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stormhearty · 3 months

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Paring: former Azriel x Reader

Triggers: mentions of cheating, mentions of death, cursing, a lot of bold and italicize

Word Count: 3K+

Summary: The High Lords called a meeting to discuss the Death-God’s resurrection. However, with the death of their Seer, tensions run high between Day and Night Court, Helion outraged by the loss of your life. Truths are revealed and lies are exposed. And what happens when the High Lords realize that they have all been too late?

Note: I thank you all for all the love you have given to my one shot!! I had never thought it would have been so well received by fans and writers! I am very amused by everyone's reactions and thoughts on the one shot — everyone is wanting blood and redemption for our poor reader. And she will! This chapter is a segway/filler chapter — but still important. It's still angsty, don't worry. This one shot will probably become a 3 part series. I know in that voting poll I had done asked if you guys wanted a 5k chapter, rather than a 2- 2k chapters, but I wanted to leave you guys with one more chapter to look forward to! Please look forward to it!

Part One | Part Three | Epilogue

<Pushed to the Edge> Masterlist

“You had abandoned my emissary, disregarded her sight and had her take her own life in your Court… And for what? Your mate’s sister’s powers?!” Helion was fuming, amber eyes staring the High Lord of Night down, “And that her mate — - “a growl escaped his lips, as he glanced at the Spymaster next to Rhysand, “Had cheated on her for said sister?!”

The High Lord of Day’s voice echoed throughout the throne room, shaking its very walls at the allegation of what had happen within the wards of the Night Court. Helion’s fingers gripped the edge of the large round table, his claws causing the wood to splint underneath his fingertips.

“And now… you are telling me that her body disappeared?” his voice deathly low, “That your Spymaster’s shadows had whisked her body away to — God-knows-where… That, that child, never had never had a proper burial?!”

Rhysand couldn’t utter a single word against the claims placed against him and his Court — he couldn’t when everything that Helion had roared was true.

“… Show me…” Helion hissed, focusing at his old friend, “Show us what had happened that day…”

Rhysand gulped, staring at Helion before glancing around the table towards the High Lords of Pyrthian. All of them staring him down before all felt the claws of Rhysand's power creeping in their minds, images of that day of your death playing in their minds — all of them watching the confrontation between the Inner Circle and you — on how you were cornered and betrayed, leading up to your very death.

He hated it. Rhysand not only relived that that multiple times during his dreams — where he had failed you. He now had to relieve it while he was awake. Hearing your pleads and cries for him to listen to your visions, and seeing your body dying on that marble floor — to watch it be taken away by tendrils of shadow.

Once the memory came to pass, sobs echoed throughout the room. Helion being the loudest as he ran a hand down his face, his form shaking in his seat. Rhysand glanced towards his Inner Circle, watching his family relive that moment as well; eyes focusing on Azriel, who gripped the arms of his chair as his face wrinkled in anguish at the memory.

It had been a month ever since your death, a month since the sliver of shadows that once served the Spymaster had taken your body away — unknown to even Azriel on where they had brought your body to. And a month ever since more and more whispers of Koschei’s resurrection echoed throughout the Courts. The Death-God’s power vibrating throughout all of Pyrthian — it was difficult to not miss.

The High Lords gathered in Day Court to strategize on the impending danger of the Death-God. However, it was no secret on what had happened in the wards of Night Court. The loss of your light present throughout all of Pyrthian — every High Lord felt it.

Especially Helion.

He wanted nothing more to hurt and maim every member of the Inner Circle; but that wasn’t the purpose of this meeting — though he wanted it to be.

Helion reigned in his emotions, trying to calm the rage that boiled in his blood. Trying to clam the sadness he felt for the loss of you. He straightened up in his chair, letting out a shaky breath, looking back at the Night Court High Lord.

“… I regret that I ever had sent (Y/N) to your Court, Rhysand,” his tone small and disappointed, “Her powers were wasted on you and your Court. A Seer taking their life, being betrayed by the people she called her family,” His head shaking, a laugh, one so loud and so sarcastic escaping his chest that it echoed in throne room, startling the other High Lords, making Rhysand flinch in his seat. “What a damn found family you made. Betraying one’s mate, betraying a person who had served you for five-hundred fucking years over a female who barely has control over her own powers.”

Amber eyes darted to Elain, as he watched her flinch back, hiding behind the eldest Archeron sister, “What prophecy have you seen now?” the sarcasm very evident in his tone, “Have you seen what (Y/N) has seen? Have you seen the resurrection of Kosechi, as well? Your powers are nothing compared to (Y/N)’s.”

“How dare you talk to someone in my Court like — -” Rhysand started.

“You have no right to challenge me in my own Court, Rhysand!” Helion bellowed, hands slamming on the table, standing up as he glared at his once-called friend, “Do you realize what you have done?! Do you realize why there hasn’t been a Seer in millennials? Why (Y/N) has been the only recorded Seer in the history of Pyrthian? Because Seers have been hunted — by Fae, humans and Gods alike. They are so sought after, for their power, for the knowledge, for their sight. Seers have the power to uncover what is hidden, lurking in the darkness. They are the very light that unveils the darkness. They have been hunted to be exterminated for that very power…”

It had been the very reason why Helion had taken you in when you were a child, guarded carefully in the Day Court. To ensure the prosper of your power, the prosper of your light.

Amber eyes darted around the table, eyes staring at the High Lords that had situated themselves in this very room, listening to his tale before they stared back at Rhysand, “You, being the powerfullest High Lord if all of Pyrthian should have known that. And now, her body, one filled with Unknown-God-and Cauldron bound powers is missing…”

A huff escaped his lips in exasperation as he sat down back into his seat, “Her body should be buried here, in my Court, where she rightfully belongs to. But, no. And none of us could properly pray respects for the loss of her light…”

It was no secret that Helion had a soft spot for you. You were like his child, raising you since you were small, watching you grow and become a bright light within the Day Court. He knew how your light felt, how he basked in it as if it was the sun that radiated overhead.

And so when he had woken up that night in cold sweat, feeling the vanishing of your light — he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

“… — Helion…” Feyre tentatively called out to him, “You said her body is Cauldron bound? What do you mean by that?”

The Day High Lord glanced at the High Lady, staring her down before he nodded his head once. Leaning forward to rest his chin on his hand, “That’s what both myself and (Y/N) believe. (Y/N) is one the strongest Seers I have met in my life, those few Seers that I have encountered, ones that have wanted to remain hidden, are no match to (Y/N)’s powers. Your little Cauldon-Made Seer is no match for her either,” he sneered at the middle Archeron sister.

"There has been little records of Seers in Prythian, we all know that. Not even my libraries had enough information about them and their powers. But, despite that, (Y/N) was able to hone into her powers with little instructions… You know that she doesn’t just see the future, she was able to see what was happening now. She was able to focus on parts of Pyrthian and tell me what is and what will happen.

“But during the war with Hybern, much like when Nesta felt the Cauldron, (Y/N) felt it too. We didn’t know why, but we realized she and the Cauldron were somewhat connected. Whether it be the Cauldron was reason why she has her visions or if the Cauldron was the source of her power, they were bound. A natural connection between the two of them. And when the Cauldron broke, (Y/N) had told me she felt the Cauldron’s power sought refuge with her, as if the Cauldron sought her light.

“After the war, she had asked for my opinion — she felt the remnants of the Cauldron’s power tingling through her. She told me she saw more visions, visions of the far off future that she had no idea when would happen, and that her powers were starting to become out of her control. She was starting to lose herself in her powers, lose her mind to it… I didn’t know how to help her…”

The Inner Circle remembered, weeks after the end of the war, (Y/N) had asked if she could return to Day Court for a few weeks. Rhysand had let her, thinking it was not important. Azriel, too, didn’t question on her reason why she wanted to leave.

It was when they started to not care. When they started to focus their attention to Elain — the Seer that had defeated the King of Hybern.

Helion let out a broken laugh, staring at the Inner Circle, “I’m sure you never knew, did you? On how broken she started to be after the war. You never knew how her sleep was plagued with visions, that she couldn’t even close her eyes without images flashing behind them. Of how she sobbed in bed, wondering if she was in a dream or reality. She couldn’t differentiate anymore… And you…” eyes focusing on Azriel, “You never felt her pain because you put up a wall between your mating bond. Did you know, Azriel…”

The Day High Lord’s tone was seething, remembering those day.

“Did you know, how she cried for you? She begged down the bond for you to come and help. Wanting your protection, wanting to help sooth the pain she had felt? Wanting you just to be there? But all she could feel was the wall you placed, ignoring her… abandoning her when she needed all of you the most…

“I sent her back, hoping that all of you would help. I sent her back with sleeping tonics, hoping to help her with her sleep. Hoping that her family and mate would help her through her toughest time. Hoping that you all would see her. But I can see that never happened. That no matter how much she begged for you all to listen to her visions, to see her in pain, you ignored,” his voice was laced with anger, disappointment.

No one said a word. The air in the room tense and dense at the revelation that Helion lamented. No one knew of what you had gone through.

Azriel felt his his heart burn in his chest, as if his siphons were burning his skin — he felt the remnants of the broken mating bond in his chest, aching more at Helion’s words.

He didn’t know, he didn’t see, he didn’t feel the pain you were going through. He had ignored the tug of the bond when he had that wall up. He had been too infatuated with the middle Archeron sister, wanting her to feel belonged in their Court — all the while alienating the person who had been with him through thick and thin.

And, yet, he couldn’t do the same for you.

Bright blue eyes closed as Feyre silently mourned and apologized to the Heavens, to the night sky where you might have been.

But she realized on the implications of what had Helion had told them — that you might have been the Cauldron-bound object that Koschei needed to escape that lake.

She looked up at Rhysand, and he to her as they communicated down the bond. Both of them realizing what could happen.

The gesture wasn’t missed by Helion as he watched them, waiting for them to explain what they might have discovered. However, when they did not say anything, a growl escaped his chest.

“What is it?”

Feyre and Rhysand looked at the Day High Lord, hesitance shown in their features, “… It’s about what (Y/N) had told us. You all saw it in that memory…”

Helion thought, playing the memory back as he watched remembered your face, the anguish of your features shining through his head, listening to your words — your vision of what might pass.

“… That Koschei needed something from the Cauldron to be released from the lake,” Lucien pointed out from his spot next to Helion, the russete eye looking at Elain before back to Feyre.

“What if…” Tarquin mumbled, “…Koschei found (Y/N)’s body? If you and (Y/N) knew of the connection to the Cauldron, that the Cauldron sought her power. He could use her body to be freed from that lake.”

Helion looked at the Summer High Lord, amber eyes wide at the realization, “… If that were to come to pass, we would be doomed. (Y/N)’s body is probably soaked in Cauldron powers. It would be so easy for Koschei to be freed, and no one would ever notice. It is not impossible, but since (Y/N)’s body has disappeared, it is possible for her to have fallen into his clutches.”

Kallias, in the mist of the conversation, was watching, observing, the only remaining Seer in the room. He leaned forward, bright blue hues staring the Made-Fae, as he rested both arms on the table, “Have you had any visions?”

Heads turned towards the High Lord of Winter at his question. It did not phase him, as he continued, ”I heard from your High Lady that you rarely said anything about your visions, since the Cauldron broke. So do tell us, what have you seen about the Death-God?” If she had her powers still, a Seer would be still useful in this situation.

Elain visibly swallowed, as all attention was on her once more. Brown eyes frantically glanced around the table, over to her sisters and then to Azriel who both looked at her expectedly.

A heartbeat later, and the Middle Archeron sister knew that she couldn't lie.

She shook her head, “I have not seen anything… since the Cauldron broke…” her words nothing but a whisper in the wind.

It was as if a pin dropped on marble floors, the silence in the room was penetrating.

A laugh broke the silence. Eris’ shook his in disbelief on the drama they were hearing, “So you’re telling us, you have been lying about having your powers. And that (Y/N), who has actually seen those visions had taken her life?” he glared at the middle Archeron sister, “For what? Because you needed a position in the Night Court? So that you can gain the Spymaster’s affection? To bed him?”

Elain shook her head again, brown eyes desperate as she tried to catch eye with her family, with Nesta, who just looked away, brows furrowed with anguish, “… I just wanted to be useful…” she whispered in fear, slumping down in her chair, “My powers… were the only thing that made me feel like I belonged… But I didn’t have them, and… I just, didn’t want to lose my family.”

“And yet, you were willing to let (Y/N) lose her family, her mate… and her life. Just to keep your own,” Thesan expressed, "That selfishness will be the downfall of Pyrthian."

Elain flinched at the truth thrown onto her face, eyes down-casting, silence taking over her form.

Before anyone could reprimand Elain for her actions, the grand doors slammed open, a dark mist blowing throughout the room. Frightened and confused screams echoed through the room.

Helion stood up, using his power of light to dissipate the darkness that tried to cover the room. Amber eyes glowed as he watched as a cloaked figure float into the room.

Eyes watched the cloaked figure as it settled its form onto the floor, bare pale feet touching the marble.

“… I would think… that if the Pyrthian High Lords would gather… they would invite a God to their meeting. But I guess, manners do not exist in this world…” the voice was grating and brittle.

The hood swept, as if eyes inside were looking at all the High Lords that were now standing up, all attention to him.

A eerie chuckle escaped the hooded figure, spiny fingers grasping the edge before slipping it down. White hair and black eyes were revealed, pale, sickly skin glowed underneath the darkness that had surrounded him.

The figure bowed, a mocking gesture to the High Lords.

“It seems, that you are unaware of who you are being greeted by…” a boney finger raised up and pointed towards Nesta, the eldest sister stiffening, “Though I’m quite sure you do, dearest sister…” he grinned at her.

Nesta gulped and looked at the uninvited guest. She knew who would greet her like that — only the Death Caver has echoed the same words, “You’re Koschei… aren’t you…”

Koschei grinned wider, head tilting to the side as he stepped forward, laughing as the High Lords ready themselves for a battle with the Death-God.

“Oh don’t be so tense, my High Lords…” he mockingly commented, sweeping a hand, “Please sit… Do not stop your meeting for dear little old me. Though it is such an honor for you to do so.”

He rounded the table, eyes making contact with each of the High Lord, black eyes sweeping over their forms before he stopped before Rhysand.

Violet hues and black sockets stared at each other.

“Though I do have to thank you, High Lord of the Night… You have gifted me the precious gift of life. Though, it was through the loss of one of your own… You might have known her. Cared for her… Loved her…” Koschei looked at Azriel whose hazel eyes burned at the Death-God.

He let out a low laugh.

Tarquin’s assumption was right — the Death-God had used your body to free himself from the lake, right underneath their noses. No one felt it, no one knew. And it had been too late to do anything about it; months too late to prevent the resurrection, months too late to find your missing body, months too late of not listening to you.

Koschei looked behind him, far past the grand windows, the familiar cry of the bird of fire and ash echoing through the lands of Day Court, heading towards them — Vassa had come to stop the sorcerer-lord from his destruction.

However, before she landed on the balcony, an arrow, made of shadow and darkness struck her, causing the great bird to plummet to the land beneath her.

Lucien gasped and ran towards the balcony, peering down to see if the mortal queen had survived the fall; but there was no sign of the cursed queen anywhere below.

“What a dramatic entry by Vassa, as always…” Koschei said with a sigh, before another chuckle escaped his lips, dark eyes boring into the empty spot beside him, “Don’t you think… (Y/N)?”

All heads snapped towards the Deathless God, your name slipping from his lips, as they watched a swirl of darkness materialized a familiar figure. Azriel watched, hazel eyes wide as he took in your form, whisps of shadows that had whirled around you — his shadows, one that had abandoned him ever since your death.

“…(Y/N)…” Azriel whispered in disbelief, his voice shaking.

There you stood, next to the Death-God, very much alive.

Very much like a Death-God yourself.

And it echoed in your outfit — tendrils of shadow made up your dress, covering you from head to toe, fluttering near your feet as if a gown swayed by the wind. In your hands, a bow and arrow made of those shadows — the very bow that had struck Vassa down from her flight.

That was where Azriel’s shadows had gone to — leaving him, following you to your death, and making you someone completely different.

Someone that was going to be the downfall of Pyrthian itself.

Tagging: @cleverzonkwombatsludge, @setayeshmohseni, @kindasleepycryptid, @f4iry-bell, @woodland-mist, @kalulakunundrum, @topaz125, @thelov3lybookworm, @hnyclover, @harrystylesfan2686, @anuttellaa, @ithan-holstroms-girl, @judig92, @venuseuripedis, @fairywriter-oracle, @thehighlordishere, @acourtofbatboydreams, @willowpains, @historygreekqueen, @dr4g0ngirl, @ayme301, @kemillyfreitas, @crazylokonugget, @abysshaven, @michaelharrypotter, @naturakaashi, @kittenbi, @namelesssav, @guiltyreader, @awkardnerd, @je-suis-prest-rachel, @quackitysdrugdealer, @thesunloveschips, @brieflyclassymortal, @justdreamstars, @isa1b2h3, @himesuedi, @fxckmiup, @starswholistenanddreamsanswered, @t0uch-starved-h0e, @mybestfriendmademe

#acotar fanfiction #azriel x reader #acotar angst #acotar x reader #acotar fic #a court of thorns and roses #( .one shot : pushed to the edge )#acotar fanfic #azriel angst #helion acotar #eris vanserra #rhysand #feyre archeron

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lethargicmouse · 1 month

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tell us your favorites everlark fics

Thanks for the ask!! They make me very excited lol. I honestly don’t read a lot of everlark lol, I’m more of a hayeffie fan with a side of everlark. Just becuase I feel like mother Suzanne did a good job with them in the books. But truly, a lot of my fav hayeffie ships are from either Peeta or Katniss’ perspective.

The ones listed here are mostly post epilogue (:

( I lied they are all post epilogue.)

this is the first day of my life by sam_writes_fics @sam-loves-seb ----> "It’s not perfect. None of them are perfect. But that’s not the point. // katniss and peeta and haymitch and effie and their life after everything;" I LOVE THIS IT WAS GOOD

You Are in Love (Everlark's Version) by bored_author ---> "A collection of one-shots about Katniss and Peeta working through their traumas, together." This is probably the most everlark one on here. It was cute

The Team Trap by EllanaSan @ellainthetardis (my queen omg) ---> "'What’s the very good reason that’ll get her to come?/ Katniss asked. Peeta was silent for a moment, his hand stilled on her back. 'It involves a technical white lie.' In her experience, lies were hardly ever technical or white." I love EllanaSan with my entire heart.

End of the World by FernWithy ---> Ok this is a very Haymitch centered series but it literally rocked my world and I think everyone needs to read this. There is some awesome POV's of characters you rarely hear from. Delly gets the spotlight she deserves and Peets gets it, too. It's a wonderful, long read that I'd highly reccomend.

Sorry there isn't more! I have lots of other fics that I really enjoy that are from Peeta or Katniss' view that are just more Hayeffie centric (linked under the line (: ), I tried to pull the more Everlark ones for you !

they got no idea (about me and you) by fckingpoetry ---> "peeta looks for advice on how to keep katniss safe in the arena and walks in on haymitch and effie sleeping in the same bed." I cannot stress how much I love this author. And any fic where the kids find out about Effie and Haymitch makes me giggle.

The Clue in the Yoghurt by EllanaSan ---> "In retrospect, Haymitch should have known something was up the morning he walked into his kitchen, rubbing his face to chase the remnants of sleep, and found Katniss pilfering his fridge." So silly, Katniss accidental pregnancy and it makes me smile to see hayeffie acting like the parents they are.

Sprinkled on Your Life by KarlyBING ---> "With all her silliness, shallowness, and overbearing ways, Effie had still cried while holding her after coming back from the arena, she was the one to publicly unite them during the Quell, cared for her during a war, braided her hair when she was too depressed to do it herself, made her wedding dress out of worn cotton shirts and second-hand wool, held her hands after delivering her first child, changed diapers at 3 am so Peeta and her could sleep a couple more hours, taught her children how to say please and thank you, and still made her hot chocolate every rainy day without even having to ask." I cried. So much. For only 1,801 words. A nice look at mama!Effie and darling Katniss.

that which resembles a grave (but isn't) by ifonlyiwasawriter ---> "Haymitch finds Katniss covered in dirt in his backyard; there is an explanation for this, but not one that either of them likes." Haymitch and Katniss, lovely very traumatized father and very traumatized daughter bonding.

Any way I love Haymitch and Effie goodnight !

#my 2nd fav found family #I adore them all #haymitch abernathy #the hunger games #effie trinket #hayeffie #haymitch abernathy x effie trinket #thg haymitch #haymitch x effie #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #katniss and peeta #the hunger games peeta #katniss x peeta #katniss everdeen x peeta mellark #everlark

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animeniacss · 27 days

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So Close Yet So Far - Mingyu x Reader - Epilogue

Synopsis: Your college friend, Kim Mingyu, has had a grip on your heart since the first day you met. Over the past few years, as you acquired more friendships and memories, those feelings only grew. However, recently, Mingyu has seemed a bit more distant, at least when it comes to any ideas of romance. It only gets worse when rumors fly that he's off to Japan to receive a marriage proposal! Unsure what to do, you wonder how you can keep Mingyu by your side without jeopardizing your friendship or your growing feelings. You never expected that waking up one drunken morning next to two hot angels would be your ticket into Mingyu's heart.

Genre: Romance, College!AU, Modern Fantasy, Comedy, Angsty

Length: approx. 2.8k words

Epilogue

------One Year Later, Fall-----

"What do you think is wrong now?" You asked.

"How should I know? Don't babies have a different cry for everything?"

"I think so."

"Well, which cry is this? I don't think I've heard this one before." A yawn ripped through Mingyu's throat and chest as he rubbed his eyes. It was another late night, the sounds of a baby screaming echoed through the apartment walls. It was as if someone had shot a bullet in a small room, allowing it to ricochet off each wall and fly to the next constantly. It never ended, and you and Mingyu were constantly trying to avoid being hit. You sighed, sinking onto the couch as you rubbed the little ones' back. Mingyu watched as you paced the room, hoping the little bouncing movements matched with your gentle coos would soothe the baby. No luck.

"I think he's been crying for two days straight." You sighed.

"Tell me about it. I hope he's not getting sick." Mingyu walked over to the fridge, pulled it open, and scanned the contents. "Shit." He groaned.

"What?"

"Out of milk." He stood upright. "I thought I got some more."

"I went through so much while you were at work." You watched as Mingyu walked over pulling both you and the crying baby close. He kissed the baby, and then the top of your head. It didn't soothe the baby, but it did soothe you.

"I'll run to the store." He said. "That 24 hour one should have some milk."

"Okay." You said. Mingyu smiled, tired yet generous.

"Want something for yourself?"

