#and is surviving on the memory of happiness he had one day whilst eating an orange. skin-on. best damn orange he's ever had (skin-on)

[engagemythrusters]

hehe finally got around to doodlin my Guy... all, meet Sergeant Handsanitizer!

fun things about sgt handsanitizer of the 116th:

he eats oranges skin-on

he has been exploded once

he knits VERY badly, but makes all his troopers scarves, anyway (they wear them out of politeness and fear)

he once nearly died because he tried to take a selfie with a blurrg (it almost ate him)

he has dyed his hair puce by mistake

accidentally drank hand sanitizer thinking it was a vodka when he was fresh off kamino (his medic hates him)

he slept through the purge

his greatest vexation is that he does not know how many worms fit inside his commander's bucket (his latest guess is five hundred.)

[hismourningflower]

「 forget you | hoyoverse fanfiction 」 dan heng & kaeya x gn!reader | angst, amnesia | general fanfiction. ↳ additional tags. angst with no comfort, established relationships, mentions of alcohol & drinking (kaeya), i'm not sorry ↳ ehehe... oops... happy one hundred to the xianzhou jade !!

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DAN HENG didn't quite know what to expect when welt texted him about your situation. his own partner in an accident? he knew that he should have been persistent and gone with you and march 7th. he should have fought to go with you, he should have- he should have done a lot. after a few painstaking days of you being trapped in a comatose state within belobog's hospital with every visitation request denied, dan heng decided that he had more than regrets about this.

he spent his days and evenings restless, pacing his room with every thought rushing through his mind; would you survive? would you hate him? he figured you had every right to despise him. no amounts of time spent with his head in documentation, tracing over booklets of planets and history books regarding the aeons could ease his mind.

dan heng felt guilt, as if he only had himself to blame for standing there so quietly as you and march excitedly announced that you were going to belobog on behalf of himeko. march chimed in that you'd use it more as a shopping trip and whilst you laughed it off, dan heng silently wished he could go just to protect you. you were capable but he was anxious, losing you was the last thing he wanted.

this feeling would eat at him for as long as the doctors tending to you kept rejecting the astral express' visitation requests. he wanted to see you and now it felt as though he had to pay the price - another price... wasn't he paying enough already? his heart could rot from the amount of guilt he withheld inside of him, not daring to utter it to the older members of the crew. it could break his ribs, tear him open but he'd refuse to mention it.

miserable, dark grey clouds covered belobog's usual sunshine, painting the city in a dull appearance that could only match dan heng's numb emotions as the astral express crew navigated the streets of the city, finally on their way to see you. in march's bandaged hands - she'd taken the lesser of the injuries, coming back onboard the express with a few scrapes - was a beautifully wrapped bouquet of flowers, a bittersweet get-well-soon gift in light of the news that they'd receive along with their permission from the doctors; you had amnesia and they were still testing what you remembered from the accident.

he was nervous - no, he was far more than nervous. it showed on his face the moment they all solemnly shuffled into the tight hospital room, grimacing as they brushed against each other to gather around your bed. except there wasn't a form of excitement on your tired face but rather a look of confusion. welt cleared his throat first, eyes darting to look at dan heng's sudden loss of colour that drained from his face.

"they don't remember," he whispers to himself, as if no one else was around him. he takes a moment to lean back on the wall, "they don't remember me."

it takes welt's hand on dan heng's back to guide him out of the room shakily but nothing feels real anymore. all the memories, chaste kisses and moments where dan heng had done more than warm up to you in light of his past and previous life. you remembered none of it, not an ounce of the love he'd grown comfortable enough to give you, nothing.

dan heng's legs feel weak under him as his heart tears apart. perhaps this was a clean slate in terms of his regrets in protecting you, he could have done better and now he has a chance to wipe it all clear for you - you're not angry at him but he knows it's because you simply don't remember what happened.

he'll protect you better this time, more closely and not taking his eyes off of you. maybe one day, he'll tell you about the relationship the two of you shared; the kisses under the stars and the nights curled up together reading your own books. he would still love you. he'd always love you.

it felt like a fever dream when amber came to find KAEYA while he was on a commission for the knights. he hadn't been drinking on the job when the brunette arrived nor had he consumed any that morning... so how come she was spewing nonsense about you being seriously injured on a commission?

the cherry on the top? you didn't recognise a single person who'd visited you on bedrest. not jean, not barbara, not mika or lisa, not even noelle. and as your partner, kaeya was terrified by that prospect. you saw noelle and jean daily, always in cohorts with them - hell, you would see lisa sometimes more than you saw him, thanks to the busy nature of his rank.

if you didn't remember them without a sliver of recognition, would you remember him? he found it hard to breathe the whole way back to the city of mondstadt with a restless young brunette at his side and - begrudgingly, kaeya hadn't even invited him along - the owner of the dawn winery. diluc was equally as pained to hear of your accident from amber and who was he to not be there during possibly one of the most painful times of his brother's life? he'd done him wrong before, multiple times and perhaps he had tried to brush their brotherly relationship off but he was his brother, his found family. now, he needed him.

there was only so much dread that could consume kaeya's tall body. the peaceful sounds of mondstadt no longer soothed him on his walk to the city like it usually did after a commission, no. in fact, it was killing him. he wanted to hold your face in his hands, his breath fanning over your lips as he stares into your hands. he wanted to see that beautiful smile of yours again, the way you roll your eyes at his drinking antics.

what was he supposed to do if you had forgot about him too? amber says you'd taken heavy trauma to the head. amnesia... amnesia is what ruined his life this time? not family issues and abandonment, not a family death and the awful grip of guilt and anger... amnesia. memory loss. something that had so bitterly taken his beloved from him. you'd been the first person kaeya had truly warmed up to since he drifted away from diluc. the first person to see his true sides, to see his sheer raw emotions.

kaeya had had plenty of time to prepare for this endeavour on the way into the city, knowing the chances you'd forgotten him were plenty high with how you'd forgotten the other knights. yet to hear you utter the words "who are you?" with such an innocent look to your face, overridden by confusion, it shattered his heart. his lungs felt like he was suffocating and he almost wanted to choke out 'your partner' into the air but he doesn't.

instead, with the reassuring touch of diluc's calloused hand on his shoulder, kaeya forces a weak smile onto his face, sun kissed skin glowing in the golden light of the sunset that breaks through the open window in your room as he clears his throat to reintroduce himself to you, "i'm kaeya."

his voice cracks, a dead giveaway to those in attendance that he was struggling with the reality of this. because of you, he'd lacked to drink as much on the evenings but now... diluc was already preparing to drag his brother away from the taverns, muttering curses that drinking was not the right coping mechanism. he'd be at his brother's side even if the latter reeked of wine.

kaeya would love you all over again, he'd spend so much time with you it would be suffocating if only it meant you fell in love with him again. a second chance to right his wrongs, to kiss those lips again. you were his, he wasn't going to let you fall into the hands of anyone else. he'd fix this.

⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹

© thexianzhoujade 2024. | do not re-upload, copy, translate, etc. my works on any form of media.

[mandssisters]

Pryzm residency 2.12.22. Vol 2.

Fog, what fog?!? Flippin cold thou!

Fond memories of the 2019 Mumford shows. Kingston doesn’t seem to have changed too much. Wilco has gone self service checkout, the iconic Red Telephone boxes are still around the corner from the venue, the car parking is still over priced, The Wetherspoons was still there and as busy as ever. (£7.95 meal deals) with Lunch in the belly we watched the men put up the set of Christmas trees. 4 understated flat trees with lights. 5/10.

Whilst queuing just the one car prang incident, and funny community police officer support lady moment. I think she thought we were all homeless! Once we established we were waiting for doors, her parting comment in a very sweet Irish accent “you enjoy your rock and roll” funny.

Pryzm, very organised doors, Through the airport security scanner and up those two flights of marble stairs. It felt smaller inside than the previous visit.

We did have a gate crasher, spotted pre show a small moving animal with a tail, let’s call it the house mouse. It was bold as well as strong and according to all reports A massive Mumford fan.

Excellent banter from the start. All three shows award winning chat. I’m going to keep the banter general as the brain is foggy as to which show!!

Highlights:

Oceania - being 16 and scoping the place from the balcony. Minesweeping the place. Wearing moccasin. Fond memories.

19 shows back to back. Having a great hardworking crew. First day off for them in 2 1/2 weeks today. All 6 of them now existing like an #elitesurvivalsquad. Only surviving on Freddos, (underrated chocolate) fifa, and tea. The longest sober stag party! Still feeling like being on his holibobs. End of term bash!

A homecoming residency. Around America for 12 weeks only touching the surface, and ending up in Kingston! Anti residency strategy.

Set two: imagine Only Child sung beautifully, with added bar staff glass chinking’ “that’s the glass recycling done for the evening” efficient use of time! His father does the recycling at home and sometimes doesn’t get it quite right, as highlighted by his wife!! They moved in during the pandemic, hence why he lives in LA!

No one was to mention the football score as they had paused the game. He would get very moody if they did.

Turns out later in the evening Germany were out the World Cup. He was delighted! Who is German in here tonight!!! Gives them the V’s laughs and night made! German karma later as the guitar was tuned badly making for an awkward tuning session.

The Cave. Played so “quietly” that he broke his first string on this tour!!! Happy days! Another win.

Two joyful crowd pleasing outings of Reincarnation, his favourite song, the family album for children was only just around the corner.

Many uses of the C*nt word. But being a good c*nt.

Three great sets containing

Only child x 3

Dangerous game x 3

Go in light x 3

The cave x 2

Awake my soul x 2

Better off high x3

Cowboy x 2

Re-incarnation x2

Grace x 2

How x 2

I will wait x 3

I’m on fire - finale only.

The crowd super respectful throughout and you could hear a pin drop.

And then it was over….. a bit of a testing drive home, I’d like to thank the large guiding light freight lorry for 10 miles of heavy fog. And the two deers that opted to eat grass vs run out across the new forest and meet their maker.

X

[stolencrownsofplenty]

@goatfated : x

[⛧] The goatt perked his ears at the offer by the other deity, and his old friend. He couldn't agree more; a smile formed on his face as he nodded. "That sounds like a wonderful idea to me. Let us truly enjoy this festival, shall we?"

The Emperor couldn’t help the relief of a light, happy hum escaping from the likes of their pleased smile.  My my, what a turn of events this is!  They rarely ever got to enjoy the company of old companions, with so very little of their own memory being preserved of their old when most of it had to make room for the knowledge of kings, for they could only hold onto what was left with a tight fist.  So why not cherish the present while they still clung to the little memories they still had of their furry friend?  They had already sent out the very few followers they took with them (for they could not travel to other worlds without having to keep a few lifelines of theirs close) to scout out the goatt’s temples for their wine cellar, if only to surprise them as a returning gesture of their hospitality anyways.  It’s the least this lamb could do when their very companion had invited them days prior for this feast celebration of the changing seasons.  It’s not every day you get to witness the changing of seasons whilst surviving its many harsh, cold moons! 

"Oh, for the very prince after my own heart, we shall~.”  They allow themselves a hearty chuckle to break free from the confines of their grin.  One hooved, jeweled cover hand already takes Goatwin’s palm into the warmth of their own.  It’s a rarity they allowed themselves to share such gentle contacts of affections between allies, much less between friends who outplayed them for many sets of gold, and yet that comforting warmth felt like a light spark of energy finding its way up the ram’s arm as their fingers intertwined; alien and foreign, but something that seemed natural amongst themselves.  “I certainly hope you can hold your own!” The Emperor pulls them along, if only to drag them away from all the excitement the goatt’s subjects were having with eating the fruits of their labor. “If we shall have ourselves warmed up for when the snow falls, I wonder if you can beat my shot record.”

Their ears wiggle at the proposal, the faint jingle of their golden jewelry sounding just as joyous as the lightness of their own laughter.  “You think it’s been too long since we’ve set the record straight, big guy?”

[twdsunshine]

How does Daryl act when he has romantic feelings for someone? (Headcanon)

Requested by Anon.

Check out my bio for a link to my Masterlist!

He hates that feeling he gets, when a girl catches his eye, his attention, a little more than usual, worming her way into his head so that he can’t focus on anything else when she’s around, until Daryl thinks he just might be going crazy.  And he hates that he’s so damn bad at that sorta thing that he just becomes a pink-cheeked, slick-palmed, stammering mess at so much as a glance from her, self-conscious because what if she’s looking at him and seeing something she doesn’t like, and then even more self-conscious because why should he even care what she thinks, when she’s never going to look at him like that; he’s just a good-for-nothing redneck, and she’s a million miles out of his league.  And it eats at him, because all he wants is to be close to her, but he knows - he just knows - that she doesn’t want him around.  Why would she?  Nobody ever has before, and he can’t see it changing now.  

So, he keeps his distance, tries to distract his mind with the day-to-day tasks that need doing: hunting to feed the camp; cleaning his kills; restringing his crossbow.  He decides that he’s going to bury his feelings so deep that he wouldn’t be able to find them even if he were to go digging around in his chest, like a squirrel searching for its stash of nuts in the depths of winter, when the cold has hardened the ground to ice and the leaves have dropped, distorting the landscape.  And, yeah, sometimes in the evenings when the flames of the campfire are painting her face in flickering shades of gold and amber, he might stare for just a little too long, committing the image to memory, because he wouldn’t have the nerve to snap a photo even if he did have a camera to hand.  And, of course, when she’s singing softly to herself inside her tent as she gets ready in the morning, he lingers outside for just a minute or two, listening to the lilting tone of her voice and letting it drive away the bad dreams that still haunt him after another restless night.  But that doesn’t mean anything really, he tells himself.  He’s just taking pleasure in the little things in a world that doesn’t really have much good left to enjoy.  

Obviously, Daryl looks out for her too, because someone really has to.  He sees her sneaking food to the kids when nobody else is looking, leaving her own meagre ration barely enough to keep her going from one day to the next, so it makes sense for him to slip her an extra chunk of meat or fish from his plate when her attention is fixed elsewhere.  And she really doesn’t smile enough, so if he stumbles across some wildflowers whilst he’s out in the woods, why wouldn’t he bundle some up and leave them outside her tent for her to find when she turns in for the night?  Then there was the scarf he’d found in the trunk of a car on the highway, the soft knit the exact same shade as her eyes, so who else would he have given it to?  It doesn’t mean anything, he tells himself.  He’s just looking out for the group, and she’s a vital part of it, so, naturally, he has to go out of his way to try and make her happy.  Even if she doesn’t know the little gifts are from him, it’s worth it to see her face light up with a bright grin.  It makes his pulse falter, his heart glow, and he could live for that feeling; it gives him a drive and a purpose, and that’s important these days.

But it doesn’t mean he likes her, like, romantically or anything.  Nah, he isn’t built for that stuff.  He won’t admit it, even to himself, and, if anyone questioned him on it, he’d snarl a response so biting that they’d never dare to ask again.  Only losers fall in love.  That’s what Merle used to say, and he was right.  It had never done his folks any good, and half the guys he knew were busting their guts to pay child support or alimony, or else just drinking their blues away ‘cause they’d been cheated on.  Nah, he just wants her to survive is all.  As long as she survives, then that’s enough for him.  He can keep on going, as long as she’s still singing, still smiling.  So, he’ll keep finding little ways to make that happen, even as supplies get scarcer and the nights get colder, and he’ll work on that stammer so that he might even be able to talk to her one of these days.  And if anything tries to hurt her, be it walker or human, he will take that sumbitch down, like he would for any of the group.  She ain’t nothing special.  That’s what he tells himself.  Maybe one day he’ll actually believe it.

[siriusblackmakesmesoft]

oh my gosh i loved soft so much!!!

if i could perhaps request a remus lupin fluff, maybe with similar vibes to the sirius one you wrote ! young!remus x fem!reader

maybe after the full moon he convinces madam prince to let him leave the hospital wing early, and he goes up to y/n (ravenclaw)‘s room, ending similarly to your one before if that’s possible :) very soft !! thank you so much my love!

Remus Lupin X Ravenclaw!Reader

A/N: thank you for your request babe! You’re the first :) I’m really sorry this took so long, I’ve been in a slump :( Also thank you for requesting Remus because his birthday was this month and I cried all day :,) love him so much my sweet boy!! Also also thank you for requesting ravenclaw reader because that is all i know how to write :)  kisses to you i adore you thank you :* Also also also I Might write one similar to this and Soft about James potter just to complete the trio :) Requests are open for The Marauders right now, though I’m willing to write someone else if you want just ask :) 

Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff dude call your dentist, a few physical descriptions? Glasses and longish hair and pajamas, reader being the absolute softest love of my life, sad Remus being anxious, reader is head girl bc that’s what I am when I shift so its all I know sorry, use of she/her pronouns, use of the nickname bunny bc I’m obsessed, this long speech about soulmates, food and eating mention, pretty freaking long sorry I got carried away I just love remus so much

Word count: 2801

enjoy :)

Remus was tired.

Madam Pomfrey had told him it would be a good idea to stay in the hospital wing at least one more night, to assure he get the rest he so desperately needed. Despite loving and caring about Madam Pomfrey, Remus was beginning to become claustrophobic in the tiny bed he was ridden to whilst staying there. He asked kindly, quietly, if she would be so kind as to give him the potions he should need and let him go to his own bed. She had made him promise to come to her immediately if anything were to happen, and with a less than convincing smile and a sarcastically cheery “Of course I’d come to you Pomfrey, you’re only the best,” she let him go. 

The walk to his dorm was slow. He was having no physical pain, apart from the dulled ache in his bones, yet he felt like he weighed a thousand pounds, and his bag was a thousand more. He trudged through the hall, hoping no one was in the dorm right now. It was unlikely, at almost noon on a Saturday he doubted his friends would be inside their room still. Remus loved his friends, more than he loved most things, but the thought of seeing them now was nerve wracking. He wasn’t in the right mindset to listen to them talk about a new prank plan, or a new sneaking out plan, or how lovely Lily’s eyes are, or how good their last shag was. Remus loved his friends, but he needed quiet. He needed a good book, a chocolate bar and a cozy sweater. 

The dorm was empty when he got there. He felt guilty for feeling relieved, for feeling part of the weight leave his shoulders because his friends were absent, but he also knew they would understand. They were good people, good friends who cared about him and his problems. Remus had been working on his guilt, telling himself that these people caring about him was a good thing that he shouldn’t feel bad about putting them through the things he does, that they do it because they love him and whatever issues he comes with. He hadn’t believed it yet, but he kept saying it.

He flopped face down onto his bed, dropping his bag to the floor and wincing when he remembered his book was in there. His bed felt nice compared to the cot in the hospital wing, a soft knit blanket James’ mom made him for christmas and cozy pillows she bought all the boys for their birthdays. Remus loved James’ mom, loved how she included him in their family events, loved how after Sirius moved in with the Potter’s she called Remus her son too. He had spent lots of holidays with them, sleeping in a guest room that just happened to have photos of all of Remus’ friends and posters of music he liked, a seemingly homemade bookshelf with James and Sirius’ initials carved in it. Sirius said when he first moved into the Potter’s his room was magically decorated too, and that Remus shouldn’t think too hard about how or why it happened. He knew it was his friends, brothers seemed like more of an appropriate title at this point, but he didn’t say anything for their sake. It was a sweet gesture, it made Remus cry a bit the first summer he spent there, so he let them have it.

Getting out of bed was a tough feat, but he needed a shower. He opened his trunk, grabbed his biggest sweater and favorite sweats, and headed for the shower. Remus loved showering. It was one of his favorite parts of the day. The warmth, the scent of his soap flooding the entire room, the steam dulling his senses down. It was calming, never failed to relieve his shoulders of some of what they were carrying. He relished the moments alone, relished in the sound of the water hitting the tile, the water hitting his skin, and even though he loved his friends, he relished the privacy. He didn’t get much of that anymore.

He towel dried his hair, making it messier than usual. He waited to put his sweater on, walking around in just his sweats, waiting for his skin to lose it’s pink hue from the heat of the water. He laid back onto his bed, facing the ceiling this time, and made an extensive to do list in his head. He missed 2 days of school because of the full moon, and getting caught up was something he wanted to do before laying in bed and reading all day like he planned. He also decided he should probably eat something of sustenance, other than chocolate bars and the terrible oatmeal Pomfrey served for breakfast. A trip to the kitchens was due, perhaps before studying so he could get some brain food. He also wanted to ask Professor McGonnagal about changing his prefect rounds. Telling third years to stop snogging in the halls after curfew gets tiring after a while. When he had his plan, he stood up off the bed. He put his sweater on and put his hands through his hair a few times to tame the mess. He picked his bag up, taking out some things and putting in some others. He decided he would do homework at his desk in the room, go and get some food and come right back. Nodding to himself and his plan, he put his shoes on and left the dorm. 

He had a bit more of a light step after his shower, feeling as if he washed most of his stress off. The trip to the kitchens was routine at this point. Sneaking in was muscle memory, after doing it for so long. It was a little difficult without James’ cloak, but he survived just fine. He made himself toast, spreading jam across the bread, and looked through the cabinets for some hot chocolate. He sat on the counter to eat, criss cross, right next to the sink. He thought about the elves that worked in the kitchen, how much they did. The ones who cleaned Hogwarts too, they did a lot for him, probably more than he was even aware of. It was a different kind of affection, unknown, prescribed almost. It was nice to think about. 

He stopped at the library on his way back to his room, wanting to get an extra book as a source for his herbology essay. He stopped to talk to Madam Pince, asked her about a book he had heard Sirius talk about, and went to find it and his herbology book. He found them quite quickly, Remus has come to know the library like the back of his hand. He put them both in his bag after checking out, and went to head back to his dorm, and then he heard James and some friends yelling across the hall. A guilt filled Remus again, he loved James, loved him like family, but he didn’t feel like he could handle the attention, the loud voices. As James got closer, Remus felt stuck again. The claustrophobic feeling that caused him to beg Pomfrey to let him leave the hospital wing a day early. He walked quietly, tiptoed across the hall, and when he was sure he had gone unseen he went the opposite direction of the Gryffindor dorms.

He ended up at the Ravenclaw tower door. His feet taking him here was inevitable really. He usually ended up here on a rough day. Today wasn’t too bad, he’d be the first to admit. It wasn’t great though.

“What has hands, but cannot hold anything?” Out of all the things Remus loved about the Ravenclaw tower, the Eagle spouting riddles at him when he just wants in is not one of them. He shifted his weight between his legs, picked at his nails for a minute, his bottom lip next. Terrible anxious habits that he cannot help, he looked at his watch for the time. Half past two.

“A clock.” The door opened slowly, revealing the Ravenclaw common room to him slowly. Bookshelves to the ceiling, constellations on the ceiling, soft piano music playing on a charmed record player, Remus loved it here. He usually would relish longer, stare at the stars, browse the books, try to figure out what song is playing, but he was still breathing shallow from his near death encounter with James across the hall. He wrung his hands, cracking his knuckles and twisting his fingertips as he walked up the staircase to the girls dorms. The charm for the Ravenclaw girls dorm stairs fell quickly from his lips, almost half way up by the time he completed it. He knew the way to the head girl's room by heart, down the hall straight until the last left door. He stood there for a moment, toe to wood, hand itching to knock. 

Remus suddenly felt insecure. He knew she would be happy to see him, her smile would be just as soft as he needs and she would say the perfect words, just like she always did. When he finally knocked the door opened very quickly, opening to a shy smile, and the top of a head.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Her smile was small, and her voice was barely above a whisper. She had a warmth about her, the way she looked at him, it warmed up his whole body. She opened the door wide enough for him to step in and shut it right behind him. She was wearing an old t-shirt, some band that her cousin liked and grew out of, blue pajama shorts, and socks with little rabbits all over them that Sirius bought her for christmas last year when she visited the Potter’s. Her hair was down, messy as if she were laying on it, and her glasses were crooked. She looked pretty, in a realistic way. The kind of pretty that makes Remus want to make her a cup of hot chocolate, lay in her bed, and stare at her for hours. 

“Pomfrey wrote me a note that you left early, ‘was waiting for you t’come see me.” Remus stared at her, her soft smile making his resolve break easily. This always happened, he went to her broken and she was perfect and helped him fix himself. She always knew just what to say, as if she could read his mind. He wouldn’t be surprised if she could.

“Jus’ felt bad today, ‘s all bun.” His voice was quieter than he intended. He wanted to tell her everything, the claustrophobia he had been feeling all day, the dread that swallowed him when he saw James. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for this becoming a routine, showing up to her dorm needing her glue to put him back together. Remus swallowed, bouncing on the heels of his feet, and blew air out of his cheeks. “I ate though, made some toast, and I took my potion from Pomfrey before I showered, so I don’t hurt.” He smiled softly as he said it. Full moons were hard, and Remus often neglected to take care of himself after them. Telling her he had made a point to care for himself meant everything.

“‘S a good start isn’t it? Maybe we could read a bit? Got that book you wanted me to read, thought maybe you’d want to read it with me?” There were few good things in Remus’ life. He had been dealt a poor hand from an early age. But this, his girl, smiling at him so tenderly, made it all better. This made it all worth every ounce of pain he had ever felt. 

“Can we cuddle, bunny? ‘M quite tired.” Remus pouted, looking at her with the absolute worst case of puppy dog eyes she had ever seen. She had to bite her lip to stifle her giggle, she got to love the most cutest boy in the whole world. (Y/N) grabbed Remus’ hands and pulled him to her bed. She made him sit down while she went to grab the book, and when she returned she noticed he had taken his sweater off. Remus always liked skin on skin contact, once Sirius had told him no matter how much his love language is quality time, it would always be squashed by his need for physical touch. For a while Sirius’ comment made Remus insecure, like he was clingy and annoying, overbearing. But after a long conversation (and a few tears as well) he learned that she loved him, loved holding and touching him, that it made her feel the same way it made him feel. Safe, connected, warm, and loved. 

“Y’wanna lay on me, sweet boy?” Remus broke out of his daydream, nodding his head enthusiastically. She didn’t bother hiding her giggle this time, jumping onto the bed and patting her belly. Remus wrapped his arms around her waist, shoving his nose as deep into her shirt as physically possible. Her hands wound around his shoulders, rubbing his shoulder blades and mid back. The absolute bliss Remus felt was indescribable, if this was a dream he never wanted to wake up. 

Remus sat up slightly, resting his chin on (Y/N)’s stomach, looking at her with complete adoration. He stared for a while, tracing her features with his eyes. Her hands were running through his hair now, scratching the back of his neck and softly pulling the strands on the top.  She ran her fingers across his cheeks lightly, mumbling, “‘S goin’ on in that big brain of yours, sweetness?” 

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

He could see her brain working out an answer. Her eyes squinted very slightly, her mouth parted and she ran her fingers down his jaw as she spoke.

“I don’t know. I think it’s silly to think just one person is made perfect for you. I think Sirius was made perfect for you and James, but I don’t think you lads’ll get married. If there were to be soulmates there would be a thousand different kinds. You could be soulmates with the person you marry, and your best friend. And the bloke you sit across from on the train, and the waitress at your favorite restaurant. There is too much love in the world to just limit yourself to one person,” She paused, looking at Remus, dragging her finger down the bridge of his nose and booping the tip, “But if I had to choose one person to give all my love to, one person to be my every kind of soulmate, well I just think I’d pick you, Mr. Remus John.” She ended with a pretty smile, leaning down to kiss his forehead as she started to run her hands through his hair once more. 

Remus was speechless. His eyes were teary, his mouth was opening and closing as his brain screamed at him to just say anything at all, but he couldn’t. All he could do was stare. He grabbed her wrists, holding them against his face, kissing them while he thought of exactly what to say. It was a long while until he said something, just looking into her eyes with such awe. 

“I’d pick you, too, to give all my love to. Already have, honestly.” His face split into a wide, boyish grin. Bad day forgotten, he felt nothing but love and warmth in this moment. No guilt, no insecurity, no weight. If you asked him, he’d probably say he could fly with how light he felt now. 

