#page 5058
Text
Autoresponder, Jake English
Act 6, page 5057-5062
timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering golgothasTerror [GT]
TT: Hold up.
TT: Before you go any further, there's been a change of plan.
GT: Oh why am i not surprised!
GT: Still no human dirk?
TT: Don't worry, you'll see him very soon. In a way.
GT: What is the change of plan?
TT: Well, not a change of plan so much as an acceleration.
TT: Everyone needs to get into the game sooner than expected. There is a new unaccounted for variable.
GT: I see. Variables and what not.
GT: Lets cut to the chase! What do i do.
TT: Install the server. I downloaded it to your computer along with a few other crucial system upgrades.
GT: Crucial upgrades huh?
GT: I dunno about crucial buddy i see you have trolled me with like 50 copies of this dumbfuck social media software for cool bros in hats but ok.
TT: Damn. Nothing gets by English.
TT: The guy is untrollable.
GT: Ok i installed it should i run it?
TT: Yes.
TT: You will be connecting with Dirk. I will have Jane connect with Roxy. Setting up the chain like this will be important.
GT: Sure if you say so.
TT: That copy is programmed to connect automatically with the client Dirk is running.
TT: Do it quickly. His life depends on it.
GT: Great caesars ghost! Why didnt you say so.
GT: Ok done.
GT: Hey theres his room!
GT: Heh heh. Id recognize that room anywhere.
GT: Horses puppets holy smokes there is a man who knows what he likes.
TT: Damn straight.
GT: But where is he?
GT: I dont see him elsewhere in the place.
GT: Lots of priceless sbahj merch though im so jealous.
TT: I'll see about hooking you up when you join the game. No promises, though. He's pretty attached to all that shit.
TT: He has not yet transcended the primitive desire for material goods, as he is not two conjoined triangles of pure unflappable logic.
GT: What?
TT: Sorry.
TT: As a pair of overly intellectual triangles, sometimes my wording can be a bit...
TT: Obtuse.
TT: 🕶️
GT: Lol!
GT: Just joking bro that sucked.
GT: How do i find dirk and save his life?
TT: Zoom out.
TT: Way out.
GT: Eureka!!!!!
GT: Youre right he sure does look to be in a thorough pickle.
GT: My impulse is to message him now but youre kind of bogarting his chumhandle so i dont even know how to do that?
TT: He's concentrating on some things happening on Derse at the moment.
TT: Not to mention some uncannily similar things going down on Earth, which it seems you have noticed.
TT: He's also talking to someone, trying to appraise the exact nature of the threat.
TT: Unfortunately as a carbon based life form, his comprehension of the situation is taking shape at a somewhat slower pace than the jaw-dropping speed of post-singularity cognition.
TT: So I am taking the reins and accelerating the plan on his behalf, while he's busy with the corporeal stuff as usual.
GT: Ok then how do i help?
TT: Deploy all the devices in the Phernalia Registry. Ideally in places that aren't stupid.
TT: Do it quickly, so he can activate the entry sequence and escape.
GT: I will have them deployed lickety split.
GT: That flaming ocean is nothing to sneeze at.
GT: It is fixing to burn his... uh. Skeletal highrise thing right the heck down.
TT: Really, the fire is not the most significant threat.
GT: Oh. Are more robots on the way?
TT: No.
TT: Do you see the red stringy stuff coming from the sky?
GT: Um...
TT: Are you blind? It's right there, Jake.
GT: Oh!
GT: You mean the super deadly red shit?
TT: Yes. The super deadly red shit.
GT: Say no more.
GT: I understand the threat and will now spring into action guns blazing.
GT: Well maybe not guns blazing.
GT: The guns and how they blaze will be metaphors for my tenacity and gumption as an elite gamer.
TT: Just fuckin' deploy the stuff, you humongous dork.
GT: There we are. No sweat.
TT: Cool.
GT: Haha! He did a thumbs up at me.
GT: Hey buddy!
GT: Say hey buddy to him.
TT: Ok.
TT: He says hey.
GT: Sweet.
GT: Now what?
TT: Stand by. He may need further assistance once he begins the sequence.
GT: How long will that take?
TT: Once he's ready. I'll try to nudge him along, but unfortunately, the fact that he is me notwithstanding, Dirk can be just as sluggish and uncooperative as the rest of you god damned meat mannequins.
GT: Understood. That being as it is in the meantime i think ill poke into one of these transporty doodads.
TT: What?
TT: No, you fickle fuckwit.
TT: Stay your ass put.
GT: Whoa what is THIS place?
GT: Things sure are a rumblin here in this enchanted purple palace.
GT: I cant believe i never found those hidden transport pads under the thing.
TT: Dude, I could have told you they were there.
GT: How did you know about them?
TT: I didn't.
TT: But it's like platformer gaming 101. You look everywhere for secret passages and power-ups and shit.
TT: Elevators are especially fucking suspicious.
TT: You go down an elevator, you wait for the elevator to go back up, you take a peek at what's underneath.
TT: Maybe it's just death spikes. Or maybe you hit warp zone paydirt.
GT: You are so wise. I will never be as elite of a game bro as you.
TT: I'm not a Game Bro. I just know literally everything about basically all subjects.
TT: Now go back where you came from. Dirk might need help.
GT: Will you untwist your virtual knickers. I have everything under control.
GT: I think this may be where my grandma used to go during some of her expeditions.
GT: You dont just pass up the chance for an adventure like this!
TT: Yes, Jake. You do.
TT: How much deeper down the damn bunny hole do you need to go? There is no White Rabbit waiting for you here.
GT: We will just see about THAT.
GT: Besides i have my skulltop with me so i can swoop in to assist dirk at any time!
TT: This is an atrocious idea.
#homestuck#autoresponder#jake english#homestuck act 6#page 5057#page 5058#page 5059#page 5060#page 5061#page 5062#homestuck act 6 act 3
1 note
·
View note
Text
Miller's Secret
Chapter 1: Cafe Kisses
Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader
Rating: 18+
Word Count: 5058
Series summary: [NO OUTBREAK] You don’t know how or why but you find yourself drawn to an older man. His broad shoulders, strong arms, and pepper gray hair drive you wild. But there’s one problem: he’s your professor. Unsure of how to get over this crush you decide to apply for a mentorship… under him. It could all go horribly wrong, or it could be just the thing you both need.
Series warnings: SMUT SMUT SMUT, this is so smutty I’m not even sorry. Very veryyy brief mentions of Y/N (if any). Age gap- reader is in her 20’s while Joel is in his late 40’s/ early 50’s, it’s not specified. Student/Teacher relationship but it’s not what you think. Inappropriate relationships, yearning, tension, sexual tension, sarah doesn’t exist here (sorry girl), secret relationship, cursing.
Chapter summary: After crafting the perfect schedule for your last year of college, you find out that one of your classes in your first semester got dropped. Forced to find a replacement, you settle for Intro to Philosophy with Professor Miller. You’re in for a big surprise.
Chapter warnings: 18+, Smut, fem!reader, professor!joel miller, sexually explicit thoughts, cursing, age gap, inappropriate thoughts/dreams, oral (f receiving), sexual tension, secret relationship.
A/N: This is the first chapter to what I hope will be an interesting series. It goes without saying that this is all FICTION. enjoy:))
-
The heat is stifling outside, the sunning blazes down, scorching the Earth beneath it. It’s nearing the end of summer and you just can’t believe it’s gone by as fast as it has. Although you’ve spent most of it working, like today, there have been a few moments of relaxation sprinkled in, but not nearly enough for your liking.
Making your way into your two bedroom apartment, you toss your keys on the coffee table near the door. You kick off your shoes and rush to turn the A.C. on hoping to be rescued from the heat. The apartment is silent, your roommate, Jade, is most likely at work giving you time to decompress from the very tiring shift you’ve just had.
You enter your room and are welcomed by your cat Lulu whose orange fur shines thanks to the sunlight passing through your window. Clothes litter the floor, books and magazines lay scattered on your nightstand and desk, your room is a proper mess, but it’s your mess. You make your way to the rickety wooden desk that sits against the wall closest to your window, pulling the near see-through curtains together in hopes of keeping some of the sun out.
You open your laptop and look up your school’s student sign in, hoping to review the courses you’ll be taking this semester. Although you’ve grown to love school and love the structure it provides you with, you feel an immense relief knowing that it’s your last year in college. The parties and events are fun but you finally feel ready for more, you’re hoping for something more worthwhile. Lucky for you, your last two semesters are light ones since you’re not taking nearly as many classes as usual- you shudder thinking back to your freshman year when you thought taking seven was a good idea. Last spring, when registering for classes, you crafted the perfect schedule: four classes fall semester, three classes spring semester- easy.
You scroll down to the bottom of your schedule only to find that one of your classes, an elective, has been dropped. Confused, you grab the notebook from the shelf above your desk and flip through the pages until you find the schedule you outlined back in April. Sure enough you see that your photography class has been dropped due to them not finding a professor for the course. You check your student email and find that you were sent a message back in July notifying you of the change. Frustrated at yourself for forgetting to read your emails, you return to the school’s registration page. Unfortunately, with classes starting next week, you know that the chances of you actually getting a class you’d find interesting are slim to none. You scroll and scroll until you’re able to find a class that fits with the rest of your schedule: philosophy. Great, you think, two hours a week dedicated to listening to some old guy drone on and on about ethics and morals and what the meaning of life is.
The cursor hovers over the register button. Do you really want to do this? You have two options: you could always take photography next semester with the professor you like, or, you can suck it up and get this elective over with and earn another three credits but be forced to listen to a bunch of existential nonsense. You, for whatever reason, pick the latter. You rationalize with yourself that it’s only one class and it’s just one step closer to graduating. You decide to mull over the syllabus jotting down a list of school supplies you might need for the upcoming school year when you get a notification from your email.
Professor J. Miller
Fall A- Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30-12:30- Office hours: TR 1:00-3:00 or by appointment
Welcome to Intro to Philosophy! Like the title suggests this course will be the most basic introduction to philosophy and its integration into our society. No textbook is required for this class but I do expect you all to come to every class prepared to discuss the handouts I give you. Participation is a requirement for this class and I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts and opinions. Looking forward to meeting you all next week!
Best, JM
Although you won’t have to spend even more money on textbooks for the class, the prospect of having to show up every other day for weeks on end just to earn a participation credit is enough for you to groan aloud.
