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emberfrostlovesloki · 2 years ago

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Pierced [Hotch x Reader]

Photo credits: Right (@shallyne) Center (@sillyhotchsgirl) Left (Google)

Prompt: The reader gets a new piercing and sends Aaron a picture of it while he’s on a case. To say he’s flustered is a bit of an understatement.

Category: Fluff

Word Count: 2.5K

Content Warnings: Piercing (tongue), implied sex (at the end), minor language, canon typical unsub behavior (unsub is a bomber)

A/N: This is for my love @sadgirlzluvdilfs. She had mentioned a new piercing and Aaron, and well, I had to oblige. Full transparency, I don’t have any piercings of my own (but I do have ten tattoos), so I would not recommend following any advice for aftercare mentioned in the story. I hope you like this darling. The reader is a non-BAU member and there is an established relationship. If you like this story, likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated! I hope you all have a good start to the weekend. Love Levi.

List with all stories

y/n = your name

Aaron’s personal cell dinged in his back pocket, and he pulled it out. He turned on the home screen and saw that y/n had sent him a message and a photo. He looked over at the team who were scouring hundreds of files for a clue on the current unsub who was on a bombing spree in Michigan. Firmly Aaron said, “Excuse me for a moment,” to the team. Rossi looked over to Aaron as he walked away. Hotch found a quiet spot in the hallway of the bustling precinct. He swiped up on the message from y/n. The text read: “Good morning, Aaron. I’m missing you extra hard today. Please stay safe and let’s call tonight if you have time.” Hotch smiled and felt that familiar warmth spread through his body at hearing y/n’s desire for him. He then looked at the attached photo. It wasn’t what he was expecting. It was a photo of y/n’s face, but just the lower half. She was smiling and had her tongue out at him. Aaron wiped the tiredness from his eyes, as he looked at the picture again. Then with a snap, he noticed the obvious. There was a piercing on her tongue, and the area looked a bit red and swollen. Hotch had totally forgotten that y/n was having this done today, though she had let him know that it was happening. Due to the case and frenzy of the team, the thought had completely slipped his mind. Aaron took a moment to like the picture and replied, “That looks great sweetheart! Does it hurt?” As he waited for a response, his mind momentarily wandered lightyears away from the case and the unsub, as he imagined kissing y/n with this new addition to her mouth. For a second he imagined that it would be cool against his own tongue, but then he realized that the metal would be warmed to her internal temperature. Either way, it would be a new sensation for him. He’d never had a partner before that had a mouth piercing. He looked forward to seeing what that felt like. Then there was the thought of her mouth, her piercing on another erogenous zone of his body. The twitch in his pants told him that this was something he was certainly going to have to explore once he got home.

Hotch moved to the men’s room and turned on the cold tap. He splashed some water on his face to metaphorically and literally cool down his mind and body. Aaron righted himself and pulled some paper towels from the dispenser, patting his face dry. The door opening caught his attention, and he saw Rossi enter. Dave leaned against the door and asked, “Is everything alright?” Hotch cleared his throat and said, “Yeah. I just needed a minute. Let’s get back to the team.” Rossi looked over at Aaron. The older man could see that something was up but didn’t ask further. Dave knew that Aaron, even as a close personal friend, was private about most things in his life. That in keeping certain parts of himself hidden, there was comfort and control. And with the job they had, having those two things could be a lifeline. Just as they got near the briefing room, Hotch’s phone dinged again. y/n’s reply was simple, saying, “My pain level is fine, but my tongue is a little tender, and my jaw is a bit stiff.” Aaron smiled. Knowing that _y/n_ wasn’t in much pain made him feel better. He quickly replied, “Good to hear. I’ll call tonight if there’s time - A.” With that, he recentered his attention on the case at hand.

That evening in the hotel room, Aaron collapsed onto the mattress. His body was tired and aching from being on his feet all day. The bomber had led the team on a few wild goose chases around the city. The team and JJ in particular were good at not following false leads, but this unsub was smart with their disinformation. They knew how to make a false flag seem to need immediate attention. Hotch pulled out his legal pad and jotted down: Disinformation? Possible groups affiliated - China, Iran, Russia. Ask R. for patterns in text and call G. for more info tomorrow. When he had finished writing, he rested his upper body back down on the bed and pinched the skin between his eyebrows; worry and exhaustion tugging at his insides. Hotch decided he was going to take a nap for an hour. Yes, the case was pressing and needed his focus, but he knew that he wouldn’t be giving his best if he was this tired. So he would compromise by sleeping for a bit and then diving back in. Aaron found his phone at the bottom of his work bag and detailed y/n. After the first ring, y/n answered and he said, “Hey, y/n. I don’t have a lot of time, but I just wanted to hear your voice.” y/n replied, “Hey back at you. Are you doing okay? How’s the team?” Aaron let out a breath and then said, “I’m good. Tired though. And the team is well. They're in their usual form. They’re so sharp. Sometimes it amazes me.” There was a soft chuckle on the other end of the line, and y/n replied, “Well you are too, Aaron. Don’t forget to give yourself some credit.”

Whenever y/n said things like this to him, he felt a warmth dissipate over his chest and radiate down his body. He knew y/n meant it when she said things like this. She wasn’t one to just give him an ego stroke for the sake of it. If she said something, she was being honest. That was one of the many reasons he found her so attractive. To find someone willing to be genuine was rare, and Aaron cherished that part of their relationship. Hotch thought for a second that he had heard the smallest lisp in y/n’s voice as she spoke and remembered again about the new piercing. He commented, “So, how’s your mouth. Are you taking care of your new jewelry?” y/n responded, “It’s fine. I’m on some Advil, but other than that I’m all good. And I’m following all of the aftercare steps the clinician told me to. It’s healing surprisingly fast.” Aaron gave a little hum of acknowledgment and said, “Well I look forward to seeing it in person. Listen, honey, I’m going to have to go now. But I love you and I’ll text you when I’m on my way back, okay?” There was a momentary pause and y/n replied, “Alright. Please be safe, Aaron.” To which he responded, “I will.” Before y/n hung up, she softly said, “I love you.” Hotch could hear the worry in her voice, even as she tried to hide it. Whenever he called her on cases she sounded this way. At least until he had let her know that he was heading home. He couldn’t blame her. Due to the nature of the BAU’s work, he couldn’t share details about the cases he worked on, and y/n was very aware of the dangers of the job. But she did her best to not put her concern on him too. She understood that his job was important to him, and she knew that being overly concerned, or heaven forbid, babying him would make that job any easier. Aaron thought of this as he set an alarm for an hour on his phone, started said alarm, and turned off the lamp by his bed.

The case wrapped up in three days, and Aaron was headed home. He planned on meeting up with y/n the day after he got back. When he arrived at her apartment, he knocked on the door, and y/n happily let him inside her space. He moved inside and closed the door behind him. When this was done, he took her hands and said, “Hey beautiful,” before he leaned down and kissed her softly. When they separated, Aaron asked, “What would you like to do today? I’ve got some ideas, but I want to know if you had anything in mind?” y/n smiled up at him and said, “Maybe we could go for a walk along the river? And that record store you’ve been eyeing is finally open today, so we could go there too…” y/n hesitated for a moment and Hotch said, “I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming.” y/n let out a laugh and replied, “But… I’ve missed you. Could we spend an hour or two hanging out here before we go out?” Aaron smiled and leaned down again to kiss her temple saying, “Of course, darling. I’ve missed you too.” _y/n_ moved to the side of the room and put on their favorite album on her record player while Aaron grabbed them a glass of sparkling water. They settled next to each other on the couch, and Hotch turned to face her asking, “Can I see your piercing? I’ve been thinking about it since you sent me that photo on Tuesday.” Hearing this, y/n reddened slightly, but stuck her tongue out at him like a teenager before quickly retracting it back into her mouth. It gave Aaron just a glimpse at the new addition to her body. Hotch looked at her unamused, and y/n laughed again before actually sticking her tongue out for him to see. Aaron looked at the gold bar in her mouth that matched the rest of the jewelry that adorned her figure. He took a moment and touched the warmed metal in her mouth. Her tongue looked more healed than the first photo she had sent him. Aaron removed his hand and asked, “What’s this type of piercing called, and how long is the standard healing time and aftercare routine?” She moved her hand to rest on his thigh. She loved it when he looked out for her. Even in the small things. She replied, “It’s called a midline piercing. My piercer and the aftercare instructions state that it can take four to six weeks to heal. But honestly, it feels pretty good. I read something online about saliva being a natural disinfectant, so maybe that has something to do with it? Aftercare is just simple stuff. Using a new toothbrush, keeping the area clean, all that jazz.” Hotch chuckled at her tone.

Aaron had considered getting a tattoo once and voiced that thought to Hailey. He wanted something related to Jack, but she had shut down the idea, and so his body remained untouched by either tattoos or piercings. However, he loved that that y/n expressed herself with her jewelry and clothing. He remembered something that _y/n_ had said the first day she got the piercing; that her jaw had been stiff. Because of this, he moved both of his hands up to her jaw and started massaging the area with a firm, yet tender touch. y/n was taken aback and asked, “Aaron, what are you doing?” Hotch swatted her hands away as they moved to grab his hands. He continued to move over the area and replied, “Well you said your jaw was stiff the other day. I’m just making sure you get some relief.” _y/n_ smiled and said, “It’s not really stiff anymore love.” Aaron hummed and said, “Well consider this me making up for lost time.” y/n settled and let him dote on her for a bit. The feel of his warm hands on her jaw made her relax into his touch. Really anytime he made close contact, her body reacted to him. After a few minutes, y/n more intentionally moved his hands up and away from her face. She didn’t give him a chance to protest this time, as she moved to kiss his lips. They were soft and warm under her touch. Hotch made a small sound at the contact and moved his hands to her hips. He pulled away for a second. He then kissed her a few more times. The kisses were chaste and quick. He was teasing her, and she knew it. When y/n had had enough of his tomfoolery, she moved her hand to his hair and took his short locks in her hands. She gave the strands a gentle tug, as she held his head in place for her to more passionately kiss him. Aaron gave a little groan at his hair being pulled. y/n knew that Aaron liked to make her work a little for his affection. Not all of the time, but when he was having fun he sort of made it a game for her. And she knew how to play. Aaron nipped lightly on her lower lip, and she opened for him. Hotch moved slowly over her tongue. He explored the the piercing in her mouth, first at the top of her tongue, and then below. The new sensation of the metal in her mouth excited him. Momentarily he remembered the feeling of getting flustered at the precinct in Michigan, and he felt a familiar tension growing in his pants. Aaron pulled away for breath. y/n looked him over and noticed the growing bulge in his pants, and she gave him a wicked smile.

y/n got onto her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck, saying, “Well someone’s excited.” Aaron let out a breath and said, “Are you surprised? You’re so hot and the new piercing just adds to the pleasure.” y/n hummed and felt her body warming and pooling with desire. y/n leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose. Hotch closed his eyes and his hands moved up under the back of her shirt to her back. y/n lightly kissed both of his eyelids. The sensitive skin fluttered slightly under her mouth. Her lips and soft breath moved to his chin and slowly down his neck. She was taking her time. If Hotch had teased her, she would teased him right back. It was when she started undoing the button of his shirt and sucking and kissing his sensitive skin that he couldn't take it anymore. The new feeling of the piercing only heightened his senses. He made a noise of desire. It came from a place deep inside him. From a place of need and want. A little breathlessly he asked, “Bedroom?” y/n pulled away from his chest and nodded. They both got up and moved hurriedly toward the bedroom. y/n was still fiddling with the buttons of his shirt as they closed the door behind them. After a few moments, there were more distinct sounds of pleasure that settled in the air. As Aaron looked down at y/n’s form, he felt drunk on how good she made him feel. He moved down to kiss her again, his tongue hungry in her mouth. The feeling of the metal on his tongue ignited a new passion in him. Having a partner like y/n made him feel younger and he reveled in the feeling.

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hydrate-or-diedrate · 2 years ago

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Day 11 of reading homestuck wahoo yippee

Just for fun, I did some doodles during class uwu

Karkat is literally the crybabyest of all the characters so far its adorable. Hes cried like 3 or 4 times now I think and the only other character to have cried on screen did it once lol. Too many feelings for his liddol body so he gets rid of them by yelling <3

My friend was making fun of me earlier because she witnessed me getting a new blorbo in real time x)

Anyway onto reading

Ughhhhhh hi Scratch

Is this scratched CD gag Andrew's way of saying act 5 act 2 was going on for too long/he got tired of writing it normally, or is this concept plot important lol

Not to be a Vriska hater but YEAH TEREZI BEAT HER UP

This truly is fuckin kill murder dead town right now

Goddammit Terezi, I believed in you. I still love and adore you but 😔

And then Rose is trying to take out Jack which I assume will not go well

Scratch what the hell does "8^y" mean? 8 to the power of y, with y being a variable? Or is it just a silly little face? TF

Shut the fuck up Scratch, John's jokes are great

NO SCRATCH YOU DONT GET TO CASUALLY GLOSS OVER THE TROLL'S HIDEOUT BEING DESTROYED I NEED TO MOURN THEM

I LITERALLY JUST GOT THOSE BLORBOS, DAMMIT 😭

Oh okay, so it's 8^y is just 8⁸..?

Woah okay that's quite a few sparkles. Idk man, gotta be at least 12

Okay Vriska go off, get his ass

Okay Scratch it seems you might be suggesting that this (the timeline in which half my blorbos killed either themselves or eachother) is not the alpha timeline

YEAH TEREZI I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT

AJJDGDJKDV KARKAT JUST IN THE BACKGROUND SCARED SHITLESS

Nice dress, Kanaya

GO AWAY GAMZEE

Yeah yeah we get it you're a God or whatever

Vriska stop being so desperate omg

SLICK FFS

Okay Scratch I can respect the beatdown

Hoooooooh boy, hi Karkat :(

And bye bye Gamzee, I see that blood on Karkat's face

Okay so Rose stole the suicide mission, so I'm assuming she's confirmed dead until proven otherwise

Oh? Or not?

Okay, John giving Vriska(dead) a tour is kinda cute

Oh? New denizens lore?

Okay wow there's a lot of these scrapbook pictures to look through

DAVE YOU FUCKHEAD YOU PROMISED

Aww, it's the John that died at the denizen

Dead John talked to Typheus? 👀👀👀

Oh I don't like this hopping around

Uh oh y'all, CueBall is in the backrooms

Wow (past) Gamzee just casually suggesting making out like that's not a big thing for (past) Tavros

Karkat is so mean to himself, poor guy :(

Oh gosh fucked up Gamzee is back

Okay Gamzee so are you saying it's actually YOUR fault?

Okay and now ancestor lore? I really need to make a new reblog before I manage to lose all the stuff I already typed

#breadstuck #doodles #eeheehee #aradia megido #gamzee makara #karkat vantas

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chirriechi · 2 months ago

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Oh yeah, shitty analysis time Yi Sang- Sylph of Mind Sylph is a healing class and Yi Sang's arc is about him healing and getting over depression and such, growing his wings yknow healing his mind even heh Faust- Seer of Light She relies on alternate versions of herself to know the future. Sure, sometimes she doesn't and accepts the unknown but she still usually wants to know what's going on. Don Quixote- Knight of Hope Okay this one and Gregor's fit the best imo, Don is associated with knights ofc and with dreaming which fits hope but also in Homestuck knights use the aspect which their session lacks (Dave with time, they literally did most of their sburb stuff in like a day, and Karkat with blood/bonds, they literally killed each other bro) and pm games are very much not filled with hope, why would you be hopeful in the city this place is dreary as hell. Ryoshu- Witch of Heart Witches are really strong and heart has to do with the self, Ryoshu does not really care for many others really, in her source book Yoshihide does not care about anyone except for his daughter and himself lmao yeah this one kinda sucks, some of these are just cuz I didn't wanna repeat any classes/aspects Meursault- Maid of Void Maids work for others, they may lack autonomy. Both Aradia and Jane are used by others. Meursault kind of just does what other people tell him to do and also is mysterious and I barely know anything about this guy so void. Hong Lu- Bard of Space "Those bound to the aspect of Space are, as the name suggests, concerned with the big picture. They are patient, masters of the art of 'wait-and-see', and are inclined to take things as they come...At their worst, they can be detached, apathetic, and vague." -Extended Zodiac on Space. ALSO all the characters with space are associated with Green. (Jade with her name and eyecolor, Kanaya and Porrim are both jade bloods, and Callie has lime green blood) Yeah I know Hong Lu is cyan and not green, but his symbol is a jade and his eye is probably also a jade and like. cmon close enough lemme have this. Anyways the Bard part is cuz he's a silly billy. Not actually it's cuz he has the whole two thing going on and Gamzee flip flops between two different personalities, one all chill and one fucking crazy. I wouldn't doubt if Hong Lu has a separate personality that is not all chill like he is pretending to be. This is probably the weakest one honestly LMAO. (1/2, Tumblr won't let me post the full thing in one reblog because it's a BITCH)

classpects your sinners close ups ⬇️

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ouijathicc · 2 years ago

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New Essay On the Pink Bitch

Those of you unfortunate enough to have seen it may recall I wrote an essay on what I thought Henry Miller was, coming to the conclusion that he was a frog.

Fortunately a couple people corrected me and said he’s actually probably human, and thinking more about it, yeah, he probably is and I was really reaching because I was not only analyzing a character with little information about him for species and going with the first crazy theory, but I never needed to do any of it in the first place because Henry is so obviously human.

Part of me still subscribes to the Frogry theory because it’s weirdly funny to think about and when I make my Henry design I’m actually going to make two, one official Ouija cinematic universe design, and one frog man design for humour and to acknowledge my sins.

This also contains a massive theory about Henry and Fredbear, that is objectively very weird but I think would be cool if it were true but it probably isn’t.

Warning for spoilers somehow.

Ok, so Henry isn’t Frogry. Probably. As I said part of me still watched Amphibia and thought Henry = Sprig because I think it’s so funny and cursed that I have to keep the theory alive because people need to learn from my mistakes as well as see Henry as a frog. (To the person who reblogged my Frogry theory post with a picture of the frog himself, you have my eternal gratitude that made my day.)

Now, to get on to the actual essay, Henry is a human. I wrongfully assumed he wasn’t because of Peter and Jack’s alive sprites and Henry being such a bright pink with the undead eyes.

The main thing that got me confused was Henry’s eyes which we never see on any character who isn’t undead or Dave aside from him. (Personally I’m not sure if Dave’s eyes have to do with his being undead, I actually think they have more to do with whatever he is because they actually look different from Jack’s so they might not be just a zombie thing but it might be just a stylistic choice and they are the same.)

However at what point did Henry die? You’d think he would have mentioned it in his tapes because that would have been what he wanted, right? Henry wanted immortality and if he died and came back immortal he would have talked about it and his success, but since he didn’t he absolutely cannot be dead.

I have a theory about the eyes that changes a lot about their meaning and Henry’s character but it’s kinda weird and out of left field so I’ll save it for after I discuss his skin.

Henry is pink. I was wrong saying he was magenta, his arms and legs are but his face and body are not so it’s probably a different thing. I heard it suggested that Henry just wears pink clothes and I think that makes sense. Dave and Jack have a pretty good reason they could very well have different shades of their respective colours on their bodies, but for Henry, it’s probably just clothes. Why is his skin pink?

A popular theory/joke is that Henry eats a lot of shrimp. This doesn’t make sense because this only works on flamingos. Also I doubt Henry eats brine shrimp. Because it’s not just any shrimp, it’s brine shrimp.

I think it’s more that Henry is a kinda naturally pinkish looking man. It explains literally everything if he is. He isn’t pink, he’s just a little more pink tinted than your average man.

Now, to get to my theory. Keep in mind this is all speculation and I’m not claiming it to be at all correct or really logical. It’s a weird theory but it makes some sense to me and I don’t mind if you disagree, it’s just an interesting theory of mine.

Besides being undead and largely monochromatic, what is one thing Dave and Jack have in common. Soul separation. Jack has Blackjack who is his soul, and Dave has Davetrap who has half of his soul. What if Henry also has a split or missing soul for a different but similar reason.

Perhaps Henry couldn’t deal with the death of his family and it eventually caused his own soul to fracture and create a separate entity which also led to a major increase in his overall cruelty and evil due to the further loss of his already weak morals due to his Machiavellism that he developed at some point during his time in the military.

