I don’t know- you don’t seem like a bad man.” He briefly licked his lips, eyes shooting up to the ceiling and seemed to be contemplating his next moves.
“I suppose you know-“
“That you’re a…” I leaned closer to whisper so people passing by wouldn’t hear.
“An Original.”
“You don’t seem to be phased.”
“Team doppelgänger has built up my immunity to supernatural beings.” I let out a weak chuckle, cringing internally and turned my focus back on my drink. I wanted to keep speaking with him, I really did want to keep speaking with him but I knew the world that I happened to live in and I didn’t fancy the idea of being bait or hurt as collateral damage.
“It was really nice to meet you Elijah but I have to go.” He nodded, that handsome smile appearing once more, his actions made me gush and brought butterflies into my belly as he grabbed my jacket and assisted in placing it back on.
“I hope that you have a good evening, Y/N”
“Same to you Elijah.” He seemed to have a thought pop into his head, I stopped in my tracks, allowing for him to have the benefit of the doubt and give him the chance to speak his mind.
“May I have the pleasure of seeing you again?”
“Maybe… There’s always tomorrow.” I knew I had given myself away, I could feel my heart skip a beat, I’m sure he could hear it, his facial expression didn’t change but I could feel that he knew what I was feeling.
“Have a good evening,” I whispered, brushing past him to carry on my way.
+++++++
I had seen Elijah a couple of times since our first meeting, we had small conversations and I tried my best to conceal my heart, I didn't want to get close to this man despite enjoying his presence, his voice and the true appearance of his gentlemanly ways made me fall into a daydream greater than any story or dream I could ever have or read.
The next time I saw Elijah was three months after our first meeting, as I said we had multiple different meetings and they were all the greatest moments of my life despite how much I tried to protect my fragile heart. I had left my home for the park, I wanted to read outside of my home and get some fresh air away from the stuffiness of my bedroom. I rested the picnic blanket underneath a large tree, I read three chapters of my book before I felt a presence looming nearby, I placed the book to the side and stood up, surveying the area for a figure and jumped in my skin seeing Elijah approaching me.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you, may I join you?" I nodded, smiling at the man, watching as he unbuttoned his shirt and sat down with me on the picnic blanket. He gently picked my book up, staring at the cover with intrigue, I observed him with butterflies growing in my stomach, a blush wanting to form on my cheeks as I continued to drown in what was possibly a huge crush for the Original Vampire.
"Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi... I'm not sure I've heard of this one before."
"I doubt you would've, I don't exactly picture you reading a book like this?" He smiled, tilting his head slightly, a deep chuckle leaving his mouth and he handed me back the book.
"Why is that?"
"Well... I don't know, I picture you reading older books nothing from the late 20th century to the early 21st century." Elijah briefly nodded in agreement, I smiled proudly at my guess and fiddled with the tassels hanging off of my bookmark. The vampire took off his suit jacket and began rolling up the sleeves of his button-up, I bit the inside of my cheek, begging myself to remain calm and avoid giving away any kind of emotions being revealed.
"Enlighten me, will you though, please? What's it about?" I cleared my throat, leaning closer to him with joy forming, giddy that he was showing interest in something that I liked and enjoyed.
"It's the third book in the series, I've read it before, and this one is one of my favourites. Essentially the series is all about control some people have these powers and the leaders are trying to control these people. The relationship of the main characters is what I happen to enjoy the most about it, I love how Tahereh created their bond from..."
"Why did you stop?" Elijah gently questioned, his face furrowing in concern, I wanted to cringe but I forced the words out before I could let that show. Taking a deep breath, I turned my gaze back to him, scrunching my face up briefly and proceeded to explain to Elijah what was going through my head.
"Whenever I ramble on to the Salvatores and all that, it's clear that they don't care and I'm not wanting to force that onto you. I'm sorry." Elijah tutted, shaking his head and holding out his hand for me to take. Hesitating for a moment, I finally rested my hand in his, holding my breath for a moment and kept my eyes focused on him as he rested his other hand on top of mine.
"You do that too often, Y/N, I can see you trying to protect your heart and you have a wide range of information waiting to come out and you shut yourself down because you expect everyone else to do that. I hope you find someone... someone who makes you realise you don't need to do that."
"Could possibly end up being you, Elijah," I whispered.
+++++
When someone unknown came into Mystic Falls, it was always a concerning event, the vampires were always the most suspicious of strangers and most of the time they were typically right for not trusting the stranger. It was late when I left the grill tonight, Elijah was growing on my mind more and more, and I would be hit with a wave of memories at random moments.
"Up ahead, there's an alley to your right, walk down it. Try anything-"
"Okay... I understand." I whispered, complying as I walked a little quicker and turned down the alleyway. I cried out as I was instantly shoved against the wall, my head ached and the world spun around me, I bit back a sob as I hit the ground and hissed as the gravel bit into my skin. I kicked off my heels, not fancying a broken ankle and lept to my feet running towards the street but missed as the man tackled me to the ground and which resulted in blood slightly trickling down my forehead and more cuts forming against my skin.
It felt like something out of a vampire movie, I heard a whoosh and then a light thud. Elijah appeared, holding the man against the wall effortlessly with one hand and easily compelled the man to walk off and not commit any sort of crime again. I let out a few sobs as the pain sunk in and the adrenaline started to fade away.
Elijah swooped me into his arms, effortlessly taking me to his mansion and rested me down on his obnoxiously large bed. He crouched down, gently cupping my face in his hands, observing my facial features and swiftly disappeared somewhere before running back.
"Are you okay?" He questioned, focusing on grabbing the things from the first-aid kit to treat my wounds.
"I'm okay..." I whispered, hissing as he wiped an alcohol wipe across the graze on my palm and watched as he apologised profusely for inflicting any added pain onto me. Elijah was so attentive to my needs, he cleaned the blood and dirt away from my cuts and grazes. Covering them with bandaids, doing what he could to assist in caring for me. It was as he was lingering for a moment, observing my form that I realised that Elijah Mikaelson would never hurt me. He would never cause any harm to me, Elijah Mikaelson would protect me and I knew that I wouldn't need to worry any longer.
"You wouldn't hurt me..." I whispered, staring at the vampire as he grasped my face and held eye contact with me.
"Y/N L/N I would never dream of hurting you, you... you're perfect... Y/N you are the epitome of perfect, I haven't met someone as intelligent, kind, sweet, and funny in a long time. Y/N I love you and I hope that you'll allow-" I pushed myself closer to him, carefully cupping his face to kiss the man who had possessed my dreams too often.
"Elijah, please, never let me go, I can't keep guarding myself-"
"Shhh, I've got you." He kissed my forehead, pulling me into his arms and pushing himself to lay against the headboard of his bed. I inhaled, holding onto the warm and mesmerising smell of his cologne, I curled into his chest and hummed gently as he rested another kiss on my forehead.
I felt protected, Elijah was my guardian angel, and he made me feel warm and gooey. Made me giddy and the butterflies a constant swarm in my belly, I fiddled with his hands, staring at the family ring that rested on his finger and glanced to him as he pulled my face to meet his. I hummed as he rested a kiss against my lips, sucking in another deep breath and curling in closer as he strokes my hair, his touch comforting and loving.
"Can I stay here? Just in your arms? Where I'm safe and with you, you Elijah who looks after me and takes the time to listen and know me?" Elijah's smile made the butterflies come to life, my cheeks flushed red and his simple words reassured me for an infinity of time.
"Always and forever."
#the originals#fluff#angst#elijah mikaelson#elijah mikaelson x reader#elijah mikaelson imagine#the mikaelsons#klaus mikaelson x reader#klaus mikaelson imagine#klaus mikaelson x y/n#klaus mikaelson#elijah mikaelson fluff#klaus mikaelson fluff#daniel gillies#joseph morgan#rebekah mikaelson#hayley marshall#marcel gerard#freya mikaelson#kol mikaelson#daniel gilles fluff#elijah mikealson x reader#elijah mikaelson fic#elijah mikaelson x y/n#elijah mikaelson x female reader#niklaus mikaelson#niklaus imagines#niklaus x reader#niklaus mikaelson x reader#niklaus mikaelson fluff
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This Week in BL - Top 3 Are HEATING UP
Organized, in each category, by ones I'm enjoying most at the top.
Dec 2023 Wk 2
Ongoing Series - Thai
Honestly, 3 are neck & necking for top position! They are all so good in different ways. But The Sign had me hooting with laughter this week, so it scooped #1.
The Sign (Sat YT) ep 4 of 10 - This show is literally everything (except straight) all at once. It's BL, queer, band of brothers, romcom, erotica, paranormal, fated mates, mystery, suspense, slasher, and horror. It’s the king of genre mash-up chaos. I have no idea what I’m watching but I’m ON this ride. Is it a roller coaster? Is it a haunted house? Is it a twirl & hurl? Is there candy floss? Am I even tall enough? Who tf cares. All through the second scene, I was laughing. It was legit funny. Billy has great comedic timing. Guess he’s not just a pretty face.
Everyone should be watching this. Sure, it's madness but there is genius in it.
Last Twilight (Fri YT) ep 6 of 12 - Yech. August may be one of GMMTV’s least likable characters ever (and that is saying something). Meanwhile, MOAR language play! They spoiling me!
Mhok letting Day go then walking away at the party hurt so bad.
Argh this show is great!
Ep 6 so that kiss was right on schedule. I’m looking forward to the boyfriend eps before doom & pain in the new year. Carry on GMMTV.
Speaking of...
Cherry Magic (Sat YouTube) ep 2 of 12 - Oh they’re great. It’s great. It’s paced oddly, moving quickly through most of the key scenes of the original JBL in these first 2 eps. I think it’s intending to encompass more of the manga series than that one did. Which is good, cause that will get us all the way to The Library Kiss (TM). It's the best kiss in the manga. I also like the sides in this show (better than the JBL version).
My Dear Gangster Oppa (Thurs iQIYI) ep 8fin - What a lovely slightly unhinged little show. Tew, can we talk? Un-ironic suspenders, that takes courage. Also, the revolver was a crazy gun choice.
Final thoughts:
This show is just as ridiculous as its title. About a gaymer who falls in love with one of his in-game teammates, who just happens to be a IRL gangster. A real gangster, the kind that actually kills people regularly. The lead pair is doing their best with a ridiculous story and shoddy script, but I enjoyed it. Although I was grateful it wasn’t very long, what we got was oddly satisfying if, frankly, a little bit silly. Recommended. 8/10
That said, what's important about this BL is not the show, but the production and style. Let me explain... no, too much, let me sum up.
This is a chimera BL. Regarding characters: it has Japan's style otaku + Korea's style gangster + Thailand's style friendship group. It used Thai talent + Korean money (Kakao) & IP (adapted from a manwha) but aired on a Chinese channel globally (iQIYI). I'm delighted by the eclectic insanity of this production and truly doubt that any other genre but BL could ever produce like this. It's like diplomat's BL and it's the great wonder of our age that it happened at all. This BL deserves its place in the history books on production alone, even if that place is only in the footnotes. A remarkable little monster.
For Him (Thurs iQIYI) ep 3 of 10 - The sides are… messy. Using the same actor for the old bf is… odd. But in the end, this show leaves me smiling. Which means, I like it despite myself.
Bake Me Please (Mon Gaga) ep 4 of 6 - It's decent. It’s basically what I wanted Antique Bakery to be when I first watched that way back when (not to mention Bite Me). But there’s been so much BL since then that, for some reason, this is falling flat. I think it’s moving too fast for a Thai series. Although, say what you like, Ohm has to be one of the best soft kissers in the industry. He's just good at mouth tenderness.
Ugh, that doesn't sound right. But you know what I mean.
Twins the series (Fri GaGa) ep 7 of 10 - I love how First is so upset when Sprite starts chatting and being nice to Koh. Sprite is just a sweet easy-going likable boy. I enjoy Sprite as a main character, he’s a bubbly little communicator. And they had a cute kiss.
Pit Babe (Fri iQIYI) ep 5 of 14 - Because there was more Alan and Jeff and they were more key to the plot I was more into this ep. I do compare it to green smoothie down the pants in the Trash Watch.
Cooking Crush (Sun YT) ep 3 of 12 - Look OffGun are truly great. But I’m just not sure we need them in BL anymore. That said, it’s nice to see Off as "the one with the crush" for a change. Also, this show is only good when OffGun are on screen together, otherwise it kinda, well, sucks.
Night Dream (Sat YT) ep 1 of 6 - Cafe setting featuring a cook and a writer. *Seems awfully familiar.* Except these two are exes and this is a reunion romance. It’s stiff and very pulp but not bad (no crap sound effects) and I am a sucker for a reunion romance. That said, Rookie Thailand is not to be trusted, proceed with caution.
Absolute Zero (Weds iQIYI) ep 12fin - I'm grateful this is over. It was tense but for the wrong reasons - sadness and confusion. This final episode was fine, but that’s because it was mostly them being together + flashbacks. Plus all the familiar actor faces of the grown-up friends (hi, Karn my lovely, still stunning I see). But 2 of 12 episodes is not enough for the 10 of suffering and confusion that came before.
In conclusion:
A man is killed on his 10th anniversary resulting in a time paradox, for which the only solution is him never meeting his childhood sweetheart until later in life. Both lovers cycle back to the past at different ages, so that they each become their own 1st & 2nd great loves, but every time it ends in pain, until each also endures 10 years of separation. Finally it gets fixed, but leaves them with multiple memories of time's failures like temporal PTSD, and everyone around them has chronic deja vu. Me? I got both. This is one of those BLs that is high-quality with great acting but poor story. If you like your BL dwelling, maudlin, and tense due to angst and suffering, then you might enjoy this. But I just regret it, 6/10. Recommended only if you like confusing time travel emo pain.
In which case, just watch Tokyo in April is... instead. Give over Thailand, Japan does it better.
Middleman’s Love (Fri YT & iQIYI ep 6 of 8 - While our main couple isn’t working for me... the side couple isn’t working for me either. I really wanted to give LeoTai a chance, this is the 3rd show I’ve seen them in, and still nope. I like Jade a lot more when he’s sad. He’s a much more pleasant screen experience depressed. I would like him to stay hurt for a couple of eps, just so I can enjoy this show a tiny bit more. But then he just goes unhinged again. Argh. I just don’t like it.
My Universe (Sun iQIYI) Pisces of Me ep 17 of 24 - Codependent boyfriends in middle school planning for high school dealing with stuff. Including other boys being into them.
Playboyy (Thurs Gaga) 5 of 14 eps - Dear Playboyy, it's not you, it’s me… I hate you. You’re about as deep (and as palatable) as a shot glass of cum. While I'm sure you’re someone’s kink, you're my weakest link. Goodbye. DNF
Ongoing Series - Not Thai
VIP Only (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 5 of 10 - It’s cute but I don’t think BL in this short format is Taiwan’s strength these days. And this is quite slow and dull. Perhaps they should have whacked it down to 6 eps, not 10.
Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 3 of 8 - This is one of those JBLs that I should like on paper but is failing me. The drag bit was ridiculous but handled gently. The kiss was… well… something wasn’t it? It’s all very odd. I like the photographer cutie character.
It's Airing But...
The Whisperer (Sun ????) 10 eps - Thai horror BL that ALSO involves cheating (what joy is mine). I don't think even the perfect single dimple can motivate me to watch. Word is... it's terrible.
7 Days Before Valentine (Weds WeTV) 10 eps - Giving me Luminous Solution vibes. I'm waiting to binge if it's safe.
Beyond The Star (Weds iQIYI) 8 eps - House of Stars meets Boyband. I was NOT impressed with ep 1. Been told I shouldn't bother.
What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps - I find this series more fun to binge, so I'm waiting until after it completes its run next week.
Dear Kitakyushu (Thai/Japan movie) in theaters in country only, I know nothing about distribution.
Behind the Shadows (Korea movie) this is a historical I was interested in, but I've been told they kill the gay so I'm OUT.
Next Week Looks Like This
Still coming:
12/23 Dead Friend Forever (Thai horror) iQIYI
Original 2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED). With the end of the year upon us I'll do an "announced for 2023 but never happened list" soon.
THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS
He so pretty.
I forgot how likable TayNew are, and frankly I think New is a better version of this role for me, personally. I like him a lot. He's a conscientious sweetheart. And a good egg. (Cherry Magic)
Ah the rooftop my old friend. (Last Twilight)
I would like to point out that it's no accident the naga's sex dream happened in the shower, he's a water creature after all. (The Sign)
(Last week)
#the sign the series#was very hot this week#this week in bl#bl updates#Last Twilight#Thai BL#cherry magic#my dear gangster oppa#my dear gangster oppa review#for him the series#Bake Me Please#antique bakery#twins the series#cooking crush#offgun#Absolute Zero review#bl reviewed#bl reviews
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Top 12 Sanderson RAFOs that Haunt Me
[SPOILERS! For Stormlight and Mistborn (both eras) especially]
"RAFO" = "Read and Find Out," AKA, a question that Sanderson says may be answered in a future book. Here, then, are Sanderson's "Read and Find Out" answers that most haunt me...insofar as I'm desperate to know how the answers will play out in the future!
(I'll link to @onlycosmere or the Coppermind for the sources!)
#12: Where is Design in Lost Metal?
Whenever Hoid appears in a book chronologically later than Stormlight 4, we all freak out if Design is somehow not there. There was (seemingly) no Design in Tress and no Design in Lost Metal. Someone asked about the Lost Metal and got RAFO'd (here). Sanderson's response of "oooh, excellent question" makes me especially curious. Like, does something happen to Design? Or is Design some sort of object that we don't realize is Design? So curious!
#11: Is Spook still alive?
Someone asked if Spook is still alive, and Sanderson RAFO'd it (here). I'll admit; I'm mostly curious about this because I'm curious about Kelsier and how he drew Spook into his terrible (?) schemes. And it's always interesting when those characters from early books come back. I wouldn't mind seeing Spook around again!
#10: Taravangian's Perfect Day
Someone asked if anything else of note happened on Taravangian's Perfect Day, and Sanderson said yes (!) and then RAFO'd the details (here). I can't even begin to guess what this might refer to, but it feels pretty important. I wonder what it means!
#9: Valor Will Be Mentioned in Stormlight 5
Well, name-dropped anyway (here). Valor is one of the few remaining shards we don't know much about, so I'm curious as to what we'll learn about her in Stormlight 5 and in what context she'll be name-dropped. I'm not as curious as I should be, I guess, because I frankly can't keep all of the shards straight. But it'll still be cool!
#8: Renarin's Detective Skills
Somebody asked if Renarin figured out on his own that Adolin killed Sadeas, and Sanderson gave it a "partial RAFO" (here). I really hope we find out more about this, maybe when Renarin is the flashback character. I want to know how he knew, and what he did with that knowledge. More Renarin overall, tbh!
#7: Hoid Dated a Dragon
Hoid dated a dragon once; it's canon (here). But which one? That we're still waiting to see! I'll admit; I'm curious.
#6 Were Glys and Tumi Dead-Eyes?
Someone asked if Glys & Tumi were dead-eyes before Sja-anat got to them (here). Sanderson RAFO'd it and said it was a good question (!!). That doesn't mean the theory is true, of course, but it means it COULD be true! And if dead-eyes can be restored by Sja-anat, then........is there hope for Maya???
#5: Missing Yellow From Pinter Ink
Someone asked Sanderson about the hion colors, and how blue and magenta are printer colors, and how yellow is missing. Sanderson indicated that this was exactly as he had planned and RAFO'd the missing yellow "ink" (here). Later, Sanderson explained a bit more that if there were a third Hion line, it would be yellow, and hinted that there was a reason it was missing (here). Sanderson has elsewhere indicated that "yin yang" type investiture is a Cosmere-wide phenomenon...which means...what? That there should be another magic outside of the dichotomy? That it's missing? Just from the hions or from all magic systems? Does this have something to do with aethers as the non-Adonalsium magic type?
I'm not smart enough with Cosmere science to know, but I AM very curious!
#4: If Kelsier and Moash Meet
When asked what would happen if Kelsier and Moash meet, Sanderson RAFO'd it (here). Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will meet, of course...but it means they COULD. And now I want it--I want it so much! #Let-Moash-join-the-Ghostbloods-as-Kelsier's-righthand-man-2024
#3: Ask Me About July 18
I think much of the fandom is aware of this RAFO, where Sanderson tweeted that we should all remind him to talk more about the important scene that he wrote for Stormlight 5 on July 18 (here). Like everyone, I am desperate to know what scene he is talking about. The Odium duel? Renarin and Rlain getting together?? Szeth and Kaladin petting a baby sheep while they talk about their feelings??? It could be anything!
#2: Rat skulls glow on Threnody?!
People who pay attention to my every comment on this blog may know that Threnody is my favorite Cosmere planet, and so I was definitely interested to see this RAFO, where Sanderson said that...rat skulls glow on Threnody for a reason?? (here) Not only did he say that they glow for a good reason, but he also "laugh[ed] gleefully" apparently. I am so curious...and so alarmed.
#1: Hoid Drinking Perfume Will Be Relevant
But the "RAFO" that most haunts me is from way back in 2016 (here), when someone asked why Hoid was drinking perfume in Bands of Mourning...and Sanderson RAFO'd it, saying that he planned to delve into it one day. D-Delve into WHAT exactly? How could it possibly be Cosmere-relevant that Hoid was drinking perfume? Is it about where he got it? Is there a perfume-drinking-based magic system??
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN
#cosmere#cosmerelists#stormlight archive#stormlight archive spoilers#mistborn#mistborn spoilers#Hoid#Spook#Kelsier#Taravangian#Threnody
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The Nurse (Part Three) || Rick Grimes (TWD)
Part one, Part Two, Part Three
Taglist: @strnqer @1985bitch @curlycarley @imaginemyfavoritefics @t-uroboros @crazytxgradstudent @addisonnie @whos6claire @taylvvrr @quicksilversg1rl @catt-leya @1tsk1tty @pascalshearts @hopefulatrocity @xoyouronlyamorrxo @fuseburner @idkseraphine @all-for-kpop
Summary: Before all this, you were a nurse. A nurse who had patients, one of which was a man in a coma. A sheriff, you think, it was all kinda fuzzy now. When it all went sideways, you set up what you could for the man - but had to leave. You'd always wondered where he'd ended up; until in your search of shelter, you run into a familiar face.
TWS: Blood, gore, hospital mention, mentions of death, gun violence (just violence in general), swearing, all things typical of TWD.
[[A/N: this one is set directly after the ending of 2, so get ready for some grimey action! I'm so excited to begin the romance part of all this. Thanks for reading!!]]
At first, he didn't say anything, eyes laid hesitantly on you -testing if he knew you, you'd assumed.
"Who's askin'?"
You brushed off your hands, taking a few warning steps back from Carl, as the man took a step towards him. Almost like an even exchange, as his calloused hands pulled his son to him - a protective notion that you couldn't blame him for.
"Y/N," you answered, confidently.
Daryl interrupted the eye contact, which you were kind of thankful for, "They're a doctor, felt like we could use the help. 'Specially with Jude."
Rick's eyes faltered to Daryl at the name, gaze sharp and concentrated, and suddenly, you wondered who exactly this Jude was.
He took steps forward towards you, long strides with the twinkle of his belt and Carl pushed behind him, "How do you know me?"
Rick was close to you now, and you felt a bit unhinged in the energy rolling off him in waves - an untouched emotional burst. You knew them well. Just don't push-
"How do you know my son?" His tone echoed much more dangerous, and for a moment, you weren't sure how to explain your situation.
"Rick," the older man, Maggie's dad, spoke, tone heavy with meaning that you couldn't quite decipher. You assumed it had to do with the noticeable absence of... Shane and Lori.
The man, who now stood less than a breath away from you, sighed - hands falling to his sides and hair falling forward ever so slightly, he still somehow had that same smell you'd noticed in the hospital (it felt oddly nostalgic).
"I know," he whispered, and you weren't sure it was meant for you so you said nothing in response.
However, when his eyes turned up to match yours in a defeat you'd become familiar with over the years, "You promise you won't hurt 'em?"
Your breath hitched.
The vulnerability was still the same, shaky and open and honest - something that felt so humane to you in a world of death. You weren't sure it'd ever get out of your head now, the shining blue filled with a desperation unlike anything you'd ever seen before, "I promise."
Rick stared at you for a moment longer, like something had ticked in his mind, but you frankly needed to get away from the bright blue eyes that had haunted you ever since you'd seen them.
"Now," turning to the crowd, the heat of Rick being beside you feeling unnerving -when was the last time you'd been so close to someone, "I heard someone needed some help?"
"Before that," Rick's gravel erupted from beside you, as he pointed in the direction of Maggie's dad, who pointedly smiled in response, "-Y/N, this is Hershel, Hershel, this is Y/N."
You nodded to the man ever so slightly, and he did the same - big white beard stretching across his chin.
"He was our doctor," Rick spoke to you, drawl right beside your ear - tired yet somehow made you want to listen, "-I assume you'd two like to talk about some things?"
Hershel nodded, making eye contact with you, "I could give ya the rundown on some patients?"
"Oh, sure," you answered, before looking back to Maggie, "-I just want to get to what's urgent first? If that's alright with you?"
"'Course," Hershel reassured, motioning to the crops, "-I'll be out here when you need me."
You confirmed with yourself, before turning to Maggie, "Where do ya need me?"
"Rick'll take you," she answered, a little distracted, "-I've gotta help with some food for the night."
"Alright," you spun on your foot, ready to trail the sheriff who seemed to just vanish out of your sight.
"And just-" Maggie faltered, fingers trailing a grip on your wrist holding you in place, "-he's going through something right now, so. Just give him time... He's... He's a good man."
You paused, noting the tone of her voice - sympathy almost, "Yeah, of course."
Maggie smiled, a small one, but it still felt quite warm. The chill of dread settled deep in your bones, teetering in its place - just for a second, really. You smiled back, just a little, felt odd after so long of pure silence and... well, being alone.
The hum of people mixed with the... walkers, apparently, was unusual to you -normally, it was silence, all about keeping quiet and making sure none of them would even think your way.
So, yeah, it was odd.
With a breath, you trailed over to the sheriff - who only seemed slightly preoccupied. His hands rested on his belt with a casual stance, while his eyebrow furrowed in a sort of decisiveness that felt... well, very leader.
You took the distance to look at the man, truly they're were no "ulterior" motives, to acknowledge the time, the change of his face from what you'd known.
His hair was longer now, curling behind his ears, and the stubble you'd once shaved was now growing back. Littered with a touch of grey now, actually, but it somehow suited him - or maybe the notion of growing to that stage in this world was positive. You weren't quite sure.
Well, that was a lie.
Rick Grimes was attractive. You knew that.
You knew that from the day you met him, but your mind had never really wandered there. You had a larger scale plan then, primarily, caring for your patient and keeping the family updated. The idea was a single thought, an observation even, in a panicked moment of a new trauma being wheeled in.
You'd never really... Other than his eyes, which burned into your brain with the air of something you'd never really forget. Your brain was in a completely different direction, but now?
You had the time to look at him, even just for a second. It couldn't hurt, right?
Eyes sifting across the broad shoulders and confident stance, you took in what you could. His hands were strong, just decisive in where they clung, and his arms seemed to be stronger than you'd once known, he was... larger.
You supposed everyone was.
He just... suited it. Well. Very well.
You blinked, shaking yourself out of your stupor and looking around yourself to see if anyone had seen you drift off. And with reluctance, you only saw one pair of eyes trained on you - brown and a gaze you felt distrusting.
Daryl, you noted to yourself before waltzing over to the sheriff. Former sheriff? Was that insensitive?
With a breath you interrupted, the itch to get somewhere you could just... do your job growing, "Rick?"
The man stopped, seemingly surprised, and turned to you, "Y/N. Yes?"
"Maggie says you'll take me to who needs me?" You answered, with a little but of an uncertain tone - the man seemed to be unsettled, "-She didn't tell me much other than that."
"Yeah," Rick grumbled out, "-sounds like Maggie. I'll take you to 'er, c'mon."
He said something gently to the woman he spoke to, something you couldn't quite hear, but didn't quite feel the need to be eavesdropping. Not this early on in a visit, anyway.
As you made your way through the cell blocks, Rick seemed to be increasingly fidgety, wiping at his head, and brushing off his pants. Like he was hesitating to say something. His hand was shaky, and his breath was labored.
You'd seen a lot of grief in your life, whether it be your siblings' pet fish being flushed down the toilet or a father's daughter dying in surgery, it was a staple. You knew it, and based on what you knew...
You eyes looked to his left hand, the silver band shining in the gentle sunlight.
"Rick, I don't want to come off... well, intrusive but-" You asked, stopping in your tracks and turning to the man, a gentle brush on his shoulder, "-when was the last time you had rest?"
He seemed to pause in his steps, taking a stuttered breath, and for a sudden moment, you thought you overstepped.
"You were," he started, head falling forward, "-you were there, weren't you?"
The infliction, you knew what he was talking about, "Yes. I... I was the one assigned to your case."
"No, no," he spoke, turning to you - a little deliriously, "-before that."
"Yo-You promised me my family was safe," he added, and your mind sparked with the actual words with those vivid blue eyes in your head.
"Yes, I did. It's... It's how I know-"
"Carl," Rick finished, turning back to the direction you were heading.
The silence was odd but not out of place, not with what you expected him to be going through. He seemed to be rarely here, not really on this ground; you weren't sure of how to approach it.
"Just up here," he uttered, leading you down the cells with ease - despite the fact that they looked the same.
"What exactly should I ex-"
Then he turned, and you followed. In the cell was a rickety bed, one you'd say seemed typical of a prison, but what caught your eye was the blonde girl. She was huddled over something on the bed, protective almost.
