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upsidedownwithsteve · 6 months

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A soulmate AU: Steve Harrington x fem!reader [4.6K]

THE TIMELINE

"Oh, won't you stay, just a little bit longer. Please let me hear, you say that you will, Say you will."

- Stay By Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs

IV. MOUNTAIN LAKE, VIRGINA: 1963

The man in front of you was not part of your vacation plans. He was half naked, sweaty, annoyed and scowling. The man in front of you was a stranger.

Except he wasn’t.

Was he?

You knew his name by now, something you’d only learnt on Monday, or perhaps the day before. Steve, Steve Herringbone or Barrington or something. He didn’t like it when you called him Steven and he certainly didn’t like it when you argued back.

But this was supposed to be a getaway, a small summer break where you could maybe sneak a smoke by the lake when everyone had returned to their cabins and the geriatric morning yoga was done. Except your dad knew the owner of the summer retreat, a huge house settled in the Virginia countryside, the forest greener than it was back home. Bauman’s Mountain House was host to many golf courses, a fencing team, seventeen rowboats, an archery club, the best water aerobics in the state and an award winning dance show.

The very latter included the man in front of you.

Tall, broad shouldered and tanned from the summer, Steve Harrington was handsome and painstakingly so. Brown hair that he always tried to tame by pushing his hand through it, brown eyes and too many freckles to count. He wore a gold chain around his throat, black slacks and a leather jacket on his days off, driving around the resort in a BMW that made too much noise, but he didn’t seem to care.

He cared even less about his bad reputation and loud ways when his partner broke her foot weeks before the final show, a tiny girl called Nancy that you were unreasonably jealous of at first sight. You watched them both on your first night, sat between your mother and father as they took to the stage, dancing flawlessly, fluidly, like they were one whole person. You watched the way she touched him, an easy familiarity that had your stomach feeling unsettled and something inside of you burned when her hand brushed the man’s neck, holding onto him as he dipped her low, her fingers trapping two little moles and hiding them from sight.

You’d blamed the cheap cocktails and called it a night.

But then your father found him arguing with Mr Bauman about the show and suddenly you were volunteered against your own volition, your parents talking loudly and proudly about talent shows and dance lessons when you were much younger, boldly exaggerating about how must’ve been a dancer in another life as you shook your head and tried to escape back to the gazebo by the shoreline.

Now you were left spending your evenings with Steve Harrington and his tight trousers in a cabin that was much smaller than your own. There was a leak in the corner, a consistent drip from a missing nail in the roof and rainwater splashed against the wooden floor as if it were counting down the seconds.

As if it were counting down to— something.

It had rained every night since you had started seeing Steve, the stifling afternoons giving way to humid evenings that always started to smell like rain by six o’clock, sweet tea and lemonade taken over by the scent of a new downpour. There had been threats of storms, chattering of it during breakfast in the main dining hall, grumbles of it from groundskeepers during bowling on the green.

But nothing wild, not yet.

Steve had scowled the entire time he was with you, minutes and hours spent with a frown on his face as he did his best to avoid touching you, mumbling something about getting the timings right, about learning the steps and the footwork before putting it all together. It was tedious now, repetitive and too warm in his small room and even with the bed pushed to the wall, there was barely space to avoid brushing up against him when you moved.

You were flushed, skin shining with a thin layer of sweat and the same sheen made Steve’s lips look glossy, his hair sticking to his forehead in curls and flicks. You rolled your eyes when he hit rewind on the tape deck, a silent order for you to take it from the top. But you didn’t move as he made quick work on his buttons, undoing them one by one until his short sleeved shirt hung open, showing off far too much skin. Lean muscle and a smattering of hair across his pecs, more skating down the line of his navel and you sucked in a breath, pretending you hadn’t stood on your own foot.

“It’s too fuckin’ warm,” he complained, circling you as he spoke, watching you for more errors, inspecting your footwork, your posture, the way your held your head up and squared off your shoulders.

“No shit,” you couldn’t help but bite back. “How’d you think I feel?”

You wore denim shorts to his black slacks, but your cotton T-shirt was sticking to your torso now, the baby pink material too heavy and restricting for the heat inside the cabin. You pressed your lips together and moved, eyes on the wall ahead of you, your right foot moving in front of your left before you twisted your hips half a turn and—

“Take it off, then.”

You blinked, your framework going slack as you dropped both your arms and your jaw. You were hardly prudish, but something about this man had set you on edge since you’d first seen him. An electrical buzz every time you looked at him, fizzing through your bones, an invisible string tied to your insides pulling and pulling and pulling you closer. You’d ignored it until these dance practices, always turning in the other direction, putting the entire resort between you both.

But now… now?

He was standing all of three feet away, cheeks flushed from the heat and his chest on show, his hands behind his head and his fingers buried in his hair in frustration as he stared at you. Like he was challenging you. The muscles in his arms were flexed, taut cords and lines that showed off how hard he work at his job and you couldn’t help but stare.

“What?” You demanded it, a bite of an answer.

“Your shirt,” Steve nodded to the pink material, brows raised like it were obvious. He almost rolled his eyes. “Take it off.”

Above you, the rain outside fell a little harder, a consistent din against the thin roof.

You didn’t say anything. You just hoped you didn’t lose your cool as you reached for the hem of your t-shirt, untucking it from your shorts. The cotton stuck to you uncomfortably, dragging against your skin as you raised it up and over your head, the brief second where your eyesight was blinded a terrifying prospect.

Was he looking? At you? Was he watching? Did he care?

By the time you’d balled up the offending fabric and tossed it in the corner, Steve had turned his back to you, pressing some buttons on the tape deck until the song - some kind of mambo - played for the beginning again. You couldn’t see his face but you wondered if he’d caught sight of your bra, as plain as it may have been. White cotton, thin with scalloped edges and a tiny pink bow between the cups. Hardly sexy, nothing near scandalous, but there was certainly a lot more skin showing now.

Slick, damp skin that you wondered if he’d touch. It was like he wasn’t allowed to, the way he skirted around you all of the time, his hands shoved into his pockets when he wasn’t demonstrating the next step, a fist pressed to his chin as he watched you repeat his instructions, a wide palm always hovering just out of reach of your lower back when he scolded you for slouching, like he’d went to put his hands on you - only to pull catch himself at the last second.

“You gotta loosen your hips,” Steve’s voice interrupted your thoughts as he turned back around. His eyes were on the floor before he finally dragged them up your legs and over your bare stomach. He sucked in a breath. “You’re too rigid.”

“You told me to hold my shoulders,” you retorted, knowing fine well that he’d bitched about your ‘noodle arms’ for days.

“Yeah, your upper body needs to be squared off. Hold yourself tight from here up,” Steve gestured to your waist with the side of his hand. He didn’t touch you, but you could feel the heat radiate from him. “But from here?” He tapped at the button on your shorts.

You froze.

“From here down, you need to put a bit of swing in the hips, alright?” He spun, putting himself behind you but you could see him in the mirror that leant against the cabin wall, an old looking thing that was too ornate to be here. Once gold, it had carvings of cherubs on the frame, tiny wreaths and rosettes intertwined with ancient style busts. “It’s a mambo, sweetheart, put a little heat into it.”

The tape begun again and Steve leant against a dresser, arms folded across his bare chest, his open shirt plastered to his skin. He watched you, waiting. The intro played and you counted the beats, nodding your head to each note and before you could hit the mark. Thunder rumbled somewhere outside and you were suddenly reminded of a man that looked like Steve, standing and watching you like that in a room much smaller than this, lit by firelight, dressed like a fighter.

“You missed the count,” Steve sighed, exasperated.

His hair had been longer, his face bruised and bleeding, but it looked just like him. A familiar scene, like you’d maybe seen it in a movie, but it felt more like a dream you didn’t recall having. You looked down at your feet, chest heaving, lips parted in confusion and you were only more dazed when you saw your bare legs and not the long skirts you expected. Your body didn’t feel like yours, not really.

Like it was borrowed, or broken.

You turned, facing Steve as if you expected him to be dressed differently, in leathers and studs and pleats, but he was still the same, just looking at you as if you’d suddenly fallen ill. Maybe you had.

“Drink some water,” he ordered, and yes, that sounded like a really good idea. “Then we’ll go again.”

You chugged the bottle, the water tepid and hard to swallow but you gulped it down greedily, praying against heat stroke or whatever else it could be that could be plaguing you with such hallucinations. You swiped at your lips and closed your eyes before you turned back to the boy and when you did, he looked the same as he always did.

Annoyed, tired, pretty.

“C’mere,” Steve said briskly, crooking a finger at you. You stepped towards him, unsure of what he was asking you, lingering awkwardly with a few feet of space between you. Steve huffed and rolled his eyes. “Jesus, I mean— here.”

He touched you then, his hand reaching out to grasp your own as he pulled you forward, closer than you’d ever been. There was barely space for a prayer between you both.

You thought that his hand in yours would’ve made you feel something, a spark, a fizz, that buzz that you felt in your bones around him. But something else settled over you instead, a strange familiarity, a longing for a home you didn’t know or didn’t remember, like Steve touching you was hardly anything new. His touch made you think of the sea, of vast gardens, of islands and storms and great wars, ruby wine and promises that seemed impossible to keep.

From the unsettled look in Steve’s eye as he stared down at you, you thought that maybe he felt the same thing.

But then he was fussing, moving his feet into the right position and mumbling about your stance. His hand took you with him as he moved, less than an inch separating your bare stomach from his and you let him direct you as he pleased, waiting for the song to reply from the top. The drums began, a cacophony of instruments you’d never be able to name joining in.

And then Steve was counting, his eyes suddenly fixed on yours as he nodded to the beat. “And five, six, seven—”

Steve’s other hand was on your waist.

His palm felt huge, big enough to envelop your side and his thumb was pressed into the soft of your belly, just below your ribcage. His fingers were splayed out over your bare back, his skin warm against your own and you’d never felt so completely consumed by just one touch. You were reminded of white sheets and hazy mornings, the taste of fresh bread and an open window that looked out to blue skies and you could hear a fountain spraying water.

But you were moving before you could consider it, what it meant, what it was, if it was possible to have someone else’s memories trapped in your head. Steve moved and you followed, your feet chasing his step by step as he walked you back and forth, his hips turning into yours on each beat, his shoulders set and his chin held high, ever the professional.

“Don’t look at your feet,” he murmured, barely heard over the music. “Chin up. Look at me.”

You didn’t know how to tell him it hurt to do so, how looking into his eyes this close felt like giving in, it felt like being stitched back together without any medication. You had never been aware of any wounds in your body, but this man you barely knew seemed to fill the space very well.

So you did, holding your breath until your chest burned, your eyes meeting Steve’s as you clasped his hand in your own and gripped his shoulder, letting him lead you around the cabin floor. The storm raged on, louder than before, more threatening now, like it was arguing, fighting, scolding.

The rain poured harder and what little evening light there had been was now dampened, the setting sun hidden behind navy and violet coloured clouds - but the heat was just as oppressive. Steve turned you, a twist of his body that led into yours as you spun on your toes, and when he caught you— when he caught you, his hand moved lower, slipping down your overheated skin until his fingers grazed the denim waistband of your shorts.

Maybe he saw you falter, maybe he saw your lips part, but Steve sucked in a breath and kept moving, his chest brushing your own as you stepped into his space as he danced into yours, torso meeting, separating, meeting, separating, meeting—

“Keep count,” he reminded you. “Keep counting the beats.”

You nodded, Steve’s face startlingly closer than before, as if he’d forgotten his boundaries, the box he created with strong arms, the one that kept him professional as a dancer, standing tall and strong. Now his elbows were bent, his hand falling from yours so both of his palms could bracket your hips and it was too much, it was everything you’d ever wanted, it was something you felt like you’d once had.

You just couldn’t remember who had taken it away from you.

Lightning lit the cabin, the storm over the resort, the sky black.

“Remember your hips,” he whispered, and god, god, his forehead was almost touching yours, his nose drawing a line against your own as his eyelids dropped and his lashes fanned his pink cheeks. His hands guided your waist, moving you from side to side, following the rhythm. “Listen to the beat.”

You were sure he meant the music, but it was impossible to ignore the thud of his heart against your own chest. You could feel yours even more so, a constant drumming that seemed to seep into your bones, making them crack at the edges, something blooming between them, something new and old and familiar and exciting.

Like driving into your street after a long vacation, like falling into your own bed after too many weeks away, smelling the laundry detergent that clung to everyone else that you loved. It felt hopeful, like the beginning of the morning when the only thing that had entered your thoughts was the way the sun looked in the sky, how pink it was, how the clouds seemed softer than the day before.

Steve pushed at your hips, holding them as you swayed from side to side, your hands leaving the safety of his shoulders to slip up, holding the sides of his neck, the heat of his skin scalding your palms and he nodded, pupils blown wide and lips parted as he stared down at you in amazement, like he was seeing you for the very first time.

Like he was seeing you for the first time after a very long time apart.

“Good,” he told you softly, like he was still teaching you, like this was still professional. Like he hadn’t put his hand on your lower back and obliterated whatever wall someone else had built between you. Something that had once seemed so strong was knocked down so easily, like not even a god could keep it between you. “Good. Like that, just like that—”

He swore when you moved closer, emboldened by his pretty eyes and the way his gaze tracked down your chest, down your bare stomach. His fingers flexed on your hips, blunt nails tattooing your skin and you hoped the marks would stay there, you hoped they’d be there tomorrow so you could remember that this wasn’t a dream.

His leg found its way between yours, the song finally slowing to the last few drumbeats and you knew this was the time where you were supposed to spin in Steve’s arms and raise your hand in a grand finish. But Steve tucked your hips close to his instead and let his thigh push into the seam of your denim shorts.

The song that came on next was slower, lazier, languid.

The singer had a deeper voice, the drums rolling with a dirtier beat and this wasn’t the mambo, this wasn’t a salsa and it certainly wasn’t anything you’d do in a ballroom never mind on stage in front of others. You’d seen this kind of dancing once before, the night after you first arrived at Bauman’s. You hadn’t meant it, but a walk along the lake after the sun had set had led you to a larger cabin at the back of the resort, where the lights were on and the music was loud.

Music like this.

A guy at the door with long curls and an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips had appraised you, one eyebrow lifted at your little white summer dress and tennis shoes.

“You work here?” He’d asked and you had shaken your head, ready to walk back the way you came. “You a snitch?” He asked after a pause.

Again, you shook your head ‘no’ and listened as the music inside got louder. The man, who you were sure you’d seen on stage during dinner, playing the guitar for the dining guests, just shrugged. He’d nodded to a stack of beer crates at the side of the building.

“Grab a case and keep your mouth shut, alright?” He’d opened the door for you, the music louder than ever, the smell of smoke and weed and sweat pouring out. You remember how’d he grinned at you as you took in the sight. “Have fun, princess.”

It’s where you’d seen Steve for the second time, in the middle of a makeshift dance floor with the bow tie and dinner jacket he’d worn during his evening performance long gone. Moving with a girl with his shirt buttons open, his hair a mess, grinding and manhandling her in a way you weren’t sure you would even call dancing. Everyone was doing the same, hips gyrating, skirts too short, men’s chests bare, the smiles meeting in an almost kiss.

It was nothing short of scandalous.

You’d left, dumping the beer on a table beside a watermelon that almost rolled to the ground in your panic, turning from the crowd and walking out the way you’d came. The curly haired man had snorted at the sight of your wide eyes, calling out a goodbye between laughs.

And here you were, not even two weeks later, doing the same, if not worse. Why worse? You and Steve were alone.

Thunder cracked again, louder than before.

It didn’t feel wrong to be doing this. In fact, for as much trouble as you’d be in if your father had had to catch you, everything about it felt right, like you’d done it before, like this man was yours to touch. But something that felt like danger lingered in the air, a threat far more serious than your dad or Mr Bauman.

But still, you let your body move with Steve’s, a slow grind of your hips into his and when your hand found the nape of his neck and your fingers twisted into his hair, Steve’s palm cupped your ass, pulling you into him, making you feel how affected he was.

It should’ve scared you. How this man was touching you, this person you barely knew, alone in a cabin and who you were so sure had hated you only a mere ten minutes before. But Steve looked as gone as you felt, eyes filled with longing, a passion that was visible, his brows knitted together as he stared down at you hungrily, lovingly, adoringly.

It was almost too much to bear. So you let your head fall back, body slack as you kept dancing, trusting the man to keep you upright and against his own chest and you heard Steve let out a breath at the sight of your exposed neck, the long line of it offered to him like a sacrifice.

“That’s it,” you heard him murmur. “You feel the beat now?” His words fell on your throat, your bare skin, the top of his nose drawing a line from the base of it to your jaw, his mouth following and you were so sure he wasn’t talking about the music anymore.

But you nodded, clinging to him when he dipped you backwards, his hands holding you like you were precious, like you were made of marble and gold and suddenly you felt like Steve could’ve been. Like someone had taken a piece of the earth and grown this man from it, just for you. Like he had something ancient in his bones, like whatever he was made of you, you were created from the same thing too.

When he pulled you back up, effortless and graceful, you were closer than before, impossibly so. Chests meeting in the middle as you both panted into each other's parted lips, noses meeting and foreheads touching. Steve’s hands were curled around your waist, fingers splayed across your naked back as if he couldn’t bear not to touch every part of you. Your hand was on his neck, your fingers brushing over two moles on his tanned skin, the ones you’d watched Nancy touch before you.

But as you pressed your fingertips to them, your lips buzzed and Steve let out a sigh, like you’d unravelled a knot in his spine, like you’d found a magic button that fixed him. Like you’d touched a place that you’d once touched before.

“You’ve never touched me before,” you whispered, voice cracking on each syllable because it suddenly was too much.

Steve looked pained, lashes fluttering as his gaze dropped to your lips and he struggled to find the right words to give you. “I— I shouldn’t be doing it now,” he murmured. “I’m not allowed.”

“Why? Because of your boss? My dad?”

He grinned, a smirk that faltered too quickly and he shook his head, still not moving from you, his nose nudging yours as he struggled to keep himself from shifting closer still. “You’d think that should’ve been enough to keep me away.” Steve licked his lips and you tracked the movement, so sure that he’d taste like summer and salt and the peach tea from the diner. “Not even the threat of losing my damn job and house can keep me away from you.”

His words had an effect on you, breath hitching, chest aching. “Then who said you’re not allowed?”

The song was still going, a lazy beat that was easy to sway to, Steve’s leg still wedged between your thighs and his hands were wandering, sensual and slow, a whole other kind of dance over your skin. Fingers gripped at your waist before one hand trailed down your hip, over your bare thigh, ghosting over the line of your torn off shorts. He brought your thigh to his hip, hitching your leg high, pressing you both together until you could feel him all, until he could feel all of you.

Laid bare enough for you to feel like he could take the very soul of you from your body.

