#who does this? i need someone to explain it to me? in prison! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kittykattropicanna · 5 months

Note

would you please be able to go into more detail about your prison penpal!simon? why is reader doing it, how did they choose simon (if they had a choice at all), the sorts of letters they exchange? and if they’re any sort of smutty bits for them too? your mechanic au has me absolutely feral beyond words so seeing this made me so excited.

Omg you’re my first asked AHHHHHH I want to scream thank you so much!!!!!

Absolutely I can go into detail about PrisonPenPal!Simon :3 I can't get out of my mind how deprived he is argh!!! >:( all this time alone, and now that you're here writing him pretty little letters, he can't imagine life without you :3

TW: mentions of murder, jail, corruption kink, breading kink, masterbation (Reader & Simon), public masterbation (kinda), smut, not sub!simon but he does cum in his pants, ahhh you're both just so obsessed with each other :3

PrisonPenPal!Simon masterlist

Regular masterlist

I’ll give you a little back story to why Si actually ended up in jail…

I feel like he retied, left SAS and tried to integrate back into civilian life but failed miserably. He started going out to bars and drinking pretty heavily. The alcohol made him angry, he never was outwardly violent, but everyone could tell he was just a very dark, tortured guy that sat in the back of the bar every night and drank himself stupid. It was like an unwritten rule that nobody bothered him. His a massive guy who’s ex military, if you had half a brain you would leave him alone.

One night he was leaving the pub and this stupid, stupid 18 year old kid thought it would be funny to try square up to him and impress his friends.

It didn’t matter how many times they told him to quit it and leave Simon alone, he still trudged up to him with his head held high and chest puffed.

This kid came up behind Si and punched him in that back of the head. It wasn’t a good punch by any means but it was more then enough to drive Simons drunk brain into utter rage.

He turned around and punched this kid straight in the head. He went down like a stack of bricks, head making direct impact with the concrete floor, killing him instantly.

The kid was only 18, he had so much life left to live…..

Of course Si felt absolutely disgusted in himself, he couldn’t believe what he had done. Killed a poor kid who made a stupid decision and ultimately ended his life as well.

He handed himself over the the police without hesitation. He went quietly and respectfully, cooperated with the police throughout the whole trial, never redirecting blame onto the kid or made it harder then it needed to be.

He pled guilty for involuntary manslaughter and assault. Gaz, Johnny and Price all pitched in to get him the best defence lawyer humanly possible……ultimately, it worked. Even though the general public was outraged at his light sentence.

Simons lawyer claimed the punch was in self defence. Someone attacking him from behind also trigged his PTSD resulting in Simon not being able to control his actions in that moment.

These defences along with him serving in the military for 15+ years and cooperating with the authorities got him 8 years in prison, his sentence was quickly reduced to 4 because of his good behaviour.

It wasn’t an ideal situation by any means, but it was the best case scenario with the cards he was dealt.

But lets fast forward to the present….. How did you decide to actually start writing to an inmate? How did you even find out about it?

I have this really cute idea that maybe you were walking through the shopping centre and there was one of those pop up markets that sit in the middle of everything, you know, with the really annoying people that flag you down and you have to awkwardly not make eye contact and walk past them while they’re try and sell you stuff?

Yeah, one of them. This specific stand kinda caught your eye though, It was called “Write An Inmate”

You talked to the guy at the stand about what exactly “Write An Inmate” was and he explained that he was part of the program when he was locked up, how much it helps inmates get through their sentence, helps connect them to the outside world and genuinely just keeps them hopeful.

First off you were a little hesitant…..speaking to someone who’s in jail because they broke the law sounded a little scary….

But hell, its a start of a new year and taking some time out of your day every once in a while to write a short letter to help keep someones hopes up is the least you can do.

Besides! One of your childhood best friends big brothers went to jail and he wasn’t a bad guy! One of your new years resolutions was to spread more kindness and this is just a perfect way to do so!

Once you got home, you look up the website on the brochure that was given to you and quickly start scrolling through inmates.

They all had profiles with information about them. You couldn’t see what they were in for, but you could see other information like their name, age, date they signed up for the program, time served/time until they get out, amount of letters they have received, a short description of who they are/what they like and a few photos showcasing what they look like.

You scrolled through a few but they all seemed to have gotten hundreds of letters, you wanted to write someone who wasn’t getting flooded every week with letters, maybe send a letter to someone who could use a pick me up.

Clicking on the last page you scrolled to the very bottom and click on the last inmate before it even had time to load.

Once the page opened the name “Simon Riley” appeared on your screen

After looking through his profile a wave of sadness rolled over you

Name: Simon Riley, most people call me Ghost Age: 36 Joined: December 26th, 2021 Letters Received: 0 Time served: 3 and a half years Sentence ends: Year and a half Description: ex military. I like dogs, big ones not small ones, the outdoors, playing cards and motorcycles. The first thing I want to do when I get out is to eat a steak.

Attached was three photos. I won’t even lie, they’re definitely dad selfies from different angles HAHAHA they’re such grainy photos too, like they’ve been taken on a 10 year old android.

Two of the selfies are him with a black balaclava on and the last one was of his face without anything covering it, but again it so grainy you can’t really make his facial features out.

Simon had joined the program two years ago and hadn't received one letter. You felt horrible, he joined the day after Christmas probably hoping to receive something, anything, but not one person took the time to write him…..

So obviously Simon was going to be your prisoner pen pal, how could he not be…..

I think the letters start off pretty innocently tbh, you don’t start writing to Simon with the intention of starting any sort of sexual or romantic relationship, it truly is out of the goodness of you’re heart, you sweet girl :(

Simon had totally forgotten about the program honestly, imagine his shock when the prison guard threw him a letter.

When he frowned and asked who its from the guard just shrugged and said “write an inmate program” and walked off completely unfazed.

But again, starts out super innocent, things like “I saw that you like big dogs, what’s your favourite breed?” and “what’s your favourite card game? I know how to play blackjack but I’m not very good haha”

I’d like to think you don’t even disclose your gender or name at the start. Keeping everything under lock and key.

Simon also answers back with pure intentions at first, he has an inkling you may be a women because the hand writing is wayyy to pretty and delicate to come from a man.

But again! He doesn’t get his hopes up, it could be an old granny for all he knows, but he can’t shake the idea that maybeeeee it could be someone a little more his type, ya know ;)

After a couple weeks of writing letters back and forth you feel like you’re getting to know him a little better. He asks you to call him Simon, not Ghost and he starts writing the cheesiest dad jokes at the bottom of every letter.

“Two fish are in a tank, one turns to the other and asks “do you know how to drive this thing?” a little army humour for ya’ :)”

His so charming in such a rough and rugged sort of way you know? It sounds silly to say, I mean, you’ve never met him! But the way his handwriting is complete chicken scratch and how he adds little “:)” “:(“ and “>:)” makes you giggle!

You end up telling him your name and how old you are, I mean, its only fair! You know his name! You definitely didn’t tell him because you wanted to get his mind racing, get him thinking about all the different possibilities, make him fantasize…

Its fair to say you have a little crush on him :( ahhhh its so humiliating! A city girl like you, good job, successful family and a bright future laying in bed every night fucking your pussy with a brand new dildo you bought just so you could imagine Simon, a felon, fucking your little cunt :(

When Simon sent his letter that week asking for a photo of you, your little crush just got bigger :(

“Its only fair don’t ya’ think? You know what I look like, why don’t ya’ return the favour sweetpea ;)”

And of course you did!! He asked so politely!

Putting on your pushup bra, doing your makeup and styling your hair all for him:(((

You get so frustrated because you don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard for him, argh! Its all so embarrassing!! Your such a needy girl >:(

You make sure to push up your tits, your bra helping them spill out over your cute little shirt and giving him a good view of your gorgeous body.

After an hour of taking photos you finally get the shot you were looking for

Eyes sparkling, cute little smile on your lips, light hitting your face just right, lacy bra slightly peaking out the top of your shirt just enough that it looks like an accident, beautiful tits sitting right in frame so he can get a good look and the slight curve of your waist visible.

Its perfect, it look so effortless…..in your eyes at least

When Si received your letter, his cock got hard the second he saw your picture :((((

Since his been locked up he hasn’t been able to jerk off properly >:(

His balls are so heavy as is, and now he has a photo of you

He could basically cum in his pants at the thought of holding your waist as you ride him. Using his big callused hands to fuck your pretty pussy onto his aching cock >>:((((((

You’re so put together! nice clothes, from the look of the background, nice apartment, clean bedroom. Just the thought of him corrupting you, fucking his baby into you, making you move into a shitty little apartment while he works and you look after his chubby baby makes his dick start to twitch :3

Before he can stop himself, he cums all in his pants :(

He hasn’t cum properly in years! yet a simple photo of you did it for him in seconds!!! You’re such a nasty minx, you know exactly what you’re doing you dirty girl >>:(

That night he lays under the covers, his cell mate fast asleep on the other side of the room as he slowly pumps his cock to the photo of you.

Eyes closed and head thrown back against the thin pillow, he bites his lip so he doesn’t make any noise.

You see, playboy magazines get passed around all the time, they’re not hard to find if you know the right people, but it just doesn’t do it for Si!!

Of course they’re beautiful women, there’s no doubt about it, but everything so photoshopped :(

Si likes his women natural. No skin smoothing filters or enhancements from photoshop, he likes his women real

His so deprived that he cums in record time, his hot load shooting all over your face, the once clean photo now sticky and stained….

He wished he had it in him to be embarrassed, but he just can’t! God, he needs to hear your voice, your picture just isn’t enough anymore….

In his next letter he asks if he could use his monthly call to speak to you……Johnnys just gonna have to wait, they can talk football another time >:(

Aghhhh, PrisonPenPal!Simon is so fucking cocky it hurtssss, PrisonPenPal!Simon is open for requests so feel free to send them throughhhhh, add to the AU, ask me expand on certain topics, whatever floats your boat >:)

!Disclaimer! - Above is NSFW content - MDNI - If you follow my blog without your age in your bio, you will be blocked - If you are under the age of 18, you are not welcome here, otherwise, enjoy :)

Cat divider sourced by @positively-mine from Pinterest - Pink line divider by @eloquentreverie - MDNI divider by @cafekitsune

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klausysworld · 5 months

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Your stories are so good!

How about a story where Klaus gets in over his head and ends up being taken captive by Augustine but falls in love with one of the scientist over the time he’s there.

(Made it the scientists daughter, not sure why? I think I read the ask wrong and then just got too deep with it. I can make another one if this wasn’t what was wanted)

(TW:This does include physical and psychological abuse form Y/n’s father! Please don’t read if this will be too upsetting for you and know that you are not alone.)

Betrayal

Klaus often went into dangerous situations without much of a plan, he was immortal and he used that to his every advantage. To be fair to him, this always worked in his favour except for that one time with the hunters curse but other than that it was fine.

Until now.

He woke with a groan, his eyes felt heavy and his body was stiff. Forcefully, he forced himself to look around but his face was against the ground. With a grunt, he managed to roll onto his back. His breathing was struggled and released in puffs. A hum reached his ears and he turned his head slowly to see a man, no a vampire sat in a cage or a prison cell opposite him.

The guys clothes were filthy, bloody and muddy. Hair greasy and growing a touch long. He gave an unserious wave "congratulations, you've been captured" he cheered sarcastically and Klaus frowned. The vampire rolled his eyes "¿no hablas inglés?" he questioned "français? Italiano? Polski?" he fired, clearly bored.

"Where-" Klaus frowned at the dryness of his throat and tried to clear his throat but it caused a painful sensation "Where am I?" he asked, raspily.

"English" the man stated, nodding to himself. "Right uh you are in an experiment where they do fun little tests on us vampires because they have an undying hatred towards us" the man explained, laughing tiredly to himself when he said 'undying'.

Klaus stared at the man like he were mad. "Tests? What sort of tests?" he questioned, frustrated and the vampire shut up. He glanced behind Klaus before back to him nervously

"They're trying to make a serum to make vampires have the uncontrollable urge to feed on other vampires...to rip their heads clean off. Be stronger, unstoppable and filled with hatred for our own" he explained quietly as though someone may be listening. Klaus frowned in response and slowly dragged himself up into a sitting position against the cold wall of his cell.

Vampires who rippered other vampires? It reminded him of his father and he didn't exactly want to think of him. Nor did he want to feel this week, how much vervain had they pumped him full of? He groaned loudly and the other man hummed in agreement.

The sound of a lock went and the vampire opposite Klaus quickly got to his feet, holding onto the bars like a desperate animal.

The soft clicking of heels sounded and the mans face immediately relaxed slightly, his eyes looking eagerly for whoever was coming. Klaus was hit with a strong scent of vanilla before a soft sigh was heard and he could see the back of a women. Her hair hiding her shoulders and the top half of her lab coat. She wore small black heels and a coat.

"You okay?" she asked the guy opposite him, handing him something, blood. He could smell it and he needed it. The vampire scoffed it down immediately with a sound of pleasure.