"Rick, is this-"
He shushed you as the woman shot up - feet planted safely on the floor, and a gleam in her eye that you were familiar with, a deadly gleam.
She exhaled, at the sight of him, her stance deflating, "Oh, Rick, you scared me. Did you come to see- Wait, whose this?"
There was a bundle now, you saw in her arms, and your heart dropped.
"Beth, this is Y/N," Rick cleared the silence, as the blond, Beth, looked at you questioningly, "-they're a doctor, said they could look at Judith, make sure she's alright."
Beth hummed, a little uncertain, "Okay."
You bit your lip, as Beth walked toward you, the bundle bouncing of it's own accord, and your heart faltered, "Is that-"
"Well, Y/N," Beth interrupted, her smile kind with an extension of her hands, "-meet little Judith Grimes."
Your breath caught as you looked to Rick, understanding - even just for a second, "Grimes?"
With no word response, your eyes caught on the baby, her tiny face blinking up at you with an innocence that you'd forgotten. One you'd almost missed.
You smiled, gently caressing the baby's cheek with your fingertip, "Judith, huh?"
Beth smiled down at the baby, and you became aware that she must've been the caretaker for awhile, she seemed kind. It made sense, especially with...
Rick was looking at the three of you, an air around him of tension -one that you couldn't quite get a grasp on. But you assumed the feelings were complicated, ones you figured he'd tell you, if he wanted you to know.
"Can I..." you began before faltering off, "Can I hold her?"
You weren't sure exactly who to ask, so your question was kind of aimless to whoever chose to answer it.
"Sure," Beth answered, and extended her arms to you, the bundle so still and warm - you imagined her arms were tired anyway, "-go on."
So, with a calming exhale, you held your arms out and gently held the baby, hands secure, and a sense of familiarity bubbled through you.
You hadn't worked in the maternity ward often, but... you were in there enough, assisting with labors on days needed -you found yourself a little bit of everywhere.
There was nothing quite like holding a baby, the gentle weight against your chest, and the hum of warmth against your arms.
"How old is she?" You asked, noting the incredibly young features of the baby - she was definitely a newborn with the big beady eyes and barely moving arms.
Rick answered that one, "A few weeks."
You stilled for a second, noting that she had looked that young, yes. You hadn't wanted to assume, but now, with the deep desperation that Rick held -underneath his skin and shining in his eyes.
So, it had been recently.
Beth smiled at you, as you gently held the baby to your chest, a familiar warmth buzzing up your skin -one you had missed greatly.
Before you could even think about handing Judith back, Rick spoke up, a little gravelly -tired, "Beth, why don't you help Maggie with the food?"
She blinked, a little astonished -you weren't sure why, but you had a guess, "Oh, uh sure! Just let me know if you need me."
You began to bounce Judith gently in your arms. She seemed awfully quiet, but you assumed that was a factor of the environment. The amount of whispers, shushes, and extra layers only confirmed it -it was dangerous for a baby to cry. So, she adapted.
Without a word, you slunk down onto the bed. Leaning against the cellblock wall, Judith laid across your chest comfortably - her tiny eyes fluttering shut with the gentle hum of your heartbeat.
Rick, in a moment, sat beside you at a reasonable distance, but you couldn't quite feel uncomfortable with him -not after caring for him as you did. Hoping with every single breath he took out of that machine that he'd see his son again and working harder to make sure he did.
You decided against saying anything, the only things bubbling up were questions. Questions you doubted the man had the brain power to process now, so you bit your tongue. You'd ask later.
If Rick Grimes needed to follow you around like a puppy dog to survive, so be it. You'd been through worse.
"You knew them," Rick interrupted your thoughts, as he leaned his head against the wall, looking up at the ceiling.
You hummed, he didn't have to say who, "I did."
"Did they-" Rick began, opening his mouth before looking at the baby and faltering. His mouth snapping to a close.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," you spoke, as soft as a breeze and gently trailed your free hand to tighten the blanket around Judith. The wind was biting a bit through the halls.
Rick hummed, quiet and still a touch of a grumble -smelt a bit like dirt and a touch of what he always smelled like... which you weren't even sure what it was. It had just always been there, even in the hospital.
"Did they seem close?" Rick finished with a huff of air out of his lungs like he was trying to understand something -desperately.
"I..." you paused, adjusting Judith for a second in thought, as you remembered the gradual closeness -a comfort between the two of grief, "What do you mean?"
There was a pause, as Rick messed with his hands, pushing his hair back from his face with a breath.
"Judith ain't mine."
Your breath stuttered, watching as the baby drifted to sleep -the slight whistle of her nose being the only thing keeping you in the know that she was breathing, otherwise, she seemed perfectly still.
"I still love her, like she's mine, I do-" he finished, voice a little shaky, and a sniffle of the nose, "-but I just... I can't- I need time."
"Nobody's rushing you, Rick."
There was silence for a minute, as Judith seemed satisfied -eyes drifting closed. You glanced around the room for her supplies, and sure enough, there was formula, diapers, and wipes covered by a tarp in the corner. Maybe protected from any wandering eyes.
"Thank you."
His voice was slow, slurred, and tired.
You just hummed, trailing your fingertips over the designs on the blanket, cute little ducks and every once in awhile a few bubbles.
"Of course," you whispered, as the man beside you sagged, just ever so slightly, and the soft snore began filling your ears.
You glanced at him, eyes fluttered shut, and eyebags smoothed out (even just for a second), and resisted the itch of your fingers to brush across the skin, "I promised, didn’t I?"
#rick grimes#rick grimes x reader#its griming time#stuff n' thangs#rick grimes x you#rick grimes x y/n#ricky dicky doo dah grimes#twd#twd rick#rick grimes x y/n fanfiction#the nurse#nurse!reader#doctor!reader
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Akatsuki members as perfumes i own
I couldn't sleep last night because I am haunted by visions that are so very specific to me and my needs. These are all indie company perfumes currently available for purchase or seasonally available. I am a creature of my senses, and therefore I am not bound only with the curse of associating music with characters, but also scents.
Pain: The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside You from Death & Floral
Description: Heavenly musk, lingering funeral flowers, cold scent of vanilla in an empty corridor, handprints on a foggy window
This is a scent known by its fans to invoke deep emotion. It has funeral lillies to a T. The title is the main reason for my choice, though I can imagine him smelling like this. It's the definition of cold and formal, like the corpses he drags to do his bidding.
🥀
Konan: Mnemophilia from Nui Cobalt Designs
Description: Stately gardenia, antique sandalwood, Florentine iris, pearl musk, jasmine absolute, neroli, and liquidambar.
This is a scent which contains notes I have not experienced anywhere else. It is like...you took the idea of a mirror and gave it a smell? It is pristine, classy, and oh so very melancholy. It makes me thoughtful, it reminds me of glass or crystal. Another "cold" scent, similar to Pain's but more of a sister than an imitation of it. Less about death and more about memory, as the name entails.
I also considered Billet Doux from Possets, which is meant to evoke a perfume-stained love letter. Also very clean and classy, but actually brings the impression of paper and ink. Also noticeably a lot sweeter than Mnemophilia! Perhaps more for her when she was young and in love.
📷
Obito: The Emperor of Ice Cream from The Strange South
Description: Limp flowers on a windowsill, strawberry ice cream, tobacco leaves, tonka, and a dribble of young blood.
Saccharine with something to hide. The blood note on its own (i was able to try it) is actually very fruity, like strawberry. I think the visualization of dripping blood and strawberry syrup being the same is wonderful. The tobacco comes through as the scent fades, becoming more mature over time.
👑
Zetsu: A Roll in the Hay from Alkemia
Description: dried hay, fresh green grass, early summer wildflower honey, vanilla grass, vanilla leaf, and wild poppy.
This one really just smells authentically like true to life hay. I can't wear it all the time but it's so, so distinct when I do. It's a scent for when I want to imagine I'm all alone, deep in a field of tall, dried grass. The only thing is that it is probably far too innocent for him. He would not *want* to smell like this.
But I do. Because it's great.
...Okay he'd actually smell like Esprit de la Terre from Alkemia which smells like pine trees, but I don't like pine trees! I'm going to make him suffer and smell like vanilla.
🌾
Hidan: Damned Nightfall from Death & Floral
This scent is fucking purple lmao. The violets are a little powdery, like the visage of something pure, and the rest is DARK. It clings to my skin with those deep resins first and foremost like incense being burned. Despite all the food notes, not one lick of sweetness, frankly not a bit of edibility. This is a badass vibe like a jaguar hunting in the dark. It bites if I put too much on.
Description: the deepest and darkest amber blended with violets, black labdanum, vanilla absolute, espresso absolute, fresh cocoa beans, and honey
There are scents that exist that mean to invoke the smell of blood, but none of them are real enough to suit him. However, the metallic nature of Scythe from Possets is very impressive and real with a suitable name for the Jashinist.
🌒
Kakuzu: JFK and Jackie from Possets
First and foremost, this scent is old school. The leather reminds me of what Kakuzu's skin may be like; I read a fic way back describing his earth grudge causing it to have that kind of texture. Perhaps this is what he'd smell like if you somehow convinced him to give you a hug. You know. Somehow.
Description: A snap of the finest leather, a bit of oakmoss, combined with tabac blonde essence, a whiff of tea, and the warmth of silk.
There are scents that smell like money, but I do not actually like the scent of money. I'm sorry Kakuzu.
☕
Deidara: Morton Salt Girl from Death & Floral
I know salt doesn't smell. I know it doesn't. But this is what salt smells like. If you ever get opportunity to try this, do it. It's so unique. I think this would be a wonderful scent to imagine for his clay; it is so distinctly earthy, and the salty aspect reminds me of smelling playdoh as a kid (and putting it into my mouth).
Description: yellow musk, salt, and rain on concrete.
🧂
Sasori: Forbidden Library from Nui Cobalt
This is what his puppets smell like. It's what they smell like! I do not make the rules! It is deep, it is softly masculine, it is beautifully woody. This is the phantom that haunts the abandoned castle library, who crawls out of the ancient tome in your fingers.
Description: The vanillic scent of aging paper infused with ceremonial incense, venerable bookshelves of black oak and sweet himalayan cedarwood, a hint of mossy stone, and an undercurrent of faded suede.
Bonus points: this is one of the few perfumes I reach for on the weekly. It's so, so pleasant.
📜
Kisame: Two Cups of Tea, a Monsoon, Me and You from Death & Floral
Description: rain on cracked soil, wet creosote, a swelling monsoon, desert cedar, black tea.
I am one of the only people that seem to take this as floral. The storm is there, it is humid and sticky and moist like rain in the summer, but I distinctly get flowers behind it all. I think it suits him. (And it is one of few aquatic scents that don't smell like laundry to me nor like cut grass).
☔
Itachi: Ghostfire from Alkemia
Has the distinct impression of paleness against a night sky, like a star or a will-o-wisp. It's a strange but haunting combo of melting candle wax and melon. There is a sugared and floral version of this scent called Foxfire, which perhaps encapsulates him before everything went downhill.
Description: A luminous attraction of ethereal white ambers. Hauntingly beautiful.
Another Alkemia scent is Burning Roses, which is exactly what it says on the tin but with the unfortunate addition of labdanum, which this iteration of hates my skin chemistry with a passion. Oh, what could have been...
🎇
#i also drew sketches for each of these because im insane and havent had the will to draw for years so i am latching onto any and all inspo#akatsuki#pain naruto#konan#hidan#kakuzu#zetsu#obito#sasori#deidara#kisame#itachi#tak talks#if you read my fic the scent i associate with reader/takara is Time Marches On#Cotton candy rain and ivy
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FourRaccoonsInACoat Masterlist
Thanks for stopping by my masterlist, I am thrilled there are people who are interested in my writing! You may be asking, did I really create a logo for a nonexistent book series that only exists in the BG3 universe and features Malta the crime-fighting cat, all for the sake of a gag?
Yes. Yes I did. I will speak no more on the matter.
My fanfiction is centered around Baldur's Gate 3 and explores the romance between Astarion and the Dark Urge. The Durge MC in my works is based on my first BG3 Durge, a female half-drow warlock named Eli. I currently have one ongoing chapter fic, as well as a few one shots that all take place in the same universe.
I write fanfiction for myself as a way to decompress from life and because I enjoy sharing my stories with others. It legitimately makes my day when someone is entertained by my writing, so thank you for every comment, like, message and kudo. Much love and appreciation to you all!
Also, if you're here for BG3 Incorrect Quotes, follow that link for the masterlist.
____________________
AO3 Account - All of my works are crossposted to AO3.
Ongoing Work
Head Full of Ghosts:
Current Rating: M
Chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Eli has spent a lot of time combing through her fractured psyche, trying to piece together any semblance of facts about who she was before she awoke on a mind flayer nautiloid. In all that self-reflection, she has concluded there are two things she is very good at. Killing people and drinking.
Neither of which is proving very useful as she tries to navigate interpersonal pitfalls after being appointed leader of a ragtag group of maladjusted misfits who are trying to source a cure for the illithid tadpoles in their heads. As if that isn't problematic enough, she's also having to contend with the growing affections between herself and the group's resident vampire spawn, Astarion.
Between fanatic cultists, goblin raids, murderous urges and cryptic memory loss, Eli figures a relationship is the last thing she ought to get herself wrapped up in. And from what she's seen of Astarion, the cavalier rogue seems to have his own breeds of specters haunting his steps.
Neither one of them has any business mucking about with romance. But, neither one of them is particularly good at staying away from things that entice.
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One Shots
In chronological order:
Fall for Me ---> Faint of Heart ---> Midnight Prayer
Fall for Me
Rating: E NSFW18+
Astarion wakes from a nightmare and goes to Eli, seeking reassurance as he struggles with the denial of his feelings. The last thing he wants to do is give someone else control over him, not after he’s so recently regained a taste of freedom. Over the past 200 years, every relationship Astarion was involved in had been nothing more than a means to an end, with Astarion either playing the role of manipulator or the one being manipulated. Attachments were leverage, giving someone a hook they were able to dig their claws into in order to gain ground. Isolating himself from connecting with others was how he had survived.
This, however…this was different.
Rating: M
Faint of Heart
Somewhere along the way, more and more truth has begun to slip into the words Astarion has been using to charm Eli into his bed. He's not sure when it started, but sometime between their passionate nights and hard fought days, genuine feelings began to stir.
It all comes to a head after the crew stages a prison break out of Moonrise Towers. Now, during a rare evening of respite, Astarion is determined to make a confession, regardless of his fears over the fallout.
Rating: M
Midnight Prayer
Neither Eli nor Astarion knows what they're doing when it comes to romance. Their combined histories with healthy relationships adds up to an unsurprising total of zero. Astarion once admitted to Eli that he couldn’t remember ever bedding the same person twice. And Eli…well, she can't remember anything, frankly. Her memories of past lovers are nonexistent…at least…
At least until today. Today, when they’d finally met the infamous Enver Gortash.