"Surprise me." You murmured. Mingyu nodded. You finally sank onto the couch, listening as Mingyu dragged his feet to the door. You continued to rub your baby's back. You didn't even bother looking behind you as Mingyu closed the door behind him, heading out to the store. The baby's cries continued to ring through your ears. Hoping for luck the second time around, you rose from the couch and started walking. You passed the TV stand, then the bookshelf. You stopped for a minute, bouncing the baby in your arms as you stared down at the snow globe. A flurry of pictures surrounded it on all of the shelves: particularly the ones from Mina in Jeju. The one of you, Joshua, and Jeonghan flashing a peace sign and a grin on the beach was currently in your sights. You smiled at the memory; amazed almost two years had passed since all of that happened. Beside it sat a new set of pictures of you and Mingyu at the Japanese cherry blossom festival. One had Mina with you, the three of you meeting up the first time you both visited Japan after everything happened. It was a beautiful day, the three of you enjoying it as any group of friends would. It was as if the previous year's events had not happened during that trip. You smiled at the memory, both of you a whole year younger and still aware of what a full night's sleep felt like.

When a cough came from the baby in your arms, you kissed the top of his head. "It's okay..." you said softly, continuing your lap around the living room. The baby still was not stopping, the longer he cried the louder it sounded like it was getting. "Hurry up, Mingyu." You begged to yourself as if it would work. He had just left, after all, and the store was a good 10-minute walk away. As your feet stopped pacing, you looked around the dim and empty apartment. A deep feeling bubbled in your stomach, and you felt your eyes water. When you looked down at the little bundle in your arms, even as he cried, you took one large deep breath. The last one you needed, calming yourself before you lost it. Even a few months in, it was such an overwhelming feeling to have a baby. "We're alright." You said out loud, mainly for yourself. That affirmation seemed to start calming the baby down, though barely. "See? We're alright." Smiling, you kissed his forehead and sat back down on the couch. Holding the baby in your arms, you looked down at your hands. Your pointer fingers and thumbs were poking into view from under your son.

"It wouldn't." you chuckled to yourself at the idea that briefly flashed through your mind. "There's no way." As the cry of your son continued to reverberate once again, you figured it was worth a shot. Shifting the baby, you immediately snapped both of your fingers. Other than the sound being drowned out by the crying, the room remained untouched. Unaffected. "Tch. Knew it. I must be going crazy from lack of sleep."

Maybe you were because in that moment, there was a knock on your front door. You looked over, holding the baby close. Who would be knocking in the middle of the night? The sound of the knock only made him cry louder, and you immediately pressed a kiss to his temple, shushing him as much as you could. Standing up, you laid him down in his little bassinet, before making your way towards the door. You kept your movements light, not sure what the cue would be – if there was one – to open the door and trust the person on the other side. As you stepped closer, one final knock came, followed by:

"It's us!" A familiar gentle voice flooded your brain, and you immediately lunged forward, flinging the door open. At the door stood two familiar faces, both dawned in all-white attire much as their brothers had the few times they came for a visit. They looked almost exactly the same as they did the last time you saw them two years prior, and you gasped.

"Oh my -."

"Don't say that," Joshua said quickly, grinning. You looked down at your hands, then back up to him.

"Did it actually work?" she asked. Jeonghan and Joshua glanced at one another, grinning.

"Ahh, you really tried?" Jeonghan said. "You can just call that a coincidence."

"Well, come in." you reached forward, taking their hands as you led them into the apartment. Once they were inside, the door closed behind them, you reached out and pulled them into a hug one at a time. "What the heck are you doing here at this hour?"

"We were in the neighborhood." Jeonghan shrugged.

"At five a.m.?" you smirked. The duo seemed defeated before they could even continue with their little ruse.

"We heard the news." Joshua finally explained simply.

"Yeah." Jeonghan rubbed his ears. "We really heard the news."

"And once we did, we made sure to get everything in order to come visit." When you cocked an eyebrow, Jeonghan decided to add a bit more detail.

"Even after all this time we have to get special permission for a lot of things. Like a probation." He shrugged. "No big deal. Totally worth it."

You laughed a bit hurrying back over to the bassinet. Lifting the little bundle back into your arms, you watched the duo approach.

"You think your ears hurt? This has basically been my music playlist since we brought him home. He's a fussy one." Immediately, you felt a hand press to your back. When you looked over, you saw Joshua standing by your side. When you saw another figure move beside you, you caught sight of Jeonghan standing in front of you and the baby.

"May I?" he asked. You nodded, immediately feeling the warmth spread from Joshua's palm through your spine and through your nerves. A deep, relaxed breath escaped you as Jeonghan pressed his finger to the newborn's forehead. You watched as the baby's cries slowly died down before he simply began whimpering and closing his eyes.

"You can do it too?" you asked. Jeonghan nodded.

"I really made God mad when we got kicked down here." He pointed out. You looked down at your son, kissing his forehead.

"Please form another contract to be my forever nannies." You begged in a soft, yet very desperate whisper. The duo could only smile, which didn't provide you with an answer. Well, it did, but not the answer you wanted.

"What's his name?" Jeonghan changed the subject, brushing some of his little hairs from his face. You sighed.

"So no on the nanny thing?" you asked. Jeonghan shook his head.

"Even if I could, I wouldn't," he said honestly. Sighing, you watched as Joshua leaned down as well, gently taking hold of the baby's foot that stuck out of the blanket, careful to recover it with the gentleness an angel could provide.

"Ah. Well..." you looked at the duo. "Jisoo."

Immediately, Joshua and Jeonghan's eyes shot up to you. Joshua in particular looked shocked at your comment. He looked back down at the baby, then up to you.

"You're kidding." He gasped. He seemed to think you'd admit to the joke, and reveal the real name. However, you shook your head. Joshua took the next few seconds to take a deep breath. "Please put the child down."

You smiled as Jeonghan offered to hold him for a second, careful not to wake him. Once he was out of your arms, Joshua gripped your hands tightly. He pulled you close. "You're kidding." He repeated again.

"Want to see the birth certificate?" you asked, smiling. Joshua was quick to look at the infant once more as Jeonghan gently continued to hold him.

"When do I get a baby named after me?" Jeonghan pouted.

"Please don't encourage Mingyu to have more kids." You sighed. "Not yet. I can't handle it."

"That doesn't answer my question." He pointed out. "I will be asking."

"He's already mentioned it like twice."

"I'll make him ask a third." You groaned, resting your forehead on Joshua's chest. He laughed a bit, patting your shoulders.

Just then, the door opened, and the three of you looked over. Mingyu stepped in, slipping his shoes off. He was holding two bags in both of his hands, letting out another yawn of exhaustion. "I'm ba-." His greeting was interrupted when he saw Joshua and Jeonghan standing beside you, Jeonghan cradling his son. "What the hell are they doing here at five in the morning?"

"I asked the same thing." You said, turning to Mingyu. He set the bags on the table, rubbing his eyes.

"Is he finally asleep?" he asked. You nodded, motioning to Jeonghan.

"I'm a natural." He said simply. Mingyu chuckled. When made it over, offering you another kiss on your head, he shook Joshua's hand and waved to Jeonghan, who nodded his head in response.

"If you're a natural, then-."

"I already asked." You stated quickly. "No dice."

"Damn." Mingyu chuckled. Jeonghan passed you the baby, making sure he was still sound asleep. "Hopefully, we can get some sleep before he wakes up again."

"I forgot what that feels like." You sighed. You watched as Joshua stared down at the baby, eyes sparkling as he watched the little bundle shift and gurgle in his sleep. You couldn't help but smile.

"Please, don't be strangers." You said. "Come over. All the time, even." You said.

"To nanny?" Jeonghan asked.

"Yes." The new parents pleaded in unison. Jisoo gurgled, threatening a whine as he began to stir, and Joshua reached out, putting a hand on his forehead as Mingyu went to the door.

"We should let you guys sleep then," Jeonghan said when he took a second to look at both of your faces.

"Will you guys be around long?" Mingyu asked. "The others said they're stopping by this afternoon. I'm sure they'd love to see you."

"Jihoon will be there, too." You said. The duo shared a look, contemplating the idea for a minute.

"Sure," Joshua said quickly. "I'm sure that'll be alright." As little Jisoo once again threatened to stir, you sighed.

"Let's get him in bed so we can sleep." You said.

Jeonghan, now knowing they had nowhere to be until later in the evening, took a seat on the couch. "Go to sleep." He said. "I mean you invited us to stay for a while. Go to sleep. We'll watch the little guy." You smirked a bit at the comment.

"But-."

"I don't think Joshua is going to stop staring at him anytime soon." Jeonghan pointed to his friend.

"I absolutely will not." He said simply.

"Go on. Rest up. We can handle a little human baby."

"I'm glad someone can." You said, passing him to Joshua. The transfer caused him to whimper once again, but once Joshua got him in his arms, Jisoo immediately silenced and lulled back into sleep. Joshua looked at Jeonghan, his friend laughing a bit at the way his friend's eyes sparkled. The duo watched as you both shuffled into your bedroom, closing the door. Joshua settled onto the couch, holding the baby in his arms. He looked at Jeonghan.

"This is so much better than getting back into heaven."

"The real reward, hm?" Jeonghan asked in amusement. Joshua nodded. "I'll agree with you there."

🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶So Close Yet So Far🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶

Later in the day, as promised, everyone had gathered to see the little infant in your apartment. Mingyu sat on the floor with Hoshi and Jihoon, watching as the baby rested on his stomach. Hoshi was holding a little tiger toy in his direction, moving it ever so slightly as he encouraged Jisoo to follow it with his eyes.

"Is he even old enough to be able to do that?" Minnie asked.

"He's already a month," Mingyu said. "He should be fine. They say tummy time is good right away." Finally, he scooped the little guy up into his arms, rubbing his back as he nestled into his father's embrace. Hoshi leaned forward, once again trying to get him to look at the tiger toy. When Jihoon leaned forward to help encourage Jisoo, you smiled. "Who is that?" Mingyu asked, pointing to the two individuals huddled close together in hopes of getting Jisoo to look in their direction with eager waves.

You sipped water on the couch, finding a comfortable nostalgia nestled between the two angels, both of them also with a drink in their hand as they watched everyone's attention sit on the baby. When he hiccupped, Mingyu was quick to catch the spit up before it got on his shirt.

"Nice catch." You said, and Mingyu laughed. As everyone continued to chat and interact with the baby, you looked between the two angels sitting on either side of you.

"Are you guys enjoying being back home?" You asked curiously.

"It's nice," Jeonghan said.

"Do you miss it?" You asked curiously. "Being on earth?"

"Mmmm sometimes," Jeonghan said.

"Not enough to stay forever though." Joshua made sure to add, Jeonghan nodding in agreement. He motioned to the duo sitting beside Mingyu on the floor. "He makes it look easy." You looked at Jihoon, who now, instead of waving to the baby, was watching as Hoshi did instead. His hand had gently reached towards Jisoo's as he tried to make a baby tiger paw sign.

"You'll get it one day, little cub." Hoshi nodded.

"Don't call him that," Seungkwan said. Hoshi pouted, looking at Jihoon for the validation Seungkwan had no intention of giving.

"It's cute." He assured Hoshi with a pat on the shoulder.

As the entire room settled into a comfortable togetherness, you allowed yourself time to sit back and just observe. You couldn't remember the last time you had such a nice time watching your friends interact, especially since Jisoo was born. You felt Joshua and Jeonghan loop their arms through yours, looking between them once again. You felt a sense of comfort in the familiar touch, smiling as you nestled close into them. As Mingyu stood up intending to put your son to sleep, he looked over. Immediately an unamused frown formed on his face.

"Even when we're married you're still going to pull this nonsense?" he asked.

Jeonghan nodded. "Absolutely."

"Why do you think we can here in the first place, Kim Mingyu?" Joshua asked a look of disgust on his face that Mingyu would even ask. As you wormed out of their grip, you motioned Mingyu into the nursery.

"Let's go." Closing the door behind you, Mingyu finally set Jisoo into his bassinet, the baby fussing for a minute. He put his hand on the baby's belly, watching as the baby slowly began to soothe himself knowing someone was still nearby. You rested against the side, watching as your son's eyes began to close.

"This might be the best gift you've ever given me." You said, looking up at Mingyu. He immediately returned your glance, smiling though a bit embarrassed.

"Couldn't agree more." He simply said.

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wardenparker · 1 year

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Down the Rabbit Hole - ch 13

Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

When Jack accidentally shoots a civilian on a mission he takes on not only the guilt of the man’s death, but inherits his soulmate as well. To you, it’s a dream job with more perks than you can imagine - but for Jack it’s a nightmarish complication. Even more so when he starts to develop feelings.

Rating: Explicit for references to violence. 18+ Word Count: 7.6k Warnings: *Blanket warnings - mentions of deceased spouse, a lot of food and alcohol consumption, family recipes, age gap, cursing.* Angst, guilt, possible unwanted pregnancy, lies, nausea/illness, talk of abortion, anxiety, canon typical injuries. Summary: Your return from New York is bumpy to say the least, and things to awry that no one ever could have predicted. Notes: This chapter is short but packed with intensity, which only means one time. I once again cried during the entire edit 🧡

Ch 1 ~ Ch 2 ~ Ch 3 ~ Ch 4 ~ Ch 5 ~ Ch 6 ~ Ch 7 ~ Ch 8 ~ Ch 9 ~ Ch 10 ~ Ch 11 ~ Ch 12 ~ Ch 13 ~ Ch 14 ~ Ch 15 ~ Epilogue

Jack taps on his thigh impatiently as he waits, the jet steadily sinking towards the ground. He had decided to come to the airstrip to collect you, especially since there had been no text from you beyond that simple text last night before you had gone out with the girls. He hadn’t expected you to stay on your phone but he had anticipated a text Goodnight. When it hadn’t come, he stayed awake, only falling asleep when he had checked your location to find you back in the hotel. There’s a feeling he gets when something’s not right, he had it the morning you disappeared. That sinking, curdling feeling in his stomach. The threat of bile in the back of his throat. That same feeling has saved his skin more times than he can count and he wonders why he has it now as the Statesman jet touches down.

The decision to cut the trip short and come back after one day had been easy, thankfully. Sophia was being called in to start a case and you weren’t feeling too jolly anyway, so the three of you had packed it in on the afternoon of the second day and come home. The last thing you expected to find when you stepped out of the plane was Jack waiting on the tarmac in the Bronco, but he’s there in all his glory making the guilt and worry churn inside you with every step you take closer to him.

You don’t look happy to see him, but Jack keeps the easy smile on his face as climbs out of the Bronco and waves to all three of you, his eyes firmly landed on you though.

“Hey.” Swallowing the bile and fear welling up in your throat, you step onto solid ground with a quick farewell to your girls and acknowledge that your plan of heading straight to Ginger’s lab is now sunk.

“Hey.” Jack watches the way that your eyes shift over towards Gabi and Sophia. “I’m not spoilin’ plans am I? The tower called and said the plane was comin’ back tonight so I wanted to make sure you got home.” The unspoken question of why you didn’t tell him you were coming home lingers in the air.

“Of course not. Nothing to spoil.” Lying to him makes you feel like you’re going to choke on each word, but how could you do anything else? How can you tell him what you’re afraid of? It’s impossible - it would ruin everything. So you force a smile and lead the way back to the Bronco on wobbly legs. “I was going to come and surprise you, but you beat me to it.”

“Hopefully it’s a good idea.” Something is wrong. There’s a nervous tremor to your voice and he doesn’t know what would put it there. “Tired from a wild trip?”

“A little.” Mostly you’re tired from your own frayed nerves, but you let him take your suitcase and get into the truck when he holds your door open a moment later. “We were out late and then up early again this morning.”

“So what you really want is a soak in the tub and the bed?” He asks, shooting you a small smirk. It’s been nearly a week since he’s touched you and he wants to desperately.

“Actually? That sounds pretty amazing.” If he thinks you’re tired - which you are, but emotionally - he might not push tonight. And you don’t want to have to deny him because Jack is still Jack and you want that intimacy with him; but you’re terrified of what might be going on with you and you won’t have an answer until you can go see Astrid.

“I’m more than willin’ to throw in a massage.” Jack climbs in beside you and the second his hand hits your thigh, you tense. Making him pause for a moment in shock. You’ve never tensed around him, not even when you were freshly recovering from your injuries.

“I think I’m still a little hungover.” Lying again makes you feel like you could burst out crying on the spot, but you know he felt the way you froze at his touch and you’re about twenty seconds away from just confessing everything. At least you’re honestly queasy - that would come with the hangover but instead it’s fear. Or the baby…who knows.

“Okay.” Jack slowly slides his hand away from your thigh, making it seem as if it’s a part of starting the Bronco and turning around, but he’s perfectly capable of doing that one handed.

The drive home is quiet – silent except for the sound of the engine and the quiet classic rock playing through the radio like usual. They’re the sounds of home, and you should be chattering away at him about your trip or deciding what to have for dinner tonight but you just feel like a lump of anxieties in that front seat with him. It’s not until the house is in view that you open your mouth again. “Sophia got called up. I—I didn’t know if you knew or not.”

“Yeah– uh,” Jack drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m going with her.”

“Wha—” You look over at him in confusion and see the set look of worry on his face. “I didn’t know you’d passed your tests. That’s—that’s great, honey. You’ve been dying to get back in the field.”

“Yeah, I finished them up yesterday.” Jack tells you awkwardly. “Didn’t seem the type of thing to text and we didn’t talk.”

“Right.” That’s your fault, and you swallow the guilt harshly. “Well…congratulations.”

“Figured I’d go out and do a field assessment on Sophia and give her a little back up.” Jack hums, wondering why you are being so stiff. “Promised Tex I’d look after her.”

“She applied for Statesman status.” Talking about friends is good. It doesn’t fuel the fire of fear in your belly the same way. “Champ probably wants your assessment before he signs the final paperwork.”

“Yeah. That’s the plan.” Jack chuckles, “the kid is worryin’ me to death about it.” He tells you. “Talkin’ about how he doesn’t want to be away from his soulmate. ‘Specially since they are talkin’ about trying for a little one. Says he’s eager to father his soulmate’s babies.” If you weren’t acting strange, it could be a segue way in to a conversation about kids for you and him. But he decides to leave it.

“O—oh, I…Soph hasn’t mentioned it.” All the attention during the trip had been on the dresses and on getting you to feel better, which was an impossible task. “Good for them,” you manage to say the words without being sick, which is better than you thought.

“Might be Tex projectin’ a little. Man wants to be a daddy.” He chuckles again and the silence falls between the two of you again as he parks the Bronco in front of the house.

That feeling of dread pulls at your now perpetually upset stomach, tearing you out of your seat and making you run in the front door as fast as humanly possible to make it to the bathroom before you’re sick all over the front walk or living room. You have no doubt that Tex does want to be a father. You had even talked about it with him at different points, from the point of view of an excited friend. Knowing that you might be the one to make it happen instead of Sophia - instead of his soulmate - has you clinging to the toilet bowl as you hear Jack’s boots rumble across the ground floor of the house.

“Sugar?” Jack frowns, hearing the obvious signs of sickness and the dread that threatens to overtake him nearly has him stuck in place. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” The tears in your eyes are easily dismissible with being sick, even as you’re choking back sobs. “Hangover.” Is your weak excuse, hoping he buys it.

Jack is a lot of things but slow ain’t one of them. He distinctly remembers the night your breasts were sore and you’ve been tired and feelin’ poorly. He’s also pretty damn good at math. Stumbling back from the downstairs bathroom, he swallows down the urge to break something or someone. “I– I’ll go run you that bath then.”

“Thanks…” The fact that he didn’t come in is a blessing, but you’re still pretty sure that you heard hurt in his voice. Some piece of shit soulmate you are…

He feels kind of sick himself, turning around and racing upstairs as he tries to rationalize the information he has. It’s hard to, though. You’re pregnant. You’re pregnant and it’s not his. He closes his eyes after he turns on the water to the tub and sighs.

You stay downstairs a while, getting yourself back under control and rinsing out your mouth before you slog up to the master bathroom with the big claw footed bathtub where Jack is sitting looking gray in the face. “Absinthe…” you shrug like it explains everything, even though you didn’t drink at all after the play. “I took the girls to a 30s bar last night…”

“Yeah.” Jack huffs a flat laugh. “I–I gotta go pack. So I’ll leave you to rest.” He pushes off the small little seat that you had told him was for a makeup area and swallows.

“When are you leaving?” Despite not exactly being ready to have a heart-to-heart with him, you so desperately want to just launch yourself into his arms and beg forgiveness. Beg that he not call off the wedding. Promise him that you have a solution. But you’re too frozen.

“I– we were going to leave tomorrow morning, but I’m going to go early.” Jack offers. “Scout the situation.”

“So you’re leaving tonight?” It’s a punch in your already roiling gut, but you nod.

He isn’t. He’s going to go sit in his office and try not to drive himself crazy. But he can’t stay near you and not ask questions. “Yeah.”

“Do you know how long you’ll be gone?” You can’t ask him where he’s going, or why, or anything about the mission, but a general time frame could be helpful. It would let you know how long you have to recover.

“Not sure. Week, maybe more.” Jack shrugs, not looking directly at you. “Sorry, sugar, but I know you won’t even notice I’m gone. You got the restaurant to baby and –” he chokes on his choice of words and coughs to cover it up. “You’ll be so busy you won’t have time to miss me.”

“That’s not true.” As riddled with fear and anxiety and guilt and everything else as you are, you’re all of those things because you love him. And because you really don’t go a single minute of any day without thinking about him. “Of course I’ll miss you.”

“It’s– it’ll be okay.” It’s more towards himself than you but he manages a small smile. “I promise.”

“Do you at least want me to make dinner?” There’s a scrambling in your thoughts that you can’t account for. He’s slipping away, you can feel it, but you have a plan to fix it. You just need to put it in motion.

“Nah, sugar.” Jack shakes his head, knowing he can’t eat right now. “You aren’t feelin’ good. You relax. I’ll be packed up and out of your hair in a jiffy.”

“Okay.” Something about him is off but you can’t put your finger on it. He just seems jittery. Hopefully it’s just you projecting or your imagination. Jack is already out in the hall by the time you murmur, “I love you,” and you sigh heavily before you start to undress.

In the closet, Jack closes his eyes and tries to remind himself to breathe. He had caused this. He had pushed you away and caused you to date. Because of his unwillingness to admit your connection. It was his fault you are pregnant with a child that isn’t his.

Once you’re in the tub you can hear him moving around in the adjoining closet, packing things and presumably going about his business as normal. The jasmine-scented bath he drew for you is as cozy as it could possibly get, and any other time you would have begged him to join you. There would have been candles and music and glasses of something smooth and heady to drink while you lazily rode him right here in this tub. And the fact that you’re not doing that right now has you staring silently at your silver-painted toenails when you finally hear him in the hallway again.

“Sugar, I’m all packed.” For some reason, he can’t go into the bathroom. Not when you’re vulnerable. He calls out through the closed door. “I’m gunna head out.”

“O–okay.” You know that any other time, you would just pop out of the bath and run into the hallway, but you can’t. You’re rooted to porcelain and fresh tears start falling immediately. “I love you,” you manage, this time loud enough for him to hear.

