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boldlyvoid · 3 years

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Hypothetically | Chapter 21-24

Summary: Reader and Spencer were friends in kindergarten, she watched him grow up and explore the world while she was still trying to catch up to him. now that they work together, they fall in love incredibly fast. friends to lovers, case of the week style story.

Warnings 18+: Murderers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Blood, Guns, mentions of autopsy, Fluff, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, bed-sharing, Riding, Unprotected Sex, Virgin Reader, Case of the Week, original crimes, Food mention, Smut, Oral Sex, Light BDSM, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Talk, obgyn appointments and info, Home Invasion, Past Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Emotional Manipulation, Grooming, Pedophilia mention, non-con oral (male receiving), Pregnant Sex, Daddy Kink, Breeding Kink, Homophobia, conversion therapy

A/N; thee case in c21 is personal to me, like fictional revenge.

word count so far: 70K (chapter 1-25)

chapter 21

Having Spencer all to herself for 3 weeks straight was an experience she’ll never forget. They had the whole month of January off together, painting and re-decorating their home till it was exactly how they wanted it. It felt like home, it was theirs for real now.

Painting the bedroom green was the best idea she’s ever had. When the sun finally woke them up every morning, it wasn’t as blinding. It was paradise. The golden beams of light cast a beautiful glow around the room, it was like she was in a magic forest at the start of every day.

Spencer was laying on his back, his hair scattered on the pillow. He looked so peaceful, sleeping with his mouth wide open. Y/N was leaning on her elbow, looking down at the beautiful man she had the pleasure of spending the rest of her life with.

She brushed the hair off his face, watching his nose scrunch up as he felt her fingertips on his cheek. The sun on his face made him glow, he looked like a gift from god laying before her.

“Good morning baby,” she whispered softly. Dragging her finger along his jaw and down his neck, “we get to go to work today.”

Spencer stretched as he woke up, slipping an arm under her and pulling her into his chest. She held on tight, kissing his neck as she settled in. “Morning,” he replied. Raspy as ever.

“Wanna go get breakfast?” She asked softly.

He laughed against her skin, “gotta feed the baby.”

“And the wiiiife,” she teased.

“Not for another 11 weeks and 2 days,” he corrected her. “But yes, we should go get breakfast,” he whispered after a moment.

“Come on get up,” she replied with a big smile. He patted her ass as she peeled out of his grasp. Sitting up and stretching, taking a look down at the basketball protruding from her stomach. “Damn.”

“What?” Spencer asked.

She stood up beside the bed and pulled her shirt up, showing Spencer how big her stomach was. Turning sideways so he really got a good look at it. Spencer leaned over and kissed her right on her belly button that was beginning to pop.

“I know your ears are on in there, I love you, Matthew,” Spencer whispered against her skin.

She couldn’t stop smiling, taking a moment to rub her hands over the bump in amazement. “Hi Mr. Matty MaGoo, mommy also loves you.”

“Mr. Matty MaGoo?” Spencer laughed, looking at her with the biggest smile.

“Yes,” She laughed. “It just came to me, and it's going to stick.”

“Derek’s been calling him Mini G,” Spencer added.

“We should tell him it's Matthew, then he can be little Matty G,” Y/N swooned. “Seriously let’s go I miss everyone.”

“Okay, okay go get ready then,” he insisted, getting out of bed and dragging her to the bathroom.

—

Spencer drove, giving her a chance to look over her work emails before the day started. She was still CC’d on a bunch of VICAP things, being able to snoop on what was coming in and inspecting it.

Sometimes Mindy would CC her in just for an opinion.

Subject: Found Something. From; Mindy Patel To; SSA Y/N Y/L/N, Unit Chief SSA Aaron Hotchner, SSA-CL Jennifer Jareau

There’s been a child abduction in Arizona, I’ve pieced together some thing’s I’ve been working on in the background that might help the case if you are called in to assist. Even if you are not I believe you should take a look at this.

Mindy Patel, VICAP.

Attachment

Year: 1998 Victim 1: Emily Lawrence - 13. Kept till 16. Taken: August 3rd, 1998. Williams, AZ Found: June 10th, 2001. Camp Verde, AZ ME: decay has he placed at 48 hours postmortem when she was found - strangled, sexually assaulted long term, extensive throat damage. Never been pregnant. - COD: asphyxiation Info: good student, innocent shy girl. Followed the rules. Taken when walking home from school. Held for 3 years, assaulted and chained. Dumped without care.

Year: 2001 Victim 2: Olivia Tomms - 13. Kept till 16 Taken: August 3rd, 2001. Payson, AZ Found: June 23rd, 2004. Florence, AZ ME: decay has her at about 2 weeks postmortem. - strangled, sexually assaulted long term, extensive throat damage. Never been pregnant. - COD: asphyxiation Info: good student, innocent shy girl. Followed the rules. Taken when walking home from school. Held for 3 years, assaulted and chained. Dumped without care.

Year: 2004 Victim 3: Shelby Summers - 13. Kept till 16. Taken: August 3rd, 2004. Peach Springs, AZ Found: July 16th, 2007. Keams, AZ ME: decay has her at over a month postmortem. - strangled, sexually assaulted long term, extensive throat damage. Never been pregnant. - COD: asphyxiation Info: good student, innocent shy girl. Followed the rules. Taken when walking home from school. Held for 3 years, assaulted and chained. Dumped without care.

Year: 2007 Victim 4: Beth Green - 11. Kept till 13 Taken: August 3rd, 2007. Saint John, AZ Found: January 13th, 2010. @ flagstaff hospital. ME: COD complications from a miscarriage. Massive blood loss. - well taken care of. Throat damage. Signs of being detained long term. Info:good student, innocent shy girl. Followed the rules. Taken when walking home from school. Held for 3 years, assaulted and chained. Dumped with remorse like he didn’t want her to die, and he felt sorry because he loved her.

Newest abduction: Name: Sally Irvine - 12 Taken: February 3rd, 3pm. Middle School pick-up (missing 13 hours now) Witness Report: Italian/greek man. Early 30’s. Claimed to be her parents assistant. Sally was used to going home with random people from her parents' work. Handsome man, very charming and convincing. He wore a suit and drove a Silver Honda Civic. Rust at the back, partial plate HC8.

“Fuck,” Y/N cried silently as she scrolled through all the information, even in a compact form.

“What’s wrong?” Spencer asked, looking over at her with concern.

“Um,” she didn’t really know why she was reacting like this at first. Then it hit her. “Mindy sent me a case and it’s hitting a little too close to home.”

“Would you like to explain it yet? It’s okay if you want to process it alone,” Spencer comforted her easily like it was his second nature.

She let out a deep breath. “There’s a serial killer in Arizona that is kidnapping girls between 11 and 13, only keeping them 3 years. Every ME report says they have extensive internal throat damage, and 3 of the 4 found were never pregnant. This unsub is forcing them into oral for 3 years straight.”

“Fuck,” Spencer agreed. “I think we should take this one, if you can’t I would fully understand.”

“I think the unsub is my rapist.”

Spencer pulled over onto the side of the road. Putting the car in park and flashing the 4-ways. He turned to her softly and looked at her with a blank face.

“Walk me through it.”

“What?”

“If I’m going to go in there with you and tell Hotch that this is the same guy who hurt you, then you’re going to need to explain it to him and the team,” Spencer explained softly. “You’ve never even told me the full story, I don’t know anything about that summer other than the fact something happened. The first time you repeat this in front of me is going to be hard, and I don’t want you to have to do that in front of all of them.”

She couldn’t help herself from letting out a small sob, “okay.”

She took a few minutes to collect her thoughts, and calm down enough to get full words out of her mouth.

“When I was 12,” she started. “My mom went back to work, and she didn’t trust me to watch my brothers because they were rowdy and never listened to me. Like you said, they were more like my older brothers.

“My dad’s best friend, Jimmy, his wife had MS so she was home all the time. They had 3 older children and a few foster boys, she was used to lots of kids being there. And she had a pool to keep us occupied,” she bit her lip before she explained anymore.

“My mom’s birthday is June 8th. That’s when victim 1 was murdered,” was the first fact she explained that related to the case. She handed Spencer her phone so he could read and follow along.

“My dad is a Mason with the Masonic Lodge in Los Vegas, and he was becoming the master of his division on my mom's birthday that year, so we rented a hall and had a big party. Jimmy’s foster son was there, you remember Christopher Torsey? He was a freshman and I was in grade 6, about to enter grade 7, that was when the grooming started. He took me into the back room and asked if anyone had ever kissed me, I said no. He leaned in and kissed me in the dark and I was a giggly mess.

“My parents and his were really friends and he would come over all the time, our dads would drink in the backyard with our mothers till 1 in the morning most weekends. So I spent long periods of time with this boy for a few years, trusting him like a friend before he started anything. That summer he would always find a way to wander off with me, at first it was just kissing in different places where we could be alone together. Then he would touch my boobs, and he had me take my shirt off a few times.”

Spencer looked calm, but the redness in his face and the pulse in his neck told a different story. Her breathing got heavier as she had to recall it all, and she didn’t want him to be so upset.

“We worked at a local church camp together that July, we’d do crafts and sing songs and after all the kids left and we had to clean up, he’d find a way to take me to the room where they held the nativity scene out of season. He’d start kissing and touching me like normal, and then Kendra walked in once and saw and suddenly he went from obsessed with me, to disgusted, saying I came on to him and that it was all me. He was disgusted by me when we were in public, but he loved me apparently behind closed doors.”

“On August 3rd,” a tear slipped down her cheek. “The day the girls go missing. That was the first time he took me back to the shed and said ‘when two people are in love, they do things, and I love you. So you have to,’ He took his, you know, and I’d never seen one before. It was scary and I didn’t want to, I wanted to leave, but he pushed me against the wall and down to my knees.” She had to stop to take a breath, Spencer was crying silently as he watched her explain it all.

“He kept me trapped there while he did it,” she explained. “The worst part is that his parents were hosting a wedding that night, so no one could hear me basically screaming no over the music. He knew that. And so, when I complained about the sore throat the next day, my parents thought it was from all the singing.”

Spencer let out a shaky breath, he looked at her with so much love and sadness, she knew he loved her. She reached across the centre console and wiped the tears off his face, pecking his lips softly before sitting back to continue.

“The dates match up, he was Italian, they’re all 11-13 with throat damage,” she ran it down. “It’s him.”

Spencer licked his lips, wiping the tears off his face before taking a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go tell Hotch.”

Aaron stood up from his desk after Y/N explained the situation, walking up close to her with a sad smile on his face, “this was a very hard thing to come forward with. How would you like to participate in the investigation?” He was soft with her for the first time, it was surreal.

“Um, I’d like to come with you to Arizona,” she said softly. “when Garcia finds him, I’d like to be the one to interview him.”

“Do you think that is a wise idea?” He asked softly.

“When I was 16, years after everything happened. I went to Jimmy’s house for an event, and Christopher was there, and I went to his room. I was so desperate for the bullying to stop. For the lies, he had told about me to go away, that I went in there and apologized to him,” her voice almost disappeared as she got to the end of the sentence. Crying in disbelief. “2 years later he started abducting. I apologized to my rapist and he started kidnapping girls. I need to look him in the eyes and find out why he did it.”

“Okay, let’s tell the team.”

Y/N and Garcia spent an hour building the case files and compiling all the data they had on Christopher Torsey. Joining the team in the briefing room, where Spencer had already relayed the events to the team. Y/N didn’t need to describe it all 3 times in 2 hours.

She passed all the folders out, trying to avoid the looks the team gave her. They were sorry, they respected her, they wanted revenge for her. She knew it all came from a place of love, however, she hated being perceived by others.

It was a trauma thing. For so long people had the wrong idea about her, she was bullied and put down, and hated for no reason. She hates any form of attention, the glances and staring, the whispers of rumours being told as fact. It was stressful.

“Before we start,” she started softly. “Thank you in advance for your concerns, but I’ve been in therapy for 10 years. I’m very happy, this is gonna fuckin’ suck, but at the end of the day I’m coming home to a man who loves me, a baby on the way, and the best friends I can ask for. He’s going to prison. I win.”

Derek smiled at her, “that’s my girl. What did you find?”

“Christopher Torsey was born in November of 1979. His father was extremely abusive, he was in the ER a lot by the time he was 11. His mother killed herself in front of him when he was 12, he also watched his father rape his mother according to his child therapist,” Garcia started. Not knowing how to say the next part without Y/N crying.

“He uh, he said that his dad would tell his mom to be quiet. That-uh, I’m sorry, shouldn’t you say this?”

Y/N stepped in without a second thought. “He said that his father would hold the fact that he loved her over her head to force her into having sex with him. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“He’s our guy for sure. Do we have an address?” Prentiss asked.

“Yeah, he lives in a double-wide trailer in Cottonwood. Near the back with his own access to the main road,” Y/N explained. “I knew he moved to Arizona when Jimmy finally kicked him out. I haven’t heard from him in years.”

“Y/N is coming with us, wheels up in 20.”

—

Cottonwood PD waited for them to arrive before apprehending him. They were concerned that he would run, with his access to the woods and a four-wheeler in his possession, it was a matter of boxing him in quietly with a backup plan in place and men on the ground.

“Can I suggest something?” Y/N cut into the Police Chief and Hotch’s conversation.

“Sure.”

“Um, what if I walk up in our civilian clothes, and just pretend that we’re there to rub it in his face that I'm happy and in love,” Y/N suggested. “I can wear a wire, you can be in a surveillance van listening in. You’ll be right there if we see Sally or sense something’s up.”

“Are you sure you can do that?” Hotch asked her.

“I am,” she turned to Spencer, “if you can control your temper you can come. If not, I’ll show up with Derek and still rub it in his face that someone loves me now.”

Spencer sighed deeply as he contemplated it. “I’ll kill him,” he admitted. “Take Derek.”