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#baldur’s gate iii#baldurs gate 3#bg3 spoilers#astarion#astarion bg3#bg3 astarion#astarion romance#astarion fanfiction#astarion fanfic#astarion x dark urge#astarion x durge#astarion x tav#astarion headcanons#bg3 headcanons#bg3 fanfic#bg3 fanfiction#ao3 writer#ao3 fanfic
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I am SO curious what you think of specific LMM short stories - namely, The Waking of Helen, The Doctor's Sweetheart, and The Growing Up of Cornelia - but also just all of them bc there is so much going on in literally all of them (not even counting the insanity that is tannis of the flats). apologies if you've talked ab them before but I am intrigued as to if you've read them/have thoughts
Thanks for this ask, I find it really interesting! I also find it very appropriate for this kilmeny shebang, because I think kilmeny provides a very good illustration for this.
I don't think I've read all of LM Montgomery's short stories, although I know I've hit a good chunk of them, so that in and of itself tells you something. There are some I really, really love and that I think are LM Montgomery at her best (The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's), but I find a lot of them to be LM Montgomery at her worst. Some of them encapsulate LM Montgomery's strengths in a really potent, concise way; a lot of them emphasize her weaknesses in parallel.
Because I haven't read a lot of them since I was a teen, I mostly have dim memories of the ones I liked, or of ones where I was like hmmm...that's funny, or the ones that I liked but now looking back am like hmm...that's funny. I used to love the Growing up of Cornelia quite a bit, but now I squint at it for obvious reasons. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVED the fake dating one because I thought it was hilarious (this spinster lies to the town about having someone courting her, someone she completely fabricates - only for a man who happens to fit the description to a tee show up in a sheer shenanigan of fate). The Strike at Putney is my sister's favorite (the women of a church go on strike to combat sexism).
So overall, there are some jewels in in the mix. The form of a short story is such that in some ways, you have to strip writing and storytelling down to its bare elements. As such, I think the form of a short story is particularly well-suited to demonstrating Maud's strength of humor. When they're good, they're good.
However, as referenced, that often means when they're bad, they're bad. Some are technically well-written but gross in plotline (these are the ones that tend to be the ones I liked as a child, but as an adult..); a lot are both disturbing and imo pretty poorly written, much like a certain novel we've been discussing lately. We have Tannis (YIKES), the Education of Betty (YIKES), and others which kind of pull back the curtain on Maud.
LM Montgomery was no angel, and even beyond aspects of her you'd expect historically, she was just...kind of mean. I remember reading a letter of hers where she visited some equivalent of a girl scout troop and frankly talked about how she couldn't imagine any of the girls finding husbands because they were so plain and ugly. You see it pop up in her books, but it pops up a lot in her short stories as well. In the end, to answer your question in a general sense, I feel like overall the short stories have more kilmeny's than anne's.
Regarding the specific stories, I'd have to reread them. We did discuss the Growing Up of Cornelia on here a while back - I used to LOVE that one, but now as an adult I'm like more errrr. It is interesting to me because Sidney is the Dean Priest figure that ever haunts LMM's work. As for The Waking of Helen, iirc this is @mzannthropy's favorite! Unlike Kilmeny, it actually commits to its premise and so I think it works. I'm not really familiar with the Doctor's Sweetheart - I looked it up and nothing rang a bell.
For my favorite short stories (You didn't ask, but I shall answer anyway) - here are the ones that I remember even years later:
The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's: iconic, in a word. endlessly quotable. A spinster woman who hates men quarantined with a confirmed bachelor who hates women? Much like the blue castle, this takes a basic fanfic trope (for tbc, 'where is my wife;' for this, quarantined together) and so successfully executes it you're left with your jaw on the floor.
The Strike at Putney: this is a sister's favorite, and I can see why. Women of the church learn that a missionary will not be allowed to occupy the pulpit to speak because she's a woman, and so they go on strike. It's also a emphasized critique of the undervaluing of women's work.
The Materializing of Cecil: GOD I REMEMBER LOVING THIS ONE. This unmarried woman is embarrassed to be unmarried at forty and so flagrantly invents a lover to her sewing circle - only for a man who fits the description to SHOW UP. It's hilarious. However, as a content warning, I reread it to find there is less than fantastic description of a Chinese man near the end.
The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily: guess what? this one is in first person, and that person is ANNE. 😱 this one...it's sad, but it always stayed with me. I have read quite a few lmm stories and forgotten most, but not this one. Also, its final line is beautiful to me.
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Guilty pleasures: Chapter 2
pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader
summary: tension still boils between you and Joel, yet it boils to a bizarre level one warm June night on patrol, when Joel blindly follows you, thinking you're in danger.
word count: 5k
A/N: tension tension tension, mutual pining, mention of panic attack & death. huge thanks to @cheshire-noir for beta reading and helping me sort this chapter out!
AGELESS/EMPTY BLOGS & MINORS WILL BE BLOCKED!!!
gif: @manny-jacinto
series masterlist | AO3
JUNE
Now this weather you could get used to.
Having been born in California, you crave the heat, the long days and the air just a little dry. In an odd way, it makes you feel alive. You don’t mind a little cold either, but wintertime around these parts gets a little too cold for your personal taste.
You spend the sunnier days doing more than just being on patrol; you lend a hand wherever you can: building, cleaning, cooking, training—basically anything that can keep you busy. Being busy means you have a purpose. It means you’re not alone, left to be mentally devoured by the demons of your past.
And while you do enjoy your solitude and relish into it, sometimes you do crave a little… more. Just something to take the edge off. Unfortunately, no one has caught your eye in Jackson in the past six months. There have been some looks from some men, but all you offered was a polite, awkward smile. It takes a bit more than that for you to lower your bridges and get physical. And because of that, it’s been a long time since you shared any kind of intimacy.
Truth be told, tonight is an exception. Tonight, you don’t think about any of that. There’s something inherently off about the evening, and the more you think about it, the more it eats at you. The beads of sweat gathering at your temples and on your back are only partially due to the warm weather. There is a restlessness settled deep within you that allows for no peace of mind, no security. It may be a leftover reflex from the time you’ve spent on the run, it may be because your gut instinct never fails you. You don’t know; what you do know is that you cannot properly enjoy this warm June sensation as much as you’d like to.
“All good?”
Maria’s voice, albeit its sweetness, carries a hint of concern. You stare at her, nodding briefly, but it’s not enough to sell it to her.
“If you’re not up for going on patrol tonight…”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look that fine.”
“Then stop looking!”
You realize you basically snapped at Maria for showcasing genuine concern towards you, but the grim feeling that has its claws sunk into your flesh holds you too tightly for you to explain yourself.
“Sorry,” you say, shaking your head in distress. “I’m in a mood.”
“Might serve us for later in case there’s anything.”
“Speaking of which… any idea where Tommy is?”
Maria frowns. “Not sure. Why?”
Good, yet delicate question, you think. Maybe because during this morning’s briefing, Tommy remained awfully quiet while Maria explained that the neighboring town had a violent and bloody run-in with a group of raiders. Fifty people were killed in an alarmingly short time span, either for supplies, or for the thrill of it. Maybe because you caught Joel’s eyes during said briefing, and you saw him glancing over at Tommy as well. Boy, how you didn’t like the look on Joel’s face. Usually you didn’t for your own reasons, but that particular look haunted you. Like he knew something was coming up.
Frankly, you had trouble getting rid of the image of Tommy’s hollow glare as the news was being passed around the room. Both you and Joel noticed it, you were certain of it. The color drained from Tommy’s face as he stared blankly in front of him, probably processing the news. And then, out of the blue, his face hardened, his fingers curled into fists, and he seemed to have found a way to process the raider issue.
Which was very concerning even to you.
So you can’t quite explain to Maria that you just have a nasty feeling in the pit of your stomach about her husband, one that may or may not be true. You don’t know what to tell her. So you shrug it off, trying to come up with a good lie on the spot.
“I guess I’m just dreading the patrol,” you confess, to which Maria seems to exhale with relief, like you just lifted a boulder from her shoulders. “Figured at least one of the Millers has a sense of humor that might be good to hear.”
“I know you and Joel aren’t best friends—“
“Far from it.”
“—but you’re both skilled. And we need that.”
You roll your eyes and nod, finding no argument against her.
“Just do me a favor and be as cautious as possible tonight, okay?” Maria says grimly.
You gesture to the knife you have in your thigh holster, as well as the shotgun on your back. “I’ll be fine.”
“You sure you don’t want a handgun too?”
“I’m good.”
Before you can turn your back against her and leave to your assigned post, Maria grabs your left wrist and hands you a single-shot pistol. It’s bigger than the gun you’re always dreading, so you kind of stare at it in dismay, then move your glare to Maria.
“It’s a necessary evil,” she tells you, as if she understands the reason for your aversion towards handguns. “Better be safe than sorry.”
You only nod, replacing the knife in your holster with the pistol. The knife goes smoothly at the hem of your jean shorts. With that, you’re on your way to the patrol cabin, loathing the new weight attached to your leg, as well as the idea of spending another evening around Joel Miller.
In the six months that you’ve known each other, the two of you have done nothing more but bicker and butt heads at every turn. Everyone knew you were by no means friendly with each other, and everyone made sure to stay out of your way whenever you were put together in the same situation.
Much like tonight: the rest of the patrol group, consisting of Annie, Jamie, Leo and Marshall, learned how to not be in your or Joel’s way. They’ve also learned that should an argument ensue—and knowing you two, there was bound to be an argument—they should simply go on with their tasks and day and leave you to it. There was nothing anyone could do, anyway. And it was always just verbal; leaving aside the one time you pointed your trusted shotgun at Joel, neither one of you got physical with the other, in any way.
The restlessness does not leave you, not even when you arrive at the post, the little cabin up the hill. With the sun gone, there is only warmth and darkness around you, and a grim feeling that persists.
“There you are,” Marshall is the first one to greet you.
You raise your eyebrows as a welcome, shutting the door behind you. You notice you’re the last one to arrive: everyone else is there, including Joel, who is in the back, staring out the window and paying no attention to any of you. Good. You are too far on the edge to get into it right now.
Though you can’t help but admire his shape as you place your shotgun on the nearby table. His broad shoulders take up a lot of the window’s frame, his salt and pepper hair messy and his blue shirt with its rolled up sleeves carrying dust and dirt over it.
“Oh hey, is that a single-shot pistol?”
Annie’s question diverts your attention and you are nothing if not thankful for that. You reveal the pistol, holding it carefully. The tremors fail to appear, at least not in full effect, and you grow even more thankful.
Annie takes the gun from your hand, after which you squeeze it—hard, and flex your fingers.
“These things make me feel like I’m in a western,” she jokes.
“Put it down, you don’t know how to handle that,” Leo scolds her, taking the gun from her.
You watch as the pistol is being passed around like a bottle of liquor, and you chuckle silently. Better they hold it than you. Necessary evil, Maria’s voice echoes inside your mind.
“Like you do?” Annie jokingly snaps back at him.
Leo points the pistol in front of him, doing a rather shitty impression of a cowboy accent while the others laugh.
Everyone except for Joel. He straightens his back, now against the window, and crosses his arms at his chest, staring at you. He still doesn’t say anything, and you’re half thankful, half mad. A very peculiar combination.
“Where’d you get this?” Leo asks you.
“Maria gave it to me. You can have it, if you want.”
“Did you not just see his impression of a cowboy? I wouldn’t give this to him,” Annie adds, and even you chuckle.
“Never seen you with a handgun before,” Jamie adds.
“What can I say? I like ‘em big.”
Joel is quick to hide the smirk that erupts from the corner of his mouth. He glances over at you, for a fleeting second, but you keep staring. He’s now leaning back on a chair, legs spread. Something about the image is infuriating. You catch his eyes, gulping. You almost tune out the voices of those around you, simply to watch him in a maddening reverie. You feel your blood boiling in your veins, an unusual level of heat spreading to your limbs. When he doesn’t break the eye contact with you, it almost feels like his glare is crawling its way into your mind to dig out whatever troubles might lie in there. For one moment in this troubling time, you actually manage to forget about infected, clickers, guns, and any pain there ever was. Just one moment, both too long and too fast.
Tried as you might, you couldn’t shake that glare out of you. It’s as if it infiltrated your bloodstream, nesting in your nervous system, getting a rise out of you like never before.
“It’s a beauty,” Jamie continues, admiring the gun. “Heavier than other handguns.”
You clear your throat, grounded in reality once again. “Maybe you should give it back then.”
The four of them look at you, and Jamie hands you the pistol without adding anything. You put it back into its holster, the heavy sensation returning to you. It’s a well-known fact that you got a temper on you, and while Joel may be able to handle it and subsequently match it, the others want no part of that. It’s already challenging enough being in the watch group, let alone having other arguments on the side.
But you and Joel seem to be thriving on that, oddly enough.
“I’ll take the first shift,” you announce, grabbing the binoculars and headed to the window, right in Joel’s vicinity. There is small talk behind you, things you couldn’t be bothered to pay proper attention to. The pit in your stomach remains, yet you still feel beyond worked up. It’s the weather and the bad feeling you have, nothing else. You know yourself well enough to state with certainty that if you’re gonna be affected by something, it’s your own gut, not someone’s famished glare.
You look out the window through the binoculars. It’s dark outside, but there is one lamp at your cabin that lights some of the path ahead. It’s quiet—maybe a little too quiet for your own taste. Of course it’s a preferred choice. Who doesn’t enjoy peace and quiet after years of horrid sounds?
But if you’ve learned anything in all of your years on the run is that darkness and silence host their own personal demons, too.
Just because you don’t see or hear them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.
It’s what your father used to tell you all the time when the outbreak first happened. That kind of thinking, although it instilled inevitable fear in your heart, kept you well aware of your surroundings, and it made you more than capable of watching your back all these years.
You tune out your peers’ banter and sit with your own thoughts. You think about the people that have been brutally murdered last night, just because others put their own needs ahead of their. You think about Tommy’s murderous glare as the news broke out, and you wonder what was going on inside his head. You wonder if Joel intuited the same thing as you did, or if he has the same bad feeling you do.
Selfishness, greed, wrath, gluttony… the seven deadly sins were all on the loose for many, many years now. And the outbreak did nothing more but reveal just how fucked up humanity really is, and how it loves to play with fire, then blame it on something else entirely.
There is a solid reason to fear people, you think. You never know what they’re thinking. You never know their true intentions. And worst of all, you never know what they are truly capable of until they are mad or hungry.
The pistol feels heavy around your thigh, but you try not to show that as you pace around the cabin. Well past midnight, you see Marshall fast asleep in his seat. You don’t blame him: the heat would be enough to put anyone down like that. And frankly, there hasn’t been any movement or any sound that might make you alert in over four hours.
It’s Leo’s turn to keep a lookout through the window; he moves gently towards you, tapping your shoulder, and you remove yourself from the post. The rest keep quiet, barely engaging with one another. You sneak a glance at Joel in his seat: he’s in the same position he was four hours ago. The same position that carries something downright lewd about it, borderline obscene.
So much for having a seat.