-
The week goes by quickly, between work, getting ready for the upcoming semester, and hanging out with Jade, you’ve barely had any time to yourself. Lucky for you, you don’t have any classes on Monday giving you time for some much needed self care. You complete your yearly before-school-starts-self-care-routine, trimming your hair, painting your nails, shaving your legs, plucking your eyebrows- the works.
You spend the day lounging about your room, playing your favorite albums on your record player to fill the silence. You try on different outfits feeling totally relaxed for the first time in weeks. As if on cue you get a notification from your phone. Opening your email you find a message from Professor Miller with a full copy of the syllabus and a short article to read.
Good afternoon everyone! Below I have linked a copy of the syllabus and an article for you all to read before class tomorrow. I hope to spend less time going over the syllabus, only answering questions you might have, and more time talking about the contents of the paper. Please come prepared!
Best, JM
Great, homework before you even start the class. You move to your bed where lulu is sprawled out and begin reading the article. You read paragraph after paragraph discussing value theory and metaphysics, taking notes as you do with the hopes of actually understanding what you’re reading. You finish and decide that you’ll review the notes tomorrow before class. Surely it won’t be that bad.
-
You wake up later than you intended and realize you don’t have nearly as much time to get ready as you wanted. You get ready quickly knowing you’ll have to stop by your school’s cafe since you didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast. The drive is a short one and eventually you’re pulling into the student parking lot.
Grabbing your backpack and keys you enter the cafe, the smell of freshly brewed coffee filling your nostrils. Looking at your watch you realize you have 20 minutes till class starts and relax a bit. You order your usual, a vanilla latte with two shots of espresso and a chocolate croissant, and wait for your name to be called. Behind you you hear the bell on the door jingle signaling that another customer has entered the already very busy cafe.
As you wait you can’t help but look around at the cafe’s patrons, some are clearly students while others are harder to discern, maybe professors, maybe alumni, you’re unsure? Your university is located at the center of the city so many alumni linger around, finding jobs after graduating but still gathering at some of the college’s most popular cafes and restaurants. You’re broken out of your thoughts by the barista calling out names and orders.
“Large six shot quad espresso with extra ice for Joel”, shouts the barista.
Your eyes first land on the very large cup filled to the brim with espresso and then to the person picking it up from the counter. Your eyes trail up from his hands, to his arms, and finally to his face, ogling him unintentionally, and you’re met with a sly grin from the man standing in front of you.
“Sorry for starring”, you laugh, “I’ve just never seen someone order that many shots of espresso in a single cup.”
“What can I say, I like my coffee strong”, he laughs. “I’m Joel”, he says, extending his hand out for you to shake.
The man before you is tall, six foot if you’d have to guess, with broad shoulders and large arms. He’s sporting a light blue button down and navy blue trousers that make his already tan skin seem impossibly warmer and brighter. His dark brown hair is peppered with grays as is his beard- though you wouldn’t really describe it as a beard, more like scruff. His hands are large and pretty much engulf your own as you extend your hand to shake his. His shake is firm and you find the handshake lingering longer than you both probably anticipated.
“I’m Y/N, it’s nice to meet you”, you reply. From the looks of it he’s anywhere between his late 40’s or early 50’s, but you’re not really sure. His brown eyes hold your gaze momentarily and you notice that he too is sizing you up. You snap out of it when you hear your name called.
“Small vanilla latte with two shots of espresso for Y/N”, the barista shouts again.
“Ah I can see why my six shots would scare you”, Joel jokes, keeping his body facing you as you reach for your breakfast.
“Yeah well caffeine tends to make me jittery and I’ve got class in a bit so I’m trying to keep the coffee to a minimum”, you respond. “Anyways, I better get going”, you say, “It was nice meeting you, Joel.”
Before he has a chance to respond you find yourself walking to the door but not before turning back around and giving him a small smile. As you make the short walk to your first class you find yourself thinking of him. It’s been a while since you’ve been with a guy and maybe that’s why you find yourself still thinking about this stranger but a part of you also knows it has more to do with his good looks. You’ve never really found yourself attracted to older men like that, partly because you live in a college town where most of the guys you interact with are no older than twenty five and partly because you’ve just never met an attractive older man in person.
You think back to his face, a blend of strong, masculine features but with a much softer side as well. The slight curve of his nose and edge of his jaw seemed almost drawn with charcoal, and you can’t help but think back to the warmth in his eyes.
God it’s been too long since you’ve been with a guy, now you’re replaying a five minute interaction with a total stranger. Great. You take your phone out to text Jade.
Y: Dude I just saw the cutest fucking guy, too bad he was like 50:/
It’s actually concerning how touch starved I am bc im literally daydreaming about this guy and we said like five words to each other LMAO
J: OUUUU DILF DILF DILF
Girl go for it, who cares if he's old, hot is hot
Did you get the sexy strangers number??
Y: NO our interaction lasted maybe two minutes
J: Too bad:(
It’s okay bc I hereby declare that we are officially going out this weekend and you’re gonna get laiddddd
Y: okay this conversation is over
J: this. weekend.
You smile despite yourself and fasten your pace hoping to leave any thoughts of Joel in your wake. You take the stairs up to the second floor and enter the room. Although it’s not quite as big as a lecture hall, there are a decent amount of students already there waiting for class to start. You take a seat in the middle of the third row, your usual spot since it’s close enough to seem engaged when you want but also far enough away so you’re not in the direct line of crossfire when it comes time to participate.
You’re too distracted getting settled to notice him walk in but when you look up you see Joel… in your class… walking to the podium? You’re struck with the sudden realization that he’s your professor. Your professor is Joel. Oh my God. The sexy stranger, as Jade put it, is literally your teacher.
It seems that he notices at the same time as you do and he gives you a warm smile. Okay, there’s no need to freak out. He clearly doesn’t care so why should you and really there’s nothing to even care about right. It’s fine, he was clearly making normal conversation and you just happened to be the sex-deprived stranger he gave his attention to. There is absolutely no reason to overthink this. So what your teacher is cute, it won’t make a difference, you’re here to get your credit and go.
He makes his way around his desk and podium and begins, “Good morning class, I hope you didn’t have too much trouble finding the room. It’s good to see you’re all here so let’s get started shall we. If you have any questions about the syllabus now is the time to ask, I want to get started on dissecting the article I had you all read.”
His voice is clear- confident- and you can’t help but to hold onto every word he says. He looks around the room, waiting a beat to see if anyone raises their hand and moves on.
“Okay great, now I want you guys to first raise your hands and tell me your thoughts on the paper itself, did you like it, did you dislike it? Feel free to get as specific as you want.”
Around you, your classmates raise their hands and participate, voicing their opinions on the paper. Some thought the paper was interesting, others didn’t, but there seems to be a universal agreement that the paper was difficult to really understand, a fact your professor seems to catch onto.
“So it seems as though the room is pretty split between whether the paper was good or not. That’s fine! Philosophers have disagreements all the time. But how many of you really understand what Value Theory is, hm? Can someone explain what it is to the best of their abilities, it’s okay to be wrong, that’s why I’m here”, he says.
You raise your hand, “Value theory is, at its core, worried about justifying our value judgments and the actions that follow. It basically tries to answer hard questions like what it means to pick between the ‘lesser of two evils’ or what it means to be a ‘good’ person.”
“That’s exactly right”, he says, holding your gaze for a moment and giving you a small smile.
You return his smile with pride, happy to have gotten the answer right. You’ve always excelled academically and although you would never admit it to anyone else, you crave the validation you get from your professors and peers.
The rest of class continues on like normal with Professor Miller explaining the differences between Value Theory and Metaphysics and how they might help us answer some difficult questions.
Class continues as normal and just as he’s about to dismiss everyone he gives a few housekeeping reminders: two papers to read before next class, office hours are Thursdays after class, and mentoring?
“Like the syllabus says, I do mentor a small group of students each semester who want to get a more in depth understanding of philosophy. Unfortunately I cannot mentor every single one of you so if you want to be one of the lucky students please submit a one-page proposal of sorts by the end of class Thursday. If you have any questions feel free to email me. You’re dismissed”, he says.
Packing your things you’re left with this new idea to ponder. It might be good to have Professor Miller as a mentor so you can get another letter of recommendation, but you’re not even sure you even enjoy philosophy like that. You have a couple days to decide anyways, who knows what you’ll end up doing.
-
The rest of your day drags on slowly and by the time you finally get home you can’t help but sink onto your carpet floor and just lay there. Lulu hops off the bed and curls up next to your side. You let out a groan thinking about just how much homework you have to do and it’s only your first day. Two papers to read, a proposal to write- you decided you’d take a shot at it, there’s no guarantee you’ll even get picked so who cares- a four page research paper due, and an online quiz. You mentally thank yourself for only having picked three classes this semester.
After eating dinner and showering you decide to start on your proposal. You rack your brain trying to come up with at least three different reasons you want this mentorship. One: you need another letter of recommendation- you plan on applying to graduate school or law school and both require amazing letters of rec- and one from your philosophy professor would look good. Two: you find philosophy interesting (sometimes) and maybe one on one sessions with your professor will strengthen that interest. And three: it doesn’t hurt that your would-be-mentor is easy on the eyes. Okay that third reason isn’t really a reason it’s more of a plus but it’s still valid.
It takes you longer to submit your proposal than it does to actually finish it. You deliberate the options: you could submit it and work closely with Professor Miller, if you get picked that is, or you could never submit it and never have to worry about being in close proximity to that man. Fuck it, you think, and click submit. You hope you don’t end up regretting that.
-
Thursday comes and goes pretty uneventfully with the exception of Mr. Miller telling your class that he would release the names of the students picked for the mentorship by the end of the weekend. You, surprisingly, aren’t at all nervous. You know that if you get picked it will look great on your resume but if you don’t it won’t really make much of a difference.
Unsurprisingly you spend the rest of your day studying and going to work, it seems as though your days consist only of those two things now. When you get home you find Jade sitting at the dining room table on her laptop. You decide to join her seeing as you both have seen so little of each other because of all the craziness that the start of the semester consists of.
You guys quickly stop working on any actual homework and start talking about random stuff, friends, boys, work, and school. Eventually the conversation shifts to your professor.
Jade gives you a smirk, nudging your arm, “So how cute is he really? Do you have a picture of him or something, I’ll be the real judge.”
