#Darrin Morgan

[postguiltypleasures]

Thoughts on The X-Files as it turns 30 Years Old

I have not written much about The X-Files here because I have not revisited it in many years. The last time I rewatched any episodes was way back in 2015, after the revival was announced. I had no intention of watching  the revival, but I wanted to see how the series had aged. My reactions were kind of mixed. I didn’t continue to rewatch it was that I didn’t feel the spark that I got from it watching during the original airing. The show’s influence is such that there has always been something regularly on air that has been doing what a contemporary version of TXF should do, and doing it without the show’s baggage. And these later shows have all been unique programs that stand on their own. Only now there really is one show that does that I watch that fits this description, Evil. Do to world changing circumstances, including the COVID pandemic and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, it does not air that regularly. So I find myself looking to who is posting about TXF now. What do they think? Do the things that made me not want to watch the revival bother them? How do they relate to the context in which it was made? How is that different for people who did watch it during the original run and bring hindsight vs. those who were too young or not born? What does any of this have to do with a potential reboot?

Much More Under the Cut

I remember TXF becoming uncool. It’s bizarre to me that it has any cultural presence because being disenchanted with it as it lost it’s cool was so painful. That said, I was a teenager at this time, so my emotions around it were stronger than they would be if I watched at another time of life. I am certain of this because of how much I hated the original series finale, and how I have been fine with a lot of controversial series finales since then.

Speaking of endings, these days discussions of television are too focused on ending. The idea that for most of the existence of television, shows were just supposed to go on until they became too expensive to produce and/or lost their audience seems to have vanished from people’s comprehension. This is a result of more television becoming more serialized and with short seasons. When an episode doesn’t work as something self contained, it has to lead to something. While it aired, TXF was celebrated for helping television become more serialized, making bigger, more epic stories. Now when it’s celebrated it’s for some wonderful self contained episodes, the kind they don’t make anymore. Even in 2015, when I had Person of Interest and Grimm satisfying the sci-fi/fantasy procedural itch for me I could see that. 

I know that there is too much tv for anyone to watch in one life time, but many the shows that TXF was compared to in it’s original airing seem notably absent in comparative discussions now. For instance, it was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998. The other series nominated those years were NYPD Blue, Chicago Hope, E.R., Law & Order, and The Practice. While there is good reason to see TXF as more closely related to Twin Peaks or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, those fellow nominees provide some necessary context about how TV was made, in particular the alternating goals of making something for the syndication market and making something edgy that could elevate the medium. Also notable, most these shows went through a lot of cast changes over the years. It makes more sense that TXF would try to do that kind of transition in seasons 8 and 9 when you think of the series they considered their peers. 

Also worth considering earlier shows it was compared to, but the producers would likely discourage the comparison. I am thinking of Moonlighting and Remington Steele. At the time TXF aired people still talked about the “Moonlighting curse” as if it was just a given that once the couple on a show where the male and female leads solved mysteries while maintaining a will they/won’t they flirtation, would fail as soon as they got together. TXF writers were divided on whether or not it was a will they/won’t they, and definitely didn’t want to invite comparison to shows that had huge nosedives in popularity during their run. But in a lot of ways that was unfair to the earlier series. It denies how clever, inventive and experimental they could be. It also ignores how much behind the scenes strife contributed to on screen failings, especially on Moonlighting, where that has been better publicized. (And occasionally become newsworthy again such as when creator Glen Gordon Caron was fired from his job as the show runner of Bull.) I think there are episodes of Remington Steele and Moonlighting that are worth watching on there own just to get what the big deal was. But as always, how to bring knowledge of some behind the scenes study to it, is a difficult question to answer.

Another show people associated with TXF probably didn’t want to be associated with is Touched by an Angel. But for a while they both aired on Sunday nights and I know I watched it and TXF back to back a few times. A parental figure would have turned on 60 Minutes, and the ads for TBAA could be very intriguing. Then I’d watch the episode and be underwhelmed, especially because of the deus ex machina resolutions. So I didn’t make it a regular thing. But still as cases of the week that played on the news of the times with supernatural notes, they made an interesting case study.

I also sampled a few episodes of JAG: Judge Advocate General, a different CBS show that was frequently compared to TXF. The comparison had a sort of precursor to today’s periodic “why don’t publications write about shows people actually watch?” flair ups. It often had better ratings than TXF and a lot in common structurally, but had an older audience who was less likely to seek out writing about their show. It had a huge affect on the development of CBS procedurals from the late 1990s on, which is one of the areas where you can (arguably) see a lot of TXF’s influence.

I recently came across a post saying that David Duchovny wanted TXF to move to Los Angeles to facilitate his movie career. This is not true, he wanted to move to LA because he was with Téa Leoni at the time and she was staring in The Naked Truth, a sitcom that was shot in LA. The show was about a news photographer forced to work at a tabloid after an ugly divorce. It lasted three seasons, the first on ABC, the other two on NBC where it was essentially noted to death over two seasons. I am not surprised that it doesn’t have much hold on the cultural memory, but Duchovny was always open about this being his motivation so I am kind of surprised that it has been erased from TXF historic memory. 

Speaking of Duchovny and LA, the current season of the podcast, You Must Remember This, focus mostly on erotic films of the 1990s, but also included an episode about erotic TV from the era that focused on The Red Shoe Diaries, an anthology series in which Duchovny’s played a character named Jake, who was essentially the framing device. I didn’t quite appreciate that for the first four seasons of TXF he was flying to LA on weekends to shoot his parts in TRSD back-to-back. Between that and Gillian Anderson having a very young child at the time, it’s no wonder they developed reputations as cold and standoff-ish. It sounds exhausting.

Other places I have come across TXF referenced lately: 

finally reading Bruce Campbell’s memoire Hail to the Chin in which he declare that it is best to be a guest star in one of the first seasons of a show, mentions that his late in the series stint on TXF the whole cast and crew was tired of it; 

learning that there is a show on the History Channel called The Proof is Out There;

the Only Murders in the Building episode where Mable flashed back to watching the show with her father near the end of his life; 

Maureen Ryan in her Burn It Down reminisced about visiting TXF set in Vancouver as her first trip to a TV set, saying two important people were awful to her, one of whom gave her nightmares;

Some how the show coming up in a lunch conversation at work.

Jennette McCurdy mentioning in I'm Glad My Mom Died that her first job as an extra was on TXF 

Ryan’s book is as good a place as any to segue into discussing the show’s legacy via former writers and producers. It’s worth noting that Chris Carter has been unable to get another series off the ground. While TXF ran he tried to launch three other shows, Millennium, Harsh Realm and The Lone Gunmen, and only one of them got to a full season. There was an Amazon pilot that didn’t go anywhere. Frank Spotnitz was the writer with the second most credited episodes of the series and most high profile gig since was the not well received Amazon adaptation of The Man in The High Castle. Kim Manners’ time with Supernatural is something of an anomaly, in that it feels directly related to TXF and ran a much longer period of time. (I’ve only seen one season of Supernatural. It was fine, but I was late to the show, felt I’d never catch up and gave up.) Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote some of my favorite episodes, but between them they have the Final Destination film franchise, some one season series and American Horror Story, which is more attributed to Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk than Wong. (I’ve never watched AHS.) Darin Morgan was something of a special star on the show, his episodes being singled out for awards and fan favorites. But he never got this kind of response to any of his subsequent work, including on Fringe where he was a consulting producer early on. The most high profile shows that feature alumni from TXF are the ones that feel most like they were made for a era of television that wanted to distance itself from the procedural aspects of TXF. Among the most famous are Breaking Bad created by Vince Giligan and its spinoff, Better Call Saul, which he co-created with a non-TXF alumn, Peter Gould. Also notable is Homeland, whose creators Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon worked on early seasons of TXF. Most of the shows that I think of as sharing a lot with TXF in the outline for, don’t have much of a direct connection to the series alumni in writers/producers/directors. 

Earlier this year I briefly wrote about how I liked seeing both William B. Davis and Nicholas Lea in Continuum. While thinking of that series as a successor to TXF is interesting, I don’t generally think of the cast’s later roles as directly related to the show. Maybe this is because I watch so little of what they’ve done since. The greatest impression any of them is Anderson in Sex Education and Bleak House, both of which were pretty far away from TXF. 

When news came out that Chris Carter was working with Ryan Coogler on a potential reboot I decided I did not know enough of Coogler’s work to say if he’d be a good fit, or have any idea what his take on the subject matter would be. But I am familiar with Disney, TXF current owner, and in particular there current “milk all recognizable IP for ever and ever” ethos, so the probability of a reboot seemed inevitable. I mostly hoped the new crew would take the title and try to create something very different under it. Then the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes started and nothing seemed inevitable about a reboot. Hollywood as it’s been known, feels like its ending. All I can say is that I hate the idea of TXF being made with AI, or for that matter, scabs.

When I did my rewatch back in 2015, the episodes included “War of the Coprophagens” and “Syzegy”, episodes that are both are partially about mass hysteria. They’re comedic, but I didn’t find them funny. I thought this is probably something that didn’t age well. In the nineties, just pointing and laughing and people getting upset over stupid stuff sort of felt like enough to defang the danger. By now that seems hopelessly naive.

I know how people are now more willing to say that the plots of “Small Potatoes” and “Post Modern Prometheus” treat serial rapists as sympathetic outsiders, and rape as something to be brushed aside. Neither were part of my 2015 rewatch.

