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wilwheaton · 10 months

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When you watch The Curse, you are watching two children who were abused and exploited daily during production. No adults protected us.

This was originally published on my blog in August, 2022.

I had a wonderful time at Steel City Comicon this weekend. It was my first time at this particular con, so I didn’t know there was such a huge contingent of horror fans, creators, and vendors who attend.

I love horror, and I was pretty psyched to be in the same place as John Carpenter and Tom Savini, across the street from the Dawn of the Dead mall. Pittsburgh feels like one of the places horror was invented, at least to me.

A number of these horror fans came to see me, and asked me to sign posters and other things from a movie my parents forced me to do when I was 13, called The Curse. I had to tell each of these people that I would not sign anything associated with that movie, because I was abused and exploited during production. The time I spent on that film remains the most traumatizing time of my life, and though I am a 50 year-old man, just typing this now makes my hands shake with remembered fear of a 13 year-old boy who nobody protected, and the absolute fury the 50 year-old man feels toward the people who hurt him.

I told this story in Still Just A Geek, and I’ve talked about it in some podcasts I did on the promo tour, but I’ve never put it out in public like this, in its entirety.

I suspect someone at the publisher would prefer I tease this and hope it drives book sales from people who want to read all of it, but I honestly don’t want to have another weekend like this one where everything is awesome, except the few times people who have no idea (and why should they) put that fucking poster in front of me, and all the fear, abandonment, and trauma come flooding back as I tell them that I won’t sign it, and why.

To their credit, each person was as horrified as they should have been, told me they had no idea (if they didn’t read my book why would they), and quickly put the poster away. They were all understanding. I am grateful for that.

But I really don’t need to tell this story over and over again, so here it is, with a child abuse and exploitation content warning, so I can just tell people to Google it.

After Stand by Me, everything changed. The attention from entertainment journalists, casting directors, and especially teen magazines came pouring in. The movie was a generational hit, beloved by critics and audiences alike, and every single one of us could pick anything to do next.

River’s parents and his agent got him Mosquito Coast, with Harrison Ford, as his next movie. I also auditioned for the role, but I knew even then that River was going to book the job. He was perfect, and I’d have to wait a little bit for my opportunity to come along.

I went on a lot of theatrical auditions after Stand by Me. I had tons of meetings with directors and the heads of casting at every major studio. It was all a very big deal, and I felt like we were all looking for something really special and amazing as my follow-up to Stand by Me.

At some point, a couple of producers contacted my agent with an offer to play one of the leads in an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” The script was titled The Farm. (It would, of course, be changed when the film was released).

I read it. I did not like it. It was a shitty horror movie, and I saw that right away. It was the sort of thing you rented on Friday when the new release you wanted was already out of the store.

My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

I told my parents I didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it. I clearly recall thinking it was a piece of shit that would hurt my career.

It wasn’t the first thing that had come our way that I wanted to pass on, and every other time, it hadn’t been a very big deal.

Sidebar: I was cast in Twilight Zone: The Movie, in 1983. The film tells four stories, and I was cast as the kid who can wish people into cartoonland. It was a GREAT role, in a movie I still love. (Note that Twilight Zone had four directors. One of them got three people killed. The segment I was cast in was not that one. I mention this because too many people zero in on this to deflect from what this whole thing is actually about.)

But I was CONVINCED by my parochial school teacher that if I worked on The Twilight Zone, which she had determined was satanic, I would go to hell. (This woman and her bullshit played a big role in my conversion to atheism at a young age, but when she told me that, I was all-in on the supernatural story they taught us in religion class.) I was so scared, more scared than I’d ever been to that point in my life, I cried and wailed and begged my parents to not make me do the movie. And I never told them why, because I was afraid my dad would laugh at me for being weak and afraid. My agent tried to talk me into it, and I wouldn’t budge. It’s the only thing I deeply and truly regret passing on, and I really hate I made that choice for such a stupid reason.

Okay. Back to The Curse.

This time, when I told them how much I hated it, they wouldn’t listen to me. My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

That is, until they made me take a meeting with the producers of the movie, in their giant conference room on the top floor of a tall building in Hollywood. All I remember about this place was that it was huge; the table was way too big for the five of us who spread around it, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls, but the room was still dark. There was a weird optical illusion in the center of the table, this thing they sold in the Sharper Image catalog, made from two reflective dishes with a hole in the top of one. You placed an object in the bottom of the bottom dish, and it made it look like that object was floating above the whole thing. They had a plastic spider in it. What a strange detail for me to remember, but it’s as clear in my memory as if I were sitting in that room right now.

One man, who I presumed was the executive producer, was European or Middle Eastern (I didn’t know the difference then, he was just Not Like People I Knew), and I was instantly afraid of him. He was intimidating, and seemed like a person who got what he wanted.

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

I don’t remember what they said to me in their pitch or anything other than how uncomfortable and anxious I was to even be in that room. I tried so hard to be grown up and mature, but I — and my parents — was way out of my depth. I’d done one big movie and that was it. We didn’t have my agent with us, who had lots of experience and would have known what questions to ask.

No, in place of my experienced agent, my mother had decided she was going to be my manager, and she tackled the responsibility with an enthusiasm that was only matched by her absolute incompetence and inability to go toe-to-toe with producers the way my agent did. She was outwitted, out-thought, and outmaneuvered at every turn.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

At some point, this man, who is represented in my memory by big Jim Jones sunglasses under dark hair above an open collar, said, “We are offering you a hundred thousand dollars and round-trip travel for your whole family. We will cast your sister, Amy, to play your sister in the movie.”

It all made sense, now. I was only thirteen, but I knew my parents were pushing me so hard because this company was offering me — them, really — more money than I’d ever imagined I’d earn in my life, much less a single job.

I knew that the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, was to say no. There would be other opportunities, and it was stupid to cash myself out of feature films for what I thought was, in the grand scheme of things, not very much money.

It’s incredible to me that I knew all of this. It’s incredible to me that I could see all these things, plainly and clearly, and my parents couldn’t (or, more likely, chose not to).

So after this man made his offer, all the adults in the room ganged up on me, selling me HARD on this movie.

My mother said, “Don’t you want your sister to have the same opportunities you’ve had? Wouldn’t it be fun and exciting to go to Rome? Think of all the history!”

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

I don’t think about this very often, because it’s super upsetting to me. Right now, I’m so angry at my parents for subjecting me and my sister to this entire experience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In that moment, I felt bullied and trapped. All these adults were talking to me at the same time, and I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to go home and get out of this room. I just wanted to go be a kid, so I did what I’d learned to do to survive: I gave in and did what my parents wanted.

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

But here’s the thing: when you watch The Curse, you are watching two children, me and my sister, who were abused on a daily basis. The production did not follow a single labor law. They worked us for twelve hours a day, on multiple film units (while I work on First unit, second unit sets up and waits for me. When I should get a break to rest, they send me to Second unit, then to Third unit, then back to First unit. I was 13.) without any breaks, five days a week. I was exhausted the entire time. I was inappropriately touched by two different adults during production. I knew it was wrong, but I was so scared and ashamed, and I felt so unsupported, I didn’t tell anyone. I knew my dad wouldn’t believe me, and my mother would blame me. Anything to keep the production happy, that’s what she did. That was more important to her than the health and safety of her children. The director was coked out of his mind most of the time, incompetent, and so busy fucking or trying to fuck one of the women in the cast, he was worse than useless. He was a fading actor who was cosplaying as a director, as in over his head as my mother. My sister and I were never safe. Instead of harmless atmospheric SFX smoke, they set hay on fire in barrels and blew actual smoke onto the set. They took buckets of talc, broken wood, bits of wallpaper and plaster, and threw it into my face during a scene inside the collapsing house. My sister is in a scene where she goes to get eggs from some chickens, and they attack her. So they hired Lucio Fulci, the Italian horror master, to direct her sequence. His idea, which everyone was totally on board with, was to throw chickens at my sister. Live chickens, live roosters, live birds. Just throw them at a nine-year-old girl. Oh, and then tie them to her arms and legs so they’ll peck her. All of this happened under my mother’s observation, and with her full participation.

Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

If just ONE of the things I can remember happened to someone I loved, I would have grabbed my kids, gone to the airport, and flown home. Fuck those abusive assholes in the production. Let the lawyers sort it all out. Nobody hurts my children and gets away with it.

My mom says she “had some talks” with the producers. She claims that, once, she wouldn’t let us leave the hotel. (God, what a fucking dump that place was. It was just slightly better than a hostel.) I have no memory of that, but honestly the entire experience was so traumatic, I’ve blocked most of it out.

The movie was the commercial and critical failure I knew it would be. My parents spent the money. I don’t know what they spent it on. I got to keep fifteen cents of every dollar, so . . . yay?

My sister and I hardly ever talk about this. I suspect it was as upsetting and traumatic for her as it was for me. I told her I was writing about it, and asked her if she remembered anything. She told me she’d been lied to her whole life about this movie. Our mother let her believe she had been cast on the strength of her audition. “I was excited to work with you,” she said. She reminded me about some stuff I’d blocked out, including a scene where my character’s older brother (played by an actor named Malcolm Danare, who was kind and gentle, and made both of us feel safer when he was around) shoves my character into a pile of cow shit. When it came time to shoot the scene, the mud they’d put together to be the cow shit looked an awful lot like cow shit. When Malcolm pushed me into it, we all found out it was real cow shit. I was FURIOUS. The director had lied to me and had allowed me to have my entire body shoved into an actual pile of actual cow shit. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember he treated me the exact same way my father did whenever I got upset: he laughed at me, told me I was being too sensitive, reminded me that he was the director and he wanted to get a “real” performance out of me, and concluded, “If it bothers you so much, we’ll get you a hepatitis shot,” before he walked away.

My sister also recalled that, after she survived the scene with the chickens, it was the producers’ idea to give her one as a pet.

Okay, let’s unpack that for a quick second: you’ve been traumatized by these birds, so we’re going to give you one as a pet. That you’ll somehow keep in your hotel, and then will somehow get back to America. It will shock you to learn that neither of those things happened.

She remembered, as I do, the huge fight I had with my parents in our kitchen, where I told them I hated the script and I hated the movie. I didn’t want to do it, and I hated that they were making me do it.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

“This is the only film you are being offered,” my mother lied to me. She made me feel like, if I didn’t do this movie, I would never do another movie again in my life. I had to do this movie. As my father bellowed, I had no choice.

Both of my parents denied this argument ever happened. Can I tell you how reassuring it is to know that my sister, who was also there, remembers it the same way I do?

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them.

But one thing she told me, the thing I did not know, the thing that makes me so angry I want to break things, actually managed to make the entire experience even worse than I remembered it.

There’s a scene after her chicken incident where I check up on her in her bedroom. She’s got cuts and bruises, and I guess we talk about it. I don’t remember and I can’t watch the movie because I’m terrified it will give me a PTSD flashback (I’ve had one of those and I recommend avoiding it). Here’s the thing about that scene: she has some cuts on her face, and those cuts are real. They are not makeup.

I’m going to repeat that. My nine-year-old little sister had actual cuts on her face that were placed there by an adult, on purpose.

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them. My sister told me our mother wasn’t in the makeup room when this happened — honestly, it seemed like our mother was strangely and conveniently absent when most of the really terrible things happened to us on the set — and when my sister told her what they’d done, she “lost her shit” at the production. She was pissed, I guess, which is appropriate and surprising. I wonder what would have to have happened for her to put us on a plane and get us home to safety? I mean, her son being abused daily didn’t do it, and her daughter being CUT IN THE FACE ON PURPOSE didn’t do it.

I just . . . I can’t. I can’t understand or comprehend allowing your own children to be physically and emotionally abused. They were literally selling my sister and me to these people, like we were some kind of commodity.

This was a tough conversation. My sister’s experience with our parents is very different from mine. My sister and I love each other. We’re close. I know it’s hard for her to hear that her brother, who she loves, was so abused by her parents, who she also loves. I was really grateful she made the time to talk to me about it, and grateful the experience wasn’t as horrible for her as it was for me.

As we were finishing our call, Amy also remembered one man, a young Italian named Luka, who was our driver for the movie. I haven’t thought about him in thirty years, but I can see his face now. He was kind, he was friendly, he taught us how to kick a soccer ball, and in the middle of an abusive, torturous experience, he stood out as a kind and gentle man. I mention him because she remembered him, which made me remember him, and goddammit I want at least one small part of this thing to not be awful.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares.

Ultimately, as I predicted and feared, this piece of shit movie cashed me out of respectable films forever. I got offers for movies, but they were always mindless comedies or exploitative horror films. They were never the serious dramas I wanted to work in after Stand by Me. The industry looked at me and River, wondering if one or both of us would become a breakout star. They quickly saw that River was doing real acting work, and I was in this piece of shit. For River, Stand by Me was a beginning. For me, it would turn out to be pretty much everything, at least as far as film goes.

There are thousands of reasons film careers do and don’t take off. Maybe mine wouldn’t have taken off anyway. Clearly, it’s not where my life ended up, and I’m super okay with that now. But when all of this happened, it hurt and haunted me.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares. Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

This annotation is the last thing I wrote before I turned this manuscript in, because opening these wounds is hard and painful. I put it off as long as I could, and I feel like I’m still holding back, because just this small glimpse of the experience has taken me a week to write. I can’t imagine trying to go back and unpack the whole thing. (Note that is not in the book: I’ve made an EMDR appointment to work on this because the nightmares have come back after the weekend).

Fuck The Curse, and fuck every single person who exploited and hurt two beautiful children to make it. You all participated in child abuse, and you all knew better. Shame on all of you. I hope this follows you to the end of your life. I hope that living with what you did to innocent children has been as hard for you as it has been for me, because you deserve no less.

#tw abuse #tw child abuse #tw exploitation #child actor #still just a geek #lucio fulci #trauma survivor #speaking up for the child who was silenced by his abusers

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ghostbsuter · 8 months

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Wonder MOM ( part 1 )

Happenings/mentions of:

Child abuse, possible trafficking, kidnapping and blood!

Nothing is explicit.

.・゜-: ✧ :-

Someone was in that cage.

Controlled anger aside, Batman made sure his footsteps were to be heard, speaking slow and calm as he approached and slid off the cloth.

"Everything will be okay now, are you–?"

With the cloth aside, Batman got a good look at the unconscious person inside.

He knows that face.

Thats—!!

"B! B, can you hear me?" Oracle calls, considering no one else seems to talk, he assumes Barbara put them into a private line.

"I'm here, Oracle." He answers easily, hands gripping the lock and fishing out the familiar pick-locking equipment.

"You went silent for a moment there, B, we got worried."

He gives a grunt at that, ripping the cage bars open and carefully checking for a pulse.

It's there, barely.

"Oracle, call Agent a to prepare, I'm bringing someone over."

"Got it. B, be careful, please."

Bringing the teen, the same age as his youngest, out of the cage seemed a bit harder than thought.

With some manoeuvring and carefully placed feet, the big Bat brings them both out in one swoop, tight on his hold.

His head rolls to the side, groggily blinking awake and peering up to Batman.

"Batsy?"

"Sleep, I'm getting you out of here."

"...knew you'd find me." Messy black hair hides the way he squishes his own face into Batman's side.

"Mom's probably very worried..." he gives an awkward laugh, throat dry and burning with the move.

The movement and warmth lulled him into sleep quite easily.

(Batman's expression, even if stony and blank, covered in a dark veil, anyone can see the carefully hidden layer of fury.)

—

Patrol was cut short that night, the boy in Alfred's care, and Bruce didn't hesitate calling Diana immediately after.

"Hello—"

"I found him."

Diana, Wonder Woman, remained silent upon the response, a quite inhale echoing through the call.

"They brought him all the way to Gotham?"

The man nods despite knowing Diana wouldn't see, giving a verbal answer after.

"I have a report of all injuries he has been subjected to. I'll send you the list."

There is a moment of silence before a sharp hiss from Diana comes through.

"They took his blood–?!"

"Not much from what Alfred gathered, but enough to get a running supply for their... plans."

"I'm coming over. Bruce, you and I both know the dangers of his blood in the wrong hands."

"Let's discuss this once you're here, Diana. Safe travels."

With a click and the call ended.

One look, and he has the eyes of most birds and bats on him already.

"The boy. You know him." Damian steps forward, arms crossed and cape off. The others must have come back not long ago and eavesdropped on his conversation.

"I do."

(The fact he doesn't elaborate nor does anyone either speak up is quite hilarious, wasn't it for the situation.)

The silence goes on, eyes sweeping over Stephanie's furrowed, thoughtful expression, Tim's calculating gaze, cass's curious yet open body language, duck's suspicious raised eyebrow and Damian's 'I dare you' scowl.

At least they didn't wake duke with their commotion.

"What's going on?" Jinxed, Duke himself comes down the stairs in his sleeping clothes, yawning.

"Duke, you're supposed to sleep."

"Sorry, sorry, apparently family drama is happening, and they needed more support." He jerks his hand towards the gaggle of vigilante children(1)/teens/one adult that is only an adult because of age laws.

Bruce suppresses a sigh.

There's a giggle to the side which gathers the attention of everyone.

Around the same height of damian, slightly thinner, is the teen B rescued not long ago. And who should not be awake either.

Alfred gives a smile, arm out stretched to support him on his way to the batclan, eyening his form with tapt attention.

"Batsy!" Ignoring the snorts and coos, Bruce nods back.

"Danny." The kid grins broadly, approaching.

He gives a wave to the other, attention solely on Bruce however.

"Is my mom coming?"

"Yes, she is on her way."

"Wonderful!"

He claps, arms bandaged to his throat, sickly pale and absolutely looking like prime adoption bait.

Cass approaches, hands ready to sign the most wnated question of everyone in the room and Bruce is already feeling the words of denial at the tip of his tongue.

'New br—'

"No."

Cass isn't backing down, expression only getting more determined.

'Honorary brother?'

He doesn't stop the sigh escaping, especially when Danny jumps up at the words with glee.

"Yes! Honorary!"

She seems very pleased with that, holding her hand out for a silent request, qnd once approved, gave a nice headpat.

"I'm actually surprised you didn't tell your kids of me, batsy." Danny side eyes the man, grinning mischievous.

"It slipped my mind."

(No, he doesn't break under the gaze of every person's disbelief stare directed at him. He stronger than that.)

(B did avoid meeting anyone's eyes tho.)

"Wait, so who is the moth—"

A green portal opens in the middle of the cave, and it has the most tense and drawing weapons.

Wonder woman stepped through.

"That answers my question then."

"Mom!"

Diana swooped him up, holding him closer and ducking her head into his black hair.

The Lady peers up at Bruce with a smile. "Thank you."

Her attention shifts to the child. "Frostbite will be expecting us, are you doing good enough to walk or should I–"

"I'm okay! I can walk!" Danny puffs his chest to prove it, giving her a reassuring smile.

Diana's brows knit together in worry. "Very well." She accepts, reluctant. She leads him to the still open veil of green, nodding towards pennyworth and both bid their goodbyes.

For now that is.

The portal closes.

"So, how were we originally supposed to know about Diana having a son??"

"HIS MOM IS WONDER WOMAN????"

"I'm so glad this isn't another adoptive brother. Honorary is good enough."

"HOW COULD YOU KEEP THIS FROM US, B!!!"

"Does that mean we have a miniature Trinity of the originals?"

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allfearstofallto · 1 month

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Wow I loved your latest child piece, do you think he would try desperately to make his sons like him? Give them gifts and go fishing together with his oldest son? I mean he can see that the kid is terrified of him but he tries to reassure him but to no avail. I think he would let his anger out on some of his poor Fatui men or on his missions whenever these moments happen to him. That’s so angsty how Childe loves his family but they only see him as the monster they think he is.

Y'all I actually really do like writing for yandere Childe's family!! The angst is so fucking good!!

But since I can't keep up with the nameless kids, the older boy is Adonis and the younger one is Damon

Yandere! Childe x Fem! Reader

Forced Marriage AU

TW: Yandere Themes, Reader has children, mentions of previous abuse

“You look so cute all bundled up like that, my sweet,” you praised your older son, even patting his head and squeezing his cheeks the way you knew he liked. Yet nothing you were doing could lift the dark cloud that was over him, the fear in his eyes was paralyzing and he was gripping the hem of your dress so tightly, you thought he'd rip it if he were made to let go.

“P-pl-please don't send me away, mommy,” Little Adonis whimpered through tears and you felt your heart shatter. Orange hair framing his face, you brushed it to the side. You hated just how much they looked like their father, his genes so strong they were like little carbon copies of him. And their cries always tugged at your heart, you hated that he made you feel empathy for his face

With your other son still on your hip, you tried to comfort both boys. Finding it difficult to soothe with your hands full. Adonis had gone from whimpering and labored breaths to full blown sobbing at this point, wiping the tears from his chubby cheeks with the backs of his mittens. You tried to stop him from crying, tried to get him to calm down. When the older one cried, so did the younger, and soon Damon was also in your arms shedding tears.

“Your father just wants to take you out for a bit,” your voice was shaky as you tried to reassure him, “You won't even be far. The pond is only a short walk away.” Your words fell on deaf ears as they continued to cry, both of them getting your dress wet with their fat tears.

“What's all the commotion?” The voice that asked this question somehow managed to make both of your children suck their tears up quickly and fall into an almost scary silence. They peaked up at you, waiting for your response to Ajax, who was giving you his usual charming smile.

“I- I just don't think Adonis is very fond of the snow,” you spoke quickly while patting the boy's head, even cupping his cheeks to try and wipe away some of the wetness from his face.

If Childe noticed how tense the entire family has become at his presence he didn't speak on it. Instead he took a knee right in front of his son, also reaching up to pat the boy's head, but he flinched away from his father's touch. You squeezed his shoulder a bit too tightly to hold him in place, making him look up at you in a way that broke your heart. He felt as if you were betraying him, but you knew better, what Childe could do to him was much much worse.

“That's nonsense. He's from Snezhnaya, he should love the snow,” he finally got to pet Adonis’ head. His large hand that was covered in scars and callous practically getting lost in the orange locks.

“Maybe he takes more after me,” you took Childe's hand, trying to put his attention more on you instead, “It doesn't even get cold in Liyue. You remember how much I hated it here when I first arrived, don't you?”

His eyes went dark for a moment as he squeezed your hand a little too tightly, “You hated it here for a lot of reasons.”

“But the cold was the worst part,”

“Adonis will be fine,” he spoke while placing a kiss upon your lips, then one on Damon's forehead, “My father took me ice fishing when I was practically an infant.”

“I-i suppose,” words muttered with your head down.

The two of them slipped on their boots together, with Childe even helping his son tie his. You felt on edge watching the both of them leave out the door. It was the first time that you'd ever left Childe alone with him, and the instinct inside of you that was telling you to protect them was on high alert. There was nothing you feared more than your husband.

But nothing could be done. Childe kissed you again on the lips and you pressed your forehead to your sons, quietly whispering words of assurance to him and most of all Please be good.

#mai<3 answers #genshin #genshin x reader #genshin impact #yandere genshin #yandere x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagines #genshin childe x reader #childe x reader #yandere childe x reader

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fridaypls · 1 month

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A Different Look At This Scene

I know, what more could possibly be said about it? But let me try.

We've watch our boy intently, seen every flicker of sadness, fear, shame, rage, hatred... It's all beautiful. Now, let's savor Cazador's end from the bastard's perspective.

Convinced of His Own Power

His Sulkiness ain't scared yet. He's not in control, but he hasn't internalized that yet - Cazador has been a predator for so long, he doesn't remember what it feels like to be the prey. He's still, somehow, at least fractionally convinced of his own power.

"The spawn will never be free - he is my creation, now and for eternity!" Not his name - never his name. "The spawn."

Look at the supposed-to-be charming 'let's be reasonable' smile slipping and barely restrained rage taking over for a second. This is not a man who is used to restraining his anger for anyone. He is aching to be violent.

With a gentle movement of the dagger, Astarion reminding him who holds the power here. The agonized sadness and hurt on his face.

And Baron Bats-for-Brains continuing to treat him disrespectfully, talking down to him as though speaking rudely to a child.

...but watch his focus drift back to the dagger, though.

Back to Astarion. The righteous anger, the conviction, again that lean in we see in other shots where he wants to get his point across. He slaps his own trauma down, looks Lord Leech dead in the undead eyes and, in beautiful Astarion fashion, tells him I'm not yours.

"You might have made me what I am, but I am so much more than you created me to be."

He doesn't deny what he is - instead, he claims his own future for himself. Okay, back to the bastard.

The beautiful visual metaphor of silencing his abuser as the camera angle drags the tip of the blade across the Sneering Snivel's lips. I love it. Flawless. *chefs kiss* Thank you, Larian, it's so good.

"But I am grateful for one thing; you really showed me how to savor moments like this."

Something we know from what Astarion says about the Pompous Parasite is that Cazador liked to make it hurt; he liked the screams, he enjoyed the anticipation of the moment, drawing out the torturous seconds before the blow. Extracting noises he called music.

