#BUT YOU DONT JUST PUT THOSE PIECES TOGETHER AND EXPECT ME NOT TO SAY ANYTHING

[xdolls-crownx]

I’ve held my tongue for a while now and I just- I just can’t anymore

WHAT IS THIS WOMANS OUTFIT!?

[uglypastels]

Last year I did a course in novel adaptations in uni and honestly, while the course itself was put together horribly, it did leave me with some info that makes consuming media much more bearable.

Adaptations of a story are inherently a different story. No matter how accurate or not. They could be a word for word reenactment of the words you once read on a page, it's not the same thing. And it never will be.

Each media product is the result of people working on it together at a certain point in time. With books its a smaller team, but you have a writer, an editor, proofreaders, designers, publishers. They all create something that eventually is seen as a cohesive piece. Something that is there to tell the story those people wanted to tell with the influence they had in their contribution.

And the same goes for other media; writers, directors, actors, editors, etc. They all work together to create something. This might be inspired by a previous work, but they are not making the same product.

They adapt it to a new setting, a new media, a new era, time, place, point of view, whatever.

With the Percy Jackson show, because of course this is what made me want to write this but it goes for anything, one can go into the details of what they changed or what was left out, I can't lie that i sat on the couch unphased as i noticed them skip/change things, but what should always be asked in these situations, or i should rather say, what is much more interesting to consider, is WHY. Why were changes made?

It could be a budget issue, it could be a solution to overcome format differences between paper and screen, or even the specifics of a studio or streaming service. Simple logistics of things (i.e. could percy really jump off the st. Louis arch and survive?) The storyteller might have decided to vocalise a different point of view, emphasise a new aspect of the story, address another topic that they recognise in the plot. Were they influenced? By whom? Who was "in the room" to make the decisions- since 1 person could make the difference on how things come to be. When was it made (since everything is a product of its time)? Current trends/tropes, social issues, discussions? What is their vision of the entire piece of work?

You might not agree with those choices, fine, but i doubt if it was completely up to you that you would make a 100% "accurate" adaptation everyone would agree with. I'm sure there would be dialogue changes, pacing differences, biases towards characters and wanting to make them more/less vocal, casting choices that might not be fitting the discriptions exactly but the actor is perfect to you. You were influenced by things you entire life, brave of you to assume you wouldn't have an effect on anything either.

I mean, just look at fanfiction...how accurate of an adaptation is any of that? But we still eat it up every day, don't we?

People learn, grow and adapt, and so does their work. You do not make a book the same way you make a show or movie, and you dont make any of these the same way now as you would 20 years ago, so it is impossible to expect them to be the same.

And maybe it's for the best, since now you get to enjoy the stories and characters in multiple ways, from different perspectives.

[poppunkpie]

hii hello hiii can you tell more about your writing process? :3c what are the stages? are there any writing principles for your process? what's the most enjoyable thing? :3c

hello eldritch!! omg im so sorry for the delay in answering... lol i didn't expect work to suddenly be so busy lol but anyway!!

so there are two main ways that a fic idea comes together for me: a) it's the theme/thesis statement that comes to me first. this comes to me in a lot of different ways... it could be a line from a song or an excerpt from a poem or a similar adjacent theme i take from a different piece of media that i feel i can apply to a certain ship/character that i am brainrotting about at the moment. ex. my favorite and most recent example of this would be scaramouche x from under the cork tree by fall out boy (lol) the theme i put together there was rly just... that desperation of so badly wanting something to be completely about yourself for once (and almost narcissistically/unhealthily so) because you've never had anything at all. i just thought it's a very specific... almost manic feeling that i can definitely picture scara experiencing.

b) it's one very specific scene that comes to me, and from there, i try to fill in the blanks/puzzle pieces in the plot (with other scenes) of how everything builds up to that one scene. when i have all of that down, it becomes a little easier for me to fill in the blanks of what exactly happens/how the fic ends after that one scene.

most of the time, it's a combination of these two ways of idea-gathering for me... mostly it's the theme that comes first, but there are other times that it's the specific scenes that come first and when it's the latter, they don't really come together /thematically/ until i'm already somewhere in the middle of writing. this ideation process is what i consider most important because honestly... i really only have two stages in writing (lol) which are: ideation and then the writing itself. bc basically, the ideation is what gets the fic plot points down... and the writing is really just... me connecting those points/weaving those ideas together...

to put things more concretely, my ideation process is really just... a lot of listing things down and it is admittedly chaotic... it could be scene ideas (or a sequence of them) as simple as 'scara spots aether in the crowd' but bc im a mess it usually becomes a long bullet that also includes the unsaid implications in that said scene like so:

scara spots aether in the crowd looking back at him and he fixates on it bc it feels like for the first time, someone actually /sees/ and wants to look at him

ideas i list down could also be specific lines that i imagine a specific character saying or even a few dialogues of script between characters. there's also just lots of random stuff related to how i want to describe dynamics and characters i list down like 'heiscara friendship with lots of annoying smart banter' or 'scara is a skater in this one' or 'aether listens to taylor swift but lumine doesn't' (lol)' or 'scara is like [insert fall out boy song here]'

~ as for writing principles... ig i only rly have this in mind at the moment: balance out poetry and prose - uhh i dont think i ever write anything that doesn't end up with a motif that ties in with the theme... i like metaphors a lot bc i feel they help describe feelings more accurately... but i also try to make sure that these metaphors are just simple but clever enough?? uhh... i kinda think of writing metaphors as cracking a joke... if it's too cerebral, the punchline might not /punch/ lol but if it's too straightforward... it might not work in capturing a certain idea or feeling... as for my personal preference in my own writing... i like to phrase things bluntly while still making metaphors in that tone so its not cerebrally intimidating... err im not sure how to explain that more elaborately here lol uhh but heres one of my favorite more recent examples from something i wrote abt scara talking about ei:

She has acknowledged me in a way that she believes it's her sister who should be alive instead of me, as if I had taken the life of someone else simply by being born into the world. (I'm not a killer— or at least I wasn't born one, and as far as I know, the blood on my hands is usually my own.)

~ as for the most enjoyable thing about it... well i would say it's definitely writing metaphors lol and then making sure how that ties coherently and cleverly with the theme and the vibe of the ship dynamic/character i'm centering the fic on... i dont think i ever write without an overarching theme or a metaphor for this reason... even when i just want the characters to kiss... its corny but i always need the kiss to feel like its situated in the grander scheme of things and feelings skksks

[victorluvsalice]

WIP Snippets!

I was tagged by @dont-offend-the-bees to post a snippet of a WIP -- but I have two major projects that I’m working on, so why not do a bit of both? :) Especially since I didn’t do a “sneak peak” at anything over the holidays this year. . .

First things first, though -- I am tagging in turn @nebbychan, @ace-of-tales, and @thesatiricaldemon, should they be inclined to share anything they have going on in the writing well. :) Anyone else who also feels inspired to post a WIP snippet upon reading this, please feel free! We’re all friends here!

And now -- snippets! First up, we have a portion of the first chapter of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland,” the second part of the “Londerland Bloodlines” series I’m working on with Alice as the Malkavian fledgling in Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines. This is from my take on the cutscene where the fledgling wakes up after being knocked unconscious by the Sabbat and dragged off to a junkyard upon their arrival downtown. . .but you’ll notice that one of the Sabbat members looks a little different from usual. . . (warning for some foul language and threats of violence -- no worse than in the game itself)

---

“Let’s drain it.”

“Let’s stake it and leave it out for the sunrise.”

“We’re going to have a lot of fun with this one.”

Well, fuck, was the first coherent thought Alice could put together. Her skull felt like someone had taken it out, dropped it on the ground, then poorly superglued all the pieces back together before ramming it back into her head. She cautiously cracked open her eyes to see three figures standing over her, poorly lit by the light of the moon and a sputtering lamp. “Think you could blow up our warehouse and get away with it?” one snapped at her in a voice as rough as sandpaper. “Huh, lick?”

The fellow next to him (Alice was reasonably certain it was all hims) snorted. “Let’s pull out its tongue and its eyes and its teeth!” he suggested, flexing the claws that had dragged her into this mess in the first place.

“Yeah,” a smoother voice said, its owner crouching down in front of her. “I want its teeth.” He put a foot on Alice’s clavicles, pressing her down into the cracking concrete. “Camarilla fuck – what do you say to that?”

Alice squinted at him. “. . .are you wearing glitter?”

Judging by the startled blinking, that wasn’t what her captor had been expecting. “. . .yes?” he admitted, suddenly defensive. “What of it?”

“It’s just not the usual look for you lot, is it?” Alice continued, her tongue happily running ahead of her brain. “I mean, no offense, I’m happy you apparently put enough stock in taking care of your appearance to actually bathe, let alone apply make-up, but. . .” She looked him up and down – at least, as best she could from her vantage point on the ground. “Loads of hair gel and a bright pink suit don’t exactly inspire terror.”

The clawed fellow snickered. “She may be a Cammy fuck, but she’s got you there, Habits.”

“None of you fucking appreciate fashion,” Habits replied, surrendering to stereotypes by sticking his nose in the air.

“Toreadors,” the sandpaper-voiced one – Alice could now see he was a big fellow, face framed by dreadlocks – muttered, before focusing back on her. “Don’t think that big mouth of yours will help, Camarilla. I think my boys and I could use a little entertainment.” He turned to an invisible audience over his shoulder, smirking as he curled stumpy fingers. “Those of you sitting in the first few rows will get wet.”

Shit – all right, Alice, think, she told herself as he turned back toward her, baring his fangs. Above him, the clawed fellow and Habits smirked, preparing themselves for a show. Going invisible obviously isn’t an option, and Auspex is less than useless here – which means I’ve got get my head focused enough to unleash Wonderland upon this lot before they unleash on me. She dug her nails into the sidewalk, pushing past the pain in her head to focus her blood as best she was able –

BANG!

---

And second up, a bit from the sequel to the full version of “As Long As You Love Me” (which should be going up this year, I just need to edit it properly), “The Joker And The Queen!” This is the story I’ve mentioned before where Victor ends up kidnapped by X-Sector and imprisoned in The Sanctuary by Dr. Kelman while Alice ends up teaming up with Victoria and Emily to find him. . .and while he’s in there, he ends up meeting quite the remarkable group of people, including one named Smiler. . . (warning for a touch of accidental misgendering in this one, but Victor genuinely doesn’t know Smiler’s non-binary until they tell him)

--

They proceeded down the hallway, around a corner, and to a large pair of double doors (white, of course). Bagshaw opened them to reveal a room that looked a bit like Victor had always imagined a dorm common room to look – some couches arranged around a TV, another bookshelf (better-stocked than the one in his room) against the wall, a few tables here and there for people to sit at, a beanbag chair in the corner because it was expected. And fortunately for his sanity, Kelman had made some concessions to color here – not a lot, as the couches and chairs were all white, but the tables and bookcase were at least mahogany, and there was a couple of sad plants on shelves adding a bit of greenery. It was a slightly less depressing place than his cell, at any rate.

And it had other people in it – a young black man and a Chinese woman playing cards at one of the tables; a pair of white women – one red-headed, one platinum blond – half-watching the TV; and a red-headed white man built like a lumberjack lounging in the beanbag chair. “Everyone?” Bagshaw called, causing them to all look up. “This is SW9.” He patted Victor briefly on the shoulder. “Play nice.”

And with that, he headed to the corner by the bookcase, pulling out his phone. Victor stared at the vaguely-curious faces before him, one hand automatically reaching for a tie that wasn’t there. Oh damn. . .when was the last time he’d actually introduced himself to anyone? Usually his interactions with people who weren’t Alice consisted of either handing over money for snacks or giving his name and then handing over money for a hotel room. And – and he didn’t know any of their names, or what they were like, or –

“Hi!”

Victor damn near leapt out of his skin. A seventh person had just appeared at his elbow, one he’d missed in his earlier glance around – a white man about his age, he guessed, with spikes of black hair hanging down the left side of his face, and bright yellow eyes that could only be contacts. “I’m Smiler!” he introduced himself, sticking out a hand with a brilliant grin. “What’s your name?”

“Ah – um – Victor,” Victor said, taking the offered hand cautiously. Goodness, but this fellow seemed ready to beam his head right off with that smile. Wonder if he read Mr. Cedars’s book too. . .

“Great to meet you!” Smiler said, pumping his arm. “I mean, yeah, be a lot better if we weren’t both stuck here, but under the circumstances, great to meet you! Oh, and let’s get this out of the way right now – they/them. My pronouns,” they added in response to Victor’s puzzled eyebrow, stabbing themselves in the chest with a finger. “Non-binary.”

“Oh! Oh, yes – he/him,” Victor responded in kind, cheeks heating up. “S-Sorry, my family’s a little conservative, so – I’m still a bit new to that sort of thing.”

“No worries! Now you know,” Smiler said, smile never faltering. “Come on, let me introduce you to everybody!” They linked their arm through his and pulled him over to the first table, where the card-playing pair were waiting with faces that suggested they’d totally expected this from Smiler. “Okay, so – this is Oblivion, he thinks he’s an edge lord,” they said, pointing at the black man. “And that’s Thirteen, she’s actually an edge lord.”

---

Hope you enjoyed!

[srlkiller]

my mom is up to some shady shit… i need to jus say fuck everything n take her to court to sort it all out 4 good. from now on im gonna move in silence.. im gonna gather all my evidence & meet w the ppl i need to meet w. in 2023 im going to live for me, no one else. if you have parents that love you… please realise how truly blessed you are. i am so envious of those of u who do, that’s all ive ever wanted. idk what my parents are up to.. but i jus know it’s not good. i couldn’t imagine ever treating my child this way… n going around acting like some kind of ‘amazing mom’ knowing full well that u couldn’t care less if i was alive or dead lmao. we jus had a conversation about how much money SHE would get if i died… that’s how fucked up she is. i am being so serious when i say this. if i die… she did it. she knows the EXACT amount that she will get from my death.. she knows the terms in which i have to die in order to collect the money. she told me if i kill myself she doesn’t get anything so if I plan to ‘commit suicide anytime soon’ atleast make it look like it was accidental or from other causes so that she can collect.. who the fuck says that shit to their child? while laughing. she’s serious.. she’s said it many many times & tells me when ‘my policy changes’. im not being dramatic. im 10000% sober & keeping it that way.

what’s worse is that my dad has been texting her about his own ‘death beneficiary’ & asked for my full name??? i was already on his will so im almost positive that they are conspiring (she would have said something to make him do it - most likely so that i don’t get any of his money or his house??? which is SO FUCKED UP like WTF) together to basically take me off of it & put her on it. they’ve been divorced since i was not even 2 years old. how evil can someone be… all she gives a fuck about is MONEY. ive never been like that.. im sentimental. i spent all my $$ on the ppl i love n they all fucked me over. i still.. to this day.. buy her whatever she wants.. anything she likes.. just to try & get her to be nice to me… to pay me some attention.. to spend time w me.. it works for about 30 seconds if that. she usually RETURNS my gifts for the cash bc she knows how much money i have spent on her. she doesn’t buy me a single gift for any fucking thing. yet id still give her the world if I could. i hate myself for it. i will NEVER FORGET my dad calling me around the time my nan was dying and telling me how much of a piece of shit i am & saying that im “nothing but a fucking bitch” bc my mom straight up lied to him n told him the only reason i talk to/see my dad is so that when he dies I’ll be able to get his house & money. LIKE WTF. she saw my dad one day when he came to visit my nan & he mentioned he started seeing some girl & the first thing she did was run home & tell me.. “you better start talking to ur father more.. he has a gf now so ur gonna end up w none of his money when he dies.” i was like where the fuck did that even come from… who thinks like that… who says that shit to their only child about their kids father???

he wasn’t sick.. he wasn’t dying… but i immediately panicked n thought something was wrong. that’s all i cared about. n she was like no he’s fine just though u should seriously rethink talking to him more before he changes his will…… i was like I DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT HIS WILL OR HIS MONEY???!!??!! so this makes COMPLETE SENSE for her to do to me… total sense. i should have seen this coming. especially from her. i jus never expected it from him.. but she’s so manipulative & has him twisted around her little finger now to the point where she’s somehow convinced him that this is ‘what is best’. she’s already stolen all of my own money… she took the money that my nan left me when my nan died. hid it in a secret bank account & most likely has already spent it (BUT I BET MY FAMILY DONT KNOW THAT RIGHT?! NOR DO THEY KNOW HOW SHE RLLY IS BC SHE ACTS FAKE AF) now she’s trying to take over my dads shit n he’s too blind to see wtf she’s doing. this is so fucking upsetting. like wtf…………….. who the fuck does this. then goes around talking shit about me to every family member?? to the point where i can no longer attend any family gatherings bc they think she’s so sweet n innocent n im some crazy delusional bitch? IM NOT UR FUCKING ENEMY IM YOUR CHILD. I HAVENT DONE ANYTHING WRONG TO YOU. i never wanted to take her to court.. i never wanted it to go this far… but holy shit… she is so evil. it hurts me so much. i just want a mother. that’s it. it hurts so bad. longing for something that’s so close.. yet so far removed. i genuinely do not know where the fuck to go from here… i just want her to give me everything that is legally & rightfully mine so i can LEAVE if she wants me gone so fucking bad. i feel like that’s the only way out. so i guess im gonna have to just do whatever it is i have to do to get all my shit legally & then just cut ties completely. she doesn’t deserve any of my kindness or my love.

& to anyone reading this n thinking/saying shit like “omg stop complaining if it’s so bad then why don’t u jus leave.” - im not stupid. if it was that simple don’t u think i would have left a long ass time ago? no one wants to be in an extremely toxic & abusive environment day in & day out. no one knows all of the shit i have gone through & it’s VERY HARD to just up & leave when you have been manipulated, brainwashed, exploited, controlled, & abused in every single way but the only two people who brought you into this world & were supposed to show you love, protect you & care for you. i have NEVER HAD THAT. EVER. this shit isn’t something new.. this is life long… i have only jus started to become aware of how bad the situation actually is within the last few years with the help of other adult professionals which i used to never be allowed to talk to. unless you have been subjected to the same exact shit you won’t understand it & pls realise how truly blessed u are to not know that kind of pain. it’s a miracle i am even still here standing on my own two feet. even if this legal shit doesn’t work.. atleast i can honestly say that i tried. but i need to start using my fucking smart ass brain instead of following my heart bc when has that ever worked out for me/helped me lmao? i need to now remember to always b alert of absolutely everything when it comes to her, i need to stay on my toes & make sure that i remain 10 steps ahead of her at all times. rn i feel like idk what’s going on n im extremely scared n it’s the worst feeling ever. that’s why i have written this n put this here for documentation & also evidence just incase. todays date is 13/12/22

[krabjoons]

omg professor... what are you doing?!?!?! [pjm]

⮕ summary: park jimin is the hottest, most popular guy at school. the only catch? he also just so happens to be your teacher.

⮕ pairing: park jimin x reader, mentions of jaebum x reader

⮕ genre: smut, university!au, pwp

⮕ word count: 12.8k

⮕ rating: 18+, nsfw

⮕ warnings: hard dom!jimin x bratty-ish sub!y/n, professor!jimin x university student! y/n (he’s 27-28 ish and she’s 21-22), fuckboy!jaebum, pussy eating, fingering, thigh riding, vaginal sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), dirty talk (carries the whole fic tbh), degradation, edging, dumbification, impact play (pussy + ass spanking), manhandling, humiliation, exhibitionism, creampie, teasing, praise, orgasm denial, begging, overstimulation, crying, kissing/making out, jimin’s a meanie but y/n likes it (aka i go ham on the degradation and edging you have been warned), aftercare (like 500 words of it :P)

⮕ a/n: this took too long to come out and has literally been sitting in my drafts since august but here it is! writing this was definitely a rollercoaster because this was my first smut and honestly i felt like it was really bad at times but other times i was like wtf this is so hot,, ANYWAYS, i’m glad that i’m posting it and getting over that fear of imperfection. i hope that you guys enjoy this piece :). i would also like to add that please don’t hook up with your teachers… if you do, that’s on you i take no responsibility for that whatsoever lol. excuse the title i literally have no idea what to change it to but i like it the way it is tbh LMFAOOO OK I’LL STOP RAMBLING NOW BYEEE ILY ALL

University has never been when you’ve expected. When you first graduated high school and came here, you expected your late teenage years to be filled with just as much studying as high school combined with only a few parties here and there. You didn’t expect to make as many friends as you did and certainly did not expect to be known as the girl with the high grades and even higher alcohol tolerance. No longer are you the shy Y/N L/N that walked through the entrance gates on the first day of school; you’ve changed a lot.

It was a surprise to you. With academics taking precedence much of your life, the freedom university provided you with was welcomed - perhaps a little too much. You quickly learned that polar bear shots were great to keep you in a good mood at parties and that eating mangoes before smoking gave you a better high. And, you also learned about sex.

Admittedly, the first time you had a hookup, it was awkward and messy (at least for you… it was a guy, what else were you expecting?) but with more practice, you were able to get the hang of it. You’ve found your tastes and now willingly talk about who catches your eye to your best friends, something you never thought you’d do last year. 

Speaking of who catches your eye, as of now it’s Park Jimin. A really hot guy, according to your friends, and according to you, an even better voice. When you first walked into your Applications of Economics class, you nearly spit out your Starbucks drink after you saw the astonishingly handsome man with silky black hair in a dress shirt and tie. Surprisingly formal for a university student, you thought, but you weren’t one to talk, considering your current outfit of business casual.

Only, he wasn’t a student. He was your teacher. You should’ve put the pieces together earlier but you didn’t. Let's just say a Coconut Lime Refresher is good for hangovers, and you needed one desperately (basically, you were drunk as hell the night before and were still in the process of recovering). It certainly didn’t take long before all of campus was talking about the new economics professor who was hotter than hell. Girls (and some guys) immediately tried transferring into his class, one of them being your best friend Lisa, just to get a glimpse of how attractive he was. You remember a couple of girls offering you literal cash to transfer out, but you didn’t.

A good call, thinking about it now. You’ve gotten closer with Mr. Park, although it’s nothing too special yet, the two of you are on good terms and have even hugged before (you still get giddy thinking about it). Y/N from 2 years ago would be screaming her head off at how bold you’ve gotten, but now, you can’t bring yourself to care. Park Jimin is a hot guy, and you’re pretty hot too (if you must admit), so it would only be logical if the two of you could hook up. Unsurprisingly, you’ve lost your shame, nothing but thoughts of your teacher filling your mind in your spare time. 

So here you are, another day of university, as monotonous as ever. The only highlight of your day will be the morning, where you have a class with Mr. Park. You've started changing your style a bit recently, opting for more, let’s just leave it at provocative outfits. Walking into the room, you take your usual seat in the front, closest to Mr. Park’s desk. 

The class progresses like it normally does, starting with a review of the work from the last class and a discussion about the new material. "I’m going to give you guys this last half hour of class to review the material individually if you want or you can leave early, I don’t mind. I know it's a Friday so there’s gonna be some parties around campus, if you want to prepare yourselves for that then go ahead." Your professor glances around the room, smirking at you when mentioning the parties. You flush and look away, biting your lower lip. 

You make the decision to stay in the classroom while the majority of the other students file out of the room. "I'll be available for any questions," Jimin calls out, returning to his desk across from you.

Sticking to your reputation, you get a head start on the assignment and easily work through the homework. Surprisingly, you forget about Jimin for the time being, focused on finishing your assignment so that you have as little work as possible to do after classes. You don’t notice your teacher looking at you, admiring the way you put so much effort into the things you’re passionate about. Hearing a student call his name, he gets up to help him. 

Surprisingly, Mr. Park has assigned a disturbingly low amount of homework, probably because of the upcoming weekend and maybe a pop quiz later next week (ugh). You’ve finished your work in a mere twenty minutes and are surprised to find that Jimin is not at his desk when you look up from your laptop. You turn around, looking for him, and see that he’s helping another student. Whipping out your phone, you text your best friend Lisa (who just so conveniently, also thirsts over Jimin the same way you do).

to lisa: hey i finished classwork for mr park and have like 10 minutes of free time now lol

Instantly, she responds as if she wasn’t in class. Then again, she has never been one to pay too much attention to her professors. 

from lisa: ayo talk to him 

from lisa: also save me from bio i literally cannot

Smiling slightly, you respond to her.

to lisa: i WOULD but he’s helping other students

from lisa: then be like "m- mister park, i- need help please" and use puppy eyes 

to lisa: LMFAOO PLEASE he’d be like whats wrong with you since when did you struggle in this class

to lisa: but i mean, anything to hear him talk i guess 

from lisa: god i'm so jealous you have him early so you can hear his morning voice it must be hot asf

to lisa: it is omg

from lisa: god what if he moans like that it'd be such a turn on

to lisa: dUDE STOP NO the way this is literally true like if he has a good sip of coffee or a pastry he likes hes gonna go all "mmmm I wish you could try this" pls its so fking hot

to lisa: like SIR I WANNA TRY YOU or you to try me no complaints

from lisa: wtf he finishes his breakfast before my class so i can't even hear it tf I hate it here

to lisa: u have him right after my block bro at leAST you have him 

to lisa: what ab the people who don't even have him

from lisa: idk what i'd do honestly. imagine not having a literal sex god teaching you every day i pity those who dont

You’re about to type out a response when a smooth voice sounds out from behind you, "alright guys, you’re good to go. Have a good weekend!" You jump in your seat, not realizing that your teacher was helping the student right behind you for the past five minutes. 

As the rest of the class begins to pack up, you pray that he hasn’t seen you talking about your sexual fantasies less than five feet away from him. Mr. Park doesn’t say anything, so you must be in the clear, right? You’re hoping and praying that he didn’t find out, but your heart rate is already rising and you’re getting a sick feeling in your stomach. Your gut must be trying to tell you something.

Well, your gut’s telling you that the universe must not be on your side because as soon as you stand up, he says, "Ms. L/N, can you stay a bit after class? I have a few things I want to discuss with you." Cheeks flushing hot, you squeak out a "yes, sir."

When everyone has left and it’s just the two of you left in the room, Jimin pulls up a seat next to his desk. "Sit," he commands, leaning on his desk. You scramble to your feet and walk over, mind buzzing with thoughts. Oh god, what if he tells the administration department? Then you’d definitely be punished and maybe even kicked out of the school. Maybe you could make up a story? Oh, it’s ANOTHER Park Jimin, haha. Definitely NOT my teacher. Even if you did, they could go the rest of the texts between you and Lisa and you’d be screwed. And not to be petty or anything, but being kicked out would mean that you wouldn’t be able to be in Jimin’s class anymore and wouldn’t be able to see him. Oh, and the bigger problem would be that you’d also be unable to get your degree.

You start internally panicking, heart rate picking up even when your teacher rolls up his sleeves and leans down in front of you. Stop thinking about dirty things FOR ONCE, Y/N, half of you screams, while the other half of you has already started fantasizing about things which shouldn’t be thought about, especially with one of the people in the fantasies less than a couple of feet in front of you. With his hands on his thighs, the ones you’ve thought about riding far too often, he smirks.

"So, I heard you wanna try me?"

You gulp, absolutely mortified that Jimin caught you. Yes, he was attractive, and you would do practically anything to fuck him, but you didn’t expect to be humiliated into admitting it. "Um, no sir! I mean, maybe, but not in the way you think!" you ramble. Shut up, Y/N, part of you screams. You’re only digging yourself into a deeper hole.

"Yeah, sure. Because I definitely didn’t see what you were talking about with your friend. Be honest, Y/N," he says, smirking down at you. "You think about me, don't you? I'm not new to this. I see the way girls like you look at me. I know the way they talk about me when they think I can't hear. I know the way you think. Who would've thought? Little Miss L/N, all prim and proper on the outside, would be so filthy deep down?"

"Sir, I- uh. I-" you stutter out, cheeks burning furiously hot.

"You what? You're not going to try to prove your innocence now, are you? Not when you've gotten this far, hm? Getting to do what you’ve wanted after all this time?" he asks, standing up from his desk, and walking over to you, kneeling in front of you so that you were forced to hold eye contact. 

"You know, nobody else has been as daring as you, my dear," he hums softly. "Sending promiscuous texts about their teacher in the very class they're in. Rubbing their thighs together every time their teacher catches their eye." You shift in your seat, Jimin's words sparking the slightest of fires in your core. "Gazing ever so obviously at said teacher’s dick, too. Y/N, you amaze me. So, so brilliant. yet so, so naughty. You thought that nobody else would catch onto you? Unfortunately, you thought wrong."

"I'm s- sorry sir," you whisper out.

"You're just sorry that you got caught, Y/N. You'll keep doing this even after today," Jimin chuckles lowly. "Possibly even more after today," he adds on, taking note of how his words have affected you. Your pupils are dilated and your cheeks are starting to get flushed. "Such a dirty girl. I'm here trying to scold you, and here you are, getting turned on by my words. Is this why you ask so many questions, doll? To hear my voice?"

You bite your lip in a mixture of embarrassment and nervousness, nodding imperceptibly. The logical, studious side of you is thinking, oh my god, is this really happening? Am I going to fuck my teacher? I really shouldn’t be doing this. The relaxed, easygoing side of you (pretty much your horny side) is thinking, finally, it’s happening. I’m going to FINALLY be fucking Park Jimin.

"What else have you imagined about my voice, hm? How I'd whisper into your ear while pounding into you? Hear me moan as your tight cunt clenches around my dick? Tell you how good you're making me feel? Reminding you how much of a slut you are to fuck your teacher in the middle of his classroom, where anyone could walk in?" he continues, seeing you shift in your seat more. "Would you like that?" he asks.

"Y- yes Mr. Park. I- I would," you whisper. You have to consciously clench your thighs together to keep them from spreading at his words.

"Hm, I don't believe you. Try again another time, darling," he sighs, leaning back on his knees, getting ready to stand up. You don't want this, whatever it is, to be over that quickly so you make up your mind. Swallowing your pride and succumbing to the dull throb in your panties, you pout.

"But professor, I really do want you. I want you to make me feel good and I wanna make you feel good. Please," you whine out. "I wanna be thinking about you all the time because you fucked me so well in class. And when my friends talk about wanting to get in your pants, I want to be the only one who already has. Please, Mr. Park. I need you." you breathe out. At this point, the pressure in your core is rising steadily, and only intensifies when you see the way your teacher's eyes are glazed over in lust and eyebrows are furrowed. Your eyes travel down the expanse of his face to his lips, plump and pink. Oh, the number of times you've wished to kiss them, imagined them suckling on your clit. And now that Jimin knows, perhaps it's finally coming true. 

"You'd like that, hm? God, you're so dirty," Jimin mutters, inching closer to you, cautiously placing a hand on your knee. Your legs instantly part to make room for him in between and he inches forward. "Does dirty talk really turn you on that much, Y/N? I can smell you through your panties," he remarks.

"Mr. Park, please do something," you whimper. And with that, Jimin pulls you over to his desk and sits you on the edge. You spread your legs and he stands in between them. He leans his head closer to you until he's next to your ear.

"Want me to get you off with my words? You seem to like that already and I haven't even tried, doll. Or perhaps," he pauses, bunching up your skirt so that it pools at your waist. "You want me to touch you?"

You nod eagerly, chest heaving in anticipation. "I want both Mr. Park. I want you," you purr salaciously. And with that, your teacher lets out a low growl and presses his lips onto yours harshly. It’s already bruising, but you just can’t get enough of the way he tastes of caramel and coffee and how ridiculously soft his lips are, so you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him in even closer. He seems a little put off by how eager you are, but once he hears you sigh in enjoyment, he melts into your eager grasp. 

His hands start sliding down your waist so that they are resting on your upper thighs, and he rubs comforting circles into them, trailing them closer and closer to your panties. He breaks off from the kiss to look down and smirks back at you before joining his lips to yours with even more fervor and you praise yourself for deciding to wear your lace thong today. You feel his tongue slide against your lips, asking for permission to enter and your mouth immediately complies. 

The feeling of his hot breath on your lips and thumbs rubbing against the juncture of your thighs has you feeling needy for more. Jimin swirls the tip of his tongue against yours, the filthy action turning you on even more. You moan into his mouth and thread your fingers through his hair, causing him to let out a low groan.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the two of you break apart. Chest heaving up and down, you take note of your teacher's face. His lips are redder and plumper than ever before. His cheeks have the faintest blush on them. His eyes, the ones that crinkle into a happy smile whenever you answer a question correctly in class, are now clouded over with deep lust.

"Get onto all fours. On the desk," Jimin commands, and you immediately comply. Now your ass is facing Jimin and you're very nearly completely exposed to him, save the thong you're wearing.

"God, you're such a slut," Jimin moans out at the sight. "Do you get dressed up like this just so you can get fucked in class? Such a short fucking skirt that I can see whatever you're wearing underneath whenever you bend over, hm? You wanted me to give in to you, doll?" When you nod weakly, he chuckles, "I don't think so."

Arching your back so your ass sticks out even more, you whine, "professor, please fuck me. I'm so fucking horny, please." Jimin cups your pussy from outside your panties and leans over you, "I don't think so, kitten. I'm the one calling the shots here." Your pussy flutters in response and Jimin slaps it lightly, chuckling. The brief stimulation has your cunt clenching around nothing.

He spreads your knees slightly and begins trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses up your thighs to the arch of your back. Feeling his breath so close to your core has you getting wetter by the minute in anticipation. He finally hovers over your back, placing a soft kiss on your shoulder, muttering, "I'm going to wreck you, Y/N", and you feel yourself clench in excitement. 

"Then do it," you whisper, and Jimin hooks his fingers around the waistband of your thong and pulls it down, so slow that it's almost painful, exposing your heat to the cool air of the classroom and causing you to shiver in response. 

You don't see it, but his eyes widen seeing the strings of your slick connecting your pussy to your panties. He takes a look at your core and his mouth starts watering. You're soaking and clenching around nothing, thighs shaking ever so slightly in anticipation.

He flattens his tongue and licks a flat stripe up your pussy, from your clit to your entrance. He pauses to suck some of your juices from it, but your cunt just keeps leaking them out. He runs his tongues through your folds over and over again until you let out a wanton moan.

Encouraged by your reaction, he hooks his arms around the side of your hips, nuzzling closer into your pussy. He laps at your cunt and purposely avoids your clit, only heightening the pressure in your core.

"Mr. Park," you whine out, pushing your hips back. "Please. More," you pant out. Suddenly, Jimin spanks your right ass cheek, rubbing his hand over the fleshy globe soothingly afterward. You let out a little yelp and turn around to catch his eyes. 

"More what?" he spits out, smiling at you evilly. "My little slut's gotta tell me what she wants. How else would I give it to her?" your mind is foggy, pleasure causing you to lose track of everything other than the man behind you. "W- want you," you garble out, "t- to play with my clit too." 

"What's the magic word, doll?" Jimin teases, breath fanning over your slit, causing your walls to clench erratically. "Please, Mr. Park," you whine, pushing your cunt closer to his face. He smirks at you, avoiding your advances. 

"Good girl," he praises before finally positioning himself just barely in front of your clit. You feel him blow cool air onto your slit, but the temperature of it is magnified even more due to how wet you are. You whine out, expressing your displeasure, and Jimin finally indulges you by taking your throbbing button between his plush lips.