You found that you didn’t mind the idea of it at all.

“You’ll laugh at me,” Steve murmured but he didn’t sound embarrassed at all, like he didn’t actually believe that you would.

You shook your head, nose brushing against the tip of his and if you moved another inch, just one, you could’ve been kissing him, mouth slotting against his. “I won’t,” you promised.

“I started having dreams when you came,” Steve told you. “Dreams where it always rained and the sky was always dark. And there was a man there, a thing, maybe. But he felt ancient, older than the fucking world and he told me to stay away, to keep away from you.”

You didn’t laugh. No. No, in fact, you didn’t say a damn thing.

Steve laughed, breathless and without any humour, and his hand trailed back up your thigh as your leg dropped slowly to the floor. He spun you both, lazy and languid, but the world around you both still blurred. The cabin faded away, a mix of the low lights and the colours of his quilt on the bed.

You could barely hear the storm, but god, it was the loudest it had been.

“I want to do ungodly things with you,” Steve confessed and he sounded pained, his throat tight with the same kind of emotion you felt, like you were both sharing the same heart. “I want to do ungodly things to you.”

“Steve--”

“I know it sounds crazy, but there’s somethin’-- somethin’ in the sky or in the goddamn cracks of the earth that’s telling me I shouldn’t.” His bottom lip grazed your top one, an almost kiss, a whisper of one, a mere idea of it. Hardly a touch. “That something real bad will happen if we do.”

You couldn’t explain it, just like you couldn’t explain your sudden proximity to the man, the achingly familiar closeness you felt. But you knew, somehow, some way, Steve was right.

Tears stung your eyes, a fiery nip that you tried to blink away and when the music slowed to a stop and the next song began, Steve kept moving, your body melted to his, no space between either of you to be able to determine where you ended and he began.

Your voice cracked when you spoke. “What should we do?”

Steve took a breath before he answered, one hand coming up to push against your hairline, his palm coasting down your cheek, holding you, cherishing you. His touch was hot with adoration.

“We can keep dancing.”

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dertaglichedan · 3 months

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Abe Lincoln wax sculpture melts in brutal DC heat

He kept a cool head during the American Civil War, but a heatwave proved too much for his statue. A wax effigy of President Abraham Lincoln has melted as temperatures soared over the weekend in the nation's capital.

The head went first, then one of his legs dripped off its torso and a foot turned into a blob. The chair sank into the ground.

The head from the 6ft wax sculpture of the Lincoln Memorial is now under repair, leaving behind a wire sticking out of the 16th president's neck.

The memorial rests on the site of Camp Barker in Washington DC - a Civil War-era refugee camp that housed formerly enslaved and freed African Americans - now home to an elementary school.

It was placed outside of Garrison Elementary School as part of The Wax Monument Series by Virginia-based artist Sandy Williams IV.

The replica is more than just a wax statue - it is also a candle. And this is not the first time it had issues with melting.

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allthenewsworld · 3 months

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Abe Lincoln wax sculpture melts in brutal DC heat

The head went first, then one of his legs dripped off its torso and a foot turned into a blob. The chair sank into the ground.

The head from the 6ft wax sculpture of the Lincoln Memorial is now under repair, leaving behind a wire sticking out of the 16th president's neck.

The memorial rests on the site of Camp Barker in Washington DC - a Civil War-era refugee camp that housed formerly enslaved and freed African Americans - now home to an elementary school.

It was placed outside of Garrison Elementary School as part of The Wax Monument Series by Virginia-based artist Sandy Williams IV.

The replica is more than just a wax statue - it is also a candle. And this is not the first time it had issues with melting.

The statue was installed at the same location last September, but the first version of the wax monument included over 100 wicks that were prematurely lit, melting a significant portion of the art installation ahead of its dedication ceremony.

The new version installed in February has strategically placed (and fewer) wicks. A plaque below reads: "Please blow out your wick within 1-2 minutes."

The installation is a "direct commentary on DC's history of Civil War-era Contraband Camps", according to its website.

The replica, commissioned by non-profit CulturalDC, is the third installation of Williams' 40 ACRES Archive - The Wax Monument series which includes wax replicas of popular public monuments and cultural symbols.

The DC-metro area was under a heat alert over the weekend. High temperatures are expected to continue throughout this week.

The wax head is set to be reattached this week, local media outlets reported.

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whump-town · 3 years

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Tuesdays Hotchner Style

Waiting out the bag of saline hanging over his head, Hotch lays back on the bed and just enjoys this one second that he has to himself. Being a father is great, he loves every second of Jack’s curiosity and his attention to detail. He loves his team, even if he’s not sure he does well in how he shows that. However, between Jack's pre-teen temper and the team’s never-ending list of needs he rarely gets a moment to just breathe. No one asking to use his office or when dinner will be done. It’s almost nice.

Had he set out this morning to get hit by a car during his morning jog? No, but maybe that’s what he gets for entertaining the idea of taking some time off. He’s got a few bumps and scrapes but already knows his knee is going to give him hell for landing on it like he did. Not even the ice pack the nurse taped over it is doing a thing to squish the pain. He still needs to have his shoulder pulled back into the socket and his concussion assessed. In other words, he’s taking that time off but not like he’d planned.

They did give him a cherry popsicle and the nurse showed him how to lean against his pillow to keep the ice pack pressed against his head without having to hold it up. This place is better than most motels he’s stayed in. If the nice nurse says he needs to wait twenty more minutes for the saline bag to empty and she’s promising another popsicle then she’s won. Seems like a good deal to him. He was a lawyer, he’d know.

“Hey, sweetie.”

He blinks himself back to Earth. Peeling his eyes open and grunting, not having realized he’d managed to doze off. The nurse, the same one as before, steps into the little curtained-off area with a smile. “Sorry,” he slurs softly, motioning with his popsicle hand to where he’d managed to let some of it drip onto the white sheets.

She just smiles at him, “ honey, that’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She dismisses it with a wave and goes to her fluttering around him. The treatment he’s gotten used to since hobbling into here four hours ago. Replacing the ice pack at his knee she stops to frown at the purpling skin but it’s just bruised and swollen. Angry at its treatment. “How’s the arm?”

The concussion is probably worse than he’s led on if the current state of his consciousness is any proof. He’s just tired and this is like his version of a spa day. “Arm?” he asks, and he swallows thickly. Vaguely, he’s aware of his arms. The strange weight in his left hand where the IV is and the ice pack settled against his shoulder. It’s dislocated. It hurts.

“My arm,” he whispers, “I can… I can feel the fingers.”

She moves his hand, turning over his palm, and waiting for him to do as she silently asks and moves his fingers. He makes a fist, slowly closing each finger. She pats the back of his hand as she sits it back down, movements intact and coloration is alright. “I’m going to give you another sedative, some painkillers, alright? Then we’re going to get this shoulder back into the socket.”

Another? He… He can't remember the first.

“You’ve got some people asking for you out in the waiting room.”

He picks his head up, opening eyes he hadn’t realized had already slid shut again. “The team?” he mumbles.

She takes his popsicle out of his hand, it’s no good half-melted, and he’s falling asleep. “I don’t know about any team, darlin’, but there’s a whole crew.” She dispenses the drugs like promised and steps back. “Lemme think,” she’d seen them when she was stepping into the room. They’d asked for him but she can’t let all of them back here and she’d at least like to run the idea of them by Hotch first. “I used to smoke a lot of Virginia Slims in my day, there’s a fella out there that looks exactly like one. There’s two feisty brunettes. One about my age and the other looks like she eats bolts in her cornflakes.” She sighs, there’s more she’s certain. “There is a man out there who looks like he could have been sculpted by angels.”

He smiles at that, dopey and free. “Morgan,” he whispers, he knows it with a strong certainty. Who else could it be?

“Anyways,” she has moved away from her point. He’s probably ready to have that shoulder moved. “I can go get one of them if you’d like,” she offers. “It’ll be a painful but quick procedure. Still, most people like having someone.”

Someone.

He almost wonders if Garcia’s out there. She’s the end of the world sort. Even if she didn’t want to be back here she’d come with her flurry of colors and glitter. Hold his hand and make sure he got that other popsicle but no, no he won’t ask that of her. Can’t.

“I can always let them decide,” the nurse offers. “If that’s alright with you?”

He’s too tired, too disoriented to make the words work so he nods. She pats his hand one more time before moving back out the curtain. He can hear them talking, transforms their mumbling and their stiff silence to none of them wanting to come back here. Doesn’t hear Morgan and Emily fighting, neither wanting to be the one left out there. Both wanting to set their eyes on Hotch, to really make sure he’s okay.

His knee hurts, the drugs and the adrenaline are fading in and out and he’s tired. He turns his head back into his ice pack, rests the cut on his cheek against the plastic still cool from the water. Panted, short breathes leave his mouth and he wants nothing more than to sink into the bed. To disappear.

The curtain parts but he doesn’t hear it.

Dave steps in where the nurse directs, standing by the edge of the bed while she moves things where she needs them. He gets stuck, unable to move for a moment while he just looks at Hotch. The tears drying at the corners of his eyes and labored breathing, his agitated state.

“Aaron,” the nurse moves his good hand. Waking him without hesitation but still smiling when his tired eyes move slowly to concentration. To focus on her. “I brought you a friend.”

They’re back to the same old song and dance. Dave goes to the little space at the side of the bed, standing beside machines and things not currently in use. There nonetheless. Aaron looks up at him, sleepy eyes slowly blinking clarity back. “Hit by a car,” Dave mumbles. “Only you.”

Hotch smirks, “was running.”

Dave shakes his head, “again, who in his right mind?”

A doctor steps in, the little area of curtain overrun by white coats and stethoscopes.

Hotch gets nervous and looks hopelessly up at Dave. He’s scared. “Easy,” Dave takes his good hand. Making a quick understanding of his having been put on this side. “It’s just a little upset joint,” Dave assures him. “You’ve been stabbed and shot and blown up, you’ll be okay.” Hotch doesn’t look convinced but Dave doesn’t let go, he’s right there. Not going anywhere. “You’ll be okay, Aaron. I’m right here.”

It’s all medical nonsense from there on. The doctor introduces herself and the nurse nods her head, giving them the okay. Hotch is as drugged as he can be, relaxed under their touch so long as Dave isn’t more than a step away. He holds onto Dave so tightly he couldn’t get away if he wanted to. Part of him does, he’s not sure he wants to watch this. Hotch cries out when they pull on his arm, a sound that drowns out into a whimper. The sickening thunk of the joint sliding back into place. He tries to sit up, screams, and cries out as they check to make sure it’s gone where it needs to be. Their fingers digging into his skin. He cries out for Dave, to make them st0p.

“Easy,” Dave whispers. “Easy, easy.”

The doctors and the nurses leave as soon as their job is done, giving them nods as they go.

Dave brushes his thumb across Hotch’s forehead, frowning down at the tears. “Hang in there,” he whispers. “Behave a little longer and I’ll get you a milkshake, alright?”

His eyes peel back open at that, “promise?”

Dave shakes his head, “you’re a child, Aaron Hotchner, but yes, I promise I’ll get you a milkshake.”

“Hey-” both look to the curtain and after a second Emily’s head pops through. “Do we all get a milkshake?”

Dave rolls his eyes, “yes. Yes, sure.” They’re going to be the death of him. “Milkshakes for everyone, why not?”

The hard part is over.

He doesn't get another popsicle.

“Hey, Morgan?” Dave sticks his head out of the curtain and motions Morgan in. “We’re gonna need your help in here.”

Hotch groans, entirely too disoriented to completely stop himself from whining. He doesn’t want help, he just wants to go get a milkshake and go home. To his couch and his blankets and to clothes that don’t smell like blood and sweat. But there’s no winning, if he’s leaving he needs help. “Up on three,” Morgan encourages. He stops for a moment, makes sure his grip is good before bracing himself. One arm around Hotch’s back and the other bracing his front. “Ready when you are.” It’s more falling than walking but Morgan directs his fall straight into the wheelchair. “Easy Hotch,” but his head is a blur and he’s vaguely aware of Morgan gently lifting his legs up into the footrests.

“Damn,” Emily mumbles when Morgan pulls back the curtain and Dave pushes Hotch through. “Look like a Tim Burton doll.” Hotch grunts back at her. She tries to find a small silver lining, “but good, considering. Your hair is still pretty neatly styled and the road rash on your cheek makes you look distinguished.”

Hotch frowns but can’t turn his head to look at Dave so he just mumbles, “don’t think Emily has deserved her milkshake.”

“Hey!”

“Children,” Rossi interrupts before either can get any further. “Everyone is getting a milkshake, calm down.” He sighs, watching them fall in line alongside Hotch. “What flavors are we thinking?” Milkshakes and car wrecks… sounds like a regular old Tuesday to him.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #david rossi #derek morgan #emily prentiss

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razorsadness · 3 years

Text

Blue Ballads for (Un)Dead Girls

How she haunts me. I could spit on my boot and slam a dance on rotten boatwood, and still I would see her, unluckier than a black catfish hanging over my head. I say shoo but she don’t spook easy. Ghost bitch, begone.

II.

See her sodden body there, singing from the reeds. She floats below the surface, her face an underwater moon, wobbling and blurred. Her flesh, pale as a fishbelly. The roots of rivertrees already twining bracelets around her skinny arms, claiming her as their own. She aches for it. See how swollen she is, how dripping wet.

III.

See her body there on the summer sidewalk. Next to the streaks of what seems to be gunpowder and blood. (Relax, it’s only melted cherry popsicles and firecrackers.) See her body there riding shotgun in the hot car. Her body on the bedroom floor. Her body in the bathtub. Her body blue and lovely beneath the ice of the pond. Her body, her body, her body. Has become a chalk outline of itself.

IV.

She’s a goner, a gone girl. She’s always gone too long but she don’t ever go all the way away and I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I know, I know—

For whoever is forgotten there is a riverbank. For whoever is forgotten there is a sidewalk. For whoever is forgotten there is a bedroom. For whoever wants to drown there is a river. For however she wants to drown there is a river. River of flame, river of pain, river of madness. Bathtubs, swimming pools, pillbottles.

VI.

Like most girls I dreamed of drowning. Longed to be swallowed by something blue. So I swallowed pills, flooded my veins with drugs that swooned me under, my oblivion. Wrapped razorblade bangles ‘round my wrists. Swallowed pills and sat under the bridge by the river, boozebottle in hand. Once I saw a foot floating in the river; a foot and part of a leg bobbing in the shallows. Once I collected bones I found in the mudreeds along the riverbank, bones bleached and sanded by riverwater. Fishbones, gullbones, swanbones, girlbones. I made a harp of hipbones and hair and my sister, she sang to me.

VII.

Oh my sister. Like you I longed for the things that terrored me, the serpents that wriggled at the edges of my darkest dreams. In my summernight bedroom, swimming in the heat that flooded through the window, I imagined killers slitting through the screen into my sleep. Imagined knives that could slice out the bones of a fishgirl and desperate hands plunged into the wetness of my guts. Dreamt of soaking in my own blood.

VIII.

I used to give my boys knives and ask them to cut me. I placed their desperate hands around my throat and gasped toward the choke that would stop up my lungs as sure as water. Waited for that moment of too-far, when they’d have to take my body to the river, feed me to the oil-drenched fish. They never got near it. Too afraid of their fatal potential to dip a toe into that desire.

IX.

They say if a man kisses a rivermaid, a rusalka, he can never cross back to our world. A caul grows over his eyes, turns them to milky opals forever seeing everything from underwater. But what of us? Girls who love rivers too much, who bejewel ourselves in the flash of fish scales.

What of us, girls? We who braid willowbranches and weep, who dye our hair muddy blue, who name almost-daughters Mississippi, Colorado, Shenandoah. We whose bodies are bait. Who wade knee-deep into the rivers of our immolation.

XI.

We pray to Elise, Our Lady of Windowsills, and Sylvia, Our Lady of Stoves. And yes, we pray to Anne, Our Lady of Garages. But most of all we pray to Virginia—Our Lady of the Rivers, Our Mother of the Stones.

XII.

I heard her moan, I heard her bones. Under the bridge I see her face, ghost-bright. Her pretty fingers nibbled by minnows. My heart becomes a choking stone, stopping my throat.

XIII.

She died of an overdose. Of desire. She Houdinied herself, stayed below too long. She swallowed the river whole. She started the car, turned on the stove. She baited the boys and made them killers. Made them kill her.

Did I say kill her? She’s alive. She’s just so good at ghosting. She’s such an ace at that old disappearing act, she even fools me sometimes.

—Jessie Lynn McMains (2018)

#jessie lynn mcmains #poetry #prose poetry #death #girls #ok to reblog #dead girls #murder #suicide #some things i’ve read lately reminded me of this poem of mine #so i decided to post it #i’m pissed i had to withdraw it from the lit mag it was in #because i think it’s pretty fucking good

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roman-writing · 3 years

Text

no great revelation (1/8)

Fandom(s): The Haunting of Bly Manor / Star Wars

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Tyalor

Rating: T

Wordcount: 6,236

Summary: Jamie just wants to enjoy a drink after a hard day's work on the Telosian Restoration Project. The last thing she needs is to get herself caught up in a mysterious woman with a lightsabre at the local bar.

Aurthor’s notes: Please don’t expect anything from this story. I’m just doodling in between writing ch11 and ch12 of ‘bring home a haunting.’

read it below or read it here on AO3

“The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”

— Virginia Woolf, The Waves

—

See, here’s the thing: she didn’t look like a Jedi. In fact she didn’t look much like anything. Any other time, and Jamie would have spared her a brief albeit appreciative glance before moving on. Today however, Jamie did what could only be described as a double take.

The bar was crowded, and the night was young, and Jamie still had dirt under her fingernails from a day’s hard work beneath the Telosian sun. An Ithorian had just jostled Jamie’s elbow as he pushed by on his way to the bar, ignoring her tired grumble of, “Watch it, hammerhead,” when she’d spilled a bit of the local ale she had been nursing. She was wiping her wrist dry on her drab Corps-issued boilersuit, when she caught sight of her by the bar.

Or rather. Saw it. A lightsabre. Clear as day. Clipped to this woman’s belt, poorly concealed beneath a cloak clasped together at one shoulder. Jamie nearly spilled her ale again. And that was when she really gave this woman a closer look.

Blonde. Pretty. Maybe a little too pretty. Definitely not Jedi material, however. For starters, her clothes were all wrong. She looked like she’d just stepped off a cruiser from the Core Worlds in those nanosilks. She moved as though too aware of the weapon she bore, her hand drifting to her waist every now and then before gripping her fingers in a fist and trying — and failing — to look nonchalant. And to polish it all off, she kept glancing around as though afraid that every tavern patron was about to grab her by the arm and haul her from the building.

A nervous tourist, perhaps. Someone unused to travel. Or maybe a mule. Someone unlucky enough to owe a debt to Czerka.