Some of my disenchantment during the original run was that while I was watching I was also becoming more aware of the movies that influenced the show. I hated how Fight the Future made the black oil alien possession turn into something that would claw its way out of the host body, reminiscent of the Alien franchises’s xenomorph. I also hated all of the Mulder and Scully as a couple teases from episodes like “The Rain King”, “The Ghost Who Stole Christmas”, “Arcadia”, et al because it was too much like things I was seeing in romcoms that I didn’t like. (I can’t remember any specific examples of these romcoms while writing this.) Any specificity as to what it meant to Mulder and Scully’s and their relationships at that moment was lost on me.  

I might as well admit, during the shows original run I was a NoRomo. I did not tune in to TXF hoping for Mulder and Scully’s relationship to become romantic, and I kind of hated when episodes explicitly flirted with the possibility. I tuned in because I wanted to have first hand knowledge of what it was like to watch my generations version of The Twilight Zone. (In retrospect, I don’t think its a good comparison.) As the relationship now feels like what people think of when they think of TXF, I have wondered if the show now only appeals to those on the shipper side of the debate. I was really surprised while listening to Not Another X-Files Podcast Podcast when one of the hosts of the TXF Preservation Society admitted to not being a shipper on an episode.

Similar to what I said about being fine with many controversial series finales, I am also fine with many controversial television series couplings. As long as the writing is direct, I don’t really care if the actors have chemistry or if the show “needs” to pair these characters. To the extent that what relationships on screen one likes reflects on what one wants to have in real life, I really want people to be direct with me, and make me comfortable being direct with them.

A few years ago started wondering if it would have been more emotionally healthy if I spent the years I watched TXF watching Beverly Hills, 90210 instead. I started wondering this while coincidentally coming across of couple of personal essays that reflected warmly on watching BH90210 and how it affected the writers at impressionable ages. As someone who doesn’t exactly reflect warmly on TXF, and has a hard time putting how I feel about things into words, I was kind of jealous. I know there was some overlap in the audiences. There isn’t a “If you were a teen in the 1990s you either watched BH90210 or TXF and it affected you in this way…” But coming across those essays does have something to do with why I am writing this now.

Around that time I also started worrying about how TXF’s popularity lead to today’s age of dangerous conspiracy theories. Before I gave up on the site formally known as Twitter, I’d occasionally look at who was still discussing it online with the fear that it’s been used by right wingers looking for ways to justify their persecution complexes. I didn’t find much. There was something of peak in these posts around the time Trump announced that the FBI had been searching for documents at Mar a Lago. This past decade has been wild as far as guessing how things will be read along partisan lines. If anything the posts were mostly about nostalgia and it’s appeal as a brand.

Given that I’m so uncomfortable with that potential aspect of the show’s legacy, a how did I end up watching so many shows that in some way are direct successors to the show? And the answer is, mostly not consciously. I was reluctant to start Fringe and Evil because from the outset their premises looked too much like TXF, though ultimately they’ve gone in directions TXF would never.  I still want something that can excite me, and has hints of the epic. And I am going to seek it in vaguely familiar formats. 

[hitchell-mope]

Supergirl bewitched au

Mon El. Sam

Kara. Darrin

Rhea. Endora

Lar Gand. Maurice

Morgan. Arthur

Cat. Clara

J’onn. Larry

M’gann. Louise

Maxwell. Abner

Lena. Gladys

[asmrrpaddict]

Favorite characters from favorite VAs

Some will have more than others if I can’t decide or they have a larger catalog of characters. Sorry if I spell names wrong. This actually turned out much longer than I expected, but have you seen my name? I like a lot of them! And this barely scratches the surface of my subscription list. Nothing is in any order.

Nomad Tales and Audio:

Caleb, Deacon, Conner, Caltraxus, & the unnamed Werewolf from the Werewolf x Werewolf series

Redacted Audio:

Sam, David, Caelum, Gavin, & Vincent

Joseph Holloway:

Ivan, Grom, MJ Jarrod Tillus, Casper aka The Inquisitor

Good Boy Audio:

Hades, Yargwyn, Devlin, Kalimos, & Hipswitch (Ok, so I know Devlin and Hipswitch are voiced by Zsaku and Yuurivoice, but they are still GBA characters.)

Reverie Audio:

Law, Desmond, Neo, & Cyril

MasterMissy:

Ethan, Darrin, Jedidiah, Sammy, & Magnus

Escaped Audio:

Jean, Crow, Ivan, & Fletcher

Yuurivoice:

Seth, Alphonse, Charlie, & Aizawa.

Jouska: sadly a lot of his don’t have names, but I’ll come up with something Vampire (Vampire/Cupcake), Morph(eus), & Bounty Hunter or Cosmic??? from (Stardust and Cosmic)

Siren’s Son:

Thresh, Bek, Bren, Abul, Duke, & Faceless

Icey ASMR:

Damon, Nico, & Tatshiro

Scythe Audio:

Hunter, Dark, Kreed, Marcus, L, V, & Jay Jay (Again, L isn’t voiced by Scythe, but she is one of his characters.)

Shining Armor: Robert, Ellion, & Officer Ellis Knight

Nyxmoon Reads: Adam, Henry, & Aiden

Ycey Narrates:

Zach, Oliver, Edlin, & Morgan

AJ Audio

Alistair, Prince Yvan, King Atticus, & the dragon shifter from Eternally Madly Yours

(Yvan is voiced by Siren’s Son, but on AJ’s audio.)

Zsaku:

Xanthus, Zaros, & Ellis

[masterwords]

down for a while

Summary: Derek asked Hotch if he wanted to talk about it...well, maybe now, at 2am, he does. (Coda to 5x02 - Haunted)

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan

Words: 3.4k

Notes: Every time I watch this episode, I am tempted to write a slightly different take on aftermath to get it out of my system. This one I tried to keep kind of lighthearted. All things considered.

**

It was the snuffling, first. It broke the dream briefly, but he dipped back in happily.

Clooney's incessant snorting and whimpering, that was what finally actually woke Derek. The dog was too well-behaved to bark in the middle of the night unless he sensed danger, but that didn't stop him from trying to find other more unique ways to wake Derek and alert him that there was business to attend to.

When that tactic didn't work, he put his front paws on the edge of the bed and pressed his warm, wet nose into Derek's neck. A bold move, one that usually came with a swat and a groan, perhaps a string of words that would make a sailor blush. Sometimes it blended seamlessly with the dream and Derek woke uncomfortable and feeling sick, but tonight it was at odds with the violence. He was dreaming about Darrin Call's pharmacy massacre. He'd just slipped in the blood, and Clooney's nose wet against his earlobe did not help.

“Whaddayouwant?” Derek grumbled, peering with one blurry eye at the clock across the room. 2:12am. He couldn't help the groan that escaped his lips, and if you told him it was actually a whine (or maybe even a whimper), he might be inclined to argue but it would be weak at best. “Gotta pee? Right now?”

Clooney's tail swished wildly back and forth against the floor and he let out the smallest, least offensive yip in response. That usually meant it was urgent, and it lit a fire under Derek's sleepy ass. The last thing he wanted was a lake of dog piss on his floor after the day he'd had.

Or worse.

The thought of worse made him move even faster, rooting out the slippers that had been kicked under the bed in his haste to get to sleep, and heading for the back door with nothing but a robe between his nudity and the world. He was still tying the belt when he noticed he was alone at the back door.

Clooney didn't follow him, he went rushing toward the front door instead and nosed at the handle. “Back door, buddy...we're not going for a walk...”

Clooney didn't budge. Derek groaned but something about it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He wouldn't have had the patience for this even if he'd had eight hours of sleep, but so far he was on about the second and he wasn't anywhere near feeling patient.

“I said back, now.” He waited, hand on his hips. “Clooney, what the hell man?” The dog wasn't in the habit of disobeying, he was highly trained, but he wouldn't budge. Just sat at attention, staring at the front door, his nose right beneath the knob. His tail was wagging. Frowning, Derek went to the coat closet and quickly punched in the code to his safe, slipping his piece into his pocket. Overreaction, probably but Clooney was making him feel really damn uneasy.

A gun at his side mitigated the feeling slightly. After what happened to Hotch, after Foyet using his credentials to drop Hotch off at the ER...he was a little on edge himself.

With one hand against his weapon, the other opened the door and out rushed Clooney into the crisp night. He almost called out but stopped himself, instead peering out silently at the empty porch first and then to the yard. All shadows accounted for, nothing out of place. Clooney rushed right to the edge of the sidewalk and stopped...he didn't go past the grass, that was his barrier, and he was a good boy, but Derek saw what he was looking at right away. It didn't take a genius to follow Clooney's urgent line of sight. The dog's senses were keen at least when it came to certain things. Like humans he was unnaturally attached to for reasons Derek would never fully understand.

Where he looked sat Hotch's car, idling without its lights on in the shadow of an old oak tree. He pulled his door mostly closed, left it open only a crack so Clooney could get back inside if he wanted, and tightened the belt of his robe suddenly very aware of his lack of clothing. The breeze caught the fabric, zipped underneath and chilled his bare thighs. What in the hell was going on? Was he insane, walking around outside butt naked? Perhaps.

His slippers scraped against the sidewalk; the eerie silence of the neighborhood scuffed out by his movement. The car's exhaust trickled out in colorless fumes and the engine purred, clicked as it turned over, probably to keep the heater on. Not music, just heat. Bending over, framing himself in the passenger window, he rapped a few times with his knuckles and waved. Hotch didn't even look at him.