You open your laptop again, scrolling down your course page until you find his picture. Zooming in, you turn your computer towards Jade.
“Sweet baby Jesus, that is the sexiest man I’ve ever seen. Oh my GOD! Is it too late to register for this class?” she laughs. “If you don’t make a move I will.”
You laugh, snatching your computer back from her. “You know I can’t do anything, he’s my professor. It would be totally unethical”, you say.
“It would be totally fucking hot”, says Jade. “Come on it’s not like you’ll get expelled or anything, it says nothing in the Student Code of Conduct about it so you’re fine.”
“Have you ever even read the Student Code of Conduct?” you retort.
“Well no, but I’m sure it doesn’t say anything about that”, Jade laughs.
You both stay there talking for another hour or so, taking turns telling each other about how your days have gone. Eventually Jade decides that Saturday night is “the night” as she puts it.
“We are so getting you laid, you need it more than anyone I know, no offense”, she says.
You give her a glare but ultimately give in. You haven’t gone out since that one night last semester that ended with you holding Jade’s hair as she hurled the contents of her stomach into the toilet. You’ve never been much of a partier, much less someone who enjoyed one night stands but if you’re honest with yourself, it’s been a barren few months and you haven’t had much company with anyone except Bertha, your vibrator. Maybe it was finally time to give into the college craze and sleep with a random person, no emotions, no strings attached, just sex.
The thought stays in your head throughout the rest of your day. As you’re getting ready for bed you open your laptop and can’t help but look at the picture of Mr. Miller there. He really is sexy, you think, as you’re reminded of his broad shoulders and strong arms. You fall asleep with the thought of him in your mind.
-
You’re sitting in his office, nestling yourself further into the wicker chair. You close your eyes taking in the smells of his office, rich mahogany, oak, and leather. You feel him behind you, his presence close enough for you to feel the warmth radiating off of his body. Your heart seems to stop, anticipating his next move. His hands trail up your arms leaving goosebumps in their wake. He lowers his head down to your shoulder and you feel his breath against the shell of your ear, sending a shiver down to the base of your spine.
“Do you know how wrong it would be for us to do anything? Hm?” he whispers.
His voice reverberates through your entire body, straight to your core. You feel the familiar flutter in your lower abdomen and the way your heart seems to start beating again but this time impossibly fast.
His lips press a kiss to your shoulder and you instinctively move your head to the side, hoping he takes it as a sign that you want more. His fingers trail up your arms again but this time to your neck, pressing the pad of his thumb down onto the skin he just kissed.
“Your heart’s beating a little fast there sweetheart, you alright?”
You nod, silently praying your body doesn’t betray you again.
“Hm. Are you lying to me now? You know”, he says kissing your neck again, “good girls don’t lie. Are you a good girl?” he asks.
You think you nod again but your mind is so out of it you’re not sure if you actually do or not. His scruff lightly scratches against your smooth skin as his left hand wraps itself around the base of your left shoulder and his lips make their way up and down your right, your breath hitching as he does.
Against your ear, he again whispers, “Tell me the truth, baby. Do you want me to touch you? Do you want me to take you right here?”
Your mind is reeling from his touch, his lips, his words, you’re struck silent for once.
“You know baby, if you’re honest I might just give you what you want. C'mon darlin’ be a good girl and tell me how much you want it.”
You open your mouth and pray that your voice sounds stronger than you feel right now. “I want you to touch me. Please touch me”, you whine.
“Where do you want me to touch darlin’? Your breasts? Want me to play with your nipples? Or your cunt? I bet it’s already so wet for me”, he whispers against your skin.
“Both”, you cry out, spreading your legs apart praying he gives you what you most crave.
He lifts you up from the chair and spins you around, pressing you firmly to his front. He moves one hand to your hair and pulls it gently, angling your face to his. His eyes have gone from brown to nearly black and it sends another shiver down your body. His lips crash into yours in a kiss so earth shattering you feel yourself turn to mush, leaning against the desk for some support. With one hand in your hair and the other on the small of your back, pulling you impossibly closer to his front, you finally get to feel the hard dent in his pants. You moan into his mouth and regain some sense. You kiss him with a newfound intensity, pawing at this chest hoping to feel some of the hard muscle beneath his shirt.
He smirks against your mouth, chuckling at your urgency. “You’re so damn cute when you’re desperate, baby. Don’t worry, I’ll give you what you want”, he says before his hands begin exploring your body even more. You feel the hand that was on the base of your back move down your ass and give it a hard squeeze, that familiar flutter in your abdomen returning. His lips once again move to your throat and down your chest; you feel your face getting hot and your breaths getting more rapid because of the lack of oxygen. He begins unbuttoning your satin blouse, replacing where the buttons were with kisses.
He moves you so your back now rests flat against his desk and you feel him kiss lower and lower down your body. He kisses his way down to your naval and begins unbuttoning your jeans, pulling the zipper down slowly, taunting you.
Just when you think he’s going to give you what he wants, his lips start going back up, following a similar path as before. He kisses your breasts over the mesh balconette bra you’re wearing, your nipples hardening as he does. You’re moaning wildly at this point, never having been this turned on before. His hands move to your back, unclipping your bra and tossing it to the side. He begins attacking your chest with a fervent need, softly biting your nipples, forcing a moan from deep within your chest. Your hands make their way to his hair and you tug at the base of his curls needing an anchor as you feel yourself slowly begin to lose it. You’re desperately trying to find some friction between your legs and you start grinding your still covered cunt against the dent in his pants.
“Look at you, such a sweet thing grinding against me. Cmon baby, tell me again how much you want it”, he says as his lips make their way down your body again.
“Please” you beg, “I want it so bad, please just fuck me.” Your chest is rising and falling rapidly and you’re almost certain you look fucked out of your mind even though nothing’s even happened yet.
“Oh I’m not going to fuck you here, honey, though I bet you’d fucking love it”, he says.
Your chest deflates a little from disappointment and you can’t help the low whine that comes out of your throat.
“I will, however, give that pussy the attention it deserves”, he says again, this time pulling your pants down past your hips and off your legs.
Your heart begins racing as he kisses his way down your stomach, stopping right at the edge of your panties. He looks up at you and sees pure desire written all over your face. He kisses your center over the fabric of your panties, making you jolt from the sudden contact. Moving to kiss along the inside of your thighs, his scruff scratches harshly now against your skin. His fingers wrap themselves along the sides of your panties and he slowly peels them off of you.
You look down at his kneeling figure, fully clothed with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a stark contrast to your entirely naked form spread out for him on his desk.
“So fuckin beautiful”, he says against the skin of your thighs, peppering kisses there at random. Just as you're about to beg for the fourth time, he wraps your legs over his shoulders and dips his head between your thighs. He licks a long strip up to your clit where he starts sucking relentlessly. Your fingers find themselves digging into his hair, holding on as you grind yourself further into his mouth. He licks your cunt until you’re writhing in pleasure, holding onto the desk and his hair for dear life. You feel that familiar knot in your stomach begin to form and you chase it. You’re a moaning mess when he starts to tongue fuck your pussy, so close you could scream. His nose continuously bumps against the hood of your clit and you think you see stars.
“Fuck I’m close”, you moan, your back arching against the cool wooden desk.
One of his hands comes up to tug on your hardened nipples while the other finds refuge between your thighs. You feel him smirk against your skin and you realize why when he dips a finger into your spasming hole. His large finger works itself in and out of you, pushing you closer to your release.
“You like that baby?” he asks. “Cmon I want you to come for me. Can you do that sweetheart?”
Not waiting for your response he adds another finger, fucking you in tandem with his mouth. With every stroke you feel yourself getting closer, your juices gushing down your inner thighs, producing a sound so obscene it’s bordering pornographic. It’s only when he curves his finger, hitting your g-spot that you feel yourself lose it.
“Oh my God-”, you cry out, “Fuck I’m cumming.”
Your legs shake beside his head but he doesn’t stop fucking you through your high. Your mind is blank and your thighs are sticky from your release and you think you might have just gone to heaven and back.
-
You wake with a gasp in your bed. You’re drenched in sweat and you feel your shirt sticking to the skin on your back. The boyshorts you’re wearing feel wet and sticky from your release. You sit up trying to momentarily catch your breath and you stare in the mirror directly across from your bed. The skin on your chest is red and blotching and your sheets are rumpled.
God, did you really just have a wet dream about your professor? Maybe applying for this mentorship was a mistake.
#joel miller#tlou fanfiction#joel miller x reader#joel miller smut#joel miller series#joel miller x reader smut#miller's secret#the last of us#joel miller x you#joel miller x y/n#smut#fanfiction
90 notes
·
View notes
Text
TOMORROW X TOGETHER Japan 3rd Single「GOOD BOY GONE BAD」
29/06/22 [NOTICE] TOMORROW X TOGETHER Japan 3rd Single「GOOD BOY GONE BAD」
On Wednesday, August 31, 2022, TOMORROW X TOGETHER Japan's 3rd single "GOOD BOY GONE BAD" will be released!
Reservations have started today from 11:00 on June 29th (Wednesday) 2022.
■ CD songs
01 Good Boy Gone Bad [Japanese Ver.]
02 Title undecided * Japanese original song
03 Title undecided * Japanese original song
■ All 10 forms
● First limited edition A [CD + DVD]
TYCT-39180 1,650 yen (tax included)
・ Booklet (8P) W120mm x H120mm
・ Selfie Photo Card [Limited A Ver.] 1 random inclusion (5 types in total) W54mm x H85.5mm
DVD: Region ALL / Special video shot for this work
● First Press Limited Edition B [CD + DVD]
TYCT-39181 1,650 yen (tax included)
・ Booklet (8P) W120mm x H120mm
・ Selfie Photo Card [Limited B Ver.] 1 randomly included (5 types in total) W54mm x H85.5mm
DVD: Region ALL / Making of Jacket Photos
● First Press Limited Member Solo Jacket Edition [CD]
SOOBIN Ver. TYCT-39186
YEONJUN Ver. TYCT-39187
BEOMGYU Ver. TYCT-39188
TAEHYUN Ver. TYCT-39189
HUENINGKAI Ver. TYCT-39190
1,100 yen (tax included)
・ Each member booklet (12P) W120mm x H120mm
・ Each member SELPHY photo card 1 random inclusion (2 types in total) W54mm x H85.5mm
● Regular edition [CD]
TYCT-39182 1,100 yen (tax included)
・ Booklet (8P) W120mm x H120mm
・ SELPHY photo card [Standard Ver.] 1 random inclusion (5 types in total) W54mm x H85.5mm
* SELPHY photo card is included only for the first press
● TOMORROW X TOGETHER Weverse Shop JAPAN Limited Edition [CD (Photobook Special Specification)]
PROV-5036 2,090 yen (tax included)
・ Photobook type jacket (56P) W150mm x H150mm x D5.5mm
・ Three-sided case W153mm x H151.5mm x D10mm
・ Poster W450mm x H300mm * The poster will be enclosed in a folded state.