Jamie’s scant money was on the latter. Which of course begged the question: a mule smuggling what?

Over the top of the bar, the holo feed flickered with the latest news from across the galaxy. Yet another infringement on the Treaty of Coruscant as Imperial Sith forces seized a planet along the border of the Outer Rim. From her vantage point in the far corner of the tavern, Jamie pretended to watch the feed idly as she sipped at her ale and studied the woman askance. Across the way, the woman was crowded away from the bar and closer towards Jamie’s corner table as thirsty patrons with credits clamoured for a drink, while the bartender — a Kel Dorian with a rusting breather mask that had seen better days — struggled to meet demands.

Two more people entered the crowded tavern and began shouldering their way towards the bar. Jamie’s hand froze in its journey lifting the glass to her lips. Slowly, she set the drink down and leaned back in her seat, lowering her hand in a nonchalant manner to rest against her thigh. The small mining laser strapped to her leg wasn’t useful for much outside of cutting bits of wire or rope. It would even go through narrow branches in a pinch, if Jamie were too lazy to go trudging off for a proper thermal saw. But it would certainly give somebody a nasty burn if applied with a generous disregard for the health and safety manual.

Not that starting a fight with two Czerka pillocks was her idea of a relaxing evening after work. Especially not with her history with the Hutt Cartel. The last thing she needed was yet another galaxy-spanning underworld corporation painting a target on her back.

Pillock One was hassling other patrons, lifting hoods to get a better look at faces and pushing his own ugly mug close enough that said patrons leaned away. Meanwhile, Pillock Two was holding a chip in his outstretched palm, which projected a tiny holo displaying what appeared to be a very large amount of credits as a reward for any who cooperated with their search for a newcomer on the planet. The mini-holo flickered with the Czerka logo and a sign-off from the Official Head Pillock himself: Peter Fucking Quint.

This day could not get any worse.

Jamie slouched down a few more inches in her seat. Definitely Not A Jedi Mystery Woman near the bar had only just taken notice of their newly arrived friends, and tugged up the hood of her cloak with a panicked expression. Jamie refrained from rolling her eyes, but only just. By the time the Czerka reached the woman, Jamie was well and truly ready for the worst.

“You there.” Pillock One grabbed a hold of the woman’s shoulder and spun her round. “Not hiding, are you?”

He reached up to push the hood of her cloak back, but she jerked away. Her expression was firm, but Jamie was close enough to see the tremble of her fingers. “I’m just passing through.”

“Not much of a tourist joint, Telos IV,” Pillock Two said. His voice was muffled behind the bulky helmet he wore, emblazoned with a chipped Czerka logo on one side.

The woman lifted her chin slightly, pulling her cloak more firmly around herself. “The gardens here are famous across the galaxy.”

“You don’t strike me as the type to get your hands dirty,” Pillock One sneered.

“Or maybe she does,” Pillock Two said, and he put the chip away, the mini holo vanishing as he did so. The woman shrank away from them, her back pushing against the edge of the bar.

All right, so the mule theory was out with the bathwater and the last of Jamie's sanity, it would seem.

Don’t get involved, Jamie, she told herself firmly. She grit her teeth and tightened her grip on the mining laser.

The bartender leaned forward and said, “If you don’t mind, you’re scaring the customers.”

“Shut the fuck up, or I’ll hook up your mask to an oxygen tank,” Pillock Two snapped.

The bartender immediately shuffled back, and the other patrons that had previously been crowding the bar followed suit, creating a vacuum of space around Jamie’s little corner of the tavern. Which, of course, meant that Pillock One looked in her direction, as she was now the only person who hadn’t moved away.

Fuck.

“She’s with me.”

All three of them froze at the sound of Jamie’s voice. Pillock Two turned to regard her as well, and over his shoulder Jamie could just make out the woman cautiously leaning around him to get a look at who had spoken.

So much for not getting involved.

“She was getting us some drinks,” Jamie continued. She managed to catch the other woman’s attention and exchanged a significant look.

The woman nodded. “Yeah. I was just - uh -”

She gestured towards the bartender, who by now was no doubt pressing an emergency transmitter for the authorities located beneath the bar. Jamie would know. She’d had to press it herself once or twice when things got too rowdy around these parts. Not that it happened often. Just often enough.

Pillock Two pointed to Jamie’s glass. “Looks like you’re still making your way through that one.”

“What can I say?” Jamie gave a shrug and remained seated. “I’m thirsty.”

Pillock One sauntered over to her table. Jamie glared up at him from her seat, maintaining eye contact even as he reached out and tipped her glass over so that ale foamed and spilled all across the table.

“Go ahead and drink, then,” he said.

“She’s been on Telos with me for a week already,” Jamie countered, ignoring the slow drip of ale onto her work boots. “Whoever you’re looking for came here — when? On yesterday’s shuttle from Praadost?”

Pillock One grit his jaw so tight Jamie could see the muscles bunch up there.

She bared her teeth at him in a smile. “Thought as much. Now, fuck off and let honest people drink in peace. Yeah?”

For a long tense moment it seemed that would be the start of a very long evening, in which Jamie ended up back in her flat upstairs nursing a bag of ice against her face if she were lucky. Then, Pillock Two thwacked his companion on the shoulder with the back of his hand.

“The bounty’s getting away, while we sit here wasting our time,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Pillock One stayed where he was, glowering at Jamie until Pillock Two made his way back towards the exit. Only then did he follow suit, but not without taking inventory of her appearance. And of course Jamie had to go and wear her Corps-issued boilersuit to the pub, with the AgriCorps logo stamped all over it. Absolutely phenomenal choice there.

When they’d finally left, Jamie heaved a great sigh and let her head fall back against the chair for a second. Then she rose to her feet and crossed over to the bar. The woman eyed her warily, then seemed confused when Jamie ignored her utterly in favour of leaning against the bar and speaking to the bartender, “Ho’kyn, you got a towel?”

The bartender gave her a relieved nod in thanks, and immediately poured her two fresh ales. He slid them across the bar along with a stained dish towel. Jamie took them, pushed one into the woman’s hands, took the other for herself, and sank back down into her usual corner table seat with a drawn out groan. She used the towel to mop up the remnants of her previous drink before chucking it back towards the direction of the bar. The woman had to dodge out of the way to avoid being hit square in the face.

“You going to sit or not?” Jamie asked, and she kicked the leg of the other chair as an invitation.

Nonplussed, the woman just stood there, clutching the full glass of ale between her hands as though it were a lifeline. Then she perched herself at the very edge of the seat, so that she seemed fit to flee at the drop of a hat.

“Thank you,” she said eventually.

Jamie hummed around a sip of her ale, then lowered her glass. “Might want to hide that a bit better next time.”

“Hide what?”

Jamie gave her a significant look, then let her gaze wander down to the woman’s waist, where the glint of metal was clearly visible through a gap in her cloak. Face flushing, the woman jerked the cloak more tightly around her midriff and sent Jamie a glare that lacked any real edge. Before she could hide the lightsabre, Jamie could clearly see this close the faint glow of kyber through the hilt’s decorative casing, blue as the woman’s eyes.

Or - well. Blue as one of the woman’s eyes. The other was a strange sort of brown, like the gleam of light through amber.

Must’ve been some kind of cosmetic augment. Except there were no microfibral lines or data ports to suggest further connections that would make such augmentations useful in any capacity.

“So,” Jamie said, leaning her elbows on the table and cradling the glass of ale between her palms. “What does Czerka want with a pretty thing like you from the Core Worlds?”

The woman shot her a bemused scowl. “I don’t know. I don’t even know who those people were.”

“Well, you’re awfully convincing. I’ll give you that.”

Jamie’s comment was summarily ignored, and the woman asked, “How do you know I’m from the Core Worlds?”

“You’ve got a Core accent thicker than a Senator’s.”

The woman’s mouth dropped open to protest, then shut again without saying anything. Instead she took a sip of the ale, holding the glass precariously from the top rim. Jamie watched this with some amusement, half expecting the glass to be dropped along the way. By some miracle it wasn’t.

“Let me rephrase the question,” Jamie said. “Why do you have a bounty on your head?”

Her shoulders bunched up around her ears, and the woman cast a furtive look around to see if anyone had overheard their conversation. The other patrons had, indeed, moved back into their space now that Czerka was out of the building, but nobody was paying attention. That was why Jamie liked this corner. Nice and private.

When the answer wasn’t forthcoming, Jamie slouched back in her seat. “All right. A guessing game, then. Does it have something to do with that stolen lightsabre on your hip?”

“I could’ve bought it,” the woman countered.

Jamie gave her a slow grin. “You really couldn’t have.”

“And why not?”

“Because the people who trade in lightsabres aren’t the kind of people you walk away from.”

“Are you,” the woman asked warily, “a Jedi?”

Jamie gave a derisive snort. “Not even close. Trained in the temple, sure, but I was a shit padawan. Can’t lift a pebble with the Force. Got tossed out of Tython as a failure early on, and they passed me around various Service Corps branches until I ended up here to work on the Restoration Project.”

“Oh. Right,” she said in a tone that meant she didn’t actually understand the situation at all.

Jamie tapped her chest where the AgriCorps symbol sewn onto the corner of her boilersuit. “I’m a glorified gardener.”

The woman gestured towards a nearby window, through which the leafy horizon of Telos IV was darkening in the encroaching dusk. “I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job,” she said with a weak smile.

“Oh, sure,” said Jamie dryly. “Only took us three hundred bloody years. And I still find shell fragments from the orbital barrage some days. Fucking Sith.”

With a shake of her head, Jamie took a sip of her ale. Across the table, the woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“But you know,” the woman asked after a lapse in the conversation, “how to use one?”

“What? A lightsabre?”

The woman nodded.

“Well, I can hold one without chopping my own fingers off, which is more than most people can say. Never got past Shii-Cho before they yanked the practise blade from my hands and told me I was out.” Jamie made a jerking motion with her thumb over her shoulder as if throwing something away.

“I never knew what happened to people if they never made it to being a full Jedi.”

“Yes, what glorious lives we lead,” Jamie drawled, and she lifted her ale in a mock salute before draining it and setting the glass back on the table. “Listen, I suggest you lie low for a few days. Sneak back aboard a transport, and then move on before Czerka realise you’ve gone. Just -” Jamie offered a wry smile and said, “- head back to the Core.”

The woman was gazing down into her half-drunk glass of ale. “I can’t. The Core Worlds are — I can’t.”

“It’s either that, or -”

And Jamie didn’t finish what she was saying. Instead, she pointed towards the holo feed over the bar, where the news was replaying the spread of red across the galactic map, like a virus creeping ever outward from the Sith homeworld of Korriban. The woman glanced up towards the holo feed and flinched as if she’d been struck across the cheek.

“Cold War won’t last forever. And when it breaks, this is the last place you want to be.”

The woman frowned at Jamie. “And what about you?”

“I don’t get much of a choice,” Jamie said with a bitter chuckle. “The Council of Reassignment sends me where they send me.”

“That sounds terrible,” the woman replied softly.

A few more patrons trickled in through the front door on the far end of the long room. Jamie spared them a quick glance before dismissing them. Just the authorities answering Ho’kyn’s call about the Czerka assholes, no doubt. A handful of officers in tired uniforms and tired expressions behind their opaque half-face shields. They approached the bar and exchanged a few words with Ho’kyn, who gestured back the way they’d come.

“It is what it is,” Jamie replied, training her eye after the officers, who had begun talking to a few patrons and scribbling down notes on the pop-up screens from their forearms. “Difficult to make a living as a Force sensitive outside of the Council’s jurisdiction. And they look after me in their own way. It’s not -”

Jamie trailed off and cocked her head to one side. The holo feed over the bar now bore a description of her newfound acquaintance in the scroll text along the bottom of the usual news. There was no picture attached, but it was clear who the authorities were talking about. Jamie read the scroll text in a bored kind of bemusement.

Until it got to the part about being wanted for murder, that was.

Jamie’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. Sitting up straight, she glanced over at the woman, who had tracked where she was looking and whose face had gone white as a sheet. Another glance over her shoulder towards the group of officers slowly making their way from table to table. They weren’t as efficient as Pillock One and Pillock Two, but they would get here eventually.

With a surreptitious jerk of her head towards the holo feed, Jamie asked quietly, “That right?”

Eyes wide and hands shaking around her glass of ale, the woman stared at Jamie. Her voice wobbled when she spoke, coming out broken and erratic, “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to - He just - He attacked me out of nowhere. I swear it wasn’t -”

“Fucking hell,” Jamie muttered under her breath. She dragged a hand down her face and shook her head. Then she sighed. “Who are you?”

“Dani,” was the immediate answer.

“Dani,” Jamie repeated in a dull tone. “What the fuck have you gotten me into?”

Worrying at her lower lip with her teeth, Dani said, “Not to seem ungrateful, or anything, but I don’t exactly remember asking for your help.”

Jamie mulled that over for a second, before conceding with a nod of her head. “Fair,” she said. Then she abruptly rose to her feet. “Right. I’m off, then. Good luck.”

“Hang on -! No, wait -!”

When Jamie did not, in fact, ‘hang on’ but instead turned to leave, she felt Dani grab her by the wrist, and she went stock-still.

It was like an electric shock. The wave of it traveled up her arm and hummed between her teeth loud as a thunderclap. It was like standing atop a great mountain, and the wind tearing at her clothes and hair. It was like waking up six feet beneath the ground, gasping for breath and breathing in dust until she drowned in it. It settled over her like a pall, a mist, a cool kiss at the back of her neck that roved down her spine and coiled in her gut. It was like a set of floodgates being unleashed, like being dragged along the current to some great unknown destination, vast and sweeping as the stars.

“I’m sorry. Please,” Dani whispered, gazing up at her with wide eyes, her voice like a riptide. “Help me.”

And Jamie gaped down at her. Like an absolute moron.

Not a Jedi. Not at all. Not a Sith, either. At least, not like any Sith Jamie had seen in the holo feeds. All black robes and black masks and red gold eyes that seemed to pierce the veil between them, as though reaching through space and time to claw back the very essence of whoever dared perceive them. And Jamie might not have been the strongest Force sensitive on the books — not by a long shot — but she was Force sensitive. She knew what the Force felt like, and that was —

“Shit,” Jamie hissed. Taking a moment to compose herself and draw in a deep breath, she grabbed hold of Dani’s hand in return and tugged her upright. “Come with me. Pull your hood back up. Keep quiet. Do what I say. And don’t make me regret this.”

Scrambling to do as she was told, Dani pulled her hood up and trailed in Jamie’s wake. Jamie squeezed them around the back of the bar, bending her knees just slightly so that they were a little less conspicuous. Ho’kyn shot them a puzzled look as they passed.

“I wasn’t here,” Jamie muttered to him.

The sharply pointed feelers on his face clicked. “Back door’s locked. You know the combination.”

“Cheers, mate.”

It was a quick duck and weave through the cramped kitchens and storage rooms, a race past the walk-in freezer, and then Jamie was punching in the combination code to open the rear door. The two of them spilled out into the back alley. Piles of trash had been stored awaiting disposal in the recycling unit that came every three days. Clouds of steam puffed from the vents in the walls, creating white trails that rose into the night sky.

Dani squeezed her hand tight. Jamie squeezed it back, but then Dani gave her hand a tug and pointed towards the main street down the way. Flashing lights and parked vehicles. More authorities congregated on the front step of Ho’kyn’s tavern. When the heavy metal rear door to the tavern slammed shut, one of the officers shone a torch down the alleyway towards the noise.

Acting quickly, Jamie pushed Dani up against a nearby wall by the door.

“What are you -?” Dani gasped.

“Just -” Jamie stepped in close, close enough to block Dani from view, “- trust me. Keep your head down. Pretend like we’re -”

The circle of light hit them. Jamie could feel Dani wince, could feel Dani duck her head and bury her face in Jamie’s shoulder, gripping the fabric of Jamie’s boilersuit along her back as though she were a human shield. They were barely touching, but still Jamie felt the heat of Dani’s skin beneath layers of pastel nanosilk, the sweep of her panicked breaths against Jamie’s collarbone. A few stray strands of blonde hair tickled her nose, and Jamie had to fight the urge to scratch at her face.

To say nothing of the cold length of a lightsabre pressing against her inner thigh. And not in a good way. In a ‘This Will Burn A Hole Through My Leg If I Move’ way.

After what felt like a whole planetary cycle, the light moved along, the officer clearly disinterested in a couple groping one another behind a seedy bar. Jamie waited a few rapid heartbeats longer before pulling back. Dani peeled her hands away from Jamie’s back, looking small. In the dark, her mismatched eyes seemed to gleam owlishly. Especially the pale brown one. Almost golden. Like something that belonged to a nocturnal animal.

“This way,” Jamie murmured.

When she began guiding them further into the shadow of the alley, Dani asked haltingly, “Why -? I mean - where are we -?”

Jamie reached the expected set of metal grated stairs leading up to the second floor above the bar. “My flat.”

Dani followed without further question, nervous and silent, all but hugging Jamie’s back when Jamie fumbled the passcode to unlock the door at the top of the stairs. They stumbled inside and Jamie only breathed easier when she’d shut the door behind them, locked them, then hit the control panel to lower the alusteel shutters over the windows.

The apartment was small and dark and not at all quiet. By now Jamie was used to the noise of the nearby streets and the tavern beneath her feet. Her neighbours weren’t exactly gems, either. Another slap of the control panel, and she turned on a few lights and the news holo feed along the wall screen to generate some more noise so that it would be more difficult for them to be overheard by anyone snooping.

Jamie turned around to find Dani standing stiffly in the middle of the living room. Which was also a kitchenette. And the entryway. And technically the guest bedroom. There was no wall separating it from the actual main bedroom. Beyond that was a door leading to a bathroom, and another door leading to a very cramped closet, which bore nothing but spare sets of Corps-issued boilersuits in various states of shabby, and a few personal outfits that weren’t much better off.

“Your place is - uh -” Dani started to say, gesturing weakly around her.

“Pure shite,” Jamie finished for her. “Thanks. I know.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“No? And were you ever going to get around to telling me about the whole murder thing?”

“Yeah, actually, I was waiting until after we’d finished our drinks. I thought it would be a good segue into a friendship,” Dani retorted in a tone so sarcastic that Jamie had to quell an answering smile.

“All right,” Jamie stepped forward, motioning towards the couch for Dani to take a seat and make herself comfortable. “Why don’t you start from the beginning.”

Dani did not take the invitation; she remained standing, thumbs tucked into her fists, shoulders tense, jaw tense, gaze downcast.

“Do you want another drink?” Jamie offered quietly.

Dani shook her head. “No. Thank you.” She flexed her hands and said in a dull voice that lacked its previous fire, “I was recently employed by Lord Wingrave of House Thul. He - uh - he needed a governess to teach his young niece and nephew at his family estate, and my background is in education. So, I thought it was a - it was supposed to be a good opportunity for me.”