The door unlocked, but the car remained running. Derek sighed before grabbing the handle, tightening his robe over his legs, and sliding in. The fabric bunched and he smoothed it out, making sure that his dick wasn't hanging out. That was the last thing he needed. Clooney sat at attention right there at the edge of the yard watching them closely.

“I gotta tell you,” Derek started when it was clear Hotch wasn't going to initiate conversation. “I got some questions about why you're sitting in front of my house at 2am in your car instead of just knocking on the damn door like a normal person.”

“Second thoughts.”

“Yeah? But you didn't leave.”

Hotch angled his face toward Derek, slivers of moonlight throwing his sharp features into a mesmerizing geometry. There were tears shining in his eyes. “Like I said...”

“Yeah. Second thoughts.”

The hum of the engine, the incredible power of the heater, it lulled Derek into a sense of strange calm and he leaned back against the leather seat, closing his eyes. His piece sat heavy against his thigh, a reminder that this was not exactly just a social call. “You wanna come inside? It's a lot warmer in there.”

“I shouldn't. I've already disrupted enough of your night. I only came because I wanted to...” Hotch paused, wiping at a tear with disgust. “I needed to apologize. I repeatedly brushed you off today, was extremely rude, when all you were doing was...”

“Nah, it's all good. I shoulda known better than to ask you to talk about your feelings at a crime scene, that was stupid. Neither of us knows what the hell we're doing right now.”

Hotch bit the inside of his cheek until it nearly bled and frowned. “In any case. Please accept my apology for today. It won't happen again. And...for what it's worth...thank you. For caring. I'm well aware that it isn't easy.”

“What isn't easy, Hotch?”

“I know that I'm not easy to...”

Derek leaned across the console, careful to keep one hand at the opening of his robe, scrunching it closed. His gun slipped between his thighs and rested heavy there. Paying it little mind, he moved so close they were sharing breath and used his free hand to cup Hotch's jaw, fingertips gently grazing prickly skin in need of a shave.

“I've never had a hard time with that.” Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely true, but Hotch looked like he needed a win. Derek could give him that much. Hotch froze as their lips touched, lungs burning for breath. He gasped when Derek pushed breath into him and let his lips part for Derek's searching tongue. Just a quick taste. It was shocking but not all-together unfamiliar and definitely something he'd been thinking about since the last time.

One other time. Long ago, lips sour and coated with sticky beer and popcorn salt, a curiously comfortable kiss in a dimly lit bar to the sounds of Fleetwood Mac. Just a kiss and nothing more after a long day, a really hard long day. His fingers had twitched, his heart thundering with anticipation, and then the apology spilled from Derek's lips. The apology for being inappropriate, for taking advantage of a volatile situation. “The ink isn't even dry on your divorce papers,” he'd muttered, and Hotch couldn't think of a single word to say though every cell in his body protested the separation.

And this, now. He leaned in without hesitation until they were kissing through his tears. “Come inside,” Derek whispered into the kiss. “I'm butt naked under this robe and I think if one of my neighbors sees us out here they're gonna get the wrong idea about the type of guy I am...”

“Naked?” Hotch rasped, straightening up and turning the key in the ignition. The engine clicked off and silence filled the car. Hotch smiled a little. It was kind of sad and a little pathetic, but Derek thought it was also kind of cute.

Refusing to make an excuse for himself and his compromising position, Derek reached for the door handle. “Come inside and talk to me. You owe me.”

“I suppose I do.”

Hotch followed close behind Derek, his hands in his pockets until they reached Clooney who sidled up next to Hotch and kept pace with him. Trotted along right at his knees. He couldn't resist patting him on the head, scratching behind his ears, smiling at the way the dog leaned against him while they walked.

“Dave told me that you were concerned about me this morning. That you were pacing outside my office for an hour."

“Yeah? What else he tell you huh? That was a private conversation.”

Derek's house was warm and quiet, comfortable. So comfortable it was almost disarming. Hotch seated himself on the sofa while Derek walked toward the kitchen, only a few paces away but far enough to make it easier for Hotch to open up. “Only that you didn't argue with him when he said you like me more than you like your job. Is that true, Agent Morgan?”

“Well now that depends on the context, Agent Hotchner...”

Hotch quirked an eyebrow at Derek while he went about his business in the kitchen, pulling out a few beers from his well-stocked fridge. Even at this time of night, or rather morning, he was a skilled host. “Yeah, yeah, okay. Guilty as charged. Most of the time, anyway. You're still a pain in the ass.”

“You opened your door to me in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah,” Derek said, handing Hotch the beer. They both knew he was probably not supposed to be drinking, but one beer wasn't going to kill him and it would give him something to do with his hands in any case. He was just glad it wasn't whiskey, just the smell of it was enough to make him sick these days. “Like I said. Pain in the ass.”

The words were sharp but Derek's tone was anything but, and Hotch couldn't help the way his eyes started to betray him once again. No one had really asked how he was, at least in relation to him as a person instead of him as the Unit Chief. Can you do your job? Can we trust you? That was what laced everyone's concern...everyone but Derek's. Derek knew damn well he could do his job given enough time to settle back in, it was the fear of what the job was going to do to Hotch that was eating at him. The longer he pretended that everything was business as usual, that he could work away the fear and loneliness, the obsession, the pain. Whether he could do his job wasn't in question but whether he should be doing it. That sentiment was almost impossible for Derek to make clear to Rossi, no matter how he'd tried. The man kept digging in on second guessing Hotch and at a certain point Derek simply had to give up.

“I can do my job, Derek,” Hotch offered finally, setting the beer to his lips. It went down easier than he'd anticipated. “But I don't know if I can do everything else. Do you really want to hear about it?"

Derek, scared as he was about what was going to come next, nodded. Of course he did. The offer wasn't in vain. "Yeah. Tell me. Let me in."

"Today was the first day I've left my apartment, except for doctor visits and physical therapy, since Foyet. I sit in that apartment and I'm paralyzed. I can't sleep. I don't use the kitchen. I can't look at Jack's room.” He was keenly aware that the words weren't even passing through any filters, just flying from his mind to his mouth and setting themselves free. It was always easier to talk at 2am with a beer in your hand. "I'm stuck. And I don't know what else to do but be at work where I can breathe. Where I have a purpose."

It was always easier to talk to Derek who would and could fill in all the blanks easily and accurately. He didn't have to explain every detail, every thought. Derek knew plenty without ever having to hear the words. “You wanna stay here tonight?”

That was Derek's charm. He could take in everything Hotch said, and everything he didn't say, and he could choose to force him to elaborate, or he could just hold the words carefully, like fragile things that might just as soon break as they would kill. Tonight, he would hold them close and keep them from doing further damage. If Hotch wanted to talk, he was all ears, but he wouldn't force the issue. He had tried that earlier in the pharmacy and narrowly escaped with his life.

“I shouldn't,” was Hotch's hesitant response. He took another sip of his beer, let it linger for a moment before gulping it down. “There's a patrol car sitting outside of my apartment waiting for me. I told them not to follow me, that I wouldn't be gone long. They'll track my phone if I don't return.”

“Patrol car? They got you under surveillance now?”

“For the time being. We know that Foyet watched Shaugnessey, and Strauss thinks that he may come back to watch me too. I have my doubts. I suspect Strauss is simply trying to keep her eye on me, not Foyet, and this is an easy way for her to do so.”

“You could tell them you're safe, couldn't you? Get out from under it for a while. Just to get a few hours of sleep?”

“Derek, is it really sleep that you're thinking about?”

Derek, knocking back the last of his beer, grinned a little madly. “Well it was...” He paused for effect, letting out a soft chuckle. “Damn. Yeah, sleep is all I meant man. Honest. You look like you could use a good coma.” No one but Derek would even attempt that kind of gallows humor with Hotch now, he knew it. Just the thought of it made his coiled muscles relax. Everyone spent the day walking on eggshells, passing concerned glances when they thought he hadn't noticed, talking and conspiring and wondering behind his back...and here was Derek joking about comas. To say he needed this was an understatement.

“Are you sure?”

“Take my bed. I'll sleep on the couch.”

“Do you no longer have a guest room?” Hotch asked, finishing his own beer finally with a yawn. It had started to get lukewarm.

“I do, I just figured you might want something a little more central. And if I'm out here on the couch, no one's getting in front or back without a fight. Plus that bed isn't as comfortable as mine.”

“And you think...”

“Man. You just got stabbed, you're barely healed so don't give me any of that the couch is fine shit. Just take the nice bed and enjoy something for once in your damn life.”

In Derek's room, the darkness was almost too quiet. There was a faint hum from beneath the radiator, clicking as it forced heated water through, and just enough wind outside to remind him now nice it was not to be sitting in his car. He'd already sent a text to his surveillance team telling them he was going to be out a while longer but to please just keep an eye out for Foyet around his home. Whether they would do that or not didn't concern him much, he was just playing the game. What did concern him was that he was crawling into Derek's cool bed sheets, into the smell of him, and curling up still in his suit and socks.

He'd left the door ajar, just a slip. There was enough light trickling in from the hallway that he could see around him once his eyes adjusted. Clooney snored right outside the door, small snuffling sounds, scraping of claws on hard wood, muffled barks of a dreaming dog. And still his eyes were open, he couldn't seem to make his body shut off. He twisted in the sheets, curled in on himself, always keeping one nervous eye on the door. He simply could not relax.