The fracture was small at first like with Flipside Dave and Davetrap, having “some version” of Flipside Dave always in the Flipside but Flipside Dave becoming more of a prominent and separate entity as Dave became more feral and possessed his own body more, perhaps Henry’s soul split off more and more due to his own growing insanity and obsession which in turn made it get worse and made his soul split more.

Now, you may be thinking I’m crazy, if Henry had another creature repressing half of his soul we would have seen it. What if I tell you we did. In fact what if I told you it was FREDBEAR.

Ok, you surely think this is insane, Fredbear is nothing like Henry, and both Blackjack and Davetrap/Flipside Dave are similar to their counterparts, Flipside Dave and Davetrap so much that I actually can’t tell which of them is more Dave, it feels honestly like they both are.

Well Fredbear isn’t actually the greatest person… errr bear. He just sort of drops Jack in expecting him to solve all of his own problems and if Jack kills people, Fredbear canonically waits until 12 people (11 of them children) are already dead to do anything about his creation killing people. Fredbear could have fixed the problem himself, we know he can kill Dave, he could probably have dealt with Henry himself, so why didn’t he? He’s frequently referred to as a coward specifically for not doing any of the many things to stop the child murder that he clearly could have done.

So Fredbear is definitely self serving, not only that, but he’s a coward, one who waits until the last moment to do anything and sends other people such as Dee (a small child who had just been murdered and presumably works for him) and Jack to deal with a problem he could easily fix far faster. Why, because Fredbear is afraid of death, cripplingly so. And who else is? Henry.

Why Fredbear, doesn’t it make more sense to be Godred? Actually no. Godred is very separate although he has to do with Henry clearly. Godred is an actual animatronic however eldritch as he may be, however Fredbear, although he is an animatronic, never hung around as an animatronic. In fact, we’ve seen his real life counterpart and it doesn’t seem very animate nor does it fully look like him. So Godred is Godred, not Henry.

Why would Henry’s soul take on the form of an animatronic bear. Well, that plays a lot into my theory. I think the split reached its peak around the time of Fredbear’s Family Diner, at which point Henry played the role of Fredbear himself, his own creation. So doesn’t it make sense for his soul, upon gaining its own level of sentience, to take on the beloved form of Fredbear rather than the cursed form of the murderer and mad scientist Henry Miller. Think of Fredbear after splitting off as being like Flipside Dave, witnessing his real life counterpart commit atrocities, not wanting to actually do those atrocities himself but being helpless to stop it.

My theory is that Fredbear, despite being just as Machiavellian and crazy as Henry but less homocidal, wanted to stop Henry’s actions, however he didn’t want to kill him because he worried it would destroy him too and he feared death more than anything. As Henry continued to get worse, Fredbear got stronger as he took on more of Henry’s soul, similar to Blackjack being somewhat powerful and Flipside Dave being able to make portals, but to a much higher degree because the soul he split off of was very much alive, eventually letting him ascend to the point of being the god of childhood, the ethereal real Fredbear.

Perhaps at one point Fredbear lost all memory of ever being Henry but his desire not do no anything too extreme continued, or perhaps he still does remember but has at this point entirely rejected being Henry.

For further proof, Dave claims no one could play Fredbear like Henry could. There’s no Fredbear without him. In the most twisted ways, Henry is both responsible for every problem in the series, and responsible partially for its solution with bringing Jack back to life.

Henry and Fredbear never directly interact, but from dialogue they seem to hate eachother for obvious reasons of being on opposite sides. However if they are the same person it paints this dialogue pretty differently. Rather than them being two separate people on opposite sides working for opposite goals who hate eachother, they are the same man split in half fighting himself forever because neither side is willing to hurt the other in fear of retribution and death.

What does this mean for the good ending? Well I think that seeing Jack accept death after everything was said and done and finally complete what he never could out of fear, Fredbear realized his own fault and that he should have just fixed everything when he had the chance and prevented a lot of heartbreak. Every child who died in Freddy’s, their blood is on his hands. He just let it happen. I think this causes Fredbear to either finally move on from purgatory and rejoin the other half of himself in whatever comes next, Hell, reincarnation, or otherwise. Either that or he can’t move on at this point after all he’s done and what he’s become, he sees what Jack did and knows he himself still has a responsibility to help the stragglers move on and fix all future murders that a part of him caused.

I’m not saying Henry is a good person, nor is Fredbear evil. What I’m saying is a part of Henry split off and became his opposite.

And to conclude this batshit crazy Henry is Fredbear theory, this is why Henry has the same eyes as Jack and Dave, because he too is one half of a whole.

I’d love to hear counterpoints and your thoughts about the matter, and I’m sorry I spent so long on a theory like this. I doubt this is what Doggo intended, but if he did, I think it’d be cool :)

Please do not send hate, this is just a theory not me announcing I sympathize with Henry’s actions or anything of the sort, just me therorizimg about something weird with the main antagonist of Dayshift at Freddy’s that could be really cool if it were true.

#dsaf #dayshift at freddy's #dsaf 3 #dsaf rationals #dsaf henry #the pink bitch #The man of pink sauce #Dsaf Fredbear #why did i type this #If you get a kick out of this theory at all it’s done it’s job #Tell me what y’all think :)

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supernaturalgirl20 · 4 years ago

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Masturbation

Pairings: Dave York x nanny!reader

Warnings: Smut 18+, explicit, masturbation, use of dildos, Dave being a creep, infidelity.

Comments and reblogs really appreciated

Dave was obsessed with you, your smell, your laugh, the way your nose crinkled when you laughed, the curve of your ass. He wanted to possess you, body and soul.

You’d been the girls nanny for months now and you’d flirt with him when Carol was out of sight. He knew you wanted him too. Dave had set up cameras all over the house, your room included and he watched you, getting turned on by the simplest thing. This lead to him fucking Carols brains out, the image of you ingrained in his mind.

Tonight he had the house to himself, well apart from you, and he decided he was going to just check the monitors to see what you were doing. Beer in hand he takes at seat in his office but chokes when he sees your naked body writhing on your bed.

“Fuck!”

He was hard instantly and he palmed his erection just to get some friction. He turned the sound on and he could hear your moans as you fingered yourself. Two fingers sliding in and out of your wet pussy, he could hear the squelch from here. He needed more, undoing his zipper and releasing his cock he began to pump himself, groaning at the sight of you on your bed. He pictured your hand wrapped around him, your mouth taking him down your throat hot and wet.

“Just like that baby.”

He could see you move to your locker and he moved his hand faster as you took out a blue dildo. You begin to move it in and out of you, your moans echoing off the walls.

“Harder Dave.”

He’s stunned. Did you just say his name?

“Ngh…yes…Dave just like that.”

Oh sweet Jesus! The sight of you grabbing your breast and pinching your nipple had him coming hard, his shirt covered in his come. You cry out his name as you come to, hard. He made his way into his room and changed his shirt, making his way downstairs he’s greeted by the sight of you dressed in a silk robe, your pebbled nipples on full display. Fuck he’s hard again. You make your way around the island, standing directly in front of him.

“Enjoy the show?”

You run your finger down his chest, looking at him with doe eyes.

“I’m going for a shower now. Care to join me?”

With that you walk away from him swaying your hips as you go. You were going to be the death of him. He’s never moved so fast in his life.

Permanent tag list: @lunaserenade @anaaaispunk @maievdenoir @elinedjarin @seasonschange-butpeopledont @alberta-sunrise @dihra-vesa @pintsizemama @athalien @loserrlauraa @kirsteng42 @thorins-queen-of-erebor @pascal-rascal424 @ikinmahlen @pascalisthepunkest @dindjarinneedsahug @almaeunice @jediknight122 @prostitute-robot-from-the-future @colorlesswhispersunknown @stevie75 @rosie-posie08 @jediknight123 @hauntedmama @greeneyedblondie44 @prettylilhalforc @giselatropicana @the-mandalorian-066 @spanishmossmagnolia @phoenixhalliwell @sherala007 @its--fandom--darling @donnaa @javierpinme @ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @luxmundee @littlemisspascal @hayley-the-comet @ezras-channel-rat @heartofjakku @tintinn16 @amneris21 @avengers-fixation @drinkingwhileblogging @evyiione @goddessofsprings @mylovelycomandante @pastatomata @pjkimrn @1#FreakShow @maryfanson @sunnshineeexoxo @paintballkid711 @hocuschlocus @allthe-ships

#pedro pascal #dave york x nanny!reader #dave york x reader #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x female reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #dave york fanfic #dave york pit #tppkinktober2021

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movieexpert1978 · 3 years ago

Text

Dragon’s Fire Ch. 6

Ch. 6: Uncomfortable Reunions

Horvath runs into some familiar faces

I tried to do my best to make this part funny. There’s a bit of magic fighting along with a tiny bit of blood.

tagging:

@illiana-mystery @curbitkirby @doctoraceus

@randomfandomtrash28

thank you for the support and if you want to be tagged when I post more Alfred Molina stories please let me know. comments and reblogs are always appreciated

Amethyst kept trying to get him to stay. He didn’t blame her fear but eventually he left after many reassurances. The first store didn’t have much luck. The second has some stuff but not what he was looking for. The last location was absolutely buzzing it seemed. He was led to the section he was looking for and felt a familiar presence. He looked around and frowned when he saw a man wearing a leather jacket and hat.

“Oh…Balthazar.” He grumbled.

“So you are alive Horvath.” Blake said turning around. The two men stared at each other. Unfortunately, Blake was holding the book Horvath needed.

“I need to look at that book…please.” Horvath muttered.

“Wow, you said please!” Blake chuckled in amusement. “What are you looking for? Maybe we can help each other.” Blake suggested.

“This doesn’t concern you.” Horvath stated.

“The Dragon’s Fire.” Blake said making Horvath grit his teeth. “You know something.”

“Perhaps.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s safe.”

“Horvath, you and I both know that with more and more magic the person or in this case person’s will become unstable unless they know how to use it correctly like you and I do. If they get her who knows what could happen with that much power.” Blake said.

“My answer is no.”

“Did something happen with Merlin’s ring? I felt something last night.” Blake asked.

“Possibly.”

“Horvath I want to help!” Blake insisted.

“Then give me the book.” Horvath stated. Blake sighed and reluctantly gave it to him.

“Can you at lease tell me her name?” Horvath hesitated before he answered.

“Amethyst.”

“She sounds nice.” Horvath only nods. “Veronica is catching up nicely.”

“Shut up!” Horvath snapped with his cane glowing. Blake put his hands up.

“I meant no harm by that. I was just saying a fact.” Blake said calmly.

“I’m trying to move on.”

“Then let me help you with these twins!” Blake pleaded. “They might go after Dave. He’s not too pleased with the idea, of course. It’s always back and forth with him and his girlfriend.” Blake said with frustration. “He is doing a lot better with his powers though.”

“Good for him.” Horvath said bitterly.

“Alright fine. Here just take my car. I’ve got a new shop set up.” Blake said, offering it. Horvath took it and put it in his coat pocket. “Besides, they’ve got other copies.” He said before another book flew into his hand. Horvath growled at him before leaving.

Xxxxxxxx

Amethyst was asleep on the couch when Horvath got back. He looked over her and took a deep breath to calm himself down. She looked better. That whole encounter with Balthazar was getting to him, not to mention how he talked about Veronica. He had to stop thinking about her, but now he just felt all conflicted. He grumbled to himself as he put the book down and started to go through it. It allowed him to clear his mind a bit, thankfully.

“Horvath…” Amethyst mumbled as she woke up.

“Right here.” He said. She came over to him, rubbing her eyes.

“How did it go?”

“Fine, for the most part.”

“Did something happen?”

“I unfortunately ran into Balthazar Blake.” He said.

“Well you’re still in one piece.”

“We didn’t fight…it was just…”

“Awkward?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” He shrugged. He found the pages he was looking for.

“Wow look! Apparently I’m only just beginning with this power.” She said pointing to the picture. “It’s like science, blue is the hottest flame and the most powerful.”

“But you have to be careful when using it for longs periods of time could hurt or even kill you.” Horvath said.

“Oh.”

“Apparently there are other types. This hydra flame seems familiar.” He said showing her.

“Can be shown in twins or triplets…oh you have got to be kidding me.” She groaned. “It draws energy off of others. That’s why they’re going after people. The more people or magic they have the more energy they can collect and add more heads so to speak.”

“I’m not sure I follow.” Horvath says.

“Ok, say the twins are the main monster.” He nods. “The monster grows or collects something like say people or crystals.”

“Alright.”

“In those crystals they store energy magic or otherwise and the bad monster guards them in case the good monster comes to fight.” She explained.

“Oh like a booster…like with my jewelry.” He said with a slight nod to his cane.

“Yeah and if they have enough power they can turn someone with the same power into a bad guy.” She said.

“Or add another head as you said.” He said in understanding. “Oh god…I’m a bloody idiot!” He snapped to himself.

“What?”

“Get dressed, we need to go.” He said quickly “Pack a bag too.” He added. She quickly got dressed and packed her backpack.

“Horvath what is it?” She asked.

“Dave Stutler is the Prime Merlinian. If they take his power they’ll have enough energy to go after you. We have to go to Balthazar for help…and yes I will behave.” He said quickly. They got in the car and drove to Balthazar’s new store. Horvath knocked on the door and waited. When no one answered he tried the doorknob and yelped. “Damn it Balthazar!” He huffed. Amethyst tried the door knob and it turned making him grumble.

“Sorry Horvath…old habits you know.” Blake shrugged as he came up to them. “You must be Amethyst.”

“Balthazar Blake.” She nodded and they respectfully shook hands.

“Maxim.” A voice said. They looked to see a tall woman coming to them. Amethyst guessed this was the Veronica he spoke of.

“Veronica.” Horvath said quietly. She came over and hugged him making him blink in surprise.

“I am glad to see that you’re alive.” She said sincerely.

“As am I.” He nodded. Balthazar cleared his throat.

“So came to take me up on my offer?” Blake said.

“Where’s Dave?”

“At his place, why?”

“The twins could go after him like you said and if they get his magic then they would have enough power to get to her.” He said urgently. She showed the ring.

“I knew it.”

“They’ll stick together. They work their magic off of each other. They’re stronger together so they won’t separate.” Amethyst explained.

“Right.” Blake nodded.

“I’ll go with you.” Horvath says.

“You should stay here.” Blake says to Amethyst.

“Excuse me, but I’m not a damsel.” She huffed.

“She really isn’t. I might have been teaching her these past few months.” Horvath said.

“Fair enough.” Blake didn’t argue as he went to the car.

“Just stay with Veronica please.” Horvath pleaded.

“Alright.” She relented. He hurried after Blake. “Umm…hi…I’m Amethyst.” She said holding out her hand.

“Veronica, it’s nice to meet you.” She smiled. She had a nice Italian accent. “I think Horvath likes you.” She says.

“Maybe.” She shrugs.

Xxxxxxxx

Balthazar and Horvath were silent on the drive to Dave’s. It was very much awkward silence between them.

“She seems nice.” Blake spoke first.

“Shut up.”

“You know when you were chasing Dave and I you always had something to say.” Blake said.

“Well I don’t know I’m trying to keep this professional.”

“Oh professional now.” Blake smirked. “You like her.”

“So what?”

“That’s good, Horvath that’s good.” Blake said. “You know I really do want you to be happy.” He added. Horvath just glared at him. They finally arrived at Dave’s apartment building. Once they got inside Horvath stopped Blake.

“Do you feel that?” He said. Blake looked around for a moment.

“They’re here.” Blake yelped. They hurried in as Dave started to yell.

“Ummm…Balthazar help!” He cried out. The two men pinned the twins against the wall.

“Dave, come on!” Blake said as Dave scrambled away.

“Oh no! Horvath is her!” He said, understandably nervous.

“He’s on our side. I’ll explain later,” Blake said.

“Go!” Horvath shouted as he backed away. The twins fired at him, and one hit sent him sprawling back as the twins were free. He ducked as knives flew at him. As he turned to get out of the building a knife hit him in the arm. He grunted in pain before he managed to pull it out and threw it right back at the twins. They got out of the way and Horvath set off a bright flash that blinded the twins. It gave the others a head start to get in the newly changed car to drive off.

“Ummm…so what exactly is going on here?” Dave asked nervously, looking at Horvath.

“Magic is evolving Dave, like how humanity does over time. Those twins back there want to posses a powerful magic and they need your magic to do it.” Blake explained quickly. Horvath did his best to ignore the sting in his arm as he watched the road for any more surprises.

“Don’t they need the ring or something?” Dave asked.

“The ring is on someone else now and besides you don’t need it,” Blake answered.

“But I mean…”

“Only the Prime Merlinian can use his magic without a ring and no one else. She is not another Prime Merlinian,” Horvath explained irritated.

“She?”

“Someone I’ve been training. Those twins want her magic.”

“Why, so they can raise an army of the dead again like Morganan?”

“No, the opposite.” Horvath stated. “They will take control of anyone who does not posses’ magic. They will turn them into a mindless drone until they have control of every sorcerer in the world.”

“Oh yeah…is that all?” Dave said in frustration. The car finally pulled into a garage, and they went inside the store. The girls looked up at them nervously.

“Dave, this is Amethyst,” Blake said.

“He-hello.” He waved.

“Hi,” she said calmly. She shook his hand respectfully. Horvath moved away as Blake and Veronica started to fortify the store.

“Damnit,” Horvath hissed as he looked over the wound in the bathroom. It wasn’t deep but bleeding a lot. He ripped off the bloody sleeve and started to clean himself up.

“I thought you had a healing charm,” Amethyst said, as he forgot to close the door.

“It’s for immortality…not healing,” he corrected.

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” she teased.

“Oh hush, I’ll just buy another one,” he chuckled.

“Are you ok?” She asked after a quiet a moment.

“I’ll be fine,” he shrugged.

“I’m sorry about all this.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I’ll be fine,” He nodded. When he was done, he took her hand. “I won’t let them take you,” he said reassuringly.

“I know,” she smiled. She felt like she was staring at him for too long. She turned away but the door closed and he tugged her back around and pulled her into a kiss. She hummed softly into his mouth as they held each other. When they parted her hands were on his chest and she looked at him. His brown eyes were comforting. She jumped when there was a knock at the door.

“Horvath?” Balthazar called out.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled as he opened the door as Amethyst cleaned up.

“Uhhhh…we’re secure for the moment,” Blake said caught off guard. Horvath walked away as Blake continued to stare at him, with a slight smirk.

“Where’s your stash?”

“My what?”

“Don’t tell me I have to stay sober,” Horvath sighed.

“Oh!” The two went and got a drink as Amethyst went over to Dave.

“Whoa! How did that happen?” Dave gasped, pointing to her ring.

“I don’t know. It just combined with mine.”

“Those guys said something dragon’s breath or something?”

“Dragon’s fire.” She pulled out the book to show Dave.

“Uuuhh…more books,” Dave grumbled.

“Those twins want my power but they’re not strong enough to take me. That’s why they went after you,” she explained.

“This looks kinda dangerous,” Dave said pointing to the picture.

“Yeah…I have to be careful. I’ve never even gotten to blue…so I’m still learning like you.”

“So are you and Horvath like…a thing.”

“Not yet.”

#alfred molina #maxim horvath #maxim horvath x oc #the sorcerer's apprentice #balthazar blake #dave stutler #magic battle #slow burn #slight angst #comfort #fanfic

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weirdmageddon · 2 years ago

Note

OK OK SO!!

First off!!! Hello fellow davejade enjoyer i see you. Second off—what sort of things do you wish you could’ve seen with these two in canon :0. Could be expansion on canon scene, arc direction, or just a new scene entirely. for me personally I would’ve loved to see some genuine fighting collaboration going on. I felt VERY teased with all the magic combo’s in collide.

Third! I know they do a lot of music collaboration in canon, and I’ve seen some things with them making a band together post canon. What sort of sound do you think they’d have/what artist do you think they’d sound like?

