#Monitor Serial | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ireverie · 5 months ago

Text

indulgence

pairing ↠ serial killer!sunghoon x (f) professor!reader

genre .. warnings ↠ smut, graphic depictions of murder, graphic depictions of violence, noncon, mentions of pregnancy, sunghoon is 43 (set in 2023)

summary ↠ you're an accomplished detective in the detroit area and park sunghoon is a prolific serial killer. when your department sends you on its behalf to pull back his layers, you attempt to convince sunghoon to recount his experiences and unravel the mystery once and for all.

wc ↠ 10.3k

a/n ↠ originally posted on my blog revehae, i am not plagiarizing myself. sunghoon’s american for the plot. part 3/3 of the in my blood series. as always, feedback is appreciated!

don’t like it, don’t read.

the deepest prick of unease settled through you and you shuddered from its nipping cold.

killers were your forte, but none like this. never in your life had you ever met a killer who’d been at their craft for over a decade. they typically got sloppy after the first half, which insinuated that this sunghoon park guy, whoever he was, was far from an ameteur.

“gate twelve,” came the guard’s voice, speaking into a transmitter. he was to escort you to sunghoon’s holding room.

the gate lifted. behind it, you clocked the riveting face of detroit’s worst nightmare, hands cuffed at his back as he sat facing you. there was a sort of twisted grin on his face, not as if he was excited to have a visitor, but excited his visitor had been you.

“good luck with this guy. officers tried to get him to budge. he didn’t take the fifth, but the bastard’s damn good at talking in circles,” the guard whispered in your ear.

“duly noted,” you replied quietly, stepping further and taking the seat across from sunghoon.

the guard left you to your devices, shutting the door behind you and leaving through the passage that led to the gate. complete and total privacy was the only way sunghoon agreed to talk. your department initially refused, insisting there should at least be one or two other officers monitoring the interview, but you let him have his way.

if you wanted to get this man to talk, that was your only option.

“hello, sunghoon. i’m detective ___ from the detroit police department,” you introduced yourself coolly, cloaking your nerves with confidence. never would you show a guy like this any fear.

sunghoon hadn’t stopped grinning since he made eye contact with you. you’d seen pictures at most and he was devilishly handsome, even more so in person, but it didn’t compensate for his unsettling aura. “that’s a beautiful name, detective.”

“flattery will get you nowhere, park.”

“it’s gotten me here,” sunghoon quipped.

“yes, it has. and i suppose you already know why i’m here.”

“yes, i do,” sunghoon said, pleasant thus far. “you want me to tell you about the murders.”

you bobbed your head. “i do. you see, you’re an enigma to me, sunghoon. you turn yourself in, get fingerprinted, and all of the sudden our datsbase’s going off because your prints are connected to three other crimes over the past twenty-five years.”

sunghoon feigned surprise. “wow, it’s been that long?”

“it has,” you replied, in spite of knowing he couldn’t have not been aware. “martina mortes in 1998, sabrina lee in 2005, christine dalton in 2013, and dr. lee this year.”

sunghoon leaned back in his chair. “i’m familiar with those names.”

“you should be. you sexually assaulted and murdered these women,” you spat, none too tender. “except for martina mortes. you only strangled her. do you want to tell me why that it is?”

“what’s the weather like today? i haven’t been outside, but summer has been kind to detroit.”

ignoring him, you persisted, “let me guess. she was your first victim and that kill, unlike the others, was spontaneous. her being dead defeated the purpose of the sex act, didn’t it?”

“well, do you like your partners warm or cold, detective?” sunghoon asked, deflecting.

you were heeding the guard’s warning. it seemed this guy liked to answer questions with questions, your least favorite type of offender. “that’s why when you subsequently added the sex act to part of your crimes, you kept your victims much longer, because you like to see them suffer. until you got bored. then, you killed them and dumped their bodies like trash.”

as if he was disinterested, sunghoon glanced to the side and yawned.

the audacity on this guy was astounding. “am i boring you, park?”

sunghoon replied with total indifference, “if you think you know everything, then why are we here?”

you answered without hesitation, “because i think you’ve wanted to tell someone about what you’ve done for a long time, sunghoon. but you realize that you’re not like other people. i’m giving you the opportunity to get it all off of your chest.”

sunghoon cocked his head to the side, as if he was contemplating your offer. his face was borderline inscrutable. it was difficult, if not impossible, to decipher what he was thinking.

you restrained from heaving a breath. there was a crushing weight on your shoulders, the expectation to get this guy to crack. if you couldn’t do it, nobody would - ever. “how many victims do you have?”

“four.” sunghoon’s answer was quick, automatic. like he didn’t even have to think about it for a second.

folding your arms on the table, you shook your head. “no, i just don’t think that’s true. see, we’re pretty sure martina mortes, your high school girlfriend, was your first victim, and the college professor was your last.”

sunghoon cocked a brow. “but?”

“but there’s no way someone like you could’ve resisted your urges between four kills over the past two decades and then some.”

there was no point in denying the four victims, because you already had substantial proof. nor did sunghoon deny that martina was his first victim, because given the decomposition of the bodies, she died long before the other three. admitting that she wasn’t would be admitting that there were unfound others.

and sunghoon had no intention of implicating himself more than he already had. the only reason he turned himself in was because he didn’t want to prolong the inevitable, for whatever reason. he pulled his lips into a mock frown. “your assumptions about my self-restraint are hurtful,” he replied.

whatever, moron, you thought irritability. “i think they’re more than just assumptions.”

sunghoon teased, “then, let me know when you know something.”

you narrowed your eyes, groaning, “oh, come on. i know and you know that you can’t ignore your desires for a month, let alone over ten years. you have a compulsion. killing makes you feel powerful, it makes you feel in control, and you can’t live without the high it gives you.”

“you make me sound like an addict,” sunghoon remarked, pretending to be offended.

“it wouldn’t be so far from the truth,” you said, glancing over the file at your end of the table. “the first two kills were seven years apart. the second two kills were ten. full offense, i don’t see how you could control yourself for so long.”

“you can believe what you want, detective. i didn’t kill anyone else,” sunghoon lied, not that you ever needed to know.

of course, he couldn’t control himself. the second he took someone’s life, it became a part of him, and his purpose in this world became clear to him. for the first time in his life, he felt as if he had something that made living worthwhile.

you surrendered. it was obvious sunghoon was intelligent and he wouldn’t be easily tricked into confessing. “okay, fine. let’s talk about the victims we know of. tell me about martina mortes.”

“what is there to tell?” sunghoon asked, brow cocked. “we met in junior high. then, in eleventh grade, we got together.”

“tell me about why you killed her,” you insisted, painfully curious. “it happened in chicago, before you moved to detroit over the summer. you killed her in the heat of the moment.”

sunghoon gave the impression that he would take a minute to crack, so you were surprised when he said in response to your prodding, “we got into a wrangle, if you will.”

that much was obvious. “what kind of wrangle?”

the garage was hot and the air was stuffy, making it difficult to breathe. to say nothing of the frustration scorching sunghoon’s skin, his face tensed into an irritated glower.

there was something about women he never liked, the seemingly inherent ability to blow almost anything out of proportion, as exhibited now as his girlfriend screamed in his face. his stepmother was the same, never not coming up with a reason to fuss at him. he was always walking on eggshells around that woman.

martina was bristling. “you always fucking do this, sunghoon.”

sunghoon heaved a breath, sighing, “what - what do i always do, martina?”

“you trivialize everything i go through. you make me feel like i’m overreacting when i’m not, you just refuse to hold yourself accountable,” she spat.

“martina, we’re about to go to college, for fuck’s sake! you can’t focus on your academics and a goddamn child. i don’t get why you won’t just have an abortion and call it a day,” sunghoon roared, heating up a thousand degrees.

“god, do you listen to a word that comes out of my mouth? my parents will kill me, sunghoon. if not for being pregnant at eighteen, then for killing it.”

sunghoon sighed. “i don’t see the part where that’s my problem.”

tears blurred martina’s eyes. she came up to him, shattered by his carelessness and embraced by isolation, and bellowed, “you want to know what your problem is? your problem is that you’re an incompetent bastard with no regard for other people!”

sunghoon’s body was engulfed in flames but his shoulders were cold, and he lost control of his emotions, grabbing martina by the throat. he effortlessly lifted her with a single hand and smashed her against the closest wall none too gently, watching her eyes wince closed.

“you wanna say that again?” sunghoon asked, nothing short of belligerent.

ache spread out through the back of martina’s head, a ceaseless throbbing worse than any hungover. her feet dangled off of the ground, waving and kicking, fingers weakly prying at the ones pressing down on her windpipe. until she was completely still, legs dropping, hands going limp at her sides.

“i didn’t even realize how long i spent standing there, until she felt… empty, and i knew she was gone,” sunghoon confessed, but his tone was far from sympathetic. “she scratched me. you know, when she was trying to pry my hands off. i didn’t know until hours later.”

you shook your head, disdainful. “you killed your pregnant girlfriend?”

sunghoon groaned, “oh, please. i was eighteen. i would’ve been a terrible father.”

“i would be slightly more inclined to accept that as an excuse if it weren’t for the fact that you had a son by sabrina lee only two years later,” you said viciously.

“a lot can change in two years.”

“i’m sure it did.” your eyes flickered over the file again, but nothing would allow you to familiarize yourself with this killer more than talking to him yourself. “for example, you realized just how much you liked killing.”

if sunghoon could’ve raised his hands, he would’ve. “your words, not mine.”

you leaned over the table, unrelenting. “tell me about it, sunghoon. how did it feel when you strangled her with your bare hands? what was it like?”

sunghoon chuckled. “is that what you wanna hear?”

you nodded.

sunghoon leaned in too, getting closer to you, and whispered in your ear, “i squeezed every last breath out of her, one by one, until there was nothing left for her brain and she went slack in my arms. and when i was done, i felt elated. i felt free. it woke up this dormant sensation inside of me that i swore to never repress again, because it made me feel alive.”

your lungs started to feel shallower, like no breath could reach the bottom, and you sensed your heart come to a halt for a minute. sunghoon pulled back, grinning from ear to ear, as if he was proud of himself.

“detective, did i startle you?” sunghoon asked, tilting his head ever so slightly.

your face hardened. “why would you ever think that?”

“you’re not as good at feigning indifference as you think you are, detective. full offense,” he mimicked, mocking.

he’s just a fragile man that kills women to make him feel better about himself, because he needs to be in control. don’t give him power over you. that’s what he wants, you said to yourself, shutting any and all other thoughts. “so, you killed martina, nobody could connect her disappearance to you, and by the time they discovered her body you were already studying for college two states over.”

sunghoon ignored you, at least for a little. he was taking a liking to making you feel uneasy around him. “has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you are?” he asked out of nowhere.

“you aren’t my type. i don’t fool around with serial killers,” you replied sharply.

sunghoon didn’t seem to be offended, but you didn’t expect him to. “really now? it feels like we’re on a date right now. after all, we are getting to know each other.”

you asked, “have you always had such a distorted perception of normal human interaction?”

sunghoon shot with no hesitation, “have you always had such a sharp mouth?”

you pulled yourself together. the only way you would get anywhere with this guy was by establishing that you were the one in control. “okay, enough. this is my interview, park. you answer my questions, not vice versa.”

“that’s not any fair,” sunghoon told you, that unnerving smile still on his lips. “i don’t have to tell you anything, you know. and without me, you lose the only key to those answers you want so badly.”

“you shutting up doesn’t make much of a difference, considering you’re already dodging my questions,” you replied.

“let’s play a game,” sunghoon suggested.

you weren’t in the mood for any games, but that was sunghoon’s method of operation. “i don’t like games.”

“you’ll like this one,” sunghoon insisted, laughing. “twenty questions.”

your shoulders dropped. “am i supposed to be guessing something?”

sunghoon shook his head, something sinister about him. “no, it’s much easier than that. we take turns asking each other questions until i’ve answered ten and you’ve unanswered ten.”

you stared into his eyes, willing yourself not to break contact. he was just as relentless, silently cocking a brow at you, as if to challenge. and you weren’t an idiot. that’s exactly what it was. you asserted, “i go first, you can only ask me yes or no questions, and if i don’t like your final answer i get to press you for another.”

sunghoon slightly lifted his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “yes, ma’am.”

“okay,” you started. “what made you move from illinois to michigan?”

“i was kicked out of the house. didn’t have anywhere else to go. but i had a buddy here whose family took me in,” sunghoon answered frankly.

you pondered those words, wondering if his aforementioned buddy knew about his secret indulgences. or if he asked why sunghoon’s parents kicked him out of their home. it would’ve been the question scratching at your mind, itching to be answered.

sunghoon’s lips parted. “what kind of perfume are you wearing - honey lavender?”

“yes,” you said, focusing your attention on anything but the possibilities of how he could’ve known that. he’d been with so many people to the point where he just knew. “why did you get kicked out of the house?”

“my dad always thought there was something different about me, ever since i was a child. he was a nasty piece of work. he found my journal, read a couple of things i wrote, and decided there was no hope for me in the house,” sunghoon ranted.

that piqued your curiosity. “what did you write about?”

“wait your turn,” sunghoon sang. “your hair smells just as lovely as the rest of you. do you match scents all the time?”

you were mildly uncomfortable, but given the type of dude he was, you stifled it. “yes. you don’t have to be such a pervert all the time, you know?”

again, sunghoon rolled his shoulders, chirping, “you call it perverse. i call it amusing.”

you almost cursed under your breath when you realize you’d asked him a question. “wait, i didn’t mean to ask…”

sunghoon cut you off, “that’s too bad. it’s my turn again. do you like necklaces?”