“Until it wasn’t,” Jamie said.

Dani nodded. “Yeah.” She sniffled and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand before continuing. “It turned out he has unsavoury friends and -” she wrinkled her nose, “- debts.”

“What kind of friends?” Jamie asked.

Dani didn’t answer, but her eyes darted just for a moment towards the holo feed, where a fleet of Imperial II-class Star Destroyers were raining down hell on fleeing Republic ships.

Well, shit.

“Poor choice of friends,” Jamie muttered under her breath.

Dani hummed a note in agreement.

“Then what happened? Did you hear something you weren’t supposed to? Find something, maybe?”

Dani’s head jerked up to look at Jamie in surprise and — for some reason — suspicion. “I did,” she said slowly. “I found a - a box.”

Rolling up her sleeves for no other reason than to give her hands something to do, Jamie asked, “What kind of box?”

“Why does everyone keep going on about that box?” Dani asked, her expression suddenly going steely in a way that did not seem to become her. “What is so important about a glowing little box?”

“It glows? Listen, I’m not - Woah! Hey! Be careful where you point that thing!”

The lightsabre had appeared in Dani’s hand in a movement too fast for the eye to track, as if it had always been there, as if it belonged there. The blade was still sheathed, but gone was the awkward hesitance with which she had worn it before. She levelled the unlit hilt towards Jamie with a tilt of her wrist, and her face was hard yet frightened.

“Who are you? Why do you want to know about this box?” Dani asked, and her voice was surprisingly even for all the tremble in her clenched fist. “Answer me.”

Jamie had her hands held before her, as though that would somehow help deflect a fucking lightsabre. She tried to drift sideways to get out of the way, but Dani trained the hilt on her as though it were the muzzle of a blaster rifle.

“The name’s Jamie, but I’d prefer it if you bought me dinner before pointing any weapons at me,” Jamie said blandly. She immediately regretted the quip, when Dani’s hand tightened around the hilt of the sabre and her thumb drifted over the activation button.

“Okay! Okay!” Jamie scrambled back a few steps, nearly tripping over the edge of the couch, but Dani followed closely after her. “It just seems to be a bit weird, is all. Glowing boxes and corrupt Lords. Y’know. Unless Wingrave was in the habit of collecting items of luminous quality. I don’t fucking know. I’m just trying to get a picture of what happened, so that I can -” Jamie gave a wave of one hand towards Dani, “- help you. Remember? Remember that part? Me helping you?”

If the furrow in Dani’s brow was any indication, she was not convinced by this argument.

Jamie motioned to the lightsabre. “Also, you’re holding that the wrong way ‘round.”

With a blink of confusion, Dani glanced down at the lightsabre in her grasp, tilting it to one side for a better look. The moment she did so, Jamie leapt forward, grabbed the hilt of the sabre, and tried to wrench it free. A scuffle broke out, and it was not the most dignified scuffle Jamie had ever taken part in. There was a lot of swearing — admittedly, mostly from herself — and a lot of yanking at the lightsabre hilt in futile desperation like a game of tug of war. Except instead of a rope, they were tugging at a weapon that might accidentally extend a nigh unstoppable plasma blade with one wrong movement.

Eventually, Jamie managed to hook a foot behind Dani’s ankles, causing her to fall to the ground with a graceless yelp. Unfortunately, Dani did not let go of the sabre as expected, and Jamie was dragged down with her. Jamie grunted in pain when a sharp elbow connected with her ribs. With one final yank, she managed to wrest the lightsabre free.

Dani panted beneath her, flushed and half pinned to the floor between Jamie’s knees. Her hair was splayed loosely across the carpet, and she glowered up at Jamie with equal parts impotent fury and fear.

“Right,” Jamie said breathlessly, ribs still aching. “Now that that’s all sorted, can you please tell me about this glowing box? And spare no detail.”

In answer, Dani’s jaw took a stubborn set. Sighing, Jamie pushed herself upright, then offered Dani a hand. Dani stared at her for a moment before allowing herself to be hauled to her feet, where she brushed down the back of her nanosilks.

“When was the last time you cleaned your floor?”

“Can’t remember,” Jamie answered honestly.

Dani wrinkled her nose and began to card fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame it. When Jamie held out the lightsabre, palm up, in a silent offering, Dani went very still. Hesitantly, she reached out to take it, but Jamie pulled her hand back slightly before she could do so.

“Be careful,” Jamie warned. “This thing isn’t a toy. You’re more likely to chop off your own leg by accident than you are to actually injure someone else. And don’t point it at me again! Or we’re going to have words. Got it?”

Jamie waited for her to nod, then held the lightsabre out again. Dani took it, and her shoulders relaxed incrementally once she had it back in her grasp.

“Now,” Jamie said. “Weird glowy box?”

Dani sighed and ran the same hand through her hair that held the lightsabre. Jamie had to suppress a wince. After everything she’d said about being careful, too. Bloody idiot.

“I don’t know what it was,” Dani admitted. “I overheard a transmission. Something about putting the box where the children could get it. So, naturally, I investigated. I found it on a shelf in their playroom. I picked it up, and -”

She trailed off with a helpless little gesture.

“And?” Jamie pressed.

“And I don’t know,” said Dani, clearly frustrated. She paused to hook the lightsabre back onto her belt, but it took her a few tries to make it work. She almost dropped the weapon in the process, and Jamie took a step back just in case the bloody thing went unsheathing itself into the floor. “I woke up and I didn’t know where I was, or how much time had passed, or -”

“Which is when you looked down and found a dead man at your feet.”

“What?” Dani frowned at her. “No. That was later.”

“Right. My bad,” Jamie said dryly. “Describe the box to me.”

“It was about this big.” Dani held up her hands to indicate an object that could comfortably be held in one hand. “Sharp edges. Some kind of black gold metal, but nothing like I’d ever seen before. It looked hollow, but it was heavy. Like the light inside of it had weight.”

“Was there writing on it? Marks of any kind?”

“Yeah, but nothing I could read.”

“Would you recognise them if you saw them again?”

Dani shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”

“Do you have this box with you now?”

At that, Dani’s shoulders went all tense again and she pursed her lips, her expression growing guarded.

“Forget I asked,” Jamie said with a dismissive wave. With a sigh, she leaned down and began unlacing her work boots. She chucked them into a corner and then flopped onto the couch, placing her feet up on the cushions. “All right. Last question for the night. Did you know that you’re Force sensitive?”

Dani stared at her as though Jamie had sprouted an extra limb. And then she laughed. It was, in all honesty, a very nice laugh. Nothing at all like the nervous smile from the bar. Her smile now had lines at the corners, and she shook her head.

“No,” said Dani, still laughing. “No, I’m not.”

Jamie hoisted up an eyebrow but said nothing.

“I’m not,” Dani repeated more firmly this time, her smile fading. “There’s nothing - I’m not special. I’m a governess. I’m from a small town on Alderaan in the middle of nowhere. I teach kids about galactic history and how to share toys.”

Jamie pointed to herself. “And I’m a Rim Rat, but that didn’t stop the Jedi from hauling me off to the Temple for training until they realised I was a waste of time.”

“I’m not -!” Dani’s voice had started to climb, and she quickly lowered it to a hush. “I’m not - like that. My family is normal. I’m normal. We don’t have any kind of history or - or anything.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t feel it?”

“Feel what? What are you talking about?”

Sitting up abruptly, Jamie leaned forward on the couch. “When you touched me earlier. In the bar. You grabbed my hand, and I felt — That was it. That was the Force. You were like a - a circuit. Like an exposed wire. You didn’t feel it?”

Dani was staring at her now and there was no laughter. Only a dim and dawning horror.

“No,” Dani croaked. “I didn’t feel anything.”

Jamie huffed out a short and mordant laugh. Then she said, “Liar.”

“I’m not -” Dani inhaled sharply and sat down on the edge of the couch furthest from Jamie. She crossed her arms. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Jamie shook her head and gave an incredulous chuckle. “Fine,” she said. “Fine. Here’s the plan: I have no idea what’s going on -”

“Great start,” Dani muttered under her breath.

“- but I know some people who might,” Jamie continued.

Dani’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”

“Catch?”

“I’ve just spent the last two weeks being chased across half the galaxy by criminals and authorities alike. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of your sudden eagerness to help. So,” Dani leaned forward and fixed Jamie with a pinning stare, made all the more unsettling by her mismatched eyes. “What’s the catch?”

“The catch,” Jamie said, lying back against the couch cushions, “is that my friends are a pair of Jedi on Tython. And the Council doesn’t really think of discretionary funds as a necessity, so I don’t have enough money to get us both there.”

Dani’s face went a little pale. “Can’t they -” she swallowed before continuing, “Can’t they meet us somewhere else? Somewhere halfway, maybe?”

Slinging an arm behind her head, Jamie asked, “Why? What’s wrong with Tython? I mean — apart from the obvious of it being one of the most boring rocks in the known galaxy.”

“Nothing,” said Dani, very unconvincingly. “It’s just - That’s a long way to go. And I’m not exactly swimming in credits either.”

Jamie studied the way Dani tried to hide the wringing of her hands beneath her cloak, the way Dani noticed what she herself was doing and hid her hands behind her back even as she gave Jamie her best imploring look. Which, granted, was very effective. She certainly had some eyes.

Gentling her tone Jamie said, “Hannah and Owen are good people. Better friends than I probably deserve. The most they could be accused of is spending too much time with their noses buried in the library or in a kitchen recipe.”

“It’s not - I don’t doubt that. It’s just -” Dani breathed in deeply and then continued in a rush, “I don’t think people will like me going to the central planet of the Jedi Order.”

“Why would they even care?”

“Because,” Dani said slowly, not meeting Jamie’s gaze. She wrung her hands together in her lap, staring down at her own fingers. “The man I killed was a Jedi.”

Well, then.

Things just got complicated.

“Perhaps you were expecting some surprise, for me to reveal a secret that had eluded you, something that would change your perspective of events, shatter you to your core. There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you.”

— Darth Traya, The Sith Lords

#the haunting of bly manor #thobm #dani clayton/jamie #damie #star wars au #no great revelation #roman writes #star wars

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callmeelle22 · 3 years

Text

Blue Dream IV

Pairing: Iris West x Barry Alen

Rating: E

Chapter Word Count:

Summary: A series of sporadic dates between Iris and Barry turn into something more, a story in its own making.

Chapter I: Primetime

Chapter II: It's Cool

Chapter III: Anything

Chapter IV: Comfortable; It feels like butterflies fluttering or sparks flying or whatever other cliche Iris could think of. It’s like slow-dancing all alone after dinner in a half-cleaned kitchen, easy and intimate. It feels like warm honey on her tongue, slow and sweet and overwhelming. It’s pillowtalk, baby; lay your head on my pillow, say, "oh-ooh"; way you're touchin' my body, say, "ooh-ooh"; i ain't lovin' nobody but you; you, you, you make me, the kind that starts as whispers in the dark and becomes deep, lazy sex with only the moon there to light the way. (Read below or on AO3 linked on the chapter title.)

Chapter V: The Way

Chapter VI: Can't Take My Eyes Off of You

Chapter VII: I'm in Love with You

Chapter VIII: Blue Dream

Comfortable

Set the tone, when it's just me

And you alone, never lonely

In the room, breathin' slowly

Oh, you know me, yeah

At a quarter to one on the next Sunday afternoon, Iris finds herself sitting in her living room, waiting for Barry. Her week has been a relatively good one. She thinks they might be over the hurdle of a new semester—learning the personalities of each other—and Dr. Jamison had been on top of her own game, which meant Iris had been able to as well. She’d spent her Friday night watching Bridgerton, well, as much as the hazy cloud of blue diesel had allowed her to, and on Saturday, she’d spent several hours at Jitters typing up a new story for What a Life You’ve Lived. This story had featured an older woman who, years before Loving v. Virginia had made her marriage legal, had lived in relative obscurity with her white husband, dating and laughing and loving in secret.

Yeah, she’d shaken her head at that too.

She doesn’t know where they’re going today, so she’s dressed in a casual emerald green wrap dress, with a deep v-neck and long sleeves, that hems just at her knees. She opts for flat sandals just in case. His number is still unused, though she’s taken the steps to lock it into her phone. She can’t tell why she doesn’t call him, can’t make out why she’s, apparently, too afraid to just reach out to the man. She doesn’t know what they’re doing, outside of this date, or what his goal is. Linda would definitely describe her as being too chickenshit to find out. She obviously doesn’t disagree.

She’s decided that it’s casual, because aren’t most situations these days casual? And it makes more sense than the thought that lives in her head; the alternative doesn’t fit as neatly in her mind. The alternative is, is a little chaotic because that would add layers to the way he grins at her, and to the way he oscillates between awkward and bold when he talks to her, and to the way that she can never completely get the feel and taste of him out of her mouth. The sensation makes her think of runny ice cream, sweet and sticky and dripping, so much so that before she knows it, her hands and her face and her heart are all covered in it.

The doorbell rings.

Iris jumps up to answer the door and he’s standing there, in black jeans and a gray t-shirt, and she’s always struck by how good he looks in such casual outfits. His hands are stuffed down into his pockets and a grin is etched onto his face. He leans into the door when it opens, shoulder on the frame.

“Hi, beautiful.”

The compliment is unexpected and she turns away to grab her bag, to hide the blush that warms her cheeks, even if he wouldn’t be able to see it on her skin.

“You ready?” he asks.

She nods. “Yeah, let’s go.”

They are about fifteen minutes away from Lake Lanier when Iris realizes that’s where they’re going. The ride is pleasant. They don’t talk much outside of a few sentences regarding how their weeks were. Instead, they listen to some rock music Iris has never heard before and Iris alternates between staring at the road and staring at the intricate flowers tattooed on his arm. She recognizes some of them, roses and chrysanthemums and sunflowers, but there are far more that she doesn’t, especially when she remembers that the bouquet goes all the way up and over his shoulder. She decides she’ll ask him about it later.

The trail for the lake comes into view and Barry turns his Jeep onto a barely paved road, his pale fingers caressing the wheel as he expertly maneuvers the vehicle. He drives past where Iris and Linda and their classmates spent countless summer afternoons, past the trail that leads to where her dad had taken her and Wally camping when, at 12, Wally had realized that he was the only of his friends who’d never been.

They come to a stop, moments after Iris wonders if this might be where bodies get hidden, next to a towering oak tree. They’d lost the trail about a mile back and Barry’s four-wheel-drive was a match for whatever grass and rock and mud they rolled over.

Iris steps out of the Jeep and looks around, momentarily in awe. Out this far, the lake looks serene in a way she’s never seen before. It’s quiet, but it isn’t. Even in a midsize city like Central City, there is always something happening; there is always lights and noise and music. Here, the sound of nature takes the stage: the clicking buzz of cicadas and the chirping songs of birds and the gentle wave of the lake. The look of it is surreal, the pale blue of the water and the vibrant dark green of the trees, those slowly giving way to the oranges and reds of fall.

“Wow,” Iris murmurs.

“It’s great, right?” Barry says.

She turns and finds him with his trunk open. She walks around back to see him gathering picnic supplies, a woven picnic basket, a thick red gingham picnic blanket, and a cooler. There’s also another blanket to stem the feel of the wind so close to the lake. She grabs the picnic basket as he handles everything else and she follows him as they set up a few feet away from the bank, on a soft patch of grass to cushion them.

“I wasn’t expecting a picnic,” Iris tells Barry as she settles on the blanket, taking off her shoes and setting them on the edge.

“No?” He grins over at her before resuming his task. He’s unpacking the basket, pulling out saran-wrapped sandwiches, containers of fruit and vegetables with dip, and ziplock bags full of popcorn. A look in the cooler shows her some waters, several beers, and an equal number of mini wine bottles.

“Where’d you think I was taking you?” he wonders.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Like a movie or something.”

He grins, this time slower; and it shouldn’t, but it makes Iris think of the last time she’d seen him, slow and heated on her living room couch.

“That can be our next date,” he says.

“Who says you’re getting another date?”

He looks up at her and it’s the same one he’d given her when he asked her why she didn’t call, the expression a touch calculating. His head is tilted and his eyes are darting all over her face. She wants to turn her head, turn away from his gaze, but she can’t. Because she thinks that she’s hoping he does find what he’s looking for her, that he can help her to find it too.

“You didn’t say that we were going on another date” he says, finally. “But I have fun when we're together, Iris, and I, I think that you do too."

He goes back to pulling items out of the basket, this time a container full of cookies, and Iris starts grappling with whether or not she can take what he says at face value. It’s a flaw, she knows, the doubt that seems to come far too automatically. She wishes that she could blame it on something tangible—on parents who hadn’t been there or boyfriends who’d lied or friends who didn’t have her best interests at heart. That isn’t the case, though. Her mom had been there as much as she could and she had never had enough boyfriends for it to really make a dent. Linda has never even thought about doing her wrong, and her family might be the very best part of her.

But everything in her body catches at the thought of this man being someone she likes, someone she adds to the rotation of people in her life, people who’ve only become occasional brunches and too quick phone calls. What would it feel like for this man—and his smile and his touch and the way that she feels like she knows him when she doesn’t—to become a part of that rotation, until the discomfort of the entire situation makes him taper off altogether?

“Iris?”

She blinks out of her daze at the sound of Barry’s voice, looking down to see him holding out two bottles in front of her, one a lager from a local brewery, the other a chilled bottle of Chardonnay.

“Hey, are you alright?”

“Yes,” she answers him quickly. “Just thinking.”

“About me?” he asks, his grin wide, cheeks faintly pink, and the look of him is so adorable that Iris shakes her head as she grabs the wine from him, failing to curb the smile that lifts the corner of her mouth, failing to keep the thoughts, the whenever i get around you, i lose it; lose it, from seeping in.

“Let’s play twenty questions.”

Iris is halfway into her mini-wine bottle when Barry voices the suggestion. For the time being, they’ve been merely sitting, drinking, basking in the day. The weather is gorgeous and Iris likes that the only thing to distract her is the constant tweeting of the birds, or the soft splashes of the fish in the lake, or the steady sound of Barry’s breathing.

“Okay,” Iris agrees, “but twenty is a lot.”

“Ten, then?” he hurries to say. “Five each?”

He shifts on the blanket so that he’s lying down on his side facing her, head propped in his hand. Her own back is propped against the tree, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle.

“You first.”

“Alright.” He pauses, looks up towards the sky as if he’s thinking, and then asks, “What’s your favorite book?”

She is surprised by the question, though she isn’t sure what she thought he might ask.

“I’ve got a lot of favorites,” she says, because it’s true. Books, stories, became an escape early on, from a home that had been too fragile, that had felt like it’d come crumbling down with only a mere gust of wind. “But one that still sits with me is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I read it for the first time in high school.”

He smiles at her. “Tell me about it.”