When his body felt too restless to even shift and twist again, he got out of bed and paced with his hands on his head, scrubbing desperately over his exhausted face. His chest hurt, but worse was his back, forced to pull double duty while his stomach healed. The tender muscle over his tailbone ached deeply while he walked, and he pressed at it mindlessly to try and quiet it.

Floorboards creaked beneath his weary socked feet, over and over. He would pace the room a few times, crawl back into bed and bury himself beneath the blankets only to repeat the process. It wasn't even that he was worried, he felt safe, perfectly safe in Derek's home...and yet.

Before he had a chance to crawl out of the bed for the fourth or fifth time, he felt a weight on the bed and the mattress shifted. He peered out through the nest of blankets to find Derek reclining on top of the blankets, staring at him.

“You haven't slept.”

“No.”

“And you're keeping me awake.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What's keeping you up? What do I need to do?”

Without warning, there were tears on Hotch's pillow. He didn't even know why. He could guess, perhaps, but there were too many choices. He was simply sad, he supposed. There was a lot on his plate and if he was being honest he was always right on the verge of tears anyway...it was just harder to hold them back now.

“Okay. Hey. How about I stay in here too?”

“Don't you dare,” Hotch started, sniffling indignantly at the tone in Derek's voice. “I'm not a damsel in distress. You and your shining armor can just go back to the couch.”

“Well, it's a bath robe and you know damn well that isn't what I'm doing, you asshole. I just can't get any sleep if you're up walking around all night in here making the damn floorboards creak. Old houses don't keep secrets. Plus you're disturbing the hell outta Clooney. Poor guy's a wreck. Go the fuck to sleep.”

Hotch smiled wearily at that and gave in. He wasn't winning this argument. He never really did with Derek, anyway. Sure, sometimes he got away with it at work, throwing orders around like darts when he had to make a point but at the end of the day...it didn't leave him with much more than heartache and an apology dancing on his tongue.

“Clooney hasn't moved in an hour,” Hotch whispered, but in spite of his protest he moved closer to Derek's warmth, his weight there on the bed.

“You still want me to leave?” Derek asked in an exasperated huff and Hotch shook his head from beneath the blankets.

“No.”

“Then go to sleep.” No way Foyet was getting in there, creeping around in Derek's shadows. Not with Clooney the attack dog snuffling around in his sleep right in the doorway. For a few hours, they could forget about all of it.

[true-autistic-tales]

lovesickness, chapter 1 "the chin-up"

"the break up"|"the party"

lovesickness is an au/fanfic made by me and has my experiences of being lithromantic and transgender but mostly lithromantic with some mommy issues as well tbh

warnings for this chapter: transphobia from axl's family and implied s/h :[

also keep in mind that new chapters will release extremely infrequent and that i am a beginner writer, thank you

story under the cut

a bad break up mixed with internal turmoil caused one rough night for axl, so much in fact that he was about to miss the bus for school.

"AXLENA!" frankie screamed throughout the house, calling for him to wake his ass up, although using his incorrect name to do so. "AXLENA, WAKE UP!"

"GOD, FINE!" axl finally responded and climbed out of his bed, annoyed at the fact that even though it's been a year since his outing, his own mother still refuses to use his name. he had gotten slightly used to the fact that his mother would never accept him, and for his father, well, he was barely in his life so axl didn't care for him anymore, especially when he still called axl by his deadname consistently. axl stood up from off the floor and grabbed some dirty clothes that he lazily threw around this room days before. making sure they were long sleeved, he quickly and effortlessly dressed up before he ran out his room to the front door but was interrupted by frankie standing in front of axl's way outside.

"aren't you going to say something?" she said with a cold attitude, knowing what axl was obliged to say since she was his mother.

"i-i love you too, mom." axl hesitated, quietly cringing to himself. he had questioned to himself if he actually loved frankie or he was just obligated because they were blood related, she had never accepted him since he came out over a year ago and it, of course, sadden him greatly. frankie smiled at him, like she actually cared for him, axl awkwardly smiled back at her, hoping that she would change and start loving him again like when he was a child.

"axl, hurry up! we're going to miss the bus, again!" sue called axl, rushing to him with a weirdly heavy bag for junior high. axl felt safe seeing sue again, she was his first family member who used axl's real name, brick slowly following but being "protected" by frankie and mike.

the heck children dashed outside, almost tripping on their feet trying to catch up to the bus, the cold autumn air disagreeing with their wishes. sue made it right before the bus started driving, standing in the open doorway, she yelled out for her brothers but brick was too slow. axl picked up his little brother and placed him on his shoulders and channeled all this strength into running while making sure brick didn't slip and fall. axl grasped the bus doors and jumped in front of his sister, gasping for a bit until the bus driver told them all to sit down. although brick didn't verbally thanked him, axl knew that brick appreciated him, and that made him more happier than what frankie made him feel. the hecks found a place to sit down, sue and brick sat with each other while axl sat by himself, deciding to get lost into some music for a while to past the time.

it felt like a while until the bus made it to axl's school, orson high. axl was the king there but recently, it felt like the popularity was artificial, fake, that no one actually liked him. at least sean and darrin seemed to really enjoy being around him, or was that fake too? axl worried, walking to his locker, stressing about more and more. earlier today walking inside of orson high, he thought he saw morgan multiple times which caused a lot of anxiety. mumbling to himself, axl closed his locker to meet the face of sean who was hiding behind the door of his locker. "AAAHH! GOD, SEAN, YOU BUTTHOLE!" he jumped, heart and mind racing. sean laughed and squeezed axl into an embrace which he winced in, arms being sensitive from what he did to himself last night.

"i wouldn't have taken the ax-man as a chicken!" sean playfully teased axl, letting go of him. axl chuckled embarrassingly, scratching his face, he would usually love sean's mischief but his mind was too hyperfocused on other things to enjoy him or anybody else.

"aw man, did i miss a bro cuddle?" darrin, with a disappointed face, walked next to sean from wherever the hell he once was.

"sorry bro but you did." sean scrunched his face and patted darrin on his shoulder, he shook his head defeatingily. axl smiled at his friends' tomfoolery, he was unbelievably grateful for his friends' acceptance of him, it truly felt like his friends loved him unconditionally.

"dude, are you alright?" darrin noticed axl's appearance, he had bags under his eyes and he was more quiet than usual.

"yeah, yeah, i'm alright." axl answered him, he didn't want his anybody to know what was happening to him mentally. sean looked at axl, frowning, sean knew he was lying for whatever reason. sean opened his mouth to ask axl what was actually happening but the bell rung out just in time to save him. "well, that's the bell. see you in 2nd period." axl walked off, leaving his friends at his locker. they didn't deserve to know axl's problems, it wasn't theirs to actively worry about, axl would hate himself even more if sean and darrin had to constantly stress about axl and his wellbeing.

2nd period, math. one of many of subjects axl sleeps through but considering how well he slept last night. "hey, ax-" sean scooted closer to the sleep deprived teen, making sure not to be been with his phone out in class. "i know what will cheer you up." he handed his phone to him, a message that read: "no parents, more fun!!! party at my place at 10!!! the more the better ;) xoxo" was opened. a party huh? axl grinned at sean, he was in. sean devilishly smiled back at the boy, quickly grabbing his phone from axl.

"a party it will be then."

[alphst]

The Western Union Co (WU) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

$WU Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript #earnings #markets #investing

The Western Union Co (NYSE:WU) Q1 2023 Earnings Call dated May. 02, 2023. Corporate Participants: Tom Hadley — Head of Investor Relations Devin McGranahan — President and Chief Executive Officer Matt Cagwin — Chief Financial Officer Analysts: Rayna Kumar — UBS — Analyst Darrin Peller — Wolfe Research — Analyst Ken suchoski — Autonomous — Analyst Tien-Tsin Huang — J.P. Morgan — Analyst Tim…

[soniccovers]

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie) #65

Pencils: Patrick Spaziante

Inks: ハリオ。

Colorist at Heroic Age Studios: Darrin Moore

[apprenticemockingbird]

Its kinda sad I have no interest in the new X-Files, considering what a big part of my teenage years it was.

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Band-Aids Don’t Fix Bullet Holes, But Your Kisses Do

summary:  in a standoff with an unsub, reader makes a choice: her life or spencer’s. 

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader 

category: angst/fluff at the end 

warnings/includes: canon typical case violence, based off of episode “haunted” so spoilers, guns/gun violence, hospitals, kissing, mentions of hotch’s stabbing 

word count: 3437 

author’s note: i wrote this one a while ago and thought i’d share it. if anyone wants to be tagged, i’m going to figure it out and i’ll add you to a tag list!!  

Band-Aids Don’t Fix Bullet Holes, But Your Kisses Do

The two agents that sat on swivel chairs facing each other fake arguing about an episode of Dr. Who. Spencer had his legs straight out, resting on Y/N’s lap comfortably. She leaned forward and placed her chin on her hand as she explained to Spencer her thoughts on the episode. 

“Spencer, you cannot tell me that you don't think  David Tennant is hot! I watched the episode with you and I can tell you are-" 

“I’m not going to argue against that, Y/N. David Tennant is,” Spencer started as he fiddled with the lollipop that Garcia handed him when he and Y/N walked into the bullpen.

“Is what, Spence?” A teasing look graced her face as Spencer’s blush grew down his exposed neck and collarbone. 