Astarion gives that torture of anticipation back to him in this moment and it's beautiful. Watch Sir Suck-a-Lot's eyes drift from Astarion's face to the dagger again, then that flicker of concern as he eyes it. We hate the f*cker, but he does have a good poker face when he wants to.

A moment for Astarion in his power before we go back to the bastard;

Finally, the F*cker's Fear

Finally some FEAR and realization on that hateful face. The weight of this all has sunk in now. He's lost control, he has no power, he's about to be stabbed many times, by someone he knows has a massive pile of very detailed and horrifically specific reasons to hate him.

He's fucked. He finally knows that.

Look at the Shadow Slitherer staring at the dagger, look at the fear position of his hands, the way he bows his head at the end, even before Astarion's hand is in his hair.

The Duke of Dracula's Dumpster has finally recognized his end.

Okay, first... let's just enjoy this for a moment. It's glorious, we love it... savor it. Someone should feel good from this. (...and it's not going to be Astarion.)

Enjoyed? Good. Alright, here we we go again.

Oh My God, The Eye Contact

Watch Astarion stare into his eyes as he raises the blade, the way he rips his gaze gack to savor the bastard's face as the second and third stabs get slammed in.

Pain on Marquis Mirthless's face, one agonized glance up at Astarion's face before his eyes shudder closed. The single plea for mercy; No! before he's stabbed 14 times.

The camera reminding us of the scars he put on Astarion, of why we're here... what Astarion's giving up by killing Cazador instead of ascending.

Controlling Him With His Hair

So I'm gonna guess that I'm not the only one in this thread with a little trauma... does that grab and yank look like re-enacted trauma to you? Because it does to me.

Something tells me Cazador knew it was coming, too. Good.

The Blade Flip

Just... appreciate it for a moment. He's fully in the throes of a very chaotic moment and has both the presence of mind and dexterity to show off. With a purpose

"I am so much more than you created me to be."

Flinging that in Count Cringeworthy's face while literally stabbing him to death. Flawless. Peak rogue behavior.

The message behind the flip, Cazador's twitching hands, Astarion's hand leaving his hair and the fury behind the next stabs.

The Escalation of Intensity

He changes his stance, sets his feet and rains down blows.

And they're still good, clean stabs. Look at the good rogue bladework he's taught himself, look at him put those stabs on a razor-straight plane going in and out. Maximum force on delivery, minimal effort on retrieval, really good and clearly practiced technique.

The way his hand mostly hovers over Cazador once he starts to fall. I don't think he wants to touch him again and honestly? I don't blame him. The dude was gross before and he's grosser now, all stabbed n bloody n shit.

The feral savagery of his face on those last few stabs. The ferocious hatred with which he pulls the blade free.

Seriously, that last scream and stab... look at everything in his eyes. The hatred, the two hundred years of trauma, the stolen life, the power he's rejecting, ...and, buried under everything else, the fear.

He had a plan coming into this; Ascendancy. That plan has come undone, he's set his feet on a new path and there is literally no going back.

The Realization

You can hear this gif, can't you? I want to give Neil a hug every time I listen to it, wondering what trauma was channeled into that moment. It's beautiful, it's poignant in a I had to reload the first time I heard it because I dropped my Steam deck, burst into tears and missed the rest of the scene way. It hurts.

The stagger back, the way he wrenches his eyes away from the body and stares at the ceiling. The look up of abject agony and almost disbelief that it's finally over... it's done.

The dazed wobble, falling brokenly to his knees.. catching himself on the bloodied hand still clutching the dagger. Looking at his bloody hand and the dagger. Apparently releasing it, because we don't see it in his hand again.

Here it is again, closer:

Recovering his balance, rising back to his knees... not ready to stand yet. Still stunned and dazed and waiting for the victorious and vindicated and triumphant feelings he's pretty sure are supposed to be happening right now to kick in.

His eyes turning to the bleeding out body of his former master. There's anguish, misery, the weight of so much trauma resting so heavily on his shoulders (and wasn't that supposed to be magically gone now?), watching Cazador twitch and bleed himself to death.

Has anyone ever wanted to comfort a fantasy character more than we did in this moment? Did it ruin anyone else's day that we couldn't comfort him early on? (updated this because apparently we can now?? I have no idea how I missed that. See you guys in a few days, haha, I know what I'll be doing)

Where he expected to find victory and celebration and triumph, he has found numbness and pain and loss. Loss of the power he gave up, loss of the illusion of safety he'd been clawing towards, loss of the idea of being free of the clawing hunger inside... loss of the hope that this death would bring him release from the torment inside.

But the death of a tormentor does not gift us with the death of the torment they perpetuated upon us. And so...

He weeps.

And we stand there. Until his siblings approach him first. Not with praise or comfort, no. They bring him their questions and needs. As, I'm guessing, they have always done to some degree.

Then there's the fucking pose. Kneeling, shoulders back, chin down, hands on thighs. Compare it to Cazador's almost matching pose earlier, as well as some of Astarion's comments about life under Cazador.

Then his siblings approach and has to put his armor on once more. Standing there half-naked, covered in blood, full of somehow both anguish and numbness, with the body of Cazador on the floor and both his found-family and forced-family about to meet for the first time.

As he has a thousand times before, he forces himself to be strong. Even though he has to struggle to get to his feet.

That little almost too-perfect smile. It’s practiced. Poised. The armor is back on.

Then he gets up, gets to his feet and carries on. As he always has. And for the same reason he always has.

Because he must.

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proudfreakmetarusonniku · 2 months

Text

”the silence of CCs in the face of abuse is miserable and has been a problem for decades” and “there are many reasons someone might be silent and not all of them are actual support in any sense of the word dont immediately blame people when they might have been in danger” and “the abuse wilbur did was fuelled by his misogyny” and “there is a lot of concerning stuff being said about male CCs- mostly minors- that indicate there might have been abuse behind the scenes there too and ignoring child abuse because the victim is a boy isn’t fighting the patriarchy it’s just also silencing victims” and “CCs should speak out” and “it’s been like six hours goddamn statements can take weeks” and “people who are victims can also enable abuse and they need to be held accountable” and “holding victims accountable for that sort of shit is not the same as people who aren’t have some basic fucking compassion” and “don’t assume anyone is a victim without evidence” and “manipulating, intimidating, and making people feel small and worthless is abuse like even if the words aren’t used that is straight up abuse that is an allegation of abuse” and “stop fucking misgendering nonbinary CCs you sound like terfs oh my fucking god” can all coexist at once actually.

#discourse i guess #but this should ne basic common sense #wilbut #abuse tw

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faeriekit · 10 days

Text

Ghosts of Those We Once Knew

a phic phight fill for @silverwing013

Warnings for: implied child abuse, accidental death, dead parents

**💚**

“Oh yeah?! And what are you going to do about it?!” Aunt Alicia snapped into the phone.

There was a sound on the other end of the line, but Danny couldn’t make it out all the way. There was another solution, but it was…risky; it would require going into his aunt’s bedroom— a well known, forbidden domain— to pick up the only other phone hooked up to the landline.

…There was no other time to find out what Aunt Alicia was putting off. It had to be worth the risk. Danny crept up the worn carpeting of the stairs, hoping that his sneakiness would hold up to Alicia’s discerning eyes and ears.

Her bedroom was dark. Carpeted. …Pink.

Whatever. Danny took a deep breath, lifted the phone off the hook, and tried not to breathe too loudly into the mouthpiece.

“You have no right to keep Daniel in your dismal, miserable, isolated hovel,” someone shouted on the other end. Danny had never heard this voice before. He sounded like someone around Dad’s age, maybe? Maybe a little…smoother, despite the blistering anger coming through the line. “You live with no human contact for nine months out of the year. You speak to no one. Do you— is Daniel even enrolled in a school? Did you get any sort of educational provisions for him whatsoever?”

“What, so he can get cocky and blow himself up in the garage like his parents?” Alicia snapped. Danny had to clap a hand to his mouth to hide his gasp of dismay.

“You know full well that punishing your sister’s son by restricting his access to an education and basic human companionship is not a solution to your grief for your sister. You are out of your mind.”

Aunt Alicia’s voice got low. Aunt Alicia’s voice got mean. She sounded like how she looked when Danny had fumbled the water pail from the well or stepped two steps too close to the rhubarb patch out back. “Vladmir Masters, you listen here,” Aunt Alicia muttered. “That boy is everything left of my sister in the whole damn world. He is not going anywhere. Do you understand? Not for you to fill his head with her stupid husband’s supernatural hoo-ha, and not for you to snatch up and teach himself how to kill other people the way those two killed each other. Danny stays here. If you ring me up one more time, I’m going to do more than just mail dog crap to the front step of your stupid castle in Wisconsin.”

The phone cut off. It would be an innocuous end to a phone call, except Danny can hear the clatter of plastic cracking on plastic in the downstairs kitchen.

There was a moment of silence.

“Daniel Jackson Fenton, you get your butt in here right now!”

Danny jolted, heart pounding. He—he went downstairs.

Aunt’s Alicia’s lips were pursed, her eyes tight. “What did I tell you about missing all the sticks in the yard? It looks like a wreck!”

Danny felt his breath stick in his throat.

“Well?”

“Yes, Aunt Alicia,” Danny mumbled. He looked down and away. He wasn’t caught out eavesdropping, but…was this any better?

“If those sticks aren’t piled up beside the woodshed for kindling in half an hour, you can kiss your dinner goodbye.”

Danny hadn’t had dinner in three nights. He was very lucky he didn’t need to eat as much as living kids. “…Yes, Aunt Alicia.”

“So?”

…Danny went outside to collect sticks. It took until nightfall to get all the refuse from yesterday’s storm off the ground.

Aunt Alicia ate canned corn and carrots and butchered rabbit with hot sauce for dinner. Danny ate nothing.

Danny went to bed thinking about somewhere else he could go. Mom and Dad were dead—smithereens in the blast that had killed him and brought him back to life simultaneously. Jazz was in the hospital. He had no grandparents. He had no other aunts or uncles other than Aunt Alicia.

…Who was Vladmir Masters?

It took two days for Danny to decide to run away.

Or. Well. Fly.

He’d figured that if he wanted to find out who Vladmir Masters was, he’d need an internet connection. His cell had been on the Fenton Fone Plan™ and had been disconnected from the Fenton Family Patented Ghost-free Satellite™ for almost three months now. But, you know…what was a public library for, if not getting information?

The two-day waiting period was mostly just Danny getting his stuff together, making sure he didn’t leave anything behind, finding anything worth stealing…

…There was a picture of Mom with her big hair at graduation, a black robe thrown over her Hazmat suit. Her hair had been so big. Lots of people were beside her, including Dad, and someone with a matching hair stripe. They looked happy.

It didn’t matter that it had been Aunt Alicia’s photo. The picture had gone into his backpack next to Bearbert Einstein and a filched pocket knife.

Mom was Aunt Alicia’s sister, but Madeline Fenton had been his mom.

…Was still his mom.

Would…would always be his mom.

Danny wouldn’t cry. He wasn’t going to cry. Still, the flying and everything was still new to him. It took almost ten minutes to get himself off the ground without floating off willy nilly.

It took another half an hour to remember how to go through walls.

By the time Danny fell (as in actually, literally, leaned up against the wall and then realized he’d not made contact the way he’d expected to) through the house wall, it was almost eight at night. Aunt Alicia was still listening to Prairie Home Companion downstairs on the radio.

Whatever. He was out of there. He was sure he looked crazy—his hair was white, which was almost impossible to hide—but all he had to do was get out of there fast enough that no one connected one teenage runaway with a backpack to Danny Fenton.

It was fine.

It was all going to be fine.

…And if there wasn’t someone who’d help him. Well. Being homeless didn’t sound…so bad…?

…Or maybe he’d just squat in the burnt out ruins of Fentonworks. That sounded fine too.

Morning broke. Danny ended up in a tiny town somewhere in Mississippi.

A nice guy at the coffee shop gave him a cup of water and told him where the local library was. A librarian plugged her login details for him on a public computer, and Danny was able to look up one “Vladmir Masters”…

…CEO and owner of DALVco, millionaire, and Green Bay Packers megafan.

Holy crap.

Like… There were hospital wings with his name on them. Charities operating out of his company. Every picture of the man was perfectly taken in perfect lighting with perfect suits and precise smirks and bright-white magazine article paper.

Danny went back up to the librarian. “Do you have any articles on…uh…Vlad Masters?”

The librarian smiled warmly. “Ah, school project?”

“Sure,” Danny lied, milk on his tongue.

Vlad Masters was a self-made millionaire. He lived in a castle in Wisconsin that used to be owned by a dairy empire kingpin. He went to—

Danny read the line again

—He went to the same college as Mom and Dad. The year looked right, too. They might have even graduated in the exact same year. If only Danny could still check Dad’s college ring in the bottom of their junk drawer.

Wisconsin. Vlad Masters lived in Wisconsin.

…Danny was really lucky he was never all that hungry anymore.

Danny got another cup of water at the coffee shop, washed his face in the bathroom, and got ready to fly another night.

He was no sextant, but he could probably figure out how to get to Wisconsin after a couple of hours of flying, and a little time to gauge the sky.

It would be easy.

…Danny’s white-topped, pale face stared back at him from the restroom mirror.

It had to be. It would have to be easy.

So, a cheese castle looked a lot like a regular castle.

Danny squinted up at the stonework. Nah, that looked like…a castle. That being said, it looked more specifically like the castle he was looking for—the one that had been featured in Vlad Masters’s house tour in Architecture Daily magazine two years ago.

Same…roof bits. Same big door. Danny swallowed. Same…tower? Were there better words for these? There were definitely better words for all the tricky stone bits in the castle.

Whatever. Danny was praying that the man was actually home today, as opposed to flying across the country on some kind of business trip. Rich people did business trips, right?

Danny floated up to the front door. There was no doorbell.

…Danny bit his lip. Okay. So there was no doorbell. There was a very large, brass door knocker. It looked kind of like a big monster face, with a ring held in its teeth.

The knocker was just high enough off the ground that Danny had to float to get there. Lifting it was a struggle.

When it knocked, the whole door buzzed with sound.

Danny waited.

…He waited.

And…Danny waited.

No one came.

Danny picked at the skin of his lip. What if he just…went in?

Like. It was a big house. Maybe Vlad Masters just hadn’t heard him at all? Maybe he was just…in the basement or something…?

Danny paced midair. On one hand. He’d come all this way. He had to follow through. He had to see if there was…something. Anything. Anything at all—anything that could possibly connect Masters to his family.

Any connection that wasn’t Aunt Alicia would be worth breaking and entering.

On the other hand. Home invasion was and would remain illegal.

Danny grimaced.

He…stuck his head through the door.

There was a hallway on the other side. A little end table. A guest book.

…Okay. Danny slipped through the door. He was breaking and entering now— or at least…entering.

Inside was dark. Gloomy. Comfortable, sure— lots of soft furnishings, curtains, couches, pillow, lounging things— but very…opaque in atmosphere.

He was glowing, he noticed. That probably was pretty bad on the “trying not to get caught” scale.

There was no one upstairs. Danny drifted through room after empty room and up into floor after empty floor. There was a kitchen, and the food therein were largely preserved items. There was nothing in the fridge.

Danny’s stomach cramped. There was no one here.

…Maybe he should look downstairs?

The castle got colder the further down he went. The windows that at least allowed the minimal light that escaped through the tree cover in the castle vanished. The only light left was Danny.

Danny floated down deeper.

There were doors made of metal in a long, stone hallway. Each had different numbers on them. Danny followed the rows of doors.

There were wires on the floor. They were organized by color and bound by little ties, until they weren’t, and Danny eventually ran out of tangled webs of red and blue plastic to follow.

They ended at a closed door.

Danny hesitated. He poked his head through.

On the other side was a ghost.

Danny jerked back. He’d— he clapped his hand over his mouth. That was—! And sure, Danny was something like that now, but he’d never seen—!

He should leave. Danny should leave.

Danny barely made it three doors down.

Going somewhere? something asked him. Danny shivered.

The ghost appeared on his left in ethereal white, black hair pulled behind him in some sort of half-halo. Unlike Danny, who was in something like half-hazmat, half-hoodie, the ghost wore a long, glowing labcoat, appropriate PPE beneath.

Danny’s breath fogged up in his mouth. He flinched. “Sorr—” he tried. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to be here.”

The ghost looked at him with bright red eyes. Danny floated a few steps back. Spying, are you?

Danny shook his head. “No!! No, I just— I was looking for— I wasn’t spying! I’m sorry! I didn’t know you li— died here! I’ll leave!”

The ghost’s head tilted. For a second, Danny thought that he was going to throw a punch. And then—

You’re already here, the ghost pointed out, and opened a door. Beyond it was…something similar to a doctor’s office. An examination table with the paper on it. One of those blood pressure cuffs, attached to a printer for the readout. A sink. Sundry tongue depressors. You may as well consent to be helped.

“...Helped with what?” Danny asked nervously, fingers flexing. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

The ghost hummed— not in the way voices hummed, but in the way high voltage sang in distant powerlines. You are newly formed, aren’t you? Most can tell a ghost’s nature from its presence alone.

Danny looked away. “Um. You know. You might be the first ghost I’ve ever met.”

The ghost’s feet almost touched the ground. It stared down at him. It was taller than he was, and when it stared, it made Danny want to run away.

…Truly, the ghost asked(?), and it took Danny a second to realize it was a question.

“Maybe I died a little recently…” Danny tried, trailing off into a mumble. Was there a right answer to this?

…I see. That would make this check-up more urgent, then. Might I encourage you to come this way?

Danny followed him into the room.

It felt… It looked and felt exactly like any other doctor’s appointment, excepting that the doctor involved in the process had blue skin and fangs and a hairstyle that defied gravity. The ghost still wore gloves and didn’t poke him or prod him too hard, though, so that was a bonus.

Danny got his pulse taken. (None.) Danny got his lungs checked. (Not breathing.) Danny got his resonance? looked at? Whatever that was? It was a big scanny thing that looked like an X ray and took pictures of his chest.

The readings were real pretty, whatever they were; the whole film print was taken up with splotches of white and clear blue. It kind of shimmered when Danny tilted his head.

You’re quite powerful for a newly formed ghost, the ghost offered, overlooking papers Danny couldn’t quite see on his clipboard. It flipped through once. Twice. You’re clearly not attached to your place of death, so that’s not why… Are you aware of any compulsions to follow an Obsession yet…?

A ghostly obsession? Danny knew what that was— it was one of his parents’ theories on why ghosts persisted after death! Was it was true?

“Um,” Danny said, unsure. He hadn’t…had he? “Not that I know of?”

The ghost paused. It clicked its pen. It marked something down on Danny’s chart. Interesting.

Ominous.

May I quickly test something? the ghost asked, looking up at Danny. It would only take a moment. If it does not work, there will be no other side effects other than mild discomfort and an activated flight response.

Danny shifted. The paper crackled underneath him. “...Does it hurt?”

No.

The ghost added nothing more.

Danny’s…head jerked up and down. It was fine. It would be fine.

The ghost’s hand circled his wrist. Its touch burned like fire.

And then light, like how Danny burned away one form for another—

—Danny was left on the table, no longer weightless, no longer breathless. He was flesh. He was human again.

Vlad Masters stared back at him.

…Huh.

Mr. Masters— Vlad?— licked dry lips, staring at Danny, whose wrist he still held. Danny…didn’t know if he could move. Danny didn’t know if he knew how to move.

“...Daniel?” Mr. Masters’s voice cracked. His eyes moved up and down Danny’s body, from his raggedy hair to his dirt-stained clothes to his beat-up shoes. “Daniel Fenton?”

Danny winced. “It’s just Danny,” he offered hoarsely. His throat bobbed. “You…know me?”

Mr. Masters moved his grip to Danny’s hand, apparently moved to tears. Without the red in his eyes, he just looked…human enough. “Daniel— Danny, how did you— Are you dead? What happened?”

Danny felt the weight of everything push down on him again, as if it had ever let up on him since the portal incident. Mom and Dad’s funerals. Jazz in the emergency room. Being resuscitated by the EMTs. Getting shipped out to Aunt Alicia’s house without warning.

“House blew up.”

That was succinct enough, right?

The man’s face turned devastated. “I heard— I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry, Danny.”

…It was more concern than anyone had shown in a long time. His eyes were wet before he knew it. When he wiped his face with his sleeve, the dampness was enough to leave little streaks of mud on his face— and, ugh, he felt filthy.

“It’s okay,” Danny lied, because it wasn’t. He pressed his sleeve to his eyes. “It’s…you know my parents?”

Mr. Masters took a deep, surprised breath. “Yes. We…weren’t in contact after we graduated from school together, but Jack always… He asked me by email to be your godfather, right before you were born. I said yes, but I have no idea if he ever filed the paperwork.”

Oh.

…Oh.

There were clearly more secrets here. Mr. Masters was a ghost, and so was Danny. He lived in a giant castle that was clearly haunted, which was made obvious by the owner. He was Danny’s godfather, and Danny had never once met him.

And he wasn’t Aunt Alicia.

Danny sucked the spit off of his teeth with his tongue. “Can I stay here?”

Mr. Masters made a wounded, desperate expression. “I would rather you did.”

“Can you teach me how to be a ghost?”

The man persevered through what were clearly heavy feelings. “...If I must.”

“Can I have dinner?” was Danny’s final question. “Like. On the regular?”

There was a second where Mr. Masters’s eyes went red. The castle suddenly felt taut with anticipation. Fury crawled on Danny’s skin. He could feel the pressure digging in search of some way to burrow into his flesh.

And then it was gone.

“Of course you can. You are a growing boy.”

Danny smiled shyly, barely showing his teeth. When he smiled for real in the mirror, he had fangs. It was better not to. “Cool.”

Mr. Masters nodded. And when Danny looked down at the floor, he changed his grip so that Danny could hold his hand and hop down like normal.

“It will be alright,” Mr. Masters promised quietly. It seemed to be just as much for him as it was for Danny. “Or…I’ll take care of it. Whatever happens. You’re not alone, Danny.”

Danny had been alone for almost half a year. It had felt like forever. “Thanks.” He sniffed.

They walked upstairs from the basement laboratory together, in a way Mom and Dad never would again.

#phic phight 2024 #danny phantom #vlad masters #I forget Alicia's last name ngl #dead fenton parents #Jazz is sir not appearing in this film #danny fenton #good!Vlad au #phic phight #RIP a prarie home companion you were a cool show but your host was [REDACTED] of course you were gonna get cancelled #my and my persistent love of landlines #faer fic #I do not LIKE vlad. However. This intrigued me.#dead ghost man who furthers the study of ghosts while knowing his college besties might take advantage of him for their own research. whack #anyway. the portal blew up #phic phight 24

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fangirl-writes · 1 year

Text

Planning Our Future

JJ Maybank x Reader

Warning(s): Mentions of child abuse, mentions of a sex

Notes: I wrote a little blurb when watching the ‘Midsummers’ episode and decided to turn it into a whole fic. Also I still haven’t seen season 3 yet so no spoilers please!

Summary: JJ dreams about running away with the gold and taking you with him.

You and JJ were cuddled together in one of the hammocks tied to the chateau’s trees. It was just close enough to the water to hear the waves, but far enough away not to get sprayed. That, and you could watch the sun dip into the water every evening.

JJ’s arms were wrapped around you tightly, like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

It had been a long day.

John B. was in the hospital after Topper pushed him from the Kildare Hawk’s Nest, with Sarah Cameron by his side.

He was losing his mind about the gold and about her.

“You think he’s still going to try to find it after this?” You asked quietly. It felt wrong to speak in a normal tone and disrupt the silence that the two of you had built there.

“Probably,” JJ replied. “As long as he didn’t break any ribs or anything, he’ll bounce back pretty quick. I’ve never seem him as determined about anything other than this.”

You hummed. “Don’t act like you haven’t been enabling him a little bit.”

He frowned. “No. In fact I told him that if he kept going down this road he was going to end up just like his dad.”

“JJ, that’s a horrible thing to say.”

“It’s true. They’re too much alike. Big John wouldn’t give it up either and who knows where he is now. Probably floating in the bottom of the ocean somewhere.”

You didn’t respond to that. As blunt as it was, he was right.

A few moments passed before either of you spoke again.

“So...are we gonna talk about it?” You asked.

“Talk about what?”

“J,” you said. “Come on. You take the fall for Pope then turn up with a busted lip and bruises-”

“Can we not talk about this?”

“No, JJ, I’m sick of not talking about it,” you said, moving so that you were on the other side of the hammock, facing him. “You can’t stay there if he’s gonna treat you like this. Everybody knows what a piece of shit he is so why don’t you-”

“Shut up!”

You snapped your mouth closed.