"F- fuck, sir, yes! Right there, please," you squeal, back arching even more. Jimin hums, the vibrations sending waves of pleasure through your body. You can feel yourself growing wetter, your entrance squeezing out more and more of your arousal down to where Jimin's lips are sucking. He momentarily pauses to flatten his tongue out, letting your juices drip onto them and slurping them up eagerly. The obscene noises behind you combined with the low thrum of student life just outside the classroom door mesh together to have you realize where exactly the two of you are doing this.

You glance at the clock, and your eyes widen. "Prof- oh my god, Pr- Professor Park," you moan out, trying to keep your focus. Jimin again hums, making you jolt in pleasure. "I- uh, there’s only ten minutes until the next block of classes start. I need t- to leave in around five." When Jimin releases from you with a pop, you can feel your slick running down your thighs and some dripping onto his desk. You feel a rush of excitement at the thought of everyone walking in during class to see the mess Jimin made of you on his desk and again squeeze around nothing.

"Well then," Jimin hums lazily, "guess you better cum within five minutes if you want to cum at all." He dives back into your heat, tongue skillfully running through your folds. He cycles between kitten licking and delivering harsh sucks to your clit and dipping his tongue into your entrance. You grind against his face in desperation to reach your release, and just when you finally feel it hurtling towards you at an alarming rate, suddenly, Jimin gets up.

He leans over you, trailing a hand up your slick-ridden thigh to cup your bare heat and mutters lowly in your ear, "time’s up." Your heart drops in frustration, and you whine out. Grinding into his palm, you beg for him to touch you once again, knowing nothing but how good he was making you feel just seconds ago. "Mr. P- Park, please. Make me cum," you cry out.

Jimin spanks your pussy, a wet echo sounding through the room. You jolt forward and your cunt leaks out even more of your arousal in response to the combination of pain and pleasure. "I said no," he hisses, "you couldn't cum in time, you don't deserve to cum." 

"God, look at you, you're a mess. Bent over and spread out so desperately for me. You taste so sweet, doll. So responsive, too," Jimin murmurs, lazily rubbing your slit. He's, once again, avoiding your clit and driving you insane. Your sensitive nub is now swollen and throbbing with need, slick with your arousal. 

"Has anyone touched you as well as I do, Y/N?" he asks. When you shake your head, he slaps your cunt again, another wet sound echoing through the room. "Words, baby girl," he goads, fingers dancing through your folds. 

"N- no, sir. they can’t make me feel half as good as you did. I’ve al- I’ve always been thinking about having you touch m- my cunt and making me cum really hard. and I- shit I’m so needy sir, I wanna cum," you garble out, tears pricking the corner of your eyes. You feel Jimin’s hand leave your pussy, exposing your soaked heat to the cool air of the room. Slowly, he pulls your thong up your thighs and the light touches make you clench in desperation and whine out.

He marvels at the sight of you so fucked out in front of him. The way his top student was falling apart at the slightest touches he gave you. And the words you said. God, to have you say such filthy things in comparison to your gentle demeanor, all because of him, it really did something to him.

Jimin finishes clothing you and presses a kiss to the top of your ass and walks across the room to get some tissues to clean up the mess you made. Still perched on the desk, you watch him needily, thighs rubbing together to relieve some of the pressure from being denied your orgasm. "So I really don’t get to cum?" You ask meekly, holding back a sob. "I need to cum, Mr. Park."

He chuckles, "there’s a difference between need and want, doll. You want to cum, you don't need to cum. But what you do need," he returns to you, leaning down so that his face is right in front of yours, "is to get to your next class." Your face, once eagerly lit up in anticipation, has now fallen in disappointment.

Rolling your eyes, you huff out a "fine" and get off his desk, feeling your arousal make your thighs stick together. Your panties are uncomfortably damp and you’re so wet you can even smell yourself. "Can you make me cum later?" you question Jimin, sliding closer to him and playing with his tie, praying that he’ll be the one to make you release instead of having to do it yourself when you get home.

"If you play nice I might. If not, then… we’ll see," he hums, handing you a tissue to clean yourself up while heading to wipe down his desk. "I have a lunch meeting in the second half of the lunch block, so if you really need me, I’ll be here before then." 

You grin and nod in excitement. "Cool! so I’ll-" you begin before the first students from the next class start filing in, making you jump. "The door wasn’t locked?" you whisper frantically to him. "We could have been caught, Jimin! Are you crazy?!"

He smirks at you, "didn’t you say you wanted it that way? Where anyone could walk in? I only did what you asked, doll." You’re left speechless as he continues. "Anyways, you should be in your next class pretty soon. I’ll write a note to your professor just in case you’re late. But get going, yeah? I’ll see you in time for our meeting." He hands you a slip of paper and straightens up, tossing the dirty tissues into the trash can in the corner of the room. 

"Okay class, we’re going to get started soon. I presume you all did the reading, so just prepare for the discussion we’re going to be having about it when the bell rings," he calls out to the class. Turning to face you, he questions quietly with genuine concern, "you okay? Did I push you too much for our first time?" 

Your mind swirls with thoughts. Our first time. The words fill you with giddy excitement. It’s just the two of you that know about this, the dirty things you were doing just minutes ago, very nearly getting caught. Knowing that this won’t be the only moment you guys are doing this, fills you with excitement.

"On the contrary, actually," you tease your teacher with a smile. "It was really nice honestly, but perhaps, you didn’t do enough." You bite your lip at the way Jimin's eyes darken and he looks away. "Get to class, Ms. L/N. The bell will ring any minute," he says lowly, jaw slightly clenched. Your core throbs at the sight and you head towards the door. 

"Goodbye, Mr. Park. Thank you!" you call out, catching sight of Lisa, who raises her eyebrows at you teasingly and mouths text me. Blushing, you nod at her before leaving the room to go to your next class.

Being "one of the smartest students on campus" comes with its perks. Like right now, for example. You always (somehow) come to class overprepared, so when your next teacher gives you a day to work on your project (which you've already finished), you head to the back of the room to text Lisa in private. 

from lisa: dude wtf was that you were literally talking to Mr. Park outside of ur class time with him

from lisa: omg wait don't tell me you fucked him

from lisa: did you

to lisa: NO I DID NOT OMG I wish tho lmao

to lisa: I was asking him for help on the paper he's assigning us and to proofread it and stuff before I submit it

from lisa: omg I forgot he assigned us that shit

to lisa: dude lmao its due in a week or so you have plenty of time

from lisa: ugh literally he's such a hottie why does he have to be so into teaching

to lisa: sis commitment to something is hot

from lisa: omg ur right wait a sec tho

from lisa: dude

from lisa: omg

from lisa: he definitely has a boner

Knowing that you were likely the cause of it, you shift in your seat cockily, smiling slyly to yourself while looking down.

to lisa: whAT

to lisa: wait how big is it

from lisa: ok I dont think he’s fully hard yet he's like semi hard but barely 

from lisa: LMFAO Y/N don't worry I think he’s packing seems kinda thick too

Taking in a deep breath, you look up at the ceiling. You imagine him slowly sinking into you and making you whimper at his size. Him seeing your face and growling, "if you’re really a good girl, you should be able to take it." You cross your legs tightly and rock up and down in a lame attempt to diminish the rising pressure between your thighs and look back down at your phone.

to lisa: pls thats so hot

from lisa: IKR I want him to r a i l me

to lisa: or eat me out… have you sEEN those lips of his wtf

from lisa: on god do not get me started

to lisa: pls i bet he’d be the type to tease you

Oh Lisa, if only you knew the truth behind those words.

from lisa: YES hes lowkey cocky bc he knows like the entire fucking population simps for him

from lisa: he’s def gonna make you beg to cum

to lisa: pls thats hot do not get me riled up in class istg

from lisa: too late i've already started babe ;)

You continue texting Lisa throughout the entirety of your class. Finally, you look at the clock and seeing that there are only a few more minutes till the class ends, you wrap up your conversation with her.

to lisa: hey btw i’m gonna be coming to lunch late… save me a seat at our regular spot?

from lisa: when ur best friend is a teachers pet :(( fiNE I guess I will

to lisa: love u!! xx

from lisa: love you too nerd xoxo

The bell finally rings, signaling the start of the lunch break and you immediately stand up and walk out the door, bidding your teacher goodbye and thanks.

Running into the bathroom, you do a quick check of your appearance. You tug up your skirt a bit higher and tuck in your shirt so that your outfit accentuates your curves. You glance at your face and notice how abnormally large your pupils are in comparison to most days. Jimin has completely ruined you today, just like he said he would. I'm going to wreck you, Y/N. His words echo in your ears as you make your way out to his classroom. Trying to ignore how uncomfortably wet your panties are, you knock on the door to his room. 

You hear a smooth voice answer with a, "come in," and take a deep breath before opening the door to see Jimin sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair with his arms behind his head. He scans you up and down, eyes taking in every inch of your figure. "Nice outfit alterations," he notes, patting his laps as a hint for you to sit on it. You quickly lock the door and make your way to him, placing one leg on each side of him so that you’re now straddling his thighs. "Is this all for me?" he asks and you tuck your head down, suddenly shy now that all his attention is on you again. 

"Mhm, depends on whether you like it or not" you smile timidly, hands reaching out to play with his tie again. He laughs. "Princess, I’m conflicted. You do look very nice, all dolled up for me like this. It’d be a shame if I were to ruin your efforts. But on the other hand," he remarks, "you’ve very nearly crossed the line for indecent exposure. What if another teacher caught you like this? you would get in trouble, hm? And what if it were a student to see you like this? What would they think of you then?" He questions, causing your cheeks to burn at his words.

"They would think I- that I’m a whore. I- and that I dress up like this just so I can pass my classes," you whisper out, biting your lips in a combination of excitement and humiliation. You can feel yourself start to throb again and you start to rut against Jimin’s thighs. He shifts you over so that you are sitting on only one and slightly bounces his leg. The stimulation to your neglected cunt sends a shock running through your body and you squeeze your thighs around his.

"Look at you, so fucking desperate to cum. You think that you aren’t a little whore already, so needy for me this quickly, hm? Do you really think you deserve to cum?" He hums, admiring the way you’re worked up. He pushes up your skirt and slaps your thigh just underneath your ass. You shift away as a reaction, causing your clit to get the stimulation it finally deserved. The way your underwear rubs against your neglected bundle of nerves causes you to let out a groan and drop your head to Jimin's shoulder. He spanks you this time, making you yelp. "I asked you a question, doll."

"Mmhm, yeah," you whine out, "I deserve t- to cum, sir." At this point, your hips are moving on their own accord, shifting back and forth desperately against Jimin's thigh. He grabs your waist tightly, holding you still. "Look at me," he commands, bouncing his thigh. You mewl into his shoulder, the change in motion making you lose focus. He spanks you again, the sound echoing around the room. "Listen to directions, sweetheart. Or else you’ll get punished," he warns.

You lift your head to look at Jimin, faces just inches apart. His eyes scan over your face, lingering on your lips. Slowly, you lean towards him, closing the distance between you two. He gives into your eager kiss and you glide your hands up his firm chest to run your fingers through his hair. He starts bouncing you on his thigh and you groan into his mouth. Breaking apart panting, you place your forehead against Jimin’s, moving your hips back and forth harder to increase the pressure going to your clit.

"God, Y/N, you’re so wet," Jimin pants while looking down at the way your clothed pussy drags over his thigh. "I can feel you soaking through my slacks," he says, shifting you over. just like he said, there is now a wet spot on his thigh from where you just were. Thankfully, it’s barely noticeable, but if you focus enough, you can see it.

"What are you going to do about it, hm? I have classes to teach, meetings to attend. Do you want people to see the mess you made all over me?" He hisses, spanking you to elicit an answer. "N- no, sir. I’m s- sorry," you whisper out, eyes clenched, still rutting against him. You feel your orgasm bubbling up as every second passes.

"I don't think you're sorry, doll. Look at you making a mess all over me through your panties. You're absolutely soaked, so fucking desperate to cum," he tuts, clenching his thigh muscles purposely. You gasp and shove your head into the crook of Jimin's neck, letting out a low groan.

"Mr. Park, I'm so wet because of you. I- god, I wanna cum. please. I'm so close," you mewl into him, legs starting to tighten around his thigh.

You shut your eyes, feeling your impending orgasm build up. Right when you're about to let go, Jimin holds your hips in place tightly, preventing you from moving. Squeaking out, you make an attempt to shift your pussy over his thighs. It's no use because you can feel it start to drift away slowly and you look at him in need. Tears stinging the corners of your eyes, you plead, "S- sir I need you to touch me again. Please."

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Jimin smiles cockily, lifting you onto his desk and spreading your legs after stripping you of your panties. You lean back so that you face the ceiling. Your eyes roll back once you feel him take your clit into his mouth. You moan and arch your back off of the desk, thighs involuntarily clenching around his head. 

"God, Mr. Park, yes! O- oh, fuck, please," you blabber out incoherently, your mind hazy and overwhelmed with pleasure. "More," you whimper out without thinking.

Jimin disconnects from your heat to look up at you, murmuring, "Greedy little slut wants it all, huh? Won't even ask nicely for it. Tell me what you want, Y/N. Beg for it, and I might just give it to you."

"God, I- I want it all, professor," you call out, wiggling your hips in search of stimulation that never comes. "Want you to stuff me with your f- fingers and lick my p- pussy and make me cum. Want you to fuck me r- raw with your fat cock from behind and sp- and spank me. Want you to ma- make me cry from cumming so hard just as much as you have from not letting me cum. A- and I want you to leave hi- hickies on my thighs so that if I bend over, p- people are gonna know how much of a cockslut I am, just for you."

"Yeah? Well, I can tell you this," Jimin says, fingers dancing up your thigh closer to your sick-ridden core. "You are a cockslut. So fucking dirty. Most people come to class to learn but it seems that you come here to get off." He inserts a finger into you and your walls immediately clamp down on it. He moves the digit in and out of you smoothly, your arousal allowing the smoothest of motions. "You like that, baby? Finally having something in that tight cunt of yours?" You nod at his question, adding on "want more, sir."

"Not enough? Greedy little bitch. look at you, so needy. What are you gonna do when I have my cock out, hm?" He shoves a second finger into you and starts curling them into your heat. You arch your back to the ceiling and he hovers over you. For a moment, there’s nothing but the squelch of his fingers in your wet pussy and your panting as he stares into your eyes. Jimin's eyebrows are furrowed and he’s biting his lip - he’s focusing on something.

That "something" becomes apparent when, all of a sudden, you nearly sit upright and let out a loud moan of pleasure, "Fuck, Mr. Park! right there." His fingers continue rubbing that special spot inside you repeatedly and your legs start shaking ever so slightly. You look back at him to see a smug smile on his face. "I found it," he chuckles as you writhe underneath him. He leans down to kiss you, lips melding together.

He keeps fingering you, bringing his thumb up to ghost over your clit ever so slightly to provide enough pleasure to bring you close to your orgasm but just not enough to make you cum. You whine against his lips and he breaks the kiss, asking "you want to cum, doll?" to which you weakly nod. "Then fuck yourself on my fingers. Show me how much of a little slut you are for me. How you’re a cocksleeve for me, so wet and needy as soon as I touch you, so ready for me to fuck you." He stills his digits inside of you and you buck your hips on them, rolling your pelvis repeatedly in an attempt to get to your orgasm. You reach down to provide some stimulation to your clit, but he smacks it away.

"Jim- professor, it’s not enough. I- I need more, please." Tears start welling up in your eyes at the thought of not cumming for the third time. Jimin kisses your temple, the gentle action reminding you that he’s not going to do something you can’t handle. "Please, Mr. Park. I wanna cum," you whine out, hips jerking back and forth in a pathetic attempt to chase after your high.

"Show me then, Y/N. how much you want it. A good girl can show me that she wants it bad enough and will make herself come on my fingers alone. She’s not greedy. She doesn’t need to touch herself too. She just needs my fingers to cum. I know you can be a good girl,  Y/N," he goads. "Can you show me what the pretty little face of yours looks like when you cum? I bet you’ll look so beautiful, even more than you are right now, all fucked out for me."

"Hhngh, sir I- I’m trying," you pant out. "It’s just not enough. I promise I'm a good girl, I swear. Please let me cum. Oh god, I wanna cum." At this point, you’re nearly crying. You haven't ever been edged like this and are desperate for release.

Jimin sees this and purposefully retracts his hand from your cunt covered in your honeyed juices, glistening in the lights of his classroom. "Professor Park, please," you choke out weakly, chest constricting in disappointment. With a soft smile, he brings his fingers up to his mouth and cleans them off, savoring the flavor of you. 

"Be a good girl for the rest of the day and then I’ll let you cum, baby," he hums. "You promise?" you plead, holding onto his arm desperately. 

"I promise, Y/N," he kisses you gently and you taste the remnants of yourself on his tongue, the filthy action causing your clit to throb even more. Combined with the way your cunt is still clenched tight in preparation for an orgasm that won’t come soon, you can definitely say that you can't wait for the school day to come to an end.

"Go to lunch, doll. I have a meeting soon. Don’t think of me too much, hm? Gotta keep those straight A’s the way they are," Jimin teases, pulling down your skirt slowly, fingers just grazing your thighs. He grabs your panties. "Oh, and I think I'll keep these for now," he says cheekily, putting them in his pocket. "They didn’t seem to be doing their job when you were riding my thigh."

You watch him in shock, cheeks flushing red hot. "I- okay. uh, I’m going to lunch now, Jimin. Have a good lunch and meeting, I guess?" you say awkwardly, shuffling to the door with him, tugging your skirt down. 

"Jimin? We’re on a first-name basis already, Y/N? Don’t let anybody hear you call me that in class, baby," he winks, holding the door open and you nod, preoccupied with the little "situation" your skirt just barely hides. You can feel yourself still leaking down your inner thighs, and pray that nobody’s going to notice when you walk into the dining hall.

"Ugh! Bitch, what took you so long?" Lisa exclaims when you sit down next to her with your lunch. You pout. "I wasn't even gone for that long."

"Ha! That long, my ass. You were gone for more than half of the break! I had to tell Jaebum and his cronies to fuck off on my own! I’m not as intimidating when you’re not around, though, so I don’t think it worked. They’ll probably come over again soon." Lisa rolls her eyes. You snort, "One of them probably likes you, that’s why they keep bothering you."

"They just like any female and will take what they can get," Lisa mutters, "but anyway! How was your meeting with Mr. Park? Did you solve his boner problem?" she wiggles her eyebrows.

You clear your throat. "No, Lisa I did not. I'm obviously above that," you say in a sarcastic tone. "I simply offered to," you tease. Lisa squeals and slaps your arm in response. "But for real though," she says. "Anyone that gets to hook up with mister Park Jimin automatically wins at life," and you hum in agreement.

You scan at the dining hall around you and catch the eye of Jaebum sitting with his friend group. He winks at you and you roll your eyes and stand up, "come on Lisa, let’s go. Those assholes are going to come over any second if we stay here any longer." You drag her to your guys’ next class.

The bell rings and the two of you burst out of the classroom. Thank god that’s over. Only one more class left, you think to yourself, gripping your books tighter to your chest in excitement.

"Jesus fuck, since when were you this eager to get to the last class of the day, Y/N? I thought you loved staying in school for as long as possible," Lisa huffs out. You steer her into the direction of your locker, right across from Jimin’s classroom. 

"I'm picking up my books, you dummy. Be grateful I paid for this locker because otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to put your books here." You put in the code and exchange your books while Lisa checks herself in the magnetic mirror attached to the door. you have to be careful when bending over because otherwise you’ll flash the entire school, so you do a weird sit-squat thing. "Geeking out over lockers? You act as if you’re still in high school, Y/N," Lisa teases. "Only during the school day," you wink up at her.

Lisa spots someone through the reflection of the mirror and groans out. "Incoming," she warns, rolling her eyes and turning around. "Wha-" you begin when you get cut off by a smooth voice behind you.

"Damn, L/N. didn’t know you wore skirts this short on campus. Looks good on you," the guy winks. "But it would look even better on my bedroom floor." You hold back a gag and turn to Lisa, raising your eyebrows in exasperation. 

"Wow, I see the originality," Lisa says in the most sickeningly sweet voice. "What do you want, Jaebum?" He chuckles and places an arm over your head, leaning over you. "Well, I’m having a party tonight, and it would be amazing if you two little ladies could attend. Be mine and Jackson’s plus one?" he says. You’re about to say no when he leans in closer to you, inches away from your face, "plus you can get the high-quality drinks for free, not the cheap booze we leave out for the randos who show up."

"You’re probably gonna drug them or something. No thanks, dickwad." you huff out after a second’s hesitation, pushing him away, ready to go to your next class. "Nah, baby. I may be a fuckboy but at least I've got morals. Whaddya say? You get me off, I get you off? Maybe make you cum so many times it starts hurting? You look like you haven’t been able to get an orgasm in a while, you’re so uptight, L/N," Jaebum smirks. 

"You fuckin-" you start to hiss out but you’re shut off again. This time it’s by someone different. Jimin. "Mr. Lim, I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate to discuss your sexual endeavors while in an academic setting. I’ll be letting you off with a warning for now." He turns to you, eyes flitting across your DIY skimpy outfit. You feel your cunt leak more of your honeyed juices under his piercing gaze and clamp your thighs together to keep them from dripping down your thighs. "And Ms. L/N, I expected better from you. You’re not typically one to do these things in a school environment. Get to class, the two of you," he says, turning back to his classroom.

"Oh," he adds, "and Y/N. fix your outfit. I would hate to see you get dress coded by a teacher who isn’t as lenient." You, Lisa, and Jaebum stare at his back in shock as he heads inside his classroom. 

"Well, uh, that just happened," Lisa states, turning to you. "Ready to go?" you nod numbly, mind swirling with embarrassment and excitement as you tug down your skirt. The two of you walk to the last class of the day while Jaebum calls out, "my place after 11, L/N! I’ll be waiting!", making you wince. Great, now a bunch of people are gonna think you’re hooking up with him.

The last bell of the day finally rings, and you head to your locker after bidding Lisa goodbye. You put your books in your locker and head to the bathroom to fix your clothes. You decide to tease Jimin even more by adjusting your skirt so that it ends just at the bottom of your ass. It’s a terribly risky decision; if you walk too fast, you risk flashing everyone. You’ve tried to wipe the slick off the juncture of your thighs, but it keeps getting replaced with more of your arousal.

You speed walk down the halls and fling open the door to see that Jimin isn’t in his classroom - or so you think. Once you take a few steps into the room, you hear the door shut behind you and lock. Jimin looks at you up and down. "You didn’t fix your outfit, Ms. L/N. Looks like I’ll have to dress code you for indecent exposure then," he hums, heading to his desk to take out a slip of paper.

"Wait Jimin, what? I thought we were- um. You know, going to-" you splutter out, realizing he was actually serious. You can’t have this on your academic record! What would your parents think?

"Going to what? Fuck? Seems like you already have someone else for that, Y/N," he shakes his head, grabbing a pen. You reach forward quickly to stop him, hand, gripping his forearm in desperation. 

"No Mr. Park, I- I never told Jaebum yes. I just-" you try to explain, but Jimin cuts you off. "You what?" he asks bitingly, taking you by surprise. "Did you think that you could just come back and hop on my dick after nearly making out with another guy? God, you really are a slut, aren’t you?"

You rub your thighs together, trying to relieve some of the steadily mounting pressure in your core at Jimin’s words. "Look at you, I told you to fix your outfit and you fucking pulled up your skirt. You pulled it up. You don’t listen to me, talk to your friends about how much you want me to rail you, and yet let other guys make plans to hook up with you. And you expect me to let you cum after all of that?" he continues, noticing the effect he has on you. "You really think I should let you cum, Y/N? I'll tell you what I think. I think I should leave you like this, dripping and needy for me. So ready to get fucked by me but not being able to."

Your eyes widen, "no, please professor, no!" 

"Should I jack off in front of you and not let you touch me? Maybe then would you learn your lesson? Or maybe I should spank your ass till it’s blue you’re unable to sit. Would that work, hm? What if I just send you back to the dorms? You could ask Jaebum to touch you, even if he can’t make you half the mess I can," he continues, pushing you onto his desk. He grabs your jaw and tilts your head up, forcing you to look at him, humiliated, with tears in your eyes.

"Aw," he pouts sarcastically, "is the baby crying? Because I didn’t let her cum? Well, princess, you knew what you were getting yourself into. Little cocksluts like you don’t deserve to cum so easily."

"P- professor, please. You can punish me. Teach me a lesson. B- but just please let me cum." You whimper out, attempting to cross your legs together to assuage your aching clit, but Jimin stops you by holding your knee with his other hand.

He slowly trails his hands up your bare thigh, admiring the way your soft skin seems to get chills at his touch. He pushes you back onto the desk and you prop yourself up your elbows to look at him. "Are you a cockslut, Y/N?" he asks, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his trousers. 

"Y- yes Mr. Park. I- I’m nothing but a hole for you to fuck," you whimper meekly as he pushes up your skirt. He pushes apart your thighs and tugs you to the edge of the desk. "Damn right you are. Nothing but a little whore that I can use to get off. I’m going to fuck you here in school like you’ve never been fucked before. And this dick you’ve been thinking about all this time, it’s going to finally be in you, and I better not hear any complaints," Jimin growls, pumping his length in his hand. "No sir," you whimper out.

"You on the pill?" he asks, to which you reply with a yes. He teases your slit with the pink head of his cock and your entrance flutters at the touch. "But on another note, tell me if you want to stop. I don’t want to push you too much."

You smile, "Jimin, you’re being too kind. I promise I'll tell you. But I did say before perhaps you weren’t doing enough. Mr. Park, I want you to ruin me," you bite your lips, mimicking his words from earlier in the day. He cocks his head in amusement. 

"Don’t worry princess, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing." Without warning, he thrusts forward into your heart, barely giving you time to adjust to his size. The girth of his cock stretches open your cunt with painful pleasure. Once he’s sheathed inside you, you can feel him very near your cervix. 

You let out a shaky breath but it’s cut off as he continues thrusting in and out of you, wet slaps echoing through the room. "M- Mr. Park-" you moan incoherently. 

"Fucking take it, Y/N. You wanted me to ruin you? Well here I am doing it; be fucking grateful." he rolls his hips into yours, hands gripping your sides harshly.

"Th- thank you Mr. Park, s- so much," you nearly sob out, almost crying at the relief of being fucked. You’re so turned on that your walls are clenching around Jimin’s dick so hard that he grips your jaw harshly. Gritting his teeth, he spits, "loosen up, babe. You’re so fuckin’ tight." You whine and try to relax but the stimulation Jimin’s providing has your eyes rolling back instead.

He snakes a hand down to your stomach and under your skirt, circling your throbbing clit. Your pussy flutters at the stimulation and you bite your lip harshly. He changes his angle slightly, causing your thighs to start shaking. His precum and your honeyed juices drip out your sopping cunt, the sound of wet slaps echoing around the room.

"Mmmmh," you moan out softly, back arching slightly. You can feel Jimin hitting your g-spot with impeccable accuracy each time. Doubled with the way his thumb is rubbing circles on your sensitive clit, you feel yourself reaching your orgasm. You try to suppress the giveaway signs of your impending release, knowing that Jimin, in order to "teach you a lesson" of sorts, is likely to take it away from you, so you attempt to just breathe out, "Jimin, fuck, it feels so good."

"Yeah, you like that, baby?" he thrusts into you deeper and harder and you bite your upper lip to stop your moans from slipping out. "Come on Y/N, let me hear those pretty little moans. Let everyone else know how well I'm fucking you, how good I make you feel," Jimin urges.

As soon as he utters those words, you give in, letting high pitched whimpers spill from your lips. Your pussy lets out filthy squelching noises at each of his thrusts, your wetness dripping down your ass and onto the desk. You feel your walls tightening around his cock and try to fight it off, but Jimin can already tell of your impending orgasm. He pulls out of you, leaving your warm and soaked cunt open to the air.

"Fuck," you exclaim in frustration, bringing your hands up to cover your face so Jimin doesn’t see your face, tears starting to spill down your face. It’s frustrating you so much that he won’t let you cum. That he enjoys seeing you whimpering and teary-eyed for him. Your thighs haven’t stopped shaking and Jimin parts them after you close them. He pulls down your arms and smiles evilly. 

"Well, what do we have here," he exclaims, "looks like the baby finally did start crying. Come on, Y/N, I thought you had it in you. But look at how you’re spread out on this desk for me, such a fucking mess. I bet you like it, huh? Dirtying up my desk with that cunt of yours."

"I need to cum, Mr. Park," you choke out, trying to gather your thoughts. "I need to cum now." your teacher’s eyes narrow and he grips your thighs harshly. "What did you say to me?" he asks, a tone laced with dangerous amusement. 

"You heard me. I-," you hesitate for a moment, but decide you’ve already put yourself through enough teasing today. You muster up your courage before saying, "I want you to make me cum now." 

There’s a moment’s silence before you add on shamelessly, "o- or if it’s too much to ask of you, I- I’ll just find someone else to help me do it. Maybe Jaebum? He promised a good time a- and said he would let me cum as many times as I want."

Jimin grabs you by the chin and pulls you up. "You’re such a fucking brat, Y/N." Shifting his hand so it’s gripping your throat, he mutters, "you don’t fucking learn, do you? I thought you were smart, hm? But has the need for sex made you lose your sense? Made you turn into a dumb little bitch, ready to bend over for anyone because you’re so horny? And here I was thinking you were better than that. That you had standards. Perhaps I was wrong, hm? Would you like to tell me?"

You try to look down, away from his piercing glare, but he turns your chin to look back at him. Humiliation courses through your veins as Jimin’s gaze wanders down your body scathingly. "Look at you," he coos sarcastically. "Y/N, baby, you’re such a fucking mess. Pathetic." Suddenly, he lifts you off the desk and bends you over it, cheek pressing the top and ass exposed over the edge to him. You whimper at the feeling of your shirt being stickied from your arousal left on the table from just a few minutes ago. You try moving away from it, but Jimin holds you in place. 

"Are you afraid that everyone else is going to see the mess on your shirt, Y/N? Is that why you’re trying to move?" he hovers over you from behind. "Or perhaps," he continues, hot breath tickling over the shell of your ear, "you want to continue being a brat. Make me punish you until you’re begging for me to make it stop."

He spanks you, the sound echoing across the room before you register the sting of his action. You clench involuntarily and let out the slightest of whimpers. "Fucking hell, are you this turned on? Making noises even if I don’t touch your filthy little pussy?" he asks, smacking your behind again. You bite down on your lip to avoid giving him the answer he already knows.

"Count for me. Be good and maybe I’ll finally let you cum." he commands, spanking your right ass cheek again. "O- one!" you groan. He spanks your left side, the stinging sensation causing you to leak more arousal. "Louder, Y/N. Let me hear you," he hisses, hand in your hair, and pulls you up slightly. "T- two," you stammer. another slap echoes across the room. "Three! God Mr. Park, please." At this point, you’re not even sure what you’re begging for; your mind is numb with lust.

"T- twenty! Agh, fuck, please," you squirm under Jimins grasp. The throbbing of your clit has increased tenfold, and you can practically feel the shaking of your thighs through the desk. 

Jimin slips his hand between your legs, feeling the soft flesh of your inner thighs slicked with your juices. "You’re fucking dripping, Y/N. Look at you. Did getting punished turn you on this much, doll?" He swipes up your slit, teasing your fluttering hole. You scrunch your eyes in displeasure and try to back up into him, only to be stopped by a harsh smack onto your already throbbing cunt. You yelp and flop back on the desk, cheek pressing the surface.

You feel him rubbing his dick against your folds and sigh in relief. Suddenly, Jimin slams into you from behind with no warning causing you to let out a harsh groan. "Ah, professor!" you exclaim, balling your fists in pleasure at finally being stimulated. His cock seems even bigger from this angle, and your entrance stings delectably at the way he splits you open.

"You feel how tight your pussy is, princess? How tight it is for me? Nobody else makes you feel this needy. Nobody," Jimin mutters in your ear after pulling you up. He pulls your head back by your hair, exposing your neck, which he plants wet kisses on. He reaches down in front of you, tracing an achingly slow path from your stomach to your slit with his fingers. You’re reaching your orgasm at an embarrassingly fast rate due to all of the edging you’re been through, so when Jimin finally brushes over your clit, it’s no surprise that your walls tighten even more instantaneously.

"Ji- ‘m gonna cum," you moan wantonly. "Yeah? Is my little slut finally going to cum?" He hisses out at the way you tighten around him. You nod desperately, gripping his arm rubbing figure eights over your sensitive bud. 

"Oh god, Jimin, I feel it coming. Please please please let me cum. I'm being good for you, Mr. Park, please let me cum," you sob out incoherently as Jimin continues railing you from behind. You feel the ridges of his cock brushing your walls and shudder at his ministrations.

"Let go, princess, I got you. Cum for me. Tell me how good I’m making you feel," Jimin snarls, snapping his hips into yours, eager to get you to finally melt in his arms. You feel your orgasm crashing over you and you clamp down on his dick, legs shaking in relief. Jimin's grip on your hair tightens as he feels you pulsing around him, getting impossibly tight. Nevertheless, he continues thrusting into you. 

You mewl, trying to shift away from Jimin's hold as his fingers return to your clit, rubbing figure eights into them, "J- too m- much," you whimper out, straining against his arms.

"Yeah?" his smooth voice asks, "but I thought you wanted to cum, princess? Didn't you? I need to cum, Mr. Park. I need to cum now." He mocks you. “Well, that's what I'm doing doll. I'm. Making. You. Cum," he emphasizes each word with a harsh thrust, jolting you forward.

You're being reduced to a mess, tears streaming down your face and slick dripping down your thighs. You can feel your gummy walls tightening more and more on their own accord, without even trying. Without even realizing it, you've changed from trying to move away from Jimin's fingers to grinding down on his dick.

Jimin, however, notices this. "God, you're such a slut, Y/N. Weren't you just asking me to stop?" He raises your left leg onto the desk, allowing him to have more access to your folds. He slaps your clit when you don’t give a response and you yelp, clenching down on his dick. He slaps you a couple more times, and your cunt drips even more, making your thighs sticky with your honeyed juices. You can feel yourself nearing your orgasm once again from his motions.  

Suddenly, Jimin pushes you back on his desk and begins hammering into you from behind. "You're going to cum again, aren't you? Filthy little girl, didn't you just cum? Are you really that needy for some dick?" You try to hold back a whimper from his words but it slips from your lips. "You're really a whore, aren't you, baby?" 

In response, Jimin spanks you, and you yelp. "Keep doing that," he hisses when you clench down on his dick. "You like being punished, don't you?" You nod meekly in response. He smacks your already reddened ass again and you hiss at the stinging sensation. Paired with the pleasure his cock is giving you, thrusting so deep into you, you can feel yourself practically getting high off the feeling.

Jimin feels you cumming before you realize it yourself. His hips nearly stutter at the way your walls have clenched around his dick. He opts to rut his hips into yours, no longer being able to thrust in and out due to how tight you are. He reaches under your body to rub tight circles on your throbbing clit and you start cumming again, clenching erratically around his dick. "You cumming, Y/N? Be a good girl and let go for me. Get this fat cock all wet," he commands. You ball up your fists and dig your nails into your palms, pleasure coursing through your veins. Riding the course of your high, you wish for nothing more but to be in the moment. 