“not ones made out of fingers,” you retorted. it was meant to be a joke to hide how unsettled you were, hyper aware of the necklace dangling around your neck. you could feel invisible pressure on your throat.

sunghoon snickered. “i’ll admit that was funny.”

you pressed, “what did you write about in the journal?”

“my dreams,” he admitted vaguely, though in reality, he wrote endlessly about his corrupt fantasies of abusing women. some pages were about his stepsister, and there was a few about what he’d done to martina, though not explicitly. “you have the most beautiful eyes. they’re the perfect shade.”

you were certain he had told many other girls those same words and were not flattered in the slightest. the glare you were giving him was ferocious. “i’m not sure if there’s a question in there somewhere.”

“do you think your eyes are pretty?”

“i haven’t really thought about it,” you told him, quick to change the topic. you’d encountered your fair share of stranglers and it was no secret why he was so interested in your eyes. “was your relationship with your father estranged?”

“nothing was enough for that man. i had the top grades in my class and the highest gpa, and he took my door off its hinges and seized my privacy,” sunghoon told you, words harsh, but his tone plain. “he was obsessed with being the perfect family, something that was ruined the second my mother destroyed everything, and rather than embrace me, he turned me away.”

your eyes flickered. there was something about his language that stood out to you. courtesy of the research you’d done on him beforehand, you were aware that his father was divorced then remarried his stepmother, who already had a daughter sunghoon’s age. but rather than describe his parent’s separation as a divorce, he said his mother destroyed everything.

what a hostile view towards women, you mused, repulsed. but given the nature of his crimes, it adds up. and it might’ve been the origin of his hatred.

his family was twisted. you couldn’t fathom how his father, aware of just how unwell his son was, clocked his abusive fantasies towards women, and instead of getting him the help he needed, he left him to his own devices to slaughter them as he pleased.

you blinked when sunghoon leaned, craning his face towards yours, and snapped out of your reverie when you jolted back.

“there you are,” sunghoon said, chuckling at your surprise. it was all over your face. “i’ve been talking to myself all this time. you must’ve been thinking about me.”

“no, not really. i was wondering if i forgot to feed my dog last night.” it was an obvious lie, but you would never encourage this guy to feel more important than he was.

amusement gleamed in sunghoon’s eyes. he was having a wonderful time, truth be told. had you not been so pretty, he would’ve clamped up like a crab, but you were so pleasing to the eye that he didn’t mind confessing a couple of truths. “a dog. that’s interesting. i myself have always wanted a pet - a snake. the constricting kind are my favorite.”

“you don’t say,” you droned, voice dripping with crisp irony.

your sarcasm was chucklesome to sunghoon, but his words were the truth. he remembered, all those years ago, asking his father for a pet snake. and when he refused, sunghoon, in turn, killed the family dog. he added, “they don’t just suffocate their prey. they coil around them, almost like a straitjacket, and cut off its blood supply.”

you replied, “yeah, but animals hunt to survive. you hunted because you had nothing better to do with your life.”

“in my humble opinion, we’re all animals of nature, and creatures of sin,” sunghoon told you in a whisper, as if he were telling you a secret of some kind. “anyways, it’s my turn now.”

you resisted a disgruntled exhale.

like his questions couldn’t get any more absurd and strangely perverse, sunghoon asked, “when you shower, what do you use - a washcloth or a loofah?”

“that’s not a yes or no question,” you replied with total disinterest.

“it’s hardly any less simple.”

“a washcloth,” you replied, though only because you needed to ask him your questions and resisting an answer would only waste valuable time. “why did you wait so long before killing sabrina lee?”

sunghoon smiled at the mention of his son’s mother, but the grin on his lips was distinguishable from the others. like he didn’t even realize he was smiling. “she was special. i loved her.”

“no, you didn’t. you don’t hurt people that you love.”

“maybe that’s true for you, but you’ve called me everything but a child of god and it’s clear you don’t think you and i are alike,” sunghoon said. “i don’t miss her, though, because she left a better print on this world. a world that was never made for her in the first place.”

a better print on this world. your brows furrowed, until you remembered the child they shared together. “you know what i think? i think whatever you felt for your son’s mother was the closest thing to love you’ll ever be able to pull from your ugly black heart.”

“you’re very strongly opinionated,” sunghoon responded, ever so unbothered. maybe some decades ago, it would’ve irked him to the point of breaking, but he was much more in charge of his impulses now.

you lifted your shoulders, gazing at him with the most discerning of eyes. all he could think about was how nice it would’ve been to seize you by the throat and watch the light dull from them.

to your surprise, sunghoon’s next question was not as a deviant as you assumed it would be, asking, “what made you decide you wanted to become a detective?”

“because of the people i used to know that aren’t around to tell you why,” you answered distantly, before pressing, “how was sabrina different, sunghoon?”

sunghoon perched over the table again, an uncomfortable distance close to you, made worse by his whispers. “because unlike the others, she didn’t beg me to stop - she begged me to finish. for it to be over. and when i wouldn’t, she begged me to kill her.”

the mental picture you got was cruel. your heart hurt for these women that had no idea what hit them until it was too late.

“i put these women out of their misery,” sunghoon continued.

you spat in a heartbeat, “the misery that you forced them to endure.”

sunghoon winced. “no, these women were miserable long before they met me. they were just ignorant of it. impressionability is a weakness.”

“either you have one hell of a god complex or you are working overtime to justify your sick actions.”

sunghoon merely shrugged, vicious and ominous and everything in between. there was something so dark about his spirit. you could feel it just from sitting within a couple of feet of him.

sunghoon’s memories were triggered. he was reminiscing about the times he shared with his son’s mother, how perfect she was. there were no other women like her. she was his favorite victim, someone he took his sweet time with, while the others were disposed of in a few months time.

midnight loomed, riding on the tail of dusk. sunghoon was counting down the minutes until the clock struck twelve, a self-imposed rule to gauge his willpower. the second the hour came, he bolted from the crackling sound of the cabin’s fireplace to a bedroom, anticipation like a stimulant.

the wooden floorboards creaked the closer sunghoon crept to the door. save for himself and the woman chained to the bedpost, the cabin was void of life. it belonged to the parents of a close friend who ensured it was vacant whenever sunghoon needed a place to indulge his twisted fantasies.

which was basically all of the time.

he meandered inside with a crisp bottle of water in hand, droplets condensing at its sides. sabrina laid right where he left her, just as broken, dreading her next breath. tape adhered to the flesh over her mouth, muffling her whimpers. there was nobody around for miles, the cabin was totally isolated, but it was a safety measure.

the chains were used likewise. when sunghoon was not there, the restraints kept her prisoner. sunghoon, reckless as he could be back then, was many things and stupid was not one of them. the chains stretched long enough to reach the bathroom but no further and he had his loyal friend help him test it after each victim.

“can you go further?” sunghoon called out.

heeseung’s lower limbs were shackled, ceasing his footsteps just shy of the hallway as he came to a total standstill. “not if i want my legs to follow me,” he’d retorted.

sunghoon had snickered. “good.”

had sunghoon been there, though, he would take the chains off. none of this was fair, even sunghoon didn’t believe that, but not giving them the chance to fight was too unfair. he needed not to chain them when he had the gift of his big, burly arms.

sunghoon waltzed over with a lighthearted and carefree gait, as if this was just another wednesday afternoon to him. and in some sick, despicable way, that wasn’t too far from the truth. he ripped the tape from sabrina’s lips, watching her face tense with pain.

“sunghoon,” sabrina rasped, voice croaking. he could tell from her flushed face and misty eyes that she’d been crying. “i’m thirsty.”

sunghoon cocked a brow, glancing to his hand. he had an irritating knack for playing dumb. it used to be endearing. now, with everything she knew to be true torn from her bare hands, sabrina didn’t know what to think. “what - you want this?”

sabrina nodded.

“yeah?” he popped off the top, throwing back a few gulps just before releasing a satisfied, “ah.”

sabrina’s lips trembled. “please.”

had she been anybody else, sunghoon probably would’ve dangled the water in her face just to snatch it away, but there was something about sabrina that made him gravitate towards her. in a rare moment of benevolence, sunghoon handed her the water, letting her drink.

she didn’t drink in short sips, but in giant gulps as if she’d known for some time that they’d be her last. when her thirst was satiated, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, handing the bottle back, and whispered, “thank you.”

sunghoon set the drink aside before returning to her, unshackling her limbs. sabrina’s breath quickened the moment the chains clacked harshly against the floor and nearly stilled when he brought his hand to her flushed face, tracing her chapped lips with a calloused thumb.

his thoughts rushed with unbridled exhilaration, ablaze with suspense, but he slowed for a moment to marvel at her loveliness. sunghoon’s hand touched her hair, touch tender in ways it would never be again, because he would never again know a woman as great as her.

he brought his lips to her ear, nibbling at the shell before asking, “do you know what i want you to do?”

sabrina bobbed her head, starting to halfheartedly peel off her clothes without needing to be told. with so many days held prisoner in this hell hole, it became routine. like she’d already resigned herself to her fate and knew sunghoon getting his way was inevitable. he always got what he wanted.

to be frank, it came out of nowhere. she never saw this twisted side of him coming. all she knew was that she became suspicious of his lack of family presence and it was too late when she saw him for the monster that he was, and then she woke here.

it had to have been months ago, although sabrina couldn’t have been sure how many. everyday started to bleed into the static hopelessness of another. sometimes sunghoon wouldn’t show for days, leaving her to live antsily, dreading his unavoidable return. other times, he would spend a day or two in the cabin, fucking her into kingdom come.

as if she couldn’t be any more faultless. sunghoon smirked. “smart girl,” he purred. he would never deny her wit, given that she’d caught onto him, but her lack of strength was her only vice.

sunghoon restlessly tossed his own shirt over his naked shoulder and came to step out of his boxers. there was mischief on his plush lips. he knew something sabrina only knew from the unkind churn of her gut.

the end was more than near. it loomed over her, relentless and remorseless, and all she could like it to was dark and leaden clouds in a somber sky. even then, there was almost nothing she wouldn’t give to see the world again, but she’d long kissed that hope goodbye.

“down,” sunghoon told her, tone dark and stern.

she pliantly did as told, bare back meeting the mattress. sunghoon crept over her, hard cock twitching at the sight of her so meek. typically, he liked when they put up a fight, but sabrina knew better.

sunghoon could tell she was fighting back tears, willing herself not to cry with a stabilized breath, but her endeavors were in vain the second he started to force his way inside her. they escaped her eyes and dampened her cheeks, unable to overlook the agony of the stretch.

“shh, baby,” sunghoon crooned in her ear, the weight of his body bearing down onto hers. “what’s the matter? you used to beg me to fuck you.”

sabrina shook her head, silently pleading for a mercy she knew deep down that sunghoon wasn’t capable of. “please make it quick.”

sunghoon’s tone was almost sweet. “but baby, you told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, remember?”

sunghoon knew that his words weren’t reassuring and he didn’t intend for them to be. there was a reason why he loved how she tried to hold herself together. he got to push her limits, find her breaking point. in the end, she would get her wish, and in a way, sunghoon thought that that was love.

her walls were just as tight and vice-like as they’d been all those times he’d taken her before. if sunghoon got close enough to her, let his hands wander and tease as they never not had done, sabrina would still involuntarily gush around his cock. like her body knew she was forever a slave to his touch.

just looking at her face as she wept sent shock waves of pleasure rippling through his dick and chest. sabrina didn’t cry in noisy, gasping sobs. her tears dripped from her thick lashes quietly, mouth parting in the most silent of whimpers.

and she orgasmed the same way, sunghoon remembered. back when things were normal between them, when she begged for him to fuck her, as he called it, her release was marked by a volatile shudder, but a silent cry of ecstasy.

sunghoon pushed sabrina’s lips into an upward curling with his thumb and index finger. “smile for the camera, sabrina,” he whispered.

sabrina’s brows furrowed, painfully oblivious to the camera tracking her every emote. sunghoon couldn’t not document his deeds. there was something about being able to play them over, immersing himself back in that moment over and over, even when the life itself could not be so easily brought back.

but for sunghoon, they could be. when he rewatched these videos again and again, it was like he could feel their pulses thump in their neck, resuscitating.

sunghoon’s hands were everywhere, fingertips traipsing towards sabrina’s neck where marks lingered from all the times he’d strangled her, only to slacken his grip when she was just shy of passing out. the bruises were different colors, indicative of different healing stages. sabrina tensed, startled, and wondered when it would all be over.

“sunghoon.” sabrina was overcome with defeat. her voice cracked as she asked, “sunghoon, please just cum.”

sunghoon’s face tensed with pleasure. “fuck, babe, when you say it like that…”

he stood at the brink of climax, threatening to teeter over, and there was only one thing that could knock him over quicker than anything else. it wouldn’t be anything she said, anything she did, but only a weakness sunghoon had the power to wield against himself.

“you want me to finish?”

sabrina nodded.

sunghoon chuckled darkly. “then, in that case, it’s time for you to get your wish, baby.”

he watched her shoulders slump, releasing all hope of ever knowing anything different again and accepting that this was where things ended. thinking about the feeling he remembered none too distantly, one that almost seemed to keep his blood pumping through him, in a way, sunghoon’s fingers itched.

sunghoon lifted his hands, bringing them to sabrina’s face, but before he could touch her, she exclaimed, “wait, sunghoon!”

his brow cocked.

sabrina’s lips trembled. “can you tell me what today is? please?”