Thank you :))

okay god theres so much i wish was expanded on in canon with regard to dave and jade

this post is swan dive into homestuck meta and took me over a day to write. so i would appreciate feedback or discussion on this if you'd like, reblogs appreciated!

despite this question being posed as davejade related, my answers here are actually relevant for anyone interested in homestuck meta as well.

it’s just recently come to my attention that there are a a handful of people on twitter who are vocal davejade dislikers. i didnt know it was actually disliked until i looked it up on twitter, i honestly thought it was a joke blown out of proportion but no they exist! it surprised me a lot to see people think they "lack chemistry". not only because knowing what i know about them thats a ridiculous insinuation, but also i haven't seen the vitriol on tumblr. probably because we can actually poast about it on here in an unabridged manner which thus enables better, deeper critical analysis and engagement with the media. i think also people forget that dave strider is canonically bisexual and are too yaoipilled + facing the consequences of the epilogues to even give davejade a serious look/analysis. (dave dates terezi and karkat in separate timelines, thinks jane is hot, thinks roxy is a babe but shoves it down when he discovers she’s his ectomom lmfao. davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dated jade! but i'm going to cover that in more depth in this post since theres a lot of misunderstandings about the nature of that relationship in fanon.)

(as a side note according to what some people have told me in inbox and what ive seen lol i think that ive been inadvertently been getting people into davejade. it's all in my davejade tag here in chronological order if you'd like to get a Whiff. be sure to read the tags on posts in there too!)

even though theres a lot in this post as it is, it doesn't cover everything ive talked about wrt davejade, and i think it would benefit readers to have complementary posts alongside this for the full picture with stuff it doesn't cover. there's a ton about why theyre cute and why i think they work well together in that tag.

here's some highlight analysis posts, but be sure to check the tag because there's a more in there:

post a / post b / post c / post d / post e / post f (← one of my favorite ask responses ive ever gotten)

i think a huge chunk of the issue has to do with how the narrative handles dave and jade. one of the most damning things to me is how glossed over their canon interactions were in act 5 despite them collaborating on one of the most important things in the story. i haven't talked about this yet but i'm going to do so here. because they’re put on the backburner by the focus of the narrative during act 5, people who don’t read carefully will miss the implications that are there all along in canon but easily passed over.

under the cut ive separated it into multiple parts

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

this is an analysis examining apart exactly what jade and dave did while frog breeding. i wrote it while high which was extremely enlightening and it allowed me to comprehend it and hopefully explain it in an understandable way. i also discuss how shitty the lack of on-screen communication between jade and dave was for this part and the next.

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

ive discussed this one before on my blog so it's not as dense (see davejade tag). but i still sewed the gifs together and discuss how unfortunate this was to be be delegated to a banner at the top of mspa and the neglect of that whole arc despite the outcomes of it being reissued by characters thousands of pages later

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

i get into davesprite's head here and try to make his motivations about the breakup clear to the extent that i can infer because jesus fuck i love these characters way too much ive known them for a decade i understand their core personality structures and why they think what they do and what is most likely to happen when extrapolating? i also talk about how grimbark jade changed the way the fandom perceives their relationship, leaving davejade on a low note instead of a high note. and then hs epilogues had even worse consequences for davejade but i wont get into it because it was character assassination all around and doesnt deserve my time or yours. but if you wanna know what i think, here

4. The music question

where actually answer this ask like it's an ask and not an essay

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

i wish we could have seen what collecting frogs entailed for the two of them. what exactly were they doing? jade’s quest is one of the most interesting.

before i start i want to take a tangent and say the frog breeding reminds me of back in 2020-2021 when i would breed hybrid flowers in animal crossing new horizons to get a very specific gene sequence for these flowers to not only use to breed for hybrids, but to get known gene sequences that i could use to “check” the genes of other flowers. the goal is to get two parent flowers whose sequences when bred would make a specific phenotype 100% of the time.

this sounds complicated but here’s what i did for the lilies:

(“rare island” refers to one of the first acnh patches that removed a nook miles island from the pool that had hybrid versions of your native flower of very specific phenotypes for each color. i wrote out the breeding chains to get parents that would always breed that exact flower found on the rare hybrid nmt island that is no longer available.)

the cleanup ALL TO GET the white 2-2-2 lily looked like this. and after i got white 2-2-2 lily it was smooth sailing

after all that i could use the orange 2-2-0 lilies and white 2-2-2 lilies made in the black lily process and get rare island orange 2-2-1 lilies 100% of the time. in mendelian genetics these numbers (2-2-1) are quite literally RR-YY-Ww.

RR-YY-ww (orange) x RR-YY-WW (white) = RR-YY-Ww (orange: heterozygous Ww gene)

and all that effort into getting white 2-2-2 lilies enables me to get it over and over again now. i don’t have to repeat that process to get rare island pink lilies. all i need to do for the pink 2-0-2 lilies is breed two default bag red lilies (2-0-1) together. 50% will be red (2-0-1) lilies, 25% will be black 2-0-0 lilies, and the last 25% will be pink (2-0-2) lilies.

anyway sorry back to the main point. FROG BREEDING. it just reminded me of it. now that i think of it the frog breeding process also reminds me a lot of artbreeder back from when AI was only a fun little toy 4-5 years ago

ok so have a look at what kanaya says about what jade must do. this is the coolest quest imo because of how it progresses and how long it actually is

here’s how it works. remember back in act 2, when the wayward vagabond needed to tie a longer cable to descend down the ship (and refused to give up the ones that made up his mayoral sash)? he used the appearifier in the ship to appearify the extra cable across the gap to his location? that’s how the appearifier normally works when when it’s locked to the present. it’s very straightforward.

when jade appearifies a frozen frog, it shows us this exact thing. she appearified the actual frog itself (the same way WV appearified the actual cable across the gap) to her exact location. it can get the frog out of the ice in the way WV could untrap serenity from the amber. if something’s destiny wouldn’t otherwise be changed, it will not be paradoxified, it will just simply itself be warped to that location, with precise carving if it is somehow trapped inside of something else.

if you could appearify it to your location right now, you wouldnt be able to take it out the appearifier’s crosshairs in person later to alter its destiny because the object won’t be there at that time. it wouldve been with you the entire time. unless you decide to take the appearified item back to that location so that you could appearify it in the past, but that’s the most pointless time loop ever and doesn’t change its destiny.

for this icicle frog jade and dave weren’t capable of changing its destiny anyway, because it was completely encased in ice, and just didn’t bother to go after it. partially because it was with jade at the appearifier the entire time anyway and she can’t exactly put it back in there in the future. the point is, besides jade appearifying it to her location, the frog had no other possible routes of destiny. in that part of lofaf where she appearified the frozen frog from, the ice is too deep to get anything out of it (other than appearifying it) and i’m not sure the forge would have melted it in time before their reckoning ended anyway.

the goal of jade and dave is to target frogs on the appearifier screen and trust that their future selves follow through in altering the frog’s destiny. if so, then the frog’s paradox slime will appear instead and its genes would be collected in addition to creating offspring between multiple paradox clone frog genes. then, dave and jade would necessarily have to go out adventuring and find the frog so that they end up following through for their past selves.

if i understand correctly, jade is creating all the frogs on her planet that grow up with manually modified genes. these frogs must be genetically altered from their parents so that the frogs she creates don’t grow up to become one of their parents (as they’d be identical). the mutant offspring frogs “generation A” she ectobiologizes will eventually mature from tadpoles to frogs, assisted by dave’s time travel. then she will eventually target “generation A” with the appearifier to get their paradox slime to fuse with some other frogs’ paradox slime and create new slightly altered frogs “generation B” (and then follow through on altering the “generation A” frogs’ destiny so their slime and genes can be paradoxified by jade and dave’s past selves). repeat until the genes are fine tuned for the genesis frog.

this is why i compared it to my breeding in animal crossing. getting the genesis frog reminds me of the blue rose paths. i worked with the garden council back in the day and i used backwardsN’s “cesspool” method, except i honestly gotta say my white 2-2-2 lily thing was much more involved and carefully maneuvered in a way that i imagine frog breeding is more like. backwardsN’s “genepool method” was basically making a red-orange-black rose primordial soup and waiting for a blue rose to emerge out of it, just increasing the chances seeing a blue rose sprout the next day after watering with each generation of offspring. you KNOW my ass was using time travel, even if i happened to get lucky and got a blue rose without even finishing the big turtle plot. without time travel, most players (95%) will get their first blue rose before these # of days. (open up advanced tag)

there must be so many daves running around to help her going back in time all within the span of a few hours while still having their own linear, older timelines that are much longer than the “time stage” they’re actually functioning in. this sounds complicated but it’s not. think of this “time stage” as analogous to the 3 days until the moon falls in majoras mask. it’s the “time window” all the time travel takes place within, but link doesn’t become a day younger when he travels to a day ago. the timeline of his “self” is older but is kept within the confines of the 3-day timeframe. similarly, in tears of the kingdom, two master swords exist simultaneously for most of history, but the one on the light dragon’s head (who was above the cloud barrier before the upheaval btw) is further ahead on its own linear timeline: it starts as the other, pre-gloomed master sword → broken by gloom → sent to the past to be repaired → renewed over time, existing at the same time on the “time stage” as its own pre-gloomed past self but ahead on its own linear timeline

now imagine this but within the “time stage” of just a few hours within the same 24-hour period. kanaya says frog breeding ordinarily takes weeks. multiple daves can exist simultaneously because they’re operating in the same few-hour-timeframe but one can linearly be days ahead of another. it’s the exact same thing as breeding flowers in animal crossing for irl days but to your game it’s whatever date you have it set to. your irl progress isn’t lost if you go back a few days in settings. i’d often find a week in june to use as a “time stage” to loop through when it would rain at least one hour on each day of that week which would save me the hassle of watering my flowers every day before time traveling to the next.

it must’ve sucked for dave to hear jade say the same things over and over again. the novelty probably wore off pretty fast lol…… dave says he saw his future self fighting and dying to jack and knew that’s what he’d eventually have to do as well. every single dave at all points of his linear timeline understood that and it probably settled something horrible into his heart.

im imagining during the original run dave was thinking to himself: “im bored but cant alter anything about this without creating a doomed timeline. if i dont see my future self hugging jade then i cant hug her even though i really fuckin want to. note to future self: hug jade. aww shit look at me go guess i remembered. hell fucking yes cant wait for that to be me in a few hours” and gives a thumbs up

future dave pov, hugging jade and watching his past self give him a thumbs up from afar thinking to himself: “ahaha i remember exactly what i was thinking there” and gives a thumbs up

but anyway. goddamn. JADE AND DAVE. what did hussie do to you.

this is a goddamn atrocity.. what the hell man. i wish we could have at LEAST seen the text file jade sent to kanaya. we got to see ConversationWithAVeryStupidGirl.Txt but not daveisafunnyguy.txt?

i mean i GUESS the humor is delivered through this

and like, yeah that is pretty funny? but i feel like the single laugh this gives me is nothing compared to the joy i wouldve gotten out of seeing what dave has to say about the cloning apparatus for ants here and talking himself into circles about frog procreation enough to make not just gigglehouse jade laugh, but kanaya too

we spent so much time learning about the mechanics of the punch designix and hardly anything about creating the seed of the actual new universe. we learn about it through kanaya and karkat messaging jade, instead of dave and jade working that out through SHENANIGANS. even though this is JADE AND DAVE'S session. it’s fine that kanaya is helping them, as she should, but we’ve seen parallel pesterlog conversations before so i dont get why we didn’t get that here! jade and dave frog breeding is one of the most important events in homestuck, and yet it was terribly glossed over. everything in the story, their futures, are predicated on their success. not just in their unwinnable session, but the one they split up for 3 years and escape to.

at first i thought, maybe their lack of shown interaction has to do with hussie working out the intricacies of pesterlog/dialogue thing? as he once stated on tumblr:

shoshaumbay asked: In the intermission of act 6, it says that they get to talk. Does this mean that their guardians couldn’t talk to them before and that is why they left them notes all around their houses? The achievement badge only upgraded their ability to speak to each other as presented through the comic. I.e. it permitted them to speak to each other… WHILE WE WATCH! Do you think all the trolls were hanging out together, not talking at all? Or Dave and Jade were doing all that frog hunting without a single peep?? That’s ridiculous. On the other hand, abstraction weaves itself through the Homestuck reality, and it can be hard to pin down where abstraction is to be taken literally. The truth is, there is not much distinction between the layers of abstraction and the reality they are meant to stand for. John was both literally named on his 13th birthday, and not quite, because that’s silly. The guardians are both literally silent automatons, and not really, as there is indication through allusion they function as normal people too. And the kids went through a huge adventure, achieved immortal god status, and even then had to gain a few more levels just to gain the achievement of simple dialogue as a literal upgrade, as well as not literally, because that makes no sense. The reality is inseparable from the way the story is presented and the way the “game” is played. But those abstractions are also a facade for a more life-like reality beneath it as well.

then i realized, this is not only an arbitrary cop out that affects my enjoyment of the comic in retrospect because they wind up being able to talk later anyway and that makes me feel cheated in these moments, but also still actually awful within these parameters because hussie breaks his own rule here, proving he could have shown us dave and jade talking in person at any time regardless of needing the gift of gab achievement for us to watch them as readers. recall this is also the first time john and rose met in person (at least when rose wasn't asleep):

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

this is where i take out my frustration over this being delegated to a banner at the top to the point where readers forgot it occurred.

(also i want yall to take a moment to acknowledge this ^)

youtube

i wish their time on lofaf frog breeding and fighting with jack was front and center and wasnt just in the banner at the top of the page. it makes it seem not as important when it completely was, considering that characters brought up what had happened in that scene multiple times.

it is significant because it is at that point that jack noir has killed all of the kids at least once. the only one left being jade who he refuses to kill due to bec’s loyalty

THIS IS WHAT THE REFRANCE (foreshadowing)

jack noir killed john on his quest bed which allowed him to ascend to god tier. then he killed john AGAIN but it wasn’t a heroic or just death so john was revived

jack killed grimdark rose. john smooched rose’s corpse, allowing her to take over on derse.

jack killed dave by redirecting jade’s bullets into dave’s body instead. jade smooched dave’s corpse, allowing him to take over on derse.

after jade shoots him through jack, he’s down for the count. she kisses him and he wakes up on derse; all he and rose have left of “themselves” in an existential sense are their dreamselves. they didnt know they were going to ascend to god tier delivering the tumor. they assumed they were just going to die like for real and not come back which is why dave went with rose since he didnt want her to die alone.

it was also an important point since her time spent with dave on lofaf is the first in-person contact jade has had with another living human since she was probably 4 years old with her grandpa.

for jack noir, we got [s] seer: desend and [S] ==> (3696) which were hella impactful. seeing jade and dave essentially go through the same thing but with an extended battle sequence honestly kinda warrants a flash in my mind. (the sad thing is that unite synchronization was originally written with those pages in mind (the track was originally called redshift) but of course malcolm brown couldnt have known what was going to happen unless hussie commissioned him for a specific track for a specific story beat, probably like whatever he did to coordinate cascade’s music with toby ahead of the 10/25/11 release of the flash and publication of volume 8 on bandcamp)

i think one of the worst parts is that entire conversations were referenced, but cut or never written.

this is a real forgotten homestuck fact: jade was completely freaking out after filling dave with bullets until karkat had talked her through it. very easily forgotten since even though it being referenced twice we never actually saw the conversation. (i overrode the black scratch background so it's easier to read)

wow thats so crazy i as a member of the audience dont in fact remember! would it have killed to write it my guy

and we find out thousands of pages later dave was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die. if you even care btw

i wrote more about this here

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dates jade but breaks up because he feels inadequate at being the dave that he thinks jade deserves. NOT because they fought or anything. they were still on good terms. davesprite just felt inherently unlovable. john seemed more upset about the breakup frankly.

what davesprite did was because he thought it was in jade's best interest. there is nothing to suggest it was a fight / clash break up. they still seemed to be on good terms, davesprite asking where she went and all. jade says the breakup “is complicated” and “hes going through a lot of stuff”. given the context i think it's reasonable to assume that davesprite's thought process was: “we're coming up to the new session soon and youre going to meet up with dave again and i dont want to make shit awkward with you dating knockoff dave. you deserve to be with real dave instead so im gonna cut what we have going here in advance and distance myself from your life”

jade probably protested about saying how he's just as real as “real dave”, but davesprite made his decision already. im sure it wasnt easy for davesprite to break up either. with emotions running high (sadness, not anger) he probably just left to be alone and distance himself from jade, and seems to harbor guilt about it as we see in the log. that's probably why he wasn't at john's movie party. this is just speculation on my part but it doesnt seem in character for the breakup to be explosive because jade seemed more understanding than john. sad, but understanding.

i feel like a lot of people forget this. grimbark jade made it seem like davesprite did it to hurt her, or for this to mean that dave and jade are not actually good for each other, which is a wild mischaracterization of what happened but the one that stuck with the fandom nonetheless.

not only that, but davesprite's existence tragic and he's understandably depressed. after spending about a year in sburb (accounting for time travel) without john or jade, only to go back and give up your personhood to advance the alpha timeline and become forgotten is fucking crushing, and i think the breakup is also about davesprite coming to terms with that trauma, being okay with his existence as a sprite instead of being a bootleg stand-in for the dave that jade knew.

basically what vintagegamebro says,

it was such a tragic way for them to part for 3 years with no communication, and it was only proceeded by more tragedy because jade then had no one but davesprite to turn to, and davesprite needed anything but romance at that point

grimbark jade isn’t a good reflection of jade’s actual self. she pushed the mayor into lava for fucks sake which normal jade would never dream of doing, grimbark jade is straight up unhinged. i’m sure jade was hurt because all breakups hurt, but it was blown out of proportion (see how calm she was above a few days after the breakup?) because of Evilness. but also as @vintagegamebro mentioned it also felt somewhat … “off”? or out of left field? especially seeing what the nature of the breakup was from both sides in the above screenshots.

when dave says “theres no way i would have done that to you” i genuinely believe him. i have no reason not to believe him. look at him above asking for questions and clarification. thinking about how what davesprite did, a version of himself beyond his control and how it reflects on himself, i think it's obvious dave cares a lot about how jade feels about him

even after this confrontation in the game over timeline, dave laid down his fucking life to defend her corpse from the becs in he hope she could be revived by jane

and to think that after all this he still chose to save her, like always, probably knowing he had little to no chance, just because he cares for her, her life and who she is beyond this moment, really meant a lot for them. i really, really was mad that this would be the last time they would truly ever be together in a way that to me mattered

4. The music question

i wrote this post regarding instruments with this song in the back of my head if its anything. takes about 12 seconds to start after you press play for some reason

this too, closer to the “style”. i like imagining dave going apeshit on drums

#homestuck #dave strider #jade harley #davejade #homestuck meta #hs

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frannyzooey · 4 years ago

Note

Oof the brat tamer tag on that Javi gif set—truly calling out to my brat self like 👀 I read that you took/are taking a little tumblr break and just wanted to pop in and say how much I adore binging your writing (what a feast woman, my god) and that I hope wherever you are in the world that you’re safe and healthy! Sending love ❤️ foli-vora

@foli-vora you absolute filthy sweetheart

first of all, YES — BRAT TAMER JAVI — I’ve been obsessed with him for the last couple of days, the absolute control over himself as he edges you until you can’t take it anymore and then the way he would gorge himself on your body — that angry face? you, waiting on all fours so patiently and you heard the clink of his belt opening behind you but that seems like ages ago and he hasn’t moved yet and the second a beg comes out of your mouth, you get a swat that makes you suck in your breath and leak slick at the same time

If you wanna a great fic rec of a Javi that’ll absolutely destroy you, check out @filthybookworm — her masterlist literally has “brat taming Javi” as well as her FaceTime Javi, in which he obliterates your mind and your 🐱 by fucking you with a tac vest on 💀

second of all, 🥺🥺 thank you so much for saying that about my writing! It really means a lot to know you binge and enjoy it, especially coming from someone as talented as you ❤️

I’ve been in a slump the last couple weeks, hating everything that I write and I thought that might be a good sign to take a little break? I’ve been having trouble keeping inspiration for things — including coming to loathe some of the things I’ve started — and as much as I want to continue them, I think I maybe need to take a step back and let them sit awhile. I get nervous though, doing that, because it feels like the inspiration will never come back (even though that’s not true) and I need to stop and give myself some grace and say to myself, “Kelli, you just texted Cris this line from fog: his tongue a lazy swirl like the ceiling fan above — and that is great, so it’s not gone!” but sometimes that’s hard to believe, you know?