“Let’s get suited up,” Derek patted Spencer’s shoulder. “I won’t let him hurt her again. Don’t worry.”

“I know.” Spencer looked disappointed.

Everyone left the room, leaving Spencer and Y/N alone. She wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug resting her face against his chest. He softly held her in return, rubbing his hands along her back with his cheek on her head.

“I love you, forever and always,” She reminded him. “And I know how much you love me, believe me. I wouldn’t have been able to do this if I didn’t truly believe Chris was wrong.”

She pulled back when she felt a tear on her head. She wiped it softly with her thumb as he leaned his cheek into her palm. “I am loveable, and you love me. I win.”

He laughed softly, “I won too.”

She pulled him into a soft kiss, “I’ll be back in your arms soon.”

“I’ll be in the van watching the whole time, I love you so much,” he added for good measure.

She smiled as she walked away, throwing a fist in the air like the end of the breakfast club. Knowing full well he’d never get the reference. JJ on the other hand, laughed as she followed with Spencer.

They changed into regular clothes, getting in a car from the impound lot and following the surveillance van. Morgan was quiet, Y/N knew he wanted to talk to her, to go over the plan, but he didn’t know how to. The wire wouldn’t be on till they walked out, giving Y/N and Derek their privacy if he ever chose to speak.

“Did you ever confront your guy?” Y/N asked.

He nodded, “Carl Buford. I got to show him who I am now, that I put men like him behind bars. That I’ll always win.”

“Is it a good feeling?”

Derek set his hand palm up on the centre console, looking at her softly as if to ask her to take it. She interlocked their fingers, he rubbed his thumb against her skin.

“You’re right, it fucking sucks. The original pain never goes away, but there is a content feeling knowing he won’t get to hurt another person, that he might get his ass kicked in prison,” he smiled that beautiful Derek smile. “I’ll always be here for when you need someone who gets it.”

“Thank you,” she smiled.

They pulled into the trailer park slowly, separating from the team as they approached Christopher’s trailer. “Just pretend you’re Spencer, treat me the way he would. I know Spencer tells you everything, go off of memory of what he’s said about me.”

“You know he tells me everything?” Derek asked softly, laughing a little to himself.

“Because he also tells me everything,” she smirked. “When he’s tired and he rambles, he tells me about his whole day and that includes when he asks you for advice.”

“You two are gross,” he smiled. “I hope I can replicate it.”

“Come on,” she laughed, getting out of the car and waiting for Derek at the hood.

She took his hand before walking up to the door, a hand on her belly to make it look bigger. Really wanting to show off that she was in a better place than he was.

She knocked, 3 times, stepping back so he could open the door. She didn’t feel scared, she felt anxious in excitement to watch Derek take him to the floor.

“Y/N?” She heard his voice for the first time in 13 years. “What are you doing here?”

“My therapist suggested that I come here and show you someone actually did end up loving me, regardless of what you said,” she explained.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he panicked, flashing his eyes back and forth between her and Derek.

“I can come in and explain it for you if you’d like?” Y/N smiled. “You’ve got nothing to hide I assume? I’m just wildly obsessed with you and a liar right? That’s what you told everyone so I wouldn’t be able to say you forced my head on your dick with the promise that you loved me.”

“I- I uh,” he stuttered. Starting to shake lightly.

“That’s what you do to all the girls, isn’t it, Chris?” Derek cut in, pulling the screen door open and watching as Christopher ran to the back of the house. “We got a runner!!” He announced to the wire.

Y/N didn’t run after him, she knew the team had him. She walked through the house to watch from the back door. Only to find Spencer stiff-arming him.

Christopher flipped over Spencer’s arm, hitting the ground before Spencer was on top of him. Spencer punched him in the face, once, twice, three times before he stopped. Sitting over the unconscious man as he caught his breath. Everyone just watched him. He rolled Christopher over, cuffed him and walked away into the woods.

Y/N carefully jogged into the yard, passing the bleeding and groaning asshole she used to know as she ran after Spencer. He was walking too fast, and he didn’t look like he was going to stop.

“Spencer Walter Reid!” She yelled at him as if she was his mother. “Stop.”

He stopped abruptly, huffing as he did so. He only turned around to face her when she finally caught up to him. “Don’t touch me yet,” he instructed her.

“Okay,” she stopped a foot in front of him. “Look at me, breathe. In and out.” She used her hands as she motioned a breath in, and a release out. She repeated it 4 times, watching him do the same.

“Can I hug you now?” She asked softly.

He nodded, stepping into her space and wrapping himself around her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“It was actually really appreciated,” she laughed. “I was debating if having a baby at 22 weeks was worth punching him in the face a few times.”

Spencer laughed softly into her shoulder. Squeezing her in his grasp as he breathed her in. “I love you.”

“I love you, more,” she smiled against his neck before pressing a soft kiss to his ever-beating pulse. “Let’s go see the team, come on.”

Y/N was adamant about searching the trailer with the team. Going to the surveillance van for a vest and gloves while Christopher was taken to the police station, and Spencer had his hand wrapped up.

It still smelled like him in there. The smell of his detergent mixed with smoke from the fireplace. It never changed. She noticed his PlayStation was on, he was still interested in games. He still slept with the brown comforter that was on his bed when she was 12. It was worn down, holes gathered at the bottom as it was almost see-through now.

She opened the closet to see a very large metal safe in its place. She took a deep breath, looking at the keypad to see what numbers had been worn down the most, guessing his password.

0803

It popped open, it made her feel sick to her stomach. As she opened it, she heard the muffled screams behind duck tape. Sally Irvine was tied up, hunched over in a tiny metal box while he played GTA.

She wanted to kill him.

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” she shushed the girl. “Sally, my name is Y/N. We’re here to take you home, you're safe now.”

Y/N took the tape off Sally’s mouth softly, the girl sobbed immediately. Not able to say a single thing as Y/N untied her and held Sally in her arms. Sally hugged her back as tight as she could, sobbing into her shirt as Y/N rocked her back and forth. Crying along with her.

“He did it to me when I was 12 too,” Y/N whispered.

Sally pulled back and looked at her with puffy eyes, “really?” She asked. Her voice low and scratchy.

“JJ can you get some water?” She called behind her. “Yes. I was his first.”

“Y/N,” the girl repeated. “That’s what he called me?”

She couldn’t stop the sick feeling in her gut, “let’s get you out of here.” She changed the topic, helping the little girl to her feet and to an ambulance.

Y/N smiled at her as she dropped her off with the EMTs, walking off into the woods as quickly as she could. She leaned over, holding her own hair back as she threw up on the ground.

She swatted away at the hand rubbing her back suddenly, continuing to hurl in the bushes as she heard them behind her, shushing her. She wiped her hand on her mouth before she calmed herself down.

She sighed and turned around to see Morgan. His arms were open for her to hug him, she buried her face in his chest as she cried. Not able to fully process all the information she just heard.

“Let’s get you home,” Derek whispered. Escorting her back to the car, she was done for the day.

chapter 22

Valentine’s day had come and gone by the time they finished their most recent case. Landing in Quantico very late on the 16th of February. Everyone departed the plane slowly, half asleep after the 3-hour flight.

“Did you guys miss any plans?” Y/N asked JJ and Emily as they walked together.

“Yeah,” Emily sighed, “I uh, I’ve been seeing someone.”

“Since when?” JJ asked, both her and Y/N suddenly not tired at all. They stopped on the tarmac and stared at her.

“Um, a few months now,” She blushed.

“Was this the sin to win weekend?” Y/N asked softly.

Emily nodded, “what’s sin to win?” JJ asked just as quietly.

“It’s a weekend for gay people in Atlantic City,” Emily replied. “It’s an easy way to mingle in a safe space.”

“Oh,” JJ was shocked. “Oh, so you’re, and you too?” She pointed at both of them as the information was processed.

Y/N and Emily smiled at her and laughed. “Bi? Yes,” Y/N replied.

“I’m still not sure,” Emily added. She sighed deeply, shaking her head as she tried to speak again. “I’ve never really enjoyed male company? It feels more like a performance than a relationship.”

“I mean good for you for noticing that now, if it wasn’t for Spencer I’d be in the same boat,” Y/N smirked at her. “He’s more than just a pretty face.”

“Wow,” JJ was shocked. “I would’ve never known.”

Emily placed her hand on JJ’s back, leading her towards the charter back to headquarters, “oh you poor, poor, heterosexual woman.”

“She has a cat, she cuts her bangs when she’s stressed and she bites her fingernails,” Y/N explained to JJ as they picked their seats. “She likes pussy, JJ.”

Emily smacked her arm lightly, all of them laughing hysterically. The boys walked onto the bus to their cackling, desperately wanting to know what was so funny.

“I was just telling them, I met someone and I’d like for you to all meet her soon,” Emily explained to the rest of the team. “I think you’ll really like her.”

“No way,” Derek smiled, high-fiving her. “Congrats dude, welcome to the dark side.”

“You too?” JJ was shocked. “Okay, put your hand up if you’re a straight person,” she stretched her arm into the air. Hotch and Rossi joined her.

“Really?” Spencer and Y/N looked at each other with excitement.

“What the fuck?” JJ was dumbfounded. “How did I not know this?”

“It just never came up before,” Derek shrugged. “Tell us more about this girlfriend of yours, Prentiss.”

“Or,” Y/N cut in. “you could bring her to Vegas in April.”

“Why?” Emily smirked at her.

“If you’re all free on April 23rd,” She teased them along. “Spencer and I would like you to come to our wedding at my parent’s house.”

“Oh!” JJ and Emily freaked, “holy shit!”

“So, you guys are in?” She laughed.

“Yeah!”

For 2 in the morning, the bus was the most excited they had ever been. And Penelope didn’t even join them on this trip. Normally it was her making this kind of excitement, Y/N basked in the happiness that filled the bus.

They discussed little details on the way to their cars, standing in the garage for a good 15 minutes as they planned the dates they’d need to arrange to have off. Hotch knew he could pull some strings to use everyone’s vacation time for a few days.

They exchanged hugs before breaking apart for the night. Planning to return around noon that same day. Giving them a sweet 9 hours of peace and quiet.

“We still need to invite Penelope,” Spencer whispered when they were halfway home. Interrupting the silence that Y/N was enjoying.

Y/N laughed softly, watching him drive with a smile on his face. “I only told the rest of them because Penelope somehow hacked into my calendar app, to plan a baby shower around my schedule, and saw the plans.”

“Of course,” he nodded along.

“So yeah,” she smiled. “She’s told me that she wants to throw me a baby shower/bachelorette party now.”

“That would be nice,” Spencer agreed, squeezing her thigh where his hand was always glued to her.

“If we even get more time off before the wedding, I’m crossing every appendage on my body in the hopes all the psychos take the day off!” She laughed, twisting her arms and legs in a demonstration.

He laughed, leaning against the wheel as he tried to keep his focus on the road. “I love you.”

“You better!” She teased him.

It went quiet again. She could hear the tires on the sandy slush. The grinding of pressure as the snow compressed into the tire tread. Small rocks being flicked up from the wheels, smacking the underbelly of the car as they approached their house.

She sighed as she saw the place, the beautiful green door illuminated by the porch light. Screaming ‘welcome home!’ As they pulled into the parking spot.

Sleep surprisingly came easier to her the more pregnant she got. She was used to laying on her left side now, she actually preferred it, because it means that every morning when she woke up, the sun came in just perfectly to make Spencer glow.

The alarm on Spencer’s table started to beep letting them know it was 10:30. She softly watched him roll over and smacked the machine before turning back to her and closing his eyes once more.

“No.”

She huffed in a silent laugh, getting closer to kiss the tip of his nose. “Time to wake up,” she whispered between kisses spread across his face.

He was trying his best not to smile as she peppered his skin with kisses. Pushing him onto his back so she had more skin to cover. It had been a while since they did anything together.

Between the cases and the baby, and everything Spencer learned about her past trauma. He’s been a little distant, and it was starting to make her worry. Dr. Korrapati promised that this sudden burst of anxiety was normal at this stage of pregnancy. It was what contributed the most to the nesting phase, but it still scared her.

She wanted to kiss him, to run her hand down his chest and palm over his boxers until she couldn’t take it anymore. So she did, just a little more seductively.

She moaned softly as she kissed the patch of skin under his ear and down his neck softly. She dragged her fingers over his skin, looping around his nipple as she sucked on his neck. She lifted her leg lightly over his, trying to get some friction between her legs as she kissed him.

“We should probably just go to work,” Spencer softly interjected.

She sighed, dropping her forehead against his shoulder and letting her shoulders slouch.

“I’m not broken!” She sat straight up as she yelled at him. “Can I please just fuck my boyfriend? I have been horny for Weeks,” she wasn’t sure where the sudden burst of emotion came from.

“Oh,” he sat up too, resting his hand on her back softly. “I didn’t realize you wanted to after everything, and the baby? You’ve had a rough few months.”

She laughed lightly, “Spence, of course I do?”

She looked at him softly, cupping his jaw in her hand. “I’ve had to process my trauma before. Yes, it’s still bothering me, and yes I have new trauma that I need to address with my therapist. But,” she emphasized. “I am a woman with needs, and one of those needs is getting railed before work by Doctor Reid.”

“You’re one hundred percent sure?” Spencer asked again.

She smiled and nodded, pushing him back down against the pillows. She resumed her last position, putting her leg between his so they could grind lightly and make out. “If it gets to be too much, I’ll ask you to stop.”

“Okay,” Spencer looked up at her, brushing her hair behind her ear as she hovered over him. “I love you.”

“Prove it,” she teased him, leaning in and kissing his neck again.

He reached behind her to grab her ass, she had noticed his hands gravitating there more as she gained pregnancy weight. She wasn’t complaining either, the way his hands felt on her skin was glorious.

He was putty in her hands, tilting his head to the side so she could kiss, lick and suck wherever she so pleased. She reached her free hand into his hair while he other kept her steady, in the perfect spot to grind against his boney hip.