He’d never raised his voice at you before.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just...I can’t leave. I don’t got anywhere to go. If Big John was still around, he’d take me in a heartbeat but your guys’ parents don’t like me and I know it. And I’m not letting DHS take me away. If John B. can stick around and play the system, then I can deal with this.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” you muttered, crossing your arms over your chest.

JJ sighed. “I know just...can you come back here?”

You frowned but slid back over into JJ’s arms, laying your head on his chest; his heartbeat a welcomed lullaby.

“We get that gold,” he said. “You and me. We’re gonna ship off somewhere nice. Somewhere our parents can’t reach us.”

You hummed good-naturedly.

“We’ll surf waves every day and smoke only the finest marijuana.”

You smiled.

“Our own little slice of paradise. Far from OBX.”

“That sounds amazing, J,” you said, softly.

“We’ll have our own house and everything. Have sex in every room, just to christen it.”

You giggled. “Can we have a waterbed?”

“Of course we can have a waterbed. But also a memory foam mattress for when we need more stability.”

He was staring up at the sky that was slowly fading from orange into inky night, eyes glazed over as he dreamed.

“I’ll buy you a pretty diamond ring. And we’ll get married on the beach in the summertime by the water. Barefoot, but I’ll still wear a tux if you want me too, as long as you wear white. We’ll only invite the pogues...”

You were lapsed into comfortable silence, the hammock slowly swinging.

“I put the gun to his head,” JJ said, suddenly, making you sit up from his chest. “He was asleep and I had it right there” - he gestured to his forehead - “I could’ve killed him...he’d’ve deserved it...but I couldn’t pull that trigger, Y/N. I couldn’t do it.”

You took his head in your hands and pulled him to your chest, the tears in his eyes falling freely and he sobbed in your hold.

“I hate him,” he whispered. “I hate him so much, why couldn’t I do it? Why...”

You blinked back your own tears. “Cause he’s still your dad.”

JJ didn’t reply, just sobbed in your arms.

“Tell me about our wedding again,” you said. “Will we have a priest?”

“No...” JJ said, softly, sniffing and wiping his tears. “Pope will get ordained and perform the service. A full pogue ceremony, nobody else. Not even parents.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah...”

“I love you, JJ,” you whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

“I love you, too, Y/N,” JJ replied.

“Will we have kids?”

“Yeah...but not for a while. John B.’ll probably have them first. Then Kie. We’ll probably be the last of the group to have any.”

“Names?”

“Booker, after John B., for a boy. I kinda like Bianca, for a girl.”

“I like it, too,”

JJ kept dreaming for a while, until the both of you fell asleep under the stars. In your own little paradise, right in the OBX.

#jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x y/n #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank x you #outer banks x reader #outer banks imagine

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iguessweallcrazyithinktho · 8 months

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𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 • 𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐦

Summary: Can you write a fic about reader and Jude angst (like heavyyyy angst yk?) and then the reader and Jude are not on speaking terms anymore but something about the reader’s past happens and she doesn’t know where to go but to Jude and at first he’s shocked to see her at his doorstep but he lets her in and at first it’s awkward word exchanges but Jude notices her holding her tears back and tries asks her what’s wrong and she’s just like “it just hurts, so bad” and then fluff and then they get back together and just pure fluff-heavy on the angst(lmao I’m on my period can you tell)

Genre: angst, fluff

Warning: dad issues, break up, ex Jude

Pairing: Jude Bellingham x f reader

Word count: 1k

Author note: I honestly don't know what this is but oh well

Jude Bellingham Masterlist right here

Enjoy

Your relationship with Jude ended abruptly. You don’t know how it happened so fast. One minute you were talking, the next you were packing your bags with tears in your eyes.

That was 3 weeks ago and you still haven’t recovered from it. Jude clouded your memory like a plague. You been with him for so long before it all ended he just became apart of you. You loved him so much but unfortunately you had to let him go.

You sat in your apartment, TV on, but you weren’t even paying attention to it. You were stuck in your thoughts until your phone rung.

It was a call from your dad. You haven’t talked to him in years. The last time you did he gaslighted you and then abandoned you. What did he want after these many years?

“Hello?”

Your dad’s booming voice came on the other end of the phone making you cringe. He began to explain how he had found someone and how he was about to marry her after getting her pregnant. You pity the unknown woman and child who has to suffer his mental abuse.

“Why are you calling and telling me this?” you asked stopping his rambling. Your dad paused for a second before speaking.

“out of all people I thought you would be the happiest for me.”

You scoffed, laughing at his stupidity. “happy for you? After you emotionally abused me, treated me and my mom like shit and left us when we finally stood up for ourselves? I’m not going to be fucking happy for you. I feel pity for that child who has to grow up with you.”

A brief silence went by before your dad’s voice echoed through the phone. Anger laced in his voice as he spoke.

Lots of disgusting words flowed from his mouth. “I hate you” “you were a mistake I wish you were never born. “ “I hope you die.”

You wish you didn’t take any of it to heart, but you did. You always do.

After a bit you ended the call, no longer wanting to hear his insults thrown daggers at you.

You threw your phone at the end of the couch and groaned. You ran your hands down your face.

You hated him so bad it made you feel physically ill.

You didn’t notice you were crying when you pulled your hand away from your face but you were. You guess all the old memories flooded your brain and made you remember how horrible of a person he truly was.

You don’t know how you made it to Jude’s doorstep. Jude always knew how bad your relationship with your dad was and he was always there for you when you were dating.

You knocked on the door softly. The tears that were on your face were wiped away as you waited for the door to open.

The door swung open revealing Jude. He looked exhausted just like you were. He was taking the breakup hard.

“y/n, why are you hear? Did you forget something?” Jude eyebrows knitted until he was the tears streaming down your face. “love, what happened?”

He pulled you into the house and looked at you. His expression was dripping concern. He hates seeing you cry.

“sweetheart tell me what happened.”

You told Jude everything through your tears. Jude listened, wiping every year that fell from your eyes. He felt so much hatred for your dad for making you cry. He hated seeing you like this.

When you finished telling him everything, Jude pulled you into his arms and let you cry into his chest as he whispered how you didn’t deserve any of that.

When you finally calmed down you pulled away from Jude. “I’m sorry.” You pulled all the way from Jude and sat beside him on the couch.

“You don’t need to be apologizing. I told you I will always be here when you needed me remember?”

You remembered the night you and Jude broke up with each other. Tears in your eyes as you had your bags packed and ready to go. Before you could walk out of Jude’s place, he stopped you.

“y/n I know we’re not together, but just know I’m always going to be here for you ok?”

You avoided his eyes and nod. You knew if you looked at him you’d start crying. “I know Jude.”

“I remember.” You sigh. “it just hurts so bad.”

“lets stop thinking about him.” Jude got up from the couch making you look up at him.

“he doesn’t deserve your energy. Let’s do something else. Let’s watch a movie or something. We can watch princess diaries. I promise I won’t cringe.”

You laughed for the first time that night. It made Jude smile at his accomplishment.

Jude popped some popcorn and put on the movie for you both to watch. You leaned your head up against his shoulder and rested it there while your eyes stayed on the TV.

You were so close to Jude. Even though it was something you experienced so often before, it felt odd knowing you both weren’t together anymore.

You pulled away from Jude.

“what’s wrong?” he asked you, his whole body shifting to you.

“Jude, do you really want to be broken up?”

Jude exhaled. You watched as he turned away from you, paused briefly then shaking his head.

“no. To be honest I’ve been taking these past few weeks without you horribly.”

He took your hands in his. Your skin tingled at the contact.

“I don’t want to be apart from you. You’re the best part of my life. Our argument was stupid and it shouldn’t have broken us up.”

“you wanna know something?” you whisper to Jude. His eyebrows lifted so you continued. “I don’t even remember what the argument was about.”

Jude smiled at you. “don’t worry about it.” Jude brought his face close to yours. “Let’s start off on a clean slate. How does that sound?”

You looked up into his brown eyes. “I like the sound of that.”

Jude closed the gap between the two of you, kissing you for the first time in what felt like forever.

#jude bellingham x reader #jude bellingham #Jude Bellingham fanfiction #Jude Bellingham x you #Jude Bellingham angst

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probablyasocialecologist · 1 year

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We are living in a moment of serious gender revanchism in the United States. Feminists who self-define as “gender critical” and are otherwise openly transphobic will object to the comparison, but it is striking how much the movement to criminalize gender-affirming care for young people shares with the movement to criminalize abortion. Both find their fiercest champions in white, religious, conservative men who dismiss the evidence put forward by medical professionals that the treatment in question saves lives. Both claim to speak on behalf of silenced “children,” be they conveniently unborn or too young to be taken at their word. Both struggled to find widespread support until a father took his crusade on the road: abortion was not “an Evangelical issue” before Dr. Francis Schaeffer, a charismatic pastor, promoted his son Frank’s 1979 anti-abortion film Whatever Happened to the Human Race?; and anti-trans legislation was initially “hard to sell,” according to the Texas Tribune, until a North Texas dad named Jeff Younger built a sympathetic following online by accusing his ex-wife, a pediatrician, of wanting to “chemically castrate” their trans daughter. Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s order that citizens report parents of transgender kids to the authorities so that they can be investigated for child abuse echoes the section in SB 8 that rewards vigilante citizens for reporting abortion providers to authorities. Both movements have become central to the Republican Party’s strategy to raise funds and win elections. Not least, both movements have forced pregnant and trans people to prove, in preordained terms, their absolute certainty that they need the treatment they say they do. As the opposition puts up resistance in the form of misinformation, mandatory waiting periods, sonograms, and extensive psychological testing, patients lose precious time as hormonal processes they hope to forestall come closer and closer to transforming their bodies.

The experience of gender dysphoria is not identical to the experience of forced pregnancy, but it should not have to be for us to defend one another’s right to bodily autonomy as if it were our own. To respond to the heartbreak of losing Roe by further scapegoating trans people, as some cisgender feminists have done, is not only an unnecessary cruelty but a logical and political error that none of us can afford to make. There is no evidence to support the claim that inclusive language in reproductive health spaces “erases” or “harms” cis women, as Pamela Paul recently argued in the New York Times. (If anything, terms like pregnant people are more precise, as not all women are capable of pregnancy and not all pregnant people — e.g., cisgender girls under 18 — are women.) To say so anyway, with no basis in fact, is to do the far right’s work for them.

Dayna Tortorici, Your Body, My Choice The movement to criminalize abortion

#abortion #roe v wade #transgender #gender critical #transphobia

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whereireid · 1 year

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𝐃𝐄𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐃 - 2/2

𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 - 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨

pairing: dark!ex-boss!steve rogers x fem!reader

WORDCOUNT: 4.6k warnings: dubious consent ! - sexually naive reader, rough p in v, oral sex [m + f receiving] - height difference [6'6 steve, 5'3 reader] -, misogyny, sexism: breeding kinks -daddy kink, captain kink. choking, pregnant!reader: spanking, gaslighting- especially shein at the end LOL - emotional abuse, assimilation, kidnapping slight mention - steve gets his happy ending

PSA: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN MEDIA CONSUMPTION. THIS CONTENT IS CONSIDERED MATURE. 18+ ! If any of these topics trigger you, please do not indulge in this content! This is a DARK!FIC, and is intended to come across as such. Minors, please dni - this content is 18+ and is under my #WOMNSFW tag.

summary: Once Captain America's assistant, you're now the up-coming mother of his child. After Steve's jealousy finally becomes out of hand, you snap at him, only to realise that's the very last thing you should do to a Super Soldier. He decides that your defiance lights a match to spark the fire of you being a brilliant mother.

It’s not like Steve to get this riled up. It’s just difficult watching you discuss initiative with a rookie rather than paying attention to him. He watches as your small hand falls down to brush over your stomach, wondering if your fingers splay over it as a means to reassure yourself that the baby growing inside of you is okay.

Jealousy isn’t a good look on Steve. He’s not a complete airhead - he knows dames usually don’t like it when a man gets stupidly possessive and starts trying to control them, but he just can’t help it. You’re his - literally. Not only are you literally his personal assistant, but you’re also his fiancé and the mother of his child.

“Sweetheart, don’t you think it’s time we get home now?” His voice booms across the training room, his thick hands coming up to massage your shoulders softly. “This much standing can’t be too good for the baby.”

You're terrible at analysis, Steve realizes. You hadn't even noticed he had approached you - evident by how his touch makes you flinch. He feels your nerves jolt beneath him, but to the regular human eye, nothing appears wrong. Steve admits that you’ve grown incredibly wary of his touch recently, only engaging in displays of affection when around other people. In the comfort of your shared home, though, it’s like when he touches you, your body slithers with disgust.

“I am growing slightly tired.” You throw an apologetic smile over at the rookie you were speaking to, all whilst leaning into Steve's touch willingly. He doesn’t miss the prickles of goosebumps that ripple up your skin, the fear which prickles at the back of your neck. He frowns - has his touch ever been unloving, unkind? “I think it’s best I go home and rest up."

Your mutter a few apologies, which forces an eye roll from Steve. Why are you apologizing to people who aren't even worth your time? Frustrated, he begins to steer you out of the compound quickly, irritated as you shuffle away from his touch as though his mere skin is poison.

The drive back to your shared home is silent. Steve is seething as he drives, his grip on the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles are beginning to turn white. He’s tried to be patient and understanding - he really has. But he’s blessed you and he doesn’t understand why you’re so hell-bent on rejecting him and then repenting as though he's a curse. You’re throwing tantrums similarly to what a toddler would, sitting next to him in silence and stewing in unspoken anger, and Steve can’t help but feel slightly hurt by your actions.

Is he not good enough for you? Is that it? Or have you grown tired of him? He has been more than kind, allowing you to still attend work despite the fact you’re growing his child. He has bent and adapted so you do not break, shrugging away every single urge to force tradition upon you.

Perhaps what you need is a sense of tradition. Maybe that will stop the fiery defiance you display, both in public and at home.

“We’re home.” Steve’s voice booms loudly in the car, and you stir from your position, your eyes fluttering open at him.

“Good. I’m tired,” you sigh heavily, forcing yourself out of the car quickly before Steve could come around and open your door for you. “Today’s been exhausting.”

“How so?” Steve almost sneers, grabbing your bag from the car and slamming the driver’s side door shut loudly. “All you do all day is make appointments for me and flirt with other men. It can’t be that difficult.”

You groan, waiting for Steve to unlock the front door before following him into your home. “I don’t flirt with other men, Steve. Stop being so delusional."

You drawl his name out with such annoyance it makes Steve’s jaw twitch. “Really? So you weren't all over that rookie earlier today?” He turns away in annoyance, flicking the light to the living area on. The house keys sway in his fingers, and he chuckles dryly, “give me a break, sweetheart. You were practically begging him to fuck you.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, sighing exasperatedly. “So what if I was begging him to fuck me, Steve?" Your hands fall to your stomach, holding it protectively whilst staring at him with furrowed brows.

Holding something he made.

He stills. “Excuse me?”

The calmness in Steve’s tone makes your blood run cold. You try to ignore how he stops still in the archway of the living area; how his large frame tenses and his fists clench. You suddenly feel as though all the air has been sucked out of the room, and you stumble out (in one last act of pitiful defiance), “so what if I was begging him to fuck me, Steve?“

The drawl of his name is what finally makes him snap. It’s like he sees red - like he can’t believe how you’re actually treating him, despite everything that he’s done for you. Steve’s palm is quickly splayed across your throat, and he growls, sounding similar to that of a wild animal as he begins to try and force you to your knees.

It's not like you don't go down without a fight. You try to resist, somewhat, anyway, but you can’t, because he is so, so much stronger than you are and it’s fucking scary. His hands are so strong that they diminish any force of fight you had within you, as trying to resist him makes you actually feel like your shoulders are going to snap. You whimper pathetically as you kneel before him, staring up at his pupils, which are blown and blackened.

You know better than to irritate him by now, so why do you keep doing it?

“You’re mine,” Steve snaps, his blue eyes icy as he pulls his zipper down. The sharp noise makes you flinch beneath him, trying to shuffle away, but the grip he has on the nape of your neck is tight and holds you in place. “You must be fucking crazy if you think I’d ever let another man touch you. If you think I’ll ever let another man look at you again without consequence.”

His fingers grab at your jaw, forcing your mouth open and you cry out. Steve is visibly angry - furious is perhaps a better word, given the fact he’s practically shaking as grips your face whilst also aggressively pulling his thick, hard cock out of his boxers. “You’re going to have to learn how to put that mouth of yours to better use, doll. It's wasted on those shitty opinions of yours, anyway."

Hands roughly grabbing at your hair, pulling your face towards his cock, you have not much choice but to take him in your mouth. It’s intrusive - terribly so, and Steve manhandles you so roughly it makes your tears prick with tears, but it shamefully sends a throbbing to your pussy. You clench your legs together as you take him, choking as he slides in and out of your mouth until you’re a blubbering mess below him, spit and tears painting your cheeks as he fucks your throat relentlessly.

“Who do you belong to?” He grunts out, pulling so hard at your hair your head pulses. Steve’s hips stutter as you choke around him, your eyes doe-like and wide, covered in wet mascara. “Who the fuck do you belong to?”

“Y-you, Steve,” you choke out as he pulls out of your mouth with an uncomfortable POP!, relishing in the breaths he’s allowing you. “I belong to you.”

Steve's cock is so big it's actually painful. Your throat constricts around his cock as he forces your head down again, grumbling out, “I bet that rookie couldn’t treat you like this. I bet he couldn’t fuck you full of his babies like I have, doll.”

You whine beneath him as he continues to use your throat. Steve is driven entirely by his own pleasure, tiring quickly of your pathetic crying around his cock. With angry thrusts of his hips, Steve watched you gag around him, his cock twitching in your throat as you take all of him in; every inch, and his length is actually somewhat visible in your neck. And it’s driving him crazy- so crazy that he can’t hold back anymore, his rough hands grasping at your hair as he finishes, painting your tongue with his cum.

Steve watches as you choke and thrash against him in an attempt to get away, because his cock and his cum is stuffing your mouth in ways it’s never been stuffed before. It’s suffocating you, and blackness pricks at the corner of your vision - you’re just about to pass out before you Steve mercifully pulls his cock out of your mouth with a disgusting squelch and delivers you a hard slap.

The stinging from his hand sends a sheepish insatiable throbbing to your core that you know will never be satisfied. The tingle which tickles your core makes you clench your thighs, knowing no matter how hard you repent, tonight he will not forgive you.

“This throat is mine to use,” he seethes, his tip still leaking as he presses his cock against your cheek, satisfied with the discomfort that flutters throughout your features. “Say it.”

“This throat is yours to use,” your bottom lip quivers, your eyes spilling tears, some of which fall on Steve’s cock. And it’s shameful how wet you are - how the heat between your legs has grown uncomfortable and how you’re certain your pussy is slick with arousal because somehow it’s all you can focus on. You melt into a weeping puddle, your hands tiny compared to Steve’s cock, desperately trying to push his length away during your tantrum.

It doesn’t work. If anything, it makes him much so much harder - his cock throbs against the skin of your face, and you sniffle as he speaks. “Good girl,” Steve’s praises, his fingers curling in your hair, watching as your eyebrows contort in pain as he tugs gentler than you deserve. “Look at your pretty little face. Covered all over with cum and tears.” He coos, smoothing your hair down gently, a soft pang of love throbbing within his heart.

Your face flushes red, and you blink up, your wet, long lashes batting up at him ridiculously. “I’m sorry,” you murmur, your throat incredibly sore from his invasion, your hands desperately clasping at his thighs, and he watches you in amusement, unable to bite back the excitement as you brush your lips over his length meekly. “Please forgive me, Steve, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know if I can, honey,” he tells you, his big hands making gentle, loving motions in your hair. It’s a sharp contrast to the aggressiveness of his touch moments beforehand, but you bask in it nonetheless. “You were flirting with that rookie, baby, you said you wanted to fuck him. How am I supposed to forgive you for that?”

“I didn’t say I wanted to fuck him!” you whine, and Steve shakes his head.

“That’s what I heard, baby.”

You sniffle, and Steve shakes his head. Why do you have to lie to him? He doesn’t like making you upset - he certainly doesn’t like hurting you. His pretty girl, sitting in front of him with raw, red knees and an even rawer throat, whose ass is yet to be spanked until the pain renders you unable to move. He hates it, and he wishes this pain on nobody, especially not his little girl. Steve is meant to protect you, not hurt you. He’s your saviour, the one man in your life you can rely on and trust with all of your secrets, and yet you lie to him, again and again and again.

Steve hates making you upset, but he loves watching you cry. Conflict tugs at him from the inside, his thumb making gentle strokes in your hair as you speak to him. “I’m sorry, I really am,” you finally say, sinking beneath him obediently. “I didn’t mean any of it. It’s - its probably just the hormones.”

Steve hums in agreement. “It probably is, doll, but just in case it isn’t…I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.” He sucks in a breath, muttering, “let’s see how sorry you really are, doll.”

It takes everything in Steve not to finish all over again when he pulls you atop of him and you gasp in shock, his big hands forcing your hips down, and before you’re even aware of it, your walls are sheathed around his cock. Tight - so tight, and wet, too: ridiculously so. Shameful squelching sounds flood the living room as Steve fucks up into you with long, even thrusts.

The mewls that escape your throat as your small fingers dig into Steve's frame makes him want to impregnate you al over again. If he could, he would - your pussy is addicting, gripping him just right. You’re like Goldilocks. Your walls are so tight that you're practically milking his cock for his cum -, and he bites your neck slightly as you shake and tremble against him, your first orgasm crashing over you like a wave. Hot flashes come over you as your core tightens, the coil inside of you snapping- your little legs shake and you hold onto Steve for support, who rides you through your orgasm.

“This pussy is mine,” he practically growls, his fingers clawing around your throat, palm splayed against it uncomfortably. You thrash wildly when he squeezes, but Steve doesn’t care: you don’t deserve him, not at all, not one bit - he is Captain America! He can do what he wants!

“This pussy is yours,” you rasp as his cock nestles against the spongy spot inside of your pussy, your hips desperately rolling to get any source of friction. “Please, Steve! It’s all yours! Wanna cum again! Wanna cum!”

As you cry desperately, your frame pressing up against his, Steve grins, thrusting up into you painfully slow. The motion is enough, though. It sends sparks of pleasure shooting up your spine, and your coil tightens - it grows tighter every single time he moves, the brush of his cock against the insanely sensitive spot inside of you making your legs quiver.

“You love it. I know you love it, sweetheart. Being filled with my baby. It makes you real wet, doesn’t it, doll?" His voice is gentle, and he peppers soft kisses against your neck, eradicating the pain he had left behind earlier.

"Mhm. I love it and I love you, Steve," you agree eagerly, your hands digging into his shoulders, your timid body taking every slow, dragged thrust of his. “I’m so close.”

Your whimpers make his cock twitch inside of you. You sound heavenly - angelic, the gentle moans that slip past your lips making him wish he could just give you his baby all over again. And he will, after you’ve had this one - god, he can’t wait to pump you full of his babies again and again and again. Steve's hands grip your hips gently, his eyes fluttering shut as your velvety walls squeeze him again, so soft and perfect, and he lets out a hearty moan which makes the knot inside of you tighten.

"I want it," you whimper, your nose brushing against his, and you gaze up at him through wet lashes. “Please.”

Your begging makes Steve bloom with pride, and at your words, he thrusts up into you harder. It's not long before you're bouncing quickly atop him, mewls and cries of pleasure slipping past your lips. Your curls fall messily in front of your eyes, and he sucks in a breath at the ecstatic state of you: you’re desperate - so close to your edge, again. Your cheeks are warm and messy, and the sounds of slick bouncing off of the living room walls makes you feel more cockdrunk than you already are.

And then you begin to come undone atop of him.

He does, too. Steve loves it. Your velvet walls squeeze him so tightly that you’re milking him - you take in every drop of his cum, and as his hips still inside of you, Steve places gentle kisses against your nose.

Your big, beautiful eyes stare back at him, your hips juddering against his. You pant, your nails digging into his chest as you steady yourself atop of him. For a second, you can’t believe it - you really let Steve use you again.

But he loves you. And then conflict tugs at you all over again, because he is a good guy, incredibly so! He’s Captain America, his job is literally to protect you - and hasn’t he done exactly that? You’re the most protected person in America right now, considering the fact you’re pumped full of his babies.

“Do you trust me, sweetheart?”

You nod. “I- I do, Steve.” Your voice trembles, leaning your body weight against his, unable to hold yourself up.

“Good girl.” He brushes his nose against yours, smiling as you tremble against him. “That’s all you’ll ever have to do.”

As Steve carries you to bed, tucking you in tightly, he smiles down at you. He’s glad he’s finally changed the locks, and he’s glad that you don’t have one of the new keys.

He can keep you here now until he thinks you’re ready to go. Until you’re ready to accept your place as Mrs. America.

—

What you used to call kidnapping, Steve called assimilation.

You’re not locked in his house, unable to go home, unable to contact any family or friends. No, you’re just in an educational program, learning how to be a perfect housewife. That’s what Steve says, anyway, snickering away to himself as he does.