I also believe that the rapid upload of content on this site makes me feel like it’s been weeks since I’ve posted anything, putting this pressure out there that I need to really work on some of these things, but 1) that’s just the site talking and 2) that’s not how writing works and it’s something that I need to work on dealing with. ☺️

@astroboots gave me some amazing advice (because she is the smartest and the kindest) and said “don’t push it because regardless of the quality, you’ll end up associating it with how unhappy it made you” and she is so right, so I’m just gonna cool it for a minute and do what I always do when I’m feeling less than stellar about my abilities — read other people’s amazing writing, take note and learn from them, scream at them about it in a reblog and look at pretty pictures of PP for daydream purposes, like this one (OOF):

I’m safe and healthy, but not for long because I’m about to read your Frankie/Dave/Reader and that’ll actually kill me, so it’s been nice knowing you 💀

Thank you for sending this in — I appreciate you so much! ❤️

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emberfrostlovesloki · 2 years ago

Text

Talent [Hotch x Reader]

Photo credits: Left (@lavendair) Center (@hotchs-big-hands) Right (@muresetivoire)

Prompt: An inebriated Aaron finds out that the readers has a hidden talent and they offer to show him it later. When they get back to his apartment, more sober, Aaron apologizes, feeling awkward for getting them into this situation. They (the reader) honestly asks Hotch if he would let them do it anyway?

Pairing: Hotch x gender neutral reader. The reader uses they/them/their pronouns

Catagory: Hurt/comfort/smut

Word Count: 6.8K

A/N: Content warnings below the cut. This is a NSFW story. Minors DNI. 18+ only readers for this one. Please respect this boundary. A few things here so please bare with me. This was inspired by a little conversation between @softhairedhotch and @hotchs-big-hands That conversation can be found here (link)

I loved the idea and I got this wrote this. As usual, my writing got a bit more somber than I expected. Maybe that’s just my style idk? One last thing before you can actually read this thing, I insinuate that Hailey cheated on Hotch later in their marriage. I think this is an assumption the show makes, but never explicitly states. I don’t mean to slander Hailey in any way. I think she’s lovely and loved Aaron to the best of her ability. I did this mostly to make Hotch have self-doubt. I stan Hailey in my house. Lastly, this is only my third time posting smut, so forgive me it it’s not perfect. If you enjoy this story, likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated! I hope y’all have a good evening - Levi.

Content Warnings: Sex (slight hand job and blowjob [Hotch receiving]), slight size kink, sex and body doubt (Hotch), Foyet and the stabbing incident mentioned (mentioned that the attack was possibly psycho-sexual), blood, reference to a gag reflex, drinking (the team gets pretty intoxicated), sex life mentioned (reader and Hotch), Aaron is touch starved, cheating mentioned (Hailey). If I missed any, please let me know.

List will all stories

y/n = your name

y/c/h = your color hair

y/f/a = your favorite actor/actress

h/l = hair length

h/c = hair color - aka brown hair, black hair, blue hair ect.

d/h = dominant hand

Hotch nearly choked on his sip of beer. He tried to hide his coughs by putting his arm over his mouth. He had certainly not expected to hear Penelope, who was seated on Rossi’s rug with many other members of the team to say, “But you know I might have thrown up because the milk was expired, but y/n wouldn’t because they don’t have a gag reflex.” Aaron watched as y/n’s face turned crimson. y/n moved over to Garcia and jokingly shook their friend saying, “Pen, why would you talk about my sex life like that? You see, this is why you can never, ever meet my parents even though you keep asking. We’ll have, like, two drinks and then you’ll start talking about what position I like best.”

Upon hearing this, Aaron couldn’t take it anymore. He moved from the living room to the kitchen. He was trying very hard not to think about y/n in an array of sexual positions and acts, but he was failing. He was also trying to remember why the team had moved from the couches to the floor. A comment of Spencer's about the rug being comfortable and warm next to the fireplace that was roaring in the center of Dave’s living room might have been the reason. It was all a blur really. They were all drunk at this point. The team didn’t normally do this when they were together, but it was Friendsgiving and the last few cases had been relatively easy by their standards.

The team had a few days off, and shockingly they were all going to be in town, so Rossi had invited them all over to celebrate Thanksgiving as a unit. Everyone had brought something and it was nice to just relax and be together. His intoxicated brain circled back to the rug and to the topic of sex and he thought, ‘Oh god, no, no, no,’ but against his conscious brain he began to picture himself having sex with y/n on that soft shagged carpet. In his mind their back was arched, and they were panting as he thrust deeply into them. Aaron was startlingly pulled from his fantasy when his name was called. He looked up and flushed further. It was y/n leaning against the marble countertop. To his credit, y/n also had a flush to their face, and they asked, “What’s got you so flustered over there Mr. Hotchner.” Aaron tried to come up with an excuse, and he opened his mouth, but his brain couldn’t supply a reply, so he just closed his mouth. More mortified now than he may have ever been in front of a member of his team.

y/n walked closer to him, and they placed their hands on the edge of the counter. y/n leaned back on their strong arms which could be perceived in a sensual way. Hotch swallowed, and y/n looked him over. They noticed the bulge in Aaron’s well-fitted black trousers, but they averted their eyes quickly for his dignity, so that they didn’t start getting wild ideas. y/n was grateful that Hotch was a little too disheveled to have noticed them checking out his groin. Finally, after an awkward silence, y/n asked openly, drunkenly, “It’s not what Garcia said earlier that has you so riled up, is it?” There was that small undercurrent of desire in y/n’s voice that had Aaron feel a flash of heat rush through him again.

Hotch wouldn’t have to answer. His blown-out pupils, arousal, and micro-expressions were enough to tell y/n what they wanted to know. Even drunk this was obvious to them. Aaron gave a small nod, yes, anyway. y/n let out a small laugh before saying, “We see such horrible things in the field and my sexual abilities are what's causing your brain to reboot?” They were teasing him, and Hotch couldn’t help but say, “Well this isn’t the field.” He moved toward y/n and placed his hand on their hip. y/n’s exhalation of breath and flush of their skin told Aaron that the touch wasn’t unwanted. He’d never initiated anything romantic or sexual with y/n.

The small part of his brain that was still functioning normally was screaming at him to stop. That he might regret this when he was sober. But his id was stronger than that voice. As his other hand moved to y/n’s other hip, he looked down at them. y/n’s eyes were wide and shining with a type of desire he’d never seen on their face before. _y/n_ breathily said his name; “Aaron.” Without much more to think about he asked, “Is what Garcia said true? Or is she just making stuff up again?” y/n flushed and acted askance and replied, “Why Hotch, that’s not a nice thing to ask someone.” Aaron bit back a sigh and applied gentle pressure to _y/n_’s hips. Their body moved with his touch and y/n truthful answered, “It is true though. It’s my hidden talent that’s rarely used.” y/n looked up at Hotch and the desire, the hunger they saw on his face left them reeling for a second. They knew this was crossing a hundred lines, but in that moment the very feeling of his hands on their body was such a rush that they didn’t fight it. The idea of Aaron’s large hands elsewhere had them boldly state, “I can show you later on if you let me come to your apartment?”

That image actually made Hotch groan. It was quiet, and Aaron was eternally grateful that no one on the team had come in yet to refresh their drinks. Maybe they had all assumed what y/n and he were discussing and were intentionally not entering the room. Aaron asked, surprised at y/n’s offer and their willingness to accept, “You’d do that for me?” There was that soft throaty laugh again, and y/n said, “Of course I would Hotch.” Aaron swallowed again and replied, “Okay. But only if you really want to. You don’t have to do anything for me like that if you don’t want to.” y/n moved their hand, patted his shoulder, and said, “I promise that you will get enthusiastic consent from me before it happens. And if either of us changes our minds, we can pretend this little conversation never happened.

After this, they headed back to the living room. If the team had been intentionally avoiding them, they hid it well. The members of the BAU seemed to be engrossed watching Spencer speed-read Rossi’s well-worn copy of Critique of Pure Reason by Kant. As y/n sat back down next to Emily, they whispered, “Why are we watching Spence read?” Emily listed slightly toward y/n and said, “We’re going to have Rossi test him on the concepts of the book. Or see if the genius can remember some especially long passages. We want to see how much he can remember when he’s this drunk.” y/n chuckled at the concept. They were now also invested.

An hour and a half later the team slowly started saying their goodbyes. At this stage, y/n and Aaron were more in control of their faculties. They were the third party to leave, and they both shared an Uber back to Hotch’s apartment. Because neither of them knew how much they would be drinking that night, they had shared a ride over to Rossi’s together. y/n only lived two blocks over and Aaron promised to walk them the rest of the way home. On the short ride back, y/n and Hotch both gained more clarity, and Aaron was starting to feel uncomfortable with what he had said two hours earlier. His desire for y/n was still there, but he knew he shouldn’t have said what he did. Suggested what he had. As it turned out, Aaron’s desire for his younger agent rarely, if ever waned.

When y/n had joined the team a few years ago, he had quickly found himself drawn to them physically. Hotch didn’t believe in love at first sight, but he couldn’t deny that he had experienced lust at first sight with y/n. It was like y/n had been made for him. When Hotch first thought this fully -- not just with the small voice he used to stifle unwanted thoughts with -- he realized how much of a narcissist it made him sound like. It was with that thought that he buried all feelings about y/n. He couldn’t risk going there, even in his mind. But with there still being a slight buzz in his head, his mind wandered to how the slope of y/n’s shoulders was gentle yet angular. How their y/h/c looked during golden hour, the way their eyes had held his gaze earlier that evening when they had offered to show him their talent. Aaron shifted slightly in his seat to try and readjust himself. His body was having ideas of its own again, and he didn’t appreciate it. Aaron looked over to y/n who seemed to be in their own type of reverie. It hadn’t helped that he found them attractive and that they were such a good person.

On the team, y/n was smart. They could come up with ideas as fast as Spencer and the duo could be often found at precincts and their hotel rooms bouncing ideas off each other at a mile-a-minute pace. They were also fiercely protective of the team. If someone questioned the team, or specifically a member of the team, they were there to professionally correct and support either the team or the member being targeted. He had seen them do it for JJ, Garcia, and Morgan which was funny because Derek could generally take care of himself. But that hadn’t mattered to y/n. They had stood up for and comforted Derek in their way.

y/n had comforted him too. It was more polite than with the other agents, but they had done it all the same. Aaron knew that y/n felt similarly about him as he felt about them. It was clear in their actions and demeanor around him. y/n hid it well most of the time, but every now and then, he would get a hint that those desires resided in y/n too, and he had to fight his feelings all over again. It was all a mess, and now they would have to talk about tonight. The conversations had been mutually intimate and yes, having his subordinate offer to perform fellatio on him broke about a dozen rules and regulations, but he had continued the conversation. He could have walked away, lied, or done ten thousand other things than being honest and accepting the offer. Aaron stifled another groan of annoyance and embarrassment. He knew he was fucked, or perhaps not fucked, in loads of ways. At least their conversation had been consensual. There was a small mercy in that.

As the car moved down the quiet streets, y/n could feel Aaron near them. They chose to look out the car window instead of at their companion. y/n needed a few minutes to settle their thoughts. To say y/n was mortified about their behavior during the evening was an understatement. Their attraction to Hotch was undeniable, and they saw the tells on their boss as well. That didn’t make what they had done that evening right. y/n had been shocked by how quickly and hard they had been attracted to Aaron.

y/n didn’t know they could feel so intensely until they met him. Of course, there had been teen idols. And they had rewatched a few movies with y/f/a a few hundred times. But that was an actor, and Hotch was a real man in flesh and blood. To mention the fact that he was their boss didn’t help the matter either. In all honesty, everyone on the team had said something more personal than they would have sober during the night, but y/n was certain what they and Aaron had revealed was the most intimate. The street lights continued to pass by in a blur as they approached Aaron’s apartment. y/n knew that things would come to a head when they got there, and y/n couldn’t help but think for one second, ‘Is my desire for him so wrong? God we both feel it. Why couldn’t life be easier? Why couldn’t they just give in for once?” These were the thoughts that swilled within them, between them, as they sped toward their destination.

When they arrived outside of Aaron’s, the two stood outside of his stoop in an awkward silence. Aaron broke it first by saying, “I never should have said anything in the kitchen. I never should have put my hands on you. I sincerely apologize for my actions, y/n. I never meant to make this uncomfortable between us. I value your contributions to the team and I’d never view you as a sexual object. I was drunk and it was a mistake.”

Hotch realized that he was rambling, and he looked to y/n for their response. They looked back and him and replied, “I started it. Well, Garcia started it. It was out of line for me to approach you like that. I respect you, Hotch. I apologize.” They both stood in the frosty air, under the light of a lone streetlamp. The wind picked up and both parties seemed unwilling to leave the conversation where it was. y/n shuddered against the cold and used a voice they rarely did with Aaron. y/n asked, “Can we go into your apartment for a minute before you walk me home? I think I need to warm up for a minute before you walk me back.”

The voice they used was one-third needy, one-third empathetic, and one-third pleading. Though Aaron could be reading into the pleading part of it. Perhaps he just wanted that to be the case. y/n had only spoken to him once before like that and it was when he had gotten injured on a case. y/n had asked him to slow down in the same tone and just like back then, he couldn’t refuse them. Hotch pulled out his keys and unlocked his front door. As they moved inside, he turned on the light above his sink and then he took a few large strides to turn on some lamps in the living space. Aaron gestured to the couch and offered y/n a seat, which y/n took.

Aaron moved toward the sink and asked over his shoulder, “Would you like a glass of water?” y/n closed their eyes at the thoughts bombarding them and said, “Yes, please.” Aaron grabbed two glasses from his cabinets and added some ice from the freezer before filling them with water. When he turned back to y/n, they had their d/h pinching the skin between their eyebrows; their face in a half grimace. Aaron moved quickly toward them and asked, “y/n, are you alright? Do you have a headache?” y/n let out a nervous laugh before removing their hand and saying, “Not yet. But it’s sure to come in a few hours. I’m not a college kid at a pre-game party anymore. I can’t do that kind of drinking without the consequences.” Aaron chuckled at _y/n_’s response. Given that he was a good deal older than y/n him, he could only imagine how bad it might be for himself in the morning. He added taking some Advil before bed to his mental notes. He would do that as soon as y/n was safely home. Even though things had been odd between them for the last half of the night, he would still ensure that they got home safe before he returned to his space to re-wrangle the thoughts that had fought their way back to the surface again. He let out a soft sigh, as he watched y/n take a sip of water.

y/n set their glass down and looked up at Aaron. They asked a question that had undercut the whole night for them. They asked because at this moment having to fake disinterest felt like too great a burden to bear, and because they knew they were already in trouble, so why not face the full consequence? y/n said what was really on their mind with, “What if I wanted to show you anyway? Apart from Pen’s comments? Apart from the fact that I was drunk when I said what I did.” There was a silence and Hotch’s eyes blinked at what they said, trying to register the words; what was being offered. He felt the hitch in his breath as he said, “y/n I…”

They cut Hotch off saying, “Aaron. I see how you look at me. And I know that you see how I look at you. I’m sorry, but I can’t keep pretending to not care about you. To not want to give you more.” Hotch blinked a few times rapidly, trying to clear this head of images. Even now that he was in full control of his mind, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from wandering. Aaron closed his eyes and said y/n’s name in desperation. In shame. They looked up at him and said, “Tell me that I’m wrong. Tell me that I’m wrong and I’ll stop immediately.” As hard as Aaron tried to say no, he couldn’t bring himself to.

y/n stood and half maneuvered Aaron to sit on his couch. They knelt and pushed his knees open. Hotch groaned and said, “You can’t possibly want this?” y/n ran their hands over his inner thighs and said, “I’m in full control of my faculties, Aaron. If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t be here. y/n looked over his seated body. He looked so prone like this; exposed. They often wondered about Aaron. How he felt about himself, and his strong body. y/n had noticed that he wore more layers after what had happened with Foyet. The textures and materials of his suits had changed as well. Half of the time y/n was sure he was sweating under all that fabric. _y/n_ gently dropped to their knees and asked Hotch, who was looking at them with trepidation, guilt even, “Aaron, are you alright? What’s going on in that head of yours?”

For the last year or so, after Foyet, Hotch had been physically cutting himself off from close contact of any kind. It brought up too many painful memories of Hailey before she and Jack had to flee to witness protection before she divorced him. When he was younger he had been so passionately in love with her. It was the most he had ever felt in his life, and with his childhood the way it was, there was a great comfort in that. When he and Hailey had met again as adults, those feelings were still there and they persisted throughout his time in law school and his short stint as a prosecutor.

But when he had joined the BAU things had changed. At first, there had been a thrill for both of them. But with time, Hailey seemed to grow tired of his constant comings and goings. His late nights in the office under Gideon. Their sex life had changed and what used to be passionate and loving sex turned into less passionate more need-based sex from either himself or his wife. Then Jack happened, and Gideon’s incident in Boston which left even less time for him to spend with his wife and newborn son. Again sex changed for them because Hailey needed time to heal and Jack took up most of their time when Aaron was home. When they had been intimate at that stage it felt different. It happened rarely and he could feel Hailey withdraw from his touch sometimes.

A few months later, when he started to assume that she might be acting unfaithfully to him he started to understand why his wife was so hesitant to be around him. Aaron didn’t want to believe it was true. He wanted to think that it had something to do with him. Some shortcomings of his character or body. When it came out that she had been seeing someone else, Aaron forgave her. He still loved her deeply and he knew that he had his own issues; being around was the chief one for his wife. Some part of him understood why she had sought comfort in someone else while he was away even though he would never do that to her. A part of Aaron still thought that there was something wrong with him, his body, and his performance in bed. And the last time he and Hailey had really, intentionally tried to be intimate, his own doubts and the thought of her with another man had not allowed him to finish. Aaron didn’t assume that was the death knell of their marriage, but part of him factored it in.

Then Foyet had physically assaulted him, his body. Hotch never told anyone, and the team didn’t say anything, but he had wondered if Foyet was seeking some sort of sick sexual release with the knife as a subsite penis. Aaron had passed out from blood loss before he could know the answer to that question. Aaron was grateful for that to this day. So the idea that y/n, the kind and caring person they were was interested in him sexually was rather unbelievable to him. It had been so long since he had been sexual. He even stopped allowing himself to touch himself if he woke up aroused. He felt like he deserved it. He didn’t know how he would act, or perform if he accepted y/n’s offer. Thinking about it made him nervous. And yet, his desire for y/n persisted.

Hotch swallowed and he suddenly felt like he needed ten glasses of water instead of the one he had just consumed. He looked down at y/n and replied, “I shouldn’t even be sitting here. These thoughts… they.” Aaron felt embarrassed at himself and looked away, not really knowing what to say. It had been so long that he had felt a desire this strong. It had been even longer that someone had been this intimate with him. Even to have his legs spread and y/n looking up at him with such care. They hadn’t even fucking done anything yet. Aaron closed his legs and y/n let him.

They wanted Hotch to know that he had full control of his body. Of what happened, if anything did end up happening. y/n stood and leaned close to him. With tender care, y/n took his chin in their hand and directed his face to look at them. y/n said, “Desire isn’t a sin Hotch. There isn’t some cosmic scale weighing whether you looked at some girl crossing the road five years ago. It’s a natural feeling; it’s not wrong to feel it. If anything you’ve been restraining yourself. So have I.

I care about you too much to just keep dreaming about you at night. It feels like I’m using you. So now you know how I feel. Now would you please let me do this for you?” Aaron had to blink back a few tears at y/n’s statement. It was so honest that he could hardly see past it. It was blinding in its sincerity. To know that y/n felt like him in that way made him feel warm in a different way than his body responding to theirs. As a last half-assed defense, he said quietly, “I’m your boss.” The chuckle y/n let out had his eyes on them in an instant. Laughter hadn’t been the response he had expected. y/n was wearing their ‘color me surprised’ face. And Aaron laughed at the expression too. It was no surprise to both of them. But this wasn’t about power dynamics, it was about tenderness and longing, and when y/n asked, “Would you let me take care of you?” He nodded his head yes and then verbalized that he wanted it too.