Your tired mind drifts entirely elsewhere when presented with such a sight. It’s shocking and dirty, and it does nothing but confuse you, yet you fight tooth and nail to keep it at bay. You refuse to think about the seat you’d much rather have now because… what the fuck?
A faint sound from nearby, like someone stepping on crunchy leaves, has you twitching and reaching for the gun in the holster. You point it to the window, where Leo’s head is at, and everyone freezes. Joel only shifts his position in the chair, not saying a word. He watches you carefully, as if trying to determine if your reaction is worth standing up or not.
“Whoa, easy there,” Leo tries to joke, hands in the air. “Just me having a snack. See?”
Leo reveals a few grapes in the palm of his hand, and you lower the gun. You stare at the floor, feeling the tremors in your hand. A quick glance to your right hand confirms your suspicions. You start to wheeze, forcing yourself to take small, deep breaths to keep you grounded. Annie calls out your name gently, but you merely look through her.
“Are you okay?” she asks you.
With shivering hands, you place the gun back in its holster, making a fist with the very same hand. That’s when Joel finally stands up, hesitant to approach you. When you see him getting closer to you, you feel more anxious than before.
“What’s going on?” Marshal asks in a sleepy voice.
You don’t respond; you beg your body to listen to you and calm down because you do not feel like explaining to a bunch of strangers a grim part of your past.
Annie places a hand on your back, trying to see if she could help somehow, when she stops. The cabin goes silent as you all listen in. Nothing distinct, but definitely something out there. Everyone looks through the window at the same time. The sound, although its source is unclear, is heard by everyone this time around, and it is most definitely not coming from someone’s snack. You inch closer to the window, feeling more secure on your bodily movements, yet you see nothing to confirm your suspicions.
But you can’t let that feeling go. Something is up, and you’re willing to do anything to rid yourself of this bad omen.
“We all heard that, right?” Jamie asks.
Your first instinct is to swing the shotgun on your shoulder and go outside to check. A sharp call of your name catches your attention.
“Sit down,” Marshall tells you. “We’re supposed to keep watch from here. I’m sure there’s nothing out there.”
You raise your eyebrows in such a way that even Marshal realizes his words are silly.
“Okay, there are some things out there, but we can’t protect this town if we go out there in pitch darkness, chasing random sounds,” he concedes.
“I’m going,” you announce in a low tone of voice. “If you wanna sit here and eat grapes with Leo, that’s your business.”
Leo makes an insulted face, but says nothing to his own defense.
“I’m fine,” you reassure them all. “I appreciate the concern you didn’t express out loud.”
“You don’t look fine,” Jamie says.
You roll your eyes, increasingly angrier. “Then look away! Fuckin’ Christ.”
You mumble some things under your breath as you leave the cabin, a bit excited to leave the tense environment. Back inside, Joel does not fancy the situation one bit. Based on everything he’s seen in the past few hours, he’s gathered enough to know that this might end badly. Whatever suspicions he has about his brother, he leaves them aside for the time being.
“Where are you going?!” Marshal asks him exasperated.
Joel puts his gun in his back pocket, being on the receiving end of the group’s confused looks. He doesn’t answer.
When Marshal puts himself between Joel and the door, he feels anger seeping through his pores.
“Move,” Joel grits.
“We’re supposed to stick together,” Marshal says firmly. “This is the entrance to Jackson, so if anything’s coming, we—“
“You stay here in case something happens. If I don’t come back before sunrise, get Tommy.”
“Joel—“
“Tell me to stay inside and I’ll break your jaw.”
The instructions he leaves are clear, and he’s confident that his peers will abide by them. Mostly because he used his most threatening and intimidating voice to spew said instructions, and he knows that it works each time without fail. He takes a little pride in knowing that, too.
Meanwhile, you’re progressing blindly along the path; you thought bringing the flashlight might be detrimental to your plan to move around swiftly, like a shadow in the dark, so you left it in the cabin. While there are some lights from Jackson beaming up the hill as well, the road isn’t as clear as it would be during the day. You follow your hunch, unsure of what to expect. But when you hear something rustling behind you, you instantly swing the shotgun and point it.
“How many times are you going to point that gun at me, sweetcakes?”
Joel’s tone surprises you as you turn around to face him. Mostly because it’s not really meant as mockery. Nonetheless, it still angers you, which is why it takes you a few extra seconds to lower your gun.
“I’ll point my gun at you enough times for you to remember,” you retort. “I ain’t no damsel who needs to be saved.”
“Never said you were.”
You huff, unarmed once again. Joel gestures you go ahead, and it is with a mutual understanding that you grudgingly agree for him to come along with you. He’s got his flashlight on, which means more visibility.
“You either keep your mouth shut while you walk, or you turn around right now and let me handle this,” you inform him.
Joel looks at you, mentally weighing his options. It’s a no-brainer, really, but he can’t quite express it the way he might’ve liked to.
“What did you hear?” he asks instead.
Dumbfounded, you glance over at him. He asked you as if wanting to know your personal opinion, out of curiosity.
“I don’t know,” you admit. “Something. I just… had this bad feeling all day long. And usually I’m not wrong.”
“It’s about Tommy, ain’t it?”
You glare at him, unwilling to reply. Truthfully, you don’t want to tell him that you suspect his brother might go on a rampage against those raiders. It feels like a blind accusation to be made.
“Just go away, Joel,” you tell him.
Alas, he doesn’t. You walk through the darkness, with nothing but the sound of your breaths to keep you company. Neither one of you feels the need for small talk or anything of the sort; you’re not sure what you could say to each other, really. The best that you can do is to focus on the task at hand.
Joel doesn’t fully understand his reasoning for sprinting outside to help you the moment he saw you go astray. Sure, his instincts kicked in and he decided he couldn’t allow a member of his group to have anything happen to them, but he knows himself better than that. And he knows that might not be the sole reason.
His suspicion, though, is one he refuses vehemently. He denies it tooth and nail and fights it with every ounce of strength he has in this fifty-something year old body of his. It would be pointless to give in to such a silly notion. He’s already got his hand full with this new life in Jackson, Ellie… he doesn’t need anything more. He’s content.
You’re not sure for how long you’ve been walking, or where you are. It’s hard to make anything of your surroundings when you don’t have any light. You’re moving forward and climbing based on a hunch, but so does Joel. He follows you blindly, quite literally, his stomach rumbling and his mind in shambles.
“You could’ve stayed at the cabin,” you tell him after a while. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t go around following people I can’t stand.”
Joel doesn’t respond. He finds silence to be the best answer a lot of the time, and it seems to be working now too, except it is in your detriment. You feel anger boiling inside your veins, inexplicable and all too consuming.
“Do you even have friends?” you ask.
Joel does not meet your eyes. You almost want to stop walking and force him to do so as well, but you don’t. Even in the darkness you can see the distant glimmer in his eyes, the melancholy on his face that reveals the answer more than words ever could.
“At least we can agree on something,” you say.
Joel takes that as your apology for your earlier claim. “Yeah, you’re nicer when you’re quiet.”
You gulp. The statement feels like a… tickle, a rush, something small traveling up and down your spine.
“Why do you even care if I’m out here blindly?”
You gulp again, thus swallowing your own shocking hopes of what the answer might be. You simply forbid yourself from even thinking about such things, let alone craving to hear them.
“I care about my brother,” is Joel’s response. “Something’s up with him, and I wanna find out.”
It’s a believable reply, he thinks. Not entirely untrue.
“I think so too,” you reveal, much to his surprise.
Joel side-eyes you, lingering with his eyes just a second longer than he should, and you shudder afterwards.
Joel Miller is a curiosity in the eyes of the beholder. He’s rough on the outside, coarse and downright unpleasant. But you’ve seen him be different, too. You’ve seen him with Tommy, sharing laughter. You’ve seen him help Maria fix things around the house, and you’ve seen him with that brown-haired girl he always seems to have some sort of beef with. So you know he’s capable of caring.
But, probably much like you, he chooses to hide the goodness in a tough shell to crack. It is by far easier.
“Tommy seems to really like you,” Joel says mindlessly.
“I’m flattered, but I hear he’s married.”
If you wouldn’t know any better, you might have said that you just heard him chuckle under his breath.
“I don’t really wanna have him give me grief for lettin’ you die,” Joel replies flatly.
“Why would he care?”
“As it so happens, he values your skills. Maria seems to genuinely like you, which I don’t get, but that ain’t none of my business.”
“Then you get why I saved you.”
Joel stops, reminiscing of the exact day he first met you, and the exact moment when you reacted so fast, you managed to spare his life.
“You saw how disappointed Tommy was when he heard about Marcus,” you continue. “Imagine the shit I’d get if that would’ve been his big brother. No, thank you.”
This time you do hear it, the soft chuckle in that husky undertone of his. You suck in a deep breath, trying to ignore it.
“Then you get why I’m out here in the middle of the night, going on a goddamn hunch,” Joel adds.
“Playing the guard dog because I saved your life?”
“I don’t leave debts unpaid.”
You scoff. “This isn’t a debt. It’s—it’s history. It’s over half a year ago, who cares?”
I do, Joel thinks.
“I don’t wanna have my little brother giving me grief for letting another one of his people die,” he replies instead. “That’s all.”
“That’s all. Good.”
An odd sentiment, this one; following you around like a dog indeed. He talks one thing and does the opposite. He does not like you one bit, and yet there he is, following you blindly simply because the two of you share a bad feeling. Maybe he trusts your instincts more than your persona, or maybe his curiosity is rooted into some death wish he unknowingly has. “Wait,” Joel coos.
He moves up from behind you, inching closer. You can feel the warmth of his body as it barely touches yours. You gulp, surprised to have that reaction.
“What is it?” you ask.
Joel doesn’t respond right away; instead, he puts one of his hands on your lower back, barely touching through the tank top’s fabric, and guides you forward. Little raindrops start falling as you look down from your point of view, but you don’t mind. You don’t really care.
Joel doesn’t follow up; he thought he heard something again, but he falters, and eventually fails to explain his reaction to you.
The more you stare at the man, you feel your heart racing, though this is no panic, no fear. It’s a wild anticipation, a bizarre desire stemmed from something dark and unspoken. Joel looks at you in a way he hasn’t till now, and it’s almost like he’s showing you empathy. You step closer again, examining his figure, only then realizing that the rain is successfully soaking both of you to the point where your clothes are clinging onto your bodies, leaving only some things to the imagination. Water’s dripping from his hair and face, as well as his blue shirt. You might even say there is something inherently attractive about seeing Joel Miller in the rain.
Fuck. Why didn’t you notice before how fine he looks with gray in his hair, slicked by rain, and how full and tempting his lips look?
Joel doesn’t inch away this time. He just stares you down, heat spreading throughout his whole body. How fucking unusual, he fleetingly thinks.
“Joel?”
He grunts a soft hmm? as a response and your knees nearly give out. The panic came and went, and now all you are left with is this ludicrous sensation that you can’t fully discern, and it’s driving you insane.
You open your mouth to say something, anything, yet nothing comes out. You only lean in, just one inch further, enough to feel his warm breath on your face as the summer rain keeps pouring down your faces. You’re not sure what you’re chasing; in this moment, given the circumstances, you just want to feel closeness.
Another sound is heard, and you both separate, guns in your hands. Joel points the flashlight all around you two, till it lands on a body crawling towards you. He rushes to be in front of you, gun pointed at the silhouette. By the looks of it, not infected, just severely wounded.
When he grabs Joel’s boot, the latter does not hesitate and pulls the trigger. A big splash is heard, the rain unable to mark the daunting sound. Joel presses his boot onto the guy’s torso, thus confirming his death. You don’t lower your shotgun just yet, but you do notice something.
“Joel, look,” you coo.
The two of you gawk silently at the pit on your left, filled with bodies. Without much thinking, Joel pushes the guy’s body into said pit.
“So much for the raiders,” you say.
“Tommy,” Joel murmurs.
You can’t hide your astonishment. “Tommy did this? By himself?”
“Don’t know if by himself, but it was definitely him.”
What gets to Joel is that you don’t look shocked at all. Quite the opposite: your face seems to emanate some sort of interest that deep, deep down makes him feral.
He’s never seen that look in anyone’s eyes before.
“Guess this solves the mystery of the hunch,” you try to joke in an attempt to distract yourself from everything you’re feeling right now.
Including the previous moment that has you more shook than what you’re faced with now.
“We gotta head back,” he tells you, the flashlight bouncing onto your silhouette and your face, and his eyes inevitably dropping to your lips, now gently touched by raindrops. “Before the road gets completely muddy and we’re added in that pile of bodies.”
You return quietly on the same road you’ve traveled on, neither one of you addressing the prior moment. It was a temporary lack of judgment, something triggered by the warm weather and the need to feel human warmth when faced with such a numerous death toll.
And as the sun comes up, you return to your home, thinking how you thought, for a sick, crazy second, to kiss Joel Miller.
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#joel miller#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#joel miller x f!reader#joel miller x female reader#joel miller fanfiction#joel miller fic#joel miller smut#tlou#tlou fanfiction#tlou fic#the last of us#the last of us fanfiction#the last of us fic#pedro pascal#pedro pascal fanfiction#pedro pascal fic#pedro pascal smut#guilty pleasures series
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yosano is so dear to me because as much as i usually dislike the trope of 'one of the only regular female characters in the show gets healing powers because what else would a woman have' i do really like when that trope is turned into an insidious distorted mess.
I'm putting a readmore bc holy fuck if i start talking about yos i DO NOT know how to stop.
Like she has healing powers but the ability ITSELF is horrendously violent (needing people to be basically dead before they do anything), and she is not the kind of person you would associate with traditional healing character traits. Most of the time, they're maternal, and friendly, and soft spoken, and reserved.
Yosano is none of these things.
Quite frankly, she's a hater. and that's not to say she's unpleasant, necessarily, because she isn't. but she's a little demanding, and a little unhinged, and a lot prone to violence.
(and the dislikes on her profile refer exclusively to men. (shes an icon))
And shes like that because she is the outcome of what an ability like that, a responsibility like that, would do to a person.
Because every time she faces someone dying, there are two options: unbelievable guilt that comes with Not saving someone, or the perversion of death that comes with bringing them back. That complete and utter refusal of the natural order.
What do you do when respect for life hinges on a person's ability to die, and you have not just the power, but the expectation, to take that away?
which leads us to her backstory.
she's eleven. ELEVEN. what eleven year old has any understanding of life and death? of the importance of endings and letting people rest?
she's basically playing god and she barely even understands what that means. Or perhaps more accurately, she's playing puppet for mori playing god.
So she's there, and it's kind of a boring task at first. Like a very cavalier 'I'm here to save you all that's my job you should congratulate me bc im sm cooler than u losers.' But then she speaks to the soldiers, grows to care about them, and suddenly this ISNT a job. Its saving them out of compassion, out of a desire to see them alive. to make sure theyre okay.
and then they keep dying. and she brings them back, and they die again, and again, and again, in an endless cycle that can never end and while she's doing it unwillingly by that point, the reason they can live to suffer again is because of her.