“wednesday,” sunghoon replied, holding his hands around her neck, but keeping his grip slack. for now.

“wednesday,” sabrina said, pulling her lips into the faintest of smiles as tears blurred her vision. “will you tell jake that i hope he has an amazing thursday?”

“that can be arranged,” sunghoon said, grinning.

sabrina nodded, setting her mind at ease. she’d already made peace with this day some months ago. she never knew when it come, but she saw it as something bound to happen. “thank you,” she whispered.

those were her last words. because when sunghoon tightened his grip at her throat, almost like tightening a noose, he couldn’t bring himself to stop in spite of the agonized gleam in her stare. and then her stare was empty, and sunghoon had already emptied his load inside of her.

to describe the sensation he got from killing in a way that captured its essence would be impossible. it was more than feeling the life leave her. it was more than watching her eyes become soulless. it was a release, a way of relinquishing all of the vacantness he harbored, and knowing that his heart was still there.

it would always return, sometimes as soon as the next day, but for a minute, sunghoon was whole and no drug could replicate that kind of contentedness.

sunghoon did tell jake what sabrina said. he wasn’t all too sure why, maybe it was because she was his mother and jake was her son that they’d created together, and sunghoon would never have it any other way. for her to be the one to give him a child, he couldn’t imagine any other woman in her place.

it was almost unfortunate that she had to go so soon. even sunghoon thought that her demise was premature. had she not grown so suspicious of him, sunghoon could imagine making her his wife, maybe even spending the rest of his life with her.

their marriage wouldn’t have been without his secret dark life, but sabrina wouldn’t’ve been a victim. alas, loose ends needed to be tied. sunghoon couldn’t trust that she would’ve kept quiet, and even then, she was in a much more fitting place for an angel like herself.

there was much of this memory that would be abridged. never would sunghoon reveal anything about the cabin or the dear friend that helped him commit his indulgences, or even the existence of the tapes. if they found those videos, that was proof of murder with a grand total of 106 women.

the air around you was heavy and the words you’d just been fed weren’t easily take in. “what you’re just told me is really sad.”

but sunghoon didn’t look sad. whether or not he ever truly cared for sabrina would perpetually be a mystery. “maybe,” he started. “but tell me that you wouldn’t hurt the person you loved most if it was what was best for them.”

“i did. but what i had to do is different from what you were.”

sunghoon’s interest was piqued. “how come?”

“it was my responsibility to decide whether or not to take my sister off of the ventilator. there was no hope for her,” you confessed, though brushed over it quickly. “what happened to your ex-wife?”

“not that interesting of a story,” sunghoon said. “she wasn’t sabrina, i got tired of her, here we are.”

“and yet she wasn’t a one-off like martina mortes.”

“had she been a one-off, my body count would be one number higher. that was a favor,” sunghoon told you, grinning as if you actually had something to be grateful for.

you didn’t waste a second to accuse, “because you need to keep your victims to extract all the relief that you can from them, right?”

“i’m afraid it’s not your turn to ask questions,” sunghoon replied tauntingly. “what was your sister like - did she have long hair? what color were her eyes? how long were her lashes?”

sick son of a bitch, bellowed the voice in your head, though you willed yourself to remain composed. it was plain on his face that sunghoon didn’t want an answer - he wanted a reaction. and as furious as that made you, you couldn’t let him provoke you. “that’s none of your business,” you said, but there was a loophole. “but she was beloved.”

that qualified as an answer. sunghoon glanced at you in a way that made you feel see-through, as if he knew that you were threatening to come apart at the seams and didn’t buy your nonchalance for a minute.

sated, he went on to feed you bullshit about his ex-wife’s death, though there were only four people who knew what truly happened to her and one of them was dead.

sunghoon remembered that day like it happened yesterday. it was a thursday evening when he’d come home from work. christine had picked jake up from school hours ago and sunghoon wholly expected to come home to her in the kitchen.

it was dark outside. the moon was a mere sliver and the stars were duller than they typically were, almost like they had witnessed something that drained their spirits. sunghoon remembered struggling to identify his house key, trying each of them until the door clicked open.

“i’m home,” sunghoon’s voice thundered as he turned to lock the door.

there were quick footsteps from upstairs. jake, sunghoon thought, more than familiarized with the sound. but there was none of christine’s usual voice.

“dad, i’m hungry,” came jake’s voice from the stairs, coming down them one by one.

that in itself should’ve been suspicious, but instead, all sunghoon could think about was how sabrina would’ve already fed her son. “hasn’t christine made dinner by now?” sunghoon asked, irritated.

jake shook his head, though sunghoon couldn’t see. he was hanging his coat on the rack, like he always did after he locked the door. “she can’t right now.”

“why not?”

“because i think she’s dead,” jake replied, nonchalant as ever.

that was the very second that sunghoon turned around and noticed that jake was stained with blood. it was all over his face and the spots would probably never come out of his clothes, not that they would be kept.

for half a minute, sunghoon was genuinely stunned.

jake didn’t say what happened, and there was no need to. “the blood won’t come off,” was all he said, showing his father the pair of hands that he’d washed with vigor.

sunghoon heaved a breath. he should’ve seen this coming. jake took after his father and he never liked christine. to say the least, sunghoon couldn’t blame him. “where is she?”

“where they all go,” jake replied, as if it was the most normal and natural thing in the world to him.

sunghoon headed for the basement with quick footsteps, jake following behind. if somebody were to come down there, they wouldn’t suspect a thing. not only was it decorated to look like one, but it was used as a man cave. behind a soundproof wall, though, was a dungeon for his prisoners.

in this case, there was a trail of blood leading to the wall, proof that jake had somehow brought christine there after he hurt her. sunghoon entered the cell and saw her there behind the bars, coming to her side to check her pulse.

pressing his thumb to her wrist and neck, sunghoon sensed a pulse, though it was weakening. “she’s not dead,” he said, wresting his phone out of his pocket.

jake didn’t look so relieved, but he didn’t voice his dissatisfaction. “are you mad?”

sunghoon glanced down at christine. jake had used a kitchen knife, attacking her in the heat of the moment. she was butchered and blood-splattered, on the verge of slaughter, and yet sunghoon couldn’t find it in him to offer any compassion. “that you hurt her? no. that you made a mess? a little.”

now that was a relief. to jake, at least back then, his dad was the coolest guy that he knew.

there was quite the scene in front of him and sunghoon didn’t have a thing for blood. he shook his head in reproach, chastising, “i’m going to teach you the right way to get rid of a woman when you’re sick of her.”

that piqued jake’s curiosity.

sunghoon was quick to dial heeseung’s number. he had medical experience and that was what he needed right now. when the call connected, he said, “i’m in calling in a favor.”

heeseung patched her up again. at least for a few months, sunghoon still needed her breathing. they scrubbed the floors free of blood, burned jake’s bloodied clothes, and it was as if nothing ever happened.

what sunghoon had told you was only a fraction of the truth, but still enough to make you want to grimace. it bemused you how he got away with murdering his ex-wife and nobody thought to suspect her husband with a track record of disappearing partners.

“you want to know what’s really amazing?” you started, though it was more like disgusting. “how three of the women you’ve killed were your significant others, and somehow, you’ve only now been incriminated.”

sunghoon looked proud of himself. had it not been for jake, he probably would’ve never been caught. “sabrina never told anyone that we dated, or that she had a baby by me. her parents wanted her to focus on her education. if they knew she’d gotten pregnant, she would’ve been the black sheep.”

“and you took advantage of that,” you hissed.

“so what if i did?” sunghoon asked, careless. “not to mention that dozens of teenage girls in chicago were going missing at the time. they added martina to that number and called it a day. is that sad? maybe. but that’s how it works.”

“and as for your co-worker?” you asked sharply. the boldness of his crimes astounded you. “her husband grieves her. were you having an affair?”

the thought of her made sunghoon chuckle. oh, were we, he reminisced. it was a misfortune that he didn’t get the chance to have his way with her the way that he wanted. and for that reason, he couldn’t regale you in a truthful account of her death.

what happened that day, the day his co-worker died, challenged his fate and was the reason that he only now knew the imprisonment he thrusted upon others.

sunghoon knew when he spotted her that he would revel in her vulnerability. married, but she hardly wore her ring. her kind was the most naive - the kind that believed ecstasy was without costly sin. one way or another, she had to reap what she sowed.

he worked his way inside her pants, but it was hardly any work; she was on a desperate pursuit for pleasure and when sunghoon promised it to her, offering content on a silver platter, she thought less with her brain and more with the throbbing between her legs.

for months, sunghoon slept with her, which was far from typical. if she were anybody else, sunghoon would have pursued her for a couple of weeks time, then banished her to the underground prison. though considering he already had a victim down there at the time, he had some time to spare.

it was no secret that she had grown fond of sunghoon in ways she hadn’t been of her husband in a very long time, and though sunghoon found her to be special, in a way, he could not reciprocate her feelings. when sunghoon saw her, all he felt was the overwhelming urge to use her with a lick of remorse, and squeeze those panting breaths out of her.

it was a shame that he never got the opportunity. sunghoon already tested the bounds of his self-restraint when it came to her, each of their encounters consensual with her oblivious to his deepest, darkest desires. sometimes, his fingers would wander to her neck, but even that was wanted.

what was not wanted was the tyranny over her body that preceded her death. it bemused sunghoon to learn that his son, along with two of his friends that he thought of like brothers and sunghoon thought of like sons, ravaged her to the brink of being unrecognizable.

had sunghoon held control over the situation, he wouldn’t have cared what happened to her and would have even permitted them to go to town. but what happened was somehow darker. when he got a call from the professor late that day, hearing her broken sobs over the phone, he told her to meet him at his house.

that was his first mistake.

it wasn’t that she didn’t come. she made it there, hopeful to confide in sunghoon about the nightmare that tore her apart, but it was jake that opened the front door. and when she entered, there was no hope out of her coming out breathing.

jake had been a downward spiral ever since a month ago when he stumbled upon the tape of his mother. ever since he was a boy, jake watched every tape he could find of his father’s dark life, even sharing them with his friends as if they were movies and not snuff.

but this was not like those. this was his mother. and watching her suffer, listening to her final request before her untimely death, broke jake in ways which he would never recover.

jake had known since he was little that his mother was dead and his father was to blame, but his understanding of what happened to her was skewed. if he’d known eighteen years ago what he knew today, when sunghoon had his own son aid him in his mother’s demise, none of it would have ever happened.

to say nothing of the fact that what sunghoon had jake do was only a mere fraction of his mother’s suffering. jake would fetch things from the other side of the cabin he vaguely remembered visiting every now and then for three months. when he was not there, which was often, he would lie to his neighbors about her whereabouts.

even though when she died he was only a kid being taken advantage of, jake hated himself for letting it happen right under his nose. he wished he would’ve told his neighbors the truth. maybe if he had, his mother would still be alive and kicking, and he would know the only woman he ever cared for.

that was why he went after his professor that he knew his father had also been eyeing closely and having an affair with. her fate was obvious. sunghoon would entertain her for a while, somehow charm and woo his way into her pants like he did every other woman, kidnap her and keep her downstairs for three months, then kill her and identify the next victim.

but sunghoon’s liking of her was also hopelessly discernable. she was living too long. and that was a telltale sign that sunghoon took a special interest in his son’s professor, something that jake feared would rival the affection (if it existed) for his mother.

jake was not keen on having his mother replaced. the last time it happened, he snapped and maimed his stepmother. and he was not afraid of doing so again.

when jake exacted revenge, it felt like nothing he had ever done before. vengeance tasted like heaven. his professor tasted elysian. and he had never felt so good about himself, but then the high wore off, comparable to the fading release sunghoon got after strangling his victims, and familiar pain seared through him once further.

vindictiveness was a lethal venom, festering quickly upon injection. after jake got what he wanted, there was a greed to replicate that feeling, in spite of the fact that nothing would compare to that first blow. in his own way, unlike his father’s but similar nonetheless, he was pivoting towards release.

jake was on the brink of something like psychosis when he heard those knocks on his front door. and when he peered outside, spotting the professor, his recklessness got the better of him.

she was dead before she even stepped inside the house. jake yanked her inside, brought her downstairs, and forced himself onto her for a second time that day. when she wept for sunghoon, wishing he would come home, jake almost pitied her naïveté.

if jake hadn’t killed her, wrapping his hands around her throat the way that he knew his father had been yearning to, sunghoon would have.

the look on his professor’s face was pitiful. “sorry,” jake said, though he clasped his hands around her throat harder. “but i have to make a statement.”

it was not particularly a difficult thing to do, at least not to stomach, but killing her was merely just a means to an end. he didn’t get off to it like his father would’ve, jake’s interest lay inflicting psychological damage, but he did it because he knew how much it pleasured sunghoon to squeeze the life out of his victims.

and if jake couldn’t have what he wanted, then as long as he lived, neither would his dad for tearing it away.

sunghoon came home moments too late. jake left his professor in the cellar for his father to find, eyes wide and face pale.

sunghoon glanced around. he saw her car parked outside, but no sign of her. when jake came from his bedroom on the upper floor, a creeping feeling of deja vu flooded sunghoon’s chest, but he asked, “where is she?”

jake’s face was expressionless. “she’s dead,” he replied, confident. “i mean it this time.”

sunghoon shook his head. “you killed her?”

“wasn’t it you that said you were going to teach me the proper way to dispose of a woman when i’m sick of her?” jake asked, approaching his father as he crept down the stairs.

though sunghoon wasn’t pleased, he willed himself to calm down. “did you strangle her?”