“Well I’d sure hope so, otherwise it would be quite awkward to have you shirtless in my bed.” Her teasing made him giggle in disbelief, how one person could be so perfect he would never understand. How that same person could love him, choose to care for him and show him love, was an anomaly to him. 

“Now kiss me so I can read to you. I need you well rested as my soulmate.” Remus had never moved so fast. Jumping level to her face, kissing all over her cheeks and lips, making exaggerated kissing noises as she squirmed under him. Her giggles and squeals loudly filled the room, floating around Remus as his hands gripped her waist. He kissed each cheek one more time, leaning his head up to look in her eyes, which were closed from when she was laughing. This was another moment, where Remus forgot all things that weren’t in this space with him. The only thing in the world was her smiling under him, and him feeling utterly delighted to exist, and a few more kisses, too.

[utterlyinevitable]

The Conference (Part 9)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 

Paring: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Rebecca Lao) Word Count: 3.7k Rating: T+ Warning: Some cursing Summary: It’s the evening after the keynote and they go out for a civil dinner date.

A/N: shout out to ruby @starrystarrytrouble for reminding me people actually like reading this mess 💕

________________________________________

After we finished up the panel I stuck around the conference hall to network whilst Ethan had ditched the crowd at the first opportunity he got, heading back to our hotel room and venturing away from the pecking vultures. To be honest, I didn’t really blame him. Everyone wanted a piece of the poor, well-endowed man. 

A couple hours later, I shuffled back into our apartment. My aching feet somehow prevailed without causing me to collapse on the odd geometric carpet floor, or ditching my heels along the way and walking barefoot like some uncultured frosh stumbling home at 3AM. Once through the heavy metal plated door, I headed straight to my room, not throwing a single pleasantry towards Ethan in the seating area. From what I could tell he was typing furiously on his laptop after nursing a scotch - the empty crystal tumbler on the table was a dead giveaway. 

The anxiety and delirium inducing stress of the day lifted the second my kinda-sweaty body collapsed onto the private armchair in my room, clutching its aqua-colored arms and sinking into the velvet cushion. Staring out at the familiar skyline my mind started to replay the happenings of the day; every little thing that happened - from the confidence I felt during our speech, to the way that asshole called me out, and how Ethan stood up for me every step of the way. How proud he was even if he relayed the sentiment in such small words. 

We survived today. We haven’t strangled each other nor suffered any little deaths. All that’s left for this trip is the tour we have tomorrow morning, and then we’ll be on our way back to Edenbrook. Back to the way things were… 

Somehow my tired and self destructive brain decided it wanted to revel in the memories of the last few days. Thinking about all the non-work things that happened this trip. Thinking of all the words shared, and the blast from the past. And the revelation that little adventure birthed. 

Fuck me...

Things are weird. Like, so weird. I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m even thinking this… but I miss him. Today showed me how great we are together! Professionally and as friends. We’re the dynamic duo: Ramsey and his Rookie. His. I - 

I need to stop thinking that. 

I belong to myself. I do what I want when I want and with whom I want. 

And so does he. And that’s why I walked away. I’m- 

I’m still getting over him. 

While simultaneously trying to get under him… 

Thoughts wandered back to Ryan and how long it took me to get over the detrimental ‘what if’s of him. If I held on tighter and longer and didn’t get in the way of myself back then - if one thing was different - everything could be different. 

A small, revelatory gasp escaped me. 

I didn’t want things to be different. 

After eight fucking years I finally understood. 

If I didn’t love and lose Ryan I never would have found my way to Boston. To Ethan. And here - knowing what I do and having all the experiences of the last few months - I couldn’t continue a life without knowing Ethan Ramsey. 

I’m going to do whatever I can to repair our friendship. 

I changed my clothes into something not requiring heels - black skinny jeans, a blouse and my trusty Chelsea boots - and my hair pulled back into a bun. Simple, sleek, and completely me. No pomp and circumstance, or hiding behind anything. Just me, making an effort.  

With all the determination I could muster I sauntered into the living room where I assumed Ethan would still be. 

I was right; he hadn’t changed positions at all. Sitting there on the couch, his feet up on the gaudy footstool with his laptop perched on his lap, tortoise-patterned glasses framing his face, and furiously typing on the keyboard. 

“So...” I trailed awkwardly to break the tension surrounding him, leaning against the wall with my hands stuffed in my armpits. “What do you want to do for dinner?” 

“Oh,” He planted his feet on the floor and turned to face me fully, moving his laptop off of him and folding his arms in his lap. “Uh, well-”

Quickly I added, “If you’d rather eat alone it’s fine by me. I was thinking of grabbing pizza at John’s.” 

Ethan nodded in response, saying, “Sounds good.”

“Cool,” I nodded back. “You ready or…?”

“Let me grab my things,” he stood, collected his things and headed to his room.

Less than two minutes later we headed out of the apartment together, walking side by side. Though this time wasn’t like earlier. There wasn’t the blind determination and need to impress like this morning. Right now we were two people who used to know one another going out to dinner in a spectacular converted synagogue.  

***

For anyone who doesn’t know John’s, it’s a local family-style pizza joint. There’s three restaurants around the city and the Times Square location is by far the best. Every time I have a hot minute to spare I try to go - the stained glass and craftsmanship of the building is everything! But you don’t want to hear about that… and neither did Ethan when I tried to fill the silence during our walk with all the reasons to love this place. For some reason he preferred to barge and weave in silence. 

Whatever. 

Lucky enough he was more chatty once we were seated. 

Our table was in the mezzanine with not much of a view besides the stone staircase in the corner and the large dome towering above. The dim lighting complimented the deep wooden table and beige upholstered seating. 

We ordered. And without the menu to keep our attention, I tried my hand at conversation once more.  

“Be honest, how did we do?”

Looking me in the eyes, ones that mirrored mine, showed such confidence and pride as he said his next words;

“You handled it well, Becca.” There was a tug at the corners of his mouth that pulled at my own. I was about to get a rare Ramsey smile - one I’ve been devoid of for far too long. 

“Dare I even say, like a natural.” 

I got to revel in the small compliment for a few moments as the server brought over our food - garlic knots, small veggie pizza, and a chef’s side salad. 

“I didn’t stutter too much or come off too young?” I couldn’t help but ask when it was just us two again. His opinion matters more than anyone else’s when it comes to my career. 

“You did.” 

“But you -” 

He cut me off, a slight shake of his big head, “You are young and this was your first keynote.” he clarified. And once more he said pridefully, “You did well.” 

After what felt like ages we shared a private smile. How he was able to bring me back into myself with a few words and stop fussing over imposter syndrome is a wonder.  

“Now eat some pizza and be happy.” 

My smile grew to a goofy one by the way he was looking at me, bemused. I refrained from sticking my tongue out and dug into a little slice of heaven. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

We dug in. Letting the flavors dance over my taste buds and make me only as happy as a New York slice could make me. No amount of fantastic sex could compare to pizza. Everything kind of disappeared - time stopped while the first bites settled in my tummy. Even Ethan looked to be enjoying it even though it’s not fancy smancy and artery clogging. 

Eventually I broke our companioned silence;

“How was lunch with Chief Fredericks?” I asked as I reached for a scrumptious ball of garlicy dough. 

The response left his lips so swiftly he didn’t even bother to look up from his plate; 

“Informative.”

I scoffed at the non-answer answer. 

My little grumble pulled him out of his bubble and he looked over at me - those damn baby blues challenging my thoughtfully indecent outburst. I just gave him a look right back. 

Ethan rolled his eyes and reached for another slice. Cutting it up with a fork and knife like an absolute weirdo.  

“He heard about the state budget cuts. Wanted to know what I think and if I’d be open to consult every so often.” 

“And?” I probed. 

“And what? You know how I feel about the future of Edenbrook.” 

“Yes. But if it goes under, what do you think you’ll do? I mean, everyone’s going to be throwing themselves at you.” 

I shoved some greenery in my gob to keep from adding the jarring truth. 

Everyone throws themselves at you. 

But who he gives his attention to is another story.  

Ethan shrugged ever so nonchalantly, “I haven’t thought about it.” 

The cavalier way he was speaking of his life after Edenbrook had thrown me off. Ethan was never this laid-back. It just wasn’t in his nature. There’s always something for this man to stress over. And Edenbrook’s closing should be his anxiety numero uno. 

But here he was, ever so calm. 

Hmm... 

“Are you in denial?” I said through a bite, fully anticipating another non-answer.  

“Maybe.” 

The way he said it took me aback. It was inherently honest and soft. All of his jagged features were rounded and there was a dulled little twinkle in his eye. 

Yeah, something’s going on here he’s not telling me.  

“Ethan -” 

And of course he deflects by turning the conversation on me; “What are you going to do?” 

Keeping from rolling my eyes at his obvious deflection from roaming into his feelings deeper, I replied, “Transfer my residency.” 

“Where?” 

“I…” - dammit - “don’t know.”

I haven’t really dwelled on what happens when the hospital closes. Obviously I need to finish residency if I want to be an actual practicing doctor. But the matching process can go screw itself. I don’t never ever want to do that again - all I cared about was matching with the best. And I did. So who’s the second best now? 

Is it wherever he goes?  

There’s just so much to think about, and I’d really rather not. Not until the last few nails are lined up against the coffin. 

“See,” he said with a hint of a lopsided grin, “Neither of us are ready to leave Edenbrook behind.” 

He was right. Of course he’s right. You didn’t need to be a diagnostician or even a doctor to see that we’re holding out hope of a buyout. 

I’ve just gotten to Edenbrook - only a few months into my dream career with my dream boss - and now, what? It’s all over before it even really began? No. I can’t accept that. 

There was a beat of silence as we both reached for the salad tongs, our hands brushing on accident. Both our eyes shot to bear witness to the contact, pulling us out of whatever ran wild through our thoughts and into this new, secluded moment. Everything around us dulled in the distance; the sounds swirling in the air muted and like a faint breeze. The warm lighting dimmed further, yet there was a spotlight on the salad bowl. The greens and reds and purples of the ruffage illuminated like it was the only thing that mattered. Like right now the earth was spinning just for this moment of closeness. 

Surprisingly, neither of us made a motion to move. His large hand overlapping my dainty fingers, the metal underneath the pads of my fingers warming up instantly. Electricity still coursed through me like the very first time. Except now it carried the memories of all the other times and places he set me aflame. 

I had to be the one to pull back. 

Almost, like it needed time to comprehend why the moment was intentionally ruined, the atmosphere around us began to revert back slightly. I could hear the idle chatter of those around us now. I could see the full picture of Ethan sitting across from me and all the individuals pattering around behind him. What couldn’t pretend to go back and hung off kilter was the beating in my chest - I could feel the electricity coursing through my veins and putting my heart through the ringer. 

Ethan made up for it by serving me. 

Does he know he still has such an effect on me?  

Quick! I needed to divert my thoughts off of the creeping flush and want from taking hold. So I went back to talking about work, our safe topic. 

“If you could work anywhere else in the world where would it be?” I asked.  

Ethan took a moment to think as he served himself some salad. He looked like he was actually thinking of an answer, maybe, for the first time he’s digested the hospital’s fate. 

“I think the next logical step would be the Mayo Clinic. They’re the best diagnostics in the world.” His eyes diverted back down to his plate and, after a beat, he added, “I also wouldn’t mind spending more time on missions with The WHO.”

My eyes searched his as they looked anywhere but where I was seated across from him, trying to find any sort of fault in his features. Something, anything, that I could hold onto. Nothing. Just stupid sincerity. The first fucking time in weeks he actually lets us talk about his time in the Amazon I can’t be mad at him.  

“You really enjoyed your time there, huh?” 

“It…” he hesitated, choosing his words carefully. 

We’ve wandered into emotional territory and we both needed to tread carefully. I need to remember that he was never mine, as much as I felt like his from our first kiss. Need to recall that back then everything was drawn out in plain sight. Our end was always just that - an end. I Need to forgive. And try to remember that at one point he did try to fight for me, in his round-a-bout noncommittal way, and I was the one to end things officially. 

We both need to forgive. Especially if these are the last few months we have working together. 

“Was important work and I got to make a difference in the lives of thousands of indigenous people.” Ethan took another small pause for breath. When he continued, his deep baritone voice was lower, “Even if my intentions for going were skewed, it was an opportunity of a lifetime.” 

The simplest thing to do would be to nod, or eat - distract myself - or even change the subject. To try not to dwell on the implications of the statement. But I couldn’t. My body tensed and the warmth from moments before fled completely. 

We were silent. The brutal truth of why he left stinging just as much as it did the day I found out. 

Minutes, many many minutes passed with me finding solace in sweet savory carbs and Ethan pushing things around on his plate. 

Eager to change the subject there was one other topic of the day I was endlessly curious to know more about; 

“So, what’s the deal with Dr. Schwab?” 

“Don’t.” He dismissed, his authoritative voice seeping through just a tad. Though I’d like to think he’s smart enough not to use it with me outside of Edenbrook.  

“If you don’t tell me I’ll be forced to fabricate my own. I’m feeling a one-night stand gone wrong.” 

He looked back down at his food. 

“Oh my god, I’m right.” The smile that erupted literally took over my entire face. I could not hide it even if I tried.  

“Rebecca,” he tried to scold. 

“Now you have to tell me.” 

Just like earlier he turned the conversation back on me; “What’s with the frat boy?” 

“Ryan was never in a fraternity,” I responded, not hiding the grin that formed by putting Ethan in his place. “He’s a jock though.” 

He expelled a dry laugh, “I don’t think that’s any better.” He took a bite of his salad. Something radiated off of Ethan I couldn’t quite place. 

“We were close in high school,” I added for reasons I’m not quite sure why. Like that explained who Ryan was and why he came back into my life now, of all times.  

Ethan made a condescending, “mhm”. 

I rolled my eyes; “We had a thing for a while, okay.” I conceded. “We grew apart senior year, and then I went off to college. Last night was the first time we’ve spoken in, like, eight years.” 

Ethan made absolutely no reactions to the statement. Not even a stupid wiggle of his dumb perfect eyebrow. 

Is he even paying attention? 

“Now tell me about Schwab - sorry, Hilary,” I coaxed.  

Ethan’s hand flew to the bridge of his nose and up to carefully rub his eyes. 

This has gotta be good. 

I waited patiently and eagerly for this story. She couldn’t have been Ethan’s type and yet… What happened!? 

Eyes still shut tight, he grumbled, “What’s there to tell?” 

“Obviously something happened,” I couldn’t help but mock, “You slept together!” 

“Yes, and it’s something I do not like to dwell on.” 

“Sorry, buddy, but it looks like she does.” 

He groaned. Then shifted in his chair. Ethan took a long drag of his drink. And just when I figured he was going to wait this out until one of us changed the subject, he spoke; 

“A moment of weakness a few years back. And she was…” 

Ah! It’s actually happening! Ethan’s telling a salacious story! 

Shifting in my seat and placing my head in my hands to give him my full attention; My brows and smile grew as I finished the sentence for him, “Eager?” 

He scowled. 

“Jesus Christ, Ethan, just tell me what happened!” 

“I will not go into details.” 

“Fine.” I made a motion with my hand for him to continue without the juicy details. 

“Harper and I had just ended things for good not long before…” 

We ended up going back and forth for a while - Ethan not wanting to give anything up and me pulling as much as I could out of him. Long story short, Ethan was in a weird mental state after breaking up with Harper for the hundredth and final time in their six year relationship. He took up a conference opportunity to get away for two nights. Knowing how much he loves people, Ethan spent most of his time drowning his senses at the hotel bar. And low and behold, enter Hillary. 

From the sounds of it she was agreeable and very very forward. And Ethan was so lost in liquor that her voice didn’t irritate him as much as it did the next morning, and every single time they were in close proximity thereafter. Hillary had been going through a separation with her husband and needed a distraction just as bad. Really, who could blame her? Toting Ethan around would be the best revenge. 

The first night of his stay was fine - apparently the sex was satisfactory and she didn’t do anything remarkably memorable. Or so he says. I still think she looks like a squawker. He didn’t linger around long after before retreating to his hotel room. Then the next afternoon he was bored and weak and agreed to lunch. And lunch turned into drinks which turned into round two. In his room. And she didn’t leave. She wasn’t leaving. So Ethan bought an earlier plane ticket, and shook her awake before checking out. 

And every conference since she seems to want to entertain a rematch. 

“Oh my god, you’re horrible!” I exclaimed ever delightfully. This was hilarious! 

“I shouldn’t really be surprised. You flew to another continent after we slept together.” Shaking my head, a stupid little smirk on my lips I asked, “Have you ever had a one night stand before?” 

“Wha - of course I have!” 

“One’s that didn’t end up with you getting on a plane?” 

He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “If you must know, I’ve had my fair share in undergrad.” 

Now it was my turn to send a condescending “mhm” his way. 

We spoke longer and polished off our plates - not a single crumb remained. This was nice. Really nice getting to be close to him again and just being friends. Telling stories and exchanging playful jabs here and there. It’s how I fell for the idiot in the first place. 

Baby steps.     

-

Two hours after we arrived the server came over with the bill. 

She was friendly and lovely the whole meal. The best part about her style of service is that she let us just exist and didn’t check up all that often. When she did I could tell she overheard someone of the crap Ethan and I were spewing. She had one of those knowing smiles, like she was in on our jokes the entire time. 

“Can I just say, you guys are adorable,” she relayed with the brightest of smiles after setting the padfolio on the table, her hands clapping together excitedly. She looked like a child who had just met Santa Claus for the first time. 

L O L she thinks we’re together.  

At that I actually laughed out loud before informing, “We’re colleagues. In town for a conference.” 

The horror on the girl's face said it all. 

“Oh! My mistake, sorry. I can split the bill for you.” She reached for the pad where it sat in front of Ethan. 

He grabbed the black leather at the same time I spoke;  

"Nope, dinner’s on him.” I cupped a hand over my mouth and pointed a not-at-all discreet thumb towards him, “He'll get reimbursed," I laughed more to myself than anything. 

She smiles, a little relieved by my warmth, then turns to look at Ethan - silently asking permission or if it’s okay that he pays. Generally looking for some sort of direction from the old man.    

He shoots the server a look. Then forks over his credit card. 

As she saunters off, I smile at him sweetly, “Thank you.” 

Of course he rolls his eyes. But that rise in the corners of his mouth says so much more. 

________________________________________

A/N: sorry it’s shit. thank you for sticking with this series 💕 we’ve just got one chapter left! 

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[potionsprefect]

A Home With Love

Pairings: Ethan Ramsey x Victoria Clarke

Word count: 1.5k

Summary: After a bad day at work, Ethan cannot wait to get home

Rating: T (one swear word)

Category: fluff

The clock chimed at 7pm, it was pitch black outside, the sky covered by clouds but the small balls of light from the thousands of stars were peeking out through the clouds.

Ethan pulled himself away from the view of his office and sorted out the last of his paperwork, before he filed it away and pulled on his coat.

His eyes cast towards the two photos on his desk, one of his wife smiling with the blue sea behind her, the other of his two children who were covered in paint and looked as if they were trying not to laugh. Ethan smiled at the two photos, ready to go home, back to family life where he belonged.

Ethan walked out of his office and down the corridor, nodding to the several nightshift staff who had just started their shifts for the evening. As he walked out the hospital, he was met with the cold December air, snow was beginning to fall slowly from the sky.

Ethan got into his car. He really should either get the train or bus to the hospital in order to do his part for the environment, but the drive to work in the mornings was the only time Ethan got any peace.

Before he started the engine, he took a few deep breaths. Today had overall, been a shit day.

In the morning, an intern had given a patient the wrong medication which then caused a seizure. The patient survived thankfully and Ethan spent 15 minutes lecturing the intern on reading everything properly before handing out the correct treatment. It was like teaching a child how to read.

Then a massive trauma came in and because Mass Kenmore had power issues, Bloom Edenbrook had to take all the critical patients. And a fire at a factory meant all hands on deck.

The fire was so severe not many people survived. Ethan was sure he had called at least 8 or 9 deaths within half an hour. And that was always the worst part of being a doctor.

Ethan pulled out of the car park and down the road, stopping at the red lights. He looked out at the couples inside restaurants, laughing and holding hands at the tables.

A painful memory suddenly flooded his mind. Earlier on that day, a young couple came into the hospital after being in a car crash. The woman survived but the man did not and Ethan had to break the news to her. As he watched her digest the news and then not surprisingly break down, he felt small tears in the corner of his eyes, knowing it could’ve easily been him in that situation.

Before he knew it, Ethan was pulling into the driveway of their home. Snow was falling heavier than before, already beginning to set on the ground. Ethan saw a light on in the big house and looked through the window where he saw his two children on their knees colouring something in whilst his wife was sat on the sofa reading a magazine. Ethan smiled at the scene he saw, ready to join his family for a quiet evening.

Ethan locked his car and put his key in the front door turning it, the heat from the home hitting him instantly. As he took his shoes off two small humans suddenly threw their arms around him.

“Daddy!” The excited voices of Luke and Lily Ramsey squealed as they hugged Ethan tightly.

“How are my two favourite humans?” Ethan grinned wrapping an arm around each of them.

“We had the best day ever!”

“Why don’t you show Daddy what Auntie Sarah bought you today?” A voice said. Ethan looked up and saw Victoria leaning against the frame, arms folded, an amused smirk on her face.

The twins let go of Ethan and ran into the living room as Victoria chuckled stepping closer to him.

“Was that just a plan to get a moment alone with me?” Ethan grinned.

“It worked didn’t it? I figured you could do with the peace and quiet a little longer.” Victoria wrapped her arms around his neck.

“How kind of you.” Ethan grinned.

“How was your day?”

“Awful, I’ll tell you about it later.” Ethan sighed.

“I’ll get you a glass of scotch. Why don’t you go and see what our little monsters got from Sarah today.” Victoria gave Ethan a quick kiss before she headed to the kitchen. Ethan took off his coat and headed into the living room where Luke and Lily were.

“Look Daddy! We got new colouring books from Auntie Sarah!” Lily held the book in front of him.

“Wow! Aren’t you both lucky!” Ethan pretended to be amazed by the book.

“Yeah! And she sent us lots of colouring pens as well!” Luke said.

“We’ve been using them all day. Although Mummy had to wash me after I got pen on my face.” Lily giggled.

Ethan smiled fondly at the scene as his two young children continued colouring in. He felt lucky that his family were still there for him to come home to at the end of the day. The families of those who died today will be grieving tonight. Ethan felt lucky he wasn’t going through that.

“Daddy? Are you ok?” Luke tugged on his sleeve.

“Come here you two.” Ethan opened his arms and the twins moved forward to hug him. Ethan wrapped an arm around each of them, holding them tightly. “You know how much I love you? That will never change.”

“Are you sad?” Lily looked at him her striking green eyes looked sad themselves.

“Sometimes it’s okay to be sad as well as being happy. I always ask people to tell me how they’re feeling.” Ethan replied.

“And then you can make them better?” Luke asked.

“Most of the time yes.”

“Coming home to us today has definitely made Daddy feel better. Because you two are the most important people in his life. And that will remain constant forever.” Victoria, who had been listening by the door, knelt down on the floor as she put Ethan’s glass on a nearby table.

“What about you Mummy?” Lily asked as she went to hug Victoria.

“I feel the exact same way sweetheart. And I hope you will always remember that.” Victoria smiled kissing the side of Lily’s head.

The family of four did some colouring in before the twins got sleepy. Victoria and Ethan carried them to bed and helped them into their pyjamas before they tucked them in and headed back downstairs.

“Do you want something to eat?” Victoria asked when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“In a minute. Can we just sit down for a bit?” Ethan said. Victoria nodded and took his hand as she led them to the sofa, wrapping him up in her arms as she swung her legs onto the sofa so she was lying horizontally.

“So what happened today? And tell me everything, starting from the beginning.” Victoria ran her hand through his hair as Ethan laid his head on her chest.

Ethan sighed contently, the sensation making him feel warm and safe. “Well it started out with an intern not knowing basic comprehensive skills, then there was a massive fire at a local factory and because of Kenmore’s power issue we got every casualty. And then a young couple came in from a car crash, one of them didn’t survive and I had to break the news to the other.” Ethan sighed, the events of the day catching up to him.

“No wonder you’re exhausted. How about I take your mind off it all.” Victoria suggested.

“And how would you do that?” Ethan asked looking up at Victoria with a smile.

“I’ve already started.” Victoria smiled as she reached for Ethan’s scotch glass. “Now you mister just sit there and I’ll bring in your dinner.” She kissed his cheek before heading to the kitchen and brought him his dinner no less than 10 minutes later.

“Some things never change.” Ethan grinned as Victoria placed some chicken in front of him.

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for tradition.” Victoria winked.

It didn’t take long for Ethan to finish the meal, he didn’t realise just how hungry he was. Once he had finished he pulled Victoria into his arms and she snuggled against his side.

“Thank you.” Ethan mumbled into her hair.

“I’ll always take care of you. Remember that. Even when you’re being grumpy.” Victoria smiled. “Are you sure you’re okay? It’s ok if you’re not.”

“Yeah I’m ok. Really.” Ethan replied.

“Why don’t you take tomorrow off? Spend the day with us. We can do something as a family.” Victoria suggested.

“And leave the diagnostics team in the hands of Harper?” Ethan teased.

“Could be worse I suppose.” Victoria shrugged.

“You make a compelling argument. And as per usual, you’re always right.” Ethan squeezed her in affection.

“So does that mean you will?”

“I better go turn off my alarm.” Ethan smiled.

Victoria leaned up and kissed him, cupping his face in her hands whilst his gripped her waist. Ethan could feel her smiling into the kiss before breaking away.

“Thank you.” Victoria smiled.

“No thank you. For always being there for me.” Ethan smiled before kissing her again.

The couple laid on the sofa, happy and content, the fire crackling in the distance and the snow continuing to fall heavy outside the window.

Life couldn’t get much better than right now.

— — — — —

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[hotchley]

aaron

summary: “some of us grow up to catch them.”

ssa hotchner. former prosecutor. unit chief of the behavioural analysis unit. best shot in the whole of the quantico building. dad to jack and his entire team.

aaron hotchner. just a boy, trying to make it through the day.

(alternatively known as the backstory, the moments between, and the hotch episode we never got)

read chapter one here!

chapter two: the moments in between

trigger warnings for this chapter :  minor character deaths, death of a parent, implied/referenced child abuse, court cases involving a not guilty verdict to a charge of abuse, arson, references to cancer, references to the death of a child, vomit/sickness, references to self-harm and suicide, stabbing, canon-typical violence, blood, implied/reference drug addiction, references to domestic violence (this is between hotch's parents)

Aaron Hotchner was a lawyer full of contradictions.

He had graduated at the top of his class, but he never once referenced his own father’s abilities when he started practicing. And instead of becoming a defence lawyer- a role that would have led to him holding a position of power within weeks- he became a criminal prosecutor.

He claimed it was what called to him.

In reality, it was because he refused to let anything else be tainted by the memory of his father. He remembered the nights where his father would come home and talk about the horrible things his clients had done. He remembered how he had laughed and said he would be able to make all of those things go away with a few words. He remembered how his stomach had tightened at the injustice of it all.

But he wasn’t a scared little boy anymore. He was an adult. He was as close to happy as he could be when he spent his days looking at photos of people who had lives, and hopes, and dreams that were cut short. When an ordinary day at work meant putting some bad people behind bars whilst he was forced to let others go free.

When he was in court, he was amazing. He was cold and emotionless. People genuinely believed he had no emotions, that there was nothing that could faze him. Killers and abusers would hurl insults at him, defence lawyers would pull random laws from nowhere and he would take it. He would think on his feet and come up with something. But then there were sudden moments where he would look so vulnerable. Like when he spoke to a child, a young woman, the family that thought they hadn’t done anything to save their loved one.

The only time he would smile was when the blonde woman in his life would appear. Sometimes it was with lunch, dressed semi-casually, hair slightly messy and pen on her face from whatever it was she was doing. Other times it would be in a pretty dress. Those would be the days where he would look mildly terrified for a moment, before grinning and leading her out the office. On the bad days where they would be forced to come in on a weekend, she would come in with her own work and keep him company.