When you come down from your orgasm, Jimin finally pulls his hard dick out of you. You feel his precum and your cum drip down your thighs. Whining, you rub them together to get rid of the feeling but it only serves to make you stickier. Jimin parts your thighs and runs a hand up them to cup your pussy, pausing to feel your cunt still clenching from the aftershocks of your orgasm. He smacks your abused heat, jolting you forwards and causing you to grit your teeth in overstimulation. 

He flips you over, spreading your legs open. He leans over you, rubbing the tip of his dick over your swollen and throbbing clit, making you shiver. "Prof- professor, I can’t-" you begin but are interrupted my Jimin quickly shoving into you. Gasping, you clench down onto his dick, eyes rolling back into your head.

"You can, Y/N, and you fucking will," he grunts harshly, snapping his hips into yours. You grasp at his arm after feeling him in you deeper than before. The head of his cock nearly kisses your cervix and his impossibly hard dick stretches your tight cunt open even more, making you wince at the pleasurable pain.

"I- oh god, I really can’t. It feels-" you choke out through your tears. "It feels too- oh!" your head rolls back as Jimin hooks your legs over his shoulders, creating a new angle of penetration. He rubs your clit ever so slightly, the abused bundle of nerves pulsing under his touch. "It feels too what?" he hisses, rolling his hips upward so that his tip just barely grazes your g-spot. Too good, you want to say, but pleasure is clouding your mind and you can’t get the words out.

"That’s it, baby," he hums, "taking my fat cock so well even though you’re so- shit, you’re so fucking tight. Are you gonna cum again, hm? Cream all over my dick and make another mess?" you’re being reduced to a blathering mess, Jimin’s name rolling off the tip of your tongue. "Yeah? Can’t even hold it back a little? Even though I let you cum so many times, you still want more? Greedy little bitch," he spits at you.

When you clench down at his words, he starts pistoning his hips into yours, the sound of his balls slapping against your ass echoing around the room. His cock seems to be splitting you open even more, and you can feel every pulse of his dick on your walls. "Fuck, Y/N. I’m going to cum," he groans.

"I- I’m close too, Mr. Park. It- fuck, it feels really good," you breathe out as Jimin leans down over you. He slows his hips down, opting to roll his hips smoothly and brushing over your g-spot with painful accuracy. Hovering over you, his stare bores into yours, eyes flitting down to your lips, reddened and swollen from you biting them. You whimper and tilt your chin up towards him and he leans his head down to yours.

He lets his lips ghost over yours, warm breath brushing over your lips as his hips grind into yours. "P- please," you beg, and Jimin finally relents and melds his lips to yours, bringing the two of you into a searing kiss, groaning as you near each of your highs. You break the kiss to gasp out, "I’m c- cumming again Mr. Park."

"Yeah?" he breathes surprisedly, "your little pussy’s that sensitive that you’re gonna- fuck, you’re cumming already? So quickly?" he leans down as your orgasm washes over you, this one hitting you slowly and harshly. You arch your back into Jimin’s chest, hands gripping at the collar of his shirt. His thumb continues to gently rub over your clit, causing you to roll your eyes back into your head at the overstimulation. You start shaking underneath him, squirming to get away from the overload of senses, but he holds you in place as you ride your high for what seems to be like an eternity.

"That's a good girl," he soothes as you continue to writhe underneath him. "Look at you, stuffed so full of my cock it’s making you cry. Does that feel good, darling?" you nod, sobbing. When your orgasm starts to fade away, spots of white dotting your vision, he still doesn’t stop thrusting into you. 

You bite your lip, and seeing that he’s close, you whisper, "M- Mr. Park, I want you t- to cum too. I- in me." His hips stutter at your words. "Shit, yeah? You’d let me do that?" 

You nod, "want you to fill me up w- with your cum and s- stuff me so full of it that it’s gonna be in me for days. And I wanna fe- fuck, I wanna feel you in me even when I’m alone, professor." At your words, Jimin lets out a slightly animalistic growl and leans in. "You’d like that, huh?" he asks. "Me fucking you so well till you can’t think straight? Putting my cum in you so that when you walk out of here, it’s dripping down your pretty little thighs, making you look like the filthy little slut you really are? You think you deserve that?"

"Please, sir, I really want it," you beg, "please." With that, Jimin attaches his lips onto yours again, grinding his hips into yours even deeper as he finally orgasms. He doesn’t stutter his hips as he continues his ministrations, even though he can feel your walls desperately squeezing around him, milking his cock of its seed. You feel the thick ropes of his warm cum painting your inner walls every second. Each time he pulls out slightly, a bit of it leaks out of your cunt, dripping down your ass onto his desk. He continues fucking his cum into you until he’s satisfied with the way you’re shivering under him.

For a moment, all is still, nothing but the sound of the two of your breathing filling the air as you stare into each other’s eyes. "Um-," you begin, and Jimin quickly looks away, brushing his thumb over his plump lips. So that just happened. I fucked my teacher. I fucked Park Jimin.

"Wait here," he mutters, making your heart drop in disappointment. You nod, offering him a weak smile. Seeing this, Jimin reassures you, "don’t worry, I’m not leaving you. I’ll be right back," and cautiously steps out of the room after clothing himself.

You take this moment to recollect what exactly happened. Okay, so you just fucked your teacher. It still hasn’t sunk in yet, and probably won’t till you leave to clean yourself and look at the marks he’s made on your thighs and ass. You can’t help the giddiness you feel, like a kid who got the best candy bar in the world. After all, you got to hook up with your crush - in fact, the entire campus’s crush. The door creaks open and Jimin returns with some paper towels and wipes.

"H- hey," he smiles nervously. For the first time, he’s the one that’s stuttering. "Let me clean you up. It’s the least I could do after putting you through so much today." He spreads your legs gently, cheeks flushed, and begins wiping off the slick and cum between your thighs. 

"Jimin, you didn’t do anything bad, calm down. Well, I mean you fucked your student? But other than that you’re fine. I really liked it," you try to explain, stumbling over your words. He looks at you incredulously, but shakes his head, smiling. "I don't want to tell anyone about this," you continue, "and I highly doubt you will, so this can stay as our little secret." 

"Well looks like someone got fucked a little too happy. How come you never smile this much when I’m teaching, hm?" Jimin jokes after he finishes cleaning you up, kissing your knee gently. He hands you your thong that he’s kept for half the day and tells you to put it on. 

"You’re still going to the party, right? Jaebum’s?" he asks and you shrug. "You should go. Have a fun time there, drinking and all that stuff." He leans into you, whispering into your ear, "and if that rascal wants to get into your pants, he’s going to see your soaked panties covering up that precious little cunt of yours stuffed with all that cum of mine. Maybe then he’ll finally back off," he smirks.

You blush, "maybe, Mr. Park. You know, you’re pettier than I thought you’d be." Standing up, to face him, he pulls you in by the waist till your chests are touching. You wrap your arms around his neck and he leans in, whispering, "well, Y/N, I don’t think you knew too much about me in the first place." Closing the gap between the two of you, you give him a peck on the lips, which quickly turns into a more heated kiss, lips melding together and tongues colliding. When you break apart, a faint blush on the two of your cheeks, Jimin smiles fondly at you and you look away.

"Well," you hum contentedly, "if I don’t know much about you now, I’d at least like to get to know you better in the future." 

"One day," he breathes out. "One day."

Your grin, disentangling yourself from his arms. "One day soon, I hope. I’ve got to go now, but I’ll see you next class. Goodbye prof- Jimin. Have a great weekend."

He smiles softly, walking you to the door. "You too, Y/N. If you do end up going to that party, have fun. Stay safe."

[ssplague]

Chapter Two

A rough start we get off too

Series Masterlist

Katsuki B. X Reader

Rated M

⚠️Warnings: SMUT, improper use/depiction of certain kinks, abusive, manipulative, toxic behavior, unreal ideals of sex, use of daddy, ddlg themes, hard Dom, etc.

Let the SMUT commence

The way each pair of lips fit so perfectly together was absolutely enthralling: Passion was raw, ferocity was made so obviously evident from the growl he emitted at each attempt you made at sucking his tounge into your mouth. Only separating to take in a few large gulps of much needed oxygen, before diving back in to repeat the process over again.

“Please….P-Pleaseee…Kat..Suki…I-“ he presses a finger to your lips. That brief period of oxygen deprivation seemed to of induced a delirium of sorts. Assessing your thoughts has become similar to sifting through wet sand; Try as you might, you just can’t seem to comprehend what exactly you’d been attempting to beg him for in the first place. This look of empty headed confusion is also something Bakugou commits to memory, a first glimpse of his dumb little girl. He surveys you with bemused interest, looking as composed as ever.

“Down that bad for me hah? All I did was kiss ya a little and you’re already falling to pieces on me” the finger on your lips slides down to tilt your chin up, while he dips his head down to whisper in your ear. “Cant even imagine what kinda mess you’ll become once I finally split cha open with this big cock, such a stupid little girl”.

You suck in a deep shuddering breath as your legs suddenly give out beneath you, leaving you helplessly sliding down the wall. Bakugou laughs in such a condescending baritone as he effortlessly picks you up and deposits you on his bed. Picking his chair back up, he moves it beside the bed to take a seat in front of you.

“Listen real close to what I’m about to tell ya cause its important, open those fuckin’ ears princess cause if I end up havin’ to constantly keep repeatin’ myself…” he leaves the implicated threat hanging in the air between you two. Swallowing what remains of your now virtually non existent pride: You sit up straight and lean forward slightly, making sure to hold eye contact while he spoke. As the one sided conversation progresses and you inevitably begin to feel the need to either scoff or mouth off, you lightly bite your tounge. When the need to roll your eyes seems irresistible you make sure to blink a few times.

Bakugou and his ego always seem to have a way of destroying any sort of illusion that he is anything other than a self-righteous narcissist. Well, now he’s YOUR self-righteous narcissist…CORRECTION; You cant think like that anymore….from now on he’s….daddy.

The thought accompanies a brief pang in your metaphorical gut, is it regret? Maybe guilt? You aren’t sure.

“-Last ones, your still paying attention right princess?”.

Hearing his question has your eyes immediately snapping back into focus. You take in the handsome (but grumpy) face in front of you, nervously wondering when exactly he’d invaded your personal space.

“Y-Yes daddy, I’m listening to you” you stutter slightly, now noticing he’s actually kneeling on the mattress with you.

“So every day I expect you to do your absolute best” now with each statement he leans further into you, “You’re always going to remember how much daddy cares about you”. He presses a large hand against your chest, forcing your back down against the pillows behind you. “Realize that daddy always knows what’s best for you” both hands now rest on either side of you, effectively caging you in.

“You’ll always know that you can rely on daddy, and will trust him one hundred percent of the time”.

The intensity of his crimson stare has your face burning up, and heart rapidly pounding in your chest. It’s now taking a serious amount of conscious effort to keep your eyes locked with his. “Any questions? Comments?…..concerns?” he puts an emphasis on that last word, wolffish grin firmly in place.

Shaking your head apparently wasn’t a good enough answer because its followed with a stern; “Use your words princess, you either say: Yes daddy or No daddy….understood?”.

“I understand daddy….I’ll follow your rules daddy” you reply, embarrassment evident at having to repeat the unfamiliar word.

“You sure? It’s not like you to have absolutely nothing to say” he’s testing you, you’ll play into it this time.

“Well if you insist…..I do have a question, just one” at this his eyes instantly narrow and you could have sworn you’d seen a few stray sparks emit from his palms.

“Would it be too much to ask daddy if he wouldn’t mind kissing me again?”

🌆

Euphie checks her phone for the eigth time since she’d last texted you over forty-five minutes ago. Why weren’t you responding? Maybe she really had pushed you too far this time….A large hand comes to rest over her much smaller one, at this she finally sets her phone facedown on the table with a sigh.

“She wont stay angry with you forever, her and Bakubro might be having such a good time together that she’s forgotten all about her phone” Kirishima tries his best to reassure with his usual smile. The sudden wide eyed, dead pan stare he gets in return whipes that smile from his now reddening face. He’s realized far too late at what his words seem to of implied.

“I didn’t mean it like that! Really! I promise I didn’t! M’sorry”. Seeing the red head this flustered is so adorable, his companion cant help but giggle.

“I know Eji, dont worry about it”.

Entrusting your care to Bakugou was fine: He cares about you almost as much as she herself does. If she wasn’t certain how genuine the boy’s feelings toward you were, none of this would ever have happened.

Yeah, everything is going to be just fine….You’ll thank her one day.

💥

Bakugou’s crimson gaze is way too intense while roaming over the female laying down on his bed. Having her completely bare, and spread out before him is an accomplishment he shamelessly contragulates himself for. She’s getting self conscious now: Delicate hands come up to cover her chest, and plush thighs press together in an attempt to hide the drooling mess kept between them. It’s all or naught though as her legs are suddenly wrenched apart, and each wrist is now pinned above her head, held in just a single one of his hands.

“Nu-uh princess, no hiding….keep those legs open…wanna see all of you” condescending words only seem to widen his feral grin.

Seeing his cock now freed from its previously strained confinements as its looms above you, standing tall, has your leaky little hole twitching. The smooth inner walls inside repeatedly clenching in anticipation. Bakugou trails a finger from clit to slit as he hums in approval.

“What’s this hah? Such a fuckin’ mess your makin’ down here”

“S-Sorry daddy…I cant help it…Just want you so bad…dont wanna wait any longer…Please dont make me wait more” a soft roll of your hips accompanies your pleading whines. Your continuous begging for his cock has that monster stirring in him again, he has to forcibly push the dark thoughts away before addressing you again.

“If I dont prep you then-“ you interrupt him.

“It’s fine! I can take it, please just take me…” he notices your moment of hesitation before you lock eyes with him while adding “make it hurt”.

You’re just so fucking bold!

Trying to make demands, disguised as requests! Its so cute he cant help but caress your cheek before bestowing upon you the last gentle kiss you’ll get until he’s throughly DESTROYED you for anyone else.

“Dont ever fucking tell me what to do again” he growls before slamming his hips forward.

He’s buried balls deep inside you: Your initial gasp at the sudden intrusion, now morphs into a silent scream that has a you arching up off the mattress.

“Got that you greedy little slut? See what happens?” He taunts through gritted teeth.

Your cunt squeezing and spasming around his cock feels incredible, to the point he has to busy himself with sucking harshly on your neck to keep from releasing desperate whimpers of his own.

“I can take it…please move….m’sorry daddy…please don’ be mad a’me….”

“M’not mad at you baby….s’okay” He manages to reassure you through his clenched jaw. He finally starts to move inside of you, desperately trying so hard to take it easy on you. All precedent falls apart when your legs wrap around his waist, now he’s digging you out.

“Y’okay?” He rasps while continuously ravaging your tight cunt.

“M-mm-more than okay” you stutter.

“Taking my cock so well baby girl….Fucking hell!” His lewd compliment causing your insides to involuntarily clench.

“Deeper! Deeper!” You plead.

Katsuki thought you’d preferred his shallow thrusts, but if you really wanted your guts rearranged he’d be pleased to make it happen. He grabs one of your legs, placing it up on his broad shoulder, while the other remains curled around his hip. Straightening up he smirks down at you, before delivering a harsh slap to your clit. Now beginning to rapidly piston his hips while taunting you: “What did I tell you earlier hah? Answer me dammit!”.

His hot hand comes down on your inner thigh and you cry out: “N-Not supposed t-to tell y-you what to d-do!”. It shouldn’t be possible for you to be squeezing him even tighter, but somehow you do. That can mean only one thing… “Gonna cum aren’t you princess? I can feel ya choking the life outta my cock”.

A pathetic whine accompanies your vigorous head nods and he growls in response: “You.better.fucking.not” a thrust accompanying each word, “Y’dont fuckin’ listen, shouldn’t let ya cum at all with how you keep misbehavin’, better start fuckin’ beggin”.

Horrified at the thought, you fight through the fog permeating your brain and force movement out of your lolling tounge.

“P-please daddy, I’ll b-be good from now on if y-you’ll just let me c-cum! Y-you’re just making me feel so good daddy, no one’s ever made me feel this i-incredible before” your panting breaths making it too difficult to continue speaking. Even if he doesn’t believe it, your words are entirely true, this is the first time you can ever recall feeling like this during sex. A foreign sensation is making its way into your gut, your limbs are moving of their own accord, you cant think straight when you manage to speak next: “Its too much! Too big, Too deep, Too intense! I c-cant take anymore please make it stop!”.

“Stop? Oh fuck no princess, after all this lip you’ve been giving me, you think I’m gonna let you tap out like a little bitch? Think again” his thumb begins to rub harsh circles against your clit. “We’re not stopping until you cream all over my cock like a nasty girl like you is supposed to, then you’re gonna do it again when I blow my load inside this tight fucking cunt and you’ll scream my name while I fucking do it because this pussy is all mine! Got all that you fucking whore?”.

“Yes daddy” you whimper, face screwed up in tight concentration as he finally pushes you over the edge. Your eyes fly open as you blindly search for his hand, gripping it tightly in attempts to anchor yourself in reality as a sudden rush of dopamine floods your brain. White hot pleasure seemingly overwhelming every single nerve in your body, making your legs shiver as you faintly hear yourself calling out his name repeatedly. Katsuki is the only thing you know in this strange foreign place: This comforting warmth suddenly invades your tummy, continuously being pumped inside you while you moan at the newfound sensation.

A pair of strong arms wind themselves around you, pulling you closer, making you feel safe, at ease, loved?

“Come…back…..come back to me” he’s calling for you. Your soul had to of vacated your body; You feel Weightless, you’re floating, “Daddy?”. Suddenly you start sinking, and without warning your body jolts, “Katsuki?!”.

“M’right here princess, daddy’s got you….Disappeared on me for a lil while” his familiar voice is grounding. His fingers card gently through your hair, and for the very first time you’re seeing a “Soft” side to this so easily angered man. Sighing contentedly you snuggle into his chest, letting his caramel scented sweat overwhelm your senses.

“I really like this”

“Hah?! That’s all you have to say?!”

Ah there he goes, moment ruined, illusion shattered.

“I’m sorry. But I’m not entirely coherent just yet…you uh…you kinda did a number on me there” you mutter sheepishly, making an attempt to escape his embrace. Its immediately thwarted, and your pulled right back against his chest. “Ah fuck…knew I shoulda just made you wait and prepped you properly….Sorry about that, guess I just got caught up in everything”. Surely hell has frozen over: Katsuki Bakugou just not only admitted a possible wrong doing, but APOLGIZED for it as well!

“Ive wanted to do this with you for so long: Fuck you, hold you, be with you, and I fucked it up! Just like I always seem to fucking do, I-“

“Daddy” your voice effectively silences his self-depreciating rant. His hand begins to gently run up and down your back as he mumbles a “Yes princess?”.

You lean back slightly, tilting your head up so those cute doe eyes can stare up into his, the smile your wearing makes his chest tighten.

“M’not hurt, sore but not damaged….I wasn’t referring to my body, I meant you did a number on my mind…Besides I asked for it remember? I’ve wanted this for a long time too, so I got impatient…Please dont berate yourself, lets just enjoy this moment as the first of many now…Kay?”.

That’s right, you’re his now; Along with the opportunity to care for and make sure to correct you…he’ll be able to do this with you again. You had given yourself to him after all, so he can have you as many times as he wants, whenever he wants! He’s far too occupied with his lewd thoughts to care about the foreboding darkness thats begun to emerge from its confines within his skull.

You don’t remember falling asleep but Katsuki gently prods you awake: “Baby…wake up, Its dinner time…I made food for us…c’mon princess you need to eat”.

You whine, attempting to burrow further beneath the blankets, “Not hungryyyy...wanna sleep more!”.

“Dont make daddy ask you again, you wont like what happens”.

Not interested in ruining such a wonderful night, you begrudgingly sit up. Noticing he’s seated at his desk, with a large steaming bowl set infront of him. You slide out of bed, standing up and realizing you’re naked, but strangely not embarrassed by it.

“Here” he tosses you a shirt, “Now c’mere, hurry up before it gets cold!”. Pulling his shirt over your head as you pad over to him and take a seat on his lap. Noticing the single spoon and bowl has you looking at him with genuine curiosity. “Since you like actin like a damn baby so much, figured I’d continue treatin’ you like one” his words make you grin sheepishly again, and you hold out your hand expectantly waiting for him to hand you the spoon….he doesn’t.

Taking an impressive spoonful of the steaming food he then proceeds to blow on it before bringing it up to your lips.

“Say ahh, brat”.

“Wha-?”

Taking advantage of the opportunity, he shoves the spoon into your open mouth. Of course it tastes amazing, but he doesn’t plan on keeping this up right? WRONG!

Repeating the pattern of giving you a bite and then taking one himself.

“I can feed myself y’know…” you mutter growing increasingly flustered at the insulting action but more so the fact that its making you feel….excited?

“I dont think you can princess….I always hear Euphie bitchin at ya for skipping breakfast or to hurry up and come eat dinner” pausing to feed himself, then repositioning the now loaded spoon back infront of you before continuing.

“That shit ends today, gonna teach ya how important it is to take care of yourself, and if you wont? Then I guess daddy will have to do it for ya”.

You’re squirming in his lap by the time you accept the last bite,swallowing thickly before making an attempt at vaulting off his lap. Large hands immediately snag you around the middle before your feet even touch the ground.

“No, No, thats not how we do things around here, where the fuck are your manners?” he slips a hand between your clenched thighs to move them apart, and then brings a slap down to the inside of each. You dont even know why he’d done that and the shock is evident on your face. “You like when I baby ya, dont lie to me LITTLE girl”.

“No I-“

“What’s this then?” he quickly interupts while holding up the palm he’d previously slapped you with. Glimmering in the low light is your sticky arousal coating his palm.

“Sorry” your voice is barely audible as you hang your head in shame.

“Mhm sure you are…Here I am being a good care taker to you and what did you do? Sat there thinking all kinds of nasty things while I spoon feed you, you really are a fuckin depraved slut aren’t you princess?”

You bite your lip as your eyes start to water,still refusing to look up and far too embarrassed to respond. A finger beneath your chin forces your head up and his breath hitches when he notices tears getting ready to fall. A malicious smile now turns his lips upward as he cups your cheek, “Look at that…shes about to start crying and all because of what? Cuz you just exposed yourself for being the depraved little slut you are?”.

“NO! No im not I-“.

“You are” his grip tightens painfully on your jaw, pulling your face forward so its now just an inch away from his own, “And I fuckin’ love it”. Then he’s surging forward pressing his lips against yours; Forcing his tongue into your mouth, hand coming around to grip the back of your head. Your lungs are on fire while his hand slips under your shirt to harshly grope at your chest. Clawing his forearms is finally enough to get his attention and he reluctantly pulls away. You’ve just barely began catching your breath when he suddenly stands up, keeping a firm grip on your ass to carry you, before dropping you onto the bed.

“Take that off and-“

*knock knock knock*

The sudden knocking followed abruptly by Kirishima’s muffled shouting, startles both you and Katsuki, and the rattling door knob has you immediately springing into action.

“Hey we brought back desert to share with you guys! So just meet us at my room whenever you feel like it, Euphie’s changing her clothes and then she’ll be there too, we’re gonna watch a movie if you two wanna join us!”.

He must have heard Bakugou’s standard non-committal grunt in response, because you hear his retreating footsteps trail off down the hall.

Grabbing your skirt out from underneath the bed, you stand back up.

Just as you’d gotten to your feet your immediately pushed face first onto the mattress. A sweaty hand takes hold of your hip in a bruising grip, while the other delivers a sharp pinch to your ass cheek. Yelping in response to the sudden harsh yank of your hair that proceeds a whisper of:

“You didn’t really think I would let you off that easy did you? Your fuckin’ cake can wait brat, we’re done when I fuckin say we are, got it?”.

✨

A/N: I hope this chapter was to everyone’s liking, I’m actually kind of nervous to post it but 🤷🏼‍♀️ Chapter 3 has a fair amount of smut in it as well so look forward to that. I’m hoping to get another one shot up for “A man of his word” this week, if you like extreme Yandere Bakugou check that out. I have one penned but it needs to be typed up.

[wri0thesley]

Nat... 👉👈 since requests are open can I please request some Gojo fluff? If you need a little inspo maybe like, reader and him meet after they were abroad for a mission or something? I'm in love with this funky man and I just wanna give him kiths

sweet tooth - gojo x reader, sfw, 2.5k

the early bird catches the worm. or the cake, you guess.

(just a lot of talking about food tbh . . . i dont get to write pure sfw fluff much, thank u for letting me indulge in my jjk brainrot NFJVND. gn reader! )

You know as well as anyone how little free time a jujutsu sorcerer has. You’ve spent most of your past few years rushing around from place to place, calling it a good night’s rest when you manage to fall amongst your coverings before the clock strikes three in the morning. You think this probably has to go double for somebody in such a constant state of being needed as Gojo – but still, he’d shown up outside your room this morning, bright and early, and said; “We’re going out!”

He hadn’t mentioned that you were still clad in pyjamas, your hair still a mess about your face, eyes still sleep and shadowed. You had jumped out of bed at the knock, of course – you’re used to being needed at the drop of a hat – but there is nothing at all in the way Gojo is looking at you to suggest there’s any kind of danger brewing.

He got in last night at the same time as you, after an exorcism had dragged on longer than expected – you know this. So how is his skin still glowing like moonlight, his voice still so bright, his hair still falling over his blindfold in that effortless perfectly-styled-without-being-styled way?

If he’s slept, he’s gotten the same hour and fifteen minutes you’ve gotten.

“Not even a warning?” You sigh, stifling a yawn. “I haven’t had time to clean my weapons or anything--”

“Woah!” Gojo’s grin doesn’t fade, but he holds up his hands as if he’s trying to avoid a savage attack. “Just you and me. No curses, promise. You won’t be needing those.” He cocks his head to the side. “Unless you wanna try and take me. I think you’d lose!”

Your brow furrows. You know you’d lose, and so does he.

“Have you seen the time?” You ask him, instead. You don’t question why or how he’d gotten into the hallway to stand like this outside of the room you’re renting in Tokyo for a while. You’ve learnt after knowing him for a while that what Gojo wants, he gets – besides. If he’d sweet-talked your landlady into letting him in, you couldn’t blame her for falling for his charms.

He sticks his head into your room and turns his face towards the clock on the wall, ticking merrily away, mocking you. You had hoped, after last night, the next time you saw a clock the hour hand would be well past twelve again. He pulls back.

“Now I have.”

“. . . aren’t you tired?”

Gojo shrugs, maddeningly. Half of what he does is irritating to the highest degree – the other half makes your stomach do strange somersaults that you try and push away. Getting a crush on Gojo Satoru is just going to lead to disaster. Although at this point, you have to admit to yourself that it’s more a case of ‘having a crush’ – there’s not much denying it, when he twinkles at you like this.

“You’ve gotten a good hour of beauty sleep,” he chirps. “Not that you need it. Let me take you out!”

You’re still focussing on the compliment, slipped into his words as if it’s as simple as breathing, when he enters your room full-on and is opening your wardrobe.

“H-hey,” you say, weakly. He’s rifling through the rack without a care in the world. “I—I can dress myself--”

“It’s quicker if I do it,” he replies, pulling out one of your favourite shirts. “Here, catch--!” Your reflexes allow you to not make a fool of yourself in front of him. “The colour of that one’s pretty! It’ll look nice on you.”

You’ve had more clothes piled into your arms before you can blink. You guess that Gojo must know his way around clothes – you’ve seen some of the brands and price tags of things he wears – but you can’t help but be a little flabbergasted by just how casual he is about everything. Maybe it’s the fact that your brain is still short-circuiting after being woken up earlier than you were expecting.

He finishes and walks over to you.

“I’ll wait outside.”

“W-what a gentleman,” you manage, and he throws his head back and laughs, and the laugh feels like it lodges warm in your chest. “After waking me up, bursting into my bedroom--”

“I’ll pay for everything,” he promises. He saunters out of your room, pulling the door closed behind him, calling; “I’ll make it up to you, promise!”

You stand there for a few more moments, still struggling to process the whirlwind that is Gojo’s presence in your life – half joking, half serious, half making you think that maybe you stand a chance, when he calls through the door;

“I can’t hear you moving!”

You jump. You wriggle out of your nightwear, your cheeks heating up, as you snap back;

“You said you were going to wait out there, not that you were going to press your ear to it and listen like some kind of stalker--!”

–

You stare in confusion at the fancy window in front of you, decorated with swirling cursive in gold. From outside, you can see into the establishment – the white scrollwork chairs, the cake stands, the menus standing up in their pale white leather covers. The early morning sunlight from outside is reflecting off a perfectly organised display case teeming with tiny little perfectly formed cakes.

“If you were craving something sweet,” you say, eventually, “surely there was an easier way to get it than this.”

Gojo grabs your arm cheerfully, pulling you towards the entrance of the patisserie.

“Well, I got the first sweet thing I was craving,” he ticks it off with his other hand. “But then I had one of my patented brainwaves.” He elbows you. “Put them both together!”

“I’m not feeling very sweet after you interrupted my sleep,” you mumble, but you know that there’s no real bite in your words. You hope Gojo doesn’t notice the reaction that you have – you know he’d never let it go. You often don’t know how to respond to his flirting – he has a reputation, after all, and you are just . . . you.

“We had to get here early, anyway,” he says, as he stands before the counter. The man in the apron and chef hat behind it recognises him immediately, lighting up – you wonder how much money Gojo spends on expensive patisserie. Everyone knows he has a sweet tooth. “They sell out of some of the best stuff well before ten!”

Gojo knows exactly what he’s doing as he points out various desserts from the display case, the man falling over himself to get the – frankly absurd amount of sweets – carefully packaged up for him. You’re not surprised, knowing Gojo, about the cute animal-shaped cakes that he chooses, the smiling bears and cats with ears made of sliced strawberries. You’re a little more surprised by all of the fancier pieces he chooses that you don’t recognise, but you don’t have much time for dwelling on it.

Spoils in hand, you peer further into the establishment to choose a table.

“Nah, don’t worry about that,” Gojo says cheerfully. “We’ll find somewhere outside to sit. It’s such a nice morning!”

You don’t miss the grin he shoots you as he says ‘morning’, the sidelong tip of his head as if he’s waiting to see if you’ll scold him again for interrupting your sleep. You do no such thing, content to be pulled along behind him again as he goes off in search of a place to enjoy his spoils.

People just tend to be pulled along by Gojo’s magnetism, you’ve discovered – and you are, hopelessly, no different.

He finds a quiet bench in a shady corner of one of the local parks; the only other people going past occasional elderly, walking their little dogs. He pats the wooden frame of the bench next to him, smiling.

“You’re not going to make me eat all of this by myself, huh?”

“It’s enough for eight people,” you say, sighing and resigning yourself to your fate as you take the place. He’s lucky you have a sweet tooth too; if he’d brought someone else, they’d probably be shirking back in horror at all the sugar. “You could probably eat it by yourself anyway.”

He pouts.

“I want to share it with you,” he says, cajoling – his fingers hover over one of the smaller cakes, a perfect bite-sized morsel. You try not to think about the elegant lines of his fingers and the power behind them as he plucks it up and offers it to you. “This one’s really good.”

You bring up your hand to take the sweet from him, but he laughs as your fingers bounce away from him, not quite able to get a purchase.

“Let me feed you,” he says to you, and blood rushes to your face all over again.

“I—I can feed myself,” you say, swallowing thickly. Gojo’s smile, on full, sculpted lips, makes butterflies crash into one another in the pit of your stomach.

He brings the treat to your mouth and he’s right, it does look really good. It’s a neat little roll cake, small in Gojo’s fingers, with the green colouring so many sweets you’ve eaten in Japan have been – you hope it’s not matcha, knowing the flavour will surprise you and Gojo will probably laugh, but you open your mouth in defeat and let Gojo pop it in there. His fingers linger a little too long against your lips, his expression fluttering so quickly you don’t quite catch it.

If you didn’t know better . . . you’d say that he had just fought back a blush.

“Is it good?” He asks, and his voice sounds a little strangled. You bite down on the cake, the juice of the strawberries coating your tongue – it is matcha, but the flavour is offset by the sweetness of the vanilla and fruits, and you’re glad about it. You nod enthusiastically, and he laughs.

“I told you!” He taps your cheek. “I know what I’m talking about!”

“You’re so smug,” you tell him, unable to hold back the laughter that’s bubbling out of you. Alright, maybe he woke you up too early and maybe he’s dragged you outside and maybe he’s been haunting your daydreams for months now, but . . . you think he means well. And you can’t deny that the sun is shining and the cakes are really delicious.

“If you were me,” he says, stretching out his arms over the back of the bench, “you would be smug too.” You shake your head at him, but he has a satisfied smile on his face. “Feed me one!”

“Are you going to let me?” You ask. “Or are you just going to bounce it away with your Infinity to make fun of me?”

You hover over the selection yourself, considering what to choose for him. In the end, you go for one of the mini slices of mille crepe cake, reasoning with yourself that even if it’s unusual to be eating so much cake this early, at least crepes are a traditional breakfast. Gojo obediently opens his mouth wider as you lift the slice.

You falter.

“You really want me to feed you?” You ask him, unsure. He laughs, grabbing ahold of your wrist – you almost start as he takes a bite from the treat, his lips tantalisingly close to your fingers. Another bite, and the cake is gone (you’ve never seen slices of mille crepe so small – but then again, judging by the eye-watering amount Gojo paid for his spoils, you’d never be able to afford to buy from a place like that).

“Mm,” he smacks his lips together. “It’s good.”

You swallow, noticing that there’s a smear of the cream between layers at the corner of his mouth. Gojo notices you staring, and quirks his lips into a smirk. “You’re staring,” he says. “I know I’m gorgeous, but--”

“You’ve got . . .” You say, awkward, motioning to his face. Somehow, it feels too intimate to lean forward and dab it away yourself – he’d asked you to feed him, after all. If you did it of your own accord. . .

“Huh? Oh,��� He moves one of the arms casually draped over the bench to his face, and you think he is going to wipe it away – but instead, he hooks his thumb under his blindfold, pushing it up casually so the light hits the swirling colours in his eyes.

You’ve seen them before, of course – you’ve seen Gojo at work, after all – but they’re still a surprise, a bright moment of swirling starshine dropped on you when you’re least expecting it. Your stomach does that flip-flop again, the one that you try so hard to ignore – but when he’s looking at you like that, curious and smug all at once, you don’t really know how to handle it.

You’re glad you’re in a secluded spot. There’s nobody to see the embarrassing display of you not quite knowing what to do with yourself.

“You can get it,” he says to you. “I don’t mind.”

“I—”

“Look.” His other hand rises, cups your face, thumb ghosting across the same spot on your cheek that he’d tapped earlier. “I left icing sugar on your face. I’ll get that, and then we’ll be even.”

(Did he do that on purpose, you wonder? You wouldn’t be surprised.)