He was all gasps and heavy breaths underneath her, she raised her leg lightly dragging it over his hardening erection before putting herself back in place. Just wanting to see how far along he was.

She rolled onto her back then, laying flat, waiting for him. He pushed his underwear to his ankles as he flipped on top of her. She was nothing but giggles as Her Spencer came out to play.

Opening her legs, she greeted him back into her grasp as he hovered over her. Both hands planted against the pillow as he looked down at her. His hair falling into his eyes, she pushed his hair back behind his ears.

“You might need a haircut soon,” she teased him, biting her lip softly.

“Shhh,” he whispered.

She took his right hand from beside her head, gripping him by the wrist and guiding him towards her mouth. Taking his middle and ring finger in, sucking on the digits softly. Making him release a sound she’s never heard before.

She looped her tongue around his fingers, spreading them lightly as she licked a stripe through them. Feeling his skin against her teeth, which only seemed to excite him more.

She pulled off with a pop, he looked mesmerized by the trail of spit that connected her bottom lip to his wet fingers. “Fuck,” he gasped as his breathing hitched.

“You know where to put them,” she whispered up at him, staring into his eyes as she bit her lip.

He kissed her quickly, pulling her forward so he could get the t-shirt she was still wearing off her body, throwing it off the bed as he kissed her neck, sucking a mark into the skin as he pushed his hand into her panties.

“Jesus,” he whispered against her neck as he felt how wet she was. “You weren’t kidding.”

Making her twitch slightly as he used the two fingers that were just in her mouth, to drag up and down on her clit. Rubbing it back and forth between the two knuckles.

“Fuck,” she breathed out as she gripped his hair. Palming his scalp while he kept kissing her neck.

She could feel him grinding against the bed as he kissed her, moaning against the space under her ear as he quickened his finger movements.

“I need you to fuck me, like yesterday,” she panted against his mouth, licking his bottom lip after.

He pulled away from her then, lifting her hips to drag her panties down. Keeping them on one of her ankles as he gripped the base of his cock and sat on his knees.

The sight between her legs was phenomenal. The glow of the sun on the lake through the windows as Spencer stroked himself in front of her.

Suddenly, he took both of her knees in his hands. Pushing them to her chest slightly before flipping her over. Extending her hips as he held her ass up. Kissing each cheek softly before straightening his posture.

“Ready?” He asked, she wasn’t expecting it.

Her face pressed into the pillow as she tried to find the best position to support herself. Pushing her hips back in a silent yes. He understood her body language, lining himself up with her and slowly pushing in.

She pushed back against him as well, moaning as she took all of him. “Finally,” she sighed, wiggling against his hips.

He gripped her hips, pushing her off abruptly before slamming back in. She was shocked, letting out a gasped moan as he fucked into her. Taking the instructions too literally, railing her.

She had never been that loud before in her life. Concerned Rossi would be able to hear them from across the lake, but it didn’t stop her. Only enticing him to keep it up.

She pressed her face into the pillow more as she attempted to reach her clit. She couldn’t, “fuck, Spence?”

“Yeah?” He slowed.

She took his hand off her hip, “can’t reach.” Her breath was erratic as she tried to explain.

“Aw poor bunny,” he teased her, slowing to a grind as his fingers ghosted over her clit. “Can’t get yourself off anymore?”

“Please daddy?” She let it slip, feeling his cock twitch inside of her as she did.

He leaned forward, kissing her shoulder softly. “Tell daddy what you want, use your big girl words.”

She pushed back against him, raising herself from the pillow to look over her shoulder at him. “I was going to say breed me, daddy.” She teased, watching his entire personality change. “But it looks like you already did.”

He licked his lips, pushing his hair out of his face as he shook his head at her. “You’re going to regret that.”

She pressed her face back into the pillow and perched her ass back more, ever the invitation. He ran his hand softly over her asscheek, slapping it before he started to fuck her again, reaching around to rub her clit, like she asked, ever so nicely.

They found their rhythm then, pushing against each other in just the right way. Between her deep breathing and the moans she released, the only other thing she could only hear was the sound of their skin slapping together as Spencer fucked her harder than ever before.

“Fuck, sweet Jesus I love your cock,” she praised him, punching into the pillow as she pushed herself back into him, on all 4’s now.

Using his free hand, he spread his fingers through her hair. Gripping her at the roots and pulling her head back as he slammed into her.

“Yes, daddy,” Y/N panted as she felt herself get closer to the edge. “Right there.”

“Cum for me bunny,” he instructed her, “let me fill your perfect little cunt.”

She came with a shout, pushing back against him as his words pushed her over the edge. Not being able to ever say no to that man, feeling his hips shake as he tried to fuck her through his own orgasm.

He pulled out, flipping her limp body back over so she could lay on her back, releasing the pressure on her stomach. Legs still spread as he observed his handiwork, scooping it up with his fingers and pushing it back inside of her. Making her clench up at the feeling.

“Spence-“

“Too much?” He smirked down at her.

She nodded, catching her breath as he just sat there. Still, on his knees, cock now soft and resting against his leg. She preached herself up on her forearms, shaking her head at him as she bit her lip.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” She asked him.

“I have no idea,” he laughed. “But hypothetically,” he bit his lip and raised his eyebrow. “I wouldn’t mind revisiting that on a later date.”

She laughed, dropping back against the sheets. “Me either.”

—

She waddled from the car to the elevator. A mixture of pregnancy and over-extending her hips, exercising with Spencer. Lamaze class more specifically, if anyone asked.

“I should really start calling you ducky,” Spencer whispered in the elevator.

“I hate you,” she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.

“Really?” He teased her, “because if I recall 27 minutes and 15 seconds ago when you were saying ‘fuck, sweet Jesus, I love your cock,’” he whispered into her ear.

The elevator doors opened as her jaw dropped, “notice how I specified which part, Doctor Reid?” She answered abruptly, walking out towards her coworkers.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” He said as he followed her. Making everyone turn around to see them.

“What’s going on?” Morgan noticed it first.

“Nothing,” Y/N rolled her eyes. “Just correcting the genius.”

“On?” Prentiss pried.

“Well this morning she said and I quote-“

“I will cut your balls off and hang them from the mirror in my car,” she snapped, glaring at him as she pointed her finger in his direction.

“Mama’s got claws,” Morgan laughed at them. “Damn.”

Spencer wrapped his arms around her, kissing her cheek in front of everyone. She turned pink, pretending to be pissed while a smile crept onto her face.

“She loves me,” Spencer smiled, pressing their cheeks together.

“One part, it’s nice to me and doesn’t talk back,” she replied, making everyone laugh as Spencer shook his head.

“Okay, you win,” he put his hands up in surrender as he backed away. Opening the door to the bullpen and disappearing behind his desk.

chapter 23

St. Patrick’s Day was never a holiday that Y/N or Spencer really cared for. Yes, they wore green to work, but other than that they didn’t really see the hype. They were Halloween people.

Will and JJ, on the other hand, went all out.

It was something to do with Will’s love for beer and his frat-boy attitude. Explaining to them that morning in the bullpen that the best parties on his college campus were around St. Patrick’s day and Mardi Gras, making February and March party central in his life.

They walked in with little Henry, decked out in green from head to toe. Green beads around his neck, gold chocolate coins in a basket, and the cutest little shamrock light-up head bopper.

“Look at you!!” Y/N called out to Henry as she walked into the room. Opening her arms up and leaning down to pick him up as he ran into her arms.

“Any Y/N!” Henry called her, not being able to say his T’s yet.

She pressed his tiny cheek against her face as she picked him up and snuggled him against her chest. It was getting harder to pick him up now that she was pregnant but she wasn’t going to miss a Henry snuggle.

“Since when did the FBI consult with leprechauns?” She asked him, booping her nose against him.

“Nooo,” Henry leaned back in her arms, “I’m not a leopard-con,” he tried his best to say the word. Making the team all laugh.

“Well, either way, why’s my favourite little guy here today?”

“Hey?” Spencer complained.

She leaned her elbow into him, “hi unca Spence,” Henry smiled at him. Spencer ran his fingers through Henry’s hair, messing it up under the headband.

“He wanted his godparents to see his outfit before the party at daycare today!” JJ explained with excitement.

Y/N placed him back on his feet, “go on the, show it off!”

He walked around the room, doing a fake model strut as he shook his diapered butt, walking towards the stairs before running back. “Woooow!” Everyone clapped and cheered.

Y/N looked up from Henry’s gaze, seeing Emily in Hotch’s office with a blond woman she didn’t recognize, “what’s going on in there?” She pointed.

“They’ve been in there all morning,” Rossi explained. “I think that’s the girlfriend.”

“How so?” Spencer asked, moving across the room to get a better view through the blinds.

“The way Emily leans against her, hand on her arm like that as she speaks. That’s the same way you and lady boy-wonder act when you’re in there together,” Rossi raised an eyebrow at them.

“Ahh,” Y/N smirked. “I wonder what happened, no one talks to Hotch with the door closed unless they need us to look into something.”

“I’ve gotta go,” Will cut in, scooping Henry up from the carpet with a tight-lipped smile.

“Bye buddy,” Y/N scrunched her nose at him, getting in close to press their noses together. “Have a good day today.”

“Bye, love you,” JJ kissed both her boys and watched them leave the room.

“they’re the best,” Y/N said as she wrapped an arm around JJ.

“Anyone want to go sit and have coffee while we wait for them?” Derek asked prior to a long yawn.

Rossi patted Derek on the back, leading him up the stairs and towards the briefing room. The remaining team members following their lead, discovering fresh donuts and flowers waiting for them.

“A gift for helping in advance, -Noelle” Read the small card on the table.

“Emily’s girlfriend?” JJ pondered, holding the card up and waving it slightly.

“I like her already,” Derek said, kicking his feet back and taking a donut.

Hotch walked in with Emily and Mindy 45 minutes later. Following them was a beautiful blond woman, probably 6’1 even in her flat running shoes. She was wearing cuffed blue skinny jeans and a big Barbie Pink petticoat.

She smiled lightly as she walked in, glueing herself to Emily’s side. “This is Noelle, my partner, Noelle these are my co-workers.”

“Hi!” She waved, “let me guess. Chocolate thunder, Derek Morgan.” She pointed to the nearest person to her.

“Correct,” Derek nodded in her direction.

“You would have to be Penelope Garcia,” she guessed right once again. “Emily was right, your aura is very bright.”

“Oh,” Penelope blushed.

“Y/N and Spencer, she said you’d be basically sitting on top of each other,” making everyone on the team laugh. “JJ, she said you’re like wonder woman, you look more like you could be cast as Super Girl if you ask me.”

JJ blushed, “thank you, Henry would agree.”

“Rossi, I already knew you. I love your books,” she fangirled a little. Something Rossi was incredibly used to.

“Signing hours are from 6-8,” he teased her.

Noelle laughed, her smile wide and toothy. “It’s lovely to meet you all.”

“Noelle has come in today with concerns that local gay men in her circle of friends are going missing. Over the last few holidays, 3 of her friends have disappeared. Dropping all contact after a trip to the bar,” Hotch explained.

“I’m a firefighter,” Noelle explained. “I have a Facebook group of friends who are gay and in the forces in any capacity. Just to let each other know where they’re going, to be safe.”

“Smart system,” Rossi complimented. “But also incredibly easy for someone to pose as trustful to gain access and track them.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Emily’s pressed lip smile portraying just how uncomfortable she was with the situation. “I’ve met our supposed victim number 3. Officer Perry is a great man and we haven’t heard from him since Friday.”

“Where was he going?” Y/N asked.

“He was at the bar with us on Friday for a little, we got a few beers and then he said he was meeting with a guy he met online, he was never big into online dating or even dating in general. He didn’t know how to be an officer and gay at the same time,” Noelle explained the situation fully. “He is one of my best friends, I excused it Saturday when he didn’t call cause I guessed he was having a good time. But when he missed Sunday dinner I knew something was wrong. I begged Emily to let me pitch this to you.”

“I believe you,” Hotch added. “Which is why I’ve asked Mindy Patel from VICAP to join us today.”

Mindy waved, she dressed more like a techie than an agent. Beanie, headphones on her neck and a big black sweater.

“Strauss and I agreed it would be beneficial to have a member of the team solely responsible for going through VICAP coincidences and letting us know. We stumble across too many rare cases thanks to Y/N and Mindy,” Hotch explained. “Mindy Patel is now officially VICAP Liaison. Her office will be across from Garcia’s from now on, she’s going to be our eyes and ears in the missing person world for the time being.”

“I took into account the fact that your friends were all masc for masc, on the police force in some capacity and male obviously,” Mindy explained. “And I found the two men from Valentines Day and New Years, and then more going back every major holiday for the last 2 years as of this St. Patrick’s day.”

“We’ve compiled the data and sent it to Garcia, it’ll be on your tablets shortly,” Hotch confirmed. “I’d like everyone to split up into teams and take an apartment of the most recent 3 victims. Prentiss and Rossi, you get New Years’.”

“Yes sir,” Emily agreed. “Noelle can stay here with Penelope for insight.”

“Yes. Reid, Y/N and Morgan, you’ll take officer Perry’s apartment. It’s the freshest so I need the best eyes.”

“Absolutely,” they replied in unison.

“Myself and JJ are going to the Valentines Day abduction,” check in with Garcia when you need to, fill me in on everything. Good luck.”

—

“Yeah a cop lives here,” Y/N laughed as she searched through the carefully organized home. Combing the place over for the slightest abnormality.

“He definitely wasn’t taken,” Morgan agreed. “He went willingly and never made it home.”

Dust was starting to settle on his possessions. Photos on the wall looked blurry as the sun shined through the windows. It smelled stale, no one had opened the windows in a while and the man who lived here worked out.

His clothing was organized by category. His laundry had 3 separate baskets for darks, lights and colours. Inside his bedside drawers, all his condoms were lined up by type. He was definitely anal about something.