Haley had gone into teaching. High school history, although she always helped with the various productions held. She was a natural with the kids, always doing her best to be understanding and helpful, instead of confrontational and harsh. Despite this, there were still nights where she would come home, not saying anything. Those nights, Aaron would wrap his arms around her and let her cry about the injustice of the system.

Those were the nights he remembered just how lucky he was that she had taken a chance on him, unlike everyone else, who had left him to suffer. He didn’t want to think about where he would’ve been without her. Or if he would’ve even been anywhere on this earth.

So their lives weren’t perfect, and he woke up screaming some nights, but they were good. They both had stable jobs in the same area, which meant they could eat dinner together and fall asleep in each other’s arms every night. Haley liked linking their hands together so she could look at their wedding rings.

The wedding had been small, more for her parents than anyone else. He still didn’t believe he was worth loving. She had always dreamt of a wedding, but with Aaron none of that seemed to matter. What mattered was him being around. Her parents however, weren’t having any of it and even offered to pay for the wedding if that was the problem.

Haley had very kindly told them to keep their money. If her and Aaron were to get married, they would do it the way they wanted to, with their savings and their budget.

In the end, the wedding had been a compromise. Haley’s entire family, all of her high school friends and sorority sisters were invited, and everyone but Meredith attended. Aaron’s mother and brother came, as well as some of his friends from law school, but the list of people he actually wanted there was even shorter than Haley’s. She refused a seating plan for that exact reason.

After they cut the cake, they managed to sneak away for a few minutes. The wedding had been outdoors. They could see the stars. And when Aaron looked at her, he fell in love all over again. He could hear the music faintly, and so he had offered his hand and they had danced, feeling like they were seventeen all over again. That night, there had been no darkness inside him. Only joy.

And as one of his favourite authors, Joseph Campbell, had written: find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

But when you saw the things he did, it was difficult to find a place where joy could survive. And even when it was there, it was temporary. Because no matter what he, and everyone else in the district attorney’s office did, the evil never stopped. There was always somebody else getting hurt. Another victim not being believed. A lawyer quitting because they couldn’t keep looking at the worst of humanity and surviving.

Aaron’s own last case haunted him years after he joined the FBI.

He had been on edge for a while. Christmas had come and gone. With it, the never-ending questions from various colleagues and family members about when he was next coming home. When was Haley going to have a baby? Were they even trying for a child? Was Aaron having some difficulties? Or worst of all, when was he going to let go of his grand delusions and silly ideas and settle down as a defence lawyer?

Returning to his real home- the apartment him and Haley resided in, that had come to life with their little knick-knacks- had been a relief. She wasn’t fond of going home and seeing everyone that had failed Aaron, but she loved her family and friends. Aaron could never get away fast enough. She respected that. It was why they worked.

The new year came, and with it, new cases.

Aaron wasn’t trying to bring a killer to justice with only the evidence from the crime scenes and the testimony of families. He was trying to save an innocent child and make sure the only monsters in their life were the ones imaginary ones under the bed, instead of the father they said was abusing him and his mother.

It was like looking in a mirror. An innocent child finally snapping and telling the police the truth about their home life. But where Aaron had been mocked and told to stop being a liar, the police had listened. Gathered the evidence. They had done their job. Now it was time for Aaron to do his.

He poured over the files for hours. He found every piece of evidence he could. He would not fail this child. Not the same way he had been. He would find the truth behind every hospital visit, between every tear they had ever shed and he would make sure that the old bastard’s wife and son never had to be scared for their lives ever again.

Aaron was going to do what nobody ever did for him.

It was a week before the trial. New evidence had been located. It was all important, obviously, but there was something they were missing. Something Aaron knew would make all the difference to their case. He just needed to find out.

His phone lit up. Sean was calling him. He rolled his eyes. He couldn’t be dealing with his younger brother’s complaints in that moment. And he certainly couldn’t be lending him any more money. Him and Haley were saving for a mortgage. Then they would have a real home. Somewhere to call their own.

Somewhere to eventually raise their own children.

Sean tried to call him two more times. And Aaron declined two more times. It was a bit strange that he was phoning so consecutively, but it was probably nothing. No, not probably, definitely. It always was.

He turned back to the files, making sure his phone was on silent. When the clock ticked to six, he hurriedly locked majority of the files away in his cabinet and put the ones that had just come through into his briefcase. Haley had planned a nice evening for the two of them. But if- when- he woke up in the early hours of the morning, at least he could do something productive.

There were two more missed calls from Sean. Aaron made a mental note to phone him when he got home.

“Give me fifteen minutes to shower and then I’m yours, I promise,” he said as he entered their living room, shoes already neatly put away on the porch.

There were two packed bags on the couch. Haley was sat, wearing a black dress, hands in her lap, landline next to her. Her head was bent, but her body was shaking as tears slipped down her cheek, dampening the fabric.

Aaron felt bile rising in the back of his throat as he knelt in front of her. “Baby,” he whispered.

She shook her head.

“Baby, what happened? Just tell me, it’s okay.”

“Your mom’s gone,” she said.

“What?” Aaron whispered.

“I’m so sorry Aaron. I am so- that wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you. It’s just- Sean said she was admitted to the hospital earlier, and she passed away about an hour ago. They phoned here because you didn’t answer your cell phone. I tried to explain everything, really, but they wouldn’t let me speak and-”

“She’s really gone,” Aaron said.

Haley embraced him, awkwardly wrapping her arms around his neck as he sobbed, the knowledge still not sinking in, but the emptiness in his heart was threatening to overwhelm him entirely. They sat like that for what may have been hours or minutes as his body shook. Only when his tears turned to hiccups did Haley pull away, gently wiping away his tears with the sleeve of her dress.

“You should shower. There’s nothing else you can do now,” she said.

Aaron shook his head. Haley stood and led him to the bathtub.

“All you need to do is keep your head up for me, okay?”

The shower had no effect on him. Haley helped him dress. He felt like a small child, needing someone’s assistance to button his shirt up. But he couldn’t make his body cooperate with him. He couldn’t do anything, still in shock that she was gone.

Haley put the bags in the boot. Aaron got in the passenger side. He spent the journey staring out the window. When the buildings became more familiar, he closed his eyes, not opening them until they reached Haley’s old home. He turned to her in confusion.

“Sean is staying with a friend tonight. Going back to that house is not something you need to do today. My parents already said we could stay with them.”

Of course they did. Because everyone must’ve already known that his mother died. His mother had died and he hadn’t been there because he’d ignored his brother’s phone calls. What kind of person did that make him?

Haley no longer had the key. She rang the doorbell, one arm still wrapped around him as they awkwardly stood outside. Hotch remembered the first time he had gone to her house for dinner. It had been after his father passed away. He’d spent the entire meal feeling uncomfortable. Like the Brooks’ weren’t going to approve of him.

Her mother had hugged him, cradling the back of his head, whispering her condolences, both for what had been lost and for what the town had failed to do. Roy Brooks had shaken his hand, saying that anyone would be proud to call him their son. Jessica had dragged him to one side and said they’d all known about Haley sneaking him in during the night, but nobody knew what to say.

When he got home, he crawled into bed and sobbed. For the first time, somebody loved him unconditionally.

It was her mother that answered the door. When she saw who it was, she ushered them in. Aaron remembered at the last moment that he was supposed to take his shoes off. Haley led him to the living room.

Roy embraced him. “You’re freezing,” he whispered. “Darling, put some tea on. Aaron, how are you feeling?”

He shook his head. He did not deserve kindness. Not in this moment.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to talk. Just drink some tea and then got some sleep. Haley’s old bedroom has been set up for the two of you. And we’ll both be here if you need anything. The next few days are going to be draining for both of you, so please, don’t hesitate in asking for any kind of support.”

“Thank you Papa,” Haley said, rubbing her husband’s back.

Aaron tried to smile, but it was forced and uncomfortable.

Roy was the one who drove him to the funeral home. Haley had offered, but she had already driven them from their apartment, which had tired her out because she hated driving, so Aaron had declined, having every intention to bear the burden alone. But as he was slipping his shoes on, Roy had emerged, saying nobody should have go alone.

Sean was waiting outside for the two of them, eyes red, biting his nails. When Aaron looked at him, he couldn’t even imagine him as the eighteen-year-old about to go to college that he was. When Aaron looked at his little brother, he just saw the little boy who didn’t understand that their dad wasn’t coming home. Only this time, there were no comforting lies to give him. He understood everything. Including Aaron’s failure.

“How could you?” Sean whispered the moment he saw his brother.

Aaron looked down.

“She was in the hospital, constantly asking where you were. She didn’t care that I was there. She just wanted to know where her precious baby was, and I had to keep lying and say that you were coming when in reality, I had no fucking clue where you were. It was not supposed to be me holding her hand. It was supposed to be you. But you weren’t there, and so you have no right to turn up, now looking all sad and pathetic.”

Michael Hotchner had not been right about much. But he had been right about one thing. Aaron Hotchner was his mirror. Sean Hotchner was his son.

“Sean Hotchner. That is enough. You do not get to disrespect your brother or your mother like that. Go inside, and do not create another scene,” Roy snapped.

When Sean departed, he turned to Aaron, who was shaking.

“Son?”

“He’s right,” Aaron whispered. “I should have been there. He- Sean phoned me and I didn’t answer because I thought it was stupid and I had this case and- I failed her.”

“Look at me. It’s not your fault. It was her time to go, and you cannot spend the rest of your life blaming yourself. Sean is angry and grieving, and he doesn’t mean a single word of what he said. You’re a good man, doing a good job and you make my daughter happy. Don’t ever forget that. Okay?”

Aaron nodded, not truly believing him. He followed Sean into the funeral home, where they spent the next few hours in a tense, uncomfortable silence. Aaron wanted to comfort his brother, but he didn’t know how. Not when Sean stood as far away from him as possible.

The funeral was a day later. Once again, Haley held his hand until the priest called him up to say a few words. Aaron managed to make it through his eulogy with minimal tears, but the moment he was back beside his wife, he turned away from the grave, letting the tears fall.

The people were silently judging him for what he had failed to do. Roy glared at everyone that dared tried to voice these opinions. They were wrong. Aaron hadn’t failed anyone. He’d gotten there the moment he was supposed to, and if those people were even half as religious as they liked to claim they were, they would know that.

“You take as long as you need,” Haley whispered, when everyone else, even Sean had departed.

Aaron nodded, holding the flowers he’d grabbed from the car to his chest like a baby. He watched as Haley left, going to sit in the car to give him the space he needed. He’d told them all to drive home, that the walk would do him some good. He watched on unsteady legs as the car faded from view.

And then he fell to his knees, sobbing, one hand pressed to his mouth to stop too much noise from escaping, the other blindly feeling around for the flowers left by Sean. Their mother had hated roses- somehow, she always managed to prick her finger on the thorns. The only reason they had ever been in the house was because on the days where people would come round, his father would turn up with a bouquet of them, and she would dutifully smile and accept them.

Aaron moved the roses so they were hidden by all the other flowers they had left. And then he put his own small bouquet of carnations right where the headstone would go.

“Mama, I am so sorry,” he whispered.

And then he walked away, unable to stand the sight of the grave anymore.

The defence ripped him and his witnesses to shreds.

The verdict was not guilty.

The child was sent home.

“You promised me,” they sobbed as their father stood with an easy smirk on his face.

He was sick the moment he got home. Haley didn’t say a word. She just showed him an advert for the FBI that had been posted through the letterbox. When he stared at her, she smiled. Said that she had married Aaron Hotchner the man, not Mr Hotchner the prosecutor.

Two weeks later, he was enrolling in the FBI Academy.

Six months later and he was Agent Hotchner. He liked that. It was his own, and nobody would ever associate the title with his father. He could be his own person.

Then David Rossi gave him the nickname of Hotch and he couldn’t be happier. It would’ve made his mother smile. And his father turn in his grave at the utter shame of his good name being reduced down to something so mundane.

But being a profiler was tough. Every case meant dealing with the very worst of humanity. And even among the worst, there was a hierarchy. Some cases were just more disgusting, more scary and more scarring than others. A few cases reminded him that profilers were all just a step away from becoming unsubs themselves. That the line could and would blur before any of them even realised.

Vincent Perrotta left him vulnerable. Physically and emotionally. Jason had told him to loosen his tie and undo his top button, but Aaron needed the reassuring pressure of both things at his neck in order to maintain some kind of illusion of control in spite of the damage done by the wire.

He didn’t open up to unsubs. One of the most important parts of conducting an interrogation was to make them think you understood them without giving away anything about yourself. And most of the time, he was good at doing that. He pretended to understand the hatred of children, pretended to agree with them when they claimed that all women were just manipulative bitches and he pretended to find it amusing when they thought that the person doing the act was right.

The key word was pretend.

He wasn’t pretending when he looked Perrotta in the eye and told him the one thing that only Haley and Dave were aware of. Had it been any other time, it would’ve been funny. His own team didn’t know what his father had done to him, but this serial killer did, and it was all because he’d slipped up and said us instead of them.

Hotch had never been so thankful there was a bathroom on the same floor as his office that nobody ever used. The moment Perrotta turned away, the realisation that his crimes had never been inevitable causing more distress than the murder of the woman had, Hotch had bolted.

He hadn’t eaten since the incident in the night. It hurt to swallow. Which meant despite the minutes he spent retching over the toilet seat, hands trembling because how many times had he looked in the mirror and seen the exact same look that he’d witnessed on Perrotta, nothing came out.

Morgan was stood by the door.

“I know we have a no profiling rule.”

“Then follow it.”

“Reid’s doing your paperwork. He’s surprisingly good at forging your handwriting and I’m not sure I want to know why. That means all you need to do is sign it. Go home.”

“You’re not my superior Morgan,” Hotch snapped.

Morgan didn’t even blink. “I know. But you won’t write me up for insubordination. There’s no reason for you to be here, but there is every reason for you to be at home.”

Their relationship was a strange one. They trusted each other as agents- it was the only way they were able to go out in the field- but not as individuals. But then every once in a while, Derek would do something like this and Hotch would wonder if it was his way of saying that he did indeed care.

He was right though. There was every reason for him to be at home.

The living room light was off, so he immediately headed upstairs. Jack was asleep in his crib. Hotch felt uneasy in the nursery. Both he and Haley knew this was their forever home, which was why they had a nursery- it could be Jack’s bedroom until he moved out- but after Karl Arnold, he wasn’t sure how he felt about not being able to see him in the night.

“He won’t wake up if you hold him,” Haley said from the doorway.

“You should be asleep,” he replied, feeling guilty that he must have woken her.

“No, I shouldn’t. What happened?”

“How do you know something happened?”

She shrugged. “I know you.”

He sighed. “I don’t want to burden you. You already put up with enough from me.”

She crept closer, wrapping her arms around his waist, and he was transported back to the bathroom, only now the scars on his back had healed but not faded and more, both visible and hidden, covered his body because profiling always damaged people.

“You’re not burdening me. I’m asking.”

“Serial killer. His dad abused him and his mom. I accidentally told him that some of us grow up to catch them. But Hales, the look on his face. It was like he finally realised that everything he did had been because of him, not because of his father and I just, I sympathised. What kind of person does that make me?”

“A good one.”

“I saw myself in him. The person I might have become if you hadn’t saved me,” he confessed, still watching his son.

Haley’s grip loosened. He realised what he had said.

“Aaron that wasn’t me. You saved yourself. You got out and you decided you were going to break the cycle. That was you. I just helped you along the way. Hey, look at me.”

He turned, tears in his eyes. Haley smiled, still as bright and good as the day they met. She took his hands and lifted them to her lips, placing a soft kiss to them before leaning past him and lifting Jack up. The baby stirred slightly, but did not wake, even when Haley handed him to Aaron.

“You won’t hurt him. Or me. You will never be like the people that you hunt down. I will die before that ever happens,” she said. There was such raw passion in her voice that the tears finally fell.

Haley would die before he hurt someone. And he had made a vow to her father the day they married that he would keep her safe, and a second the day he joined the FBI that if Haley were to die, it would not be because of his job.

“Thank you,” he whispered, putting Jack down so he could press a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” she said, like it was the easiest thing in the world for her to do. Because to her it was. She just wished he could understand that.

He didn’t know how to say the words. Not in the way that she needed. So instead he smiled, took one last look at his baby and walked away. He pretended to be fine because Haley shouldn’t have to worry about her. In reality, the moment she fell asleep, he went and checked the locks. Again.

The darkness shouldn’t have been able to creep in, but it did. It always did.

“I hope Morgan wasn’t too rough with you,” Gideon said, taking the seat opposite him.

Hotch looked at him. Gideon gave him that smile that never seemed to be aimed at him anymore. He sighed, fiddling with the pen he’d placed on the paperwork he hadn’t touched since boarding the jet. Talking to Abby’s son had been more painful than he’d expected, but somebody needed to do it. It was the least they could do for him.

“I’ve handled worse,” he replied.

Gideon hmmed at that. “That doesn’t mean you have to. I made you some tea. Herbal. Apparently it’s calming. You should drink it.”

Hotch stared at the mug like it was going to poison him. Then he carried on staring out the window. It was dark, and there wasn’t really much to see, but he couldn’t keep looking at the sympathy on Jason’s face. It made him feel sick. He wasn’t the one that had lost a father that day. He had just gotten too close, again, despite constantly telling everyone that wasn’t something they could do.

It was impossible to get the image of him burning to death out of his mind. Whilst he wanted to believe Abby’s death had been swift and painless, much like his own father’s heart attack, he knew that was impossible. He’d seen enough burn victims to know it took time for that happen. He wondered if, in those final moments, Abby regretted his decision.

“Hotch there was nothing we could have done to save him,” Gideon said gently. He wished Dave was still there. He would know what to say, what to do. Gideon had never had that relationship with Aaron. He liked to think he had that relationship with Spencer, but Aaron was different. He didn’t understand him.

“I should have stopped him. He should have had more time. If only so he could look at his son and tell him what was going on.”

Gideon tilted his head to the side. “Spencer mentioned that you had gone to see the family. Why didn’t you send JJ? She is our media liaison, that’s her job description, not yours.”

“JJ wouldn’t have understood. I had to go. It had to be me.” Hotch didn’t really know why he was telling Gideon any of this.

“It was your penance, wasn’t it? You think it’s your fault that he died, so you decided to make the fallout your responsibility. Hotch, you’re the Unit Chief now. The team look to you. You can’t tell them to do one thing and then do the exact opposite.”

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be SSA Hotchner, or even Hotch. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be Aaron, because even though Haley and Dave- the only people that used his first name- had always treated it like something precious, the ghost of his father made him think the only way it could be said was with disdain.

Even with his eyes closed, he knew Jason was watching him. He opened his eyes and turned slightly, watching the other members of the team. JJ and Emily were laughing at something that Morgan was saying. Reid was smiling. Hotch felt relieved. It had been far too long since Reid had smiled, and he knew he was the one to blame.

Jason followed his gaze. “They’ve all come so far, haven’t they? One day, they won’t even need us.”

That startled Hotch. His eyes met Gideon’s and he realised his mistake immediately.

“I see. It wasn’t just Abby you saw yourself in. It was his son. That’s why you went. You were compensating.”

“Please don’t profile me,” he whispered, knowing it was useless.

“I’m not. Now I know I’m no David Rossi or Haley Brooks, but I am here. However much you may not agree, I am.”

It was useless to say that he didn’t think that. Because he did, and it was written in the hesitance of his decisions. Of his constant watching. Of the pile of paperwork in his office that was meant to be Jason’s.

“I wanted- needed- to know who it was that my father had been having an affair because everyone, including my own mother, had known. But then he was diagnosed with cancer and all of that became irrelevant. I never got my answers, and it still hurts, even now.”

Nobody, not even Haley, knew about that. She obviously had her suspicions, and she knew about his lack of closure, but he had never properly told her.

Jason wasn’t saying anything. Hotch looked at him and saw that the other man was looking past him, not at him. He followed his gaze, and realised he was looking at Spencer. He swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled as Derek ruffled his hair.

He turned back, and saw that Jason was watching Spencer with the soft smile he had never managed to evoke. He blinked back tears. He missed Dave. He wanted Dave because Dave would know what to say to stop him feeling like such crap. Jason didn’t. Because Jason loved Spencer more than he loved Aaron, and Aaron couldn’t even fathom resenting either of them for that because it wasn’t either of their faults.

It was just a fact of life. But that didn’t mean it still didn’t sting when instead of replying, Gideon stood and went over to the other members of the team, intently listening to whatever it was Spencer was saying.

Haley would tell him to phone Dave. But he couldn’t disrupt his book tour like that. Instead, he kept staring out the window, trying to forget how beautiful the flames had looked against the darkness of the night or how deep down, he almost wished it had been him in there.

It was too close to the line between profiler and unsub.

He bottled up his emotions and hoped that Jason would stay. If not for him, then for Spencer. Because he couldn’t be that person. He was barely that person for Jack.

Jason did not stay. Neither did Haley. They both reached their breaking points and then Hotch pushed them too far.

Deep down, he knew the moment where they both decided they couldn’t take it anymore, the moment where they finally admitted to themselves that they deserved better and they took the steps to get there.

He just never expected they would happen on the same day. He supposed he’d bought that upon himself though. It was him that had said Jason was okay to return to work, for the purely selfish reason that he couldn’t do it alone even though he knew Gideon needed more time. It was him that had left on the case because Morgan had asked him to, even though Haley had asked him not to.

What kind of marriage was that? He didn’t know who had phoned. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know but there was no guarantee that Haley was having an affair. To suggest that she was would be cruel. It would only be because he didn’t want to have to take accountability for his part in the breakdown of their marriage.

It did take two to tango.

But where Jason took a piece of Spencer’s heart, Haley took the reason Hotch had never been able to stop hunting down monsters.

Morgan told him they would survive without Gideon. Hotch knew they would, but he wasn’t sure he could. Gideon’s departure, as much as he didn’t want to seem narcissistic, would reflect on him. He hadn’t saved him. He hadn’t been able to save his marriage- because Haley had done all she had and it had been his turn- and now the unsub’s last words were haunting his memory.

He had always taken pride in the fact that he was a difficult man to profile. A face schooled into a cautious look of neutrality, suits that hid the fact that he never seemed to have an appetite anymore. The only thing that ever gave away his nerves was the small hand thing he had never been able to stop doing.

For his own profession to be used against him in such a way, so soon after he had failed to save so many people- the six agents in Boston, Elle, Jason, Haley- was disarming. He wasn’t sure what he was meant to do. Normally, he would’ve gone to the home where Haley would have left a light on for him. He would’ve watched his son sleep and just stared at him in awe. He would’ve pressed a kiss to Haley’s forehead before climbing into their bed and seeking her warmth. Maybe, if it had been too late to go home, he would’ve taken Jason to the piano night down at the bar.

But Haley had taken her warmth and the thing that made their house a home with her. All the rooms would be dark when he got back. Jack’s room would be empty. Their bed would be cold.

He hadn’t slept alone since college. It hurt, to wake up in the morning and not see Haley’s hair, messy and knotted.

He just didn’t want to be alone, but who was he supposed to tell?

“Reid. I’ll drop you home. It’s been a long few days,” he said.

Everyone else had left. Reid looked up with wide eyes. He looked so painfully young, and Hotch felt a slight pain in his stomach. What was this job doing to him? Spencer deserved better than sleepless nights and painful memories that would never be forgotten. Hotch guessed that one day, Spencer would be added to the list of people he had failed to save.

In some ways, he already was.

“I can go myself,” Spencer mumbled.

“Reid. Let me do this. Please,” Hotch said.

Spencer nodded. “Okay.”

They left, the car far too silent for either of them to be comfortable. Hotch wanted to debate something intellectual, if only to soothe Spencer’s nerves, but the words classic narcissist still left a bitter taste in his mouth. And his mind had gone completely blank regarding anything else.

“We’ve driven past the turning. The route that you’re now going down would mean that getting to my apartment would take an hour extra.”

Hotch kept his eyes on the road, subtly checking that the car doors were locked. “You’re coming home with me. I don’t think you should go home alone.”

Reid turned to face him properly. “I don’t need you to treat me like a child. I get enough of that from everyone else. Gideon left me with a letter, just like my dad. He’s not going to come back and rationally, I have to accept that, because refusal to do so won’t change anything.”

“Maybe. But you should know better than anyone that we can’t control our brains.”

He realised the moment the words left his mouth that it wasn’t the right thing to say, and he immediately regretted them. What Reid thought he was trying to imply was definitely not what he was, but the words had come out wrong and now Reid was going to hate him too.

“I do. Know that. Don’t need you reminding me.”

He sounded just like Jack. Hotch swallowed. “I know. I’m sorry, that came out badly. What I meant was that you’re allowed to feel like you’re being irrational. Missing Gideon is a valid emotion, regardless of the way he left us. You. I meant you.”

They were stuck at a red light.

“Hotch, why haven’t you transferred?” Reid asked suddenly.

He shifted slightly. “My reason for doing it is no longer a thing.”

Reid frowned, and Hotch hit the gas.

“Oh,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. Is it our fault?”

Hotch shook his head. “Haley and I made our decisions. It was never anyone else’s problem, and it is most certainly not your fault.”

Reid wasn’t convinced.

“I don’t want to be alone right now,” he blurted out. “That’s why I’m taking you to the house. Because I can’t be alone and I need to feel like I’m doing something to help someone otherwise, what is the point in all of this?”

“This is about what the unsub said, isn’t it?”

They hadn’t had a conversation like this in so long. Not since before Hankel, his brain supplied.

“It’s true though, isn’t it? I failed to help Elle. I failed to help you, and Jason and Haley and god knows who else,” he said.

Spencer looked at him, chin tilted “You said: Haley and I made our decisions. It was never anyone else’s problem, and it is most certainly not your fault. How is this any different?”

Hotch sighed. “I had a responsibility to the other members of my team because I am meant to be their leader. You, on the other hand, are still just a kid, who has no connection whatsoever to my marriage.”

“I may be young, but I am in no way a child. And no, I didn’t have any connection to your marriage but I still don’t get your point. Elle and Gideon made their decisions of their own free will and there is nothing anyone could’ve done to stop them because when somebody is that determined to do something, they will always find a way.”

They’d pulled into the driveway. Hotch still hadn’t adjusted to the curtains still being open, for everyone to see and it took a moment to adjust to the darkness. The porch light hadn’t been on for a while, yet it was still a shock to the system. Haley’s light was just another thing he had taken for granted.

“When did you get so smart?” Hotch whispered. In some ways, he felt like he had watched as Spencer had grown from the new agent, doubting his worth and his abilities, to the slightly more confident that he had a family man that was now sat next to him. He hoped Spencer never lost his softness, or the things that made him the person he was, for there was nothing sadder.

“Hotch, I’ve always been smart. When Gideon returned after Boston, you introduced me as your expert on everything and then I told the man we were interviewing that I have an IQ of 187.”

“Never change Spencer.”

“I wouldn’t know how.”

There was a short silence.

“Would you stay the night?” Hotch asked.

“I thought that was what you wanted.”

“It is. But I want this to be your decision. If you’d rather be alone, then I will take you to your apartment and we’ll never speak about it again.”

They sat for a few minutes, and Hotch resisted the urge to tell Spencer to hurry up.

“I think I’ll stay the night,” he finally decided, voice small.

Hotch breathed a sigh of relief, not even caring that the house was still littered with small traces of Haley and the life they had spent together.

The two of them ate in relative silence, and then Hotch set them both up in the living room. He wanted- needed- to keep an eye on Spencer, but he told him that when Haley and him bought their first apartment and started living together, they would camp out in the living room because there was nobody to tell them not to.

He left out the part where it was also because Aaron had never really been allowed to sit wherever he wanted and do whatever he felt like.