Your hand is trembling as you reach for the cream. You try and force your fingers to be still as you lean in closer to him, eyes concentrated, as you wipe the little splotch of cream from his mouth. You’re so close you can see galaxies in his eyes, the fan of white lashes, the way that his throat bobs when he swallows as if he’s nervous--

Nervous? Gojo? That can’t be true.

“I got it,” you breathe, though you don’t move. Your faces are so close together. You could lean forward, just a bit, and meet his lips with your own. Gojo’s eyes stay trained on you, not faltering in the least. His thumb is still on your cheek. Your own finger hasn’t moved from the corner of his mouth.

“Wanna know what it tastes like?” Is that a falter, in his voice? You’re stuttering all over the place, but Gojo--

“I’m not gonna put that in my mouth after it’s been on your face,” you tell him, without moving. Your heart is beating ten to the dozen. Gojo’s eyes crinkle at the corners.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says – and he breaks the distance himself, and suddenly he is kissing you. The hand on your cheek cupping your face into his, the other hand going about your waist, holding you tightly against him like he’s been wanting to do it since the moment he woke you up that morning.

(The mille crepe cake is delicious, you find out, from the lingering taste on his lips. Next time you two go there in the early morning rush, Gojo buys two slices.)

[thegreatestofheck]

dark of the night [A. Hotchner]

word count – 25,555 (its so long im so sorry) warnings - a lot, blood, torture, mentions (but no descriptions) of sexual assault/rape, murder, canon violence stuff, this is essentially a hurt/comfort fic so expect a lot of hurt to come before the comfort, also a slow burn. synopsis - an agent gets taken in the middle of an investigation. in a race against time, the team at the bau must find her by diving into her deepest secrets. when a video tape arrives with horrible images of the state of their friends, aaron hotchner realizes just how terrified he is of losing her.  tagging: @magicalbluepanther (i hope you don’t mind the tag lol) a/n – did anyone order an extra long aaron hotchner slow burn? Because here you’ve got one. so my mental health is declining again and that means I have to write a criminal minds one shot that involves a lot of hurt/comfort. also I gave y/n a name because i don’t really like y/l/n or anything, but you’re more than welcome to replace it with your own! please dont be mad at me. anyway, stay happy, healthy, safe, and groovy!

The moment Agent Hotchner realized that she wasn’t coming back, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. It had happened once before, this feeling, the day he was in his car and he got that call from Foyet and heard Hayley’s muffled sobbing over the phone. Panic settled into his bones, unable to shake it away even as the terrified eyes of the rest of the team looked his way. 

“Did we just lose her?” Emily Prentiss asked, her words wavering ever so slightly as she tried to keep herself calm. 

At the sound of her voice, Hotch finally found himself able to look around the room. 

Morgan had shifted his eyes back to the door that his friend was supposed to come through. Reid stared at Hotch, wide eyed, lips parted. JJ was chewing on her thumb nail, waiting for Hotch to do something, say something. Emily was looking between the door and Hotch. Rossi was standing behind him, so he couldn’t see the look on his face, but Hotch couldn’t imagine he looked any different than the rest of his team. 

Agent Evelyn Caro had walked into the meeting, undercover, in hopes of baiting a serial killer into a quick and easy arrest. After three years of horrific killings, the BAU team was so close to catching him and Agent Caro was more than willing to be the one to take him down. 

Hotch knew this particular case was a sore spot for Caro, as all torture/murder cases were. But during this entire case, she had been far more on edge and far more eager to tear their suspect to shreds. He shouldn’t have let her go to the meeting, he knew it was too personal for her, even if she had never told him why. 

She had refused to take in a ear piece, said that the stories that would be told at the meeting were personal and their privacy was to be respected. Hotch trusted her. He agreed. They all stood outside and waited. The meeting should have been only two hours, Caro promised that she would be back with the suspect in less than three hours. 

But it had now been three hours and almost thirty minutes. The door hadn’t opened a single time since the last of the members of the meeting left, all except Caro and the suspect. 

She fit his physical appearance preference and possessed the confidence he appeared to have deep hatred for. It should have been an easy job. 

“What went wrong?” Hotch murmured out loud, more to himself. 

His words seemed to trigger something in Morgan, who pushed open the van door and unholestered his weapon before anybody could stop him. 

“Morgan!” Rossi yelled after him, but there was no slowing down, and once Morgan was running toward the meeting building, Emily and Reid were on his tail. 

“Hotch, what do we do?” JJ asked, turning toward him as Rossi hopped out of the car to go after his peers. 

Hotch ran through every single protocol that he knew like the back of his hand. They flitted through his brain like smoke, a flurry of useless words and numbers that meant nothing to him. Not a single one told him how to deal with this. Tightness squeezed at his chest as the rules and regulations he clung so tightly to began to fail him once again. 

“We find her.” 

Gun drawn, Hotch entered the building with JJ on his tail. His heart pounded in his chest, but he kept his composure about him. The same couldn’t be said for some of the others. 

“Evie!” Morgan called out, kicking down a door. 

“Evelyn?” Rossi’s voice echoed through elementary school. 

Hotch was seconds away from calling out her name himself, but he kept his jaw clenched tight. JJ followed every move he made. If he lost himself now, so would JJ. He needed at least one person on his side whose head was still level. 

They scoured the entire grounds, but they could find nothing. The room where the meeting had taken place was empty. Not even the leader was there anymore. This dark room was where the team met up after searching every inch of the grounds. 

There was silence for an eternity as they passed glances between each other, wordlessly asking if anyone had found anything. 

“There’s not even a footprint,” Morgan said helplessly, his eyebrows pulled together in concern. 

“I didn’t hear her scream.” JJ’s voice was weak and her eyes downcast. 

“None of us did,” Rossi replied. 

“We have to find her quickly,” Hotch said, finally trusting himself enough to speak. “He only keeps his victims for five days and if he knows she’s FBI, it’s probably less than that.” 

“I’ll call Garcia, track Evie’s phone,” Morgan said, pulling out his phone and turning away from the group. 

“We start from the ground up,” Hotch instructed. “Right now, Agent Caro isn’t our coworker but a victim and we have to treat her as such if we want to find her. Dig into her life, figure out what connects her to the other victims. Did he take her because she’s FBI or because she’s connected to the others. Morgan?”

“Her phone’s off,” Morgan said, pulling the phone away from his ear. 

“Tell Garcia to look for a connection between all of the victims. Dig and dig deep. Hold nothing back.”

Morgan paused for a moment. They all remembered when they had to do this very thing to him, when he was a suspect all those years ago. He knew what it was like to have his friends digging into a personal life he long wanted buried, how they looked at him differently after they knew, even if they didn’t mean to. He didn’t understand then, that they were trying to help, but he did now. There was no time to hesitate. This was Evelyn they were talking about. 

“Garcia, give me everything on Evelyn Caro that you can find. Dig deep. She needs us,” Morgan said. 

“Got it.” 

“Call me when you get anything.” 

“Yup.” 

She ended the call and Morgan turned back to the team. 

“Garcia’s on it.” 

“Okay, then we need to get back to the station and look at everything again. We have a name. We know it’s him. We just need to find them.” Hotch turned away from the team and started for the exit. “No one goes home until we find her.” 

___

Hotch meant what he said, but no one needed to be told twice. Red rimmed eyes scanned the same files over and over and over again as they waited for any amount of information from Garcia. 

“There has to be something here,” Morgan said with a frustrated sigh. “Something we’re missing.” 

“Why did he take her?” JJ asked as she set down her file. The woman rubbed her eyes before crossing her arms and looking up at the rest of the room. “I mean, what changed in that room that made him want her?”

“He found out she was FBI?” Reid suggested, leaning back in his chair. 

“How though?” Rossi piped in from his position leaning up against the wall. “Caro isn’t dumb enough to reveal herself, we were careful.” 

“She must have said something in that meeting that convinced him that she was a good target,” Hotch said. He could feel all eyes on him as he watched the ground, unable to meet any of their gazes. “Maybe this is how he finds his victims. At these group meetings.” 

“So we sent Evie into a death trap.” Morgan shoved his chair away from the table and stood, hands on his hips as he breathed heavily. 

“We have to figure out what connects her to the other victims,” Emily said. “Just like any other case.” 

“But this isn’t any other case is it?” 

“Morgan-” 

“This is Evelyn we’re talking about!” 

“Morgan, I need you to calm down,” Hotch said, standing from his place. 

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Hotch.” Morgan trembled with rage, his eyes glazed over with water. “You can’t expect me to sit here and-” 

“I expect you to do your job, Agent Morgan, seeing as that is the only thing that will get Caro back home.” Hotch struggled to keep his voice low. He curled his fists so the others couldn’t see how badly his hands were shaking. 

“You think we’ll get her back?” 

“If you do your job.” 

Morgan breathed in deeply and nodded his head. Before he sat back down, Morgan put his hand on Reid’s shoulder. The kid had his hand covering his mouth, his eyes glazed over like Morgan’s had been. 

Hotch knew how close Morgan and Caro were. Ever since she signed on to the team, the two had been nearly inseparable. Hotch wondered if it was something he needed to discuss with them. Every time that he seriously considered it, he had to question his motivations. Was it to keep complications out of their team or was it something else, something he wasn’t ready to admit? 

Turning his eyes away from Reid and Morgan, Hotch opened his mouth to address the team when Garcia stepped into the open doorway. They all turned to look at her only to see that her cheeks were streaked with tears as she clutched a file in her hands. 

“Garcia, what is it?” Emily stood and walked toward her, a hand out open for her. 

“You...you told me to dig deep so I did,” she stammered. “I...I did and I found...oh, God.” 

“Come in,” Hotch said, trying to smooth the furrow in his brows. 

Garcia took Emily’s hand and shuffled into the briefing room, sniffling through her tears. 

“Our poor baby girl,” Garcia said, setting the file gently onto the round table as if it was fragile. “She never told us-” 

“Garcia.” 

Garcia cleared her throat and nodded her head, flipping the file open. The team crowded around the table. Staring up at them was a picture of a young girl, her face purpled and bloody. Morgan clenched his jaw, Reid turned his face away from the picture. 

“Is that Caro?” JJ asked, her hand hovering over her mouth. 

Hotch had seen this picture before, attached to the file so covered in black redacted lines that he barely gleaned anything from it. But there were no more black lines. Everything about Agent Caro was there for him to read. Her life was an open book for him. This was his job, the only way to get her back, so why did he feel so dirty doing it? 

“When Evie-”

“Evelyn,” Hotch corrected. “She can’t be our friend right now.”

Garcia nodded, her eyes still glassy. 

“When Evelyn Caro was 12 years old, she was kidnapped from her front lawn. She was held captive by her...by her uncle for four years. He did...he did horrible things to her...I’m sorry-” 

Garcia choked, turning away from the file. Morgan put his hand on Garcia’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. 

“She was held by her uncle,” Hotch continued, eyes scanning the page, when it was clear that Garcia wouldn’t be able to. “There were clear signs of r-pe and physical violence, even though she never spoke about it afterward.” 

“She was held captive by her uncle?” Morgan asked. “How did no one know it was him?”

“Police talked to everyone in the family,” Garcia said, turning back into the conversation. “He was never on their serious list of suspects.” 

“How did she get out?” Rossi asked from his place near the back of the crowd.

“She broke out,” Garcia said, her voice like iron even as her lower lip trembled. “She stabbed that son of a bitch the moment she got the chance and she ran until someone found her.” 

“She killed him?” JJ asked. 

Hotch let out a heavy sigh. Something like pride blossomed in his chest. Maybe it was vindication. He would have killed the bastard himself. 

“Why wouldn’t she tell us?” Reid asked, looking up at Hotch like a lost dog. 

“We all have secrets we’ve kept from each other,” Hotch told him, even though he was wondering the same thing. “Now we need to figure out if this is somehow related to why he took her.” 

There was a moment of silence hanging over the room. 

“Garcia, look into the lives of the other women again,” he continued. “See if there is any kind of connection.” 

“I’m on it.”

There was a new kind of determination in her voice, like a fire was lit underneath her.

“Videos of the other victims were sent to the families of the victims,” Hotch said, looking back at the rest of the team. “JJ, contact her brother, see if he’s received anything and tell him to contact us as soon as he is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about the rest of us?” 

Once again, all eyes were on Hotch, expecting him to have all of the answers. But he didn’t. He didn’t know anything. 

“Do your jobs.”

___

When the video was sent to her family, it wasn’t her estranged brother who received it. 

“Hotch.” Morgan’s voice was shaking as he picked up the yellow envelope on his desk. “Hotch!” 

As soon as Hotch saw the package he knew what had to be in it. He had seen four of them before all from the previous victims’ families. His heart constricted in his chest. He knew what they were about to watch. Their team member, their friend. 

Grinding his teeth together to keep his face straight, Hotch took the package from Morgan and started back for the briefing room. 

“Do you want me to round up the team?” Morgan asked. 

“You guys shouldn’t have to watch this,” Hotch told him. 

“You’re not watching it alone.” 

Without another word, Morgan went to collect the others. 

Once they were all in the briefing room, Garcia put the recording onto the big screen. 

“You don’t-” 

“We’re staying,” JJ said, her fingers laced with Emily’s. 

Hotch nodded once before looking over at Garcia and signaling her to start the video. 

As soon as Garcia hit the play button, Morgan put an arm around her shoulder and she put a hand up to her mouth. Hotch leaned against a chair, his knuckles going white. 

The screen was black for a few moments. When it turned on, Agent Evelyn Caro was sitting half naked on a cot. Bruises littered her body, her ribs on the left side blackened. A cut ran across a purple cheek with dried blood running down her face. One of her eyes was black. But Caro stared straight ahead of her, eyes made of steal. 

“Oh, baby,” Garcia breathed. 

The room was small, bland. It looked cold. 

A man stepped into the frame. Caro didn’t even look at him, she just kept staring straight ahead. Before he even said anything, he raised a hand and slapped her across the face. Reid flinched, but none of them turned away. Their attention needed to be on this video, gleaning as much information as they could to get her home. Hotch refused to let her suffering go to waste. He would watch every second of it, no matter how much his stomach burned with hatred. 

Caro barely reacted to the backhand, her head snapping to the side, but the rest of her body stayed in the same place, her hands clasped together in her lap. When she straightened her head, blood trickled down from her lip. She lifted a hand to wipe the blood away before looking up at the man. Her eyes carried the heat of a thousand suns as she looked at her assailant, almost as if daring him to touch her again. That was the Caro that Hotch knew. She would never back down, never give in. 

“What do you want?” She asked. 

Hearing her voice so raw sent a chill down Hotch’s spine. Everything about this was wrong. 

“I know what happened to you when you were young,” the man said, walking in front of her. 

Caro clenched her jaw and turned her face forward once again, seeming to pretend that he wasn’t there. 

“Does this feel familiar to you?” the man asked, spinning in a circle. “The room, the bed, the chain.” 

Hotch’s eyes shifted away from Caro and he looked more at the bed. There was indeed a chain attached to the metal of the bed frame. Caro’s jaw tightened again and Hotch watched as she ran a finger over a scar he had seen on her wrist a million times before but never asked her about. He could only imagine a young Agent Caro, chained to a bed. She carried that scar around with her and he had never even cared enough to ask her about it. 

“It’s exactly the same,” Caro said.

The man sat next to her and still Caro didn’t flinch. Not even her breathing changed. Amidst his anger and his fear, Hotch felt pride. Damn right she would not even acknowledge him. Hotch expected nothing less from her. Though he wouldn’t fault her if she did. 

The Unsub put his hand on her knee and Hotch’s eyes went red. His ears rang, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. He watched Caro look down at the Unsub’s hand and Hotch noticed a slight tremble in her body. Her shaking was rage, not fear. He knew her well enough to know that. 

“What do you want?” The tremor reached her voice. Hotch could see her holding back from killing the unsub then and there. Her restraint told him that her captor was the only way out of her room. If she killed him now, she would be trapped. 

The unsub sighed and tilted his head to the side, his eyes fixed on the ground. 

“I want to break you,” he said.

Hotch clenched his jaw, but still Caro’s face stayed straight. She didn’t even blink. The words ‘I dare you to try’ never even passed her lips, but it was a clear challenge in her eyes. 

The image cut and Hotch almost thought that was going to be the end. But then it suddenly clicked on. Caro was slowly sitting up from laying on the bed. The unsub was halfway in the frame, buckling his belt. Hotch heard a quiet ‘oh’ come from Garcia and when he glanced over at her, he noticed tears in Morgan’s eyes. 

Caro seemed stiff as she sat up. The chain that had before been only attached to the bed was now shackled to her wrist. Hotch watched her grimace as she moved her feet to the ground. Her toes curled, telling Hotch that the ground was cold. The entire room must have been freezing. 

A silence hung over the team as they waited for something to happen. 

“You’re tough, I’ll give you that,” the unsub said. Caro refused to look at him. “The other girls gave in at this point.” 

“And then you killed them.” Caro looked over at him, moving slowly and clearly despite the pain that was obvious settling into her bones. 

The unsub shrugged his shoulders, a proud smile on his face. 

“Some girls seem to think that death is better than what I did to them,” he said. “But maybe you kind of like it.” 

Caro pulled harshly against her chain, shutting her eyes and turning her face away from him. 

“Son of a bitch,” Rossi breathed. Hotch refrained from looking back at him. 

“How does she not strangle him?” JJ asked. Her words were tight from the swelling in her throat. 

“He’s her only way out of that room,” Hotch told her. “She kills him and she starves in there.” 

“Not if we find her.” 

They fell quiet again, just soon enough to hear a low rumble of a laugh from the man. 

“I see I struck a nerve.” The unsub said. 

Caro steadied her breathing and straightened her shoulders. 

“I’m not surprised you’ve lasted longer than the other girls, being an FBI agent and all. I wonder how your friends are doing.” 

Caro pulled against the chain again, her eyes squeezing tighter. 

“Ah, another nerve. Should we poke at that one a bit more?” 

The unsub stepped out of the frame. For the briefest moment, with his back turned on her, Caro’s eyes flicked toward the camera. 

“She knows it’s there,” Reid said. “She knows about the camera.” 

Caro sucked in a deep breath and gave a short nod of her head. She knew her taker’s MO. She knew about the videos and the envelope. She knew they were watching her, and she was telling them that she was okay. 

When the unsub walked back into frame, he was holding something in his hands. With his back to the camera, they couldn’t get a good look at what he was holding.

“I am aware that your brother is the only remaining relative of yours who will speak to you, is that correct?” The unsub said.

Caro breathed deeply in once, her eyes staring straight through the unsub.

“This is him and his wife, their two daughters. Beautiful family. When was the last time you spoke to them?”

Agent Caro’s eyes moved from the unsub to the object in his hand and her eyes immediately welled up with tears. The unsub clicked his tongue.

“It’s the shame, isn’t it? It eats you up inside. You can’t bear the thought of tainting your brother and his perfect family with your past.”

She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“This is Penelope Garcia, yes?”

Garcia straightened her back, surprised at hearing her name.

Caro opened her eyes and Hotch noticed a drastic shift in her breathing. Once steady and calm, her chest now rose and fell at an uneven pace. Her eyes darted between whatever the unsub was holding and his face.

“Jennifer Jareau?”

The unsub tossed something onto the bed next to Caro. And then another.

“David Rossi?”

For the first time, Caro flinched as he flicked what Hotch was starting to realize was a picture in her direction.

“Emily Prentiss. Spencer Reid.”

Two more pictures were thrown at her and Caro flinched twice more.

“Derek Morgan.”

A fire lit in Caro’s eyes as she stared up at him again.

“Aaron Hotchner.”

Before he could even throw the picture her way, Caro jumped up from the bed and charged at him, pulling on the chair.

“If you touch them, I swear I’ll kill you,” she seethed.

The unsub shoved her backward onto the bed, but she scrambled up again. He hit her across the face, sending her back with a yelp. Breathing heavily, she turned to look at him, like a rabid dog.

“That’s a hard promise to make seeing as you are chained to a bed and I am not.”

“She has to know that he can’t hurt us,” Emily said, looking to Hotch for answers.

“She’s panicking,” Hotch replied. His knuckles tightened over the chairs.

“You think I won’t go after them?” the unsub said as he dropped a hand onto her shoulder.

Caro turned her face away from him and shook her head.

“You can’t,” she said. Her voice was growing weak, shaking more. “They’re FBI, you can’t just-“

She didn’t get the chance to finish before the unsub threw a fist across her face.

“I won’t even have to hurt them though, will I?” The unsub sneered, bending down close to her face. “I bet by now they know every dark secret about your past. Every skeleton in your closet. They know about the blood on your hands.”

Hotch had read her file that Garcia dug up a thousand times over in the last few days since she found it. Something in him told him he had to, though another part of him wanted to wait until Caro was there to tell him herself. But she deserved better than for her story to go unknown. She deserved to have someone know.

“No,” Caro whimpered.

“You really think they’ll accept you after that?” The unsub let out a laugh.

“Evie, we love you,” Garcia said as she took a step forward. “Evie-“

“Garcia, quiet,” Hotch said, putting out a hand.

“Sir, she has to know, she has to know.”

Morgan put his arm back around Garcia and pulled her in for a hug.

“She knows,” he whispered to her.

“You lost your family once because of what you did to your uncle,” the unsub said. “Now you’ll lose another.”

“No!”

Caro threw herself at the unsub once again, her fists flying. Hotch had seen her fight before. She was well trained, and she was calculated, confident. But this was animalistic. This was pure instinct. Her punches were weak and light, hitting the places of the unsub where very little damage would be done. The chain prevented any real effort from her, though the bed shook and rattled as she yanked against the metal. It didn’t take him long to wrestle her onto the bed, pinning her down by her arms.

Her face was clearly displayed to the camera. She breathed sporadically, panting and gasping for air. Sweat beaded down her battered face. Her eyes were wide and flitting back and forth, terrified.

“How would you feel if I paid one of them a visit, huh?” The unsub asked, his nose brushing against her cheek.

Caro struggled, a growl of frustration strangled in her sore throat.

“That Spencer Reid lives alone, doesn’t he?”

Rossi put a hand on Reid’s shoulder, who had suddenly gone pale.

“Don’t touch him!” She thrashed again, trying to throw the unsub off of her. She tried to kick her feet, but they were effectively pinned under her by the weight of the unsub. She grunted and groaned in the effort it took to try and get him off of her.

“I doubt it would take much to strangle that skinny neck of his.”

Caro suddenly stopped struggled. The sweat that pooled down her cheeks suddenly started to look more like tears as her body went still.

“Please don’t hurt them,” she said, her voice quiet.

“What, you don’t want me creeping into Emily’s apartment tonight, pay her a little visit?”

Caro let out a quiet sound, something that was almost like a sob.

“Please.”

“What will you do for me in return?” He asked, pressing still closer to her face.

Caro rolled her head back and forth on the bed and Hotch could see the tears that pooled in her eyes.

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

She just nodded her head, lower lip quavering.

“Don’t give up, baby girl,” Morgan whispered. Garcia clung tighter to his hand.

“Well, well,” the unsub said with a sigh as he sat up, releasing Caro from his hold. Her body sagged even further into the cot. He stepped away from the cot and bent down to pick up some of the pictures that fell to the floor. “There isn’t really anything I want from you just now, so I might go and visit one of your friends just to keep you on your toes.”

“No!” Caro leapt from the bed and attached herself to the unsub’s back.

He threw her against back against the cot. Hotch could see him lift his hand to deliver hit after hit to his agent, but he was grateful that the unsub’s back blocked the view of the camera. He didn’t think he could stand to watch her get beaten.

Caro was surprisingly silent as the unsub hit her.

It was over relatively quickly. The unsub straightened himself out, squaring his shoulders. Without a word, he turned to the camera and walked toward it. Caro let out a quiet groan just before the unsub picked up the camera and shut it off.

There was a heavy silence that fell over the team.

“What the hell did we just watch?” Emily asked, setting her eyes on Hotch.

They were once again expecting him to have all the answers, but he had nothing to say. His hands were cramping from how hard he was clenching onto the chair. It took all the strength in him not to throw it across the room. Caro should be here with them, not in that room, not with that man.

“Garcia, can you play the end again and turn up the volume?” Rossi asked.

“No offense, sir,” Garcia said, teary eyed. “But I can’t watch that again.”

“Just the very end, as he’s walking toward the camera. Agent Caro said something.”

“Did she?” JJ asked, crossing her arms.

Garcia pressed a few buttons on her laptop and the video returned. Hotch was almost tempted to look away. The audio was louder as the unsub heaved out an exhausted sigh and started walking toward the camera. And then they heard it, the quiet groan. But it wasn’t a groan at all. She had said something, just a quiet name.

His name.

Aaron.

___

Sitting at his desk, Hotch couldn’t seem to lift his heavy head from his hands. The window, which was almost always closed, was wide open. His office was too stuffy, too hot. He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t get the sound of his name from her lips out of his head.

A knock came to his door and he finally lifted his head. Rossi was standing there with his usual “something is wrong and I’m going to fix it” face. Hotch wasn’t sure if he was in the mood for this conversation.

“What can I do for you, David?”

“We have to talk about what just happened,” Rossi said.

“I don’t really think-“

“Aaron, listen to me,” Rossi said, walking into the room. “Evelyn needs you right now.”

“There’s nothing I can do that the team isn’t already doing.”

“She said your name.”

“I know that. You think I don’t know that?” Hotch’s tone was a little sharper than he meant it to be. He let out a sigh and stretched out his fingers.

Rossi sat down across from him.

“Why? We all know that she’s closest with Morgan, so why say your name?” Rossi asked. Hotch squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. The exhaustion headache that was plaguing him wasn’t helping the fact that thinking about who Caro was and wasn’t closest with lit a fire in his gut. “And why your first name? She only ever called you Hotch, like the rest of us.”

“That’s not true,” Hotch said, memorizing the lines on his hands so he wouldn’t have to look at Rossi.

“What isn’t?”

“She’s called me Aaron.”

“When?”

“When she was angry with me,” Hotch said. The thought of it pained him. He could hear her sharp tone, the way she hissed his name like venom. When she thought he was too cold, too apathetic.

“Or….”

“Or what?”

There was another time when she called him Aaron. Three other times.

On the worst day of his life, when he held Hayley’s body in his arms, Caro had sat next to him on the floor. People were calling his name. “Hotch, Hotch, Hotchner.”

She sat there on the ground and whispered his name just once, “Aaron.” It was quiet, like a pin dropping during a storm. But still he heard her.

“Aaron, your son,” she said.

That decision, to stay with Hayley or go find Jack, tore his soul into pieces until she spoke again.

“I’ll stay with her.”

The second time was a few weeks after Hayley’s death. Hotch wasn’t handling it well, or at all. She saw right through the façade that he had put forward. He was at the office late one night and so was she. Even when he tried to send her home, she politely refused, saying there was a lot of work she needed to get done.

He spent hours in his office, the grief and the sorrow and the shame building and building and building until he was suddenly standing over his desk. Everything here reminded him of Hayley. The baseball, the picture of Jack, even the piles of papers that were stacked high, shaming him for not being there for her more.

The only way to keep himself from crying was to let the anger take over. Anger at Foyet, anger at the job, anger at the world, anger at himself. Forgetting where he was, Hotch had dumped everything off of his desk with one sweep of his arm.

Collapsing to the ground, Hotch didn’t remember how long he sat there, leaning against his desk, hyperventilating, until Caro walked in. She didn’t say anything to him. She just lowered herself to the ground next to him, letting out a long sigh. She just sat there, breathing louder than Hotch was used to her breathing, but he found after a few minutes that his breathing began to match hers. A calmness returned to his body, at least enough to breathe normally.

“Aaron?”

He turned to look at her, the edges of his eyes lined with red.

“Let’s get you home, yeah?”

Hotch nodded his head. He pushed himself to his feet before helping Caro to hers.

“I’ll drive,” she said, stepping around all of the things on the ground.

“What about-“

“We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” Caro had said. “Come on.”

She talked to him all the way back to the car. She asked if he wanted to talk about what made him dump all of his stuff on the ground. When he said no, she asked him about Jack instead. It felt comfortable to talk to her about his son, even though he tried to keep personal life and business separated. He had never really talked to her about anything other than work, except for the times when the team would go out to eat, back when Hayley would come with them. She would talk about her brother, his family, but very vaguely.

Now he supposed he knew why she was always so vague.

The third time she called him Aaron, they were on a case. Young girls being kidnapped, assaulted, and dumped. This was one of many cases just like it. Hotch couldn’t even remember what town they were in now. All he remembered was walking by Caro’s hotel room and feeling like he needed to go inside. Something pulled him to a stop outside her door that night and he couldn’t ignore it.

He knocked on the door, but didn’t wait for a respond before he opened in.

Caro was still up, even though they had left hours ago. She had skipped the meal they all shared together, which was unlike her. She sat at her desk, the lamp on but not the overhead light. The case that they were working was laid out in front of her. When she looked up at him, startled that he had come in, her eyes were red and he couldn’t tell if it was all of the reading or if it was something else.

“What can I do for you, Hotch?” Caro asked, one of her legs propped up on the swivel chair.

“I….” He hadn’t really thought this far ahead. “….wanted to check on you, see how you were doing.”

Caro’s lips pulled into an amused smile.

“You never check on me.”

“Maybe now’s the time to start.”

They were quiet for a few moments until Caro let out a sigh. She patted the bed, signaling for him to sit.

“These cases, the ones with the young girls, they’re hard,” Caro told him after he sat down.

Hotch felt like a foreigner sitting there and talking to her, awkward as he sat on her bed, like it shouldn’t be him here doing this. But she seemed so eager to talk, like she was just waiting for someone to ask.

“I understand,” Hotch said finally, looking at the carpet. “They’re hard on all of us.”

“Aaron.”

At the sound of his name, he looked back at her and he could see the tears in her eyes. He didn’t realize it then, but she had been begging him to understand so she didn’t have to say. She didn’t want to have to say it.

He couldn’t sleep that night and he didn’t know why.

“She called you Aaron when she was mad at you or….” Rossi’s voice pulled him back to the present.

“Or she needs me to listen.”

“So, what does she need you to hear?”

___

“He knows her,” Hotch said suddenly, startling the life out of the half sleeping agents.

“What?” Morgan asked, sitting up.

“The unsub knows her. There is no way that he learned all of this about her at the meeting they went to. No way he could have replicated the room that she was kept in when she was a child unless he had personal information.”

“He knew everything about her…and us…before he even took her,” Rossi said, his voice laced with awe. “Which means….”

“All those other murders were about getting her here.” Hotch felt his heart restrict in his chest. “This has all been about her. She was the piece we were missing.”

“Sir?” Garcia hurried into the room, meaning she had found something. “The link between all the victims, I think I found it.”

The team turned toward her.

“Evie is the link.” Garcia swiped up on her laptop, a couple different screens popping up on the big screen. “Sarah Jordans went to kindergarten with Evie. Paulette Bobin was the daughter of the police officer who found Evie after she escaped her uncle. Robin Everard was her high school drama teacher’s niece. Celia Hough was the sister of a woman she walked dogs for in middle school. They weren’t close enough to Evie for her to recognize them, but they were all a part of her life in some way.”

Hotch looked over at Rossi and shook his head.

“It’s been about Caro all along. All of it.”

“That means that the place she’s being held is about her too,” Morgan said. “More than just making the room look the same. He’s holding her somewhere that means something to her.”

“Garcia,” Hotch said, turning his attention back to the tech analyst. “Who owns the uncle’s house now?”

“You think he took her back there?”

“She said the room looked exactly the same. Maybe because it was the same.”

“The house passed onto his wife’s son when he died,” Garcia said.

“Where is the son now?”

“He is….” They all watched her carefully, waiting for the last piece of information. “…. He changed his name just after his father’s funeral to….”

Hotch turned back to the screen, where the picture of the unsub was plastered so none of them would forget it.

“Ralph Bennet,” Morgan said, venom in his words. “The unsub.”

“How did she not recognize her own cousin?”

“His father and mother got divorced when he was young. He didn’t even know he had a step-dad who was still alive until he was dead,” Garcia said.

“So, Ralph Bennet was the step-son of Caro’s uncle. He feels like he has to punish her for taking another father figure away from him,” added Reid.

“He wants her to pay. He wants to hurt her in any way possible.”

“He’s got her at her old house.”

___

Evelyn could barely see. Her eyes were weak and tired, partially from the crying and partially from the lack of sleep. She was terrified of letting her eyes shut, of letting her guard down. She needed to stay awake, to keep her guard up. But she couldn’t take her eyes away from the red stain on the floor.

The cot mattress was itching her skin. If she could ignore the itching, she would begin to feel the sting of the metal chain against her skin. She preferred the itching.

A thud from downstairs echoed to her room. The attic. Pretending like this wasn’t that room she had been kept in for all those years was the only thing that was keeping her from breaking down, but that wall between what she pretended was real and reality was growing thin.

Breathing in through her nose, Evelyn shut her eyes and imagined herself back in her apartment, safe and warm. In her hands was a cup of tea, chamomile with only one sprinkling of sugar. It was raining outside. Not too hard, but hard enough that she could hear it pattering against the window. Her dog slept at her feet, breathing softly. In her lap was-

Another thud from downstairs, tearing Evelyn from her fantasy. She opened her eyes and looked toward the door.

“Ralph?” She called out, voice hoarse. There was no response.

When the door burst open suddenly, Evelyn yelped and jumped backward, curling her legs in on herself.

Ralph stood there, his face red and sweat beading down his forehead.

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asked, curling up tighter.

Ralph let out a growl of frustration and started toward her.

“Ralph- no!” Evelyn kicked out at him, but he grabbed hold of her ankles and dragged her to the edge of the bed. “What are you-“

“Shut up,” Ralph snapped, unlacing the chains around her wrist. “We’re leaving.”

“What-“

“I said shut up!”

He tugged down hard on the chain, making it dig deeper into the wound around her wrist. Evelyn hissed in pain, but she quieted as he told her. There was another thud from downstairs and Evelyn snapped her head in the direction of the sound. Things were slowly starting to come together; Ralph’s shaking hands, his red face, the thudding downstairs.

Evelyn looked between Ralph and the door. She sat a still as she could while his trembling hands, waiting for the just right moment. As soon as the chains were loose, Evelyn slipped her wrist out of the chain, kicked Ralph over with as little strength as she had, and ran for the door.

“Aaron!”

Her cry echoed through the house just before Ralph grabbed her from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He hissed, dragging her back into the room.

“Caro?”

Evelyn gasped through Ralph’s hand at the sound of Hotch’s voice, trying to shout back. She struggled against Ralph as he pulled her back to the bed, thrashing her shoulders to try and break free.

“Agent Caro?”

I’m here, Hotch, I’m here.

Ralph threw the weak Evelyn onto the bed and backhanded her across the face so hard that her head started to spin. She stretched her jaw, blinking away the blackness in her vision.

“Evie!” From somewhere far away, she thought she could hear her best friend, Derek Morgan, calling for her. She opened her mouth to call back, but all she felt was numbness.

By the time she finally felt like she could see again, there was someone else in the doorway. At first glance, she thought it was Ralph, but he was still there in the room with her. The man in the doorway had a gun, the man in the doorway was Aaron Hotchner.