And in realising that, in trying to put an end to that pointless cycle and Mori preventing that by shooting someone she cares about in front of her, she cannot give them reprieve because of the very ability that got her into this position in the first place. By that ability, and, ironically, by that compassion of hers.
"You are too just."
She cares too much to do what she knows is right, what she knows is kindest for the soldiers. She hasn't grown used to losing people (partially because she's eleven, but mostly because death doesn't exist to her) so she can't accept it.
and when everything goes down hill, she still thinks of it all as her fault. (even though technically its mori's, and whomever was in charge of their unit for not surrendering)
even fourteen years later, shes still haunted by what happened. even fourteen years later, the balancing act between using her ability, and letting nature run its course, is a delicate one, and one that is only facilitared by her position in the ADA.
its incredible that with that position threatened, the very reason shes learned to live with herself being put in jeopardy, she keeps herself as stable as she does.
so. she's a little bit batshit. very violent when she wants to be. ready to beat a mfer within an inch of their life at the earliest opportunity.
her very capacity to heal is twisted and messy and terrifying. it isn't soft and delicate and sweet, or even reassuring. it's practical. it's useful. but it's deeply unsettling.
and i think thats a very realistic portrayal of what it would be like to have such an unnatural control over life and death.
#yosano akiko#bsd yosano#also when women have healing powers theyre often put on the back burner (“bc theyre too valuable to be in the field!”)#aka 'we dont wanna give them screentime' coughshoko (i mean.its an in-text ISSUE that she cnt be arnd. but still. GIVE HER MORE SCREENTIME)#BUT bc of the way yosanos ability works; with the only-healing-from-near-death stipulation.#she isnt just *useful* in the field. shes practically *necessary* in high risk situations (which is why she HEAVY carried s4)#anyway. yosano makes me chew on my walls etcetc#bungou stray dogs#bungo stray dogs#guys im so normal about her i promise#analysis
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"It's Been Almost A Year." Leslie Vernon X GN! Final/Survivor Reader.
I missed Leslie. I rewatched BTM today and got this out. I hope you are all into it, not much else to say but this was fun as fuck to do. Enjoy it!
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Rating. Somewhat NSFW. Length. 2.8K. Leslie Vernon X GN! Final/Survivor Reader. No Pronouns Specified. Warnings: Slasher/Final Person Relationship. Breaking And Entering. Complex Emotions. Hard Feelings. Reader Is Traumatised And Confused And Mad. Leslie Being Leslie. Stalking. Mentions Of Violence And Gore. Choking. Softness. Grinding. Implied Hate Fucking. Praise.
—
You had a long day and frankly were quite exhausted. Dinner was quick and dirty, made in a rush and eaten early, after leaving the dishes to soak, you retreated to your bed.
The sheets are fresh and soft, you are stripping off your pants and hoodie before you are sliding into the welcoming comfort. The bedroom is dark save for the flickering light of your tv. You had put on a movie, not wanting to sleep quite yet. You have a steaming mug of tea on your bedside table and are curled up, the t-shirt, underwear and socks you have on are more than enough to keep you cosy and warm. You settle further into the multiple layers of your sheets and comforter and throw blankets with a pleased sigh. Fall is here in full force and you are feeling it. The temperature is cold but you can't feel it right now, nor can you resist having the window cracked so you can hear the rain falling outside.
You really didn’t mean to fall asleep so early. You were just so thoroughly relaxed and so tuckered out from the day's events it just kind of happens. The dvd’s menu was on loop, the gentle music from it playing quietly, it is raining harder, but that isn’t what is the main concern at the moment, no the biggest thing taking your attention is that you apparently are no longer alone in your bed. The body next to you is warm, arms around you are strong, the smell hits and it makes your stomach drop. You know that smell, intimately. You remember the night you smelt it for the first time. Rain and damp soil, sweat, musk, apples and more, the whiff you got filled your nose during your struggle, one of his hands in your hair, the other one he was using, attempting to embed his sickle into your body.
The smell haunted you.
Permeated your nightmares and now it was in your bed. Were you having a nightmare? A really convincing one, you start to try and move, the arms hold you tighter, snaking closer, the grip is firm and you hear a hum followed by him shhhing you, “Hey, hey, no need to get up.”
Your eyes open, the light from the tv is still covering the room in its low and easy glow, your tea is cold, the temperature has dropped and even with the window open it now feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room.
“Leslie.” You breathe it out, terrified and he responds just a hair louder than you do, “Yes?”
A hard swallow, the terror is thick, it weighs on you, as if a person is sitting on your chest with their whole weight and you ask, “What are you doing in my bed?”
“You don’t sound happy to see me.” You don’t like or appreciate the deflection. You frown deeply and you force out, “No, I’m not.”
The silence stretches between you, music from the tv and rain from outside intermingling, your heart is hammering in your chest, sweat is making your clothes start to stick to your skin. How the fuck are you going to get out of this? You hadn’t seen him since that night and now he was in your bed, all over you, wrapped around you, threatening to suffocate you with his presence alone. Your mind is screaming at you to do something, get out, run away but to where? You are barely dressed, it’s pouring rain outside, he is stronger and faster, he could have a concealed weapon.
Endless questions, no answers, you can’t make an informed decision yet. For now you are stuck. Helpless. You have to wait this out.
“I missed you, okay? I was feeling lonely tonight.”
A guy, no, not a guy, not a man, don’t think of him in human terms, a monster like him gets lonely? The idea of it is strange. Your mind thinks of him in other scenarios, of him doing regular daily life things, cooking, laundry, paying bills and it just doesn’t feel right. It is like your mind refuses to accept it, the idea that someone like him is out in the world, and doing any of those things is so against all you believe that you reject the concept. It serves to turn your stomach. You don’t like lingering on it because it means that any number of people out there that you see in a day could be just like him, a murderer lurking under the surface.
There are only ever thoughts of him in the context of that night, of that killer persona, permanently tied to that, irrevocably damaging your perception of him, tainting it thoroughly. It was as if he didn’t exist, not really, not to you anyway, even though he stalked and followed you for God knows how long before you were not aware of him until very soon before that night almost a year ago, it was like he was simply blipped into existence for those hours of torment and tore away right afterwards. Ripped from the fabric of reality but you were still left with the aftermath, the memories, left with nightmares and trauma, with scars and fear that never truly left.
You had been doing okay, for a short while but with the year anniversary encroaching you were scared shitless of what it could mean. Would he make a return, force you into a “sequel”? You feared some huge or grand reveal, dramatic and massive but not this, you never expected this, to wake up on an average night, less than a month out from the anniversary with him in your fucking bed. This is arguably so much worse.
Your one real remaining safe space has been invaded by him. You think if you make it out alive that maybe you should burn the fucking mattress and buy a new one. Move somewhere else, far away, a different country, maybe you could go to Canada? It’s similar enough, isn’t it?
Mind has been running so quickly that when you respond to him it is only about thirty seconds later, “You know they have hotlines you can call for that problem, right?”
He laughs, he is so close you feel the rumble of it in his chest against your back, “Like any of them can be a substitute for you. Hilarious.” He says it in such a sweet tone, as if you are old friends or you suppose in this case, with how he is holding you while between the sheets, lovers. “Being with you is much more stimulating. No phone sex jockey could ever hope to imitate what we have.”
You are stuck on that, on him saying “what we have”. What the fuck did you have? You guessed you and he had a relationship truly unlike any other you have with anyone else but-
“I’ve been thinking about you for so long, planning out our next meeting, following you, watching you, but tonight, it just became too much, you know?”
He is talking so much. You aren’t used to it. When he was masked up he was so quiet, barely made a sound even during your fight.
He is moving, propping up on one elbow, his other arm still around you, keeping you to him as he says, “I saw you get into bed and at first it was okay. I just watched the movie you had on through the window, it was good, like I was watching it WITH you.”
His hand turns your face, the contact makes a chill run up your spine and you see him for the first time since that night but it’s different. When he had that mask off his features were streaked with makeup, twisted with anger and hate, malice, deep and method into his killer self. Now he is clean, bare faced, and he is looking down at you with what you could only really pinpoint as warmth, care, affection. How can he look at you like that after hurting you so much? Or is it because he wounded you so deeply that he could?
That night back then, his eyes looked black, lost in the smudgy rings of grease paint like you couldn’t tell where he began and the facade ended, but now in the low light you see that they are brown. His eyes are brown. You don’t know how to feel about that, about any of this.
“But then the movie ended and I went back to just watching you. So unaware I was here, sleeping so soundly.” His brow is creased, lips parted, he is studying you, as if he cannot believe that he is in your bed as much as you can’t. “I just wondered, why am I waiting around? Why am I not in there with you?”
His thumb is running down over your cheekbone and you squirm, “You make me reckless, I want to rush, abandon previously carefully laid plans to be near you. It’s a compulsion.”
The softness of how he says his words combined with the action wakes you up out of the apparent trance you were under, reminding you of just how awful and wrong this all was. “Leslie. Stop. You can’t do this.”
“Why not?” He asks quietly and you feel the anger break through the terror, feel it boil and you exclaim, struggling against him, “Because it’s fucked up!”
You say it so loudly but he doesn’t flinch, as if expecting you to lash out.
“This is all supremely fucked up! You-you tried to kill me almost a year ago, you nearly gut me, split me from end to end and now you are back an-and in my room, holding me, saying all this sentimental crap, it-it’s so fucked up. I don’t know how I am supposed to react, what am I meant to do?!”
Quiet falls again after your small rant. You are heaving, shaking slightly. You have no idea what his response will be but it isn’t what he says next, “What do you want from me?”
You feel tired. Heavy. Exasperated, You answer. “For you to leave me alone.”
He scoffs, a roll of his eyes. “That isn’t going to happen.”
You want to cry, you squirm again, urgency renewed by his omission and you asked frantically, “Why not?!”
His hand, the same one that was lovingly stroking your face a minute ago is on your throat, holding you down, it makes you stop instantly. He leaned down closer, “Because, honey, sweetheart, we are meant to be in each other's lives until one of us dies and further than that, whoever is left is meant to be haunted by the other.”
You hang off every word because you have no other choice. The helpless and captive audience as he expounds, “Even if I were to humour your request, leave you be, you know just as well as I do you would never truly be free of me.”
His other arm is moved, he is still resting on his elbow but his hand is free, fingers pass feather light over your forehead, a stark contrast from how firmly he was holding your throat. “I live in that pretty little head. I’ve set up camp and ‘M never leaving. I permanently changed you just like you did to me. It’s mutual.”
Mutual. As if anything you could have done to him is in any way comparable to what he has done to you. He is sick, twisted, disgusting. You hate him. You hate how he is right. You just know that even if he fucked off forever you would still check the backseat of your car before getting in it, would still not want to be out after dark, would still have the nightmares and fear that he’d come back. He would still rule your thoughts, control and dictate your life even if he is absent from it. There was no true coming back from what he put you through.
The innocence is gone.
“I know you feel it too, feel different after that night, a new version of you. It’s been so difficult watching from afar but not experiencing it up close, I was expecting more of a fight when I did this but to be fair, I did get the drop on you. This is usually ol Kruegers MO, not mine.”
He stops himself to wonder out loud and amused, “Do you think he’d mind me borrowing it?”
“I don’t care! I don’t fucking care about your weird murderous friends Vernon-” You bite out and he ignores what you say and he is back on you, eyes flick back down, grip tightens, steals your breath, “I have to admit though, this is nice. This is what I really want, the ultimate goal.”
Ultimate goal? Isn’t the ultimate goal to kill you? Where is he going with this?
“I want you to accept and come to terms with the fact that you’re mine”
Accept? Come to terms with? He talks like it is already done and decided, written in stone, immovable.
He reads the confusion in your gaze and fills in the blank, “Because you are already mine.”
That makes the anger return full force, he smiles, wicked and twisted, “Like it or not we are bonded together.”
You didn’t like it.
He told you more, that you lived under his skin, occupied his waking days and sleepless nights, pushed him in his work more and more and during this, the movements were subtle. He was totally on top of you now. Propped up on one hand, his other one still around your throat, slotted between your legs, minute movements of his hips and your breath catches. His grip loosens, the blankets and sheets have pooled near your hips, your shirt has ridden up during his forced cuddle session with you, his eyes are down and you don’t need to guess where he is looking.
You know, you can feel his gaze resting on the scar he gave you, the sharp and jagged line that took almost twenty stitches to close up. You gave him a similarly gruesome and terrible wound but his was not on display right now. You feel exposed by this fact, naked and vulnerable, the brutality he inflicted on you on display but his is hidden away. It feels weirdly poetic. The rolling of his hips is more bold, you are painfully aware of how into this he is and how little you are wearing, worse still, you have to contend with the unwanted heat coiling low, making your skin feel hot.
You hate him, you hate him, you hate him.
That is what you keep on repeating in your mind, but when he touches you like this, says those sweet fucking things, looks at you and talks about the future, destiny and fate, what you both went through and more it doesn’t feel like you hate him.
He is praising you, his breathing has picked up, “You were fucking beautiful that night. Soaked in sweat and covered in blood, screaming, clawing at me, like a feral animal. I loved watching you become the true you, the best version of you, totally unleashed.”
Your fingers are curling in the sheets, twisting them, focus on that, clenching your fists as you try to keep your expression hateful or at best neutral but you think you are failing as the beginnings of pleasure sink in. Your stomach is taut, thighs tensing around his hips, “You really hurt me, I was in bad shape by the time you were done, worried you might have really gotten me.”
Why did this feel good? Why was this shifting, bleeding, turning from feeling wrong to feeling right?
You felt like he saw you, understood you better than anyone else might in this one respect. You had so many people who looked at you after what happened like you were broken, looked at you with pity and sadness and you hated it.
Leslie looks at you like you are his everything, like you are strong, like you are fully capable and could do anything. Even before this no one looked at you like that and it is becoming more and more clear with every passing day no one will ever look at you like that.
Except for him.
You hate that you like being seen this way so much and hate that he is the one who is giving this to you.
Between the friction, his words, and everything else, you break. You grind back and breathe out how you were desperately trying to convince yourself you felt, clinging to the emotions that plagued you for the past months, vocalizing it through gritted teeth, “I fucking hate you.”
That makes him grin again, like he loves to hear that, as if it is music to his ears, a fundamental and unshakeable truth of the universe itself. “I know you do.”
#Leslie Vernon X reader#Slasher x reader#BHF writing#I love him#I adore him#Can you tell#I bet you can
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Interventions Part One
Season Two Episode Six
Dr. Spencer Reid x Reader (Aaron Hotchner’s Sister)
Words: 6275
Series Masterlist
Summary: Y/N spirals out of control. Spencer and Aaron recruit the whole team to help.
Notes: This one is going to be crazy long, but I’m really excited to dive into each relationship the reader has with everyone on the team. I was really planning on making this one part to keep the season nine episodes, but I thought, fuck it. There’s so much to go over in this. I was going to do more with JJ, but since she wouldn’t actually be there, I shortened it, but I think it still conveys the importance of their friendship. Obviously, both of these parts are going to jump scenes a lot, but I hope it’s still clear.