There was some old documentary about the Russian Revolution in the background. Spencer had fallen asleep, his head in Hotch’s lap. Without even realising, Hotch had started stroking his hair, much like he used to do for Jack.

The light in the living room was on, and not once did Spencer wake. Hotch made them both breakfast- pancakes, because the look of joy when he said he probably had all the ingredients was not one he wanted to destroy- and Spencer gave him a genuine smile.

Neither of them spoke of it again, but Hotch felt a little lighter. A little bit more like the Aaron Haley had fallen in love with again. Maybe he couldn’t save everyone, but he saved Spencer, and even if it was only a little, and well after he should’ve, at least he had done it.

That would be enough to keep the darkness out, if only for a little bit.

Megan Kane died and Aaron- not Hotch, because Hotch would say that you can’t take cases personally, no matter how much you wanted to, held her hand. He held her hand as she said thank you for staying and not leaving. He didn’t have the words to tell her that he didn’t walk away for selfish reasons. Because he couldn’t have her considering him to be the same as the other men she’d killed.

Not after everything she’d done. The chip was safely tucked away in his pocket, just waiting to be passed on.

Even when her chest stopped rising, he refused to let go, only doing so when the police kicked the already open door to her room in, guns raised. When they stepped onto the balcony, he dropped her hand, watching as it fell limply. He didn’t know how long he had been sat there, but it was long enough for the body to go cold.

“Agent Hotchner. We need you to provide a statement. You were the only person present when she died,” the lead detective said.

Aaron stood, suddenly so angry at everything and everyone. “She took the pills and gave me the card. And then she asked me to stay so I did. Then she died. What more do you need than that?”

He didn’t want to tell them what she’d said. It was stupid, but it felt private.

He stormed out the room before they could respond and stepped into the elevator with a heavy heart.

Both Dave and Emily tried to make him feel better the whole way home. It was all to no avail. Their attempts to comfort him went over like a lead balloon. The only indication he’d even heard them was the slight clench of his jaw and his adamant stare out the window, his report on the table, only the first sentence written. When Dave tried to crack a joke, Hotch glared and he backed off.

Emily sat by him. Whilst her general presence usually never failed to make him feel a little better, it was just irritating him. He didn’t want to talk to any of them. He didn’t want them walking on eggshells. He wanted them to just leave him.

But then he felt bad. Because the one person he wanted had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want anything to do with his job, and the rest were just trying to be there for him and that should’ve been enough for him.

When they got to the office, he did something he’d only done a few times before. He put the files on his desk and then he exited it. He needed to see his son. He needed to go to his real home- because now Haley was living in the house, it felt like a home again.

Haley had responded to his message about coming by with a simple: Ok. He still felt wrong profiling her, so he didn’t.

She had changed the locks. He didn’t have the key. And so he was stood there, awkwardly waiting for her to open the door whilst he rubbed circles with his thumb over the spot where his wedding ring had previously been. The tan line had all but faded. He felt pathetic for still reaching for it sometimes.

She opened the door. “There’s a birthday party that he’s been excited about for- you’re wearing a case suit.”

“I’m- what?”

She frowned. “Why are you wearing a case suit?”

“A case suit?”

“Yes. There are suits that you would only ever wear when you were on a case because they could be washed a lot more easily, and if you got blood on them, well you weren’t attached to them. How were you not aware of this?”

“I guess it was a subconscious thing. Look, we just landed but I-” he saw Jack peeking his head around the door.

On reflex, he crouched down. He remembered how he had felt when he was younger and his father would come storming in, towering over him, terrifying and threatening. He never wanted Jack to feel like that. And so he knelt down, burying his head in Jack’s neck for a moment before letting go.

“Hi buddy. How are you feeling?”

Jack stopped smiling. “I accidentally made mommy annoyed because I drew on the wall. But then she said that sometimes people feel bad emotions and that’s okay, you just need to be good about it. And then once we cleaned it up, she said that I’m not a bad kid, I just did a wrong thing.”

Hotch felt tears prick the back of his eyes. Haley was so good. Too good.

“She’s right. One act doesn’t determine who you are,” he said, voice cracking.

“Jack, mommy and daddy need to go and talk in the kitchen, so just stay in the living room, okay?”

Jack nodded.

Hotch followed Haley, noticing the last photo that was taken of the three of them before the divorce- although at the time nobody knew- was still stuck to the fridge.

“Tell me what happened,” she whispered.

Aaron turned away. “That’s not your job anymore.”

“Baby,” she said.

He closed his eyes. When was the last time somebody had called him that?

“I know what I said then. Trust me, there’s no way I could ever forget. But I was wrong. This is who you are. And I never should’ve asked you to change. I think the divorce was the best thing for both of us, because it was needed. But I still love you. And I know you won’t tell the team. So tell me.”

And he did. He told her everything. “The worst part is, she was right. I should be here every week, but Jack’s lucky if I’m here every fortnight. Haley, I always said I didn’t want to become a father because of how he hurt me. What kind of father am I if Jack is going to say the same thing?”

For a while Haley did not speak. They were just stood, a good six feet between them. And then she threw her arms around him. The force of her touch threw him off balance. When was the last time anyone had actually touched him? If he was struggling to remember, then it must’ve been far too long.

The smell of her shampoo felt like coming home and before he knew what was happening, he could taste the salt of his tears.

She stroked his hair and he relaxed into the touch, despite all the knots. He had always hated brushing his hair but loved when Haley would run her hands through it. She messed it up as he sobbed into her shoulder, and not for the first time, she wondered how many more times he could stare into the depths of depravity and come back whole.

Although, she thought to herself bitterly, he’d never been given the chance to be whole in the first place.

At some point, they’d started sitting on the kitchen floor. She was still playing with his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For everything.”

“You don’t need to be. And I will spend the rest of my life convincing you of that.”

Aaron looked at her with such love in his eyes that she could not resist the urge to press a soft kiss to his forehead before tugging him closer.

“Sleep here. I’ll take Jack to the party, and you can rest. Do that paperwork that’s in your office. And maybe tomorrow, we can all go for ice cream.”

His eyes widened. They were so soft and warm that Haley had never understood how he managed to glare at anyone. Apart from the people that had offered their sympathies at his father’s funeral, despite fully well knowing the truth.

“Really?”

“Yeah Aaron. Really. Now go upstairs and rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

She was, and it was like she had burst into his life in an explosion of light all over again.

Then George Foyet took that light and snuffed it out.

Haley once said she would die before Aaron hurt another person the way his father had hurt him. She said it because her death was so unlikely. It was an event that they knew would one day occur, but they never really thought about it. Though it was morbid, Aaron’s death was the one they had to prepare for. He was the one charging after dangerous criminals on a weekly basis. Haley was teaching.

Nothing bad was ever supposed to happen to her because he had promised, with everything he was, that he would keep her safe and that the horrors of his job would never touch her.

But he hadn’t been quick enough.

And now she was dead.

George Foyet had surrendered. He had surrendered willingly and without coercion, but Hotch hadn’t listened. He had carried on, even though his duty was to stop. To carry out a lawful arrest. But he hadn’t. He had carried on hitting a man that would not have been able to defend himself. Deep down he knew that was unfair to say. Foyet was taunting him by saying he was giving up.

Still, his knuckles ached. Morgan had pulled him off the body and he hadn’t been able to look. He couldn’t do it. So many things had already been destroyed by him. There was already so much blood on his hands, if he looked at Foyet he would never recover.

He was worse than his father. At least his father was a human. At least his father had never touched Sean. His father had never- to his knowledge- even attempted to beat his mother to death. But he had. He had beaten a man to death, and the worst part was, he would do it all again.

He would do it again because at least Jack was alive. Scared and confused, but alive. Hotch knew that if Jack had been the one to die, then he wouldn’t be here. He would’ve let Foyet kill him and vanish, as selfish as it was, because a life without his son was not one he wanted to live. After he found Haley, he knew he needed to consider the worst scenario: that Jack had not understood.

When Foyet told him that he would find Jack and show him his dead parents, something in him found the strength to survive. If Foyet was saying he would find Jack, then that would mean that he hadn’t already done so. Which meant Jack must’ve understood and was just waiting for his dad to come find him.

It was when Jack told him about how he had worked the case that the knowledge that Haley was dead hit him like a tonne of bricks. The first time he had found him, Jack had ran out and told his Mom what him and Daddy were doing together. Haley had smiled fondly before coming into the room, staring out the window instead of the desk.

Hotch had told her it was just a budget report. She looked down and did indeed see the budget sheet. But under that was the profile for a man who had recently lost his wife and was going after blonde mothers that resembled her.

There was blood all over his shirt and hands. Jack didn’t need to see that. The part of his brain not occupied with Haley knew that JJ was the best person for him to be with. She was good with children and had dealt with enough children of victims to know what to say and what to avoid.

Victims. Because that was what Haley had become. A victim of a serial killer and it was all his fault.

If he had just been quicker. If he had taken the deal. If he had transferred when Haley asked him to. They probably would have still ended up divorcing, but she would be alive. Jack would have a real parent. One that could look at him without turning away. Haley’s blood was on his hands, and every time he looked at Jack, he saw her. Because Jack had his mother’s light hair and kind eyes.

The day Aaron died- and god that couldn’t come fast enough- would be the day that the last piece of his father finally left the earth.

Haley’s hair was dark. That was the first thing he noticed when he saw her, lying on the ground. He’d heard people say that when someone died, you could kid yourself into thinking that they were just sleeping because they would look so peaceful.

Haley’s mouth was a thin line. She smiled when she was sleeping. Her clothes were not the ones she would have picked herself. Her eyes were still open. Aaron hated that she died alone and afraid. That should’ve been him. And her hair was dark. He cursed himself for being surprised. Of course it was dark. She’d gone into WitSec.

It just felt like a visual representation of everything he’d taken from her. Her light and innocence had been destroyed and it was all his fault. He hadn’t even told her Sam Kassmeyer was dead, which was such a stupid thing to fixate on, but anything to take away from the fact that she was gone.

When he pulled her limp, unmoving body towards him, needing to feel her against him one more time, she was still a little warm and he almost vomited right there. How close had they been that she wasn’t cold? He didn’t let go till Emily gently touched her shoulder, leading him away from the body.

The team were shielding him from the various people that had responded to the scene and if he had more energy, he would say thank you. But he was tired. And his hands hurt so much. They were still trembling.

Jack leant into his touch like it was nothing and Hotch marvelled at the fact that he seemed to adjust like it was nothing. He knew it was because he didn’t understand, but after everything that had been lost that day- two lives, a piece of Aaron, a place that was once home, the brightest light he’d ever met, Jack’s chance for a normal life- it felt like a win.

Before he knew it, the funeral was being held. He’d planned his eulogy, writing it whilst watching Jack because he couldn’t sleep without seeing the steady rise and fall of his son’s chest. There were a hundred different copies in the bin. How was he supposed to get up in front of everyone that looked to him and expected him to lead, and talk about Haley had made him feel safe?

Attending Haley’s funeral hurt more than either of his parents had. He wasn’t sure if that made him a terrible person. But when his father had died, he’d been relieved. Not happy, but maybe a little grateful. And when his mother had died, Haley had been stood next to him, her grip on his hand grounding him.

This time, she was the one in the ground. And the only person grounding him was a little boy, so much like Sean- not quite understanding, but aware enough to know the person they loved wasn’t coming home.

He held it together through his speech. Jessica gave him a soft smile before she took his place, reciting her own eulogy. Haley’s mother wasn’t able to attend because she was too unwell so her father recited both their speeches, voice cracking and tears streaming down his face.

It showed just how broken he was. No self-respecting Southern man would ever be able to shed tears that freely.

“Thank you for saying something,” Jessica said to him when they were all sat down. The team were far away enough to not hear, and he suspected that was why she had finally spoken to him.

“Jessie, this is all my fault. It was the least I could do. And I promise, I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you. To all of you.”

She let out a watery laugh. “Jessie. It’s been so long since you’ve called me that. Aar, I don’t blame you. I can’t. Because you did everything you could. I know that. And I heard you up there. You loved her. But you didn’t kill her. In fact, she’d kill me if I suggested such a thing. So forgive yourself. The rest of us have.”

“Jessica, why would you say something like that?” Roy shouted.

Jess flinched, unaware that her father had overheard everything.

Aaron shrunk down in his seat, unable to meet Roy’s eyes.

“You got my daughter killed. I trusted you. Even when nobody else did, when everybody said only bad things happened where Aaron Hotchner got involved, I trusted you. And when those people blamed you for what happened to your mother, I defended you. Because I knew you were a good man that would keep my daughter safe.”

“Dad, now is not the time,” Jessica said quietly.

“Yes it is! Yes. It is. My baby is dead, and it is all your fault. You promised me this would never happen. You swore. When your marriage died, I thought to myself: these things happen. They were young when they fell in love, perhaps they just grew up. But this- everything that has happened today? That’s on you. This is your fault. I wish it was you in the ground!”

Hotch flinched. “Roy, I-”

“It’s Mr Brooks to you now Hotchner. I treated you like a son. I- Haley did everything for you. Why weren’t you fast enough?”

And wasn’t that the million dollar question? Why had he not been fast enough?

“Dad, I know you are angry, but Aaron is not the person to be taking it out on! Just because he’s here and it is convenient does not make it right. Haley loved him until the very last moment. Shouldn’t that be enough to be good to him?”

Aaron just wanted everyone to stop shouting.

“She didn’t love him at the very last moment! How could she, after everything he put her through?”

“It is Hotchner going on the gravestone, not Brooks,” Jessica snapped.

Both Roy and Aaron stared at her. Neither of them had known about that, and she immediately paled, as though she’d revealed something she wasn’t meant to.

“What?” Roy spat.

“Haley called mom in the middle of the night in a panic. Said that if, somehow, this Foyet managed to find them, or if something happened, she wanted Hotchner to be on her gravestone because she loved Aaron.”

Roy’s hands were clenched at his sides and Aaron swallowed, subconsciously bracing himself for the blow that never came.

“I won’t do that to you. Ever. You may not be my son anymore, but I still would not harm you.”

Hotch exhaled, but Roy walked away before he could say anything. And the team got called away on a case.

“Did she really say that?” he asked Jessica, when it was just the two of them and their mugs of coffee. Jack had gone to sleep.

Jessica tore her gaze away from the carpet. Derek had done an incredible job of making it seem like nothing happened, but she now knew better and the thought of what had gone down made her sick. She wished she could convince Aaron to move, but she knew it would never work.

“Jess?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. She did. I was going to say something to you earlier but it completely slipped my mind. I hope that’s okay with you.”

He nodded. Of course it would be okay with him. Whatever Haley had wanted from him, he would give her. It would be too little too late, but it would still be something. Maybe it would lead to Roy’s forgiveness.

It was that line of reasoning that led to him almost accepting retirement, because what else was he meant to do? But then Jessica had offered to take Jack, saying it was the least she could do and that it wouldn’t be any trouble and he had been confused.

The gravestone hadn’t been placed yet, but he still knew where she was buried. That surprised him, because now that he thought about it, he couldn’t really remember the actual funeral. He just remembered Roy’s words. Aaron found himself talking to the air in a way he never had before, and by the time Dave found him, he’d made his decision.

Jack needed a father that could teach him how to move on and be happy. Aaron needed the team to be happy. Jessica had given her blessing, and maybe it was psychological, but everything felt a little warmer after he told his best friend that Haley already knew.

It didn’t mean he was confident that he was making the right choice. It was ridiculous, but he was terrified of how the team would respond. What if they thought he was making the wrong choice?

But on his first day in the office, they all treated him normally. Like nothing had changed. And for that, he was grateful. Emily was- as always- the only one aside from Dave with the self-destructive streak to make a comment.

Although it wasn’t the one he’d been expecting.

“I’m glad you came back,” she told him as he packed up his things to go.

There was a look in her eyes that told him she was being genuine. Her approval, deep down, meant more to him than everyone else’s, including Dave. For her to come in and say that she was happy he was there and leading the team meant more to him than he would ever be able to say. It also showed how far they had come. She had gone from insulting him every other sentence to wanting him around. He had gone from not trusting her to only being able to tell her the truth about what had really happened in his apartment.

“Thank you for letting me,” he said. If she had wanted it, she could have taken his job, no question. She wouldn’t- Derek was obviously the next Unit Chief- but she could have.

She smiled. “You keep us all safe, Aaron. How could I not?”

Emily’s hair was dark. As were her eyes. And there was a darkness that surrounded her in a similar way to him. He wasn’t sure where it came from. But she had learnt to live with hers. She had turned it into something beautiful that made people love her.

Perhaps he could do the same. Perhaps the darkness was something to welcome, not fear.

Emily Prentiss died, alone and cold, three times in one night. She died once when she told Derek Morgan to let her go because she genuinely believed Ian Doyle was still there, just waiting to hurt the people that had become her family. She flatlined in the ambulance, and Aaron had to watch as they frantically tried to revive her.

They succeeded in doing so, but at what cost?

She died a third time when Hotch had to make the decision as to whether or not she stayed. He wanted to scream at the bureau and say that it couldn’t be left to him because it was Emily’s life and if she wanted to stay and fight then she should.

But they would interpret his screaming and pleading as weakness. They would use it to deem him incapable of impartiality and then he would never know what happened. So instead of crying the way he wanted to, he kept his face neutral and argued all the reasons that Agent Prentiss- not Emily, not now- needed to be sent away and saved.

They went for it, and the prosecutor within him should have been proud. But it wasn’t. He was just tired.

Emily did not know that he had been in the ambulance and seen her die. She didn’t know that she had told him, whilst she was fading in and out of consciousness, about the darkness that she had seen and the chill that had come over her when she realised that she was dying or that he knew she wanted to believe in a better ending.

But Aaron did. It was why he found it so difficult to tell her what was happening. But he was already asking too much of JJ. JJ who was supposed to be a liaison for the state department and nothing more. But there was a haunted look in her eyes, and he so desperately wanted to comfort her, but there just wasn’t time.

He needed to save Emily before it was too late. Or maybe it already was too late. Maybe she would have survived if his own darkness hadn’t joined hers. Maybe if he’d been quicker in getting JJ or working out what had happened.

The moment he saw his own smiling face staring up at him, he should have known what was happening. But he hadn’t. And now yet another person’s blood was on his hands. When would it end? When would the people he loved stop being hurt by a darkness that should have only ever destroyed him?

His father once said the only thing he was good at was destroying beautiful things. Aaron had so desperately wanted to prove him wrong that he only succeeded in proving him right. Emily Prentiss had once been beautiful and good. One of the strongest and most resilient women he knew.

Hotch wasn’t stupid. He saw the way JJ looked at her. That was the other reason he had to be the one to tell her. Because he had seen Jason in the aftermath of the Boston bombing and Elle after she shot the rapist. He knew what Spencer’s anger and Derek’s fear looked like. He had seen the worst of each of his team members and never faltered because their darkness was nothing compared to his.

The Emily laying on that bed, broken and damaged beyond what any normal person should have been able to survive, was not the Emily they knew and Hotch was not going to let it be the Emily that JJ would remember. He would let JJ go with her to Paris because she would be stronger then.

That would be the Emily she would remember.

“Emily? Can you hear me?” he asked as quietly as he could.

She turned slightly, but even that small movement seemed to cause her pain. She opened her mouth to speak and winced.

“Don’t talk. You’re still too weak to do that. I just, I need to tell you what’s going to happen, okay? Because a lot of things are going to change and I want you to know exactly how this is going to play out.”

His hands were shoved in his pockets. One of them needed to be strong and pretend that everything was going to be okay, and it sure as hell couldn’t be her. But she saw and tried to motion to him. He shook his head. Soon she would be leaving him, and he did not want to remember her touch as being cold and almost lifeless. He wanted to remember her touch as being warm and comforting.

Without looking at her, he told her how they were sending her to Paris. His voice did not tremble and he did not break but he couldn’t face her when he was done talking. Instead, he stared at the floor and focused on the white tiles.

“I hate you,” she whispered. “How can you do this to me? I do not want to be sent to Paris whilst everyone else tries to deal with this.”

“Em. I’m trying to do the right thing,” he pleaded. He couldn’t have her hating him. Not after everything that had happened between them, and certainly not everything they had both done to gain the others trust.

“The right thing would have been to let me die,” she hissed.

He closed his eyes and it was only a few days earlier. He had told Clyde Easter that if anything happened to her, he would destroy him. The knowledge that he could do it without even flinching should have terrified him, but it didn’t. In some morbid way, it relaxed him.

When he turned his back, the knowledge that he had disarmed the other man bought him more joy than it should have, and again he was reminded of how thin the line between profiler and unsub really was.

“Mr Hotchner,” Clyde had called out.

Hotch had frozen, hands clenched at his side. How many years had it been since someone last called him that? And yet he still couldn’t hear the title without thinking of his father. He was an adult now, the man shouldn’t have held that influence over him but he was still terrified and he hated himself for it.

He’d turned, just enough so he could see Clyde’s face.

“I did my part. If she dies, that’s on you.”

And it was. It was all his fault. She had trusted him to keep them safe, but he had failed. Again. He had destroyed her, just like he had destroyed so many other good people. He didn’t deserve to be a coward anymore, so he looked up and met her eyes.

Weak and damaged as she was, she still managed to glare with a hatred he had only ever seen once. When she had been a college student, arguing with her mother. And he’d been both terrified and relieved to see that she could be so ruthless. Terrified because to him, she was just a girl and she shouldn’t have known how to hate like that, but relieved because he wasn’t the only one with such potential for darkness inside.

He left without another word. JJ had comforted Reid and Garcia because he had been too busy throwing up the single bite of sandwich he’d managed to choke down. And he knew something had happened to her whilst she was working for the Pentagon. He knew she wouldn’t be able to stay.

It was why he let her take Emily to Paris. He didn’t tell her what Emily had said to him. He just told her to ask if she could remember anything from the hospital. He spent the entire time waiting for her to respond. He was talking to Dave when there was a text from JJ. All it said was she doesn’t remember anything she said.

And it became slightly easier to breathe.

The funeral was difficult.

First thing in the morning, he had dropped Jack off with Jessica. Jack did not know it was a funeral that his father was attending, and so he was quite content to just sit in the living room and play with his toys whilst Aaron and Jessica stood in the hallway, talking in hushed whispers.

“Don’t you think he should go?” she had asked.

Hotch shook his head. “No. He already went to Haley’s. I can’t take him to Emily’s.”

“But he should be able to say goodbye to her.”

“Jessie, please. I can’t tell you why, but he can’t go to the funeral and I swear, as soon as I can, I will tell you everything but he just- I need him to not be there.”

She stared at him. “Aaron, you never need to beg for anything from me. I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, you’ll be fine. I promise.”

Jessica didn’t understand that him and JJ were the only one that knew the coffin was empty. It was the second coffin in a year that Aaron was forced to stand beside. When did it end? When would the members of his team stop losing the people they loved?

Ashley Seaver was a child and he never should have let her stay on the team after that first case. She was meant to be a training agent, who was supposed to believe that her job would make a difference and protect people from a life like the one she had been forced to live. And yet here she was, stood at the grave of a team member whilst the rest fell apart. Hotch wanted her to remain good and hopeful, but he just didn’t know how to do that.

In some ways, he resented JJ. She was able to go back to the Pentagon and get away from the looks of her coworkers. She didn’t have to look out of her office and see the empty table that had once been Emily’s, nor did she have to go through the drawers of her desk and decide what would be kept and what would be thrown.

Aaron ended up keeping everything in a box at his apartment because he didn’t have the heart to throw anything away. Not when Emily wasn’t really dead, even though her photo was still hung up outside.

He needed to talk to someone, but there was nobody. So, he ran off to Afghanistan for three months working on a project he didn’t fully understand or see the point in. The guilt at leaving his team and Jack only slightly overshadowed the relief he had that nobody looked at him and seeked comfort. They just needed him to do a job.

Everybody else had grieved losing Emily. JJ had her closure for making sure she was settled in Paris, and from what Hotch could understand, she had been pushing the boundary as much as she could regarding the no communication rule. The team had each other, but he had nobody.

Then Ian Doyle died, and Emily Prentiss came back to them, but he didn’t come back to the team. Not really. For Derek was able to forgive Emily for what she did because the relief he felt at her return was enough to overpower his anger at her. Dave had suspected the whole time. Spencer was just glad that he hadn’t lost someone else, and that JJ had also been returned to them.

They could forgive JJ because it had never been her decision to leave them. They could forgive Emily because of everything she had been through and because she had no say in what was done to her.

It was Hotch that had failed to stop the move from happening. It was him that had made the decision to fake Emily’s death and not tell the team. He had chosen to leave them, and his son, for the summer. Yes, it was unfair to blame him, and it was likely his hands had been tied, but they were angry. They needed someone to direct that anger towards.

Every time they snapped at JJ or Emily, it felt like kicking a puppy for they would just look so hurt and upset that they immediately wanted to apologise. But if they shouted at Aaron, he would just take it. He wouldn’t argue or defend himself. He just took it, the ghosts behind his eyes not ones they could acknowledge in the moment.

He maintained his façade and pretended everything was okay because if he wasn’t okay, the team would have no use for him and he would become dispensable and there would be nothing left for him. Except for Jack. But he wasn’t sure how much he wanted Jack to see him. Since Emily’s return, his nightmares had gotten worse and he woke up screaming more times than he cared to admit.

And then one night, when Jack was staying with his cousins and grandfather, the nightmares got so bad that he barely managed to make it to the bathroom before he was vomiting up the meagre dinner he’d eaten.

When there was nothing left, he leant against the bathtub and sobbed. His own team hated him and there was nothing he could do because they were right. He didn’t trust them and he had fucked up so badly there was no redemption for him.

Jessica hadn’t been able to sleep. She had let herself into the apartment to see how Aaron was because there was a pit in her stomach, like something was terribly wrong.

“Aaron?” she called out.

There was no response, which on the one hand could have been a good thing because it would mean he was sleeping, but it could also mean he was refusing to speak to anyone. She wasn’t an idiot. When Emily had come to see Jack after that hearing thing because she needed something good, Aaron told her the truth. And then lied by saying he was fine after carrying that burden around himself.

The bedroom was empty. She told herself it didn’t mean anything, that he could just be in the shower or getting a glass of water. She crept along to the bathroom. Inside, he was vomiting and she knew it would eventually turn into sobs.

Without considering what she was doing, she dialled Derek Morgan’s number. He’d given it to her at the funeral and asked her to keep him safe. She had done her job as his sister, and now it was time for his team to their job as his family.

“Jessica?”

“Aaron’s sick and I think it’s your fault,” she said without thinking.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh god, no, not like that. I just- he’s being sick and I know that it’s because he’s been bottling everything up since the funeral which wasn’t really a funeral but oh, you know what I mean. I just- nothing I do will make him feel better. He needs you. All of you.”

On the other side of the line, Derek scoffed. “Jessica, Hotch is strong. Are you sure he’s not just got food poisoning or something?”

“I don’t think he’s eaten enough for that to happen.”

“Look Jessica, I’ll get the team together but I don’t know what you want us to do. Hotch made his decisions, and we can’t forgive him at the drop of a hat. We all need time to process.”

“Derek! He lost his wife to this job, are you really going to stand by as he loses himself trying to save all of you? I have never asked for anything from any of you, but Aaron needs you now. He’s just too scared of rejection to admit it.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

Morgan hung up and Jessica sighed.

“Jessie?” Aaron called out.

“Hey Aaron. What happened?” she asked, acting like nothing had happened.

“I don’t feel good,” he whispered.

She pressed a hand to his stomach. Damn him and his emotional constipation that meant all of his pain manifested physically.

“I know. I know. But it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. I’ll get you cleaned up and then you’re going to eat something.”

He nodded and let her move him around as she pleased. The weight he had lost made her cringe. The last time he had looked so weak, he was seventeen and his father was dying of lung cancer.

The team all arrived at the same time, all in their pyjamas.

Aaron saw them and turned away. “Jessie, what are they doing here?”

“You need them Aaron. Whether you want to admit it or not, you need them.”