“Ralph Bennet, step away,” Hotch said.

Evelyn watched, head blurry as Ralph did as he was told, backing away from her. But he was going the wrong way. There was something wrong that way. Something she needed to tell Hotch about.

“You came for me,” she said, trying to smile.

“Are you okay, Caro?”

Evelyn could feel the headache behind her eyes begin to fade. She nodded her head once, letting her eyes close. There was something she needed to tell him, something really important.

“There’s something,” she said, shaking her head to try and clear it. “Over there-“

Before Evelyn could even finish, Ralph stepped forward and swung a bat at Hotch, the bat that Evelyn knew was in the corner. The bat that broke her ribs. That was what she needed to tell Hotch about. But now it was too late.

The bat knocked Hotch’s gun out of his hands and onto the ground. Hotch wasted no time in jumping into action, springing at Ralph without a second thought. Evelyn tried to shake herself out of her stoper. She would be no help to anyone weary. Even if malnutrition and the beating she got that morning were the cause of her exhaustion, she wanted to be of more help.

Hotch knocked Ralph backward, but Ralph held tight to the bat in his hands, using it to push Hotch backward. It was hard for Evelyn to follow the fight, her eyes not able of following every hit and swing. When her eyes finally caught up with what was happening, the ringing in her ears starting to fade, Evelyn found that Hotch was on the ground, Ralph standing over him with the baseball bat, ready to bash his head in.

Evelyn pushed herself off of the bed, her legs weak and shaking, and ran toward Ralph.

“Don’t touch him!” She growled, reaching up to grab hold of the bat.

“Let go, bitch!”

It didn’t take much for Ralph to throw Evelyn’s grip off the bat, but only by throwing the bat out of his hands as well. She hit the ground with a thud, the force rattling through her bones. Ralph immediately turned his attention back to Hotch, who was still on the ground but in a less vulnerable state.

On the ground with Evelyn were the bat and the forgotten gun, but they were all the way on the other side of the room. She didn’t know if she could make it there and back before her legs gave out.

She was laying on the ground by the edge of the bed, hearing Hotch and Ralph go at it. There had to be something that she could do. She had to do something. As she pushed herself up, Evelyn’s had grazed over the chain, the chain that had been used to keep her tied to this bed for days. Looking up at Ralph, Evelyn dug into all that bitterness and all the rage that she had been brewing for the past twenty years of her life and found some ounce of strength.

Strength enough to wrap her hands around the chain. Strength enough to pick to chain off the ground. Strength enough to stand.

With Ralph paying attention to Hotch, his back was left exposed to her. He didn’t think she had the strength left. He thought he broke her.

But she was unbreakable.

Wrapping the chain around one of her hands, she walked up behind Ralph and swung the chain around his neck. He let out a startled gasp, lifting a hand, but not before Evelyn grabbed the chain with her open hand and pulled. Ralph stumbled backward into her. He slapped at her hands. He tried to hit her with the back of his head.

But the adrenaline coursing through her veins kept her strong. She pulled tighter, tensing her hands.

Ralph gagged and Evelyn scrunched her nose. He let out a gurgling sound and Evelyn groaned as the muscles in her arms began to cramp from the tightness. But still she did not let go.

Hotch stood, his lip bleeding and his eye beginning to bruise. Ralph and Evelyn stumbled over; he fell to the ground and she landed on the bed, never once letting the chain go slack.

“Agent Caro,” Hotch said. “You can let him go.”

Evelyn only pulled tighter. Ralph smacked at her hands lamely, choking sounds gurgling from his throat. His legs kicked out, struggling in the same way that she had been. His legs kicked and his body twitched and his arms flailed out and he maybe felt an ounce of the terror that Evelyn had.

“Caro.”

Evelyn’s face twisted she breathed heavily, pulling tighter against the chain until Ralph’s eyes were rolling.

“Evelyn.”

She froze, looking up at him. All the tension in her face faded as her eyes met Hotch’s. She always used his first name when she needed him to listen to her, but now it was her turn to listen to him. Ralph gasped for the air that was slowly entering his lungs.

“You can let him go.”

Evelyn remembered that scared little girl she was all those years ago. There had been no other option then. It was just her, her uncle, and the knife in her hand. It was kill him or live the rest of her life in a prison. She felt like that again. Alone, terrified, trapped, cornered. There was no other way out.

“You’re safe now, Evelyn,” Hotch said. “You can let him go.”

She wasn’t alone anymore. Hotch was here with her. She wasn’t that terrified little girl with no way out. She was an FBI agent. She had grown and she had learned and she was no longer alone. Her team had come from her. Her family had found her.

She let go of the chain, pulling her legs onto the bed. Ralph heaved in lung fulls of air, but Evelyn kept her eyes on Hotch. He took a step toward them, pulling out his handcuffs. Evelyn flinched away, pulling her legs in tighter.

“These aren’t for you,” Hotch told her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Relaxing her muscles as best as she could, Evelyn nodded her head.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

She sat there on the bed while Hotch roughly rolled a still coughing Ralph onto his stomach to handcuff him. Once the handcuffs were on, Hotch turned back to Evelyn, who was still staring at him. Her eyes were full of tears.

It was hard for Hotch to say that he didn’t enjoy beating Ralph into the ground. He shouldn’t want to keep beating the shit out of the man now that he was in handcuffs, but seeing those tears in her eyes made Hotch want to. He had been tempted to let Evelyn kill Ralph. She deserved that bit of closure. But he knew the guilt that she already carried, the guilt she would carry on top of that. He knew because he carried that same guilt.

Still, he wanted to see that monster dead. He wanted to wipe those tears from her eyes before they even had a chance to fall.

“Caro-“

“Evie!”

Morgan burst into the room, his eyebrows pinched together in worry. Evelyn tore her gaze away from Hotch at the sound of Morgan’s voice.

“Derek.” The relief in her voice as she said his name made Hotch’s stomach drop.

Morgan rushed toward the bed and dropped to his knees in front of it. He reached forward and pulled the tattered blanket on the bed up and around Evelyn’s shoulders, covering her. Evelyn just stared at him, the tears threatening to fall from her lashes. Morgan brushed hair from out of her face as a smile began to pull at his lips. His smile made her almost able to break a grin too.

When Morgan first put his arms around Evelyn, het body immediately tensed. She expected to be surrounded by Ralph’s smell, feel his clammy skin on hers. But it was Morgan’s smell; that expensive cologne she had bought for his birthday mixed with the laundry detergent he always used. He held her tight. Even when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t able to look down enough to see Ralph, which was probably Morgan’s intention. She would have done the same thing.

The adrenaline had succeeded in keeping her heart rate steady, but now that Morgan was holding her, her heart started to pound.

Hotch grabbed Ralph off the ground and hoisted him to his feet. Evelyn listened as he shoved Ralph down the stairs, Ralph grunting and groaning all the way down.

It wasn’t until they could no longer hear him that Morgan pulled away. She didn’t want to let him go, afraid that she would begin to crumble without him there. Morgan put a hand on her cheek and leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Let’s get you home.”

___

The first worst part about walking down those stairs was remembering the last time she had done this. That red stain on the floor had been there for twenty years. Evelyn had left her uncle bleeding out on the floor while she stumbled down the stairs, dazed, terrified. She knew the blood was the same because she had been covered in it too.

The second worst part was when everyone turned to look at her.

JJ, Emily, Reid, and Rossi were all in the downstairs of the house. They had holstered their guns, but Emily still had her hand on hers. The stairs were too narrow for Morgan to walk alongside her, so he held her hand as he walked in front of her. She was almost hesitant to take that final step, terrified of how the others would look at her.

When they heard the stair creak, they all turned their heads toward Evelyn. She froze, her blood running cold. She expected the concerned stares, the pitied eyes, it was all she got last time. Tightening the blanket around her shoulders, Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to look them in the eyes.

JJ walked toward her, stopping only a few feet away.

“Can I hug you?” JJ asked.

Evelyn looked up to see that there were tears in her friend’s eyes, but a smile on her face. There was no pity, only relief.

Slowly, Evelyn nodded her head. JJ didn’t need to be told twice. She closed the distance, wrapping her arms around Evelyn’s neck. Emily was next, pressing a gentle kiss against the side of her head. Reid’s hug was awkward, shaky.

“If you ever need to talk,” he said quietly.

Evelyn nodded her head. She knew that he understood what it was like, to be taken and held against your will. She gave him a gentle smile that he returned. Rossi was the last to approach her. He had teary smile on his face as well. He didn’t hug her entirely, but instead put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her toward him to press a kiss against her forehead.

“C’mon,” Morgan said. “Ambulance is out here.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Evelyn said, looking over at him and giving a shake of your head.

Morgan raised his eyebrows, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Same old Evelyn.” He put an arm around her shoulder, as he always did. The action was simple, but it was enough to make her smile, to make her feel normal. “But yes, we’re taking you to the hospital.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes but let him lead her outside to the ambulance. Hotch was already out there, talking quietly to the EMT. Ralph must have gone in a different police car. He was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital?” Morgan said once she had a quick once over by the EMT.

“You’re not going to ride with me?” She asked. Evelyn hoped that the fear of being alone again that she was feeling didn’t show through in her voice.

“Hotch’ll go with you.”

Morgan dropped a hand on Hotch’s shoulder, who wore his usual scowl, his arms crossed. He turned toward Morgan, who raised his eyebrows and walked away.

“I’ll be right back,” the EMT said before turning and walking away.

Evelyn sat on the bed, still wearing the blanket Morgan had wrapped around her. Her stomach twisted as Hotch walked toward her. She kept her eyes at the ground, chewing on the inside of her lip. She could feel only shame as he looked at her. Maybe it was because he could see the bruises and the cuts and the blood. Maybe it was because she was at her lowest and he was her boss who should only ever see her at her best. Maybe it was because he had to talk her down from choking the life out of a man. Maybe it was some combination of everything.

“Are you okay?” He asked her, leaning up against the ambulance.

Evelyn nodded her head slowly. She would have responded with a decisive yes, but her mouth had gone too dry to talk.

“That’s a stupid question, of course you’re not okay,” Hotch muttered and looked down at his feet.

“I’m okay,” Evelyn affirmed. “I’m okay.”

When he looked back up at her, Evelyn was surprised to see his eyes were watery.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get you sooner.”

Evelyn shook her head as aggressively as she could manage.

“I knew you would come, Hotch,” she told him. “I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault.”

Hotch let out an almost bitter laugh.

“I should be saying that to you.” Hotch looked at her in such a way that made Evelyn’s stomach squeeze. “All this time, and you’re still looking after me.”

Evelyn gave him a small smile in return.

“Thank you for coming to get me.”

“Of course.”

The EMT returned, telling Hotch that they were getting ready to go. He pulled himself into the ambulance and the EMT followed after him.

“Lie back,” the EMT said. Evelyn did as she was told, feeling a suffocating feeling settling on her chest as she stared up at the white ceiling. The sting of tears returned to her eyes and she wasn’t sure if she had the strength to hold them back.

Her hands tensed at her side, clenching around the blanket of the gurney. Hotch, now sitting in the chair beside her, reached out and took her hand in his. She turned her head to look at him, sniffing in deeply.

“It’s going to be okay,” Hotch told her before giving her a sharp nod.

Evelyn nodded back at him, breathing in deeply. She let go of the blanket and shifted her hand around until her fingers were laced through his. She didn’t know how comfortable he was with holding her hand, but at the moment she didn’t care. She needed someone’s hand to hold. She needed his hand to hold.

She wasn’t in the hospital for very long, which she was grateful for. Garcia got there as soon as Evelyn was released and put a pair of shaking arms around her, already dissolved into tears. Evelyn laughed, grateful for her friend’s antics.

“I love you so much,” Garcia said, her tears watering Evelyn’s neck.

She had ditched the gross blanket and was currently sporting a wonderful hospital gown and Hotch’s coat.

“Are you staying somewhere? Do you need somewhere to stay? I’ve got some clothes and a warm bed and I can make you some tea-“

“I really appreciate it, Pen,” Evelyn said, “But Hotch offered me a bed already.”

Garcia stopped her rambling to stare at her, glancing behind Evelyn to where Hotch was talking to the rest of the team.

“Hotch offered-? Right, okay. That’s good. I still brought you some clothes to wear. Come with me.”

“O-okay.”

Garcia led Evelyn to the bathroom to put her in some clothes.

“As soon as they went to get you, I went home to grab you some clothes.” Garcia dropped her bag on the ground. Evelyn covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from laughing. It was sweet of her friend, but Evelyn didn’t think she needed that many clothes for a few nights. “I hope it’s enough.”

“Thank you. It’s perfect.”

Evelyn stepped into one of the stalls and pulled a thin sweater on over her head and a pair of sweatpants. It wasn’t the cutest outfit, but it was comfortable, and it covered her ill looking body, so it would do.

Penelope was wiping tears away when Evelyn stepped out of the stall. Evelyn smiled at her and put her hands on her friend’s shoulders.

“I’m okay, Pen.”

“Evie-“

“I’m really okay. I promise.”

Penelope let out a heavy sigh and nodded.

“Can I have a smile? It’ll make me feel better,” Evelyn said in a sing-songy, letting her hands fall back to her side.

A smile tugged at Penelope’s lips and she turned away, letting out a little laugh.

“There you go. Now the world’s right again.”

Evelyn and Penelope left the bathroom and rejoined the group just as Hotch was finishing his little speech.

“Go home, everybody. Get some sleep. We’ll come back to work on Monday,” Hotch was saying.

“Thank you,” Evelyn piped up before they turned to go their separate ways. “For everything.”

___

Hotch opened the front door of his apartment. It was dark inside, only one of the lamps were on. It was silent, still. Part of it was reassuring, the stillness. Part of it was unsettling, the quiet.

She looked back at Hotch and he nodded his head, so she stepped inside.

It felt better once she was inside. It was warm, warmer than the attic.

She had never even imagined stepping into Hotch’s home. She expected it to be stiff and cold like his office was, impersonal. But it was lively, with pictures hung on the walls and décor covering shelves full of books. Evelyn wondered absent-mindedly how much of it was Hayley’s sister or if Hotch had a secret interior designer in him somewhere. The thought made her smile.

“You’ll sleep through here,” Hotch said, his voice in a hushed tone. Jack was probably already in bed.

“Your room?” She asked, keeping her voice equally as low.

Hotch nodded.

“I’m not going to displace you,” Evelyn said. “I can sleep on the couch.”

On the couch, there was already a blanket and pillow set up.

“No, Caro. I can’t let you sleep on a couch your first day back,” Hotch said, giving his head a shake.

“Hotch, seriously-“

“Agent Caro…”

Evelyn tilted her head down and raised an eyebrow.

“Now you’re using your boss voice on me.”

To her amazement, Hotch actually smiled. He was looser here, less uptight. Something about passing into his house must have been some kind of release. Domestic Hotch was very different than at work Hotch.

“Fine,” Evelyn said. “But only for tonight.”

“I’ll be out here if you need me.”

Evelyn nodded her head. She turned down the hall as Hotch walked toward the couch. Evelyn stopped, turning to say one last thing to him, but she decided against it. He sat with his back to her, taking off his shoes. She watched him let out a deep sigh and roll tension out of his shoulders. Evelyn couldn’t help but think that she was the cause of that tension and the sooner she was out of his hair the better.

It was strange, standing by Hotch’s bed. This would be the first warm, safe bed she would be falling in to and it wasn’t her own, it was Hotch’s. It felt wrong to touch. It wasn’t hers. Even if he had said she could, it wasn’t hers. This bed belonged to someone else. Hotch’s permission didn’t feel like the only permission she needed.

On the bedside table, there was a picture. Hotch, Jack, and Hayley, all huddled together and smiling. Evelyn felt herself smiling as she looked at it. Reaching out her hand, she ran a finger along the picture frame.

“I hope it’s okay with you,” Evelyn whispered, looking at the picture of Hotch’s late wife.

They’d met a few times in the past and she was just the gentlest woman. She loved Hotch and she loved her son. There she was, staring up at Evelyn and smiling. But the only image that Evelyn had of her in her mind was Hayley’s limp body, the blood that stained her shirt.

Turning away from the picture, Evelyn pulled the blankets back before she kept overthinking. She dropped the bag that Garcia had given her onto the ground, flicked off her shoes and socks, and crawled into bed.

The warmth of the blankets was strange to her. Even her own bed wasn’t as warm as this one was. Still trying not to over think it, Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut and rolled onto her side. She breathed in deeply and was overwhelmed by his scent. With a heavy sigh, she rolled back onto her back and opened her eyes.

“Get over yourself, Evelyn,” she whispered to herself.

Breathing in slowly and steadily, Evelyn let her brain relax. She went to that safe place in her mind, that place far away. She didn’t even realize she had fallen asleep, safe and warm in that room where no one could reach her.

It wasn’t until blood started to seep through the walls that she realized she was asleep.

She woke up to someone screaming. The sound echoed off the walls of the bedroom. Someone was crying.

“Caro. Caro.” Someone was calling her name. Someone close by. Someone far away.

“Evelyn!”

Her eyes snapped open, her heart pounding so hard she thought she might be having a heart attack. The room was still dark, but the bedside lamp was turned on. The blankets were half on the floor. She had been throwing them off when she kicked her legs. Hotch was sitting in front of her. Not just sitting in front of her, but holding onto her shoulders. He had been shaking her. There was worry on his face, his eyes wide. Behind him was Jack, tears rolling down his face.

He was the one who was crying. That must have meant she was the one who was screaming.

“You’re okay,” Hotch said. “You were just dreaming.”

Evelyn lifted her hands to her face to find that there were tears on her cheeks.

“I…I’m sorry,” she said, a scowl in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Hotch shook his head. He looked tired. She must have woken him up.

“Is she okay?” Jack asked and sniffled.

“She’s fine, Jack, go back to bed,” Hotch said. When Jack hesitated, Hotch gave him a smile. “It’s okay. Go back to bed.”

Jack nodded and shuffled out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn whispered again, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Hotch said again and dropped a hand onto her knee. “You’re safe here, no one can hurt you here.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean….”

Her hands were shaking too badly for her to say anything else. She already couldn’t remember the dream, but there was blood, so much blood. And she remembered she couldn’t breathe, like there was a chain wrapped around her neck.

Evelyn shut her eyes and put her shaking hands up to her head.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.

Hotch let out a sigh. He was frustrated with her. The thought made tears sting her eyes.

“It’s not your fault.”

Even with her eyes closed, the tears still managed to slide down her cheeks. Hotch reached out his hand and rested it on the back of her neck. The contact only made her tears fall faster. She moved her hands to cover her face, ashamed of her reaction. Hotch pulled her in toward him and the closer she got to him, the harder she started to cry.

He put his other arm around her and she lowered her forehead to his shoulder, the sobs shaking her shoulders. But Hotch held her tight, one hand on the back of the neck, the other on her back.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sure what she was really sorry for. Sorry for waking him up. Sorry for sleeping in his bed. Sorry for invading his space. Sorry for getting kidnapped. For getting in the way. For making his life harder. For setting them back from work for days.

“It’s okay, Evelyn. It’s okay.”

At the sound of her name, she stopped her apologies. She heard her first name come from his mouth so rarely, she didn’t want to talk over him. She just wanted to hear him say it again. Finally letting her hands fall away from her eyes, she let her hands fall into her lap.  

“It’s not your fault, Evelyn,” he whispered, hesitantly letting his fingers lace through her hair.

She sniffed.

“It wasn’t your fault and none of us are upset with you,” Hotch told her.

Slowly, her breathing started to return to normal, sucking in short, gasping breaths of air, but they were steadier.

He pulled away from her, brushing her damp hair out of her face and resting a hand on her cheek. She wouldn’t look at him, still taking shallow breaths, tears still rolling down her cheeks, body still shaking.

“None of us blame you for any of it,” he told her, leaning down to try and catch her eye. “And there’s nothing that could have ever happened to you or that you could have possibly done that wouldn’t make us come for you.”

He brushed a tear off of her cheek as it slid from her eye.

“Evelyn, look at me.”

It took her a moment, but she finally managed to lift her eyes to meet his. They were wide and terrified, trembling like the rest of her body. Hotch tightened his jaw.

“We’re not going anywhere. I know your last family left you after what happened, but I promise you, we are not going anywhere.” Evelyn let out another shuddered breath and nodded her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It took a few more moments to calm her down and by the time she had stopped crying, her eyes were getting heavy.

“Sleep now,” Hotch said, slowly standing up from the bed. She was still sitting up, her head hanging and her hands in her lap.

“Aaron?” He paused at the door and half turned toward her. “Will you….”

She scowled and cleared her throat, shaking her head.

“What can I do for you?”

She breathed out heavily and looked up at him again.

“Would you stay, here, with me?” She felt stupid, asking.

But he wasn’t looking at her in pity or loathing. He nodded his head before walking to the other side of the bed.

Evelyn laid back onto the pillow, pulling the blankets up to her chin. She closed her eyes, embarrassed to see him, as if her request was ridiculous and gross. But she didn’t think that she could have fallen asleep if she was on her own.

She felt the other side of the bed dip in and the blankets rustle.

“Do you want the light on?” He asked.

“You can turn it off if you’d like.”

The light flickered off and they were shrouded in darkness.

“Goodnight, Evelyn.”

“Night, Aaron.”

___

When Hotch woke up the next morning, the other side of the bed was empty. He got used to the empty bed a long time ago, but there was a pit in his stomach this time. Evelyn should be there. She should be-

There was a smell coming from the kitchen. A pleasant smell.

Sitting up and stretching, Hotch made his way to the bedroom door. He heard laughing coming from the kitchen. When he opened the door, he had a direct line of sight to the kitchen. Jack was already awake, sitting happily at the table. There were usually only two chairs at that table, but Jack had pulled up a third.

Standing in the kitchen with a smile on her face was Evelyn. Jack was saying something to her, barely incoherent through all his laughter. Evelyn was just laughing along with him. Hotch shuffled through the hallway, leaning his shoulder against the corner of the and crossing his arms.

“What is going on here?” He asked with a smile on his face.

Evelyn and Jack both turned to him, both smiling.

“Eggs, bacon, French toast,” Evelyn said. “Want some?”

Hotch couldn’t help the smile on his face. He nodded, walking toward Jack and sitting down at the chair next to him.

It was strange, seeing Evelyn this way. She was generally serious at work, like he was. She would laugh and tease with Morgan and the girls and Reid, but Hotch was so used to her being solid, so stoic, so ready. But here she was, smiling and laughing and making jokes with him.

Evelyn walked over to the table carrying three plates of food and set them onto the table. She sat down, the biggest grin on her face.

“Dig in,” she said.

Hotch and Evelyn both knew that this happiness on her face went only so deep. Her suffering and her pain were just starting to bubble to the surface. But for now, she could eat this breakfast, laugh with Jack, pretend everything was okay.

“Would you like to watch my soccer game today, Evie?” Jack asked as they took the empty plates back to the kitchen.

Evelyn looked over at Hotch, hesitant.

“That would be great, buddy,” she said before looking back at Hotch. “Would you mind?”

“No, of course not.”

Jack’s grin was the brightest Hotch had seen in a long time.

Hotch knew of course about Evelyn’s competitive nature. They had been working together for years. He had seen enough games between her and Morgan to know that she liked to win. He still somehow didn’t expect that much competition to come out of her during his son’s soccer match.

She yelled from the sidelines, cheering for Jack and shouting at the ref and even exchanging glares with other parents. It was hard not to be distracted by her as Hotch tried to coach his team, trying to keep his laughing to a minimum. When the game ended, after Hotch had a word with the players, Jack ran straight for Evelyn. He stopped just in front of her, remembering what his dad had told him about not getting too close, and grinned up at her.

Evelyn put her hand on his head and ruffled his sandy blond hair.

“You were great out there, kid,” she said. “You got the most goals on your team.”

“We, uh, don’t usually keep score,” Hotch said as he walked over.

Evelyn looked up at him with the brightest smile.

“Well, I did and your team did a great job.”

One of the other moms walked over, her daughter and Jack immediately engaging in teasing and chatting about the game as they tried to kick each other in their still guarded shins.

“My name is Mary,” the mother said, reaching a hand out for Evelyn to shake. Evelyn startled, her heart rate spiking at Mary’s sudden movement. She recovered quickly, shaking Mary’s hand.

“Evelyn Caro.”

“Are you and Aaron-“

“We work together,” Hotch said.

Mary nodded her head.

“That explains the….”

She gestured toward Evelyn’s face before pausing and forced a smile.

“Right.”

Evelyn had forgotten how horrible her face must look. She had been absently rolling the scab on her lip between her teeth all day. Her bruised and cut cheek was sore, her other eye throbbing every now and again. The battered shape of her face hadn’t even crossed her mind while she offered to go to Jack’s game.

Evelyn looked over Hotch for assistance. His smile was still there, but thinner.

“Mary, how is your husband?” Hotch asked, clearly trying to direct the attention away from Evelyn. She was grateful for it.

She listened to their conversation with a smile until Jack walked back over to them and grabbed her by the hand. She turned to look at him with a smile. He beckoned for her to bend down and she did. Jack even stood on his toes so he could whisper in her ear.

“Can you ask Daddy if we can get McDonald’s on the way home?” He asked, his voice so quiet that Evelyn barely heard him.

Still, she let out a laugh and straightened her back.

“I can do that.”

Jack grinned and ran back toward his friends. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched him run away. She had met Jack only handful of times in the past, but he was such a light. He meant so much to Aaron that it was impossible for Evelyn not to love him, too. The poor boy had been through so much already.

“What did he want?” Hotch asked.

Evelyn turned back around to find that not only was Mary talking to Hotch, but three other unaccompanied women were hanging around as well. She resisted the urge to tease him about it right there. Teasing Hotch was also something new. She never would have done it before. Their relationship was strictly professional.

“Jack wants to go to McDonald’s on the way home,” Evelyn told Hotch.

“Ah,” Hotch said, his hands on his hips.

“The kids always do,” a blonde mother said, no ounce of amusement in her tone as she glanced at Evelyn.

“I suppose he thought you asking would make the likelihood of me saying yes higher?”

Evelyn shrugged. The other moms stood there, laughing joylessly, but Evelyn didn’t even see them.

They did stop at McDonald’s on the way home. Jack happily sang a song to himself in the backseat, munching on his apple slices and French fries. Evelyn was sitting in the passenger seat with one of her feet propped up on the dash.

“This feels like cheating,” Evelyn sighed, staring at the fries in her hands.

“How?” Hotch asked with a short laugh.

Evelyn shrugged, shoving the fries in her mouth.

“Something about it. They’re too good, I guess. There’s gotta be a downside.”

Hotch opened his mouth to say something but she held up her hand to stop him.

“You don’t have to profile my eating habits, Hotchner,” she said.

Hotch simply laughed.

When they got back from the game, Jack went to take a nap, leaving Evelyn and Hotch alone in the apartment.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I invited the team over to watch the game this afternoon,” Hotch said.

“Of course I don’t mind,” Evelyn said. “This is still your home.”

“Right.” Hotch nodded his head.

She dropped herself onto the couch, her eyes tired, but she had no desire to sleep, especially if the team was coming over.

But her eyes were beginning to droop against her better judgement. The apartment was quiet, she could barely hear Hotch moving around until there was the soft sound of music flitting through the room.

Hotch sat down at the table, trying to be far enough away from the sleeping woman on his couch to help her feel comfortable. Light music floated through the room as he sat, flipping through a book that he wasn’t really reading. It seemed like every three seconds, his eyes would move from his book to where Evelyn was sleeping. He justified it to himself, trying to tell himself it was just to make sure she wasn’t having another nightmare. Last night had been hard on all of them and he didn’t want a repeat. But there was something else that kept drawing his gaze to her.

She just looked so at peace. Like none of the thousands of terrible things in the world could touch her. Her breathing was short, but steady and there was almost a bit of a smile on her face. His hands were tense around the book, just waiting for her breathing to change to signal to him that she was going to a place in her mind where she didn’t want to be.

He was almost tempted to ask the others to not come to allow Evelyn the chance to sleep. But Hotch thought it was best to allow her the time to socialize with the people she loved. She needed to be surrounded by support at this time and Hotch knew he couldn’t possibly provide enough of it to be any help.

An hour and a half later, fifteen minutes before the others were due to arrive, Hotch walked over to where she slept on the couch. Again, he was tempted to just let her sleep. But he put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a light shake in hopes of rousing her.

“Caro,” he whispered.

She woke with a startled gasp, her eyes snapping open. Hotch was prepared for some kind of emotional response. He was ready in case she needed his help, but after the initial shock of being woken up, she sat up normally. Rubbing her eyes, Evelyn let out a yawn.

“Are they here?” She asked.

“Not yet,” Hotch said. “Soon. I’m going to wake up Jack. Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” There was a little bit of a scowl on her face as she continued to try and wake herself up. “Anything I can do to help get ready?”

Hotch was already halfway to Jack’s room, but he shook his head.

“Everyone else is bringing food. We’re off the hook for this one,” he told her before slipping into Jack’s room.

Evelyn forced herself off the couch, even though her bones were still stiff and tired. She straightened the cushions she slept on before rubbing her eyes again. She didn’t think she had dreamed, which was the first time she hadn’t in a very long time.

She was rubbing tension out of her neck when there was the first knock at the door.

Evelyn started and reached for the gun that should have been there but wasn’t. Her heart pounded in her chest, her hand still on her hip where her gun should have been. She wanted to move, but her muscles felt frozen. Eyes wide and body tense, Evelyn struggled to breathe. There was a tightness in her chest she couldn’t shake.

There was a knock at the door again, but she still couldn’t move.

“Caro, you okay?” Hotch asked as he came back from Jack’s room. “Evelyn?”

He stopped on his way to the door. She saw him standing there, staring at her, but all she could do was watch the door. Her body began to shake ever so slightly from the tension in her muscles.

“It’s just the team, Caro,” Hotch said, slowly putting his hands out toward her. “They’re not going to hurt you.”

Evelyn heard what he was saying, but something in her bones told her that it was a bad guy, someone who wanted to come in and hurt her, hurt Hotch, hurt Jack. She wouldn’t let that happen.

“Caro, I need you to look at me and just breathe,” Hotch was saying, taking a step toward her. There was another knock at the door and she flinched. “Look at me. Breathe.”

Evelyn sucked in one deep breath in through her nose before flickering her watery eyes away from the door and toward Hotch. He titled his head to the side, taking on a non-offensive stance. Her eyes strained to look at him.

“I’m going to open the door, okay?” Evelyn gave a sharp shake of her head, her body jerking forward but her feet not going anywhere. “I’m going to open the door. It’s going to be okay.”

He took a step toward the door and Evelyn shook her head again. Hotch turned away from her and kept walking toward the door.

“Hotch,” Evelyn said, her words just barely above a whisper.

When his hand touched the handle, Evelyn shook her head again, staring at the door unblinking. The door unlocked and the handle turned.

“Hotch-“

The door opened. Evelyn’s eyes widened even further, waiting for Ralph to be standing there on the other side.

But it was just Penelope and JJ and Emily, all grinning wildly.

Evelyn blinked her eyes hard and shook her head, dropping her hands back to her sides and relaxing her defensive stance.

“Come in,” Hotch was saying.

Evelyn forced a smile onto her face and went to greet her friends as they came in. She helped them set up the table with the food and drinks they brought.

“How are you doing?” JJ asked as she tore into the chips.

Evelyn sighed, still trying to smile.

“I’m doing okay,” she said.

“I might not be as good a profiler as any of you guys,” JJ said. “But I know you well enough to know when you’re lying.”

Evelyn turned to face her, leaning her hip against the table and crossing her arms.

“I am doing as well as you can imagine I’m doing,” Evelyn said. “But most of the time I’m doing okay.”

JJ put a hand on her friend’s arm and offered a small smile.

“If you ever need anything-“

“I know you’re always there for me, JJ,” Evelyn said. “I won’t ever forget it.”

JJ nodded and they turned back to the table. It was only a few more minutes before the boys arrived. After greeting Hotch and Emily, Morgan came straight for Evelyn, who was still at the table rearranging everything for the fifteenth time.

“I swear I’m going to lose it if you ask me if I’m okay, Derek Morgan,” Evelyn said, moving the napkins off the plates where she had just put them.

Morgan let out his signature laugh before throwing an arm over her shoulders.

“I know how you’re doing, so I don’t need to ask,” Morgan told her. “I just came over here to give you a hug.”

Evelyn let out a breath and turned toward him, eagerly putting her arms around his waist. There was safety in his arms. Her muscles were still tense from her moment before, and it felt impossible for her to relax and fall into normalcy with her friends. But with Morgan there, everything seemed to be at least a little bit okay.

“Keep fighting,” he whispered in her ear. “That’s how you win.”

Evelyn nodded her head. She pulled away and quickly swiped away a stray tear before wiping her hands on her jeans. She back at Morgan briefly with a strained smile, glad to see him smiling back.

“Let’s go sit,” Morgan said to her.

Evelyn sat herself on the very end of the couch, knowing how much her team loved to cram in together and not really feeling comfortable being stuck in between Morgan and JJ as they shouted back and forth at each other about their opposing sports opinions. She sat with her feet up on the couch and her knees pulled up to her chest.

Reid sat next to her, still and quiet.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey, Reid.”

He didn’t say anything else. Evelyn didn’t really want him to. Still, she leaned toward him and put her head on his shoulder. Reid tensed for a moment, but then he relaxed.

“It’s good to have you back,” he whispered to her.

“It’s good to be back,” she whispered back.

A few minutes before the game had started, there was already yelling going on between Rossi and JJ about something Evelyn couldn’t really follow. Jack came out of his room, hair a mess and eyes looking tired.

“Hey, buddy!” Hotch said. “Come for some food?”

The newly awake Jack shook his head and hobbled over to Evelyn. She dropped her feet to the ground as he struggled to crawl into her lap. He dropped his head to her shoulder.

“You okay, kid?” she asked him, rubbing her hand up and down his back. He nodded and yawned.

A chip flew over her head that Morgan had definitely thrown at Rossi who sat in the chair next to Evelyn. Penelope was watching the commercials eagerly, shouting at everyone to quiet down. JJ had roped Emily into her argument with Rossi and Reid was telling Morgan something about some sports statistic that Morgan was desperately trying to refute.

Evelyn looked over at Hotch, who was watching them with a look in his eye that she couldn’t really read. She was usually good at reading Hotch, but every now and again, he’d get this look that she didn’t understand. When he noticed her looking, he gave her a smile and nodded his head.

Part way through the game, Jack left her lap to go and grab some food. She offered him her seat when he came back so that she could go over to the table for some food and a breather. Hotch met her there, scooping cheese dip onto his paper plate.

“Intense game,” Evelyn said, popping a grape into her mouth.

“Very.”

“Oh, come on!” Morgan yelled.

Evelyn laughed quietly to herself.

“If you need to step out-“

“I’m fine, Hotch, really,” she said, turning toward him. “Everything’s good. What happened earlier-“

“Was a completely normal reaction.” Evelyn was startled by his rebuttal interruption. “You’re allowed to have bad moments or even bad days.”

“I know that.”

“You’re also allowed to have fun.”

“I know that, too.”

Morgan stood up quickly from the couch, letting out half a expletive before remembering Jack was there and switching it up half way through.