“Guys?” Spencer called from the office.

Morgan and Y/N followed the sound of his voice, seeing him hunched over an iMac. “I moved the mouse and it’s open and unlocked.”

“But you don’t know what to do?” She teased him.

“Yeah,” he blushed. Watching Y/N sit in the desk chair and start looking through his things.

“His Facebook is pretty basic, he checked in at the bar with a photo here of him with Emily and Noelle, and then he went offline. He doesn’t have Twitter or Tumblr logged in, so I’m guessing he doesn’t have that,” Y/N explains as she stalked his activity. “In his history, your male basics. Case research, pornhub, Facebook, Hotmail… hold on.”

She read through all the subjects, all looking pretty normal. “What would a gay man hiding his sex life from his co-workers disguise his emails as?”

“Work-out appointments,” Morgan answered almost too quickly.

‘Workout’ she typed into the search bar. Seeing 15 messages from another man named [email protected]. “got him, call Garcia.”

“Hey baby girl,” Derek spoke softly as she answered. “We got Jensen Perry’s computer open, his email shows he’s been working out with a [email protected].”

“Already working my finger magic,” she teased him. Hanging up before he could say anything back.

“That woman will be the death of me,” he sighed.

“I don’t think we’ll find anything else here, our best bet is with Garcia,” Y/N admitted as she closed all the windows. “Wait,” she pulled up the search and typed in ‘find my iPhone,’ “if he has a Mac he has an iPhone, not many people blend their tech.”

Last ping: 2256 Sheerly Lane, Friday at 23:56.

“I’ll call Hotch while you drive,” Y/N said, pulling out her phone and following the men out the door.

Morgan followed the GPS 15 minutes down the street to an apartment complex. It was worn down and looked as if no one had taken care of it in the last 25 years. “I’m calling Garcia before you go in, I don’t feel good about this.”

“Hey doll,” Garcia’s cheery voice was a nice refresher.

“Hey, do you have any info on who owns and occupies 2256, Sheerly Lane?” Y/N asked softly. “Also send backup to this location, it’s where Perry’s iPhone is apparently and it looks sketchy as hell.”

She heard the clicking of the keys before she heard Garcia’s reply. “Yep, we have 1 occupant. Amy Romano, 46, left the building after her mother died. She’s been living there in room 333 for years, not renting any rooms out at all in the last 3 years.”

“A woman?” Morgan was shocked.

“Must be why we’ve never found the bodies, female serial killers are 90% less likely to ever be caught,” Reid added his fun fact, one she’s heard from him a handful of times before.

“Exactly,” Y/N agreed. “What do we know about her?”

“She’s an interesting one,” Garcia’s tone changed. “Her father was a minister, big bible freak. Her mother was the maid here at the hotel before being given the deed from the original owner’s family. She died in 1988.”

“How much of the religious upbringing rubbed off on her?”

“Enough to make her have multiple psychotic breaks, being diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was 15,” Garcia gained more insight. “Claimed to have been visited by God, and was told sinners are punished by word of god. That one day she would be the one to follow his word for the righteous man.”

“What if she’s doing her own form of conversion therapy?” Y/N gasped. “She’s not killing them. She’s following god’s word and freeing them from their sins. This is the perfect place to keep them. Locking them in rooms away from each other, secluding them and only subjecting them to a female for long periods of time.”

“Garcia, we need back up right now,” Morgan stressed.

“they’re 4 minutes out, good luck in there my babies.”

“See you soon, baby girl.”

Being left out of raids was weird to her, watching Spencer put on a bullet-proof vest and load his gun without her cover made her anxious. Luckily, she got to stand with JJ outside. Watching the building as they listened over their radiofrequency.

“Clear,” Morgan spoke over the system.

“Clear here as well,” Hotch said. “Meet me at the stairwell.”

“I hate this,” Y/N whispered.

JJ ran her hand along Y/N’s back softly, “me too.”

“Floor 3, room 33,” Hotch explained. “I’ll kick in the door, Morgan, you enter first. Spencer and Prentiss, follow our lead.”

Not having a visual was the worst part. There was no way to know where they were or who was there. They worked on sounds, if and when the team decided to speak.

“1, 2, 3,” Morgan whispered before they heard the door smash in. “FBI!”

Then it was silent again, too quiet for anyone’s liking, staring up at the third floor trying to hear everything in the neighbourhood.

“Amy Romano put the gun down!”

“No!” They heard before 4 shots were fired.

Y/N’s heart was in her throat; she couldn’t hear anything going on inside. The officers asked over the radio for updates, hearing nothing in return. Y/N couldn’t stop herself from running towards the apartment buildings before anyone could catch her. Up 3 flights of stairs, drawing her gun and walking towards the room.

Morgan was shot in the arm, down. Prentiss, hiding behind a table with Morgan and Spencer as she tried to stop the bleeding. Hotch in the unsub’s grasp, fighting for a gun.

Hotch noticed Y/N in the doorway. Kicking the unsub down. Y/N wrapped her arm around the unsub’s neck, putting her in a headlock as Hotch attempted to cuff her. She struggled like a wet fish against them, slipping out of her grasp and falling to the floor.

“If God wants to tell me to stop, he’ll tell me himself!” She screamed.

Y/N presses her gun to her head, “he just did.”

“Amy Romano you’re under arrest for the kidnapping of 24 men, attempted murder of a federal agent and resisting arrest,” Hotch explained as he cuffed her.

“Y/N!” Spencer stood up, looking at her like she was the crazy person. “We agreed, 3rd trimester, no fieldwork.”

“You didn’t reply on the radio and suddenly I was here,” Y/N explained, “I’m sorry.”

“We need EMTs, Morgan’s been shot in the arm. The bleeding is under control, just hurry.” Prentiss ordered over the radio.

“Y/L/N is going to need to get checked as well,” Spencer added.

“Why?”

“You ran up three flights of stairs, wrestled an unsub and got elbowed in the side,” Spencer explained, taking her hand and leading her out of the room.

“I’m sorry, I get it now I really do,” Y/N stopped him in the hallway, holding him in her arms. “I don’t like when I can’t see that you’re safe.”

Spencer kissed the top of her head, “I love you.”

“The baby’s kicking,” she replied softly, “that’s good right? 4 movements in 30 minutes after activity is a good thing.”

Spencer laughed, pulling back to feel her belly. “I’m sure he’s all hopped up on adrenaline now, come on let’s get him looked at quickly.”

—

They found 16 of the 24 men alive and in critical condition inside the apartment building. SCSI was canvassing the scene with local cops, taping up the building and surrounding property while the city discussed demolishing the building altogether.

Y/N was able to witness Noelle running into Jensen Perry’s arms, hugging him as they cried in his hospital bed. Y/N could imagine the trauma he was going through, the terror and the fear of something you really don’t want, happening anyway.

“Why do people do terrible things in the name of God?” Y/N whispered towards Spencer, looking up at him with soft eyes. Truly curious.

“The religious system runs similarly to cults, they believe the words are to be followed and thus they will gain entrance to heaven. If there’s one thing humans are afraid of more than dying, it’s internal damnation. Holding the fact that they will suffer in death over their head is a way to get them to do anything.” Spencer explained softly. “With the right person, the wrong message can actually sound like a pretty good thing.”

Y/N let out a deep sigh, “how do you raise a good child in a fucked up world?”

“Matthew, 18; 1 through 5, At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Spencer repeated the bible verse softly. “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me.”

Y/N smiled, “I like that.”

“He was always supposed to be good, he has you as his mother.”

chapter 24

April rolled around out of nowhere. Suddenly the snow had all melted, the birds were returning, and the trees were starting to bud thanks to the week of thunderstorms.

Love was in the air, both in the wild and in Y/N’s life.

The wedding’s in 2 weeks and she’s growing daily. She wanted to wait till the last possible moment to get her dress. Wanting it to actually fit over her stomach on the big day without any struggle.

Being placed on office duty for the rest of her pregnancy made it easier, not being allowed to leave Mindy and Penelope's side, under direct order from Aaron Hotchner. She was starting to notice that the more pregnant she got, the more the men of the team wanted to protect her as well.

JJ said it was the same for her the first time, all the alpha personalities came out around the third trimester. It was like they didn’t quite register that a woman on the team was pregnant till it was abundantly clear.

The girls had all agreed to go to the dress store with Y/N when they had a free afternoon, but that didn’t seem to be happening any time soon. Y/N ended up going by herself between cases while Spencer was on a flight, trying on 6 different dresses before she found one that made her happy.

The sales associate was being extra nice to her, knowing she had both a big budget and no time. It was an easy sale, but this wasn’t an easy decision.

She tried a sleeveless, skin-tight number on first. Not being able to even move once she got in it, not even bothering to look in the mirror. It wasn’t right, that was for sure.

Eventually, by #5 they had an idea of what she wanted. Long sleeves to hide her stretch marks, it had to be flowy but still show off the bump. And she wanted lace, embroidery even. Something that made it different, something that was more like her. Always growing, changing, adapting.

She was wandering the racks when she saw it.

It was so long, the train had to be at least 6 feet. It was light, made with sheer fabric so it would twist and flow with whatever direction she ran or danced. She could imagine walking through the grass with the train flowing behind her with purpose.

The most wonderful aspect was the long sleeves and the neckline. Cupping her chest perfectly with a nice ribbon right above her bump. The entire dress reminded her of something, the floral embroidery sending her back to a dress she remembers from her childhood, not able to place it but knowing it in her heart.

She looked in the mirror at herself, she felt beautiful. She shook her head lightly as a tear fell down her cheek. “It’s perfect,” she whispered.

The sales associate shook a big bell then, causing everyone to look at her and cheer. “Are you saying yes?” She asked, as cheesy as it was, she loved it.

“Yes!” She cheered back, feeling the love from everyone in the store.

The dress was huge, she laid the bag against her passenger seat and stared at it for a while. It felt a little crazy that she was getting married in a few days, even crazier that she was having a baby in 2 months.

Her phone rang as she started to leave. “Hewwo?” She answered softly, knowing it was Spencer.

“I just got home, where are you?”

“Oh,” she smiled. “Penelope said you guys wouldn’t be back until 9, I went and picked out a dress.”

“Alone?” He sounded sad.

“It was better this way, I picked it for me and no one else,” she reassured him. “I’m on my way home now though baby, I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay, drive safe. I love you,” Spencer replied, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

“Love you too,” she hung up.

She sighed, turning on the stereo and driving home to her favourite albums. Driving alone was different for her now, she used to love just escaping into the Virginia wilderness, picking a road and an album and just going somewhere.

Driving with Spencer meant silence, hand-holding, humming and ha-ing as he discovered new facts that intrigued him. She loved it, the ambiance of Doctor Spencer Reid was not something you could replicate, it was special and calming and wonderful.

She couldn’t wait to get home to him.

He was waiting on the front porch as she rolled into the driveway. Joining her at the car, wanting to help her carry her things inside. “Hi,” she smiled at him as she stepped out.

He pulled her into a hug, kissing her cheek softly. “Want some help?”

“If you don’t mind carrying in my dress, I need to pee so bad!” She said, almost about to run inside when he stopped her.

“Like how bad?” He asked.

“Excuse me?”

“If you were to get surprised would you pee your pants?” He tried not to laugh as he asked.

“Spence?”

“Just go in,” he said softly.

She sighed, knowing what this meant. Walking up the stairs slowly, turning the doorknob just as slow. Not ready to have her eardrums blown out.

“Surprise!!”

Sure enough, there were balloons and flowers and her friends gathered all inside her front hall. “Oh my god?”

Penelope wrapped her in a hug first, “your first baby shower has to be special!”

“You guys really didn’t have to do this?” She was so shocked to be getting attention that she felt a little embarrassed.

“We wanted to,” JJ hugged her next, their bumps too big to hug normally, opting for more of a side snuggle. “I got you something to change into before we get started.”

Y/N took the small blue bag from her, kicking her shoes off before they went upstairs. Spencer joining with her wedding dress, hanging it in the closet and slipping back downstairs, unnoticed.

Y/N opened the gift bag on her bed, JJ looked around the room for the first time ever. Looking at the photos of their first day of kindergarten on the wall, the artwork they chose. How Spencer wrote notes to her on the mirror with whiteboard markers.

“You guys are really cute,” she smiled.

“Thanks,” she smiled.

Finally taking the dress out of the bag, it was just something simple. Blue with pink flowers. Something she’d definitely pick out on her own. “This is so beautiful!”

“I got it when I was pregnant with Henry and never had a chance to wear it,” She smiled, “thought that you’d like it more.”

Y/N hugged her, “seriously this is the best thing you guys could’ve done for me!”

“I’m also going to need a pink dress,” JJ said softly in her grasp.

“No?” Y/N was shocked. “Really a mini JJ?”

“Yeah,” she smiled softly. “Hurry up we have more surprises for you downstairs!”

—

It took her longer than she hoped to get changed. The baby was just big enough to make her winded all the time now. Having to stop and take a breather just from taking her pants off. Not to mention the struggle of standing up after peeing.

When she finally made it back down the stairs on her swollen feet, she heard a familiar giggle that she loved very much. “You didn’t?”

JJ smiled, “it was Rossi and Will, they flew them all in and got them here.”

Her parents, brothers and wives were all in the kitchen waiting for her. Then she saw Diana, who was pressed up close to Spencer having a conversation in their own little world.

She walked in and cried, hugging her parents for the first time in 5 months. Showing off her big baby bump and chunky face for the first time too.

“You look amazing!” Her mom complimented her, taking her hand and making her spin slowly.

“Thank you, I feel huge,” she smiled. “I can’t believe you guys are here, I’m literally coming home in 2 weeks!”

“When David Rossi calls you and says he has a jet picking us up, you don’t just say no,” her father laughed, wrapping his arm around Rossi. They were going to be something else together.