He shook his head as the medication Jessica had made him take after weeks of avoidance caused his filter to vanish and fuzziness as to what he was doing. “Don’t deserve them.”

“Yeah you do man. I’m sorry for how I was acting. I know you trust us and I never thought about how everything must have made you feel because I was angry,” Derek said.

Hotch shook his head, tears running down his cheeks.

“Can I hug you?” Derek asked.

Hotch didn’t respond, so Derek sat in front of him instead. “You’re forgiven Hotch. I promise.”

Hotch just stared but relaxed ever so slightly and didn’t protest when the other members of the team gave him small smiles or hugged him.

And the next day, they spoke to him, not as a boss, but as their friend. For the first time in a while, he felt like he was back where he belonged. Things weren’t perfect- they never were- but he no longer felt like the villain in his own story.

He felt like he was worthy of a small amount of love, which meant the darkness had not won. Not completely.

There were cases that were difficult. There were cases that made him want to quit, or curl into a ball and forget about how the outside world existed and was constantly hurt innocent people that didn’t deserve it. And there were cases that he knew would haunt him until the day he died.

Watching Jimmy lose his fight, the one thing that kept him going, just so he would be able to see his son one last time was something he would keep seeing every time he closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about how he was the first one to realise that was what he wanted.

The team had all been waiting in various places, and he knew it wasn’t really what he was supposed to be doing, but when he looked into the man’s eyes, he saw a desperate father. And he thought of Jack. If it were Jack, he would do whatever it took to see him one last time. He deserved to see his son. And his son deserved a father.

Because when he looked at Jimmy he did not see the unsub his team had been after. He saw a broken and damaged man that was doing what it took to survive. Under normal circumstances, he’d been frightened by that but so much had happened that he almost felt desensitised when it came to relating to unsubs. His hands still went cold at the sight of every crime scene he visited. The bureau therapist would say the fact that he clung to that feeling both at home and in the field was unhealthy, but the bureau therapist had also deemed Jason, Elle, Spencer, himself and Emily fit for work after their respective ordeals.

“This isn’t a trick is it? Because you’re a federal agent, this isn’t your job,” he said.

“I’m a father first. And your son is holding on so he can say goodbye to you. I’m not so heartless that I would deprive you of a goodbye.”

He pressed a hand to his mouth. “He’s really going to- I can’t even bring myself to say the word. Am I a horrible person for not being here sooner?”

Hotch still blamed himself for not being there when his mother died. “No. No you did your best and you cannot think like that. I promise, when it came to your son, you have done nothing wrong. I’ll give you some privacy.” He hated to add the second part but he had to. “And I don’t want to, but you must understand-”

“I broke the law and you need to arrest me. I know. That’s fine. Everything will be fine because you have let me say goodbye to my baby.”

Aaron watched them through the window, a single tear coursing down his cheek as that was all he would allow himself until he made it home.

Sometimes, it was not the cases that made him question the reason behind doing any of this, but these moments where there was nothing that anyone could have done. They spent so much time putting bad guys away, and for what? The universe to just throw other tragedies in people’s faces.

Ryan closed his eyes at the same time that Aaron looked away. The raw grief both parents were feeling was something personal. He already felt like an intruder. He saw the man comfort his wife, who’s sobs had died down to silent tears as she placed a final kiss to her boy’s forehead.

They comforted each other.

Aaron wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t saved Jack from George Foyet. If he would still be alive now, or if he would have just let Foyet kill him because a life without Jack was not one he was capable of surviving. He wondered if Haley had survived instead, would they have been able to comfort each other, or would she blame him for the loss of her son? If Jack hadn’t survived, Hotch did not want to think of what his response would have been because the darkness of it scared him.

No parent should ever have to bury their child, and no child should ever have to be that strong for their parent. He admired Ryan for holding on for as long as he did, but he shouldn’t have had to. He should have been playing games with the other children and worrying about his favourite cartoon characters, not how many breaths he had left.

He stood outside for longer than he should have and he was gentler with the handcuffs than he ever remembered being. The last words he whispered were an apology that Jimmy did not want. Before he returned to the hotel, he stopped to see his wife.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “And if I knew what to say, I would. But I don’t so please, just, find a reason to hold on. Anything.”

“Agent Hotchner, you gave my son the one thing he wanted. A chance to say goodbye to both his parents. That has to be enough for now.” She hugged him and was polite enough to not comment on how his own body shook with the tears he was unable to repress.

He gave her his card, and then he left her, alone, to process her losses.

On board the jet, he sat slightly apart from the rest of them, which they all took as their cue to leave him alone. Emily Prentiss had never liked listening to him, and so she took the seat opposite him. Hotch had to smile. That was the woman he knew. Not the one that was overcompensating for everything.

“I made you a cup of tea,” she said to him.

Hotch looked down at the mug and grimaced slightly.

“Jason did the same thing after the case with the serial arsonist. Do you remember? He was trying to get me to open up about how I related to the unsub.”

“Did you?”

Hotch shook his head, then hesitated. “Well, I suppose I did a little. He wasn’t really paying attention.”

Emily made a non-committal sound at that. “Look I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

He shook his head. “No. I can’t. Ryan just- he didn’t even look like Jack, but when I saw him, I just- they were a normal couple. They didn’t deserve to lose him like that.”

“Nobody deserves to lose someone they love that much like that. But they do. And we can’t stop that. What we can do is stop the bad guys who hurt other people and we do, whenever we can. Please don’t beat yourself up over this.”

He understood what she was saying, but he couldn’t accept it. Haley had been too good for him, and he deserved to have everything good taken from him because he hadn’t been able to save her when it had been his fault that she was forced into that situation.

She smirked. “And Rossi may have mentioned a woman making her way into your life. Beth is it?”

Hotch rolled his eyes. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. And it is just a bike ride.”

“You should go. Even if nothing happens, training is better with a partner. And you won’t be betraying Haley. Or Jack. If this thing works out, it will be because Beth understands that Jack doesn’t want or need another mom.”

Hotch looked at her with soft eyes. “Yeah. Maybe I should go.”

He did, and it was such a success that they ended up going on more than one date. She was excited to meet Jack, and they both loved each other. Even the team, who were always weary of potential partners, seemed to accept her as one of their own.

It momentarily convinced him that love could survive the horrors of their job.

The sound of the gun that Diane Turner shot herself and Maeve Donovan with sounded louder than even the three shots he had heard over the phone when George Foyet took Haley from him. His ear started ringing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex close hers and lower her gun.

What had been thinking? Alex had already lost a son, and every case put the one she had just found at risk. Even now, she had the sense to look away. He was still holding his gun like there was something he could do.

Before he was aware of his actions, he had dropped it. Something that he always told people not to do, especially if the safety was off because you just couldn’t guarantee anything. The sound it made as it hit the ground was still nothing compared to Spencer’s sobbing.

Reid was on his knees, eyes closed as though that would stop him from seeing Maeve’s dead body, both her and Diane’s forming a pool around them. It would be another funeral for him to attend. It wasn’t fair. Reid was still just a kid compared to the rest of them, he didn’t deserve to see all the things he had been subjected to.

Hotch knelt beside him. “Reid?” he whispered, keeping his voice as soft as quiet as he could.

Reid shook his head. “It’s my fault. I should’ve done something. There were so many different endings to this series of events and at least half of them involved Maeve living and me dying, which is something everyone could have learnt to live with.”

“Spencer. That isn’t true,” he said, a lot more firmly.

Spencer’s sobs had calmed to hiccups. “It wasn’t supposed to be her.”

“I know,” he said, and he wrapped his arms around him. He felt Reid go limp against him as more sobs wracked his body. Reid was resting his head on Hotch’s shoulder and on instinct, he felt himself stroke the younger one’s hair, the same way he did to Jack when the little one couldn’t sleep.

He knew that grief caused people to go numb. When Reid pulled away, he kept one hand on his arm to stop him from being an idiot. Only Alex was still there, hovering by the side lines. The others had gone to stop the police from coming in too soon. They were giving Spencer the space to process.

Hotch wished they hadn’t. Jason and Emily were the ones that Reid turned to when he needed something. And if not them, then Derek and maybe JJ. But Jason and Emily were gone and Derek and JJ were dealing with other things.

And he was the only one who’s partner had ever been murdered by an unsub. He just didn’t know how to provide comfort. He didn’t know how he was supposed to tell Spencer that everything was going to be fun and he would recover because the truth was that he would never be the same. Aaron still wasn’t the same. It wasn’t possible, but sometimes his lower torso still ached the same way it had when Foyet first pushed the knife in. He wouldn’t lie to Spencer, but he couldn’t tell him the truth.

“I need- I never got to hold her. I need to hold her. Hotch let me go! I need to hold her, just once. Just once so I can remember her.”

The last time Hotch touched Haley, she was barely warm, but still lifeless. It overshadowed every single casual touch they’d shared since they were seventeen and it was all he could ever think of when he remembered her. He would give anything to forget the last time he held her.

Perhaps one day he would. But Spencer had an eidetic memory.

“I can’t let you do that,” he said.

Spencer shoved him. He wasn’t strong enough to knock him over, but Hotch hadn’t been expecting it and he lost his balance slightly. They both looked down at Reid’s hands. Reid looked at them like he couldn’t believe they were part of his body. Hotch looked down at how pure they were.

Reid had killed unsubs when it was the only way to save other people, but he was still innocent in so many other ways. He’d never hit the table to intimidate a suspect because that was Hotch’s job. He was the one that played bad cop, whilst they trusted Reid to successfully empathise.

Reid had never killed a man with their bare hands.

Hotch momentarily let go of Reid, and Reid tried to use that opportunity to grab Maeve’s hand. But Hotch was quicker, and before Spencer knew what was going on, Hotch had grabbed both his wrists and was holding them in front of his chest.

Both their eyes shone with tears.

“Let me go,” Spencer begged.

“No. Spencer listen to me. You don’t want your one and only memory of her touch to be when she couldn’t respond. You know better than me that she is going to be unresponsive. You won’t be able to kid yourself into thinking that she did indeed clasp your hand. Her perfume will be tinged with the stench of blood and she will be cold. Remember Maeve as the woman that made you smile. That was warm and bright. Not like this.”

Spencer relaxed against him, the tears falling. Hotch pulled him closer, holding him tight. At some point, Alex crept forward and gave the two of them a hug. She told them they needed to go. Reid shook his head. Between the two of them, they managed to get him down the stairs.

“I want to go to my apartment,” Reid stated after they took his statement. Hotch had sat with him the whole time. Reid’s monotony scared him and he wondered if the look on the officer’s face was the same as the one that been on Strauss’ after he spoke about Foyet.

“Spence,” JJ said, reaching for him.

“My apartment. Please. Hotch?”

Hotch knew why Reid had asked for it to be him. Because if he declined, Reid could come after him. Say that when Haley died, leaving behind a young son whose memories of his father were patchy and disrupted, Hotch had refused to stay with anyone. Instead, he had sat in the darkness of his apartment in case the monsters from Jack’s dreams came to life once more.

“If you need anything,” he said with a sigh, because he was the only one that understood.

Spencer nodded. But Hotch knew he wouldn’t.

They drove in silence. Hotch itched to say something but what? He understood what it was like to lose the one person that made your life better, but at the end of the day, he hadn’t been there. He had heard it over the phone. Spencer would see the images every time he closed his eyes.

“Would you like me to come up with you?” he asked.

Reid shook his head, exited the car but did not close the door.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t quick enough,” Hotch mumbled.

Reid’s pause meant he heard him. His lack of response meant he didn’t have any words of comfort that would not be lies. Perhaps that hurt more than Jessica’s sad smile when he got him and distractedly ruffled Jack’s hair, unable to focus on what he was saying properly.

He’d made the right decision in not letting Spencer touch the body. He knew he had. It didn’t stop him from wrapping Jack up in the coat Haley had picked and going to her grave. He knew Jack was missing his mom, so the trip served a dual purpose.

Jack liked to lay flowers at the graves that didn’t have any because- in his words- it would mean everyone would be as happy as his mommy was. As he did that, Hotch spoke.

“I didn’t let him touch her. I need to convince myself that was the right thing, but what if it wasn’t? I have years of touches to hold onto. He had never met her before then. What if one day, he wakes up and resents me because he can’t even imagine what she feels like?”

If Haley were alive, she would rub his shoulder and tell him he was a good man that needed to stop doubting every decision he made because he knew his team better than they knew themselves and that Reid would never hate him.

Be annoyed at him for specific things he did and lash out because he was in the wrong, yes. But hate him? Never.

Only Haley wasn’t alive. Hotch sighed, called Jack over and hesitated slightly when Jack held his hand out. Hours before, he had been holding a gun, ready to fire. He hadn’t been fast enough, and now another piece of Spencer had been lost to the abyss.

When Spencer didn’t return to work immediately, he was relieved. At least he was taking the time he needed to grieve and recover instead of rushing back and never dealing with the pain until it got so bad he could hardly breathe without holding back a sob.

He turned up on their case. Everyone else was excited to see him, because it meant he was alive. Hotch wasn’t so sure. Reid had never known anything other than the BAU, and that was partially his fault for not putting his foot down and telling Gideon the kid needed more experience before working as a profiler.

But there were people that needed saving, so he let it go.

And then he heard Spencer tell Dave how he wasn’t sleeping because he kept seeing Maeve asking him to dance but he had never been able to touch her. It was like a punch to the gut. Spencer had never touched Maeve because Hotch had told him not to, and now he was paying the price.

He didn’t hear Dave’s response. He used that moment to tell Alex he needed the bathroom. She seemed slightly taken aback but shifted out the way for him.

When Spencer came in after that, he seemed peaceful. He had danced with Maeve. Now, even though it wasn’t real, he had his closure because he’d been able to touch her, which was all he had wanted. Maybe it had something to do with being touch-starved.

Hotch thought of Haley. What would he give to see her one last time? Just to say he was sorry?

He was telling the team about a missing girl, but it was getting harder to breathe, and he couldn’t make out what the screen in front of him was displaying.

Before he knew what was happening, the world around him was going black and the frantic shouts of his team were not enough to bring him back.

When he opened his eyes, he saw her.

“Haley?” he whispered.

She looked beautiful. Her dress shone, and her hair was the same blonde it had been the day she’d gone into witness protection. She looked like the girl that had exploded into his life and taught him how to say I love you. That had taught him the meaning of light and who had changed his life forever.

“Hi baby,” she said with a grin.

He smiled. His light had come back to him.

[thenightgazer]

Spark of Stardust

Chapter 1 : An Interstellar Quest It's not a date. Vergil insists upon it, even when he doubts himself as he asks Lyra to accompany him to search for a perfect birthday gift for Kyrie. But just like the dying star that sparks its undying stardust; the "date" is just a start for him to get to know more about Lyra, as the librarian reveals her "little, deepest and darkest secrets"