“I really missed this, though,” Evelyn said through a laugh.

Hotch looked at her and then looked over at Morgan and let out a sigh.

“He was really worried about you,” Hotch told her, his hands tightening around the poor paper plate in his hand.

Evelyn nodded her head, looking down at the grapes in her hand.

“I thought I’d never see him again. I thought I’d never see any of you again,” she told him.

“You didn’t think we’d find you?”

“Oh, I knew you would,” she looked back over at him. “I just didn’t know if it would be soon enough.”

“Evelyn-“

“Evie, come look at this!” Penelope called, waving her over.

“Pardon me, Hotch.”

Hotch watched her walk away and kneel on the ground beside Garcia. They laughed about something. Smiling looked good on her, but he knew that it only ran so deep. He couldn’t wait for the day that smile would be real again. He just hoped he was there to see it.

By the time everyone left, the sun was almost down. They stayed long after the game, talking and laughing and throwing things at each other like a bunch of children. Penelope was the last to go, always asking for one last hug while Morgan waited for her just outside.

“I’ll see you soon, Pen,” Evelyn laughed, trying to push her friend toward the door.

“I hate leaving you,” Penelope said.

“I think I’m in the safest hands I can be.”

Penelope pulled away at that.

“You’re right.” She looked over at Hotch. “Hotch won’t let anything happen to you. You’re perfectly safe here.”

Evelyn gave her a smile.

“Exactly. Now, go. Morgan’s waiting for you.”

Penelope straightened her jacket and nodded her head.

“Right.” She turned and walked out the door. “Let’s go, Derek.”

Morgan offered one last wave, tossing an arm over Penelope’s shoulders. He sent a look Evelyn’s way that she read perfectly. If she needed anything….

Hotch shut the door and the apartment was silent. Evelyn let out a heavy breath.

“That was fun,” Jack said, laying on the couch.

“Time for bed for you, buddy,” Hotch said.

The team was generally good at cleaning up after themselves and taking the food that they had brought with them, but there was always a mess to clean up afterward. The few times Evelyn had one of these gatherings at her own place taught her this well enough. Hotch walked Jack toward his room while Evelyn turned to start cleaning.

“You don’t have to do that,” Hotch said, emerging from his son’s room as Evelyn pulled the full trash bag out of the trash can.

“I won’t be able to sleep knowing this place is a mess,” she told him.

It was these quiet moments when it was just the two of them that Evelyn felt the most exposed, the most terrified. Not that he would hurt her because she knew he never would, but just knowing that all of his attention was on her made her almost sick to her stomach.

“I’ll take the trash to the can outside,” Hotch said, walking toward her.

“Alright.”

She handed the bag off to him, his fingers just barely grazing over her hand. Evelyn elected not to look up at him as electricity crackled up her arm. She breathed in deeply and turned toward the couch.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. He took a few steps away from her and Evelyn just nodded her head.

She didn’t look at him as he left the room. With a pounding heart, Evelyn sat slowly onto the couch, shutting her eyes and breathing deeply until she dropped her head into her hands.

What was wrong with her? She had always been able to keep her emotions under control around Hotch. Always. Even when he was talking about Hayley, even when he cared so deeply about people it made him rage, even when he did that thing with his eyes that silenced even the haughtiest narcissist, even when he gave her a look that put all other looks to shame. She had always kept her cool because that was what she had trained herself to do.

But now her training was backfiring on her. Her training was making her think danger was there when it wasn’t. Her training was making her question the movements of everyone she loved. Her training was taking her sleep from her. Her training was crumbling and slowly revealing that terrified girl that lay underneath.

Evelyn opened her eyes, hoping to think of absolutely anything else than the heat in her cheeks and the pounding of her heart in her stomach.

Maybe keeping her eyes closed may have been better because as soon as her eyes were open, they landed on Hotch’s bag propped up against the coffee table. Someone must have moved it during the game. Sticking out of the top was a file. There was no name on the file, but Evelyn knew it was hers, or at least from the last job they’d done, which was hers.

Instinct took over and she bent down, snatching the yellow folding from his bag. It was thick, thicker than she’d have liked. Laying it on the table, her suspicions were confirmed as she flipped open the first page. It was this last case and the very first picture on it was the one they took in the hospital when she first arrived.

Evelyn didn’t realize how terrible she looked until just then. She was thin, trembling. Her hair was matted with blood. She looked dirty, covered in blood and bruises. Evelyn gagged, covering her mouth with her hand. That was how all of her friends had seen her that day. The thought made her shiver.

The picture just underneath it was the one they had taken when she was a kid. The similarities in the pictures made her even sicker.

She shuffled through the files, eyes scanning the pages just like Reid had taught her, until she found Hotch’s report.

She pulled it out, hands shaking as she held it in front of her. She had always wondered how Hotch managed to write these reports, summing up everything they went through during the case in just a few short pages.

Her throat swelled as she read through the beginning. She read about the women Ralph killed, how they were assaulted and murdered, how the team discovered it was Ralph. She read through them deciding to send Evelyn into the meeting to find Ralph and lure him in. She didn’t know then that he was the step kid of her uncle. If she had, she wouldn’t have gone in there empty handed.

Then she read how they had found out she was missing and what they did to find her. Her heart plummeted into her stomach, dropping from her chest like a ton of rocks. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth, hoping swallow the sob that was threatening to come from her mouth. Sitting in that attic, Evelyn had wondered what the point of killing those other women was. She had spent hours pouring over ideas. She thought him running into her was an accident, pure coincidence. This case already put her on edge, seeing as it took place in the very same town she grew up in.

But the team had solved it. They had figured it out. All those women that Ralph had killed….

Tears clouded her vision, but she refused to blink. A quiet moan of distress came from her. She didn’t even hear the door of the apartment open.

“Evelyn?”

She didn’t jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice. Instead, she turned toward him slowly, those same tears gathered in her eyes.

“It’s my fault,” she said, holding the report in her hands. The tears dropped from her lashes, hitting her cheeks with the strength of a butterfly.  

“It’s not.”

“It is!” Hotch let out a defeated breath. “It says right here that-“

“That report says Ralph Bennet made the decision to assault and murder those four women.”

“Because of me!”

Hotch walked over to her and sat on the couch beside her, but not too close.

“Did you kill those women, Caro?”

“No, but-“

“No, you didn’t.”

“Hotch, he killed them because I knew them. He killed them because he knew it would lure me in. If I hadn’t-“

“What? If you hadn’t what?” She was quiet. “If you hadn’t killed your uncle? You did what you had to do to survive, Evelyn. No one will fault you for that.”

“If I hadn’t….” she trailed off, staring at the paper with her teary eyes.

“If you hadn’t come with us to solve this case? More women would have died.”

“I fell right into his trap,” she whispered, her hands tightening around the paper. “I didn’t even know he existed, and he knew me well enough to set the trap and just wait for me to walk right into it. I can’t believe I was that stupid.”

“Do you want to know what that tells me?”

She looked up at him.

“You returned to a town where you had been traumatized to help bring justice to these women. You went into that meeting trying to catch a killer. You stayed alive long enough for us to find you using clues that you gave us.” Evelyn sniffed, wiping the underside of her nose with the back of her hand. “You’re not stupid, Evelyn. You’re the bravest person I have ever met.”

She looked over at Hotch again, her lower lip trembling.

“They died for me,” she said and took in a shaky breath. A tear slid down her nose. “How do I repay them for that?”

Hotch was quiet for a moment and heaved out a sigh, just allowing him time to think of a proper answer.

“You live,” he told her. “You survive this and carry on for them.”

Evelyn closed her eyes. She was hearing him and her brain was telling her that he was right, but her heart wasn’t believing him. She couldn’t believe him.

Without saying anything, Evelyn pushed herself off the couch and made for the door, hoping to escape before he could see the tears that were threatening to run from her eyes again.

“Caro, where are you going?” Hotch asked, standing after her.

“I need some air,” she replied as she struggled with the lock on the door.

“I’ll come with you.”

“I need to be alone right now,” she said, finally getting the door open.

Hotch put his hand on the door and pushed it shut. Evelyn froze, keeping her hand on the doorknob.

“You’re not going anywhere by yourself.”

Evelyn turned around slowly. Hotch was looming over her, his hand still on the door to keep her from opening it again.

“Let me out, Hotch.”

“You’re not a prisoner here, but you’re not going out there alone.”

She stared at Hotch unblinkingly. Evelyn’s breathing started to speed up, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but it wasn’t anger or fear that made her heart rate spike.

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not?”

Evelyn knew she was poking the bear, but she felt like she had to. Poke the bear yourself, make it roar on your terms before it decides to do it itself.

“Why can’t I go out there alone? You think I can’t handle myself?”

“No, I know you can-“

“Then why won’t you let me leave?”

“Because I want you to be safe.”

The calmness of his voice made her even angrier. It made her want to poke harder.

There was a gaping wound in her soul and it was still gushing blood. Hotch was trying to patch it up, help her to heal, but he was getting too close to the only thing that kept her breathing. He was getting too close to the wound and she was terrified of the idea of him seeing her, feeling her, so she recoiled. She would snap at him until he left her alone. Until he left her wound bleed in peace.

“Why did you come for me?”

“Why did we come for you?” Hotch repeated, astounded by her question. “You’re part of the team. Why wouldn’t we come for you?”

“I’m not asking about the team, Aaron. I’m asking about you.”

Hotch straightened at the sound of his first name. She knew why. She’d done it on purpose. She needed to convince him she was angry. That was the only way to keep him at bay.

“I couldn’t just let you rot there; the team needs you.”

“The team?” She let out a bitter laugh before pushing past him and stalking into the middle of the room. “It’s always about the team with you, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“I could have died in that house, Aaron, and all you can come up with is the team needed me and that’s why you came?”

She hated the taste her words left in her mouth. She hated saying them. But she had to. She had to push him away if she had any hope for surviving. She had tied her heart to his and if she didn’t severe it now….

There was real anger in his eyes at her words. Finally, an emotion. A chink in his armor.

“If you had died in that house, I would have killed that bastard myself!”

Evelyn sucked in a sharp breath. It was so rare to see an emotion on Aaron Hotchner. In the last few days alone, she had seen more from him than she had ever seen in all her years working with him; fear, joy, grief, anger, relief. And it was mostly because of her.

“Enough with the team needs me bullshit.” Evelyn dropped the tone of her voice. “I’m going for a walk.”

She turned her back on him and walked toward the front door. She made it all the way there, her hand on the doorknob before Hotch spoke again.

“I need you.”

Evelyn froze, her hand glued to the doorknob as if it was ice and her hand was burning hot. Her blood ran cold and her heart stopped in her chest.

“What?”

“You don’t accept that you’re a vital member of the team as a worthy reason for us to come and help you? Fine.” There it was again, anger in Hotch’s voice. His dark eyebrows were pulled together. “I need you.”

Evelyn had started this argument because she needed to keep his hands away from the wound she was nursing, the wound that every breath seemed to tear open a little bit more. His kindness and compassion were just insult to injury. But his sincerity in this moment punched through every wall around her wound that she had been attempting to build up in the last few minutes.

He said it like he would say any other truth. He said it like he would say anything during a case; without a hint of uncertainty.

She turned toward him. For the first time in a while, she felt no shame as tears glimmered in her eyes.

“You mean it?” She asked, pulling on the edges of her sleeve.

“Have I ever lied to you before?”

“I mean when, Emily-“ Evelyn stopped herself and cleared her throat. “No. You haven’t.”

Hotch stood there, clearly not wanting to say anything else that would set her off. Evelyn bowed her head, let her hand fall away from the doorknob, and she crossed the room, putting her arms around his waist before he even realized that she was coming toward him.

Hotch was frozen for a second, her change in mood so rapid that he almost couldn’t register it. Evelyn’s eyes were screwed shut as she prayed that he wouldn’t reject her embrace, though she could understand if he did. But, eventually, he put his arms around her, pulling her in closer and she could finally relax.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, letting the tears stream down her face, fast and hot. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” he told her, his words just as quiet.

“Please don’t give up on me.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m trying.”

Hotch knew from the report what happened with her parents after she had escaped from her uncle. He knew how they turned their back on her in the following months. She had come back to them after four years, after killing her father’s brother, and she wasn’t the little girl they had lost anymore. They reported anger issues, lashing out, screaming and hitting and breaking things. They told authorities they couldn’t handle her anymore. They just didn’t know what to do.

But Hotch also knew that she was a child who was cut so deeply by someone she trusted and that she deserved to be loved and protected by her family no matter what. No matter how loudly she screamed, no matter the mess she made, they should have loved her. They should have fought for her just as hard as she was fighting to survive. He wouldn’t abandon her like they did.

“I promise not to give up on you if you promise me not to give up on yourself,” he told her.

Evelyn nodded her head.

“Promise,” she said.

___

The following months were hard. Moving back into her own apartment where it was quiet and the silence was deafening was the hardest part. When there was no one to wake her from her nightmares or hold her while she cried, when there was no Jack to make her laugh even when she wanted to cry, when there was just her and the mirror. She hated being back home. She wanted to back at the Hotchner’s, but she knew she couldn’t impose on them any longer.

There were days when her promise to Hotch was the only thing that kept her going. He had made her promise not to give up on herself and she would be damned before she disappointed Hotch again. So, she fought, tooth and nail, just to stay afloat. Some days, that looked like lying in bed and letting the tears fall. Some days, that looked like calling Morgan or Penelope and asking them to play a board game with her. Some days, that looked like running until she couldn’t breathe. Some days, that looked like dancing around her apartment at 3 am.

Slowly, she began to remember what it was like to feel alive. And she started to love it again.

The day she came back to work, the smile on her face reached deep into that wound in her soul. It wasn’t healed, but it was better. It didn’t hurt to breathe anymore.

The team acted like she knew they would on her first case. Hotch didn’t let her go anywhere by herself. Someone had to be by her side at all times. It was suffocating, but she knew it was for the best.

By the time the case was finished and the guy arrested, Evelyn almost felt like herself again. This is what she was meant to be doing. She wasn’t supposed to be sitting by herself in her room all day, wasting away. The field was in her blood. It was part of her.

They all went out to dinner that night and everything was right in the world again. Evelyn used to sit in her apartment, Hotch and Morgan and Garcia sending her updates as they went. She knew when she got the triple text that the case was over that they’d be going out to eat, celebrating, having a laugh to cope with everything they had seen. And she would sit in her dark apartment.

But now she was in the right place. They went to a pub downtown. She ordered fries and a coke with a little cherry on top. Morgan made fun of her for smothering her fries in ketchup. She stole a bite of Emily’s pasta as she talked to Rossi. Life had returned to normal, and it was just what she needed.

The next few cases went the same way. Hotch began to trust her being alone again, allowing her to have the space she needed to do her job. There were cases where she needed to step into the bathroom and cry. There were times when she stayed behind with the local police because she couldn’t even think about going in without panicking. And the nights in her apartment alone were the worst.

But as long as she was on a case with her team, things were actually okay. She could push away her fear and the anxiety that made her bones rattle and her muscles freeze. She could go back to be Agent Evelyn Caro, where she was at her best.

Almost a year passed. Evelyn knew that the anniversary fear was a thing, but she was determined to be fine. The case they came in for was the farthest away from anything that could remind her of what she went through. Men were being taken and killed. The pattern was easy to solve, the profile quick to figure out. Everything was going to be okay.

Until Hotch and Evelyn were hunting the killer on their own. Evelyn was walking through a suspect’s house with her gun drawn, knowing that Hotch was upstairs doing the same thing. There was a thud coming from the second floor.

“Hotch?” Evelyn called out. “You okay?”

There was no reply. Her heart started to seize.

“Hotch?”

Walking toward the stairs, her gun drawn, Evelyn told herself to breathe. She would be no help to Hotch if she was panicking. She took one step up the stairs before a sudden and sharp pain exploded against the side of her head, sending her into the wall, knocking her unconscious.

When Evelyn woke up, she was in a basement. Her head squeezed and ached, jaw stiff. She shook her head and forced her eyes open.

Sitting across the room from her, still unconscious, was her boss.

“Hotch!”

Evelyn scrambled over to him, barely standing at all before she dropped to the ground next to him.

“Hotch, hey, you good?”

She saw him breathing, so that was something, but he was unresponsive to her voice. She shook his shoulders, but still he slept.

“Please don’t fire me,” Evelyn whispered before pulling her hand back and slapping him across the face.

Hotch gasped and his eyes flew open, his body falling over to the side.

“Oh, thank God,” Evelyn breathed.

“Did you slap me?” Hotch asked her, sitting back up.

“You wouldn’t wake up.”

“So you slapped me?”

Evelyn shrugged as Hotch rubbed his jaw with his hand.

“Remind me to never piss you off,” he told her. Evelyn felt herself almost smile. “Where are we?”

Evelyn looked around the basement and let out a heavy breath.

“Not sure,” she said. “We got the profile wrong, didn’t we?”

Hotch nodded his head and used the support beam in the middle of the room to push himself upward.

“There was a woman. I thought she was hurt, but….”

“She got the drop on the mighty Aaron Hotchner? I’m impressed.” Evelyn teased, needed to joke about something before her brain exploded from the pain or the panic she felt growing in her bones took over completely.

Hotch looked down at Evelyn with a stern look that told her maybe joking wasn’t his favorite way to cope with being kidnapped. Evelyn pursed her lips and pushed herself onto her feet.

“Lions got me, I think,” Evelyn told him, using the support beam to keep her standing.

“So there are two of them and one of them is a woman.” Hotch breathed out a sigh. “How does that change the profile?”

“We know that the men were chosen because Lions wanted something they had.”

“Position, status, money-“

“A certain woman.”

Hotch turned to look at Evelyn, who was scanning the basement as if it would hold the answers. There were blood stains on the ground. This was definitely where the victims were killed. There was a door at the top of the stairs, but if these guys were any good at what they did, the door would be locked.

“You think his partner could have been the wife of one of the victims?” Hotch asked.

Evelyn looked back at him and shrugged.

“A wife, a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter. Maybe the person he wants to take her from isn’t even dead yet, but he’s the reason Lions is killing.”

“Why would she help him?”

Evelyn breathed out again.

“Maybe she feels trapped where she’s at and he’s got her convinced this is the only way to save her? If she feels completely dependent on him, she might just do whatever he says.”

“Even kill?”

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders again, but they both knew that the answer was yes. A woman caught in a corner was just as capable of killing as anyone else.

“Well, that’s good then,” Hotch said, putting his hands on his hips.

“How is any of that good?”

“It means I’m the one they want, not you,” Hotch said.

Evelyn’s eyebrows pinched together.

“That really doesn’t sound good, Hotch.”

“You can get through to the partner, Caro,” Hotch said, walking back toward her. Evelyn narrowed her eyes even further at him.

“Maybe, yes.”

“Good. That will get us out of here.”

He turned away from her again. He pulled off his blazer and loosened his tie and the temperature in the room raised about fourteen degrees. Evelyn had to shake away her imagination before responding.

“And what are you going to do?”

“What they brought me here for.”

___

“Please, stop!”

The female unsub, Rosalie, held tight to Evelyn’s arms, holding her back as the male unsub, Jeremy Lions, pounded his fist into Hotch’s face.

“You think you’re so strong,” Hotch laughed, taunting Lions. “Don’t you?”

Lions hit Hotch in the face again.

“You have to stop him,” Evelyn said to Rosalie. “No one else can get through to him.”

“He’s doing what he has to to keep us safe,” Rosalie whispered to Evelyn, but despite the strength in her arms, her voice was weak. “Your friend just needs to give in. It’ll be easier that way.”

Lions hit Hotch again and Evelyn cried out, pulling against Rosalie.

“Shut her up, Rose!”

“Shh, shh,” Rosalie whispered in Evelyn’s ear, holding her right from behind. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“No!” Evelyn struggled against the woman holding her, jerking her shoulders in hopes of breaking free.

“You really think that any of this will earn you manhood, Lions?” Hotch said with a laugh, turning the unsub’s gaze back onto him and away from Evelyn.

Lions hit Hotch in the face again.

“Stop it, damnit!”

Lions whirled around and backhanded Evelyn in attempts to get her to quiet down. Rosalie gasped and let Evelyn fall to the ground.

“Jeremy! You said we wouldn’t hurt her!”

Lions let out a growl and grabbed onto Rosalie’s arm, dragging her out of the basement and leaving Hotch and Evelyn behind.

“You need to get through to Rosalie, Caro,” Hotch said as soon as she took a single step toward him.

“I am,” she huffed. Hotch raised an eyebrow at her. “She doesn’t want me to get hurt, that much is clear. If she associates you getting hurt with me getting hurt, she’ll push for Lions to hurt you less.”

Hotch nodded his head once, stretching out his jaw.

“You trust me, right?” Hotch said.

“Of course.” Evelyn’s response was immediate.

“Good.”

That night, they slept in the basement on opposite sides of the room, even though it was freezing cold. Saying they slept was an over exaggeration. Evelyn could barely even close her eyes. It was the cold that kept her eyes frozen open, but it was also the reality of it all. She was trapped, once again. She was a prisoner, once again. She was at the mercy of a man, once again.

And Hotch was here but she had never felt more alone.

The door creaked open and Evelyn sat up with a gasp. She shuffled backward, away from the door, but it was just Rosalie walking down the wooden stairs. The woman locked the door behind her, but still flinched.

“Hi,” Rosalie whispered as she neared. There was a cup and a plate in her hand. She watched the sleeping Hotch as she walked by, only turning her attention back to Evelyn once she passed him.

“Hi,” Evelyn whispered back, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“I…I’m not going to hurt you,” Rosalie said. She lowered herself to the ground a few feet away from her. Rosalie set the cup and the plate down and scooted it closer to Evelyn.

Evelyn looked between the food and the woman.

“You need to eat.” Rosalie’s voice was soft. Kindly.

Evelyn straightened her back and lifted her chin, giving a slight shake of the head.

“I’m not hungry.”

Rosalie let out a sigh and turned to look over at Hotch, who still slept soundly.

“Saving it for him won’t do anything for either of you,” Rosalie said, almost sadly. “Only one of you is making it out of here. I think you know which one it’s going to be.”

___

“Here, eat.” Evelyn pushed the plate of cold potatoes and toast in his direction, the cup of water sitting on top. Hotch raised an eyebrow at her. “Rosalie came in last night. Brought us some food.”

“Did you eat?” He asked her, sitting up from his sleeping position.

Evelyn nodded her head.

“Caro-“

“I ate, Hotch,” she said, a little more harshly than she meant to. “You need to keep your strength if we’re going to have a repeat of yesterday.”

Hotch almost laughed as he hooked his finger over the edge of the plate and slid it toward himself. Evelyn watched, her stomach gurgling as he took a bite out of the bread.

“Stale toast is just ravishing, isn’t it?” Evelyn asked as she leaned up against the wall he also sat against. Hotch hummed his response. He ate slowly, took a sip of water.

“How are you?” He asked.

Evelyn rolled her head against the wall to look over at him.

“Just peachy, Hotchner. How are you?”

“I’m serious. How are you doing?”

Evelyn let out a sigh, looked up at the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

“Taking it one breath at a time,” she said. “I’ll deal with the aftermath once we’re out of here.”

Evelyn looked over at him again and attempted a half-cocked smile. Hotch wasn’t smiling. He was staring at her, staring right through her smile and her outer shell of calmness and straight into her soul where her wound was, her wound that was slowly starting to heal.

“I’ll be okay, Aaron,” she said, dropping her smile. “Promise.”

Hotch nodded his head and turned away from her.

“Don’t do anything stupid today, Caro,” he told her.

“Do I ever?”

___

“I told you not to do anything stupid,” Hotch sighed as Evelyn let out a hiss of pain.

“I didn’t realize that trying to stop you from dying was considered something stupid.”

“It is when you get put in harm’s way.”

Evelyn held a strip of her shirt against her bleeding nose. Hotch rolled up his sleeves.

“We’ve got two days left here,” Hotch said, pacing back and forth in front of Evelyn.

“The team will find us,” Evelyn replied. She lowered the piece of her shirt and scrunched her nose before stretching it out again.

“I don’t doubt it.”

The sun went down sooner than Evelyn thought it would, meaning she had slept longer than she thought she had.

“You should sleep,” Hotch said.

“I’m not tired.”

“He won’t hurt you, Caro.”

The dark concealed Hotch’s face from her, even though he was only a few feet away. Evelyn shifted uncomfortably.

“I know.”

“If I don’t make it out of here-“

“Hotch, stop. We’re both going to walk out of here just fine.”

“But if I don’t, promise to take care of Jack.” Evelyn breathed in deeply, ready to shake her head and tell him again that they were going to both survive this. “Promise me.”

Instead of arguing, which she knew would get them nowhere, Evelyn nodded her head.

“I promise.”

Hotch didn’t say anything else. Evelyn didn’t sleep. The change in his breathing after a while told her that he had fallen asleep.

She didn’t know how long it was before the door creaked open. Evelyn startled and sat up straighter, gasping in a breath. But it was just Rosalie, coming down with more food. This time, she didn’t say anything. She sat right next to Evelyn and set the food between them.

“You have to eat,” she said finally.

Evelyn reached out and took the cup of water and brought it to her parched lips. She drank some, but set it down before it was finished.

“You don’t have to save it for him.”

Evelyn turned her head to look at Rosalie.

“He’s my friend. I’m not going to let him starve.”

Rosalie was quiet for a moment.

“I think he’s more than that.”

“How did you meet Jeremy?” Evelyn asked. She thought she saw a smile on Rosalie’s lips.

“I lived with my brother and his wife as their live-in nanny of sorts. Jeremy worked for them as a gardener. My father kept me locked up my entire life and when he died, my brother took over. His sister’s keeper or something. But Jeremy he…. he made me feel free and alive and seen. And so, so loved.”

Rosalie stopped there, her smile lingering for a few moments before falling.

“But he changed, didn’t he?”

Rosalie nodded her head slowly, her lower lip curling and tears starting to run down her cheeks. Evelyn just let her cry for a few moments, until the woman collected herself. She sucked in a sob and stuffed her hands full of her dress.

“He took me from my brother’s house, brought me here,” Rosalie said. “Said he needed my help.”

“He used you to lure in men that he saw as superior to himself so that he could kill them.”

Rosalie nodded again, tears still rolling from her eyes.

“I never wanted to…I tried to tell him that I love him as he is…that he doesn’t need to-“

“Rosalie, listen to me. Nothing you could ever do will convince him of that because his issues have nothing to do with you,” Evelyn said, turning to face her.

“I don’t….”

“Jeremy Lions may love you, Rosalie, but he is very sick. He is not killing people to be a better man for you, no matter what he has told you. He feels inferior so he thinks he has to kill to be superior. That’s why he wanted Hotch.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

Evelyn heaved out a breath.

“Hotchner is everything Jeremy thinks he’s lacking. Confident, strong. He’s got a high-ranking job. He’s respected by his peers. He’s good looking and has a nice home and great friends. Jeremy doesn’t think he has any of this and he wants it, which is why he wants to hurt Hotchner.”

“To take something he doesn’t think he has.”

Evelyn sucked in a breath and reached forward to take Rosalie’s hands in hers.

“No matter what you do, Rosalie, you will never be enough for him, do you understand? He has you, he has love, but that will never be enough for him.”

“No, no!” Rosalie stood up quickly. “No. Once we’re married, everything will be okay. We’ll buy a new house. Live a happy life.”

“Rosalie-“

“No! You’re wrong.”

“Rosalie….”

“You’re wrong!”

Rosalie hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Evelyn shut her eyes again. With a growl, she pounded her knuckles into the hard concrete ground.

“You okay?”

Hotch was barely awake, his voice gravelly and tired.

“I’m okay, Hotch, go back to sleep.”

He grumbled something and was soon asleep again. Evelyn could do nothing but sigh. Still, she didn’t sleep.

The next day went no better than the last. It was night again before Evelyn knew it. She sat on the ground, head between her knees. Hotch stood, leaning up against the support beam in the middle of the room.

“You’re not sleeping,” he said. Evelyn didn’t move. “Talk to me.”

“I told you, I’ll deal with it after we get out of here,” she told him, her words muffled by her knees.

Hotch walked toward her and let out a groan as he lowered himself to the ground.

“You can sleep,” he told her, his words even quieter than they were before. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

Evelyn lifted her head finally to look at him.

“That’s not why I’m not sleeping,” she said, which was partially a lie. She didn’t sleep because she needed to be aware at all times. She couldn’t risk nodding off and letting her guard down. But there was another part to it.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked her.

“I thought I was going to die alone in that house, Aaron.” Her voice was thick with tears. “Twice. I stay awake because I can’t stand the thought of dying alone. And if you die while I’m sleeping-“

Hotch reached out and took her hand in his. When she looked over at him, he was staring straight ahead, not looking at her. She let out a shaky sigh and let him lace his fingers through hers. It was all the comfort that she needed.

“You’re not going to die alone,” Hotch told her. “You’re not going to die here at all.”

Evelyn nodded and let a few of the tears in her eyes fall, grateful for the darkness to cover her face. She lowered her head slowly to his shoulder, damning all protocol to hell, if there even was protocol for maybe dying in a basement with your boss. When Hotch didn’t immediately pull away from her or shake her off his shoulder, she settled in and shut her eyes.

“You’re not dying here either,” she said. “Not if I can help it.”

For the first time in days, Evelyn slept.

She awoke to someone grabbing hold of her hand. Her first thought was that it was Hotch squeezing her in his sleep. But when she gasped and opened her eyes, she found that it was just Rosalie sitting in front of her. It was still dark outside. She thought that the woman had brought her more food, but she turned out to be wrong.

“We have to go,” Rosalie whispered. “We have to go.”

“What?”

“Shh, shh,” Rosalie put a shaking finger to her lips and pulled on Evelyn’s hand. “You were right. We have to go now.”

Rosalie pulled Evelyn to her feet, dragging her toward the door before she was even fully awake.

“Wait, stop,” Evelyn whispered, trying to shake herself awake.

“No, now! This is the only chance you have.”

Rosalie dragged Evelyn out of the basement doors and up the stairs into the house above. It wasn’t the same house that Hotch and Evelyn had been searching before, she could tell that even in the dark.

“Where are you taking me, Rosalie?”

“You have to get out of here, now! Jeremy doesn’t want to kill you, but he will,” Rosalie said, pulling her through the rundown and dirty home.

“Stop. Stop!” Evelyn dug her heels into the ground and forced Rosalie to stop. “I’m not leaving Aaron.”

“You don’t have time!” There was nothing but pure desperation in Rosalie’s voice. “Jeremy knows I left. He’s coming here. You have to go now or you’re not going at all.”

Evelyn wrenched her arm out of Rosalie’s grip.

“I’m not leaving him.”

“Jeremy will kill you.” Rosalie sounded desperate, terrified.

Evelyn shook her head and took a step backward.

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving him.” Rosalie’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Go. Call the police. Tell them where we are.”

Rosalie nodded her head.

“Go.”

Without another word, Rosalie turned around and ran from the house.

Evelyn watched her go. Her heart rate spiked when headlights flashed through the front window. All she could do for Rosalie was hope that she found some place to hide until Lions entered the house. If Lions was here, this was it. He was coming for Hotch.

Evelyn ran back to the basement as quietly as she could. She shut the basement door, hearing it lock with a heart wrenching click, just as the front door opened. She hurried down the stairs and dropped to the ground next to Hotch, startling him awake.

“What’s going on?” Hotch asked, still sounding stuck in sleep.

“Lions is here,” Evelyn whispered to him. “Rosalie is gone, she’s calling the police.”

“How-“

“We need a plan and quick,” Evelyn told him.

“We don’t know how long it will take for the police to respond,” Hotch replied quietly, his voice surprisingly calm. This might be his last few moments on earth, and he wasn’t terrified or angry or anxious. He was just calm. “All of his attention will be on me. You can escape then.”

She shook her head.

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“This isn’t a time for heroics.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

Before Hotch could argue, Evelyn pushed herself to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Hotch asked, standing after her.

“Like you said, Lions’ attention will all be on you. He won’t be expecting me.”

“Caro-“

She sunk into the shadows just as the door of the basement opened. Lions trudged down the stairs, grumbling to himself.

At the bottom of the stairs, he turned toward Hotch.

“Where’s the girl?” Lions asked, his voice low and gruff.

Hotch was silent.

“Doesn’t matter,” the unsub grumbled to himself. With his back to her completely, Lions started for Hotch. Evelyn would make sure he never reached him.

She crept out from her shadows, walking toward Lions. The ever present ache in her head from when Lions knocked her out didn’t even stop her. She was silent as she moved until she was right up behind him. In one quick motion, Evelyn kicked the back of his knee, dropping him to the ground before wrapping her arm around his neck.

Lions struggled against Evelyn. He was strong and she was weak from days with little food and water as well as the head injury. But she held on as tight to his neck as she could.

Hotch ran to check the basement door, but Lions had closed it, leaving it locked.

As he did so, Evelyn was so focused on keeping her grip on Lions, that she didn’t see his hand moving toward his pocket. He pulled out a knife and rammed it into her shin. She cried out, falling back and away from Lions.

“Evelyn!”

Hotch turned away from the door and ran back toward her as Lions stumbled away. Evelyn fell back against the support beam, lowering herself to the ground as she pressed her hands against the cut on her leg.

Hotch ran toward Evelyn, but Lions intercepted him. Fire spread throughout Evelyn’s leg, dark blood seeping through her fingers. She clenched her jaw in hopes of easing the pain. Hotch and Lions tumbled, a blur of bodies that Evelyn once again couldn’t distinguish. This scene was all too familiar to her.

Hotch was trained, but he was weak. Lions relied mostly on his size and strength, but lacked any formal training. Evelyn needed to get back into the fight, that was the only way Hotch would win this.

With a groan of effort and a sharp stabbing pain shooting through her leg, Evelyn forced herself to stand. Using the support beam as her support as well, she allowed herself a few moments to breathe through the pain before lurching forward.

Lions had Hotch pinned against the wall, his arm across his chest to keep him there. Evelyn hurtled toward Lions, pushing through the pain in her leg and barreled into him. This knocked him off balance. Being unable to stop herself once she started, she and Lions tumbled over each other until they were both on the ground. Hotch started forward to help Evelyn to her feet, but Lions had an arm around her waist and the knife pressed to her neck before either of them could really react.

“Back off,” Lions said, his voice even more gruff than before. Blood dribbled down from a broken nose and he wheezed, telling Evelyn that Hotch had hit him enough times near the diaphragm to knock the wind out of him.

The cool of the metal knife pressed against Evelyn’s throat didn’t scare her. Especially when she met Hotch’s gaze. That dead calm he always put forward she now felt flow through her veins. Everything was going to be okay, she could see it in his eyes. Evelyn breathed as shallowly as she could, trying to keep her throat from extending too far into the knife.

Lions pushed himself off the ground and brought Evelyn up with him. The knife cut into the first few layers of her throat and Evelyn flinched, feel the cool of her own blood dribble down her neck. Hotch put his hands in the air, trying to show that he meant Lions no harm.

“She’s not a part of this,” Hotch said. “You know that, Lions.”