Jack closes his eyes, leaning against the door frame with his arm braced above his head as his forehead is against the jam. “I love you too, sugar.” He murmurs, the affirmation coming through low but clear. It’s almost ominous, a goodbye. “Be good.” He sighs and pushes away from the door, the bag hooked over his shoulder as he turns and walks away.

The fall of boot steps and the closing of the front door make your volatile stomach drop all over again, and you reach for your phone after wiping your hands on a towel. You need this over with. To Astrid, you type out as vague a message as you can just in case she shows it to Gabi or asks her if anything happened on the trip: “Hey honey! I don’t want to interrupt your night, but would you be able to put aside time for me to stop by the lab in the morning? I’d like to ask your opinion on something. Thanks!”

The text comes back only seconds later. "I've always got time for you. Drop by anytime in the morning and we can have some coffee together."

******

You have to force yourself to wait, the next morning. It was impossible to sleep through the worry and without Jack there, and you blew through an entire novel overnight before showering, putting on clean clothes, and getting yourself out the door to the lab. The door swishes open dramatically but you still knock on the frame, holding two cups from the Statesman cafeteria when you cautiously step inside. Yours is chamomile tea for the seemingly endless nausea, but hers is that quad shot almond milk mocha latte that she loves so much. “Morning,” you murmur quietly when she looks up.

"Hi." Gabi had said that you had been acting strangely, and the slightly wane, waxy set to your face shows that you have been dealing with things. "How are you feeling?" She accepts the cup and takes a sip as she watches you closely.

“Not great.” That’s a fucking understatement, but at least it’s honest. “I need to ask you for a favor, Astrid. Two favors, really. But I need to ask you to keep this entirely between us. Not even Gabi or Jack can ever know.”

Frowning, she pushes her glasses up further on her face, taking this as a more 'business than pleasure' visit. "You have my word and discretion." She promises. "Are you hurt? Did you have a flashback from your visit to New York?"

“No.” Sitting down on the other side of her desk, your hands cradle your cup of tea until they get too jittery and you have to set it down in front of you. Astrid is your friend. She’s Jack’s friend. And now you’re asking her to put the longer-running of the two relationships aside. It’s enough to bring fresh tears, which you breathe away steadily. “I think…” Another shaky exhale has you look down at your hands when you can’t look her in the eyes. “I think I might be…pregnant.” You tell her quietly.

"Oh!" At first the sound is happy, until she reads the moment and slumps back in her chair when the wave of melancholy hits. "Ooohhh." She bites her lip, understanding that with the timing of this, you are not happy. How could you be? The probability of knowing you were pregnant with Jack's child are statistically very low. She sets her coffee down and reaches out to touch your hand. "First thing’s first." She murmurs quietly. "If you are, it will be okay." She assures you quietly.

“No. It won’t.” It should be so comforting to have her reach out, but instead you feel like the act of familiarity is a burn. You jerk away awkwardly before slumping forward again. “The last time I had my period was the week before I slept with Tex. That was months ago. There’s…there’s no way it could be Jack’s and I—I—” If you could get through even a sentence without crying it would be a miracle, but even when you practiced it at home it was impossible. “I know there’s a tiny chance. I just…if I am…is there a way to find out whose it is?”

"Yes there is." Astrid nods, her heart breaking for you, with you, over this. "Would you–" she pauses. "It would take only a few hours in the chamber." She tells you quietly. "If you didn't want to–"

“If it’s not Jack’s, I can’t.” Grateful that you’re not the one who had to say it, you still shudder at the reality of the situation. “What are the alternatives, really? Have Tex’s baby? Have your brother’s baby? I—I don’t— I don’t even think I could live with myself, and Jack sure as fuck would not still marry me, soulmate or otherwise.” It all comes tumbling out, the fears and anxieties, and you find yourself scratching viciously at your arms again as your breathing goes shallow – another panic attack bubbling out of your throat at the thought of losing Jack for any reason.

“I don’t think he would go that far.” Astrid tells you quietly. Would Jack be devastated? Oh yes he would. But he’s also a man who accepts mistakes because he’s made plenty of his own. Especially where you are concerned.

“I need to know, Astrid.” As quiet as your voice is, at least it’s determined. “Because I can’t do that to Jack.”

“We can find that out quick enough.” She promises, patting your hand and standing up. “Why don’t you go get undressed and put on a gown.” She offers, motioning towards the table in the corner.

“Thank you.” It feels like walking to your own death sentence as you disappear to change and sit down on the exam table on the far side of the lab. The thing is…you have to know. You have to. And that’s enough to make you sick all over again.

Astrid keeps her emotions in check and moves efficiently as she prepares for the exam. The machine will do most of it. She moves over and touches your shoulder. “Lay back, okay?”

“Okay.” The best you can do is to remind yourself to breathe, but even that is hard right now.

As soon as you lay back, Astrid presses a button on her table and a line of laser light starts scanning over your body. “Hold still.” She urges when you twitch. “It won’t hurt.”

Presumably the laser doesn’t care if you continue to shed a few anxious tears, but you keep the rest of your body still as it travels. Whatever comes next, you just have to promise yourself that you’ll handle it before Jack comes home. That everything will be done by the time Jack comes home.

Ginger’s face doesn’t give anything away as she studies the tablet, punching the screen with her fingers and she looks up. “There’s going to be a needle for a quick blood draw.” She tells you, not wanting you to be upset if you aren’t expecting it.

“Okay.” Whatever she needs to do, that’s what is going to happen. Right now it just matters that you keep breathing.

The needle is small and the amount of blood taken even smaller. Just enough to run the labs and confirm what she can already see. You wince but you don’t say anything and when the machine moves away, she gravitates towards you. “Let’s get you redressed and then we can talk.” She murmurs softly.

“Okay.” The word passes your lips one more time and you lift yourself up from the table to shaky legs. Frankly it’s a miracle you’re as functional as you are, and you step back behind the partition to put your clothes on silently.

She triple checks the test and when you come back around the small partition, there is a small cup of pills waiting for you. “Here.” She offers.

“What are these?” It doesn’t really matter. You’ll take them no matter what. But if she’s giving you pills to end an unwanted pregnancy, you at least want to observe the moment with some seriousness.

“Some vitamins. Your vitamin B and C levels are low. A Valium to help you relax and sleep.”

“H-how long will the blood work take?” Everything at Statesman - and everything in this lab - is state of the art, but that doesn’t mean knowledge is magical or instant. You take the pills that Astrid is holding out to you and brace yourself for however long she might say you have to wait.

“I’ve got the results back.” She assures you softly, smiling at you. “The blood work and the ultrasound tell me that you are not pregnant.”

For a second you just stare at her. You were convinced. You were sure that you had ruined the very best thing in your life. And now that it isn’t true, the relief you feel punches through you like some kind of Eldritch horror. “You’re—” The tears are different this time, still hot and angry when they come down your face in sheets, but now you’re only angry at yourself for ruining the last few days with the people you love. “You’re sure?” You ask, hiccuping between great, bulbous tears.

“Your womb is clear, there’s no evidence of an ectopic pregnancy. Your hCG levels are low, no chance of pregnancy. I ran the test three times to confirm. You are not pregnant.” She promises, turning the screen around so you can see the ultrasound of your stomach and the test results.

“So I was just…sick?” The screen she shows you is like a perversely high tech version of the ultrasound information you remember from going to the doctor with your sister years ago, so you have some vague notion of what you would see if the test was positive. This, though? This is perfectly normal. Like your body has never even heard of the concept of a baby in the first place. The hand that instinctively moves to cover your stomach goes there out of disbelief, and you lay back on the table with a tight sigh.

“You’ve been under a lot of stress and –” Astrid shakes her head and sighs softly, berating herself. “Sometimes with the healing of traumatic injuries, the side effects of the hyperbaric chamber can be….odd.” She explains. “I thought Jack told you.”

“He did.” He had been very careful to warn you, in fact. “But we just thought my side effect was how tired I was that week.”

“Your body is vastly different from Jack's, especially considering his injury was brain trauma.” Ginger rationalizes. “Yours was more physically manifested and it makes sense that your reproductive cycle has been thrown off.”

“Stress and healing.” All you can do is accept it, especially when the alternative is…alarming. After spending 48 hours panicking about the possibilities, are you really…upset that the answer wasn’t a little month-old fetus genetically encoded with Jack’s soft, coffee-colored eyes and adorable single dimple? Honestly? You really might be…

Ginger’s eyes are quizzical, tilting her head at the riot of emotions crossing your face. “Are you– disappointed?”

“I—don’t know,” you admit softly, staring up at the ceiling so that you don’t have to see the concern on her face.

“It has to be confusing.” She pats your shoulder again. “I know that you have been stressed. I don’t want you going in today. Take the day and relax.”

“Doctor’s orders.” Right now you just want to go home and get back in that bath that Jack had drawn for you yesterday. Pretend like last night had never happened and crawl into his arms in bed. But he’s back out in the field and you’re…you’ve never felt more alone than you do right now, which is not how you expected to feel at all. But that isn’t the fault of the woman next to you. “I…thank you, Astrid. I just need to get my head on straight. But…thank you for helping me.”

“Anytime, sweetheart.” She doesn’t hesitate to pull you in for what she thinks is a much needed hug. Knowing that you must have felt so scared and alone. No wonder why you had suddenly withdrawn if you had thought you were pregnant. “Anytime.”

“Hopefully not for this reason.” You sigh out, hugging her back fiercely. “Not until it’s happy anticipation and Jack is back here with me.”

“Did Jack know?” She asks curiously. “Is that why he slept in his office last night?”

“He—?” The panic is back without hesitation, choking you and making you feel dizzy. “He told me he was leaving early to—” Oh god. You’ve ruined it. You’ve ruined it anyway. “No one knew.”

She winces, cursing herself for sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong. “I’m sure– they left really early.” She supplies hastily. “Maybe he didn’t want to bother you. Since you weren’t feeling good.”

“Maybe.” That isn’t it, and both of you know it. There isn’t a chance in hell that Jack wouldn’t have just slipped silently out of bed early this morning if things had been normal. This is your fault. You must have been acting stranger than you thought, and he’s an especially perceptive man to begin with.

“They should be back in just a day or so.” Ginger reasons quietly, wondering if it wouldn’t be better to talk to Jack herself before he gets back. “It’s a quick op.”

“But—” You catch yourself and nod. Astrid doesn’t need to know that Jack said it would be a week. That your relationship with your soulmate is crumbling before it ever gets off the ground. Instead you stand up from the table and accept another hug. “Thanks,” you murmur quietly. “Again. For everything.”

“Of course.” She tightens her grip on you and pulls back to give you an encouraging smile. “Go get some rest and everything will be normal when you wake up.”

******

It’s after dark when you wake up again, disheveled in one of Jack’s t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants that should probably have been replaced years ago. You’re hungry, which is usually a good sign, so you throw on a cardigan and trudge downstairs in search of food — only to come face-to-face with Diana walking in the front door as quietly as a church mouse. “Di?” Maybe she was coming to check on you? That is perfectly in keeping with her personality, after all. Universal mom friend.

“Hey.” She tries for a smile but it falters, the worry shining through her face is way too obvious to hide. “I need you to sit down, sweetheart.” The slight tremble in her voice makes her words waver.

“What’s wrong?” When your stomach flips this time, you at least know it isn’t from an act of your own stupidity, but it unnerves you all the same. Diana looks pale and you take the last two steps quickly to reach her side. “Di, what happened?”

She guides you over to the couch, aware that you might collapse if you are standing up. Especially since Ginger had indicated you weren’t feeling the best. “Jack is– he’s been hurt.” She tries to break the news gently but there is never a good way to say this. “He’s – they have him stable but it’s serious.”

The first reaction you have, before anything else, is to insist that she’s wrong. Jack is a good agent and he’s with Sophia and there’s no way that could happen. But her face is so serious, lined with anxiety and uncertainty. “Where?” You ask, when you can finally swallow past the fear forming in your gut. “Where is he?”

"He's on a chopper, about an hour out." Diana swallows harshly, trying to tamp down her own fear in order to be here for you.

“How serious is serious?” You’re already up again and walking to the door to slip into a pair of shoes, ready to go wherever you need to be. If the last thing you ever say to Jack was a weak declaration of love through a closed door, you’ll never fucking forgive yourself.

"They've almost lost him twice on the way here." Diana stands and quickly rushes over towards you. "But as soon as Ginger gets him into the chamber, he will be alright."

“What the hell happened?” Your purse is sitting by the door like always, and you grab it without even a second thought. Heart racing, blood pounding, and stomach threatening to revolt is how you went to the lab this morning, and it’s how you’re going again tonight.

"I'm not exactly sure. He was shot. It ruptured his spleen and he had fallen when he was hit so there is internal bleeding." Diana doesn't have much information, but she's willing to tell you what she knows.

“But Ginger can help him.” It’s not a question, as the two of you bolt outside and into Diana’s car. Your mind is racing, but instead of devolving into desperate sadness you feel like you’ve hit some kind of problem-solving mode.

“She’s going to do everything she can.” Diana promises, cranking the engine and throwing the car into reverse. “You know Ginger.”

“He…left early last night, Di.” There’s nothing for you to do while she drives but sit there, and you fidget in your seat. “I was distant when I came home from New York and he slept in his office last night before they shipped out.”

“Did you have a fight?” She could have sworn everything was good between you.

“Not exactly.” It was all just so uncomfortable, and now you’re facing the reality of Jack coming back hurt and you can’t stand it. “Things have been off lately and it’s my fault, but I—I can’t let that be the last time we see each other.”

“Is it because you’re pregnant and the baby isn’t Jack’s?” Diana asks quietly.

“How did—” You stare at her from the passenger seat, jaw almost unhinged, and sigh. Did Jack put your symptoms together just like you did and assume just like you did? “I’m not…just…for the record…I went to Astrid this morning…”

“Jack came by the house last night.” Diana admits quietly, looking over at you. “He wanted to talk to Champ.”

“I haven’t been myself lately, and I was feeling sick,” you begin, feeling like you need to explain yourself. “I added it all up while I was in New York and thought I might be pregnant. He—he must have done the same math. But Astrid said I’m absolutely not, and it must have been the healing from my incident that threw my body out of whack.”

“You don’t need to explain to me, sweetheart.” Diana assures you, giving you a soft smile. “Jack asked Champ – well, he asked him how quickly he accepted Bobby as his own, if it was hard on him.” She bites her lip. “Bobby isn’t Champ’s biological son. He adopted him at birth. I was pregnant when we met.”

“What?” This is definitely new information to you, especially since you had always thought that Bobby looked like the perfect mix of his parents. “I—I mean—I had no idea.”

“It’s not something that many people know.” Diana admits. “Roger admittedly looked similar to Champ. So thankfully there’s never been any questions from strangers. He unfortunately never knew that he was going to be a father before Bobby’s biological dad died. Car accident.”

“I’m so sorry.” It’s a lot of information to take in, but you do your best to wrap your head around it as Diana parks in her designated space outside the main Statesman building and the two of you jump out to go up to the lab. “So…I don’t…Jack wanted to talk to him? About—about accepting Bobby?” It’s such a gut punch on top of all the things you’ve already dealt with over the last few days, to think that Jack was trying to figure out how to support you when you had feared he would call everything off instead.

“Jack admitted that he thought you might be pregnant and that it would be way too soon in your relationship for it to be his child.” Diana had excused herself to make some tea and let the men have their talk, but Jack hadn’t been trying to hide the conversation. “And he didn’t want to lose you over it. Said it was his own damn fault if it was the case and it damn sure wouldn’t be the kid’s fault.”

“I was so sure he’d hate me.” You’ve lost count of how many times you’ve cried today, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Crying over this makes sense. “That Sophia would hate me, or Tex, or even everyone, for making their lives more complicated…”

“It would be complicated.” She won’t deny that. “But if you had been pregnant, that baby would have just had two sets of parents.”

“But now he’s hurt.” That familiar feeling of panic is right under the surface, but you swallow it down as the elevator shuts to bring you both upstairs. “And the last thing that happened between us was awkwardness. I—he—I didn’t even kiss him goodbye, Di.”

“You’ll kiss him hello.” Diana tells you with a certainty she doesn’t exactly feel but she needs you to believe. “And kiss him every time he leaves the room from now on.”

There’s a fear there that’s too great to acknowledge, but you nod and follow her out of the elevator when it reaches the floor that the lab is on. You can’t bring yourself to ask out loud what the machine might do to him this time. He’d come out of it an admittedly different man last time, and when you were healed by it, it had turned your body around on itself. Who knows what effect it might have on Jack tonight, and that is terrifying to think about.

Diana keeps a tight hold on your hand as the lab doors open and Ginger, along with several of her assistants, rush around to get things ready. The screen overhead is on, displaying the camera from the helicopter medic’s helmet. Jack is laying on a gurney, his shirt and jacket cut from his body and his normally golden skin gray, blood covering his torso.

“Oh god…” Instinctively clutching Diana’s hand tighter, you stay out of the way of the bustling medics but keep your eyes glued to the screen. He looks like he’s been ripped open from the side and you have the heaviest instinct of violence you’ve ever felt in your life. Whoever did this to your soulmate had better hope you never find them. You may not be a trained Statesman agent, but you’re certain in this moment that it wouldn’t matter. You’d tear them limb from limb and turn them into dinner.

“BP dropping!” The medic’s staticky voice comes over the speakers. “There’s another fucking bleed somewhere!”

“Diana…” The grip you have on her hand is unforgiving while you watch the monitor, but she squeezes yours back. “Please tell me that they got the guy that did this to him.”

“Sophia got them.” The camera twists as the medic reaches for something from the bag and you get a view of the other agent, sitting along the wall and looking worried, covered in blood. Jack’s blood.

“Fuck…” Sophia looks terrified as she sits on the other side of the stretcher, and you can’t stop yourself from instinctively reaching out even knowing they can’t see you and it won’t make any difference. That’s your friend and your soulmate in that chopper, and the only thing you can do is stand here. “There has to be something I can do,” you murmur, not knowing if anyone even hears. Not knowing if it’s even true.

“Nothing right now.” She knows how helpless you feel. “Just pray right now. Even if you don’t believe, pray.”

The two of you stay sitting in a corner, watching the feed from the camera on board the helicopter. They manage to stabilize Jack again but don’t seem confident about it, and it’s a full half hour before that camera shows the team landing on the Statesman helipad on the roof of the building so they can bring him inside.

When the team bursts through the doors with Jack, Sophia is hot on their heels. Immediately rushing over to you when she sees you spring to your feet. “I’m so sorry!” She cries. “I– I don’t know what the hell happened. He was perfectly fine one moment and then he was–” she gestures towards the gurney.

“You got the guy, right?” Whatever happened, you can’t rewind and undo it now, so when you look Sophia in the eyes that is the one thing you want to know. “The person who hurt Jack is dead?”

“Yes.” Her jaw clenches and she nods seriously. “He’s dead.”

“Good.” The team of medics is swarming Jack right now and you will not get in their way, so you hug Sophia close for just a few comforting seconds. The tears are mighty at this point - seeing him in person feels like your heart is being ripped out of your chest. “Thank you for getting him home.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything less.” Sophia had probably saved his life, if it were told completely. If he had been alone, Jack would have bled to death before the team could have gotten there.

“Thank you.” It’s too much to think about what might have happened if Sophia hadn’t been with him. That’s not something you can swallow right now. You just hug her again instead. “I’m sure you have work to do. I’m going to stay with him.”

She nods reluctantly. “I have to clean up and report to Champ.” She squeezes you tight. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be right here.” Under no circumstances would you go anywhere else. Not while Jack was fighting for his life.

Sophia can understand that. If it were Tex, she would be right there in your shoes. “Tex is headed in to sit with you.”

“Thank you.” There isn’t a whole lot else you can say without tumbling into anxiety, and frankly you’re terrified enough as it is. The comfort of friends sounds like a miracle. She squeezes your hand and turns around to quickly walk through the doors to go up to Champ’s office.

It isn't until Jack is fitted into the biometric pod and Ginger has his vitals stabilized that she lets you come closer, putting two chairs beside him for you and Tex. He had come in with water and snacks, warning you that worry is draining and that he was promising to sit up with you as long as it takes.

Diana stays off to the side with Ginger but she walks over to you and touches your shoulder after the first hour. "I am going back to the restaurant. Don't worry about anything. I'll take care of it all."

"Thanks, Di." Honestly you hadn't even looked at a clock since waking up and had no clue what time it was, so it seems a little shocking that the restaurant is even open. All you knew was it was after dark and you had been asleep. It could have been 3 a.m. and you wouldn't have known the difference. "I'm not–I can't leave him."

"Of course you can't." Diana huffs as if the mere idea is offensive. "If anyone has an issue with that, they can deal with me." She knows that none of your staff will argue, they will worry about Jack if they know. However, the civilian staff is normally kept in the dark concerning these matters. "I'll bring some dinner back later." She promises, leaning down and dropping a kiss on your head before leaving.

At a certain point, there isn't a lot you can do besides sit. You're wide awake beside Jack, sitting in silence with Tex as you both watch the monitors around your wounded warrior buzz and beep and flash every few seconds. It's a noisy room for the heavy weight of what's going on, busy despite the fact that no one is scurrying around any longer.

"It's different this time." Tex offers quietly, shuffling in his chair beside you and stretching his long legs in front of him. "He's got somethin' to live for. He fought death the last time and he didn't even have you. He'll pull through."

You huff softly, watching Jack's face as he sleeps in the biometrically-induced coma that is healing his body. "I don't know," you admit, feeling the way your jaw wobbles at the admission. "He's...we...last night was tense before he left."

"Hell, everyone, every relationship has tense days." Tex doesn't know the details, but it can't be that bad. "He knows you love him, he loves you."

"He, um..." The fact is, this concerns the man beside you as much as it concerns anyone else. This is Jack's emotional little brother. Your best friend's soulmate. Your friend. You swallow the guilt and the nerves, and you glance at Tex beside you with trepidation. There was a time barely twelve hours ago that you were resolved for him never to know. Now it feels dishonest to leave anything unsaid. "He thinks I'm pregnant," you murmur, knowing that the only person who could overhear you is Ginger and she's the one who ran the tests. "I'm not. But he thinks I could be..."

"Then he's got everything to live for." Tex lit up for a moment, happy for his friend even if he relaxed slightly when you told him that you're not pregnant. He knows Jack would be disappointed, but he would probably make a joke about being happy to practice some more. He's never seen Jack wanting kids, but it's got to be interesting.

"Not...not really." You glance back at him briefly before refocusing on Jack, deciding that this will be infinitely easier if you're not actually looking at Tex when you say it. "The thing is...because of the timing...he thinks...and even I thought...that it could be...well, yours."

He's silent for a minute. More than a minute, actually. Stunned into silence before he opens his mouth. "But....you're not." He says slowly, clarifying.

"No." The worry in his voice tells you everything it needs to. That if that baby had been real, it would have torn apart the fabric of your friendships just like you thought. "Ginger did the test this morning."

"I'm sorry that you've been going through this." Tex starts and then he hums. "I– did you start thinking you were when you were in New York? Sophia texted me and said she was worried about you."