Warning : implied psychological and drug abuse

Part 6 of Tales of Apotelesma

You can also read this fic on AO3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

~~~

It starts with a soft hand that brushes his face. The fuzzy sensation wakes him up. The lamp on the ceiling is the first thing he sees when he slowly opens his eyes wide awake. His eyes linger to his surroundings— and that shocks him because he’s no longer in his bedroom at Devil May Cry. He’s awakened in someone else’s bedroom. The wall is painted with warm colours and there is a large bookshelf besides the bed. When he turns his head to his left, he spots toys and trinkets which supposedly belong to a little girl, and there sits a young woman who smiles at him.

Where am I?

“How was your sleep?” she asks him. Her soft hand ruffles his hair gently. “You look so peaceful.”

He’s speechless. Not because he doesn’t want to answer, but his mouth won’t cooperate with his head. His survival instincts scream at him to get away from this situation, but all he could feel is numbness.

“I brought you dinner,” the beautiful woman continues. He observes her cautiously; she is approximately in her thirties, with long brunette hair and brown eyes. She looks like the kind of woman who looks absolutely harmless. The way her body moves is delicate. Her voice sounds appealing as she tells him the menu and hopes he will like it. She gives him the same warm impression as his own mother, but this woman seems shady. Her eyes remind him of someone... but he couldn’t remember the person. The same cold, void eyes...

“The nurse said you haven’t eaten since last night. You refused to take your medicines. Why? Don’t you want to get better?” Her voice turns colder. “When I heard that you refused to eat, I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I’m afraid you won’t get better. Now you will eat and take your medicine for me, okay?”

He can’t follow everything she has said just now. Who is this woman? What medicines? What nurse? But his head nods automatically as if his body is controlled by someone else, and that little gesture makes this woman’s warm smile appear on her pretty face again.

“Good. Let’s eat! After that, I’ll read you something exciting. How’s that sound?”

He nods obediently, opening his mouth to eat the porridge. He can’t feel the taste, nor can he sense the texture of the food. But the woman looks at him as if she would blast if he didn’t eat. The sound of friction between the spoon and the bowl drives him crazy. She’s making sure that he swallows the food as she cleans up his mouth. After the bowl is empty, she proceeds to pour something from a bottle—medicine— on a small spoon and look up at him, opening her mouth as a command for him to mimic her gesture. She seems delighted when he swallows the medicine.

“Atta girl.”

What is this nonsense? What is that thing she put inside me?

But he knows he won’t get the answer.

It’s all just a dream, right?

The woman walks to the bookshelf. Her fingers run through the book until she finds the one she desires. She sits back besides him again and opens the book, her fingers scan through the pages.

“You don’t like Cinderella, so I picked up this one,” she shows him the cover of the book. “I guarantee you’ll like it! It’s called The Hobbit, an adventure story. Your favourite, right?”  

I do like adventure stories. But it isn’t my favourite. It’s Dante’s…

She starts her storytelling in a clear voice. “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit...”

There’s something in her face when she reads. She seems more relaxed and softer than before, as if she got lost in the story. His suspicion is surprisingly gone while he listens to her and the familiarity strikes him again. She reminds him of his own mother when he was a child, reading him bedtime stories. Cambions in their early childhood needed a lot of sleep just like human children, but Dante and he always refused to sleep early and asked for more stories. There’s something peaceful about this familiarity. It calms him, then he decides to close his eyes again whilst the woman’s voice slowly fades away.

---

The dream shatters as Vergil’s cell phone rings loudly.

The hybrid lays still on his bed. He was sleeping for two hours just because he had no other options left to do aside from sleeping. Yet, even though his body doesn’t particularly need to sleep, he hates it when his slumber is interrupted. His hand reaches to find his phone and immediately pick it when he finds it on the desk beside his bed without seeing who’s calling him because he doesn’t bother to open his sleepy eyes.

“Dad?”

That familiar voice forces Vergil to open his eyes.

“Nero?”

“Yeah. You busy?”

“No,” Vergil throws a blanket from his naked chest as he moves his body to sit and brushes his hair. “What’s wrong, Nero?”

Nero doesn’t reply immediately. Vergil can hear a heavy sigh from his son and that makes him a bit anxious.  

“Nothing wrong. Just...” The young devil hunter lets out another sigh. “Today is Kyrie’s birthday. She invites you and the crews for dinner at six. Uh… six as in Fortuna time, which is an hour later from Red Grave time. Just in case you got lost in time again.”

“Of course. We will be attending the dinner. Thank you for the invitation.”

“It’s Kyrie who invites you, not me.”

“...”

“... but having you around here is not so bad. The kids were always whining whenever you and Dante left the house.” Nero’s response is almost excited and eager, much to Vergil’s relief.

The picture of Julio, Carlo and Kyle somehow makes Vergil grins. “You did very well taking care of those little rascals.”

“Thanks,” there’s a pause before Nero continues. “Anyway, I should get going. Nico needs my help to do some crazy shit.”

“I hope all is well for you.”

“You too, I guess...” the young man clears his throat. “And... thank you. For accepting the invitation.”

“It’s the least I could do,” The blue devil smiles, his anxiety is gone as their interaction goes smoothly. “Carry on, son.”

“Y-yeah— bye, then.”

Warmth fills Vergil’s heart as he cleans up his bed and folds the blanket neatly. Never in his life would he have thought that he’d become a father. Even though it was unplanned, having a son does change his life. He has no parental figures to ask advice from and those parenting books are not helping at all, but he learns at his own pace. Two years of effort of atonement is nothing compared to his sins, yet he wants the very best for Nero and is very protective to him.

Then the word stings him.

Birthday, huh?  

Ever since he was a little boy, Vergil has never understood the concept of celebrating birthdays. For him, birthday is just another day to pass. If anything, it seems like people love to celebrate the day when their life spans decrease. People are getting old, so what? Why do we celebrate that irony? Is that because of the presents and cake? Little Vergil never found the answer, but he did feel happy whenever he received presents and ate his birthday cake, even if that means he had to share it with his twin, Dante (he had given up the dream of having his own cake, since being twins means sharing almost everything). He didn’t even think about birthdays until Nero reminded him.

I wonder if he knows his birthday...

Vergil walks to the bathroom and washes his face. He looks at the mirror and the man guy in the mirror stares back at him. His reflection somehow reminds him of the strange dream. What was that dream about? It seems visceral, like it was my own memory. His heartbeat gets faster when he has a dreadful negative thought that it could be Mundus’ mind manipulation. If that was Mundus, it’s too pointless. He’d use my own memories to torture me, not with some kind of irrelevant vision.

“Mornin’,” Dante shoves himself besides Vergil and yawns. “I’m hungry.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hungry.”

Dante bursts into laughter. “Since when are you into dad jokes?”

“I’ll take the shower first.” Ignoring Dante’s question, Vergil picks up a dry towel and gets inside the shower cubicle.

Dante takes off his shirt and stretches his muscles. He washes his face and begins to shave his beard. “You said you fought Angelo demons at last week’s gig, right? Heard from Lady the same Angelo demons got sighted at another city. We still don’t have any information on who created and summoned them.”

Vergil wipes the droplets of water from his face. “It seems like those Angelo demons were none like all the artificial demons we have ever seen before. Their form, their abilities, their durability. They looked rather... futuristic, I'd say. I got an impression that the new Angelo was created mostly by advanced science rather than magic.”

“Another thing happened these past weeks. There are three outbursts at restricted medical facilities in different cities.”

“What medical facility?”

“Trish said that the three of them were research laboratories owned by Ravenhill Corporation.”

“Isn’t that the same corporation that won a peace award or something like that?”

“Yeah. The Ravenhills are an influential aristocrat with power over the health and security industry. Most of the health facilities in this world are sponsored and if not, owned by Ravenhill Corporation. They have a branch company here in this city too.”

“And do you think those incidents have a connection with the appearance of Angelo demons?”      

“Just a gut feeling, but that’s worth investigating, better safe than sorry, aight?” Dante brushes his hair and flips it back like Vergil. “Hey, I look just like you with this hairstyle! Perhaps I should go with this style from now on.”

“If you’re done talking, get out of the bathroom.”

“This is MY bathroom!”

“And I’m the one who cleans up the mess you’ve created in this house, Dante.”

“Fine~!” Dante chuckles as he cleans up the remaining shaving foam from his jaw. “Have you bought something for Kyrie’s birthday? Got missed calls and a text about the dinner party from Nero.”

“Not yet.”

“I’ve been thinking of giving her a fancy revolver. Heard from Nero that she’s quite good at using guns.”

“... do you really think that women fancy weapons as a gift?”

“Trish and Lady do. But hey! You can go ask our clever librarian!” Dante's face lightens up in exhilaration.

Vergil turns off the shower and wraps a towel around his waist as he opens the cubicle. “What do you mean by ’our’?!”

“Yours, then. She’s a normal civilian woman. Perhaps she can recommend you a perfect gift for Kyrie.”

No, if only you know that she’s not normal! “... you’re probably right.”

A teasing whistle comes from Dante as he takes off his pants and walks inside the cubicle. “As Yoda said, Verge, ‘ do or do not. There is no try ’. Call her and ask her out for a date.”

“I’m not taking any advice from a man who has rotten luck with women. And who is Yoda?”

“Call it what you want it. If you’re not asking her out, I’ll go ask her by myself.”

“Not before I step over your dead body.”

“Ha! Someone’s jealous for realsies~”

Vergil walks away from the bathroom before his inner turmoil tempts him to try to kill Dante… again. His insolent brother might have been teasing him too much, but in a way he’s right. He needs to find someone trusted enough to help him buy the perfect gift for Kyrie.

But she’s on duty today is her work day. I won’t make it right on time to the party if I have to wait for her shift to end.

He’s still thinking about it when he enters his room on the second floor and grabs his phone. Lyra’s contact name is showing up, but he hesitates. It’s still 9 o’clock. The library must have just opened.

After having a quite long internal battle with himself, he decides to call her anyway.

It takes a little bit long for Lyra to finally pick up her phone. Vergil catches the sound of her voice and a man’s laugh who Vergil assumes is Nate. “Bugger off for a minute, will you? — Clayton here.”

“Lyra.”

“Oh, hello Vergil!”

“Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all! Is there anything I can help you with?”

“... yes.”

“Are you okay? You sound like you want to cry.”

“I am certainly not,” Vergil groans at Lyra’s giggle. “Yet, I do believe I need your help.”

“Name it!”

“... it’s about a birthday present.” Vergil clears his throat. “Do you remember Kyrie, my son’s fiancée? She will be celebrating her birthday this evening. She invited Dante and I to her house for dinner.”

“I see.”

“Kyrie has always been there for Nero,” he continues. “She helped guide him to become the person he is now. She took care of him while I wasn’t there for him. She’s an important person to my son. That’s why... at least I have to show her some respect.”

“By giving her a decent birthday present.”

“Yes.”

“I think she will appreciate everything you give to her.”

“She will, certainly. She’s too polite to reject a present, but I don’t want her to think that I’m a careless father-in-law by giving her a gratuitous gift.”

“You’re right. I’d be delighted to accompany you to buy the present, but…I’m on duty right now. I’m afraid I couldn't help you any further.”

“That I know. That’s why I call for your advice.”

“I suggest something small, but meaningful. You told me she love to sing, right? Maybe a vinyl of classical music would — what in the bloody—! Nate! Give me back my phone at once!”

Vergil hears them grumbling and arguing at something. He considers to just hang up the phone given to his hunch that Lyra and Nate are probably having a fight right now, but suddenly he hears Nate’s voice as the young librarian speaks to him.

“Mr. Vergil? It’s Nate!”

This scoundrel's audacity...! “I recognize your voice, Nathaniel. What are you doing with Lyra’s phone?”

“Err... sorry for the interruption, but Lyra forced me to tell you this myself, or else you won’t believe her! I told her that I don’t mind if she wants to go on a date with you! My father won’t be checking on the library today!” Nate lets out a dry chuckle to break the ice, but since Vergil says nothing, Nate continues to speak. “She insisted on at least working today, so I told her to finish the duty earlier so she could spend her time with you. That’s all! Oh yeah, a little advice here; Lyra has a terrible sense of direction, means that you should hold her close— ouch!”  

A sound of a book slapped on Nate’s head comes to Vergil’s ear. The next is Lyra’s nervous voice talking to him. “Vergil? You heard Nate. So... we meet at three. How’s that sound?”

“I’ll pick you up at the library.”

“Okay!”

“Then... I’ll see you around.”

“Cheerio!”

Vergil hangs up the phone, unexpectedly feeling the queasiness after he recalls the word ‘date’ as Dante and Nate said earlier. Foolish. We are not dating. We are just going to buy a birthday present. That’s all. Stop this unnecessary disquietude. It’s just Lyra—

“Tell me you’re not gonna go on a date with your boring clothes!”

Vergil hardly glances to his side and sees Patty’s figure standing by his door. The twenty years old girl is wearing an apron and holding a broom in her hand. “At least wear something stylish! You and Dante are all hopeless! No wonder the two of you haven’t gotten married yet!”

“I believe that’s none of your concern, Miss Lowell. And although I lack what humans would consider common sense, the last time I know about human norms and etiquette, that it is rude to trespass on someone's private space and eavesdrop on other people’s conversation.”

“I’m not eavesdropping! I just happened to pass this room while cleaning this house because lately you are not present in this house and Dante is being a lazy bastard as usual! Show some gratitude!”

“Thank you for your help. But as you can see now, I am here and that means I will do the household job while you can go disturb Dante’s peace now.”

“Hey! I heard that!” Dante shouts from the first floor.

“Anyways, let me help you to choose better clothes for you!” Patty insists. “I don’t know who this girl is because Dante won’t tell me, but she seems special to you. You need to dress at your best! Impressing a girl on their first date is a must!”

“I’ll forgive your impudent attitude this time if you kindly close the door, Miss Lowell. I need to put some clothes on.”

Realizing that Vergil wears nothing but a towel wrapped on his waist, Patty flusters as she looks away and grabs the door knob violently. “Fine!”

The blue devil chuckles softly when he hears Patty goes downstairs and screams at Dante for whatever antics that he does right now. He searches through his wardrobe, pondering if Patty was right. And maybe she is. He’s about to blend into society, that means he needs to look less suspicious. He should wear something casual and humane.

Humans and their fashion. Even demons are much simpler.

He picks some clothes with a hope that he won’t look too ridiculous.

---

“Do you think he’s the type of person who brings flowers for a date?” Nate throws paper planes at Lyra’s direction, which she blocks it all with a book.

“Why do you insist that this is a date? We are friends. Friends go hang out sometimes.” Lyra says.

“Dammit, Lyre! You are older than me but I can’t believe you’re so clueless about this. Even idiots could tell that he likes you!”

Lyra groans desperately. “That’s it. That’s the problem of modern society. People nowadays confuse politeness with flirting!”

“Sometimes both work simultaneously! And that’s the case of Mr. Vergil. Sure, he’s polite to everyone even though he always looks like he wanted to kill someone. But he’s different with you; he’s not just polite, but kind. That’s two different things!”

Lyra half-heartedly listens to Nate’s babble; despite she already knows what is inside Nate’s mind. She knows what he means about Vergil being kind only to her, and Nate’s mind interprets how soft Vergil is whenever he’s around her. The thought of those forms of romanticism confuses her. Being a telepath, she has seen and listened into people’s minds for almost her entire life. She’s no stranger to the concept of love according to universal belief, yet she still doubts its existence.

Sometimes, what people think about something isn’t always synchronized with how they feel about it.

And speaking of which, I haven’t heard Nate’s thoughts since fifteen seconds ago...

“He’s here!” Nate declares as he looks up at the window near the front door. “Wait, uh... is it really him?”

“What?”

“He looks... different.” Nate mumbles. “And he didn’t bring flowers. Guess he’s not the flower type of guy.”

“On the contrary, he is.” Lyra takes a brief look at her appearance in the mirror and puts on eyeglasses before giving a wink at Nate. “See you tomorrow!”

“Now who’s excited about the date!?”

She giggles throughout her journey to the front door, only to be surprised when she opens the door and finds Vergil standing in front of her and about to open the door too. But today he looks stunningly different; he is wearing as black shirt beneath a navy-blue casual coat. His dark trousers make him look taller than usual. He changes his footwear into a pair of black chukka boots. Even with his usual warrior clothes, Vergil Sparda is already breathtakingly handsome. His casual look just enhances his majestic stature.  

Lyra has never really given any attention to fashion, but now she can’t take her eyes off of him. “What’s with the sudden change in your sense of fashion?”  

“You don’t like it?”

“I like it!” she blurts. “You look… so… normal”

“Is it just me or does it sound like an insult?”

“It’s a compliment!”

“... thank you, I suppose,” Vergil reluctantly scratches his nape. “Shall we go now?”

“Let’s!”

Lyra glares at Nate who’s giving her double thumbs up and loudly wishing her good luck before she closes the door.

“So,” the librarian walks side by side with Vergil. “Do you remember I mentioned that I purchased my devil arm at an antique shop?”

“Yes. What’s with that?”

“I think it’s a good place to start our quest. The shop sells antique weapons, jewelries, old books and trinkets. Perfect collection for Kyrie.”

“Very well. Where’s this shop located?”

“Nova Town.”

“It’s too far from here.”

“Lucky for us, you have Yamato.”

“I’m beginning to think that you see me as a mere means tool of transportation.”

“Maybe,” she winks playfully. “But you are too decent to be a mere tool, my dearest friend.”

The hybrid rolls his eyes, “Let’s find an empty alley first.”

---

“That was the first time I saw Lyra smiling like that,” Nate mutters at himself as he taps something on his cell phone. “Good for her! Ever since I saw their chemistry on the murder in the library weeks ago, I know they’re going to form a relationship soon!”

The twenty four years old librarian giggles at his own fantasy while drowning himself further into a mobile game he always plays whenever he has free time. He almost startled himself when the bell rings and a customer comes in. Nate abruptly pauses the game and greets the guest. “Welcome to The Literarium!”

The guest — a tall and ginger-haired man — returns Nate’s greeting with a nod. A suspicion arises in Nate’s head as he observes the man’s eyes that are covered with sunglasses. Why the hell does he wear sunglasses indoors? He continues to follow the man’s movement, which is also suspicious. The man seems detached from reality as he stares at one of the shelves quite long without really doing anything, not even touching the books. He walks slowly to another section, again without any interest in the books. The man seems eager to look for something as he repeatedly tilts his head to look outside the window, but Nate is certain that he’s not here for books. Then why bother coming here if he’s not interested in books? Nate clicks his pen anxiously. Paranoia begins to consume him. What if he wants to rob this place?!

The ginger-haired man approaches the sale section and finally picks a book. He looks at the cover briefly before heading to the counter. Nate fakes a polite smile when he scans the book— Lord of the Flies by William Golding— and forces himself to make a small talk. “Fine day, isn’t it?”

The man nods while giving Nate his money. “I agree.”

“You like allegorical one, huh?”

The man furrows his brow. “Sorry?”

Nate lifts the copy of Lord of the Flies . “You don’t know that Golding wrote one of the best allegorical novels all the time?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. I only recognized it as one of the bestseller books,” the man chuckles. His laughter surprisingly sounds very friendly. “I picked it because the synopsis reminds me of the past.”

“Jesus, what a chaotic past you must have back then.” Nate gives him the book and his change.

“Quiet so,” the man flips the page, but Nate can sense he’s focusing on another thing. “By the way, the woman who wears eyeglasses… She came out from this place with a man about five minutes ago. Does she work here?”

Shit, another Lyra’s admirer. That explains my suspicion! “Yeah. You know her?”

“She looks like a person I used to know. Quite different, but I spot some similarities.”

“Maybe they are the same person?”

“The same person?” the man chuckles again as he closes the book. “That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“She died years ago.”

“Oh, man… I’m so sorry...”

“It’s fine. She wasn’t related to me, just a person I knew. At first glance, your friend looks eerily similar to her,” the man’s face abruptly turns into doubt and anxious. Nate swears he can see his hands tremble. “I was terribly surprised when I saw your friend out there. I thought the woman I knew was alive again. What is the name? Your lady friend, I mean.”

“Louisa.” Nate lightly says his lie as soon as he’s aware of the man’s intention. I’m not doing anything wrong. Lyra told me to fake a name in case some flirty bastards ask me her name.

“Louisa, then. Pretty name,” the man seems pleased at Nate’s answer. “Thank you. Lovely library, anyway. Good day for you.”

“Thank you. Happy reading and have a good day!”

He’s different from any of Lyra’s secret admirers, Nate feels uneasy about the man’s strange attitude even though the man has already taken his leave. He makes a mental note to contact Lyra soon after he closes the library. “That guy looks like he’s about to plan something fishy. But I can’t disturb Lyra and Mr. Vergil right now.”

Nate grabs his cell phone and restarts the game with a hope that nothing bad would happen.

---

She’s strangely quiet today.

Ever since they arrived at Nova Town, Vergil catches something unusual from Lyra. She guides the way to the antique shop without talking to him but carefully watches her surroundings. But at the same time, she seems to lose her focus and sometimes stares blankly at something. They have been walking for almost 30 minutes and they haven’t arrived at the antique shop yet. Also, that’s not the only thing from her that is unusual... “You wear eyeglasses.”

“Huh?” Lyra automatically touches her eyeglasses. “Why? You don’t like a girl with eyeglasses?”

“I don’t dislike it.”

“You have a funny way to compliment others, don’t you?”

“I have never seen you wearing eyeglasses before. I thought I was looking at a completely different person when you opened the door earlier.”

“I always wear eyeglasses whenever I’m out to shop, just for aesthetic purposes. I’ll take it off if that makes you uncomfortable—”

“Please don’t. You look lovely with that.”

“Thanks!”

“You’re welcome. Are we getting closer to the shop?”

“… I think so?”

Vergil stops abruptly, “Tell me we are not lost.”

“W-we’re not!” she stutters in panic. “I’m just having a little confusion here, because this town looks different from the last time I came here. It has only been two years and the town is already changing...”

“Are you even certain that we are in the right town?”

“One hundred percent certain!”

“Then tell me,” Vergil curves a devilish grin. “Is Nathaniel right? That you have a terrible sense of direction?”

A light blush blooms on Lyra’s face. “Uh... yeah— but we are in the right town! For real! Just because I have a terrible sense of direction, doesn’t mean I’m an idiot!”

“Yet we are lost, aren’t we?”

“We are not! See that monument over there? It’s the town’s icon. We just have to turn left to that road and the antique shop should be on the right corner.”

Vergil watches the monument that Lyra mentioned before he glances at her again with doubtful looks. “Alright, then. But why don’t you use… what is it again... GPS?”

“Later. I’m practicing my sense of direction by practicing my telepathic ability.”

“Does your telepathic ability have something to do with your sense of direction?”

“Since the murder in the library, I’m practicing to read people’s mind whenever you’re around me because your magical defense blocks my telepathic ability. Normally, all I need to do is just focus on their minds and find out if some of them have knowledge of the place I’m about to go.”

“Why bother? You still can read minds by touching their body parts.”

“That’s impractical! Not everyone wants to be touched. Just imagine if I need to touch a person with haphephobia.”

“I thought you like it when you don’t have to read minds anymore.”

“Just in case of an emergency. Who knows if we would find any strange cases again, or if I’m stuck with Dante and there’s an urgent situation where I’m required to smuggle into someone’s head.”

“Hold on. Your telepathy doesn’t work on Dante too?”

“I guess the power of Sparda includes protection from telepaths.”

“I see. Now I understand,” Vergil scoffs. “The reason why you were awfully quiet since we stepped in this town is that you tried to practice your telepathic ability to find out the antique shop’s direction, so you won’t embarrass yourself in front of me because you have poor sense of direction and you think having to use GPS would make you look unreliable as a guide.”

Lyra hides her hands behind her back and stares at the ground, which to Vergil indicates that everything he said is true and that she’s embarrassed to admit it. To be very honest, he doesn’t think that Lyra does something wrong. He just wants to clarify things behind her unusual behavior, but it unconsciously sounds like he’s scolding her for her little secret.

“Just use the GPS if you need it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. That won’t make me think less of you.”

Lyra seems to hesitate at first, but eventually shrugs and takes her phone out from her bag. Vergil quietly smirks at her surrender.

“Fortunately, we’re on the right track!” She shows Vergil the map. “Thank you for your encouragement, Vergil. That’s the longest advice you ever said to me.”

He shrugs it off. “I guess that’s what friends are for.”

“Still, that means a lot to me.”

“Just forget it. Then how’s your practice going?”

“Still doing my best. The first time I tried to read someone’s mind without touching them whenever you were around me, it was all nothing. But now I can see blurry images and hear buzzing sound!” She smiles at him, her eyes beam as she points at the rustic shop at the corner of the street. “Look! We've arrived!”

When Vergil enters the antique shop, he expects the shopkeeper to greet them with unstoppable pestering offers like all the shopkeepers normally do. That’s why he hates shopping. Thankfully the shopkeeper is sleeping on the counter, like she doesn’t care if someone steals one of the items. The shop itself is quiet and the goods are all unique. The problem is, Vergil doesn’t know where to start searching. There are many items that Vergil puts a certain degree of interest in—necklaces, bracelets, clocks, paintings—but he doesn’t think that it would be useful or meaningful to Kyrie. He starts to think about Dante’s suggestion to give her a weapon for self-protection. It seems easier than this endless searching.

“Do you know the biggest dilemma when it comes to shopping? You expect to find a certain thing, but when you’re in the shop, suddenly you’re not sure what to buy anymore.” Lyra chuckles at Vergil’s confused expression.

“Evidently,” Vergil picks an antique revolver. “I think I want to give her a weapon.”

“Is Kyrie an excellent combatant?”

“She can take care of herself, though she still needs a lot of practice, but she won’t survive a second if she had to fight multiple opponents.”

“Mmmm... okay but... how about something for protection from the demons?”

“That will do. It’s way more practical and useful.”

“Alright. Let’s ask the shopkeeper.”

Vergil points his chin at the counter. “She’s sleeping.”

“I’ll wake her up.” Lyra fixates her focus on the shopkeeper until she slowly raises her head from the counter table and rubs her eyes.

Vergil almost couldn’t hide his amusement. She can wake someone up from slumber? How advanced is her ability actually?

The shopkeeper yawns loudly. “Welcome. How can I help y’all?”

“We’re looking for an item for protection from demons. Do you have anything suitable for that?” Lyra asks.

The shopkeeper looks straight to Lyra’s eyes, then to Vergil’s. She sighs as she walks to the weapon cabinet. “I don’t have much of that, but I have this one. Take a look.” she mumbles, handing Lyra a red music box. The music box looks captivating with a rose pattern carved on the box. When Lyra opens the music box, Vergil recognizes the box is playing Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.

“Lovely, but I don’t see what’s so special about the music box,” Vergil mutters his doubt.  

“Easy, dude. Push the button near the mirror to open the secret room behind it.”

Lyra does the exact instruction until the secret room is opened and reveals a golden bracelet inside.

“What’s that for?” Lyra asks.

“It will glow red whenever there's demons nearby,” the shopkeeper lights her cigarette and walks back to the counter. “When the bracelet glows, you press it and close your eyes, because it will cast a very blinding light. It’ll blind and burn demons and that’s the best time for you to run away.”

Lyra glances at Vergil, who’s examining the music box and the bracelet. She holds her giggle when she notices that the bracelet glows in red when Vergil holds it and abruptly puts it back to the secret room behind the mirror before the shopkeeper notices it.

“I guess the bracelet couldn’t distinguish demons and cambions,” she whispers to him.

“This should be fine,” Vergil forms a satisfied grin. “It has both protection advantage and aesthetical function. Perfect.”

“You take that?!” the shopkeeper shouts eagerly.

“Yes,” Vergil replies. “Is there a money-back guarantee in case the item doesn’t properly work?”

“This is an antique shop, dude. Some items might not working at all—”

“I believe I don’t have to repeat myself.” Vergil insists.

The shopkeeper gulps at Vergil’s unspeakable death threat within his icy eyes, knowing that there’s no use to argue with a man like Vergil. “Dammit, fine! Now can I get my money?”

Lyra howls with laughter, “Blimey, you are a terrifying customer.”

Vergil grins in pride as he heads to the counter.

---

The birthday party will begin in an hour, but Vergil chooses to spend the rest of the time with Lyra at the Sparda Manor. During the day time, they only meet in the library. That makes their little adventure today seem rare... and fun. Lyra buys them ice creams at the end of their journey in Nova Town. She can’t hold her laughter when she catches Vergil’s eyes sparking in childish interest as he holds his ice cream once the magic portal opens its way to the Manor.

“The shopkeeper was different from the one whom I met two years ago. He was nice and helpful,” Lyra murmurs, licking her bubblegum ice cream. “Guess he didn’t work there anymore. We get a sleepyhead instead.”

Vergil says nothing as he examines his blueberry ice cream cone. His memory of V eating cheeseburger hits him. “Why do humans think that creating something messy is a good idea?”

“It’s called innovation, Vergil.”

“Messy innovation.”

“As long as people like it, it is considered as a great innovation.”

He finally gives up and chomps his ice cream. “This is not bad.”

“Tell me this is not your first time eating ice cream.”

“I might be inexperienced in human lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean I never tasted ice cream.”

It’s strange, Vergil recalls the moment when they used to be strangers before Almagest helped them to get closer. Now they stand side by side and talk about stuff like old friends to the point where he could never get enough of her companionship. He lets her wander around his childhood house, even if he barely calls it a house now. He lets out a silent chuckle when she lifts a pile of rocks up to the air just to see what hides behind it, only to find another ruins and she’s slightly disappointed.

“For a second I thought your father was Johann Sebastian Bach.” Lyra looks up at Sparda’s family painting.

“You are not the first person who said that.”

She laughs. “Oh look at you… stoic since you were born. And I already got a picture on Dante being impatient while the painter kept asking him to stand still.”

“Pretty much correct. He complained how itchy his feet were at the end of the session.”

“Your mother was gorgeous,” Lyra admires Eva’s angelic stature. “No wonder Sparda fell for her.”

Vergil forms a wistful smile. “She was.”

“This painting reminds me of The Picture of Dorian Gray .”

“Pray tell, why?”

“Dorian sold his soul to the devil for eternal youth, and it decayed his self-portrait painting every time he did a sin. Of course your family portrait is a different case, but you see, your mother’s face is the only one that didn’t get burned by fire. It’s like a sign that she was the only human in the family…”

“And the rest of the family members were cursed by the evil blood that ran in their veins. That’s why the faces of the three of us were burned. That’s a picturesque perspective.”

“I didn’t say that demon is always evil—”

“I know. Still, it’s a good metaphor. Haven’t thought of it myself.”

“Why don’t you take the painting with you? People keep their family portrait in their house.”

“Dante and I agreed to leave it here as a sign that this mansion once belonged to our family. Besides, I can’t imagine such a painting to be hanged on the shop’s soiled wall. It would be a disgrace for the painting itself.”

“Now that you mentioned it, I think you are right.”

Lyra continues to lift some rocks and put it back carefully once she finds nothing interesting.. “Have you been in there again after you escaped the Underworld with Dante?”

“To collect mementos, yes. Though, as you can see, nothing much was left since Urizen destroyed the whole city. Not to mention almost all parts of the house were destroyed or blocked by pillars and huge stones. We tried to remove them, but it’d cause a domino effect throughout the manor and demolish it completely.” 

“How did it feel to visit your childhood home again?”

Vergil swallows his ice cream at once. He puts a handkerchief out from his coat and wipes his lips. “It felt mostly heartbreaking.”

“I see,” Lyra nods and gives Vergil a light pat on his shoulder. “Not everyone could even come back to the place where their trauma began. Not that it’s necessary. I just found it encouraging.”

“Speaking of memento, what was the most valuable present you had ever received?” Vergil curiously asks.

“Oh, we start to have a small talk now?”

“I thought we agreed to trust each other, don’t we? Then we should start from mundane things.”

“Alright. Make sense. Let me recall it… mmmm… oh right! A lyre!”

“You play lyre? Amazing.”

“I thought you were about to say ironic.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You know, a lyre plays a lyre.”

Vergil smirks, recalling her remark on their previous little adventure, “You’re right. It’s ironically amazing.”

The librarian rolls her eyes as she bites the ice cream cone. “My mum bought me one for my fifth birthday. It only lasted for two months before I asked her to give me a harp for the next birthday.”

“Did she finally buy you a harp?”

“She didn’t.”

“Why?”

“She died before my next birthday.”

Vergil immediately stared at Lyra’s sullen eyes. “I’m terribly sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay,” she smiles at him, chewing the last part of her cone. “It was a long time ago.”

Lyra has so many things she hides behind her amicable demeanor, and Vergil should’ve feel relieved because after all these months, Lyra finally opens up a little bit about her family, yet he doesn’t feel it at all.

“Were you close with your mother?” Vergil’s tone is full of consideration.

Lyra taps her fingers on her chin. “I guess so. We only had each other.”

“… How did she… die?”

The librarian smirks at him. “If I told you she fell from the tree, would you believe me?”

“Only if that’s the truth.”

She goes silent for a while, seeming unwilling to continue her story. She opens an empty drawer, looking at nothingness for a while. “You might’ve heard about her.”

“Your mother?”

“Uh-uh,” Lyra nods calmly, but Vergil senses a slight hesitation. “Her name was Asteria Crescent.”

Impossible! “The award-winning astronomer?”

“Astrobiologist, yes.”

“I see. That explains your fondness of astronomy.”

The first time Vergil heard about Asteria Crescent was when he was eleven years old, still homeless and constantly moved out from place to place in search of power. Asteria’s groundbreaking research of modern astrobiology broke the news. Her discovery led the scientists to rethink human’s position in this world and question the exact location of the Underworld in the known universe, considering demons as an extraterrestrial creature with its own origin and evolution. Demons and magic are inseparable, but Asteria Crescent was brave to make a further step to explain demonology in a scientific approach. Science and magic are two sides of a coin , Vergil recalls her statements. Science just has yet to understand magic.

“Asteria was a Titan goddess of falling stars and nighttime divinations. That suited her very well,” Lyra chuckles bitterly, swinging her hand to lift a pile of ruins back to its place. “I once wondered why she didn’t name me Hecate, daughter of Asteria and goddess of witchcraft. Maybe at that time, she didn’t have a thought that someday I’ll develop this… psychic ability.”

“The media never reported anything regarding her cause of death. It happened all so sudden, they said.”

“They always spoke highly of her. But when she died, they turned the story into rumors and gossip.”

“So did she fall from the tree?”

“She did fall.”

“But not from the tree.”

Vergil’s demonic eyes catch Lyra’s body slightly flinching, but she maintains her calmness and fakes a smile. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you further about your private life.”

“You entrusted me your biggest secret. I intend to do so. I’m just… not ready to open up, but I know that I want to.”

“When I said that we should try to trust each other, I didn't mean that you should abruptly open yourself to me.”

“Too late. Now you know I’m the daughter of a dead astrobiologist.”

“Why did you change your surname then?”

Lyra stops and gazes at Vergil. She seems anxious while glancing at her surroundings carefully, as if she’s afraid that someone else would hear them. Vergil slightly bows his body when Lyra whispers in his ear.

“I’m being hunted.”

The furrow on Vergil’s brow is going deeper. “By whom?”

“Someone who wants to abuse my power. That’s why I need to change my surname and hang out around wearing eyeglasses, so people won’t find out about my identity.”

For a moment, they stand still there, staring at each other’s eyes to find some clues. It’s logical that Lyra’s unique ability would attract power-seekers, be it humans or demons. Vergil knows it too well; the danger of possessing a greater power. A part of him wants to believe her words…

If only he failed to spot a subtle grin on the corner of her lips.

I would be absolutely fooled by her deception, Vergil grunts discontentedly. "You are lying, aren’t you?”

Lyra’s laughter echoes throughout the lake.

Vergil snarls at her unstoppable giggle. "Quite a jester, I see.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

Vergil doesn’t bother to reply, because he knows it would lead to another bickering. He doesn’t try to hide his amused smile too, even though Lyra teases him about the ‘sly devil smile’. To be honest, he couldn’t care less. He just wants to see her smile, her true smile.

Like the way she’s smiling right now.

“Do you want to have a look at the lake?” Vergil offers, trying to lift the mood. “There’s nothing left to see here.”

“Sure!”

They sit on the cobblestone pier in the lake while admiring the twilight sky. It’s Vergil’s favorite place, ever since he was a child. This place has changed; there are no more Qliphoth roots left and there are several trees and wildflowers growing on the land. The lake no longer contains human blood. It’s mesmerizing how fast time flies and changes the entire city.

“I used to spend my days here, reading and playing with Dante,” Vergil says. “We loved being here more than staying indoors.”

“I can see the reason. It’s bloody beautiful here.” Lyra mutters her admiration. She taps her fingers on the cobblestone playfully, causing a small rift in the lake.

“Dante once pushed me to the lake because we fought over a chocolate bar,” Vergil recalls one of his precious memories. “I pretended to be drowned. He pulled me out of the water and cried, pleaded to me for not leaving him alone and that he’s sorry. Promised me that he won’t disturb me again. Right when he shook my body to wake me up, I pushed him to the lake but he managed to drag me with him.”

Lyra can’t hold her howls of laughter. She chortles until her stomach hurts and her throat gets sore. Vergil swears he never saw her laughing like this. “I’m sorry— I— HAHAHAHAHA!”

“Lower your voice,” Vergil grunts. He starts to regret his decision for rambling about his childhood antics just to get rid of Lyra’s gloomy face. “You might end up choking yourself to death.”

“ Pfffftttt!”

“Will you shut up?!”

“Sorry!” Lyra bites her thumb to hold her cackle but fails. “I just… bwahahaha! It seems that ‘never hold a grudge to the people who wronged you’ is true!”

Vergil pulls her thumb away from her teeth, caressing her reddened thumb. “A little deeper, you would bleed your thumb.”

The careful touch from Vergil distracts Lyra for a while. It’s the first time he holds her without gloves on, and it surprises her how soft his palm is despite the fact that he is a warrior who wields various weapons. Her thumb slips lightly from his palm. “Even if I bleed, I got your Lucy Pevensie’s cordial to heal me.”

Vergil sighs heavily as he removes some strands of Lyra’s hair from her forehead. “I gave it to you for an emergency case only. The cordial was made mostly from demon’s blood, mixed with rare herbs and some complicated spells to make it suitable for human’s bodies. Even the bottle was made from demon’s materials to prevent physical damage. Trish produced only a few bottles of cordial, so use it wisely.”

“I will,” Lyra picks out the cordial bottle from her bag and shows it to Vergil. “See? I haven’t used it since Capulet.”

“Put it back into your bag before it slipped from your hand and fell into the lake.”

“Alright alright! Why do you sound a lot like my mother?” Lyra puts the bottle back into her bag.

“You are clumsy and easily distracted. I have to keep my eyes on you every time. It’s rather distressing.”

“I can take care of myself!” Lyra lays a punch on Vergil’s chest. “Remember, I weakened Phantom last week, so you devil twins could kill that spider easily!”

The cambion smirks disdainfully to her weak strike. He puts something off from the back of his coat and hands it to Lyra. It’s an old book with a black leatherbound with the title engraved in a beautiful golden emboss. “Your payment for escorting me today.”

Lyra observes the front cover with beaming eyes. “The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe...”

“It’s one of the mementos I brought from the Manor. I reckon you would love Poe, given to your fondness of horror and mystery.”

“Then I have to refuse! It’s yours!”

“I believe I made myself clear when I said the book is for you.”

Lyra was about to refuse again, but quickly zip her mouth when Vergil glared at her with his terrifying and undeniable gaze. He won’t take any ‘no’ from her. She flips the pages, and something almost falls from the book before Lyra catches it quickly; an antique necklace with an obsidian pendant. She takes a closer look at the pendant and recognizes the familiar white, shiny dots pattern on it— the Lyra constellation.  

“… did you pick this one too from the manor?” Lyra asks carefully.

“… it was from the antique shop.”

“I didn’t see you strolling around the jewelry section.”

“It was displayed on the counter. Nothing special. Just normal jewelry. The pattern just reminded me of you—”

Vergil can’t finish his sentence because Lyra wraps her arms between his waist, locking him in a tight embrace. He can feel the strange, but comfortable warmth fills his body as he returns to hug her without hesitation. Her body is so small and shorter compared to his height that he needs to bow slightly in order to balance the embrace. He loves her scent— a strange mixture of peach, black tea and old roses— and quietly inhales the intoxicating fragrance from her hair. He feels like he could do this all day.

“Thank you,” Lyra’s murmur vibrates his chest. “I’ll cherish this forever.”

“It's just a book and a necklace.”

“These are the best presents since the lyre from my mum!” she chuckles. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually hug people around.”

“Neither do I.”

“So let us hug a bit longer, shall we?”

“It looks like I have no choices but to comply.”

For a moment, they banish their distrusts about each other, breaking the adamant barrier and wishing the time to stop ticking.  

---

Yesterday, Lyra dreamt of a boy who wanders around a big house.

She thought it was just a meaningless dream, at least until she realized that she was the boy himself. She looked at her—  his — reflection in the mirror; the little boy was handsome with swept back silver hair and a black pajama. His serious and grumpy expression reminded of someone she couldn’t remember yet. She— the boy —wandered off around a big and dark house. It wasn’t her own intention; like her movement was controlled by someone else. She opened a chamber and let herself in. There was a woman who lay unconscious on the bed. Lyra could see traces of tears on the woman’s sullen face. Her body forced her to lift the quilt to cover the woman’s body and tip-toed herself out from the room.

When she was about to go back to her room, she heard a wheezing cry and followed the voice to the main hall. It didn’t take her too long to find out the source of the voice as her hand reached to open a white drawer, where another little boy with the same silver hair cried inside it.

“Vergil…” that little boy stared at her with a turbulent sob coming out from his mouth. “Father… you… you d-d-don’t believe that he died… r-right?”

I am…Vergil?

Does that mean that this crying boy… Dante?

The next thing Lyra remembered was she woke up with tears stream down her face like a waterfall, soaking her pillow. She was sure the sadness she felt in the entire dream wasn’t hers, but Vergil and Dante’s. She was going to tell Vergil about her strange dream when she saw the exact same white drawer in her dream at Sparda Manor, but she thought she was biased. Vergil had told her about how devastated his family was when they heard that Sparda was deceased, and her dream must be just her brain playing a trick to her.

But then she thought, Vergil never told me that he found Dante hiding and crying in that draw…

Tonight, Lyra falls into another strange dream. Even weirder and scarier. A titanic, god-like demon tortured her in the most unimaginably painful way. Her entire body was chained and spiked. The demon was merciless. His face was full of disgust and hatred as he spat her insults and penetrated her head with dreadful illusions she couldn’t even envision. He kept calling her “disgraceful offspring of the traitor Sparda”. It was only then she realized that she wasn’t herself, but Vergil.

Lyra fights herself to wake up, and is barely successful. The dream is too visceral that she almost still can feel the pain all over the body as she opens her eyes. Her back is wet from her own sweat.

Why do I keep dreaming of him? Moreover, I never experienced this kind of pain…

Does it have something to do with our accidental mind link on that day? Strange things have happened since then...

Her wave of thoughts are interrupted by the sudden thirst in her throat. She snaps her fingers and the light from the lamp brightens the bedroom. The door cracks slowly to open its way for Lyra. The librarian walks with leaden steps as she rubs her sleepy eyes. She almost stumbled upon a chair when she entered the kitchen.

“A cuppa sounds delightful to cure nightmares,” Lyra mumbles at herself, swinging her hand to summon a cup from the drawer. The cup flies and lands right in front of her, but she makes no further movement but staring blankly at the cup. Her body is still shivering by the imaginary pain from her nightmare.

“From all the people in the world, why does it have to be Vergil? This mind link is vexing me...”

The harsh cry of a raven causes Lyra to glance over the kitchen’s window. She curves a light smile while opening the window and lets a little raven enter her house. The raven lands on her shoulder for a while before flying around the house and lands on the kitchen counter.

“Where have you been, Corvus? Haven’t seen you for days!” Lyra greets the raven.

The little bird tilts its head and squawks. Lyra giggles as she pats the raven’s head. “Hey look. My friend gave his poem book to me and one of the titles is The Raven. I like it, by the way. And I’ve been thinking about him lately, even dreaming about him. To be honest, it’s disturbing. Do you think I should invite him here and tell him the truth?”

The raven gives her a nod.

“You are right. A cuppa is best served with a friend, don’t you think?”

Corvus flaps its wings eagerly. The black bird flies around Lyra’s head before making its way outside the house.

“Leaving already? You haven’t eaten yet!” Lyra shouts at the raven. “Alright then, send my regard to your girlfriend!”

Corvus squawks something like a curse, causing Lyra to barks in laughter. She heads back to the counter as she turns on the radio to entertain her confusing state of mind, picking the channel telepathically until she finds her favourite channel. She listens to the song while summoning her phone from the bedroom, tapping the screen until Vergil’s contact name pops on the screen.

Down in the willow garden

Where me and my love did meet

As we sat a-courtin'

My love fell off to sleep

I had a bottle of burgundy wine

My love, she did not know

So I poisoned that dear little girl

On the banks below

I drew a saber through her

It was a bloody knife

I threw her in the river

Which was a dreadful sign

“By Jove, that song is sinister,” Lyra chuckles darkly. Her solemn face is turning pale. “As for the poisoned little girl… well…”

She clicks Vergil’s name, waiting for the devil to answer with fingers tangled between the black pendant on her neck, hoping half-heartedly that he wouldn’t pick her call.