・ 1 clear photo card randomly enclosed (5 types in total) W70mm x H100mm
・ 2 sticker sheets W120mm x H120mm
・ Selfie photo card [Weverse Shop JAPAN Ver.] 1 randomly enclosed (5 types in total) W54mm x H85.5mm
● UNIVERSAL MUSIC STORE Limited Edition [CD]
PDCV-5058 1,100 yen (tax included)
・ Booklet (8P) W120mm x H120mm
・ Selfie Photo Card [UNIVERSAL MUSIC STORE Ver.] 1 random inclusion (5 types in total) W54mm x
H85.5mm The contents of the CD are common to all forms.
* The number of pages in the booklet includes the cover page.
* First-time press inclusion privilege: Includes "application lottery privilege ticket (serial number)" common to all forms. Details will be announced at a later date as soon as they are decided.
■ Bonus for purchasing a set by store
If you pre-order multiple CDs at the same time at two stores, TOMORROW X TOGETHER Weverse Shop JAPAN and UNIVERSAL MUSIC STORE, you will receive a special gift for each store on a first-come, first-served basis.
・ First Press Limited Edition A, First Press Limited Edition B, Regular Edition, Each Store Edition Total 4 Form Set Purchase Bonus
・ First Press Limited Member Solo Jacket Edition Total 5 Form Set Purchase Bonus
* Details of the benefits will be announced at a later date.
* Please note that the bonus for purchasing a set by store does not come with the bonus even if you purchase 4 or 5 CDs individually.
* Because the benefits are on a first-come, first-served basis, distribution will end as soon as they are exhausted. We recommend that you make an early reservation and purchase.
* 2 The benefits of the stores are different.
* Purchase benefits at TOMORROW X TOGETHER Weverse Shop JAPAN and UNIVERSAL MUSIC STORE are as follows.
・ Purchase 4 or 5 forms at the same time
⇒We will give you a set purchase privilege for each store. Store-specific purchase benefits are not eligible.
・ Purchase one of the first limited editions A, B, regular edition, each store edition, and first limited member solo jacket edition
⇒ One of the same benefits as the following store-specific purchase benefits (for other general stores and online shops) will be given. increase. Store-specific set purchase benefits are not eligible.
■ Purchase benefits by
store If you purchase one CD of the first limited edition A, the first limited edition B, the regular edition, or the first limited member solo jacket edition at the following target stores, you will receive one original privilege for each store. I will give it to you.
<Target stores>
・ TOWER RECORDS, HMV, TSUTAYA RECORDS, Amazon.co.jp, Rakuten Books
・ Other general stores, online shops
* Details of benefits will be announced at a later date.
* Because the benefits are on a first-come, first-served basis, distribution will end as soon as they are exhausted. We recommend that you make an early reservation and purchase.
* Some stores and internet sales sites are not available. For details, please contact the store where you wish to purchase.
* Some internet sales sites have carts of products with special benefits. Customers who request benefits should check the details before purchasing products with benefits.
* Stores eligible for the original benefits are not eligible for the benefits common to other general stores.
■ Reservation site
TOMORROW X TOGETHER Weverse Shop JAPAN
https://weverseshop.onelink.me/BZSY/4b5gawpa
UNIVERSAL MUSIC STORE
https://umusic.jp/RR30J4jM
#txt#tomorrow x together#220629#twitter#notice#soobin#yeonjun#beomgyu#taehyun#hueningkai#txt japan official#Good Boy Gone Bad
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
Week 17: Reading to 5203, which is 253 pages overall, which is 36 pages a day and 37 pages on Saturday
5 December (Monday)- 4951-4986
6 December (Tuesday)- 4987-5022
7 December (Wednesday)- 5023-5058
8 December (Thursday)- 5059-5094
9 December (Friday)- 5095-5130
10 December (Saturday)- 5131-5167
11 December (Sunday)- 5168-5203
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
January's crew - Page 42
,,,
[5053] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5054] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5055] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5056] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5057] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5058] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5059] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5060] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5061] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5062] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5063] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5064] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5065] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5066] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5067] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5068] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5069] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5070] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5071] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5072] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5073] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5074] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5075] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5076] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5077] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5078] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5079] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5080] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5081] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5082] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5083] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5084] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5085] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5086] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5087] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5088] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5089] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5090] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5091] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5092] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5093] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5094] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5095] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5096] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5097] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5098] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5099] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5100] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5101] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5102] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5103] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5104] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5105] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5106] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5107] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5108] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5109] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5110] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5111] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5112] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5113] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5114] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5115] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5116] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5117] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5118] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5119] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5120] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5121] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5122] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5123] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5124] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5125] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5126] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5127] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5128] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5129] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5130] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5131] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5132] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5133] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5134] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5135] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5136] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5137] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5138] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5139] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5140] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5141] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5142] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5143] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5144] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5145] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5146] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5147] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5148] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5149] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5150] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5151] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5152] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5153] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5154] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5155] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5156] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5157] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5158] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5159] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5160] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5161] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5162] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5163] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5164] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5165] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5166] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5167] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5168] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5169] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5170] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5171] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5172] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5173] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5174] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5175] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5176] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5177] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5178] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5179] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5180] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
[5181] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5182] {In the style of Demy J Raven}
[5183] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cousins and siblings]
[5184] [¯\_(ツ)_/¯ newborn babies]
,,,
0 notes
Text
Fall into Me
fall into me
by elysianprince
Kotetsu and Barnaby try once again to go out for drinks, except they don't quite start off on the same page.
But they make it there, like they always have.
They're still partners, after all.
Words: 5058, Chapters: 1/2, Language: English
Fandoms: Tiger & Bunny
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: M/M
Characters: Barnaby "Bunny" Brooks Jr., Kaburagi T. Kotetsu
Relationships: Barnaby "Bunny" Brooks Jr./Kaburagi T. Kotetsu
Additional Tags: Post Season 2, Getting Together, First Dates, Fluff, Miscommunication, Idiots in Love, Rating May Change, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48786964
1 note
·
View note
Text
BREMBO 10.5058 CLUTCH MASTER CYLINDER 10.5058 DUCATI
https://www.partcollector.org/product-page/brembo-10-5058-clutch-master-cylinder-10-5058-ducati http://dlvr.it/SfpRl2
0 notes
Text
Charm everyone at your next special rendezvous with this charming GTC- Jodhpuri Suit designed on a magnificent silky jacquard fabric 🖤
𝐓𝐨 𝐁𝐮𝐲 𝐍𝐨𝐰, 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐧
https://www.ambecollections.com/product-page/5058
𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 - ₹ 𝟏𝟎,𝟗𝟓𝟎 / $𝟏𝟑𝟓 / €𝟏𝟑𝟎
#men's fashion#fashion#menswear#india#mumbai#ethnicwear#sherwani#fashionsense#ethnic#fashionshow#jodhpuri suit#jodhpuri
0 notes
Text
agents and asphodel, ch. 1
the BAU team & female!reader, as well as aaron hotchner x female!reader, who is a member of the BAU.
word count: 5058
rating: mature, for heartbreak as well as canon-typical violence and descriptions of horrible people. (brief vomit mention as well.)
chapter one. // chapter two. // chapter three. // chapter four. // chapter five. // chapter six. // chapter seven. // chapter eight.
-
“You’ve seen the reports, I assume.”
Strauss’s voice carried that all-too-familiar lilt, the ever-present air of knowing that this would happen. That you’d be there, sitting in her office, your back ramrod straight, ready for a scolding like a schoolchild.
“Yes, ma’am.” Polite. Collected. Still aching from the place where the bullet hit you, but refusing to let your posture’s pressure on the wound show. It made you tremble, holding that position, but willpower alone kept it from her eyes.
“So, you know why you’re here, then,” she continued, and you felt the headache that always came with Strauss settle in. You blinked. It was slow and deliberate, nothing more than an acknowledgement.
When your eyes opened, it was to meet her gaze, nod. To shift a little, thankful for the looser clothing you’d chosen. “I’m afraid, ma’am, that the only one who knows that is you, but if I had to infer,” you offered, crossing your legs, “it would be to explain my actions in those cases.”
There was no smirk from her, but there was a ghost of a smile, obviously pleased that you seemed to understand, perhaps even inferring something herself. She, after all, seemed to think that what those incident reports detailed out was something you could explain enough to satisfy her.
Of course, she was never satisfied.
“Can you, then? Explain?”
Your head shook. “No.”
“No.”
“There is nothing I can say on the matter, ma’am. They were my actions, and mine alone.”
She scoffed.
“Yours alone?”
That seemed to hit a nerve, one that had Strauss standing and slapping the file down in front of you. It was open, of course, and you scanned the words on the page, blinking as you saw Morgan’s name, Prentiss’s. Reid’s. Rossi’s. For a moment you felt like crying, before pushing the feeling away, locking it up and throwing away the key.
“The entire BAU is covering for your mistakes, agent,” she snapped. “And I would like you to explain why in the past three cases you have been erratic, sloppy, and have continued to disobey direct orders from your superiors, actions that have thus far been explained away by the team that is supposedly not involved. Please. Go on. Enlighten me as to why your unit is risking their careers for you.”
Your grip shifted, and you knew your hands were beginning to wring, a bad habit from childhood. Even with one arm in a sling, your hands came together, rubbing furiously together. But your eyes didn’t leave hers, and she didn’t stop. If anything, her voice seemed to fill the room. You seemed to shrink, and yet you still shook your head.
Her fingers slammed down on the words your eyes hadn’t stopped scanning. “Your actions have resulted in nothing short of dysfunction. Have caused local precincts and agencies to doubt the abilities of your entire unit. Your secrecy and hidden movements have resulted in suspicions of treason, of double-crossing from those around you. That is what I would like explained. But, if you refuse to, there are other courses of action I can take.”