With his consent given. y/n pressed into him. Their hands found traction on his biceps, and they moved their mouth over his neck. y/n could feel his steady pulse under their mouth. At the contact, Aaron let out a sigh. His body reacted almost immediately. He shifted slightly, closed his eyes, and moved his head to the side a bit to give y/n better access to his flesh. When Aaron had gotten in the apartment, he had discarded his suit jacket and tie to be more comfortable. His shirt however was still buttoned tightly.

y/n’s hands worked at the top two buttons, but they were struggling as they tried to keep their mouth on Hotch’s skin while doing the buttons at the same time. y/n was both kissing and sucking at the sanative area. Aaron moved his arms to slide between their bodies, as he undid the troublesome buttons. y/n hummed their thanks, and as they moved to treat his clavicles and breast bone, they breathed hot and heavy over his neck. The semi-excited state of his cock grew quickly. y/n moved over the area with reverence. While their mouth worked over his partially exposed torso, their hands also moved. Their right hand was tracing the lines of his muscle on his stomach and the other was slowly trailing up and down his left thigh. When y/n placed their hand over his hardness, shielded by his pants and briefs, he groaned -- loudly. He felt embarrassed, and y/n looked up at him and said, “It’s okay to feel. I want you to enjoy this.” With how large he felt under their hand, y/n was excited to see his manhood.

They moved back to their knees, and this time, as they pushed his thighs open, Aaron let it happen. y/n set one hand on his hip and the other moved under his linen shirt, wrinkling it. y/n started kissing at his knee and slowly moved up his thigh. As they got close to his arousal, which was throbbing hard against his underwear and the zipper of his pants, they moved to the other leg and began the process again. Hotch let out a shaky breath. Whatever hesitations he had been having at the start were as far away as Neptune now. The slow buildup was driving him insane. Finally, y/n made it to his groin and kissed over his erection. From what they could feel, he was large. Long and wide. As y/n made their tactile observations with their mouth, they thought back to the dreams they had had of Aaron.

He was always well endowed in them, but now that they were here, he might even be bigger than they had imagined. y/n thought, ‘Of course he’s big. This is Hotch we’re talking about.’ They refrained from laughing but did let out a small breath. Their thought might be funny to them, but it might come off very differently to Aaron. They didn’t want to think they were laughing at him. They never wanted that.

Once they had kissed up the tip which was being held down by his belt, y/n moved their face away and started to undo the buckle of his belt. The metal was cool under y/n’s fingers. Once the belt was slipped through the front two belt loops and the two at his hips, y/n shifted forward and grabbed the hem of his shirt. They moved the stranded weave fabric up, exposing his stomach. y/n leaned in and kissed over his belly button. Their tongue licked over the well in his form, and Aaron moaned again. y/n then moved to kiss one of the exposed scars on his body. He looked down at y/n like this, and he wondered what it would be like with him in her mouth?

He stopped himself from bucking up at the thought. While y/n had been working over his body, his breathing had picked up. At this new sensation, he whispered their name. y/n made quick work of the buttons and zipper of his pants. They were careful that there were no unintended snags as they tugged the small pull down. y/n looked over his cloaked member. They kissed the shaft and then moved their hand to press against it before slowly stroking it through his gray briefs. y/n used their pointer and little finger to stimulate the sides, while their ring and middle finger applied pressure to the front of his penis. y/n didn’t tease him with their hand too long. This wasn’t the pleasure Olympics. They didn’t know how much stimulation Aaron was used to, and y/n didn’t want to overdo it for him. Before y/n removed the final layer of clothing, they looked up to Aaron again to ensure he was still on board with this last exposure. Hotch looked into their eyes, the question evident to him. In a deep voice, one full of need, he said, “Yes. If you’re willing.” y/n replied in the affirmative, saying, “I want to.”

With consent given, y/n tugged at the elastic band of his briefs. Aaron put his weight on his feet and lifted his hips for them. y/n pulled down the fabric and revealed his member for the first time, as it rested on his body. He was large and as Hotch settled back down on the couch, they looked over him with pleasure. y/n’s hand circled the base, and they started pumping up and down with a steady pace and pressure. They praised him saying, “You’re very impressive Aaron.” Their praise and the feeling of their hands moving over him had him squirming and breathing heavily.

He was starting to sweat now, and he had never imagined it would be like this. Because if he had, he would never be able to let go. But now that it was actually happening, he couldn’t care about the complications. He felt so good with y/n rubbing their hand against his cock, and he muttered, “Fuck, y/n. You’re so good.” They smiled, and he cursed again as y/n used their other hand to stroke and circle the base of his member. y/n didn’t spend a very long time with their digits, after all, they had promised to show Aaron their talent, and having him cum in their hands was not on the agenda.

So y/n removed their d/h from the shaft and Aaron’s eyes grew wide with the sudden loss of contact. He felt like he might explode if didn’t have that stimulation moving over him. He was about to say something, but the breath was forced from his body as y/n took the tip in their mouth. y/n shifted on their knees a bit to be able to best take Hotch in. The carpet under their legs was decently comfortable, but the wood floor underneath was solid.

y/n paid attention to the tip first, suckling it and running their tongue over the slit on the top. Aaron tried to take a steadying breath, but he was falling apart at the sensation of pleasure rushing through him. When y/n was comfortable with the feel of him and had built some confidence at being able to take him in, they pushed their tongue down and hollowed their cheeks. Carefully covering their teeth, y/n moved their mouth further down his length. At this, Hotch tipped his head back and moaned again. y/n wasn’t even halfway down him before some precum leaked from the tip. y/n pulled up and sucked the briny ejaculate off his cock. y/n swallowed it quickly and moved back to working him over. They would think more deeply about the taste of Hotch’s cum later, but for now, they wanted to keep hearing Aaron mutter their name or try to keep his breathing even. They could feel from his reactions and the throbbing of his cock that he wasn’t in control at all, even if he was trying to be. y/n momentarily wondered how long it had been since anyone had done this for him.

Aaron's width not only filled their mouth, but his length, even though they didn’t have a natural gag reflex, was still a bit too much for y/n to fully cover with their mouth. About an inch was left exposed to the cool air. Before y/n moved their free hand to make up the difference, they looked over Hotch. The sight of him, head tipped back, mouth open sent a wave of pleasure through them. y/n noticed Hotch’s hands gripping the side of the couch with white knuckles. As y/n continued to move over him, they used their free hand to grab Hotch’s left hand from the couch cushion and to set it on the crown of their head.

Aaron looked down at y/n as they moved his hand to the back of their head. He hesitated. He was desperate to take what was being offered on top of what was already happening. On top of the bliss and heat, he was feeling in his cock. y/n patted his hand on their head giving him a non-verbal “It’s okay.” Aaron couldn’t help himself and threaded his long fingers in y/n’s h/l h/c. y/n continued to move up and down his shaft, and then covered the base of his cock that couldn’t be inside their mouth. With Aaron fully enveloped, he bucked his hips up and as y/n had said, the extra pressure didn’t cause any gag reaction. In fact, _y/n_ hummed their satisfaction at his action.

He trembled under y/n and thought about what they had said earlier in the night about feelings not being wrong. And moving his hips had felt so, so, blindingly good that he did it again. And then again, and again, and again until he was sure he could feel himself ready to cum. y/n was intently focused on his pleasure. Aaron’s member was lined with a few thick veins running down the side and back. As Hotch started to take control of his own pleasure with gentle pressure to their head, y/n lifted their tongue up and down those ridges on his cock. This new sensation and the slight sucking that y/n was doing sent him over the edge. Aaron’s hand tightened in y/n’s hair, and he came with a shudder. He let out a loud moan and pulled y/n’s head off of his cock. They had only taken a bit of his semen in their mouth. y/n wondered why he hadn’t let them swallow his ejaculation, but didn’t ask now. There were still so many things to know about him. Things they hoped they could learn together with time. y/n stroked his thigh softly as he rode out his orgasm. Seeing him so out of control only wanted to make them care for him more.

When the waves of pleasure subsided, Aaron relaxed back into the couch cushion. He closed his eyes because he was afraid of what he would see in y/n’s eyes if he opened them. He wasn’t fully sure how to cope with what they had given him. A soft touch of his thigh did eventually made him see y/n, and they were looking at him with a care he had rarely seen in his life. He swallowed back some tears, and he patted the couch next to him. As y/n got up from their knees, and sat next to him. He pulled his underwear over his nakedness. His cum was staining his shirt and pants and he would need to launder and shower after he talked to y/n.

y/n sat and gave him space, but he needed to feel them close to him. To have this living, breathing care in his arms. He turned to face y/n and asked, “May I hold you?” y/n nodded, and Aaron moved his arm to rest behind their lower back. He pulled y/n close to his side, and they turned toward him softly. y/n placed their head on his broad, muscular shoulder. There were a few moments of comfortable silence before y/n said, “You don’t ever owe me anything, Aaron. You know that right?” The question lingered until Aaron’s hand moved to the back of y/n’s head, gently running his digits through the smooth hair.

A different kind of touch than what he had been doing a few minutes before. Now that he had been sated, he feared that a gulf would form between them. But y/n’s comment gave him something to think about, to still his nervous mind. Finally, he replied, “But I do owe you things y/n. I owe you safety on the field, professionalism in the office, and privacy. I feel like I owe you more than those things as well.” y/n’s hand was back on his thigh again and they replied, “Okay, valid point. At the job, you do play a different role, but we’re both adults Hotch. We’re not teenagers trying to shag in the high school gymnasium. Given how long we’ve waited for something to happen between us, I think we can keep it together at work.” At this statement, Aaron chuckled lightly. y/n was certainly true about that. After a beat, y/n continued saying, “But is it so impossible to believe that we couldn’t do both? That we couldn’t care for each other outside of work?” Aaron pondered the question. He thought about what they had said. About the profound pleasure, y/n had brought him; and not just physical pleasure, but an emotional cover as well made him consider his words wisely, carefully. When y/n was with him like this, it felt like his many flaws disappeared. That he had a clean slate. Hotch closed his eyes and rested his head on top of y/n’s, as he said, “I willing to try.”

When it was appropriate, Aaron quickly cleaned himself, changed, and then walked y/n back to their apartment. Before y/n went inside, Hotch placed a hand on their lower back and leaned down to kiss y/n’s forehead. They had both agreed to take a day and see if any other feelings, questions, or concerns that might arise once they were apart. They scheduled a meeting of sorts for Sunday to talk more deeply and thoroughly about what this relationship might look like. When they parted for real, Aaron walked down the quiet street. It was late in the night, but he didn’t feel tired. As he walked, he considered how physically closed off he had been the last few months. Close off to the team and himself. But y/n had helped him see the sky again and no matter what happened after this, he would always be grateful for that.

On Monday, y/n went to see Garcia. To honestly say, “What the hell Pen?” However, the technical analyst had been watching y/n and Aaron pine for each other for two years and even though her comment at Rossi’s had been a Freudian slip, she still noticed how the pair spent a long time in the kitchen. How they had both come back flushed, eyes wide. Once y/n stepped into Garcia’s space, Penelope could see that something happened and did a little happy dance in her chair before getting up and dragging y/n into her office, closing the door. Once they were alone, Pen said, “y/n tell me everything.” y/n flushed, a bit exasperated, and said, “The answer is, I may never tell you anything about my sex life again. But thanks, Penelope.” y/n winked at their friend and left the office with a smile on their face. Garcia gave a little excited scream of happiness as she moved back to her desk. Sometimes when things didn’t go to plan, it still worked out.

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jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets · 4 years ago

Text

I Loved Him... Once - CH 3

Title: I Loved Him… Once

Author: jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Heid (Aaron Hotchner x Spencer Reid)

Rating: This ones General but eventually as the series goes it will be Explicit

Tags: canon typical violence and gore, eventual smut as the series goes, angst, fluff, pining., its gunna be a slow burn guys.

Summary: A series following the team as they solve crimes and take down the bad guys.

In Part one of this series, we follow the team as they take down a serial killer that has taken a piece of one of their own. And through it all, Spencer and Hotch come to a few conclusions and realizations of their own.

AO3

Masterlist

*** My works are not to be posted on any sites without my permission! But comments and reblogs are love! <3 Please and thanks!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter three

Spencer pulled into the bureau parking lot later the next day. Once he parked, he rested his head on the steering wheel for a few moments, wallowing in what he could have almost had but didn’t get the chance to even ask for, before letting it go and putting himself back into work mode.

He got out, grabbed his bag, and quickly made his way inside. And as soon as his feet hit the bullpen floor, JJ was there ushering everyone who had already arrived into the conference room.

“Spence, hey! How was your holiday?” She asked as ash approached him and they walked towards the stairs together.

“It was… okay.” He answered, shoving his hands in his pockets and matching her strides, “How was yours? Did Henry have fun camping?”

“Oh yeah! He had loads of fun and way too many smores,” they both laughed, and Spencer had a feeling the smores had more to do with Will then JJ, “all though it was a much shorter vacation then I was hoping for, but I kind of expected as much. So what did you do with your six days?”

“Uh…” Went to a lecture series, zoned out during said lecture series, thought about Aaron, had a small breakdown in the middle of the lecture series because of Aaron, was seconds away from asking Aaron out on a date right before they got called back… “Not much really, just… a couple lectures, nothing too fun.”

“I'm sure it was still fun, you love stuff like that.”

Great, Spencer thought, another person who thought he wasn't any fun. Maybe it was better he didn't get the chance to ask Aaron out. He might have thought going out with Spencer wouldn't be a good time, that he'd think a ‘fun night out’ included some form of education rather than something romantic. As if he needed yet another person to tell him he was boring, and this time it would be followed up by a harsh rejection he wasn't sure he'd be able to take.

But he just nodded with a smile at JJ as they ascended the stairs and made it to the conference room door. “Well, vacation is officially over and now it's back to work,” then she opened the door and walked in, Spencer following after her.

JJ walked in and sat on the other side of the table beside Emily, the two of them instantly opening the case files in front of them and quietly discussing between themselves, while they waited for everyone else. Derek was sitting beside Emily, case file open before him but seemingly stuck in his own little world, eyes glued to the page but not really looking. Garcia was up and walking around the table, distributing the last of the case files frantically, and it looked like Dave was the only one still missing.

So that left three free chairs at the table. One beside JJ which he assumed had already been claimed by Garcia, one beside Derek and the last… beside Aaron. He figured it would probably be in his best interest to sneak in and take the open seat beside Derek, so that's exactly what he tried to do. Tried.

As soon as he walked into the room and attempted to make the turn in Derek’s direction, he was stopped clean in his tracks when suddenly Aaron stood abruptly, eyes locked on Spencer. The entire room went silent, still, even Derek looked up from his file, and Spencer just stared at Aaron. No one moved or even dared to make a sound as the two had their awkward stare down, even the clicking of Garcia's heels had ceased, and the tension was constricting.

“What is going on?”

The deep, smooth baritone of David's voice cut through the moment and Emily answered for them all, “We have no idea…”

David took in the situation, looking from Spencer, to Aaron who was still standing and looking completely shell shocked, then shrugged. “Well, I don't know about you, kid, but I don't plan on standing for the entire briefing.”

“Right… right, sorry,” he finally managed to pull his gaze away from Aaron, and turned to continue his plan of sitting beside Derek, “I'll just sit-”

When he turned he was suddenly slammed right into David, who had managed to sneak around him, and they were now in some sort of side stepping dance battle for the chair beside Derek. “Sorry, kid,” they bumped into each other again as they both moved the same way, “I'm so sorry, so sorry.”

Spencer tried a few more times to get around him, but after more then a few failed attempts he admitted defeat and turned to take the chair beside Aaron, the one chair he didn't want to take. “I'll just… sit… here, I guess.”

“Yeah, you do that, and I'll sit here beside my good friend, Derek.”

Derek gave Dave an amused look, but let it go, and everyone watched as Spencer moved to take the open seat, Aaron finally sitting back down at the same time as Spencer.

On the other side of the room, still slightly afraid to move, Garcia slowly sank herself down in the chair beside JJ, and leaned in to talk quietly to the two girls, whisper yelling, “What the hell was that?!”

“I… I don't know,” Emily stuttered out, a little concerned that as a profiler she didn't even know where to start with the behaviour they just witnessed, '' I actually don't know!”

“We're gunna have to keep an eye on that right?!” Garcia asked again.

“Oh, definitely,” JJ chimed in, all three of them sticking their heads close together and continuing to observe the two boys across the table.

Spencer sat, not quite having the courage to look over at Aaron, but he could tell he was looking at him. Which made him all the more nervous to be sitting there. So instead he occupied himself with opening his case file then digging through his bag for a pen.

A light tap on his shoulder broke his severe concentration on finding a pen, and he closed his eyes to steady himself, then turned to his left. Aaron was still staring at him, as he had suspected, but was now holding out a pen to him. He forced himself to look up and make eye contact with Aaron, taking the pen with a shy smile. “Ah… t-thank-you.”

“You're welcome,” he waited a beat, then asked quietly, “how was your lecture series?”

“Oh,” Spencer took a pause, thinking back on how he had run out of there like a bat out of hell, and all because of the man currently asking him about it. So he just raised a brow and responded with a slight smirk, “enlightening.”

Aaron nodded, not quite understanding the underlying message there and Spencer was thankful for that, then leaned in closer to say, “I was going to-” Before he was cut off by Strauss walking into the conference room.

“Good, you're all here,” she looked around the room and everyone sat up a little straighter as she did, then she turned her attention to Aaron as she continued, “I'll expect you to be in California tonight so that you can get started there early tomorrow morning. Get this solved quickly.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Aaron nodded.

She took one last look around the room, then landed on Garcia with a heavy stare, “I'll leave you to your briefing then,” and closed the door behind her as she left.

“Right, right, the briefing!” She stood quickly, grabbing the remote and pointing it to the screen on the wall, bringing up pictures from the scenes. Anything that was going to be said between Spencer and Aaron was lost behind the case. “Over the last few days San Diego, California has been faced with a slew of murders, to be honest with you much too gruesome for my gorgeous eyes, so I'm just gunna turn away while you all look.”

She clicked the remote a few times, promptly turning her back to the screen as she did. The team looked upon their victims, all taking a few minutes to gather their thoughts before Emily started the process, “Who are they, Garcia?”

She clicked a few more times, the unmutilated faces of the victims coming up as she spoke, “Joe Marsden, thirty-three, Karl Jennings, thirty-two, and yesterday's victim Adam Knoxs, thirty-five.”

“Any connections between them?”

“None that I could find so far,” she sighed as she explained, “Joe was an elementary school teacher, he taught grade two and from what I can tell was very much loved by both students and parents. Karl worked at a local restaurant as a line cook. And Adam was a receptionist for a private medical practice. As far as I can tell by phone records and credit cards, none of them ever crossed paths in any way.”

“Keep digging, Garcia, see if you can find anything that might connect these people, no matter how small it may seem.” She nodded at Aaron, then Derek was the next to speak.

“The victimology is way off,” he said as he turned his chair, pointing to the screen, “there doesn't seem to be a type here. One has blonde hair and blue eyes, the other brunette with brown eyes, and the last guy is balding with grey hairs on the side. None of them look anything even close to similar, so why these three men?”

“He's right, it doesn't make any sense,” JJ added, “not to mention the fact that each victim seems to have been mutilated differently each time. Joe had his eyes crossed out, Karl had his ears cut off, and Adam had his mouth sewn shut. Are we sure this is even the same unsub for all three murders?”

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” Spencer spoke up, everyone turning towards him.

“Good eye, kid,” David looked over to him, then asked, “what else do you know about this?”

“The three wise monkeys are a Japanese pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’,” he began, gaining the attention of everyone in the room, “The three monkeys are Mizaru, who sees no evil, covering its eyes. Kikazaru, who hears no evil, covering its ears. And Iwazaru, who speaks no evil, covering its mouth. There are various meanings ascribed to this proverb, some of which tend more to the innocent side of being of good mind, speech, and action. But the phrase is more often than not used to refer to dealing with the immoral side of things in terms of turning a blind eye. It's also sometimes used as a code of silence, perhaps this unsub took it in the literal sense. It's possible that these victims wronged him in some way. Whether they are connected to each other, or only connected through the unsub alone, if they each wrong or betrayed him in a way that pertains to the japanese principle, then this could be it. Maybe he's not a serial killer on a spree but rather a man out for revenge, and maybe he got it.”

“If he's right, and these three men are the end of his killings, then we may never catch this guy,” Derek said as he turned towards Aaron.