It’s lonely, and it’s scary. Yet you have nothing to fear, especially when Steve comes home. He wraps you in his arms, engulfing you in his scent, pressing you against his brawny body as though you’re his world. You breathe him in, clutching at him desperately, thankful that he’s coming home safe and sound.

It’s been so long the thought of escaping no longer even brushes your thoughts, but still, Steve wonders if you have realised your place. He can’t risk letting you out if you haven’t - but then again, who would believe you? A pregnant woman whose husband represents all of the stars and stripes?

Still, he can’t help but worry about you. Have you assimilated? Have you learnt? It’s a question that Steve isn’t sure of the answer, but as you curl into his big frame, he believes that you have. Perhaps you’ve finally learnt it’s easier to comply with the Captain’s orders than to defy them.

“How has your day been, Steve?” you ask, nudging your head into the corner of his neck as he presses his palms against your stomach. He’s big and warm, comforting and strong, peppering gentle kisses against your face, praising you for being such a gorgeous girl.

You’re bulging now. Practically ready to give birth at any second. It sends a gentle ache to Steve’s length, his lips pressing lovingly against your stomach. He loves coming home to you. He always has, even when you defied him and cried and begged him to just treat you like a colleague again. It’s selfish - Steve knows it’s selfish - but he just couldn’t ever go back to not knowing you. Now that he has you, he can’t let you go. Ever.

“Work was fine. Buck and I had to do introduction training with some rookies. They didn’t even leave a scratch.” Steve laughs, hooking his fingers in your sweatpants, tugging them down slightly so your entire stomach is on display. “How was your day, mama? Productive?”

It is slightly distracting as Steve kisses your belly. You scrunch your eyebrows in concentration, your fingers resting in his blond locks. “I painted some of the nursery.” You say shyly, face flushing as he begins to murmur sweet nothings to your stomach. “Just did the trims. There was a few deliveries that came, too, but they were too heavy for me to move. Didn’t wanna hurt myself.”

“Good girl.” Steve’s breath fans against your stomach, his head nestling against you, his hands tugging your sweatpants down some more. “I’ll move them after dinner, get ‘em all sorted,” he tells you, eyes eagerly trained in on your panties as your sweatpants drop to the floor.

It takes everything in him not to let an audible groan crawl out of his mouth. The panties you’re wearing are lacy and baby pink - similar to the ones you wore the first time he fucked you, and it sends another terrible ache to his cock. You squeal as Steve presses a soft kiss to your clothed pussy, and he can hear how quickly your heart begins to race in your chest.

“Steve - Steve, stop, I have a question. Steve, it’s serious!” He stops, looking up at you with his big blue eyes which glisten with mischief. You almost don’t want to ask because he seems so giddy - but then you have caught him in a good mood, so you’ll risk it anyway. Your heart tightens in your chest, and your lips set into a frown when you ask, “I was wondering - uh, when I have our baby - could I - could I go back to work?”

Steve reacts like you’ve just slapped him across the face. His smile drops, and his eyebrows furrow. Just when he thinks you've learned, when he thinks he’s finally flushed you out of this ridiculous twenty-first-century feminist bullshit, it drags you back in.

A woman’s place is not at work. It’s in the home.

"Why do you need to work when you have me?" Steve's voice is eerily calm, and his stubble brushes against your inner thigh. You still against him, tense as your fingers stop in his hair, and he can hear your heart gently racing in your chest.

"It's - it's just something I'd like to do. To keep myself occupied."

Steve groans, rubbing his nose into your skin. "You will be occupied, doll. You'll have a baby to raise."

You gnaw at your lip. Steve’s eyes are intense, and he tries not to bark out an order for you to stop. gnawing on your lips. He despises it when you do that. “We could always get a babysitter so I could go back to work,” you suggest, voice faltering when you notice his eyes darken slightly.

"No. It is your job as a mother to look after our children, sweetheart.” He shakes his head. “Besides, I don’t trust anybody else to raise them.”

"Steve-"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore." Steve grunts from below you, his blue eyes darkening as he gazes up at you. "In fact, I don't want this mentioned again - ever - do I make myself clear?"

“Steve-“

“Do I make myself clear?”

You pout, nodding silently, and Steve lets out an exasperated sigh. His cool breath fans against your thigh, and his thumb doesn’t stop brushing your stomach. He wonders where he ever went wrong with you. You’ve been so good recently, and he ponders on why you have to ruin it. Steve thinks you do it on purpose, rile him up as a way to show one last act of fiery defiance.

He’ll be the bigger person today.

“I can work for us. I can provide for us. Your job as my personal assistant is irrelevant now that you’re carrying our baby.” Steve peppers another gentle kiss against your clothed pussy, and you shudder, your eyes fluttering shut slightly as his fingers hook around the waistband of your underwear, gently beginning pulling them down. “You’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted. Everything you’ve ever needed. Put your faith in me, doll, that’s all I ask.”

“Okay, Steve.” Your throat feels tight when you swallow, your knees buckling slightly as Steve’s tongue licks a stripe up your pussy. It sends you by surprise - a hot white flash shoots up through your spine as you tighten your grip in his hair.

“You're soaking, doll,” he murmurs as he parts your thighs with his hands, pressing gentle kisses against your heat. It does feel good - Steve's entire focus is you, and he gently rolls his tongue against your nub, circling his tongue from your clit to your hole and then back up to your clit. "Do you just love the thought of having my babies and taking care of them, baby? Does it get you as riled up as it does me?”

It's embarrassing that Steve's words make your pussy throb. It's even more embarrassing that he knows, a satisfied smirk painting his lips as he dips his tongue into your sweet nectar again. His tongue darts around your clit, and your knees wobble slightly at the action, your hands gripping onto him for support. "Roll against my face, baby, it's okay. I know you want to." His words of encouragement make you mewl, and you do just that - roll your hips against his face, your vision going starry as his tongue swirls against your clit perfectly, the stimulation making the knot in your stomach tighten.

"Steve," you whimper out, your eyes fluttering shut as your legs wobble, his large hands coming up to hold them in place. The feeling of his fingers darting across your thighs sends butterflies to your stomach, and you whine as his tongue keeps flicking against you, making sure to hit every angle of yours he knows that you like.

You hate how much he knows you. You hate how he knows that you're about to cum as your legs give way. Steve hums, the vibrations sending shocks to your pussy, your fingers curling in his hair, the grip tight. You see stars, and hot flashes shoot through you - the knot inside of you tightens and tightens until you feel it snap, to which you cry out, flooding Steve's face with your wetness. And he loves it - he fucking loves it, soothing praises escaping his lips as he quite literally licks your clean, his fingers rubbing soft circles on your thighs.

It's terrible how much you ache when he pulls away from you, how much you miss the feeling of his hot breath fanning against your pussy. Steve stands, his head nestling in your neck, his hands rubbing smooth circles against your stomach. You pant against him, still coming down from your high when you hear a timer ding in the distance of your kitchen.

"Dinner's ready," you murmur, looking up at Steve, flushing as his deep blue eyes stare down at you.

"Dessert before dinner. Not my usual go-to," he comments, to which you laugh.

When he enters the kitchen, the table is already set. You both eat with no mention of your old job - it’s like all defiance within you has melted away, opting to believe that Steve is right. Opting to believe that Steve will do right by you.

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houxe · 2 months

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Regarding my SBI/DSMP Fics

TW: Abuse, Trauma, and Mentions of Suicide.

With all that has happened, I did want to come out here and make my stance clear. I will always stand with Shelby (Shubble) and all of the victims who are speaking out against Will Gold (Wilbur Soot). If you still support that bastard, unfollow me and leave my blog and whatever small community I made.

I've already stated this is my Discord channel, but I want to put it here too.

For me, c!Wilbur is so far removed from cc!Wilbur that I don't connect the two. The characters are vessels for my own characterizations and stories. It's a bit like writing Supernatural*, Twilight, or Hazbin Hotel fanfics. I don't support the guy, monetarily or otherwise, he does not interact with fanfics, I have plans to be very vocal that I'm on Shelby's side no matter what/make it clear that what Will did is wrong, and I don't use his real life events as plots in my stories. At least, I certainly don't try to. It's why I typically change traits about the characters. (I.e. Tommy is shorter, Phil is taller, Techno is bulky, and Wilbur always has golden/hazel eyes.)

I'm aware that it's a tad different because it's rp and not something like a full on book or an actor in a movie, but DSMP has also been over for over two years and the characterizations I make for SBI are not at all based on the CCs. Real life Techno isn't a literal terrorist, Phil ain't a father married to a goddess, Tommy is not a traumatized child soldier, and Wilbur isn't suicidal and blowing up countries.

I think I'll likely focus more on Techno, Tommy, and Phil for a while, but I'm not gonna let one dude ruin a fandom and things I've made for myself. Nothing I write is ever made for Wilbur, as I've seen people saying. Additionally, Wilbur was not the only writer. Technoblade, Philza, TommyInnit, and so many others made that story what it was. Not him.

However, if any CCs come forward saying they don't want their old characters interacting with his, I will respect that.

Though I do think there is a tendency to take real life events (i.e. Techno's cancer, LJ's music, Tommy's real life parents, etc.) and put them into fiction about DSMP. I, however, don't try to do that and have stated before that I don't feel comfortable doing so. The truth is that we have not gotten any genuine SBI content outside of DSMP for years. The dynamic in real life is very different from what was presented in the DSMP. Did personalities still bleed over? Yes, I'm not going to deny that, but I'm not going to act like they're exactly the same between character and person either. We've had that conversation like in 2021, it's why we have C! and CC!.

The rather sad truth is, SBI is what got me really into writing and it's a comfort for me that nothing can compare to. Obviously, I don't think it's appropriate to be writing certain types of stories right now or to be involving characters made by CCs outside of the DSMP. I think it's up to everyone else to decide on what they want to do, however, rushing it also isn't the way to go either. Give yourself time to heal and think it over first instead of throwing away something that gives you comfort and has not been associated with by the creators for over two years.

Anyways, fuck Will Gold. Fuck the fact that he hurt so many people, and fuck that he lied and manipulated his way around the damn internet. ESPECIALLY fuck the fact that he tried to diminish what he did and not take proper accountability.

Go and support Shelby so so much, she and everyone who spoke out really deserve it. I'm glad silence on these types of issues is not being normalized.

Here is a list of (American) resources for DV help:

TNLR

RAINN

WOAR

Love is respect

The Trevor project

Futures without violence

National domestic violence hotline

Resource on what DV and abuse looks like

*Changed it from Harry Potter to Supernatural because Harry Potter is a significantly worse and more problematic franchise, even just within the content of the books. It'd be better left in the dust. I've talked about it before, but it was the first thing that came to my mind at the time and was a poor comparison on my part, I'm truly sorry for that.

#tw abuse #tw suic mention #dream smp #ao3 #fanfic #shelby support #tw trauma

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brights-place · 3 months

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Jeff The Killer with an Mute! S/O

Pairings: Jeff the killer X Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Mentions of gore, Dating headcannons

A/N: Jeff the killer dating an mute reader that me and my friends were talking long and hard about how each creepypasta would date an S/O who is mute :>>

- When you were first introduced he tried to annoy you and get you to talk smack back to him caus he wanted to fight someone since Jane was on an mission and Jeff itched for an fight

- He’s suspicious of you at first when you don't reply - Even more so that you don’t talk. But if you prove you’re not a threat in other ways, he doesn’t actually mind it all that much... JK HE DOES MIND LIKE WHY AIN'T YOU FIGHTING OR YELLING AT HIM!

- He complains and cruses you out as you just stared at him - Jeff is annoyed how you hangout with Smile dog who makes sure to make you feel comfy which makes Jeff confused since well... Smile wasn't nice to people actually nobody really was I mean they were Creepypastas they were creatures and beings that could kill

- When he tried to fight Liu since well that's whats siblings do you smacked him up top the head as liu cackled at how Jeff was flabbergasted as you stared him down

- He gets annoyed by everybody and since your silent he comes out of nowhere and hangs out with you as he says "Shut up" when not knowing you were mute cause he never knew you were mute

- Ends up going on tangents or rants about the others while you just sit there and kind of annoyed yet staring down at him making sure he is comfortable - He knows it can get annoying to just have to listen but he’s extremely grateful for the outlet. - he can bitch about his day only to turn around and find you still there, listening intently.

- Sooner or later he watches you do sign language talking to EJ, Toby, and Nina as you just nodded shook your head or just did sign language which he connected the dots quickly finding out that you were mute

- most of the time he is translating for those who can't understand you when you use sign language when Jeff can't is when he's on his missions and off to kill some people

- Other then that he would be by your side making sure your safe and are alright When he speaks he forgets that he's doing sign language while speaking whenever your near and people point it out he rolls his eyes

- He gets used to your silence and can't help but when he feels pissy just walks towards were you are in your room or in the kitchen kick open the door and grab you and lay his head on your shoulder

- He didn't understand sign language so he just focused on when you're looking at something or someone in a certain way, how your eyebrows furrow. how you squint your eyes, the way your lips curve up or downwards with something he likes and dislikes.

- He could read your thoughts and what you want to say but can't at all but try to explain in sign language to you and say's fuck it and just speaks to you as you nod your head listening. - He switches from checking to verbal confirmation to physical confirmation - When you two are out at night not doing missions you take an stroll before jeff then goes on an rampage out of boredom - You were making sure that jeff was careful when you noticed an couple watching them afar since you knew that they had an child but also knew that why you two killed the two parents cause they were Junkies and quiet emotionally abusive towards their own child so of course you had to kill the two so you brought Jeff!

- When he is on an mission his knife digging into the skin of an 30 year old couple while their daughter was fast asleep in her room not knowing about what was happening downstairs.

- You couldn't help but watch Jeff ripping the parents skin with his knife carving an smile as he turns towards you when you stomped your foot lightly two times on the floor is what you two used to say its time to go since he well he and you have your own secret language

reblogs + comments are appreciated ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

©brights-place 2023 — do not repost on another platform, copy, translate or edit my works! if you fit my DNI list please don't interact

#creepypasta #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta headcannons #creepypasta hcs #creepypasta x reader #jeff the killer x reader #jeff the killer headcanons #jeff the killer #jeff woods #creepypasta headcanons #creepypasta incorrect quotes #incorrect quotes #Jeff the killer #jeff the killer headcanon #Jeff the killer x reader

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yeetskeetstreet · 1 year

Text

Accusations and Words | Daemon x Reader

I AM A SIMP FOR DAEMON RN.

S/N = son’s name

D/N = daughter’s name

if anyone wants me to make this a series, feel free to name the kids!

(Laena never married Daemon, their kids exist with an unnamed father, obvi no Rhaenyra & Daemon.)

This piece has no identifying features for reader other than a non-blonde hair colour, and is NOT of targaryen descent.

CONTENT WARNING: swearing, blood, child abuse, fighti- honestly, its game of thrones, lets be real here.

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

Y/N and Daemon burst into the hall, the doors flying open, (a knight behind said door was startled by their entrance).

Rhaenyra looked almost relieved as her uncle and his wife arrived after the handmaiden had been sent to fetch them. Luke was to her left, Jace in front of him, while Daemon and Y/N's son, of age ten, and daughter, of age seven stood to Rhaenyra's right. S/N held his sisters hand, as she hid behind him, her face buried into his back.

"S/N! D/N! What happened?" Y/N ran directly to her children, placing a hand on the side of her son's face, looking at his bruised eye and bloody nose. Her other hand briefly grabbed Rhaenyra's, squeezing it in thanks, for protecting her children.

Daemon, on the other hand, stood next to his wife, narrowed eyes aimed at Queen Alicent, taking in the sight of her enraged expression, and the Maester stitching up his beloved nephew.

D/N didn't move from behind her brother, while (S/N) looked at his mother, speaking to her quietly, "Aemond took Vhagar, he hit Rhaena and was going to kill Luke. He- He.." S/N looked down at his feet, "He called us bastards. Luke, Jace, Me and D/N. It was Jace's knife but I cut him I swear."

Y/N just nodded and sighed quietly, looking at her son before standing, S/N standing in between his mother and Rhaenyra.

Rhaenyra spoke calmly, "There was an incident involving the children. Jace and S/N... defended their siblings and Laena's daughters."

"Defended? Defended you say! My son has been maimed. Your sons are responsible. They were trying to kill him." Alicent almost squealed towards the family, Aemond refusing to turn to look at anyone, even his mother.

Y/N simply directed her daughter towards her father, who simply plucked the small child from the floor, tucking her head into his neck, holding her tightly.

Rhaenyra stood tall, "it was our son's who were attacked and forced to defend themselves. Vile insults were levied against them."

Y/N looked to Daemon who stood close to her right, it was an easy guess as to what these insults pertained too. Alicent had always whispered and questioned the legitimacy of both Rhaenyra and Y/N's children. While Rhaenyra's sons were clearly that of Ser Harwin Strong, (a fact Rhaenyra had been honest about to both Y/N and Daemon) they had all agreed to keep it a secret for the safety of her family.

Daemon was always angered by these rumours, his son carried her hair, both his children carried his pale complexion and his daughter had inherited his Targaryen locks. It was clear D/N was his child, a spitting image of Daemon with her mother's face. His son took Daemon's face, even his expressions the young boy had yet to learn to hide.

Viserys finally limped into the room, moving forward slowly away from the throne with his cane, "I will have the truth of what happened. Now."

The children in the room burst into words, Aemond yelling how he was attacked for no reason, Rhaena and Baela accusing the prince of stealing their mother's dragon, Luke and Jace backing the girl's claims, throwing out accusations of Aemond's attacks.

Y/N's children stayed silent, her daughter still clutching at her father, and her son had his eyes trained fiercely at the King, almost refusing to let his resolve crack under the pressure.

The adults in the room simply stood and watched, until Viserys called for silence. "Aemond. I will have the truth of what happened. Now."

Alicent quickly turned to her husband, "What else is there to hear? Your son has lost an eye!"

Viserys simply ignored his wife, "It was a regrettable accident."

"They meant to kill my son! Prince Lucerys and S/N brought a blade to the ambush."

Y/N was quick to add her piece, "Not only was Rhaenyra's integrity questioned, but mine as well. The Prince Aemond called our children bastards, Your Grace. To question the legitimacy of our children's lineage? That is the highest of treasons, Your Grace."

Viserys addressed his brother's wife, "Prince Aemond will be sharply questioned so we might learn where he heard such slanders."

Alicent scoffed "Over an insult? Over training yard bluster?"

Viserys stepped towards his youngest son, "You tell me boy, where did you hear this lie?" The boy avoided eye contact with his father.

"Aemond. Look at me. Your king demands an answer. Who spoke these lies to you?"

Aemond hesitated for a second, his eyes raising to his mother, before is voice sounded out in the room, "It was Aegon."

Viserys flung his attention to his other son, and almost hissed out at the gob smacked Prince.

"And you, boy? Tell me the truth of it!" Viserys was quickly losing his patience.

Aegon simply looked at the floor "Everyone knows. Just look at them."

Viserys stepped back to his throne, addressing the room "This interminable infighting must cease. All of you. We are a family. Now make your apologies and show good will to one another."

Alicent held her chin high, her eyes watering, "Good will cannot make him whole again. There is a debt to be paid."

Y/N, Daemon and Rhaenyra watched the exchange between the two monarchs with baited breath, each hoping that Viserys would not backing down from his rage-fuelled wife.

Daemon handed his daughter to Corlys, who had left his grand-daughters with his wife. He could feel the tension in the room arise again, and was waiting for it to peak.

However, Alicent had already made up her mind, "If the king will not seek justice. The Queen will. Ser Criston, bring me the eye of Lucerys Velaryon and S/N Targaryen. They can choose which eyes to keep, a privledge they did not grant my son."

As Ser Criston took a step forward, Viserys was quick to halt to knights progress. Rhaenyra pushed her sons behind her, as Daemon stepped forward, slightly in front of his wife and son. Corlys was quick to grab the rest of the Targaryen children and muster them away from the commotion towards his wife.

A handful trusted knights who were loyal to the two Targaryen's and their families had stepped closer to Rhaenyra and Y/N. The knights priority was the two women, Daemon's hand rested on the hilt of his sword. (Every man and his dog knew Daemon could handle himself if it came down to a fight.)

"Alicent. this matter is finished. Do you understand." Viserys addressed the room next, "And let it be known, anyone whos tongue dares to question the birth of my grandsons, nieces or nephews, should have it removed."

Rhaenyra stood tall, "Thank you, Father."

Daemon simply made eye contact with his brother, and nodded firmly silently thanking his brother for protecting his family. Viserys gave his brother a small nod in return.

Y/N turned to her husband, grabbing his hand off the hilt of his sword, holding eye contact as they began to communicate without words. Daemon sighed, nodding his head sadly squeezing his wife's hand.

Rhaenyra had turned around, her back to the rest of the room, and took a few steps to move closer to the children, still huddled together behind them.

Yelling made Rhaenyra stop in her tracks, turning in horror, "Y/N! Behind you!"

The next few seconds were chaos, one second, yelling from Viserys and Ser Harrold filled the room, "Alicent!" "Hold your approach". "Stay your hand, Cole!" "Stay with the King!" "Mother!" "Y/N! No!"

The next, Y/N was hold Alicent's forearms as she brandished the Kings valyrian steel knife towards her.

Y/N could see the knights surround her and the Queen, as well as he husband intercepting Criston Cole from moving closer to the two women.

Alicent looked at Y/N in horror, and almost whimpered out her words, "What have I done but what was expected of me?"

Y/N was almost sympathetic towards the women, "Alicent, You've gone too far."

"You take my son's eye, and to even that, you feel entitled."

"Exhausting, isn't it? Hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness. But now - now they see you as they are."

Alicent cried out and pushed Y/N away, dragging the blade down Y/N's forearm. Blood pouring down her hand, gathering into a puddle on the floor.

Y/N gasped and pulled away, gripping her arm, she fell backwards, and was caught by Rhaenyra, a deathly gaze on her face, directed at Alicent. "Are you proud of yourself, 'Your Grace'?"

Daemon moved quickly over to his wife, his face showing no emotion, and attended to her arm, ripping fabric from her dress to wrap her arm tightly, trying to stop the blood that was still flowing down her hand.

The King was yelling at his wife in the background, who was swiftly removing her children to their chambers, the other bystanders in the room heeding the King's warnings, making their own exits and dispersing into the castle.

Y/N rested her head on her husbands shoulder, shaking slightly in his grasp. Daemon was whispering comforting words in her ear, trying to calm her down.

Rhaenyra had pulled her two oldest children close to her, watching as Daemon picked his daughter up, while Y/N held her son by his shoulders.

Y/N looked at her daughter in her husbands arms, Rhaena and Baela holding themselves close to Rhaenys, Jace and Luke who watched their mother with tears in their eyes.

She took a shaky breath, "We need to be careful, I always knew Alicent was trying to get us, but the events of tonight have finally revealed the lengths she will go too. Rhaenyra, I know his your father, Daemon, your brother, but we can no longer rely on Viserys to protect us any longer. Corlys, Rhaenys, I must apologise to you, your grand daughters don't deserve to be dragged into our mess."

The group was quiet as Y/N's words sunk in. Corlys ushered his wife and grandchildren from the room, Rhaenyra following behind after embracing Y/N closely.

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

S/N grabbed his mothers hand as the four walked back to their chambers, Y/N looking at a worried Daemon, "I know I wanted to stay in King's Landing, to be near our family, but maybe it would be safer for us and our children to go to Dragonstone. We should ask Rhaenyra to come with us."

Daemon barely reacted, looking up to look at his distressed wife. He pulled his daughter closer, and briefly looked at their son. "Let the children rest, we can speak to Rhaenyra first thing in the morning. For now, let us ignore the issues within the walls and be with our family."

#daemon targaryen x reader #house of the dragon x reader #daemon x reader #hotd x reader #imagine #fluff #targaryen x reader #daemon targeryan

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supercriminalbean · 7 months

Note

Hope you're having a good day/night

I was wondering if I could request Hotch x Male reader, the team get a case that leads back to an old unsolved case of a group of children going missing and start showing up dead at different ages from sever injuries from fighting(?)

Reader is part of the bau but has alot of secrets to hide including being one of the younger children that went missing and managed to escape but not without physical and emotional scars (being forced to play a cruel game of survival of the fittest for the entertainment of the Unsub who streamed the gruesome cruelty)

Maybe the unsub captures reader cause he was the one that got away and the team start to peice together reader was one of the missing kids by how fast reader state of mind went to a primal kill or die (like readers afraid he'll die there and no one will ever find him or know or care so when they do he's relived and breaks down but another part of him think he doesn't deserve it cause of what he's done to survive)

Hotch being there for reader

FIGHT CLUB

Aaron Hotchner x Male!Reader.

Summary: The reader is trying to find the group that ruin his life, but keeping it a secret from his team is differcult when he has to ask them for help.