"Yeah." There's just no way to hide how embarrassed you are, so you just sit there and watch Jack, not letting your eyes waver again. That's your whole life right there on that bed, and you don't know what the hell you'll do if he doesn't wake up. "Yeah, I...I did. Ginger says the pod must have thrown off my system after the kidnapping. It was just a fluke. The symptoms lined up but it was just a coincidence."

He sighs and reaches over to take your hand. It's not meant to be a romantic gesture. Rather, one of comfort. "I want you to know that no matter what, you have people who care about you. We are all a big, dysfunctional family." He jokes quietly. "If you had been, we would have...made it work."

"I wasn't going to keep it," you blurt out, clutching his hand for just the speck of comfort it provides. "I asked Ginger if she could find out. I didn't–" It's so much to hold on to, and you had isolated yourself so much that when it comes out of you it sort of just explodes everywhere. "I couldn't do that to all of you. I couldn't destroy our family and I just kind of panicked and shut down at the dress shop and I could barely even look at Jack when I came home. I couldn't look at him, or kiss him, or barely even talk to him and now he's this and if he doesn't wake up I don't think I could ever forgive myself."

"He's going to wake up." Tex promises you, a slightly desperate undercurrent to his voice. "He has to." His thoughts about you not keeping a baby, he keeps to himself. There's no way he could say what he would do under those circumstances, so he can't judge you.

"He has to." If he doesn't – if you lose the best thing in your life – then anything else around you is just noise. None of it matters.

______ Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @katheriner1999 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @hardc0rehaylz @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle

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downthe-f4ndom-rabbith0le · 9 months

Text

The Way Back Home (Spencer Reid x Reader) - Chapter Six

The Way Back Home (Spencer Reid x Reader) - Chapter Six Reader Insert: she/her pronouns Word Count: 6407 Warnings: major angst, major fluff, mentions of murder, graphic descriptions of dead bodies, crime scenes, near-death experiences, slow-burnish romance, death, canon violence, rape, swearing, guns, knives, prostitution, canon cuteness of the team. Spoilers: Maeve's death, mentions of previous cases or canon events from seasons 1-10.

Spencer and you have an unspoken connection with one another. Nothing has ever happened between you two, especially since everything went down with Maeve, but your love has grown and overcome and is now clear as day to everyone. However, just when Spencer builds up enough courage to ask you out officially, you're requested on an undercover mission that halts your budding relationship in its tracks.

Months go by without a word from you until bodies of prostitutes start showing up in New York and the BAU is brought in to help. Spencer and you finally reunite as both your cases collide, but your lives and your love are both on the line now.

Will you and Spencer be able to find the way back home this time?

~~~

Spencer stared at the blank screen, mortification petrifying him in place. He was unable to tear his eyes away from where'd he'd last seen your face just before Walter Khan's boot crushed their feed.

Him, Hotch and Kate had arrived back at the station by the time you'd been placed in the car. The further you were driven, the more glitchy the feed became. Some words didn't come through, images flickered every now and again. The camera wasn't able to catch all of what went down during the meeting, but you'd made sure to get a good look at the big seller, knowing your team would use his image to find out who he was and find out where he would be hiding out.

Spencer had to hold back vomit whenever Khan went close to you, no doubt putting his disgusting, murderous hands all over you. Even more so when you'd been taken to the Warehouse and saw the girls, saw the torture display in the middle of the room. How many girls had dangled in the middle of that room and suffered his torture? How young had they been?

When you began walking to the meeting room, Spencer had thought you'd made it out of there. That you were finally coming home.

But you had turned around, ran back for those innocent girls. You had been caught, your pained cries whenever Walter punched you still ringing in Spencer's ears.

The worst part, though, was Khan had known the whole time.

'Did you guys hear that? You think you outsmarted me? Think again.'

That's when the line went dead, squashed under Khan's boot. But not before he caught a glimpse of your face. Blood gushing from your nose down your chin, hand clutching at your ribs where you'd been punched. However, a fire of defiance burned bright in your E/C eyes, visible even from the low angle.

But that did nothing to quell the rising wave of anger and fear in Spencer, raging like a tsunami higher and higher with each passing second the screen remained dead.

Where you had disappeared from in the blink of an eye; and there was nothing Spencer could do about it.

'Get it back up,' Spencer found himself demanding. To who, he really didn't know. When no one answered, the wave rose higher. 'Get it back up!'

'I-I'm trying!" Penelope cried over the speaker phone. 'Wherever they took her, they did well to make sure no cell towers were near it. Or they have really good cell blocks that pretty much render them invisible. That's what made the feed so glitchy, they're like in the middle of nowhere.'

'What about the camera? Can you track it?'

'Yes, but again, the cell blocks blocked that signal too. I can't tell you where they went outside of lower Manhattan.'

The urge to scream was almost unbearable. Instead, Spencer drove his fingers through his unruly hair, pulling at longer strands harshly to get his mind to focus on something else momentarily. This couldn't be happening. You were safe, you were home free. Damnit, why did you have to go back?

'Alert train stations south bound that drivers and passengers should keep their eyes out for those girls along any tracks,' Hotch commanded to Holt. 'Send as many officers out along those tracks from the nearest stations. Those girls are the key to finding L/N, but they're being hunted so we need to find them first.'

'Of course,' Holt managed to get out, his face pale with terror. Good, Spencer thought. Holt at least had half a mind to look guilty, considering he was the one that put you there.

'I'll go with you, we'll need as many people on the ground as we can,' Derek offered, to which Hotch nodded his approval and Derek jogged after Holt as he ran back into the office.

Spencer's feet moved before his mouth did, halfway to the door before he said, 'I'm going, too.'

'No,' Hotch said. 'I need you to stay here and work with Garcia on a geographical profile on Walter Khan. Find out everything about him, more importantly whether he has any major properties south of Manhattan he could be operating out of.'

Spencer opened his mouth to argue. How could Hotch expect him to sit idly by a map while you were with the unsub being beaten or worse...

A gentle hand gripped his shoulder, forcing him to look down at a concerned-looking JJ. 'Don't worry, Spence,' she said softly. 'Kate and I will go help as well. You and Pen are the only ones who can figure this out, so the sooner you do that, the quicker we can bring Y/N home, okay?'

Usually, the logical answer presented itself in Spencer's mind first. What JJ said was the most logical explanation, he knew. Even so, his heart yearned to find Walter Khan and wring his neck for all he was worth. It was an overwhelming urge, similar to the one he had when on his dilaudid addiction many years ago.

The memories of what that addiction did to him - how it almost destroyed his life - was what brought him back to his logical conclusion.

He nodded at JJ and stepped aside so her and Kate could follow Derek. Kate gave him a sympathetic smile and a gentle squeeze of his upper arm, then her and JJ were gone. That left himself, Rossi, Penelope on the phone, and Hotch.

'Dave,' Hotch said, 'You and I are going down to the Chateau and questioning Madame Lacroix. She's got to be back there by now. And she's going to tell us everything she knows about the operation this time.'

'Whether she likes it or not,' Rossi added, nodding at Hotch in agreement as he made to pick up his coat from the chair he'd previously been sitting on.

'Waitwaitwaitwait!' The high pitch urgency of Penelope's voice halted Hotch and Rossi's movements as her face appeared on the huge screen, scrunched with worry.

'What is it, Garcia?' Hotch asked.

'I've been trying to track Y/N's camera location since she got to wherever they're holding her,' she explained, her voice a little high-pitched in desperation. She continued typing furiously on her keyboard as she did.

'You found her?' Spencer asked, his voice desperate, hopeful.

'I wish I could say yes, boy wonder,' she apologised. 'However, while tracking, an unknown window popped up. Check this out...'

Another few clicks on her end and a window - the one she found - popped up beside Penelope's face. The image in that window, however, had Spencer's stomach plummeting through the ground.

You hung with your hands above your head by a chain in the middle of a room, your now bare feet just scraping along the hay that lay all around the floor. You were back in the Warehouse, in the place where you'd shown Spencer and the team where the girls were held and-

'Oh my God,' Penelope breathed out, voice trembling with horror at your beaten state. The camera appeared to be setup on a tripod, keeping your entire body in frame. They'd all seen you fight, but only now could they see the damage you'd taken.

Blood dripped from your nose, down your chin and had already stained the front of your dress a deeper scarlet. Your breaths were laboured, as if you were concentrating on keeping yourself from passing out. You were too far away to make out any other injuries, but Spencer had no doubt the bruises hadn't come out just yet.

'Garcia,' Hotch began, but even in her shocked state, Penelope answered.

'Already on it, sir,' she said, ignoring the tears running down her cheeks to type into her keyboard. 'Triangulating where the feed is coming from.'

It was like the world was slowing down for Spencer the longer he looked at you hanging there. The team had always joked that his IQ always slashed in half whenever he was around you. But that was usually because he couldn't find the words to talk to you properly, how to articulate in the right words just exactly how you made him feel.

In a way, the same thing was happening to him right now, but he couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't think because of terror. Because of Walter Khan, who finally strolled into frame, suit jacket discarded and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up. His rings glinted under the fluorescent lights as he waved at the camera, a smug grin on his face.

'Hi there, FBI,' he said in a sing-song voice. He looked over his shoulder, shuffled so the camera could see you again. 'Say hi to your friends, Y/N. I'm sure they're just... so happy to see you.'

You didn't respond, keeping your gaze just south of the camera, barely blinking. 'She's disassociating,' Rossi stated, recognising like Spencer, that far away look in your eyes. 'She's preparing for torture.'

Spencer gulped as Khan walked over to you slowly, prowling around you like a predator admiring his catch for the night. He remained silent as he did, and Spencer wondered for a moment if that was all he was going to do.

With the speed of a striking snake, however, he gripped your chin with one hand, the chain holding you rattling as you tried and failed to pull away. Grunts of effort escaped you as he forced you to look at the camera.

'Now, now, Y/N,' he cooed, brushing your loose hair away from your face with his free hand. 'There's no need to be shy. Say something.'

Before you could even react, he slammed his fist into your stomach, ripping a pained groan from you. But not a scream. You bit your lip hard. You probably didn't want to give Khan the satisfaction of hearing your pain. A small, hopeful part inside Spencer warmed with pride at your resilience.

Khan let go of your face and took a step back, eyes raking you up and down with a sick, sadistic admiration. 'So you think you're tough, huh?' he challenged, walking to stand behind you and place both hands on your right shoulder. 'Come on, don't hold back those beautiful sounds, baby.'

In one sharp motion, he pressed either side of your shoulder in opposite directions, causing a loud pop to echo through the room. A sharp squeak escaped your lips, but you bit down on your lip again, allowing nothing else out. The light glinted off the tears that brimmed your E/C eyes, but they did not fall. You would not let them, Spencer realised.

Khan's lips split into a sadistic grin, one that clearly revelled in the pain he brought to you. Fire stirred in the pit of Spencer's stomach, which then spread through his limbs, to the tips of his fingers, toes and head.

Never in his life had he had the greater urge to physically harm someone than Walter Khan in that moment.

'So beautiful,' Khan continued, his gentle strokes across your bloodied chin a stark contrast to his previous harsh movement. 'I knew you'd be my favourite the moment you walked through the door. You're not like other girls...'

Bile rose in Spencer's throat when Khan leaned in close to you and tried to kiss you on the lips. You still had enough strength in you to turn away so he brushed your cheek instead. When Khan tried to tilt your head to kiss you properly, you lashed out with your teeth, catching his upper lip and yanking on it. Hard.

Khan pulled back at the sudden attack with an agonised cry, clasping both hands on his lip. Blood seeped through his hands, and when he pulled away, Spencer saw that Khan's teeth and chin were covered in blood.

'Bitch,' he swore, slamming a fist a little higher than your stomach this time, no doubt breaking some ribs. You sucked in air loudly, your gasp masking the cry that Spencer could tell wanted to come out. God, she must be in so much pain. It sickened Spencer knowing what was happening to you and not being able to do anything about it.

'Garcia, anything?' Hotch asked, his usually steady voice cracking with worry as he continued to look at the screen.

'I'm trying, sir. I'm trying!' she cried.

As if sensing their urgency, Khan looked back to the camera and walked back over until only he was in the frame. Drops of blood stained his white shirt, but he didn't seem to notice as he grinned maniacally into the camera. Although Spencer knew he couldn't see them, he felt like Khan was looking directly at him, taunting him, challenging him.

'By the time you find her,' he began, 'she'll be dead. And I'll be long gone. Until next time, FBI.'

Walter Khan's smile was the last thing Spencer saw before the screen went black and the window closed and now it was only him, Penelope, Hotch and Rossi again.

'I-I'm sorry, sir,' Penelope managed out, her voice barely higher than a whisper. 'I-I-I couldn't f-find her. The signal was being rerouted all across the world.'

'We've got to move fast,' Hotch said, and him and Rossi were gone.

Spencer didn't say a word to begin with, unable to get the image of you hanging in that torture chamber out of his head.

By the time you find her, she'll be dead.

He never thought anyone of his team mates would go out being killed in action. Plenty have come and gone from the team, but not been killed. In some naive way, he figured you all were invincible - that nothing would tear you apart.

But after discovering Gideon dead only a few weeks ago, that fantasy of the team staying together forever was cracked. With your life now on the line, too, the cracks were starting to get bigger, with some pieces falling away entirely.

'Spencer,' Penelope's gentle voice brought him out of his own bubble of despair. 'I'm so sorry.'

The overwhelming urge to scream welled up in him - he didn't quite know for who or for what he wanted to scream at, just that it sounded like a better action to take than punching someone. But he didn't scream.

Instead, he gathered himself and turned to look at Penelope, face steeled by sheer will because he had to keep it together if he wanted to bring you home. 'It's Khan who should be sorry,' he replied, voice steady with threat. 'Let's get to work.'

~~~

Pain. It's all you felt. Even three hours later after Khan's beating, you still felt the ghost of his fist pounding into your stomach, into your ribcage. A sharp, piercing pain ricocheted through them whenever you inhaled too quickly. Definitely two or three broken, you concluded.

You laid on the hay on the floor. Khan had lowered your chain which alleviated some pain and pressure from your dislocated shoulder and bruising wrists. But he hadn't done it to help you. 'Don't want you breaking too soon, Y/N,' he had whispered to you when he'd laid you gently to rest. And from his accompanying smile, you knew it was just all a game to him.

He'd been gone for three hours - counting the time helped you forget the pain and terror wracking your body. Despite that, you hadn't allowed yourself to sleep. Daylight seeped through the top windows, bathing you in a warm glow that made you shiver with momentary bliss. You didn't realise how cold you were until the rays hit you.

The metallic taste of blood still haunted your lips even now that your nose had stopped running with it. It still throbbed though, but it was a dull ache in comparison to your shoulder. You could only imagine how rough you looked, and not in a good way.

The thought made you smile, if only for a moment.

The soft patter of footsteps made you sit upright despite your pain, made you pull your hands close to your chest and look at the door as it opened. You kept your face neutral as you watched Walter Khan walk in alone. He wore a new suit today: navy blue with a lilac undershirt and a navy tie with lighter blue and purple flowers embroidered onto it randomly. God, he was pretentious in every manner of the word.

He didn't walk to you straight away as you expected. Instead, he walked over to the table of torture devices to a remote hanging from the ceiling just above it. He pressed the upper button and suddenly you were jerked upwards as the chain retracted higher. You couldn't contain the yelp of pain that escaped you as your arms were pulled harshly over your head once more, placing intense pressure on your throbbing shoulder once more. He let go of the button just before your feet left the ground entirely.

Satisfied, he grabbed a clean towel and a bucket that sat underneath the table. He picked them both up and walked over to you, placed them both on the ground as he continued to look you over. He did that for a minute in silence before you couldn't take it anymore.

'What?' you asked in mock confusion. 'Have I got something on my face?'

You hated how that brought a smile to his ugly face. 'You really should lay off on the moxie, sweetheart,' he said, crouching to wet the towel in the bucket before standing back up to continue talking. 'I really do like that in a girl.'

'Girl, huh? That your preferred age?'

He shrugged, bringing the towel up to your face. Before you could lean away, he used his free hand to grip your chin, keeping you with a firm hold in place as he dabbed the wet towel across your chin, around your nose, and across your lips.

He was cleaning you up.

You were more confused than disgusted. Perhaps a little relieved to be rid of the taste of blood finally, but you would never admit that. If his goal was to kill you, why bother cleaning you up?

His dabs at your face were uncharacteristically soft. 'You've done this before,' you said, only now realising how hoarse your throat was from dehydration and the cold air.

He nodded, his eyes never straying from his task. 'I prefer my girls to be... cleaner than other ones.' He meant other prostitutes, other establishments, you realised. It was a compulsion, even knowing you weren't one of his "girls".

'Would you have to clean Roxy and the others up, too?' you asked despite knowing the answer. 'You get off on seeing others bleed, don't you Khan. It wasn't enough that you would use them, strip them of their dignity, as if they were just toys.'

One second you were breathing air, the next you were choking underneath the crushing pressure that was Khan's grip. His hold was so strong it had you seeing stars in seconds.

'I would stop talking if I were you, bitch,' he hissed, venom dripping from every word. His calm demeanour remained intact, but even with your blurred vision you saw an animalistic rage burning in his eyes.

A caged animal just waiting to be unleashed.

'You don't know anything about me,' he continued. 'And you don't know the half of what I am capable of.'

His grip on you eased a little but not completely. However, it was enough for you to find your voice again. 'I know,' you started, voice slightly wheezy from the lack of air, 'you must have suffered under the hands of someone, probably a woman in the prostitution business, when you were younger. Otherwise... why would you hate women so much?'

He gave you a strange look, one that was sceptical, angry, and intrigued at the same time. Good, if he was off guard, he might slip up and give you something of value.

'Was it your mother?' you asked. 'A sister, aunt?' When he didn't answer you continued. 'Whoever it was must be the reason why you feel as if you've been let down your entire life. That's why you built this empire, isn't it? But even now, successful and thriving off others' pain... that person made you feel you are not enough, and so nothing ever will be. But that person is gone, and you can't show them how successful you've been. That's why you hurt others, right? Because, not only can't you hurt her, you refuse to hurt the one person you hate the most... yourself.'

He stepped back from you completely, and, for the first time, his calm facade breaks to show slivers of horror and shock at your observation. Looks like I hit the nail on the head.

He looked at you for a moment longer, that haunted expression on his face making him look more sick as he shadows of birds flew over his face. You became concerned when he suddenly ran out of the room, leaving you hanging with a clean face and more questions than answers.

You had gotten under his skin; he'd shown you a weak point in his life that you could use against him. He'd looked rattled, which made you more scared than when he was calm. Walter Khan didn't strike you as the kind of man that didn't always make sure he had the upper hand in every situation he walked into. But when he didn't, when he was backed into a corner...

Caged animal waiting to be unleashed.