"mm thank you darling...I don't suppose you have another for me?" he purred but she shook he head

"It's for the new one" she whispered and Klaus's senses perked. She proceeded to turn towards him and her eyes looked him over. Klaus let out a breathy laugh, this was who was supposed to be testing and torturing him? He raised both his brows and licked his chapped lips before pulling them into a smirk. In response she only rolled her eyes "those eyes won't work on many people here" she told him, she placed the paper shot glass of blood onto the floor and carefully pushed it into his cage. "You'll be known by 52836, answer to it or they’ll burn it into you so you remember it" she informed, watching him reach forward and grabbing the drink.

"This is all I get?" he questioned, his nose scrunched and his browed pulled together.

"One a day. None if you misbehave. You'll feel better tomorrow when you have less vervain in your system, until then keep quiet. 12144 will be here with you...get comfortable" she murmured, a certain sadness and level of pity in her eyes as she gave a tight lipped smile to both vampires before leaving.

12144 looked back to Klaus, "You can call me Enzo, she's called Y/n. One of the mean ones daughters, been coming down here since she was small. She doesn't mean much harm but she's too scared to go against the rules" he explained with a shrug "Sometimes she sneaks me two portions if she can. She touched me once, just a hand on the shoulder. I was far too weak to respond but I knew she was there"

Klaus stared at Enzo for a moment before glancing to his now empty cup. What the fuck did he just get himself into?

It was the question he asked himself every morning and every night. To start off with he fought back against the scientists, yelled and screamed demanding to know who they thought they were, making empty threats and hoping his family would find him.

Klaus began to feel a little pathetic, he was hoping? That wasn’t like him. He was strategic and powerful. So he tried to pay better attention. After a few weeks, he was able to understand why Y/n was so obedient. Her father was dreadful. She once suggested that Klaus needed a break after watching blood poor out of his eyes, her father proceeded to grab her and threaten to stick one of the syringes in her neck. She sprinted out the room as soon as she was let go and Klaus couldn’t blame her. It made him think of Mikael and how he would hold a sword against his throat.

He had sympathy for her, empathy too but unfortunately he had to push that aside and instead of help her, he would manipulate her.

He would ask her about the little marks on her skin knowing it was a result of her trying to help him. Enzo would shake his head and occasionally speak up, telling Klaus to leave her be when her discomfort became clear.

“I don’t mean to upset you sweetheart” Klaus murmured, his hand reaching between the bars to brush against her arm making her flinch and pull away. “You don’t deserve to be hurt. I know that, Enz- 12144, knows it too. You’re good and sweet” he told her, his hand reaching to touch her but she wouldn’t let him. “I could help you” he whispered, his eyes flicking to Enzo’s but he just looked annoyed.

Y/n shook her head and left quickly and Enzo sighed. “You shouldn’t do that to her” he mumbled “you’re only making her hopeful”

“I haven’t lied. If she were to let me out then I’d happily slaughter that father of hers. Then she’d be safe” he smile sarcastically

“I wouldn’t let you kill her too. She hasn’t done anything cruel since the first day I met her” Enzo muttered solemnly

“I don’t plan on killing her” Klaus stated simply as he looked down at the extra cup of blood she had given him. He wasn’t sure what he’d do to her but he wouldn’t kill her, scare her maybe but he didn’t really want to kill her.

The two vampires sat back down in their cells. Preparing themselves for the torture to come. Occasionally it wouldn’t come, instead they would hear the sobs of a fear stricken Y/n as she begged the ‘scientists’ to give 12144 and 52836 a day off. It was those moments that made him soften for her.

When she would come down to where they stay with trembling hands and cups of blood.

As she handed the small offering to Klaus, he slid his hand out to grab her wrist gently. She immediately flinched and dropped the blood making her breathing escalate in panic.

“It’s alright” he soothed, pulling her closer to the bars so he could put his other hand on her cheek.

“I’m sorry” she whimpered “I’ll get more”

“It doesn’t matter sweetheart” he murmured, caressing her face gently and wiping the tears away. “I had two cups yesterday anyway” he reminded and she sniffed with a nod. “Come here love, let me hold you” he whispered, tugging her closer despite the shaking of her head a the cry that left her lips. Enzo watched with furrowed brows as Klaus managed to wrap his arms around her. Y/n’s body was pressed against the bars, still shaking as the vampire caressed her back slowly. Klaus looked over her shoulder to Enzo as Y/n melted against him. With hesitancy Enzo nodded and relaxed.

After nearly a full minute, he let her go and watched as her tearful eyes looked at his. Silently she turned around and left, whispering softly to Enzo on her way out.

Said vampire narrowed his eyes at Klaus “What game are you playing with her?” He asked lowly

“We need to get out. She needs to get out. This is how we do it” he mumbles

“Make her trust you and then use her? Like that will help her. You’ll only hurt her more” he sighed and Klaus rolled his eyes, sitting back down on the dirtied floors and shutting his eyes.

Y/n tried not to look him in the eye after that and she went back to pushing the cup of blood towards him instead of handing it to him. He could tell and Enzo could tell that something deeper was wrong. And it was only when it actually happened did they understand what.

It was Klaus’s turn to be shackled down and tested on. What he wasn’t ready for was when one of the scientists came in dragging Y/n by the wrist. He forced her infront of Klaus and shoved a syringe into her hands. She shook her head and begged no but as soon as her father stepped into the room she knew she had to do it. With one devastating look to Klaus, she injected him with the substance.

They made her test his blood and his reactions all afternoon, claiming that it was a good learning opportunity and she should finally get involved in the family business.

By the time she was finished, Klaus couldn’t see nor hear, he was certain for a moment that he was finally dead but eventually he woke a few hours later back in his cell.

After that, Y/n rarely brought them blood, she couldn’t face them. And when she had to face them, it was because she had to hurt them and that was even worse for everyone.

Neither vampire blamed her, they didn’t fight her when she would touch them. They would simply let it happen and internalise as much of their pain as possible so she wouldn’t cry as much.

Occasionally the other scientists would leave and she would immediately try stop their suffering. Asking what she could do. Enzo assure her that it was fine and she would hold his hand for a small while and feed him some water. Klaus would ask her to distract him which always confused her and ended up in a splurge of rambling so that he would be able to focus on something else. The amount of random stories that girl had told him wonder if she was just making them up on the spot but he didn’t mind if she was. Often she would caress his hand or shoulder as she spoke to try and give a sense of comfort.

One day, when Klaus was supposed to still be knocked out, she was in his cell with him. She had been told to clean the blood from the floor so that it wouldn’t smell and not to worry about 52836 because he wouldn’t wake for another hour. They underestimated his strength and the fact that Y/n would try sneak extra blood.

When he woke, his eyes slowly found her. She was down on her knees, scrubbing at the ground with a sponge quickly. It was clear she was on edge. She made it clear when she glanced over to him a few times. Only one of those times did she realise he was looking back at her and when it hit her she froze.

Klaus made sure not to move either, he wasn’t sure if the cage was open or not and he didn’t know if she would scream if he moved too quickly. He watched as she slowly began to stand up, he hesitantly moved his arm out and let his hand touch her ankle. A sound left her mouth as she went still again and watched him wrap his hand around her. “Can you help me sit up?” He asked quietly and reluctantly she nodded.

He let go of her and helped push himself up as much as he could while she supported the majority of his weight. She whispered her apologies as she managed to get him up and leaning against the wall.

“Thank you sweetheart” he whispered, his hand finding hers. She swallowed thickly but held his hand and sat beside him staring at the ground blankly.

Enzo was in the other room, being tested on as usual so Klaus had her to himself for a moment.

His eyes flicked to the lock of the cell, it was open and he knew that if he drained Y/n now that he would make it out. He felt her shuffle a little close to that she could transfer some of her body heat to his, and sighed to himself. Slowly he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. “You’re not like them” he whispered, holding her closer.

“I don’t want to hurt you” she whispered sadly and he closed his eyes, cursing himself silently.

“I don’t want to hurt you either” he uttered “I’m sorry” he told her, just before lowering his head and sinking his teeth into her neck. He squeezed his eyes shut to try block out her cry of pain and confusion. Her blood burned down his throat with the vervain she’d ingested but regardless of the toxic herb, he could still feel his strength returning. Her hands desperately tried to push him off, sobs echoing through his cell as he drank. Klaus tried to be a gentle as he could but her squirming made it so difficult.

When her heart began to slow, and her her breathing quietened, he pulled his mouth off. She looked up at him with a look that could only be described as betrayal and fear. Still, he picked her up in his arms and kissed her head “it’ll be okay my love” he whispered, carrying her with him as he pushed the cell gate open. “I’ll be back” he promised, putting her on the ground, ignoring her cries as he went into the torture room.

After draining the three scientists in the room and tearing the shackles off of Enzo, he came back and picked up Y/n. Enzo was furious and took her straight off of Klaus, promising her that he had no idea this was what would happen.

The three of them managed to escape the building and Klaus broke into a random car, beckoning Enzo with Y/n into the back as he managed to get it started.

He glanced in the rear view mirror as Enzo stroked Y/n’s hair while she shook and cried and asked if her father was still alive.

Klaus’s eyes met Enzo’s in the mirror as he stepped on the gas. Neither had any idea what to do now.

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runby2 · 1 month

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the idea that phoenix does not for the life of him trust trucy around kristoph (for obvious reasons) ((vera)) in an AU where kristoph evaded prison is never not going to be funny to me. like. imagining kristoph just having a moment where he sees trucy walking home alone at night and he's like "oh my god she isn't safe out here someone could hurt her" and so he pulls over and rolls his window down. and trucy doesn't fully see who it is in the dark so she's excitedly like " oh! hello little old lady!" and kristoph is like, utterly offended that he would be called old, so he just tries to offer "i'm not a lady." and trucy just walks away and goes "oh. my daddy told me not to talk with blonde strangers."

and kristoph is like "???" like, blonde only??? or phoenix added blonde in there and trucy just took that as the main factor she should look out for? and so he tries to continue rolling forward in the car and he's like "listen, it's late out, i am rather worried about you. i know your father, would you mind if i took you home to ensure your safety?"

and trucy's like: "which father?" and kristoph tenses. and he doesn't know the correct answer so he just confidently says "phoenix wright." and trucy's next question is: are you a cop? and kristoph does not for the life of him have the energy to explain that HALF OF PHOENIX's friends work for the government and that phoenix's husband is the chief of police. so he's like "would that make you more or less likely to get into this car?" and trucy just chipperly replies "less." and kristoph is so defeated like why would phoenix tell trucy not to trust cops??? so he offers "I'm Kristoph Gavin. I'm sure your father does not think highly of me but I still worry about young girls getting harmed at night in the street." and Trucy looks at him and says "oh! i know you!" and gets in the car. and kristoph asks "what- doesn't your father despise me?" and trucy says "yeah he does! and i'm pretty sure you killed someone! but you're prosecutor gavin's brother, and klavier is dreamy!" and kristoph doesn't know how to respond or if phoenix would be okay with this and trucy just continues "you're not dreamy though. you're kinda creepy. sorry." and kristoph just . understands why phoenix needed so many breaks from parenting.

#ace attorney #trucy wright #kristoph gavin #phoenix wright #krisnix

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dilvuc · 5 months

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hi! Could I request Blade x male reader who is part of the stellaron hunters but has a similar personality to Jing yuan, like lazy as heck. Im think of a prompt where maybe the reader and blade are on a mission together and the reader has to get serious but ends up getting seriously injured and captured. And Blade rescues the reader and takes care of his injuries?(I’m sorry if this isnt a lot of detail im not good at explaining things ;; if you need more details let me know! Just call me Squishy Anon!! <3)

❝RECKLESSNESS❞

𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖗𝖊: angst/fluff

𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗: male

𝖙𝖎𝖙𝖑𝖊: recklessness

𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌: blade x m!reader

𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌: short

you rest in on the beanbag, lazily sleep peacefully until someone rudely kicks your beanbag, knocking you off. you grunted, rubbing your head, “Why?!”

“We have a mission…” blade told you. you grunted and leaned off your beanbag, “At least be gentle next time…”

“If your ass isn't so lazy. Get serious.” the dark raven haired male ordered you. you huffed and put up your serious expression. surely the mission will end swiftly, right?

wrong…

✎

you got caught up in a trap, causing yourself to get injured. this was enough for the cloud knights to capture you before blade could bail you out. blade doesn't even know what he's gonna do with you, so it’s up to him to rescue you.

you are seated alone in a shackling prison, awaiting for blade to arrive. you just know that blade is worrying about you, but won't admit it.

“Took you long enough~” you smirked, ignoring the pain in your body. blade scoffed and removed the cuffs off your wrists, “Don't think I'm doing this for you.”

“If it isn't for me, then why did you come for me?” you teased as blade wrapped your arm around his shoulder and helped you on your feet.

“Do you want me to leave you?” the dark raven haired male growled.