Warning: Dark fic. Blood, fighting, death, abuse, kidnapping, swearing, drugs, unsub violence, bad eatting habits, bad self care, scars, angst. This whole fic is just dark and strange the ask it self is amazing and may help you know if this is something you can handle. (Any other warnings let me know xx)

Words: 9.4k

A/N: Hiiii! Omg this ask 😍😍 I love you!! I had to split this into a couple different parts due to I'm up to 12k words and got so much more i wanna add to it right now. Next part will be posted next week (hopefully!!) I just couldn't wait to post this. I did change it a little and hope this is what you were after. 🖤🖤 thank you for the request my love.

Part two. Part three. Part four.

Another body has shown up, and if you're right another kid will go missing in just a couple hours a few towns over from the latest body. You know it's just a matter of time as you read the article, one that barely has any information of the latest victim found, another teen boy. While the article prints out you give the detective on the case a call, you know you shouldn't, you should just let this go until your team is called in properly. But hey, there is no harm in asking innocent questions, is there?

“Hello, this is Detective Rose,” An older man answers.

“Hello Detective, I'm with the FBI, SSA agent (Y/L) from the Bau unit” Your voice comes out sharp as you hold back the emotions swirling in your mind. If this is the group you believe it is, you're going to have to bring your team in, but no way could they know just how long you have been looking for them.

“Oh Agent, how can I help?” The man's voice is filled with confusion.

“I heard you found a body of a teenage boy, I read in the report he was badly injured and a

John doe, look I think he might be connected to a case I'm working and I need you to send me all the information and photos of this boy you have as soon as you can” You don’t have time to explain to him, nor the patience.

“Case, but there's only one body?” There's a small arrogance laying under his tone as he speaks his next words. “Plus he seems to be a runaway, he doesn’t seem like the type anyone would be after”

“Excuse me” You can’t help but sneer into the phone, anger filling you up. “How dare you, he is a child, someone has to be missing him and even if not he deserves justice, so I figure you better send me what I asked for before I called your boss” Venom seems to drip from your words as your grip the phone like your life depends on it. Silence fills the other end and your patience seems to dry up, opening your mouth to send him another order when he finally speaks up again.

“Of course we don’t need that, files and photos have been sent, reach out again if I —” You hang up before he finishes speaking, you don’t need anything more from him.

~~~

Sitting on your couch, your mind spinning as you go through the new photos of the crime scene you have received. This is it, this is them, no doubt about it. He fits the victimology, he’s the right age, fit and covered in so many cuts and bruises it’s impossible to see his face. What makes your heart drop the most is the cut on his left forearm, two other previous victims also had it. You know how they got it, hell you got one quite similar to it. Which means you know where they are being kept and where they are going next which means it's time to bring your team in. Grabbing the pile of older files, ones that you have collected over the years, pulling the top few files off the top for the team to see, placing the older ones at the bottom of your to go bag. You can’t let your team know just how long you have been investigating this case. If you do things could unravel and your past could be exposed, the one thing that could never happen, because if it does you might not have a job any more.

Your phone starts dinging, your alarm going off. Great you pulled another all nighter, something you have been warned against many times in the past month.

~~~

Hotch has been on your ass a lot lately about looking after yourself, he’s the only one who can tell when you're struggling. Maybe that's why you're having a hard time figuring out how to bring this case to him. You know he’s going to know this isn’t just a regular case for you, you might be good at hiding your personal life and emotions from the team but that doesn’t include Aaron. You're not sure how you grew close to your boss, you two have hangout, outside of work many times, even including getting to know Jack and spending many weekends watching his soccer games, and of course getting ice cream afterwards as a reward. Somehow Aaron managed to get you to join them both for movie nights and your friendship has never been stronger than that night. But then you had to go and ruin it, pulling yourself away from him, when things started feeling real. You started feeling like you belong and not just with him, but with the team you're surrounded by. Belonging somewhere is something you have never felt before and it's terrifying, so you pull away from them all. Space is a good thing plus there were only a few reasons you took this job a few years ago and you need to remember that.

~~~

You're the first one at the office that morning, even beating Hotch to the office for once. You wait at your desk, your desk is different from the others. They all have personal items on their desk, things that make their desk seem more welcoming and comforting. Except yours, its fill of paperwork and a small fake desk plant that Garcia placed there one day that you just didn’t have the heart to move. Aaron arrives not long after you. Aaron stops by the glass door when he spots you, and he’s glad you're facing the other way so he can just watch you for a moment. He can’t help but feel something is wrong, the last few weeks you have been more off than normal. You're someone who keeps to themself and he knows that, maybe that's why he was surprised when you were spending a lot of your time with him and Jack. Not that he minded at all, he loves spending time with you, maybe more than a boss should but he shouldn’t be blamed when it comes to you, you're different. But when he was spending time with you, he managed to figure out your tell, and how you go inside your own mind when things aren’t right. Maybe that's why, even when you started putting more distance between you both, he couldn't help but remind you to get some sleep or remind you to eat, the two things you always seem to forget about. Aaron lets out a small breath, preparing himself for whatever the reason is that you're the first one here. The glass doors open and within a second you're spinning around in your chair, and the first thing Aaron notices is the files in your hands and then the bags underneath your determined eyes.

“Good Morning Hotch” Your voice is full of energy, which he can only put down to the empty coffee cup beside you.

“Morning, you’re here early” Aaron stares at you questionably, raising his eyebrow when you don’t respond. “Is there a reason why?”

“I need to talk to you, it's important” You jump up quickly, meeting him in the middle of the room.

“Alright, my office then” He bites back a sigh as you nod enthusiastically, climbing up the stairs before him. He can’t help himself but compare you to a puppy, one who uses up all their energy but still refuses to back down when it's time to rest. He’s waiting for you to burn out, it may have been three years with you on the team, but he can’t help but wait for you to break. He doesn’t understand how anyone could keep going at the pace you do without any consequences.

~~~

You both enter his office, Aaron places his bag down before taking a seat at his desk, signalling you to do the same, so you do.

“Okay so I found—” You can’t help but start, holding your own homemade files,your leg bouncing as you speak.

“Stop” Hotch holds his hand up to silence you, dread fills your eyes as you do. “Did you sleep last night?” Accusation dripping from his words, his stern stare digging straight into your sole, making a strange shiver roll down your spine.

“That's not important” The confidence seems to slip by as he stares at you longer, you can’t help but sink in your chair, the uncomfortableness just making you want to run.

“But it is, I need to know my agents are looking after themself” Aaron holds back the proper lectures he wants to give you. Sometimes he wonders how you managed to become a full functioning adult with the way you treat your body, running yourself so low he wonders how you're alive at all.

“I look after myself perfectly fine Aaron” You have to physically bite your tongue to hold back the taunt you want to say instead, but you need him to listen to you instead.

“Do you, because you didn’t sleep last night, and can you even tell me the last time you ate something homemade?”

“Last night” Smirking cockily at him, you indeed did make something last night so he can suck it.

“It doesn’t count if it was your usual cheese on toast” Aaron smirks as yours slowly disappears.

“Okay, uncalled for Hotch” Grumbling as you place the files down before crossing your arms. “Look I get it, I need to improve, but I need your help on something much more important, please?” Your mask starts dropping, the fear and doubtfulness visible for just a few seconds, before you pull yourself together again, your face hardening up again.

~~~

“Tell me what this is?” Hotch reaches for the files, the pile alot bigger than he first thought it was.

“Someone is kidnapping teenages all over the country, and just hours surrounded the kidnapping another teenage is found dead a few towns over from the new victim, I have found about seven different cases over the course of 18 months so far, but the dead victims are never the ones from the recent kidnappings, they look older almost like they could have been kidnapped years prior maybe, they all have the same marks all over their body, the victimology is the same” You take a deep breath as Hotch flicks throughs the file. “The ones being taken are either from abusive households or already living on the street, they aim for the ones who are strong but not confident, they seem to find the quiet ones are go after them, but they are quick, they don’t leave much room for the kids to escape, they move fast” Your words seem to run from your mouth, the rush to get out of your mind and into Aarons ear makes you forget to breathe. The urgency is great and he just doesn't understand.

“You keep saying they” Hotch looks up the files, his boss face activated, his lips pursed together. His eyes burn into you once more, you have to do everything in your power to not physically respond to that call out, unfortunately your body straightens up, your throat clutching.

“I believe it has to be at least two unsubs if not more, and one of them could possibly be a woman” You take a deeper breath as your heart starts to pace, your mind screaming at you to stop as Aaron's eyes narrow more.

“And why do you think that?”

“Because they're fast, they move around the country, and according to the autopsy the kids are well nutritious, they cause of death is mainly blood lose, or hits to the head, I think—-” You quickly cut yourself off. No you can’t say that, you can’t let that detail out quite yet, he won’t understand, no one will understand not yet. “I think they must be keeping them somewhere safe before they dispose of them” You change the words that almost slip out quickly, but not fast enough for Hotch to not notice. Hotch watches you closely as you grow quiet, waiting for his response. Your leg bouncing as your nails dig into your arms, your eyes begging him to say something, just anything.

“What do you think they are doing to them if they are keeping them for so long then?” His question is innocent enough, but oh lord. Your stomach is now on fire, your eyes darken with anger as you speak.

“Training them to fight each other, fight to the death and then they keep the strong ones for who knows what” Oh but you know, oh you know too well what they are keeping them for and that makes you want to be sick.

~~~

Silence fills the office as he stares at you, the anger that fills your eyes is something he hasn’t seen before, and he has seen you angry. But this is different, this is almost a murderous glaze in your eyes, something that makes Aaron uncomfortable.

He knows what he has to do, even if he doesn’t like it.

“How long have you been investigating this, how did you manage to get all of this information?” His voice is low as he speaks, his words filling with disappointment as he speaks.

“A few months” A lie, you both know that. But Aaron knows better than to question that right now, the can of worms that could open could be too hard to close.

“Why are you just bringing this to me now?” His voice raises, the disappointment sweeping out. “You should of came to me as soon as you saw a pattern forming”

“I know I should have, but I wanted to see if I was right, maybe see if I could find any clues before bringing the team into a goose chase” You try to reason with him, gulping as if you know what you have to say. “I think I found them, and if I'm right another person was taken last night and I have a feeling that another body will be found near the state line of Nebraska and Wyoming, we need to take this case, we need to save them” A shaky breath leaves you as you lean forward, placing your hands on the desk, your eyes pleading.

“Aar, please trust me on this” Gulping thickly as you see his eye flash with something unreadable as you say his old nickname, one you haven’t used in months.

“I need to make a few phone calls” He looks away from you as he picks up the phone. Standing up you smile slightly at him, thanking him quietly as you make your way out.

~~~

The team soon arrives within the hour, where hotch is up in his office on the phone the whole time. Your body is on edge, sipping on your third cup of coffee as your mind runs. The team all stood around, talking and laughing as they usually do. Of course they try to get you to join in, but with one glance at you, they know this morning is not the time to get you to join in with them. It's Dave that talks to you this morning, his eyes couldn’t help but keep drifting to you as the team standing around teasing Reid and his crosswords.

“Hey kiddo” Dave stands in front of you, pulling you from your mind, and mainly your eyes off Aarons offices.

“Ah, Morning Sir” Forcing a small smile as you do your best to focus on him, and not whatever conversation is going on inside the office right now.

“How many times have I told you Rossi, or Dave is fine? '' He smile’s down at you, hating to see the bags underneath your eyes, or the fresh scratch mask around your wrist. You wear long sleeves half the time, but that doesn’t stop the team from seeing the way your scratch at your arms when you get overwhelmed.

“Right sorry” Pushing a small chuckle out, as you give him a weak smile. “My bad”

“It's okay, are you doing alright?” Rossi looks down at you worriedly, you weren’t the most talkative but right now you don’t even seem to know how to be your regular self.

“Fine si– Rossi” Your body tenses at the slip up, your eyes flicker back up to Aaron's office.

“Alright, if you ever need to talk kiddo you know I'm around” He smiles at you, one that's full of concern. A part of him wants to reach out, place a hand on your shoulder so you get the message, but he knows it won’t work with you. You don’t react well to physical touch, you jump when someone gets too close. The team remembers the first time Garica tried to give you a hug, you jumped back, hiding behind Morgan who was closest to you in that moment. She touched your shoulders, and you have never moved so fast, your body tensing your hands rolling into fist. You apologised as soon as you calmed down, you gave them no reasoning as to why. But they understood and no one has tried to touch you since, they even became your human shields when random people would try to hug you as a thank you. You were extremely grateful for that, it's been like that for three years now and still no one asks you why and you owe them so much for that.

~~~

Hotch finally emerges from his office after another hour, a sour look plastered across his face, and when you catch his eyes you know why. They found the body.

“We got a case” Hotch calls out to his team, everyone's head shoots up to him. A deep unnerving tension seems to fill the room due to the seriousness on his face, and the way his eyes never leave yours. The air seems to leave your lungs as you stand up, grabbing your notebook off your desk before following the team into the conference room. Hotch waits by the door as the team walks in, placing his hand up in front of you to stop you.

“One moment” His voice is low as he speaks, not wishing for the team to overhear.

“We found two bodies, one of them is Jason Ducan” Aaron speaks softly, as he watches your face flicker with recognition at that name.

“They found a body” You stare up at him, your eyes now empty of emotions, putting them on the backboard as you prepare for this case.

“Jason Ducan, he was my first missing kid when I worked here” Your breathing hitches as fear flashes through your mind, doing your best to keep your poker face on. Do they know where you work, have they been keeping tabs on you for the last three years? Or maybe they never stop keeping tabs on you.

“He doesn’t fit the profile, he was seven, from a good family. He was too young there is no way they would take someone from a family like that, it would be too difficult” Your mind spins as you speak, your words speeding up, slipping over each other in a hurry. Hotch hates the far away look that creeps into your eyes, almost more than he hates the numbness that dominates inside you. Taking a deep breath, hoping he doesn’t make it worse, Aaron slowly reaches out to you, placing his hand gently on your shoulder. You flinch sharply, your eyes narrowing on his hand, on his familiar touch. Aaron is the only one allowed to touch you, and only at certain times, only when you're ready for it, and normally you welcome his touch. Today is not the day you welcome it, his touch feels like fire, it sends painful memories of your past through your mind.

“Don’t” Your voice is low and full of danger, a shaky breath follows as he doesnt let go immediately.

“You need to tell me if this case gets too much, okay” Aaron words hold no judgement as he lets you go and just like he expected you stroll straight past him, anger radiating off you, as you fall into the chair beside Morgan.

~~~

Hotch starts the briefing, grabbing the team's attention with your homemade files. He informs them of everything you had told him that morning, minus your theories.

“So you made these files?” It was Morgan who asked the question. The one thing that had confused the whole team, because this screamed to them as an off the books case, something Hotch would never do.

“No I did” You speak up, leaning forward. You almost feel bored as Hotch gives the team the basic information, information you have been sitting on for many years. Everyone's heads turn straight to you, curiosity and surprised looks all over them. The quiet one who normally seems to keep to themself, is investigating a crime alone, and somehow convince Hotch to make it a real case. Oh you could feel the questions and doubt spreading throughout the room, and all you do is smirk at them as you lean forward.

“I didn’t think much of it at first, but something didn’t feel right so once I saw a second body drop in the same way. I started investigating a bit more, but I was always weeks behind, so in my time of hoping for new leads I went back and searched months back trying to find anything” You give them a brief explanation, making sure you don’t make eye contact with anyone, not needing to lose your nerve right now. The room stays quiet, giving you the confidence to keep talking, so taking a deep calming breath you continue.

“After I got an alert last night of a kid going missing, I knew it was them. Conor Blue, he fits the description that the unsubs go after. He’s between the age of Nine and fourteen, he came from an abusive household and he’s into sports which isn’t always a go to, but something I see they prefer” You speak slower than this morning, remembering to breathe as you do. Hotch might be hard to convince, but making sure the whole team has your back on this case, is something you didn’t think through. You needed their help, because without the team, you can’t get close enough to get rid of them for good.

“How long have you been looking into this?” Emily asks, looking over at you with concern. She can see ghosts in your eyes, and whatever answer you give her, she’s not going to believe you.

“About four months” Your lie is solided, you know that, you made sure all the files you gave them only look that old. Even if they have older information inside you can say it's from research.

“He came to me this morning, and I have been on the phone with a few detectives” Aaron glances at you as he says that, your stomach drops. He knows you used your FBI statues to gather information you weren’t supposed to have, opps. “And It seems to be happening all over the country, so we need to make a fast move on this case, two new bodies were discovered this morning” Hotch continues, the team watches you instead of Hotch. They all notice the tense look on your face, the way your eyes darken, your lips tightening as a way to stop yourself from interrupting the boss. Photos pop up on the screen as Hotch keeps speaking, your eyes land on the photos, your stomach twisting. Jason laid in the dirt, his body covered in bruises and blood, a hopeless look in his eyes. But what makes your mind ache is the body laying beside the ten year old boy. A 20 year old guy. He looks strong, someone who you know could only live that long in that place, if they were extremely strong and brave. The marks around his neck send a shiver down your body, your stomach swooshes so much you think you're going to be ill. He’s the only one that ages with that mark, and there is only one guy who would do that. He’s still there, and that's all your fault.

~~~

“So (Y/n), any theories?” Rossi the one to ask you, his eyes on the notebook that you're clutching tightly.

“Quite a few” You glance up at Hotch, silently asking for permission to take over, he gives a quick nod and with that it's your turn. “It's a team, I want to say at least two older ones that have been doing this for many, many years, and if anyone has lasted long enough they would train them to join them, using them to find more opposition. They need a good routine of fighters, more opportunity for them to grow” You speak in a matter of fact, your fingers tapping away at the table.

“What makes you think they are fighting each other?” JJ glances at you from the photos.

“Easy, look at them, there is only one way someone can get that many bruises and cuts on them. Also not to mention the autopsy results mention multiple broken bones that have healed, internal bleeding due to multiple blunt force trauma” Your not sure why but air soon becomes harder to inhale, it feels thick and the room starts heating up. Everyones eyes are on you, but you can’t look at them so you're focusing on the files in front of you instead. “Also look at their hands, they aren’t just defensive wounds, they fit back, also they are strong, it's like they train them. Plus they are well nourished so I guess someone is looking after them, my guess is a women is one of our unsubs”

“That’s one hell of a theory” Morgan says, his eyes burning into you. His gut is full of distrust when it comes to you with this case, something doesn't seem right.

“I know, but have a look and you will see why I’m right, also this case is nothing like we are use to, I have many theories and most of them are strange but, you can see why” You speak from gritting teeth, your hand now gripping the table in front of you.

“We are going to Nebraska, wheels up in thirty” Aaron eyes stay on you as you zoom out of the room, dying for some fresh air.

~~~

“Jupiter wake up” Her viciouses voice fills your ears, as a piercing pain invades your side. A sharp hiss slips through your lips as your eyes shoot open, your body shooting up into a sitting position, pushing the thin blanket to the side. Inside you feel numb, nothing inside you is alive anymore, years of training has made you the perfect soldier.

“Morning Ma’am” Your voice is emotionless, your eyes are dead as you stand up looking up at her. Keeping your hands behind you, your head slightly bent.

“We have a new comer, you are to welcome them this morning, I don’t care if they live or die just clean up your mess” Her voice is assertive, a cunning look on her face as she leads you down the hall and past the other trainee soldiers. Some of them are still asleep, most of them without blankets, only winners get comfort items. You stroll past the training room where your fellow soldiers are lifting weights before being allowed to eat. You glance at them a part of you wishing you could join them, but that's not your task this morning. Instead you get to fight, and you get to choose the outcome, oh you do enjoy these fights. You always win, and even better, it doesn’t take much effort. Ma’am leads you to the empty swimming pool, where most fights to the death take place. As you walk over to the edge you spot your opponent, he looks small and extremely frightened, barely a challenge. He’s already got blood over his face as he hides on the corner of the pool, the area where the bloodstains seem to be less. A small chuckle leaves you as you check him out, the thoughts of destroying him winding you up. Licking your lips softly before glancing over at Ma’am waiting for permission to go down.

“Go on, but try and make it fair” She laughs softly, enjoying the murderous gaze in your eyes. In a matter of seconds you're jumping into the pool, smirking darkly as you make your way over to him. The boy looks to be about 14 or 15, a couple years or so younger than you. He looks up at you, a confused and scared look plastered over his face, it grows when you stop a few metres back from him.

“Y you… you're alive” His whisper is barely audible, but it makes you freeze. That voice, you know that voice, how?

“Come here, now” You growl at him, gritting your teeth as you stare into his eyes.

“I thought you died (Y/n)” He takes a small step forward staring at you with hope. Oh how wrong that looks for a place like this.

“That's not my name” You spit at him, a horrible shiver dripping down your spine.

“Yes it is” He speaks more confidently as he steps closer. “Your name is (Y/n), we used to be friends” That name, why do you know that name, it's wrong, it's so wrong.

“I don’t know you” You sneer at him, taking a step towards him, dangour radiating off you.

“Yes you do, we used to be best friends, (Y/n) please you have to remember me, its Ryan” He begs you to remember. You freeze, Ryan. You know a Ryan, but he’s younger than him, Ryan was ten last time you saw him. But this can’t be him, because that part of your life is long gone, and who the hell does this guy think he is turning up claiming to be a part of that time. You react quickly with a sharp growl escaping you as you launch yourself on him.

“I don’t know you!” You scream as you grab him by his neck, and punch him repeatedly with your other hand. You're a lot stronger than him, using all your strength to pound into him. You let go of his neck, he falls forward with a gasp, begging you to stop but it falls on deaf ears. You knee him in the stomach as he falls forward, grabbing his hair holding him in place as you let him have it.

“I don't know you” You scream as your anger explodes. “I don’t know (Y/n)!” You shove him into the wall, his body slides down, so you kick him, as you scream repeatedly. “I don't know Ryan” You keep screaming, blood starts to pile around him, as you lose control. “I don’t know you!”

~~~

“I don’t know you!” A scream invades the quietness of the jet. Everyone's head turns towards the scream full of pain, landing on you. You're asleep at the back of the jet, shaking violently with tears streaming down your face. Aaron is up in a matter of seconds, running quickly towards you. The team stays quiet, letting Hotch take control of this situation. He drops to his knees beside you, small whimpers and cries leaves you as you stay dead asleep.

“(Y/n), wake up” He places his hand firmly on your arm, giving you a rough shake. But nothing, you stay asleep but your cries get louder.

(Y/n), open your eyes” Aaron shakes you again sharper and luck is on his side. Your eyes shoot open, breathing heavily as you scan your surroundings. The jet, you're on the jet, with your team. Oh shit your team, everyone is watching you, they stare at you with unreadable emotions on their faces, and you hate it. Soon you let your eyes drop down to the man beside you, fear enters you quickly, yanking away from his touch you straighten up quickly.

“Sir, I’m so sorry sir I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I am extremely sorry sir It won’t happen again” Your words fly out of you with fear, your breathing picking up, your hands shaking uncontrollably as you watch him, waiting for the punishment.

“It's okay” Aaron gulps, hating the fear you're experiencing, the panic attack that’s consuming you. “You are okay, you are safe here” Aaron speaks calmly, taking the chance to place his hand on yours, he’s grateful you don’t pull back.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep” Your voice grows quiet, your lip quivering as the adrenaline dies down.

“It's okay you're allowed to fall asleep” Aaron reassures you, his thumb running over the back of your hand smoothly.

“I am?” You look up at him hopeful, your eyes full of tears. You almost seem child-like as you ask that simple question.

“Yes you are, I only woke you because you were having a nightmare” Aaron smiles softly at you, hoping he doesn’t embarrass you as he informs you.

“Oh no” You yank away from his touch, panic filling you. You know you sleep talk occasionally, what the hell did you say?

“We all get them, its okay”

“No.. what did I say?” You stare at him with a look of horror. Aaron's face drops, he knows that look, he’s seen it almost everyday of this job. A look victims have when they open up to much of their past, scared their abusiver will come back for them.

“You didn’t say much” He tries his best to comfort you but he knows that determined look in your eyes. “You said ‘I don't know you’ ”

A small sigh leaves you as you lean your head back in relief, that's all you said then you are fine, you can recover from that. “Thank you” You force a small smile, before raising your voice, turning to look at your coworkers who all seem to be pretending not to pay attention anymore.