“yes.”

sunghoon figured, from the lack of blood staining his house this time around. “will you tell me about it?”

that caught jake off-guard. he expected his father to be angry, to let loose. he had to have been dreaming of choking her since the day he laid eyes on her. “you sick fuck,” jake sneered.

sunghoon snickered, unbothered. that’s rich. “who do you think you got it from?”

obviously, from the face jake was making, he didn’t like that. his nonchalant attitude dissipated. “i’m not like you!”

“keep telling yourself that. maybe one day you’ll delude yourself into believing it,” sunghoon replied, hanging his coat on the rack in spite of knowing he would be leaving again soon.

“i’m not like you - i mean that.”

sunghoon, miffed, rolled his eyes and said, “come on, son. you think i don’t know you and your friends have been watching my tapes for the past decade and then some like they’re cartoons?”

“but not mom’s,” jake spat, loathing fizzing in his stare.

sunghoon froze, then spun around. “is that what this is all about?”

jake nodded, pleased his father was finally getting the picture. “i found it in your study. you hid it more carefully than the others, because she was special or you didn’t want me to find it, i don’t know.”

sunghoon heaved a breath. “you were never supposed to see that.”

“but i did,” jake replied. “and i’ve suffered every day for the past month because of that.”

sunghoon shot without hesitation, “a suffering you brought upon yourself. nobody asked you to go snooping around in my things.”

jake’s lips were twisted into the meanest snarl sunghoon had ever seen. emotion wrecked through him in its totality. “is that what’s important to you? i shouldn’t be surprised. you couldn’t even spare your own son’s mother from your heartlessness.”

sunghoon massaged his temple, summoning all of his willpower. “please,” he groaned, sensing an incoming headache. “women are weak, cheating whores. just look at your professor. maybe your mother wasn’t, but she was a liability.”

if that was supposed to console jake, it had the complete opposite effect. “are you saying she deserved it?”

“i’m saying that you’ve always been too soft,” sunghoon said, not bothering to sugarcoat his chastising. “just like your mother. even when you were a child. that’s why i had you help me, i hoped you would harden up a little.”

jake scoffed. “unbelievable.”

“your mother went quietly. she didn’t even fight it, jake. so, why are you?”

“because of that,” jake told him, vitriol in his voice. “she didn’t ask you to stop one time. she just asked you to get it over with.”

sunghoon tipped his head back. “ah, yes. she really was perfect, wasn’t she?”

that was all it took to kindle an unforgiving rage within jake and in a moment of fury, flickering through him in a flash, jake lifted his hand to smack his father.

sunghoon caught his wrist, as if this weren’t the first time this had happened and it was wholeheartedly expected. his voice lowered to a mere hiss, “i’ve never laid a hand on you. ever in your life. don’t make today be the day i start.”

jake glared, but wrested his way out of his father’s grip and backed away.

sunghoon smoothed down his shirt and headed for the kitchen, knowing jake would follow. this conversation was far from over. “now, if you excuse me, i have to clean up your mess,” he said, pulling a burner phone out of a drawer. “if you don’t mind.”

“i can clean up my own mess,” jake replied, scowling.

setting the phone on the counter, sunghoon reached for a glass. “no, you can’t. not without digging your own grave. unless you want to go to prison, pack your shit, ask one of your buddies if you can stay with them for a few days, and take the tapes with you. hide them.”

jake made a face. “what are you talking about?”

sunghoon sighed. “we can’t get away with this one, son. her car’s parked outside. there’s too many loose ends.”

“we can get rid of the car. you don’t have to go to jail!” jake shouted.

“it’s either you or me. frankly, i’m doing you a favor. you wouldn’t last two seconds behind bars,” sunghoon hissed. he grabbed another glass, sliding it across the counter, then said, “now, wine? you know, to celebrate your old man going away? i believe that’s what you want.”

jake shook his head. never in his life had he been so conflicted. his father that he’d been so bent on despising until he the day he died was voluntarily confessing to a crime he didn’t commit, just so that his son wouldn’t have to suffer in prison.

“why are you doing this?” jake asked, bristling with emotion.

sunghoon sighed. “because i love you, son. even if you don’t think so. and because your mother would be turning in her grave if she knew you were in prison.”

jake blew out a breath. then, after a moment of reluctance, he grabbed the glass on the counter and reached for the wine bottle.

sunghoon snickered. “atta boy.”

“i wonder how your son reacted when he learned you were going to prison for murder,” you said, pondering. “you live in the same house. i wonder how he didn’t know.”

sunghoon lied, “he was at a friend’s house when i killed her. doesn’t like that it was his favorite professor.”

you nodded along, buying his lies. “that is a lot to take in. i mean, imagine your dad was having an affair with your favorite science professor. then, he kills her, like how he killed your mom.”

sunghoon shrugged his shoulders. “have you never heard the phrase ‘the heart wants what it wants?’”

“i have,” you replied. “and i guess your heart wanted to stop the function of others.”

sunghoon laughed at his own expense. “oh, please. you give me too much credit. you shouldn’t make me out to be more romantic than i am.”

you shook your head in disappointment. “you make these women want you, and then you undo everything. that has to be part of the amusement to you.”

“it gets a chuckle or two out of me.”

your lips were tempted to curl into a frown for the umpteenth time that day alone. “why?”

sunghoon leaned up in his chair, exclaiming, “because it’s fun!”

you were going to say something, but he didn’t give you the chance.

sunghoon continued, “everyday, as adults, we do the same job for hours and come home. people want excitement in their lives. women get exhausted of coming home to their husbands or nobody at all.”

your stare was blank. “and your point is?”

“i didn’t just make those women want me, baby. i made them need me,” sunghoon told you smugly. “i brought a spark to their lives, and i took it away just as fast. and i do it… because i can.”

“because you could,” you corrected, confident he would never be free of this place for as long as he lived. “you’re going to be in here a very, very long time.”

sunghoon grinned. “i wouldn’t be so sure.”

you cocked your brow. “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“wouldn’t you like to know?” sunghoon teased. you hated the smugness in his tone. like he knew something that you didn’t.

the door opened, and the guard from earlier returned. “i hate to interrupt, but it’s time for the count,” he said, coming behind sunghoon to undo his cuffs.

it all happened in a blink. sunghoon’s weight was pressed flush against yours, roughly thrusting you into the table. your body screamed, agony spreading through your side, but your gun was in a lockbox outside the room.

sunghoon knew from your conversations alone that you weren’t the type to go quietly. your first instinct was to fight back. naturally, you struggled against his hold, refusing to bend to his will even as panic shot through your chest. your whole body was on guard, aiming for survival.

but to your misfortune, your might was no match for sunghoon’s. you glanced to the guard for assistance, but when he only stood there as if he was waiting for it to end, the most unsettling feeling of realization washed over you.

“don’t fight him,” the guard said, arms crossed. “you won’t win.”

sunghoon snickered when he noticed your eyes widen in shock. you hadn’t seen that coming. though you tried to resist, it was over once his slender fingers came to your throat, and you genuinely feared for your life.

you didn’t realize how good you had it just being able to breathe until you couldn’t anymore. your breaths wouldn’t come. it felt as if your bones were being crushed. your whole body was on fight mode, but it was like sunghoon had the reins, shutting down your senses one by one.

“you put up a good fight, detective,” sunghoon whispered darkly in your ear, admiring your struggle.

your lips parted, but you couldn’t speak no matter how hard you tried. your self-preservation instincts were no match against him. all you could do was meet sunghoon’s stare. the pressure on your neck was too much to handle, and in seconds, you were out.

“lights out,” sunghoon said. he released your throat, having no intention of killing you and leading you for dead, but knowing that you would likely regain consciousness in a matter of seconds, he grabbed you by the hair, smashing your head flat against the table to subdue you.

heeseung winced, but he did nothing to step in. “poor girl,” he mumbled under his breath, pitying you. “had enough?”

“for now,” sunghoon replied. “let’s go.”

heeseung gave sunghoon a uniform to wear so that he would blend in amongst the uniforms like heeseung had and when he was ready, the two of them fled before they could be deterred.

when they had successfully gotten away, heeseung asked with his hand on a steering wheel, “you know that i don’t agree with this, right?”

sunghoon snickered. it had absolutely been said. “you haven’t agreed with my lifestyle for the past twenty-five years, yet you still help me. why?”

heeseung frowned. sometimes, he asked himself the same question, but deep down inside, he knew the answer. “because we may not share blood, but we’re brothers,” heeseung replied. “and for my brother, i’ll do anything you need.”

sunghoon quipped, “like smuggle me across the border?”

“like smuggle you across the border,” heeseung said, chuckling. “when we get there, there’s gonna be this dude named sunoo. he’s gonna help you out. i’ll be in touch.”

sunghoon nodded. “i can’t thank you enough, man.”

“just lay low and stay out of trouble,” heeseung said, shaking his head.

sunghoon grinned with mischief. he was already thinking about all of the beautiful women he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. “no promises,” he answered, sighing contentedly.

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patheticperipatetic · 9 months ago

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youtube

Fun fact, you can look at the earth live from the ISS.

If you see this blazed it's cuz I get a monthly blaze and I this is the post I wanna share.

The ISS feed has three looks:

The "It's in Earth's Shadow" black screen

The switching access points (since it moves)

And the 👁️👄👁️

45 minutes in the sun, 45 minutes in Earth's Shadow, (90 minute orbit) so half the time there's nothing to show. Minus! the time that the video feed is shut off for bandwidth. So less then half the time it's awe inspiring but the times when it is: amazing.

I bought a 4 or 5 inch monitor for my desk that's just a browser window to this YouTube page.

You can hear the astronauts talk to ground control. If you're not expecting it you'll just hear a voice suddenly start. A lot of it is mundane stuff like "hey, these serial numbers don't match up, what do I do?" or "houston the barcode scanner isn't syncing with the ipad, I've tried rebooting both".

#nasa #iss #international space station #Youtube

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rauspberries · 29 days ago

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HIGH EXPECTATIONS!

summary: you get yourself hurt in the field. aaron covers up his worry with frustration. pairing: aaron hotchner x bau!reader. tags: afab reader, pre-established built-up tension, mentions of violence & murder, r gets the shit kicked out of them, aaron doesn't know how to use his words like a big boy, r hates that he can't just give her some emotion, mentions of r having daddy issues [self-insert] word count: 3.1k notes: this oneshot went through eighty different prompts & eighty different rewrites before i got even slightly happy enough to post it. based off of a request for #15 of the excuse prompts. enjoy!

This case had been killer, pun unintended. At first, it had just been a consult. A police station in Omaha, Nebraska asking for assistance in locating a serial killer that had been murdering young, brunette women after he had left a few notes for them at crime scenes. Then, you had to fly out in the early morning on Monday once he had struck again, to get a feel for the crime scene and to get a better grip on victimology.

By the time you had located the unsub, two more dead bodies and six nights of little to no sleep later, you had been absolutely exhausted. A self-diagnosed chronic overachiever, your last week had consisted of nights filled with bad coffee, staring at photos of dead bodies and scribbling unintelligible notes on more sticky notes than was good for the environment. All you prayed for was to catch the bad guy, wrap up the case and take a nice long nap on the two-and-a-half hour long plane ride back home.

The worst part about it was that your exhaustion was noticeable. As you had been putting on your vest, Hotch had walked up to you, fingertips brushing against your elbow to catch your attention. One glance at his face told you everything you needed to know. The wrinkles forming between his eyebrows, the barely noticeable squint of his eyes, the white line on his lips from pressing them together - he was worried.

He’d tried to convince you not to go. That paperwork needed to be done, that he and the rest of the team could handle it, that he needed someone to stay there. In the end, you had won the tense stand-off, steely brow and all. Admittedly, he’d always been too soft on you, too quick to back down when you argued back. Never able to actually say no.

Looking back on it all, he probably should’ve tried harder.

You remembered the night in flashes. Foot getting caught on something hidden in the untamed grass as you separated from the team, sending you sprawling on the dew-soaked ground, mud seeping into your clothes. The clacking sound of a boot kicking away your weapon. The burst of pain in your torso as the unsub sent multiple steel-toed kicks into your ribs and face, followed by a cry - your own, although it sounded like it came from a mile away. A thud you later recognized as the unsub getting tackled to the ground and the clicking of handcuffs.

Hotch had slid into the grass next to you moments after. He would’ve gotten to you faster if it wasn’t for the distance or the ache in his back he hadn’t been able to shake since he was thirty. His fingertips had brushed against the blooming bruise on your cheekbone, nerves sparking with a reminder that you were still alive.

Now, a few days of monitoring later, you sit on the edge of your bed in a hospital room. Luckily for you, the unsub hadn’t been able to do too much damage to you in the bit of time he had been kicking you around. An ugly bruise on your cheek, bruised ribs, a grade 2 concussion and a small pneumothroax when you had first arrived at the hospital.

Could’ve been worse. You could be dead, if he had been smart enough to go for your gun instead. Fool.

You’re standing up to tie the strings on your sweatpants [and struggling to do so] when there’s a knock at the door. Glancing over your shoulder, you’re met with the sight of Hotch, dressed in a maroon polo and jeans. It’s almost startling, seeing him in something other than a tailored suit, but it's not unwelcome. The shirt stretches at the broadness of his chest and shoulders, hugging the toned muscle of his biceps and chest. The way he looks is sinful, especially compared to your raggedty t-shirt and old sweatpants.

He’s your boss, he’s your boss, he’s your boss…

“Are you decent?” He rumbles, shutting the door slowly behind him. Despite the question, his eyes brush over you quickly, lingering on the bruise on your cheek with a guarded look. He loved making it impossible for you to read him, even with the whole being-a-profiler thing and all.