“It’s about a woman named Janie, who was raised by her grandmother who’d been enslaved. Janie’s a romantic; she wants freedom and love. But her grandmother wants her to have security. She’s got a series of suitors: an old man who treats her like the help, essentially; a man who becomes mayor of this all-black town, who only props her up as this thing, this ornament that must look and act like he wants her to; and Tea Cake, a younger man who’s passionate and selfish and possessive. And in all of it, Janie is discovering herself, exploring what she does and doesn’t want. She steps up and she fights back and she learns to dismiss what others have to say about here.”

Barry hums. “She reminds me of you,” he says, “this Janie woman.”

He catches her gaze, holds it. Iris catches the way his eyes track the features of her face. She can never find it in her to shrink away, almost like she’s beholden to the force of him.

“Why?”

“She seems passionate; fanciful. Alluring.”

She’s never wanted to blush as much as she does around him and her face feels warm, tight. She swallows from her wine bottle, still looking at him.

“You are,” she starts, and then shakes her head.

“I am…?” he urges, mouth grinning, eyes wide with mirth. He reaches out and grabs at her ankle, fingers grazing her skin. Her skin tingles beneath his fingers, a slow rush of heat flooding through her. Apparently, Barry has discovered a new erogenous zone.

“Something else,” she answers, finally.

“Somehow I don’t think that’s what you meant.”

She looks out at the lake for a brief moment. “It’s not, but I haven’t figured out what I do mean yet.”

He’s silent for a beat. “Okay. Your turn,” he says and Iris is grateful for the reprieve.

“What’s a country you’ve never been to that you’d like to visit?”

A wistful smile curves his pretty mouth. “That’s easy. Ireland.”

“Yeah?” she asks softly.

“It’s where my mom's family is from,” he continues, touching at her ankle even as he looks away from her. She wonders if he realizes he’s even doing it, tracing along her ankle and then up the length of her calf and back down again.

“My mom was born here in Central City,” he explains, “but her parents were born and raised in Ireland, moving here when they were a couple of months pregnant with her.” She knows she doesn’t mistake the melancholy in his voice. “We’d been planning for a trip after I graduated high school. Since dad was gone, it wasn’t as easy to save up for a long summer trip like that, but we were working on it, before she was killed. I’m still working on it.”

He gives her another smile, this one tinged with hope, and the urge to comfort him is strong. But she knows that there is no real comfort for missing a mother, so instead, she moves from her spot against the tree. The movement confuses Barry, who has to move his hand away from her ankle, but his frown clears when she lies beside him, her head on his shoulder.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Italy,” she tells him. “My best friend Linda’s parents live in a large immigrant community. People from all over live there. It was like heaven for me when I really started getting into writing; so many stories. Obviously, not everyone wanted to tell their business to a 15-year-old, but Mrs. Bianco had no qualms about it.

“Mrs. Bianco has three sons, relatively the same age as me and Linda, one right after the other, but no daughters. So for much of high school, we were her surrogates. My dad worked a lot and so did Linda’s parents, getting their restaurant off the ground. So we’d go over to Mrs. Bianco’s after school to do homework and she’d feed us all these baked goods, cannolis and these things called bombolinis, which are like doughnuts but better. And she’d tell us all these stories about growing up in the Italian countryside and going to college and meeting her husband before they came here, the excitement of it all. She made it sound so beautiful.”

Barry reaches over and touches her, long fingers touching lightly at her arm before they wrap around her wrist. He rubs at the skin on the inside of her wrist. The move feels like a deliberate way for Barry to maintain contact, but also like more. Like the last time he’d come to her apartment, and she’d felt the touch to her ankles at the very core of her, she feels so now. It’s subtle, but it’s there, in the slight clench of her belly, in the low throb of her pussy. It’s been a long time since she’s been with anyone like this — cause I feel so comfortable with you; you make me comfortable with you—easily aroused and just as easily comforted. Her last relationship had been with a man named Eddie, a graduate student she had met early in her senior year of undergrad. He had been sweet, but they had both been so busy all the time that they had felt like work too. With Barry, there’s the newness that comes with a relationship, the giddiness at talking to him, being near him. But this seems like something else, something greater, something that tells of why she can’t stop thinking about this man.

“Why did you invite me over,” Barry asks, “that Friday night?”

She exhales shakily, a little unnerved by him. “Well, you asked me to dance?”

“You invited me over because I asked you to dance?” His tone is incredulous and she laughs.

“No, I mean. It��s the club. People just dance, right? And here you come, rocking those hips unlike any white boy I’ve seen, and then you walk up and ask me if you could dance with me. I thought it was polite.”

Barry rolls over so that he’s long against her side. He moves his hand from her wrist to press on her belly, rubbing his thumb lightly. He plants his mouth right next to her ear. “If you think I’m polite, I’m doing something wrong.”

She catches his eyes. “I don’t know,” she says, smirking at him. “Maybe you are. Maybe you need to work on that.”

She lets the taunt hang, for just a moment, and then she rolls over to kiss him. She licks at his mouth, turning the kiss more passionate in seconds. Their positions change, Barry rolling her onto her back.

“I think I can make you beg,” Barry whispers against her mouth. “I was always told that was impolite.”

Iris doesn’t get a chance to say much else because suddenly, Barry is between her legs, his head dipping down under her dress.

“Barry what?”

As is his annoying habit, he doesn’t respond to her right away. He pushes her dress higher, exposing her belly and the bright yellow lace of her panties. She inhales sharply at the feel of his breath on her belly before he plants a kiss there.

“Ask for it.”

She catches onto his game immediately and her eyes flash. “No.”

His answer is a grin and then, without much preamble, he dips his tongue into her belly button. The action makes her hips raise automatically, and he brings her back down by gripping her hips. He continues down, tongue laving at her skin, fingers running up her torso and down again until they hook in the top of her panties and he starts to pull them down.

Iris can’t describe what it is she’s feeling at the moment. He’s only just touched her, only just planted a few sloppy kisses on her stomach. But her skin is tight with anticipation, her breathing deeper as she waits to see what he’ll do. She wonders, rather absently, if they’re currently being watched by any of the animals she hears living out here by the lake; but then Barry widens her legs and opens her up with the tips of his index and middle finger and she stops thinking altogether.

He holds her open for a long moment, just looking, just breathing against her, and she tries to hold still until she can’t, wiggling her hips a little, hoping it makes a finger slip inside of her.

“Barry…”

“You’re ready to ask for it?”

He drags his gaze away from her sex in order to meet her eyes. They’re the glassy that lets her know that he isn’t as unaffected as he’s pretending to be. That momentarily strengthens her resolve, knowing that maybe he really does feel like this too, that she’s not the only one losing her head in this sexual haze that seems to be moving way too fast and way past normal.

She shakes her head at him.

“No?” he questions. “Not even if I do this?”

Fingers still holding her, he licks her, a long swipe of his tongue. She inhales again at the feel of his wet tongue, lets it go in a noisy exhale when he does it again. And then again and then again, and Iris starts to rock against him, trying to get more of his tongue or his fingers or something. She quivers above him, her thighs opening and closing, and she feels like a butterfly, fluttering and alight, hovering over a precipice.

“Shit, ” she moans.

And then, he stops. He fucking stops.

“Barry…”

“Or this?” he continues, and pushes his fingers in. It’s harder than she likes, more like a stab, and she jerks her hips.

“Softer,” she tells him, and he obliges, moving slower, caressing instead of fucking into her. “ Yes, like that.”

Barry hums around her. The vibration makes her hips rock up, and he circles her clit with the tip of his tongue, sucking on it. He looks up at her again. This is the face she wants to remember for the rest of her days: his dazed eyes, his flushed cheeks, his wet mouth.

“Ask me for what you want, Iris,” Barry licks his lips. “Beg me, baby, please.”

Her heart is pounding and she wonders how a game of question and answer got her here. But they are here, she’s here, quivering with the need to come, with the fact that Barry looking up at her like this, begging her like this, makes her feel more desirable than she’s ever known she could.

“Can you eat me, Barry? Please? ”

Iris has never seen a dirtier smile. “With pleasure.”

He really starts to eat her, then. He kisses at her lips, tongues her down in a sloppy, wet tongue kiss that makes her cream drip out of her, drip down her thighs. She rocks against him, closing her knees around his head when the touch of his tongue to her clit gets to be too much, opening herself wider when wants his tongue back in her, licking and tasting and fucking her. Needing something to do with her hands, she grabs at his hair, pulling at the strands, scratching at scalp, at the back of his neck. That is how she comes, she doesn’t know how much later. But it’s like that: with Barry holding on to her hips, face buried in her slick; with her knees opening and closing, with her hips bucking, with her begging him, “please, Barry, fuck, yes, please, Barry. ”

It takes her a while to come down and when she does, she says the first thing that she can think of. “God, you’re so goddamn annoying.”

Barry bursts out laughing into her stomach, arms wrapped around her.

“What is something that you want out of a relationship?”

They’re sitting up and eating now, Iris several feet away from him so she’s not tempted to wrap her thighs around his face again. She’s chosen the turkey sandwich on wheat bread and a handful of grapes. The sandwich is really good and Barry must think so of his own handiwork because he’s already done with one and unwrapping another. Although, Iris thinks, he likely did work up an appetite.

She can’t say what makes her throw out the question. The skepticism of starting something with him is still there, but laughing after sex like that, coming from sex like that, well. Iris can name that she might be a little whipped by this smooth-talking, world-class fucking white boy.

He chews a bite of his sandwich and swallows before he turns to her with an answer.

“I’m a simple guy, I think. I work a lot; crimes wait for no one so I would want someone who understands that. But in my time off, I like to do things like this, and festivals and running too, so someone who likes that too.” He wipes at his mouth with a crumpled napkin. “But out of a relationship in general, I guess I want companionship, laughing. Communication and patience. Fidelity.” He shoots her a grin. “Good sex.”

Iris rolls her eyes, but she returns the smile. “Did you have that in your last relationship?”

“Ah,” he interrupts, “it’s my turn for a question, Iris.”

She throws her own balled up napkin at him. “Fine. Shoot.”

“What do you look for in a relationship?”

She shoots him a glare.

“What?” he laughs. “It was a good question and I want to know.”

“Okay. Um,” she takes a swig from her newly opened wine. “Whew. I don’t know that I’ve thought about this in a while.” She bites at her bottom lip and lets out a long breath. “A lot of the same things you said, I think. I do love laughing, even if I can get lost in my own head angst sometimes and I’d like someone who realizes that. I’m pretty busy, between school and work and What a Life You’ve Lived, but I make time for the people I want to make time for and I would wish my partner would do the same. Fidelity is also important to me too; communication. I love music and dancing and movies so someone who’d want to do those things with me.”

Barry wriggles his eyebrows. “Good sex?”

“A plus, for sure,” she agrees.

That gets her to thinking about another question she has, one she’s more hesitant to voice. She could get an answer she likes, one that keeps the mood they’ve got going here. And the vibe right now is so good. She can’t remember a date like this, one so simple. Eddie had been courting careers in law and so much of their time together had been spent out at fancy dinners while he’d tried to smooze whoever he needed to that week. It’d been fun sometimes, to see what stories she could get out of the politicians and law officers, but that’s not a date, at least it wasn't to her. During undergrad, dates meant studying together in the corner of a library until one or both of them got the urge to make out behind a shelf of books. And high school shouldn’t even really count. But here, today, this feels like a date. It feels like butterflies fluttering or sparks flying or whatever other cliche Iris could think of. It’s like slow-dancing all alone after dinner in a half-cleaned kitchen, easy and intimate. It feels like warm honey on her tongue, slow and sweet and overwhelming. It’s pillow talk, baby; lay your head on my pillow, say, "oh-ooh"; way you're touchin' my body, say, "ooh-ooh"; i ain't lovin' nobody but you; you, you, you make me, the kind that starts as whispers in the dark and becomes deep, lazy sex with only the moon there to light the way.

But she steels herself and risks asking anyway. “Barry, do you, uh, have a lot of sex, then? A lot of one-night stands?”

Barry’s eyes are wide when he looks at her. He’d been cleaning up their trash, putting napkins and wrappers and empty bottles in a small grocery bag and the question makes him look up sharply. It makes her want to retreat, but she’s already put it out there and she’s extremely curious if she happens to just be one in a line of girls that this surprisingly suave man has beguiled with easy laughs and mind-blowing sex.

“I'm asking because you are, you’re good,” she mumbles, (but, understatement), “and of course, you don’t have to answer me but I just… I'm wondering if…”

She trails off when he stops what he’s doing and crawls over to her. He hovers, making her lean back a little in order to see all of his face. It’s a pretty face, the dark eyebrows over those eyes, the lips that she knows get even pinker when they’re dripping with her juices, the faint moles along his cheeks and jaw that doesn’t detract.

“There are no other girls, Iris,” he tells her, and he seems so sincere as he looks straight into her eyes, as he places a hand on the side of her so she’s clouded in the clean, citrusy smell of him. “I know that we’re just hanging out and obviously, you do what you want, but no, I… I’m a one woman kinda guy. Going home with you was an anomaly, one I certainly don’t regret. But it’s not a thing I do. I haven’t been with anyone else since my last relationship months ago.”

She stares at him, hoping that she can believe him. “Alright.”

“Okay?”

She nods again, this time with a little smile. “Yeah, okay.”

Neither of them asks their final two questions. Barry says that it’ll give them something to talk about when he sees her again. Iris just thinks that today’s been a whirlwind of a day and it’d be nice not to be on the spot anymore. The ride back to town is just as easy as the ride down. Easy listening plays from the radio—'cause I feel so comfortable with you; you make me comfortable with you; i feel so comfortable with you; you make me comfortable with you; you make me—and Iris settles into her seat for the half-hour drive, full and sated and comfortable. She must doze off because before she knows it, Barry is pulling into the parking space next to her Kia and he’s opening the door for her.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” he says, smiling down at her as he grabs her hand to pull her out of the seat.

“I’m sorry for falling asleep on you.” She stumbles a little as she follows him up the stairs and he grips her hand tighter.

“Don’t worry about it,” he tells her. “I take pride in the fact that I’ve put you to sleep every night we’ve been together.”

She doesn’t even pause as she yanks her hand away and slides past him to her door. “You’re such a dick.”

Barry chuckles, sidling up behind her as she sticks her key into the lock. He gives her a soft kiss on the skin between her neck and shoulder.

“I thought you said I was polite,” he breathes, before nipping at her skin. She closes her eyes at the feel of his mouth on her, the light nips of his teeth, the slick glide of his tongue behind it. He pulls up all the way behind her and wraps both of his arms around her waist.

“You are,” she moans when one of his hands glides down and settles hard over her crotch. “Even when you’re telling me to beg, you say please.”

He licks a longer stripe across her skin, pulls a larger patch into his mouth, cups her pussy in the palm of his hand.

“Barry…”

“But you called me a dick, Iris. Am I polite or a dick?”

She arches into him. “You’re a polite dick.”

He stills against her and it takes a moment for Iris to realize that he’s laughing again. He’s got such a nice laugh, deep and bright. “Damn, Iris.” He turns her around, still with a wide grin on his face. He leans down and kisses her, pecks her lips once, and then twice, and then a longer one that curls her fingers around his neck. He doesn’t immediately let go when he pulls back.

“I want to ask one of my last questions.”

She licks her lips, chasing the taste of him. “Okay.”

“Am I in the running?” He asks the question clearly, though in a voice just above a whisper. “Am I someone that you could want to be..”

She doesn’t need him to finish the sentence to say what she’s feeling, even if she’s terrified of what it might eventually mean for her. “I really think that you might be.”

“It’s a might I’ll take.” He nods at her door. “Good night, beautiful.”

She turns to go into the apartment. “Good night, Barry.”

The door is almost closed when he calls back. “Hey, Iris?”

“Yeah?”

“Call me this time.”

You make me

Baby

You make me

#westallen fanfiction #strangers to lovers #iris west #barry allen

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thran-duils · 4 years

Text

Devils Look Like Angels (Ch. 4)

Title: Devils Look Like Angels (Chapter 4) Summary: Fem!Reader x Psychotic!Castiel. An unhinged, criminal, supernatural artifact collector extraordinaire… and the reader caught his eye. It will not take her long to realize that beneath the charm and mystique is a crazed killer who will go to great lengths to woo her. Words: 2,139 Warnings (for the fic in entirety): Stalking, angst, death/murder, violence

Author’s Note: I have reset my tag list. If you want to be added back, please DM or send me an ask!

Chap 3 || Chap 5 || Masterpost || Fanfic masterpost

“What the actual fuck?” Dean demanded, gripping the steering wheel furiously.

The three of you had been quiet after getting the people safely home. You were all trying to process what had happened. As soon as you had gotten back to the car and sat inside without the car on, no one moving, the floodgate opened.

In a fluid motion, he turned, throwing his arm over the back of the seat in order to see Sam in the passenger side and you in the back. Mostly to see you. Sam looked at you as well.

Defensively, you threw your hands up in defeat at their piercing stares. “I don’t know!”

“He sure as hell seems to have taken a liking to you,” Dean retorted.

“What are you accusing me of?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything, Y/N.”

Sam cut in, “I think the question is, what is his deal? What does he want?”

“Apparently a fan of Y/N,” Dean responded. “And killing innocent people for entertainment!”

“How did he even know we would come? This is far from Vermont,” Sam asked.

Closing your eyes in frustration, you leaned your head back on the seat with a sigh. Of course it was too good to be true that a normal, well spoken man would have interest in you. Why had you not been more concerned when you met him at the café? There were red lights all over the place, the biggest one being that he happened to be in Lawrence of all the cities he could choose in the country and happened to be at that café at that exact moment.

“What?” Dean asked after a pause. “What are you thinking about?”

Seems you would need to divulge that you had had contact.

Opening your eyes again, you leveled them with a stare. “We are pretty close to home. Only a few hours away.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, Sam venturing, “And? And how would he know that?”

Adjusting uncomfortably under their scrutinizing gaze, you cleared your throat. “He, uh…” you paused, the words getting stuck in your throat as the guilt crept in. How could you have been so relaxed about that meeting? “I ran into him at the coffee shop on the corner of Crescent and Fifth.”

“What? When?” Sam asked, genuine concern lacing his tone.

You shrugged, “A couple weeks ago at most. It was when I brought home lunch from Sopranos. We just bumped into each other – almost collided, really. He recognized me, apologized for almost running me over, and bought me something to eat.

The words were rolling out of you now.

“We ate, had some small talk, where he told me he was a journey salesman which is why he was in Lawrence –”

“And you believed that?” Dean interjected. “Y/N… Jesus. He followed you from freaking Vermont back to Kansas!”