She gave Diana a big hug when she could, watching her rub her belly and talk to the baby through her stomach for a good 10 minutes. It was so cute, everyone in the room watched and swooned. Secretly always hoping Spencer’s family got a moment like this.

After dealing with the Riley Jenkins case, and Gideon leaving, they worried for him. They never expected him to just show up one day with a girl and start the rest of his life the way he did. But it just made sense. He sped through school and early adulthood well before Y/N, now they’re moving fast, just together.

They had pizza for dinner, spreading 6 different kinds across the counter and telling everyone to dig in. Y/N took a slice and walked around, mingling with everyone to ensure she thanked them for coming.

“Henry!” She finally found him with Chloe and Lizzie. He ran into her arms, giving her a big hug. “Did you meet my niece?”

“You’re my any?” He questioned her right back.

“Come here Clo,” she called her over, huddling them both in close to her. “You both get to call me aunty Y/N, isn’t that so cool? You’re new friends and you share an aunty!”

Chloe gave her a big hug, she was getting bigger and bigger every day, about to turn 4 in a few months. It felt a little crazy, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“How are you?” She asked her softly.

“I’m good,” she whispered at her, smiling before hiding her face in her dress.

“Are you having fun here? Did you meet buddy yet?”

“No!” Chloe’s face lit up.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” She gasped at them both, getting back up to her feet and walking with them to where Buddy hid in the laundry room.

He was curled into a ball in a basket of towels, peaceful in the quietest room in the house.

Chloe and Henry took turns petting Buddy, kissing his head and playing with his tail, it was good for him to get a little used to grabby kid's hands. She was a little worried about how he’d handle a baby, but he was a chill cat he never really cared about attention as long as he was fed.

Eventually, JJ and Lizzie found them, peeling them away from the cat with the promise of cake while Y/N opened her gifts from everyone.

Everyone was watching her as she sat down in the living room, feeling a little anxious like she had to perform for them or something. Spencer finally joined her on the couch then, wrapping his arm around her in a soothing motion.

“So,” Garcia started. “I took it upon myself to organize the party but I didn’t just stop there, I also emailed everyone a link to a chart where they could pick the category of gift they got you so that we avoided repeats and got everything you would need.”

“This is all so much,” she turned bright pink. “You guys really didn’t have to I feel like I haven’t bought anything for myself since I met Spencer.”

“Nonsense!” Penelope hushed her. “Here, pick whatever one grabs your fancy.”

Y/N’s eyes raked over the pile of gifts, “um that big one over there, why not.”

It was a big blue bag, stuffed to the brim with tissue paper. The card on the handle was signed, she opened it to find 'from; Erin Strauss' on it. “Oh?”

“She couldn’t come but she passed that along on behalf of the section,” Hotch explained.

Y/N didn’t waste any time opening it. Finding brand named everything that she would need for breastfeeding, losing her mind at the never-ending bag.

Almost every gift was the same, all themed and absolutely filled. She was never going to have to buy anything for Matthew, she got it all today.

Hotch and Haley got her a babies bath essentials set. Her parents equipped her with every form of linen she would ever need for a baby, as well as a quilt made just for Matthew.

Penelope bought easily $400 in clothes for him over the past 7 months, with the promise of not stopping any time soon. Derek and Emily got together to buy them an all-terrain stroller, for the walks they expect them to take down the back roads. Emily’s girlfriend even brought a mom after-care set for her.

Diana’s gift made her cry the most, opening the box to find old copies of childhood books. “Those were all Spencers when he was a child,” she explained softly. “His love for the world started with those stories, I would like for Matthew to know them too.”

“Absolutely,” Y/N wiped the tears off her face, leaning over to hug her. “If Matty ends up being even half as wonderful as Spencer I’ll be grateful.”

“Spencer, did you get her anything?” Diana asked him softly as she was still mid embrace with Y/N.

“It’s in the garage,” Spencer smiled.

She looked at him with excitement, “you didn’t!”

“I might have,” he smiled.

“What?” Rossi asked, hating suspense more than anyone on the team.

“I was joking about wanting to get an SUV and become a soccer mom,” Y/N’s whole face lit up. “Did you get me a soccer mom mobile?”

He smiled back at her, “here.”

She held the key in her hand, her car was old as hell. She has had it since she moved to Virginia and even then it was a 2004 model. She had never had a new car, with the fresh car smell and clean everything!

“I am so overwhelmed,” she announced, bouncing a little in her seat as she shook her hands. Stimming just a small amount in front of everyone in all the excitement.

“We’re all done celebrating you now, I think we can start getting out of your hair, right guys?” JJ stood and pressured everyone that wasn’t relying on their house for the night, out the door.

Penelope helped Debbie and Diana clean everything up around the house. Peeling Henry and Chloe away from each other was the most difficult part of the night, becoming fast friends and wanting to look at books all night together in uncle Spencers library.

Rossi offered to let her brother Levi and his wife stay at his place while Diana and Y/N’s parents took the guest room in her home. Harrison and Faith driving back to Fort Meade to their own house.

—

Y/N and Spencer sat up in their bed, leaning against the headboard as they listened to the quiet of their house. Their co-workers were gone, their parents were settled in the guest rooms and most likely still awake from the time difference. The day had been so crazy that she barely had time to wrap her head around it.

“So…” Y/N cut the awkward silence. “Wanna make out?”

He laughed at her, shaking his head. “Remember the last time you asked me to do that?”

“Yeah, I lost my virginity,” she whispered back at him. A little scared that everyone could hear them talking.

“We can't,” Spencer looked at her with wide eyes. “It's bad enough my mother knows I’ve had sex once let alone possibly hearing us.”

He nudged him a little, crawling into his lap and sitting there softly. Her belly pressed against him, filling the space between them as she held his face in her hands.

“They’re on the other side of the house,” she pouted. “Just make out with me?”

He kissed her quickly once, “why are you so needy tonight?”

“All day I’ve had everyone's attention but yours,” she explained softly. “I missed you and I want my Spencer time.”

He couldn’t say no to that, because he felt the exact same way. He ran his hands up her thighs, over her hips and finally resting them on her back. She ran her thumbs over Spencer's cheeks, looking at him softly as she tilted her head to really admire him.

His lips were perfect, his nose was adorable. The way his stubble grew in and darkened his jaw was amazing. His bone structure, his eye colour, the way his hair just fell flawlessly into place with 0 effort. She sighed as she looked at him.

“I love you,” she whispered, biting back a smile as she waited for his response.

“I love you,” he giggled as he looked right back at her. It almost felt more intimate than sex, just staring into each other's eyes in a dimly lit bedroom, in the middle of the night.

She ran her hands up into his hair, combing her fingers through it. He tilted his head back every time, closing his eyes and enjoying the feeling. She was about to smile when she got a sharp shooting pain in her hips.

“Oh, my, god,” she breathed out. “Ouch?” She scrunched her face with the pain as the sharpness dulled into the bone, just feeling uncomfortable as she tensed up in his lap. She didn’t even realize she was tugging on his hair in response to the pain.

“What?” Spencer asked, concerned as all hell.

“I think that was Braxton hicks? It was like everything down there just lit up in pain,” she explained with a horrified look on her face.

He ran his hands softly over her hips, soothing the skin in an attempt to help. “Are they bad?”

“It just feels like a pinched nerve at first and then a dull ache, it’s not the worst. I don’t enjoy it that's for sure,” she laughed a little louder. “God, I hope he’s kind to me on the way out.”

“I was doing research into the best drugs and techniques for birth for mothers that don’t want any drugs either because they’re sober or they don’t want to be removed from the moment,” Spencer explained softly. “There are a lot of options if you want to look into them with me this week?”

“Of course you did,” she smiled at him once again, feeling a bit better. “We also have to pack the baby’s go-bag.”

Spencer laughed at the way she phrased it. “Isn’t it just a hospital bag and a diaper bag?”

“No, it’s a mission to have a baby. It’s a go-bag.”

They kept giggling with each other over the dumbest things, staring at smiling as they laughed. Spencer’s hands roamed her back while she poked his face. Happily just talking in each other's space about the most random shit.

It was what she loved the most about him, that they could equally ramble about what they found interesting and the other felt just as excited about learning something new. They had mutual respect for each other's interests and feelings that ran deeper than most, truly loving every word that left their partner's mouth.

By the time they settled against the pillows and attempted to sleep it was half 1 in the morning. They turned all the lights out and still just stared at each other.

She booped his nose softly with her own, watching him scrunch his face as a result before giggling again.

“Do you have any idea what the case tomorrow will be?” She was only asking because she wanted more time with him, needing to find every topic to bring up so that the night never ended.

“Mindy’s pitching something to us tomorrow again,” he whispered. “You’ll be good at this one.”

“Oh I’m excited now okay, goodnight,” she closed her eyes and pretended to snore, making him snuggle in and wrap her arms around him, pulling her in close the way they liked it.

“I love you, bunny,” he said one last time for the night.

She sighed as she settled into him, “I love you more Spence.”

#hypothetically #spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader

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daveeddiggsit · 4 years

Text

The Plan

WIDEOUT MASTERLIST

Series: WIDEOUT (chpt viii)

Note: Thank you @braidedchallah for proofreading. Reminder — before you kill me — there is one chapter left (and an epilogue). Keep that in mind. Enjoy. Feel free to yell at me afterwards. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry for what you’re about to experience.

Word Count: 12.2k

Pairing: Football Player!Thomas Jefferson x Tutor!Reader

Warnings: angst. possible breakup. perhaps some crying. implied sex (more than once). thom being a perfect boyfriend. thom looking fine af in denim (i’m trash).

Summary: Goodbyes are hard.

Tags: @coololdsoulpoetlove @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs @lilangeldevil006 @pana-ce-a @merrahonthawall @katierpblogg @thespianbooks @a-hopeless-fan @uniquelystarchildthedragon @wcreech @sabbrriiinnaa @imperial-martian @harpersmariano @icanneverbesatisfied @underthewillowtreerycb @i-know-i-can @astralaffairs @braidedchallah (if i forgot anyone i apologize, just lemme know for next time)

As one of the smartest kids in your graduating class, you have a certain reputation to uphold. Maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA isn’t easy, which means that you have to choose all the right answers and make all the right decisions.

As it turns out, you seem to be pretty good at that. Being right about a lot of things, academic or not, seems to come naturally to you. Especially when it comes to a certain curly-haired athlete who also happens to be your boyfriend of over a year.

You had been right when you told him that he would recover from his ankle injury on the night it happened. Well, you can’t be entirely sure of that yet since he’s still not clear to engage in full-action sports, but it’s incredibly clear that he’s well on his way to recovering fully.

Almost exactly seven weeks after the incident, he’d gotten his cast removed and replaced with a boot so that he could put weight on his ankle again. Since then, he’s been in physical therapy almost daily in order to make sure that he’s healing the right way. According to him, he’s progressing well every week and is slowly regaining his mobility, strength, and speed. Just two weeks ago he ditched the boot so that he could finally put on a pair of shoes; you remember the grin on his face when he gave you a little dance to show off the new kicks he’d gotten as celebration.

He’s not 100% healthy yet, and he certainly won’t be back on the field (or track) for another couple months until he’s clear to practice, but you’re proud that he’s been able to recover as much as he has in relatively so little time.

On the night of his injury, you’d also been right about another thing: the fact that Thomas would receive college offers.

And that’s what you’re celebrating today.

After weeks and weeks of advocating for himself and sending his player reel and personal letters to the head coaches of schools he wanted to attend, he finally got an offer from one of his top college choices: the University of Virginia.

While their football team isn’t the most notable in the nation, their program is one of the best in the state of Virginia at a Division I level, and that’s pretty much all Thomas wants. After he recovers fully, Thomas will make an excellent asset to the team since one of their starting wide receivers is entering the NFL Draft after this year.

At UVA, Thomas would get the play time he needs to shine and show his true colors and talent as a wide receiver all while having a coaching staff there to support him and his every need. Their academic program for liberal arts is also something Thomas has been looking at in a school since he plans on majoring in English.

With all of that said, the Jefferson household decides to host a special dinner for their son in celebration of the wonderful news.

And while under normal circumstances, you would feel happy and excited for your boyfriend and his amazing accomplishment, instead you have a voice that lingers in the back of your mind reminding you of the similar news you had received just a week prior.

Thomas isn’t the only one with a huge scholarship offer.

After applying to many different schools with somewhat notable engineering programs in-state (because let’s be real, out-of-state tuition is absurdly expensive), you’ve received only a few grants from NYU and Syracuse University, but it isn’t enough to cover all of tuition.

But when you’d received an email last week from the one out-of-state school you had applied to last minute, your heart had just about dropped from your chest.

UCLA is offering you a full-ride.

You should be happy that you have an incredible offer. You should be elated for Thomas with his scholarship offer, too. However, you can’t help but feel a looming sense of stress every time you think about telling him.

That’s why you haven’t told him yet; it’s been nine days.

“Y/N?”

Thomas’ voice snaps you out of your thoughts and suddenly you are brought back to reality. You’re dressed up and sitting at the dinner table with Thomas across from his parents. The menu of the night consists of a couple different French dishes that his mother had learned to make a few years back when they visited Paris for an entire summer. His mother’s rendition of the food is nothing short of amazing.

Your eyes meet the warm brown ones that belong to your boyfriend as you turn your head to glance at him next to you. “Hmm?”

”You didn’t hear anythin’ I said, did you?” Thomas chuckles, biting his lip as he watches you put on a guilty simper.

“No, sorry.” You breathe out a small laugh in order to cover up your underlying nervousness. “I zoned out for a minute there. What were you saying?”

“Well, I’m arguin’ a case here. Technically, a hot dog — a piece of meat held together by two pieces of bread - is a sandwich, right? In simple terms and by definition this should be true, so don’t overthink it. My dad keeps saying it’s not, but please, Y/N, you gotta side with me this time.”