“She’s a bitch is what she is,” Lions snapped, pressing the knife harder against Evelyn’s neck.

Hotch flinched forward and Evelyn shut her eyes.

“You want me, Lions, not her.” This was the calmness that Evelyn had never understood before. Her negotiation skills had never been good. Hotch said that she was too emotional. She cared too much and it was too easy to read in her voice. But Hotch was too good at pretending not to care at all. “Let her go and I’ll go with you.”

“No, Hotch-“

“Shut up,” Lions seethed in her ear. “You don’t get to talk.”

“Is that how you treat Rosalie, huh?” Evelyn asked, her hands on his arm that held the knife to her throat. “You call her a bitch and tell her shut up?”

“Be quiet!”

Evelyn could feel blood soak into her shirt, weighing it down.

“Lions, look at me,” Hotch said, pulling his attention away from Evelyn. “You can let her go.”

Evelyn felt her wounded leg start to grow numb and her balance shifted. In not too long, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to keep herself standing upright.

The door behind them burst open and Evelyn let out a gasp. Lions flinched and loosened his grip on her just enough that she broke free from him and stumbled forward, right into Hotch.

“Jeremy Lions, drop the knife and put your hands in the air!” Emily Prentiss said, her voice deep and commanding.

Evelyn’s leg gave out, every ounce of weight put on it causing a shooting pain up and down her entire body. Hotch held her up by her arms, her back pressed against his chest. He was the only thing keeping her standing and she could barely even do that.

Lions didn’t turn around, but he put his hands up in the air.

“Rosalie did this,” he said, his voice deadly low.

“Drop the knife, Lions,” Emily said again.

“You turned her against me.” Lions shifted his angered eyes away from Hotch and onto Evelyn. “You did.”

“I don’t want to shoot you, Lions, but I will.”

“You turned her against me!”

Lions took half a step toward them, the knife now facing her. Hotch turned Evelyn away, preparing to step between them, but Emily fired a single shot, the bullet tearing right through Lions’ shoulder. He fell to the ground with a cry of pain, the knife falling out of his grip.

Evelyn, still unable to stand on her own, turned to Hotch, her neck still bleeding.

“Are you okay?” she asked him, noting the bruises on his face.

“Are you guys alright?” Emily asked, her gun trained on Lions.

“We need a medic,” Hotch said. Emily nodded her head, her eyes flickering down the cut in Evelyn’s shin and neck.

Emily relayed the information through her earpiece, as well as saying the offender was down. Evelyn stayed leaned up against Hotch, his hands clinging to her arms to keep her steady, as Emily took Lions away in handcuffs.

Morgan and Reid came running into the basement along with the paramedics.

“Evie,” Morgan stepped toward her and she just smiled.

“We’re okay,” she told him.

“Ma’am,” the paramedic said. “Let’s get you to the ambulance.”

The paramedics stepped forward, one taking hold of Evelyn. The other moved toward Hotch.

“How are you feeling?” the paramedic asked him.

“Can you make it to the ambulance?” the paramedic asked Evelyn, who nodded her head.

“I can carry you,” Morgan said, stepping forward. Evelyn let out a quiet laugh.

“I can manage on my own, Derek,” she told him. Still, he followed her and the paramedic, his hands out just in case she started to fumble.

They helped her up the stairs and she looked back at Hotch, to find that his eyes were still on her. He nodded her head and she smiled at him.

The pain that flared throughout Evelyn’s leg was white hot, but with the paramedic taking most of her weight and Morgan just behind her, Evelyn was able to make it to through the house and to the ambulance without letting a single tear fall from her eye.

Hotch came out of the house a few minutes later, the paramedic still trying to get him to sit for a moment while Reid filled him in on everything they missed in the case.

“I’d like to speak with Rosalie,” Hotch said.

“She’s over here,” Reid said.

Hotch tried not to look over at the ambulance where he knew Evelyn was. He still had a job to do and he couldn’t focus on that if all he could think about was whether or not she was okay. He knew she was okay. She was always okay.

Rosalie sat in the back of one of the cop cars, her eyes closed and silent tears running down her cheeks. Hotch popped open the door, but she didn’t look at him.

“Is he alive?” she asked.

“He’ll survive,” Hotch told her. Rosalie let out a shaky breath and slowly opened her eyes. “Why did you help us?”

“I didn’t help you,” she said, looking away from him and toward the ambulance. “I helped Evelyn.”

Hotch scowled.

“She loves you, you know?”

Her words startled him and Hotch felt ice run through his blood.

“What?”

“She loves you. I gave her food at night but she’d only eat part of it, saved the rest for you. And last night I came to take her somewhere safe before Jeremy came back to kill you, but she refused to leave. I almost had her out of that house, but she ran back in. For you.”

Hotch looked down at his feet. He didn’t really expect anything less of Evelyn Caro. She always put everyone’s lives above her own. He shouldn’t expect her to act any different toward him.

But anger still bubbled up inside of him. She could have gotten herself killed and for what? She should have left him there and ran to get help. She should have….

“You better be damn sure you’re worth it.” Rosalie’s words were venom and Hotch could feel their sting deep in his blood.

Hotch shut the door, leaving Rosalie to her silence and grief. He turned to look at the ambulance, just as Morgan was stepping into the back. The paramedic shut the door, closing Hotch off from Evelyn. The siren started to blare, and the ambulance rolled out of the driveway.

“They’re taking her to the hospital,” Prentiss said, walking over to him. Hotch nodded his head. “Lost too much blood to just let her come back with us.”

“She kept antagonizing him,” Hotch said as he placed his hands on his hips. “If she had just let me go with him-“

“Caro was protecting you, sir,” Prentiss said. He looked at her, scowl deepening. “She knew that as soon as Lions had you, he would kill you. She had to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Hotch watched the ambulance as it drove away, the sirens ringing.

He never got the chance to ask if she was okay.

___

Evelyn lay back in her bed at the hotel, staring at the ceiling. A bandage wrapped around her leg and it itched, making it impossible for her to sleep. There was something else keeping her awake. Her mind reeled, the last few days playing over and over in her head. Trapped in a room with Hotch for days on end was the perfect time to talk to him about all the things that were bothering her, but even then, she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t even know where to begin because she didn’t even know what she was feeling anyway.

Sitting up with a huff, Evelyn glowered into the darkness. She threw off her blankets that were making her too hot, lowering herself onto the ground and landing on her good leg. She hobbled over to her discarded clothes and threw them back on.

Air was what she needed. A breath of fresh air. And then she’d be okay. She could go back to pretending that everything was fine and normal, like she always did.

As she pulled a coat onto her shoulders, she opened the door and froze.

Hotch was standing there, wearing a broken down version of his usual suit. His tie and jacket were discarded, his shirt buttoned up sloppily. She wondered if he had ever even gone to bed. And he was standing in front of her door, his hand not even raised to knock. He was just standing there.

He looked at her with wide eyes, shocked to find her there.

“Um, hi,” Evelyn said, dropping her hand from the doorknob.

“I just wanted to check to see how you were doing,” Hotch said.

“Hotch, it’s like three in the morning.”

He looked down at his hands. He was actually fidgeting. Something had made him motivated enough to come here, but nervous enough not to knock.

“I know. I can go-“

“No, wait.” He froze. “I never got to ask if you were okay.”

Hotch nodded his head.

“I’m okay.”

“Good.”

They stood there in silence. Evelyn felt her throat tighten every time she wanted to say something. Hotch wouldn’t look at her. The silence seemed to drag on for eternity before Hotch finally broke it.

“I talked to Rosalie, after everything, and she said something,” Hotch said. Evelyn finally put her eyes on him.

“What…what did she say?”

There were a thousand terrible things that Evelyn could think of that the woman could have possibly said to land her standing in front of her boss at three in the morning.

“She said that you had a chance to leave that house and you came back,” he told her. Evelyn straightened her back. This was going to be a lecture, she could just feel it coming. She just didn’t know why it couldn’t wait until morning. “Why?”

Evelyn scowled and looked at the ground, her hand still on the door.

“Why?” She repeated. “Because I couldn’t leave you there.”

“You should have.”

Evelyn felt her temper begin to rise. What was it with this man?

“A ‘thank you for saving my life’ would suffice,” she said, her tone harsh. “If I hadn’t come back, Lions would have killed you. From where I’m standing, I made the right decision.”

“And got yourself hurt in the process.”

“I’ll survive.” Hotch fell quiet again. “Listen, Aaron, if you’ve come to pick a fight, I think it can wait until morning.”

Evelyn took a step back and started to close the door, but Hotch lifted his hand and stopped it from closing. She looked over at him, jaw tightened, and found him staring back at her.

“I’m not here to pick a fight with you,” he said.

“Then why did you come?”

She could see the question rattling around in his brain, as if he had been asking himself that very same question ever since he left his room.

“I’m sick of this, Aaron,” she said finally, when he didn’t answer. “I’m sick of neither of us being able to say what we really mean. I’m sick of running in circles around each other. Just tell me why you came here.”

“I came to make sure you’re okay.”

“Mission accomplished then. I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She started to close the door again and this time he didn’t stop her.

“Rosalie also said you loved me.”

Evelyn froze, the door almost shut so she couldn’t see his face anymore. Which was good because it meant that he also couldn’t see hers and the fear that was etched into every feature. Her breathing became heavy, like every breath took so much more work. She closed her eyes, and slowly started to open the door again.

“Rosalie said that?” Hotch nodded his head once. “Did you believe her?”

He was quiet for a moment, letting out a long but quiet sigh.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a profiler. Tell me, what do you think?”

He took a while to answer.

“I think you’re a deeply compassionate person who cares for the team. I think you would give your life for any one of us in a heartbeat.” Evelyn looked down at her feet and Hotch tried to follow her eyes with his. “I know that you would never do anything to jeopardize the dynamics of this team because we’ve become your family.”

“Okay.”

“So, I don’t know how much of what you say and do is because the team is your family and how much is because-“

“-I love you.”

The words came from her mouth like any other fact would. She had known it for so long, never said it, not even to herself, but she knew it. And she managed to say it so casually. She was just completing his sentence after all.

Hotch stood still, as if trying to decide whether or not she was finishing what he was saying or confessing. He searched her eyes, but she stayed motionless. It was time he figured things out for himself, she decided. They’d both spent so long trying to figure the other out, it was high time someone just made the first move.

“When you were at Ralph Bennet’s house,” he said finally, “I had these horrible dreams about finding you there already dead. I was too late to save you.”

Evelyn could have sworn there were tears glimmering in his eyes.

“You did though, Aaron. You did save me.”

“But was I too late?” He asked. “Did I wait too long for…everything else?”

“What do you want, Aaron?” Her voice was just at a whisper, her hand still on the door.

It was the last time she would ask. This was the last time and then she’d let it go, let him go. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life, however short that might be, pining after one man.

Hotch surprised her then. He didn’t say anything else, he didn’t try to talk. Talking was clearly getting him nowhere. Everything he said somehow came out wrong. Instead, he took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. Putting a hand to her cheek, he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers.

His answer was clear. It took her a few moments to over come her shock, but when she did, she reached out to grab hold of his shirt collar, pulling him in closer.

She pulled him into her room and shut the door, leaving the hallway empty and quiet.

Her room was still dark as he moved her backward, his hands never leaving her. He thought he had lost her. But here she was, with him, and that’s all he needed.

“You,” he whispered against her skin. “Just you.”

Every raging fire that made up Evelyn Caro met the calm seas that built Aaron Hotchner, burning and boiling and soothing in every possible way.

He kissed her lips, her bruised cheek bone, her jaw. His hands rested against the side of her neck, gently though, so as not to irritate her wound. She tugged at his wrinkled shirt, trying to pull him closer.

Hotch knew this was breaking protocol. But he left behind every rule in the book when he left his room two hours ago. Every inch of contact with her made his stomach twist, every time her teeth grazed his lip made his heart pound. For so long he had wanted her and for so long he had pretended otherwise. He was so, so tired of pretending.

He was pulling off her shirt and she didn’t stop him and he didn’t stop himself, but he couldn’t. He just needed all of her.

Evelyn gasped, her intake of breath so sharp that Hotch pulled away. She breathed raggedly, her chest rising and falling.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his eyes moving to her neck.

Consumed by her, he had forgotten the shape she was in. He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.

“I’m not that fragile,” she told him. There was a smug look on her face, her lips twitched up into a smile.

Hotch leaned forward to kiss that smile, soft and gentle. His hands dropped to her waist and he kissed her again. He intended to pull away, leave her be for the night, but every time he tried, he came back to her like a magnet.

Evelyn had just as hard as a time keeping away from him. His calloused hands were grazing over her sides, her waist, her stomach, her back. Her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Her heart pounded like a drum beat in her chest, so hard that she could hear it in her ears and it made her hands shake.

She expected him to stop her, to realize what he was doing and take her hands a politely decline, but when the last button came undone, he pulled away from just long enough to take the shirt off himself.

Hotch put his lips back on hers as soon as he could. Evelyn smiled against his kiss.

As if she had burned him, he suddenly stepped away, leaving Evelyn leaning against the wall, heaving for breath. He stared at her, his own breath ragged, his dark eyes smoldering.

“Is something…did I…?”

Shame pooled in Evelyn’s cheeks, making them burn. There she was, completely and utterly exposed, barely able to stand well enough on her own to scurry away.

“You’ve had a very hard year, Evelyn,” he said.

She tilted her head to the side and looked at the ground, locking her jaw.

“Hotch….”

“And I can’t take advantage of-“

“Aaron!” She said with a laugh, forcing him to look at her. “I’m fine. This is fine, more than fine.”

“Is it what you want?” he asked.

She gave a small smile and heaved out a sigh.

“Aaron Hotchner,” she said. “Have I ever done anything I haven’t wanted to?”

Lifting a hand, she curled her finger, beckoning for him. He stepped toward her until he was just a breath away.

“I’ll tell you if I need to stop,” she said to him, just above a whisper.

Evelyn reached up and kissed him again. It took him a few moments to respond, but once he accepted what she said, he leaned into her.

He placed a hand on her chest, right over her heart.

And for once, in a very, very long time, that wound in her soul didn’t feel so gaping.

[bloodycassian]

FIRE AND ICE PART TWO - GRIEF

His lack of faith in you seemed to grow with each passing day that you ignored him. He tried bringing you food, tried making jokes. You had a sneaking suspicion he tried to send Mor in to try to talk to you too. But she just read beside you in bed, munching on the plate of cookies he had ordered to your room. 

"I'm not going to say dont be mad it him, but maybe just... hear him out." Mor said, shutting her book. You glared at her. "I know, I know.... but just maybe-"

"He hasn't bothered to apologize. Why would I hear him out when he doesn't even try to hear me out!?" You let her hear the kindling fire that had been building over the last few days. The words came out with precision and cut even her deep. 

"Cassian can be stupid-" 

"He's an idiot." You spat. 

She sighed, and sat up from the pillow stack that you shared. She could see the predator waiting to be released under your skin. And she didn’t want to be the one to let it free. So she went the gentle route. The one she knew would knock you free of the anger. "He wanted to keep you safe." the words hit your weak spot for the male. 

You shoved it away, disregarding the vulnerability. "By shaming me?" She was surprised. Cassian hadn't shown any sign of falseness when she had spoken to him. He had just seemed concerned. You laughed bitterly. "He forgot to mention the part where he guilted me into leaving. He thinks I'm a doll he needs to protect." You cringed away from the words that you knew he saw as being true. The shame filled you further. Like a sinking ship, it only brought you lower and lower. 

She stared at you, those piercing eyes so different from Rhys' bored into you. Her next words were carefully chosen. "Give him.. time." She concluded. You stared after her as she made her way to the door. 

Two days later you had cooled off after a sparring with Feyre and Rhys. As if he had been told of your more pleasant mood, Cassian appeared on your balcony with a bundle of wildflowers and a basket of bath supplies. Your favorites, of course. You didn't hesitate to take them. You gave him a once over - that stupid apologetic half smile he wore dug into your heart. You rolled your eyes at him and turned, heading for the bathroom. 

+

He made love to you that night. Long and slow. apologetic in every way. Sensual, caring and so good. When you woke the next morning, he was gone. Just a note left on your bedside table. 

"Back before lunch" it promised. You sighed and threw it on the floor. The same frustration as before returning to you. The unsatisfied feeling of needing to fight - to get the rage out. To have him just yell at you already. To let the words you knew he wanted to say finally come out. “I can’t do this anymore.” 

The nightmare of those words lingered throughout your slow morning. By lunch there was still no sign of Cassian.

So much for round two.

+

You picked at your dinner impatiently. The various fruits and meats on the table didn't appeal. Especially for such an early dinner. You were hoping to train but Rhys and Azriel weren’t back from their meeting yet, so you decided on a much too early feast for yourself. You couldnt bring yourself to have a bite though. You watched the snowdrifts billow outside the house of wind instead. They flurried down the mountains, shimmering like diamonds in the afternoon light. You could imagine how it sounded rushing down the steep peaks of the mountain. The soft tinkling sound they made when hitting your hair. Your wings flexed involuntarily. 

Mor strode in with a small box in her hands. "Good morning." She chittered, placing the box on the table in front of you. "Whats this?" You asked, skimming a finger over the lid. "A gift." She began walking away without a look back. 

"From?" the box seemed to hum with anticipation. 

"Open it and find out." She called from the doorway. Your stomach suddenly spiked with nerves. 

"For the one you lost. -Cas" 

The one you lost?! The ignorant note made your blood boil. He was the one that had caused you to lose it. You didnt even want the damned gift if he was going to be such an asshole about it. But you couldn't ignore the beauty of the blade that lay before you. Among dark satin lining lay a gorgeous handmade dagger. Black stained metal with a simple leather hilt. Curved at the tip with deadly sharpness. You picked an apple from the table, and tested the knife. 

It sliced through like butter, leaving no jagged edges over the skin of the fruit. You inspected the mark, noting the spot of red on the inside of the apple. Your heart dropped. "Shit." 

You hadn't even felt the cut, the blade was so sharp. You wrapped your loose shirt around the wound on your finger and set the knife back in the box. The blood dripped on the dark lining. Staining the perfection of it. 

+

You sparred with Azriel that evening, working off your frustration with Cassian. He went easy on you, noting the wrapping on your fingers. He didnt ask about it though. The session was more quiet than usual, even for Az. He stopped abruptly mid swing, letting you catch his torso with the training sword. Cassian landed behind you. He had his hands up in defense before you could even open your mouth.  

"You smell like blood." You accused. "And mud." 

"So do you." He gave Azriel a nod, and the shadowsinger excused himself. suspicion grated at your nerves. You set your jaw and put your sword away, ignoring the new blood spots blooming on the bandage. He squinted at it, you cut him off before he could say anything.

"Cassian..." You leveled a look at him. 

He kept his composure, ripping those hazel eyes from your injury. "Dont worry about it. I got it handled."

"You’re half a day late and - wait….Got what handled?!" You squeaked. You disregarded his tardiness all together. The sheepish look on his face said all you needed to know.

You wanted to hear him admit it. That he went and finished the job without you. You needed to hear him admit it. You realised you were tense, waiting to fight. Your wings were tucked in protectively behind you, and your fists clenched at your sides ached.

"Dont-"

"If you say dont worry about it again I am going to throw you off this house." You ground out through your teeth.

He did not laugh, like you would have expected. He just looked away. On the back of his neck you noticed the thin scratches and the dirt that marred his tunic. Your eyes stung with tears. The betrayal hitting you like a ton of bricks. "I did, alright?" He said, voice low. "I took care of it."

"What the fuck, Cassian?!" You exploded, "The bath, the flowers what - so I would be less suspicious?" You recalled the night before, the slow tenderness of him. The 

"What? No - I got that because I love-"

"Dont say its because you love me. You could have been killed. You lied to me." You could feel the blood pounding in your temples, fueling the rage that lashed out. Tears threatened to spill over. 

"I didnt lie!" His voice echoed against the far wall of the training ring. "And you were almost killed too. I couldn't risk that again."

"It wasn't even close to that bad!" You shouted back, not caring how the birds quieted. Your rage matched his, possibly exceeded it at times. You knew that on previous experiences. You'd done a lot more than make nature quiver at the tones you brought. 

"It was bad enough." He said with finality, his tone somber. He leaned against the weapons rack and tapped his toe against it anxiously. You stared him down, daring him to say more. Waiting to strike out against the next words you knew he wanted to say. What you knew he was thinking.

"You're not strong enough on your own."

You didn't need any more of his excuses. You didnt need to hear the words to know that he wanted to say them. You scoffed. It caught his attention. 

"Where are you going?" He asked. A request, not a demand. You didn't oblige him. You just leapt off the side of the the wide cliffside and let your wings pull you up, high into the air. You kept soaring, pushing and pushing until your lungs hurt with the stinging of the air. 

+

Az's cool shadows did not touch you when he landed. The rustling of the long grass around his pants was little more than a whisper. 

"He sent you didnt he?" You wiped your cold nose on your sleeve and attempted to piece yourself together. Things with Cas had gotten just so difficult lately. You didnt know why. He was constantly just... hovering. It made you claustrophobic. You hadn't been forgiving about it either. He wasn't the only one to blame. 

"He didn't..." Azriel stood beside you. You didnt feel his cold eyes that always seemed to pierce into you. You looked up at him to confirm your thoughts, and he was indeed looking over the grand lake you had parked yourself at. Among a valley of trees and violet flowers, the polished surface of the water seemed like a mirror. 

"Then why are you here?" Your words were laced with the venom Cas had left you with.

He was quiet for only a moment, before calmly speaking again. "To make sure you're alright."

"I dont need anyone looking after me. I'm not a child." You spat bitterly. The sunset overhead darkened, slowly making its way down behind the mountains. 

"I know. I came here for myself." His words held no double meaning. No doubt ringing through them. "I wanted to see you." He said simply. He didnt have the arrogant air of someone coming to the rescue. You appreciated that. It took a weight of your chest.

"Why?" You demanded more than asked. You really didnt care what your tone was like. He was the one offering to stay beside you.

He shrugged, and gestured to the large boulder you leaned against. "May I?" He asked. You shrugged back - weakly -, and he sat. You watched the sun disappear completely together. You through clouded, swollen eyes. 

He said nothing, didn't even look at you besides when you choked out a sob. Then his leg was there, subtle and warm. You didn't feel a sting of pride when you leaned against the welcome comfort. He didn't complain when your tears soaked through his pants, or when your cried rocked his body as well. 

[ackerpreach]

This ending .... I can name 500 reasons and I will name them right now, because I don’t think I’m the only one who is upset with how things turned out. (Also, A positive message for all of you at the end)

MAJOR LEAKS SPOILERS/ READ WITH CAUTION

Update: after reading more theories from fellow RM bloggers, and sleeping over it one day, this entire chapter might be an april fools... Don't fully lose hope yet beautiful people. It's me just giving a review on a possible fake April fools chapter

After following this franchise since 2013, so nearly a DECADE. this ending is a pure disserve to the entire fandom. I feel like Yams has rushed it just for the sake of being done with the entire manga. So many things are left open, characters and their developemt are reverted back all the way to chapter 1 or are left even worse than that...

Mikasa’s worthless character development/ Aaronmika’s horrible toxic codependent relationship 

Oh honey... Let’s start with how horrible Isayama has treated her. We were all rooting for her, because we all felt like she was so misunderstood. She had a horrible childhood and imprinted on a guy who treated her like trash 99 percent of the story. And then, slowly but surely, she starts to realize she has to stop obsessing over him in the uprising arc with the help of a real man who treats her like a queen, more importantly, he treats her like a real human being. This man sees her for her abilities and that she has the power to be self dependent. She learned parts of herself, that she was able to work together with him like no one else could.  She learned parts of herself she was unable to do so if she kept obsessing about Aaron. All this love, care, mutual understanding and RESPECT these two shared. 

but...NAH FUCK THAT, right Yams?? Throw all this development away, all this bonding. Let’s make the main female lead even more yandere than she already was in the first season. Let her make out with his decapacitated head (like dude, this is also pure disrespect to Aaron’s dead body btw) and let her obsess even more about the guy who has treated her no better than a piece of toilet cloth 99 percent of the time. The guy who was never really appreciative in front of her for saving his ass billions of times, who always pushed her away, who yells at her and snaps at her whenever he can instead of reasoning and talking calmly with her in mature way. (EVEN PARODY YOUTUBE CHANNELS WHO DONT SHIP ANYTHING MAKE IT A TROPE WHERE AARON TELLS MIKASA HE HATES HER GUTS WHENEVER HE CAN) 

Then after all that, suddenly Yams tries to last minute persuade us Aaron’s always been head over heels for her???  He should have build their relationship better which he hasn’t even tried to do so... He must be thinking his fans are stupid for eating this from his hands.    

Like seriously??? What is this??? 

Isayama is just fully contradicting himself. It’s like someone tipped him off with a buttload of money for him to write Aaron like this to satisfy shipping needs and to cash in those extra money’s from it. Even if he tried to cater to Erem*ika, this is not how you write a loving and caring couple which people will root for. 

This next two panels just freaking infuriates me to the core of my soul. I can’t even describe how dissapointed I am with Mikasa. 

Why is she clutching that head so obsessively like that?  Why is she walking and turning her back away from her comrades? After everything they have done for her, after all they’ve been through?! After everything Armin has done? Standing up for Mikasa, beating up Aaron for hurting her. I feel like even Jean, Connie and Sasha have cared more for her in a healthy way.  Sure, Aaron cares for her romantically too apparently (What a twist Yams :)), but has he aided her to becoming a mentally healthier individual? Has he aided in her mental stability? The answer is a big fat NO!  All I see between these two after today’s raw Chapter’s are too Yandere obsessed individuals who have no clue on how to maintain a healthy relationship. 

Love should only go as far as the heart can endure and it seems like her character is not willing to be aware of that. Even Armin was able to let go of Aaron in those latest panels. Why does her entire character resolve around this guy??? I really do not understand. Her Ackerbond and her age is not an excuse for her to throw her life away like this. 

Shonen’s disgusting portrayal of women 

I’ve seen this countless of times in the many years I’ve watched anime. SasuS*ku from Naruto, Ichih*me from Bleach, Shinji and that oranged hair girl from Neon Evangelion.. Why do these women get decreased to simpletons with one single goal? And that is to obsess over a bland male lead who either treats them like trash or doesn’t notice them up until the last last chapter (LITERALLY WHAT YAMS HAS DONE). Some go even as far as the male leading wanting the kill the female love interest and yet the female lead is still in love with them???. It’s disgusting for him to write the MAIN female character this way. 

It’s dissapointing we believed in Isayama doing Mikasa’s character right. That she’s finally being able to let go of her codependency and to live for herself maybe live in Hizuru and find more about her roots???, but every single time she shows some improvement, it’s burried deep in the ground again by the Author. It almost seems like a lowkey kink of some of the male Mangaka’s to write about a girl obsessing over them no matter what. I see this so many times to the point that I truly stand behind it that some of them might have this fantasy. 

I wished he didn’t portray her last panels like this. Everyone else is living their lives while Mikasa is still grieving about him. I’m not saying she’s not allowed to grieve and everyone takes it at their own pace, but cmon... Show her living her life too. This is too much. Her being next to his grave and grieving him as her last panels just shoves it in our faces that YET AGAIN, BEING OBSESSED WITH AARON IS ALL HER CHARACTER STANDS FOR. 

I truly despise how Isayama handles her grieving, kissing his decapacitated head, carrying it around like some handbag, and her last panels being thissss.

The world leaving Paradis alone miraciously after all that??? 

It’s so weird and out of place with so many political feuds and disagreements between the world and Paradis, the entire Rumbling happening and we can see Mikasa just chilling outside in Paradis with no one bothering them. You can see the rings of the walls in the picture below.  I don’t know the exact reason behind as the manga is still in Korean, but from what I see, the story went the route of: throwing a happy ending without enough proper reason and  it was all fixed just like that in a snap! It doesn’t fit the entire narrative of attack on titan for things to be so peacful out of nowhere. When it comes to the narrative, how things work in that world, how hard it is to achieve peace, everything made somewhat sense up until chapter 138. 139 seems so so out of place...  It’s like I’m reading a chapter from a totally different manga. 

Aaron Yoghurt got defeated so easily/ Aaron’s character assassination

The build up on the first part of the rumbling was great, those kids carrying coins. You could feel humanity’s fear and Aaron’s hatred in those pages. As if he truly had a goal and he has turned away completely from his comrades and his closest friends with no return. The world seemed truly doomed, but he  got defeated just like that. He was in the nape all this time (because screw the warhammer power of hiding yourself elsewhere in his ginormous titan body). There is no master plan as we all expected, and in the end he just acts all yandere in the paths with Armin and that’s it... They massacared his entire character as well. Many fan theories created a better ending with his character. Him being reincarnated as Historia’s baby would be so much better. For him to still keep on seeking and to strive for power. It has always been his motive. It’s his personality from the start until chapter 138. Even if things are okay, to keep on going and to seek that adventure, but then.. He’s so weak and directionless suddenly.. It’s so weird... This is not Aaron at all???

Using Aaron for him this entire post, because I don’t want others to invade our tags... :)))

Historia’s baby 

The only panel we got from Historia’s child was this. Just a normal kid, normal life... Why did Isayama put so much effort in highlighting Historia’s pregnancy if it was nothing too spectacular anyway? It seemed he had major plans for this kid and for their development too??? It’s again, big plans, big developments, big relationship dynamic, but all  got thrown out of the window... 

Don’t read the next sentence if you are a minor :’) 

It’s like almost ejaculating, but stopping right before it and repeating that every single Arc.

My energy when writing about this chapter is the same as Nostalgia Critic and his hatred for atla the live action

In Conclusion...

I know us fans should not be deciding on how this story should end, because this is Isayama’s story after all, but I truly wished for him to wrap up things much more rounded. There are so many unanswered questions... Again, I think for the sake of being done with this manga, he rushed all of it. He’s become a millionaire from this story and now his pockets are jammed full, I guess he doesn’t need to put in any effort anymore, right? Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I really wished he cared for his fans a little bit more with this last chapter by giving some answers that make sense at least. It’s his fans who gave him this platform and the opportunity to tell his story and for him to at least give in a bit of effort especially in the last chapter is the least he can do. Rivamika being canon or not, he truly rushed it without thinking much about the entire story line. He expanded it so much, he didn’t know how to bind it all together.

Even after all this, I’ll still ship them in the headcanon type of way. I do give credit to Isayama for giving us a template for such a beautiful dynamic between Levi and Mikasa. He decides to waste it, but that doesn’t mean we have to.  I want to thank all the people with amazing writing skills, the ones who give us beautiful art like @carmenlee @phit chan @vialesana​ and many more. I want to remind all of you that we can create something beautiful of our own and we don’t neccesarily need canon lore for that. The art I’ve seen, the fanfictions I’ve read have touched me deeper than Isayama ever could at times.The Mikasa in our mind is appreciate of Levi, is mature, classy and has a strong will for herself. They spend their remaining days together peacefully. Keep writing, keep drawing, stay creative. 

I love you all so so much, I’ve only been publicly active since March, but thank you Rivamika fandom for giving me so much joy as a lurker these past 7 years <3

[boobz-fye]

Comforting them after losing a game

Includes: Oikawa Tooru, Ushijima Wakatoshi, Kageyama Tobio, and Keiji Akaashi x G/N reader.

Warnings: the boys doubting themselves and cursing(I think I only said one bad word in kageyamas but whatever)

Rant: Ok, I feel like this post is actual shit. Like I say that about almost all of my posts- but this one is very bad. The only good one is Ushijimas I think, so I hope I do all of the characters a little justice tho. Also sorry that I haven't been posting much (for like two weeks) I have been very busy, and been dealing with writer's block. I will try and post something else some time next week. Think it's gonna be fluff for MHA tho. Anyways, HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS!!!!!

Oikawa Tooru~

It all happened too fast. He could have sworn that they were just in the lead, ahead of Shiratorizawa by two points. He was so close to beating them. And now what is he going to say to you, or the team? He promised all of you that they will win this only to not fulfill it. Slowly dragging his feet out of the gym, Oikawa starts to feel tears building up in his vision. ‘No you can't cry right now.’ Oikawa thinks as he starts to pick up a pace. Maybe this is all just a bad dream and he will wake up soon.. Yeah that sounds right. He can wake up and have a fresh start of the day, win against Shiratorizawa, then celebrate with his team mates, and to top it all off go over your house and cuddle the whole night.  Oh how lovely that sounds, only if that wasn't another fantasy planted in his head.

Overwhelmed with emotions Oikawa finally comes out of the locker rooms, only to see you sitting on the floor. “What are you still doing here baby?” You look up to see Oikawa putting on a fake smile that makes your heart break. “Come here..” You say rising to a standing position, with your arms open and welcoming. Oikawa doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around you, and be consumed by your warmth. “You did amazing out there handsome.” Those few words made Oikawa feel butterflies in his stomach. The only thing that could make him feel better were your praises. But he still couldn't help the small ache in his chest, remembering that he promised everyone that they would win this game and make it to nationals. “If I did good then why didn't we win?” He says with a slight crack in his voice, making an ache of your own spread through your chest. “Maybe it was just luck. You were only off by one point, plus if it makes you feel better you'll be able to beat their ass in spring!” A breathy chuckle escaped from Oikawa's mouth, causing a grin to form on your face. “You're right baby, we will beat them in spring.”

Ushijima Wakatoshi~

Ushijima wasn't used to losing. The reality didn't hit him until he heard the opposing teams audience cheer. Looking over to the scoreboard when he hears the whistle being blown, only to see that his team has lost. A bitter taste settles on Ushijima’s tongue. But he is once again pulled out of his thoughts by a hand resting on his shoulder. He turns around to see his team standing behind him with a look of true defeat. “C’mon Ushijima, we have to line up” Tendou says with a tone a little different from his usual cheery one. Not knowing what to say Ushijima just grunts with a small nod.

Walking outside of the gym Ushijima starts to replay the game in his head to try and see where they went wrong, but soon was interrupted by some arms wrapping around him from behind. “Hi bubs.” you say nuzzling your head into his back. “Hello Y/N.”  “Soooo…” you try to think of what to say that will make Ushijima feel better, but it's hard to do so when he can be very blunt at some points and not understand what you are trying to get at. “Yes?” Ushijima says tugging at the sleeve of your jacket to gain your attention back to him. “How are you feeling after the game?” There is a little moment of silence that comes over the two of you causing a slight panic cloud in your mind, because what if he took your question the wrong way- “I don’t know how to feel about losing, I'm upset because we put a lot of effort in that game just to lose. But they won fairly, so I guess that just shows that we weren't good enough.” Ushijima states bluntly. You're kind of taken back by his answer, but notice how his eyes show more emotion than his words. You could tell that he was more than just upset. “Don't say that Ushijima, you guys did amazing out there. You guys were only off by a couple points!” You say as you take Ushijima’s hand into your own. “But still we tried our best and it wasn't enough.” You felt his hands tremble a little in your touch, looking at him with a soft gaze you say “I'm sorry bub, you will get them next time though, I know you will because you are good enough.” Ushijima nods and mumbles a thank you, while gently squeezing your hand. It's times like this, when Ushijima shows you his vulnerable side, that you hold dear to your heart.