“He’s hot, okay Y/N is that what you want me to say!” Spencer’s voice rose a couple octaves from his admission over his not-so-subtle-crush on The Doctor.

“That’s exactly what I wanted you to say, Spencer. Least I know we have the same type” She said with a wink. 

“You got a type, Y/N?” Derek called from the doorway of the conference room. 

“Yeah, hot doctors with brown hair”  Emily said without missing a beat. She had walked in behind Derek, the pair  of them discussing her annual Sin-to-Win Weekend in Atlantic City. 

“But they, you know, have to be like Time Lords, or whatever” She said in efforts to cover up her growing discomfort. 

She turned her attention back to Reid, who was in the process of trying to remove his leg from her warm lap. He did not want to give Derek anymore ammunition to make sly jokes at his not-so-subtle-crush on his best friend/co-worker. Secretly, he wanted to keep his leg there, against her soft thigh and maybe she’d drop her hands on his leg in a comforting gesture of….friendship. 

Garcia placed a tin decorated with white and orange cats dressed in bonnets on the table just within reach of Hotch’s usual spot near the monitor. Reid reached forward to open the tin, which he deduced was filled with Penelope’s infamous snickerdoodle cookies. Unfortunately, before the genius profiler could reach the gaudy tin, Penelope swatted his hand away from grasping the cookies. 

“Hey! Those are for Hotch” Penelope shouted as she grabbed the tin and moved them closer to Hotch’s chair. 

“What? You know I love cookies, Garcia. Come on, Hotch hates attention” 

“I just made some cookies, it’s not like I made him a cake.” Penelope argued as Derek and Emily both quietly eyed the cookies. 

“Spence, we’ll make cookies tonight. It looks like it’s just a paperwork day” Y/N said with a slight smile, that, in turn, elicited a big grin from an unsuspecting Spencer.

“Anyway,” Derek started as he chose to ignore the interaction that unfolded before him “we all know he’s going to act like nothing happened” he remarked as he fingered through the dozen case files spread out before him on the table. 

“Doesn’t mean we have to,” Penelope said sadly as she looked down at the cat cookie tin.  

“Maybe we should,” Reid said quietly to his co-workers. 

“But, I’m not built like that!” said Penelope. 

“Hotch is though, Penny,” Y/N noted as she snuck a cookie while Penelope’s back was turned. She broke it in half and handed it to Spencer under the table. He winked at her as she shushed him. 

“Yeah, Y/N,” Spencer said with a mouthful of cookie, “Hotch never blinks” he finished with a large swig of lukewarm, sugared coffee. 

“Classic Alpha Male” Spencer said, looking towards Derek. 

“Do you think he stared down Foyet...you know while it happened?” Emily questioned. She was usually the one who could stomach all these, but when it came to the team, she was as nervous as the lot of them. 

“It’s probably what saved his life,” Derek said somberly. 

“He can’t be okay,” Penelope said with a whisper. 

“I wouldn’t be,” Spencer said with an air of uncertainty, “I’m a blinker” 

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There was an uncomfortable silence during the ride to Louisville. Hotch was more sullen than usual, but, thankfully, Garcia broke the tension with her reports via computer screen. 

“Our point in Louisville is Lieutenant Kevin Mitchell, my contacts don’t report any more attacks related to this unsub” JJ relayed. She sat next to Derek, who was across from Hotch and Rossi. Emily sat criss cross on the table across from the foursome. On the small jet couch, Spencer and Y/N played a game of chess as they listened to the initial reports JJ received from the local PD. 

“Call’s proving hard to track. He never had a driver’s license, so he’s probably still on foot,” Spencer mumbled without removing his eyes from the chessboard. 

“Or public transportation,” Y/N added as she cringed when Spencer announced “check”. 

“Well, he’s not going to get anywhere too far with his face all over the news,” Emily continued. 

“So, what do we think the stressor is,” Rossi nodded. 

“He just lost his job. Worked in a factory since 1990. He made appliances forever. Not a single promotion” Garcia’s voice came across a little staticky. 

“That’s a long time to be bitter,” Derek posed. 

“Or he just doesn’t care,” Reid countered. 

“According, to what you sent over Garcia, he kind of seems like a hermit. Far as I can tell he’s got no one. No wife, no children, no parents.” Y/N added with a sad tone in her voice. 

With a sharp tone, Hotch added “then why didn’t he kill himself?” 

“He’s not finished killing yet,” Reid continued the thought, “check mate!” 

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It was at times like these that it seemed like the case drags on forever. Call had kidnapped a little boy, who, Spencer had figured out was Call’s biological son.  The local PD was getting them nowhere. Those overly macho cops seemed to be having a difficult time taking orders from JJ. Y/N watched as she marched over to Mitchell and demanded that he give a press conference. 

Y/N chuckled quietly to herself as she watched the interaction. JJ was a force to be reckoned with, especially when the life of an innocent child was at stake. That cop had no idea who he was challenging. 

“Hey, Y/N,” Spencer called from his spot in front of the whiteboard. It was decorated with a combination of their messy, rushed handwriting. Spencer grasped his blue marker and looked at Y/N with a painful expression. 

“I’m not getting anywhere with this geographical profile,” Spencer’s somber tone flooded Y/N’s emotions with an overwhelming sense to comfort him. 

“Spencer, put the marker down and look at me, please, for a second.” He obliged as he turned to face her.

Y/N reached up on her tiptoes to gently rub her hands along the base of Spencer’s neck. He could feel the tension melt away. Spencer was not one for physical affection, but he realized that he, in fact, craved the soft touches of people he trusted. Whether it was a brotherly pat on the back from Morgan, a playful high five from Garcia, a proud fist bump from Hotch, Spencer had grown to seek out affection. 

“Y/N,” he said. His voice but a whisper in the loud, hectic bullpen. 

“Shh,” She could sooth his worries just with a graze of her hands across his neck. It was magic to a scientist. Her magical presence set him on fire. 

“Hey, we can do this, Spence, all of us, but we need you,” Y/N voice mirrored his own. A hushed whisper that fueled the flames of his love. 

Instead of kissing her forehead or even hugging her, all Spencer could make out was a small thank you, before, like the wind, she was gone to see if Garica had any updates on the missing boy. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a frantic hour, Garcia had discovered a possible location of Tommy and his father, Darrin. Like most the unsubs, they were children of tragedy. Children of abusive homes and of deep rooted violence. It was up to the team, as they raced down the street in their crowded SUVs, to stop the cycle of violence for claiming another innocent child. 

“Hotch, you are on speaker,” Emily called from the passenger seat of the car as Derek sped down the warehouse where they suspected Tommy to be held. 

“Do not go in there without SWAT, do you all here me?” Hotch said sternly. 

“That means you, Derek, don’t go in there till backup gets there,” JJ added from the phone that Emily held. 

“You got it, boss man,” Derek made a sharp turn that led Y/N to nearly fall into Spencer, who sat next to her. 

“Spencer! Where is your vest!?” Y/N asked him impatiently, with a tinge of nervousness and fear laced in her tone. 

“Y/N, Call doesn’t have a gun, he’s been using weapons of opportunity. The profile points to him not even being armed right now. If anything-” 

“Screw the profile, Spencer!” Y/N’s voice was hysterical now. “You need to where a damn vest, you are an FBI agent, if you get-” 

Y/N’s rant to Spencer was stopped short by the disturbing sight before her. From the SUV the four of them could see an even more distraught Call standing out in the middle of the warehouse parking lot. He held Tommy by the neck, with a gun pointed at his temple. Derek stopped the car and jumped out, his gun wielded as he began to try to talk the man down. 

“Call, drop the weapon and release Tommy, right now!” Derek’s voice loomed large and powerful as Emily, Reid, and Y/N each got out of the vehicle and turned their spots with Morgan. 

“You don’t want to hurt Tommy,” Spencer started. “we know who he is to you, we know that he’s your son, and that you weren’t there for him.” He put his gun away in an attempt to show Call that he was not a threat. Y/N could read the desperation in Spencer’s voice from a mile away. Call, like Spencer’s mom lives with schizophrenia. Spencer and Hotch nearly had it out in the middle of the bullpen after Spencer insinuated that Hotch was implying that Call was only going on this murder spree because of his condition.

“Just let the boy go, Call.” Y/N continued the track that Derek and Spencer started. “Just let your son go. We will make sure that you can get medicine, that’s why you went to the pharmacy, right? You need meds to help yourself and then,-” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Y/N could see Spencer inching closer and closer to Tommy. As if it was a chain reaction, Call drew his weapon and fired towards Spencer. Before she even could realize the consequences of her actions, Y/N tackled Spencer to the ground. The bullet lodged itself into the Kevlar vest she wore. Her side burned as she came to understand what had transpired in the last couple of seconds. 

Spencer scrambled onto his knees and clutched Y/N’s cold hands in his. 

“Spence, I’m okay,” Y/N said as she struggled to sit up straight with Spencer practically laying on top of her. 

“No, Y/N! Don’t do that,” Spencer started with tears flooding the corners of his eyes. The little droplets made his sometimes brown and sometimes green eyes sparkle with sadness. 

Spencer moved his hands from the place where the bullet lodged itself in her Kevlar to grasp her face tenderly. But his movement caused her cheek to be painted with a deep red handprint in the shape of the crying man crouching before her hand.