“That's why we're being called in,” he answered, “California PD has exhausted all their leads, and whether this guy is done killing or not, they need our help to catch him and bring him to justice. Wheels up in thirty.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Aaron was sitting in his usual place at the back of the jet while the rest of his team started to file in slowly. Spencer was one of the last of his team to get on, clearly making eye contact with Aaron as well as eyeing the empty seat across from him, but ducking to the side at the last second and sitting in a seat at the very front of the jet. Every part of Aaron was itching to reach out to Spencer and offer him the seat that he deliberately made sure was left empty across from him, but after their tension filled moment in the conference room he thought it best to maybe just leave it alone for now. So he sat alone at the back of the jet, quietly going over his case file while they took off.

As soon as they were up and level and able to walk around, David was settling himself down in the empty seat he had meant to be for Spencer.

“So?” David asked with a sigh, folding his hands together in his lap and looking at Aaron expectantly.

“So, what?”

“Well after all that awkward tension back in the conference room I assumed you must have some juicy gossip to share,” he smirked and shifted in his seat, as if settling in for a long story, “so, did you do it? Did you call him? Is that what that was all about?”

“No, I didn't get the chance to.”

“What do you mean you didn't have the chance?” He leaned forward, holding his hands out to Aaron in disbelief, “You had six full days off without any calls, you had plenty of chances to call him.”

“I had Jack for four of those days, spent the first two on the phone negotiating those four days out of Haley,” he sighed, closing the file on his lap, “and I don't know if Spencer would be all too happy with spending time with both me and my son.”

“Why wouldn't he be? I'm sure Spencer would love to spend time with Jack.”

“Well, if it means anything I was going to call him yesterday,” he sighed again, wishing he could have had just one more day of peace, then he would have been able to make that call, “I was going to ask him if he would be interested in joining me and Jack for a walk in the park, or perhaps dinner and a movie night. But just as I was about to call him I received the news from Strauss ordering us back into the field.”

“A missed opportunity, story of our lives.'' Aaron just nodded. “So what are you going to do about it then?”

He thought for a second, then answered, “Maybe on our next vacation-”

“Aaron, that could be months away, we don't even have anything scheduled right now. The kid’s waited this long, but he's not going to wait forever.”

“Who’s to say he's even waiting for me?”

“That's the thing,” he shrugged, “you will never know until you ask. And if you keep waiting until the next vacation, or the next day off, there will always be an excuse. Work, Jack, or even just nerves. If you want to know if it is you that Spencer has been waiting for all these years, then you just need to ask.”

He nodded, David was right, of course he was right, he was the ‘embodiment of love’ after all. And if he kept letting all those excuses get in the way, then he would keep putting it off as he has already for so long, and he would never know how Spencer felt. But then there was that split second on the call… “Well…”

“Well what, Aaron? Out with it.”

“I…” He stopped and thought about it for a second, about to back out but then decided to just keep going. Maybe David would have some answers that he didn't. “I can't be certain if this is what I actually heard or not, but when I called him to tell him we had a case, I'm sure he was in the process of saying that he was about to call me.”

“That's great!” He clapped his hands together.

“But why would he have been calling me on his vacation?”

“Obviously he was thinking about you as much as you were thinking about him,” David was actually thrilled over the idea, “maybe he was going to bite the bullet and make the first move, since you're taking your sweet time.”

“You think?”

He shrugged with a pouted lip, “That's what it sounds like to me.'' Aaron just hummed, lost in thought, mulling over all this new information. “Just ask him out, Aaron. Why not go to dinner after the case is over?”

He nodded, “I'll ask him. Once the case is over and we're headed back home, I'll ask him.”

“Good,” he sat back, folding his hands in his lap again, “but if you don't follow through this time, I will ask him for you myself.”

Aaron chuckled and shook his head. To most, that would be an empty threat, but Aaron knew better than that when it came to David Rossi. “I'll ask, I promise.”

“You better.”

Aaron left it at that, settling back in his chair just as Rossi had. They had a while yet before they landed, so he just resigned himself to reviewing the case file in silence. Now that David was done with his inquisition, for now at least.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"God, I am so over planes." Spencer just scoffed in the seat beside Derek as he whined, so he turned to him and asked, "Problem, pretty boy?"

"You're complaining about being stuck on a plane for too long, but Rossi just spent eleven hours flying back from Italy, only to be instantly put on a plane again to fly to California," he lifted his head from the file in his hands, though not looking at Derek as he said, "you spent what, four and a half?"

"Have you no sympathy?"

"For you?" He questioned, going back to his case file, "No."

Derek swiftly smacked him with his own case file, though they both were laughing when he did. They fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments before Spencer asked, "So how did your sand, sun, and fun go?"

"Well, there was a lot of sand, a lot of sun, but not a whole lot of fun was had."

"Really?" He turned to Morgan again, "But you seemed so adamant about there being so much fun to be had. What did you spend six days doing at the beach?"

"You got into my head, kid. I spent all six days reading ‘The Art of War', got through most of it before being called back." Spencer nodded, smirking and pursing his lips as he did, and Derek asked, "What, are you proud of me or something?"

He waited a second, then answered, "You spent six days reading ‘The Art of War' and you only got through most of it? It took you that long to read it?"

Derek nudged him with a laugh, “just because you're a genius."

"So six days of sitting on the beach, reading, and no fun," he thought, then added, "I assume that means no fine exotic women either."

"Nah, no fine exotic women."

Spencer's smirk grew impossibly wider at Derek's comment, and incredibly mischievous as he took his opportunity to finally get the one up on him. "Well, handsome exotic men then. I'm not here to judge."

"Oh, pretty boy!" Derek shouted, the two breaking into a fit of laughter as Derek hit him with the file again, "Coming back with the jokes now?!"

“Sorry to break up the party,” Aaron said as he came up on Spencer's left, “Garcia has some new information for us.”

Aaron leaned over Spencer on the end of the booth to place his laptop on the table as everyone gathered around, little to Spencer's knowledge he definitely leaned in a little too far on purpose. And little to Aaron’s knowledge the action almost caused Spencer to spontaneously combust in his seat. But somehow the two managed to hold it together, and Aaron stood back looking at the screen, “Go ahead, Garcia.”

“So, while you guys were taking off we got a call from the California PD, they found another body. They’re waiting for you guys to get there before they clear the scene.”

“Alright,” Aaron began, full boss mode now. The authority in his voice always sent a chill down Spencer's spine. “I know it will be late, and everyone’s tired after their travels today, but as soon as we land I would like everyone to head to the latest crime scene. I want as many fresh eyes on the scene as we can get. After that we'll all head to the hotel for some sleep and start early tomorrow morning." Everyone nodded their understanding and then Aaron continued on with the next day's assignments. "Tomorrow morning Prentis and Rossi, I want the two of you to head to the local PD and get us set up, start the geographical profile. Morgan and JJ, I want you two connecting with the families of the victims. Get to know them and see if they might have the missing link that tells us how these victims are connected. Reid, you're with me. We're going to visit the old crime scenes and speak with the coroner."

Though they were currently sitting on a plane full of profilers, no one noticed the fact that Aaron made sure he was paired up with Spencer. Well, all but one. It also didn't go unnoticed by David when Spencer's neck suddenly turned a nice shade of red when Aaron picked him as a partner. These two would be the death of him, he was sure of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

They arrived on scene late at night. It was dark in the back alleyway, but the lights the local PD had set up lit it like it was day. The crime scene unit was already there, gathering evidence where they could find it, but by the looks of it they hadn't found much. Same as the last three murders.

They all split up, David and Aaron going to speak with the officers on site, Emily and Derek to look at the body, and Spencer went with JJ to talk to the few people crowding the other side of the police tape. Though it was in vain, none of them had seen or heard anything and were merely just there out of curiosity. Still they seemed to be without any leads.

With no evidence and nothing else to help them move forward with the investigation at the scene, Aaron gathered them all and told them to head to the hotel and get some much needed sleep. They would stick with the plan they had made on the jet and go to their respective positions in the morning. It was enraging to come all the way out here, to have a fresh crime scene, and yet still have nothing to help them. Spencer was not happy to be going back to their hotel empty handed, but then again maybe some sleep would help them all regroup.

He started following behind JJ towards the cars, but stopped as the coroner walked past him, asking him to stop for a moment, “May I take a look at the body before you head to the morgue?” The coroner nodded and waited for Spencer to pull back the zipper and look.

“Hey, Reid,” Derek called from the car, waving Spencer towards him, “come on, man, let's head out.”

“Yeah, one second,” he called back, undoing the zipper, “I just wanted to take a look at the body and see if the killer is still following the pattern of the three wise monkeys-”

When he laid eyes on the face of the body he dropped the bag and took an immediate, staggering step back. His breathing picked up, given away by the sudden heavy rise and fall of his shoulders, and the team abandoned the cars to start walking over to him, concerned.

Before they reached him, he stumbled, knees weak. Aaron lunged forward to catch him but Derek beat him to it, grabbing Spencer under the arms as he almost hit the ground. He lowered him slowly, the rest of the team running now to make sure Spencer was okay.

“Reid, hey talk to me,” Derek said, allowing Spencer to lean back against him, his eyes still fixed on the gurney, “what’s going on?”

Without moving his eyes from the body bag on the gurney, he whispered so quietly that Derek was barely able to hear, “I… I know him.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Please let me know what you guys think XD I love reading your comments and talking to you guys <3 And in the next chapter we get even more Spencer and Aaron, so look forward to that!

19 notes · View notes

valwrite · 5 years ago

Text

empty lighter; daveed diggs

masterlist

summary: it’s fascinating, the things people leave behind in our lives. memories, possessions, scars, emotions. over the course of his life, daveed had collected so much from people who he’d left behind. but all he has left of her is a lighter and a broken heart.

warnings: angst, fluff, suggestive content, way too many cigarettes.

fic style: oneshot.

word count: 11.4k

author’s note: ah! it’s finally here! my first ever oneshot on this blog. hopefully, you guys enjoy reading it. is it the best writing in the world? no. but it doesn’t matter, i’m so proud of myself for actually getting back into writing, to the point where i was able to start and finish an 11k word fic. i’ve edited this over 10 times, so if there’s still an error in it, i’m going to cry. feedback, likes and reblogs are 100% appreciated!

December, 2015

Sweat was in the air and, with it, a scent one would hardly call enjoyable. With his behind comfortably sat in a cushioned bar stool, the man done his best to ignore the scenery of the busy club: the ever moving mass of bodies on the dance floor; the headache inducing remix of California Girls, which the evening's DJ was playing for what felt like the millionth time that night; the sight of his best friend hitting on some poor unsuspecting girl just trying to order drinks for herself and her friends. Instead, he focused on the drops of condensation and the pattern they left behind as they dripped down the side of his glass.

The speakers began to play yet another remix. Daveed rolled his eyes and welcomed another sip of his drink, this time not returning the glass to the counter top until the caramel liquor was all gone. The burning feeling was familiar and anchored him down in reality, a bitter yet accepted reminder that, once again, he found himself in the same situation he'd been in for over a year: alone, while being surrounded by sweating bodies. Sat at a bar, his friend off chasing some nameless girl and nothing but his loneliness, which only grew with each breath he drew, to keep him company.

His friend, Rafael, made eye contact with him and beckoned him over. So he stood but made no attempt to approach and discover whatever plan Rafa had in store for him. He knew the blonde haired man just a little too well at that point. He knew that the man was desperate to get his friend back to the state he'd been in four months prior, where every night was a thrill and an opportunity to get tangled up in some sheets with a pretty stranger and some pain numbing lust. In Rafa's weak defense, he had no idea what had switched in his friend to revert him back into a self pitying mess. He hadn't bore witness to the scene Daveed had stumbled upon all those months ago, a scene which sent him rapidly spiraling back to the rut he'd been stuck in the first two months after the break up.

Daveed shook his head, his wilder than usual curls bouncing from side to side as he focused on getting his mind off of the break up, off of the ring store, off of her. He couldn't afford another night of wasted tears. He headed in the opposite direction of Rafa and found himself breathing fresh air for the first time in hours as he stepped out on to the busy New York street. A car honked in the near distance and the street lights just about matched the neon lights which had lit up the club but Daveed felt as though a weight had been lifted off of his chest. Clubs had always been a part of his social and professional life yet recent events had left him feeling claustrophobic inside them. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't like that this was his social life again. Nights spent in clubs, mornings spent with uncaring strangers, afternoons spent in regret and nausea. Where had the nights of home cooked meals gone? The mornings he'd spent shielding his beloved from the harsh light of the rising sun? The afternoons where it didn't matter what wasted the time away, all that mattered was the hand clasped tightly in his and the woman it belonged to? He wanted them back.

Daveed wanted her back.

He'd been so consumed in his own thoughts that, when he finally focused in on his surroundings again, he was only a block away from his apartment and the club was long behind him. He figured he could text Rafa once he got inside, he'd understand why Daveed walked out. He probably already knew. A shy voice calling out his name caught his immediate attention and Daveed paused mid step. The voice seemed familiar, comforting, adoring. His breath caught in his throat and he swore he was dreaming. It took a moment or two for him to turn around and face his pursuer.

Disappointment burst forth inside him but he had to conceal the drop in his smile, especially when he noticed the young girl who was smiling at him with a gleam of excitement in her eyes and a familiar logo printed on her black t-shirt. He hadn't been dreaming, just delusional.

The fan was kind enough. She'd shyly asked him for a picture before gushing over how excited she'd been at one of last week's shows at the theater. Her brief mentioning of clipping. had meant more to Daveed than anything else she'd said, which he knew was a little selfish of him but he couldn't help it. Clipping., unlike the current Broadway show he was a part of, was truly something that was his to own. Sure, there were two other guys involved along with him, but the words he spat and the emotions and meanings laced within them were all Daveed's. To have it gain praise was a direct boost to his ego.

With a happier feeling installed in him, Daveed found himself unlocking the door to his apartment. He didn't bother untying his laces, his shoes simply being kicked off and left near the front door as he made his way into the familiar apartment. He ignored the state the place was in and dropped down on to the comfort of the leathered loveseat, finding some form of tranquility in the disorganization of his own belongings. It somehow made the place feel closer to home. Despite the fact he'd been staying there since pre-production of Hamilton, Daveed still felt disconnected. Not just to the apartment but the whole city. Perhaps, he felt too loyal to the Bay area to allow himself to get too comfortable with living on the east coast. More likely, it had to do with the fact she wasn't there with him, like she was supposed to be, like they'd both agreed.

Engraved in his mind was the memory of Y/N 's face, lit up with glee as she strolled in and out of the different rooms of the place, her voice rising in volume as she ranted and raved about all the ways they could set up the apartment- their apartment, a first of many homes together; god, just thinking of it brought a smile to his face and a dizzy feeling to his head-, and her list of all the ways they could spend any free time they could get: the little cafes they could visit, the monuments they could see, the streets they could walk. He could so vividly remember pulling her into his arms, his lips confidently claiming her own against them. He held her there for their own little infinity, one hand fisted in her hair, the other splayed out against her lower back as her own softly grabbed at his jumper and held him down to her, as if he'd ever dream of leaving her. Her soft laughter had echoed off the walls as she pulled away. He couldn't stand having his mouth off of her and settled with peppering kisses down her exposed neck whilst she jokingly accused him of just wanting her to shut up. He didn't even know how to begin to explain how far from the truth that was. That, in reality, he'd just felt such a desperate need to have her against him because he wasn't entirely sure if she was real or if the life and relationship they'd built together had been nothing but a cruel dream of his. She was too good, her love was too good and he, a man who's career was built off of his eloquence and mastering of word play, was at a complete loss for words when it came to loving her. Heavy breathing and discarded clothing was the way he'd chosen to express his love that evening, breaking in their new apartment. The very same apartment where their relationship would come to an abrupt end no more than two weeks later.

There was a pain growing in Daveed's chest, which he could only imagine was a side effect of his shattered heart attempting to continue beating. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He already knew it was Rafa before he even looked at the screen and answered the call.

“Hey man!” Rafa's cheery voice burst through the speaker and Daveed pulled the phone back from his ear, not having expected the volume of his friend’s voice or the questionable Cotton Eyed Joe remix in the background. “Where'd you go? I got a couple girls here that were looking forward to meeting you!”

“Yeah, I... I'm meeting Oak early tomorrow, got some magazine the cast is doing a shoot for.” In his own defense, Daveed wasn't lying. There was a photo shoot and he was meeting Oak in the morning but that wasn't the reason he'd left.

If Rafa knew his friend was evading the truth, he thankfully kept it to himself. “Ah, so the princess needs her beauty sleep? Your loss, man.”

“Yeah, yeah. Stop wasting your time on me and go enjoy yourself.”

“Have fun with your face masks and beauty creams! Oh, and Daveed?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't try shaving yourself tomorrow, leave it to the professionals. Don't want any nasty cuts on that precious face.”

Having hung up, Daveed carelessly flung his phone down on to the couch and watched it bounce once before laying flat on it's screen. The walls of the apartment were beginning to suffocate him, so much unfilled and unused space now suddenly feeling like it was caging him in, mocking him, taunting him with every echo of his own breathing that bounced off the walls. There was an itching in his lungs and his fingers had began to fiddle with themselves.

Daveed wasn't a particularly anxious person. Yet, anxiety was swelling in his throat and he ashamedly knew why. With his head hung low, Daveed blindly reached for the square packet and the cylinder lighter and headed straight for the balcony door. Opening it, he allowed the outside world to infiltrate his senses once more and it stole away some of his loneliness. The noise and lights and traffic were all a sign of life beyond his own, evidence that he wasn't truly alone in the world. Any loneliness he faced was product of his own creation, an isolation he'd comfortably settled with.

He hadn't put his whole life on pause. No, Daveed wasn't that careless. He woke up every morning and walked out the front door, prepared to face the day with as earnest of a smile as possible. He'd laugh with friends, speak with fans, give his all in his performances. But the feeling of longing would never truly leave him. Rafa could see it, most of the Hamilton cast too. They all knew there was an unspoken part of Daveed that was in denial of her absence. They could see it in the way his eyes never lingered much on beautiful women; in the way he kept her picture in his dressing room; in the way he still carried his part of their matching keyrings. But, what else could they do other than be there for him? She'd walked out with his lifeline and had left nothing but a Daveed shaped shell, hollow and devoid of life, just waiting for the day she walked back into his arms. He was pathetic. Foolish. Selfdestructive.

And so painfully in love with Y/N, even though it no longer seemed fair to feel that way.

The metal handrail was cold to the touch as he let his hands run over it, his eyes gazing down at the active nightlife below. His hands robotically opened the packet and out of it he pulled a cigarette. The nicotine stick found itself resting between his plush lips. The lighter was sparked up, the cigarette set a light and an inhalation of sweet smoke was taken. He'd always felt smoking alone was one of the most solemn of experiences. A couple more drags were taken before he became fixated with the lighter in his hand. He lit it up just to watch the flame dance, not a care in the world for the wasted lighter fluid. It didn't take much longer for his treacherous mind to drift towards the empty lighter inside his sock drawer and, most importantly, the memories attached to it.

A younger Daveed, freshly off stage and with sweat drying into his skin, had pushed past the drunken messes and the grinding pairs to escape for a breath of fresh air and a cigarette. Standing up in front of a crowd was a thrill, truly, but Daveed was still shy at his core and the hyperawareness of his own performance brought on a stress only nicotine could soothe.

The exit had taken him out into a back alley. The bass of whatever song was playing indoors could still be felt but the street was thankfully pretty calm, no one else there but another smoker and a couple making out further down from the door. A few steps out into the alley and he stopped, bending his right leg at the knee to perch his foot back against the brick wall as his hands occupied themselves fishing out a cigarette.

“Shit.” A curse escaped him as the realization hit that he'd forgotten to bring a lighter with him. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and huffed, a hand running through his curls. Maybe he wouldn't be getting that stress reliever that evening after all.

“Need a light?” Daveed nearly jumped at the unexpected voice, his foot slipping off of the wall and his back straightening. When his eyes landed on a girl, who was wrapped up in an oversized jacket and had her arm outstretched with a blue lighter dangling between her fingers, he was certain she hadn't been there when he'd stepped outside. Egotistically, he wondered if she'd perhaps followed him. Stupidly, he wished she had.