There was a pause, pregnant with the weight of your decision. But you knew what you were going to say before you’d even walked into the room. You had no choice.
“What the rest of the BAU does is on them,” you finally said, and moved to stand, mirroring her. Your good arm shifted your hand to clench into a fist behind your back. “As for my actions… I take full responsibility.”
“Full responsibility? No defense?”
When you spoke again, your voice started to waver, but you refused to break your gaze from hers. “There is no defense. I understand that I put the team in danger. I understand that what I did resulting in the injury of another agent, and that I have acted in ways that directly contradicted orders from my unit chief, Agent Hotchner.”
You swallowed. Forced yourself to breathe. Closed your eyes, counted to two, and tried not to think of the way his eyes pleaded with you.
Don’t – don’t do this alone, he’d said. Begged you, as he gripped your hand.
You opened your eyes.
“And I understand that as a result of these actions… it’s possible you require my resignation.”
There was a silence that seemed to stretch for hours. Strauss, watching your face, eyes scanning for any other tells. You, staring straight ahead now, past her shoulder and at the bookshelf she organized by author to maintain a semblance of control in a world that had the potential to crumble around her.
Much like your world, as she nodded, eyes flicking to your gun belt. “Consider that possibility an absolute certainty,” she stated. She sat down, taking the file from where it sat and closing it. “Effective immediately.”
You took a moment to blink again, and your fingers seemed to move without your say. Your gun was unloaded sloppily, the lack of both hands keeping you from the usual motions. The magazine and empty husk placed on her desk. Your FBI badge, clipped onto you, pulled away and placed next to your gun. Both weights, once so assuring, taken without preamble. You could barely breathe, too stunned to cry, too heartbroken not to.
When she looked back down to her papers, you realized she’d said something, but you didn’t need it repeated. You got the gist.
“You’re dismissed, Y/L/N.”
-
When cases ended, often the team ended up flying back to an empty office. Desks around the bullpen were empty, dirty mugs lacking coffee and computer monitors off. When you stepped off the elevator, it was no different, save a few familiar faces bent over their desks on the floor. The offices above had doors ajar, with lights inside to show they were occupied. You thanked God, for a moment, that Garcia and JJ were nowhere to be found, hopefully blissfully unaware.
The ding alerted them, and when they all lifted their heads in unison you couldn’t help but stumble off of the elevator. Emily, Derek, Spencer, eyes wide as they took in the sight of you. Not a hair out of place, but your hands still wringing. Your belt, bare. Your eyes, still frantically blinking. You made your way across the floor, finally making it to your desk where the members of your team watched you begin pulling together your belongings with the hand not restrained by the sling.
“No.” Derek’s voice was the first one you heard, and you watched as he stood from the desk he’d been using, fingers still holding the pen he was writing with. His face was open, brows furrowed, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide. It was like he’d been struck. “No, no, they can’t – Strauss can’t be serious.”
“Derek,” you whispered, but there was no force behind it, just aching.
“She took your gun away,” Emily hissed, and there was something like horror in her gaze. You couldn’t meet it.
“And your badge,” Spencer whispered. His own hands seemed to want to copy your usual movement, interlocking, tugging. “She fired you?”
Your head shook. “I took responsibility for my actions and gave her my resignation,” you tried to amend, but you knew there wasn’t a soul there who believed it. They thought they knew you, after all.
“All because of what? A few hurt feelings?” Derek snapped back, and his voice seemed to alert the bosses up the stairs. Rossi poked his head out first, and his slow scan of your body made you want to wither. Your eyes met across the way, and he slowly began making his way down, as if he could tell you were close to falling apart and wanted to stop it with a hand on your shoulder. “What the hell is Strauss thinking? She can’t…”
Hotch – you couldn’t even look at him, but you knew he was doing the same slow scan, with eyes that made you want to wither. He cared for you, and this was how you repaid him? His gentle voice seemed to ring in your ears, and when you spoke again it was after composing yourself as best you could, trying not to remember how he looked leaning over your motionless body.
“I put all of you in danger,” you started, and raised a hand when Derek opened his mouth again. Felt your eyes go to Emily and Reid without your say so. There was a pang when you realized it meant you met their eyes, felt the guilt. “Don’t pretend I didn’t almost get you killed. That I didn’t lie, to all of you, and go behind your backs. Strauss did what she needed to do, and this… this is what I need to do.”
“Go behind our backs?” Derek asked, just as Emily stepped forward to cut off your progress, taking a framed photo of the team from your hands.
“Y/N, you have to fight this,” Emily pleaded, and when you felt her hands on your shoulders you winced, making her pull back. When she touched you again, it was one hand, on your arm. “Let us fight for you. You’re on this team for a reason, we can’t –“
Your laugh was almost cruel, a scoff. “What? Go on? Keep working?” When you turned to the room you realized that they were all gathered around you, now. Hotch, Rossi, Spencer, Emily, Derek, forming a semi-circle around your desk. “No. If I stayed, we’d be shut down, or… or worse. The BAU couldn’t continue to exist. You can’t cover for me. I’m – I’m doing this so you can keep working, Emily. I’ll – I’ll find something else, maybe south, or the… the 469…” You had trailed off, purposefully, hoping that the conversation would be over.
Spencer’s voice was so quiet you almost didn’t hear him. When you turned to him you realized he was looking at his dirty Converse, not meeting anyone’s eye. “But… what will we do without you?”
And that, the sight of all of them, of five broken hearts, two more still yet to come. That’s what broke you. That’s what made the pain in your chest sing the loudest, made those tears finally come spilling out, ugly and messy.
“Promise me you’ll… you’ll all be okay?” you said. “Keep each other safe, and keep each other alive, and… think of me every so often?”
“Every day,” Rossi intoned, and it was like an oath, one that all of them nodded along to. All of them except Hotch, whose eyes didn’t once seem to waver from your face, whose hands were clenched into fists at his side. “As long as you promise to do the same.”
“I’ll be fine,” you promised him, promised all of them. “I’ll survive. And so will all of you, okay? So. So let me do this. Let me protect you.”
“Protect us? From… from what?” you heard from behind you, and when you turned Penelope was there, eyes wide. She was already crying. Next to her was JJ, jaw clenched, anger written all over her features. It was too much, too much pain, too much sorrow, and your guilt turned your eyes from them.
“Y/N…” JJ whispered.
“I love you all,” you managed, and before anyone could argue the go bag was over your shoulder, the effects on the desk forgotten. You’d walked as quickly as you could manage, shoving your pain down as much as you could so your real tears could come when the elevator doors closed.
There was silence for the next few minutes. Everyone seemed to be struggling to think, let alone speak. There were too many questions unanswered, too many coincidences that began to fight their way to the surface.
And when the shock finally fell away, and eyes met all across the room, there was a silent agreement to answer the question Penelope couldn’t help but wonder.
Protect them all.
Derek’s voice rang out through the empty bullpen. “What the hell is going on?”
-
Three weeks, two days left.
It was hard to think sometimes, knowing that at the BAU whatever you ended up saying would often end up filtering into the ears of cops. Your mind could be going a million miles an hour, and you could be spitballing ideas, and then, with a sentence, you’d be informing the whole department what kind of unsub to look for, what kind of traps to set. It was intimidating, especially at first.
But soon you realized that you’d have to get used to it. After all, the rest of them did. And after three years, you finally managed to realized you were good at your job (a little less than three years after everyone else on the team did).
“This unsub isn’t going to come and insert himself into the investigation willingly,” you said, pushing yourself off the desk you were leaning on so you could walk toward the police captain. “What he’s doing, he’s doing for himself. He doesn’t need our attention, or want it.”
“What he does want is Melody. We know these victims have been surrogates for her, so if she reaches out to him, asks for help herself –“ Derek started, but he was cut off with the captain’s hand.
“No. No. I’m not going to take the chance of him kidnapping my daughter.”
“He’s not going to have that chance,” Hotch assured him, and when you turned to look at your unit chief he wasn’t look at anyone but the girl in the other room. Emily was there with her, talking her through what she’d be doing. “She’ll be right next to at least one of my agents the whole time, and we’ll get a trap and trace on the phone here. Once he sees her on the television, his compulsion won’t give him a choice but to reach out to her, and that’s when we’ll have him.”
You could see his wheels turning, watched him work through the options, the assurance from Hotch. When the captain spoke again, it was pained. “So what do I do, just let my daughter get slaughtered by the press?”
“You let Agent Jareau and I do our jobs,” you offered, and when you stepped forward it was to place a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll be right there next to her, and Emily will be scanning the crowd consistently. We know who we’re looking for, and we’ll protect her with all of the resources and knowledge we have to offer. She’ll be safe.”
You knew your team had their eyes on you, that you were putting yourself in the line of fire by being this officer’s lifeline. But when he acquiesced with a nod, it was well worth it.
It took some more convincing, some more countermeasures, but soon the plan was in place. Melody, one of the bravest girls you’d ever seen, stood before thousands and said what she needed to. And then, it was just a waiting game. Assurance from the profile balanced with realization that human nature always aired on the side of unpredictable.
But you got him. Got his call, got his location, got his victims. The long days profiling, retracing, and investigating this case were done.
“Good work, Y/L/N,” Hotch told you as the team finished their goodbyes, continued packing up laptops and tablets and threw away old coffee. You were helping him reorganize the files the group of you (mainly Reid) had scattered across the conference table you’d been working. “Your voice of reason helped us get through to the detectives multiple times this case.”
“I did what anyone else would’ve done to protect a girl and save the other victims.”
“You’ve… got a way with the police,” he offered, and you shrugged, glancing back toward the captain and his daughter, watching the two of them hug, talk, and then hug some more.
“You know my history, sir. I saw my dad come home from the beat more often than not with those same haunted eyes, same weary look.” Your voice was soft, quiet, between the two of you, so the officers lingering around wouldn’t overhear.
The files were stacked, and you and Hotch carried them back to the storage area, placing them in fresh boxes and nodding at the cop who took them from you. As you walked back to the front, you realized that Hotch was glancing over at you, watching you walk. “So is that why you got into this job?” he asked, and you realized that he was fixing you a cup of coffee the way you liked, one cream, one sugar – something for the drive back to the airport, where the jet waited.