“Spencer,” she let out a small whimper when she saw the look of horror on his face.  Before he could even ask her why she did what she did, Y/N passed out, her limp, cold hand finding its home in the comfort of soft, warm ones. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the case passed in a numbing hum for Spencer. Once Y/N got shot by Call he let go of Tommy and Derek shot him the leg. Spencer did not even stay for when Emily and Derek apprehended the unsub. It was like his legs acted of their own accord when the EMT showed up for Y/N and he walked with them never letting go of her hand. 

The ride to the hospital in the back of the ambulance was hectic. The EMTs had to monitor her heart rate, her blood pressure, and her oxygen. Even the temptation of numbers could not capture Spencer’s attention as he mulled over the possible conclusions to why Y/N would take a bullet for him. There was no logical reason for it. Not one. Spencer let the steady rocking of the ambulance to soothe him as he gently rubbed his thumb over Y/N’s hand. Even though he longed to hold her against himself, this would have to do, for now at least. Till then, Spencer forced his mind to focus on the pattern that her beating heart created.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hospitals terrified Spencer. The smell, the sick people, the people who were unsavable. Part of him wonders what his life would be like if he became a medical doctor. As a kid, he had a future where he could do anything he could dream of. Cure schizophrenia on Monday, operate on an inoperable tumor on Tuesday- that’s what his life could have been like. 

But sitting there, in the sterile hospital with the white walls and constant beeping, Spencer’s mind was only thinking of another life he could be out living. In the minutes that he sat with Y/N as she lay in pain in his arm, false memories of a life together painted in his mind. Laughing children, family picnics, couple’s Halloween costumes. He stroked her hair and saw a life so familiar that he could almost taste it. He tasted cookies that they baked together as they danced without a care in the world. He tasted Halloween and Forth of July and all the holidays in between. He tasted butterfly kisses with his children that had her hair and her eyes and her smile. 

He was stripped away from those memories that he didn’t even own. Now all he could taste was the bitterness of regret, the sourness of what if, and the tartness of the nightmares masquerading as reality. 

“Family of Y/L/N,” a surgeon dressed in light blue scrubs walked into the waiting area with an unreadable expression on her face.

JJ and Derek stood up immediately as the doctor went to continue to deliver the news. 

“She’s awake and doing okay,” the doctor said with a relieved expression. 

“Oh that goodness,” JJ said as she hugged Emily in a moment of happiness. 

“She’s a fighter,” Derek quipped, “I’m going to call Garcia, she’s probably a nervous wreck” 

“She’ll make a full recovery, but should avoid air travel because her internal bleeding,” the doctor reported, “also, which one of you is Spencer? Even since she’d been lucid, she’s been asking for you,” she said looking around at the remaining group, with her eyes landing on the man in question. 

“She is?” Spencer questioned carefully. He was worried that maybe she regretted jumping in front of him. 

“Yes, why don’t you come with me. It may make her more comfortable having someone she wants with her” 

Y/N wants him. 

Him. 

Spencer was not sure how he even walked himself down the corridor to where Y/N’s room was located. But sure enough, he was met with her ashen face beaming up at his. 

“Y/N! Oh my goodness, are you okay, I mean, obviously you’re injured so you’re not okay. I don’t mean to invalidate your pain, I just...why, Y/N, why on Earth would you do that?” Spencer finished. His voice was more tender towards the end. He looked down at his friend before him and tried to read the expression that graced her face. 

“Spencer, I did what I had to do. You….you would have died,” Spencer noticed the tears that puddled in her eyes and had to suppress the sudden urge to kiss them away. 

“I’d rather die than live my life in a world without you, Spencer.”

Spencer closed his eyes and sat down on the bed with her. 

“Why?” he asked in a voice that was hardly audible. It can’t be, he thought. Maybe this is just something that a teammate does for another teammate. Comrades in arms or something like that, he thought. Trying to make sense of senselessness. 

“Why do you value my life more than yours? Why-how can you do that” there was not stopping tears in his eyes now. She reached out and held his face, like he held her as she bled out in the warehouse only a couple of hours ago. 

“Spence, my life would be dull and gray without you in it. You’re my best-” She stared as he tensed up at what he knew was coming. She only jumped in front of him because it’s what a teammate does. 

“Please, I can't bear to hear that. I-maybe you only can think of me as a teammate or worse a brother, but part of me. A hopeful and romantic part of me that I can't let go of the thought of you thinking about in a different way,” he was so embarrassed, so raw in the moment that he could not bear to even look her in the eyes. 

“Spencer?” he could only watch the way that their fingers laced together. He focused on the patterns between the itchy hospital blanket. 

“Y/N,” he started and took a deep breath. Spencer had never intended to tell her this. Maybe in moments of drunken bravery he thought about it, but he’d always sober up before his dreams could come to fruition. 

“I’m a logical man, I solve problems for a living but sometimes. Sometimes, I can’t use logic to solve some problems, and there’s no logical reason for you to jump in front of a bullet for me. Unless you love me? And I hope with every fiber of being that you do, because I am so desperately in love with you” 

Spencer allowed himself, for the first in his life, to have once of hope and faith. 

Y/N’s eyes met Spencer’s in an uncharacteristically shy moment. 

“I do, Spence. Of course I love you”

Spencer let out a nervous laugh as he, once again, gently placed his hands on her jaw. He placed a kiss on her forehead. The small, tender affection elicited a whimper from Y/N. Spencer jumped back in horror. 

“Oh, honey did I hurt you? You gotta tell me where it hurts” he murmured in a comforting voice. 

“Hmm, no I’ve just been waiting five years for you to kiss me and you settle on my forehead?” Y/N beamed up at him expectantly. 

“Nowhere do you want me to kiss you, my dear?” Spencer questioned playfully. 

“How about in between everywhere and anywhere you want, Doctor Reid,” Y/N, despite the pain, managed a smile for the man that held her hand so lovingly. 

“How about here?” Spencer leaned forward and kissed the left corner of her mouth. 

“Or here?” The right corner. 

“What about here, I’ve dreamed of kissing you here.” He moved his mouth to meet the place on her neck that met her collarbone. Y/N looked up at Spencer dreamily. One day she might chalk it up to the painkillers flooding through her system, but the pure adoration that melted from Spencer’s lips to her skin was something that never knew she’d crave. 

“And here” 

His lips parted slightly as he moved in to meet hers. The feeling was more divine and earth shattering than when Prometheus gave humans fire. Together, intertwined in bedsheets, IVs, and fingers laced with hair, they lit a fire of their own. Kissing Spencer stopped time. 

It was Y/N who broke first. 

“Spencer,” she said with a new reverence that would only be reserved for him. 

“Yes, sweet girl?” 

“You gotta promise me something,” she said as she raked her hands across his arms, feeling him shudder under her touch. 

“Anything and everything for you” he said, mirroring her earlier words to him. 

“Wear a vest next time”

[whump-town]

Was Hotch Abused?

I offer you my 2,300+ worded thoughts on the matter with episodes included. There's going to be lots and lots of talk about abuse so you're going to want to steer clear of that if that's something you're not cool with but for those of you interested... I give you all the proof I could think of:

Natural Born Killer.

In the eighth episode of the first season, “Natural Born Killer”, we meet Vincent Perrotta. His father was abusive but from the outside looking in, no one knew a thing. Perrotta started drinking at fourteen and committed petty crimes, as well as assault, for pleasure. Going as far as to kill his own father not too long after. But Perrotta is a monster and a psychopath so it’s clear we’re not supposed to sympathize which makes his interaction with Hotch so peculiar.

Hotch is our “Captain America”. A true neutral with an infinity for doing what’s right so it’s inconceivable to compare him to Perrotta and yet Hotch gives us some rather conflicting lines to dissect.

Before Gideon hands the interview over to Hotch, he spends a moment talking with the others out in the bullpen. The whole time he’s leaned back and he’s watching Morgan and Hotch. Now, at this point, we don’t know about the sexual abuse Derek Morgan faced at the hands of Carl Buford but there’s something about the way that Gideon spends the entirety of the conversation only looking at the two of them. Waiting for them to put together what he clearly already has and when Hotch does…

Hotch jumps straight into Perrotta’s profile, asking: “You grew up in a house that looked normal and happy, didn’t you Vincent?”, “But your father beat you every chance he got”

Perrotta excuses it with a shrug, “he smacked me around some, didn’t everybody’s old man?”

Abuse is a complicated thing and, often, abused children just don’t know what their parents are doing to them is abuse. It can be a subtle and outright thing but there’s an element of normalcy to it. The parent’s abuse is as habitual, as minimal as biting your nails to the child. Adults often can’t identify their parent’s past abuse.

With Hotch you learn that his lack of expression is often as telling as his expressions and as Hotch looks back at Perrotta, there’s something so sad about his eyes. His voice goes from loud, assertive to his whispered answer to Perrotta’s question. “No.” As if, well, maybe that’s a question he’d raised once too.

Perrotta doesn’t care about that though and he taunts “well, maybe if yours had you would have learned to fight”. But is it not more telling that Hotch didn’t make a sound? Perrotta got in several hits and the only sound Hotch made was when the wind was literally punched out of him. Not even when Gideon called to him and at that point, Perrotta did not the garrote around Hotch’s throat. That’s another thing mentioned before in the profile and something Hotch mentions to Perrotta directly. You learn to take the beatings, smile even. So, it’s just a little odd how little Hotch responded…

But that’s all nothing, you can take that how you want

Which leads us to the fateful, not everyone comment.