You take a breath in and click your tongue. “I don’t know, Peter, I think I gotta go with Thom on this one.”

“Yes!” Thomas celebrates, throwing his arms up dramatically. “I told you!”

Mr. Jefferson’s mouth drops at your response. “How dare you take his side. Did all those other times teaming up at dinner and making fun of him mean nothing to you?”

If it hadn’t been evident prior to this moment where Thomas gets his overdramatics from, then it’s certainly clear now.

“Case closed.” Thomas smirks, crossing his arms, proud of himself.

“What are you talking about? The case is far from closed.” His father retorts, splaying his arms out, causing Thomas’ mom to speak out.

“Hey, calm down, you two. You’re gonna make a mess if you keep on bangin’ the table like that.” She chastises them. They both mutter their apologies before Thomas’ father continues on defending himself.

“Y/N, why’d you choose his side? You know I’m right. Don’t let that boy guilt trip you; he’s still gonna love you if you disagree with him.”

“Sorry, Peter.” You shrug, sneaking a glance at Thomas who’s watching you with a glint in his eyes. “As much as I don’t want to agree with your son on this one, I unfortunately do.”

Thomas pauses to narrow his eyes as you in puzzled manor. “‘Unfortunately?’ Your words wound me, sweetheart, really.” He says in a teasing tone before his smile turns smug as he directs his attention towards his father. “But you see, Dad? It’s 2 against 1. ‘M sorry to say, but your opinion is overruled.”

Mr. Jefferson waves his son off dismissively. “That’s horseshit; your mother hasn’t sided with anyone yet. We still have one more vote to count.”

“Language, Peter.” The woman in question warns, giving him a look that’s only half serious.

“Well, honey? You agree with me, don’t you?” Peter asks his wife with pleading eyes, causing her to roll hers.

“Sure, sweetie.”

You shake your head and smile, leaning back in your chair to watch the antics unfold.

“What? Ma, why you takin’ his side?” Thomas jumps in. “I’m supposed to be your favorite, you know.”

“Of course you’re my favorite; you’re my only child, Thomas.” His mother deadpans, causing Thomas to frown.

It’s Peter’s turn now to smirk at Thomas and you. “See? Now we’re tied. Opinion very much not overruled, thank you.”

“Wait, what was your side of the argument again?” Mrs. Jefferson asks her husband. “You said a hot dog is a sandwich, right?”

“No, that’s what I said.” Thomas interjects.

“Oh, well then I agree with Thomas.”

“Ha!” Your boyfriend exclaims, pointing at his dad. “I told you! Your opinion is not valid. Hot dogs are sandwiches. End of story.”

“They are not sandwiches! They are a different entity. How can you compare a ham and cheese to a weiner between two buns? Well I’ll tell you. You can’t!”

“For the last time, Dad. It’s a piece of meat in between two pieces of bread. That is classified as what? A sandwich!”

“With that logic, you’d say that a burger is a sandwich, too?”

“Yup.”

“There is somethin’ wrong with y’all.” Peter shakes his head, picking at the leftover food on his plate. “I thought I raised you better, T. Y/N, I expected you to take my side on this one.”

“Sorry, Mr. J.” You shrug. “Tommy’s right. A piece of meat in between two pieces of bread does indeed technically classify it as a sandwich.”

“Y’all got me thinkin’ that I’m the crazy one now.” Peter sighs defeatedly.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough of that nonsense.” Thomas’ mother chuckles, waving her hand in the air dismissively. “Thomas, honey, your father and I are very proud of you and are excited for your opportunity at UVA.”

“Thanks, Ma.” Thomas grins. “I’m excited, too.”

Under the table, Thomas’ hand finds yours and laces your fingers together. Its warmth is comforting and the small moment makes you forget about everything for just a moment. A small silence stretches on for a bit before Peter speaks up.

“So, Y/N, how are your college applications going? Have you gotten any scholarships yet? I feel like you’re too smart to not get anything.”

Your stomach drops at the question. You really hadn’t expected to be put on the spot like this, and while it is a simple question that you should be able to answer quickly… you don’t. You hesitate and Thomas notices.

You want to tell the truth, you really do, but you can’t. This is Thomas’ night to celebrate and the last thing you want to do is mess it up with news that you’d be going to school across the country. Tonight is supposed to be about him, not you.

So you lie.

“Oh, um, no, not yet.” You chuckle nervously. The hand holding Thomas’ fidgets slightly and he squeezes lightly to try and help calm your nerves. “I mean, I’ve gotten into NYU and Syracuse so far. Still waiting to hear from Columbia. I haven’t heard much as far as scholarships, though, unfortunately. I’ve received a few grants here and there, but nothing too big.”

“Columbia, wow. What’s their acceptance rate? 10%?” Mrs. Jefferson asks, seemingly interested.

“6%.” Thomas jumps in to answer before glancing at you with a small smile. “I don’t think Y/N will have any trouble getting in, though.”

You send him the biggest smile you can muster, though you feel like it sort of comes out as a grimace. “Thanks, T.” You say softly.

Beat.

“What time is it? I think it’s past my bedtime.” Peter yawns, checking his watch. “10 o’clock? Where did the time go? Y/N, are you going to be okay driving home this late?”

“It’s not that late, Mr. Jefferson. I should be fine.” You’ve definitely driven home from Thomas’ place past 10pm before (multiple times), but you’re not telling him that. “I do think I should probably leave soon, though.”

“You wanna go get your things upstairs, then I can walk you out?” Thomas asks you with a mischievous look in his eye. Knowing him, he probably just wants to get you alone for a bit before you leave. Even through your nervousness to tell him the truth, you can’t deny his charm.

“Yeah, that sounds good, Tommy.”

Then, both you and Thomas excuse yourselves from the table. You make sure to thank Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson for dinner and the invite. You’re always honored to be included in their family events even if it’s something as small as dinner on a Friday night.

When you make it up to Thomas’ room, he doesn’t waste another moment before he kisses you softly, his hand reaching up to cup your cheek after he gently shuts the door.

“Been waitin’ to do that all night.” He grins afterwards, softly brushing over the skin of your cheek with his thumb.

You smile as you bring your hands up to his shoulders, wordlessly leaning forward to sweetly press your lips to his again.

“Missed you.” He mumbles as he pulls away to lean his forehead against yours. “Feel like we haven’t been seeing a lot of each other lately.”

He’s right. With both of you not having any classes together this year, you both worried about college applications, Thomas not in football season anymore and in and out of PT almost constantly, you two haven’t been seeing each other as much as you’d like. Another reason why you haven’t been able to tell Thomas about UCLA (aside from the fact that you simply don’t have the guts to do it).

“I know.” You sigh, looking off to the side for a second. “I’m sorry.”

“‘S not your fault. We’ve both been busy.”

“Yeah, but still.” You say softly. “Feels bad. I miss you.”

He chuckles. “Well, I’m right here, baby. Don’t need to go far.”

You smile haphazardly and roll your eyes as you bring your hand up to the back of his neck and pull him into another kiss. Who knows how many more of these you’ll get before you both graduate and have to go your separate ways.

Before it can go too far, you pull away again.

“T?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m so proud of you.” You say genuinely because you really want him to know. You feel like you don’t tell him enough (even though that’s not the case). “Really, I am. You deserve that scholarship and so much more.”

“Thanks, love.” He murmurs while a soft smile adorns his face. “Hey, if none of these in-state schools give you anything, I think you’d have a good chance at getting something at UVA. They have an honors college that gives up a ton of grants and shit, you should look into it. I’m not sure if the applications are still open, but worth a try.”

You purse your lips before you give him your response. “Maybe, we’ll see.”

“I’m sure you’ll get something anyway, but just wanted to bring that up and let you know.”

“Appreciate the thought, Thom.”

Thomas grins, giving you one last peck on the lips before finally turning away to remove his overcoat. He double takes when he sees your face drop slightly. His eyebrows furrow as he notices your mood shift. “Hey, what’s wrong? Somethin’ botherin’ you? Not gonna lie, you’ve been a little off all night, sweetheart...”

You hesitate, not able to look him in the eye, the guilt eating you alive. The pressure of holding everything in is building up and while Thomas is normally your rock, the one you can go to for anything, you can’t this time, and you can feel it wearing you down.

You take in a shaky deep breath before you go to sit down on his bed, eyes cast towards the ground. “I’m okay, T, I’m just… stressed. With school.” You say, finally willing yourself to look up into his caring gaze. It hurts to lie to him, but you keep telling yourself that it’s his night.

“You sure?” He asks, taking a seat next to you to gently grab your hand in his. “Seriously, baby, I know when somethin’s up. What’s on that brilliant mind of yours, huh?” He lightly bumps his shoulder against yours in a teasing gesture, causing you to let out a half-hearted chuckle. He always knows how to get a laugh out of you, doesn’t he? “I know you’re worried about more than that stats test you have next week. Tell me what’s really botherin’ you.” He says softly, catching your gaze again.

Sighing once more, you tear your eyes away from his pleading ones. “I um…” You trail off after trying and failing to come up with another lie or excuse.

Thomas always draws your worries and frustrations out of you; he knows you so well to the point where he knows exactly what to say to convince you to tell him something. Honesty has never been a problem in your relationship, and the last thing you want is to push it to a point of no return. You already feel terrible for withholding the truth; you want to be free from this secret you’ve been holding.

And suddenly seven words echo in your head:

“Tell him. He’ll understand. He loves you.”

Your eyes flit back up to meet his concerned gaze. Here it goes.

“I did get a scholarship. All tuition and expenses paid. I got the email a week and a half ago and I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

His eyes widen at the confession, taken aback by how big the news is.

“Holy shit, Y/N, that’s… that’s amazing, baby. I’m so proud of you. Not surprised, but proud nonetheless.” He says genuinely, a smile evident on his face before it drops slightly. “Why didn’t you wanna tell me?” There’s a moment of silence before he speaks again. “Wait, why’d you lie at dinner when my dad asked?”

You give him a sad smile before you look away again, fidgeting with your fingers on the hand that Thomas isn’t holding. “I didn’t want to take over your night, T. And I didn’t tell you when I found out because… the school’s in Cali.” You say, releasing a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding.

He cocks his head to the side slightly, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. “I thought you only applied to schools in-state.”

You shake your head, pursing your lips before you respond. “That’s what I had planned originally, but my advisor pushed me to apply for this scholarship program at UCLA and… well, I got in.”

Thomas goes silent for a few moments as he looks off to the side, breathing deeply. It’s hard to tell what he’s feeling. Then, he lets out a low whistle. “Full-ride to UCLA, huh?” He says softly before he turns to look at you.

“Thomas…” You start, your voice soft and full of worry, but he continues to talk.

“Are you going to accept it?” He asks and you nod slowly.

Ideally, you have no other real choice; by going to UCLA you’d graduate with zero debt. And with UCLA’s engineering program and opportunities that other schools can’t fulfill, it fills all the boxes you want in a university.

“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Really. I’m glad they recognize how amazing you are.” The tone in Thomas’ voice is fond and he’s absolutely sure of the words he’s saying. “It’s far away, I know, but we can make it work.”

The emotions in his eyes are conflicting, but they still hold unrelenting love and support in them. When you hesitate to respond, his eyes search yours, trying to find some sort of answer in them, but before he can decipher anything, you tear your gaze from his.

“Right?” He asks as his grip on your palm loosens until your hand falls back into your lap, the warmth from Thomas’ fingers completely vanished. “Baby, talk to me. Please.”

“Thom, I… I want to think that but I’m not sure.” You admit quietly, and having said that, you can see something in Thomas’ composure crumble.

He shakes his head. “Nah, don’t you say that. We can make this work, Y/N.” His voice wavers slightly as he stands up and runs a hand over his curls, smoothing them back and away from his face. “I haven’t accepted the offer at UVA. I can decline and apply to UCLA—”

“T, I’m not going to ask you to do that—” You start, but he cuts you off.

“You don’t have to ask me, love. I’m willing to do this all on my own. Like I said, we can make this work. I’ll improvise. My parents can afford it, then I can just join the football team as a walk-on. I’m confident I’ll make it. Since they didn’t give me an offer I’ll prove them wrong and be the best damn walk-on they ever had.”

“Thomas, don’t—”

“I can also have my dad send the head coach a letter. I didn’t wanna pull that for any other schools because I wanted to earn all my offers — and because of the whole nepotism thing — but I’ll make an exception for—”

“Thomas, please!” You raise your voice and when he finally stops, you immediately regret it. You’ve never raised your voice like that with him before and doing so right now feels terrible.

“Please, T, just stop. I don’t want you to do any of that for me. How long have you been waiting for UVA to give you a chance? How many letters have you personally written to Coach Michaels, begging him to consider you for one of their open receiver positions?”

Thomas is silent as you speak, knowing full well that you have a point. You continue.

“You’ve been set on UVA as your top school for a couple months now. Don’t forget how hyped you were when you finally got the offer this morning. And now you want to just throw that away? No. I’m sorry, Thom, but I am not going to be the one to take it away from you.”

“You’re not.” He says earnestly. “Taking it away from me, I mean. I want to do this for you. For us. UCLA has a good football program, too, all I have to do is pull some strings if you’ll let me.”

You shake your head at him. “Okay, well I’m not letting you do that. Thomas, it’s not as easy as you’re making it seem. Think about this, okay? Think about yourself and your football career and all the opportunities that you’ll have for yourself down in Virginia. Don’t let me get in the way of that! I don’t want each of us to be an obstacle in each other’s successes.”

Thomas gives you an incredulous look and stills himself. “Are you serious? Is that what you consider our relationship? An obstacle?”

You look away, sighing. “No, T, I… I didn’t mean it like that, you know that.”

“No, Y/N. I don’t know that.” He looks at you with a distressed gaze, all traces of comfort and playfulness gone and replaced with hurt… caused by you — something you never would have thought you’d see in his eyes.

“Look, I don’t wanna talk about this right now. Today’s supposed to be your day.”