With a soft scoff of amusement, you quirk a brow at him. “Don’t think it matters, since you’re already looking at me.” It’s a gentle tease, an attempt to break the tension that has settled over the room, although you note the slight grimace that takes over his face and the way his eyes immediately divert from your face, like he was caught red-handed. What he doesn’t know is that you’d do anything to keep his focus on you, even if it meant getting pummelled in the face and ribs again.

It was no secret that there was something going on between you and Hotch. Unspoken, not acted upon, inappropriate, but there. It wasn’t named, or mentioned, just known. Like really flirting with a friend you’d never date, or a gift left on a kitchen counter and never spoken about. It’d become its own entity, hovering around you and growing more irritating by the milisecond, covered by stale jokes from you and a feigned indifference from him.

It lingers in the furrow of his brow whenever the cops at the local precincts looked at you too long, at the hand brushing your back when you stepped into or out of the SUVs, at the quiet murmuring of a nickname when he had joined you in the back of the ambulance. And now it hovers in this hospital room like a thick fog, watching you with a tough facade that covers up the relief of seeing you up and alive, of being at a hospital with you in Nebraska when he should be spending it at home with his son in Virginia.

Clearing your throat, you pull your focus away from that damned maroon polo, grabbing the newly-purchased stuff you had scattered across all of the tables and chairs in your room to shove them into the bag Emily had brought for you as soon as you had been told you needed to be kept for observation. “Can I help you, sir?”

With your back to him, you don’t notice the way he tenses at the formality, the raise of his shoulders and his fingers curling. Immediately after saying it, you had regretted letting it leave your mouth, wanting to crawl into your skin. It’s like you were begging him to bend you over the hospital bed. Pitiful.

His voice is tense as he speaks. “I’m here to drive you home.” A gentleman through and through, you shouldn’t be surprised, especially with the way he keeps letting his eyes roam over you, testing for any sight of pain or discomfort.

It seemed to be a habit of his, checking on your comfort levels. You haven’t been able to forget the time he’d grabbed you by the shoulder turning a case briefing, turning you around just long enough to silently rip off the tag of your shirt after noticing that it had been irritating the back of your neck all meeting. Stupid profiling. A dumb skill to have, even if it kept you employed.

His words grasp your full attention, face contorting in confusion as you whip around to look at him. “Why? I could’ve gotten someone else to drive me. I’m sure you have things to do. You know, clean the house, organize your button-ups by color. Black, white, slightly off-white.”

Unlucky for your inability to not crack a joke when things got serious, Hotch’s face is back to its guarded look, arms crossed over your chest like he was just praying for you to stare at his arms. “I don’t see anyone else here, do you?” The question is pointed with a raise of his brow, carrying a smugness that he won’t let seep through the armor he’s built around himself.

“Attitude,” you hiss back, like a mother scolding their child for rolling their eyes. “I said I could've, not that I did. I was hoping to book it down the street before anyone even noticed I was gone.” A lie. You hadn’t even thought about how you were going to get home, too distracted by the fact that you were finally allowed to leave this god-forsaken place. You missed your apartment, where you could throw things on the floor and no one would come in, wrinkle their nose and pick it up for you.

Making a mess was your love language. They were silencing you here.

It’s incredibly annoying, the way Hotch continues to stand like a statue, face still in the same bored look he had painted on moments before. It’s times like these where you wonder if the unspoken connection was all in your head, a delusion that you had created due to the absence of both a romantic partner and/or a father figure in your life. Definitely plausible.

He lets out a sigh that’s bordering on sounding irritated as he lets his arms drop to his sides, gesturing to the bag you had just finished zipping up. “Hand me your bag.”

“No.” Your response is immediate, lifting it over your shoulder and immediately suffering the consequences of your actions by the pain that shoots throughout your ribs. “Fuck me,” you hiss in both shock and agony.

Again, he doesn’t respond with any sort of emotion, making you wonder if you should put a heart monitor on and hold your breath just to see something. Instead, he takes a few steps forward, the bergamot cologne on his wrist wafting through your nose as he uses one hand to pull the bag off of your arm, the other one lowering it slowly. “Don’t be stubborn,” he scolds, although it doesn’t sound much different than the bored, low tone he often sported.

Rolling your eyes, you hold your hand over your rib like you’d been punched again. “Be nice. I’m hurt.”

“You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you wouldn’t have been stubborn and had listened to me about staying at the station.” His response is immediate, as if he had been holding onto the words until you had given him a reason to use them. For a singular good-humored moment, you contemplate if Hotch was the type of guy to have an argument with someone in his head. As a former lawyer, that had to be the case, right?

The smile that has slowly started to seep into your lips at the thought immediately dissipates when he speaks your name, head raising and lips parting. “Huh?”

There it is, the tilt of his head downward, forming what he thinks is a scowl. “I said, can we please go?”

Another roll of your eyes. “Well, since you asked so politely,” you sarcastically respond. Slipping on the cheap slippers that Emily had bought for you at the local Walmart, you follow behind Hotch like a lost puppy, gaze taking in everything around you like you hadn’t been outside in years.

As he leads you out of the entrance and into the parking lot, the thick silence stretching around you starts to make you nervous. You’ve been hurt in the field before – it usually came with the job – but he had never been quiet after the fact. It was also something.

So and so weeks until you come back.

Are you feeling okay?

Is there anything we can do for you? But there was nothing coming from him. You’re forced to stare at his back as he walks two steps ahead of you, arms swinging beside him as he scans the parking lot like someone was going to jump out and finish the job on you. Tense shoulders, gritted jaw. He was giving you the silent treatment, like a petulant child.

The thought eats at you until you finally get to the SUV, his hand grabbing the door handle on the passenger side to open it for you. Even in his obvious brooding, he is ever the gentleman, not allowing you to make any move by yourself. Chivalry is ingrained into his being, and it just pisses you off more.

You pounce as soon as he settles in the driver seat. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Hotch’s brow raises so high you swear it dips into his hairline. “I’m sorry?”

With a wince and a soft grunt, you turn yourself to face him, stubbornly crossing your arms over your chest. “You’re ignoring me. I got the shit kicked out of me and you haven’t asked me if I’m okay once, yet you look at me like I’m going to fall apart. What is happening? Why are you mad at me?”

There it was, the slight widening of his eyes, the soft tell of him trying to pretend nothing was wrong. It was the same thing that happened every time someone asked him if he was okay. A widen of his dark eyes to smoothen out the permanent crease on his forehead, the loosening of his lips that took out the tension in his jaw. “I’m not mad at you.” Liar.

Displeasure pools deep in your gut, heart thudding against your ribcage in the anxiety that takes over you. Suddenly you’re a child again, begging for your friends to stop lifting their chin up at you and just tell you what you had done wrong. “Hotch, please talk to me.” It comes out as a plea, making your agitation bubble up into your throat, burning. Why did you have to beg for an answer when he was the one ignoring you? He’s quiet as he turns the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life and the silence filled with the soft thrum. You don’t back down, staring at him intently as he places a hand on the back of your headrest, reversing out of your parking space and pulling off.

You sear your gaze into the side of his face until he lets out a soft sigh, hardening around the corners as he prepares to pull out his best bout of professionalism. “What you did was unprofessional. You should’ve never gone into the field with the lack of sleep you had, nor should you have split up from everyone else.” For a split moment, he lets his focus move off of the road in front of him, fixing you with a hard look before glancing away.

A scoff leaves you, eyes rolling dramatically. “Please. Everyone on this team has put themselves in harm's way at some point or another, whether on purpose or out of some innate need to do something stupid. If this were anyone else, you wouldn’t be riding them half as hard and you know it.” The accusation comes out a bit snappier than you want it to, especially since he is your superior, but red is clouding your vision and your heart is leading the way you speak and act.

“They are not you.” He responds with gritted teeth. He doesn’t raise his voice, because he never does, pretending like he’s keeping calm in the face of everything that happens. What he doesn’t tend to notice is that the longer he continues trying to guard himself, the easier it gets to notice all of his telltale signs. Either that, or you’re so far gone in thoughts about him that you’ve noticed all of them.

At his words, your frustration dissolves slowly until it's completely moot, leaving you staring at him with a lax brow and slightly agape mouth. “What does that mean?” No anger, no distaste, just pure curiosity.

There’s that ghost again, floating in the cab of the SUV, hanging out on the center console between you. Thick and heavy, hovering, taunting. It’s the type of feeling that makes you want to reach over, grab him by the collar of that stupid fucking polo and smack a fat one on his lips. You couldn’t complain about him not speaking to you when he was busy shoving his tongue down your throat, could you?

You don’t answer that question. You’d probably still find a way to argue. He’s infuriating. Insufferable sometimes.

Hotch’s tongue runs along the line of his bottom lip as he debates on what to say. “I shouldn’t have let you go. I could tell how exhausted you were. That, mixed with your damn stubbornness.” He shakes his head, glancing out the side window as he pulls into the private side of the airport.

Something grips at your chest, cold fingers around your heart giving it a soft squeeze. For the first time since this ubiquitous feeling had settled over the both of you, he was finally giving you something. A little peek into the shield he had fortified over the years, a soft spot for only you to see. A glimpse into a future where everything isn’t just in your head.

“Hotch, it’s not your fault,” you murmur, voice suddenly feeling too loud in the small space of the car. “You tried to tell me not to go, but I didn’t listen. That makes it my stupid fault.” Your nose wrinkles, pulling a wince from you at the ache in your cheekbone.

His arm flexes as he puts the SVU into park, bracing his elbow on the center console to turn and look at you. There’s a soft silence as he fights his own mental battle, but you let him. There was no use in arguing with someone who had spent most of his life doing everything on his own. That included self-soothing at times.

Finally, he reaches out, brushing his knuckles against the splotchy bruise on your cheekbone. A gentle touch that sends a shiver all the way down to your toes, sparking and tingling. “You’re okay?” He asks, the question loaded with a lot more than just wondering how you feel physically.

Tilting your head enough to lean into his touch, you nod. “I’m okay.” To punctuate your point, you even give him a small smile, blinking slowly, like he’d disappear if you blinked too fast.

It’s obvious that he doesn’t believe you, however he nods back anyways, pulling his hand away from you. Without a word, he opens his door, stepping out of the car and coming around to open your door just as you reached for it.

You don’t speak the entire time you grab your luggage, handing it off to the ramp agents, and make your way onto the jet. There, you settle into seats from across each other.

The feeling will always be a ghost, haunting the both of you. But for now, it’s comfortable.

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner one shot #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x bau!reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x bau!Reader #criminal minds x you #criminal minds oneshot #criminal minds x fem!reader

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ds-angel1 · 13 days ago

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how serial killer!rafe infantilizes candy!reader

cw: murder, dd/lg, drugging, (forced) infantalisation, conditioning

Picks out your clothes daily: baby pink jumpers, frilly socks, shirts with cartoons, flowy dresses, and overalls; he calls anything else “not for his girl.”

Pre-chews or cuts your food: he’s “making sure you don’t choke, sweets.” Even at restaurants.

Won’t let you have sharp objects. “Why would my baby need scissors? You’ll hurt yourself.”

Reads you bedtime stories: real ones, or made-up ones about princesses being rescued by men with knives.

Bans caffeine and alcohol, (but gives you sedatives and “mood candy” in cutesy pillboxes you decorated.)

Only calls you “baby,” “princess,” “kitten,” or “doll.” ect., He never uses your real name, he says it sounds too grown.

Rewards you with praise for being helpless:“You’re such a good girl for letting Daddy handle it.”“That’s right, no thinking, just smile for me.”

Corrects your tone if you sound “too adult.”“Ah ah, use your soft voice, baby. Remember?”

Encourages babytalk. Pretends not to understand you unless you use cutesy words.

Tells you scary, complex things (like taxes, politics, or crime) are “way too much for your soft little brain.”

Your wardrobe is 80% themed: cupcakes, animals, pastel florals, glitter jelly shoes, or footie pajamas.

Insists you wear lip gloss and blush but nothing “mature.” No red lipstick, no eyeliner, “makes you look mean.”

Only buys you coloring books and kids toys, nothing that you need actual brain power to do or use.

Keeps the remote for the TV hidden when he leaves so you can’t watch anything but the kids channel.

Tells strangers you’re “special” or “slow” so they won’t talk to you directly.

Uses pacifiers when you’re stressed, says it “calms her.” Sometimes he soaks them in syrup or drugs.

Keeps you under a surveillance system with baby monitor audio, GPS bracelet, and room camera. Just in case.

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certaimromance · 5 months ago

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𝜗𝜚 Calamitous Love.

Spencer Reid x BAU!reader

main masterlist

Summary: After an accident, many memories are wiped from your mind. Luckily, your fiancé is always by your side...but were you planning to break off the engagement before the accident?

Words: 3,7k.

Warnings & Tags: fem!reader. mention of injuries, serial killers, memory loss, traffic accident. SO bittersweet. angst with open ending. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).

Note: I am just like Matthew and sometimes I love to traumatize Spencer, I’m sorry but I miss the one shots.

Spencer Reid was the perfect man. His bright brown eyes, warm and impossibly sincere, never lied. His thin lips had a special way of puckering when he thought too much, a telltale sign of his mind working through puzzles only he could solve. And his heart, the purest you had ever known, overflowed with kindness, empathy, and a love so profound it felt almost unreal. Spencer Reid was smart, brilliant beyond measure, with a mind that held an entire universe of knowledge. He could recite the most obscure facts with ease, analyze the most complex theories in seconds, and yet, the most precious thing about him was his willingness to learn how to love you the way you needed to be loved. He observed, listened, and adapted, making sure every touch, every word, and every glance was precisely what would make you feel cherished. Because Spencer Reid was everything anyone could wish to have, and yet, against all odds, you were the lucky one who had him.