"You were just responding to what you learned, Vincent. When you grow up in an environment like that, an extremely abusive and violent household... it's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers"

That can’t mean NOTHING, there’s so much there but there’s something about Hotch’s subtle wording. The way he’s unconsciously slipped himself in there (a very real thing that people do) and he hasn’t even realized it. Doesn’t even know he’s done it until Perrotta pushes and he pauses, asks what Perrotta means. And the subtly of it, the way he doesn’t even mean to that says more than anything else.

“And some people grow up to catch them.”

It’s a super-specific comment to make. He can’t possibly be talking about Derek because he doesn’t even know about Carl Buford yet not to mention saying that about him would be incredibly rude if he were talking about Reid (and again, he doesn’t know about Reid’s childhood yet). So… that really only leaves him because JJ, Garcia, and Elle were not abused.

“P911”

In season two, episode two “P911” the team is hunting down a man trying to sell a young boy, Peter, on the black market. Kevin Rose is an underage boy “selling” himself on the internet while his abusive father has been in prison. I’ll let you just guess who it is that leads the team on finding out more about Kevin.

Your guess is more than likely right-- Morgan and Hotch. Now, we know about Morgan but come on. Nothing to say about it being Hotch who makes the emotional appeal?

The camera even follows his gaze, he’s crouched down (to appear non-threatening because he’s so close) and we watch his eyes take in the scars on Kevin’s chest. You can also note that while Gideon remarks that Kevin’s father was “always drunk, you never knew why he was hurting you, why he was so angry” both Kevin and Hotch look away from him.

AND FUCKING TRY AND TELL ME THE “some grow up to catch them” LINE WAS NOTHING TRY BECAUSE GUESS WHAT GIDEON SAYS? NO, NO GUESS--

Gideon: “At night you’d cry yourself to sleep hoping someone would come and save you”

And it’s HOTCH, HOTCH IS THE ONE TO SAY: “You have the chance to be the one who saves someone, Kevin. You can be the one who answers him, the one who stops his pain.”

PARALLELS PEOPLE THE PARALLELS

“Profiler, Profiled”

I bet you weren’t expecting this one, huh? But there’s something about people who faced trauma that makes it so perceptible to other traumatized people-- they sniff it out like coke to a drug hound. And, just guess, who it is that spends the majority of his time fighting with Morgan? Who knows (like I said about the bloodhound) immediately there is something Morgan’s hiding.

Hotch is angry, he’s upset that Morgan would hide anything. Mumbling about there being “larger implications” and how the team can’t have secrets. With the knowledge of exactly what that secret is it makes Gideon’s eye roll a little telling. Because it’s like they both know but neither will say. Driven home by Gideon turning the attention to Hotch, asking “would you want us profiling you?”

And again Hotch is the one to leap onto the abuse. The one to put the pieces together. Hotch’s anger makes no sense. He says he’s angry that Derek’s keeping a secret but the team has many, way too many. Over the years the team unwraps all kinds of secrets, he’s never angry then. So, it’s not about the implication of a secret at all. It’s what the secret is, like misplaced anger. Anger with himself may be leftover from his own abuse. But still…

Hotch lets Morgan escape. Knows exactly who and what Carl Buford is but all he tells the team is that “he won’t even speak about him”. He always knows how to find the abuse… like I said, a bloodhound.

George Foyet

I know you’re going to find this so fucking surprising but guess who also was abused? George Foyet was beaten by his biological father and his mother didn’t save him so he hates women (bleh, men are disgusting what’s knew).

Now, blah, blah, blah Hannah, I know you’re not about to say Foyet and Hotch are a lot alike-- no of course not. Don’t be silly. What I’m going to say is that they’re foil characters? They accent one another in an opposites sort of way. Foyet is a manipulative narcissist who doesn’t work well with others. Hotch is a guilt-ridden team leader who can’t let The Reaper’s case go. There are meant to be comparisons drawn between them. A good villain does that. George Foyet shows us that Hotch is not at all this removed, cool guy that we’ve previously assumed him to be. He cries in an alley because he blames himself when The Reaper kills a busload of people.

We see he has a rather compulsive nature. He never let The Reaper case go and has very personal ties in this case. Not even after Foyet attacks him, if anything it’s worse. He brings the case file home.

But it’s certainly interesting to see yet another “villain” with that same tragic abusive father and submissive mother come into play with Hotch. We’re nearing a point where it’s getting hard to call it coincidence (and according to David Rossi, there simply is not such thing).

Haunted.

In the second episode of the fifth season, “Haunted”, Hotch voice’s over a Dickinson quote: “One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing. Material place.” These quotes are often cheesy, if not a little cliché, but given the premise of this episode is in exploring the ways in which a man’s traumatic childhood has left him now grappling for a truth he can not define… well, maybe we can say the writers were onto something here.

Darrin Call, debatably the Unsub of “Haunted”, was abused by an alcoholic father. We see several signs of it throughout the episode-- Darrin’s delayed speech & severe neglect that leaves Darrin in dirty, hole-riddled clothing. If what we see is not enough, the reports that the team is given on Darrin explicitly state that he was extremely physically abused. It is this abuse that leads to the PTSD that he’s diagnosed with.

As sad and disheartening as Darrin Call’s life is, overall it’s the sort of episode that is forgotten over time. When it’s placed right after the episode that viewers have to watch Hotch say goodbye to Haley and Jack then, who is Darrin Call when compared to the agony of watching Hotch show genuine weakness? After watching Hotch lay in a hospital bed, tears in his eyes wondering if his son will remember him? His fears become our own and after watching George Foyet disarm and mutilate the one guy we’ve been led to believe for five seasons is infallibly, unflinchingly never going to break… well, Darrin Call has it bad but our focus is elsewhere.

It’s on Hotch, right?

The guy who is coming back to the job after only a month (and a day) off to recover. Who Morgan worries might have PTSD but he knows they can’t easily measure because Hotch wrote the questionnaire, he knows all the right answers. Who we see has had new locks installed since the attack and has Foyet’s file sitting open on a table for easy access. Who hears Darrin Call’s life (worked the same job without promotion for years before getting fired, no wife, no kids, a hermit) and bluntly asks why Darrin hasn’t just killed himself.

And let’s just take a moment to break down that comment. Hotch, who in the episode previously lost his wife and child, wants to know why a man who is steadily starting to sound a lot like him hasn’t just killed himself.

And I don’t say “sounds a lot like him” lightly.

Darrin Call has PTSD. Hotch, more than likely, has PTSD

Here are some signs just from that episode: hostility (he yelled at Garcia over something very small), self-destructive behavior (he ran into Darrin Call’s father’s house without a vest, back-up, or telling the other’s what he was doing), and guilt (blamed himself for missing the eye twitching Darrin exhibited because of his years of antipsychotic use)

Darrin Call was abused… this marks the second HEAVILY implied time that Hotch has been compared to another man abused by his father

Vincent Perrotta was the first with that hard to forget the exchange

George Foyet and his notably exactly the same past as Perrotta

“Haunted” feels like it’s supposed to prove to the audience that Hotch is losing it. He distances himself from Morgan, leaving every room that Morgan is in. He doesn’t pick up Garcia’s calls after Darrin Call attacks his therapist. The only glimpse we see of the old Hotch is with Emily, pulled to the side, but his guilt burns and he even brushes her off. Shaking his head and turning his back to her because somehow he should have seen something no one else did.

Throw in Reid’s comment about Call “victims are often drawn to the scene of their first trauma” and we’re painfully reminded of Hotch’s apartment. A place you’d think he’d want to escape but didn’t. The man was stabbed nine times in his own apartment and stayed in that same place. Almost sounds like that statement could be applied to Hotch too.

A dash of Hotch’s own comment about where Call would go to in his confusion and he says “to what he knows”, even the importance of how that orphanage is “where he became Darrin Call”. Where does Hotch go? What does Hotch know? The job.

So… we tally now three total Unsubs that Hotch has this direct relationship with. Three Unsubs with abusive fathers and mothers who couldn’t protect them. Hmm… coincidence?

Brothers Hotchner

Supervisor Special Agent Hotchner is a master of hiding, that is undeniable. It’s hard to see anything behind those furrowed brows and impersonal suits and that’s likely for a reason. However, anyone with a little sibling can tell you that no one on this Earth can and will annoy the ever-loving shit out of you like a sibling.

But that’s not really important. Sean and Hotch don’t talk about their parents. At all. Ever.

Hotch says that when Sean was in the first grade he got sent off to boarding school. “I was the screw-up making bad choices”. Interesting enough of a statement to make but you throw in the rough ages of Sean and Hotch at that time and it’s a little more than just “interesting”. You have Hotch at roughly 14-15 getting into trouble just like Morgan did at that same age (coincidence???).

(now you can certainly look at Hotch’s parentification vs. Sean’s immaturity doubled with substance abuse problems but we’d be stretching. “The Tribe” touches on the parentification but Sean just calls it “the big brother” thing and tells Hotch that he’s not Sean’s father and it’s fine it’s whatever. Hotch is a bit pushy. That’s not new. Substance abuse can just be a problem, it doesn’t have to be bc they were abused but again… a little coincidental)

So... was Aaron Hotchner abused as a child? I certainly think so

[griffinpuff]

10, 11, 14!