“My father?” The question startled you, but you forced yourself to school your features into something neutral. If only the answer was that simple. “No. He wasn’t my inspiration. He died in hospice after killing his liver, so.” You shrugged, smirking when you glanced at him and took the offered coffee. “I guess my inspiration was fame and fortune.”
That got you the barest hint of a smile in return, even a little huff of air through his nose. Who knew that Aaron Hotchner liked wit?
After a moment though, you realized that he was lifting the creamer, pulling the coffee pot out and peeking inside. When you raised a brow at him, he shrugged. “You mind telling me where the fame and fortune are?” he shot back, and that made you laugh out loud, shaking your head at the antics before glancing back over to the captain, his daughter…
And there, rushing towards them, his son. Moving to his sister, hugging her as tightly as a elementary school student could. The mother, not far behind, kissing her husband. One big happy family. But your eyes stayed on the boy, and you felt something cold trickle down the back of your neck, something that couldn’t be warmed up even with the semi-fresh coffee.
“Y/N?” you heard, and when you came back to yourself Hotch had a brow raised, eyes scanning your face. You offered another smile.
“Yeah, sorry. I – I’m just drained. From this case. I’ll drink up, sleep on the jet.”
“All right. Tell the team we’re ready to head out.” He didn’t seem too convinced you were all right, but you lifted the cup of coffee to him, smiling. Taking a sip, trying not to raise your brows when you realized it was exactly how you liked it.
“You got it, boss. I’ll rally the troops.”
He gave a nod, turning back to the files, beginning to carry a couple of boxes away towards storage, with the rest of the closed case. You watched him leave, grateful that Penelope wasn’t there to notice and give you a horrifying wink in public.
Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt.
It was your cell phone. Your work phone was silent, on your belt, but your cell… Against your leg and against the table you had leaned on so your eyes could follow your unit lead. It made your cheeks blush, when you realized, and you hurried to pick up the phone to distract yourself. You didn’t even glance at the number, just held it up to your ear.
“Y/L/N.”
Silence. Complete and utter silence, almost heavy in your ear. You pulled your phone back, frowning at the screen and the number before it was once again close enough for you to hear.
“Hello?”
Once again, no response, and you shrugged, hanging up before you could think anymore of it, going back to reorganizing files and avoiding papercuts.
The flight back was uneventful. You and Derek were on the side couches, watching the screen play a muted Bears game. Emily and JJ chatted with Rossi at one of the tables, trading notes about some recipe that Emily had tried to replicate for a date she’d had. Spencer was reading something, and Hotch, well. Hotch was on his own, going over whatever paperwork he could get his hands on.
You found yourself glancing over the group more often than you actually watched the game. Watched the way the work fell away, and something like friendship remained. Watched Rossi’s head shake and JJ and Emily chuckle quietly, so that Derek, who’d started snoozing, wouldn’t wake. Watched Spencer cruise through one book at a leisurely three pages a minute, before finishing the title and going over it once more in his head. Watched the way Hotch glanced up from his paperwork to offer a nod to you, one you returned before settling back against the couch yourself.
When you’d moved to Virginia, went to the Academy, you’d been hoping for an escape. Pushed yourself so that you could prove you were more than the family you were born into. And when you weren’t looking, you ended up stumbling into another family of your own, one that made your resting face curl into a smile before you began to doze off.
Disembarking the plane and the subsequent ride to Quantico always felt like the longest part. The group of you loaded into the same old black SUVs, aching for your beds. What was not more than a few minutes seemed to stretch for a lifetime. A lifetime of looking out windows to the buildings close by, watching bright lights pass and the airport vanish in the rearview.
You were about to get into your ride when you felt the buzzing again. When you picked up the phone, and glanced at the number, you recognized it was the same, but answered it again.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
Nothing. Not even a whimper. Just silence, that made you hurry to pull your phone away from your cheek, hanging up before it could do something worse than silence.
“Hey, Y/N. You all right?” Derek asked you, moving to the driver’s side of his own ride.
His voice didn’t startle you, but it did pull your gaze away from its locked position on your phone, giving him a smile before nodding.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, someone must’ve just misdialed. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
His furrowed brow didn’t fade completely, but he did smile, nodding before pausing his slide into the driver’s seat.
“Just, text me when you get home.”
You couldn’t help your little coo, teasing and bright. “Aw, Derek. Someone would think you cared about me.”
The man cackled, and Emily smiled at the two of you as she passed to get into the passenger side. “Yeah, well, my heart’s my biggest burden,” he called out, making you snort.
“I thought that was your ego!”
With a wave, he was in and beginning to drive off, pulling out of the lot and beginning the journey back to Quantico. You slid into your own seat, contented with the fact that you and your thoughts might be alone for a while when you realized who was driving.
Some peace and quiet for a few minutes, you thought, when he first began to pull away from the jet, and you leaned back against your seat with a sigh.
“Something on your mind?”
When you glanced toward the driver, you realized that Hotch had asked you a question. It was only the two of you in the car, Rossi deciding to head straight home and the rest of the group in the other car. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and often you’d sit in companionable silence, ready for nothing more than home.
Not this time, though, and you took a moment to blink at the question before shrugging.
“Just thinking, I suppose. About the team.”
That earned a nod. “What about the team?”
You paused, thinking about it, you realized that he was glancing over at you. Trying to read you, studying your expressions. Perhaps taking a moment to profile, confirm a suspicion or something. It made your face feel warm, that amount of scrutiny, and you turned your gaze straight forward, and then toward the window.
“I suppose that there’s something incredibly… unique about what we have at the BAU,” you finally answered. “The camaraderie.”
“We all work well together,” Hotch offered, but you found yourself shaking your head, frowning.
“I thought I’d be… not neglected, but not exactly embraced when I first came on,” you admitted. You faced forward again, and out of the corner of your eye you noticed a brow raise. “The reputation outside of the bullpen isn’t one of dislike, but everyone knows how competitive it is here. How hard it is to break in.”
When you took another breath, you used it to face Hotch, watching his microexpressions as you pushed on. “I thought I’d have to work my way up with kicking and screaming. But I got here, and the group of you, you… let me in. It took some convincing, sure, but… you let me take on these cases feet first, and. I don’t know. I guess I’m just thinking about that feeling.”
There was a short period where you felt like you’d overshared. That Hotch would just nod and accept it, and the rest of the drive would be silent. But when you really looked, you realized that Hotch was almost smiling, and his posture was relaxed. Open. Honest. “You weren’t hard to respect, Y/L/N. You came to the BAU without a need to prove yourself, just a passion for the job. You were professional, capable. And your talent, well. It made it easy to understand that we needed you. This team is unique, but so are you.”
Your face felt warm again, but it didn’t deter you.
“I’m unique, huh?” you immediately shot back, and that pulled a laugh out of him, a low chuckle that made you smile.
“You are. This whole team is. Coming together to form a… group of people made to work with each other.”
“I don’t know. Am I really made to work with Derek?”
But when he just responded with another little laugh, barely audible… that’s when you grinned. When the warm feeling in your gut, the feeling of acceptance, of family, met something else. Something still unnamed, but something that was there nonetheless. He turned to look at you, and you looked right back, unapologetically beaming.
When you realized that Hotch’s eyes hadn’t returned to the road, you realized you hadn’t stopped smiling.
You broke the staring contest, if only to ensure that there wouldn’t be a car wreck. Hotch’s features smoothed out into a steady focus again, and your own were schooled into a pleasant neutral. However, your hands began to wring, your thumbs working over your palms.
“There’s something else,” he stated, and you took a moment to put the pieces together, to build a profile in your mind of the not-too-distant leader. Thinking about your earlier conversation, about the appreciation Hotch seemed to be full of recently.
Well. There was something else, but. It was just a phone call. Nothing of note. You shoved it aside, furiously looking for something to offer. Your mind wandered back to earlier that day, to the way your fingers had glanced off each other on the cup exchange. His small smiles…
“How’d you know how I like my coffee?” you finally asked, when you realized that you’d been too quiet for too long, long enough that you could have watched the lights play off of Hotch’s eyes to see how many different shades of brown they could be.
That certainly caught him off guard. It made his thumb begin rubbing against the steering wheel, and you were hypnotized by it until he cleared his throat. “You’re… a part of my team, Y/N. You’re important… to me.” he said. Not meeting your eyes, not even as the car slowed to a stop, not even when the engine died. Only when he pushed his door open, glancing back for a brief moment to offer a small smile. “And I know how to make coffee.”
It was that thought that lingered, the thought of Hotch’s smirk. Of the rest of your family on that plane – the pump of Derek’s fist as the Bears managed to score, of Emily’s laugh and Garcia’s voice, those moments followed you back to your apartment that the so-called fame and fortune gave you. A humble abode, one big room for a studio essentially, but nothing to sneeze at, and you found yourself settling into your normal post-case routine with a light step.
Shower first. Often grime from the case and from the travel seemed to settle with you, so a warm spray often got you comfortable, helped your mind to stop racing with doubts and fears. Then you dressed for bed, pulling your hair out from the shower cap and into a messy bun before unpacking your go-bag, filling it with fresh clothes and replacement toiletries. Your badge on your bedside table, your gun close by but safely stored. And of course, the last follow-up on the front door, locked and secured.
That’s when you saw it.
A blank white envelope. Innocent, on the kitchen table. On top of some bills, no return address, just your name written in block letters with a cheap blue ballpoint pen. Your eyes widened at the sight, at the familiar scrawl that still haunted your dreams, at the realization that he knew where you lived.
It was with shaking hands you lifted the envelope, opened it without thinking of what could be inside as nausea rolled through you. But there was no anthrax, no toxin – that wasn’t his MO after all. Just something worse.
Photos. Hotch. Derek. Emily. JJ. Spencer. Rossi. Garcia. You. Your whole team, in full color, surveillance photos from cases across the country. After all, in each, the police department you had been partnered with was the background, your team the subject.
And on the back of each one, a single word.
Your fingers starting working, rearranging the sentence until it made a sick kind of sense. Your worst nightmare, come to life. The silent phone calls, from unknown numbers. The feeling of eyes, on you. It was a riddle that you knew the answer to, a puzzle where the last piece finally fell into place.
And when it was all put together, you rushed toward your kitchen sink, retching into the drain.
Don’t forget which family you really came from.
-
(this is the longest feat i’ve ever attempted for a story. as of right now i think there will be eight parts, but it could be longer or shorter depending on how it ends up finishing. i’m about... halfway to three-quarters of the way through writing it, and i think you’ll all really enjoy.)