Warnings: Alcoholism, suicidal thoughts/actions, depression, PTSD, etc. (both of these are going to be pretty intense, so ye have been warned)
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He carried it with him. The envelope, though thin, it weighed in his pocket every day like a stone pressed against his heart. It was too painfully familiar, the sweeping letters of his name. The note left by Jason Gideon haunted yours, the sting of abandonment fogging Spencer’s mind with more emotions than he knew how to handle.
It’d been three days since everyone got back from Los Vegas. Three days since he saw you, or even heard from you. The worry was making it hard to work. He had no idea where you were or if you were okay. He didn’t even have it in him to be angry. He just wanted you to come home.
Of course, the team noticed the youngest member’s change in behavior, but everyone assumed he was still recovering from the case with his father. Only Hotch suspected something else was wrong.
He hadn’t heard from you either.
The whole morning, everyone worked in a tense silence, like they were all waiting for a bomb to go off, but they didn’t know when. Emily darted back and forth between her desk and Hotch’s. She feigned a series of questions about cases, but really she was just checking to make sure he was okay. She’d noticed he’d seemed more stressed than usual lately and figured it was because of worrying about you. Of course, everyone was worried about you. Morgan had asked about you more than usual and Emily hadn’t quite figured out why.
It was around one, right after everyone got back from lunch- whoever decided to leave- that the said bomb hit.
“Guys,” Prentiss said, eyes glued to the news playing on the television.
“Pine River Psychiatric Hospital outside Oregon City, Oregon has released a statement today announcing the death of mass murderer, Lydia Y/L/N, the woman responsible for what the press called ‘The Birthday Cake Killings,’” the anchor announced.
The room went silent. Reid was frozen in his chair and his hands started to shake. Hotch came out of his office and watched with them.
“Lydia Y/L/N killed six teenage girls at her daughter’s birthday party in the spring of 1998. She pleaded insanity and was sentenced to life in psychiatric care. Y/L/N leaves behind her daughter, the only victim to have survived the murders-”
Hotch muted the television.
“Oh my god,” Prentiss exclaimed. “Does Y/N know?”
Hotch nodded. “They would have called her first. She’s Lydia’s only next of kin.” He turned to Reid who hadn’t stopped staring at the TV. “Reid, did you see her this morning? Did she seem-”
“She left me,” Reid said, almost to himself, but loud enough for Morgan to hear.
“What?” Morgan boomed. “What do you mean, she left you?”
Reid spoke quietly like a broken man trying to find the pieces. “The night we got back from…” he took a deep breath and finally turned around to find everyone’s anxious gazes burning into him. “From Las Vegas, I found this on her desk.” He pulled the note out of his jacket pocket, looking down at his name in your beautiful handwriting.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Morgan asked.
“I didn’t think I needed to announce the condition of my love life, and frankly, I wasn’t ready to talk about it,” he fired back. “I figured she would’ve told you,” he added, looking up at Hotch.
“She didn’t,” Hotch said. A thick, heavy feeling of dread filled his chest like molten metal.
“Damnit!” Morgan yelled, kicking his chair back. It hit the floor with a deafening crash.
Rossi came out of his office. “What’s going on?”
“Y/N’s mom died,” Prentiss answered, still shocked by her partner’s outburst.
“Is Y/N okay? Does she know?” He asked.
“You don’t understand,” Morgan sighed. He took a moment to calm himself down and let his gaze dart between Hotch and Reid. “Y/N’s drinking again.”
A tense heaviness sank into everyone in the room. In a blink, Reid had crossed to Morgan, his hands gripping the other agent’s shirt.
“How long have you known and not told anyone?” Reid snapped.
Morgan was taken aback. He’d never seen the kid like this before. Reid had never been violent with someone else on the team before, but the fierce anger on his face told Morgan just how serious he was.
He put his hands on his shoulders slowly, trying to urge his hands away from him. “I only found out when I called her to come to Vegas, okay? I was trying to give her the chance to tell you herself, but I think it’s been going on for a while.”
“Do you have any idea what this means for her?” Reid said, the anger cracking to reveal his panic. “Do you know how much pain she must be in? And now, her mom is…”
“Reid,” Hotch said sharply.
Reid let go, but Morgan kept his hands on his arms.
“We’ll find her.”
The two men looked at each other, a shared guilt between them. Morgan knew, if he’d just told Hotch and Reid about you, they could have stopped you from leaving.
Spencer berated himself for not noticing the signs. He should have seen it. He should have helped you.
And now you were gone.
It was like Fairfax all over again, except now, the only villain they would be facing was the one inside of your head. The demons you’d never shared.
-
JJ
You didn’t know why you answered the phone. You’d been ignoring calls all day and almost turned it off altogether, but the name that came up stopped you. Maybe you thought it was somehow poetic.
“Hey JJ.”
“Y/N, hi. I-um-I just heard and I want to see how you’re doing.”
“You know, I didn’t think Aaron would stoop as low as to use the new mother to babysit.” Your words swam in your head as much as they stumbled out of your mouth.
“I’m not calling for your brother. I want to make sure you’re doing okay.”
“Oh, I’m doing great. I’m curled up, watching stupid Christmas movies about stupid families with stupid mothers who make stupid dinners for their perfectly stupid kids. I’m having a great morning. You?”
She paused. “Sweetie, how much have you had to drink?”
“I don’t know why you guys are making a big deal about this,” you huffed. “It’s not like you were there the first time. You don’t know. Maybe I’ve changed. I’m not the woman you met and trusted into your family. Killing someone does that.” You didn’t mean for the last part to slip out, but the liquor loosened your lips.
“You’re right. We weren’t there,” she said. “But we’re here now. You have people who care about you, Y/N. We just want to help you.”
You stared at the tv, absentmindedly watching a mother and daughter decorate Christmas cookies. You imagined them licking the frosting off of the spoons and collapsing in a seizing, gasping heap. Just like you and your mom used to.
“I need you to do something for me, JJ.” You finally said.
“Of course. Anything.”
“You’re the front man. Hell, you’re the first person I met that day. You were so sweet and smiley and wonderful.”
Your words held no bitterness, but a kind of melancholy. Like you were mourning for a life lost. The life where the two of you were friends, where Spencer smiled at being made godfather of her son, and you could look on with something other than total despair in your chest. You could resume pretending that you were a part of their family.
“You’re the one that looks through everything and decides what cases to present, right?”
Her tone tinted with confusion. “Yeah.”
“Tell them I’m not one of your cases.”
“Y/N, wait-”
You hung up the phone.
-
“Okay. Thanks JJ,” Reid sighed. He leaned his head back against the hallway wall, taking a break from his pacing. He tried calling you again, but no answer.
JJ said you didn’t sound good. He felt bad for bringing her into this- she should be relaxing at home with Henry and Will, but he knew that she would have driven to the BAU and yelled at him for not keeping her in the loop.
He knew JJ saw you as more of a sister than just a friend. She was worried. Everybody was.
“Was that JJ?” Prentiss asked. “What’d she say?”
“That Y/N is drinking and she’s afraid it’s going to get worse,” he said. “Y/N told her that she’s changed. She doesn’t think she deserves to be a part of us anymore.” He paused and ran his hand down his face. “Because she killed Sarah Cunningham.”
“She thinks she’s becoming her mother,” Prentiss nodded mournfully. “And now, she’ll never get the closure of coming to terms with it because her mother died.”
“Morgan should have said something,” Reid snapped. “He knew. He could have- I don’t know- maybe if we’d known we could have stopped her from leaving.”
Prentiss crossed her arms. “Come on, Reid. You aren’t really mad at him and you know it. This is about something else.”
He stared at her for a moment, shoulders sinking, and started pacing again. “I should have seen it. I knew something was off, but I didn’t do anything and now-”
“Woah woah woah,” she said, holding a hand out to stop him. “This is not your fault, okay? Y/N would have been careful. She understands behavior just as well as we do. She would know exactly what to hide from you, from Hotch, from everybody.”
“But I should have seen through it,” he shook his head, voice cracking from the pressure building in his chest. “I didn’t even go after her. She left me that letter and I assumed it was because of Vegas. I thought I’d become too much for her and she left just like-”
He stopped himself. He didn’t even know who he meant at this point. So many people had left him already. The thought of losing you… it piled on with the rest until he couldn’t see anything else anymore.
Prenitss’ face softened. “Spencer…”
“I don’t know what to do,” he cried. “When I almost lost her before, we had a villain, something to go after. Now,” His hands floundered helplessly at his sides. He needed to do something. “She doesn’t want to be found.”
Emily took the younger agent in her arms and hid her own heartbroken expression in his shoulder. It felt like the team had lost one of their own and, in a way, she thought maybe they had. But she refused to accept that.
Emily Prentiss, of all people, knew what it was like to protect the people you love from your past. And as her mind started running with the connections, she let Reid go, keeping a hand on his shoulder.
“We’re going to find her,” she said. “She’s going to be okay. Y/N’s one tough woman, even if she doesn’t see that right now. We have to help her find herself.”
He nodded and returned to his pacing while Prentiss formed a plan.
-
Dave- Six years ago
Your arm hung limply in the sling across your chest and the soreness of every motion only made the red tint of embarrassment on your cheeks grow.
The man sat across from you in a chair in the corner. He flipped absently through a magazine, gazing up every once in a while.
“I remember you, you know,” you finally said after the silence became unbearable. “You were at my high school graduation reception. You only stayed, like, two minutes, but I saw you there. You’re David Rossi. I’ve read your books.”
“I would hope you remembered me,” he scoffed, putting the magazine aside. “Who do you think that generous gift came from?” The man smirked and crossed his arms, eyeing you in a way that reminded you of your brother every time you snuck out. “So… wanna talk about how you got here?”
“Where’s Aaron?” You asked, avoiding his question.
“Being processed.”
You nodded, only snippets of the past few hours recovered in your memory. “Right.” You shifted back against the hospital bed pillow and winced. Hangovers and broken bones definitely didn’t mix. You blew out a breath. “That was stupid.”
“I’ll say,” Former Agent Rossi said.
You rolled your eyes. “I meant Aaron. He could get fired for something like that, right?”
“I doubt he will be. Professor Douche isn’t pressing charges so he can keep this all under wraps. Besides, most people in the bureau would have done the same thing,” he glowered. “I know I would have.”
“Brian isn’t a bad man. He’s brilliant and he’s helped me through-”
“He’s writing a book, Y/N,” Dave blurted.
You looked away, the reason you drank pouring back into your memory. You’d found the pages on his desk and downed a few glasses of wine, finished a bottle of vodka, and half a bottle of absinthe, by the time he came back to his house. You screamed at him until you fell down a flight of stairs.
Dave’s face softened with sympathy. “He was using you for content, sweetheart.”
“That’s not…” You still couldn’t lift your gaze. “That’s not why I did it.”
He took a seat on the edge of the bed and for some reason, you welcomed his presence. In your years of building up distrust for everyone, this man- basically a stranger- already felt so familiar.
“I know,” he said.
“My uncle drowned himself in a bottle of Jack. I haven’t seen him since I graduated, but it’s still, I don’t know. When you don’t have much family, every member counts, right?” You finally looked up at him and found he was listening intently. “That’s why I went over to Brian- Dr. Calvin’s house. I have a key so I let myself in and found the manuscript on his desk.” You didn’t know why you were telling him all this. Maybe you knew, if Aaron trusted him, then you could too.
He didn’t say anything for a while, only nodded in understanding. After a while, he finally spoke. “You know, I’ve been through a lot with your brother in the years we worked together.” He paused, making sure you understood the importance of what he was about to say. “When he called me tonight, I'd never heard him so scared. Believe me. The broken nose was deserved.”
You laughed humorlessly, hating the fact that he was right. When you were loaded into the ambulance, you remembered Brian worrying about how he’d look. He screamed at you for bringing him into your problems. He wasn’t anything like the person you’d fallen in love with. Your brother had just seen that all along.
“You’re a legend in profiling, right?” You said.
He raised a brow. “I don’t know if ‘legend’ is the word I would use.” He chuckled. “Why?”
You turned your head to the window. Your lip quivered as the pieces and fractures of memory kept coming back to you.
“Why do I do it?” When you looked back at him, tears filled your vision. “I mean, I saw what it did to Uncle Robbie. I’ve seen it since I was a kid and I let it happen to me anyway. I welcomed it. Why?”
“There’s a lot of reasons people turn to alcohol and drugs, especially after going through something like you did,” he said. “It makes sense that maybe you saw a kind of relief your uncle got from it so you tried to find it for yourself.”
“Is there something wrong with me, Mr. Rossi?” You cried. “For the past four years, I’ve been trying to figure it out. I tried to drink it away, but it just made things worse. I don’t know what to do.”
He put a hand on top of yours. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Y/N. You survived something nobody should ever have to go through. Your entire life changed. Hell, you found out there was another half to your family you didn’t even know about. And you still graduated top of your class. You’ve pushed yourself so hard to prove to yourself that you aren’t that girl anymore that you split yourself in two.”
You closed your eyes, the tears finally spilling out. You never realized it before. All this time, you’ve spent studying to figure out why your mom did what she did that you never thought to turn what you’d learned on yourself. You were overcompensating in one side of your life and crashing in the other.
Dave held your hand a little tighter. “It’s time to become whole again.”
-
Although he didn’t show it, Aaron felt sick. The panic had knotted his insides and clouded his head with images of his little sister lying on a motel floor somewhere, choking on your own bile or with a gun in your hand.
He hated himself for not realizing sooner. He knew the signs. He’d spent two years with you getting through your addiction. The overcompensating and avoidance made sense now. You knew, of all of the people in this office, he’d see through it and he failed.
“She’ll be okay,” Rossi said from his seat in the corner. “She was before. She’ll find a way back.”
Hotch shook his head. “This time is different. When Robbie died, she lost a connection to her past self. She mourned the person she used to be, but she came out of it. Now, she lost any amount of closure she could have gotten,” he sighed. “She never went and saw her, you know. Not since the trial. She said she always meant to, to understand, but she could never bring herself to do it. Now, she can’t.”
“And with what happened in Fairfax…” Rossi blew out a breath. “She thinks there’s nothing now to stop her from becoming like Lydia.”
“Without her mother as a tether, she thinks there’s nothing stopping her from losing herself entirely. It’s why she left Reid, why she’s been avoiding me,” Hotch said, a tone of helplessness making his voice darken. “She’s protecting us from what she thinks she’s inevitably becoming.”
Rossi nodded and stood. He walked to the Unit Chief’s desk and put a hand on the edge. “It’s up to us to remind her that’s not what she is. And then we’ll bring her home.”
A quiet knock at the door interrupted their thoughts. Morgan stood, tension evident in the stiff way he held his shoulders. Like the springs inside of him were waiting to break. Hotch dismissed Rossi with a nod.
The older agent left and closed the door behind him.
Morgan shifted uncomfortably. “Garcia tried tracking Y/N’s phone, but she’s got it blocked off somehow.”