“Let me get one thing straight, Y/N. Our relationship is not an obstacle… it never has been and it never will be.” Thomas says coldly and you cringe when he calls you by your full name in a tone that’s less than friendly.

“I just don’t want our love for each other to get in the way of…” You trail off, but decide against speaking mid-sentence. “You know what, nevermind.”

“Get in the way of what?”

“Thomas,” you start, making eye contact with him once again. “I don’t want to get in the way of your football career. It’s unfair; I can’t do that to you, T. You deserve to make the most of your career in college so that you can make it to the NFL. That’s your dream, right? To play in the NFL for the New York Giants like your father did. Am I right?”

His jaw clenches slightly as he nods, and you continue.

“The coach at UVA believes in you — even through your injury. Why are you going to throw that away? In order to be with your high school girlfriend? Do you see how childish that sounds?” A beat of silence passes before you continue in a softer tone.

“I just… I don’t want you to do that, Thomas, it’s too big of a risk. You have a solid spot at UVA to prove yourself on the field. If you drop that for a walk-on position at UCLA, it’ll be a mistake. Instead of proving yourself to NFL recruiters, you’ll be set on proving yourself to college coaches just to get a chance on the field. I want you to have the best chances at making it to the NFL.” Now it’s your turn to stand up. You pace away from him as you continue to speak.

“Let’s say you do follow me to UCLA and join the football program. What if… what if something happens while we’re in college and we’re not together anymore? What will happen? You’d have potentially messed up your career for me and I don’t want that to happen, T. I’m sorry but I won’t let that happen.”

Thomas holds a hand up to stop you from your ramblings. He speaks his next words slowly. “Wait, wait, hold on now. You think we’re going to break up in college?”

You roll your eyes in frustration, crossing your arms defensively. “That’s not what I said—”

“No, no that’s exactly what you said.” He responds coldly, narrowing his eyes at you. “I’m starting to question our intentions in this relationship, Y/N. Did you ever plan on us being long term?”

“See, this is why I didn’t wanna tell you. I didn’t want this to happen.” You say, annoyed that it’s gotten to this point of you two having an argument.

“You just gonna ignore my question?”

“Before applying to schools, T, I wasn’t even thinking about the future. I was taking things day by day. We were both pent up in our little perfect world, but right now we need to face reality.”

“Okay, so then why’d you keep this a secret from me? Were you plannin’ on keepin’ this to yourself until graduation? I don’t know if you knew this, sweetheart, but a relationship is a two-way street and involves a little somethin’ called communication.” His snarky tone fills the room and has you rolling your eyes again. “Girlfriends aren’t supposed to lie to their boyfriends and then get mad at him for reacting a certain way when she finally decides to tell him huge news.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” You say, breathing out another sigh and softening up at his last sentence. He’s right; you shouldn’t have kept it a secret. “I wanted to tell you, I just, I don’t know what’s gonna happen after we graduate, okay? And I’m scared.”

“You don’t think we can work through that together? As a team?” Thomas’ eyes are begging you to reason with him. “I’m scared, too, but we’ll figure something out. Right?”

The look in your eyes is distant as you cast them down to the ground. “Yeah.”

“Maybe we could do a long distance thing. I’ve seen other couples do it.”

You fiddle with a loose thread on your sweater. “I don’t know, T. We’ll see if we can come up with something.”

He rolls his eyes and huffs out a hot-tempered laugh. “Okay.” He says shortly.

“What?”

“So you don’t want me to drop everything and go to UCLA with you, which is fine. I understand that. But now you’re telling me that you don’t wanna do long distance?”

“I didn’t say that, I just— we need to be realistic, Thom.”

“What does that even mean?!” He yells, and it’s the first time he’s ever raised his voice at you. You hate it.

“We have to keep the future in mind!”

“I want you in my future! Don’t you want me in your future?”

“We both have different ideas of what we want. Different dreams, okay? You can’t have your dream of making it to the NFL and also have me when I plan on going to an engineering program across the country!”

You’re deflecting and he knows it.

“Answer the damn question, Y/N.” He says lowly, his voice taking on a dangerous edge.

“Of course I want you in my future, Thomas!” You say exasperatedly, looking at the ceiling. “What kind of question is that?”

“Forgive me if I’m strugglin’ to believe that when you’re actin’ like this.” He says, his voice taking a more neutral tone, but he sounds exhausted. “You’re going to school across the country and you were hesitant to tell me - fine. I fucking get it. But you can’t just say that we’ll probably break up in college and think that that is fucking okay. It’s not! And you can’t say ‘I don’t know’ about dating long distance when that’s literally the only other option we have.”

“That’s the thing, Thomas. I don’t know if that’s the only other option we have.”

His face looks puzzled as he looks at you for a few seconds before realization finally settles in. Thomas narrows his eyes at you once again, his gaze cold, making your heart drop in your chest. “You wanna break up, don’t you?”

“No.” You state, choosing your words carefully. “I don’t want to. But we have to think about—”

“Our future, yeah. I get it.” Thomas snaps, cutting you off. “You know what? You want to talk about the future? Fine. Maybe we should.” He says simply, crossing his arms. “If you think we’re just going to break up in college anyway, maybe we should just speed up the process and get it over with.”

You shake your head at him. “Thomas, don’t do this. That’s not what I want.”

“Isn’t it?”

“It’s not.”

“I find that extremely hard to believe.”

“I’m done arguing with you, Jefferson.” You breathe out tiredly, running a hand through your hair.

He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. He looks completely drained as he speaks again, his voice now calm. “What are we doing here, Y/N?”

A small silence fills the air before you answer quietly. “I don’t know, T.”

What are you both doing? Arguing about whether or not your relationship should continue after high school? Maybe you are being a little irrational about it, implying that you should break up before college and all. Thomas’ reaction to it all is understandable because he doesn’t want to lose you. However, he needs to be truthful to himself. Is this relationship going to work when the two of you are seeking entirely different career paths on opposite coasts?

What a fucking mess.

You hate that it’s gotten to this point. Your fear about telling Thomas and it going downhill has come true, and knowing that makes you even more emotional.

“Tommy… I…” You say sotto voce, on the edge of tears as you slowly reach for him, but he puts a hand up stopping you from moving any further. He turns his face so you can’t see his expression.

“Don’t, Y/N.” Thomas’ voice is firm, but it breaks slightly when he says your name. “Just don’t.” He whispers.

You watch him and he struggles to keep himself together. You hate that you’ve done this to him, that you’re making him feel this way… you hate that you’ve caused this.

“I’m gonna go…” You voice (barely above a whisper) after a long silent pause, not trusting your normal voice due to the shaky deep breaths that begin to rack your body. You’re on the verge of breaking down.

Thomas nods. “I think you should.”

And that breaks your heart.

You feel weird leaving like this, gross even. You don’t want to leave things off like they are. You don’t want to leave things unresolved and you don’t want to leave with Thomas still angry at you. Still, though, you grab all your things and head to the doorway of his room.

Pausing to look back at him, you open your mouth to say something, but hesitate. Deciding against it, you turn to open the door and leave without another word.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

You call Maria as soon as you get to your car. She helps you keep your composure as you drive to her house, keeping you company via phone. You make sure to send your family a quick text of your whereabouts and that you plan to spend the night at Maria’s place.

As soon as you arrive in her bedroom and drop your bag to the ground, you break down and begin to sob, crashing into the welcoming arms of your best friend. You cry until you can’t anymore, and Maria is there for you the entire time hugging you and easing you through it.

She stays there, quiet and still, allowing you to let out all of your emotions. You don’t tell her the details about what happened until after you have no tears left to cry.

“Don’t be mad at T, please, none of this is his fault.” You sniffle, wiping at your nose with a tissue Maria gave you. “It’s all mine.”

“Y/N, don’t blame yourself for all this. You just want what’s best for the both of you in the long run. If he doesn’t understand that, then he’s just not seeing the whole picture.”

“I just hate arguing with him, Maria.” You say weakly, wiping at your face to dry your tears. “This is our first fight and I hate how I feel right now. I don’t want things to end on bad terms. How am I supposed to get over this feeling once we… if we break up before college?”

“You don’t have to end things on bad terms, Y/N.” Maria says softly. “You both need to be on the same page about this. If you both make a plan and sort things out, then maybe you can leave things on a positive note. Not as a goodbye, but as a see you later, you know? And if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. You’ll meet again one day and you can pick up where you left off. But if it’s not, then at least you guys can cherish what you had when you were just two kids in high school who didn’t know any better and made the most of their teenage years.”

You nod slowly. She does have a point, and this is all what you were thinking when you had even brought up the thought of breaking up after graduation.

“How do you always know the right thing to say?”

“It’s my best friend superpower. I can’t help it.” She shrugs, making you laugh, even if it was only a half-hearted one. “Seriously, though. You two need to have an honest conversation with one another.”

You sigh, wiping the rest of your drying tears away with the tissue. “I think we both could use some space right now, though. I’m going to wait until Monday.”

Maria nods. “Monday. But you have to talk to him. You can’t chicken out. I know you, Y/N.”

“Sometimes a little too well…”

“All for the best.” She grins.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

After a long and lonely weekend, Monday finally comes and you make sure to wake up earlier than usual in order to make it to school in time for when Thomas comes out of his physical therapy session with his track trainer.

You haven’t called, texted, or seen each other since Friday night and the guilt and heaviness from what happened still weighs on your chest despite the reassuring words from Maria.

Patiently and nervously, you wait outside the boys’ locker room like you have countless times before, only this time, things feel much different. The anticipation lingers in the air surrounding you and you feel the stress push at your shoulders until the door finally opens and Thomas walks out.

After over a year of dating, you still get butterflies at the sight of him even though he’s just wearing simple black jeans and a t-shirt.

As he shrugs on his jean jacket and backpack, he glances up through a few stray curls that fall down in front of his eyes. His eyes flicker to you as he walks in your direction before he rips them away quickly.

“T, hey how was…?” You try to speak to him, but he just continues to walk past you.

You watch him as he goes on like nothing, completely disregarding your presence.

“You’re still mad…” You trail off, falling into step with him and his pace doesn’t falter.

He doesn’t say a word.

“Listen, I know you probably don’t wanna see me right now, but please hear me out.”

Still nothing.

You know he’s still upset; he only gets quiet when he has a lot on his mind or he’s going through something. Taking in a deep breath, you speed up so that you can get in front of him.

“Thomas, hey, stop.” You say, putting a hand on his chest. You know that if he really wants to charge past you he can, but instead he stays there, halted by your touch. He looks down at you, his face nearing yours, and your eyes plead with his. “Please.” You whisper, your fingers curling into his black shirt to hold him there (or maybe it’s more of a way to ground yourself).

Thomas’ detached gaze lingers on your face and as your eyes search his, you note just how devoid of energy he looks.

“I just want to talk. I…” You watch him as he breaks your gaze to look at the ground. “I know I fucked up; I said some things I shouldn’t have. Just please let me make it up to you. I need you, T. I want to fix this while we still can.”

You sneak a glance around you to see that you’ve attracted some attention from your fellow classmates who are unapologetically staring. Do they know about you and Thomas’ fight? How could they possibly know? You two are hardly making a scene, but then again… people are vultures who will perk up at even the slightest bit of drama.

“Can we go somewhere private? Please? Just the two of us.”

Thomas licks his lips as he looks around, then back at you lazily. “Can this wait? We have class in six minutes, you know.”

“Let’s skip.” You say, causing him to raise his eyebrows in surprise. “This is more important than class today, okay? How about we go to that diner down the street?”

“It’s a little too early for a milkshake and fries, isn’t it?”

“They have eggs and waffles, too.” You say, your eyes pleading him to accept your offer. “Please? I know you love breakfast.”

He’s quiet for a few more minutes and you wait in anticipation for his answer. Just when you get your hopes down and think he’s going to reject you, he speaks up.

“Okay.” He responds finally. “But only because I really don’t want to watch boring presentations about the social cognitive theory in my Psych class…”

You breathe out a sigh of relief. “That’s good enough for me, T.”

“Bribin’ me with breakfast. You know that shit’s my weakness…” He mutters under his breath as he shakes his head. You’re not sure if he’d meant for you to hear that, but either way it makes a hint of a grin form on your lips.

“Come on, I’ll drive.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

When you get to the diner, it’s fairly empty except for an elderly couple at a booth and a man at the counter drinking a cup of coffee. The smell of eggs and bacon wafts through the air and enters your nostrils as you breathe in.

A waitress greets you when you two slide into a booth, sitting across from each other. She hands you both menus and gets your drink orders before she’s off.

Silence fills the air between you as you both look over your menus. Thomas doesn’t say anything and it feels weird, suddenly reminding you of why you’re here in the first place. While from an outside perspective it may look like a normal outing between you two, you can feel the lingering tension in the air that’s leftover from Friday night. Unspoken feelings and unresolved problems still remain.

You sneak a glance at him over your menu only to find him already staring back at you. As soon as your eyes meet, he looks away.

“I feel really bad about Friday.” You finally break the silence, your voice small. Wanting nothing more than to let him know how you feel, you try to catch his gaze. When his brown eyes finally meet yours, you continue. “I hate the way we left things…”

“Me too.” He finally says softly. You two stare at each other for a few more seconds and Thomas opens his mouth to continue. “I…”

Then, the waitress comes back with a couple water cups and two black coffees, interrupting whatever it was that Thomas was about to say. You and Thomas direct your attention to her with fake smiles as she asks for your orders.

After she takes your menus and leaves, you let out a sigh as you look down at your fidgeting hands.

“Listen, T…” You begin, regret and guilt evident in your voice. You make sure to look up and meet his gaze one more time before you continue. “I'm sorry for lying to you and your family — I should have told you the day I found out, but I was too afraid of losing what we have. And I'm sorry for fucking up your day when we were supposed to be celebrating instead.”