“Sorry for disturbing you”

“You're not disturbing us” Hotch is quick to correct you, hating to think that you would think you're a bother. “If you want to talk about it–”

“No thank you, I’m fine” You interpret him quickly, a sharp glare and turning your back to him is all the dismissal he needs.

~~~

You're in the SUV with Morgan and Rossi, heading downtown to the morgue. You sat in the back seat, reading through the Jason Ducan files, before sighing loudly and laying your head back. The two men in the front seat share some curious looks before glancing back at you.

“You alright back there” Morgan questions you, a small smile on his face.

“Not at all, this makes no sense at all” rubbing your forehead as the frustration causes another headache. “Why the hell did they take Jason Ducan three years ago he doesn’t fit the profile and they wouldn’t of dumped him like that he would of hide the body better, you would think they know not to show of the bodies we are investigating” You can’t hide the frustration and anger invading you, your hand squeezing into fist and you think back. He was a clue back then yet you were so focused on moving on you didn’t see it, this is bad.

“Maybe your profile is wrong” Dave shrugs as he speaks, as if it's a casual thing.

“My profile is not wrong!” You snap at him, the anger burning away at your chest.

“I still don’t understand your interest in this case” Derek turns around to face you, a distrustful look in his eyes, one you can’t help but return.

“Well, no one was looking into it, someone has to care. I'm sorry if that irritates you Derek” Glaring deadly at him, as his eyes widen just slightly at your comeback before turning back to the front.

“I was just asking.'' He grumbles before glancing at Dave who is staring at you through the rearview mirror, watching as your face drops as you cross your arms.

~~~

You are shown the bodies and as the doctor talks you can’t hear her, the words flying over your head as you grab some gloves and start touching the bodies. Three pairs of eyes on you, watching like a hawk as you move like lightning. Your hands travel around the older unnamed victim's neck. The dark unformed bruises with a slight cut you can tell were made with wire, your stomach spinning as you move away from it and down to his feet.

“His neck wound was made by wire” You state as you kneel down by his feet, anger flooding through you as you see the scars. They are doing it again. “Holy shit” Your words are barely audible, but Morgan catches them, his eyebrow narrowing as he watches you.

“What did you find (Y/l)” Morgan makes his way over to you, spotting fear deep inside your eyes before you quickly mask the emotion once more.

“You need to ring Garcia” You look up at him, gulping thickly. “I think they are recording them”

“What, how can you tell?” It's Rossi that asks as he walks over, joining you and Morgan at the feet of the victims.

“Look at this” You show them the bottom of the left foot of the victim, where a big L is cut into along with the name victory which looks like it has been tried to be cut out.

“Okay” Morgan looks at you puzzled. “How did you get that they recorded them from this?”

“The L, It means they lost, I bet they showed this to the camera to show them that they truly did lose this time” Maybe what you said doesn’t make sense to the profilers, but it's what they do. But they stopped, you know they stopped. You couldn’t find them on the dark web so they had to have stopped but you never relooked when the bodies started dropping again.

“You can’t know that” Morgan goes to argue with you, a hand on his arm stops him. He turns his head to see Dave shaking his head at him. Morgan stares at him stumped wanting to argue but he can read that look in Dave’s eyes, there is something more going on here.

“It makes sense, they can earn money this way and also they are sick twisted little fuckers who can find other twisted fuckers to enjoy in on their torment as well” You speak quickly as you pull your phone out, taking photos of his foot.

“Okay I guess I’ll call Penelope then” Morgan sighs glancing at the dead set look on your face before walking out. You go to move onto Jason Ducan, touching his foot lightly before freezing. You stare at him for a few moments, your body frozen in place. He’s too young, his family loved him. How could they take him from them? It doesn't make sense.

“(Y/n), do you want me to do it?” Dave calls out to you kindly, breaking up your thoughts.

“No I got it” You reply letting out a small breath before pulling back his foot and taking a photo. A small W has been crossed out and replaced with a L, your heart crashing into your stomach as you see it. In a flash you're pulling away and making your way outside for some fresh air.

~~~

You lean against the SUV as you ring Reid, who is driving to see the other body that was discovered last night.

“Hey (Y/l), You're on speaker phone” You can hear Reid smile through the phone.

“Hey guys, are you at the body yet?” You focus on slowly your racing heart beat as you speak to them, readying yourself to pass on the information.

“Not yet, we are still two and half hours out from the town” Emily response, glancing at the phone as she drives.

“Okay that's fine, I just have a few things I need you to look at when you get there” Taking a breath as you think back to the cut on Jason's foot. “On his left foot I need you to see if there is anything cut into it, I am sending you a photo of the other two victims' feet okay” You quickly send them the photos.

“Okay I got it” Reid replies after a few moments.

“Oh that's gross” Emily groans.

“That's because you hate feet” Smirking just a little at her reaction.

“It's not my fault they are smelly and gross” She laughs just a little.

“Also you two should be driving through a small town called Cobar, it's a small town with a big population of homeless teenages It might pay to stop and talk to them, see if they have seen anything out of place lately” You take a sharp breath as a strange feeling starts filling you as you think about that place.

“Sure we can do that” Emily nods, her face tightening into a frown. “Hey, um are you okay?”

“I'm good, why?” Your lips pull into a thin line as you line.

“Because this case seems to be weighing on you alot” She explains, tapping her finger on the steering wheel.

“Nope It's just another case, I gotta go” You quickly hang up before she can ask more questions. Reid and Prentiss share some strange and concerning looks as the phone beeps.

“What is he hiding?” Emily mumbles to herself as she stares out at the road.

~~~

The rest of the day goes by quickly, you three end up meeting up with JJ and Hotch back at the precinct. Rossi and Morgan go and talk with Jason Duncan's parents once they arrive trying to get more information from them. JJ works with other precincts where the other bodies and missing boys have been reported, trying to get all the information she can. You and Hotch work together trying to organise a timeline for the last 12 months, and with all the information you already have some parts are easy to fill in. Until he starts questioning you on the one part you can’t answer.

“They shouldn’t be here, they should have gone east” Hotch sighs as you both stare at the map laid across the table.

“I agree but they didn’t” You don’t agree with that, but according to the timeline it makes sense.

“But do you agree?” Hotch looks up at you, doubt playing across his face.

“What are you getting at Hotch?” Huffing little as you pick up your coffee, staring back at him.

“You said they would be coming this way, so why would you think that?” There’s his stern look eating at you. Making your stomach sink as you hide the truth from him. The truth is, you know their base is around here. This town is the first thing you remember when you escape but you can’t tell him that, no one can know.

“I don't know” You lie, and it's a bad one.

“Don’t lie to me”

“I'm not lying!” You don’t mean to snap at him, but fear and guilt were eating away at you and you can’t contain it anymore.

“Then tell me the truth” His words are sharp and to the point, but his face stays calm, his eyes soft and caring as he stares at you.

“Fine, I had a feeling like this town means something, because look at the pattern here Aaron” Your shoulders tenses up as you lean forward, pointing at the map. “Look, they always avoid this town, and they always avoided leaving bodies in this state until last night so since they did that I decided to take a risk and wait for them to leave us something around here and do you want to know what I’m thinking right now” A smirk slips onto your lips as you speak, a feeling of excitement spreads throughout you as you share your idea.

“You think their base is around here” Aaron finishes your thought, not liking that smirk on your face.

“Exactly and if they left us this breadcrumb it only means two things, one they are somehow becoming sloppy or two—”

“They know you are investigating them” He finishes your sentence again, dread filling him due to just how close you are to this investigation.

“Not me, but someone yes and we can use that”

“How?”

Luckily Aaron's phone rings just before you have to answer that.

“It's Garcia” He glances at you before answering it, placing it on speaker. “Hey Garcia, what do you got?”

“Well boss man, I got good news and some gross news” Penelope's sweet voice floats through the phone.

“What's the good news Garica?” You straighten up as you hope.

“Well our unnamed victim is Liam Clark, he’s 19 years old and went missing five years ago in florida” Garcia informs you both just as the door to the conference room opens and the rest of the team walks in.

“Alright, can you send through his family information please” You sigh, leaning backwards in your chair, the stress of the case becoming too much.

“Will do my love, now are we ready for some more information?” Her voice starts filling with dread as she types aways.

“Hit us with the good stuff baby girl” Morgan speaks up, coming to sit on the edge of the table by the phone.

“Oh I wish it was good news chocolate thunder, but (Y/n) was right.” She sighs as Aaron phones dings. “I found their profile on the dark web and all their live streams have been saved, there are hundreds of them, maybe even closer to a thousand, and they got back many, many years” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “I haven’t looked at them all yet but there are some that are over 25 years old”

Your heart sinks, your palms becoming sweaty as realisation sits in. Your videos are still up, your team could find out in a matter of seconds what you are.

“25 years…” Your voice is as quiet as a mouse, your throat tightening up as your team glances over at you. “How did no one see this?” Your voice gets louder, filling with anger as you jump to your feet.

“They hide their tracks well” Reid speaks up, his eyes focused on you.

“Bullshit, no one can hide their tracks that well!”

“Okay you need to take a breath” Hotch gets up, walking closer to you. Watching the anger firing up inside your eyes.

“No, we need to find these monsters and make them pay, they have hurt and ruined so many innocent people's lives” You spit the words out, your hands squeezing into fist.

“Is that all?” Morgan questions you, getting up, standing uncomfortably close to you.

“What's that meant to mean!?” Your body is already in defensive mode, locking itself down as Morgan has a determined look inside his own.

“Well you seem to be hiding something from us and I would like to know what that is?” His questioning is dangerous, he steps closer to you. The rest of the room falls quiet, your eyes burning into his.

“How about, none of your damn business Morgan”

“It is my business when you drag us into it” He huffs back at you. “Just tell us what you're hiding” He steps closer, his breath lingering on your skin.

“Back the fuck up Derek” Your voice is lower, and full of danger. You can feel yourself about to snap and if you do, you don’t think you will be able to stop.

“We barely know you, so why don’t you just tell us what the hell is going on” Derek demands to know “What is wrong with you (Y/n)?” His hand raises up, and before you can process what is happening. Bam. Your fist collides with his mouth and you see red as he stumbles backwards. You follow him, a low growl leaves you as you punch him again, this time aiming for his eyes. He manages to block, trying to hold you back, but you don’t stop trying to get a blow on him. You can hear voices all around you but you can’t hear past the blood rushing in your ears. Soon there are arms wrapping around you from behind, pulling you away from Morgan. You struggle against them trying to break free as you stare daggering at Morgan who is being confronted by three people of your team, you don’t recognize them. Soon there is another person in your way, your body tenses as you see them. They quickly place their hands on your cheeks which make you freeze, the anger vanishing from inside you. Your vision starts easing up and faces start becoming recognizable. The person who is holding your face gently, has beautiful eyes, and a soft smile.

“Your safe (Y/n)” JJ speaks softly, “Just take some breaths” You stare at her, and soon start copying her breathing. Rossi lets you go, moving towards the rest of the team as you calm down.

“Let me go JJ” Your words are as cold as ice, the numb empty look in your eyes being replaced by guilt and anger.

“Okay” She takes a breath before removing her hands and as soon as she does you bolt out the door.

~~~

You keep running once you get outside, you don’t stop, you can’t, you just can’t. Your mind is spinning and the only way you know how to get it to become quiet again, is to run. So that's what you do, you run. The sun is already set so you enjoy the darkness as you run. You can’t believe you lost it and punch Morgan, but what the hell is he getting at? Now what the hell are you meant to say, what lie are you meant to produce that will cover your ass. You're not sure how long you have been running for, but you're running out of breath when you see a corner store and think oh why not. Checking you have your wallet you head inside grabbing a bottle of water and a pack of cigarettes. Walking back out you open it, throwing the rubbish in the bin before lighting it and taking a long drag. Closing your eyes as you inhale it, it's been a long time since you last smoked and god does it just hit right tonight. Slowly you begin walking back to the precinct, enjoying the nicotine hit. You know you're about halfway to the precinct when you decide to check your phone after feeling it ring a few times.

Missed phone calls: Aaron Hotchner (6)

Penelope Garcia (3)

You're not sure how many smokes you have consumed already but the pack is way lighter than it used to be. You really should ring them back instead of lighting another one, but oh well you think as you bring one more to your lips. Pulling out the lighter just as a car pulls up beside you, groaning softly as you recognize it. You keep walking, not caring to look at him as he rolls the window down.

“Get in the car” Hotch yells at you, following you.

“Nope” You go to light the smoke instead when he stops the car and gets out.

“We are an hour walk from the precinct, get the hell in” Aaron doesn’t bother to hide his anger, holding himself back from grabbing that cigarette from your hand.

“Or what?”

“Or you're fired, and I’ll leave you here” He huffs angrily, seeing you weighing up your options.

“Fine” You take a long drag on your smoke before stomping it out and climbing in.

~~~

The ride back is quiet, as you stare out the window.

“How angry is everyone?” Your voice is quiet and empty. Almost empty because Aaron can detect a small trail of sadness and fear in your words.

“Morgan winded you up on purpose, he pushed you too far. That wasn’t okay what either of you two did” Hotch ignored your question, because he knew you wouldn’t accept that fact no one is angry. No, everyone is just worried and concerned about you, something you don’t know how to spot or accept when it comes to yourself. He wishes you could just trust the team, trust him enough to let them help.

“I have a past” You pull yourself closer as you stare out the window, thinking about your next words carefully.

“You don’t have to tell me” Aaron quickly tells you softly, needing you to know there is no rush.

“And if I do want to tell you?” You glance at him quickly, and for a moment you forget he is your boss and see him in the light of your friend.

“Then I'm here to listen” He smiles lightly at you. You nod quickly looking back out the window, and then slowly you move your hand towards him, which he happily takes sliding his fingers between yours.

“I was abused growing up, no one cared and nobody knew, I never told anyone” You stare out the window, emotions settling down as you speak. “This case brings back memories I never wanted to relieve back up, I have to find these people so that we can save these kids” Your voice is sweet as you speak, this is a side no one but Aaron ever gets to see.

“And we will get them and we will get them help” Aaron smiles weakly as he pulls up. “But once this case is over we need to get you some help too, okay?” His thumb slides over your hand as you glance at him. If only he knew that nothing on earth can help you, and at the end of this case you don’t think you will still be on this team.