“I’m quite aware. It is painfully obvious now. But he admitted to me that he procures and sells supernatural artifacts. Which is why he hadn’t been as surprised about the banshee as a normal person should or would be. And he is not looking for something in Lawrence. My first thought when he mentioned artifacts was the bunker; if he was trying to use us to find it. But he didn’t seem to know. He was talking about Topeka, Ottawa… and somewhere else.”

“Anyway, Lawrence is central to all three of the places. And when eh explained it like that, it made enough sense. Then, Sam called shortly after. I excused myself, we exchanged numbers –”

“He has your phone number?” Sam interrupted.

You admitted, blushing, “Yes.”

“Jesus,” Dean swore again.

“Well, at that moment, I didn’t know he was off his rocker!”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Dean quipped.

“Alright,” Sam cut in or tried to because Dean pressed on.

“No, not alright. You know what?” He reached his arm toward you. “Give me your phone if you have his number.” You shook your head immediately and he rose his brows. “You don’t have his number?”

“I do.”

“Then why can’t I call it?”

“Do we really want to be antagonizing this guy, Dean?” Sam asked, staring Dean down. Dean tried to argue but Sam held his ground. “It’s not smart. Now, if he doesn’t seem to know about the bunker – and even if he did, he can’t get in – that seems to be all the more reason to not reach out to him. If you do, that could give him the wrong idea.”

“The asshole already has the wrong idea!”

“How do we not now he won’t follow us home?” you asked. “I mean, it’s dark. We won’t be able to identify what a car looks like behind us if one starts trailing us.”

Dean exhaled annoyed at the thought of that.

Sam suggested, “Let’s get a hotel then. Not towards Lawrence, let’s go further out. And we can take turns keeping watch. If Dean drives, I’ll sleep until we get there and then he can rest while I stay up. And then Y/N can get up to relieve me.”

Shaking his head, Dean muttered, “I don’t like this.”

“We don’t really have a choice given our situation.”

Silence filled the space, Sam’s words sinking in. What he suggested was smart and would ensure the group of you would feel more safe than potentially leading Castiel back to the bunker.

Suddenly Dean turned back around to face the steering wheel and threw the key in the ignition. “Fine. But anymore contact and I’m calling the bastard. Antagonistic or not.”

<> <> <>

Groggy, it was almost impossible to open your eyes. The room was a blur; bright but blurry. You did not believe you were at home, it did not feel like home. Your eyelids were so heavy, your body felt like cement. Why were you so tired?

There were voices, hovering around you. You could not make out the majority of what was being said, only catching words like ‘blood’, ‘damage’.

Darkness crept in again, flooding from the outside in. You did not hear anything anymore.

<> <> <>

When you came to next, your vision was still unfocused. Your body felt heavy still, weighted down by…

You focused on the IV drip as it came into focus, hooked up into your right arm. Weighted down by medicine.

A voice drew your attention to your left. Mustering much more effort than it should require, you turned your head to the source.

Through your haze of sleep and medication, you still startled at seeing Castiel sitting there by your bed. He was staring at you with concern, leaning forward towards you, his large hand resting on yours.

You tried to jerk away from him but your moment was sluggish, although you were becoming alert much more quickly at this turn of events. Where were you? Why was he here? Where were Sam and Dean?

This had to be a dream. Why else would he be here? Next to your bed? But this was not your bed. Where were you? You thought again frantically. It looked like a hospital room. You racked your brain, trying to remember.

“Y/N,” Castiel tried again, drawing you from your frightened thoughts. “How are you feeling? It looks like the doctors got you stitched up alright and have your pain controlled.”

Stitched?

It came back.

You were in West Virginia or at least you had been. The Wendigo. It had gotten you cornered and slashed your thigh. You did not remember much after that besides Sam and Dean carrying you to the Impala.

“Y/N?”

“What… what are you doing here?”

“I do not know if that –”

“What,” you repeated with more force, trying to scoot away. “Are you doing here?”

You quickly took note that the door was closed. You had to have a call button to ring for help.

Castiel tsked you, ‘Now, now. Do not go getting yourself worked up. You have been through enough and you need to rest with minimal – preferably no – stress. I am not here to hurt you.”

“I don’t know that!”

“You are just going to have to trust me.”

“How can I? You killed innocent people to lure me in for a ‘game’.”

Holding up a finger, Castiel corrected, “To be fair, I did not kill the people that lured you in. That was my friend.” He paused and added, “I did kill two people as a safety net, yes. I new you were not going to fail and I did not want my friend losing his temper if he was not given the two more hearts as promised. I killed those two people for your safety. I will kill for you. But, then again, I do like killing.”

“You are not helping your case,” you told him coolly.

You had found the call button remote underneath the blanket. Your fingers closed in around it.

Lips tight, Castiel leaned away from you in order to reach your bed side table. He picked up a cup and held it out to you. You saw it was ice chips but refrained from accepting the offer.

Shoulders slumping ever so, Castiel sighed. Lowering his arm, he placed the cup back on the beside table, ‘I suppose I am just going to have to earn your trust.” The call button was not responding, your anxiety beginning to rise. “Y/N, as I have expressed, I am enamored with you. The light in your eyes, your quick wit. You also have a very lovely smile which is an extra bonus in the package for me.”

“I would love for you to join me. I think my experience and yours as well, we would make a formidable team. Now, I understand we do not want to be making any rash decisions. I am open to giving you time to consider, I really would like it to be a sound decision. It is always so much more practical when we come to the table together, both willing.”

“I would be disappointed if you turned me down. But I think if you take the time to really consider it, you will see how magnificent this agreement would be for both of us. Freedom to travel and discover riches and have adventure. Together.”

Leaning forward again, he told you, “So, really, kitten, hurting you is the furthest thing from my mind.”

He went quiet, gauging your reaction.

You had to say something.

“Thank you for considering that time is needed.”

He smiled, pleased at your appreciation. “Of course, of course. I do not want to rush a good thing. You deserve time.”

Looking to the door, he sighed, “Now, I suspect those two brutes you have around will be coming back. That blonde one, Dean, can put food away but even his stomach must have its limits. I should make myself scarce.” Standing from the chair, his hand brushed yours. “I am glad I stopped by to check in on you, kitten. I am relieved you are doing alright.”

He made it halfway to the door before turning back to you. His gaze fell to your concealed hand holding the call remote. “by the way, I would ask them to plug that back in for you. I do apologize but I needed some uninterrupted time with you to share my admiration. Please forgive me. I will be in touch.”

With that, he swung the door open and strolled out.

Your eyes were glued to the doorway, afraid he would return. He swore he did not want to hurt you but… unease still crept. If anything, it sounded like he was developing an unhealthy attraction.

Sam and Dean’s voices reached you before you saw them. You pushed yourself up to a sitting position in anticipation.

As soon as they walked in, they saw the fear in your expression.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked alarmed.

“Castiel,” you said hoarsely.

“What?” Sam demanded. “Here?”

You nodded and Dean’s face set in stone before he made a beeline for the hall, searching.

“Dean, he’s gone. It’s been a few since he left,” you called after him, leaning forward in the bed. You winced at the tug on your stitches.

He came back into the room and you recalled the last ten minutes, stumbling through what he had said. When you got done, Sam meant to sit in the chairs next to your bed but stopped suddenly. He picked up a small box that was adorned with a lace bow. His jaw set when he read the tab.

“It’s for you.”

You opened it warily. Inside was a diamond bracelet. Balking at it, you held it up and whispered, “Is… is this real? This must be worth a fortune.”