10. Who is your favorite character aside from Mulder and Scully?

Oh definitely Skinner. Poor Skinner gets the short end of a stick on so many occasions. After all he’s done for Mulder and Scully, they still distrust him like once a week sdhjfdksl

11. Do you have any X-Files ships aside from MSR?

Eh no lol. I guess if I watched the whole of s8 and s9 (I only watched the episodes with Mulder and Scully in them lol) I could see myself ship Dogget and Reyes. But as it is I don’t care about anyone else but MSR ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

14. Favorite episode(s)? Why?

Oh god why are you doing this to me.

Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose is definitely up there. It’s obviously incredibly funny, but like in a lot of Darrin Morgan’s scripts it has this underlying sadness to it that is fascinating to me. All of this mostly because of Clyde Bruckman who only appears in this one episode but is so memorable. And I always like the way Darrin Morgan writes Scully. Like she gets to have quirks like Mulder does, you know? Like Mulder has these things like sunflower seeds, sports etc. And I feel like Scully doesn’t. But she does in Darrin Morgan’s scripts. Like we know how her night off looks like in the War of Caprophages and she gets a dog in here. And she just usually shows her more playful side (”eating” that bug in Humbug, her playing cards with Bruckman etc etc). So basically anything written by Darrin Morgan is a safe bet to be one of my faves.

Pusher because it’s an incredibly tight script. And I adore all the small scenes between Mulder and Scully. The one in the car where Scully falls asleep and Mulder wakes her up? I almost tear up because it’s so soft and gentle. The “smile Scully” scene. She is so worried about Mulder 🤧🤧. And of course when Mulder points his gun at Scully under Modell’s influence and it takes all of his will not to shoot her and tell her to run and Scully saving the day by sounding the alarm bell. Love love love.

One Breath is so breathtaking (pun intended). Mulder going fucking FERAL in the hospital? Chef’s kiss. Mulder being angry at everyone responsible for Scully’s condition and being angry at himself and blaming himself. Mulder wanting to take revenge and ACTUALLY GETTING the chance to do it but only to turn it down because ultimately it won’t change a thing and he better be there for Scully? It was the first “Scully is in the hospital and Mulder is losing it” episode and it set the bar VERY HIGH.

Memento Mori just because of the sheer amount that I’ve re-watched the hallway scene? Another heartbreaking hospital scene lol. They’re SO SOFT, THAT HUG IS EVERYTHING. THE FOREHEAD KISS, THE CARESSING OF HER FACE. THE TENDERNESS. THE EMOTIONS. THEY’RE TOO MUCH.

Ight, I’ve already written a whole essay so I’m gonna stop lmao.

Ask me the x-files related question so I can procrastinate on studying.

[newcountryradio]

New country 25e jaargang  #1141 (700) van 5 september      2022  (wk 36) tussen 19.00 -22.00 op Smelne fm

Album van de week: Cole Swindell – Stereotype  - Warner Music Nashville                         

      Artiest                        Title                                                    

1.    Marty Stuart - Tempted

2.    Old Dominion – No Such Thing As A Broken Heart

3.    Dylan Scott – Can’t Have Mine

4.    Blake Shelton – No Body

5.    Scotty McCreery – It Matters  To Her

6.    Elle King  feat Dierks Bentley  - Worth A Shot  60

7.    Hardy feat. Lainey Wilson) – Wait In The Truck   55

8.    Kenny Chesney – Beer With My Friends   32.

9.    Cole Swindell – Single Saturday Night .

10. Cole Swindell – Never Say Never   (with Lainey Wilson)

11. Overzicht  5-1 airplay    Jon Pardi - Last Night Lonely  #1

12. Darrin Morris Band – Like Whiskey  

13. Mark Wills - Wish You Were Here          1999

14. Tim McGraw – Please Remember Me

15. Sunny Sweeny (feat Vince Gill) -  Married Alone ---favoriet    

16. Martina McBride – A Broken Wing (greatest hits 2001)

17. Martina McBride – Blessed  (greatest hits 2001)

18. Gary Chapman with Alison Krauss – If God Had A Front Porch  

19. Alabama – The Maker Said Take Her    .    

20. Corb Lund – Highway 87

21. Silver Lining – The Dream

22. Joshua  Hedley – Found In A Bar  

23. Hawkshaw  Hawkins – Soldier Joy ’s .

24. Cole Swindell – Stereotype  .*album of the week

25. Ronnie Dunn – The Blade   - vorige album  vd week

26. Tyler Hubbard – Dancing In The Country

27. Morgan Wallen –   You Proof               #1 album

28. Mark Chesnutt – I Don’t Want To Miss A thing

29. Lonestar – Amazed

30. Sawyer Brown – Six days On The Road       *Trucksong

31. Marty Stuart – Freigh Train Boogie

32. Wyatt Easterling – I Know How You Are             juweeltje

33. Ricochet – Seven Bridges Road -  

34. Mark Blomsteel – Tennessee

35. Ben & Carmen Steneker – Over The Years .

36. Tim Knol  - Love Lines

37. Tim Knol – You Don’t Wanna Miss The Show   .

38. Garth Brooks – Make You Feel My Love                   3 in 1

39. Trisha Yearwood – How Do I Live       (3in 1)  

40. Garth & Trisha - Shallow    3 in 1

41. Cole Swindell  - She Had Me At Heads Carolina  

42. Willie Nelson  A whiter Shade Of Pale  

43. Kenny Rogers – The Greatest            

Dolly Parton – Coat Of Many Colors .(#1 Rolling stone album

[alphst]

Mastercard Incorporated (MA) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mastercard Incorporated  (NYSE: MA) Q1 2023 Earnings Call dated Apr. 27, 2023 Corporate Participants: Warren Kneeshaw — Head of Investor Relations Michael Miebach — Chief Executive Officer Sachin Mehra — Chief Financial Officer Analysts: Lisa Ellis — MoffettNathanson — Analyst Tien-tsin Huang — J.P. Morgan — Analyst Darrin Peller — Wolfe Research — Analyst Rayna Kumar — UBS — Analyst Bryan Keane…

[howardhawkshollywood]

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Louis Jean Heydt as Joe Brody, and Sonia Darrin in an original publicity still for The Big Sleep (1946). Lou was born in Montclair, New Jersey, and had 173 acting credits from 1933 to a 1960 tv episode. His other notable credits include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Gone With the Wind, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, The Great McGinty, High  Sierra, How Green Was My Valley, The Miracle of Morgans Creek, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, They Were Expendable, Rawhide, The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Star is Born (1954), episodes of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, My Friend Flicka, Maverick, Rawhide, and Wagon Train (two episodes).

[artwalktv]

In the wilderness, a tree begins to question whether it may actually be a man tripping on hallucinogens. WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PRODUCED by Varun Raman & Tom Hancock CAST Tree - Daniel Campbell Rick - Michael Shon Tiny - Shaun Wright CREW Director of Photography - Jamie Harding 1st Assistant Camera - Cameron Reed Production Assistant - Shaun Wright POST Editor - Darrin Brading VFX - Morgan Beringer Colourist - Daniel Garden Sound Department - Aumeta Sound Design, Re-recording Mix and Voiceover Technician - Seb Bruen Music - Three Peaks Music (Seb Bruen & Ben Riches) Mix Consultant - Tim Harrison -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FESTIVALS + AWARDS Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival - LAB COMPETITION STUDENT JURY PRIZE Fantasia International Film Festival (World Premiere) Encounters Film Festival (UK Premiere) Fantastic Fest (US Premiere) Aesthetica Short Film Festival Palm Springs International Short Film Festival London Short Film Festival Atlanta Film Festival St. Louis International Film Festival Flatpack Festival Florida Film Festival DeadCenter British Shorts Izmir International Short Film Festival REGARD - Saguenay International Short Film Festival Vienna Shorts Manchester Film Festival RiverRun International Film Festival Brooklyn Horror Film Festival Landshut Short Film Festival LA Comedy Film Festival HARD:LINE International Film Festival Fantaspoa - International Fantastic Film Festival of Porto Alegre Abertoir Horror Festival Splat!FilmFest Maryland Film Festival Celluloid Screams Horror Film Festival Courts Mais Trash Exit 6 Film Festival - BEST EDITING Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival - BEST MICRO SHORT AUDIENCE AWARD Leiden Shorts Oxford Film Festival Anchorage International Film Festival Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS Monster Fest Short Com International Comedy Film Festival Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival Short Sounds Film Festival London-Worldwide Comedy Short Film Festival Videodrunk COPYRIGHT Parallel Madness © 2021

[therealpedrolee]

Shot4Shot (Online) presents BIG TONIGHT! 9:30 PM - 11:30 PM EST Online ***To rsvp please email shot4shotNYC@gmail.com to request your exclusive watch link!*** CAST Stage Directions/Drink Ref... Michelle Drozdick* Big Josh Baskin... Jenny Hill Little Josh Baskin/Desk Woman... Marissa Stuart Susan... Matt Caron Mr. MacMillan...Yaya Munoz Paul... Ryan Chittaphong Billy... Leah Evans Cynthia Benson/Police/Realtor... Pedro Lee Mom/Driver... Ro Rovito Scott/Zoltar/Check Lady/Man 2/Cocktail Goer 1... Amelia Morgan Dad/Coach/Woman/Secretary... Heather Jewels Booth Darrin/Kid 1/Video Man/Jordan/Man 3/Boy... Matthew McFadden* Man/Kid 2/Pier Man/Personnel Director/Delivery Man/Cocktail Goer 2... Kate Martino* https://www.instagram.com/p/CTHzMf5rkuU/?utm_medium=tumblr