✎

“...Why did I agree to this?” blade huffed while wrapping the bandage around your arm. kafka chuckled with her hand clasp over her lips, “You agreed to this, bladie. isn't he your boyfriend?”

“And we're partners, aren't we—ow.” you hissed when the male tightening the bandage around your arm. “Why?!”

“He's not my boyfriend nor are we partners. Just co-workers.” the dark raven haired male clarified, causing you to sulk. you booed at him, “Boo~ You're no fun.”

the woman giggled and walked toward the door to leave you two alone, “I'll leave you two to have fun.”

blade just scowls and continues to patch you up. he really doesn't like you, does he? blade always been so cruel and yet he's always partnering up with you without any complaints. you tried asking him if he wanted someone to take his place, but he denied and rudely agreed to stay as your partner. you decide to test the theory.

“...If you don't want to patch me up, then at least let Silver Wolf or Kafka do it—” blade cut you off and said, “I got it. You don't need anyone to patch you up.”

“Geez. You really want to take care of me so badly that you love me?” you teased, causing blade to flinch a little before focusing back on patching you up. you jumped when he tightened the bandage again. “Ow~”

blade glared, “Keep your mouth or I'll cut your lips open.”

“You're so mean…” you sweatdropped.

though you had not realized, the dark raven haired male was hiding his blush from your sight. he just wasn't prepared to let you know his feelings yet.

╰┈➤ author note: please note that this is a slow update. i will still accept your request, but it will take a while since i'll be working on my books on wattpad. if you wish to read those books, here's my wattpad account.

rules

honkai star rail

#male reader #top male reader #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x male reader #blade hsr #blade honkai star rail

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sygol · 1 month

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Why do all queer people suddenly have to be ok with pedophile/incest/zoo shit? "Block and move on" doesn't change the fact that I see people interacting with genuine fucking cp. I report what I can and I'm told I'm an exclusionist anti kink homophobe. This isn't fucking healthy for anyone.

i cant speak for everything but i think you're being delusional, most queer people are not pedophiles, youre probably referring to ageplay (adults pretending to act in ways that can't tangibly harm children), most queer people are not zoophiles, you're probably referring to furrys or therians etc (adults pretending to act in ways that can't tangibly harm animals), most queer people are not even doing incest with their familial siblings, they are doing fauxcest (adults pretending to act in ways outside the sanctity of your nuclear family ideals).

if you see art that depicts animal/furry sex or incest or rape, you have to understand that this is not tangibly harming anymore, depictions of underage characters or adults pretending to be children is not cp and to say something like this is offensive to actual csa survivors. i say all this because what you're saying sounds extremely reactionary and based on a facist narrative. like no, most queer people are not grooming children or fucking dogs, youre regurgitating bullshit.

i dont have time to explain the more complex grey areas of the world we live in, becsuse its not as simple as "this notion is good and that notion is bad" but you need to first off understand, that your disgust does not equate to harm, if you are uncomfortable with something, it is not the fault of other people to conform to how you think they should behave. harm in this context is when someone who doesnt want to be engaging with something is being forced or coerced into it. consider asking people if they are being harmed instead of projecting your own expectations onto them.

of course there exists specific cases of actual children being abused and animals being harmed and then something should probably be done, for the victims, the harm should be rectified. instead of trying to punish the abuser (doesnt work). if you actually care about not being a reactionary homophobe, then read a book about prison abolition and queer history in the context of facism and stop hassling me about it, its not my job to learn you how to stop being a pinhead

#asks

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of-a-chaotic-mind · 5 months

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Shaken Not Stirred

Summary: Reader attends an investigation with her boyfriend Sam and best friend Colby. Unfortuantely for her, it doesn't quite go as smoothly as she'd hoped it would.

TW/CW: Reader gets scratched by a ghost and scared a few times. Sam Golbach x Reader

Requested?: No

A/N: Writing a spoopy imagine while watching spoopy Sam & Colby videos all with the lights off aside from red lights to up the spoopiness is fantastic. Surprisingly, I'm less spooped than I would be just watching Sam & Colby vids with the lights on and not multitasking lmao.

Y/N's POV

As we stepped into the abandoned, slightly decrepit haunted prison. We had spoken briefly with a friend of our guide outside before starting this tour and she had warned me, “Girl you are braver than I am.” Upon tilting my head at her, she continued, “I won’t ever step foot in that place after hearing so many stories from other ladies. Stick close to your boys.” Apparently, the entities in this place enjoy messing with and scaring ladies the most.

Colby’s voice brings me out of my thoughts, “Dude, look at this place!” I scan my eyes around the immense entry hall. The cement walls impose a sense of dread. The stuffy sour smell of the place makes my stomach roil.

I instinctively inch closer to Sam who’s at my side. I can already tell the warning wasn’t falsely founded. Just being in here makes me feel extremely uneasy and very unwelcome. Dating a paranormal investigator means I’ve visited plenty of haunted locations but this one was much worse than any other.

As our guide began the tour, I practically glued myself to Sam’s side making him look down at me. “You alright?” He questions, concern written plainly across his face.

I think for a moment before nodding, “Yeah just already feeling unwelcome.”

The guide breaks in, “Ladies typically do feel set apart from the gentlemen. As this was a male only prison, they don’t typically take kindly to female visitors.”

Sam looks even more worried now, “You can always sit this one out.”

I shake my head, “I’m alright for now but I’ll let you know if I need to step out.” Sam nods as our guide takes that as his cue to continue on. The first bit of our tour goes pretty quietly. Just as I am starting to loosen up and shake the uneasiness, I hear someone or something whisper yell very closely to my ear. Having stepped away from Sam, I race back to him and nearly leap into his arms.

“What?!” He questions, voice full of worry, “What happened?”

I look up at him and then around at our group, fear etched across my face, “Did you guys not hear that?” Everyone shakes their heads spurring me to explain, “I just heard something whisper super loud in my ear. Like, I don’t know how you guys didn’t hear it.”

Sam wraps his arms tighter around me, “Do you need a minute?”

I bury my face into his chest to take a few deep breaths before shaking my head, “No, I’m alright. Let’s keep going.” Carrying on with the tour, I keep my head on a swivel and my hand tightly clasped around Sam’s.

By the time we begin our investigations, I’ve loosened up again. Sam sets out the two flashlights after explaining for the video what they do. Colby also sets out a REM pod and shows the camera what it does. As everyone steps away from the devices, the REM pod starts going nuts. “Alright, I guess that’s a good sign that we should get started,” Sam states to the camera. The boys begin bouncing around questions and receiving responses but the REM pod just keeps screaming at us.

Finally, having had enough of the high pitch shrill, I gave up my courage and speak up, “I’m sorry to interrupt boys but whoever is beside our little red light over there could you please step away? It’s starting to hurt my ears.” The device goes silent immediately upon finishing my sentence. Sam, Colby, and I look at each other in shock before they continue on with questioning the flashlights. After only a couple questions and answers, I jump close to Sam. Something had just whispered again. I bury my face in Sam’s chest once more as he rubs my back.

“I heard that one,” Sam says more to Colby than me, “There was a whisper.”

Colby shakes his head, “I didn’t hear it but she sure did,” he says motioning to me. I back away from my shelter and motion for the boys to continue.

After a while and a couple of investigations, Sam and Colby decide it’s time to bring out the Estes Method. As Colby goes under, Sam leans over to whisper to me, “Do you want to sit this one out?” I shake my head but take his hand in mine. Sam begins asking questions and immediately receives answers. As the questions get more intense, I hold Sam’s hand even tighter trying not to show how terrified I am. I know that if Sam knows how scared I am he’ll cut it and we’ll leave.

“Is there anything specific you’d like us to know before we leave?” Sam asks. We receive, “Yeah,” from Colby just as something grabs the back of my neck. I leap from my seat and scream so loud that Colby yanks the headset and blindfold off looking around slightly panicked. Sam jumps up to collect me in his arms, checking me over as I try to calm my shaking and my eyes dart around trying to pinpoint the source of my fear.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Colby asks, standing from his chair.

Sam, whose inspection has brought him around behind me, waves Colby over out of the corner of my eye. Colby steps behind me as I feel Sam lower the back of my shirt slightly and lift my ponytail. “Holy shit,” Colby mumbles as I see a flash and hear a camera shutter.

I hide my face in my hands as Sam gently spins me around to face them. He places his hands on either side of my face, “I’m here. I’ve got you. You are safe,” he pauses taking a deep breath, “Do you want to see it?”

I nod shakily, knowing he’s referring to the picture of whatever is on my back. Colby shows me the screen of Sam’s phone. There is four long scratches from my hairline to between my shoulder blades, thankfully not drawing blood. Saying nothing I simply bury my face in Sam’s chest once again and his arms immediately wrap around me. “She’s shaking,” Colby notes.

“Yeah, we need to leave,” Sam states already moving toward the exit. Colby collects the gear before quickly catching up to us. About halfway to the car, Sam stops and lifts me into his arms. Once we reach the car, Sam opens the passenger door and gently sits me down in the seat. I clutch onto his shirt, not wanting him to pull away but he takes my hands in his, kissing them before placing them in my lap and squatting down in front of me.

Sam brushes my hair away from my face and that’s when I finally notice the same fear from my face copy and pasted onto his. His hands shake slightly as he kisses my forehead. Looking into my eyes once again, “I love you but the next time I see you so shaken just walking into a location, you’re sitting out or we’re leaving. I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you.” I nod my head and finally seeming content that I’ve calmed down he stands, “Pull your legs in, Darling.” I do as instructed before Sam closes the door and makes his way over to the driver side door as Colby slides into the backseat.

Colby leans forward and pats my head as Sam cranks the car and begins exiting the property. “You’re gonna be okay, Kid,” Colby affirms before he leans back to get comfortable for the ride home. Colby’s always been like a brother to me and no matter how well he hides it, I know he’s just as scared as Sam and I. Sam takes my hand in his as we make our way back to the hotel.

Masterlist

More Sam Golbach Imagines

#sam golbach #sam golbach imagines #sam golbach imagine #sam golbach oneshot #sam golbach oneshots #sam and colby #sam and colby imagine #sam and colby imagines #sam and colby oneshots #sam and colby oneshot

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 months

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Napoleonville [Chapter 5: The Haunted House]

Series Summary: The year is 1988. The town is Napoleonville, Louisiana. You are a small business owner in need of some stress relief. Aemond is a stranger with a taste for domination. But as his secrets are revealed, this casual arrangement becomes something more volatile than either of you could have ever imagined.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (18+ readers only), dom/sub dynamics, smoking, drinking, drugs, infidelity, kids, parenthood, Adventures With Aegon, Targ family dysfunction, bodily injury, no Willis this time yay!!! 🥳

Word Count: 7.3k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @marvelescvpe @toodlesxcuddles @era127 @at-a-rax-ia @0eessirk8 @arcielee @dd122004dd @humanpurposes @taredhunter @tinykryptonitewerewolf @partnerincrime0 @dr-aegon @persephonerinyes @namelesslosers @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @daenysx @gemini-mama @chattylurker @moonlightfoxx @huramuna @britt-mf @myspotofcraziness @padfooteyes @aemonddtargaryen @trifoliumviridi @joliettes @darkenchantress @florent1s @babyblue711 @minttea07 @libroparaiso @bluerskiees @herfantasyworldd @elizarbell @urmomsgirlfriend1 @fudge13 @strangersunghoon

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 🥰🧁

Every house is haunted, not just by phantoms of the past but by the ghosts of what could have been. They live in shadows, in doorways, in the periphery of your vision; you walk through them like smoke or mist. Their blood—pooled and pulseless—is a cold spot in a sweltering room, their fingerprints are the woodgrain swirls of floorboards. If you listen closely, you can hear them at night in the chorus of the cicadas and the owls and the wet westbound wind. They whisper questions you’ve never been able to answer: Have I made the right choices? Have I done the best I could? Is love a myth or does it only exist for other people? Am I a prisoner of the past or the future or myself? Why have I never been chosen?

In the bathtub, you stare at the pale blue walls veined with cracks like the legs of a spider. On the tree swing in the front yard—here long before you moved in, inherited from the effort and care of another family’s hands—you skim your bare feet over emerald blades of grass and watch the lightning bugs appear at dusk. In Cadi’s room, you play the Nintendo when she asks and try to forget who gave it to her; and when she asks about Aemond, you say he’s busy with work, because how else can you explain his absence to a child? In the kitchen, you break eggs into glass bowls of vanilla, sugar, flour, butter, baking powder, but you keep getting pieces of shell in the mix, something that almost never happens anymore. You snap, grab an egg, pitch it against the refrigerator where it explodes into calcium carbonate shrapnel and sterile yellow gore.

Amir looks up, startled. Behind his rectangular tortoiseshell glasses, his eyes dart between you and the viscera that stains the refrigerator door. At last he says softly, seriously: “What is it you liked so much about him?” Implicit in this statement are others: You’ve never liked a man this much. You’ll never see Aemond again.