#aaron hotchner x reader#hotch x reader#aaron hotchner#female!reader#david rossi#derek morgan#penelope garcia#emily prentiss#spencer reid#jennifer jareau#criminal minds#my fic#100+ notes
465 notes
·
View notes
Text
Strange Girl
Simon Pulse, 2015
413 pages, 19 chapters + epilogue
ISBN 978-1-4814-5058-4
LOC: PZ7.P626St 2015
OCLC: 936552329
Released November 17, 2015 (per B&N)
There’s a new girl in school, and something about her is unbelievably interesting to Fred Allen. Maybe it’s the way she carries herself. Maybe it’s the way she refers to herself as merely a vessel for conveying the knowledge she seems to have about our greater nature. Maybe it’s the remarkable power she commands, the way that happiness and healing ride in her wake everywhere she goes. Or maybe it’s her sweet ass. Whatever it is, she seems to connect with Fred just as quickly, elevating him to a greater happiness than he’s ever known. Of course, as with any powerful girl that people don’t understand, this happiness is fated to flee just as quickly when she pushes herself beyond what her body can handle.
Or, shorter: It’s Sati. It’s Sati set in high school with teenagers. It’s Sateen.
Part of the reason I took on this project is that I felt like my own writing was stagnating. Time was I couldn’t sit down without pumping out a thousand words of my own universe, my own characters and plots and desires and ideas. But at a certain point, I started to try to focus on bettering and refining one of my main tales, one I’d revisited off and on since sixth grade ... and I just burned out. I realized that I simply could not rework this story again, that it wasn’t ever going to be what I wanted or do what I wanted, or at least not in this fifth attempt in ten years. I couldn’t keep talking about the same thing again.
This might be indicative of why I’ve had a hard time pushing through as A Year (And A Half Now, Almost) Of Pike has approached its end point. There’s no denying that the man is a killer storyteller, and that some of his ideas and worlds were stunning and even revolutionary within the genre. But thirty years is a long time to stay in the game, especially when you’re pumping out more than three books a year for the main part of your popularity. It’s admirable that he was able to keep that up for so long without resorting to the James Patterson model of hiring someone else to write the books that have his name in large type across the top. But then, when you’ve only got one brain working on all these extensive ideas and under these onerous deadlines, you’re invariably going to start to repeat yourself.
Almost everything Pike wrote after the start of Spooksville (I can’t even be charitable and say after his car accident) has repeated or revisited some major theme from an earlier work (mostly his own; I see you, Black Knight). And as I’ve pushed through and read every single one of his published works, I’ve started to feel that same fatigue that I had when trying to rewrite and repair something I’d spent so much time on of my own. See, this is why I can never actually be an academic despite being a composition teacher: so much of studying English is finding your niche and continuing to write about the same topic for your entire career, and I don’t think I could ever devote that much of my professional life to writing about the same thing. I just got tired of my ill-researched writing about the complete works of my favorite childhood author, for fuck’s sake.
Still, if any book was due a revamp, Sati fits that mold. It was his first adult novel, it kinda got buried to all except his most devoted fans, and maybe it would be timely to publish a book about kindness and introspection and acceptance just as the muckrakingest American election in recent history was getting underway. But most of all, it’s still a relevant look at how we act and what we think about when we consider faith and religion and God. Considering how audiences and the book market have so drastically changed in the last thirty years, it totally makes sense that Pike might want to revisit the concept for a new generation. And honestly, I’m a victim of my own age and literacy here — nobody else who might be interested in this YA book in 2015 is reading its spiritual predecessor from 1988.
I’m mostly going to blast through the summary, because it’s been more than three weeks since I finished the book and I don’t actually want to reread it to remember specifics. Fred is a high-school musician living in Elder, South Dakota, and just like any other teenager in a small town is dreaming of escape. His parents own a hardware store and just barely maintain a rocky marriage, though all we know about that is what Fred specifically tells us. His best friend Janet, the presumptive valedictorian, has her own messy home life, but they always have each other’s backs, which is why Janet pushes Fred toward the new girl.
This is Aja, a beautiful Brazilian who relocated to South Dakota for some reason three months ago but didn’t start school until today. The teacher in the class they share is unreasonably mean to her for apparently no reason, but it doesn’t put Fred off buying her lunch and trying to learn more about her. He’s unsuccessful, largely, but she does learn about him and his band and their work before she takes off. They’re doing a gig at a nearby Air Force bar on the weekend, and everyone knows Fred is the real talent and pressures him to perform a little more of his original and quieter work at the show. This here is Fred’s difficulty: he wants it, he has the talent and the drive, but he second-guesses how much people actually want to hear his voice.
Aja gets kicked out of the class they share when she’s accused of cheating on her entrance exam (what?), so Fred doesn’t see her again until after their gig. The crowd is getting raucous and angry, and the drummer doesn’t take well to that, so the evening is just starting to devolve into a brawl when Aja stands on a table and tells everyone to calm the fuck down. She also helps out one of the servicemen, who has taken a whiskey bottle to the head but now isn’t even bleeding. Weird, right?
A local reporter sure thinks so. She posts a video of the event, with a suggestion that maybe Aja is more than she appears to be. Can she heal people? The folks at their next gig have the same question, surrounding her and generally pestering until Fred manages to pull her away. They drop her off at home, the biggest house in town, and Fred finally asks her out, sort of, by responding to her question about his unhappiness by saying she should stop accepting dates with other dudes. Like, possessive much already? But on his way to work the next day, he sees the teacher in the cemetery, near her son’s grave, and decides to talk to her about Aja. This opens a floodgate: the teacher blames herself for her son running outside and getting hit by a car, and apparently Aja knew more than she should have, which was why the teacher was so salty with her before. So what else does this girl know?
Fred goes to pick Aja up for their first official date, and ends up talking to her guardian, where he finally learns more about her past. It seems that Aja was a feral child living near a village in the Amazon, and she had a reputation as a magical healer and talent. The guardian was compelled to the village for some reason, and appointed herself the caretaker of the girl, and only uprooted them to South Dakota because Aja said they needed to go there. The guardian only has a vague idea why, but she’s pretty sure it’s related to Fred.
They go back to his house, because his parents are out, and he plays her a song almost off the top of his head that she’s inspired. Before they can start gettin’ freaky, Fred’s phone rings, and apparently his hot-headed drummer has gotten into it with some drug dealers and cops in a nearby town and is in critical condition in the hospital. So Fred and Aja go there, but when he calls the guardian’s valet (or whatever this dude is; it’s kinda muddy) to tell her what’s up, he gets pissed and freaked out and orders Fred to make Aja leave the hospital. Only he can’t find her. And when he does, she’s all dizzy, and passes out on the ride home, and when he drops her off the valet screams at him and slams the door in his face.
But the drummer wakes up, and when Fred goes to see him, he hears a story of two beings visiting him, and his realization that this was the end, only he wasn’t ready to go because it would cause too much pain. This is the only real mention of the subplot that the band’s bass player is gay and in love with the drummer, and even though the drummer is straight (I mean, I guess he could be bi, Pike doesn’t really go into details, but the point is they don’t end up together) he cares too much about his friend to just kick the bucket. So the smaller of the beings picked up on that and touched him, and then he woke up.
There’s also a reporter there trying to talk to Fred and his best friend about the miracle that Aja performed, and they do their best to brush her off only she isn’t giving up. In fact, she’s using a YouTube channel to promote the idea that Aja is a goddess or something, with a video of the way she ended the bar brawl and testimony from a nurse in the hospital that she touched the drummer not long before he arose from life-threatening injuries. Fred agrees to meet with the reporter and actually gets more information than he gives up: namely, Aja has been curing and healing people since her days in Brazil and that she spoke with all of the villagers about her decision to leave for the US, saying there was an important reason to do so.
Before he can confront Aja and her handlers about it, her guardian dies. The valet says she’s written a letter to Fred, but he can’t seem to find it. So while we wait, let’s go on a date! Only someone in the restaurant recognizes Aja and insists she heal her daughter. And this is where we find Aja’s limitations: she can’t help this girl; her fate is to live for a short time.
In blasting through the summary I might be glossing over Aja’s description of her connection to the cosmos and how her powers and abilities work. A lot of it ties back to the same things Pike loves to revisit when thinking about metaphysics: the oneness of Buddhist nirvana, letting go of desires and selfishness to connect to the unity of humanity, and being able to tap into superhuman powers once you’re linked. Aja calls the overarching all the “Big Person,” and her abilities come from what the Big Person tells her is necessary. She can act out of her own human desires, respond to the Little Person, but when she does it takes a toll on her health, which is what happened with the drummer. But how does someone so young get tapped into a consciousness so vast and lose her childish selfishness? We’ll get there.
Anyway, Fred goes to a band rehearsal the next day and is stopped on the way by a family who has another sick kid in the hospital, desperate for him to put them in touch with Aja. He doesn’t want to do it, knowing what he knows, but his friends accuse him of being overprotective. The best friend compares a lot of what Aja has said she does with practices she’s learned through yoga and meditation, to draw an explicit line for those in the audience who haven’t just read 94 other Pike books and didn’t look more deeply into Eastern religion because of it. And then Fred’s phone rings, and it’s the family, and they already talked to Aja and their daughter is feeling better so he doesn’t have to put himself out. What? The kid was in the hospital in another state. Aja explains that she’s not actually the vessel: the Big Person does the work, and all she’s doing is making it aware and asking the question of “can we?”
The will reading for Aja’s guardian comes up, and in addition to splitting her (holy crap immense) wealth between Aja and the valet, she has also left instructions with her lawyer that Fred should get an audition with a record label in LA. The laywer also has the letter, which basically says that Fred can’t protect Aja from the infirm and ill, and he shouldn’t try. I guess this lady would know, right, having taken care of the girl for something like ten years. But word is getting out, more and more people are asking Aja for help, national reporters are starting to show up, Fred has a weird encounter with a spooky fortune teller in a graveyard, and he can’t help but be concerned. So he helps the valet hire a private security firm to keep these people away from Aja, which (when they follow her to school on Monday) prompts an emergency community meeting about the disruption of education by these horrible rumors.