'What have I done?' you asked into the empty room, but you were still surprised when no one answered back.

~~~

When his vision began splitting in two, Spencer rubbed at his tired eyes. He'd been staring at the map the police station had provided for over five hours now. Him and Penelope had found nothing - no properties in his name, no previous history in the areas, nothing.

But Spencer had kept looking though, refusing to believe that Walter Khan's trail went cold here. Not when he was doing who knew what to you. It was the only thought that kept him motivated, kept his tired eyes from closing entirely on him despite their great protest.

The rising sun wasn't helping with his vision either. After being awake all night, the introduction to natural light and blue skies was a shock to the system he was still adjusting to.

'Any updates from Morgan, JJ or Kate?' he asked, his voice rumbling with exhaustion.

Penelope had remained on the video feed since the others had left, refusing to leave Spencer alone. Maybe she thought he would do something reckless without supervision. If he was being honest, he couldn't blame her for thinking that, not when the murderous urge to strangle Khan with all Spencer's might tingled the tips of his fingers.

Or maybe that was the twelve cups of coffee he'd had in the past five hours finally kicking in.

'Not yet, sorry.' Penelope said wistfully, blinking several times as she continued looking at a screen off to the side of the camera. Even in her tired state, she refused to rub at her face like Spencer in order to preserve her glorious makeup. Spencer had to admit it was impressive. She had a lot more self control than she gave herself credit for.

Just the thought alone had him rubbing his eyes again. 'Are you sure there isn't anything we've missed? What about Q25, Garcia? What's there?'

'Nothing but trees once more, boy wonder.' She heaved a sad, frustrated sigh. 'We've been looking at the same area for hours now and still nothing! What am I doing wrong?'

'It's not you, Garcia,' Spencer offered politely. Truthfully, he simultaneously felt no one was doing enough to find you, and yet they were exhausting everything they could to do so. But he was the one who promised to bring you home, who said it would all be over soon.

It was his fault you were still not found. There was something he wasn't seeing, and every second his supposedly big brain spent trying to figure it out was another second you could be being tortured.

He didn't let the thought that maybe you were already dead linger too long. Not when Hotch and Rossi stormed into the room, exhaustion and anger lining their weary faces. Spencer glanced behind them to see Madame Lacroix and two other men - one older with grey hair, the other much younger - being escorted into holding cells down the corridor.

'Madame Lacroix was a dead end,' Hotch explained before anyone could ask. 'But we managed to expose them for their involvement in Khan's business, and also the other illegal trades they've all been dealing with on the side. L/N's reports and photographs should be enough evidence to charge them on at least that.'

'But we can't bust them just yet on Khan,' Rossi added, his tone defeated. 'Any luck on the geo-profile?'

Spencer shook his head regrettably. 'There are no properties or anything that may indicate he has ties in the direction we think he's operating out of.'

'It's either just woodland or innocent estate living,' Penelope added. 'All names check out, they're not aliases.'

'Morgan, JJ, and Kate better find those girls soon then,' Rossi said. 'They seem to be our only guide to where Khan is hiding out.'

'The thing that is odd to me though,' Hotch started, 'is why he is hanging around. Why not kill L/N knowing she's an agent? Why not skip town or relocate as soon as possible?'

'Because it's a compulsion now,' Spencer found himself saying. He wasn't sure if it was from lack of sleep that he sounded delusional, but he kept talking. He needed to talk, anything to keep his mind off the alternatives. 'Y/N engrained herself so much into his operation that he may have deluded himself into thinking he can make her one of his girls for real.'

'So he'll keep her and use her just like the others,' Rossi said grimly. 'And when she eventually lets him down - as they all have - he'll kill her.'

'We'll find her before it gets to that point,' Hotch said so assuredly that Spencer almost believed it. But the odds were against them, and time was running out.

As if the universe was listening in, Penelope's gasp sent tremors of terror through Spencer as they all turned to her on the screen. 'Guys! The feed is back online!'

'Pull it up and start tracking it,' Hotch ordered, and Penelope didn't need telling twice as she did just that.

You were hanging again, but the blood that covered the lower half of your face was now gone. Your dress was ruffled and dirty in some places, and straws of hay were tangled in your messy hair. He must've lowered you for the remainder of the night, but from the dark circles under your weary eyes, Spencer guessed you hadn't slept.

'He cleaned her up,' Rossi noticed too.

'That's a good thing right?' Penelope said, pausing her tracking for a second.

'No,' Spencer replied. 'It means he's got more in store for her.'

'You were right, Reid. It's a compulsion,' Rossi added.

'Keep tracking, Garcia,' Hotch said.

And there he was.

Walter Khan entered the frame, but instead of taunting them through the camera like last time, he walked straight over to you as if the camera wasn't even on. He grasped your chin, causing you to jerk backwards with a gasp.

'How did you know that?' he asked, voice tight and restrained. When you didn't answer, he pulled you closer with a harsh tug that caused the chains to rattle. 'How did you know?!'

'Lucky... Lucky guess, I suppose,' you replied, eyes flicking from Khan to the camera and back. Something had happened between the last feed and now, Spencer concluded. Some interaction that has brought out the frantic Khan.

'No!' He slapped you, sending you spinning around on the chain. When you swung back towards the camera, the sun highlighted the blood on your lip, how it trembled as you did. 'You knew about my life! No one does! So how would an undercover agent of all people know?'

'Maybe you're just... not as slick as you think you are,' you said in between haggard breaths. Spencer could only imagine how much pain you were in. He was both extremely proud of and extremely terrified for you.

Khan let out a growl that rattled the conference room it was that loud. He lashed out with a hard punch to your gut, then a slanted punch on your knee, receiving a loud crunch and crack in return.

For the first time since being caught, you screamed. It was the most horrible sound Spencer had ever heard in his life - even worse than the gunshot that killed Maeve. It echoed through the Warehouse, a guttural, pained sound that would haunt not only Spencer's dreams but Hotch, Rossi, and Penelope's too.

You gathered yourself quickly and bit down on your lip, silencing your cries. Sunlight showed the tears that gathered at your eyes, still refusing to fall. But Spencer could tell it was taking all you had to keep it together. You knew they were watching. You probably were holding it together for them.

The pride and terror he felt for you was overwhelming to a point his knees almost buckled. But if you could keep it together while being tortured, he could do it too.

Once you'd calmed your breathing, you looked back at Khan, hate in your beautiful E/C eyes. 'Beating me... will get you nowhere... I refuse... to break to you.'

Everyone held their breaths as you held your stare with Khan, and Spencer realised it then.

It hit him in consistent waves that made it hard to catch his breath or even fully realise what was happening. It was how you stared down the crook man, unrelenting, unwavering, unbreakable. It was how, even at you most vulnerable, you made sure to put on a brave face for the team, for him. He hadn't dared think it before - not after Maeve. But the heavy thuds of his heart couldn't be mistaken.

Khan contemplated you for a moment, and then pulled out a pocket knife from his pants. He was calm again which Spencer didn't like one bit. 'Very well, then. You want to act tough?' He didn't wait for a reply as he sliced the top button of your dress off expertly. Then another and another, until almost the entirety of your bra showed. 'Let's see how tough you really are.'

Your eyes blew wide in terror finally realising what his intentions were. Spencer realised a second after, and his blood boiled painfully.

'Garcia,' Spencer managed out, unable to take his eyes off you as Khan sliced off another button and another. By the time he got to the last one, exposing your underwear too, Spencer was on the verge of a panic attack. 'Garcia!'

'I'm honing in on it now!' she called back, but it wasn't enough to quell his fear.

Khan slipped off the dress with a few more slices of the knife, then proceeded to pocket it and press himself against your back. You tried pulling away, but Khan's arms were around you already, feeling you everywhere, violating you.

That's when the tears finally fell. A broken sob escaped your bloodied, trembling lips as Khan's hands dragged all over you, brushing away the hair on your neck to press a sickeningly gentle kiss there.

But instead of completely crumbling, you looked directly into the camera and said, 'I would've said yes.'

For a moment it was just him and you. You words were so soft he almost didn't believe you said them. Spencer saw out of the corner of his eyes Hotch and Rossi didn't understand, but this wasn't about them. You were speaking directly to Spencer, probably with full faith that he was watching and that he was on his way to save you already.

Khan paused his ministrations at the odd statement, giving you a confused look. 'What?'

'I would've said yes,' you repeated, but this time there was a resignation to your words. As if you accepted that those would be the last words anyone would hear you speak. Spencer quickly realised that, as much as you believed he was coming, you didn't believe you would be alive when he finally did.

Khan followed your gaze to the camera, his expression changing as he realised you weren't talking to him.

'I would've said yes,' you said again, not once looking away from the camera.

Khan's hands retracted from you.

'I would've said yes.'

He walked over to the camera.

'I would've said yes.'

'You disappeared behind his huge frame.

'I would've said yes.'

He reached out to switch it off.

'I would've said-'

The feed went dark. The room fell silent, but only for a second. As Spencer stormed out of the room, slamming the door open as he did. He didn't know where he was going, just that he had to get out of that room.

I would've said yes.

The way you'd said it was like you were trying to make sure he heard you - that, as your last words to him, you wanted to let him know of what could've been.

He stormed into the break room where thankfully nobody resided in. He slammed his fist on one of the tables, and kicked at the chair residing at it. Anger coursed through every fibre in him, at Khan, at Holt, at himself.

I would've said yes.

'Reid.'

Spencer turned to find Rossi standing in the doorway, concern wrinkling his weathered features more. 'You okay?' he asked, slowly walking into the room fully then closing the door behind him. 'What was that about?'

'She would've said yes,' was all Spencer could manage out in his wild state of mind, finding it hard to breathe he was so wound up. 'She would've...'

'I heard that,' Rossi said gently. 'I don't know what that means. But you clearly do. So spill, boy genius. What did she mean by that?'

Spencer tugged at his hair in frustration. 'Before she left I asked her out,' he explained, voice rising as his worry did. 'She was never able to give me an answer because she was sworn to secrecy, and I thought that all this time she never liked me liked that because we've been friends for so long, but she would've said yes. You heard her! She would've said yes! And now she-'

'Okay, okay, okay,' Rossi interrupted, gently grabbing Spencer by his arms and guiding him to the chair he'd kicked just before. Spencer didn't have the strength to fight the older man, allowing himself to be guided into a seat.

Rossi crouched in front of Spencer, holding Spencer's shaking hands in his steady ones. 'Just breathe, Reid. Just breathe.'

Spencer followed Rossi' instructions as best as he could, but panic and despair had already crept in. 'Do you know,' he started, lips trembling, voice quaking with emotions he couldn't quite understand, 'that friendships that last longer than seven years... that they are meant to last for life? Y/N and I... we've been friends for a decade.'

'I know,' Rossi answered gently. 'You, JJ, Penelope and Y/N are quite close.'

'Yes, but,' Spencer continued through the sniffles, 'Y/N's always been there. Not just for me, but with me. I never realised how integral to my life she was until she left. I never realised that my love for her was something more until it was too late.'

'You love her?'

Only when Rossi pointed it out did Spencer realise what he'd admitted. But it wasn't a casual slip of the tongue - it was intentional, it was true, it was the only thing he wanted to say because he hated how long it took him to realise it for himself.

He nodded slowly, tears running down his cheeks. 'I didn't know it at first, but it didn't just happen overnight. Truth is... I think I've loved her from the day I met her. Platonically at first, but it's grown as we have, and she is so precious to me Rossi. I can't lose her. I can't.'

Sobs wracked his boney body as he broke down. Rossi pulled him into an awkward but comforting hug, and Spencer couldn't express how grateful he was for such comfort. Rossi had grown into the father figure he'd made Gideon out to be; and while Spencer had learnt to stand on his own two feet, it was reassuring knowing he had someone older and wiser to rely upon.

'It's like Maeve all over again,' Spencer found himself saying, still clinging onto Rossi like his life depended on it. 'Just when I glimpse happiness, it's snatched away. And there is nothing I can do about it.'

'No, no,' Rossi said, pulling back to look Spencer directly in his amber eyes. 'You listen to me, boy wonder. We are going to find her, and we're going to bring her home. And you are going to tell her how you feel and finally take her on a date. Is that understood?' When Spencer didn't answer, Rossi continued.

'Remember how when Maeve died, you holed yourself up in your apartment for weeks, and didn't talk to anyone?' Spencer nodded, but only because he didn't quite understand why Rossi was bringing it up. 'And remember how we all came by to visit, but mostly Y/N? That was because she believed you were strong enough to get through it. She never doubted you, never gave up on you, Spence. Are you really going to return the favour by giving up on her?'

Spencer stared at Rossi for a moment, perplexed that he even would suggest such a thing. He quickly wiped his tears away, though. 'No,' he answered, voice stern and hopeful.

'Good,' Rossi replied, standing back up. 'Now use that big brain of yours. There's got to be something that we missed.'

Before Spencer could answer, the door to the break room swung open to reveal a flustered Derek Morgan. 'We found them,' he said between heavy breaths. 'We found the girls.'

85 notes · View notes

gnrbitch · 2 months

Text

Grunge Days Epilogue - Moonlight Mile

-----

2003, Slashs POV

1999, the year Y/n left me left me, the promise i had made her back in ‘92 was broken. And as much as she tried, I know that everything i was doing crushed her. It wasn’t much of a surprise when she told me it was over. And as much as it hurt, I had no choice but to let her go.

After Layne passed, Y/n had became the worst version of herself. No one could find her, and if they could, you couldn’t get anything across to her.

I’ll always remember the last time I spoke to her.

“Y/n baby- just open the door” Slash said, his head pressed against her door. “Please” Y/n sniffled “I can’t”

“Yes you can” Slash said, his own voice breaking at the sound of Y/ns weak voice “It’s okay- It’s just me”.

“Just leave Slash” Y/n said, her voice becoming harsher, she started yelling, “Get out of here” over and over again.

Slash flinched and shut his eyes when he started to hear things breaking through the door. He sighed, a tear threatening to leave his eye “Just- just calm down okay? I’ll leave”.

Sniffling, he said his goodbyes “I’ll leave Y/n okay? I love you- just call me when you can sweetheart. I love you.”

After some silence, he spoke his last words “Bye Y/n”

Duffs wife, Susan, was rubbing his back as I held him. In fear that he would fall onto his knees. Looking up to the sky, I didn’t know if it was me or him who was about to collapse. The pain was enough to take us both out.

My heart hurt as I stared at the box in front of me, the priest reading a bunch of prayers that I didn’t pay attention to. My heart knew that no matter what Y/n had done in her lifetime, she would be an angel.

All I heard was crying, I told my condolences to everyone. Jerry and Sean were a mess, everyone there was. Even I was, I was never much of a crier, but even through my sunglasses you could see all of the tears leaving my eyes.

The whole time i was here i felt judged, as though besides everyone’s grief, they looked at me as the man who never could love Y/n enough.

They were right, partially, I know I fucked up, but the love I felt for her was always real. The love i felt for Y/n was enough to almost make me stop breathing.

And to see this, all of the air in my lungs had slowly been leaving me.

I’ll never forget her smile, or her voice. The time we were together, happy in our own little world, and how all the times she would tell me how much she loved me was enough to make my knees buckle.

My eyes scanned everyone around me, until they landed on the dirt that was covering Y/n.

2005

Slash took a trip down to Seattle to go and visit Y/ns grave. He couldn’t live one more month without saying what he needed to

“I’m sorry Y/n” His voice cracked at the sight of her headstone, he had never saw it. The last time he was here was during her funeral.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t love you like I should’ve, I really wanted to” He cried, wiping his tears away, “I really did love you Y/n, I still do. I’ll never stop loving you. I’m so sorry” He said, his lips pressing together as his hand softly touched her headstone. “I really failed you, I’m sorry i wasn’t man enough to show you how much I loved you- I wish- I wish you were still here Y/n. Life hasn’t been the same since you’ve been gone” He sniffled, looking up to the sky.

Slash wasn’t the type of man to regret anything he’s done during his lifetime. But Y/n, Y/n was something that he regretted so much it made him relapse for the past two years. He never let himself feel what he was supposed to, now having kids he needed to find a way to be able to still function as a human being.

“I can’t stop saying i’m sorry- i don’t think i ever will” He sighed “I think of you everyday Y/n, you’ll always be the girl who has my heart- ever since back in ‘86- you’ll always be my girl.”

“I love you Y/n, and I will forever”

——

Im sorry

thank you guys so much for sticking with me, it means so much!!! sorry it took forfuckenever. I hope you guys enjoyed this series!!!!

All my love, gnrbitch💝

tagged: @killazilla777 @kirksfunkopop @queenboona-blog @eris-elysium @hoodiesandicedcoffee @eddiiiieeee

#slash #axl rose #guns n' roses #duff mckagan #guns n roses fanfic #izzy stradlin #slash gnr #slashfanfic #guns n roses imagine #slash fanfiction #gnr fic #gnr x reader #gnr fanfiction #guns n' roses fic #saul hudson #izzystradlinfic #slash x reader #slash imagine #slash guns n roses

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junosmindpalace · 2 years

Note

hear me out, that last dr stone angst but write a continuation where everybody learns that y/n was dead and senku’s reaction to discovering that it was his fault <3

"Amongst that crowd, Senku was one of those who stared at you in horror. "

hooooly this is finally finished! the long awaited epilogue to the hanahaki story! this was pretty difficult to write- i wanted to cover as much as i could without making it too lengthy while being realistic, which wasn't easy. im a bit iffy about some of the characterization, but nevertheless, i hope it was worth the wait! thank you for your patience!

warnings: detailed descriptions of death, blood, sickness, grief, intrusive thoughts, burning of a body (sorry its a lot but considering the theme...). if i should add any warnings, PLEASE let me know. some manga spoilers but nothing too major!

words: 3,374

Constructive feedback is always welcome! I’m always looking to improve!

Requests are open! (checked my pinned post!)

The concept of the Hanahaki disease was first introduced to Ishigami Village through the one hundred tales. It was mentioned briefly- a woman, in love with a man who didn’t love her back, had suffocated on yellow tulip petals that she couldn’t stop throwing up. There had been no record of anyone in the village ever experiencing such a sickness, and many assumed the story was a metaphor or a lesson like the other tales. Simply a fictional disease.

“What a silly way to die.” You had thought to yourself when you first heard of the illness as a young child. If only you knew you’d be in the same position as the woman in the story, suffocating on yellow tulip petals because the man you were in love with didn’t love you back.

In your final moments, you saw your life flash before your eyes, internally laughing at the cliché. You saw yourself with your best friends, Kohaku, Ruri, Chrome, Kinro and Ginro, little Suika and old man Kaseki. You saw yourself with the man you had fallen in love with, acquainting him, working with him, becoming friends.

Senku Ishigami. The brilliant scientist who Kohaku one day brought home and helped heal her sick older sister. A man of the future who told you all sorts of stories, created all sorts of things from his time and shaped your world into something magical. Senku Ishigami is quite a guy.

Which is why in the end, you didn’t regret loving him. Though you wish you could’ve lived long enough to start a new chapter with him after defeating Tsukasa, you passed on to the next world happy that you were able to indulge in everything he was.

You did feel guilty leaving your friends--your family--behind though. You didn’t want to, but you couldn’t find a cure to heal you of your sickness. Keeping your condition hidden (with the exception of your mentalist friend finding out) made it difficult to focus on finding a cure, covering for yourself and helping the Kingdom of Science in their war against the Tsukasa Empire. And so one day during your final stages of hanahaki, Gen Asagiri had found you dead in your tent, covered in yellow tulips and stained with blood, and rushed off crying for help.

Ukyo, with his super sharp hearing, was the first to hear Gen’s distant cries. He called for everyone’s attention and they all turned toward the sound of Gen’s panting and shouting. When he finally reached everyone, he stared at the citizens wide eyed. Though the war against the Tsukasa Empire had ended, the Kingdom of Science had a new mission: to establish cities all over the globe. To do that, they needed to make a ship and prepare for the journey. Senku and some others had returned only minutes ago from retrieving a ship captain- he could tell by the unfamiliar stranger standing next to them. Gen didn’t have time to think about it. “It’s Y/N.”

Something wasn’t right. Gen had a wild look in his eyes as if he’d seen a dead man, was visibly shaking, and Senku deduced he had just returned from visiting your tent as you weren’t present when the group left. Kohaku too could tell that something was off and made the same deduction Senku did. In her hard-headed nature, she rushed past Gen and toward your tent in a panic. Some people tried stopping her, but gave up quickly upon realizing their efforts were futile.

“Gonna need you to be a bit more specific, Gen.” Senku's tone was airy, but he was trying not to make his desperation to know what happened to you evident.

“Y/N…”

“C’mon mentalist, spit it out.”

“...is...dead.”

When Kohaku barged into your tent, she was appalled at the horrifying sight. She collapsed at your side, crying out at you and cradling you in her arms. Pools of blood, flowers, flowers drenched in blood, all of it surrounded your body. “Y/N? Y/N, say something. Please, Y/N, please say something.” She pleaded at your body as she pressed her forehead against yours, tears rapidly falling from her eyes and onto your blood stained face. You couldn’t hear any of it.

A crowd shortly formed at the entrance of your tent where gasps and mutters were exchanged. Some stared at the sight in shock and horror, some looked away in disgust and anguish.

Amongst that crowd, Senku was one of those who stared at you in horror.

Hanahaki wasn’t an unheard of disease in the modern world. Of course it existed, but little was known about proper treatment. In the age of advanced medicines, there were only two sure cures: one was surgery, the other was requited love.

Kohaku turned toward the crowd with a heavy flow of tears rolling down her face. She held you close to her chest in a protective manner, as if attempting to shield you from the damage you had inflicted onto yourself. “We’ve got to be able to do something! Senku! We have to help them!”

For the first time ever, Senku’s senses dulled for what seemed like an eternity. His mind couldn’t process the sight of his friend covered in their own blood, unconscious and completely unmoving. His mind rejected the fact that your body had been completely drained of life as his fingers brushed yours while checking your pulse. When did he force himself through the crowd and crouch down beside you?

“Senku! We have to act now!”

Everyone dies at some point, Senku knows and accepts this, but he’s never felt more distressed than he does right now looking at your lifeless, sickly frame. He’s had to cope with a lot of hardships in a short amount of time- the loss of his dad, his life, his departure from his two best friends, and though he could argue that the worst has come to shove, he felt physically sick as he continued to stare at you, head spinning, his chest blazing.

“Senku! Say something!”

“T-They’re beyond saving. Too much blood loss…” Snap out of it, Senku, he told himself firmly. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head and let out a deep exhale, frustration and grief slowly overwhelming both his mind and body. “They lost too much blood overnight, and even if we were to find them sooner, blood transfusions can have their own complications. There’s-,” Senku swallows. What he said next pained him from the very depths of his soul. He’s the calm and collected type who works well even under extreme pressure and always keeps his wits, always finding solutions despite having terrible luck on his side, and so the crack in his voice betrays his attempt at remaining composed when he utters “there’s…not much we could have done.”

Senku slowly turned toward the crowd and fixed his gaze on Gen, who was staring at you with sheer terror in his face. He seemed to be two seconds away from a complete breakdown. “Gen, did you know?”

The mentalist’s eyes snapped toward the scientist’s, hard to detect emotion in his crimson ones. Gen gulped; he knew Senku was referring to the disease. “Yes. It was important to Y/N for their condition to be kept secret. I…connected the dots on my own.”

“Hang on, condition? What condition?” Chrome’s uneasy and slightly angry voice suddenly rang out as he pushed past the crowd toward the front to stand beside Gen. Kohaku’s teary eyed darted from you to her friends. She thought hard. Condition. Flowers. Death.

“Could it be…”

“Gen.” Senku yet again directed a question to the magician, cutting off Kohaku. “Why don’t you explain to all of us what happened to Y/N?”

It was important that the entirety of the Kingdom of Science was informed of your death and the events leading up to it. The crowd that had formed at your tent, mostly your friends and those from Ishigami Village, rounded up the elders, newcomers, and former members of the Tsukasa Empire to the middle of the base, where Gen began his explanation.