You study your palms, tools of creation, tools that destroy. “I spend every second of my life consumed by responsibilities. The house, the car, the bakery, the bills, Cadi, Willis, myself, even you. There’s no one to tell me what the right thing to do is. There’s no one who can carry the weight for me. I can’t show it when I’m tired or frustrated or scared. And so to have someone who—even for an hour, even for fifteen minutes—could take care of me, and make all the decisions, and convince me to trust him…it’s the closest I ever get to being at peace.”

Amir gives you a sad, vanishingly small smile. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.” And you wet a dishcloth so you can begin to clean up your mess.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Thursday, and you’re coming home after delivering cakes for a birthday party down in Thibodaux. Your car radio is blaring Message In A Bottle by The Police. When you roll into the gravel driveway, the red Audi Quattro is waiting for you: parked right beside the house, like he belongs here, like he owns it. You throw open the door of your Chevy Celebrity and rage up the sloping, groaning steps of the front porch.

The first thing that hits you is the cold. There is an ambient humming, a chill that raises goosebumps on your bare arms. When you rush to the kitchen, you find an air conditioning unit in one of the windows, a metal box that turns the Fall-Down House into a tundra. They’re sitting at the hastily-cleared counter: Aemond leafing through the ledger book containing the financial records for the bakery, Amir beside him sipping a glass of sweet tea. Aemond glances up at you and then back down at the pale green pages, the lines of his face intense, focused. Amir greets you with a nervous titter, hiding behind his sweet tea. Ice jangles in the glass.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Our new air conditioner!” Amir says, overjoyed. “The customers are going to love it. No more waiting around in a stifling kitchen. You know how miserable it gets in here during the summer. We won’t be able to get rid of them! They’ll be purchasing cupcakes by the dozen just to have an excuse to get out of the heat!”

Aemond is still scrutinizing the ledger. “Why aren’t you buying in bulk?” he asks Amir. “The shelf life on things like sugar and flour has got to be six months at least.”

“We don’t have the liquid capital. We can’t spend cash if we don’t have cash.”

“And all these business expenses—mixers, coolers, pans, blenders, knives, the gas you burn when you make deliveries, the water you use to wash dishes—those are all tax write-offs, right?”

Amir hesitates. Aemond is aghast, his eyebrows shooting up into the blonde hair that shags over his forehead. The strands are damp with sweat and curling at the edges; he’s been working hard. He’s the one who heaved the air conditioner up onto the window ledge. His Marlboro jacket is draped over the back of his barstool. He’s wearing jeans, a black MTV t-shirt, and his Adidas sneakers.

“Please tell me you haven’t been paying income tax on money you aren’t actually keeping.”

“I didn’t know what we were allowed to write off, I was petrified to make a mistake! I don’t want to end up in Rikers!”

“They don’t put people in Rikers for tax evasion. You’d only go to minimum security.”

Amir rolls his eyes. “Well now you’ve convinced me.”

You are betrayed, furious. “You’re showing him the book?”

“He’s very bossy,” Amir says, slurping his sweet tea. “As you know.”

Aemond asks you, making notes on a legal pad he’s commandeered: “Do you have an IRA?”

“A what?”

“An IRA,” Aemond repeats slowly, emphasizing every syllable. “An individual retirement account.”

Should I? Could I? What the hell is that? “Um. I don’t think so.”

Aemond sighs, exasperated. He jots down another bullet point on his legal pad. “You need one.”

“I need you to get out of my house.”

“Shh!” Amir pleads. “He bought us an air conditioner!”

“Do you know how much that’s going to cost us in electricity? The bill is going to go through the roof. We’re not going to be able to afford this. And he doesn’t care, because he hasn’t even thought of it. Drop an oil rig into a lake and solve the unemployment crisis. Throw an air conditioner in a window and buy someone’s loyalty. He doesn’t understand us. He doesn’t care about us. He’s not capable of it.”

“I’ll pay for the electricity,” Aemond says. Now he’s looking at you.

“Get out,” you demand.

He seems—perplexingly—to be genuinely wounded. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Get out!”

Aemond stands, walks to you, backs you up until your shoulder blades hit the refrigerator. The metal door is cluttered with Cadi’s drawings, secured there with multicolored alphabet magnets: dinosaurs eating people, Rambo, astronauts rocketing to the moon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Aemond is so close you can smell the cigarette smoke and cologne and sweat on him, see the smudges of ink on his fingers. His right eye travels all over you, defiant and hungry. His left eye—and you only notice when there’s no space left between you—is an impassive, glassy, not-quite-identical blue that never moves. It’s an imposter, and a very good one; but it’s not him. You think, unable to say it: What happened to your face? Who hurt you? Instead you strike out to shove Aemond away with both hands.

“Get out of my house—!”

“You want to get rough with me? Will that make you feel better?” he murmurs darkly, ignoring your palms when they collide with his chest, his collarbones, his jaw. Your flesh can’t hurt him, it can only graze his skin like stray bullets. “You want to hit me? Go ahead. I’ve had worse. I promise you I have.”

“I hate you!”

But you haven’t said the right word, and you both know it. He grabs your wrists, holds them still, whispers low and menacing into your ear as you struggle to rip your hands out of his grasp. “I dreamed about you all night. Tying you down, stretching you open. I want that. I think you do too.”

“I don’t want it,” you hiss; but already you’re imagining him on top of you, inside you, in control of you, and to resist that is like trying to fight the instinct to seek water, sleep, sunlight.

“Then tell me to stop.”

You glare up at Aemond, raging, burning. His gaze locks with yours and stays there. You are suddenly aware of the heat of his fingers linked around your wrists, of the pressure of his hips against yours as he pins you to the refrigerator. You can’t say it. I don’t want him to stop touching me. I don’t want him to leave and never come back.

Again, Aemond dares you: “Tell me to stop.”

From the kitchen counter, Amir is gawking at you both, his eyes huge, stunned, painfully uncomfortable. Nonetheless, he doesn’t look away. “I’m not leaving,” he informs Aemond. Just in case you’re weak enough to agree to something you’ll regret later; just in case you need a friend.

The spell breaks, the curse lifts. Aemond releases you and takes several steps back. He breathes deeply, running his fingers through his damp hair, composing himself. “You’re a good person,” he says to Amir.

“Thanks. I’m afraid I can’t return the compliment.”

Aemond turns back to you. Now he’s penitent, measured. Already, a part of you misses the weight of his bones on yours. But that’s not why Aemond is here. “Let me talk. Let me explain.”

No, you almost say. I’m not interested. I don’t want you anymore. There’s nothing you can tell me that will make me feel at peace with you again.

Instead, after long moments colored by waning sunlight and the whirring of the new air conditioner in the window: “Okay.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re on the tree swing, gripping the ropes and swaying slightly back and forth as you push off with your bare feet, rocking from your heels to your toes and then back again. Aemond lights a cigarette and takes a drag as he sits cross-legged on the grass in front of you. Amir keeps peeking out from between the blinds of the living room windows. Aemond glances around the yard, and you realize he’s searching for the alligator. His Marlboro jacket is folded neatly on the ground next to him.

“The gator’s not here right now, Aemond. She’s probably over in the trees. She’s not going to hurt you.”

He nods, but he doesn’t seem convinced. He fidgets restlessly with his cigarette.

All that money, all that power, all that ecological ruin, and he’s petrified of a five-foot gator that’s probably never eaten anything bigger than a pelican. It’s ridiculous. You smile weakly. “I think you have a phobia.”

He gestures to his scar, to his ruined left eye. “I’m afraid one will sneak up on me and I won’t be able to see it.”

He’s never spoken like this to you before, acknowledging his limitations, his impairment. He’s trying to be honest. He really is. “Where’s Christabel?”

“Back in the U.K.”

“When are you getting married?”

He shrugs, uninterested. “A few months from now, I guess. July. August. It doesn’t matter. I’m not really involved in the planning.”

“You’re a cheater,” you say. It comes out less accusatory than mournful. Why did you have to disappoint me? Why did you have to ruin this?

Aemond is dismissive. He puffs on his cigarette. “Everyone cheats.”

“No they don’t.”

“Everyone from my world cheats,” Aemond amends. “You marry for money or status or land or whatever, to prove you can snag someone who should be above you, to make your parents proud of you, to make sure your children have the right last name and titles. Then when the novelty fades—and it does, it always does—you find passion elsewhere.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“That’s aristocratic. Poor people get divorced two or three times. They have public brawls and call the cops on each other. We just have a different solution to life’s inevitabilities. My mother cheats with Criston, Daemon and Rhaenyra cheated with each other, I cheat with you, Aegon cheats with…I couldn’t even list them. A lot of people.”

Aegon. So that’s the debaucherous brother’s name. “Not all fancy rich people cheat. Prince Charles doesn’t cheat.”

Aemond bursts out laughing. “Of course he does! He’s been fucking Camilla Parker Bowles since like 1970!”

Your stomach sinks. Poor Diana. “I thought they were just friends now.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s what the tabloids say.” He inhales smoke—cancerous, lethal—and then exhales it in a grey gale like fog. “I think they stopped for a few years after he got married. But presently they spend as much time as they possibly can rendezvousing at all their friends’ country estates. Charles and Diana are miserable, but they’ll never split up. She’s entertaining herself with a cavalry officer named James Hewitt. Who looks suspiciously like Prince Harry, by the way.”

“And who does your father fuck on the side? Nancy Reagan?”

“He prefers the memory of a dead woman to my living mother. I’d say that counts as infidelity.”

The photograph Aegon showed me on the Targaryens’ refrigerator. Rhaenyra’s mother. And what else had been on that refrigerator? Pictures of the rest of the family? Old sketches and report cards? Souvenirs? A calendar with upcoming birthdays circled or starred? No. There was nothing. You consider Aemond with a disorienting blend of pity and barbed, venomous frustration. “I’m sorry Viserys has never been a good father to you. But that’s not an excuse to ruin other people’s lives.”

“Look, what you did…” Aemond begins with sizable effort. He puts the end of his cigarette out on the sole of one of his Adidas sneakers. “To walk away from something you believe isn’t right when everyone else is telling you to stay…that’s not easy. And maybe for you it didn’t feel so insurmountable because you’ve had to learn how to survive painful things on your own before. But all I’ve ever done was break my own bones so my father would notice me. I don’t mean that as a metaphor. I’ve fractured my ribs, my hands, my skull. And it’s still not enough. Love isn’t given in my family. I have to earn it. It’s all I know.”

“You could learn something new.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I won’t. That’s not a language I speak.”

Exactly how bad of a father was Viserys Targaryen? “Aemond, what happened to your face?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

You study him. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be my Camilla,” Aemond says.

“No. No way.” But you’re amazed by how badly you want to say yes. One word and he’ll touch me again? One word and I can have him back the way we were before? It doesn’t seem possible to resist that. It’s not something that should be expected of any mortal.

“I want to be around you. I want you to keep making me feel the way you do, because it’s…it’s…it’s not something I get from anyone else. And I want to make your life better. I have the ability to do that.”

“Because you’re an oil tycoon.”

“Yes,” Aemond agrees. “I was born to be one, and so I am. But even if I wasn’t—if I refused, if I died—it’s not like the trillion-dollar industry would just disappear. There’s Jade Dragon, sure, but there’s also ExxonMobil, Shell, British Petroleum, Chevron, Valero, Marathon, a hundred others. Someone would be drilling on Lake Verret regardless. But the person in charge might be less scrupulous than I am. I’m doing the best I can here.”

“Were you in Ketchikan when the spill happened there?”

“No. I’ve never been to Alaska. That was someone else’s project. It was a fuckup, it was Jade Dragon’s fault. But my father is the one fighting it in court. I have no control over that.”

Someone else’s project…

“Come to my house tonight,” he says.

“No, Aemond.”

“Then come over on Saturday.” And you think: He remembered which days Cadi is usually with Willis.

“I don’t want to be your mistress.” I want to be more than that, oh God, I want so much more. You think of Christabel touching him and wrenching nausea cuts through you like a blade. You imagine Aemond’s hands taking off her clothes—zippers, buttons, ribbons, belts—and you feel like there’s almost nothing you wouldn’t do to stop it from happening.

“We’re from two very different words,” Aemond says calmly, sensibly. “And it’s going to be impossible for us to understand each other unless we make an effort to learn about where we’ve come from. You’ve invited me into your home, your business, your family, and I’m very grateful for that. Now I need to do the same. And I think if you see more of my life, you’ll realize why I make the decisions I do and what it would mean for us to be together. Because in my experience, husbands and wives aren’t soulmates like they are in books or movies. It’s someone else who you actually…” He breaks off, then continues once he’s decided on the phrasing. “Spend most of your time with.”

Part of you knows that this arrangement would be hopelessly inadequate; you would feel like you were settling for less than you want, you would feel unchosen. But the louder part of you is clinging to it like a life raft. I want him to touch me again. I want him to make me forget about everything else. “I’ll think about it. Visiting the house, I mean.”