Kageyama Tobio~

Kageyama dreaded feeling the pain in his chest after losing a game. He would never get used to it, and doesn't really care enough too anyways. Maybe if he didn't send the ball to Hinata, knowing that the idiot will just close his eyes, then they could have won. But even then Oikawa’s tricky serves would still be a pain to work around. Not to mention how fast the whole team learns their opponents weaknesses. Kageyama had gotten so lost in his thoughts that he forgot he had to meet up with you at a cafe in 6 mins. Today seems to just get worse and worse by the second and he doesn't know if he will be able to keep himself together for much longer.

You hear the bell on the cafe door ring, causing you to turn around and see that all too familiar face. Kageyama walks over to you and takes his seat. Only when he finally looks up you notice that he is panting. “Did you run all the way here kags?” “Yeah, would have been late if I didn't.” Kageyama never liked being late to anything that has to do with you, it makes him feel guilty, and he doesn't want to add upsetting you to the list of shitty things that have happened today. “I'm ok with you being a little late baby, especially when you just got back from your game…” Kageyeama drops his gaze back down to the table remembering that was the first game you got to see him play in just for them to lose, how embarrassing- “Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up.” you say rubbing the back of your neck. “It's ok….”  “Look at the menu and pick what you want, it's on me!” Kageyama shoots his head up and stares at you with wide eyes “Idiot im not letting you pay.” He mumbles while a blush spreads across his face. “Aww c'mon babe I can pay, let me get you some comfort food!” “Comfort food?” “Yeah food always helps me with stress” Before Kageyama could think over his next words, his mouth and brain betrayed him. “I think cuddles would make me feel better.” Both of you are taken back by his words, Kageyama was always so stubborn, forcing you to pick up hints from his behavior and piece them together to know what he wants. But you don't mind the forwardness; it helps you get straight to the point. Kageyama on the other hand is freaking out, he doesn't know if he was being too blunt or not, and your silence is not helping. “Never mind… forget what I said” “Whattttt, that sucks cause I was going to say yes but since you insist.” “Shut up, we can head over to mine after eating, the meal that I will be paying for, and cuddle. Now pick what you want already I don't have all day.” “Sir yes sir!” You say with a salute. “Dont do that you look dumb” Kageyama says, while trying to supress a grin. “You're so meannnnn” You whine with a pout. Even though Kageyama is teasing you the only thing you seem to be able to focus on is the way he starts to let loose and laugh around you. And when you look into his eyes all you see is love, not a trace of sorrow.

Akaashi Keiji~

It's only been a few minutes since the tragic game has ended and akaashi is already past the limit of stress he can handle. From the fact that they actually lost a game, while also trying to encourage the team and tell them that they will do better next time, and also trying to help bokuto get out of emo mode akaashi was starting to get a headache and wanted to just go home to sulk and attempt to relax. So once when he gets out of the shower akaashi throws on some clothes and runs out the locker room to the front gate. Not expecting you to be there waiting for him.

As Akaashi approaches the front gate he sees you standing there alone. “Y/N, what are you doing here? It's getting late.” “I know, I just wanted to check up on you” Akaashi looks into your worried eyes, causing him to feel a little guilt. Is he the cause of the expression on your face? “Oh well then can I walk you home?” You nod in approval, letting him take your hand and lead the way. A comfortable silence takes over the two of you, but you still can't help but feel like something is still off about Akaashi today, and none of his fake smiles and replies will put this thought at ease. “Hey Akaashi?” “Yes?” you stay silent for a little trying to think of the right words to say. “You know you guys did amazing at the game today right?” Akaashi hums in response, as the hold on your hand becomes a little shaky. “Good, because it's the truth. Just don't beat yourself up about it, you're great at what you do. Even though you guys didn't win I know you are still deserving of it. The only reason your opponents had a chance, was because of the chance balls. Plus you and your team have way more chemistry with each other then they did, it's almost like all of you can read each other's minds… Sorry I was rambling again.” Akaashi turns around and stares at you this time with a real smile on his face. “It's ok love, I think it's cute when you run your mouth. Now why don't we head over to your house instead? I want you to help me get rid of my stress, ok?” “And how can I help you with that?” Akkashi brings your hand towards his lips and gives it a quick kiss. “Cuddles of course, and let me eat whatever food you got in your house.” Akaashi says with a wink. On your way home you can't help but admire your caring boyfriend, always making time for you even when he's too emotionally and physically tired.

[ethanesimp]

LET ME GO // V. D. A.

Pairing: Servant! Victoria De Angelis x Royal GN! Reader

Summary: You're cornered into making a decision that won't only break your heart but Vic's too.

Request: Maybe something that makes me cry

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death threats and death, arranged marriage, swearing

Word Count: 3.1k

Masterlist // Taglist link in bio

Taglist: @superchrystaldrug @reputationdamiano @ethaneskin @dont-let-me-drown-in-you @bidet-and-legolas​

A/N: I hope this is sad enough nonnie and that you like it :) It's my first time writing for Vic so I hope y'all enjoy reading as much as I did writing it! And yess, we’re still continuing this angst fest :)

Love was a double-edged sword.

That was one of the first things you learned in your life. You’d see people in pain, crying and destroying themselves for it. It took you a long time to understand why one would do so much for a person, what was so special about them to sacrifice so much?

It took Victoria for you to fully understand. She was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful, energetic, and sweetest people you’d ever met. Those gorgeous blue eyes and endearing laugh made you fall head over heels for the girl you often saw around the castle ever since you were little. 

Ever since you shared your first kiss with her at the back of the stables while your friend Thomas looked out for guards, you knew your relationship was going to live on borrowed time but had always refused to dwell on the thought too much.

You were aware the circumstances you lived in were like a ticking time bomb stuck to your back. It was far too obvious and you’d be too naïve to think otherwise considering you were a member of royalty and the kingdom would eventually be your burden to carry. However, what you weren’t aware of was how easily things would fall apart or when, or how quickly. 

You’d already spent three years of pure bliss next to Victoria, sneaking around the castle and stealing moments and memories only the two of you knew about. You couldn’t deny that you’d always longed for more, to be able to show all your love for her in public and ask her to rule the kingdom by your side, but no amount of dreaming or wondering about what if’s would ever make your situation any different.

Six words were all it took for your bubble of denial to finally burst. Those six little words kept on repeating inside your head over and over again as you held Victoria in your arms. Her pretty eyes were looking into yours and a sad smile adorned her face as you brushed her hair back with your fingers. You could see the tears in her eyes and knew she could see yours, but neither of you dared to comment on it yet.

It was a delicate subject and neither of you wanted to talk first in fear of triggering an argument, even if you were both aware it was coming soon and there was no way to stop it. So you just sat there together in complete silence. The only thing that could be heard was the sporadic sounds of the window creaking because of the wind and the soft crack of wood burning on the large fireplace. 

You placed a soft peck on her lips and caressed her cheek delicately with your thumb, also removing the tears from her rosy cheeks. You pressed your forehead against hers and tightly closed your eyes as you smelled the sweet scent of flowers that hung in the air because of the small flowers woven into her light hair. 

Her arms were tightly wrapped around your body as if she was afraid that you’d suddenly vanish in the form of smoke and would slip from her fingers. You held her closer as a form of reassurance and sighed when you felt her once quiet sobs turn so violent they’d shake her whole body. 

“I’m sorry,” You mumbled and rubbed circles on her exposed back. You wanted nothing more than to take away all the pain she felt and let her know things would be alright, but you didn’t want to lie to her either, “I’m so sorry you had to see all that amore.”

She shook her head and buried her face against your chest as she cried harder. Victoria had always been so strong, so unbreakable, yet those six little words had just broken her and her heart into a thousand pieces. 

You’re getting married tomorrow. No questions. 

You’d been set to marry the heir of a nearby kingdom ever since you were a little kid, promised away to the other royal in exchange for resources to save a dying kingdom and they’d told you all about it in front of your friends… and your girlfriend. 

Your father had made you meet them right in front of her. The young royal, ignorant to your situation, had even gone as far as to kiss both your cheeks and quickly peck your lips. You had all been so taken aback by it, but no one commented on it because it would look suspicious. 

Even though all you wanted to do was take Victoria and run as far away as your legs would take you, the conversation you’d had with your father just minutes before the announcement stopped you from even trying. 

He looked exasperated, angry. You’d tried to browse your mind for anything you’d done wrong as of late but couldn’t come up with anything. There was no reason for him to be as mad as he seemed. 

“I seem so stupid to you, don’t I? You ungrateful child,” He’d spoken, tone sharp and voice laced with venom. You had flinched at how harsh his words sounded, still clueless as to what he was talking about, “I could put up with you not giving a shit about the Kingdom that will soon be yours because you’d have to stop that childish behavior of yours. But sneaking around with a maid’s daughter? That’s just ludicrous!”

Your heart fell to your stomach right then and there. He knew.

“I have tried so much, given you every single thing you wanted to hopefully get you to listen, but I’m tired of playing nice. You’re getting married tomorrow. No questions. And don’t you dare try and run away unless you want all her friends and family killed the second you step foot out of this castle.”

 She thankfully hadn’t heard your father’s words and you weren’t planning on telling her a thing. You knew for sure that if she’d heard, you would’ve already lost her. She had always been one to stand up against things that were wrong, and that time wouldn’t have been an exception. Unfortunately, your father was anything but lenient and you had no doubt that if she even thought of raising her voice at him things would end in chaos. 

“This is so unfair,” She murmured against your chest as more sobs escaped her lips. You stroked her head gently and nodded, “I know it is, I know.”

Then, she raised her head and looked at you with excited eyes as she wiped her tears away. She had an idea and you had a feeling you wouldn’t like it, “Let’s run away, Y/N. Right now. I have an aunt who lives far away in a kingdom where they will never find us! And we can be happy.”

Your gaze softened at her words. There was nothing you wanted more than to run away with Victoria, far from your parents and the responsibilities you’d been born into. You would’ve tried it too had your father not threatened to kill her family and friends if you did so. But you weren’t going to say a thing. 

“Victoria… We can’t- I can’t,” Her smile fell the moment she heard your words. She pulled away and left your embrace, making you instantly miss the warmth of her body pressed against yours.

Victoria sat down next to you, her eyes focused on yours as if she were trying to read your mind, “What do you mean you can’t? This hasn’t been the first time we’ve talked about it and you’ve always agreed to do it if we ever needed it, which we do now. What’s changed?” 

You had to look away after hearing just how hurt she sounded. You didn’t want to see her cry again because you knew you’d end up telling her every single thing your father told you. Anything would’ve been better than having to tell her, so you decided to say something that would not only break her heart but yours too, “I just can’t, okay? Vic, we were being childish! I cannot just flee the kingdom and expect no consequences. That was a stupid idea that would never work. I need to serve my duty, not run off with some servant’s daughter and forget all about my responsibilities here!”

She moved even further away from you. Victoria didn’t even try to hide the hurt caused by your words, “Oh, okay. I get it now,” She nodded and laughed bitterly as she turned around and gathered all the clothes that had previously been scattered all over the room, ”All this time I’ve been nothing but a fool...

“You know, when this all started between us, my friends kept telling me you were just using me for your amusement,” Victoria spoke. Her tone almost made you flinch because it just had as much venom laced in it as your father’s had earlier that day, “I never believed it, you know? I thought you loved me! But no, you’re just as hungry for power as all those fucking bastards, and I was nothing more than just your little game.” 

Her words felt like agonizingly painful stabs to the heart. You didn’t give a shit about power, about the kingdom, about anything but her. However, you weren’t selfish enough to be driven by your desire to be with her, a desire that was almost a need at that point. At least not after knowing everything that was on the line. Her family… her friends, friends who had become your own too. 

Oh how much you wanted to cave in. You wanted to reach out to her and wrap your arms around her frame while you told her just how sorry you were, how much you didn’t mean those words. But you stayed quiet instead and listened to her insults, took them in, and tried your hardest not to flinch or shed a tear, as much as it hurt to do so.

You didn’t stop her either when she ran out the door, tired from crying and screaming at you. Instead, you waited until she harshly shut the door behind her to finally cry. You cried and cried for what seemed like an eternity, got up from the bed, and tore the room to pieces out of pure frustration and hatred to both the universe and your parents for doing this to you. 

It felt like everything was moving in slow motion as you smashed the mirror to pieces with your shoe and tore off the blue wallpaper from the walls. Then, with weak knees and a heavy heart, you slid down the wall and sat on the floor.  You pressed your forehead to your knees and placed your hands over your face as you cried some more. 

Eventually, you fell asleep, exhausted from all the crying and heartbreak you were feeling, wanting nothing but for it to stop. Not too far away, Victoria was being held in the arms of her best friend, who held her while she cried and fell apart in his embrace. No one who was with the two knew what to say. Contrary to what Victoria had said in an attempt to hurt you, all her friends believed you were head over heels for her. Everyone knew you’d do every single thing she asked, but they had all been proven wrong. 

─────────༺♡༺─────────

There was an instant the next morning when you woke up, everything still foggy, where you forgot everything that had gone down the day before. You should’ve held onto those seconds tighter, but your brain didn’t let you as it brought back all the memories from the previous night like violent waves breaking into the shore, so painfully you had to hold your head with your hands.

When a servant walked in, he didn’t question the broken glass scattered all over the wooden floor, neither did he comment on the bare walls and the fact that you looked terrible. He didn’t because he was one of Victoria’s closest friends, Damiano. He silently pieced the story together in his mind and felt his heart break for his two dear friends.

He’d once described you two as a melody. A beautiful one that seemed to flow smoothly and left everyone around them speechless because the force in it was something that no one ever expected from such a quiet-sounding and delicate piece. You loved each other with everything you had, kissed each other like that time would be the last, and now, when you needed all that power and force, you weren’t using it. It made him sad and he couldn’t help but compare you two to an instrument that had gotten out of tune during an important solo. 

Minutes before entering the room, he’d been ready to lash out at you for breaking his sister’s heart, but the mere sight of you made him reconsider. Especially when you looked at him with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. You looked into his eyes with so much panic and desperation as you spoke up, voice hoarse and barely inaudible, “I’m so sorry.”

He crouched down to your level and didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around your body and hold you like he’d held Victoria the night before. Damiano, for the first time in a while, was out of words to say. He wanted to understand what had happened because Victoria had been so distraught the night before that her words had come out in, mostly, incoherent mumbles that not even Thomas or Ethan could catch. 

“What happened Y/N?” He asked in the sweetest, most delicate voice he could muster. It caught him off-guard how you started crying even harder at his question and gripped the collar of his shirt so tightly he was afraid of getting choked by a heartbroken you.

After a few sniffles, you spoke up. Thankfully, your words were much clearer than Victoria’s had been, “I fucked up, Damiano. That’s what happened,” You hiccuped, “I’m nothing but a coward. When my father threatened to kill her family I just stood there looking so fucking stupid. I just nodded along to everything he was saying.”

Damiano’s brown eyes opened wide as he processed your words, “He did what?” You brought a hand to your face and pulled at your hair in frustration at the realization that you had let those words slip. No one was supposed to know, especially not the person who was so close to her that he was basically her brother.

But the secret you’d tried so hard to hide was now out and it felt like a breath of fresh air after being close to suffocating, so you told him everything. All the words spilled out of your mouth and you didn’t even try to stop them. In fact, the exact opposite thing happened and you told him everything with as much detail as possible to the point where a little movie seemed to be playing inside your head.

He didn’t say a word until you finished talking. By that point, you had already calmed down enough to only sniff every once in a while, which was nothing compared to how distraught and shaken up you’d been minutes earlier. That’s when it dawned on him that the only thing you needed was to talk, it also explained why Victoria had been so heartbroken. She didn’t know about it…

It was like you were able to hear his thoughts, because the moment he opened his mouth to speak, you interrupted him, “No. I cannot tell Vic and neither can you. I know you love her just as much as I do and you know how she’d take this… Look, I can live happily if I know she’s out there, safe. How would I ever live with myself if she was gone and it was all my fault?”

His heart broke at your words, but he truly had no clue what he could ever say to make you feel any better, so the only thing he did was hold you closer and let you cry some more.

-

He eventually had to leave before another servant walked in to help you get ready for ‘the big day’. The other servant didn’t question the looks of your room either and stayed quiet as they helped you into the outfit that had been selected for you to wear to the wedding. You almost wanted to chuckle, you had no choice on who’d be there at the altar by your side and it seemed like you had no choice in what you’d be wearing either.

To anyone who’d seen you walk down the halls of the castle would’ve easily mistaken your frown for nothing more than being nervous at the thought of getting married. Hell, Damiano had even told you that a rumor had spread around the castle quickly after everyone found out about you being engaged. 

It was, apparently, no secret to any of the servants that you were seeing someone. Anyone who didn’t know any better had thought it had been the other royal you were set to marry. That you’d spend blissful hours sneaking around the castle, eager to finally unite and live together forever. They weren’t exactly wrong. You did wish for that with everything you had, but not for the person who was already anxiously waiting at the altar for you to walk in.

No. You wanted all that with the blond-haired girl that sat at the very back, with her hair neatly braided back and a few flowers adding a pop of color to her head. You almost wanted to chuckle when you saw she wasn’t wearing a dress. Ever since you were little kids and she’d started working around the castle, she’d begged your father to let her wear a pair of jeans instead of the skirts maids would wear. He hadn’t seen it as a huge deal and ever since he allowed her to do so, you’d never seen her in a skirt, ever, much less a dress. 

As you stood at the altar, you often looked for her in the crowd. Thankfully enough, she’d stayed with her eyes glued to the floor for most of the ceremony and hadn’t caught you staring, not once. Everything that followed seemed to happen so quickly you spaced out over most of it. It hurt, but Damiano’s reassuring smiles and just looking at Victoria gave you enough strength to keep the tears in.

You never thought that’s how your life would go, but you were thankful because at least she’d be safe. She’d have the chance to find someone else and fall in love one day. You only hoped that eventually, when many years had passed, Damiano would tell her all of the truth and maybe, just maybe, she’d find it in herself to forgive you for it all. 

[hoodieofholland]

If this is too much to ask I understand, but I was wondering if you could write something with the reader telling tom the reason why she has trust issues and didn't want a relationship with him at first, and that's because all those times men in your life hurt you? 🌷

This is somewhat personal, cause ive been through a bad relationship. I still have worries that are related to things i experienced in it, things that have me thinking about postponing looking for smth serious bc i dont want it to be drama all the time. Anyways, there's love out there and you don't have to hold on smth bad, if anyone is passing through this, just let go and put yourself first, always.

Warnings: mentions of heartbreak, mentions of abusive relationship.

You play with the hem of you shirt as the two of you sit beside one another on the small sofa of your living room. Tom was worried -- his entire face showed that off. He cared about you and about your feelings in a way that got him thinking if he had taken a much more larger step than he was supposed to.

"Is it something that I did?", he asks softly, as if his words could hurt your in some sort of way. You looked up at him, blinking a few tears away as you tried to regain some strength to talk about it.

"No, it's just- I love our relationship, Tom. I truly do, but...", you try to speak.

"But you don't wanna be with me?", he can't help but ask, and then he closes his eyes briefly, "I'm sorry, I'll let you speak. Go ahead"

You sigh and smile thankfully. "I want to. Don't get me wrong... I can't stop imagining what it'd be like to be your girlfriend. We spend such a great time together and I love everything about our relationship, from everything that is physical to our conversations", it's good to finally be honest with him.

You and Tom were in a really... delicate situation. Since the first time you hook up, you made it very clear that you wanted no strings attached. You liked him since the first time your were introduced to one another, through common friends, but you still didn't want anything serious with anyone.

It wasn't Tom. It was your past.

Everything was proving to be much more difficult through months being together, because you couldn't help but fall for the brown haired boy. He was kind, sweet, always kissed you passionately and treated you like you were a really important person for him. And there were not many people who did that to you.

You were grateful for it and you thought that maybe could deal with that feeling, hiding it, in sake of your friendship with him and the time you spent together. But right after the last time you slept together, when you were laying your head on his bare chest, his slender fingers tracing circles on your back, he whispered something that made both of your chest ache in realisation.

"I'm in love with you".

You felt a coward, but you still did what you thought was the best -- you gathered your things together, just like your deepest feelings, and made your way out of his bedroom.

It's been a week since then and Tom decided to give you the space you needed, as your replies to his messages made it clear enough. When you finally felt the courage to tell him what was going on, you called him up to your place, and that's how you ended up here.

"So what's wrong, love?", Tom asks, his voice still low as he tries to understand what's going inside your head. "Look, I know I agreed with this whole no strings thing, but- I changed my mind. I mean, I thought you did too, that's why I brought it up. I'm sorry if I disrespected your space, but I had to tell you how I felt. I couldn't betray both of us this way anymore. This is much more than just a casual hook up for me now, y/n".

You bite your lips. Yes, that's exactly what you did, you lied to him and tried to lie to yourself. All because you were too afraid to say the exact same words that he is saying now.

You run your hands over your cheeks before crossing your legs on the sofa and taking a large breathe. "What is wrong, in fact, is that... I- I'm afraid. I'm afraid this might go wrong, I'm afraid that we ruin what we have".

"By taking our relationship more seriously? How come?", Tom frowns, "I'm sorry, but I'm not understanding your point-".

"I'm afraid that we might end up like my old relationships!", you finally let out, in one loud shout, facing the ground as you close your hands in tight fists. The emotions you so hardly buried inside of your chest comes out and you feel it. You remember how miserable you felt when you were dating your last boyfriend, how he made sure to put you in the lowest mindset so he could make himself more of a man, how he always wanted to get the spotlight when he was with you. He needed to be the smartest. He needed to put you down, so he could feel like a winner.

Tom goes silence, he watches as you try to come up with a better explanation, reading through your face as you lick your lips and finally look at his face again.

"It was awful. I felt awful. And what killed me for a long time was that I couldn't trust anyone. I couldn't trust anyone could truly want what was good for me. I felt so hurt. And people always acted like I was doing drama, like I was overreacting, but that's not how I felt. I- I don't wanna go through that again, Tom, and I'm just so afraid"

Tom's frown deepens on his forehead and he gets closer to you on the sofa, hesitantly asking to bring you to his arms in a soft hug. You accept it, closing yoir eyes as you let yourself get lost in his scent.

"I'm sorry about that, darling", he whispers, kissing the top of your head. "I'm so sorry that you had to go through this, you don't deserve it at all. You deserve to be loved, and whoever on this earth has the lucky to call you their and treat you like this... whoever did it doesn't deserve a shit. You're so- so kind and loving. And loveable", he pulls you away for a bit to look at your face, cupping your cheeks with his hand, thumb caressing your skin. "I love you, y/n. I love every piece of you, and believe me when I say I tried really hard to be loyal to our agreement and not to fall for you, but it was just... unnatural", he chuckles, rubbing away a single tear that drop from your eyes.

"I understand your worries and I'm gonna respect whatever choice you make, but... I need to say that I'm not gonna treat you like this. I'm gonna love you, if you're willing to try it. To try and be my- my girlfriend. I can give you the love you deserve, sweetheart".

You sniff, blinking away the wetness on your eyes. Tom kissed the tip of your nose, his thumbs rubbing small circles on your cheeks.

"It's up to you, y'know. I don't want to push you. But I need you to know it all", he sighs and rests his forehead against yours.

You nod slowly and smile. He was kind, he carried about you. He was your Tom this whole time, not just a hook up, not just your secret lover. He was one of your best friends. He would never put both of you in a competition, when he was always trying to put you in the spotlight, to make you laugh, to make you shine. He wasn't a dick, like your old boyfriends. Love wasn't over just because of bad experiences. Tom has showed you that, that you could fall for another man again.

You smile widens when you give him a slight peck on the lips, making him open those beautiful brown eyes.

"I want it. I want to be your girlfriend".

He smiled. And when you thought you've seen the greatest joy in Tom's face already, you were watching him glow now, taking you into a passionate kiss as both of you giggled and held into one another to share a love none of you expected in the first place.

[gophergal]

So I finished this a week ago, but I'm posting it now. Gotta pace myself, lmao. Take this smut, ya nasties (affectionate)

Only If You Want This

Word Count: 1k+ | Rating: N S F W | Fem! Jason Voorhees x Reader | F/F

Warnings: Smut, I wrote with a female reader in mind but I dont think it shows up (you could read them as gn, but im still warning just in case)

The sun hang low in the sky as you sat in the grass with Jay, the intense rays of gold catching in her hair, making it glow like embers. Your hands worked deftly weaving the wildflowers you'd picked earlier into a crown as you watched her. Jay's eyes were firmly fixated on the horizon, as far as you could tell with her mask on. She seemed deep in thought when you placed the completed crown on her head, startling slightly as it made contact, but quickly relaxing as you met gazes.

“Thank you, it's pretty,” she signed carefully.

“A pretty crown for a pretty woman,” you told her, watching as her body language changed. Her hands came together in her lap shyly as she tilted her chin downward. Slowly, you pushed a lock of her red hair behind her ear. She shivered slightly at your touch. “I really do think you're beautiful, Jay. Mask or no mask, you'll always be the prettiest girl I know. I'm lucky to have you.”

She looked up in slight disbelief, her blue eyes unsure.

“I mean it. I don't ever want you to feel pressured into anything, but I promise you, what you look like doesn't make me love you any differently. Every part of you is beautiful in my eyes,” you assured her.

She nodded and took your hands into her own larger, gloved hands. The two of you sat that way for a while as the sky grew dark and the air cooled. Eventually she stood, pulling you to your feet and leading the way back on the trail towards your shared cabin. She walked slower than usual, her normally long stride shortened. Her eyes refused to meet yours and you suddenly felt as though you overstepped a boundary. Anxiety twisted in your belly as you mulled it over. It wasn't that you needed to see her face to be with her. No, as much as you wanted to kiss her (other than on her mask) what you truly wanted was for her to feel safe and comfortable around you.

The two of you sat down for a brief supper consisting of whatever you could grow in the garden or hunt and gather from the woods. Jay waited for you in the main room of the cabin, staring intently at the fireplace. You leaned against her when you sat, pressing into her side quietly. For a moment, neither of you moved, until Jay moved away, turning toward you. She took your hands in hers, carefully bringing them up to the corners of her mask. There was a slight tremble in her movements, as she guided you to remove the fiberglass piece. Her face was revealed in all its asymmetric beauty. Her features were twisted in a nervous grimace, eyes wet as she awaited your reaction. Placing the mask to the side with care, you take her face in your hands with a loving grin on your face.

“Jay Voorhees, you are absolutely stunning. You ought to know that,” you say, running a thumb across her right cheek. Her eyes were wide and a hot blush fell across her cheeks. The taller woman's shoulders trembled slightly as her breathing picked up. You decided to go in for the kill. Slowly, you closed the gap between your lips, giving her time to push you away if need be. Instead, her dark lashes fluttered closed as you pressed your mouths together. She mirrored your soft movements, melting against you until she was quite literally in your lap.

Parting your lips, you took her lower lip between your teeth gently. A low, hoarse moan came from Jay's lips, and she stiffened in embarrassment, pulling away to bury her face in your chest. You chuckled slightly, carding your fingers through her auburn hair.

“Sweetheart, look at me. There's nothing to be embarrassed about,” you said to her, lips against her hair. She pulled back to look at you before initiating a second kiss herself. She gained confidence slowly, gauging your reaction to her actions. In an unexpected, but not unwelcome turn, her hands roamed further down your body, coming to rest at your hips. You followed suit, caressing the firm muscles of her abs before wrapping your arms around her waist. She whined as you pulled away for air, needy and addicted to the attention you were giving her.

You grinned, bringing your lips to her neck, pressing chaste kisses to the soft skin. She squirmed, skin growing hot beneath you. Her hands shifted across your back, trying to remain grounded along this overwhelming experience. Pressing your forehead against hers, you caught your breath, reining yourself in against the dirty images that crossed your mind. She shouldn't be pushed to do anything like that so soon, after all.

“C'mon, let's head to bed, honey,” you said, caressing her cheek. She obliged, climbing off your lap and helping to your feet. You careened into her chest, giggling. Having her weight in your lap had caused your legs to fall asleep. Changing into your sleepwear, heat pooled in your body. You swatted away your horny thoughts, trying to banish them so you could have a good night's sleep with your girlfriend. She took the position of little spoon. Imagining how you must look made you smile, the visual of your body curled protectively around her much larger frame comedic.

You couldn't recall falling asleep, but awoke suddenly to the movement of Jay in your arms. It was subtle and she made no sound, but she gently took your hand from where it was clamped down on her abdomen, then moved it to her chest. You let her, worried that if you let on that you were aware of what she was doing that it would make your relationship backpedal. When she gasped softly, you moved your hand experimentally, giving her chest a soft squeeze. The other hand reached around to her hip, running down her thigh and playing with the hem of her shorts.

“Oh, Jay. You react so nicely. If you wanted to mess around with me, all you had to do is ask,” you whisper in her ear. She turns to you, eyes bright in the darkness.

“It's dirty. I can't ask,” She signs.

“Of course you can. It's not a bad thing, but I'll only keep going if you ask me too.”

She hesitated, contemplative look on her face as she flexed her fingers.

“Could you...make me feel good?” she asks, cheeks darkening.

“I'd be honored to, madame,” you tell her as you crawl over her. You capture her lips once again, moving the kiss along swiftly to worship the sweet skin of her neck and work down to her sports bra. She mewled hoarsely, more vocal than you expected. With exaggerated movements, you help her relieve her breasts of their cloth prison. Palming, the pale globes, you marveled at the contrast between her tan lines, creamy chest, and flushed nipples.

You took one into your mouth, suckling and swirling your tongue around it as she grabbed your hair roughly. Slowly, you snake your hand into the front of her shorts, parting the lips of her mound and spreading the slick. She wiggles her hips, moaning as she bumps your fingers against her clit. You can't help but rub circles against the sensitive nub, occasionally grazing the tip so you might tease those soft sounds from her. Fingers probe her hole, and though she is nervous, she lets you work. Her head is swimming with warmth and she bucks against your hand.

You slip a finger into her warm pussy, massaging the soft walls within her. Then add another once she's relaxed. Your teeth find her neck, nibbling softly at her skin. She moaned sharply, louder than before, and you realize that you must have found her g-spot, the combination of that and the teeth on her neck surging through her body. You massaged that spongy part of her pussy again, curling your fingers just so and pressing your thumb against her clit.

Her ragged breathing quickened as she climbed toward her peak, fingers gripping the bed to find purchase. A soft cry cut through the night air as she came, trembling under your ministrations. You continued to finger her through her high, removing your hand when she finally relaxes. Wiping her juices off your fingers, you lay down next to her. She pulls you against her bare chest, putting her chin on your head.

[saintobio]

i am honestly SPEECHLESS again… what the actual fuck. too much for my heart saint😭😭 all the surprises got me shook and im sorry for the long ass rant but let me go step by step:

this was shocking but expected… i just knew that eula didn’t really love her husband. she literally just used him to climb up. also that knowing smirk she had the other day when y/n was there… she knew about everything. mei mei… ofc. just like her canon self doing anything for money. as much as i dislike satoru, i dislike his dad and stepmom even more. idk if to wish for they downfall or not bc gojo’s dad deserves it but gojo kinda doesn’t. i feel so conflicted bc i actually love satoru but can’t help but feel hate and unpleasantness for him bc of his actions. the way he treated y/n when she didn’t do anything to him. the fact that it is bc of him that her heart condition has been getting worse. he has hurt her so much even i have spilled tears over his shit. but his stepmom is a horrible horrible person. satoru being the way he is is related to her; mostly his dad but also her. so like i truly dont know how to feel about this😭

always reading about him makes me happy… i love this dilf so much. i truly want y/n to fuck him just once. please saint😩😩😩

are you one of those countless men toji??😩 do you wanna show y/n what you’re thinking about? wanna treat her right??😏😏😏😏

wym that would never happen?!!! toji baby, dont be so pessimistic🙄🙄 i just know in an alternative reality him and y/n together and you cant change my mind🙄. though i’ll admit that toji knowing about naoya and eula and not telling y/n makes me feel some type of way… does toji know about eula’s plan?? like he doesn’t have to tell y/n but still idk it’s confusing😭😭 saint you got my feelings all over the place.

im usually all over a man being possessive but it doesn’t suit satoru. he has no right to feel possessive considering he a cheater who always put his mistress before his wife. like the audacity of this man bro. he too comfortable. im sorry but its too late for this shit.

i know y/n didn’t mean it as a payback for what he did with the diana shoes but YASSSSSS🤪🤪🤪 this got me so happy knowing he got a taste of his own medicine. but he still had it in him to get upset like man… have you got no shame??😭😭 he truly wants to act like he didn’t do shit and as if y/n is the one stepping over the line. y/n got so much patience i could never. also y/n talking about how she would never cheat back.. respect for my girl bc i would have cheated back a long ass time ago. or maybe gotten a divorce and be a single woman who can freely fuck toji or even better, just marry toji. especially during these times satoru acting like he cares so that it stings him more😹 i wanna see him crying

i literally cried reading this… i feel so bad for y/n bro. like why cant she catch a break? my poor baby😢😢 this is why im always saying i ship her with toji. every time.. every single time you get too comfortable with satoru this shit happens. it’s literally every time. its too much for her and she might truly end up dying like this😔

YOU FUCKER! YOU MOTHER.FUCKER!! I WILL REIGN HELLFIRE UPON YOU!! UGHHHHHHHHH I HATE THIS BITCH SO MUCH. SAINT PLEASE ALLOW ME TO DRAG THIS WHORE PLEASE. I CANT TAKE THIS. I CANT!! THE AUDACITY! i do not give a fuck that it is understandable where she is coming from. she is a fucking whore that deserves the worst. how dare she talk this way about y/n??? not even the evil stepmom talks shit about y/n like this stupid ugly racist stupid poor dumb lizard ass wrench does!! like how dare she??!! she doesn’t even love him or care about his problems to be getting so hurt. she just mad no other rich man would lower himself with a disgusting piece of shit like her. she is literally dog shit that you scrape off your shoe. stupid ass whore. i hate her.

this was honestly very shocking to me… i did not expect mr.gojo to end things with her. i truly did not. i thought it would take longer for him to do this since there are so many chapters left but now i see what the other chapters gonna be about. there’s so much more than just y/n, gojo and sera.

(TW.SUICIDE)TOXIC MUCH?!!! what the actual fuck???😧😧😧 this bitch really pulled the suicide card😹😹 as if we care, do me a favor sera and actually kill yourself. you’ll be doing the world a favor😹😹 wait actually no bc then there’s her family depends on her😔 ugh thats the only reason why ill try to not wish death upon her. her poor (no pun intended) sweet mom. i hit the 10 image limit but what does she mean she will make us pay?🤨🤨🤨 bro i can see this bitch teaming up with eula but idk since her hate is towards y/n and eula’s plan mostly affects satoru but then again sera doesn’t really love satory and is just in love with the idea of him so hmmm. IM SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS WAS SAINT BUT BEFORE I SUBMIT THIS LET ME JUST SAY I LOVE YOU! thank you so much for this amazing story. this story is one of the few things i always look forward to.

HAHAH what a very detailed reaction!! thank u very much for sending these through <33 enjoyed reading them !! :’)