Dean snapped, “Are we all still against calling this asshole and setting things straight?”

~~~

CASTIEL FOREVER TAGS: @willowing-love @perseusandmedusa @greenappleeyes @afanofmanystuffs @earthtokace @shikaros-blog @marisayouass

#castiel fic #castiel x reader #spn fanfic #au spn fanfic #au castiel #psycho!cas #my shit

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konig-is-bbygrl · 4 years

Text

Breathless Ch. 3

Hotch was awoken in the middle of the night by his phone buzzing on the nightstand. He was still in his work clothes and clutching June’s sweater to his chest. He had fallen asleep clutching her sweater. As he came to his senses, he snatched his phone off the nightstand.

“Hotchner,” was his clipped response.

He hadn’t checked the number before he picked up. A soft voice came from the other end of the line.

“Hello, Mr. Hotchner, this is Doctor Ramirez from St. Martha’s hospital. You were the emergency contact on Ms. June McKeever’s contact list. She is out of surgery and is stabilized. She isn’t awake currently but if you would like to come and see her, possibly with a change of clothes for when she wakes up, you can. She won’t be able to fly for about six weeks. If you’d like to come and see her, you can.”

“Yes, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Thank you for notifying me.”

Hotch hung up and got his shoes on. He didn’t bother changing into different clothes. It was just the hospital. He grabbed a change of clothes for June, his phone and his keys and he left. He drove quickly to the hospital.

Entering the hospital, he greeted the receptionist quietly. He gave his name and relation to June. A nurse came by and led him to the ICU room she was residing in. The nurse opened the door and let Aaron in.

As he stepped into the room, a doctor caught him by the shoulder.

“Mr. Hotchner, I’m Doctor Ramirez. I just wanted to give you some information before you go and see her.”

Aaron nodded. “Thank you. So how is she?”

A sigh left the doctor’s nose. “It was touch and go for a bit. Keeping her oxygen levels up was the challenge. The punctured lung had nearly completely filled with blood so we had to do some drainage from her lungs. When you go back to Virginia, keep an eye out for symptoms of pneumonia. Her body could react poorly to any fluid that may have been left behind after the extraction. We were able to remove the bullet and fix the hole in her lung. There will be care instructions sent home with her. But there is another important detail you must know and understand before going in. You mentioned she was pregnant while in the ambulance. While in surgery, she… She miscarried. There was a lack of oxygenated blood reaching the fetus and she miscarried. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Aaron felt his entire world crashing down around him. The love of his life had been shot and now they lost their baby. He swallowed thickly and nodded. He didn’t trust his voice not to crack if he tried to speak. The doctor let him into the room. Aaron let out a shuddery breath as he stepped into the room. He set the bag of her clothes next to the bed and sat down in the chair at the bedside. His eyes burned with unshed tears and he held onto her hand. He laid his head gently on the bed next to her hand. She had an IV drip in her arm with a heart monitor letting out steady beeps. He shut his eyes and kissed her hand gently.

His hands trembled as they held hers. Willing himself to stand up, his hands let go of hers, and he kissed her forehead. He wiped away the unshed tears from his eyes and sighed. He walked out of the room and shut the door. He needed sleep to prepare for the paperwork he had to do tomorrow.

@jess-the-introvert

#criminal minds #criminal minds angst #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x oc #hotch x oc #tw; surgery #tw; miscarriage #tw; blood mention

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parkersvibes · 5 years

Text

finding out peter is spiderman

read part one here

a/n: omg guys. i got so much feedback from you all on part one so i decided to make a part 2. and yeahh i really hope you guys enjoy. if you do lmk and i’ll do a part 3 (:

(i also apologize if the read more doesnt work )))): )

warnings: fluff, a smidge on angst

pt 2. peter parker x stark!reader

• figuring out he was spiderman

• alright you’re a stark

• but no one knows that

• but you’re really intuitive

• so there were little things you started to notice

• after uncle ben died there was some weird shit (if you want a part ab comforting peter ab uncle ben lemme know. he deserves his own part)

• like how he stopped wearing his adorable glasses

•and i guess started almost bulking up????

• he got WAY taller

• and usually you’re used to seeing him shirtless but this one time you walked in on him

• holy mother of god

• IT WAS LIKE HE GREW ABS OVER NIGHT

• BECAUSE FRESHMAN PETE DID NOT HAVE A 6 PACK

• freshman peter also got winded walking up the stairs

• AND NOW HE’S RUNNING LAPS IN GYM LIKE ITS NOTHING ??

• must be nice

• but then things got more sus

• all of a sudden he was skipping class more

• leaving early

• cancelling study sessions and skipping movie nights with ned

• and you and ned were clueless

• you and ned started hanging out more

• MR. LEEDS IS HILARIOUS LEMME TELL YOU

• he was like this little ball of happiness

• you found out his real name is Edward

• HOW CUTE

• and WOW HIS MOM BEING FILIPINA MEANT THAT YOU WERE BEING FED ALL THE TIME OH MY GOD

• ngl pete got a bit jealous

• one night,,, when pete cancelled YET AGAIN

• ned asked you, “hey y/n?”

• “hm”

• “why don’t we ever hang out at your place”

• “i told you ned, my family is just a lot yanno. plus your family and may are really cool”

• “okay but how come you don’t have any social media under your name?”

• “wdym?”

• “like you go by ‘y/n Smith’ but everything that pops up on the internet isn’t YOU”

• “pfff i told you,,, i dont believe in that stuff”

• “y/n, you know you can tell me anything”

• you wanted to be honest. this was one of your best friends. and you’ve been lying to them about your family for over a year now

• “ned i just. it’s complicated”

• “like peter’s family?”

• “nonono, i’m lucky to have both of my parents- well i have a step mom. my real mom wanted nothing to do with me. so she left me on the steps of my dads house. never came back”

• “oh shit bro, i’m sorry”

• “nah don’t worry. my dad is really cool and my step mom... she’s awesome.”

• “what’re their names”

• NATASHA WAS GONNA KILL YOU IF SHE COULD SEE HOW BAD YOU WERE STRUGGLING

• “well- uh- my step moms name is,,, um. well her real name is Virginia”

• THE WORLD KNEW PEPPER AS PEPPER NOT VIRGINIA

• “and my- my dads name is ehm... st, steve???”

• natasha was gonna have your ass

• “y/n,,,”

• “yeah”

• “you’re a horrible liar”

• “PFFF WHAAAT? NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT”

• “dude you left your spiderman fan tumblr open on my laptop that one night,,, and i MAY have done some snooping”

• okay you mightve had a slight obsession with the webslinger. HE WAS COOL. and what better way to keep track of him without alerting your family,,, good ol tumblr

• oh god ned, HOW MUCH SNOOPING”

• “enough to know that you have a weird obsession with that spider guy and that your last name isnt smith”

• so you told him the truth. you were a stark

• and well,,, he reacted with

• “okay cmon,,, don’t lie”

• so you showed him your late night dance parties with Nat when she was feeling goofy

• and your random snaps of steve when he was trying to figure out how to work technology

• videos of you reacting to vines with bucky

(if yall wanna see domestic life with the avengers just lmk)

• which usually results with THE WINTER SOLDIER ALMOST PEEING HIS PANTS. and trying to reenact it with sam or the other avengers

• “heyheyehy y/n guess what?”

• “what bucky?” *is in the middle of doing hw*

• “FRESHOVACADO” *bolts out of the room before you throw something at him*

• only the two of you getting vine and meme references

• (meaning getting in trouble during meetings bc you’ll make eye contact and start laughing)

• OH HIS FAVORITE IS THE “country boiiii, i love you,,, 😛”

• anywaayyy

• ned was SHOOK

• “nowayohmygodyoureanavenger”

• “no ned,,, only when they need me to be”

• *led to him asking 100000 questions*

• “does Mr. America smell like old man”

• “what language does Ms. Widow think in”

• “how many shirts does Mr. Hulk own”

• “so do they wear normal clothes or are they always PREPARED”

• “does your dad have to walk a weird way when hes in his suit”

• “do they ever chafe in their suits”

• “yes ned. we’re stocked up on baby powder”

• which you didnt mind bc it felt nice telling the truth

• ned WANTED TO TELL PETER SO BAD

• “ned no, i don’t want him to think of me differently”

• he understood. but still defended peter and said that hed still treat you the same

• anyway,,, peter started showing up with bruises and stuff which had you v concerned

• “pete what’s up? you’ve been avoiding ned and i and you have skipped out on every movie night since sophomore year started”

• “t’s nothing. dont worry ab it”

• “peter cmon, it’s just me”

• you figured maybe it had to do with ben??? but you gave him his space. you just wanted to be there for him yanno. you didnt want him to shut you out

• “Y/N I SAID ITS NOTHING. FOR FUCKS SAKE CAN YOU LEAVE ME ALONE???” he snapped (and not in the good way)

• and this was on your way to class so the whole hallway heard

• ouch

• so you left him alone. probably more than he meant. but it hurt

• i mean he was your first friend here, and now he yelled at you to leave you alone

• ned felt awful at first. trying to comfort you and tell you it wasnt your fault

• but then he started acting weird. whenever you brought up peter hed be super antsy about it

• you- “i think he got into another fight or something”

• ned- “pFFT PETER? FIGHTING? no way,,, i got-i gotta go”

• so you figured that whatever peter was hiding, ned knew about,, which also hurt your feelings

• so you closed off

• and wow could the super family tell something was wrong

• wanda- “little stark, i can feel your sadness all the way to my room”

• sam/bucky/rhodes- “okay what’s the deal, we’ve played 5 rounds of fortnite and you havent once rage quit even though you’re doing terrible”

• tony- “kid, what’s wrong? everyone here can tell you’re not feeling great”

• nat- “cmon. ive given you 3 opportunities to kick my ass and you havent once complained about me going easy?”

• thor- “lady y/n what is causing you distress? not once have you smiled, i even wore my hair in pigtails,,, and that seems to always do the trick”

• and you gave the same response every time “‘m just tired” “lots of homework”

• they noticed you werent going out on weekends anymore

• so tony figured that your friend group and you were having some Stuff

• pep gave him an idea of meeting his new prodigy

• now tony knew it’d be kinda sus because peter went to midtown but he figured that if the kid kept his mask on it’d be fine

• “dad i don’t wanna see another one of your weird maid robots”

• “wha- no i want you to meet someone”

• “dad college isn’t for another 2 years. if it’s your friend from MIT-“

• then right before your eyes was the insect boy that youve been admiring through the internet

• needless to say

• your jaw dripped

• “y/n meet spiderling, spiderling meet my daughter y/n stark”

• *seconds pass*

• “i uh- oH- um- sp-spidERman, h-hi. biG fan of you- your work”

• *silence*

• you- “oH dad diD you hear th-that? moM is calling mE”

• tony- “what?? pep wouldve called on the interco-“

• spiderman- “y/n”

• you- SHOOK TO THE CORE BECAUSE YOU KNEW THAT VOICE. THAT WAS THE VOICE THAT SOUNDED LIKE HONEY BUT COULD CUT YOU DEEPER THAN ANY WEAPON IN YOUR HOUSE

• you- “p-peter???”

• tony- *shocked pikachu face* “you know each other???”

• you- “so-something like that yeah”

• peter takes off his mask

• “ohmygodpeterisspiderman”

• “ohmygodyourlastnameisntsmith”

• tony- “im gonna let you guys figure this out” *walks backward slowly*

*insert silence*

• you- “so this is what you were hiding, huh?” with a cold tone

• “IM HIDING? YOU LIED ABOUT YOUR WHOLE HOME LIFE TO NED AND I”

• *yelling at each other for another minute. even though you couldnt hear what the other is saying*

• you- *yelling loudest “I DIDNT WANT YOU TO SEE ME DIFFERENTLY OKAY”

• peter- “you really thought id do that?” (heartbreaking voice)

• you- “i- once i got to know you, i knew you wouldnt but i was scared. i didn’t know how to tell you. for once in my life i had found someone my age who liked ME for ME. not for my name or money or my dad. and i didn’t want to change that. i’m sorry i didn’t tell you sooner”

• peter- “... i get what you mean. after ben died everyone gave me that look. except you and ned.”

• you- “why didn’t you tell me”

• peter- “everyone i love or ever cared about dies. my parents and then my uncle ben. so once i got my abilities i knew that the risk was even higher and i didn’t want to put you in that position. i wanted to keep you safe. but it seems like you know how to handle yourself” (referring to the fact that you grew up with THE EARTHS MIGHTIEST HEROS)

• y/n- “so how come ned found out?”

• peter *scratches back of neck* “well- he- i- May let him in my room and i happen to be crawling on the ceiling in my suit and he dropped the death star” *head hangs in shame*

• you had to giggle at that i mean CMON

• you stepped closer to him

• “pete you’re my best friend. you can tell me anything okay?”

• “no more secrets?”

• “no more secrets”

• and you both pinky promise and your thumbs “kiss” bc IF THEY ITS THE ULTIMATE UNBREAKABLE VOW DONT @ ME

• peter parker gives you the biggest hug that maKES YOUR HEART JUMP BC PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH A PERSON AS PRETTY AS HIM MAKES YOUR HEART FEEL A CERTAIN WAY

• but you wrapped your arms around his neck and enjoyed the moment

• wow he is really cozy

• * the avengers are watching from the cameras in awe*

• led to MANY questions at dinner

• and so everything went back to “normal”

• it wasn’t until you went to bed that night that you realized peter said the L word

• WHAT

• so much for no secrets

taglist: @silver-winter-wolf @emmmmszy @everythingaboutnothingsstuff @rexorangecouny @wishiwasanavenger @marjoherbo @nologinisoksothatsit @mindset-jupiter @hpnjrph @soup238

some favs/mutrals: @h-osterfield @starksparker @stuckonspidey @sunshinehollandd @keepingupwiththeparkers @hey-marlie @spyder-bites

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vitavenaus · 7 months

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Vitavenaus: How to Choose the Right Mobile IV Therapy for You

In today's fast-paced world, maintaining optimal health and wellness is a priority for many individuals. Mobile IV therapy has emerged as a convenient and effective solution to support overall well-being, and Vitavenaus is at the forefront of providing cutting-edge services in this field. If you are considering mobile IV therapy, it's crucial to understand the options available to you and choose the right treatment for your specific needs. In this article, we'll explore the world of mobile IV therapy and shed light on how Vitavenaus can help you make the best choice for your health.

Mobile IV therapy involves the administration of essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals directly into the bloodstream through intravenous infusion. This method ensures quick and efficient absorption, offering a faster and more effective way to replenish vital nutrients compared to traditional oral supplements. Vitavenaus takes this concept a step further by bringing these rejuvenating treatments directly to your doorstep, eliminating the need for clinic visits.

One key mobile IV therapy offered by Vitavenaus is Nad+ IV therapy. Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD+) is a coenzyme that plays a crucial role in various cellular processes, including energy production and DNA repair. As we age, our NAD+ levels naturally decline, leading to reduced cellular function and potential health issues. NAD+ IV therapy from Vitavenaus can help replenish these levels, promoting overall well-being and potentially slowing down the aging process.

When choosing the right mobile IV therapy for you, it's essential to consider your specific health goals and requirements. Vitavenaus offers a range of IV therapy options, each designed to address different needs. Whether you are looking to boost energy, enhance recovery, or support immune function, there is a customized solution for you.

To make an informed decision, start by understanding the benefits of each therapy offered by Vitavenaus. If you are seeking enhanced energy levels and improved cognitive function, the Nad+ IV therapy may be an ideal choice. This therapy can provide a natural boost to your vitality, allowing you to tackle daily challenges with increased vigor.

Vitavenaus also offers personalized consultations to help you tailor your mobile IV therapy experience. During these consultations, experienced healthcare professionals will assess your individual health status, lifestyle, and goals, guiding you towards the most suitable treatment plan. This personalized approach sets Vitavenaus apart, ensuring that you receive the most effective and targeted IV therapy for your unique needs.

In conclusion, Vitavenaus stands out as a leading provider of mobile IV therapy, bringing the benefits of intravenous nutrient infusion to the comfort of your home. Whether you are interested in Nad+ IV therapy or other customized options, Vitavenaus has you covered. Prioritize your well-being with the convenience and effectiveness of mobile IV therapy, and let Vitavenaus be your partner on the journey to a healthier and more energized life.

#Home IV Services #IV Therapy DC #IV Drip Virginia

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youbetterworkcovergirl · 5 years

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2020 Movies

Batman: Under The Red Hood

Pump Up The Volume

A Country Wedding

Cool As Ice

Surprised By Love

Life With Mikey

True Romance

All of My Heart: Inn Love

Absentia

Dream/Killer

Tell Me Who I Am

Sweetheart

Growing the Big One

All Things Valentine

Step Up All In

Love On A Limb

Love Struck Cafe

Drop Zone

Girl on the Third Floor

Hard Rain

Sightseers

Switchback

Mobsters

Campfire Kisses

Hobbs and Shaw

Little Darlings

Streetdance

Malevolence

Good Boys

Midnight Masquerade

Killer: Malevolence 3

Dinner for Schmucks

Fractured

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue

Testament

The Unauthorized Beverly Hills 90210 Story

The Killing Secret

Countdown

Joker

I See You

Satisfaction

Grease 2

Terminator: Dark Fate

Ghost

In Fear

Sister Act 2

Grease Live

Gretel and Hansel

I Know My First Name Is Steven

Mother, May I Sleep With Danger

Hostile Advances

Hidden in Silence

Miss Americana

The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson

Doctor Sleep

Grave Encounters

Hairspray Live

Sister Act

Dad

Mad City

Mortuary

Mausoleum

12 Strong

The Barn

Polaroid

Climax

Troop Zero

One Night In October

Top Gun

A Nightmare On Elm Street

Mad City

The Mummy

The Vatican Tapes

Miss Americana

P.S. I Still Love You

Payback

The Ugly

Just Cause

Incident in a Ghostland

Camp Cold Brook

Goodbye World

The Neighbour

Grandview, USA

The Mummy

Assimilate

It Comes At Night

Midway

It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Hiroshima

Zombieland Double Tap

Mercy Black

The House That Jack Built

21 Bridges

The Crash Reel

Jojo Rabbit

Marauders

Eden Lake

102 Minutes That Changed America

White Light/Black Rain

After Parkland

The Farewell

Frozen II

The Devil’s Own

Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island

Candyman 2

Candyman 3

Yellowbrickroad

Queen and Slim

Headless Horseman

The First Purge

The Purge

Haunted Honeymoon

Charlie’s Angels

Contagion

Hail, Satan?

The Purge: Anarchy

The Purge: Election Year

Lisa

The Killing Room

The Hunted

Chain Reaction

Kingsmen: The Secret Service

Body Bags

Rings

Ruin Me

A Quiet Place

Seven In Heaven

World War Z

Outbreak

Lost Girls

Dark Waters

Glass

Black Christmas (2019)

The Incredible Hulk

The Phantom of the Opera

The Believers

Sinster

And The Band Played On

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

93 Days

The Last Broadast

The Spy Who Dumped Me

Asylum

Train to Busan

The Grudge

Killer Workout

Good Will Hunting

Murder in New Hampshire

Demolition High

Legacy of Fear

The Last of the Manson Girls

The Fear Footage

Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini

Humanoids From The Deep

Richard Jewell

Just Mercy

Animal Among Us

Sleepers

Scare Me

The 6th Friend

Opera

We Were Here

The Origin of Aids

Birds of Prey

Dolittle

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Family Portrait

The Moors Murders

Where is Robert Fisher?

Valentine Road

West of Salem

Rise of Skywalker

Butterfly Kisses

Savage Streets

Ghostheads

Born Innocent

American Experience: Blackout

Anatomy of a Seduction

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

Texas Chainsaw 3D

Antrium

A.M.I

Not Since You

The Money Pit

Violation of Trust

Love’s Deadly Triangle

Underwater

Onward

Cruel Doubt

Extraction

Bombshell

Spies in Disguise

Bad Boys for Life

The Stalker Club

Mississippi Burning

Choose

Little Shop of Horrors

Tourist Trap

Contamination

Street Trash

American Animals

The Warriors

Waco: The Rules of Engagement

Chain Letter

Return to Horror High

Free Willy

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead

Rookie of the Year

Where The Boys Are

Little Big League

Cool Runnings

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids

Connie and Carla

A Star is Born

Hangman

Friends with Benefits

Cam

The Platform

How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days

Brave

VFW

Bushwick

Mission Impossible: Fallout

In The Deep Woods

C.H.U.D

Monday at 11:01 am

13 Eerie

The 13th Man

Square One

Monsters Wanted

The Man In The Red Bandanna

Hotel Artemis

Bedeviled

Terror on the 44th Floor

Patriot Games

The Mandela Effect

The Aristocats

Oliver and Company

Goodnight Mommy

The Manson Family Massacre

The Lodge

Savage Weekend

Bloody Murder 2

Seoul Station

Are You Scared

The Stay Awake

Kemper

Fantasy Island

To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

The Scream Team

Phantom of the Megaplex

Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire

Panic Button

Madhouse

The Turning

Brahms: The Boy II

The Invisible Man

Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street

The Cover Up

I Am Not Your Negro

The House That Dripped Blood

Inkubus

Trucks

The Way Back

Innocent Blood

The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas

The American Nightmare

Rhinestone

Guyana Tragedy

Raze

13th

1BR

Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School

Storage 24

Dead Man’s Curve

Sick School

Hair

Most Valuable Players

The Day the 60s Died

February One

Freedom Summer

Devil’s Playground

Knowing

Lethal Weapon

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

The Postcard Killings

A Chorus Line

City of Angels

Brian Banks

The Redwood Massacre

101 Dalmations

Zootopia

Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight

Murder in the First

Dragnet

Black Rock

Hamilton

We Summon the Darkness

Behind You

Swing Shift

High Spirits

V for Vendetta

The Gallows Act II

Edge of the Axe

The Peanuts Movie

Better Off Single

The Marshes

Dude Bro Party Massacre III

Extracurricular

Grizzly Man

What Keeps You Alive

Body Count

Miss You Already

The House In Between

We Are Your Friends

Witches in the Woods

Scoob!

Exhibit A

American Tragedy

7500

976-Evil II

Abattoir

Invasion

Descent

Extremity

Scare Package

Some Kind of Hate

Inheritance

Resistance

The Others

The Furies

Host

In Search of Darkness

Ginger Snaps

Corey Haim Me, Myself and I

Body Cam

Victims

The Forgotten West Memphis Three

Spooky House

The Boyfriend School

The Wretched

Amityville 1992

After Midnight

The Wretched

Halloween With The New Addams Family

Into The Grizzly Maze

Rabid (2019)

Max Relod and the Nether Blasters

The Monster Club

Nightmares

Criminal Law

From Beyond

Slaughterhouse Rulez

I Trapped The Devil

Gleaming the Cube

Freaks

The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone

Shadow of Doubt

Perfect Stranger

Howl

Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

That Was Then This Is Now

Incarnate

Twitches

American Fright Fest

Excision

The Gray Man

Beg

Open 24 Hours

Wer

The Scare House

Girl House

Fear

Chernobyl Hour by Hour

The Babysitter: Killer Queen

The Tingler

Repo Man

The Honor List

Defenseless

Don’t Open Til Christmas

Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge

10/31

Children of the Corn: The Gathering

Children of the Corn II

Widow’s Point

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror

Children of the Corn 666: Issac’s Return

Love, Fall and Order

Blair Witch

The Frightening

The Blair Witch Project

Becky

Random Acts of Violence

Spiral

Scare Me

American Murder

Cannibal Holocaust

Perfect Little Angels

Farm House

The Hole

Gossip

Ghost of Goodnight Lane

The Haunting

Twin Towers

Guerilla The Taking of Patty Hearst

Greystone Park

The Cleansing Hour

Adam Resurrected

Aiborne

Let’s Scare Julie

September 11

Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo

The Dentist

Tales From the Hood 2

Beneath

All You’ve Got

The Mortuary Collection

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

Dolly Patron: Here I Am

Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8

The Video Dead

The Lie

Scream: The Inside Story

The Omen Legacy

Still Screaming

Tiny Toons’ Night Ghoulery

The Last Days

One Day In Semptember

A Stranger Among the Living

Trick

After Midnight

Black X-mas

American Mary

Amusement

Cursed

The Den

The Forsaken

Fright Night

Antebellum

Blood Vessel

Survival of the Film Freaks

Batman

10 Things I Hate About You

I Am Nancy

Never Sleep Again

Mischief Night

Saw II

Bill and Ted Face The Music

Saw III

Saw IV

Christmas Made to Order

Olaf’s Frozen Adventure

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

Direct To Video

Saw V

A Very Merry Mix up

Christmas At Pemberley Manor

Sense, Sensible and Snowmen

A Joyous Christmas

Anna

Run

Train to Busan: Pennisula

#Alive

Christmas Camp

Witchboard

Porno

Road to Christmas

Friendsgiving

Zombies

If Anything Happens I Love You

Diana In Her Own Words

Christmas On The Square

Unhinged

Amish Grace

Polytechnique

The Only Way

The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Soul

Freaky

The Rental

Relic

Unlawful Entry

White House Down

The Craft: Legacy

Christmas in Connecticut

Absence of Malice

6 Souls

10.5 Apocalypse

13 Hours

A Shoe Addict’s Christmas

A Stranger Among Us

9/11 The Day That Changed The World

No Escape

A Country Christmas Story

Dolly Patron’s Christmas Coat of Many Colors: Circle of Love

Smiley Face Killers

Death of Me

Detective Pikachu

One October

The Broken Hearts Gallery

A Cheerful Christmas

Head Count

Hamilton: One Shot To Broadway

Fire in the Sky

Fade to Black

Children of the Corn: Revelation

Children of the Corn: Genesis

Children of the Corn III

Blind Faith

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antoine-roquentin · 6 years

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Julie Hall smiled on the witness stand as she recalled a memory of her old client Joseph Wood. He had spent most of the last two decades living in solitary confinement, with his recreation confined to a cage, when the Arizona Department of Corrections began to loosen some restrictions over people on death row. A basketball court was built outside his unit on the sprawling desert prison complex in Florence, about an hour south of Phoenix. At 55, Wood was relatively healthy — “he loved going out and playing,” Hall said. A prison sergeant even played a round of basketball with Wood, which meant a lot. “He felt like he was being treated like he was human for the first time in a long time.”