You happily reminded yourself of that every single day as you looked down at your engagement ring, the one he had given you, a tangible reminder that he had chosen you just as wholeheartedly as you had chosen him, for a lifetime together.

When you thought of marriage to him, it wasn’t just about the idea of forever. It was the depth of what that forever would mean. You remembered the moment he knelt before you, hands trembling slightly, asking the question you’d only ever dreamed of hearing. You didn’t just picture him standing at the altar, waiting for you to approach in your beautiful dress. No, you thought about everything that would come after, how it would feel to swear to love each other through all of life’s trials, even beyond death. You imagined growing old by his side, sharing the quiet moments as the years went by, and how those ordinary moments would become extraordinary in his presence. You thought about starting a family, building a life together, and raising children in a home filled with the same love and devotion you had always dreamed of.

Together through thick and thin. That thought echoed in your mind, looping over and over as you slowly drifted back to consciousness. The first thing you registered was the dull ache spreading through your body, a heavy, lingering pain that made every breath feel just a little too sharp. The sterile scent of antiseptic flooded your senses, mixing with the faint, artificial coolness of the hospital air. The steady beeping of machines provided a rhythmic pulse to the silence. Blinking against the dim light, your gaze slowly adjusted to your surroundings. The faint glow of a monitor, the crisp white sheets draped over you, the IV taped to your arm. But none of it answered the one question that burned in your mind. What happened?

Then, your eyes found him.

Spencer.

He was curled up on the couch beside you, his head leaning against the backrest, his posture weighed down by exhaustion. His long limbs were awkwardly folded, his body hunched forward in a way that made it clear he hadn’t moved in hours. Dark circles bruised the delicate skin beneath his eyes, and yet, even in sleep, he remained tethered to you. His fingers barely grazed the edge of your gurney, as if even unconscious, he needed to be close. Needed to feel you were still there.

Your gaze drifted lower, catching the soft gleam of metal on his finger. The engagement ring. A silent promise. A future you had once envisioned so clearly. And without thinking, you glanced at your own hand, expecting the comforting weight of your matching ring. But all you found was the sterile chill of the IV line taped to your skin. Your heart stuttered. A small, uneasy pit settled in your stomach. Where is it?

You looked up just as Spencer stirred, his body shifting as he slowly blinked awake. A groggy hand dragged across his face, fingers rubbing at his tired eyes in an attempt to shake off the haze of sleep. And then, his gaze landed on you.

Relief hit him like a crashing wave. His posture snapped upright, exhaustion momentarily forgotten as his entire focus narrowed in on you. The sheer intensity of his expression sent warmth flooding through your chest, his eyes roamed your face as if memorizing every detail, as if needing to reassure himself that you were really okay.

“You’re awake,” he breathed, his voice rough from sleep, yet thick with emotion. His hand moved toward yours instinctively, but then he hesitated, hovering for just a moment, uncertainty flickering in his eyes, as if he feared you might pull away. But when you didn’t, his fingers brushed against your skin, hesitant yet desperate for contact. “How do you feel? Are you in pain? Should I get a nurse?”

Your lips parted to answer, but the words didn’t come immediately. Your throat was dry, and your mind was sluggish, struggling to pull itself together. The memories that flickered in your mind felt like fragments of a broken puzzle, pieces that were out of reach, not quite forming a whole picture. The last thing you could clearly recall felt distant, blurred at the edges like a forgotten dream, slipping through your fingers as you tried desperately to hold onto it.

You cleared your throat, your voice low, barely above a whisper. “What…happened? Why am I here?”

Your fiancé's expression shifted instantly, relief giving way to something heavier, something uncertain. His fingers curled slightly against your hand, his grip featherlight yet steady, as if afraid he might hurt you. He exhaled a slow, measured breath, gathering his thoughts before answering.

“You were in a car accident,” he said softly, his voice cracking slightly under the weight of the words, though he kept his gaze steady on you.

A car accident.

The words felt foreign, distant, like they belonged to someone else’s reality, not yours. Of all the ways you could have been hurt, this was the least likely, the least expected. Your life was a constant dance with danger, chasing monsters through dark alleyways, walking into crime scenes still heavy with the ghosts of violence, facing down men who thrived on fear. Those were the risks you understood, the dangers you had accepted long ago.

But this? This was ordinary. This was the kind of thing that happened to people who weren’t constantly looking over their shoulders, to people who weren’t trained to anticipate threats before they struck. You weren’t reckless. You weren’t careless. You didn’t lose control.

“You abandoned the way,” he continued softly, watching you closely. “They said you must’ve lost control, maybe got distracted…or something. Your car went off the road and crashed into a ditch.” His voice faltered, just slightly, as if saying the words out loud made them more real. It was as if almost for a moment, a trace of guilt had escaped in his tone.

A cold chill ran through you, a sense of vertigo pulling at your chest. You stared at him, eyes wide, trying to process, trying to understand. But your mind remained blank, an empty canvas where everything should have been. There were no fragments of memories of the accident. No flashes of panic or the sudden jolt of the car swerving out of control. No sensation of the crash itself, just a void, a sharp nothingness.

“I don’t remember,” you whispered, the words slipping out as you blinked, as though trying to will the memories back into place.

“That’s normal,” he said, his voice soothing, though there was an unmistakable trace of worry beneath it. “Memory loss can happen after a concussion. It might come back soon.”

A concussion. The dull ache in your skull suddenly made sense. You lifted your free hand instinctively, but he was quicker, catching your wrist before your fingers could brush against what you now realized was a bandage wrapped around your head.

“You hit your head pretty hard,” he said, his thumb absently tracing over your skin, as if grounding himself as much as grounding you. “But the doctors said you’re going to be okay. You just…need time.”

Time.

It should have been comforting. But all you could think about was the emptiness of your memory, the lost hours, the lost moment when everything must have gone wrong, and the exact reasons why. You didn't usually drive alone, you didn't like the silence of the car, and you took your fiancé with you wherever you went. However, he seemed unharmed and just tired. You felt very confused, pressured, and lost as you remembered the ring that was missing from your finger.

You swallowed hard, trying to push past the dizziness that seemed to rise with every thought, trying to steady your racing heart. Your voice came out steadier this time, though there was still a tremor in it. “Where’s my ring?”

Spencer blinked at you, clearly taken off guard by the question. “What ring?” he asked, his brows furrowing, confusion flickering in his eyes.

“The most important ring in the world, love,” you whispered. “My engagement ring.”

The silence that followed seemed eternal, the tension palpable, thick in the air between the two of you. Spencer's eyes widened when he realized what you were speaking, and his breath caught. He blinked, as if trying to understand why the absence of the ring you'd taken off yourself had bothered you so much, why you'd called him “love” after two months of not doing so, why his touch suddenly didn't seem to bother you. Something wasn’t right, and it was all too clear to him now. Something was wrong with you.

The realization hit him like a bolt, but before he could say anything, you broke the moment, the tension too much to bear. “This sucks,” you muttered, your voice quieter now but tinged with frustration. “My head hurts.”

The sudden shift in your tone startled him, pulling him back to the present. His concern resurfaced, his gaze softening as he quickly leaned closer, his hand still holding yours. “How much? On a scale of one to ten?” he asked, his voice anxious, the worry evident in his eyes.

You squeezed your eyes shut, the pressure in your skull making everything feel worse, as if you could feel your brain pulsing in rhythm with the pain. Your fingers tightened around his hand. “Eleven,” you muttered, trying to force the words out with a breathless chuckle. The ridiculousness of it wasn’t lost on you, but you didn’t care. The truth was that it hurt, and you needed something else. Anything to make the ache go away.

His expression darkened with concern, and you saw his muscles tense as though he were already preparing to leave and find a nurse, a doctor, anyone who could help you. But before he could move, you caught his hand in yours, your fingers curling around his. “No,” you said softly, shaking your head. “Don’t call a doctor.”

He hesitated for a moment, still unsure of what to do, but his eyes never left you, his worry so palpable that you could practically feel it like a weight pressing down on both of you. “Then what do you need?” he asked gently, his voice soft, almost pleading. His thumb brushed lightly across your knuckles as if trying to comfort you, as if trying to bring you back to something you could hold onto.

You didn’t answer him right away. Instead, you let out a shaky breath, still feeling the tension in your body, the unease that gripped you. Your fingers slid to the side of his face, the touch so light it almost felt like a dream, and you tilted your head to meet his gaze.

“Give me love,” you whispered, the words escaping your lips with a sudden tenderness, an unexpected vulnerability. You needed him. Not just in the way your body craved the relief of his touch, but in the deeper, more desperate way that your soul was aching for connection, for his warmth.

Spencer blinked, his breath catching as he looked at you, clearly surprised by your request. He took a small, confused step back, his brows furrowing in bewilderment. “What?”

“Kiss me, fool,” you murmured, your voice lower now, almost teasing, trying to make light of the moment even though everything inside you felt like it was unraveling. You could see the hesitation in his eyes, the way he was torn between the confusion that had settled in his mind and the longing in his chest.

The way you’d spoken to him, the way you’d touched him, it was all too much. Yet too little, too fragile, and too desperate at once.

“You…you want me to kiss you?” His voice was quiet, still unsure. But you could see the faintest shimmer of hope in his eyes, a flicker of something that made him believe, just for a second, that maybe things weren’t as broken as they seemed. That maybe you were still you, still his, still something real, even if everything else had changed.

“Don’t tell me my face looked that bad after the accident,” you teased, your voice weak but laced with a dry humor you hoped might ease the tension hanging between you both.

“No…you’re perfect, pretty as always.”

You tilted your head slightly, still feeling the remnants of confusion and loneliness swirling in the space between you both. “You said that because you love me,” you murmured, a small smile playing at the corner of your lips, but it was tinged with a vulnerability you could no longer hide. “Now I want a mirror.”

“A mirror?” He repeated, his voice soft but curious, unsure of where this was leading. He glanced around the room as if expecting a mirror to appear out of nowhere, but the expression on your face made it clear that wasn’t the answer you were seeking. His eyes turned back to you, searching for more understanding.

“Or a kiss,” you added quietly, the weight of the words making your chest tighten. “Hug, touch? I need physical affection.”

Spencer’s breath caught again. His fingers twitched slightly as if wanting to reach out, but still, something held him back. Something about the rawness of your request, the way you were looking at him with that strange mixture of vulnerability and need, made him pause. The last few months, the distance, the silence, the space, it all came rushing back, threatening to collapse in on him, on both of you. He didn’t know how to bridge the gap, but here you were, asking for something he hadn’t dared hope for, something real, something close.

You needed him.

His eyes softened, and for a brief, fleeting moment, the world outside of the hospital room seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of you. His heart ached with the weight of everything unsaid, everything that had been left unspoken for too long. “You…you need physical affection?” he whispered, almost as if testing the words on his own tongue, seeing how they felt.

Reid swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he processed your words. His mind was spinning, struggling to reconcile the warmth in your voice, the softness in your gaze, with the cold, distant reality he had been living in for the past two months. The reality where your hands no longer reached for his, where your voice had lost that teasing lilt whenever you spoke to him, where you had looked at him with something closer to exhaustion than love. But now, now, you were here, in front of him, looking at him like this, touching him like this, speaking to him like this. And he didn’t know what to do with it.

His fingers twitched against yours, but he didn’t pull away. He couldn’t. Not when you were looking at him with that quiet plea in your eyes, not when your touch was so familiar, achingly so.

“You need physical affection?” He repeated it, almost as if saying it aloud would help him believe it. “From me?”

A small frown creased your forehead, as if the question itself was absurd. “Of course, from you,” you murmured, your thumb tracing the back of his hand in a slow, lingering movement. “Who else would I want it from, if not my future husband?”

Spencer’s mouth opened as if to speak, then faltered, the words caught somewhere in the space between his thoughts and reality. For a brief moment, everything clicked. It all made sense now.

You didn’t remember more than the accident.

You didn’t remember the nights you had spent on opposite ends of the apartment, the silences that stretched longer than either of you could fill. You didn’t remember the fights that had grown from whispered frustrations into full-blown arguments, the sharp words that had cut deeper than either of you had intended. You didn’t remember the moment you had taken off your engagement ring, the way you had placed it on the counter with trembling fingers, saying, I don’t know if this is working anymore, Spence. You didn’t remember that you had been on the verge of leaving him.

And yet now, here you were, lying in a hospital bed, looking up at him with those same eyes that once held every piece of his heart, asking for him. Asking for his love, his touch, his kiss, as if none of it had ever been broken. As if nothing had changed.

His chest ached.

He should tell you. He should tell you the truth. He should remind you of the distance that had grown between you, the hurt that had seeped into every corner of what you once were. He should remind you that you had been slipping through his fingers for two months now, that this moment, this closeness, was something neither of you had shared in what felt like forever.

But God, how could he? How could he break this? How could he take away the way you were looking at him, touching him, and loving him when it was the only thing he had wanted for so long?

You smiled softly, a small, teasing glint in your eyes, the same expression he had missed more than he could admit. “I don’t need another doctor,” you said, your voice light but filled with need. “I just need my doctor Reid. I need you now.”

His breath caught.

God, how many nights had he stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, wishing to hear those words again? How many times had he replayed every conversation, every argument, trying to pinpoint the exact moment everything had started slipping through his fingers? How many times had he wished you’d look at him like this again, like he was your home?