He explained what the Hanahaki disease was, the coughing of flowers and petals, the two known cures, and how either were unavailable to you. He recalled first noticing your symptoms, his confrontation on the eve of delivering the cellphone and your desperation to keep the disease a secret, afraid of burdening others during a critical period in the waging war between the Tsukasa Empire and the Kingdom of Science. He admitted to covering on behalf of you and even explained how he tried curing you with the sulfa-drug.

Senku had cut in to explain to the angry villagers why the so-called “panacea” didn’t work on you. “The sulfa-drug is meant to cure bacterial infections such as Ruri’s pneumonia. Hanahaki, however, doesn’t work like most sicknesses and normal means of treatment aren’t successful. Considering the nature of the disease, no ordinary medicine would be able to fully cure it.”

“Someone could’ve saved Y/N though, right?” Someone in the crowd called out. “Someone had to return their feelings!”

“...Yes.” Senku turned toward Gen, but kept his gaze fixed to the ground. “So Gen, who was Y/N’s sweetheart?”

Gen smiled as he regrettably told the scientist, “It was you, dear Senku.”

Senku’s convinced that this is the worst of his bad luck.

The Kingdom of Science’s first loss was a heavy burden on everyone, especially those from Ishigami Village who considered you family.

Kohaku’s face was grim the first couple of days with you gone. Being known as the strongest out of everyone in her village, she felt angry for being so powerless. Feelings of regret only fueled her anger and grief as she reflected on times when she would catch you coughing or sneaking off and not persist with questions or investigating. She dropped her guard and wasn’t able to help her loved one, and she felt disgusted with herself. Ruri did her best to comfort her younger sister, but even she felt a tremendous guilt. As someone who suffered with an illness her entire life and had an important role to play in the village, she regrets not being more concerned with your symptoms and shared Kohaku’s regret in not persisting enough with questions.

All Suika ever wanted was to be helpful, and she failed in assisting you with your sickness. The seemingly never ending energy she always had was drained for a long while. She looked up to you as an older sibling, perhaps even a parental figure, and now you were gone. You had always done so much for her, constantly making sure she was safe, teaching her things you learned from Senku and the other villagers, and comforting her when she felt scared or sad, yet Suika wasn’t able to repay you. You saved her so many times, but she couldn’t save you. Nobody let Suika go anywhere near your body, but she managed to catch a glimpse of you being carried out of your tent with a white cloth over you, and as the reality of it all settled in, she panicked so bad she passed out.

Kinro and Ginro had a duty to protect their village and everyone in it, yet they couldn’t protect you. Admittedly, they don’t understand much about science and medicine, but they trained hard and stood guard day and night so the villagers of Ishigami Village could go about themselves without having to fear any doom. Ginro, in his anxious nature, was horrified by your death, scared for his life and set into a panic. He was afraid that the hanahaki disease would claim his life next, and Senku had to explain that the disease isn’t contagious when Gen addressed everyone. While Ginro was making a fuss, Kinro hit him over his head with his spear and told him to can it. Kinro wished the disease was a physical foe he was able to defeat or at least had known about. He, like Kohaku, felt angry for being so powerless. He did his best to appear strong, though his teary eyes betrayed him.

Chrome had millions of thoughts and feelings rushing over him at once almost 24/7, all of them suffocating. You had been best friends ever since the two of you were young, and instead of figuring out you were ill, he had to witness you bathe in a pool of your own blood. He felt sick, hell, he even got sick multiple times, the sight and situation heavy on his mind and heart. Chrome was angry at you, but most especially angry at himself, and the questions he had for you were meters of mental parchment long. Why didn’t you feel like you could confide in him? How could he not notice the pain you were in? Couldn’t you trust him to help you? What troubled him the most was the recurring and realistic thought that, even if you did bring your situation to his awareness, he couldn’t have done anything about it.

Kaseki didn’t disguise his sadness and openly cried over your death, which only made those who tried to appear strong, like Kinro, more emotional. He spoke about how your life was taken so tragically and far too soon, sorrowful that an old man like him outlived a spunky young person such as yourself. He cursed out the disease and how something so beautiful such as flowers could be so deadly and lead to your demise.

Those who didn’t know you very well were still shocked that someone had passed. Ukyo, who had joined the Kingdom of Science under the condition that not a single life is lost, felt very conflicted about the circumstances of your death. He knew that nobody was responsible for your death, and it was the disease that had claimed your life, but he couldn’t help feeling a little resentful. He kept a close eye on Senku ever since Gen revealed that it was he who could’ve saved you.

Like Ukyo, Taiju and Yuzuriha couldn’t believe that someone had actually died. They too kept close eyes on Senku and did their best to give him the space they knew he needed to reflect. Neither of them knew you very well, but from the short time they did, you seemed like an amazing individual and could tell you were special to many, including their best friend, from the impact your death had on them all.

Gen was scared and felt largely responsible for your death. Intrusive thoughts and dreams about you plagued him day and night, your strained voice echoing in the back of his mind feeding into his guilt. You killed me, choked out your voice. I don’t wanna die, you cried out, and nothing Gen did could drown out your voice. He felt hopeless, weak and a coward. Before, he didn’t mind being all these things, but now with you gone, with the slight chance that he could’ve been able to save you, he regretted demonstrating these qualities in such a serious situation. He’d shrink into himself, hiding his face behind his face while thinking “why trust me, Y/N? Why me?”

“Why me, Y/N?” was a frequent thought Senku was plagued with. While everyone was taking time off their tasks to cope with your passing, Senku spent a lot of his time holed up in the lab back at Ishigami Village.

He was frustrated, like many others. He was conflicted on how to feel about your death and didn’t know how to react. You were a close friend of his that he cared very deeply about, a friend that he cared about in the same way he cared about Kohaku or Chrome. You didn’t do anything wrong, his friends have told him, and though he knows himself, he’s glad because admittedly, he finds himself needing the reminder.

To think that it was because he didn’t return your romantic feelings for him that led to your death was a heavy burden that he knows you did your best to avoid shouldering onto him. He knew how you were; selfless and courageous to the very end. It was one of the things that he liked so much about you, but in this instance, he wished you were a little bit selfish. Senku knew that you kept your illness a secret to avoid weighing down the others, and he regrettably admitted to himself that if you were to come forward with your disease, it may have slowed down productivity. Along with the burden of war would come the burden of sickness, and that was an obstacle that everyone had already celebrated in overcoming. For it to be revealed that there was a new sickness to be concerned about would’ve lowered morale significantly.

But it was your life on the line. You could’ve at least come to him. He’s a scientist, but most importantly, he’s Senku. He isn’t the type to walk away from trouble or to back down from a tricky problem. He sticks with something till the very end; until he’s found a loophole, concocted a seemingly impossible plan, or has gone through every single step of a painstaking project. He would’ve been by your side, he would’ve helped you.

He’s ten billion percent sure of it.

And he has to stabilize himself by putting his hand on the table as the thought of being too much for your friend to handle brought tears to his eyes. He constantly puts his trust in those around him, sometimes because he needs to, but mostly because he chooses to, and from the very first day he’s met you, he chose to trust you.

So why couldn’t you trust him?

He’s let you down. He’s done so much for others, and yet he’s let his friend down.

Eventually, everyone had to proceed with their travel plans. There was still a lot that had to be done before a crew could set off establishing cities around the world.

Ryusui had suggested that you were set out to sea as a symbolic gesture to represent where you grew up and where you were headed off to. A small boat was created for your body to lay in, along with your possessions and flowers. It felt ironic to some to send you off with the very same thing that killed you. When you drifted far enough, Ukyo drew a fire arrow and shot it onto your boat. The flames devoured everything on board, and many couldn’t bear to watch as your body became engulfed in the scorching fire. A gravestone was marked in Ishigami Village’s cemetery with your name, date of birth and death. Below, “beloved friend and family” was carved by Kaseki.

Many people visited your grave regularly while preparations were made, vowing to continue doing their best and to create the future you dreamt of being a part of. They paid their respects and said their goodbyes before departing for the long journey ahead of them, and once they returned, they sat around your grave and talked to it about all of their adventures and achievements, laughing and feeling comforted by the presence of your spirit.

Though Senku had said his goodbyes with the rest of the group, he returned to the cemetery in the early morning of the crew's departure. He kneeled and bowed his head, placing one hand on the stone with your name carved in front of him. Tears trickled down his face and onto the soil that you were raised on, on the same Earth that you trekked on and explored with Senku.

Senku thinks he’ll always be angry over your death. He’s lost a lot, and the grief will always be with him, but he swears to you as his grip on the stone tightens that he’ll bring the future you were so enamored with to fruition. He got up and headed for the docks with the promise of restoring humanity for the sake of you and all those who never were able to live to see it. He’ll keep you in his thoughts throughout every step.

And that proves true years later as Senku works on his newest science project with his unwavering determination and resolution that was fuelled by the idea of being able to see you again.

#dr stone x reader #dr stone oneshot #dr stone headcanons #dr stone fanfiction #dr stone hcs #drst x reader #dr stone senku #dr stone drabbles #dr stone angst #senku ishigami x reader #senku x reader #senku headcanons #senku x you #senku ishigami oneshot #senku ishigami headcanons #senku ishigami angst

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ghosttotheparty · 1 year

Text

love me softly - epilogue

part 22

Jeff Montgomery and Ian Taylor were already in Hellfire Club, and after Eddie jokingly says he needs to join a shitty band instead of trying to go to college, the four of them end up in Gareth’s garage almost every day, playing what they know and improvising what they don’t. (Mrs Gareth’s Mom brings them sodas and fruit, and she headbangs on her way out. Eddie loves her.) They manage to get gigs at the Hideout for a while before moving on to bigger venues with bigger crowds and bigger checks.

Steve graduates before Eddie, and he moves into the trailer. He cuts his parents off, but nothing really changes much, given how little they already contacted him to begin with. (They didn’t go to his graduation. They just sent him some money.) He finds jobs around town before he finally settles at the new mall, where he dresses as a sailor and scoops ice cream, and he meets Robin Buckley.

They become good friends almost immediately. He drives her around town, to and from work, to and from school, and when she finally meets the guys, she fits right in. They all gang up on Steve to tease him, and then they tease Eddie that Robin is stealing his man. It takes a while for the room to settle when Robin says casually Steve doesn’t have tits, he’s not really my type.

Eddie meets Chrissy Cunningham during his third senior year. They meet after school in the woods for a deal, but when she asks for something stronger than weed, he refuses. He puts the tin box away and leans over the picnic table they’re sitting at, and he asks her what’s going on. He promises he won’t tell anyone anything she says. I’ve been dealing since I was a freshman, that’s a long-ass time. I’m great at keeping secrets.

She talks to him. She tells him with a wobbly voice about her mother and the things she says, the things she makes Chrissy do, and Eddie’s whole body aches as he listens. When she finishes, he moves to sit next to her, and he takes her hand, and he tells her what he told Steve when Steve told him the same about his own mother. He tells her that she’s beautiful no matter what, that she doesn’t deserve any of it. That if she can’t be kind to herself yet, he can be kind for her. She leans against his shoulder. Her hands are shaking.

So he wraps an arm around her and asks what else.

My boyfriend is mean.

His body immediately tightens, and he asks very carefully if he hurts her, but she says no. That he loves her, and is kind to her, but is so mean to everyone else that she just… doesn’t like him. Doesn’t like how he treats people. Doesn’t like how he treats her, even if he is loving and kind, because sometimes I feel like he only loves me because I look good holding his arm.

He tells her she doesn’t have to be with him.

They stay there for a little while longer so Chrissy can avoid Jason and the others. She doesn’t want them to see that she’s been crying. So Eddie waits with her. She says she’s heard rumours about him. He says there are a lot of those.

Are they true?

Depends on which ones you mean.

She looks down at her lap. Is quiet for a few moments.

The ones… about you and Steve Harrington. That you guys are…

In love?

…Yeah.

He tells her it’s true. They’ve been together for a while. Since before Steve cut his hair. And she starts to cry.

I think— I think one of the reasons I don’t like Jason is because… he’s a— he’s a boy.

He turns to look at her, and he holds her face in his hands, and he looks into her watery eyes intently before he tells her firmly, softly, There is nothing wrong with you. He holds her while she cries.

She breaks up with Jason two weeks later, and while the news spreads across Hawkins about the town’s star couple splitting up, she’s at the trailer, watching movies with Eddie and Steve. She holds onto Eddie’s arm the whole time, and he falls a little in love with her.

Chrissy Cunningham joins Corroded Coffin later that year. She replaces Ian as the lead vocalist. (He never really wanted to be the vocalist, so he’s happy.) She has a killer stage presence and Eddie loves seeing her come alive after a while, after leaving home. She dances on stage, and she becomes known for the way her blonde hair flies around her head, the way it glows under the fluorescent lights on stage.

She meets Robin not long after she starts hanging out with Eddie. When Robin walks into the trailer, Chrissy is hanging upside down on the sofa, gravity carrying her hair down like a gold river cascading to the floor, and she beams up at her with a bright Hi! Robin’s face flushes pink and she freezes.

…Hi.

They get together after a gig in Indianapolis after pining for a while. Chrissy’s eyes find her in the crowd during a song, and Robin flushes pink as Chrissy sings the lyrics I want a pretty girl like you, as she sings something about a bird in the sky, tasting the cotton candy clouds. Eddie finds them making out backstage afterwards, and he promptly turns around and drags Jeff away so he doesn’t interrupt.

Corroded Coffin gains traction in the mid-nineties.

They run away to San Francisco. Steve and Robin open a studio, where they paint together and make messes daily. Eddie and Steve’s apartment is filled with paintings Steve didn’t want to sell, every wall covered with canvases, along with photographs and posters and sketches. Steve replaces one of his paintings with a framed Rolling Stone magazine when they feature Corroded Coffin.

Steve doesn’t perform with them, but all the fans know who he is. He’s at almost every gig, always at the edge of the stage or as close as he can get, looking up at Eddie all starry-eyed. He designs all their album covers. (The original paintings are hanging at their house. Chrissy took her favourite one a while ago. It’s hanging in her and Robin’s living room.)

Tommy becomes a math teacher.

He has to give Gareth credit for the idea. Ever since he helped him with his statistics, Gareth’s You ever think about being a teacher, Hagan? had rattled around his head, all the way until his senior year. So he does it. He leaves for college right after graduating, and even though he’s sad when he says goodbye to Steve, and Eddie, and Gareth (if he cries that’s his business), he’s ecstatic to get away from his parents. He stops worrying about what they say, about what they think.

He moves to Indianapolis. He likes it here.

He meets a nice girl during his second year of college. Her name is Amanda Kilmer, and she’s studying English literature. She tends to rant a lot, but Tommy loves listening to her voice. When he’s asked by his friend what his favourite thing about her is, the first thing he says is, “She’s kind.” They got married twenty-seven years ago, but every day Tommy considers proposing all over again.

Tommy isn’t really fully aware of his reputation in the high school where he works.

He likes to think that he’s a good teacher, but he doesn’t know how good he is. There isn’t one student that doesn’t like him. He’s patient with the students that are slower learners or have learning disabilities, and he’s kind and gentle and understanding. His classroom is known to be a safe space. Some students that don’t even have his class tend to hang out there during lunch just to be in a quieter environment, and he always has extra food for students that don’t have anything to eat.

His favourite class isn’t really a class. It’s his study hall, about thirty juniors and seniors that tend to be a bit chaotic. Sometimes he has to separate friends so they actually get their homework done, but there are a few students that he doesn’t see talk to anyone very often. One of them is Jordan, a boy with long hair who moved to Indy over the summer. Tommy has a soft spot for Jordan.

He’s happy when he notices some students talking to Jordan a few weeks after school starts. They’re asking him what music he listens to.

Uh, I really like, like, metal and stuff.

Tommy smiles to himself.

Another student says his dad listens to that kind of music but he can’t tell if it’s rock or metal, and Jordan smiles for the first time when he asks what the difference is. He has a nice smile. It lights his whole face up.

Mr Hagan, how would you describe the difference between hard rock and metal?

You know, Jordan, that’s a great question. I wouldn’t, because I don’t know.

The kids laugh. On their way out, Tommy hears one of them ask Jordan why he asked Tommy, and Jordan says He had a picture of Corroded Coffin at his desk. They’re one of my favourite bands. Tommy smiles.

Jordan ends up making several friends in the class. None of them are into metal, but they like to listen to it with him, and they like to hear him talk about it. The students end up teasing Tommy for being a secret metalhead. They catch him nodding or humming along every time they play a song by Corroded Coffin. One of them accuses him of being in love with Chrissy Cunningham, but another says loudly He has a wife! The class coos obnoxiously, and he just lowers his head to his desk and hits his forehead softly against it a few times, eliciting a laugh.

California legalises same-sex marriage on the twenty-eighth of June, 2013. Tommy cries when he hears.

Eddie and Steve get married on September third.

The week before, Tommy tells his study hall he won’t be here next week because he’s attending a wedding. His students are excited, and when they ask who’s getting married, he says Some friends from high school. They’ve been waiting to get married since 1984, and it was just legalised. Which just makes his students even more excited.

They make him promise to bring back pictures.

He does. He makes a whole powerpoint, and when he’s back, he relishes in their screams when the opening photo is him standing as best man for one Steve Munson, at the altar with his husband.

Tommy just looks at Jordan, who’s staring, wide-eyed, open-mouthed. The class falls silent after a minute, and they all look at Jordan, waiting.

…You said high school friends.

Tommy just shrugs. He can’t stop smiling.

I’ve been best friends with Steve since we were kids. He and Eddie fell in love in high school.

Jordan’s head falls to his desk, and his voice is muffled when he speaks again.

You’ve been listening to me talk about your best friends… for weeks.

Tommy laughs.

Do you wanna see the rest of the pictures?

Yes, I wanna see the rest of the fucking pictures.

Jordan is quiet while Tommy flips through the powerpoint, answering the other students’ questions, his eyes trained on every photo like he’s trying to memorise them. Tommy hugging Steve just a few minutes before the wedding, Steve looking into a mirror, fixing his hair. (We called him the Hair in high school.) Eddie and Steve holding hands and gazing at each other at the altar, putting rings on each other’s fingers, smiling and kissing each other, hugging each other so tightly it looks like it hurts.

Tommy sees Jordan wipe a tear away as he looks, but he doesn’t say anything.

He has him stay behind after class.

Is this because I said fucking?

Tommy laughs. Tells him he doesn’t care about swearing.

Got something for you.

It’s a photo of Eddie, Chrissy, Gareth, Jeff, and Ian. They’ve all signed it. Chrissy scribbled a little love you! in her pretty, loopy handwriting, in her trademark silver marker.

Jordan takes it, looks at it, and covers his face with his hand. Tommy waits.

This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.

I told them about you.

Shut up.

I did! Eddie says you sound cool. I said you remind me of him. Except that you’re not as obnoxious.

…Thank you, Mr Hagan.

Tommy smiles and tells him to get out of here, to not be late, and Jordan stares at the photo the whole way out, narrowly missing the doorframe. Tommy turns back to his computer, and a few seconds later he hears one of Jordan’s friends’ voices say very loudly, Holy shit! and he laughs.

They have an outdoor wedding. So the sky can watch.

Wayne passed two and a half years ago. Eddie goes to his grave when same-sex marriage is legalized, just to make sure he knows. To make sure he’s there. You gotta be there, Wayne, you’ve been there since the beginning. You gotta… You gotta see it happen.

They leave a seat open for him in the front row, right next to where Linda sits. (Eddie still greets her as Mrs Gareth’s Mom before he hugs her gently. She’s frail now, her hair grey and white, but her eyes still shine just as brightly as they always have.) During the ceremony, Linda spots a ladybug on the chair. She insists that it was Wayne.

Steve can’t look away from Eddie throughout the whole ceremony. The sun is just setting, and everything is golden (which was Robin’s plan; they left her and Chrissy in charge of wedding planning), and his eyes are glowing and shining like they’re glass. His hair is tied up the way Steve loves (which Steve thinks was on purpose), and every flyaway curl looks like a strand of gold thread in the sunlight. Steve feels like he’s dreaming.

They kiss before the officiator even tells them to, because they’ve both been holding back the entire time. They can hear the officiator laugh before he moves out of the way, and the cheering (Robin and Chrissy are loudest) blends into white noise as they hold each other. When they part, they stare at each other for a moment, still holding each other’s faces.

They’re both crying.

And then they’re hugging each other tightly, so tightly they can’t really breathe, but it doesn’t matter, because Eddie is murmuring in Steve’s ear, I told you. I told you. And Steve is crying, nodding into his neck, swaying. They hold each other for too long, until Steve feels Tommy pat his back gently, saying his name, and Steve just starts laughing, because of course he’d interrupt his own wedding because he can’t keep his hands off his husband. (His husband!)

Corroded Coffin, excluding Eddie, plays for the first dance. Africa by Toto, as requested by Eddie. As Eddie twirls Steve around, Steve is crying and laughing simultaneously.

I cannot believe you remember that.

Of course I remember it, sweetheart.

He still calls him that. And honey, and dearest. Even though they’re, in Eddie’s words, grizzled old men. The first time he calls them that, Steve bursts out laughing. But now, as they dance, as the sun goes down, Steve can’t help but love it. He gazes at the lines across Eddie’s forehead and around his eyes and mouth, at the traces of the years that they’ve spent together, of every single one of Eddie’s smiles and frowns and confused, furrowed brows, and he gazes at the strands of grey in Eddie’s curls, at the salt and pepper stubble he’s let grown out because Steve likes it, and he wonders where he would be if he wasn’t here. And he realises there isn’t a single place he’d rather be.

I’m in love with you.

Sure hope you are.

They both take turns dancing with Linda. Then they both dance with Robin and Chrissy. (Robin leads. Of course.)

Two weeks later the official Corroded Coffin Instagram account posts a photo of Steve and Eddie’s hands, posed so their wedding bands, Eddie’s silver, Steve’s gold, are visible. Their fingers are laced, and Eddie’s nails are painted with black polish that’s already beginning to chip. Eddie’s knuckle tattoos are barely visible under his thick rings, the word FIRE barely legible, and on Steve’s hand there’s a small, rough tattoo of a piece of barbed wire, done soon after they moved to San Francisco, and to everyone that follows them, they’re easily recognizable as Steve and Eddie.

Corroded Coffin fans never knew Steve’s last name. He was just Steve, and Eddie’s man, and before that, that one guy that’s at every show, but after they’re married, he’s Steve Munson.

The caption of the post is just a heart, and every rude comment gets a response from Corroded Coffin, reading get fucked.

It’s been thirty years. The sides of Steve’s head are still shaved. (Eddie does it for him in their bathroom. He still gets swoony when he finishes.) Eddie’s curls are too long, always tied up in a knot at the top of his head or in braids that Chrissy does for him. Eddie still calls him Stevie. Steve still calls him Eddie baby. The letter E is tattooed on Steve's chest, small and faded and shitty, done in their living room in the summer of ‘97, but it’s his favourite tattoo. Eddie’s hands made it.

It’s been thirty years. Eddie still tells Steve he’s pretty, and he still makes him slow dance around the kitchen when the right song is on. Steve wears a watch that Wayne used to wear. He’s had to get it repaired twice, but it’s worth it to hear it ticking as he goes about his life, like he’s listening to Wayne’s heart beat as he paints or cooks or holds Eddie’s hand. Eddie still has every drawing Steve's ever given him. They live in photo albums now, carefully set in the plastic sleeves. Sometimes Eddie looks through them, gazing at every pencil mark and all the bleeding ink. Just remembering.

It’s been thirty years. Eddie still tucks his hands under Steve’s shirt to touch his skin while they talk. Their home is lived in. There are stains on the sofa from spilled wine, and the corners of the rugs curl up. Their bed is perpetually unmade, and sometimes there’s dry-erase marker on the bathroom mirror that reads love you so much in the mornings. The smell of cigarettes and weed lingers on everything in the house. (Sometimes Eddie gets a whiff of Wayne as he’s sorting the laundry. He only realises after a few years that Steve gets the same laundry detergent Wayne used to use.)