“Okay” You nod forcing a small smile before pulling away and making your way inside.

~~~

You walk in quietly, followed by Aaron. The team is staring up at the tv, watching some of the latest fights. You freeze as you catch a glance of his face on the screen. You knew he was still there but the look in his eyes is killing you. He's gone, replaced by a murderous robot, his skills are fast and sharp.

“Ryan” His name slips off your tongue before you can stop it, your body tenses up as you stare at the screen and the way he gets his opponent down in one quick move. Emily pauses it as everyone's head turns to you once more. This time everyone looks at you with concern as they see the tears forming in your eyes, which you quickly push away once you let everyone get a good look.

“You know him?” Reid asks you, tilting his head as he asks you.

“Um y yeah..” You take a deep breath. “I went to school with him” It's a lie, but you know it's golden. “He went missing when he was around 15 years old, we were best friends then one day he didn't turn up to school and well” You take a deep breath as Aaron leads you to a chair, your arms shaking just a little. “He was officially determined missing a week later, his parents were absent, they didn’t care for him” That wasn’t a lie, he told you about his parents and how much they hurt him and how they were barely at home.

“Oh (Y/n)” JJ places her hand softly on the table beside your hand, not touching but showing you she is here for you. You give her a soft smile in response.

“If he’s been there this whole time it's been twelve years” Twelve years, he is never going to be the same.

“Jesus christ” Morgan groans with regret as he looks at you. “That's what you were hiding?”

“I had a feeling he was there.. I was just hoping I was wrong” Your voice is weak and tiredness is starting to take over. It's been almost 48 hours since you last slept.

“Now we got a lead, tomorrow we get Garcia to look into him but let's call it a night it's late we all need sleep” Hotch states, everyone nodding in agreement including you as you stare at Ryan's face on the screen. That's all your fault.

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x male!reader #aaron hotcher dark fic #aaron hotcher fic #bau x reader #bau x male reader

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sadisticsongbird · 4 months

Text

fair and just ~ william bonney

summary: billy’s been arrested and it’s bringing up some questions about your father and what his true line of work is.

warnings: physical abuse (please don't read if this subject triggers you), fluff, language, not proofread

word count: 5.6k

You hadn't known Billy long, but long enough to know that he wouldn't hurt a fly. Sitting in the back of the room, you watched as your father was ready to sentence him. He got caught, granted, but he never actually did anything. His shoulders were slumped over and he faced the ground, knowing what was coming. You wanted to stand up and yell at your father, but you kept quiet, huddled in the back of the room and wearing stolen clothes from your father’s old closet and a hat tilted over your face so no one knew you were there. Women weren’t allowed in the courtroom, but you weren’t recognizable.

“We find the defendant, William Antrim, guilty of attempted burglary and theft at the said Chinese premises and sentenced hereby to a total of three years in jail.”

You heard a sharp inhale to the left of you, recognizing him as the journalist who came up to visit the town a few weeks ago. Only from what you had heard, you knew that he was here investigating the rings that ran around here. Not that you knew much about them. Just that they were the power around here.

“Young as he is, we hope the defendant will use his time in confinement to reflect on his crime, and when he emerges back into society to commit himself to more lawful and productive lawsuits.”

The gavel rang through the hollow room, leaving everybody in silence. You saw something change in Billy’s body language, making him seem like he had no idea what had just been happening. “Remove the prisoner.”

Something seemed to click in his mind when Billy began to argue with your father’s decision.

“Wait! Don’t I get to say anything? This sentence is plain unfair.” Billy asked.

You agreed. While you knew your father wasn’t a completely lawful person, he never dismissed the fact that everyone was given the right to a fair trial. With no idea what was exactly happening, you kept quiet and still in the back.

“I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t hurt anyone,” he rebuked again, raising his voice.

Your father harshly put the gavel down again. “I said, remove the prisoner!”

You were ready to push towards the front of the small room and demand that he give Billy a chance to speak. But you couldn’t move. If your father found out that you were here, you’d be a dead woman. He had made it perfectly clear that you shouldn’t insert yourself into his work. You were all he had left, your mother passing in childbirth along with your younger brother ten years ago.

As the room began to fill with chatter, two men moved over to Billy harshly grabbing his arms and pulling him towards the cell in the other part of the building. He was coming your way but you knew you couldn’t reach out to him. You would risk your father spotting you, or worse, the two men wrestling you away from Billy. Instead, you tipped your hat up slightly, enough so that anyone looking directly at you could see your eyes. Puckering, your lips you whistled a short tune, quiet but loud enough for him to recognize as the song his mother sang to him over and over again as a child. His head glanced up around the room, searching for the source of the tune. When his eyes met yours, his gaze lingered even as the men pulled him out of sight. Realizing that your face had been out in the open a little too long, you quickly dropped your hat back down and glanced around the room. No one had seemed to notice this few second interaction, except for one. The journalist. He stayed looking at you with concern in his eyes, but when you averted your gaze, he did too. The room was still for a moment, but out of the corner of your eye, you saw the journalist next to you calmly walk towards the front of the room.

“This is a travesty,” you heard him mutter quietly to your father, leaning towards him. “To make a kid pay for the things I’ve done?” What things? Did he get Billy wrapped up into whatever this is? “Shame on you, Judge.” Pushing himself off of your father’s stand, he moved towards the front doors. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him as he walked out, burning your gaze into the side of his head. He was almost out of your sight when he glanced towards you and gestured for you to follow. Without another word, the writer left.

“Hands,” the jailer said, redirecting your attention to Billy. You watched his hands pop out from the cell bars and the jailer removed the cuffs from his wrists. You couldn’t see his face, but from the way he retracted his hands from the reach of anyone, you knew he was livid. You thought back to the journalist. Mr. Upson, was it? Against your better judgment, you made your way towards the door, careful not to alert anyone else of your presence. When you embraced the outside and Upson was nowhere to be found, you caught yourself wondering if he really meant for you to follow him.

“Ms. Wilson.”

Turning around, you saw Upson leaning against a wooden support, a cigar to his mouth.

Clearing your throat, you opened your mouth to say something, but was quickly interrupted. “I believe we should talk. How ‘bout a walk home? Wouldn’t want your father findin’ out you’re out here.”

You made no reaction, yet he still walked on, leaving towards your home. With your mind moving faster than your feet, you watched him walk a block before you actually began to move. Kicking up the dust from the oversized boots on your feet, you finally were shoulder to shoulder with the journalist, looking up at him for answers.

“Why do you think Billy’s bein’ punished for something you did?” you ask.

He inhaled, taking a moment to come up with an answer.

“How much do you know about your father’s work?”

“Not much. I know he’s this town’s only judge. He’s got this other thing that he won’t tell me what it is, but he says it's for improvin’ our lives. Everyone’s lives out here.”

He laughed slightly at your innocence on the subject. “Sure, sure.”

“What? Did I say somethin’ wrong?”

“No, no,” he reassured. “Just…how much do you know about the Santa Fe Rings?”

The Rings? Not much. You knew that they were a power group out here in the West, but not much else seemed to be known about the members. From what you had heard, they tended to be on the richer side of folks out here. “Not a lot. Just what people like to say out here. What does that have to do with my father?”

“Did you know he was part of them?”

Your father was a part of the Santa Fe Rings? That would explain this other job that he claimed to have, but it couldn’t be. Your family wasn’t by any means rich and your father maintained honest work. He never made poor judgment on a case, no matter how much better it would be for anyone. You refused to answer him, only asking another question.

“But what does that have to do with Billy?”

“The men your father works for have got an issue with me bein’ around here. Me knowing Billy hurts him. They all think he’s doing digging for me and my investigating.”

“He isn’t, is he? He never mentioned it.”

“No. I tried to get his help a while back, but he’s stubborn. Doesn’t want to wait to resolve things.”

You nodded in agreement. You knew how impatient Billy could be. He got upset just waiting for you to grab your things if you were going out. Part of you wondered if it was because he felt the need to look over his shoulder all the time. Ever since he was little, he always had his guard up, waiting for something or someone to sneak up and take everything away. The only time he seemed to let his guard down was when he was drunk or when he was with you, and even then, it didn’t last long.

“Is there any chance they’ll retry his case?”

Upson just shook his head in response. “The Rings have their fingers way too deep out here. They got eyes and ears everywhere. If Billy is getting in the way of things, even unintentionally, he’s not getting out until his sentence is served. By then, they’ll probably come up with something new to charge him for if he’s still a problem.”

“Not even if I talked to my father?” you asked, genuinely wondering. But your question was answered the moment Upson’s arm swung across your chest to stop you from walking.

“None of this conversation reaches your father. He must not know you were in that courtroom today. Being here, talking to me, is already putting you at risk. If your father finds out, or anyone from the Rings, finds out there is even a slim chance of you being in the way, they’ll arrest you or even kill you.”

“Then why talk to me? Why put me in danger?”

He scoffed, continuing to walk forward towards your home, now in sight. “I need your help.”

“How am I going to help? Especially after you just told me to stay out of it?”

“Stay out of the way, yes. Let everything happen as normal. All I need to know is if something is going to happen. Your father is deeper in this than he lets on. To anyone.”

You already didn’t believe he was involved. The man who taught you how to survive out here yet still hold onto your morals? The man who raised you to stand up for the right thing? While you knew it was a possibility, you forced yourself not to believe it.

“Forget it,” you said, making your way to your front door. “I don’t wanna lie to my father, much less rat him out.” You took a pause. “IF…if he is what you say he is, then I’ll think about it. But the father I grew up with has never done anything in cold-blood. He believes in the fair and just.”

Upson hummed in response. “Okay, Ms. Wilson.” He tipped his hat to you. “You’ll know where to find me.”

You watched as he turned around, making his way back down the street he had just walked with you. His words were stuck in your head. Was there the possibility of your father being corrupted in his line of work? Even if it was true, how many people had then been hanged to save your father’s skin? To save anyone’s? Pushing those thoughts to the back of your mind, you quickly hurried inside to take your father’s clothes off. They suddenly began to itch and it made you want to claw at your skin. The moment you were inside the doors, you forced the fabric off of your body. No. Upson couldn’t get in your head. Your father was fair and just. Fair and just. Picking the discarded clothes off the floor, you ran to your room and put on the dress you were wearing this morning. Upson might have been wrong about a few things, but the one thing he was dead on about was the fact that your father could never find out that you were there. You hung his things back where they were supposed to be, making sure they looked as neat and untouched as possible.

Taking a deep breath, you decided there were a few things that needed to be done before your father got home. You grabbed the bucket sitting next to the door and walked out to the well outside your house. There was an elderly woman already there trying to lift her pail over the edge, but the rope only seemed to be slipping from her hands. Picking up your skirt, you rushed over to help, grabbing the rope from her hands.

“Thank you, dear. You have a good heart.”

“It’s no problem at all,” you said to her smiling. “Do you need help taking it back home?”

“No thank you dear. I’ve got my small cart to help me,” she said, gesturing over to her wagon already loaded with cloths and food from the market. After you helped her get everything settled, you watched her walk up while you got your own water from the well.

You couldn’t help but let your mind wander to what Upson said about the Rings being everywhere. If they did, why would he risk talking to you out in the open? You didn’t want to believe anything he claimed to be true, but a part of you couldn’t help but look over your shoulder now. Despite the fact that you didn’t want to be involved, you knew that you already were. Whatever relationship you had with Billy was bound to be questioned and with the possibility of your father being a part of the Rings, you knew you weren’t safe. Once you had a full bucket, you made your way back into the house, placing the water over the fire to warm for your bath tonight then began to prepare food for dinner. Once your father got home, you would have to act like you had been here all afternoon. And you couldn’t bring up the case either, despite how much you wanted to avenge Billy.

You sat at the table, food all prepared, waiting for your father to walk in the door. You could barely move from your spot on the table, your muscles tense and hands shaking. Your tongue was raw from biting it all evening. You couldn’t make up your mind. A part of you knew better than to question your father, but you wanted to know what was truly happening with Billy. But were you then really about to question your father? He wouldn’t hurt you, would he? He loved you, but that didn’t stop him from harming you for questioning his authority. Your breath halted when you heard the front door open. He’s home.

“Mmm, smells good. Y/N?”

“Yeah, Pa. I’m in here.” When his figure walked in, the small light in the kitchen illuminated the shadow of his body so that it towered over you. Your father wasn’t a sprightful man, but where he lost in that he made up for in sheer strength. You wondered if he would have been able to take down Upson or Billy if either one of them had initiated violence in the courtroom earlier today.

“How was your day, Pa?” you asked, standing up from your chair to begin making a plate for him.

“Tiring,” he groaned, placing his coat on the back of his chair and sitting down in the seat adjacent to you. “Had a tough case today.”

“Yeah?” you tried to seem oblivious. “Heard it was a kid.” “Where’d you hear that?” your father said awfully quickly.

Shit. You had no reason to be in town today. If you said something wrong, you know your father would be mad. “Mabel stopped by today. Giving me one of my books back. She’d been in town with her mother today.”

Your father said nothing, only humming at your answer. You placed his plate down in front of him and began to make yours. “It was a kid. Matter of fact, you know him. William Antrim. Was arrested for burglary last night. Such a shame for such a young boy” You tried not to react, no matter how much you wanted to argue. He knew that it was attempted theft. Why would he lie to you? Did he know you were lying?

“You mean Billy? Yeah, I know him. Helped out his mother in the restaurant last summer. He seemed like a nice boy,” you finished, setting your plate down and taking a seat next to your father.

“I don’t want you hangin’ around boys like that. Anyone committing crimes and diggin’ where their noses don’t belong are just asking for trouble. Trouble I don’t want my daughter caught up in.” He rested his hand on top of yours, meant for reassurance but only made you want to pull away. You knew your father was shady about his new Rings business, but maybe you didn’t know as much as you thought.

“Let’s say grace,” you suggested.

Without another word about Billy, your father agreed and began to pray. The both of you sat in silence for the rest of the meal, the only noises being the silverware on the glass plates and your father clearing his throat. The tension was thick and weighing over your heads. You hoped your father couldn't tell how angry you were with him not only for what happened to Billy but also for lying to you about it. When the food off your plate was finished, you stood up, placing your dishes on the prepping table. You'd wash them later when you could stand to be in the room with your father. You then walked over to the fire where you had been warming water for a bath. The pail had barely been lifted from the flames before your father spoke up.

“You know, I thought I recognized my old hat in the back of the courthouse today. Would you happen to know anything about that?” Fuck. You'd been caught. Did he know you were there for Billy or did he just assume you'd been there to see him? “I thought I told you not to involve yourself in my business.”

You took a deep breath. “I know, Pa. I know,” you said, turning to face your father. “I just wanted to go into town today and I figured I'd come see what things happen that you tell me stories about. But I knew-”

“When I told you to stay away from people like Antrim, I meant it. You were there for him today, weren't you, and don't you lie to me young lady.”

You couldn't get a word out before he spoke up again. “Despite what you may think, that ruling was fair and just and to know it.” His voice was beginning to raise and his body along with it. He stood from his chair and his fist pounded on the table along with his words. “Question my judgment again, Y/N, and you WILL regret it.”

Tears were threatening to spill over, but you cleared your throat and picked up the pail. “Yes, sir,” you managed to get out.

You didn't give your father another glance before heading to the washroom. You needed to wash the grime of your father's old clothes and the dust from the town off of your skin.

As you let the water cascade down your body, you couldn't help but think of Billy. It would be dark soon and he was stuck in a cell. From the way he looked at the trial today, he hasn't eaten much in the last few days. You knew that his mother had been sick before she died a week ago. She had contracted whatever his little brother had died from a month prior. He was all alone now. You knew he had hung out with the likes of Jesse every once and a while, but other than that, you were kind of all he had. The two of you weren't close friends by any means but he got along with you surprisingly better than him and Jesse. You were one of the first ones he went to when his family died. You understood what it was like to lose family. Although you still had your father, lately it had felt like you were the only person in your home. His business took him away from home far too often for your liking. You and Billy both filled that lonely hole in one another’s lives. You were pulled from your thoughts when you heard a knock on the door.

“Y/N, I know you're upset with me and what happened today, but you have to understand that I did what I had to.”

You scoffed, getting out of the water and grabbing your drying cloth. “I'm not talking to you, Pa.”

“You have no reason to be upset. Antrim was trouble as it was and it was only a matter of time before he snapped.”

“We're not talking about Billy. What's done is done, even if you're wrong,” you decided to argue. You were losing your temper. What happened was wrong and you know that is it was anyone else, there would have been a fair trial. But those in cohorts with Upson were doomed to Billy’s fate.

“I’m not wrong. The boy had what was coming to him. Better you learn that now so you don’t end up in the same predicament.”

“Don’t give me that shit, Pa. You know that you were only trying to save your own skin. You and them Ring fellows. All you were doin’ was keeping people from findin’ out the truth about you all.”

There was silence coming from the other side of the door. You wrapped yourself tighter in your drying cloth, worried that you had taken it too far. Everything that Upson had warned you about had just spilled out in anger for Billy. You made your way to the door, ready to push it open to see what happened when your father came storming in. You could almost see the steam coming out of his ears as he charged towards you. As far as you could, you backed up towards the wall, trying to keep yourself together in your father’s presence. As strong as he was, you could be stronger. No matter what your father did to you, you wouldn’t let it show.

“Now you listen to me, young lady,” he spit in your face, gripping you tightly by the chin. “What I do is none of your goddamn business. And if you wanna talk about what’s really happening in my work then you are just as good as that no good journalist you seem to want to defend. Bound for the noose,” he screamed. His fingers dug into your skin, burning their imprint in your skin. Your body was still as you didn’t allow yourself to move. He had never gotten this angry with you before, never walked in while you were indecent, and never laid a hand on you like this before. The person you thought you knew was completely gone. But maybe he was never there to start with. Against your will, you felt a small tear slip out of the corner of your eye, falling onto his hand.

“Do you understand me?” he seethed.

“Yes, sir.”

With one last search in your eyes to make sure you meant it, he dropped your face and turned around swiftly toward the door. You could almost feel your face bruising. When you reached your hands up to touch the marks, you realized just how much you had been shaking. You couldn’t live like this, scared of your father. Making quick work of gathering your things in the washroom, you blew out the lantern hanging and hurried across the hall to your room. The moon was shining nicely through your window, illuminating the space around you so you could see. Dumbstruck by what had happened, you didn’t bother drying yourself off or getting yourself dressed. All you could do was grab the small shotgun hiding inside your nightstand drawer and crawl under the covers. There was no need for your weapon before, but tonight you felt that you needed that extra layer of protection.

There was a knock outside of your window. At first, you brushed it off as dust or a branch hitting the window, but when you heard it again, you peeked your eyes open. You couldn’t see it clearly, but there was what appeared to be a shadow outside your window. It could just be the tree’s shadow bouncing off of the moon’s light, but it moved in a way only a person could. Realizing that you were still naked, you grasped the gun in your hand slightly, cocking it so you were ready to shoot if you needed to. After you heard glass shatter, you squeezed your eyes shut, relying solely on your gut for where to aim. There were some grunts, but not loud enough for you to figure out who it was. You waited a few seconds before flipping the gun up from out of the sheets. The person matched your speed, taking his gun out of its holster and pointing it directly at your head. But even in the dark, you could see his face, making you lower the gun almost instantly.

“You gotta get quicker than that if you hope to defend yourself, doll.”

Billy.

Watching as he placed his gun back on his waist, you then pretty much threw the gun across the room, no regard for your father probably sleeping in the other room. Trying to keep as much of your bed sheets around your body, you climbed over to Billy who was at the foot of your bed. He wrapped his arms around your form as you threw yours around his neck, practically jumping at him. Thankfully he was strong enough to keep the two of you from falling backwards.

“The hell are you doin’ here? How’d you…”

“I got out,” he said, pulling away from you. He leaned his forehead on yours and looked in your eyes. “We gotta talk.”

“We do. Billy, the hell? Why would you come here? This is gonna be one of the first places they look when they find you missing.”

“I bought myself some time. I needed to come here and find you before…”

“Before what?” you asked.

He needed to tell you. He couldn’t without telling you first. “Before I go.”

Letting your arms fall from around his neck, you sat back on your knees on your bed in disbelief. “You’re leavin’?”

“Y/N,” he began, leaning down to put his hand on your cheek. “I gotta get outta here. Ma’s gone, Joseph’s gone, Jesse left me for dead. I…I gotta go,” he finished with his voice cracking.

“Billy…” you barely let out. You could see tears starting to pool in his eyes. You’d only ever seen him cry twice before and it was when he lost his brother and mother. You mimicked his movements, caressing his face before taking his hat off and letting his brown curls fall loose. Letting your thumbs brush over his cheeks, you felt his now free falling tears on your skin. He was losing a lot by deciding to leave tonight. He was losing his friends, losing his family, losing his home. You couldn’t let him lose everything. “Let me come with you.”

His face flashed with confusion. Why would you want to leave all that you had? For him? It was then he noticed the purple blemishes on the bottom of your face that weren’t there this morning in the courthouse. “Who did this?”

It didn’t register right away what he was talking about, but when his fingers started to brush over your chin, the pain helped you figure it out. “It doesn’t matter.”

“YES IT DOES!” he raised his voice as loud as he could with your father next door. “It does, Y/N. I’m gonna kill ‘em.”

“Billy! All that matters is that I wanna get outta here. I can’t let you go off alone. I can’t let you lose everything.”

He felt that his heart would shatter any second. The only other person that cared for him like this was his mother. You would never know how special you were to him. Billy’s mind raced over the consequences, the negative possibilities of bringing you with him. As much as he would love for you to go, he’d rather you be safe. But were you safe here? Whoever did this to you certainly wasn’t someone you could be around.

“Okay.”

Your eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah, come with me.”

Reaching up, you leaned in, initiating a kiss. It started out slow and relaxed, before he registered what was happening. Billy deepened the kiss by brushing his tongue along your bottom lip, allowing yourself to open up to him. Your hands snaked around his neck in an attempt to bring him closer to you. His fingers hooked themselves under your chin, both of you melting together. There was a feeling in your stomach resembling what could only be described as butterflies and all you could do was let out a small whimper as he pulled away from the kiss. Just enough that they didn’t still stick to yours. “Y/N,” you heard him slightly whisper.

“Go, find us a horse. I’ll be ready shortly.”

He didn’t say anything, only smiled at you before grabbing his hat and heading out the way he came in. As quietly as you could , you stood from your bed and began to dress in the clothes you had on earlier today. You grabbed your small bag under your bed and began stuffing it with things you knew you’d need or want to keep. Some extra pairs of clothes, a blanket, extra bullets, a locket that your mother gave you when you were younger, and your guitar. You knew it wouldn’t fit in the bag, but you never left anywhere for long without it. As soon as you were ready, you grabbed the gun off of your bed and stuck it in your boot. One last thing, you told yourself. Setting everything down next to the window, you made your way out towards your father’s bedroom. You knew exactly where to find it, having placed it there this evening. Your father’s old hat. As much as you loathed him right now, you needed something to remember him by. Having hurt you or not, he was still your father, still the man who cared enough to keep you and raise you all these years. You watched his sleeping frame, body sprawled all over your mother’s nice sheets and an empty beer bottle in one hand falling over the edge of the bed. You won’t cry, you told yourself as you let your hand come up to brush the marks your father left. You were ready to be on your own. You NEEDED to be on your own…well, with Billy. Ready to leave the room, you spotted some stationary on your father’s desk. You thought for a moment before deciding it was best to write a letter. Scribbling as fast, but as neat as you could, you folded the completed letter and stuck it next to the gun inside your boot.

Making quick work to get out of your father’s room and back into yours, you noticed Billy already waiting at the window for you to hand your stuff out to him. You gave him your guitar and slung the bag across your body.

“Got the horse?”

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, avoiding answering your question and moving his hand up to glide his fingers on your bruises.

A quick peck on the lips was answer enough for him, but you figured you reassure him with words, muttering a small yes. Setting your guitar case down in the gravel, he helped you out the window, careful to guard your body from the glass shards still sticking out of the wood. You jumped down from the sill and into his arms before he gently set you on the ground. He walked over to the clearly stolen horse and began to strap your instrument to the animal, easier said than done. You were ready to tell him to forget it before he told you it was stuck and wasn’t going to fall off. He knew how much you liked to play, how much you liked to sing. He couldn’t let YOU leave this part of yourself behind. Getting on the horse, he made sure that he was settled and everything was in order before sticking his hand out to you. He pulled you up onto the horse, seated nicely behind him with your arms already around his waist.

“Before we leave, I need to make a quick stop.”

“Sure, he said, before urging the steed forward. He made his way through town, careful not to disrupt anyone or anything and avoiding the jail. How know one seemed to know he was missing yet blew your mind, but the only thing you were concerned about right now were delivering this note and getting the hell out of this town. You made sure you were on the side of the building, double-checking that this was, in fact, the room, before grabbing the piece of paper in your boot and sliding it under the window sill, far enough for the person to grab it. As soon as you knew it was secured, you told Billy you were ready. Spurring the horse on, you and Billy began to move faster than before, nearing the edge of town. The sky was near pitch black. The moon had by now disappeared behind the clouds and the stars were the only thing guiding your way. You let yourself fall into his back, letting yourself close your eyes as you both rode off into the night.

a/n: i'm back to writing and i've found some *cough cough* inspiration. I'm also willing to write more parts to this fic AS LONG AS IT IS ASKED FOR.

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sprout-fics · 10 months

Text

Falling Down to Earth (Part One)

(Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Medic "Fix" Reader)

Part Four of Snowblind

(Part Two Here)

Rating: Mature Wordcount: 7.6k Tags: Slow Burn, Heavy Angst, Trauma, Found Family, Taskforce 141, Team Dynamics, Hurt/Comfort, Unreliable Narrator, Self Esteem Issues, Referenced Familial abuse, Mom Laswell, Domesticity Warnings: References to childhood verbal abuse A/N: Three part character study of the medic named Fix, therapy included

There's exactly nine hours and ten minutes on the plane ride from England to Washington D.C. for you to finish falling down to Earth.

You sit in a far corner of the C-17, curled up on a seat and away from the other troops. Mostly American, some Canadian. They chatter for the first hour or so, and there's excitement, relief that buzzes through them. There’s smiles and laughter that drowns the fatigue of the things they've seen, the nightmares they'll all have. It doesn't matter right now. They're going home. Home to loved ones and familiar places, to joy and relief before the memories set in.In their camaraderie, someone produces a deck of cards, and there’s jovial laughter and friendly jibes as hands are played.

You listen from afar, gather bits and pieces of their lives- where they were stationed, for how long, where they're going home to, the people waiting for them. There’s an ounce of something that remains untouchable between them, refusing to speak of the bullet, the bombings and bombardments that scream in the silence of your mind. Some of them exchange numbers, share pictures of spouses, children, pets. There's a woman a little older than yourself who confesses she'll be proposing to her girlfriend the moment she lands, and the announcement is met by cheers and hardy claps on her shoulder.

You should join them, let the brightness of their joy drown away the dark pit that opens inside you with every mile that grows between you and the men you called brothers. Instead, every bit of illumination in their eyes seems to only make you sink further into yourself- wanting that happiness desperately for your own tender soul and far too afraid to reach for it.

There's no one to return to when you get home. Nobody to embrace you as you land, to burst from the door of a house and cry as they wrap their arms around you. Nobody to take you out to drinks even as you search the crowd for a familiar dark hoodie, a baseball cap, listen for a smoky, gruff voice or the lilting accent of a Scot. The only people for you are the people you've been forced to leave behind, staring across the sea and hoping maybe they'll think about you too.

You see the way the other troops eye you from afar, see the lost shape of you in your eyes that have long since stopped being able to shed tears. You think maybe one of them will come over, try to drag you from your thoughts, and for a moment you want so desperately for that to come true. It doesn't, and as the buzzer sounds and everyone finds their seats, you feel yourself descending to Earth once more, buckling away that horrid loneliness of you for whatever task comes next.

True to story, there's a small crowd of folks who welcome back the returning heroes with signs and embraces and delight. You tug your cap down a little farther, push past them and towards the direction of the base gate to grab a cab to...somewhere.

There's no one here for you. Not that you expected there to be. It's been a long time since you talked to your family. They'd tried to contact you while you were in university, and even now you can remember your father's commanding voice, warning you against the foolishness of your current path. He had been tempered only by your mother, with her docile, sad tremble, pleading for you to listen, to come home.

You stopped having a home with them a long time ago.

The last time you had heard from any of them was from your brother, the golden child, asking if you'd please consider coming to his candidacy announcement. Sweet, apologetic, filled with false niceties the result of only forceful ignorance.

"I don't know what happened between you and Dad, but maybe consider he said whatever he did because he cares about you?"

You hung up the phone, took your deployment papers, and never looked back.

Now, in a city that you've grown up in, one that feels like a foreign land, you falter, look to the wind for guidance. Air rushes past your form as you feel the center of yourself falling, an Icarus desperately reaching for the sun as you hurtle down into the dark waves of the ocean below. There’s no hands to catch you, nothing to stop your fall as you desperately grasp for an anchor against the gravity that forces you down into nothing.

You turn on your phone, watch it light up and prepare to call yourself a cab to a hotel. You're pretty sure your lease ended a long time ago, apartment cleaned out of the few things remaining there. You didn't bother to check, never expecting you'd be anywhere but here.

Surprisingly, you see a little green bubble pop up from one of the only numbers you have saved.

Laswell.

Fix. It reads, and you can almost hear Kate's clipped, wry tone in her words. If you're looking for a place to stay, come to this address. I've got a spare bedroom, and it sounds like you could use it. Let me know if you make other arrangements.

Attached is an address on the other side of the city, an hour's drive from where you are. You're ready to tap on it when there's one more message that appears beneath your thumb.

Text me when you get this. The boys want to know you made it home safe.

You're glad Kate isn't here to watch the sorrow color your eyes at the reminder of the men who have left you behind. You send a quick reply, summon a ride, and once more feel the world spin once more beneath your gaze as it rushes upwards, uncertain of where you will at last land when you sink through the clouds and into the ruin of yourself.