“Do you…” He hesitated, then swallowed. “Do you remember the last thing we talked about? Before the accident?”

You blinked at him, momentarily thrown by the question. “No, I—” You paused, thinking. Then, after a moment, you laughed, rolling your eyes. “Probably something dumb, like what we should have for dinner.”

You didn’t remember. You didn’t remember the raw, biting argument that had escalated, the way words that were meant to heal had instead poisoned the air between you. The cutting words you had both thrown at each other, the ones that lingered long after you had left the apartment, your heart pounding with regret and pain. You didn’t remember that you had almost walked away for good.

But now? Right now, you were looking at him like he was still your safe place. Like he was still yours.

“I…” He inhaled sharply, trying to steady himself, the words lodged in his throat like shards of glass. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured, his voice breaking with the weight of his own uncertainty.

“You’re not hurting me.” You let out a small, breathy chuckle, squeezing his hand. “The only thing hurting me right now is this damn headache.”

Spencer exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment. This was dangerous. This was reckless. He knew that. But when he opened his eyes again and saw you, saw the way you were still waiting, still trusting, still his, something in him cracked.

Slowly, hesitantly, his free hand lifted, fingertips grazing the side of your face. You leaned into his touch instantly, and he felt his heart stutter, his breath catching in his throat.

God.

How could he let go of this?

His grip on your face tightened slightly, barely noticeable, but you still felt it. Your expression softened, your thumb grazing over his knuckles, grounding him. “Spence?”

He inhaled sharply, trying to push back the lump in his throat. He should tell you. He needed to tell you. But the words wouldn’t come. Because right now, in this moment, you were still his. You were looking at him like he was your everything. Like you wanted him.

And selfishly, pathetically, he wanted to hold onto that. Just for a little longer.

So instead of answering your question, instead of pulling away like he probably should have, he did the one thing he knew he shouldn’t do.

He gave in.

He leaned forward, his movements slow, hesitant, his fingers tightening around yours. His free hand came up to cradle your face, his thumb brushing gently against your cheek, as if memorizing the warmth of your skin. And when your lips parted slightly, your breath mixing with his, he closed the space between you and kissed you.

Soft. Tentative.

A kiss that held every unsaid word, every unshed tear, every moment he thought he had lost you for good. It wasn’t hurried or desperate. It was slow, tentative, almost like he was afraid you would pull away, that you would remember everything you had wanted to forget. But you didn’t. You melted into him, sighing against his lips, your fingers curling around the fabric of his sleeve, holding him close.

For the first time in months, Spencer Reid didn’t feel like he was losing you. For the first time in months, he allowed himself to believe, just for a fleeting moment, that maybe he hadn’t lost you at all.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x fanfiction #spencer reid x you #spencer reid angst #matthew gray gubler #mon’s fics ♡

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alexanderwales · 7 months ago

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Imagine a guy rapidly scrolling through his social media, deleting a bunch of pictures of food and posts about dinner parties, looking vaguely ill.

On his second monitor is a news site, announcing that Hannibal Lecter is a serial killer who fed his victims to dinner guests.

#hannibal

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nopanamaman · 1 year ago

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How do mutants in the Facility live?

Patreon Loredump. August 2023

One of the most frequent types of questions I get are about life in the Facility. So it seems like a good topic to start my loredumping series with!

Apologies in advance for all the photo examples, I hope they work fine for getting the vibes across.

Overview

The facility dome is visible in the distance.

The facility in general – or, as it’s officially known, the Zh. I. Alferov National Institute of Anomalous Research – is a large structure located on the border of the Zone. Its most notable feature is the massive dome surrounded by an outside wall.

The wall. In real life, the famous building of НИЦЭВТ.

The latter is a building in itself, containing offices, lecture halls, resting and dining quarters for researchers, as well as minor labs. All entrances are supervised, though not totally closed off to the public. Excursions, official meetings, TV reports – all of those happen within the wall.

But you will not find any mutants here. As you may have already guessed, all the major laboratories, anomalous artefacts, and, of course, mutants are housed in the dome. The entrances to the dome are monitored and equipped with anomaly scanners, allowing only authorised personnel and mutants to travel between its sectors.

Mutants cannot traverse the facility unsupervised.

What is the mutant classification system?

Depending on their anomalous characteristics, cooperability and method of containment, mutants are sorted into types and numbered groups. Individual mutant numbers usually look like XT000-000.

Let’s use Dmitry as an example.

Dima’s serial number is DT001-319.

The type constitutes the first part of the mutant’s number. Dima’s mutation is Directional Type, hence the letters DT at the start (for the record, KT stands for Kernel Type).

Next we have the 00X number. Mutants are assigned a 001, 002, 003 or 004 class depending on the potency and containability of their mutation – kinda like SCPs, yeah. Dima has a very powerful mutation he has good control over, plus he is sound of mind, making him suitable for 001 containment.

The last three digits are the overall number of the mutant within their type. So if Dima’s are 319, the facility has had 318 directional-type mutants on record prior to his arrival. This does not mean they were as powerful or had the same level of control over their telekinesis, just that they possessed a similar mutation to some extent.

How do different mutant classes live?

001

001 quarters example. Not too different from a hospital or sanatorium

Subjects ranked as 001 are extremely powerful, have good control over their powers and are, most importantly, docile. Since their mutations are very potent and difficult to forcefully contain, the go-to approach is making them not want to leave.

001s spend most (if not all) of their conscious lives surrounded by doctors. The latter foster a particular mindset in their subjects, where the world outside is presented as a place that is unanimously hostile to mutants. This is done by means of propaganda, reminders about their family’s supposed mistreatment and, in case a mutant has some favourable recollections of their childhood, gaslighting. Additionally, subjects are never left alone with each other.

001s get very luxurious treatment by facility's standards, with much bigger, more comfortable rooms than other mutant types. They're even allowed to have gaming consoles, TVs with VHS and video players, and their own bookshelves. Each mutant has their own separate room, which is kept under constant camera surveillance with the toilet being the only blind spot.

Special folders are issued to 001s before experiments with lower-ranked mutants.

Experiments held on 001s are relatively humane so as not to discourage them from staying at the facility. They do undergo daily checkups mostly designed to monitor their mental state. 001s are also active participants in experimentation on lower-ranked mutants, who they are taught and encouraged to treat as lesser beings.

001s are a high-risk investment, so their numbers are far smaller than those of 002 and 003-class mutants. Additionally, because of the potential danger they present, the institute is quick to dispose of 001 subjects by either termination or reclassification to 004. Though, if a 001 manages to stay cooperative long-term, they can become a very valuable asset for the facility.

002 and 003

002 and 003 quarters example. Though, they’re typically not as well-kept

002 and 003 mutant classes can be grouped together, since their treatment is largely the same. Both of these types’ mutations are easy to forcibly contain. The difference is their danger levels. 003s require close monitoring to not be harmful to others, while 002s are borderline harmless. Both types are characterised by general cooperability.

002s live in wards for 2 to 4 people, while 003s are more commonly placed in single-person wards to prevent accidents. A standard room includes a bed, a desk and a small bathroom (multiple beds and two desks in bigger wards).

KT got to take a dinosaur plushie to her room for good behaviour.

Mutants are allowed to borrow books from the library, as well as get drawing and writing materials. If they behave well, they can get a toy or even be lent a handheld console for a few days.

002s and 003s have breakfasts, lunches and dinners together, and can spend some time in the playroom with other mutants (that’s also where they can play computer games and watch TV) – all under very strict surveillance, of course.

In some ways, their treatment is much less cruel than that of the elite 001 subjects.

KT before the DT experiment.

Though, not when it comes to experiments. 002s and 003s are very common, and are thus treated as disposable material in a scientific sense. The people holding experiments on them are a lot less concerned with minimising the subject’s pain or discomfort. Consequently, it’s not uncommon for mutants of these classes to sustain serious injuries or die as a result of experimentation.

That said, 002s have the highest likelihood of getting released from the facility, given they meet the conditions for it (more on that below).

004

004 quarters example. Basically a prison bunker

004 is a special category reserved for powerful mutants that refuse or physically cannot cooperate. This number can also be issued as a temporary or permanent punishment to misbehaving mutants. The 004 quarters are located underground and have the highest level of security, acting as a sort of bunker for the most dangerous subjects the facility has.

004 rooms are even more barebones than those of 002 and 003s. They have no access to entertainment (unless it is somehow required to contain their mutation) and cannot leave their room under any circumstances. They are more weapons than test subjects.

Do mutants receive education?

All mutants from class 003 and above receive basic education, learning to read, write and count. They additionally get curated history and sociology lessons. Some mutants, namely 001s, attend mandatory classes in certain disciplines to better apply their mutation. For example, Dmitry studied anatomy to know the precise positioning of internal organs.

Mutants are also free to study whatever sciences interest them in their free time by asking for educational materials at the library. Needless to say, most kids aren’t too interested in that, and are very uneducated compared to their outside peers.

Is there censorship in the facility?

All the media mutants are exposed to at the facility is strictly controlled.

6 y.o. Dima and his politically correct PSP.

The only movies, cartoons, comics, books and games allowed are those that either don't feature the Zone or mutants at all, those that show the discrimination mutants face outside, or those that are very obvious anti-mutant propaganda.

In essence, there are no positive depictions of human-to-mutant interaction, aside from ones between mutants and noble scientists. And, of course, nothing that goes against the general government ideology.

Can mutants be released from the facility?

It is generally assumed that mutants that go into the dome do not come out.

While they are largely dehumanised, the facility is still publicly presented as a sort of scientific sanatorium and hospice for those that cannot safely exist in society. Releasing mutants that know the truth behind the institute’s experiments into the wild is simply of no benefit to the government. So the majority are terminated once their scientific potential is exhausted or if they become too expensive to contain. As a result, few mutants live to adulthood.

Though, there are exceptions to the rule. Occasionally, mutants deemed non-hazardous can be released back into society. This is applicable to mutants that have not experienced significant mistreatment from the facility, lack the ability to talk about their experiences and optimally have been brainwashed by an appropriate 001 subject.

Have other mutants before DT and KT ever escaped?

The funny thing is, escapes aren’t a particularly rare occurrence.

Dmitry and Katya’s escape in KT’s Official Guide to Coolness.

Despite getting a lot of funding, the facility itself is very disorganised. Most of the money is blatantly pocketed by the higher-ups, so a lot of its structures and equipment are subpar – this includes its outdated safety systems. To top it all off, the security staff isn’t especially well-paid, so their diligence is highly questionable.

With all that piling up, there are around 3 cases of low-level escapes every year. Because of tight budgets and plenty of work to do as is, these escapes are generally brushed under the rug. The institute still keeps tabs on the escapees in case they happen to show up on the radar, but it rarely organises active searches or alerts the public for that matter.

DT and KT’s escape stood out because it was anything but low-level, and pretty bombastic at that. But even that didn’t warrant a public announcement for fear of panic and reputational damage. So if you’re an 003 mutant looking for an opportunity to sneak out… Hell, man, just go for it.

Wrap-up

That’s about all I can say about mutants’ life in the research centre, scratch some small factoids here and there. I tried to answer the most common questions regarding the topic, so I hope your curiosity was satisfied!

#loredump #deepest lore #parties are for losers #katya #dmitry #dr temnova #comfort zone #kt's official guide to coolness

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loveindefinitely · 2 years ago

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༊*·˚ NEW JOBS AND DEATH THREATS — cod x reader

CRAVE YOU — call of duty x reader CHAPTER ONE

featuring. simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish + kyle 'gaz' garrick + john 'bravo six' price + alejandro vargas + rodolfo 'rudy' parra + könig + keegan p. russ

warnings. nsfw, fem!reader, prison au, serial killer au, reverse harem, therapist/patient, medical inaccuracies, graphic violence, depictions of murder, everyone's unhinged, poly tf141, minor ships, threesomes, foursomes, gangbangs, this is not medical advice!!

series masterlist. read on ao3.

Life was hard. That was a fact.

Bills and groceries didn’t pay for themselves. That was also a fact.

Adding these two factors together, the final product will be a high-risk job in one of the highest-risk places on Earth. That’s… not a fact.

And yet, here you are, standing at the visitor entrance of Las Almas Prison, sporting a disgruntled grimace and a new pair of black slacks that you’d splurged on. They, at least, made your ass look good, although that was truly the least of your worries.

No. Your current list of worries looked something like this;

Getting Murdered

Getting Attacked

Vomiting Within The First Five Minutes Of Your New Job?

…Yeah. Something like that.

The early morning sun is blinding where it sits, just off to the side of the giant concrete building that was the main offices and Visitor Centre. The fact that you were standing in front of what was only a small part of the overall prison grounds was… alarming.

You were well aware that this was the largest prison in your country, housing the most lethal and awful of criminals. Some you’d seen either on the news, or heard of in passing conversations.

This was the real deal. And, somehow, you’d managed to find yourself being hired to work here. You. Work with serial killers. The worst of the worst.

With the stress on your bank account, and the endless struggle that was trying to find a stable career in the current job market, you simply had no other choice but to accept the offer. It paid extremely well, had great benefits, and your safety was… fairly considered.

The amount of NDAs, liability clauses and agreements, however?

Not the best at calming your nerves, to say the least.

The biting chill of the winter wind has you wrapping your arms around yourself, leather bag slung over your shoulder as you finally step through the automatic sliding door.