“Please do,” Aemond says. “How was Cadi’s weekend fishing?”

He really does listen to you; he remembers things. Even things you mention once and then never again. “She loved it. Willis knows more about the bayou than I’ll ever know about baking. They caught three catfish, four breams, and a bass, and then they made them into fish sticks. Thank God she has one parent who can cook. Even if Willis thinks Hungry Jack mashed potatoes are a vegetable. You know what he puts in the pot instead of milk? Coffee creamer. Cups of it.”

Aemond doesn’t seem pleased to be reminded of Willis’ existence. He says, rather mechanically: “I’m really glad Cadi enjoyed herself.” He grabs his Marlboro jacket, rises to his feet, scans the yard for the alligator. She’s made an appearance at last: she’s sunbathing about ten yards away, nowhere near close enough to be a nuisance. Still, Aemond frowns. Then he clears his face and looks back to you one last time as he strides towards his Audi Quattro. “And Cupcake?”

You peer up at him, shielding your eyes from the late-afternoon sun. “Yeah?”

“When you come to the house…” He grins. Not if. When. “Bring your swimsuit.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You cut the engine and survey the grand entranceway of the house that the Targaryens call The Last Desire, words in Greek that you couldn’t pronounce. The blue merle Great Dane—Vhagar, you recall, yet another bizarre foreign name—is lurking between the towering white columns of the wraparound porch. “Fantastic,” you mutter, stepping out of the car. It’s Saturday, 2 p.m., hot and muggy and cicadas screeching in the southern live oaks. Green anoles dart across the cobblestones and freshly-painted white wood of the porch. Whooping cranes, haughty and fragile, ogle you with reptilian yellow eyes.

You pause when you reach the bottom step of the porch. The Great Dane growls at you, her lips curling up to show long fanglike teeth. You’re carrying two bakery boxes stacked on top of each other: one contains a dozen blueberry pie cupcakes, the second filled with fresh Cap’n Crunch Treats. You glance around for someone to assist you with the hostile dog situation. You have no interest in attempting to shove her away like Alicent did on the day of the engagement party.

Blessedly, the head butler materializes in the doorway and beckons you inside. When Vhagar snarls as you approach, the butler pulls a small plastic water gun from the pocket of his black dress pants. “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience,” he tells you, and then squirts the dog several times. Vhagar reluctantly lopes away. “Please allow me to escort you to the pool. Mr. Targaryen instructed us to be on the lookout for you.” Then he breezes into the house without checking to make sure you’re following him.

You trot after the butler through the white-and-gold foyer, the deep red living room, and then out into the garden. There is a long row of neon green lounge chairs on the side of the pool opposite of the water slide. Three of the chairs are occupied. Helaena is stretched across one wearing a frilly one-piece, floral with ladybugs; her chameleon is perched on the top of the adjustable backrest. Alicent is in the chair beside her, dressed in a turquoise blue coverup that matches the pool water and reading The Silence of the Lambs. They both wave nonchalantly, seemingly unsurprised by your presence. And then there’s Aegon. He’s smoking a joint as a black boombox beside him plays The Cure’s Why Can’t I Be You? You place both bakery boxes on a table shielded from the sun by a large green umbrella.

“What’s in there?” Aegon asks. He’s wearing pink plastic sunglasses, a radiant fuchsia sunburn, and a Speedo patterned with pineapples. His ferret is curled up in his lap and napping.

“Blueberry pie cupcakes and Cap’n Crunch Treats.”

“Yes! Pass me one of each.”

“Don’t be rude, Aegon,” Alicent says dully, turning a page of her book. “She’s not a servant.”

“She’s a literal baker. I’m asking for baked goods.”

“Dear, I’ve been singing your praises to every single person I cross paths with in this jungle of a town,” Alicent tells you, ignoring him. “Have you noticed yet?”

You hand Aegon his treats; he marvels at the miniature blueberry pie placed atop the cupcake frosting before scarfing it down. “I think we’ve had more customers than usual this week, now that you mention it. Thank you so much! Amir and I are more grateful than we could ever express.”

“Oh, it’s the least I could do, love,” Alicent says. Criston appears with a strawberry daiquiri and gives it to her, complete with a swirl of whipped cream and a little pink toothpick umbrella pierced through a wedge of lime. Criston wears a pair of roomy Hawaiian board shorts and his single gold earring. Alicent takes a sip. “Heavenly! I am completely revived.”

“Helaena, would you like one?” Criston asks.

“Yes please.”

“And one for Aemond’s friend too, please,” Alicent says. Criston nods and hurries off again. Nobody asks if Aegon wants a strawberry daiquiri. He gnaws moodily at his cupcake and then when it’s gone moves on to the Cap’n Crunch Treat. Helaena’s chameleon snatches a dragonfly out of the air with its tongue. Alicent shudders.

Aemond’s friend? Friend?? You sit down on the lounge chair next to Aegon, still wearing your pale pink coverup. He tells you: “Aemond should be back soon. He got a phone call and had to swing by the rigs after lunch but he didn’t think it would take long.” Then Aegon smiles toothily, and you notice he has residual white powder around the corners of his lips and just inside his nostrils. “It’s good to meet you properly this time, now that I’m aware of all your talents.”

“You know about Aemond’s…uh…preferences?”

“Oh yeah, and I knew he had a girl. He always has to have a girl. I just didn’t know it was you. He doesn’t usually bring them around the family.”

You steal a glimpse of Alicent and Helaena. If they’re listening in, they’re doing an excellent job of not acting like they are.

“I think we should address this,” Aegon says.

You are stymied. “Address what?”

“It would never work, me and you.”

“I hadn’t even thought of it.”

“Sure you haven’t,” Aegon says. He flourishes a hand melodramatically. “You need a dom. I am, lamentably, an irredeemable sub. I’m a sheep in wolf’s clothing.”

“Okay, Aegon.”

“I just needed to break the tension.”

“I think you’re imagining that.”

There are footsteps, the slapping of flip flops against the cobblestones, and then someone who looks like a younger, more cheerful, more sober Aegon arrives at the pool. He is dressed in royal blue swim trunks that stop at his mid-thigh; his wavy blond hair is down to his shoulders. Like his family members, he also does not seem at all surprised to see you. “Hi,” he says, shaking your hand. “I’m Daeron. I didn’t get to introduce myself at the engagement party. I’m sorry about that. I was entangled in a very competitive tennis match on the courts out back for most of the day.”

Alicent asks: “Daeron, love, would you like a strawberry daiquiri when Criston reappears?”

“Yeah, Mum, that would be great.” He parks himself on the available chair beside her and begins asking about her book. As they chat, a blue macaw flaps through the garden and uses its long, leathery talons to claim the backrest of Daeron’s lounge chair.

“It’s so sweet of you to take an interest in my reading, Daeron,” Alicent gushes. “None of my other children ever do…”

Aegon groans loudly. Everyone ignores him. Criston arrives with two strawberry daiquiris, one for you and one for Helaena. You take a sip through a plastic straw with several loops in it: icy cold and jarringly sweet.

“And one for Daeron too please, Criston,” Alicent requests. “Did you hear that he just got another article published? It’s about evaluating rock wettability.” Her tone suggests that she has no idea what this means; nonetheless, she is ardently enthusiastic.

“That kid is going places,” Criston says admiringly.

Aegon counters: “That kid’s had phone sex with Michelle Pfeiffer.”

You laugh, thinking that it’s a joke. Daeron just gives you a sheepish smile. Oh, you think. Not a joke.

Criston hustles back inside the house. An old man passes Criston as he strolls out to the pool. He looks around blearily, like he’s hungover or has just woken up from a nap or both. His bloodshot eyes skate over you without much interest. He squints at the pool floats that bob in the rippling, crystalline water, sparkly rings and an assortment of foam noodles and a giant cartoonish alligator.

“How was Kiribati?” Aegon says.

“Much better than here. This goddamn humidity!”

“I can’t believe you missed the engagement party, Father,” Alicent says glumly.

“Oh no, how could I! I’ll never have any way of knowing what transpired!” He plops down onto a chair near the end of the row. His bare feet are gnarled, his toenails long and yellowed. “Let me guess. Cake was served, champagne was toasted, people bragged about their stupid hobbies and their ugly children, that girl scuttled about with her perpetually-startled eyes and asinine comments. Do you remember when she tried to give me her condolences when she learned your mother passed away years ago? Why would I want some moonstruck idiot’s condolences? She didn’t know your mother. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Christabel is very young,” Alicent offers gently.

“She’s very something, that’s for sure. Very useless. Very irritating. This family would be in a much better state if Viserys wasn’t the one making all the decisions. His judgment has declined precipitously.” He casts a poisonous glare at Aegon. Aegon pretends not to notice.

“I like Christabel,” Helaena says. Her chameleon gobbles up a butterfly that ventures too close.

“Yes, I’m sure you do.” The old man’s voice is kinder now. “You see the best in everyone. But dear Helaena, we are in for a lifetime of insipid simpers and vapid conversations.”

“A lifetime?” Aegon says. “So not much longer for you, Grandfather. What a comfort.”

The old man glowers at Aegon. “We should have left you in Alaska to have your throat slit by those animals.” And you hear Aemond’s words reverberating in your skull: I’ve never been to Alaska. That was someone else’s project.

Aegon is rolling himself a fresh joint, accidentally spilling sprinkles of weed on his slumbering ferret. He snorts. “I don’t care what Alaskans think of me.”

Daeron says: “Aegon, you poisoned 1,000 square miles of the ocean.”

“The fucking ocean,” Aegon mutters. “What do we even need the ocean for?”

“Vacations,” Otto says.

Helaena adds: “Sushi.”

Daeron is distressed. “Actually, the ocean is super important.”

“Why are we talking about the ocean?” Aemond asks as he strolls through the garden and pauses by the edge of the pool to dip a foot in to test the temperature. He’s wearing black swim trunks and nothing else, just his skin, just his scar and his glass left eye. He sees you, smiles, goes to the bakery boxes and lifts out a cupcake. He sits down on the edge of your lounge chair as he licks off the wave-blue frosting. No one makes any comment, and no one brings up Aegon’s role in the Ketchikan oil spill again.

Criston returns once more with a strawberry daiquiri for Daeron. “Well, I’ve just about killed the blender, so hopefully we don’t need any more—”

“But Criston!” Alicent cries. “What about Aemond and my father? Perhaps they are in need of refreshments.”

Criston sighs. Crestfallen, he looks at Aemond. “Do you want a strawberry daiquiri?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll just have a few sips of hers.”

Aegon says: “Can I get a pina colada?”

Criston turns towards the old man. “Otto? Daiquiri?”

“No, but if you could immediately teleport me back to the South Pacific, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Pina colada??” Aegon says again.

“Okay, Aegon,” Criston snaps. “Calm down. Let me figure out if we have any more coconut cream.” Alicent’s part-time bodyguard and personal assistant, part-time babysitter, part-time affair partner vanishes into the house yet again.

Aegon lurches to his feet. “No one listens to me,” he tells you morosely. “You see that? No one remembers. That’s how you know they don’t care.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Alicent tells Aegon, not looking up from her book.

“Wait, someone is missing…” Otto muses, stroking his beard.

Aegon staggers to the edge of the pool, drags over a sparkly turquoise inflatable ring, and flops onto it. He paddles himself out towards the center of the pool. His ferret bounds after him, leaps into the water, and swims until it reaches Aegon, wriggling through the blue like a golden-furred snake. “Hey Sunfyre, you wanted to come too?” Aegon lifts the soaked ferret from the water and places it on his chest, soft and sunburned. “My bad. I assumed you’d prefer dry land.”

Otto—cantankerous and grating—looks around, baffled. “Wait, where’s Viserys?”

“He’s inspecting some of the rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico,” Aemond says as he finishes the cupcake and takes a slurp of your daiquiri. “He won’t be back until the end of the week.”

“Thank God,” Aegon exclaims from the middle of the pool.

Alicent changes the subject. “How long have you been baking, dear?” she asks you.

“Forever, basically. But I started getting serious about making it a business when my daughter was really young, about nine years ago. Now Amir and I sell hundreds of items a week, sometimes thousands.”

Daeron is nodding along, but he appears a little confused. He has gotten himself a Cap’n Crunch Treat and is feeding pieces of it to his blue macaw. “And you do that because…you want to?”

“Well I have to pay rent.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.”

“And I could have been a checkout girl at the Doller General, or worked seasonally harvesting soybeans or sugarcane, or begged my ex-husband to get me a job in the Assumption Parish Sheriff’s Office…but I wanted to do something that didn’t make me miserable. And something that was really mine, that I chose.” Aemond is watching you thoughtfully. The other Targaryens are a tad interested but far more perplexed. They can’t understand work the way you do. They can’t understand money as something that must be counted.

“Brilliant!” Alicent declares at last. “Well, maybe one day we’ll have you making six cakes for Helaena’s engagement party, who knows!”