~~~

A/N : the song mentioned at the end of the chapter is “Down In The Willow Garden” by The Everly Brothers.

Tagging : @drusoona @harlot-of-oblivion @queenmuzz @shiranyaaww @andieperrie18 @rubixa-seraph @blooddrop-palace (I honestly forgot who to tag, so if you want to be tagged just send you reply or DM me! XD)

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Forsaken | Part 3

Summary: As one of the Forsaken, Jinyoung had no right to covet anything as his own. When he stumbles across you standing in the middle of the village he had plundered, the memories of old make him risk it all, clutching at the past in hopes for a better future.

Pairing: Park Jinyoung x reader

Genre: warrior au / star crossed lovers / angst / romance

Warnings: death, kidnapping, cursing, a myriad of emotions - this is a really sad love story.

Index: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 

“Can you tell me about it?”

Glancing at you, Jinyoung sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” you urged, leaning forward in earnest. It made him hesitant with your eagerness, considering what you were asking of wasn’t something to get that animated over. You acknowledged the evident unease Jinyoung was experiencing and gently reached for his hand, curbing some of your enthusiasm. “I’m sorry; I wasn’t trying to act as if you were a circus creature. I just… I want to understand more so I can better be there for you.”

“You do enough,” he whispered, gnawing on his bottom lip as he contemplated his life story. You had already told him of yours. As the daughter of the head patron of this township, you hadn’t faced a whole lot of troubling times in the short years you had on this earth thus far. You had been sheltered, fed daily, clothed decently and never felt the harshness of winter within your bones like he had. Further, you had been loved – a concept Jinyoung couldn’t quite fathom even now.

“Still,” you persisted, patting his forearm softly, soothing him and loosening off some of his control. “I have been far too privileged in this life. I want to understand the life you have lived so I never do anything to upset you.”

“Bitterness is bound to happen between two very different people, Y/N.”

“So can support and comfort. Let me be there for you, hm?”

He swallowed roughly, nodding as tears formed in his eyes. “I don’t remember much of when I was younger. I never had parents or a home. I don’t know who helped me survive until I was big enough to get by but when was a bit older I remember being found in the woods and dragged to a village. I was hungry so I followed for food…”

“But it was a camp for the Forsaken, right?”

Jinyoung nodded grimly. “If you don’t have anything in life, they give you this and take you as their own.”

Lifting his sleeve away on his right arm, he showed the numbered tattoo scored permanently into his skin. You fingered it tentatively and he shuddered with your touch. Smiling softly, you undid the leather band around your wrist and slipped it over his, hiding the numbers effectively. You then smiled up at him. “I know I can’t remove it for good, but you don’t need to worry about that anymore. You’re safe here with me.”

Jinyoung smiled sadly. If only he could truly believe that.

For a moment, Jinyoung wondered if you had ever truly understood what he was back then. For you, he was just a friend, a lover, a special person you had seen under the warm light that was your world. It didn’t seem to matter how often he would remind you he wasn’t the same as you were, you still didn’t seem to understand who he was.

Born as a Forsaken, the tattoo on his arm would never stop bleeding into his soul despite your efforts to erase it.

For Jinyoung, your treatment of who he was always made him desperate for more of it. He lapped you up with an insatiable hunger, greedy for more of your light to brighten his darkness. The longer he spent around you had made him almost believe his hardships were over. At your side, he only experienced happiness and acceptance.

Maybe that’s why it hadn’t taken him long to race after you, yearning for those emotions once again.

He knew what path you had taken without seeing you move that way, the years spent lurking in the dark making Jinyoung an excellent hunter. Travelling towards the forest as fast as he could, dread filled him. The nightshift would have begun and Mark was assigned this area tonight. He was a first-rate archer, and he hadn’t missed a target in the eight years Jinyoung had spent with him. Pushing himself to move faster, he breathed in relief when he saw you dashing through the forest like a deer. You were too free, not truly understanding how deadly this world could be for someone as dainty as you were. And as he predicted, he saw Mark up ahead, the man reaching for his weapon to harm his prey. Jinyoung dove towards you, grabbing you and spinning you away from the arrowhead that now pierced firmly into the tree trunk he had soared by. The force hurtled you both into a neighbouring tree and he let off a signal whistle of their battalion, watching as Mark lowered his next arrow and retreated into the shadows.

Jinyoung then turned back to you, your eyelids clamped together in fear. He sighed, knowing full well you weren’t ready for death. Someone who feared the end never wanted to take their last breath early. Slowly, your eyes opened and you stared up at him in surprise, your hands reaching for the front of his shirt and anchoring yourself there.

Why did this action always make his heart beat erratically over you? In the face of death or with the anticipation of his lips upon yours, you had always gripped onto him like this.

It made Jinyoung desperate to keep you there, casting reality to the side. “I’ll follow you to nowhere, so don’t try and leave me yet.”

Soul searching, you stared back at him for an immeasurable moment before slumping into his arms, burying your head in his chest. He held his breath, hesitant to rely on the warmth now erasing the chill out of his bones. Would this moment only be fleeting? Would you wake up again and try to leave, knowing he wasn’t the boy who did all he could to please you? Jinyoung was different now. He had more than just you to think about.

Right now though, he was uncaring of all the lives that he had upon his shoulders. He pulled you closer, lowering his head to your shoulder, inhaling you in. Despite the shirt you wore being his own; your scent had permeated through, filling his senses with nostalgia. How he had loved breathing you in, grounding his nerves whenever he felt he would lose you from his side. His arms tightened around you, coveting you like he had days previous, though this time you responded by clinging to him just as much.

The past was colliding with the present, trying to find a way to establish a place within one another.

“Jinyoung,” you mumbled from within his embrace sometime later and he reluctantly shifted so you could look up, his arms aching now that he had realised just how much effort he had used to hold you to himself. You used the moonlight to your advantage to search his eyes again. “Let’s find nowhere.”

“Right now?”

“Can’t we?” you pleaded, looking like the deer he had thought of you as before. You were too innocent for these parts and it made him swallow roughly, realising his place. He stepped back, and yet you followed him, unrelenting in your grip around his waist now.

“I need time.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know,” he answered simply and you dropped your head. His heart and mind tried to find a solution, hurting as the minutes passed by without a single path forward. He pried your chin out of your chest and stared at you feebly. “Will you… give it to me?”

“I’m cold,” you mentioned instead and Jinyoung nodded, pulling you into his side and helping you through the woods and back to his home. You were more alert this time, given you weren’t rushing through. Looking up at him after entering the cavern-like foyer, you frowned. “What is this place exactly?”

“We built our base into the hills around here. Once we go through the first two hallways, we’re on the other side of the hill where the houses are.”

“So we’re underground right now?” Jinyoung nodded and you smiled. “That’s a clever way to hide.”

“It’s survival,” he merely stated, feeling uncomfortable with your awe. He didn’t want to be seen as clever. The Rebellion wasn’t something to feel accomplished by, it wasn’t a way of life he wanted for any of them, especially not himself. So having you justify their strategic base layout only irritated him and he dragged you through the corridors and doors until you were back in the room you knew of.

You frowned. “There’s no kitchen?”

“We eat together.”

“We?”

Jinyoung implored your curiosity to ease off but you merely waited for an answer and he groaned. “Some twenty men live here.”

“No women?”

“Just two others.”

You finally picked up on his mood and sat down on his bed, bouncing a little on the edge whilst you looked at the size of it. “This bed wasn’t made for more than one person to lay upon it.”

“One person has only ever needed it,” he commented and you merely stared back at him. Jinyoung sighed for the umpteenth time. “You won’t be settled until you finish with your questions, will you?”

Smiling with the unspoken permission to continue, you launched into asking more about the camp. You wondered of their roles, of what happened here. You seemed to steer clear of what he did outside of the camp, and for that Jinyoung was thankful. He didn’t possess the energy to explain the years he had spent under the Rebellion whilst you were living out there in a peaceful settlement.  

The same place he had destroyed from existence.

Jinyoung struggled to dislodge the lump forming within his throat. He had destroyed your world and brought you to this wretched place. Would you even make it here?

“Where will you sleep?”

“I’m fine with the floor,” he announced, watching as you stopped midway in climbing under the blankets. Staring back at him, you shook your head.

“You could sleep beside me.”

Jinyoung cocked his head to the side despite the rush within his chest. “Didn’t you mention how tiny it was before?”

“We’ve done it before,” you whispered and he closed his eyes, nodding softly.

“Shh! They’ll find us,” he chastised and you clamped your giggling mouth together as best as you could.

“I’m sorry it’s just your foot tickled mine!”

“Well, given this bed isn’t made for two, did you expect there to be any room between us?”

“I think we’re not utilising it properly,” you stated, wriggling around until he whined when you elbowed him in the side. Sheepishly, you shot him an apology before finishing with scooting right up against the wall and beckoning Jinyoung closer. He obliged, frowning when you yanked on his folded arms. “You need to move them.”

“Why, I’m keeping a barrier between us.”

“Just because I’ve kissed you, doesn’t mean I will jump you, Jinyoung!” you whispered fervently and his face felt hot as you tugged an arm away from the other. Lifting yourself up and using his upper arm as a pillow, you nestled back down into his side. “There, much better.”

He couldn’t reply, the intense reaction his body was having overwhelmed him. Where you touched now tingled and burned, confusing him of your powers. Just what was this magic you were putting him under? Instinctively, he laid his other arm over your waist and you sighed in content. Blinking slowly with how close you were, he then stopped moving when you looked up at him.

“I love you, you know,” you confessed. “I don’t want to sleep alone anymore. Not when I can be this warm within your arms.”

Jinyoung held his breath as you slipped your head over the arm he had cast across the bed after laying down beside you, closing his eyes briefly as you nuzzled around, trying to find the comfiest spot. Legs entangled with the lack of room and your hands pressed gently into his chest. For a moment, after you both settled into your positions, he merely focused on breathing evenly.

He hadn’t held anyone like this outside of his dreams.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked softly and you hummed in response. You were easily more tired than Jinyoung was and your even breathing indicated to him that you had been lulled into another world.

He hoped that it was beautiful and bright compared to here.

As you slept, he soaked you in, inch by inch. You had blossomed further and he wanted to imprint every part that was different now. Your hair was shorter than it had been as a teenager. Was it more practical to be this length as an adult? His own hair was longer and untamed than back when you would cut it for him. What did you think of his appearance now, he wondered. Was he someone you could still find something attractive in?

A swift breath deflated him then. Why would you be attracted to him? He had nothing to offer you in the way of hope. Even if he wanted to go to nowhere with you, Jinyoung knew it would be impossible unless in the afterlife together.

The Rebellion was moving too fast, making deals with the cities, and taking out villages that seemed to profit too easily on their own. Self-sufficiency would be wiped out before they knew it, and the overlord would block out the light of the people.

If there was a nowhere to run to, Jinyoung knew it would soon be taken by the army of these lands.

Yet as you dreamed within his arms, he hoped you would find it.

_________________

Part 4

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[rainy-tree-bird]

Cruel Fate// Villain Midoriya x Reader

A/N: I’ve never written any fanfics with Midoriya in them(as the main focus), especially a villain Midoriya, so I hope this will do!

Warnings: Angst, slight Bakugou x Reader (Platonic), Swearing, Knives are present, breakup, villain Midoriya

-----

You were in a seemingly perfect relationship and in your eyes it was, you loved Izuku! He was everything you could ask for, but then one day he just disappeared. As if he just disappeared into thin air, his phone, clothes even shoes were still there in your shared apartment. The both of you were successful pro heroes, especially Izuku, he was quickly rising in the hero ranks and then one day, gone.

This broke you, the love of your life nowhere to be seen. You stopped working, just staying at home, not talking to anyone, barely eating and just drowning in your sorrows especially when the pro heroes and police stopped searching for him.

He had now been missing for two years and you had just gotten worse and worse. Your family and friends had now a full schedule to check on you and make sure that you actually ate and took care of the necessities you needed to survive. No matter who it was or what they did, they couldn't get you to stop the never-ending cycle of depression and need for your sweetheart.

You missed him badly. From the way, he held you in his strong arms every night as if he was protecting you from the dangers of the world to the way he would give you morning kisses on your forehead. You had practically used every piece of clothing that was his to just be able to smell him but now it all had disappeared since you had been slowly but surely worn each clothing item so it now smelled like you instead.

-

On the day that marked the third year since his disappearance, you were lying on the bed in your apartment, you just laid there not wanting to do anything. Hiding under the covers, clutching your pillow tightly. As you were doing this you heard your front door slam open and loud incoherent shouting. You ignored it just assuming it was Bakugou's turn to make sure you had eaten and that he was just in a pissy mood. Well, you had assumed wrong. (Partially at least)

Suddenly the covers on your bed disappeared exposing yourself to the cold apartment and at the foot of the bed was Bakugou. He looked pissed, to a point that you felt that he could kill you just by staring at you with those angry eyes.

-That's fucking enough you sad ass. You gotta get over him! Its been THREE FUCKING YEARS!

Bakugou screamed at you, his face red.

-I fucking understand that you miss him, hell even I miss Deku. But what the fuck are YOU ACCOMPLISHING hollowing up in your apartment!?

He continued screaming, tears now rolling down your face. Not because of the fact that he was screaming at you but because you knew that you were not accomplishing anything by just sitting around being sad and missing him, but you refused to listen to him. He walked up closer to you now standing beside you.

-Y/n you look like shit, what the fuck would Deku think if he saw you like this? Your not fucking alone, he was my-

Bakugou choked on his words, no longer screaming but speaking very sternly. You looked up at his face, tears were streaming down his face too.

-Even if I wouldn't admit it in front of that idiot... but he was one of my close friends, and I sure as hell know that he wouldn't want to see you like this. So quit your moping and come back, hell maybe if you came back and started working as a pro hero again you might even find that damn idiot...

This shocked you, how come you never thought of this? Bakugou had a point, you had to get your shit together...

-Fine, I'll get my shit together... I'll- ... I'll find him.

You mumbled. Bakugou fell silent, he wiped his tears.

-Damn fucking time and... thanks I guess.

He gave you a small smiled. He really has changed since high school and you appreciated the fact that he knocked some sense into you. Giving you that final push to stop moping.

And that's exactly what happened, after a year and a half you were back to working as a pro hero, going outside, being with friends and family. Sure you would never heal from the pain of Izuku disappearing but you were refuelled with new energy and you were going to find out what happened to the love of your life.  

-

One day you were out on patrol, a normal day or it was until you heard multiple explosions. You headed to see what happened and where you could help. The explosion and smoke lead you to a mall, the mall had exploded. You instantly ran inside the mall to find any survivors. You run around looking for people, debris everywhere, pieces of the building was falling onto the ground. Everything was destroyed.

As you turned a corner you fell backwards. Weight on your stomach, almost as if someone was sitting on you. And you were correct, on you was a female with blond hair put up in two messy buns, yellow eyes almost piercing your soul, a cruel, sadistic smile on her lips. You identified the female sitting on you as Toga from the League of Villians. One of her arms lifted holding a knife above your chest.

-Ooooh, won't you look here! You are so cute! But you would look SOOO much better with blood on you!

She exclaimed with a cheery voice. You looked around, you couldn't get her off you. Your quirk was not going to help you in this situation, she was also sitting on you in a position that you couldn't get out of. As you look at her with shock, without hesitation she moves her arm indicating that she's about to plunge the knife in her hand right into your chest. You close your eyes awaiting the pain of a stab.

Yet the pain never arrives, as you open your eyes you see Toga's knife only a few centimetres from your chest. A hand wrapped around her wrist, stopping her from plunging the knife into your chest. You look towards the direction of the arm stopping her. You didn't believe your eyes, it couldn't be possible. Right beside you, the person stopping you from being killed by this villain is none other than Izuku Midoriya, the love of your life, who had suddenly disappeared four and a half years ago.

-Leave Toga. I'll take care of them.

He says monotonously. Said female whines but gets off of you and runs off into another direction, probably to find a different victim. Izuku reaches a hand in front of you to try and help you up. Though you don't take his hand and stand up yourself. You are still in shock not believing that it's him but he looks like your Izuku and sounds like your Izuku. You observe how he looks like, whilst tears start to stream down your face.

He is wearing a white dress up shirt paired with a black vest and a black tie. Black trousers and shoes, plus a pair of black gloves. You blink multiple times, it looks like your Izuku but at the same time he doesn't, he seems more... Sinister.

-Y/n...

He eventually says with a soft smile. Multiple thoughts and feelings run through your brain and heart. You feel happy and relieved to know that he's alive and seemingly healthy and he's there, your Izuku. But at the same time, you feel angry and sad. If he's ok then where has he been this whole time and was he with Toga? It seemed like it...

-Where the fuck have you been this whole time?

You manage to choke out. You don't wait for an answer and continue to speak.

-Like you just disappeared one day. Without anything, no message... And now you're here, what the fuck Izuku?

All your feelings that you've had during the past five(ish) years now all came and turned into pent up anger, pent up rage. Izuku's silent but he eventually starts to speak.

-I left to become a villain, love. I realized that the hero society was awful. The heroes are a bunch of scumbags only there for the money and fame... It was better to become a villain. You understand right? Why don't you join me and we will be villains together? Come on, baby.

He states, his hand stretched out to take yours so you can join him. You look at him with shock and sadness, but it soon turns into disgust, fully visible on your face.

-Izu, what are you're talking about? I would never become a villain! What happened to you? Wheres MY Izuku!? The Izuku who wanted to become the number one HERO and bring peace to the world?! Not DESTRUCTION!

You pretty much scream. Izuku is silent for a second but then replies.

-This is just how it turned out after I found out the truth about the heroes. Come on, baby, please!

He says as he tries to get closer to you, you back away.

-You are not my Izuku...

You say quietly but loud enough so that he can hear what you said. He looks at you with slight shock. You try to walk away, just get away from here before you fully breakdown. You know that there are probably people out there that need saving, you can't just stand here talking to Izuku. But Izuku manages to grab your wrist and get you to stay. You recoil your arm not wanting to touch him due to the things he just told you.

-Come on Y/n. I'm sorry for disappearing like that, I really am. But we can start over, we can become a happy couple again! I never stopped loving you!

He says desperately as he tries to stop you from leaving. Your cheeks are now very wet and your eyes are starting to get puffy. You suddenly get a memory from when Izuku and you were in high school. You start to laugh through your tears. Izuku notices this and his facial expression is visible that he is wondering why you are laughing.

-Remember in UA when we first started our relationship and you said that you'd always be by my side?

Your facial expression showing clear pain as you ask Izuku this question. Your legs slowly getting weak. He looks first at you shocked, but he then smiles at the memory.

-Of course, I do and I will continue doing that, we'll always be with each other. Especially if you come with me, love!

He states, desperately wanting you to be with him.

-Yeah? Well, you disappeared for almost five YEARS Izuku! YEARS! You could've called, texted, hell even sent a letter but no! NOTHING!

You were now screaming at the top of your lungs, you couldn't contain the anger and sadness anymore. Izuku was silent.

-I've missed you so damn much and just wanted to be in your arms...

You said and it was true, that was something you had been wanting to do for the past few years. Your heart could barely take anymore. You were clenching your hero costume around the place where your heart was. Tears flowing down your face like rivers. Your whole body was shaking. Izuku was looking down at the ground in shame, his fists clenched in how disappointed he was in himself for leaving you for this long...

-And we c- ... we can do that again, I've missed you so much too! I'm ashamed of the fact that I left you and I realise now that I should've contacted you.

He said. He was extremely mad with himself. How could he be so blind and hurt you like this? Tears had started to form around his eyes.

-But- but now... I'm not so sure if I want to be in your arms anymore... Now that I know that you had all the possibilities in the world for you to contact me yet you didn't...

You were violently shaking from being this distraught and angry. You really weren't sure if you loved this man anymore. Izuku was once again looking at the ground in shame. You took a deep breath.

-I really didn't think that I'd say this after getting to see you for the first time in years but... due to the circumstances and the outcome that's happened... and I honestly thought that I would get to love you again. But I don't want to ever see you again.

You said in the coldest voice you could muster, tears now halting the flow. That was the breaking point for Izuku. He fell down to his knees, tears streaming down his face instead. His facial expression showing a mixture of shock, heartbreak and disappointment.

You took another deep breath and took the chance of leaving now that Izuku was in his own thoughts. You never thought this is what was going to happen but fate has cruel ways to mess with you...

[mariinara]

REDAMANCY. (Sam Drake x Reader) PROLOGUE.

A/N: Oh, sweet mother Theresa.. I've been holding this secret for so long. The idea came to me when @the-winchesterboys pitched it as just a fluff request, but I decided to make a whole series out of it. So, I can proudly say that this is a sort of collaboration that gave birth to my first Sam Drake fic. ♡

Tags: @the-drakeboys , @the-winchesterboys , @missdictatorme , @samdrakeftw , @hrgnm , @purplezebra68 , @s4mdrake , @unchartedterritoria

Summary: You're a retired treasure-hunter who had brief history with Sam before the events of Panama, after which you were heartbroken, but met your current fiance, Connor Walsh. You get an unexpected call from a certain someone, asking you to embark on one last adventure together through London and Morocco to uncover a childhood mystery, during which you confront each other, reflect on your past, and rekindle the relationship that might cost you your pretend peaceful life.

Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama/Comedy

Rating: 18+

(PROLOGUE, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

  Location: United States, Boston suburbs.

                       __________________

Your paint roller glided smoothly across the wall of your new study room, the wetness glistening with the bright ray of sunlight from your open window. You found yourself smiling in comfort whilst covering the white, dusty pasty color with a refreshing coat of the faintest shade of beige: a color that beautifully complimented the oak-wood theme of your furniture. It was also a color that represented conservativeness, neutrality, and serenity-- The very same traits that you’ve decided to embrace as a new years’ resolution. You knew it was going to be by no means an easy task. 

If you would’ve displayed any of those traits in the profession you’d left behind, you would’ve been dead. 

You’ve always been an excessive, adventurous, fiery, driven human being. It ran in your veins-- this treasure-hunting hogwash. Whether your expeditions proved fruitful or not, you grew obsessed with that adrenaline surge that rushed through you. That little thrill that came with uncovering world secrets or stumbling upon a marvelous find. The extreme enjoyment you got out of surviving a situation that so clearly was against your odds. The way goosebumps riddled your sweaty skin as you leaped from one cliff to the other. Holding onto a rope for dear life as you swung across. You got off on those sort of reckless heroics, but ever since you met him and you’d clicked immediately, his docile nature immediately rubbed off on you. 

There you were, painting your study while reminiscing about your time in Shambhala, where you and your fiance-- Connor -- met. He was a journalist who came along with Elena and her cameraman Jeff and, from what the relationship between him and Elena suggested, they were both co-workers and rivals. He’d gotten there to uncover Lazarevic’s malicious plot first and was doing okay until Elena and Jeff showed up. Though the bickering between them was childish, Connor was an extremely calm, collected, and understanding human being when it counted. Besides that, he was smart, clever, focused, practical, and he was handsome in a very nerdy way. 

He looked like your typical, struggling journalist. He was tall, pasty skin and rosy cheeks. Sort of broad and built. Always had a shirt on that was slightly crinkled at the hem, since he’d get sick of having it tucked into his pants and would yank it out. A habit you grew to smile at and shake your head. His bright green, curious eyes were framed with a pair of glasses that only a semi-visually impaired person would wear. The lenses were so thick that they formed sort of a weight on the bridge of his nose that would eventually leave red marks where they sat. 