You’re not surprised to find that the chill only deepens inside the concrete walls of the building, with no heaters or air conditioning from what you can see. There is, however, bright white overhead lights that do nothing except aid the throbbing in the side of your head – probably due to the restless sleep you’d had the night before, anticipation and anxiety warring inside of your thoughts.

There’s an office in front of you as you step in, with only a few decades-old couches to your right, in front of a dingy TV that’s turned off. Saving their budget for more important things, you suppose.

The walls are a pale, grimy yellow, with sparse photos hung about, framing newspaper articles that are surely from the last century, and black and white pictures of the prison’s opening.

It’s an unsettling place, that much you’ve already gathered.

You haven’t even actually been inside the prison, you remind yourself, your stomach churning where it now lays at your feet.

Without a second thought, you continue with hurried steps to the front desk, where scratched plastic encases the sole woman inside, sitting behind a monitor. There’s a circle of holes that allow for sound to pass through, but other than that, there’s no way of entering from this room. With a quick study of your surroundings, you see a steel door to the left of where the desk sits, with a small square window covered in iron bars.

…Jesus christ.

“Can I help you?” The woman drawls, sliding her glasses further up her nose. Her voice is nasally, and the words come out in a slow drawl as she looks you up and down, unimpressed.

You give her your best smile, although even you can tell that it’s an uneasy one. “Yes! This is my first day, I think I’m supposed to be meeting Kate Laswell?” You ask, nerves betraying your voice with unsteady breaths.

The woman snaps her gum.

You stand there.

She blows it again.

You continue to stand there.

Her gaze is bored and completely void of any thought, before she nods slowly. “Laswell… I’ll call her.”

Really, you couldn’t be more shocked if you tried. What the fuck was happening? How could one lack so much… professionalism?

“Hi, Kate. Yes, it’s Jenny. I have a new hire who apparently wants to see you…” Her voice remains that unbearably slow, sloth-like delivery, before her eyes unhurriedly meet yours again. “What’s your name…?”

You give it to her, tone only the slightest bit impatient as you roll back on the heels of your feet. You can only hope that your black boots are appropriate; you’d figured that they were safe, closed-toe and still somewhat professional.

Time would tell. Jenny was giving you the impression that they were more than acceptable, because at least they got you to do your job in a timely manner.

Jenny says a few more words to who can only pray is Laswell on the other end of the phone, before she places it back in its holder.

“Laswell will be here any…” She pops her gum once more, and maybe, just maybe, you can understand the urge to murder. “Moment.”

You give her a tight, painful smile. “Thank you, Jenny.”

She doesn’t respond, and you decide to just stand back and wait. You certainly weren’t complaining – any more conversation with her would’ve ended with a severe lack of hair on your head.

A minute passes, before a buzz in the pocket of your slacks has your throat tightening.

Pulling out your phone, your next exhale comes out shaky as you read the text.

Charlie: get milk otw home used it all

No ‘good luck’. No… ounce of care for you, or the absolute stress that comes with a new job, let alone one like this.

When you’d told him about the offer, all he’d said was, “It might make you worth something for a change.” Didn’t even question, not for a minute, the risks that came with a job like this. He simply couldn’t give less of a fuck.

“Doctor?” The sound of a door opening, and the kind, almost motherly tone of the voice has you shoving your phone into your pocket once more as you turn to the source of the sound.

It’s a woman, her hair pulled back into a slick bun, one hand holding what seems to be a clipboard. Her other hand rests in the pocket of a white coat, not unlike one a scientist would be fashioning in a lab. Her smile is warm, the corner of her eyes crinkling as you direct a smile of your own her way.

“Kate Laswell?” You ask, extending your hand for her to shake. Taking her hand out of her pocket, she accepts it gracefully, nodding her head.

“The one and only,” she says, before gesturing to the steel door she’d entered through. “Now, today we’ll get you set up with a keycard, general rules, and I’ll have you meet two of your patients.”

You nod, following her as she swipes a card in a black reader, before the red light buzzes green, and she pulls the door open. Right behind her, you take an unstable deep breath as you take in the greyed, jagged walls, a complete contrast to the painted ones of the entrance room.

“We really are so glad to welcome you to our team,” she continues, her black work shoes clicking against the smooth concrete flooring. She doesn’t turn to you as she speaks, but her voice carries around the echoey hallway. “You’ll make a great addition. A necessary one, also. We’ve needed an innovative, young therapist for a while. Most of our… previous hires have held out-dated beliefs, and a lack of humanity for their clientele.”

That makes your brows furrow in confusion. “That’s… odd,” you murmur, before pausing your steps as Laswell stops, swiping her keycard, before entering another room.

As you step into the newly revealed space, your eyes go wide as you take it in.

It’s a wide, large space, with several floors. Metal staircases sit at either end of the vast space, allowing access to every floor. Guards sit at every level, some walking around the space where you and Laswell stand.

It’s a lot, all at once. You’d never even stepped foot into a prison – not before now.

“Most inmates are at the mess for breakfast,” Laswell supplies, turning to you with a neutral expression. She gestures for you to follow her back out of the space, and you do with hurried steps. “The ones you’ll be dealing with, however… they usually eat by themselves.”

You don’t decide to push that statement, not now, as you continue to follow her down the hallway.

“You won’t be seeing much of the prison,” she admits. “There’s heavily guarded spaces on the top floor for your sessions, both for your protection and for the safety of our staff and other low-risk inmates.”

You nod, humming a sound of affirmation as the two of you start heading up the cleaner steps at the end of the hallway. The staff staircase, you suppose.

“Today, you’ll be meeting two of our more… understanding ambers.”

You raise a brow. “Ambers? What does that mean?”

She turns her head over her shoulder, just enough to shoot you a knowing look. “Ambers are our highest-risk inmates. We house ten of them, and you’ll be dealing with eight as per your contract.”

Your stomach falls. You’d known, of course, that the risks were high when applying for this role. But… this was more than you’d imagined, in a way. Ambers. Huh.

Silence falls over the two of you as you make your way up the never-ending steps, no windows in sight. It’s unnerving, in a creepy, strange way. When you finally reach the top, you try and hide how out of breath you are from that small exertion.

Fucking christ.

Laswell, for her part, looks completely fine in an effortless way. You can’t eve find it in yourself to be envious. The feeling’s closer to admiration.

“Here’s the files on them both. You’ll be seeing Kyle Garrick first,” she hands you the clipboard she’d been carrying, and you accept it with only a slight tremble. She doesn’t comment on it, and you find yourself warming up to her already. “They’ll be restrained, and there is heavy security, so you needn’t worry about that side of things.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” you say earnestly, flipping through the files without reading much of anything, not yet.

She waves you off with a soft chuckle. “None of that. Kate’s more than fine,” she insists, and you give her a bright smile in return. Maybe this job wouldn’t be so bad – a boss like this was much better than a creepy middle-aged man any day of the week.

You don’t realise you’ve made it to a small room until she stops walking, scanning her keycard and pushing the door open, gesturing you in. “While you have your first two sessions, I’ll sort your keycard and the rest of the processes out. I wish you luck.”

With that, the door shuts behind you, and you’re alone in a small room.

It matches the rest of the hallways you’ve seen – grey concrete walls, grey concrete floors. The only furniture, however, is one metal table drilled into the floor in the centre, one chair on either side.

…It’s depressing. Not at all like you’d prefer, not for a fucking therapy session, but then again, you hadn’t met your clients yet.

Ambers. High-risk.

With a deep breath, you take a seat at the chair closest to you, finally reading through the top file on the clipboard.

Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick.

You skim over the height, weight, sex – immediately reading the comments made and his sentence.

Mass murderer. Motivated attacks.

Your eyes go wide, almost comically so, as you bite at your lip, folding one leg over the other as you continue to read.

Of course, you’d prepared, been made aware that you’d be dealing with murderers. But having it in black and white, right in front of you, is a whole other thing entirely.

Apparently, they were motivated attacks. Targets being large CEOs, specifically those with reported claims of misuse of power, and those against green laws. Anti-environment types.

The motive is… you’re aware killing is bad. You hadn’t spent years studying for a degree in Psychology to think otherwise. But it wasn’t as simple as some made it out to be. You’d done papers suggesting that certain motives implied healthier patterns, healthier outlets.

If you had to choose between him killing pregnant women, and CEOs with broken moral compasses?

It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out your answer.

You’re about to flip the page when there’s a knock on the door on the other side of the room, before it opens.

There’s two guards that walk in, before a man in an olive green jumpsuit follows, hands cuffed tightly together in front of him, head down. Another guard from behind shoves him in, too rough for your liking. You sit up straighter, eyes assessing as you take in the man in the jumpsuit.

He’s forced into the chair opposite you, before one of the guards grabs his cuffed wrists and chains them to a rig in the middle of the table. You’re grateful for the precautions, but there’s a part of you that feels guilty watching the manhandling of the seemingly calm man.

“Half an hour,” the most brutish guard of them all grits out, beer belly spilling out over his belted jeans. He jostles the chain attaching his wrists to the table unnecessarily, and your eyes narrow.

He goes to leave, along with another guard, but one stands to stay in position inside, beside the door.

Your brows furrow, and you speak up before you can stop yourself. “Sorry, sir, but my sessions will need confidentiality, as for the best results. I’m sure that I’ll be safe with his restraints.”

The guard stares you down, seemingly mulling your words over, before shrugging and leaving the room, door shutting behind him.

…Huh. Alright.

You find your posture relaxing, just slightly, which is odd, considering you’re now only a metre or two away from a convicted murderer.

His gaze is trained to the table, left foot tapping incessantly against the concrete floor.

“It’s nice to meet you, Gaz,” you say with a soft tone and a gentle smile. You figure that his nickname is the best bet, not wanting to stir up any possible traumas with his given name during your first session with the man. “I’ll be your new psychiatric evaluator.”

His eyes flick up, meeting yours, and he nods slowly, as if awaiting a punchline.

“Is it okay for me to call you Gaz?” You ask, tilting your head to the side and flipping to an empty page to take notes on. You’d need to grab a notebook from home, you decide.

He relaxes, only the smallest of movements, and he nods. “Gaz, yeah.”

Your smile widens at the small victory. Any step towards progress was a huge one, in your eyes. You’d be facing a lot of them in the coming days.

“Do you have any advice for this place?” You push, trying to form a bond of trust with the dark-haired man. “I’m gonna be honest, you’re my first patient, and I’ve only met Laswell and… Jenny?”

His mouth quirks at that, a dimple showing to the left of his mouth as he looks back up at you. “Jenny’s a character, ain’t she?”

You laugh, a genuine one, and nod. “She certainly is. You’ve met her?”

He shrugs, shoulders relaxing slightly. “Few times, yeah. She drives me up the fuckin’ wall.” His accent is only minimally apparent, but his voice is of a somewhat humorous tone.

Small victories.

“Well,” he exhales, settling into his chair a bit as he seems to ponder. “Do ya know who else you’re assigned to?”

You’d been sure to thoroughly go over your contract, and you were allowed to disclose your other patients between your others. They’d find out within the day, anyways, so there was no point in being discreet.

“It’s only you and a… John Price? Today. I’m sure I’ll find out the other six over the next few days,” you say, appreciating that he’s starting conversations. It’s more than you’d allowed yourself to hope for.

Gaz’s eyes light up, and even if you hadn’t been incessant in watching him, it’d be an obvious shift in emotions. “Price?”

You nod, quickly making a note on your clipboard, before folding your hands in your lap as you gesture for him to continue with a quick inclination of your head.

“He’s the best. Man’s a legend,” he enthuses. “Love ‘im.”

There’s… a hidden truth to that statement, that you make a mental note to unpack during a later session. Your smile is a natural one as you say, “He’s an amber, correct? Laswell told me I’d been assigned eight out of ten ambers… you’re one of them, right?”

Gaz seems to fold into himself, and you kick yourself for going back to square one. He answers, however.

“...Yeah. Only Ghost ‘nd Valeria are aggressive, though. We’re just… misunderstood,” he murmurs, and in the back of your brain, you find yourself believing his words.

“Thank you,” you smile, and he responds with a sharp one of his own. Maybe you’d covered more ground than you’d expected. “I think it’d been mentioned that I was only assigned men, due to the nature of the job, or something like that.”

Seeming to mull over your words, he starts to slowly nod. “Sounds ‘bout right. As long as you don’t get Graves, you’ll be alright. The others are… fuckin’ weird, but they’re good men. Mostly.”

That’s a lot of information at once, and quite frankly, it takes a moment for you to process.

“‘Good men’. What do you think it takes to be a good man?” You ask, curiosity laced into your tone. Getting to ask such questions of a convicted murderer, it’s a thrilling, exhilarating task.

His eyes don’t shift as he replies. “Good men do the acts others are too scared to do. They see the evil in the world, and rid of it with their own bare hands. You can be an ethical murderer, Doc.”

Those words, they’re – they’re authentic, and conviction aches in their structure.

You swallow around a dry mouth.

“You think you’re a good man?” You ask.

His smile would be seen as warm to any who weren’t aware of his acts, but to you – it’s chilling. Haunting in a way you’ve never experienced.

It remains as he answers.

“I think that I’m a man who people wish they had the bravery to be.”

a/n. okay so im really nervous about posting this, cause ITS EIGHT FUKCING LOVE INTERESTS and also im a humanities girl not a science one!! sociology all the way not psych!! so forgive me for all the inaccuracies and legality issues please. im just a girl. hopefully u guys will like this one? i mean, obsessed serial killers cod is smth i need so here we are. all comments and feedback mean so muchhh ty ily mwah mwah mwah

taglist comment/msg to be added. [nothing to see here.]

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