Daveed caught himself before he could stare at her for too long, reluctantly pulling his eyes away from her face down to the lighter she was still offering. With gratitude, he took it from her grasp and put it to good use. Seconds later, his lungs were filling with poison and his face with relief. Turning his attention back to her, he found the girl already staring at him. Unlike most, she didn't avert her gaze in shame of being caught. She only focused more intently on him, a ghost of a smile presenting itself on her features. “Thanks, uh, pretty lucky you came out here.”

“If you want to label me following you as luck, then sure.” The calmness of her voice, the way she shrugged so nonchalantly, the way her side was resting up against the wall and her eyes were shamelessly trailing over him were a hypnotic mixture strong enough for Daveed to nearly miss the words she'd spoke. Had he missheard or had she actually followed him? Freaked out would be the normal response. Flattery is what took it's place in Daveed, though. “That was quite a performance, very... lively.”

“Yeah,” A chuckle escaped him and his free hand shot up to rub the back of his neck. “that was one of our tamer crowds, believe it or not. Glad you enjoyed it.”

“I never said I enjoyed it.” The smile had slipped from her face, visually punctuating her words. Then, much to Daveed's relief, she broke out in a fit of giggles and the friendliness in her voice had returned. “I'm only messing! You were amazing but, honestly, the other two of your group are the unsung heroes. They really held it down.”

Daveed wasn't about to deny her statement, knowing fine well just how vital the two men were to him. If he were the ink, they were the paper he wrote on and the pen that encapsulated him. Her praise for them only made Daveed enjoy her company more.

From there, the two continued to partake in casual conversation: her asking about how long clipping. had been a thing, him asking her about her studies and the cold air of the night slowly urging the two to stand closer and closer and closer. There was laughter in the air and comfort in their bones, almost as if the two had been lifelong friends catching up and not two strangers meeting in a back alley. Daveed had long finished his cigarette and he knew his friends would be wondering where he'd disappeared to but he wasn't ready to walk away from the conversation, from her, and so out he pulled another, perching it between his lips. He hadn't had the chance to ask for her lighter, she'd beat him to it and sparked it up. He bent at the knee a little as he leaned down, both of them sharing eye contact whilst she held the flame to it. This time around, Daveed offered the cigarette packet out to her, hoping to repay her in some way.

“I don't smoke, but thanks.”

“You don't smoke, but you carry around a lighter?” His head tilted off to the side and a cheeky grin overtook his face. “You're kinda weird.”

“And you're a charmer, aren't you?” She rebutted, though no offence was really taken. “You're not the only smoker who forgets to bring a lighter. My boyfriend has a habit of doing it, so I carry one around for him.”

The window of hope inside of his mind was shattered by one simple word. Boyfriend. Of course she was taken. She was the kind of girl who you met in the morning and were in love with come the evening.

“Anyways,” Her voice interrupted his disappointment. “you distracted me from the reason I followed you out here!”

“Yeah? And what reason was that?”

“My friend thinks you're hot. Well, no, actually, I believe the exact words she used were "If he can rap that fast, I wonder what else he can do with his tongue. I don't usually climb trees but I could make an exception if the tree looks like him."” She'd used air quotes to signal just what her friend had said and, for the first time since the two had met, Daveed felt bashful. He hadn't expected her to say such a thing, even if it was just mimicking her friend.

“And you wouldn't happen to be this friend?” Daveed teased.

“I prefer my men on the shorter side, thank you very much." Her tongue darted out at him and he laughed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had someone stick their tongue out as an insult. Maybe in third grade? "My friend wants your number, though. And also wanted me to subtly convince you to invite us to come sit at your table but I'm really too tired to be subtle so, please just invite us.”

They'd returned inside not too long after, together, and off she'd gone to grab her friend to drag her over to Daveed's table. And while her friend was beautiful and flirting with Daveed the whole night, he found himself staring over at the girl from the alley every chance he got. He'd watched her do shots with Jonathan, watched as she and Rafa competed in a thumb war, watched as she'd knocked back a shot as her forfeit for losing. At some point in the night, Daveed had asked for her name and, at another point, she'd told him it was Y/N. And when he finally stumbled back into his own bed that night, his eyes staring up at his ceiling as he flipped the blue lighter in his hand, he thought of her.

Wetness dropped onto his hand and tore Daveed away from the memory playing on repeat in his mind. A single tear sat atop his hand and, in the other, a finished cigarette. Stubbing it out, he dropped the bud into a nearby ashtray and centered himself. Tears stung at his eyes and his breath was shaky but he was determined to push through and talk himself out of a full on breakdown.

Hours later, when sleep was finally coming for him and the warmth of his duvets embraced him instead of her arms, his wandering hands reached deep inside his drawer and pulled out the blue lighter as his eyes slipped shut and his mind drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

A blaring song and a loud buzzing noise woke Daveed up in a startle. He sat up, eyes still half shut and the duvet slipping down his naked chest. The noise persisted and he realized it was his own ringtone, playing from the pocket of his discarded jeans. He cursed under his breath when he stepped out of the bed, his foot landing on something uncomfortable before eventually meeting the soft carpet and giving him the leverage to reach the bottom of his trousers, dragging them over to find his phone screen lit up with Oak's name painted across the screen.

“What do you want?” Daveed was never a morning person and had no shame in this, especially when his sleep was interrupted.

“Good morning Oak! How are you? Oh I'm fine Daveed, how are you?” The overly chipper voice of Okieriete birthed a groan out of Daveed as he dropped back onto the bed behind him.

“It's too early for this, dude.”

“It's ten minutes away from being noon!”

“I rest my case.”

“C'mon man, we were supposed to be catching a ride together to head to the shoot. Now our car is ten minutes away and I arrive at your doorstep to find you're not even awake, never mind ready.” Oak's words were followed by a series of knocks, which Daveed could hear through the phone but also coming faintly from outside his bedroom.

“Shit.” Realizing that, amidst the flurry of pity and nicotine, he'd forgotten to set his alarm, Daveed begrudgingly pulled himself out of bed, tired legs with muscles stiff from sleep carrying him all the way over to the front door of his apartment, all the while Oak berated him over the phone and knocked away at the wood. Twisting the keys, Daveed pulled the door open at last and found Oak stood there, fist raised in mid knock.

“You look like shit.” Oak proceeded to brush past him and, after closing his front door again, Daveed followed the man to find him with his hand knuckle deep in a tub of peanut butter.

“Please, make yourself at home.” It was no more than a mutter under his breath but Oak had heard it and responded with a peanut butter coated middle finger.

The crappy coffee maker was switched on and Daveed went back into the messy bedroom. He'd just pulled some sweatpants over his legs when he heard Oak calling out to him from the kitchen. Slipping one of his t-shirts on, from his ever growing collection of Oakland attire, he made his way back over to the man and the freshly brewed coffee- which, without a doubt, was not going to be warm enough nor sweet enough- only to find his friend had abandoned the jar of peanut spread and instead was flicking through his mail. Despite this, a sip of underwhelming caffeine was more of a priority than questioning Oak.

“Who's Raquel and why is she inviting you to her wedding?” Now that, that was certainly more important than coffee.

Dropping his mug back onto the counter with almost enough force to shatter it, Daveed dove forward and ripped the envelope out of Oak's hands. Just like he'd said, inside of it was a wedding invitation from one Raquel Castro. The very same girl who'd once sent her friend to ask for his number. The very same girl who'd helped him plan out his first date with her best friend. The very same girl who'd been sneakily finding out what Y/N's ring size was only two months before his world came crashing down.

Given the memories he'd recalled the night before, part of Daveed couldn't help but think this invitation was more than a simple coincidence. A week after the break up, Raquel had called him. She'd been angry and accusatory with her words but it stemmed from her own confusion and inability to comprehend why things had ended so hastily between him and Y/N. Daveed couldn't understand it himself either. The call had ended up being the first thing to make him smile in his new found singleness. The two had maintained frequent contact from there on out, casual texts sent between them both just around once every month, Raquel had even taken a trip into New York with her fiancé and stopped by one of the Hamilton performances. But this invite, it had to be some sort of sign from the universe, a sign involving Y/N. Unfortunately, Daveed had not a single clue how to interpret this sign.

It took him a total of nine days to RSVP for the ceremony, playing out the pros and cons of his attendance. The fact Y/N would likely be there was the only pro that was also a con, and vice versa. Maybe he'd find some closure or, at the very least, answers to the questions he'd had on his mind since the day she'd slammed the door shut on their love. More likely, he'd spend the whole night alone at the singles table, nursing some old whiskey and watching her dance the night away in another man's arms.

January, 2016

This time, the DJ seemed to be enamored with some niche European techno music and Lin, a sweating mess on the relatively small dance floor, had become his number one fan. Next to the dancing maniac were the so called Schuyler Sisters, Jasmine and Reneé were busy taking turns dancing with the long haired man whilst Phillipa was losing herself in laughter between videoing the lot of them. Scattered along the club were the rest of the cast and crew. In fact, most of the people Daveed held closest to him were there, all banding together to celebrate something they had in common: him.

For them, it was the celebration of his 34th birthday. For him, it was a pity party for his 2nd birthday in a row without Y/N by his side.

He'd made a vow to not be bitter that night and focus on being grateful for what and who he did have in his life. Thus far, he'd done a good job. For the first night out in months, Daveed hadn't spent the night sat at the bar alone. He'd danced with friends and done shots with strangers and flirted with beautiful women. But it was hard to ignore the elephant in the room. All of his friends were there with their significant others whilst he was there with his bottle of champagne.

Tilting the bottle back, Daveed welcomed the bubbled drink in and gulped several times before dropping it back onto one of the many tables they'd all occupied. Just as he made the decision to stop thinking about her, destiny or the universe or whatever higher being was out there decided it was time for his birthday present.

He could hear the group of girls long before he could see them. A ruckus of screeching and slurred words was approaching and, from the neon bracelets and the sashes draped across scantily clad chests, it was clear as day to him that a bridal party had just entered the building, and they were far from subtle.

His curious eyes found themselves scanning over each girl of the bridal party as they filtered their way over to the other side of the VIP lounge. They were a sea of nameless faces, hooting and cheering like a bunch of frat guys on a night out and, as easy as it would be to find them irritating, Daveed couldn't help but chuckle and enjoy the fact that other people were having a great night. Until his eyes drifted to the back of the group.

At first, it just felt like a coincidence. A dress, laced with familiarity and the color red, which he was sure he'd seen before. But, then again, there were tons of red dresses in the world. Then, the girl looked up from her phone and Daveed felt the wind get knocked out from beneath his feet. Clinging to the table in front of him for support, he watched her smile at her friend.

It was the kind of smile he used to pull from her, whilst they were both spread out on each end of the sofa and a terribly romantic movie playing in the background of their happiness. He'd cheesily recite lines from the movie to her and revel in the way he could still make her blush, even if she hid it with a cringe. And when he'd agree to stop, he'd always tell her he loved her. No cheesy lines, no big words or unrealistic speeches that took place in airports. Just a flat out, honest, sincere “I love you”. Y/N would just smile and he'd already know she loved him back, no words needed.

“Wow buddy, you alright there?” The distinguishable voice of Anthony Ramos cut through Daveed's reminiscing yet his eyes never left her. He was frozen in time, hyper focused on each gesture she made. Most of all, he was desperately trying to spot the ring on her finger. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

Daveed bit back a comment about the ghost being from his past, of a life he could have had. Grabbing a half filled shot glass, he threw it’s contents down his throat, not even grimacing as the liquor stung his nerves. “I'm great. Just tired. S'been a long day, y'know?” His words were a little more unsteady and slurred than he would have preferred but Daveed was sure he'd sounded convincing enough.

“Shots! Shots! Shots!” Anthony chanted enthusiastically over the music, gaining a few glares and side-eye glances from surrounding tables. He truly was the human equivalent of a beagle: energetic, kinda short, great with kids. “Let's go do some! Shots always work great if you're feeling tired.”

“How 'bout you go order us some then, Ant?” Daveed said, at last tearing his eyes away from Y/N and her red dress. “I'm just... Gonna go to the bathroom real quick.”

Daveed would have felt bad for lying to Anthony, he really would have, but he just needed a breath of fresh air. And maybe a dose of poison in his lungs. Out of everyday in which he could have ended up in the same city, in the same club, in the same section as Y/N, of course it had to be the night he'd sworn off thinking about her. How cruel fate seemed to him, not allowing him a break from sorrow.

The January air had a chill to it when it embraced Daveed as he stepped out on to the small balcony, which was really just a metal enclosure that looked as if it was violating some kind of health and safety code. The club music was still audible but it was playing in sync with noise of the city. A siren was ringing in some distance. He placed his vice between his lips, ready to light it up when-

“What's the birthday boy doing out here all alone? Not throwing a pity party, I hope.”

Daveed jolted and watched as the cigarette, now having slipped out of his mouth, fell to the balcony floor and dropped through the metal caging. Biting back a curse, he finally noticed the black satin and a familiar head of blonde hair. She hadn't changed much since the last time he'd seen her. Yet again, it hadn't been long since she'd come to see Hamilton. “Raquel!” His enthusiasm was honest, as was the care he put into the hug he pulled her into.

“If only everyone was this excited to see me, the world would be a better place.” Raquel exclaimed, drawing back from his embrace and cautiously leaning against the handrail, tilting her head down as she looked over the edge. “Didn't mean to startle you, sorry.” A sheepish smile appeared. “But, hey, at least Y/N can no longer claim that I enable your smoking!”

Daveed realized then and there that it was no coincidence that Raquel had come up to him. Sure, it was his birthday, and sure, they were friends. But Daveed had been blatantly staring at his ex, her best friend, and clearly he'd been caught. If if weren't for the calming nature of her voice or the way she looked at him with equal amounts of kindness and pity, Daveed would have walked away from the conversation before it could even begin. But, it was too late now.

“Remember that trip we all took to Cancún? Where she threw the cigarettes you bought me in the bin?” For the first time, Daveed was sharing memories of her with someone else. For months, his reminiscing had been silent, not unnoticed but not shared either. It was almost like he'd been in mourning for so long and, now, he was finally ready to start celebrating the life he'd lost.

“How could I forget? She still owes me ten dollars.” Raquel laughed and he followed, even if he didn't find any humor in their conversation. His was an empty laugh. “Oh! Right! I actually needed to talk to you about something!”

“I'm all ears.”

“It's about the catering at the wedding. I know you're Jewish but I can't remember if you're kosher. Just in case you want us to mark anything non-kosher at the reception.”

“Ah,” Daveed nodded, silently appreciating that she'd even taking the time to ask him. “Don't worry, I'm not that strict about it. Honestly. Thanks for asking though.” By then he'd drawn and lit a cigarette, this time managing to not drop it. He let his eyes scan over her and he found himself unable to stop the small smile which took over his face at the sight of her bridal party wear. “The wedding isn't until August, isn't it a bit early to start up the bachelorette party?”

“This isn't my party, Diggs.” She rebutted, bumping his shoulder with her own as she stole a sip from her champagne flute. “It's a friend of mine's. That's actually why we're in New York.”

They didn't need to define who we was referring to, Daveed knew it was Y/N. If it were even possible, his heart stuttered over a beat. The question was at the tip of his tongue, longing for him to just get it over with. Rip the band-aid off, open up his wound and let it bleed out. Is it her wedding? Somehow, the answer seemed scarier than the question. “Seems everyone's getting married off then, huh?” Like a coward, he never asked.

“What about you, mister Broadway? Any lucky lady in your life?” Surely she knew the answer, considering he hadn't added a plus one on to his wedding reservation.

“No, uh, been too busy. Shows 'n stuff, y'know?” He said, not even convincing himself of his own excuses. And, from the pitiful look she was giving him and the hand she'd placed on his forearm, Raquel wasn't believing him either.

“Have you talked to her, at all? Since things ended between you guys...” She paused, as if searching for the right way to word things. “I just think you guys at least deserve some closure. Your relationship didn't even properly come to an end. One day, you guys were together, the next, well, you were over. Two years of building a life together can't just stop all of a sudden.” Daveed remained silent and Raquel took this as a sign to keep talking. “Sorry if you think it's not my place to say all this. I've been trying to tell her for months now to talk to you but she just won't listen. Not even when we came to your show.”

That had spiked his attention and his eyes widened. His show. The theater. Hamilton. She'd been there, somewhere in the mass of the audience. In anger, he wished he'd spotted her. In pain, he wished she'd have let him know. Now here was their friend, her friend, asking him to talk to her and get closure for them both. Even if it hurt him to think that Y/N was suffering, it hurt him more to think of them truly being over. And that's exactly what closure meant. The end of things. Daveed wasn't ready for her to become a part of his past yet. Besides, last time he'd seen her, Y/N seemed to be doing just fine, with or without closure.

Both of his hands were full from the tray of beverages in to-go cups he'd been sent to purchase for the cast, meaning Daveed had to shoulder his way out of the corner cafe, all the while cursing the fact he'd ever agreed to take part in the childish game of rock, paper, scissors. He'd drawn rock and wound up losing to the rest of the cast's papers. Laughter had echoed as he walked out the theater with a list of everyone's order.

A frustrated sigh escaped Daveed as he lowered the trays onto an outdoor table. Sitting unevenly on the pavement, the table wobbled. Those short three seconds had Daveed near crippled in panic as he watched the drinks shake, some almost toppling over completely. Luckily, they all stayed up right and he wasn't about to find himself buying a whole new order.

“C'mon, c'mon, hurry up.” He muttered under his breath, fingers drumming against the side of his legs, eyes staring down the street with a desperation to spot the familiar face of a fellow Hamilton cast member. He'd texted the group-chat just about ten minutes ago, someone should have been on their way to help him carry the order back.

The blaring of a horn had Daveed looking up from his phone screen. An elderly man was cursing out some taxi driver as he crossed the road, stick waving in the air as unfiltered words fell from his lips. Maybe, if Daveed hadn't stared at the scene before him for so long, he would have never noticed the jewelers directly across the street from him.

Maybe he would have never noticed a man and woman inside the store. Him, with his arm around her shoulder, and her, with her eyes fixated on the display of rings in front of her, and both with smiles brighter than any collapsing star. He watched, throat dry and limbs heavy, as the attendant in the store helped the woman slide on the ring. The engagement ring. She nodded, just one nod, and that's all it took for Daveed's world to implode. Of course, the couple were completely unaware of the heartbreak they were causing as they waited for the ring to be wrapped and bagged. The man had eagerly pulled out his credit card, as if he couldn't wait a second longer to purchase it, and the woman welcomed the bag into her waiting hands, like she was desperate to return the ring to it's rightful home: her left ring finger.

It was selfish, Daveed knew that, but he'd been hoping Y/N was just as torn up by their break up as he still was.

Instead, she was engaged. To another man, another future.

“There you are! God, this place was further than I expected.” Daveed turned his head to see one of the ensemble members, Ariana, approaching him. She smiled and he done his best to return the gesture. “Alright, what ones am I carrying?”

“Oh. Uh,” He blindly grabbed two of the sets of drinks, offering them to her. “these ones. I got the rest.”

“Okay! Let's go, pretty sure poor Leslie is gonna pass out from exhaustion if he doesn't get his dose of coffee soon.” Daveed hesitated following her and, instead, stared back over at the other side of the street. He found the store was now empty of customers and Y/N was no longer there. “Hello? Earth to Daveed!”

“Huh?”

“You okay there? You were just staring off into space for like, 2 minutes.”

“Yeah. Yes.” He swallowed the ball of emotion pent up in his throat and walked over to her, ignoring the little voice in his head telling him to look back. It just wanted to torture him some more. “Just,” He sighed. “thought I saw someone.”

“If she doesn't want to talk, then there's no reason for me to do it. Maybe it's just better for us both if we keep to ourselves.” The reality was that Daveed didn't think he'd be able to get through talking to her even if she did want to speak about it. Not when he'd spend the whole time staring at her hands, at the rock resting on her finger, at the pledge of love and fidelity she'd given to someone else. “So, how's wedding planning been treating you? You excited to just get it over with?”

“A hundred percent!” Raquel laughed and he relaxed, thankful for the fact she'd let him change the topic of conversation. “Don't get me wrong, some of the planning has been fun. Cake tasting? I highly recommend it. And I've got her learning salsa for our first dance. But, yeah, venue planning and the cost of it all has been a bit of a bummer. I'll be glad to never have to do that again.”

“Salsa? Great choice, bring a little flavor into the whole traditional wedding dancing.”