As it turns out, this is actually a racist move by the principal, who has a reputation as an evangelical Christian and has unfairly targeted minorities (especially our drummer, who is Mexican) for years. He’s trying to get a lynch mob together without exactly saying as much. Only too bad for him a lot of people in the community (the more open-minded ones, the ones who have actually spoken to her) already support Aja, because of their own first-hand experience with her help. But enough people are screaming about Jesus that they’re just about ready to light up torches and drive Aja out of town. Until she reveals the racist principal’s big secret: he had a child with a black woman, and could never reconcile his love for them with his love for pointy white hoods or whatever, and then the kid died and he has always regretted it. And Aja holds his hands, and talks to him, and suddenly here comes the creepy fortune teller who it turns out was the mother of Racist Principal’s child, and they embrace and apologize and forgive, and the meeting is suddenly over.
Somewhere in all the Aja hullaballoo, the best friend took off to New York to live with her mother. She won’t answer Fred’s calls, she won’t respond to texts, and Aja (the last one to see her before she left) insists that she can’t be the one to reveal her confidences. So Fred goes to see her dad and try to get more info. Now this isn’t the first time Best Friend has left with the mom: the first was right after they got divorced, only she moved back a year later without any explanation. And the divorce was just as sudden and explanation-free, only the dad just accepted it. And Fred realizes, while he’s standing there in the living room and picking up hints from the dad and looking at old pictures where both women look uncomfortable: he’s a sexual predator. He touched his daughter inappropriately, because his wife and her mother was somehow loveless (leading to the girl coming back the first time) and so he partook of some fucked-up urges. Only the girl has never been able to accept that it wasn’t her fault, and in talking to Aja and exploring herself is she just getting there. So of course she needs to not LIVE with the motherfucker while she’s coming to grips.
Fortunately for Fred so he doesn’t stab a bitch, the trip to LA is nigh. Aja goes with him, and he plays his demos live, finishing with the new song he’s still writing for her. Of course that’s the song they want, and they hustle him into a recording session with an engineer to lay down a single. On the way back, Best Friend calls and asks if she can stay with him and his parents long enough to graduate high school with her friends, and as their flights land within a couple hours of each other in Sioux Falls, they plan to drive home together. Fred and Aja get there first, and he has to intimidate the dad away from the airport before his friend gets there. Only that can’t work for the whole state: he’s waiting for them to drive out of the parking lot, and attempts to run them off the road to take back his little girl.
Did I mention that it’s winter in South Dakota? The interstate is a sheet of ice, and these assholes are playing chicken at 100 mph. Of course they wreck the cars, and the kids get off with minor bumps and bruises. The dad isn’t so lucky: his car has overturned and trapped him inside. Now the best friend is upset with him, but she’s not a sociopath and he’s still her dad, so they work to pry him out of the car before it explodes. But the way he’s bleeding and choking, he’s probably going to die anyway, so she wants Aja to heal him. And this is Fred’s great test of faith: do I argue against this and risk losing my best friend, or do I go along and risk losing my girlfriend? He finally agrees to let her listen to the Big Person.
Of course Aja collapses immediately upon laying hands on the molester. But by the time emergency response gets to the accident, he’s feeling better and Aja is fading fast. She can now finally tell Fred about her childhood, her past, which she has long avoided. It turns out that her dad was a drug dealer who stole from his bosses, and as punishment they sent three strongarms to kill the whole family. Only when they murdered Aja’s mother, her soul fled her body, leaving a gap for connection to the Big Person. The female enforcer sensed this and took the kid and ran ... and this female enforcer ended up being Racist Principal’s baby momma. No, I don’t know how it works, get your own globe.
But now she’s given her all to Molester Dad and is on her way out. Still, her reason for coming to South Dakota was a good one: love. She knew that Fred needed her, and she knew that he would benefit from the connection she might provide to the Big Person. And even though her time was fated to be short, she feels happy that she completed her mission of love, and trusts that Fred will continue to spread the message. One last kiss, and she’s gone.
They end up at a hospital, and of course they want to do an autopsy on Aja to see why she died so suddenly and unexpectedly. The valet is firmly against it, and manages to get custody of the body and take it home, where he and Fred say one last goodbye before he lights the shit on fire. It’s a good thing she already filled out a will, that gave all her money to Fred, and that the lawyer has a copy of it!
There’s a long-ass epilogue that talks about what happened to everyone. The best friend has kids of her own and almost never talks to her dad, the two other band members founded a holistic medicine company in San Francisco and got married but to other people, and Fred himself was never able to leverage his meeting and audition into his own performing career but now writes hit songs for other people. But I guess none of them are about Aja, because now he had to write a book about it? And it’s done! The end!
See what I mean? This shit has been done before, almost beat for beat, and by the SAME AUTHOR. Now I’m not averse to reading a book again (cf. this whole goddamn project), but at least I’m going into the book knowing it is what it is. I’m not expecting to see something that is labeled a new work that actually retells a previous story that I literally just read. Maybe James Patterson can get away with that, but I don’t read his books either.
At any rate, this post is finally done. I have this monkey off my back, and maybe now I can reflect and give some closure on the whole project. But I’ll save that for another post.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
2018 Book Tracking - 4th Quarter & Yearly Totals
2018 has come to a close and for me, at least in terms of reading, its been a really successful year. Firstly, let me sum up my 4th quarter reading totals:
Books Read: 20
Pages Read: 5058
Audio Hours: 163h 35m
Adult Books: 10
YA Books: 10
Midgrade Books: 0
Physical Books Read: 13
Audio Books Read: 7
E-Books Read: 0
Not bad numbers at all - down in the physical from the 3rd quarter, but overall pretty good (especially considering I work in retail, at Christmas).
I’m really, really pleased with the overall Yearly totals that I racked up. This being the first year I’ve ever actually tracked my reading I think I did exceptionally well. I don’t necessarily expect to do as well in 2019 (I cleared a lot of midgrade novels at the beginning of 2018 which bumped my numbers up significantly) but I at least have something of a benchmark to compare against.
2018 Totals:
Books Read: 99
Pages Read: 21,442
Audio Hours: 630h 40m
Adult Books Read: 59
YA Books Read: 22
Midgrade Books Read: 18
Physical Books Read: 66
Audio Books Read: 31
E-Books Read: 2
I’m excited to see what 2019 brings in my reading adventures. I’m hoping to do a lot more e-books this year and a few more ARCs (I’ll be tracking those numbers in 2019 as well). Hopefully I’ll be better about reviewing everything I’m reading as well, so there will be more posts about amazing and fantastic books!
1 note
·
View note
Photo
NATE Endorses New Legislation as Infrastructure Negotiations Continue
For the past few months, the NATE team in Washington, D.C. has worked with Congress to advance federal infrastructure legislation which includes a historic $65 billion in funding for broadband. The infrastructure package would provide $42 billion in broadband infrastructure updates and $14 billion would be set aside in an Affordable Connectivity Fund that provides $30 subsidies to help low-income Americans pay for Internet services.
It is great that Congress recognizes that communications infrastructure projects that allow for the rapid flow of information and data are just as important as infrastructure projects providing for the flow of travel and goods. For nearly 25 years, NATE has advocated that broadband projects should be part of national infrastructure programs, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) does that.
However, as of October 1, this legislation is stalled in the House of Representatives despite passing the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote in August. Negotiations between different factions of the Democrats in the House have held up the IIJA and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has been deeply involved in negotiations which have gone on for weeks, often into the middle of the night while Congress has been in D.C.
During the negotiations, Speaker Pelosi promised moderate Democrats that she would hold a vote on September 27, but she went past the deadline because she and President Biden had been unable to convince progressive Democrat's to support the infrastructure bill. The progressives in the House threatened not to support the IIJA unless the House also passed a $3.5 trillion budget package that contains a number of the Democrats’ more progressive policy proposals.
Since the Democrats in the House only have a slight majority, Speaker Pelosi has had very little wiggle room as she leads the negotiations. Defections from even a handful of Democrats threaten President Biden’s legislative agenda, including the IIJA and the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better agenda.
Be sure to check out NATE’s social media pages, website, and newsletters for the latest information on the infrastructure package and what it means for your business and our industry.
While NATE continued to work with Congress to gather support for broadband funding, the Association also endorsed two new pieces of legislation that would have a positive impact on our industry.
The first bill, HR 5058, the Broadband Incentives for Communities Act, introduced by Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX), would help communities upgrade and expand their broadband infrastructure through a competitive grant program operated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The grant program would provide new resources to train and hire employees in the permitting departments, hire additional human resources, and purchase updated technology and equipment that would facilitate the permitting process.
NATE knows that local permitting problems can cause serious delays with tower projects. This legislation would help alleviate some of those problems, but there is certainly still more work to do.
NATE also endorsed H.R. 5315, the Drone Infrastructure Inspections Grant Act, introduced by Reps. Greg Stanton (DAZ) and Garret Graves (R-LA). This bill would authorize $100 million in grants for state, local and tribal governments to use drone technology to visually inspect critical infrastructure and another $100 million to train employees to properly use the drones.
As Congress works on this bill, NATE has recommended two amendments to strengthen it. NATE wants this legislation to provide funds for non-governmental entities (i.e. NATE members) which utilize drones for infrastructure inspections and we want to add “communications infrastructure” to the definition of “critical infrastructure.” NATE believes that including these provisions will help NATE members access funds that would help train employees to inspect towers with drones, which is critically important in areas that have been struck by natural disasters. NATE is working with the sponsors’ offices so we can improve this legislation for NATE members.
Be assured, NATE will continue to fight for legislation that is good for contractors and our industry. For more than two decades, our message has resonated with members of Congress and presidents from both sides of the aisle which has guaranteed that NATE has a seat at the table. ●
Todd Washam is the NATE Director of Government Relations and Wireless Industry Network. He can be contacted at 419-773- 9453 or twasham@ natehome.com.
0 notes
Photo
Yolanda Díaz apuesta por la economía social para conseguir trabajo decente Page cree que Europa "ha ganado confianza en sí misma" tras el Brexit y ha conseguido "abrazarse" socialmente https://entomelloso.com/clm/yolanda-diaz-apuesta-por-la-economia-social-para-conseguir-trabajo-decente/?feed_id=5058&_unique_id=5fca0a4048196
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
jordynbreeloa777
jordynbree🎀
lust-hardcore
Lust Desire
bear-ylee-stable
✨YourSisterIsNotAllRight ✨
airking
Stories With Heroes
lesovoj
.