“It would be my absolute pleasure. Do you have a potential husband hanging around, Helaena?”

She giggles, covering her blushing face with both hands. Her chameleon creeps down to cling to her shoulder, as if to make sure she’s alright. Its conical eyes flit in random directions, an unmitigated freak of nature. You should have more compassion for it.

Aemond grins. “Helaena is responsible for no less than three broken engagements. She can’t commit.”

“And she’s only into guys who look like Aegon,” Daeron adds.

“No!” Helaena objects. “That is such a lie, that’s not true!”

“Evander?” Daeron says.

Helaena pauses to think. “Okay, yes, he looked kind of like Aegon.”

“He did, didn’t he?” Alicent frets, nibbling at the fingernail of her pinky.

“Dimitri?” Aemond says.

“Oh no,” Helaena moans; but she’s laughing too. “Oh no.”

“Sebastian?” Aegon says, and now they’re all howling.

Otto shakes his head. “Freud would definitely have some thoughts about this.”

“Bloody hell,” Helaena whimpers, swiping tears from her face. Her chameleon nudges her jaw with its shimmering, blue-green muzzle. “I totally only date guys who look like Aegon.”

Aegon shrugs from where he’s floating in the pool with Sunfyre. “Good taste, I’d say. Fuck them all, homegirl.”

“Aegon!” Alicent shouts, scandalized.

Criston dashes out of the house and to the edge of the pool, clutching a pina colada that is swiftly melting. “You better paddle yourself over here, kid. I don’t offer in-water delivery.”

“You’d do it for my mother.”

“Probably. But you’re not her.”

Aegon groans as he splashes around without making much progress. “Okay, okay, give me a second…”

Aemond turns to you. “How do you like the house? I realized I never got the chance to ask last weekend.”

“I like all the stained glass, and I like that every room is a different color. The living room is red, the dining room is yellow, the kitchen is teal, Aegon’s bedroom is black—”

“Wait, how do you know?” Aemond is alarmed.

You chuckle. “No, no, not like that. I was lost and looking for a bathroom.”

“Didn’t do anything,” Aegon announces from his pool float. “Didn’t do it, didn’t try it, didn’t even think about it. Well…maybe I thought about it. But I definitely did not do anything.”

“Okay.” Aemond exhales, relived. “Close call.”

“What color is your room?”

He’s not going to waste the opportunity to extend an invitation. “Let me show you.”

On the same floor as Aegon’s punk rock bedroom and the lilac bathroom, you trail Aemond to the end of the hallway. At last he opens a door to reveal a room that is a deep, vivid blue like sapphires. The bookshelves that touch the ceiling are filled not with texts on engineering or the energy industry but histories of people whose names you don’t recognize. He has a massive wooden canopy bed swathed in dark blue velvet patterned with circling koi fish made of stars. He has a writing desk, a wardrobe full of suits, a television with an extensive VHS collection. The stained glass windows are a whirlpool of cerulean, navy, aquamarine, indigo, steel, azure. When you peer through the glass, you can see the gleaming currents of Lake Verret and the twisted dead ends of the bayou that forms at its edges, treacherous and untamed.

And when you start to feel that if Aemond tried to grab you, undress you, tie knots around your wrists you wouldn’t stop him, you tell him that you want to go back outside to the pool; and Aemond listens, and he doesn’t try to touch you even once.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Monday, two days later, and Aemond calls to ask if he can bring you and Cadi dinner. He shows up with all the trappings of what he insists is real Italian food, doubtlessly prepared by his family’s private chefs: focaccia, caprese salad, ossobuco, risotto, Bolognese, panna cotta. He forgets the red wine, so you drink sweet tea instead, the three of you crowded around the kitchen counter, ceaselessly passing dishes back and forth while the little pink Panasonic boombox plays You Spin Me Round by Dead Or Alive.

“Hey Mom?” Cadi says as she chomps on a hunk of focaccia.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you ever cook dinners like this?”

There’s a tiny little gut punch, something you’re used to swallowing down even if it bruises you to the heart, to the bones. She doesn’t know any better. You can’t cry, you can’t get mad. You shrug, dispassionate. Aemond glances over at you, abruptly tense but not saying anything. “Well honey, it’s probably because my job can be really busy sometimes, and I spend most of the day in the kitchen, so when dinner time comes around the last thing I want to do is cook. But we always have food to eat, right?”

“Yeah. Like Amir’s leftovers or frozen pizza or something. But all my friends’ moms cook nice dinners most nights. Can’t you do that? When I go to Michelle or Erica’s house for dinner their moms make barbeque ribs, gumbo, seafood boils, etouffee, tasso ham, homemade macaroni and cheese, like real dinners. I want us to have that too. What if my friends want to eat dinner here sometime? I can’t bring them over and then just throw some Swanson’s meals at them.”

Aemond has put his fork down on his plate and is clasping his hands together, trying to figure out what to say. But he shouldn’t say anything. It’s not his place.

You tell Cadi, as calmly as you can: “Different families have different kinds of dinners, and that’s okay. I bet your friends’ moms don’t have cakes and cookies around all the time, but you always have tons of dessert options. Our situation looks different than theirs, but there’s nothing wrong with either one.”

“But desserts aren’t even good for kids. Dinner is way more important. You can’t say I get cakes instead of dinner, too much cake will give me diseases or something.”

“Okay, Cadi. That’s enough. Let’s talk about this later.”

“I’m just saying it seems totally unfair that my friends get real dinners and I almost never do.”

Michelle and Erica’s moms don’t work. They have husbands to support them. So they can spend all day babying a fucking tasso ham, but I don’t have that luxury. And I don’t want to be chained to a man. I don’t want to trade having a say in how my life turns out for being able to slave away over dinner for four or five hours. “I regret to inform you that I’m not like Michelle and Erica’s moms.”

“I wish you were,” Cadi murmurs, entirely unaware of what she’s done. You bite your lower lip so you don’t snap at her, or try to explain, or break down sobbing. You taste blood, hot sharp copper that blooms like wildflowers.

Aemond stands up. His barstool squeals against the sloping wooden floor. “Hey, can I talk to you outside for a minute?” he asks Cadi.

“Aemond, what…?” you begin, but he’s already headed for the front door.

Cadi blinks up at him, horrified. “Why?”

“You’re not in trouble or anything. I just want to show you something. Come on. It’ll be quick.”

“Okay,” Cadi says doubtfully, looking at you. You give her your best reassuring smile, and she slides off her barstool and follows after Aemond. The front door opens and shuts. You don’t hear shouting, you don’t hear much of anything except the air conditioner and the boombox and the mourning doves, the long-eared owl, the cicadas, the bayou, the universe. You go to one of the living room windows and part the blinds to peek outside.

What you see is strange. Cadi is sitting on the swing, and Aemond is kneeling in front of her so they’re just about at the same eye level. You can see half of Aemond’s face; Cadi is blocking the rest. He’s explaining something to her with patient yet insistent gestures of his hands. Cadi says something, and Aemond nods and replies. He points to his scar, his glass eye, and says something else. Cadi asks a question, and Aemond hesitates. Then he acquiesces and moves closer to where she is perched on the tree swing. He reaches up towards the scarred side of his face, but you can’t see his eye. When he lowers his palm, there’s a small piece of curved, oval-shaped glass that glints in the dying sunlight.

“Cool!” you can hear Cadi exclaim, muffled through the windows that are now closed on account of the new air conditioning unit. She says something else, and Aemond agrees. You watch her hand extending towards his face, towards the injury he has revealed to her for reasons you can’t comprehend. You rush to other windows, trying to get a better view, but there’s no way for you to get a clear line of sight. Before you know it, your hear their footsteps drumming up the porch steps. The front door opens just as you’re scrambling back onto your barstool.

“Everything alright?” you say, more nervously than you intend to.

“Yup,” Cadi replies. She climbs into her seat and resumes wolfing down focaccia and Bolognese.

You look over at Aemond, bewildered. His glass eye is back in its socket. He appears composed, but you notice the fresh sheen of sweat on his forehead, at his temples, at the nape of his neck. He gives you a casual little smirk and then returns to his barstool. He picks up his full glass of sweet tea and drains it in three massive gulps.

“Hey Mom,” Cadi says, and your throat is suddenly full of embers.

“Yeah, honey?”

“Tonight is really fun,” she says. She twirls her fork in the pappardelle pasta of the Bolognese, splattering red sauce over her cheeks. “This is great. I want to do this more often.”

And the embers in your throat cool, vanish, are replaced by something vast and free.

“You really do need a new house,” Aemond says as he helps you clean up after dinner; Cadi has already abandoned you both for her Nintendo. “There are new constructions a little further down Route 401, between here and Lake Verret. Three bedrooms, two baths. Not a castle or anything, just the right size for you and Cadi. We can go look at them sometime.”

“I don’t need a whole new house. There are midcentury homes all over the place down here. They’re small, and they might need fixing up, but they’re a lot cheaper.” Then you add, because it sounds less pathetic: “And maybe it’s nice to have a house with some history, some character.”

“Old can be charming and quaint, sure. But brand new is better.”

“Why’s that?”

He smiles. “No ghosts.”

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #aemond fanfiction #aemond #aemond x you #aemond x y/n

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strangersteddierthings · 6 months

Text

My Default's Self-Destruct (Oh, I'm Not Used to Normal)

@nburkhardt, this ones for you, since you've been so excited and patient! Title from Jillian Rossi's Not Used to Normal.

There is a doctor in his room, explaining the extent of his injuries to him and his uncle but Eddie quit listening when the doctor had started with it's our recommendation that he not start back on the scent blocker until-. Whatever the doc had to say after that was more for Wayne's benefit than his own, anyway. Eddie turns his face away from Uncle Wayne and the doc and stares at the wall.

Eddie knows he's a freak.

He never had an option to be anything else.

He was born wrong, a thing his dad would remind him of every time he was deep in his cups and feeling angry or bitter. Which is to say, he'd heard it every day until he was fourteen and, with his mom long gone and his dad's new prison sentence, he was shipped off to Hawkins, Indiana to live with his uncle.

It gave him a choice for the first time in his life.

It was salvation.

No one here knew a damn thing about him except what he wanted them to know. He got to curate his image exactly how he wanted it.

Loud, bold, mean, scary.

Anything that kept people at a distance because he wanted them to be. That's not to say he didn't let people get close. That he didn't have friends. He does.

He founded Hellfire sophomore year and made acquaintances with fellow nerds and geeks. Some stuck around, genuinely seemed to like him and he them, so he got some real friends out of it. Jeff, Frankie, and Gareth.

The only three people in the world who knew about him because he'd chosen to tell them.

But now with this doctor not wanting him to get back on his scent blockers as soon as possible, the whole town's going to know how much of a freak he really is.

His gut twists thinking about how Erica, Lucas, Max, Dustin, Nancy, Robin, and Steve already know. They have to know. Why else are they not here? There's no way they don't by now. Scent blockers need to be taken every day to work effectively. Missing a day every now and then is fine when Eddie knows he's not going to leave home or if it's just the guys he'd be seeing.

But he's missed sixteen days because today is April 7th, and he'd spent most of the prior three days fading in and out of consciousness trying to claw his way out of a coma. Now he's fully alert and aware. He'd woken up alone, but it wasn't long after that his uncle showed up, apparently summoned by a nurse.

"-ddie. Eddie, you still awake?" Wayne's voice is gentle in a way it never usually it. It makes Eddie want to pretend to be asleep.

"Yeah."

"The doc just left."

Eddie doesn't respond verbally. but he does turn his head back to look at Wayne instead of the wall.

"There's a boy down in the lobby. Been tryin' ta visit every day but, well," Wayne trails off with a one shoulder shrug, which seems the easier way to sum up all the events that place while he was in a coma. Wayne apparently making a fuss when the hospital finally got a hold of him and he'd come into Eddie's room to find his unconscious body handcuffed to the bed. No one's been around to explain the how or why to Eddie, but supposedly ten days after Eddie should have died, three days before he awoke for the first time, the "real" murderer was found and died in a gunfight with the police. Eddie's been pardoned, by some miracle.

"Why wasn't he allowed to visit?" Eddie asks, even as he dreads the answer.

"No visitor for murder suspects except family," Wayne says.

"Okay. But I was proven innocent six days ago."

"I know. This last week's been me. I told the staff no one but me could see ya until ya were awake enough to name 'em. Didn't know if that boy who led the manhunt was gonna try and get in, or send someone else after ya."

Warmth floods through Eddie then, both affection for his uncle and a hope that, maybe, no one's been here because they haven't been allowed to be. Maybe they don't- maybe they'll give him a chance even though he's a genetic freak of nature.

"Is it Dustin Henderson?"

"Nah, ain't him. He's been by as much as his ma will allow, though. Sits down there with the first boy."

If it's not Dustin then- "Steve?"

Wayne gives a one-sided grin before saying, "Steve Harrington Sir, if you wanna full name him."