“I helped her do that,” Hotch sighed, running a hand down his face. “I didn’t want her to have to worry about fans or copycats trying to get to her. You know what the press was like.”
“Arnold Owens was a real piece of work,” Morgan nodded. “I can’t imagine what that was like for her.”
“It wasn’t easy, but she was always a tough kid.” The other agent made for the door, but Hotch stopped him. “Have a seat.”
Morgan clenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and took the chair across from Hotch, the deep sense of dread now mixing with his guilt.
Hotch centered his gaze on Morgan, the seriousness of his expression softened by the sincerity in his eyes.
“I don’t blame you for what happened in Fairfax,” Hotch said.
Of the things Derek was expecting, that was not on the list. He just sat there, blinking for a moment. “I didn’t think that you…” There wasn’t any point in lying, so his voice trailed off.
“I don’t blame you, Morgan. Owens was the more pressing threat. You couldn't have known the Cunninghams were waiting for her. It wasn’t your fault. Nobody thinks that, including Y/N. I know how you’ve carried it with you. I know you think that’s the reason I’ve been so hard on you and I need you to know, now, that it isn’t.”
Morgan looked at his hands, clasped in his lap. “I know I should have said something about her drinking, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“She asked you not to and you trusted that she would make the decision on her own to seek help. And she might have, had her mother not passed away. That isn’t your fault either.” Hotch leaned forward on his desk.
The average person may not have noticed the change in his face, the slight hint to just how worried he really was, but Morgan did.
“I’m telling you this because I need you to have a clear head for all of this,” Hotch said. “I’m afraid you and Prentiss are the only ones who can. You saw what it’s already doing to Reid and I…” He swallowed. “I’ve seen what she’s been through before and I’m afraid this time is only going to be worse. If we all close in on her, I don’t know what she’ll do.”
Morgan stood with new determination. “I’ll have Garcia work a new angle.”
“I’ll be right out,” Hotch said. “I need to call Haley in case Y/N said anything to her.”
“Wherever Y/N is, Hotch, I’m not gonna rest until I bring her back and get her help.” Morgan opened the door and stepped back out to the bullpen, finding Reid still pacing in the hall and Prentiss’ chair empty.
-
Emily
The Christmas movies continued as you downed another glass. You fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling while your hand reached for underneath the pillow. You stopped halfway, rolling your head to the side and switching your focus to the fabric on the chair.
Somehow, your legs managed to bring you to the chair and your fingers latch onto the scarf. The soft, purple material made you feel more than you want it to. The guilt. The loneliness. The wish to have him here now like nothing happened. But that was selfish.
Your mind traveled back to what laid underneath your pillow.
A soft knock at the door brought you back.
You groaned quietly and sat back down on the bed, hoping they’d just go away. The manager had checked up on you a couple of times just to make sure you paid, so it was probably just him again, even though you’d paid out for the next few days.
“Y/N, it’s me.”
Emily?
“Crap,” you muttered, but the word itself hardly formed on your lips. Maybe if you were quiet enough, she’d go away.
“Come on, I know it’s you. Open the door,” Emily boomed. She knocked again, this time louder. It made your head pound.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” you winced. You made your way to the door, tripping slightly on the chair leg. You kept the chain locked and cracked the door open. “Hey Emily.”
She grimaced and put a hand down her nose. “God, you look like hell.”
“What’re you doing here?” You slurred through the words and swayed on your feet.
“Can I come in?”
“I don’t think that’s-” The turning in your stomach cut you off. You slammed the door shut and unlatched the chain.
“Okay, this is how we’re doing this,” Emily sighed, hurrying after you, hearing the sounds of you vomiting in the bathroom.
She sat beside you and held your hair as if you were college girls at a party. The hand on your back soothed your sickness until you were able to sit up again.
“I never had a big sister,” you muttered through your haze.
Emily didn’t say anything. It broke her heart to see the strong woman she’d come to know reduced to a scared girl on the floor of a sleazy motel bathroom. She could see in your eyes, behind the drunken trance, the despair you were trying to forget. Wrapped around your hand, a long purple scarf was carefully kept off of the floor and in your lap. Even intoxicated, you seemed to protect it.
“Isn’t it stupid?” You said, noticing her eyes on the scarf. “I stole it. His favorite scarf. I just wanted something I could hold, you know? He’s probably looking for it. Will you give it back to him?” You held it out to her with sad eyes and pouting lips.
She lifted you off the floor. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are going to give it to him yourself,” she said. “After we sober you up, so come on.”
“But I don’t want-”
She pushed you into the shower and turned on the stream of freezing water, ignoring your squeals of protest, only now taking the scarf from your hand. You stood in the spray of icy cold and could feel.
You got out of the shower and were sick again. After that, Emily decided you seemed conscious enough and took you back into the room, helping you change out of your soaked clothes and forcing a glass of water down your throat. The water was followed by coffee and you switched back and forth between the two. It must have been an hour of just that. No questions. No words. Just water and coffee.
“Why are you here?” You finally asked, pulling the blanket around your shoulders tighter.
“You’ve got a lot of worried people back home. You know that.” Emily thought back to Reid’s trance over the past few days, his terror as he paced. She handed you the scarf.
You sniffed. “He hates me now, doesn’t he?” You abandoned him with nothing more than a note- just like his dad, just like Gideon. You didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye. At the time, you just hoped he’d never have to see you again.
“He misses you.”
You closed your eyes, rubbing the fabric back and forth in your hands, as if you could conjure his comfort. When you opened them again, you were still just in the motel room, sitting across from Emily’s pitying eyes.
You blew out a long breath. “How did you even know how to find me?”
Her expression darkened and she looked down for a moment before returning to your gaze. “Because I’d do the same thing.” This was the part she was afraid of, but she swallowed and kept a straight face. “Now… where is it?”
You froze, fingers tightening around the scarf. You could deny it. You could say you didn’t know what she meant. But what was the point?
Emily held out her hand. You leaned back, reached underneath the pillow, and pulled out the gun. She took it slowly, as if reaching too fast would scare you into shooting it. With one hand, she tucked it into her waistband behind her, and with the other she reached for yours.
“I need to know- I’m not going to be upset with you- but,” she sighed, “did you come here to use this?” Her voice was filled with such sincerity, such concern, you knew you couldn’t lie.
“I don’t know,” your words were surprisingly steady. “I just wanted to protect everyone.”
She nodded, understanding. “From you?”
You didn’t say anything. You just turned your head to the window. She continued.
“Y/N, I know what it’s like to be afraid of becoming just like your parents. Hell, half of the people in your life know what that’s like.”
You scoffed. “It’s not the same thing.”
“You’re right, it isn’t,” she said. “But I also know what it’s like to be so terrified of a part of yourself that you’d do anything to keep it hidden. You’d do anything to protect the people you love from the ugly, brokenness you feel.” She squeezed your hand a little tighter. “But all you’re going to do is hurt them.”
Her words sunk into you like teeth, but the wall around your heart wouldn’t let them completely in. There was still that fear, the sense of inevitability that even her honest eyes couldn’t chase away. But it did make you realize something. You may not have had the strength, but you still needed a failsafe. Just in case she was wrong.
You wiped the corner of your lip with the back of your hand.
“I need you to call someone for me.”
-
The office was buzzing with effort in trying to locate you. Everyone was working even harder since Prentiss just up and disappeared.
“We know she must have gone to Fairfax,” Reid exclaimed. “Why can’t we just go find her?”
“This is all about protecting us from who she thinks she has become,” Hotch sighed. “If we charge after her, I’m afraid what measures she’d take to keep from ‘hurting’ us.”
Reid stopped his furious scribbling on the map of the city. He turned to Hotch, wide eyed and terrified. “You don’t think she’d…”
“I think, if she’s pushed herself this close to the edge, then she’ll do anything if she believes it means not dragging us down with her.”
Spencer let the marker fall to his side and leaned hopelessly back against the table. Statistics unmercifully filled his head. Connections between PTSD and suicide, alcholism and every other dark thought his stupid logical brain could conjure. He should have seen the signs if you had gotten this bad.
“She’s spent her whole life learning how to mask herself, Reid,” Hotch said, as if reading his mind. The older agent was thinking the same thing. He should have known you were avoiding him for a reason.
“Guys,” Morgan rushed through the doorway, phone in his hand. “Prentiss found her.” He put the phone back to his ear and listened, expression contorting with confusion. “What are you talking about? Just bring her back.”
Reid opened his mouth, but Morgan held up a hand to stop him.
“Alright, alright. Text me the place and I’ll meet you there.”
The shift in his tone made Reid and Hotch stop breathing. Hotch was the first to speak.
“What’s wrong?”
Morgan’s head tilted, bewildered. “Prentiss found her. Sobered her up as best she could. But she wants me to pick her up.”
“What are we waiting for?” Reid exclaimed. “Let’s go.”
“Just me,” Morgan said. “Y/N said it’s important.” He shrugged and looked to Hotch for approval.
Hotch nodded. “Go.”
Reid whipped his head around. “We aren’t going with him?”
“If that’s what brings her back,” he sighed. “Yes.”
-
Derek
He spent the entire drive trying to wrap his head around it. Why him? Did you still think he was the only one who knew about the drinking? Why wouldn’t you want to see your brother? Or Reid, for that matter? Sure, there was a reason you left him, but of everyone in the BAU, why would you need him to come and get you.
Derek pulled into the parking lot of the motel Prentiss sent him and spotted both of your cars in front of the room. Prentiss stood outside the door with a duffle bag and a grave expression.
“Hey,” he greeted, getting out of his car. “What the hell is going on?”
Prentiss shrugged. “She told me she wanted you to take her back so she could talk to you about something. She wouldn’t tell me what.” She turned to the office where you were checking out. “I’m just relieved she agreed to come back at all.”
He blew out a long breath. “That bad, huh?”
“I counted four empty bottles in that room,” she nodded. “And I found this.” Prentiss glanced around before pulling the gun out from her waistband.
Derek looked down.
“Do you think she was going to do it?”
“Honestly…” She sighed. “I don’t think she’d see it as enough. She thinks she deserves this. Deserves being alone and miserable. She’s convinced herself that there isn’t a way out.”
“Then why did she agree to come back at all?” He mused.
You finished paying and walked back to where the two agents waited for you, Derek’s hard, worried face staring you down. You straightened your shoulders, determined. He was the only one that could do it.
“Are we ready?” You asked, picking your duffle bag off of the ground.
“I guess I’ll just meet you guys back in Quantico.” Emily said, gaze darting between the two of you.
“Quantico?” You crossed your arms over your chest. “Why would I be going to Quantico?”
“Because you called me to take you back and that’s where we’re going,” Derek said.
You made no further argument and got in the car.
The drive started in tense silence. You didn’t say a word, partially because every motion of the vehicle was making your head sway. You should have taken Emily up on her aspirin offer.
“So are we gonna spend the next forty minutes in silence, or what?” He chided.
“Why are you talking so loud?” You groaned, leaning your head against the cool window.
“God, you’re really out of it still, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sweetheart, you just spent the last four days on a bender, scaring the hell out of everyone, and breaking Reid’s heart in the process, so fine is not exactly the word I would choose.”
“This was a bad idea,” you muttered to yourself. Your head’s pounding increased.
“You wanted me, you’ve got me, but I’m not gonna just drive you back so you can disappear again.”
You put a hand to your forehead. “Please stop talking.”
“Why did you need me anyway? Do you have any idea what this has been doing to Reid-”
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over, damnit.” The ferocity of your tone was all he needed and he quickly got to the side of the road in time for you to be sick again.
Derek stopped the car and got out, walking around to the other side where you were crouched by the passenger door, hands on your knees to hold yourself up.
“Great,” he exhaled, crossing his arms.
“Yeah, well, alcohol poisoning’s a bitch, Derek. I would know.” You stood back up, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of it. Here you were, standing on the side of the road in a puddle of sick, with Derek Morgan’s famous big-brother-protective, but frustrated, gaze locked on you.
The two of you stood there for a long time. It was just like the police station. His tough-love approach was familiar, almost comforting. It had to be him.
He seemed to understand the shift in your gaze. “Why did you call me, Y/N?” He stepped towards you.
“Because they love me too much,” you sighed, coming away from the car and the now soaked earth.
“What?”
“You’re the only one who will do it,” you said. “Because they love me too much.”
His eyes narrowed, trying to figure out what you meant. They widened again when he understood. “No.”
“You’re the only one-”
“You can’t actually be serious,” he scoffed.
“If I… change. If I do something to hurt them. I need you to-”
“That’s not how this works, Y/N. You know that. You’ve spent the last ten years studying it. You aren’t just going to wake up one day and turn into Lydia Y/L/N.”
“I killed, Derek,” you cried. “I’m a killer. I’m already her.”
“Your mother suffered a severe psychotic break due to undiagnosed PTSD from your father’s abuse,” he said slowly. “Why are you so convinced that that’s who you are?”
“Because everything I touch dies!”
Your hand hit his chest before you really knew what you were doing. You pushed again.
“Arrest me.”
“I’m not gonna do that.”
You hit him again, this time harder. “Derek, arrest me. Stop me. Do something! Arrest me, damnit!”
“Y/N, stop.”
“I can’t go back. You have to end it. I can’t- please- I can’t do it alone. Derek, please.”
He caught you before you fell, holding you up against his chest as your arms fell defeated to your sides. Sobs muffled against him and tears stained his dark shirt. You kept muttering the same things over and over again until they didn’t make sense to you anymore. Derek lowered his voice to a persistent, caring whisper.
“Y/N, running away isn’t going to save us. You can’t protect anyone by destroying yourself,” he sighed, keeping his arms locked around your shaking frame. “Or asking me to.”
“You don’t- you don’t know that.”
“I know you. And I know how crazy Reid and your brother are going right now worrying about you,” he said, still holding on. “They aren’t afraid of you, sweetheart. They’re afraid of losing you.” He pulled back, tucking a finger under your chin to lift your head. “If I don’t bring you back, that kid is going to lose his mind, you hear me?” He smiled slightly. “I know the fight you’ve got in your head isn’t one that I can just pull you out of, even though I want to. But that’s the thing, Y/N. You have to keep fighting.”
You closed your eyes, more tears cascading down your cheeks. He kissed your forehead. “Let’s take you home, okay? I talked to Garcia and she said we can use her office and you can tell me everything. Or you can say nothing. It’ll be up to you.”
With a deep breath, you nodded, opened the car door and climbed inside.
-
(I know I forgot to post last week, I'm sorry!)
The In-Betweens series: @amywright; shesoperfectt; hereforsmutbcicantgetenough; violetbossler; hyper-half-blood; i-bitch-you-bitch; xcastawayherosx; preciousbabypeter; @jori21; @sol-48; @murdermornings ; @ staygoldsquatchling02; @ ara-a-bird
#criminal minds#criminal minds imagines#aaron hotchner#dr. spencer reid x reader#derek morgan#emily prentiss#jennifer jareau#david rossi#dr. spencer reid#mattew gray gubler#the in betweens#criminal minds imagine series
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