It’s been thirty years. Steve still falls asleep to Eddie’s heartbeat.

read the whole thing on ao3 tagging: @thehumblefigtree @luna-munson83 <3

and there we have it; genuinely cant put into words how grateful i am to everyone that kept up w this i had so much fun love you all <3

#am planning on writing 'deleted scenes' as one shots i already have a few planned and ill probably post them here and on ao3 :)#steddie #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #love me softly

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ambrosialdesire · 2 months

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Idk what type of drugs you put into your yandere Reiner series but it has been on my mind 24/7/365 I need tiny crumbs 🤲 anything, I need anything 😞

AAAAA TYYY i've seen you all the time in my activity and i wanna thank you so much for your constant support! <3

you want more cacoëthes reiner so here’s some more cacoëthes reiner crumbs!!! (also bc i want to write something else rn so i can keep writing the thing i was supposed to post a few weeks ago LOL) and on my kinktober list, there was an epilogue that i was supposed to write (AND I WILL I STG IM TRYING YALL BUT IM JUST BEING BOMBARDED WITH THIS FAST AF PACED PROGRAM 😭) and that was supposed to be a peek inside their relationship during her the first couple months into her pregnancy.

anyways, both the reader (or you lol) and reiner could not keep each other's hands off each other after that night, even though you swear on your entire family's dead souls that you hated him. his big fat cock was too irresistible to continue abstaining from and it's reiner, bro's a little too insatiable for only one round. he ain’t complaining though and he loves to fuck out those endearing i love you’s out of you, so two wins for him ig 😭

and of course, from a previous ask from an anon, reader does indeed get pregnant from the constant action lmfao

but ambro, couldn't the reader have done something to get rid of the child? yeah she/you could've, if not for the fact that you had began to develop feelings towards him (although its mostly bc of the amount of trauma you went through, extreme stockholm syndrome, and heavy coping you had to do in the aotverse, reiner’s the only stable thing in your life so you’re going to cling onto the closest thing of security you have, which is your captor unfortunately 💀) and you're kinda not opposed to it anymore. cacoëthes reader had always wanted to have a family but never thought it could be possible since giving life to a child in a world full of titans wasn't really ideal for starting one. lucky for you, you now live in a world where there's no titans (kinda)!

you were completely alone when you were going through the beginning symptoms of pregnancy, unaware of why you kept vomiting so often or why you had to go to the bathroom even more than before or why you were so fatigued after barely doing anything. when you went to the doctor, that’s when you finally found out that you were already 2 months pregnant. getting out of the office, you kinda snapped out of the housewife-sona you’ve developed in order to cope and become extremely aware of what was happening to you. you cried a lot, absolutely terrified that this was actually happening to you. you barely had your mom most of your life so you didn't know what you were going to do next, all you sorta knew what to do was to make sure that both you and the baby were going to be healthy for the rest of pregnancy.

reiner didn't know about it since he had to leave to go fight some more after a two month absence of him "taking care" of you and your injuries. he sorta did know that he had already gotten you pregnant from all those nights and afternoons fucking on every single surface of the home nonstop, but you never know. so when he came back about a month-ish later, his jaw dropped to the floor when you turned around with a slight bump in your stomach (around this time, you’re like maybe 3-4.5 months pregnant now).

he’s absolutely over the moon but you start crying in front of him, admitting that you’re so scared of the unknown future and what if he actually leaves for good (the abandonment issues are at an all time high bc of hormones and bc he did tell you that he’s going to eventually die in a couple of years 💀). reiner merely hushes you and tells you that you'll be a great mom and he'll be there for you for as long as he lives. it doesn't really make you feel better but the reassuring look in his eyes makes you feel some sort of dull comfort, it's better than nothing ig lol

reiner asks to be sent less often to the wars just so he won't miss the birth of his child or let you get injured again since you're alone most of the time. they grant this for him but they did dock his pay bc of it and it's not that bad of a cut, just more budgeting is going to be more involved in y'alls lives.

yea this is pretty mid snippet-wise sorry 😭

the epilogue i'm going to write covers even more in-depth with their relationship so stayed tuned for that eventually! i might post it on the year anniversary of cacoëthes pt 1 but we'll see lol

#love-message #cacoëthes ask #yandere reiner

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shallyne · 4 months

Text

(Are We) Out Of The Woods (Ep.)

Bonus Epilogue of my fic for my giftee @starfall-spirit for @acotargiftexchange

Words: about 1k

It has been seven years since that dreadful morning that Rhys had woken up and found his mother gone. Seven years since he rescued her from a psychopath that had held a grudge against his father. Seven years since he met his wife. Well, seven years in the mortal world.

Never in his life would Rhys have thought that he'd wake up that morning, literally living his nightmare but nonetheless it has been the beginning of his happily ever after.

Time was flying since that day but it also felt like that initial day was a hundred years ago. Maybe the cause of this was that Velaris didn't have any time, it was nearly impossible to measure any time in the enchanted forest, Rhys had tried. He had at least five different models in their cabin that were fine but he still didn't crack the code of measuring the forest's time, if there even was a code. It had its own rules and Rhys was interested in learning them one by one.

But it was Christmas and Christmas meant there wasn't any theorizing or experimenting or writing books, Christmas was for family and right now, his son was crouching beside Rhys, trying to form snowballs with his small hands. He was biting his bottom lip, exactly like Feyre did when she was concentrating. After a very long time, his wife had picked up a paintbrush again and when she was focused on her paintings, Rhys used the time to admire her. He often did that, in different scenarios during their lives and he was falling more in love every single time. It was his favorite thing, finding out how she ticked. The way she played with Nyx, the way she held a paintbrush, the way she grunted when she laughed and the blush that crept on her cheeks right after. The way she scrunched her nose when someone complimented her and the way she frowned when she was disappointed and the way she crossed her arms when she closed up, an old habit from being alone for centuries. The way she rubbed her arms when she got overwhelmed and the way her dimples showed when she suppressed a laugh, the way her freckles looked like a constellation of stars that Rhys loved to trace, with his fingers or his lips. The way so many traits of hers were mirrored with Nyx.

“Daddy!” his four year old dragged him out of his thoughts, “Look!” he said proudly, extending his hand that held a snowball.

Rhys smiled, “Perfect! Put it on your pile,” he pointed to the small pile of snowballs that already waited to be used. Nyx did exactly that and when he leaned forward, Rhys caught a glimpse of Feyre's silhouette in the window of his family's mountain cabin, she threw her head back and laughed at something Mor said, who stood beside and seemed to refill Feyre's glass.

“Alright,“ Rhys said, looking at his son. “Are you ready?”

“Yes!” Nyx giggled, his nose slightly red from the cold.

He raised his hand and Nyx high-fived enthusiastically, “This year uncle Azzy won't win the snowball fight.” Rhys spoke.

Nyx stormed right past Rhys as he opened the door of the cabin, making a beeline for Feyre and clinged to her legs. “We won, mommy! Me and daddy won!”

Mor snorted, “Rhys won? That's new.”

Cassian followed Rhys into the cabin, chuckling at Mor's comment, “That was all Nyx's doing.”

Mor shrugged as if to say, makes sense, but it was his sister who actually said it aloud. “He also never won alone without cheating. Good job, Nyxie! I knew you could do it.”

Nyx giggled as Feyre helped him out of his winter coat. Rhys walked past the couch, ruffling his sister's hair as he did so, and joined Feyre at the kitchen island. “I never cheated, you're just a sore loser.” Selene had cried out, slapping his hand away.

Mor murmured something to Azriel and Cassian that Rhys didn't deem to answer as he reached his wife, kissing her and wrapping his arm around her waist as Nyx ran back to Selene and climbed into the seat beside her, telling the tale of how pixies played hide and seek with him and how he befriended a girl named Maia, a Nymoh that was his age, the day before they came back home to celebrate christmas with the whole family.

“Do you need help, mom?” Rhys asked, turning to his mother who was stirring a pot on the stove.

She shook her head, smiling, “No, Mor and Feyre already helped cut the vegetables while you boys attacked each other with snowballs.” she chuckled, “I'm glad there aren't any injuries on any front.”

Feyre chuckled, then Rhys and her both simultaneously, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

They smiled at each other as Rhys's mother only responded with a sigh.

Rhys sat down, pulling Feyre on his lap as she wrapped her arms around his neck and together they watched their family bickering, exchanging stories and laughing as the sun disappeared below the horizon and the atmosphere calmed down. Nyx sat on Mor's lap as Cassian made up stories about Nyx's toy dinosaurs. Azriel went out to pick up Amren an hour before dinner, Feyre and Rhys answered his mother's questions about Velaris.

When evening bled into night, everyone went to bed and when it was only Feyre and Rhys left, Feyre raised her head from where it rested on Rhys's shoulder, “I've been living in an enchanted forest for centuries,” she said quietly, “but this, just an evening your family, our family…it's the most magical thing. It's everything I've dreamed of.” she pressed a soft kiss on his mouth, barely there but it lingered there for a long time. “Everything in Velaris is based on tales but after…after this all started, I didn't expect to get a happy ever after.”

Rhys twirled a lock of Feyre's golden-brown hair around his finger and kissed her temple, “You deserve your happy ever after, Feyre, more than anything. You deserve having a loving family, you deserve that Velaris was fully restored.” She smiled, silver lining her eyes exactly as the day after Nyx's birth, when a faerie found Feyre and told her the news that the center of the forest was fully green again. After Rhys had released his books about Velaris, about Feyre, it had begun to slowly grow back, especially after his books had kicked off and Feyre's story had become a bestseller. Although when Nyx was born, Velaris had reacted in a way nobody else expected, so only in twenty-four hours, the forest was fully restored for the first in a hundred years.

“You deserve it.” Rhys repeated, drawing circles with his fingers on Feyre's back.

She laid her hand on his cheek, smiling through her tears, “We deserve it, Rhys.”she whispered and kissed him.

And they all lived happily ever after.

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gunkreads · 6 months

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Making a post for my full-series thoughts about The Expanse and how it wrapped up, good and bad.

Caveat lector (I looked up the latin word for "reader" just for this joke): when I have negative thoughts about something in a book, I force myself to pick them apart down to the most minute details. This generates massive walls of text. These text walls don't mean I truly loathe the thing; they mean I'm doing my absolute best to not be a Hater, but rather to analyze my feelings so that you can read something more constructive and interesting than "X was dumb and didn't work".

I want to break this down into six parts: one for each of the main characters (Holden, Naomi, Amos, and Alex), one for the plot, and one for the world (it'll make sense when I get to it, hopefully). This may not be as long as it sounds like it'll be, but it's still long as fuck.

Bear in mind that I read this series very slowly, over about three months, so some of the early-series details are hazy and my opinions on them should be taken with the assumption that I've forgotten some stuff.

On Holden, I can be brief:

His arc was almost a full 180. Call it a 173, give or take 5 degrees. Holden starts the series with the stalwart belief that "if you give everyone all the information available, they'll make the right choice". Eventually, during the Free Navy arc, he moves to "If you give everyone all the information available, they'll eventually make the right choice". During his Laconian imprisonment, he moves to "If you give the right person the right information, they'll make the right choice" (this is the biggest jump we see). That part was fun because he'd just almost turned into Miller. Fucking excellent.

He ends on "I have all the information and I have no idea what the right choice is, but I have to act." This is the very last thing he does: make a snap decision with all the information in the world, fully accepting that he might be wrong. The meat of this final decision is to take the stars away. Holden says "It doesn't matter if we deserve this, it doesn't matter if we'll earn it or conquer it eventually; we're dying now," and makes the decision for all of humanity that he's going to destroy the ring gates.

This could have felt cheap because of the way it completely absolves him of the responsibility for his decision, but it feels fully earned because this type of decision is his ENTIRE CHARACTER. The point of James Holden is that he takes hard choices away from people and makes them himself! He's already taken responsibility for dozens of these types of decisions before. He says there's no choice here; I'm going off to die. He survives this a hundred times, then finally dies from it. This makes it a beautiful ending for him. I loved it. He's such a profoundly simple character throughout a series with fairly complex characters, and that makes him feel truly special rather than lazy writing.

On Naomi... I have mixed feelings.

I feel that her lack of "epilogue" (not the literal epilogue, just a conclusive send-off for her character) made her ending less weighty than it could have been. If I had to point to a specific line that felt like her full-series character arc's climax, it would be Alex's "It would have worked beautifully" in reference to Naomi's program to monitor Ring gate traffic. Naomi's character is marked by decades of desperate cries for people to fucking listen to her, for them to believe her, that she wants everyone to live! She has the plan, she's objectively a logistical genius, and if you just tell her what's happening, she can save all of you fucking idiots! Alex's line there broke my heart clean in half. She won the wrong fight. She scored the season-winning goal the moment after the league was dismantled.

Naomi is a character about the frustration of having an answer but no voice with which to share it. This really comes to a head in Act 3, when she's coordinating the resistance (as well as anyone possibly could!) with the most janky, fucked-up communication system anyone could possibly design. If I consider that line of Alex's to be Naomi's legacy in the series, which I do, I'm very happy with her arc overall, but...

I don't really like the way she seemed to just drop off the map at the end of the last book. She has her little moment where she's pre-mourning Holden after he's revealed that he's injected himself with more protomolecule, but after that? She seems to just be... kind of moving forward. She's just working, nothing more--strategically, what she does in the series' climax is no more difficult than anything she's done before; it just has higher stakes and she's clearly drowning her grief in work. The thing that feels weird to me is that, while she gets the last line in the book (pre-epilogue), and her series-long arc closes out very neatly, it feels like her little mini-arc of the moment of that final climax never settles out properly. She gets cut off at the 80% mark and just... disappears.

I like to assume that she fully retired after getting back through to Sol. She deleted all those incoming messages and dropped herself fully off the map, feeling like it was finally time to give up after saving the entire universe. The simple act of her deleting the messages would've given me that closure, but as it was, there's just this little nag at the back of my mind that her arc in the book ended like five seconds too early.

It's a minor nitpick! I loved the way the climax wrapped around and had her basically leading humanity for a few beautiful moments, with all her hard work almost paying off before the game changed.

Amos? I fucking love Amos.

I loved him before, I loved him during, and I love him after. Everyone loves Amos. I'm not special. He really was the last man standing, after all. Fucking beautiful. Perfection. A simple arc, a simple conclusion, and a simple message for a simple character. His only real change in the series was during Persepolis Rising, when he had to deal with Clarissa's slow death, and while that was excellent, it was really more of an arc for Bobbie.

Alex... is the character whose ending I cared about the least.

I don't dislike it; it's fully above that margin, and on a surface level, I think ending his whole character arc on his answer to the family problem he's struggled with his whole life is a good choice.

It was interesting that they had his presence end before we'd confirmed he was safe, and with a slight hint that he might not make it to Nieuwestad. I didn't like that at first glance, but after further thought, I enjoy it as a way for the authors to say "the journey and destination don't matter; the conclusion of Alex's story was when he truly chose to step in this direction."

But overall, I don't know if I have much to say about Alex. He's a very sparse character who has less overt reason to be simple than Holden or Amos do; the latter two both have something deeply, deeply wrong with them that makes them really fucking wacko in a specific way, but Alex is just... kind of a regular deadbeat dad? He's just really into flying ships? That's kind of it. I know they explore that in Cibola Burn, but I didn't feel like Alex had that much presence in the whole story as a character, so I found the simple, vague ending they gave him satisfying enough through my general apathy.

For the plot!

The big stuff, the shape of the story. I still have a huge complaint about it: the Free Navy arc felt way too long and way too much of a sidetrack. It functioned as setup for Laconia, yes; it also had literally nothing to do with the overarching story. It felt like a side mission blown out of proportion, which is weirdly appropriate for a story that started out as a TTRPG setting.

On the above? I am one HUNDRED percent willing to be proven wrong. Please, please, please talk me out of my position here. I am currently at one end of the spectrum, where I actively see disconnections from the Free Navy arc and the main plot; I'd love to be pulled to the other end, where I can see how it all ties in. The problem is that I can see the cause-and-effect tie-ins: I get that Earth needed to be destroyed to truly push people through the gates, I get that the huge catastrophe needed to happen to distract from Laconia's growth, I get that it was an end to the concept of a unified Belt/OPA, and I get that it was an immensely well-done arc for Naomi's character, but... I feel like it's a puzzle piece that just fits in a little loosely.

Moving on. I think the wrapup of the whole protomolecule makers/dark gods lore discovery (via Elvi at the BFE) was quite well done, especially given that it was done in such a dispersed way. I felt like I never got a "sit down, here's the deal" exposition dump of like... generally what the nature of all this stuff was. I was just expected to read the "The Dreamer" chapters very carefully, remember the "The Investigator" chapters pretty well, pay attention to how the ring entities worked, and put together the cleanly laid-out pieces myself. I feel I succeeded at this, given that reading through the wiki pages for the ring builders and the smoke things doesn't really reveal anything new to me.

That said, I was... kind of too in-the-moment to process how insane the implication of the final reveal was: that this whole thing was a hidden metaphor for colonialism all along, and that these dark smoke entities are justifiably fighting back against a wound in (sub)reality that the protomolecule builders created. The road to heaven is paved in metaphysical blood, I guess? The protomolecule builders weren't willing to be as decisive as Holden, weren't willing to sacrifice all they'd built, and consequently left their problems for another generation of beings when they died; Holden managed to have the magical willpower to say "Fuck this, I'm shutting it down, even though it'll kill millions and change humanity forever." It was kind of cool that he got that send-off, performing a profound act of healing in this sub-universe by deleting the ring space. Maybe I'm leaning too heavily on my interpretation of this theme, but it feels fairly clear-cut to me, honestly, so I'd love to hear other interpretations.

Regarding the world.

This section is kind of a subsection of the plot, but I feel like "where does the series leave humanity?" is a question that falls more under "worldbuilding" than "story" in this specific series.

These books had so much fucking philosophy in them and it felt like none of it really mattered much. Most of that philosophy stopped at a very broad-spectrum level of analysis, which is the series' greatest... not weakness, necessarily, but missed potential: no philosophical conundrum is ever interrogated beyond the immediate scenario or vague hypotheticals. The authors clearly have a very specific set of ideas about human nature that all felt very generic to me when put into practice; I felt that humanity through their lens was a fairly predictable beast, which only sort of worked.

I understand that The Expanse is, at its core, a character series. More than anything, it's about the people in it; its plot is a vehicle for characters, not the other way around. In that sense, it ended in an overall great way, as discussed above. Because of that, when I judge the story on what it tried to achieve, I think it succeeded.

But when I broaden my approach a little and look at what the authors suggested to me that they could do, I feel like there's more to say. The end of the story, I need not remind you, is effectively a soft reset for humanity. There's no more interstellar travel until they figure it out for real this time, with no cheats--and per the epilogue, they do just that. The core message behind this is that humanity's tenacity will always push them in the same direction: outward. The problem with this, in my opinion, was that the authors chose to express this throughout the series in a very obtuse way: by making "everyone else" a character.

The following is specifically regarding Act 3 (Persepolis Rising on):

So the series is about its characters, and "everyone else" is a character. By having the scope of the story affect all of humanity, all of humanity must necessarily be involved. As far as Act 3 is concerned, this means that the gears of industry never stop turning, people never stop hating and loving, and all apocalyptic danger is effectively ignored to those ends. This made our perspective characters part of a small, exclusive group of people who were actually worried about the universe ending. Everyone else seemed to... not really care. They were scared, sure, but they didn't stop shipping stuff through the ring gates! It was fundamentally stupid, and as far as the authors seem to believe, fundamentally human.

My problem is that the story puts "all of humanity" into the same framework it puts its individual characters. As Act 3 hits, basically everyone not involved in direct on-page conflict is treated as one single character. This is fucking monumentally ironic, given the way the story ends and the whole hive-mind thing. I get how you might not see what I'm seeing here, but consider this: the story feeds us information about what "everyone else" is doing almost exclusively via Naomi. She's the traffic controller; that's her main job for the last two books. In her mind, the character named Everybody Else (Mx. Else, for brevity) is just... doing stuff she can't control. Mx. Else is upping traffic through the ring gates; Mx. Else is a threat to the underground's security; Mx. Else is blowing up the communications relays; Mx. Else is yadda yadda yadda.

It's not about whether Mx. Else is actually supposed to be a homogeneous entity (again, lol @ the irony); it's about the fact that we, the readers, only see Mx. Else as a single huge force. The way the authors write it through Naomi's eyes, "The UNN", "The MCRN", "The OPA", "The Free Navy", "Laconia", "Avasarala", "Saba", "Duarte", and most incongruously but importantly "humanity" are all the same type of entity. Groups and people get lumped together as characters, sure, and that works--but not when you expand the group to be everyone.

What would I have done? Simple. Shut the fuck up and write my own book, if I'm so smart Retain some semblance of different human groups in Act 3 besides "Laconia" and "the underground". Why don't Auberon or Bara Gaon have communities with specific interests? Why does Naomi not have to juggle the desires of different planets, all of whom are still doing shit the whole time, and OBVIOUSLY have interests beyond "just truckin' along"?

Here's my thesis: when there were 3 factions (UN, MCR, OPA) this worked fine. When the authors made some big "nature of humanity" statement, it tracked, because they were making that statement as a blanket over multiple opposing groups, which made it feel more potent--all these people who want to kill each other have this in common. Later in the series, when they're making the same type of statement, it doesn't track as well because most of humanity is all in one group; it's not a statement that unites any opposing groups, really, since Laconia and the underground aren't really included in it.

You know what? I kind of wish I could put all this under another, smaller cut, because it's really rambly and it's not reflective of my overall thoughts on the series.

To sum up, I feel that the series' philosophy and commentary on human nature was simplified more than it needed to be from a practical standpoint, and instead turned to a big old "oh well, nothing we can do about Mx. Else" that the characters could point to when it was appropriate.

To conclude (nine pages later and you're still here, so this one's for you):

#the expanse #leviathan falls

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mangoshorthand · 9 months

Text

Thing of the Past- [Five Hargreeves x F Reader]. Ch3 (Hard Feelings Part 4)

SUMMARY: You can't avoid it any longer: Five has to meet your parents. It goes more wrong than you could possibly imagine, spiralling to bring up secrets he'd rather stay buried.

⚠️TRIGGER WARNINGS⚠️ Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven/Epilogue

A best man, a bachelor party and a game of 'Never Have I Ever'

It's weddin' time, motherfuckers.

⚠️Please heed content warning⚠️

Chapter Three: Gomez

Five chooses Luther as his best man. Yeah, he’s probably going to cry all through his speech, but it means the most to the big lug.

“Five…buddy. You don’t know how much this means!”

“Oh, I think I do. That’s the problem.”

Luther pulls Five into a bone-crushing hug which Five allows for a couple of seconds before pulling away.

“I’m going to be the best best man! I gotta tell Sloane!”

“Wait!” says Five, authoritatively, holding up a finger.

Luther turns to him, eyes alight like a happy golden retriever.