“Yeah! Fuck swaying side to side awkwardly, I'm putting on a performance! It's been a messy journey, planning everything. Even just something as simple as seating arrangements, who the hell knew it was such a process to organize all that crap?” She threw her hands up, the remainder of her champagne sloshing inside of the glass. “But it'll be worth it when I walk down the aisle with her. We're gonna put all other brides to shame in our dresses. Shit, sorry, all I talk about recently is the wedding! You can tell me to stop if you want.”

“It's fine, no worries. You're happy, it's nice.” He felt a tug at his heartstrings all of a sudden, very aware of the fact of how much had changed since the two had first met. It really did fill him with joy to see her so happy. “You deserve it, Kelly.”

“You know I hate being called that, David.” The two old friends laughed in unison after she lightly kicked him with her heeled foot, not even hard enough to leave a scuff on his jeans. “It's crazy, you know, that just about four years ago I was trying to get in your pants. And now I'm a few months away from getting married! To the love of my life! I mean, she's honestly the best thing that's ever happened to me, D, you have no idea.”

He had an idea and it was somewhere else inside the busy club, wrapped in red and the familiar scent of coconut- it had always been her favorite - but he wasn't sure he was allowed to speak about her like Raquel spoke about her fiancé. That was reserved for someone else now. He also held back on pointing out the pitiful fact that it seemed people who pursued him would wind up engaged afterwards.

At some point, they both went their separate ways, back to their respective groups. Daveed eventually threw caution to the wind, a fresh wound on his soul after having seen Y/N urging him on. Every drink he was handed ended up down his throat and, somehow, Lin managed to rope him into dancing to the shitty music with him. They all danced, cramped together in the limited space like canned tuna. When the last song was played, when the last drink had been poured, when the last cab had been hailed, a very intoxicated Daveed found himself stumbling into the apartment of a stranger wrapped in red. The fact she smelt like sweat and lavender was the only downside.

If he hadn't drank so much or gotten so reckless and careless, perhaps his phone wouldn't have been left abandoned among glitter and emptied glasses in the deserted club, it's screen lit up with two notifications:

00:49 am (+81) 03-3***-****: happy birthday, d. i'm glad to see you're having a fun night!

02:18 am (+81) 03-3***-****: you're wearing my favorite shirt of yours.

August, 2016

The sun setting over the horizon burned at Daveed's tired eyes as he stepped off the plane, thankful to be home yet dreading the next day. The whole flight over he'd practically gone through the works of all possible emotions he could feel towards his impending future. Excited, saddened, nervous, happy, frustrated, nervous again. Every possible scenario had played through his mind, ones where the two did not speak, others were they done nothing but speak and one, shamefully, where they done something but it was not speaking.

The wedding was one sleep away and he was no more prepared to be in such close proximity of Y/N than he had been the night of the club or the day on the sidewalk.

His dad had picked him up from the airport, lending him a hand with his limited luggage and pulling his cherished son into a warm hug. The whole drive back to his father's home had been filled with playing catch up, Daveed sharing stories of his cast mates and his father telling him about his new hobby of coaching a local junior basketball team. Daveed was grateful for his dad not asking about Y/N. If it had been his mother, all intentions pure and caring, she would have began to question him on the matter the second he was strapped in to his seat and unable to escape.

His parents had always liked Y/N, that was for sure. And, while it had been a blessing during their relationship to see his mother dote over her like she were her own daughter or to witness her beat his dad at guitar hero, it had become a curse when things had ended. The way things ended did not make matters any better. His own mother had given Daveed the silent treatment for a whole two days after he explained to her how things had gone down.

He fell asleep that night, his bag opened yet not unpacked, in the guest bedroom of his father's home. A belly full of pizza and beer, mind full of worry and doubt.

Hours later, after a shower, a shave and a shit ton of stressing as he pulled on his suit, Daveed found himself parked outside the venue. Finding a parking space had been stressful enough but it was nothing compared to the on-going battle between him and his crooked tie. It had only hit him that morning just how long it had been since he'd had to tie his own tie, too accustomed to his new normal of having a stylist dress him for most formal occasions. Before that, he'd had Y/N.

A few months into their relationship, when he finally felt confident enough to meet her parents, she'd went out of her way to learn exactly how to tie a tie and she'd wordlessly done it for him that evening, his hands too shaky and his nerves too on edge. From there onward, he'd purposefully mess up only to have her stand so close, where he could comfortably lay his hand to rest on her lower back as she worked away at sorting the piece of cloth around his neck.

“That's as good as it's gonna get.” The quiet of his car was filled with his disappointed voice as the less crooked tie stared back at him through the rear view mirror. Despite his words, he gave it one last tug and stepped out of the car.

He hadn't expected to be recognized by so many familiar faces. He probably should have expected some though, these were people who'd been friends to him once upon a time ago. To add tension to an already tense situation, everyone that felt the need to come up to him was dancing around the fact things had ended between him and Y/N and that was why they'd stopped talking to him.

“It's been so long since I've seen you! I've just been swamped with work, you know? And, New York! You were on Broadway. How's Broadway? Must be exciting to be on Broadway!” They'd all have the same excuses to avoid the obvious: they were Y/N's friends first and they'd be hers till the end.

Daveed wished he believed it when he told himself he didn't mind that.

The venue of the ceremony was breathtakingly beautiful and, now sat among (luckily) unfamiliar faces, Daveed took the chance to fully appreciate the scenery.

It was being held within a greenhouse, and in almost every inch of the place there was a strike of greenery. The surrounding walls were made up solely of glass windows, serving as a source of natural light. At the end of the aisle, where the exchanging of vows, crying of happy tears and giving of rings would be taking place, was a beautiful water display, with water so fresh looking it appeared drinkable. And the air? It was smothered in the scent of life: blossoming buds and flourishing flowers and ripening fruits. Splashes of red and yellow, of blue and lilac, of pink and orange effortlessly added more class and detail into the green venue.

If the venue was breathtaking, the ceremony was heartbreakingly tender.

The two teary eyed brides had walked down the aisle with the person they'd chosen to give them away and, by the time they were both facing each other at the makeshift altar, Daveed could already see a stray tear falling down Raquel's cheek. At that, he smiled. And stayed smiling throughout the whole ceremony. Until it came to Raquel's vows. At some point in her big proclamation of love, she began speaking about how her and her bride had first met, about how she hadn't even realized she was being hit on by her and how, when she was asked for her number, Raquel thought she'd just wanted to be friends. She spoke of how two dear friends of her's told her she was being asked out on a date, not just to hang out as friends.

For the first time during the ceremony, Daveed finally looked directly at where Y/N stood in front of the other bridesmaids. He watched as a stray tear slid down her cheek, one she quickly tried to brush away, and her hands tightened around the bouquet they were wrapped around. His own eyes were welling up with tears in just a few seconds. While they weren't the only two in the room carrying tears in their eyes, they were the only two who's tears were made up of missed chances and broken promises and pure, untamed sadness. After all, they’d been there to witness the first meeting of the brides. They’d been together then and now, they were further apart than the stars above.

He'd told himself he'd just steal one last glance at her, remember her as she was next to the altar, all dressed up and looking beautiful albeit sad. His eyes lifted. And there was Y/N staring right back at him, a couple more tears already having fallen from her eyes. The eye contact never wavered between them both and, for the first time in a while, Daveed felt like he was actually being seen for who he really was. And when she smiled, he fell apart.

A tear finally escaped it's cage but Daveed made no attempt to wipe it away.

One luxurious meal later, and quite a few drinks from the open bar, Daveed sat in the very same situation he'd predicted. At the singles table- which was pretty depressing given who his company for the evening was -, with some girl he'd met about an hour ago talking his ears off about her job which he hadn't even asked about, a drink he’d been nursing for half an hour in his hand and his eyes hyper-focused on the dance floor. Taking another sip, he drowned out the stranger’s voice and watched how Y/N laughed at something her dance partner had whispered in her ear.

This was how Daveed had chosen to enjoy the reception: playing a game of “Guess Who’s Marrying The Love Of Your Life?” with every man who so much as approached her. He was thankful her duties as maid of honor kept her so busy, she’d yet to have the chance to notice his incessant watching.

Deciding he’d spotted the fiancé of his kryptonite- the man she’d been dancing with for just over twenty minutes, who she’d been sat next to during the meal, who seemed to make her laugh just as hard as Daveed once had - he pushed back his chair, straightened out the jacket of his suit and headed for his destination.

Heavy footsteps, fists clenched, breathing erratic, Daveed stepped out into the fresh air and made his way over to the concrete railing of the balcony, a balcony far more sturdy and well designed than the one he’d stumbled onto back in January.

The silence and lonesomeness wrapped themselves around Daveed like the softest, warmest blanket on a winter's eve. For the first time since he'd arrived at the wedding celebrations, he'd found a window of peace for himself to take a moment and breathe. Recalling the conversation he'd shared with Rafa before he left for the airport- in which Rafa had been hyping him up and reassuring him he'd enjoy more than regret attending -, Daveed had to admit to himself that he was proud of how he'd done so far. Maybe not in the past hour of self pity with a side of substance abuse, but other than that he'd held himself together pretty well. He'd congratulated Raquel and her official wife, even sharing a dance with both of the women; he'd rekindled friendships, once he and they managed to push past the original discomfort of not having spoken in so long; he'd met some interesting strangers with fascinating stories; he'd ate some of the most lucrative meals he'd ever tasted and bore witness to a demonstration of pure love.

He was enjoying himself.

The only thing that made the evening unpleasant was when he'd finally zeroed in on Y/N and her smile; and the way the lights were making her eyes sparkle; and the way her dress was draped over her skin effortlessly.

The alcohol was beginning to take an effect on him, his mind becoming a little resentful towards Y/N. He'd never once hated her, even if it had been she who'd called quits on them, but he couldn't help blame her now for his situation. How was it fair that she got to move on with her life while he still could barely sit in the same room as her and keep his eyes from watching her every move, her every gesture?

“Shit.” Daveed huffed out over the sound of crickets and the muffled sound of the celebratory music, just as his lighter gave up on him and decided it would not be lighting up the cigarette for him this evening.

“We need to stop meeting this way.” He hated the way the resentment left him with as little as seven words. “People are going to start calling us predictable.”

Sure enough, when Daveed spun on his heel to face the balcony doors, there she was in all her glory, arm stretched out and lighter in hand. He wondered if she carried it around for her new man. Out here, her eyes were a lot less sparkling, her dress a lot less light, her smile a lot less wide but Daveed didn't find her any less ethereal. He never did.

“Uh,” She'd cleared her throat and Daveed felt embarrassment creep in. Here she was, perfectly composed and unaffected by him, whilst he was just as nervous as the day they had their first date; the day he'd first told her he loved her; the day he asked her to move to New York. “thank you.” He plucked the lighter from her and hit the clipper.

“No problem.” She took a sip of the glass in her hand and approached him more, till they were stood in parallel, shoulders an inch away from brushing, staring off into the dark abyss of the night that lay past the grounds of the vibrant wedding. “I see you got stuck sitting next to cousin Delia. On a score of one to ten, how bad is your headache?” Why was it so easy for her to joke around with him?

“Probably a solid seven. She talks a lot but at least there's never time for awkward silence with her.” He pulled in a drag and held back a groan when not even the nicotine could untense his muscles. “The ceremony was beautiful, you must be so happy for Raquel.”

“Yeah.” She sighed dreamily, head turning back to look at the balcony door, as if she were remembering just how beautiful indoors was. “I'm so glad everything went smoothly, they were both so stressed during the planning but it turned out exactly how they wanted.”

“They're lucky to have each other.” Why couldn't he see her engagement ring? Was she hiding it from him, out of pity? Did she know he was hung up on her? Daveed had spent so many months missing her only to resent the time he was spending with her. Stood on that balcony, hardly any space between them, Y/N had never felt further away. “So, how've you been? Like, work and shit.”

“I've been... good. Yeah, good.” There was a pause and they stood in silence, her staring off into space, him staring at her face. “I took the job, in the end, so there's that. Moved to Japan, got to have some new experiences and make new friends. Tried Sashimi, realized I do not like Sashimi. Oh! I got to watch cherry blossoms bloom. Just, yeah, I've been good.” She didn't tell him what he'd wanted to hear about. “How about you?”

“I've been great. Honestly. Work has been on the up and up since the show opened on Broadway, I’ve got some acting jobs lined up. Done some photo-shoots, made more music. Every night, there was another celebrity in the crowd. I mean, the President invited us to perform in the white house. I've been great in other parts of my life too, made some incredibly interesting friends.” Is everything Daveed wishes he said.

Instead, he said this: “Awful. I've been doing shit, for a while now.”

“D.” He couldn't help but hate the fact she called him by that. “I don't think we should get into this at Raquel's weddi-”

“Then when, Y/N?” Oh, he had not meant to sound so confrontational. Unfortunately, the little voice in his head that made up his ego was enticing him to keep going. “Ten years from now? Fifty? Oh, or should we do it at your wedding? I can't put this off any longer, alright? I'm miserable and,” He tried to compose himself, eyes squeezed shut and hands shoved in pockets. “and it's your fault. So no, we're having this conversation. You don't get to just meet someone new and act like what happened between us meant nothing, whilst I'm left frozen in a time where a reality TV star isn't our President and you're mine. Ok? I need to move on but I can't if we don't get closure.”

“It's my fault? Meet someone new!?” She was using the same tone of voice she'd used that night, when the fight to end it all first broke out. “Daveed, you ended things between us, not me. Or did you forget?”

“Weird, I don't remember breaking up with a guy named Daveed and slamming the door shut on my way out.” He stepped back, dropping the wasted cigarette into an ashtray. “But I remember you doing something along those lines.”

“Well, do you remember the part where your girlfriend told you she'd just been offered her dream job and all you had to say was that you two needed to break up?”

“The job was in Tokyo!”

“Oh! So, it was okay when I made the sacrifice of moving to New York with you but you couldn't just deal with some long-distance dating?”

“What did you want me to say, Y/N?” Up until then, their voices had been rising in volume but this time Daveed was softly spoken. “I was happy for you. But I also realized how much things wouldn't work between us. Between Broadway and you being all the way in Japan and the time difference, when would there be time for us?”

“If you really want something, there's always a way.” Y/N said, resting her back against the balcony ledge. “Maybe you just didn't want us, enough.”

“You didn't have to leave though.” He followed suit, back against ledge and feet crossed. “Yeah, I messed up and said something I didn't mean out of fear of losing you, but you didn't have to take my advice and actually walk out the door.”

“How was I supposed to stay after that? It stung, D. I thought you had more faith in us. But you weren't wrong, I guess hearing you say we'd have to break up made me realize just how much the job change would really effect us both. I think we both played our part in ending things- Oh my god, I'm so sorry!” One second, Daveed had been quietly reflecting on her every word. The next, spilled champagne was seeping through his white shirt.

“It's, uh, fine. No worries. I'll just go try get this off me.”

“Let me help!”

As a man, Daveed was shocked to see just how perfectly clean and nice smelling the female restroom was. Everything seemed to sparkle in the light. He had traded leaning his back against the balcony banister for leaning it against the counter top of the sinks, his own hands wiping at his shirt with paper towels Y/N was handing him. She'd quickly and carefully dragged him into the toilets and stripped him of his suit jacket, all the while apologizing again and again for having soaked him.

Surprisingly, he didn't care.

“You can be honest with me, you know.” He glanced at her before refocusing on his shirt. They'd been talking lightly, of things that held no real value but were preferred over the discussion on the balcony. “You can tell me if you found someone new.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Nothing, really. I just, I saw you. A few months ago. You were getting fitted for an engagement ring with some man at your side.”

“Do you mean my cousin? Who was planning a proposal for his girlfriend?” He could see the amusement on her lips as she handed him another paper towel. He felt his heart rate pick up. “My turn. Why didn't you answer my text? If you were doing so bad, wouldn't you want to talk it out as soon as possible?”

“Text? What text?”

“The one I sent you on your birthday? We were in the same club but, I don't think you saw me.”

“Oh, I saw you. I think you were all I saw that night.” He instantly regretted what he said. “I mean, I lost my phone that night. Haven't seen it since.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Silence kept them apart for the rest of the time. Eventually, Daveed decided his shirt was as dry as it was going to get. Then, he felt it. Y/N, without missing a beat, reached up and adjusted his tie. Both their breaths caught in their throats. The silence between them became tension. In a matter of seconds, everything was turned around, literally. She was hoisted up on the counter and he was stood between her spread legs, his hands on her hips and hers going back and forth between running through his hair and gripping on to his damp shirt. They were doing their best to keep quiet, swapping moaning out for heavy breathing.

Daveed was struggling to think straight, between the familiarity of her skin and the scent of coconut, it was as if they'd spent no time apart. Suddenly, anyone else he'd slept with between their break up and now hadn't really counted and this was the first time he was being touched in years.

When it was over, he was speechless and she was incapable of not speaking.

“Okay, so, um, I'll sneak out first and then you just, wait in here for five minutes. Then slip out. That way, no one has to see us both exit the bathroom together. Okay, great catching up, see you when I see you. Bye!”

By the time he came back to his senses, he was stood alone in the female bathroom, the top button of his shirt undone and his tie discarded on the floor. He shoved it into his back pocket and slipped on the jacket of his suit, not bothering to even discreetly leave the toilets. Luckily, no one noticed him.

Returning to the event hall, he instantly began his search for Y/N but he failed to spot any sign of her. Had she vanished into thin air? Had she even been there?

“If you're looking for Y/N, she just bolted out of here like the floor was on fire. Pretty sure she called a cab but you didn't hear that from me.” He turned to find Raquel staring at him, a smile on her face. “Stop wasting time on staring at me and go get her, lover boy.”

Daveed did not need to be told twice, his history with running track kicking in as he raced out of the hall. He sped down the corridor, dodging any oncoming guests before he burst out of the doors, stepping out into the fresh air. He could see her in the distance, standing with her arms around herself as she shifted from side to side.

“Y/N!” Daveed yelled out as he ran over to her. When she made no attempt to move away from him, he felt hope begin to rise in his soul. “Why'd you leave?”

“Daveed, we don't have to do this. In fact, we shouldn't do this.”

“Have coffee with me.”

“D, I don't-”

“One coffee, that's it. You can even get it in a to-go cup. Y/N, it's just coffee, I'm not asking for your hand in marriage.” He loved the way she was struggling to hold back a smile. “So, what do you say?”

August, 2020

The world from his garden felt calm, peaceful, as if everything wasn't falling to shit in the midst of all kinds of disasters.

It was the middle of the night and, no matter how hard he tried, Daveed couldn't sleep. Even after having more or less quit a few years back, he could tell there was only one thing that was going to calm his nerves. So, creeping out of bed cautiously, he'd reached into his bedside drawer and grabbed the little packet he kept hidden beneath his socks. Maybe it was just the recent times taking a toll on him, quarantine beginning to exhaust him, but Daveed had been feeling more stressed out than ever.

He sighed, one hand rubbing at the sleep in his eye and the other trying to light up his cigarette. Then, he noticed the blue plastic and a whispered “Fuck.” escaped from him. If he'd considered heading back indoors to find his functioning lighter instead of the empty one, it didn't matter because the cigarette and it's packet were plucked away from him by smaller hands.

“You shouldn't be smoking, D.”

“I know, I know, it's bad for my health. Just, a little stressed.” He welcomed the way she wrapped her arms around his waist, molding herself into his side as he wrapped his own arm around her shoulder. “Better now that you're here.”

“Hmm.” She hummed sleepily, squeezing her arms around him some more. “You're so warm. Like, a human hot-water bottle.”

“Just say I'm hot, I already know you're thinking it.” His lips rested on her forehead and the scent of coconut consumed him.

“Why did I agree to marry a man with an ego the size of the Statue Of Liberty?”

“Because that man's love for you is the size of Mount Everest.” He soothingly rubbed her back, feeling himself finally wanting to fall asleep. “Plus, he has really good hair.”

When he fell asleep that night, it was in the same way he'd fallen asleep for the past few years, and how he wanted to fall asleep every night that remained in his time alive: with her between his arms. He'd gone from being as useless, soulless as an empty lighter without her by his side to now, where he never had to worry about not being able to spark up again. He had Y/N and he wouldn't let anything change that. Not distance, time, health, anything.

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