That gets a laugh from Eddie. Wayne hates to be called sir, and he spent a full year calling Jeff 'Just Jeff Sir' when Jeff had made the mistake of correcting Eddie's introduction ("And this here, is Jeffery") while trying to be polite ("Please, it's just Jeff, sir."). Seems like Steve made the same mistake.

"Oh, fuck, don't make me laugh," Eddie wheezes, more from pain than laughter and Wayne looks only a little guilty for causing him pain. "But, uh, yeah. Steve's a-okay."

"Alright. I'll go let the nurse know. Anyone else you wan' ta come see ya?"

"Wait," Eddie says quickly, swallowing thickly. He has to know. "Do- have they... said anything? About me?"

"About you? What- oh," Wayne says. "Did they not know?"

Eddie shakes his head. "No. Not- I didn't tell them, but I haven't had a scent blocker since the first day of spring break. They have to know, right? Everyone always knows."

"Do you want me to ask before gettin' them approved to visit?" Wayne asks, softly and sincere and it makes Eddie's eyes water. He closes them to prevent the tears.

"No. It's fine. Better to, uhh, get this over with. Learn if this will change anything, y'know?"

"And you wanna start with Steve Harrington Sir? He's an alpha, ain't he?"

"Don't act like you don't already know. Everyone and their mother talks about how alpha he smells. I heard about Steve and his alpha scent before I'd even met the dude."

"Well, no need to be so uppity about it," Wayne grouses.

"Sorry. Guess I'm just... not in the mood to joke about this. People don't- they change how they treat me, once they know."

"Just Jeff didn't, nor Gareth or Frankie."

"Yeah, but they were my friends first. I- they saved my life but that doesn't make us friends."

Wayne shakes his head. "You tell that to the boy sittin' in the lobby right now waitin' to see ya."

That's right. The hope that has bloomed earlier. If they did know, they were still around. Either because they are his friends and they care, or they have... questions, possibly. Still, "You'll be in here? When he comes in?"

"I won't leave unless you ask me to," Wayne assures and then he's gone. Out the door, to retrieve Steve.

Jesus Christ, this is fucked. Eddie feels so anxious and scared and he shouldn't. He's never been afraid before. Just. Fed up with how people treat him. How they scrunch their noses when they smell him. When they look at the whole of him and realize there's something wrong with him and their expression changes to either pity or disgust.

Wayne's gone just long enough for Eddie to regret his decision but then it's too late. The first person to enter his room is Steve, followed closely why Wayne.

"Eddie!" Steve says, and Eddie is confused. Steve sounds... awed? A bit breathless like he's witnessed a miracle.

"Hey Steve," Eddie manages to squeak out and that's all the permission Steve seems to need. He crosses the room quickly, dragging a second chair from the corner with him to the opposite side of the bed from where Wayne has taken up station.

"Fuck, Eddie, we didn't know if you'd- but you did. You're awake," Steve says, even as he's trying to sniff the air. Probably trying to get a read on Eddie's own scent, and therefore his own emotional state. When Steve doesn't find what he's looking for, his brows furrow into confusion, and he looks so fucking adorable with his face scrunched like that. He's glad Steve can't smell that on him, at least.

"I'm awake," Eddie says.

Steve nods, but his confused face doesn't fade. Instead he sniffs the room more loudly, thoroughly. He looks to Wayne, then back to Eddie. He does that a few times before settling on Eddie.

Eddie sighs heavily. "Go ahead. Ask."

"What? Oh, uh, nothing to ask, I guess. Just thought Wayne would have scented you by now, but I don't smell him on you."

"Yeah. Wayne's nose barely works, so no point in that."

"A fact I'm thankful for every time you'd finally drag out the days old dishes from your room," Wayne quips.

"Hey!" Eddie shoots him a wounded look as his face gets hot. Low blow, old man, he thinks.

"Oh. Do you... not get isolation sickness? Is that rude to ask?" Steve asks.

"I don't get isolation sickness anymore, not since long before you were even born," Wayne answers. He's still hovering by the door, expecting to be dismissed by Eddie probably, since Steve's not- since Steve doesn't seem to- Eddie doesn't know. Is he too nice to ask out right? Too disturbed by it to even bring it up?

"And, uh, isolation sickness could never effect me," Eddie says, biting the bullet, looking at a wrinkle on his blanket instead of at Steve.

"What?" Steve sounds startled by the answer, as if he can't understand. Maybe he doesn't.

"I can't get isolation sickness."

"That doesn't- everyone but childr-" Steve cuts himself off, and Eddie hears more sniffing before his startled by Steve grabbing his arm. He looks up quickly, and sees Wayne move closer from the corner of his eye, as Steve shoves his nose into Eddie's wrist and takes a deep breath. A sound between a whimper and a whine comes from Steve. "But you- What?"

"Steve."

"Eddie, I don't understand?"

Eddie looks to Wayne, who raises his brows as if to ask want me to tell him? He almost nods, but this is going to be the first of many conversations, and he might as well get the practice in. "Steve. You can only get isolation sickness after your secondary gender develops. I can't. 'Cause I don't have a secondary gender."

Steve blinks at him. Then blinks some more. He opens his mouth, then closes it and blinks even more. "I- how- what? It hasn't developed yet?"

Eddie groans in frustration. "No, Steve. It won't develop ever. I don't have one, I won't have one! No scent gland will ever grow, no second puberty as my body changes to be able to send and receive emotional signals, no bonding gland to establish pack or mate!"

"Wha-"

"Don't! What aren't you getting? I'm a genetic fucking freak of nature who can't ever bond with pack or a mate because I don't have a secondary gender!"

Steve jerks back at Eddie's sudden outburst, "Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't- I wasn't trying to, uhh, offend."

Eddie scoffs and looks away. He wants to roll onto his side, put his back to Steve and block him out. Offend. Eddie's not offended. He's- fuck, he's sad and scared and angry. Because he spent a week flirting freely with Steve, who'd started to flirt back and now it's all back to just being a fantasy in Eddie's mind.

Steve's an alpha. Even if... even if he ever might have entertained the idea of being with Eddie, that's going to be gone now. Alpha's want omega's. They'll settle for a beta, sure, but that's what it is. Settling.

And Eddie's not even that.

He's nothing. No secondary gender, no place in society, he'll always smell like a goddamn child to everyone else. He knows how this goes. Until he's back on the scent blockers, which just make him smell like chemicals, they're going to treat him like a child, or like a pariah.

"Eddie-" Steve says, quiet.

Whatever it is, Eddie doesn't want to hear it. "I'm tired. I hurt. Please leave."

Eddie stares at a spot on the wall as Wayne escorts Steve from his room. He doesn't let himself cry until after counting to thirty in his head once the door's closed.

@i-less-than-three-you @afewproblems @skepsiss

#steddie #my fic #omegaverse #a/b/o dynamics #what did you think was up with eddie before the reveal?? id like to know #alpha steve harrington #beta wayne munson #????? eddie munson

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sunlit-haruka · 2 months

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Honestly, I think that if Kotoko doesn't have any kind of tragic backstory or deep-ridden trauma and did have a relatively normal upbringing like she says she does, it will probably heighten my enjoyment of her character and her narrative even more. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my favorite thing about Kotoko's narrative and role in the story and why she is my favorite prisoner is the fact that she is the perfect encapsulation of what I think Milgram is trying to teach. It is unfair to put her, or any of these prisoners into boxes of good and bad because both are cruel oversimplifications that only serve to dehumanize them regardless of if the audience's intentions are good or bad. By dehumanizing them and partaking in the fucked up justice system that is Milgram, you are emotionally distancing yourself from them. When you emotionally distance yourself from these people, you become more ignorant to the possibility that you could do the very thing that they're doing. That Haruka, Yuno, Fuuta, Muu, Shidou, Mahiru, Kazui, Amane, Mikoto, and especially Kotoko could all be you and you won't know it before it is too late. That is why even within this system that pushes black-and-white nuance-less thinking, the narrative itself encourages you to look beyond the surface depiction of these prisoners that we are presented with. Because in the words of one Will Wood - "If you were in my shoes, you'd see I wear the same size as you" But what does any of that have to do with Kotoko and her backstory? Well, @/archivalofsins / Gunsli made a very good post that explains exactly what I'm going to talk about in more depth, but I'll give it a rundown nonetheless. It would be very easy for someone to look at a person who has gone through tragedy or trauma who has done bad things, and say in response: "See, I can't become like that because she is abnormal. I could never do that, that would never happen to me.". Now I would hope that you don't need me to tell you that this way of thinking is a white lie cake rich with ableist frosting, but that is a discussion dug into by Gunsli's post. And I do believe, if Kotoko is revealed to have a tragic traumatic backstory, this will happen to her. Because it happened to Amane. And that is why Kotoko having a 'normal life' would be so important to me and, in my opinion, heighten her already amazing narrative and writing. Her role in the story is to be a audience parallel, she is an embodiment of the system and mindset Milgram as a story criticizes and her actions are a direct consequence of our involvement in it. Milgram is already not subtle about this fact, but Kotoko's ordinary upbringing is the thing that fully hammers the nail in the wood. Anyone can become like Kotoko Yuzuriha, trauma or not. Her beliefs, her bigotry, her fascism, her violence, and her fantasy to be the chivalrous hero who protects the weak are not things that are alien or only things that form within an "abnormal" brain. In fact, they are very normal things that a lot of normal people across the globe perpetuate wholeheartedly whether they realize it or not. Kotoko isn't some one-of-a-kind individual She is literally just a girl

#I really hope this goes without saying but this is just my interpretation of Kotoko's narrative and what I think would improve it #I am not Yamanaka so I cannot say what would concretely be the best for her story #I can only form opinions and theories based on what's already been presented to us #haru chats about milgram #milgram #milgram project #kotoko yuzuriha #yuzuriha kotoko #milgram kotoko

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radiant-reid · 1 year

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300

him in cult episodes >>>>

Summary: Reader recalls something Spencer told her months ago when he’s taken hostage by a cult (based on 14x01)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader (angst/fluff)

Content Warning: mentions of most of spencer’s trauma

Word Count: 3.4k

Masterlist | Navigation

Everything’s a mess.

Y/n’s used to the BAU lifestyle, and today is not the first day a team member has been abducted. It’s not even the first time that it’s been Spencer’s life in danger. Last time it was a three-month-long nightmare that seemed never ending during his time in prison.

It was different now. After what he said, everything between them changed.

She’s not expecting anyone when Spencer slides open the door to the balcony, and she whips her head around to see him.

It’s late in the evening, and she’s escaped the ground floor of Rossi’s mansion, where everyone’s partying, to a quieter balcony upstairs. Cicadas chirp in the spring night air, and there’s a faint beat of the bass of the music from downstairs. Rossi lives far enough outside of DC that the stars are bright, shimmering in the dark sky.

The balcony has a comfortable outdoor couch and armchair, perfect for sitting there and tuning out the world. She needs to do that. Spencer, her fellow BAU team member and friend, has been out of prison for a month, but the stress hasn’t dissipated completely. If she thinks about it hard enough, she’s back sitting at the round table while Penelope reads over an arrest report from Mexico, feeling completely helpless.

“There she is.” He greets her with a kind smile.

His smiling is something she seriously missed when he was away. “Hey.” She replies.

He holds out her jacket that she’d left downstairs, helping put it on her shoulders. “I thought you might be cold up here.” He explains the thoughtful gesture. “Am I interrupting?”

“No, not at all.” She shakes her head, nodding to the armchair she’s not occupying. “Sit, please.”

He accepts her offer eagerly. Then he follows her eyes out over Rossi’s perfectly maintained yard to the sky. “Wow.” He comments.

She hums at his tone. “I know.” She agrees. “Has everyone else gone home?”

Spencer shakes his head. “No, but they’re onto karaoke.” He informs her, laughing before his following statement. “Very alarming sounds.”

She chuckles slightly. He wouldn’t believe it, but he’s funny. She appreciates their time together more now, having gone without it for three long months.

“They’re missing out on your singing.” She jokes, smirking at him.

It’s mostly in reference to karaoke at The Benjamin all those years ago, where they sang all night long. It seems like a long time ago, and so much has changed, but despite what he’s been through, Spencer’s glow never diminished. He’s still the guy who somehow knew how to deliver a baby when he needed to.

“They don’t need to hear that.” He assures her, chuckling. “Again.”

“I thought it was great.” She admits or teases: she’s not sure which. “A highlight was Bohemian Rapsody.”

He cringes, shaking his head at the foggy memory. “I was hoping by then you’d had enough to drink.”

“Oh, I had.” She assures him, earning a confused look from the genius before she reminds him of something he had happily forgotten. “Hotch videoed that whole night.”

Spencer does something he rarely does then, sharing the feelings in his big brain. “I miss him.”

Y/n does too. She’d never missed someone more than she missed Hotch when Spencer was in prison, knowing that his skills as a prosecutor would have been insanely helpful.