“You gotta run your speech past Diego and Viktor. And no crying, ok?”

“Sure.” Luther takes a deep breath and puts on his best expression of serious stoicism befitting 'Number One'.

But then he ruins the effect with an eager whisper:

“I’m so excited!”

You chose three bridesmaids, (although you hadn’t singled out a Maid of Honor): Your oldest friend Ellie, Lydia (the PhD chemist Five could have consulted during the JUICED incident) and Lila.

Five had met Ellie before and eventually liked her. She had been somewhat suspicious of him at first (He gave her weird vibes: it was something about you starting dating him after one home invasion and then before another that left you in the hospital for weeks) but he grew on her when she saw how naturally you fitted together, particularly after the birth of your daughter.

Various scheduling conflicts had made it impossible for him to meet Lydia before your shared bachelorx party. By coincidence, she had been a huge childhood fan of the Umbrella Academy comic books so was star struck on meeting them all. You had gently persuaded Five into showing her a blink and it made her look as if all her dreams came true. The little ego stroke had pleased him more than he cared to admit.

She looks around the room, sitting with you at the bar while Five laughs with his brothers. Several Mary Pickfords have got her to a place where she's fangirling without shame:

“I can’t believe you’re marrying NUMBER FIVE! Mom told me I had the biggest crush on him when I was a kid. Apparently I cried for a week when he disappeared."

You laugh, “Trust me, smell his sleep-farts and you start to wish he’d disappear again.”

She's not listening, too eager in looking around the bar:

“Is that Spaceboy?”

“Yep.”

“Cool! And that’s Diego with him? Kraken?”

You nod.

“So that must be… Séance?”

“Yup: Klaus. You’ll like him.”

“I can’t believe this!”

Then her eyes fall questioningly on Viktor.

“That’s Number Seven. Viktor.”

“There was a Number Seven?”

“Yeah. Long story.”

Five catches your eye, winks and approaches- although Lydia can’t see him.

“So where’s The Rumor?”

Five breaks in with a rueful sigh.

“Let’s just say she 'rumored' her way out of family gatherings.”

“Oh…I’m sorry.” Lydia looks embarrassed.

“Don’t sweat it."

And then Five remembers something. It's something he tried to make better, but still weighs on him. He wishes he could take the advice he once gave to Viktor and not try to do the equations when it came to the exchange rate of human life but, unfortunately, equations are what Five was made to do. When he's sure you're absorbed in conversation with Ellie, he gestures Lydia to the side with a small jerk of the head.

"You're at Columbia, right?"

"I was. I work in toxicology now."

"Did you know a Sarah McDowell? She would have been a PhD in your department."

"Yeah- not well, but we had the same supervisor."

He tries to sound casual,

"Is she...doing ok?"

Lydia rocks her head from side to side, considering.

"I know she had to take some time off. How do you know her?"

Five shifts uncomfortably. He thinks he has an inkling why Sarah would have needed to take the time off. It would be kind of hard to concentrate in a lab where you'd been tied down and held for eight hours.

"We crossed paths once. I liked her."

"I liked her too. She's carrying on studying. I think she's applying for post doc and then wants to go into the department herself."

"Good for her."

To change the subject, Five looks back up at Lydia with a grin.

"Hey, buy me another drink and I'll get Luther to lift you....and if you get me drunk enough, I'll think about blinking you to the next bar."

She laughs and turns to the bartender to order him a cocktail.

He'll have to see if his dad’s money can pull any more strings for Sarah. Make sure she gets the postdoc and opportunities for teaching experience. He can't erase what he did but, if he can anonymously make her life a little easier, he can stop his conscience pricking. He tears himself from the slight brood to watch you laughing with Ellie and Lila. His mouth twitches upwards in automatic empathy. All of this is your fault, really. He would never have let the fate of one PhD student bother him before he met you.

Soon, it’s the night before the wedding. You’re having the whole wedding in the hotel, so it makes sense to get ready and spend your wedding night there too. You sit in the bridal suite with your bridesmaids and Klaus, excitement squirming in your stomach. Five, in a slightly bizarre nod to tradition, insisted you spend the night before the wedding apart, citing the bad luck you’ll surely bring upon your marriage if you don't.

You’re playing a childish drinking game: ‘never have I ever’. As the bride, you are of course being ruthlessly victimized by everyone. Klaus has already tacitly revealed your threesome with the two versions of Five, making Lila look like the cat that got the cream. You’re getting steadily drunker and now it’s Lydia’s turn:

“Never have I ever…snuck into a frat house, cut my knee on barbed wire and STILL managed to steal their refrigerator.”

You sigh and take a swig of your Merlot.

“This isn’t fair.”

“Ooh my go, my go!” says Klaus, “Never have I ever… had sex in my dad’s office.”

You and Lila both drink and then catch each other’s eye.

“On the chair?” she winks,

“Nah, on the desk,” you reply.

“It’s what Dad would have wanted,” says Klaus with solemnity as you and Lila exchange a high-five.

Ellie doesn’t take wine too well.

“Ugh…I don’t know.” She waves away the burden of coming up with a good idea with a floppy hand, “Never has Five ever seen me naked.”

You, Klaus and Lila take a drink.

Ellie and Lydia laugh at the unexpected ubiquity of this experience.

“We used to shower together.” says Klaus, by way of an explanation that raises more questions than it answers to the uninitiated.

You’re looking at Lila, concerned and confused. She snorts at your expression:

“Don’t you worry, darling, I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole. Unlike some people, I’m not into geriatric jailbait.”

“Hey!” you chide, “his body's twenty-two and his mind's...never mind. Anyway, I'll take geriatric jailbait over the guy who plays with knives and thinks Africa’s a country.”

Lila concedes this but you continue to look at her expectantly. She sighs and gives an explanation.

“Five walked in on me in the bath and tried to strangle me with a towel.”

She and Klaus laugh while Lydia and Ellie look at you in shock.

“Superhero stuff.” you try to explain, starting to smile now yourself.

“Oh yeah, don’t worry,” Lila keeps laughing, “I gave as good as I got. And I got my revenge too: hooked him up to the mains and electrocuted the puny fucker,” she laughs madly and then sighs reminiscently, “Ahhh…I miss trying to kill him.”

Lydia and Ellie still look horrified.

“Guys, you’re scaring my friends.”

“Sorry.” says Lila, her mad grin widening, “All the apocalypse-dodging and time travel stuff gives you a warped perspective.”

“I swear it’s not as weird as it sounds,” you say, trying to reassure them.

Klaus looks at them and mouths, ‘It’s pretty weird.’

There’s a knock at the door and Klaus opens the door to room service.

“This was sent compliments of the groom,” says the concierge.

It’s a bottle of wine and a note.

You look down at the bottle. It’s the Bordeaux he chose for you to drink on your first date.

Morning. He’s nervous…even with his brothers around him, already dressed in their groomsmen attire, he’s nervous. He can stroll into battle without turning a hair…but apparently getting married pushes his courage to the limit.

“How do I look?”

Diego considers.

“A little like Gomez Addams.”

Five looks at himself critically in the mirror, pulling at the sleeves and straightening the boutonniere.

“I wouldn’t expect you to recognize classic style, Diego.”

The suit is a navy three-piece, single-breasted jacket covering a subtly patterned waistcoat. The matching cravat is tied in traditional formal style and secured with a pearl-topped pin. The tailor had persuaded him into the cravat, but now Five isn’t so sure. Is Diego right: is it too much?

Luther puts his hands on Five’s shoulders and meets his eyes in the mirror. There are tears swimming in Luther's.

“You look…really great.”

“Pull yourself together.”

“Sorry buddy.” He wipes his eyes.

“You look real great, Five. It’s just right for you.”

Viktor’s steadier countenance convinces Five and he allows himself to relax.

Diego returns from the other side of the room with four glasses of good scotch on a tray: his wedding present to Five. Five takes one gratefully.

“Gomez Addams was a great husband, hermano.”

Five smiles as the four brothers toast each other.

Your bridesmaids and a few more friends chat quietly, sipping champagne. Klaus is playing with Aoife, making her laugh with grotesque funny faces and feeding her a chocolate-covered strawberry. You and Five were trying to avoid feeding her refined sugar for the first two years of her life, but you're turning a blind eye today. Your hair, always uncooperative, does not want to stay in the hairstyle you’d planned and you’re starting to panic. You have half an hour to spare and you’re not even in your dress. Your phone vibrating on and off on the dressing table in front of you is not helping your stress levels.

You have four missed calls from your Mom and three texts:

Where's the bridal suite? Hello??? ???

Lila turns your phone face down and puts her hands on your shoulders.

“Take a breath or two, kitten.”

“I don’t want her in here.”

“I know, I know.”

If anyone knows crazy mothers, it’s Lila. She takes your hair into her own hands, gently scrapes it back, pulling and twisting it into a low chignon, securing it quickly. Amazingly, it looks good. Even more amazingly, it actually stays in place.

“Look at me.”

You turn to her, and she pulls loose a few tendrils from around your face, creating loose, wispy curls with the heavy curling iron on the dressing table. Finally, she secures it with hairspray. When your phone begins to ring again, she clicks her fingers in front of your eyes as they dart towards it.

“Hey- hey. Don’t answer. It’s ok. Have some champagne.”

You take a mouthful and try to forget the insistent buzzing. When you’re ready to Lila’s satisfaction, she steps back.

“How’s that?”

You look. She’s managed to create something elegant from hair that never wants to stay in place. You breathe a sigh of relief.

“Thank you.”

“Come on, let’s get you into that dress.”

There’s a flurry of excited chatter as you step into the dress hung up on the wardrobe, helped by Lila, Ellie and Lydia. As they zip and slowly button you into the structured bodice and you glimpse yourself in the mirror, you feel the flutter of anticipation return.

Until you hear the knocking.

“I’m here!”

“Oh fuck,” you say, pleasant feeling replaced again by cramps of fear.

“What do you want us to do?” says Lila quickly as the knocking and your mother’s voice becomes more insistent, “Just say the word and I’ll get rid of her.”

You dither for under a second. At this point, you’d rather she was in here than constantly trying to get in here.

“Let her in.”

Ellie goes to the door, giving you an apologetic look. She knows your mother of old. She bursts into the room, talking a mile a minute. She’s wearing a lacy, mid length beaded dress with a matching chiffon coat. Her hat is the most extravagant monstrosity: feather quills curl from a gigantic flower. It adds a whole foot to her height. The whole ensemble is white because of course it is

“OH I had such a time finding the bridal suite. Check your PHONE missy! But don’t you worry, I’m here now.”

She practically elbows your three bridesmaids out of the way, starts to button your dress and clicks her fingers imperiously at the photographer currently photographing your shoes.

“Get a picture of this.”

Nonplussed, he obliges. Afterwards, she immediately steps away.

“How do I look, darling?”

“Very nice Mom.”

“Oh,” comes Lila’s voice, as she retakes her position behind you and continues with your buttons, “Is this your outfit?”

You notice that her accent has shifted from her usual East London to a more received-pronunciation queen’s-English style.

“Of course,” says your mother, testily.

“Oh. I see. Traditionally, white is reserved for the bride, but don’t you worry about it. Nobody will get you mixed up.”

She smiles in a most un-Lila-like way. Usually, she’s brash to the point of coarseness, but since your mother walked in, she’s projecting formidable passive aggression. Lila seems to have got the measure of her very quickly. She’s leveraging her Britishness with a skill that makes you smirk; this has got to be killing her. Mom loves to be the arbiter of what’s ‘proper’.

She blusters a little before marching towards the bed and wrestling a protesting Aoife out of her Uncle Klaus’s arms.

“Oh…you want a hold, hey? Sure thing.”

Klaus hands her over and she reaches back to him with chubby fists.

After bouncing and cooing at the baby, your Mom looks Klaus up and down. “Who are these two?”

“Mom, this is Klaus, he's my future Brother-in-law. And this is Lila, my other bridesmaid: she's Diego’s wife. Diego's another of Five's brothers so Lila’s my future Sister-in-law, I guess.”

She eyes Klaus down her nose. He’s wearing a neon pink velvet suit, jacket fastened over a bare chest and a black feather boa.

“Which one are you?”

“Well nice to meet you too. I'm the one who sees dead people.”

He fixes her with a thousand-yard stare for a second before grinning broadly.

“Which number?”

“Four.”

She turns to you while Aoife twists in her arms, trying to keep Klaus in view. He pulls a face at her and holds her hand over her grandmother’s shoulder.

“Why do all the others have real names?”

You falter. You don’t actually know this. Klaus answers for you,

“Because Five was a passive aggressive little shit even when we were kids. When he was really little, he was sore about being ranked five out of seven but then he decided to own it, just to stick it to Dad.”

You laugh, “Of course he did.”

“I think Mom gave him a few names to choose from and he couldn’t pick, so he just kept the number out of spite. It’s too late to change it now. Can you imagine calling him Steve or whatever?”

Lila finishes buttoning you and your mother looks at Klaus distastefully. As always, she considers anybody more animated than herself as a threat to her role as the center of attention. She has particular antipathy for (what she terms) 'flamboyant' men.

“Where’s Dad?” you ask, to distract her.

“Downstairs. He’s sitting in the lobby.”

“Oh.”

The fact he didn’t come up to see you is kind of hurtful. Sure, he’s frail, but there are elevators…

Klaus refills your champagne glass and kisses your cheek.

“We got twenty minutes so I’m going to go see Five and then I’ll see you down there. You look so hot it makes me sick.”

You laugh and give him a cautious hug, careful not to rumple your dress.

With his hand on the door handle, Klaus looks back. Should he tell Geri that Aoife has left chocolate-strawberry handprints all over her jacket?

Nah.

After tying Santi's bow tie, Diego passes Klaus the glass of whiskey saved for him. He winks thanks at his bother and sits heavily on Five's bed of the previous evening.

“I've just met your future Mother-in-law."

Five looks up at Klaus from the room’s armchair and gives him a sympathetic look.

"Did you manage to escape unmolested?"

"Yeah, but she's fucking crazy, right?"

“No arguments there," Five tilts his glass to tease out the last drop of fine scotch, "she sorta came onto me when I met her.”

“Well,” chimes in Diego, amid the general laughter, “she is closer to your age.”

“Don’t, Diego.”

Five doesn’t snap, he just sounds muted. Perhaps realizing that just as they’re about to go downstairs is not the time to be putting doubts in his head, Diego puts his hand on Five’s shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze.

“Come on, you little shit, let’s get you married.”

Down in the library, ready for the ceremony, Klaus stands at the head of the aisle while guests file into their seats and the upper gallery. Five stands waiting with his three groomsmen lined beside him, eyeing the simple decorations. Good: everything appears to be in order.

“Feeling good Five?” Luther asks.

“Sure. Great. Feeling great.”

He goes to put his hands in his trouser pockets but realizes they’re still sewn shut from the tailors. They clasp behind his back instead.

Over the next few minutes, Five’s attention is called by various guests as they take their seats. He gives Herb and Dot a respectful nod as they edge their way into the gallery, looking down on the wedding. When Geri and Bert enter, he keeps his eyes front.

"Oh Five. You look so handsome."

He cringes, slaps on a smile and turns around.

"Thank you, Geri," he says, trying not to grit his teeth or stare too hard at her weird hat.

She fingers his cravat admiringly. "Very traditional; like an old-fashioned gentleman."

Diego, inexpertly trying to save his brother, captures Geri's attention:

"I said it's more Gomez Addams."

Geri meets Diego's eye and looks at him appraisingly, like he's one fillet of beef she's comparing to another, weighing one in her hand while considering the price of the other. She hooks a finger around Five's collar.

"You're a funny one." she smirks, not breaking eye contact with Diego as she slides her finger as far down Five’s collar as it will reach. She runs the finger across his neck, from below his ear to his Adam's apple. It takes all his strength not to jerk away, his flesh crawling.

The brothers stand in silence as Geri takes her seat.

"What the hell?" whispers Luther.

Five ignores him and turns to Klaus, “How long now?.”

And then the music begins and the guests give a little frisson. He forgets Geri temporarily and turns to see Lila, Lydia and Ellie walking down the aisle. Lila, holding a burbling Aoife, sticks out her tongue and gives him the finger as he catches her eye, making him smile. As all the guests turn their heads for their first glimpse of the bride, Five turns his eyes away, giving himself a second to prepare.

He’s getting married. The guy who thought the closest he’d get was a mannequin, (an amazing mannequin, but still a mannequin when all was said and done). And he’s marrying you. After everything he’s done to not deserve it. Luther taps him on the arm and gestures behind him, smiling broadly.

Five takes a deep breath and turns around.

Tag list: (please comment to be added or removed.) @dilfjohhny , @sunsunhe, @w4stedtr4sh, @nevbrooke-555, @theredvelvetbitch, @td-miley01, @five-hxrgreeves, @rorygi1more, @jamiebower88

Masterpost

Alternatively, join me on A03. Here is a link to the whole series

Comments would be appreciated here or on ao3 because I'm a needy ho.

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wonderwomanfantasy · 2 years

Text

under the stars together (part ten)

part one/ part two/ part three/ part four/ part five/ part six/ part seven/ part eight/ part nine/ part ten(smut)/ part eleven& epilogue.(smut)

werewolf!OC x Fem!Reader

warnings: Daddy issues AND Mommy issues, mentions of illness and surgery, acts of violence, mentions of blood & gore, smut, werewolf smut,

word count: 1,600 (about)

summary: the sun is hot on your face as you ride into the unknown. home is to your back and you don't know what the future holds. Just how you like it. You've run here all on your own, and there's nothing tying you down, It would be so easy to pick up and start running again. It's freeing, It's terrifying. You could run, but you're choosing to stay.

You rested against Cole’s chest, half asleep half paying attention to the show on tv. He ran his fingers over your arm thoughtlessly. His touch had become comfortable after just a few weeks of being together. You checked your phone and groaned when you saw the time.

“Time to go?” Cole asked, clearly as disappointed as you were.

“Yes,” you sighed. Your mother had been thrilled when you told her you were seeing Cole, but now whenever you went out with him he waited up for you, no matter how late you stayed out and no matter how many times you told her not to. She hadn’t issued a curfew exactly, but you still resolved to be home at a reasonable hour, for her sake.

You detangled yourself from him and stood. Cole followed you out and placed his hands on your bike.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” you asked, Cole, smiled.

“Full moon tomorrow night. We can do dinner after work if you want, but before the sunsets,” he explained.

“Oh,” you said, You remembered what Cole had told you, he would be ruled by instinct during the full moon.

“Right, you said it could be dangerous,” you said, thoughtfully.

“Dangerous to most people, not to you,” he corrected. You looked at him, confused.

“Why not to me?”

“You’re my mate,” he reminded, “My instincts are different when it comes to you, Normally I hunt, not humans, but if they interrupt my hunt then it’s dangerous, but I wouldn’t want to hunt if you were there for me,” Cole’s voice was a low purr when he finished his sentence, your face burned as you caught on to his meaning.

“You’re bad,” you choked out, and Cole laughed.

“I’m sorry Spitfire, I didn’t mean to tease you, just warning,” he assured,

“And what if I don’t mind playing with fire a little bit?” you asked. Cole’s eyes gleamed darkly.

“Then, yes, you can see me tomorrow,”

You couldn’t tell if you were nervous or excited, you were electric as you pulled into Cole’s driveway, the moon full and high above you. He didn’t come open the door for you, even though you knew he heard you coming, so you let yourself in.

Cole stood and moved to you quickly as you closed the door behind yourself

“Hey-” Cole cut you off before you could speak, he pulled you into a tight embrace and kissed you, slipping his tongue past your lips and stealing your breath. He pushed you back and you felt the door press against you. You wound your fingers through his long dark hair and heard him moan when you tugged. He moved his lips from your mouth to your neck and started kissing

“Missed you,” Cole groaned, before sinking his teeth into the side of your throat. You cried out in surprise, you caught your breath and found you could speak,

“It’s only been a few hours,” you protested. Cole’s crooked a finger into one of the loops on your jeans and tugged your hips forward, crashing your groin against him. He nestled a knee between your legs forcing them open.

“My mate,” he snarled against your neck biting you again, his voice was lower than you were used to, almost as deep as it was when he had shifted for you. It wasn’t Cole talking, it was the wolf.

“I’m going to knot you, I’m going to breed you, my mate,” Cole growled, his eyes were wild and dark with lust. Cole forced himself back from you,

“Can I fuck you?” he rasped.

“Yes,” you agreed and pulled him back to you. Cole moved you from the door and the two of you messily fell to the floor. He gripped your shirt in both of his large hands and ripped the fabric clean from you.

He busied himself kissing your chest, occasionally surprising you with a bite or a harsh sucking, your toes curled every time his mouth passed over your breasts, his tongue lashed out to taste your skin and ran over your hardened nipples. His hands dug into your waist and hips, and he pulled you up and down his thigh, forcing you to grind down on his leg. You moaned and writhed under him and tugged at his hair.

“I can smell it,” he growled his tongue lashing at your stomach, kissing your waist and snipping at the skin just above the waistband of your jeans. “I can smell how wet you are for me, my pretty mate,”

You pitched your hips up and he tugged your pants off, leaving you naked. Cole picked up one of your legs and braised it on his shoulders. He looked at you as he started kissing your ankle, then your calf, then your thigh. He was being gentle now, not gentle, teasing.

“Do you want me, too?” he asked his breath hot on your body. “I want to,” he added.

“Yes,” you confirmed. Cole didn’t hesitate, he settled between your spread legs. He tasted you with long flat licks, against your cunt, he sucked on your clit and kissed your weeping cunt. Your shuddering legs clamped around his head, Cole wrestled your legs off of him and pinned them to the floor. Cole was so much stronger than you it was useless to struggle.

Your hands wound into his hair again and you held him against your sex, bucking your hips up against his mouth, he didn’t stop you as you fucked his face, he let you use his mouth how you wanted. The stubble on his chin and jaw burned as it scratched the inside of your legs, but you could ignore the ache you were so close, so close to cumming that nothing else mattered.

“Fuck, Cole I’m- fuck,” you keened. Cole growled and dug his hands into the flesh of your thighs and buried his face deeper into your folds as you came. Cold didn’t pull away from you until you pushed at his head, even then it felt more like his idea than yours.

Cole picked you up off the floor and started carrying you through the house to his bedroom, the two of you collapsing on his bed. His mouth was on yours again, letting you taste your cum on his lips. Cole discarded his clothes with as much disregard as he’d given yours.

“I want you,” you whimpered, scratching down his back, making him grunt.

“You have me,” he assured you. Cole rolled you onto your stomach and you righted yourself on your hands and knees. He touched you with his large hands, massaging your ass and thighs, and groaning at the way you felt.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” Cole grunted, and you shuddered, Imaging him touching himself every full moon, wishing it was you.

“Show me, what you imagined,” you breathed. Cole eased himself into you, pausing when you inhaled sharply, he was big and he stretched your walls pleasantly. You were still sensitive from your last orgasm, and this added stimulation made your body thrum with energy.

“I’m trying to go easy on you,” Cole rasped into your ear “But you’re just so damn tempting,”

“Please Cole, fuck me,”

He didn’t need any more persuasion, he pulled his hips back, before thrusting into you again. Cole pressed his chest and stomach against your back, fucking himself deeper into you. He leaned down and bit at your neck and your shoulders. Cole grabbed your hips and moved you back and forth on his length all while his hips pistoned back and forth. All the while, he murmured in your ear how good you felt, how pretty you looked taking his dick.

Cole pulled out and flipped you over, he took both of your wrists in one of his hands, hooked your legs around his shoulders, and pushed back into you.

“Mine,” he growled against your mouth as he kissed you. You writhed against him and he squeezed down on your wrists, pushing you further down into the mattress.

“You look so pretty when you’re about to cum,” Cole growled he let go of your wrists and used his hand to cup your face as he kissed you again. You cried out against his mouth as you came again, Cole used this as an opportunity to push his tongue in his mouth.

You were dizzy with pleasure When Cole pushed this cock even further into you and you felt something else enter your cunt, then his hot cum was flooding you. You felt your stoumach bludge with the influx. Cole let out a purr-like noise and laid himself out on the bed beside you without pulling out. He nuzzled your neck and breathed in deeply.

“I wasn’t too rough was I?” he asked his voice back to normal.

“Just the right amount of rough,” you assured, you tried to move but you were caught, Cole grunted.

“Easy, It’ll work, the knot itself out,” he said. Knot.

“Oh, you weren’t joking about that?” you asked Cole laughed and kissed your neck again, you gasped, feeling suddenly more sensitive your skin was already starting to bruise over

“No darling I wasn’t joking, I wasn’t joking about wanting to breed you either,” he growled into your ear. He slipped his hand down and rubbed your lower stomach. “You’re pretty cunt is so full of my cum and I’m going to keep it that way,”

“I’m sensitive,” you warned, you didn’t think you could take it if he started fucking you again.

“Don’t worry darling, I’m sated, for now,” he said, moving his hand away from your stomach, and started stroking your arm.

“Your instincts are satisfied?” you asked, trying to lighten the hot and heavy mood.

"not satisfied exactly, just my priorities have shifted. I want you safe and happy in my arms more than I want you screaming my name and begging me to fuck you,” he said, his cock throbbing inside of you.

“And will your priorities shift back?” you asked

“Most likely.”

—

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