Hall’s smile disappeared when she described the day Wood died. It was July 23, 2014. His execution was scheduled for 10 a.m. Hall arrived at the prison that morning at 6:45, then waited almost an hour to see him. When the Arizona Supreme Court granted a temporary stay of execution, Hall told him the good news. Wood was prepared to die, she told the court; ever since he committed the murders that sent him to death row, he had felt he did not deserve to live. Still, “he wanted someone to listen to us when we said that this was an experimental method of execution.”

Wood was the first to face a new form of lethal injection in Arizona that used a combination of the opioid hydromorphone and the sedative midazolam. The latter had raised controversy over its use in executions. Florida first tried it in 2013 to kill a man named William Happ “in what seemed like a labored process,” according to one media witness. Happ “remained conscious longer and made more body movements after losing consciousness” than people executed under the old formula, according to another report. The Florida Department of Correction, which refused to say how it chose the drug, dismissed the concerns — and soon other states were trying out midazolam. In January 2014, Ohio used it to execute Dennis McGuire. Witnesses described how he struggled and gasped, clenching his fists and striving to breath. A few months later, in April 2014, Oklahoma used midazolam to kill Clayton Lockett in one of the most notorious botched executions in recent memory.

But Arizona stuck to the plan. By noon that day, Wood’s stay of execution had been lifted. Prison staff provided Hall with a pencil and paper and led her to the witness chamber. No phones were allowed. Once inside, she was told, she would be forbidden from leaving the room. Hall watched as a pair of TV monitors were turned on above the closed curtains. “That’s where we could view the insertion of the IV lines,” she explained. Hall was surprised at the amount of blood she saw — some of it dripped onto the floor. With the IVs eventually placed, the monitors went dark. The curtains opened. Wood lay strapped to the gurney, thick straps over his arms and a white sheet covering his legs.

At 1:52 p.m., a voice came over the loudspeaker. The lethal injection was about to start.

After five minutes, with the first dose of midazolam presumably administered, a man entered to conduct a consciousness check on Wood. The voice came back to announce he was sedated. But three minutes later, Hall said, “I saw a quiver in his cheek, which surprised me a little.” She didn’t know whether it was normal or not. It was two minutes after that when she saw Wood gasp for air. Then he did it again. And again.

“He just kept gasping,” Hall said. She began counting the gasps on her notepad. After 20 minutes and 134 gasps, she stopped counting. “I just didn’t know what the point was anymore.” Hall struggled to describe what it looked like. It reminded her of a fish that was dying after being pulled from the water — “that opening of the mouth; trying to get air and just not getting it.”

At 2:50 p.m., Dale Baich, supervising attorney of the Arizona Federal Public Defender’s Capital Habeas Unit, who was seated behind Hall, passed her a note. “Go now,” it said, instructing her to call their colleagues in Phoenix. Hall hurried out of the witness room and asked a guard if she could use his phone. He refused, then escorted her outside of the death house, through a maze of sally ports and checkpoints, and finally, out to the administration building. It took nine minutes. Only then was Hall able to make a call, to tell someone that “something was going very, very wrong and it looked like Mr. Wood was suffering.”

Hall was still on the phone when Wood was finally declared dead at 3:53 p.m. The next day, media witness Michael Kiefer published his own account of Wood’s struggle to breathe. Over the two-hour execution, he reported, Wood gasped more than 640 times.

Hall told her story in fits and starts, answering questions in a courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee. It was July 9, 2018, day one of Abu Ali Abdur’Rahman v. Tony Parker, a trial over Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. Parker is the head of the Tennessee Department of Correction, or TDOC. The named plaintiff is one of 33 men facing execution under a new formula that includes midazolam. Three have been scheduled to die by the end of the year. One of them, Billy Ray Irick, is set for execution on August 9.

Hall was one of more than 20 witnesses called by the plaintiffs, including some dozen defense attorneys who had witnessed their clients’ executions. They dramatized what lawyers argued in their trial brief: that Tennessee’s new protocol violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. First issued in January, it called for the injection of three drugs: midazolam, followed by a paralytic called vecuronium bromide, and culminating with potassium chloride to stop the heart. With midazolam chosen to provide anesthesia, the attorneys argued it was not only possible but very likely their clients would suffer. What’s more, they said, the protocol prevents defense attorneys from having access to a phone during the execution, in violation of their clients’ constitutional rights.

The witnesses described executions in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and Oklahoma. Many had never spoken publicly. Their accounts ranged from subtle but unusual movement on the gurney to gasping, lurching, and clenching of fists. They were bolstered by leading medical experts who explained the scientific reasons why midazolam was inadequate to provide anesthesia.

One pathologist presented evidence that had never been shown in court. He had reviewed 27 autopsy reports out of the 32 total executions carried out using midazolam. In most of the cases, he found signs of pulmonary edema — fluid in the lungs that indicated the men had been in respiratory distress. The inescapable conclusion was that states have almost certainly been torturing people to death in their execution chambers — and that Tennessee might be ready to do the same.

After weeks of testimony, a ruling came quickly, on July 26. It sided with the state. In her order upholding Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle wrote that the plaintiffs had failed to prove their case, while acknowledging that the use of midazolam might leave them vulnerable to pain during their execution. The U.S. Supreme Court was “aware of the risk of midazolam,” she wrote, and upheld it anyway in Glossip v. Gross. Though “dreadful and grim, it is the law that while surgeries should be pain-free, there is no constitutional requirement for that with executions.”

For anyone who has followed the legal evolution of lethal injection, Lyle’s ruling was not a surprise. The decision ultimately turned not on midazolam, but on a different provision of Glossip. Under the ruling, the plaintiffs had to prove not only that Tennessee’s protocol was cruel and unusual, but that there was a viable alternative. In her dissent in Glossip, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor decried this “surreal requirement,” one that puts attorneys in the perverse position of identifying methods that should be used to kill their clients. Though Lyle conceded that this law “seems odd,” the requirement was clear. “That proof has not been provided in this case.”

Decisions in chancery court have limited sway. Under Tennessee’s Declaratory Judgment Act, Lyle’s ruling amounts to a “declaration” — an opinion that can only be weaponized by bringing it to a different forum. Most lethal injection challenges are brought before federal courts that have the power to stop executions. Lyle did not. In bringing the lawsuit in chancery court, Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry hoped to win a ruling that could influence the state Supreme Court or governor to intervene.

Yet the order belies the significance of the trial itself. As Henry said in her closing argument on July 24, it was the first time a three-drug protocol using midazolam had been the subject of a “real trial.” Until now, most hearings on midazolam were on whether to grant a preliminary injunction to stop a looming execution. Such hearings are rushed by their nature — witnesses often appear by Skype. This was not the case in Nashville. Though the trial moved quickly, the testimony was extensive and nuanced, providing a much fuller picture of the science behind the drugs used in lethal injection. Lyle was deliberate and measured — and cautious not to allow witnesses to testify beyond their expertise.

The questionable analysis of expert witnesses has had major consequences where lethal injection is concerned. At the preliminary injunction hearing that paved the way for Glossip, Alabama-based pharmacist Dr. Roswell Lee Evans peddled opinions divorced from scientific reality. Among his claims was that 500 milligrams of midazolam — the same dose as in the Tennessee protocol — would render someone unconscious to the point that they would not feel pain. Anesthesiologists adamantly disagreed. In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, 16 professors of pharmacology cited the “overwhelming scientific consensus” that midazolam was incapable of inducing the “deep comalike unconsciousness” called for in lethal injection. On the eve of oral arguments in Glossip, the case was embroiled in controversy over the revelation that Evans had relied on sources like the website Drugs.com.

There is “no debate around midazolam,” anesthesiologist Dr. David Lubarsky told the court in Nashville. Among such experts, Evans has no credibility. But among prosecutors intent on carrying out executions, Evans remains a useful and willing witness, “recognized by numerous state and federal courts,” as Deputy Attorney General Scott Sutherland told the court. If anyone lacked credibility, he suggested, it was the “highly biased” defense attorneys who watched their clients’ executions, he said, quoting a 6th Circuit ruling over Ohio’s lethal injection protocol. As a more authoritative source, Sutherland offered the official department of correction records from 19 executions carried out using midazolam in Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio. Many of them were described as problematic, but these records showed everything had gone fine, he said....

Henry pushed back against the state’s argument that the true effects of large quantities of midazolam are unknown since there have been no “human experiments” to collect data. “Unfortunately, we do have human experiments,” she said. “We have 32 human experiments. Men who were executed using a protocol that involves midazolam.”

Sutherland began by invoking the gruesome crimes for which the plaintiffs had been convicted. “These facts provide context for this court as to why we are here,” he said.

With a low voice that was sometimes hard to hear, Sutherland wore a look of mild irritation — and the slightly casual air of a man who knows the law is on his side. He quoted Justice Samuel Alito’s reasoning in Glossip: “Capital punishment in this country is constitutional, and it follows, necessarily, that there must be a constitutional means of carrying it out.” The Constitution does not require a painless execution, Sutherland went on. It only prohibits the deliberate infliction of torture, such as disembowelment or being burned alive. What’s more, “in the history of its existence,” the court “has never invalidated a state’s chosen method of execution as cruel and unusual punishment.” As for midazolam, there was nothing new to discuss.

Sutherland seized on the main problem with the plaintiffs’ lawsuit. They argued in favor of a one-drug protocol using the barbiturate pentobarbital, a formula used by states like Texas. But they showed no proof that pentobarbital was available, he said. Instead, they argued that TDOC never made an effort to procure it. This was not true, Sutherland said, but regardless, “it’s not our burden to prove that it’s unavailable.” The plaintiffs had to prove that it was....

On the stand in 2003, Heath explained that if the first drug in the protocol, sodium thiopental, was not adequately administered, the pancuronium bromide would cause suffocation while creating a “chemical mask,” concealing any evidence of the excruciating burning pain that would result from the injection of the third drug, potassium chloride. Lawyers called a woman named Carol Weihrer, who described her terror during eye surgery in 1998, when she woke up while under the effect of pancuronium bromide and was paralyzed, unable to alert her doctors.

Presiding over the 2003 hearing was Ellen Hobbs Lyle, the same judge who handed down the ruling last month. On June 1, 2003, Hobbs sided with the state, concluding that lawyers for the condemned had failed to prove that Tennessee’s protocol was unconstitutional. But she was critical of the lack of research behind the protocol — and particularly pointed in criticizing Pavulon, “a drug outlawed in Tennessee for euthanasia of pets.” It served no purpose except to give “a false impression of serenity to viewers, making punishment by death more palatable,” she wrote. And if the anesthetic failed to work, she warned, the paralytic would hide the “excruciatingly painful ordeal of death by lethal injection.”...

Henry reiterated an argument she had tried to make at the end of the trial. If the state could not carry out an execution using the alternative they had put forward — a single dose of pentobarbital — the plaintiffs moved to amend their complaint to consider an “alternative to the alternative”: a two-drug cocktail that removed the vecuronium bromide altogether. This option is “clearly available and readily implemented,” which would satisfy the Glossip requirement. And it would remove one of the well-established risks: that their clients would be paralyzed, suffocating, and suffering as the lethal drugs took hold.

It seemed simple enough. Parker himself has suggested it would be possible. Indeed, Lyle had been among the first in the country to criticize the paralytic back in 2003. “If the state is sincere in its belief that midazolam will work the way that they say it will work,” said Bradley MacLean, counsel for Abu Ali Abdur’Rahman, “there is no reason why the state should oppose this.”

But it did. Sutherland called it a “desperate” move, while Lyle explained that the law prevented her from granting the motion. As for her prescient opinion 15 years ago, she wrote in her ruling, it came before Baze and Glossip. The Supreme Court had found a legitimate purpose for the paralytic: hastening death, while dignifying the process for witnesses and the condemned alike. Her previous decision was “of minimal use.”

#read the whole thing

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stunudo · 6 years

Text

Infiltrated: Part 3

I couldn’t find this gif while searching the Tumblr-loaded ones, but it is watermarked. Thanks to @spencerhellareid for the sly Hotch side-eye. xoxo

Featuring: Hotch x Female Reader/ Foyet x Female Reader

Setting: Season 4

A/N: I got an unsub fmk-type ask. So this came from that. This is going to be darker than any other series I have done. Hope you guys like it! The reader character has a name because she is protecting her identity. xoxo Stu

Warnings: Moral repugnancy and general unsub behavior. Also smut.

Series

Your name: submit What is this?

George had left the morning after the tenderizer with little fanfare. He relished in your wincing steps as you saw him to the door.

“Alright, Y/N, I’ve got some things in the works, but look out for a meet up in a week or two.” George watched you process the instructions, ensuring you were worried just enough to make his leaving a loss.

“If you need anything you know where to find me,” You held his gaze.

“Y/N, please, I don’t need anything.” George laughed in your face. “Ditch the burner, I’ll get you a new one.”

“Anything else?” You shifted with your hands in your back pockets, the skin still warm through your jeans. He didn’t say anything, but grabbed your chin, holding it centimeters from his face. He watched your eyes focus, listened to your breath hitch and became satisfied with his effect. He turned to walk away.

“Be safe.”

He didn’t even look back, but you could hear his guffaw bounce around the solemness of the drab apartment hallway.

A week after the midnight phone call, you finally crossed paths with the BAU again, in the flesh. Your team had been in the field on cycling twelve hour surveillance shifts, leaving your hours of mindless desk duties to be done at unlikely times. It was seven in the evening and you passed the sand-eyed profilers stepping onto the elevator.

“Going up?” Agent Morgan held the door for you and you gave him an appreciative tight lipped smile.

“How’s it going Turner?” Prentiss asked as she peered around Reid and Rossi.

“Have they developed an IV caffeine drip yet?” You joked, glancing over your shoulder to Hotch in the corner.

“Actually, Neonatalogists give Cafcit intravenously to premature infants to treat apnea.” Dr. Reid pointed out.

“So, can I get an adult dose then?” You asked.

“Oh, I’m not a prescribing doctor.” Reid grimaced at you. “But, it is just a different form of NoDoz.”

“Ah, well, I know that one well enough, it got me through my sophomore year of college.” Prentiss chuckled.

Their floor dinged and you leaned back to let them pass. You wondered what kind of horrors they had left behind their latest jet ride. Hotch was the last one on the elevator and something pushed you in his direction.

“Hey--” You caught his gaze and a witty smirk brought a sudden warmth to your cheeks. You bit back the pinching in your cheeks, “You got a minute? I want to go over something with you upstairs.”

He nodded, “Hey guys, I’ll meet you at dinner?” He called back out to his team. Rossi’s concerned stare bore into you as the metal doors closed. The atmosphere of the elevator had reached the summit of a roller coaster, your stomach fell as the doors parted on your floor. You nodded down the hall, leading Hotch through an unmarked door.

“Turner, what’s this about?” Hotch didn’t flinch at the surroundings. He seemed to think you had brought him here for discretion and not true privacy. You couldn’t exactly say why you were doing this, but slowly your body pulled you closer to him. He had a spicy aftershave that lingered on his collar. He froze at your proximity, but the lack of verbal explanation needed no follow up once your breath ghosted over his neck. His hand came out to clutch at your waist, protectively. You took in a ragged breath and knelt in front of him.

You found his belt as he let his shoulders fall against the storeroom door. Despite the looming stress of his last case and your waiting busy work, he responded quickly and impressively. His thighs were muscular and his butt clenched nicely beneath your finger nails as you took his cock into your mouth. He groaned a deep and pained sound; it had been awhile since he had such attention.

“Easy there,” Hotch gasped, stroking your hair from your eyes. You looked up at him, waiting for further instructions. His face was darkening with need and you improvised when he couldn’t form words. You built a steady yet lavish pace, swirling your tongue over his head with every few dips. You were getting incredibly hot knowing how wrong this was and how very much you enjoyed doing it anyway. This was not planned on, something that had gotten you into trouble in the past. Fuck the rules.

You hummed against Hotch’s length and puckered with the vacuum you had created, driving him further along.

“Oh Christ!” Hotch groaned, his knees bending as he added to your rhythm, he finally felt comfortable taking what he wanted. You enjoyed his pleasure more than you thought and his head fell back as he came down your throat. You finished draining him quickly, his hands fumbling with your hair and shoulders, unsure yet gracious.

You stood, as he put himself away. You leaned in before he could say anything.

“You don’t have to say anything, Aaron. This is doesn’t have to mean anything. This was--,” You locked on to his dark eyes, a smug smile creeping up your lips. “This was fun. Just friends. Releasing tension.”

He grabbed your upper arm before you could slip back into the hallway, his hot breath coating your ear. “I pay my debts, Y/N.” He never used your first name, it was almost a threat.

“And I collect on mine.” You replied, leaving the promise of future rendezvous heavy on the air.

Hotch hadn’t sent you confused or suggestive texts, like most guys would have. He simply carried on working the case as you continued to consult whenever your unit could spare you. There was a big case in the works and your team was in the field or scrounging for leads with criminal informants day and night. You had learned what the phrase ‘dead on your feet’ truly meant. You gave up your night time shifts of tailing profilers at random. They were rarely in Virginia as it was and sleep had grown scarce.

When you dreamt you were always running, the air stolen from your lungs. You would pass indistinct people from your past as if you were running the Boston Marathon. But they weren’t cheering you on, they were mocking you. Hemmings was about ten paces ahead of you, smirking over his boulder of a shoulder. Then George’s voice was in your ear and the whole scene froze.

He was behind you, but off somewhere else there was an interrogation going on. Hotch’s voice was low and level and you didn’t want to hear what he had to say or the responses of his unsub. You knew who he was talking to, but you didn’t want to see their face. Suddenly your skin would burn and you would wake up.

You saw him waiting at the bakery down the street from your apartment while you went for a morning run. The bruising had lessened enough that you could run outside without drawing attention to yourself. It was a pain sparring in the gym, but the longer pants and baggy shirts kept your teammates none the wiser. When he had warned you it would be two weeks, in reality he had made it three. You knew better than to approach him outright, so you circled back on a usual path of yours.

He was sitting on a bench in a park, some place much too common for someone with such darkness inside him. He seemed unimpressed with the birds as he tossed day old bread at the hordes of flying rats. You stopped to stretch with the aid of his bench. You knew you looked appealing in your running shorts, cat calls were a hazard of the hobby. Having him appraise you felt intimate, like he was stroking you with one of his blades instead of just undressing you with his eyes.

“Everything pan out?” You asked, not making eye contact.

“It’s fine. How’s Boy Blue and his team of misfits?” George pelted a chunk of crust across the sidewalk to a massive goose.

“Overworked. They haven’t been home longer than two days since, we, since last time.”

“Since I fucked you raw?” George clicked his tongue and leaned back. He wore aviator sunglasses and a mean grimace. “Yeah, well, times ticking on Hotch’s clock, Y/N. Your new phone is in your car’s glove box. I’ll text you the details when we can, catch up.”

He stormed off as you held your knee to your chest, keeping your focus at a ninety degree angle from his departure. If you were being tailed, the two minute conversation could have only been seen from the way you had come. He was too calculated to be caught shooting the breeze. And you were too much of an exhibitionist to stop stretching as he walked away. You took a longer loop than normal to burn off your anticipation about his cryptic hints.

After a shower and a Hungry Man’s instant dinner, you strolled down to your car in the apartment building’s underground lot. On your passenger’s seat was an elegant shopping tote with a note inside. ‘FOR NEXT TIME’ in scrawled capitol letters. Inside the bag were leather straps, some bits of lace that may have been lingerie if there was more fabric and an empty knife sheath.

You almost forgot the real reason you came outside. You popped the latch on the dashboard. Inside, there was a black plastic bag with a prepaid cell phone and a pack of gum. He liked to keep the purchases less noticeable by putting multiple things on the receipt. You grabbed the bags and headed back inside. The phone hummed to life as you climbed the steps.

There were six text messages of incoherence before a date and time. It was the night before your next day off, sonofabitch was really keeping tabs on you. After two more messages with no discernible importance he gave you a location. He wanted to meet at the train station. What the hell was he doing?

“What the fuck Hemmings?!”

The rookie was late on the shift change and you had only an hour to get to the rendezvous spot to meet George. The newest agent on your team was a lot of things, but tardy was not usually one of them. You tried to keep your breathing regulated as the clock on the dashboard of the surveillance van ticked another minute. He was thirteen minutes late. Fifteen and you would have to check in with Headquarters, something could be wrong. But you weren’t that optimistic.

Your partner’s shift was over four hours later so that changeover wasn’t done in expected patterns. He just shrugged when it was seventeen after, you huffed and called into your Unit for a back up.

“This is Turner, Hemmings is a no show for his shift, is there a contingency in place?”

“Hang on Turner, let me talk to the Chief,” your SSA put you on hold. Great. The smuggling ring you were staking out was quiet and it was the middle of the day, what was keeping the idiot?! “Alright, Hemmings called in and said he is en route, sit tight.”

“Well, can I take the last twenty minutes out of his ass at least?” You were never late, it was one of your very few rules.

“Be my guest, but film it will ya? I want to keep that for posterity’s sake.”

“Maybe next time, when I don’t have somewhere to be,” you mumbled.

“Alright, check out when you can. Thanks.”

“Ten-four.” You gave an unnecessary sign off and proverbially sat on your hands.

Hemmings banged on the backdoor at precisely twenty four minutes after he was originally supposed to. You checked out of your detail and made your way across town to headquarters to get your personal vehicle as all Bureau issued cars were low-jacked. The extra trip was fraying your nerves at both ends. Better to be safe than sorry.

You hopped into the elevator and headed to your floor, it opened on six. Suddenly you were faced with a concerned looking Hotch talking to an annoyed Chief Strauss, you weren’t really in the mood to eavesdrop, but someone had called the elevator. “Going up?”

Hotch and Strauss both stared at you like an insect before their faces retracted.

“Keep me posted, Aaron.” Chief Strauss cut him off, stepping in beside you. She was back to a blank slate before you could ask her what floor she needed, but she said seven was fine. Sure lady, whatever that meant.

The doors closed on Hotch’s apologetic bafflement.

@a-unique-girls-heaven @gummiishark @rottendaisies @sunnygubler @lovebodymindstuff @archaic-zugswang @darkheartednerdwithglasses @mikri-oneiropola @princesswagger14 @justwinchesterme96 @profiler-in-training @kennybud @onlyalittleteenwolfobsessed @conversations-with-you-61065 @dontshootmespence @moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown @cynbx @cherry-loves-fanfic @hotchnerfuckmeup @illegalcerebral @omallieallie @creativecody16 @kandii395 @tiny-potato-lives

#Criminal Minds #Hotch #Foyet #Hotch smut #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #case fic #Hotch x Reader #Foyet x Reader #CM #CM Fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #Aaron Hotchner #George Foyet #reader x unsub

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