“Me too. I’m happy he’s spending time with Jack, though.” She reminds them why it had been his time to go. “The kid deserves it.”

Spencer agrees, but he doesn’t feel the need to say anything, so they sit there in silence. It’s the most peace he’s felt in a long time.

“Y/n?” He asks, briefly getting her attention when she turns to look at him.

“Mm?” She replies, prompting him to continue.

It’s now or never. He draws in a deep breath, preparing for what he needs to say. There’s been so much weight on his shoulders for the last month, and this confession will lift some of it off. One thing he’s learned since prison is that he needs to say what he feels before it’s too late.

“I think I’m in love with you.” He admits, voice wavering slightly. “I think I was always meant to be in love with you.

There’s a beat of silence. And then another. One more.

She’s taking the information in at a slow processing speed, and the words don’t reach her mouth.

He takes it as his answer. He didn’t tell her expecting anything, like her to love him back, just to feel lighter, which works. “I just- I need you to know that.”

She should kiss him. It’s the right thing to do. Not right as in socially acceptable, but right for herself. In her heart, she’s meant to be with him and now is the perfect opportunity. A literal confession spoken to her. There’s no room to worry about him not returning her feelings and their friendship souring. He’s in love with her, and she can’t reply.

More silence, and he decides that it’s getting awkward. He spirals about making her uncomfortable, so he stands up, walking back to the door. “Good night, Y/n.”

She wills her legs to work, to run after him and catch him on the stairs, eagerly jump into his arms and kiss him like she’s wanted to do since she met him in front of Rossi’s expensive artwork.

She doesn’t.

It’s what she’s thinking about on the jet. Maybe it’s selfish when everyone else goes over where the cult could have taken him, but she’s replaying that evening. How his hand felt when he grazed her bare shoulder, the sound of his shoes as he shuffled away, and how sweet the air tasted that night compared to the bitter resentment she tasted after she didn’t follow him.

“He told you the truth, huh?” JJ asks, sliding into the seat across from her before she even notices someone’s focus on her.

“You know?” Y/n asks in reply, slightly shocked. Sure, they’re best friends, but she didn’t expect Spencer to be spilling his romantic feelings about a colleague to JJ.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know for so long.” She remarks, met with a confused look from her friend. In her mind, Y/n had assumed Spencer had been in love with her for a few months, maximum. “He’s been in love with you for years.”

Her heart sinks in her chest. Is it wrong for her to feel warm? Knowing Spencer’s out there alone- hurt, from what Penelope said- it seems inappropriate. “He has?” She repeats.

“Since he met you.” She answers before amending her speech. “Maybe a week or two after.”

So about as long as she had loved him. And she might never get to tell him.

She can’t help but think about how she might stand over his casket and cry next week, wishing she had told him that night, back when everything was perfect.

JJ sees the panic, how her face goes pale, and she reaches out to touch her friend’s arm. “He’ll be okay.” She promises. She has to have that faith, too, if she’s going to be able to function.

Y/n nods, willing herself to keep it together. “I know. Let’s get him back.”

She must have spent most of the flight before JJ came to sit with her in shock because soon the plane’s landing, and they’re in SUVs driving to the cult’s compound.

Her heart races in her chest, pulse thumping once they arrive, and Emily initiates the infiltration plan. They’ve got to be quick and quiet, knowing the cult will claim Spencer as their 300th victim without being talked down. To them, his being there is a decade in the making. It’s spiritual, and there’s no way they’ll let him go.

He’s completely tied up onto a structure, standing upright, when she gets a peek at him, his hands strapped by his side, legs tied, and a band wrapped around his head to keep his head in place. It’s very sacrificial with The Messiah and Agent Meadows standing around him.

He’s bruising, too, red marks around his face that will develop into a deep purple. She can’t see into his mind, but she wonders if he’s formulating an escape plan because he looks like he’s accepted it, conceded defeat, and come to terms with dying. Even from far away, his eyes are watery and his breathing steady, like he’s finally admitted to himself that they’re not coming to save him.

It’s easily the most terrifying expression she’s seen on anyone’s face. It’s bone-chilling.

They move in quickly, knowing he has seconds, not minutes. Y/n dashes to Spencer with JJ, the cult members around her getting shot or arrested being blocked out of her mind.

His face softens when he sees her, fingers flexing as she and JJ untie his restraints. When his hands are free, he falls forward onto her, clutching her tightly, one arm over her shoulder, one under.

It’s the tightest she’s ever been hugged, his grip making her feel like she’s his lifeline and he’s coming back to life. He pants out a breath like he hasn’t breathed since he was tied up. His hands spread out on her back, he buries his chin in her neck, and they rock side to side.

“Y/n.” Spencer whispers, closing his eyes and focusing on holding her. “You came.”

“Of course.” She replies. “Always. You good?”

“Can I have another minute?” He asks, practically begs. Even if she’s not his, he needs to hold her for a bit longer before he can’t ever again.

She squeezes him tighter, assuring him it’s okay. “Always.” She repeats.

It feels like it’s just the two of them, despite the chaos behind her. She takes in his cologne and how right it feels to be comforting him. Her feelings for him are much more straightforward in her head than they were that night at Rossi’s.

His breathing calms down, so it’s not erratic hyperventilating, and he loosens his grip around her, more than ready to get out of there now that he feels alive and whole again.

She loses him after that, keeping some distance while he hugs everyone else and thanks them in true Spencer fashion. There isn’t an opportunity to talk to him when they’re on the jet home since Emily is. She just sits and watches him, reminding herself that he’s okay.

She can’t stop thinking about his expression from the cult compound when she saw him, how unafraid he looked despite knowing he was about to get sacrificed. Maybe he knew they were there, like something deep inside him told him he’d be okay, but he looked prepared to die.

There are more hugs when they get back to Quantico, Penelope practically unwilling to let him go or out of her sight. The case has to end, and exhaustion falls over them when the adrenaline wears off, despite a new day dawning.

That night, she runs after him like she should have done at Rossi’s, barely making it to the elevator before the doors shut.

He looks surprised to see her. “I thought you went home.” He says.

She couldn’t. She’s not sure she’ll be able to leave him in the BAU ever again. “I didn’t.” She reports then immediately feeling like an idiot because that much was obvious.

“Why?” He asks caringly.

“You were still here.” She admits honestly, looking up at his gentle brown eyes. They’re always more golden in the morning.

“I just had to do a psychological counseling thing.” He explains.

Her eyebrows furrow, confused about why someone would make him do that only hours after he was saved. “This soon?”

He nods. “Damaged goods.” He says, like it’s his label. And he fully believes it.

“You’re not.” She firmly tells him, mostly angry the FBI would subject him to something invasive so early.

“Y/n.” He says in a tone that sounds like he’s begging her not to sympathize with him falsely.

Y/n shakes her head, eyeing him with fiery irises as she dares him to continue speaking negatively of himself. “You saved yourself, Spencer.” She informs him sincerely. “Are you hungry?” She asks.

The change of topic disorients him, but it seems a better conversation than arguing over how much of a mess he is. “Starving.” He answers. He didn’t have much time to think about it, with being abducted by a cult, but he hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, if you can call a packet of chips lunch.

“Do you want to get breakfast?” She offers before quickly retracting any implications her suggestion could have. “Unless you just need some time alone or don’t want to hang out with him. I won’t be offended.” She wants to tell him, needs to confess what she should have before, but he’s in such an emotional state that she would hate to take advantage of that.

She couldn’t get further from the truth. Spending time with her, specifically, has always made things easier. “I’d really like that.” He admits, sending her a soft smile.

They barely speak on the drive into DC. There’s a lot of tension in the air, words left unspoken, but Spencer needs time to look at her. He’s at a point where he knows nothing will happen between them, but there’s still a life he imagines when he needs a quick spike of dopamine. She, and an imagined future between them, is his drug of choice now.

He orders pancakes, copying her, rather than getting his usual meal of eggs, bacon, and toast. He ditches coffee in favor of juice, knowing he’s going home to sleep after breakfast when the rest of the adrenaline wears off.

No deep conversation gets brought up at breakfast, either. Instead, there’s laughter, and every time she looks up at him, Spencer smiles.

He’s used to going home alone after any trauma in his life. Even after prison and Mr. Scratch, he returned to an empty apartment. After he was abducted by Tobias Hankel, when he got out of the hospital after getting poisoned by anthrax, and even after he got shot in the neck in Texas after Alex dropped him at home, he was by himself.

It’s better with someone else -he decides while they’re sitting there- because he can not think about it in favor of thinking about her.

He eats like he’s been without food for a week, even getting a refill of juice, although everything he’s been through would make anyone hungry.

And he pays, despite her telling him she would, so she drives him home through the traffic-less streets, thanks to everyone being at work.

He hesitates before he gets out of the car once they arrive at his apartment. “Do you want to come up?”

She accepts, following him up the stairs. It’s a good time to do it, now that they’re alone and in private.

His apartment is lighter than when she saw it when she went with Penelope once to water his plants while he was in prison. It’s neater with the curtains open, and he might have added even more books to the impressive collection she previously noticed.

Unsure of how long she’s staying, Y/n takes off her shoes on instinct. Spencer’s not sure why he invited her up other than wanting to spend more time with her, so he’s not sure what to do now that she’s there.

She speaks before he can offer her water. “Were you scared?” She asks before realizing the insensitivity of her question. She doesn’t want to sound like a shitty Bureau psychologist, just his friend, haunted by a snapshot in her mind of his expression. “I just mean... we were, and Penelope was when she came. JJ was because you’re her best friend. You weren’t even shaking. Sorry I didn’t-”

Spencer cuts her off before she can spiral. “I wasn’t. Not when Penelope was safe.”

“Why not?” She asks. It makes sense, his wanting to protect Penelope, but she can’t understand why he wasn’t scared when he was moments away from death. She’s thought about it enough without coming up with an answer for it to be necessary to ask.

“Because, Y/n, what I told you that night at Rossi’s.” Her breathing hitches at the mention of the best, or maybe one of the worst, nights of her life. “If that’s the last proper, non-case-related discussion we have, I’m okay with that. I couldn’t die without you knowing I love you.”

She shakes her head, eyes tearing up at the confirmation of his acceptance of dying. “There’s more for you than that.” She says, hoping he knows it.

He does.

He’s got three perfect godsons, he’d love to go back to Paris, he’s always wanted a family, a wife and a big house, there are still books he hasn’t read, there are still sequels being written, there are classes yet to teach and profilers yet to train, there are chess games to win and to lose, and old friends left to see.

They both know his life isn’t close to be finished.

“You knowing is what mattered.” He repeats. “Right from when I realized I wasn’t going to get out by myself, I knew it would be okay since you knew.”

“It wouldn’t be okay!” She says a little too loudly, close to crying. “You can’t be okay with that.”

There’s more in her head, and he’s reluctant to push her to find out, but he does. “Why?”

She sighs, feeling small standing there in front of him. “Because if you died, I couldn’t have told you I love you.” She reveals one of her deepest fears that she hadn’t realized until recently.

“Oh,” Spencer says, jaw going slack. He’s rarely speechless. “Recently or...” It’s the only thing he can think to do: establish a timeline.

“For a long time.” She admits. “I just- I froze that night. I couldn’t say it, but I felt it.”

He senses the apology that’s about to spill and shakes his head. “It’s okay.” He believes it when he says it and walks closer to hold her hands in front of her. She’s surprised by the contact, but it’s nice, even if his hands are slightly cold.

For a moment, they just stand there, and she admires his gorgeous cheekbones and those honey-colored eyes that make her weak when he looks at her so intensely.

He doesn’t rush his next move. Slowly, he drops her hands and cups her cheeks, smiling softly. Then he leans forward, giving her what she’s been waiting for for a long time. His lips are soft on hers like he’s testing the waters, giving her a chance to pull away before pouring passion into it. She matches his pressure while basking in the glow of kissing Spencer Reid. Spencer Reid, who loves her.

They share a matching fond look when they pull back.

Then he’s laughing, and it’s the cutest thing in the world, along with being confusing. The slight, amused frown on her face causes him to explain. “You love me, and I love you.” He says like he can’t believe it. “Wow.”

She knows that reaction from when she had it at Rossi’s, and he looks adorable experiencing it, grinning so hard his face might split. For a long time, he’s wanted to be loved by someone romantically, and now he is. After everything he’s been through, Spencer thought it wouldn’t happen, and for the first time in his life, he’s glad to be wrong.

“What are you doing today?” He asks when he’s collected himself.

“Well, I was going to go home and sleep.” She answers, wondering what he’s going to suggest they do while knowing she could be persuaded into almost anything by him.

“Sleep here.” He says quickly. “Not like that.” A blush fills his cheeks. “If you want. Then we could go to dinner, lunch, a movie theatre, or the park, wherever you want.”

She’s nodding before he finishes. He could ask her out on a date to watch paint drying in his spare bedroom, and she would eagerly accept. “Yes.”

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