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

It’s a nice house, you think.

Pressed up against a small thicket of trees, the brown brick bungalow exudes solitude, tucked away at the end of the aspen lined lane. The roof slopes steeply upwards, shingled and crossed over at the eaves with German styled paneling. It's older than many of the homes on the same street- newer, trying to appear older than they are with the faux stone exteriors and freshly installed windows.

The house before you is one of the few that has remained the same, steadfast against a changing world. Worn, tiles on the roof in need of mending, the stone steps gritty with dirt and age. It's quieter, yet somehow warmer than the homes around it. Like a hearth, it beckons you closer, offers the temptation of sanctuary. You can see a window jutting out into the direction of the side yard, a hidden perch that whispers of a quiet, needed withdrawal.

A glance down at your phone shows Kate’s message, the white letters contrasted against the gray darkness of your screen.

I won’t be home until after dinner, but Paula will be home. She’ll show you around :)

You shoulder your bag- standard issue military duffel- onto your back, trying to swallow down the gnawing sense of reluctance that paces the inner confines of your thoughts. The wince at the motion comes before you can stop it- the reminder of your suspension still scathing fresh against your skin. The lace of pain in your side instantly summons the memory of words fired between the sterile whiteness of a hospital room, aching with that same hurt.

“You have nothing to prove, Fix.”

“I have EVERYTHING to prove!!”

Even now, the freshly healed bullet wound you’d carefully concealed aches with an insistent, dulled sharpness against your ribs- almost worse than Price’s devastating command, thundering down onto you with dreaded finality.

“You’re suspended. Come back when you’ve got your head on straight.”

It hurts.

Not the wound itself, but the consequences you’ve reaped in the act of hiding it from the others- thinking that your injury would betray your own inner weakness. Deeper than a bullet, the horrifying, dreaded result of your own actions wind around your limbs like shadowy tendrils, dragging you down with an inertia you can’t control, wax wings melted by the sun.

Yet here the windows of the house glow warmly in the drawing dusk, candles in the dimness flicker, summoning you into their gentle embrace.

The hollow knock on the old wooden door seems to mimic the emptiness in your own heart, crying out in an emptiness you’ve always known, one you won’t be able to fill even with the insurmountable number of your disappointments.

The one who answers the door isn’t Kate. No, it’s a figure that’s a bit shorter, brown-eyed, coiling hair pulled away from her face. Still, the warmness of her eyes when she smiles, the brightness of her stare feels familiar, welcome.

“You must be Fix.” Kate’s wife greets, standing aside as your toes balance on the threshold. “I’m Paula. Please, come inside.”

You murmur a thanks, quiet and muted, eyes gazing down at your feet. You shuffle inside, perch precariously in the foyer as she shuts the door behind you.

This feels…wrong.

You desperately want it to not be so. You want to enjoy this- a warm house, a friendly face, a place to stay, to catch yourself. Yet there’s ghosts here, ones that whisper of chandeliers and polished centerpieces, beautiful tapestries and furniture meant only to look at. An artificialness you thought you abandoned long ago but persists even now. The scent of your father's office in your nostrils mutes Paula's gentle words.

“You can put your bag right here, we’ll get you settled later.” Paula gestures to a couch in the room beside you, where a dozing German Shepherd lies splayed against a frayed blanket. He gives you a few lazy thumps of his tail, raising a grey muzzle before flopping back once more. “Don’t mind Whiskey, he just had a run in the backyard, he’ll come say hello in a bit.”

Wordlessly, you drop the bag down on the cushions, turning back to Paula. Yet when your lips part, there’s no words. What do you even say?

I don’t want to be here. I want to be with them. This feels too much like the home I used to know, the same one I want to forget.

…Do you know where I can find myself again?

Your eyes find Paula’s, and all those words seem to be conveyed in your gaze alone. Heartbreak, bitter disappointment, longing, despair, a fury muted only by your own inescapable loneliness.

She takes a step forward, and you almost want to retreat, to press yourself away from her on instinct, a fragile thing that even a gentle touch might shatter. Yet there’s no threat in her eyes. Instead, there’s a warmth, a sadness that’s stifled by something that feels dangerously close to tenderness, to hope.

When her arms wrap around you, it feels less like a sentence and more like the inevitability of falling into a place where you want to rest the tender, hurt fringes of your soul.

You bury your face into her shoulder and sob like the child you never got to be.

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

True to her word, Kate comes home well after dark, bags under her eyes heavy as she drapes her jacket across the back of the couch. Whiskey, who until that point had been sitting attentively by your feet as you idly stroked his ears, barks and bounds over to Laswell, feet splaying forward and tail wagging. You watch as the fatigue in Laswell's eyes brightens to fondness, and she kneels to offer the German Shepherd a ruffle of his neck and a few tender words.

When she stands, she notices you past the door of the kitchen, perching on one of the barstools as Paula finishes making dinner.

"Fix." She offers in greeting, and she sounds oddly pleased, different than her usual, severe instruction to you and the team. "Good to see you."

You swallow around a piece of cracker and cheese and offer her a hesitant, shy glance with a smile that doesn't reach your eyes.

"Hi Chief." You supply in turn, and Kate waves a hand at you as she passes into the kitchen, Whiskey at her heels.

"You can drop the honorifics." She tells you, humor concealing the drain the day has had on her. "You're in my kitchen eating food from my pantry. This is about as informal as it gets."

"That would be my kitchen, actually?" Paula supplies her with an arched eyebrow as she stands over the stovetop, overseeing the steaks in the cast-iron pan. Yet as Laswell reaches her the feigned annoyance in her eyes fades to something sweeter, and she cranes her head as Laswell delivers a fond peck to her wife's cheek. "Hi hun, long day?"

"Aren't they all?" Kate replies, peering over Paula's shoulder and making a pleased noise at what she finds.

You shift a little where you sit, feeling suddenly as if you're deeply intruding on a very private moment between the two women.

Kate seems to notice, and she turns to you, grey eyes regarding your stiff, uneasy figure perched beside the counter. You're still dressed in your fatigues, haven't yet retrieved a change of clothes from your bag still dropped onto the couch. It makes you feel strangely out of place. Within the dim, ambient light of the kitchen, in a place that feels like the tender warmth of a hearth, the green and grey camo of your uniform makes you seem a whole world away.

You think Laswell might follow you there, might immediately ask about what happened in England, about your fight with Price, about the healing bullet wound in your side, about how long you'll be here.

Instead, Kate smiles and asks: "Chocolate or pistachio?"

You falter, perplexed by her non-sequitur, eyes blinking as you provide: "Choc...olate?"

Kate nods sagely and vanishes back in the direction of the living room. You hear her rustle around for a moment before she appears once more, hands full before she deposits a plastic container on the kitchen counter in front of you. You blink at the dessert, once more feeling a bit out of place with the strange mundanity Kate has bestowed upon you.

"Cannoli." She quips, and it startles a little gasp from Paula, who turns and delightedly snatches a plastic container from her wife's hands.

"Eastern Market?" She asks happily, and Kate nods, looking a touch pleased with herself. "No wonder you were so late."

Kate offers a tired shrug, taking a bite of her own dessert, to which Paula tsks.

"Dessert before dinner?" She inquires, and again Kate shrugs. Yet this time there's that wry smile of hers tugging at the corner of her lips as she leans against the counter beside you.

"Who's to say we can't?" She replies, and when she glances at you her eyes flicker down to your own dessert and then up to you with a meaning there you don't fully understand yet. Her grey gaze rests on yours as if she's trying to convey a message through her stare alone. It remains to be deciphered, unwritten and unspooled just like the depths of you.

When you take a bite, the sweetness coats your tongue, and there's a small, foreign part of you that twinkles with joy, like the barest sound of wind chimes in a warm breeze.

-----

Kate shows you to your room after dinner and dishes. It's sparse. A bed, a dresser, a desk, a lamp, a closet. The window you saw earlier looks into the backyard, a cushion seated inside the frame like a silent lookout. It pleases you, oddly, scratches the part of your brain that instinctively seeks perches from which to set up a sniper position.

"It's not the Ritz Carlton." Laswell tells you as you stand, frozen on the threshold. "So, you'll have to bear with it."

"No." You whisper mildly. "It's...it's perfect."

You've spent so much time sleeping in trenches, on rooftops, on planes and in safehouses and not sleeping at all that this- this room with the downy white comforter and the soft hazy light of the lamp by the bedside...is more than you think you deserve.

You lower the duffel onto the bed with a considerable amount of hesitation, feeling Kate's eyes on you as you trace the print on the decorative pillow nestled at the headboard. She's silent, in that way of hers that you know is watchful, contemplative, discerning the secrets of others like sifting sand through her fingers in search of sea glass.

"Thank you." You offer after considerable silence, feeling and gratitude beyond words, trying to swallow down the protests that threaten to spill outwards.

I don't deserve this. You think. How can I possibly stay here, with you, after you chose me and I failed? How can you forgive me for that?

When you turn to Kate, she somehow sees all of this and more written across your gaze, and she sighs.

"Fix." She begins, and normally that's enough to make you panic, shift inwards and prepare yourself to be defensive, to receive orders and bury any doubts in exchange for duty. You expect instructions, constraints, consequences in the way you've lived all your life.

Yet Laswell holds her breath, looks at you with an emotion that feels too wise and sibylline to be pity or concern. Instead, it reminds you of the prophecy she held in her gaze in Ethiopia, where she told you to find her once more, had drawn you in like a moth to flame as if she knew you needed to be burned whole to find yourself amidst the ashes.

"Whatever you need." Kate offers at last. "I'm here. I mean that."

You want to believe her, want so desperately to bask in her comfort and ask of her more than you can bear, but the whisper of something deep and dark and unknown coils in your ear, drags you down and muffles any other sound than "Thank you."

It doesn't seem to satisfy Kate, because the line of her mouth goes taut and grim, form a little tense and it's hard to not think of it as disapproval.

"There's something else." She supplies in the silence that follows. "Price...mandated that you see a therapist while you're on leave. I'm supposed to sign off when you're fit to return to duty."

You can acutely hear the sound of your own heart hammering in your ears, feel the world spin in dizzying chaos once more as you process Kate's words.

"I thought you should know." Kate tells you as your face shifts in something close to fright, anxiousness. "But in exchange you can't keep pretending like there's nothing wrong."

There is nothing wrong. You want to tell her, knowing that it's a lie. So instead, you offer her silence, refuse to damn yourself further with your protests.

Kate paces over to the desk, pulls a drawer and produces a journal, places it gingerly on the surface of the desk before looking back to you.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. You don't even have to tell your therapist if you want. If you tell no one else, at least try and tell yourself."

You don't respond. What is there to say? Confess why you know you're here, that you think this is wrong despite that? That somehow for all the ruin in you, you're being punished?

Kate holds your gaze for a long moment before she closes her eyes, seemingly in resignation, pacing over to the door.

"The others..." She tells you, halfway turned to you, dim shadows slating across her form. "They care about you, Fix. We all do. I hope you remember that."

There's a pain then, one that flashes through you, makes something dull and rotted inside you crave towards brightness. You don't truly understand why it hurts until much later, curled in bed, staring at the ceiling in the darkness and trying to uncover the secrets of your own heart.

You think, deep inside, it's because you want to care about yourself too.

-------

The days that follow inch by.

You try your best to make yourself at home, memorizing the schedules of the women who host you. Laswell wakes first, at an hour most would consider ungodly, making herself a meager breakfast composed mostly of coffee before she kisses Paula and heads out towards the Pentagon. Paula follows later, flitting about the house muttering about misplaced papers, keys, glasses, her purse. You learn the first evening with them that she's counsel to a large immigration defense firm in the city, her hours intense but fairly flexible. She's usually back by early afternoon and manages to retain a wealth of energy Laswell seems to lack upon her arrival. The days repeat themselves, and every morning you watch them leaves, ears ringing in the quiet, empty house they've left behind.

You try to relax, as Laswell has ordered you, at least for the first few days. You read books, leaf through the Washington Post, go on long, rambling walks with Whiskey and end up with his head in your lap as you flick through movies on TV. You watch the characters there fall into silly, desperate love, jump from burning buildings and look into the camera with dewy, glowing gazes. It feels so foreign to you, so very detached from the things you've experienced, the life you've led.

The journal on your desk goes untouched.

Kate arrives back in the evenings, and sometimes she's too tired to even talk, forcing herself to eat and then collapsing on the couch for an hour, Whiskey splayed across her front. You join her in mutual company, curl onto the other sofa and sink into the confines of your own thoughts in mutual silence. Sometimes you join Paula in the kitchen, aid her in washing dishes and cleaning the remains of dinner. Yet the unwavering warmth in her, the brightened chatter she offers feels too sharp, too indulgent against your frayed, muted senses.

Instead, you find yourself with Kate, who talks in a low, quiet voice. The tone of her feels like the ocean casting gently against a pebbled beach, rhythmic and soothing, cradling you as the clipped, wry intonation of her drops away in the solitude of evening. You feel for the first time as if you're observing not Laswell but Kate. Somehow softer but just as resilient, a glimmering glass that reveals the machinations of the world itself.

Kate talks to you about music, about politics, to which you find yourself closely aligned, about pop culture that Paula chimes in on, about her travels. She regales you with stories about her missions abroad, spending time in the dust bowls of the Middle East, of beautiful tea shops and warm people. She spins images of ruined buildings but the people there straining against injustice and wanting desperately to not just survive but to thrive. She tells you of trips down into the heart of Sub-Saharan Africa, of tracing networks of terrorists through jungles and of the many languages she's spoken to find them.

She doesn't tell you about the lives she'd lost as a result.

She's careful not to talk about work, you notice. Any intel she has to share, that which you would normally be privy to, remains conspicuously absent in your conversations. There's no discussion of intel on AQ, on Russian gangsters or foreign mercenaries or underground criminal networks. She's purposeful, calculated, and more often than not you're led by her conversations so much so that you forget the questions you want to ask.

What did you find? Where? Who? Will you send them? Which ones?

...How are they?

The mere thought of the 141 aches you to the bones, makes you hurt so badly it cracks at the very foundation of you. You haven't heard from them since you left England, and every day that passes you catch yourself staring into the messages last sent by them. Gaz, inviting you to come watch a soccer match with him and Price, one that ended up drawing all of you as Soap groaned in defeat and Gaz stood proudly on the couch whooping at the TV. Price, reminding you wheels up in fifteen, suggesting you double check your medic kit one more time before you all leave. Soap, a selfie of you and the others at a bar, where Price and a dark hooded figure sit passively in the background.

Ghost, with your message a parting, aching gift you sent while you were recovering from your original injury after being shot. He had texted to let you know he and Price would arrive shortly, bring you a change or two of clothes from your bag, that they were five minutes out.

You had sent back "See you soon."

It's on more than one night you hug your phone to your chest, chest lacing with a pain where you can't discern the phantasmal from the physical. It feels like a curse, one with no remedy, a dangerous, sacrilegious hypocrisy you scream against with no escape. It's a reminder that you, you were the one to put yourself here, the rope that bound you to them frayed by your own mistakes and snapping into nothingness, watching them rise far above you atop the summit of impossible expectations you built for yourself. You scrabble to climb it anyways, carrying stones to place at the zenith so you'll never reach the apex of your own victories.

You shake apart in your bed at night, tremble in the dark and find echoes in your sorrow. You feel your chest weigh down with the poisonous solitude and sink you further into the abyss of the ocean, far from the sun. It's dark, cold, insufferably lonely and despite the soft comfort of your bed it feels like at the slightest touch you'll splinter into irreparable fragments of yourself.

You wish you were still with them, and the pain of it draws you taut like a bowstring. Their fingers skim along your thoughts and memories, along the tether of you so they can listen to the hum. At a moment's notice they'll recoil away from you in your thoughts, snap and release. You crave the temptation of allowing yourself to shudder into their grasp, their hands embracing you and tracing along your surface like trying to coax poison from a wound. You want so desperately for them to not leave you behind, to stay in their hearts where they might someday accept you with grace, listening to the whisper of your surrender in being loved by them.

When you wake in the mornings you don't recognize the birdsong outside, mistaking it for the whistle of impending missiles.

You sometimes wonder if they died while you were asleep.

------

It's that second week into your stay that you go to see your issued therapist for the first time.

Despite your protests Paula takes time off work to take you there herself. You assure her you can call a taxi or even walk there if you have to. You've hiked kilometers wearing your whole gear set and pack before, this is not difficult. Yet Paula merely hushes you, reminds you once again of your injury, and you realize it's a lost cause to argue with her.

Even so, you squirm uncomfortably in the car on the way over, cheeks warm, feeling like a little kid again being taken somewhere you don't want to go. The sensation follows you inside, as you sit ramrod straight in the waiting area, too tightly wound to relax even an inch. Paula had given you the grace of leaving you there by yourself, but for some strange reason you wish she hadn't. Even in your shame of attending this mandatory punishment you wish selfishly that maybe she'd return, cover your hand and let the erratic thump of your heartbeat settle in your lungs.

Eventually the door to the interior office opens, and out steps an older man, hunched over with a cane, grey hairs sticking out from under a cap that reads 'Vietnam Veteran'. He glances at you over his glasses, pauses just long enough to give you a nod with a smile that barely contains the grimace underneath. It's only once he's passed that the doctor behind him calls for you, and you shoot to your feet, a live wire rigged with electricity.

The inside of his office is...quiet. It's a little strange, admittedly. There's knick knacks scattered across the shelves, wedged between acclimations and awards, plants with long stems spilling across the windowsill behind his desk. More of them perch on various stands and stools, tenderly cared for and alighting the space in greenery. The bookshelves scarcely contain the number of books within them, some stacked slightly askew to make room for more. Yet despite the crowdedness it isn't messy. It simply feels...full. Cozy, like the warmth of an open heart.

"Fix." You correct him when he sits across from you. You realize he doesn't bother with a pen and paper, doesn't sit in front of a laptop screen. You weren't sure what you were expecting- perhaps a dry, sterile office in pastel colors with motivational poster and a man clinically scratching down shorthand with a murmur of 'and how does that make you feel?'

"Fix." He agrees with a kind smile, and the sound of your own name is enough to make your leg stop bouncing.

He doesn't launch straight in, taking a moment to inform you of your rights and responsibilities as a patient, the things he is and isn't allowed to share. He reminds you that you still need to pass a psych eval before you're cleared for duty, and you swallow the urge to ask him if you can do that part already, recite the answers you already know and get back to where you belong. Yet you know Laswell, with her keen perceptive eyes, would only sigh in disappointment, recognizing the transparency of you.

"I'm a medic." You tell him in response to his prompt to introduce yourself despite the fact he's already read your file. "I'm the designated medic for an international terrorism taskforce. I can't tell you the name."

He waits expectantly, as if for you to provide something else. You falter, trying to figure out if there's anything else you should add. Yet nothing appears, nothing else than your identity built through purpose, a thing designed inherently to be useful for others.

"Do you do anything outside of work, Fix?" He gently pries, and again you hesitate, trying to find something in yourself you aren't sure exists.

"I...sometimes go out with my teammates." You offer after a pause. "Pubs, usually. Soap and Gaz, they..." You trail off, feeling once more that pain pulse through you, a hard and heavy burst of awareness against your ribs that makes the air in your chest catch. "Soap and Gaz, they like to go dancing sometimes. They dragged me along once but I didn't like all the noise and the crowds so I didn't go again."

"Sounds like you're fairly close with them." He remarks as he sits back in his chair, and you try not to grimace at his words. There's a deep ache in your chest that makes you want to press a hand there, feel the hollow where the absence of your team lies.

"Maybe." You reply enigmatically, shifting your eyes away, letting your gaze trace the electric clutter of the room, the morning sunlight streaming through the windows. You think about the veteran you just saw, wonder if that’s how he sees you too- some scarred, broken thing with eyes looking distantly to the past where your nightmares echo into your soul.

"Where are they now?" He goes on, and the chest ache deepens, forces the air low in your ribs as your brow knots. You think about the faces of Soap, of Gaz, as they lingered outside your hospital room after you pushed them away. The guilt, the tearing regret inside you threatens to choke your lungs, send warmth flooding to your eyes with the memory.

"England." You answer, voice very small. "Or...I don't know. They could be deployed. I haven't been told. They..." You trail off, feel the downward spiral open inside you once more, your awareness circling the drain into where your deepest, darkest thoughts lie.

"I failed them." You say suddenly, surprising even yourself with the abrupt confession. It's more to yourself than to anyone else, a solemn reminder of the person you are, the things you couldn't achieve, the deep frost of the shadows they cast on you as they hike ever onwards into the hills.

"How so?" The therapist asks, and you look down into your fingers webbed together, upturning your palms as if they have answers.

"I...fucked up. Got myself shot." You breathe after several long minutes of silence, where you think he will fill the void, and instead waits for you. He takes a deep inhale, lets it go in contemplation before speaking.

"I don't think getting shot counts as failing them, not when you're in our occupation." He provides, and it makes your head shoot up, blinking as you meet his gaze.

"Our...?" You echo.

"Former army medic." There's a gentle smile on his face as he explains. "Left the service and went back to school. I still help soldiers, just a little different these days."

"Oh."

You're not really sure what to say to that, face turning downwards towards your hands once more. You think about the times they've been caked with blood, how often you've felt someone else's pulse bleed across your fingertips. The memories of the men and women you'd treated amidst the hail of gunfire, the whistle of incoming mortars and the distant thunder of tanks rise automatically- a warm, wet pulse on the underside of your skin. You remember every face, every set of eyes on the people you've saved, the horror of death looming in the distance.

All of them. Afraid. Confused. Desperate. Lost.

Just as you are, you think. Lost in a fate you can't seem to control no matter how desperately you strive against it. You’re constantly trying to strain towards the heavens even as you hurtle down through layers of clouds, watching feathers cast an abstract of loss behind your descending form.

"Can you tell me about what happened after you were shot?" The man before you offers once more in the silence that follows, one filled only with the thrum of your heartbeat. You breathe shaky, unsteady sigh, trying to calm the twisting knot in your stomach as you struggle to answer against the pain of recalling what events led you here.

"I went back to our home base with them" You answer at last. "...But they had to be called away on another mission, and I was still healing so I couldn't go."

You remember Price. You remember his hands on your shoulders, his face turned down. Weary but kind, stern but gentle, all the things you desperately wanted in him, soothing the balm of forgotten memories. The sound of the oak door in your father's office shutting behind you with a click that spoke of finality.

"I...was trying to heal faster." You go on, leg bouncing once more as you fail to contain the rising, frenetic energy inside of you. "I was trying to make sure I could be fine once they got back, but..."

You trail off, feel silence press heavy on your shoulders.

"But?"

"I ended up really fucking things up instead." You reply, voice small, and it hurts. The volume of your words sounds like childhood, of the echo bouncing back from the repository of the things you longed desperately to shed, to be made anew. "Made a right mess of things."

"How so?"

You grimace, feel tears threaten in your eyes. The taste of a sob sours on your tongue, and you force yourself to swallow the bitterness of it instead.

Don't cry. Don't cry. You remind yourself. Don't show them. Don't let them know.

They might leave you.

When you don't answer, let minutes lap into nothingness, his voice at last fills the emptiness between you. Gentle, coaxing, reminding you of a smoke laden reassurance that shudders through you with longing.

"It sounds like you put a lot of pressure on yourself." He observes quietly.

You pause.

Your bullet wound hurts.

"Yeah, well, someone has to." You at last reply ruefully. Your shoulders feel too tight, aching with the weight of the wings you’ve used to loft yourself towards sparkling heavens, only to reach too far and instead witness the looming maw of darkness under you.

You hate this.

You hate the feeling of someone peeling back layers of your skin, slicing through the exterior of you with a scalpel like gaze. You hate how gentle his eyes are despite how wretchedly vulnerable you feel, despise the way he can be so soothing and yet somehow reveal the rotten interior of your soul. It burns, and the pain concentrates on the center of your failures, where a bullet ripped flesh from your form and rendered you lost in the labyrinth of yourself, unable to find a way out.

"-and that person is you? Why?" He asks, and his voice echoes out, feels like it reverberates in the hollow center of you, bouncing endlessly in an irreligious choir that sings of the things you don't understand.

"I...don't know." You answer, and it's a lie. You know it is. You know the tether that binds you extends years into the past, is wrapped tight in the fist of the one whose voice echoes in the cavern of your thoughts. He dwells in the ocean below, where churning, disastrous waves of emotion close over your drowning form.

"Worthless."

The man before you pauses, seems to consider the things you've said, and the words that stay unspoken in the silence. It reminds you a bit of Laswell, of the way she can pluck unseen things from the mist and discern them like the tides of the world itself. You're caught in the rip current, carried to an unknown destination as the men you hold dear drift further away from you, their backs turned from your voice that refuses to call out.

You wish they’d turn and cast their eyes upon your form, that maybe they'd rescue you.

You're too afraid to ask.

"I think we can find out, Fix." The man before you offers at last, and it feels both like a shimmer of light in the darkness and a shadow that blots out the sun. Hopeful, terrifying, entirely foreign but somehow wanted.

"Will you tell me more about your teammates?" He goes on to ask, and you do raise your head at that, blink into his spectacled gaze with his warm smile that feels like an embrace you don't deserve.

The words tumble out before you can stop them.

You tell him. You tell him about the men you've served with, of your brothers. You tell him about Soap, with his brawny and boisterous voice, of his playful and endearing banter. You tell him about how the Scot was the first besides Price to welcome you to the team, was the one to give you your nickname when he had bled into your hands. You tell him about the moments where Soap is softer, gentler, offering himself to you in a way he hoped you'd might one day return.

Gaz, with his softer smile and unwavering focus, his deep loyalty to his team members that bolsters you all. He sees the things the rest of you don't, gaze sharp like the scope of a rifle you're all too familiar with. There's a softness to him unlike the others, one that you will sometimes forget in the midst of him at your back under a hail of gunfire. You know the sound of his laughter, know the bump of his arm against yours and the tenderness in his eyes at the things you won't admit.

Then Price, with his stern guidance that you never fail to adhere to, the hand on your shoulder that conveys more than words. You feel safety under the shelter of his wing, look to his stare that looks past the obstacles that stand in his way. He paves the way before you all, secures the ground behind you, stands in unrelenting, furious opposition to the forces that dare advance upon your mission. Yet despite his violence you feel the trust he shares in you, and you desperately crave to someday live up to it.

Ghost.

Ghost, whose real name you don't yet know, just like so many things about him. The first time you met him was in a briefing room, Price standing tall beside you and announcing you to the team. Ghost had leveled his dark, dead gaze at you from afar, and despite the urge to shrink away you had instead returned his stare wordlessly, allowing your own resilience to shine through. You remember how his eyes had widened a mere fraction, a tell you would come to learn as interest.

You know it had been him who had taken off your boots when you collapsed into your bunk after Nepal. You know it had been him to give Price the thermos of tea to bring you in the hospital. You know it had been him who had gently lowered you onto the floor of the plane upon your return to England, ensured you wouldn't wake up sore and hurting.

You know it was he who had told Price of your failures- had revealed the depths of your own self-hatred blossoming like carnations across the skeletal grasp of his glove.

You know he's always been able to see you more than anyone else.

You don't say all this, of course, the secrets of your wishes and desires for these men stay close to your heart. You know by now the sacredness of things left unsaid, even if the swell of them inside you threatens to fester your bones, rip feathers from your flesh.

Don't let them know. Don't let them know. Don't let them know because you'll find out just how disappointed they are. You'll find out they never wanted you to begin with.

At last, your therapist nods, as if to himself, before leaning forward a bit so his elbows rest on his knees. He looks at you, and in your weary heart left in the wake of your memories, you feel the clairvoyant gaze of him pierce into your ribs where the ache of it all dwells.

"Can you come back next week?" Is all he offers.

You aren't sure. You want to say no, that this is far too much, that you've already spoken more than you want to. You're afraid if you share more he might somehow decide your fate for you, might pull the strings of fate so you will never return to the place you're supposed to be.

Yet, somehow, you say yes instead.

------

You go home, silent on the drive with Paula, who gives you grace in the absence of words. You are silent for the rest of the day too, offer scant bits of conversation as you pick at dinner. The world feels different somehow. The air rushing past your ears feels quieter, the wind not as sharp against your skin. You’re still falling, still sinking, still watching the heavens loom too large above your form. You recall the memory of being younger, smaller, looking up at the unfathomable expanse of the world and wondering when you would grow to meet its size.

You stare up at it in the darkness of your bedroom, hear the gale howl in the silence of midnight. There’s questions left to you that you have no answers for, upturning your palms once more and trying to sift sand through them in search of something there you don’t yet know.

"That person is you? Why?"

It has to be me. You think to yourself, hearing the sound of your own voice hush against the emptiness of your room. Nobody else is here anymore to do the same. I have to be better. I can't fail. I can't disappoint them. That way they can't see the failure I am inside.

Don't let them see. Please, dear God don't let them see.

It's a desperate cry into the midnight, a hand thrown up in desperation that sears against the sun. The blistering brightness of it burns against the back of your eyelids, rendering you blind to yourself. White consumes your vision, and you hear the fated whisper of snow blindness echo against the fraught fringes of your soul once more.

"I see you. Just you."

You blink, once more feel the tug of pain in your side where his hand had clamped down on your scarlet wound. The sight of his eyes is inescapable in the realm of your thoughts. Dark, grim, gazing into you as if somehow he is discerning himself. You remember those same eyes as you had bled over his fingertips, had begged him to please, please not look. You remember seeing something that flickered across his stare, that had shaken you to your core, trembled the foundation of the earth under your feet.

Grief.

You rise from your bed, stare into the darkness of your room, feeling the Earth rotate under your falling form. You spread your arms, trying to slow your descent as you pace over to your desk where the gift from Laswell lies.

If you can't tell anyone. At least tell yourself.

You pick up the journal and begin to write.

Tag List: (Reblog this post to be added to future fics from this series! If you'd like to be removed please DM me!)

@dankest-farrik @zwiiicnziiix @moondirti @sritashimada @ladiilokii @yeyinde @sandinthemachine @verdandis-blog @guyfieriiii @fan-of-encouragement @starlitnotes @alicesfracturedmirror @rentaldarling @mockerycrow @atenceladusiaawfytbwb @tinykaka @dumb-djarin @homicidal-slvt @soapskneebrace @nightingale-ghost-writer @selinn777 @nachtcirce @jujubashow @mutuallimbenclosure @kkinky @trash-boi-4-life @scatter-mind001

#simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon 'ghost' riley #mw2 #cod mw22 #Simon ghost riley x oc #reader insert #cod x reader #fic: shadow and bone #oc: fix #I'm actually really proud of this #and honestly this series isn't as beloved as some of my other faster dirtier sloppier pieces #But I'm okay with that #because at the end of the day this story is and has always been for me #It isn't something I choose to write #It's something that's existed in me all along #and even if people don't like it I am desperately in love with Fix's world and that's what matters

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