He was nowhere near your type of man. As far as Nathan - the man whom you took care of for a long time before he stumbled upon Elena - knew, your type happened to be that sort of man with an infuriatingly charming air about him. Tall, broad, had tattoos that held meaning to him only. Thick Boston accent and a shit-eating grin that made you roll your eyes but smile, nonetheless. The kind of man that made you weak in the knees with just a wink or a suggestive eyebrow raise. 

A heartbreaker, who ripped away every shred of happiness when he left you almost sixteen years ago to wallow in self-doubt and pure despair. The type of man who both gave meaning to your life at one point, but ended up completely ruining you at another. And by the time he’d made a surprising appearance in your lives, you were a changed woman who had a loving boyfriend who made you forget about all of your past troubles. Your heart aches and most of all, Samuel Drake.

It was a little over a year ago since the last time you'd seen him and though Connor had no idea about your past, Sam had a pretty good picture about your relationship with Connor. Boyfriend of almost six years, about to be engaged to you. The works. 

Sam felt like a complete stranger to you and you were no longer the woman he'd fallen in love with. Or at least you thought so. 

He was so foreign to you, even though he was the exact same person. But you were simply not. Back at Libertalia, you couldn't even bear to talk to him for more than a minute and you didn't know why. It was like talking to a phantom. A figment of your imagination. Looking at him reminded you of all the days you couldn't breathe when his memorial day rolled in every year. It reminded you how broken and dysfunctional you were for the first five years of him not holding you or saying something clever to make you laugh in utter embarrassment. It made you remember how cold you were when you slept on the bed you once shared with him, with his side of the bed empty and untouched for years on end. The years and years of therapy and PTSD. 

Looking at him reminded you of everything that you worked so hard to forget and while you knew that it wasn't fair for him, it was just as unfair to you. 

You finally had your life together and you didn't want anything or anyone standing in the way.

Not even him. 

The fact that you'd parted ways on a bad note as well the last time you'd seen each other didn't at all help. 

Libertalia was an adventure you thoroughly enjoyed and loved deeply. You even had some souvenirs and trinkets from there. But the reason you went there altogether was because you didn't want Sam to die again. To leave you and Nathan. The incentive was purely dutiful since you grew up with both of them, but nothing more. 

Or at least you thought so.

You took a few steps back, your eyes studying the freshly painted wall. Slowly, a satisfied smile crept up to your lips as you wiped your forehead from the sweat, being careful so as to not get your paint-covered fingers on your face. Your hands then wiped against the front of your stained apron with a deep sigh, "God, I'm good." You told yourself with a proud smirk and whipped your head around once you heard the sound of a heavy, cardboard box slump on the floor. Your eyes trailed up to be met with Connor's green ones and he smiled as he stretched his back and walked towards you. He was standing next to you, his arm around your waist, holding you close to his side as he stared at your handiwork.

"Wow.." He chuckled with an impressed nod, "This looks great."

You rested your head on his shoulder, a big smile on your face, "You sound surprised." 

He paused a little, "I am–" You lifted your head and playfully glared at him, making him laugh lightly, "Just a little. Calm down..!" 

With a sigh and a shake of your head, you patted his ass with your dry paint-covered hand and he jumped a little, letting out a small surprised noise, "Alright, then, nerd." You ripped yourself from him and looked around, seeing all those boxes that you needed to empty. They were covering the floor from the entrance of the study to the hallway outside and even the kitchen's island had smaller boxes on top, full of utensils and everything from the kitchen of your old apartment, "That's all of 'em?" You asked, sort of hopeful that you wouldn't have to unpack another one of those nightmares.

"Yep." Connor responded, "I'm hungry, though. How 'bout dinner first?" He suggested and you couldn't be more relieved since you were starved.

"Sounds good."

Your fiance smiled sweetly at you, leaning down to press a soft kiss to your lips that lasted for a while before he pulled away, "I'll go get started with the kitchen stuff, then."

You smiled back at him, your eyes trailing down to look at the messy collar of his shirt, only for your hand to adjust it and smoothen down the shoulders, "Alright, dear."

And he was off to the kitchen, maneuvering around boxes as he did. You watched him for a couple of seconds, feeling as if your life was finally falling into place. That everything was perfect. That you were healed.

As if God didn't want that for you, your cellphone rang in your back pocket, almost startling you. With an exasperated sigh, you untied your apron and crumpled it in your hands, reaching in for your phone with the other. 

Upon seeing the caller ID, your demons crawled back up to gnaw the back of your brain. Your eyes widened briefly and you glanced towards the empty hallway Connor passed through earlier. You contemplated not answering, but knowing him, he was probably in trouble.

Your thumb hovered above the 'reject' icon, your brows furrowed and your heart thumping violently against your ribcage, as if begging to jump out. And against your better judgement, you swiped the 'accept' icon, pulling the phone to your ear slowly and giving your back to the door. 

You heard what sounded like a sigh of relief on the other line. 

"I thought you'd never answer."

You paused for a second, rubbing your forehead with your fingers, "It was tempting."

He chuckled, somewhat bitterly, "Why didn't you?"

You rested your hand on your hip, your eyes flickering all around the room, as if searching for an answer, but you found yourself talking without even thinking, "Because I feel obligated not to." You responded, "You don't usually call, either, so you must be in some sort of trouble."

You heard silence from him for a second, "You know why I don't call. I dunno how your guy would react."

You raised a brow, glancing over your shoulder at the door to make sure Connor wasn't close, "And you thought now's a good time because..?"

"Because I need you."

You inhaled deeply at his reply. A dreadful feeling resided in the pit of your stomach. Something about the way he said that didn't rest well with you, but you knew what he meant.

You looked up to the ceiling, trying your best to bite back a mean response, "What do you want, Sam?"

"Right.." You heard shuffling on his end, sounding like papers and clanking glass, "I'll get to the point."

"Please."

"Remember when we were younger? That book I used to love."

Of course you remembered. You'd stay up all night with Sam, sitting on a bench under streetlights, listening to his stories from the book he so loved. He was so theatrical, acting everything out, doing the pirate accents, deepening his voice, hiding one eye with his hand to give the effect of an eye patch.

How could you possibly forget?

"A general history of the robberies and murders of the most notorious pirates." You responded with a small, wistful smile that you weren't aware of, "Yeah."

"Remember when I said how it was complete bullshit?" 

"You were pretty disappointed.." You muttered in amusement, going over to your desk to sit on the edge.

Sam chuckled lightly, "Then you remember my never-ending babbling about Red Rackham's treasure."

"Sam." You stopped him, feeling the uncomfortable feeling bubbling up to claw at your chest, "Where's this going?" You cautiously asked, narrowing your eyes at nothing in particular.

Another long pause came from him, and with each passing second, you felt your anxiety bubble up more.

"I know where it got sunk."

"Where what got sunk?"

"The unicorn."

You pinched the bridge of your nose at the familiar name of the sunken pirate ship and shook your head, "You can't possibly be doing this on my moving day." You tried to keep your voice low but your dismay was extremely clear and you could almost see him frowning at your tone.

"Moving day?" He asked. You suddenly remembered how transparent he was. He did no effort to hide his bitterness and you could so clearly hear it.

You shook your head and decided to divert the subject, "I don't do that kinda thing anymore, Sam. You know that." 

He snorted, "Since when?"

"Since Libertalia." You retorted, "Since Connor, Sam. He doesn't do that sorta thing, either."

"That–That is good for him, but I know for a fact that that's not who you are."

You let out a humourless laugh and threw your hand up in frustration, "I'm not waiting for you to tell me who I am; I know what I want."

"No, you don't."

You were about to snap at him, but something stopped you. What would you say to that? Was this really who you were? The way Sam put it made you doubt almost everything. 

"Doesn't matter, Sam. I'm happy, okay?"

"You may be now, but the more you fight it, the more you're gonna hate him and hate your life, sweetheart." 

"What are you trying to do?" You asked, in a surrendered voice, your hand tightening around your phone.

"Give you a chance." He replied easily, not even giving it a thought, "This is our story. Our treasure. You were obsessed with this as much as I was. Your journal, your hand drawn maps.." He paused, "I still have 'em.."

You shook your head, feeling your resolve crumble with the sentence he added at the end, looking down at your feet, "What am I gonna tell Connor..?"

"You'll figure somethin' out." He said, his voice a bit hopeful, knowing that he broke your thick skin a bit, "C'mon. Whaddya say..? You and me. One last time?"

You inhaled deeply. 

He was right. You have been obsessed with finding that treasure for the longest time as wanderlust-struck teenagers. It was like your Everest. But you never got around to it, since it all reminded you of him. You didn't want to embark on that journey without him by your side. And now that he was there, you could finally finish the book of journeys. To fulfill the last of your wishes. 

Maybe then you'd be able to live happily with Connor, without having to deal with the burden of having something missing.

And so, you smiled and nodded to yourself, "Okay." You responded simply, earning a relieved chuckle from him, "Sully's gonna be there, though, right?"

"You could say that."

You frowned, "What's that mean?" 

"He'll be there at some point." He vaguely replied, making you roll your eyes, "Just make sure you're there by tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night..?" You asked, closing your eyes and throwing your head back, feeling the fatigue roll over you stronger than ever, "Where do I need to go?"

"London. Bloomsbury." 

You ripped a paper from your notebook, holding the phone against your ear with your shoulder, and grabbed a pen, yanking off the cover with your teeth and writing down the address.

"Okay.." You muttered.

"Euro hotel. The room's under Victor's name. You know what to do."

You felt your heart beating faster as you wrote the last letter, with the small P.S. about the reservation name. 

You let out a shaky breath and held the phone in your hand again, straightening up, "Got it. I'll be there at nine."

"Perfect." You could practically hear the grin in his voice, "See ya soon, sweetheart." 

You smiled softly and nodded, "See you soon.." 

You held the phone against your ear until it went blank and that's when you realized what you've just gotten yourself into.

There you were again. With no self-control when you heard the words treasure and adventure. You were so caught up in the childhood memories that you didn't think of what you'd actually tell Connor and, for some reason, the truth wasn't an option.. 

You heard him calling out your name from the kitchen and you quickly whipped your head towards the door, inhaling deeply to calm your jagged nerves. You found yourself fiddling with the engagement ring on your finger and you looked down at your hands, pursing your lips together tightly.

'No backing out now..' You thought.

You exhaled and forced a smile to your face, "Comin', honey!" You called out cheerfully, quickly stuffing the note with the address in your back pocket, hurrying out of the study room.

[chuckbass-love]

Oh girl would you do a T’Challa x chubby reader coming back home after the snap? I would die 🖤🖤🖤

I would love to. Being a bigger girl myself I love reading these types of fics so thank you for the request! I’ve changed it slightly but I hope you love it.

Disclaimer: My work is not to be posted anywhere else other than MY Tumblr, Wattpad and Ao3 without my permission. However, reblogs are welcome.

Y/F/N - your full name

Pairing : T’challa x Chubby!reader

Warning: Fluff, light smut

GIF NOT MINE!!! Credit to @asgardodinsons 💗

Five years, It’s been five years since you’ve seen him. Since you’ve had his arms wrap around your body, caressing your curves. He always did make you feel safe, calmed your anxieties whenever they came flooding in. You miss him. T’Challa, your man, your saviour. The one who always knew how to make you feel better and the one you couldn’t live without. Gone forever.

They called it the snap, you were part of 50% that survived but your boyfriend however did not, neither did his family. The last five years have been spent wallowing, moping and wishing he would just magically turn up and take you in his arms once again. No matter how much you prayed or wished, he was still gone.

You pull yourself out of the bed that you once shared with him, slowly strolling into the kitchen to get something to eat, another day without him and it still feels like yesterday. After breakfast you take a shower, running the soap over your voluptuous body, letting it lather around your breasts. Once you wash it off, you step out and wrap a towel around you and head into the other room to change.

You go about your day which consists of eating, watching movies and sleeping. You wake up from your nap to see that it’s 6:00pm. You know you need to pull yourself out of this slump, it’s been five years but you just can’t. You can’t let go of him.

As you finish up making dinner, pasta again. You hear the door of your apartment open. You pick up a knife, ready to swing for whoever was intruding. You poke your head round the corner and begin to walk towards the front door, as soon as you get there. The knife drops.

“Y/N” it’s him, T’Challa. You run up to him and immediately start to feel his arms and face to check if he’s real or if you’re dreaming. He’s real, he’s here. He came back. “I’ve missed you so much” you sob as he picks you up, you wrap your legs around his torso.

“I never gave up hope, that you’d come back” tears stream down your face, falling onto his shoulder as you embrace him. He leads you both to couch, sitting down on it as you straddle him. You pull away “how did this even happen?” You ask as you kiss him quickly, the feel of his lips against yours again makes you shiver.

He explains how it happened, how the avengers travelled back, to get the infinity stones to stop Thanos. It’s all so crazy but you don’t care. You have him back. His arms are back where they belong, wrapped around your body. Clinging onto you for dear life.

“I’ve missed this body too, I can’t believe I’m here with you” you can see tears brimming in his eyes, he was never really one to cry before but this is an exception. “I was scared I’d never see you again” he whispers, his forehead leaning against yours.

“Just please shut up and kiss me” he smashes his lips to yours, wasting no time in swiping his tongue across your bottom lip to ask for entrance. You accept gladly. Your tongues begin a dance for dominance. He wins, as he always used to. He lifts your shirt up your body and arms and over your head, throwing it away.

He starts moaning into the kiss, making you want him urgently. He stands up, your legs wrapped around once again and he walks you both to the bedroom. All of the memories of your previous activities years prior come flooding back to you again.

“I want you so badly baby” he groans, undressing himself in between kisses.

Once he’s fully naked, he sits up, ogling your body from your breasts to your stomach and then to your sex. He hovers over you, leaning down to kiss and nip at your neck, making you more and more horny for him. “Please” you whimper “please what?” He asks, you feel him grin against your collarbone.

“Please fuck me” you beg and with that he slides into you, no warning. This time is different, it’s soft and passionate. All the years spent away from each other is now being made up for.

It’s like he’s exploring your body all over again, like he’s seeing it for the first time in his life and the same with you and his body. Feeling every inch of him inside you like the first time all over again.

His thrusts are slow, this isn’t fucking, no this is making love and it feels so good. Having him over you again, claiming your body as his. “Oh god, right there baby” you cry out as he hits the right spot. “I’ve missed this baby, missed being with you like this” he groans as he continues to thrust inside of you, chasing his peak as well as pushing for yours to come.

It doesn’t take long, you grip onto him, digging your nails into his back and wrapping your legs around his torso, pulling him closer to you. You start moving your hips to meet his, feeling your orgasm nearing.

“I’m gonna cum” you moan and he grunts, picking up the pace to bring you closer. You clench around his size, causing his orgasm to wash over him. He twitches inside of you, you feel his cum fill you and you lay there for a couple of minutes. Just feeling his chest on yours.

You know you could have made that moment last longer but neither one of you wanted to wait. He pulls out and immediately fetches a damp cloth to wipe you both up.

He lays down next to you, pulling you into his arms. You lay your head on his chest as his finger traces your curves “what did I miss whilst I was gone?” He whispers as his fingers begin tracing over your ass, his favourite feature of yours. “Has this gotten bigger?” He questions and you giggle. “I see you haven’t changed at all. Yes it’s bigger. You have squats and ice cream to thank” he chuckles.

“I love your body, it’s perfect. So thank you squats and ice cream” he calls out and you both laugh.

You spend the evening wrapped up in his arms, catching him up on everything that has been going on. He notices your mood switch.

“What’s wrong Y/N?” He tilts your chin so you are looking deep into his eyes, his beautiful eyes that can have you melting like a little school girl. “I’m just so happy you’re here” tears brimming in your eyes again “me too. I don’t ever want to leave you again” you feel his heart beating fast. “Then don’t” you reply as you sit up, looking at him.

“It’s made me realise, I don’t want to play around anymore. I don’t want to take all of this for granted” he sits up next to you.

“Marry me” he blurts out, leaving you in shock

“What?” You ask, wanting him to pinch you. Are you dreaming ?

You’ve been with him for a good couple of years before the snap and it’s never crossed your mind much about marriage. You always knew you wanted to marry him but it’s never been a subject that you thought much about.

“Marry me” he gets off of the bed and down onto bending knee. “Y/F/N will you marry me. I don’t have a ring. Yet. But the offer stands” the tears come rolling down your face and you nod your head as you get off the bed and into his arms on the floor.

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes” you yell out, wanting everyone to hear how happy you are. He kisses you deeply “I love you Y/N” he stares at you “I love you too T’Challa”

[bowlerhatwearer]

Connor and June the forest cat

Name: Connor and June the forest cat

Nickname/Alias: Conjune (by himself and friends)

Species: Norwegian Forest Cat

Alignment:  Lawful Good

Age: 21 years

Birthplace: Suburban town of Empire city

Current residence: Misty Forest Zone

Gender: Male

Personality: withdrawn, cold, confident, smooth temper, unprovocable [in public spaces], passive, indifferent, reserved.

Hobbies: solving crosswords, playing board games or video games, reading books [mostly science fiction / realistic space novels], listening to music [mostly rock music], acting [musicals and theatre]

Likes: Space, Aerospace, Musicals and Theatres, Science Fiction, tea and tea biscuits/cookies.

Dislikes: Rushed work, go fever, coffee, deadlines, unforeseen/unexpected change of plans, Eccentrics, Hospitals, medical equipment.

Appearance:

Given that Conjune is a Norwegian Forest Cat he has long haired fur with a striped pattern that is mostly light brown and grey with the exception around his chest, eyes, and nose where it is mostly white and a bit crème coloured.

Being a Janus Cat Conjune has two faces on his head, both noses and mouths, one left, one right are on the same level (his left face is a bit lower although it needs some time and direct observation to notice that). All three of his eyes are green, his middle eye which is also bigger than the one on the left and right side appears to be staring given that it is non-functional.

His left mouth is completely developed but is not connected to the oesophagus/gullet, the trachea/windpipe, and the vocal cords, when Connor and June talk with their right mouth, the left one moves as well, given the impression that he talks with both mouths at the same time.  (The right mouth is the dominant mouth for talking, breathing eating and drinking)

History/Bio:

Born as a child with Diprosopus Connor and June was given a slim chance of survival on the first hours and days when he was born. Thankfully to a dedicated senior staff member of the delivery suite and a nurse, Connor and June survived the struggles that have been his birth and the complications afterwards. Raised by the chief physician and the nurse the forest cat spends his early days for many weeks of the years in the hospital which contributed to the Janus cat growing a dislike for medical equipment and hospitals.

Growing up in the suburbs of Empire city Connor and June would often go with his parents for a walk exploring the suburban town of the great city. It was also the old telescope from his mother’s grandfather that would spark the cat’s interest for the vast and mysterious space that holds so many unexplored secrets and unanswered questions.

When coming to the age to enrol for elementary school it was his father who at first was undecided whether to register his son for a public school or to home-school him, fearing that his son might be the victim of bullying and harassment given Connor and Junes appearance.  

It was after a long talk and conversation with his wife and colleagues from the hospital that his father accepted to enrol Connor and June into an elementary school, but not before promising him to be there for him and make sure that people who would make fun of him or prank him to make sure there would be consequences for those who would do the forest cat any harm.

Whilst Conjune unfortunately got made fun off and harassed by some [but thanks to his mothers and father’s intervention the school did react in those cases] he also made a few friends, many who would remain friends a live long and following him to the secondary school he was attending. Although the cat had his fair share of happy experiences and memories, the negative impact from some of his school colleagues also made him withdrawn and cold looking to strangers and people he had not much contact with. Whilst his family and friends knew him, for others he appeared distant.

In the secondary school Connor and June discovered his passion not only for physics and mathematics, but also it was there where his interest in theatre awoke and the reason, he joined the school’s theatre club. Despite being someone who preferred to be alone from time to time and not being a extroverted person, it longed Connor and June to be part of a stage play where people would see them play minor part or perhaps one day even a major role.  

It was unfortunately a rocky start due of the senior theatre director being heavily unfriendly, antagonistic, and even ableist to Connor and June which almost prompted the cat to leave as a member of the club. Fortunately, the junior theatre club director had a different view and attitude towards Connor and June and was more than eager for the cat to join, having seen the cats acting skills the junior director saw the potential of the forest cats acting and recruited him for his first roll in one of the musicals. With the senior directors (early) retirement Connor and June would act in different rolls and theatre plays trough the years of secondary school.

When reaching the age of sixteen the cats parents admitted to their son, that they are in fact not, his biological parents but had adopted him which led for some time to a fallout between him and his parents as well as him often staying with friends. Whilst both his mother and father assured him that they kept it for this long to themselves not for ill meaning but rather being ashamed of how his biological parents threated and acted towards their new. Leading his mother who was a friend of his parents, breaking up the contact with them. The northern forest cat was still hurt by for how long his parents have kept this information from him. Resulting in him not trusting them for some time.

Searching for his biological parents to get closure, Connor and June experienced by himself just how distant his biological parents are to him by when he finally had the strength to meet with them, his “parents” send out their butler at the manor to tell him to go away and not to return. Over time the fallout with his adoptive parents got resolved and Connor and June sees them as their true parents for how they cared and loved him going so far that when his biological parents suddenly passed away he did not accept the inheritance that lawfully would he had the right to claim. Making his reclusive younger sibling the sole heir.

Having passed his final exam Conjune decided to take a different path. Despite his liking for musicals and other forms of theatrical plays, the wasted potential of space exploration around his home-planet and their solar system inspired the cat to enlist into a studying program for aerospace engineering which he passed a few years later. With the degree of an Aerospace engineer and the lessons of business economics and business management, Connor and June had the requirements to open his own aerospace manufacturing and space transportation company which he called “Twin Wing Corp.”

The search for co-workers and investors was stressful and tiring, being able to convince people to invest their money for a company that brought people and satellites into space was a tiring task. Thanks to his dedication, hard work and success in bringing experimental equipment and construction parts alike, Connor and June stand out as a reliable head of the company pleasing his investors and fans for space exploration alike

Currently Connor and June are planning for a manned space exploration to their neighbour planet that he and many others are eager to explore since it is the planet with the highest habitability next to their own home world.

~~~~~~

Special Thanks: I would like to thank @freakova who read this character sheet beforehand and not only helped me improving my writing but also gave great input for Connor and June. Many thanks to her for giving me the encouragement to write and publish this Sonic OC. 

[ymiwritesstuff]

Angst? How about a Diego x female reader where she gets severely injured saving him from an aggressive horse? Kinda set before Steel Ball Run? have a wonderful day/night.

Ok wow this made me so sad damn. I guess it really helped that I was listening to sad Jojo osts. Anyway, thanks for the request and I hope you enjoy!

Endless Slumber

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run

Diego Brando x Reader

Summary: Everything around Diego crumbled to dust when you decide to save his life with great consequences.

Notes: MEGA ANGST

How was this possible? This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Diego never lost control of any horse so why? He was a professional, able to calm down an aggressive steed any time, but why not now? Everything was going according to plan just a moment ago and suddenly the animal decided to enter a state so bizarre it had caught the professional jockey off guard. He knew this particular horse had some.. Behavior issues, hence why he was asked to deal with it. But never had he seen such aggression from a horse before. The hectic movements eventually caused Diego to stumble and fall to the muddy ground, the horse above him, ready to walk over the blond.

And yet, the impact and pain never managed to reach him. He was pulled away by something, seemingly someone trying to help but he still heard the chilling sounds of cracking bones. However the bones being mercilessly broken under a pair of hooves weren’t his. No, it couldn’t be. The painful expression on the familiar face, the messy (H/C) hair all over the face that wore said expression and those (E/C) eyes closed, tears flooding them. And the horrifying sound that you let out was so excruciating Diego could practically feel the same physical pain as you did.

It all happened so fast and when the enraged animal finally grew tired and began to retreat, Diego wasted no time in quickly yet carefully picking you up, despite your whimpers of pain. “D-Diego..” The sound of your weak, painful voice made his heart break into a million pieces that pierced his soul like a dozen tiny knives. He had to get you to the nearest hospital before something regrettable happened. He couldn’t lose you. He couldn’t let that happen. He would never forgive himself if he lost you. The thought made him sick with worry and fear. And that thought was also the determination to get you into care as quickly as possible.

~

Comatose. That was your curse. Apparently the horse had managed to damage your brain severely causing you to fall under a slumber from which you might not wake up. Diego was sick with worry, the fear and guilt following him everywhere like a shadow. This couldn’t be happening. Why? Why you? Why did it have to be you? Diego could’ve taken the damage but.. You were so fragile, so delicate and now you were at the mercy of death. All because he couldn’t calm down that cursed animal. Everything around him was crumbling. Like the entire world was dying, withering, leaving him alone in the sea of fear and sorrow.

He wasn’t allowed to see you. Not until your state was stable enough. It was killing him. Slowly eating him from the inside. He couldn’t focus on anything like before. Nothing was able to get his thoughts away from you. The worry kept him awake at night, draining him from energy. He was tired, sad, angry. It should’ve been him. His (Name) didn’t deserve this. You hadn’t done anything and now you were unconscious with severe injuries caused by his stupidity. Every day he came to the hospital hoping to see you, but got denied every time, his shadow of worry only engulfing him more. What would he do if he lost you? Not again. He couldn’t lose someone he loved again. Was life punishing him? Punishing him for everything he did?

Diego would wake up from his nonexistent slumber, expecting you to be next to him, holding him. But you weren’t there. You hadn’t been there for weeks. Only an empty spot beside him, haunting him, reminding him that there was a chance that this empty spot could very well remain there for all eternity. He would cry. Cry and desire your presence, your touch, but he knew his silent wishes wouldn’t be fulfilled. It was all useless, futile. All for nothing. The fear of losing you and the guilt were cruelly embracing him, planting themselves within him, ridding him of any peace.

It was like a curse. A curse that injected its venom into his veins as soon as the horse’s hooves made contact with your fragile bones. And it only worsened the longer he had to wait. He heard silent whispers of blame from no one, telling him that it was all his fault, sinking him deeper into the bottomless pit of regret.

The silence in your room was unsettling, the only sound being Diego’s slow footsteps as he entered. His dull eyes were locked on your still sleeping form, his whole body trembling. He was finally allowed to see you, despite you not being awake. It didn’t matter. He only needed to be close to you as he craved your presence more than anything. Diego took a seat next to you, emotions beginning to rise to the surface as he looked at you. Your body was almost entirely covered in bandages and casts, your face full of cuts and bruises. Yet despite all the painful injuries, your sleeping form was unbothered, looking just as peaceful as Diego remembered when waking up next to you.

It broke his heart to see you like this. He could feel the heavy tears start to form in his cyan eyes. He took a hold of your hand with his trembling one, squeezing it, hoping to get a similar action from you. However your hand remained relaxed, unaffected by his touch. Diego wasn’t used to his. You always squeezed his hand, looked at him with love and affection and smiled at him with that amazing smile of yours that filled his heart with joy. But now, all those traits were lost.

He wondered what you saw whilst in this deep slumber. He wondered if you saw him or any of the fond memories you two shared. Were you happy? Did you even realize what was going on? “Please.. Wake up..” His voice was silent yet painful, his troubled hand still holding yours. For a moment it’s just you and him in this world, surrounded by a cruel spirit of death that gracefully yet teasingly danced around you, not casting its spell upon you. “Y-you have to fight.. Please..” He pleads, hoping you can hear him in wherever you are. He can only hope that his desperate words reach your ears and help you survive so you can return to him.

“I-I’m sorry.. S-so sorry..” That’s all he can say. And he can only hope that it’s enough to bring you back. He’ll do anything to see your (E/C) eyes open again and see your lips turn into a loving smile that he so yearned. His both hands are now on yours and for a moment Diego swears he feels your hand squeeze his as if to tell him that you’ll wake up from the endless slumber and never leave him again.

But you never do.

And it’s his fault.