You stop to take in a shaky deep breath, looking down at your hands once again. “I’m so sorry if I made it seem like I was doubting our relationship or… or if I made you feel like I didn’t… like you weren’t…” Struggling to find the right way to express how sorry you are, your tone gets more and more emotional as you stumble over your words.

Thomas saves you from your struggle, however, as his hand reaches across the table to cover yours, causing you to look up at him with surprise. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

“What?” You voice breathlessly. “I… I thought you were still mad. It shouldn’t be that easy. Why are you…?”

He shrugs slowly. “Because you’re not entirely at fault… and as much as I want to stay angry, I can’t stand seein’ you in distress like this.”

You purse your lips and squeeze his hand in yours. “I’m still really sorry, T. I want you to know that. I said some things I regret and…”

“I know you are. Especially after seeing you try to fix things today by not takin’ no for an answer earlier. We both said some things we regret and it’s okay, Y/N. Really.” His voice is soft as he responds. “I’m sorry for yellin’ and not fully listenin’ to what you were sayin’. And for bein’ kind of a dick to you earlier when I ignored you. I was in denial. I just felt like you were givin’ up on us too quickly and I… I don’t wanna mess up what we have. I really don’t.”

Your eyes soften at his words. “I know. Me neither.”

You both are quiet for a few seconds as you both struggle to find a way to address the elephant in the room.

Luckily, you both get interrupted by the waitress again who comes back with your orders. You let go of each other’s hand when your plates are placed in front of you. Your mouth waters at the sight of your food, and you thank your waitress before she leaves again, telling you to let her know if you need anything else.

A comfortable silence falls in the space between you and Thomas, and though you feel that the tension from Friday night has now dissipated, the stress of the upcoming conversation still sits on your shoulders.

Surprisingly, Thomas is the one who initiates it.

“So…” He starts after chasing a mouthful of pancakes with a sip of water. “I’m guessin’ you won’t be comin’ back to town on holiday breaks?”

You cringe at the bluntness of the question. “What made you assume that?”

He shrugs, chewing his food before swallowing. “Just the way you were so helpless with your options. Thinking back to it, I figure that you probably wouldn’t have jumped to the possibility of breaking up unless you’d already thought things through somewhat.”

Very observant of him.

You nod before letting out a small sigh. “Yeah. My family’s planning on moving to Miami once I move out. Apparently they’re tired of the cold weather and wanted to wait to move until I graduated high school. They let me know when I told them the news.”

“Erik, too?”

“He’s staying in Philly until he graduates next Spring.”

“Well, that sucks.” He says, picking at the leftovers on his plate.

“Yeah.” You reply softly. “I just… I don’t know what to do anymore, Thomas. I thought the answer was clear, but now I’m not so sure.”

He sighs, putting his fork down before looking up at you. “I think I do.”

Your eyebrows furrow as you tilt your head in confusion.

Thom sighs, leaning back in his seat. “Well, for starters, you’re always right, let me just put that out there.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. Well, for this instance, at least.” He says simply before he continues. “As much as I hate to say it, I don’t think we’ve got options here.”

“Yes we do, you said it yourself, T.”

“We don’t, Y/N, you were right. I didn’t wanna believe it before but now, I don’t think I have a choice.” He says, holding your gaze firmly. “The two of us going to the same school is out of the picture. Especially with application deadlines already being passed - I checked and I don’t know what I was thinking on Friday. And with us not going to be able to see each other even on holiday breaks… I don’t think that leaves anythin’ else on the table.”

“Thomas, really, you don’t have to do this. Don’t let me pressure you into something you don’t wanna do. Like you said, a relationship’s a two way street. We can work something out. I don’t know what, but we’ll try something else.”

“You’re not pressuring me, Y/N. What would that ‘something else’ be? Long distance? The chances of us visiting each other are slim, especially since I’ll be stuck at UVA for the majority of summer break for training camp. Especially since you’ll be in California and especially since you have no incentive to come back to town after you graduate.”

“You’re my incentive, T.”

He licks his lips and lets out a small laugh. “Baby, don’t fight me on this; you wanted this. Why the shift?”

“I don’t wanna lose you.” You say, voice quiet and close to tears.

Thomas reaches out across the table for your hand again. You lace your fingers with his and hold tightly. “I know. I don’t want to lose you either, but you were right, sweetheart. Seeing each other once a year isn’t good enough, let’s be real. I think we’d be hurting more than we'd be happy.”

You let out a long, deep sigh, squeezing his hand. He’s absolutely right and you knew this when you started this conversation on Friday — doesn’t mean that you don’t want to avoid it, though.

“We… we should…” He hesitates to continue the sentence. “We— God, why is this so hard?”

“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to, T.”

He takes a deep breath before the words finally come out. “We should break up. This summer.”

It sounds foreign coming out of his mouth and his change in viewpoint surprises you still, even after talking it through with him.

“I don’t wanna be your shackle, Y/N.” He says, squeezing your hand comfortingly. “I want you to do great things without worryin’ about me. Just like you were sayin’ on Friday. And I don’t wanna risk getting to a point where we grow too distant we lose all hope.”

Your eyes tear up a little bit and you reach up to wipe at your eyes with your free hand.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m lettin’ you off easy, missy.” Thomas looks at you pointedly, his voice wavering slightly. He lets out a small bittersweet laugh before he continues. “I’m gonna consider this more of a ‘see you later’ than a ‘goodbye forever’ kinda thing. At some point, I don’t know or care when, we’ll continue where we left off. Mark my words.”

You laugh, wiping away a stray tear. You’ve definitely heard those words before. “Have you been talking to Maria lately?”

He gives you a confused look. “No, not since we went on that double date with her and Ellie like two weeks ago, why?”

“She said a similar thing to me when I vented to her this weekend.”

“Really? Oh. I thought I was clever for that one.”

“You were.” You smile, rubbing small circles on the top of his hand.

A comfortable silence settles. The waitress comes back with the check and you give her your card against Thomas’ protests. It’s not long before she comes back and wishes that you both have a good rest of your day.

“This is gonna fucking suck.” Thomas suddenly says bluntly.

“Yeah, it is.” You sigh. “But you know what? We’re gonna make the most of the next three months. We’ll laugh together, we’ll cry together, we’ll enjoy the good times, and when the time comes… we won’t look back. Then, maybe one day, when I’m an engineer and you’re in the NFL… we’ll meet again.”

He sends you a watery smile, giving your hand a small squeeze. “I’m countin’ on it, sweetheart.”

You reciprocate his smile as a small silence stretches in between you two.

Thomas’ eyes fall onto his untouched (and probably now cold) coffee and with his free hand he reaches for the cream. You take that as a sign to let his hand go to let him tend to his glorified bean water, but as you try to withdraw your fingers from his, he just holds on tighter.

“Um, excuse me? What do you think you’re doin’?” He asks, glancing at you like you just committed a sin.

“Don’t you need to pour creamer?” You raise an eyebrow, wondering what the big deal is. “I don’t want you to spill it.”

“Girl, I can pour creamer with one hand, thank you very much.” And there’s the Thomas you know and love, not that he was ever absent in the first place, but it’s good to see him messing around again. “Let me hold your hand in peace because God knows how many more times I’ll get to do it. I gotta savor it.”

“Stoppp.” You whine, drawing the word out. “This is how you’re gonna act until graduation, isn’t it?”

“You complainin’, sweetheart?” He fake pouts as he carefully pours the cream in his coffee and stirs with a spoon. “I thought you loved me.”

You roll your eyes. “You know I love your dramatic ass.”

“Mhm. In more ways than one.” Thomas hums before he takes a sip of his coffee. He cringes when he realizes it’s cold and you laugh at his reaction.

“Ready to go yet?” You ask, amused.

He nods. “We’re not going back to class, though, are we? Because if that’s the case, then no.”

“What? Hell no. Who do you think I am?” You say as you both mutually let go of each other’s hand to get up from the booth.

“A goody-two-shoes, that’s what you are. Really, baby, I didn’t expect you to mention skipping class. That’s like… blasphemy for you.”

You shrug as he holds the front door open for you. “Guess you’re rubbing off on me.”

Thomas gives you a suggestive look and that causes you to smack his arm. “God, Thomas, not like that. Jesus.”

He lets out a full-bodied laugh as you approach your car and he grabs you by the waist as he leans back against the driver’s door. He presses a kiss to your forehead, hugging you close to him. “Just messin’.”

You roll your eyes before you pull back to look him up and down.

“When’d you get this jacket? Haven’t seen you in it before.” You muse, bringing your hands up to grab the denim on each side of his collar.

“A week ago? Maybe two? This is my first time wearing it, though.” He answers before he smirks. “Why? You like it?”

“Yeah, you look good in denim.”

“Do I, now?” He cocks his head slightly, amused as your face drifts closer.

“Mhm. The jacket really suits you.” You hum, releasing the material with one of your hands to slide it up to his jaw. You give him a soft kiss on his lips before you pull back. “Might look better on the floor, though. I don’t know. We’ll have to try and find out.”

Thomas’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise; he hadn’t expected you to turn the suggestive talk around on him. A smirk forms on his lips as he presses them to yours one more time.

“Your parents home?” He mumbles against you.

You pull away slightly to think about it for a second. “No, actually.”

“Well, then I guess we’re about to find out.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Over the next few months, you and Thomas keep the promise you gave to each other at the diner. You’ve stayed positive and lived in the moment and, to be honest, those three months have probably been the best three months of your life.

You and Thom are both making the most of your time, making sure to spend almost every weekend together.

You study together even though you don’t share any classes. Most of the time is spent doing homework in silence, but you still enjoy each other’s presence.

For spring break, you go on a trip to the beach with Thomas, Maria, Ellie, James, Aaron, and a few more mutual friends. The week is full of banter and lots of fun-filled memories that you’ll remember for many years to come. It’s definitely one of the many highlights of senior year.

Thomas, being his over-the-top self, asks you to prom by spelling ‘Prom?’ out with bouquets of roses on your front lawn. And as if that isn’t enough, you wake to the sound of a live orchestral quartet playing your favorite song. You groggily walk over to your window to see where the sound is coming from and you’re met with the sight of your boyfriend grinning up at you with his arms gesturing around him proudly.

Of course you say yes.

You would have said yes even if he had asked you casually — but what can you say… you’re a sucker for flowers and he knows it.

Prom night is an absolute blast. You feel like a stunner in your dress and Thomas looks unbelievably handsome in his fitted tux. You stay together the entire night, dancing, singing, laughing, and joking around with both your and his friends.

You almost lose track of the amount of date nights you have with Thomas. You have movie nights, some nights you go rollerskating, concerts, restaurants, hell, you even go paintballing together, which is something that neither of you had ever thought you’d get into.

But as June grows closer and closer, you can’t help but feel that heaviness settle back into your chest. You’d be lying if you said that you haven’t thought about backing out of this agreement the two of you have. In fact, you’ve spent countless nights lying wide awake (sometimes right next to Thomas), trying to figure out how things would go if you decide to stay together.

With your parents deciding to move down to Miami a week after you graduate, it pushes the day you move out to LA earlier than you had originally intended, which makes the idea of staying together seem next to impossible. Your mother says that it’ll be a good opportunity for you to get to know the LA area before classes start in August.

This causes you and Thomas to have a more in-depth conversation about the plan and it ends with you two deciding to break it off a week before your big move. Both of you are in agreement that it would be best for the both of you, so that you have some time to recover. You figure it will be easier that way.

So, when the time comes to start packing your things for your move to California (and your parents’ move to Florida), you get stressed out. You notice that Thomas’ and your enthusiasm/positivity starts to fade as the date of graduation creeps closer and closer.

Which brings you to the present.

On the day of graduation, reality finally hits you. Because not only are you recognizing the fact that you’re leaving the love of your life in eight days to go to school in Cali, you’re also leaving Maria who has been a constant in your life since elementary school.

Maria plans to stay in town and go to community college to knock out all her general education classes before she transfers to a four-year university. Luckily, her girlfriend Ellie has the same idea, so they’ll be taking the same path after high school.

At least they will be together.

Unlike you and Thom, who are currently posing for a photo together for his and your parents who stand behind their phones grinning and teary eyed. You both give your best smiles to the cameras, trying to preserve the memory as best as possible without breaking.

Surprisingly, you and Thomas have stayed strong despite the impending suspension of your relationship that lingers in the atmosphere between you. Although teary eyed because you are saying goodbye to a lot of friends and faculty you’ve gotten to know over the years, you and Thomas don’t cry on graduation day. You don’t cry during the ceremony, you don’t cry during the many pictures you take that day, and you don’t cry at the large family dinner the Jefferson household holds for both you and Thomas.

You’ve both toughed it out both privately and in public. But graduation day eventually comes to its inevitable end, and the day after begins, marking your last day with Thomas Jefferson as your boyfriend.

The two of you make your last day special and have a day-long picnic in a nearby park. You wake up early and spend the entire day together, laughing, kissing, talking, and having as much fun as you can with the inevitable future looming over your heads. You both make the best of your time together, and that’s really all you can ask for.

As the day goes by, your time together begins to run out. And both of your composures begin to fade as each second passes.

While your curfew to be back home is 10pm, you and Thomas decide to hold onto each other a bit longer, so he drives you home and you sneak him into your room when your parents are too busy packing in the basement. They know that this is your last day with Thomas, so when you’re distracting them while Thomas makes his way up the stairs, you tell them that you’re going to sleep early. They comfort you for a few minutes but leave you to your own grief, knowing to respect your wish of ‘sleeping the night off.’

Little do they know, you and Thomas decide to have one more special night together.

When you finally make your way up to your bedroom, Thomas is sitting on your bed, glancing at the half-empty boxes in the corner of your room that need to be filled. Half of your room is packed up, but you’ve put off packing lately to spend time with Thom before you physically can’t anymore.

You let out a sniffle and you don’t realize that you are on the verge of crying until you see Thomas begin to break, too.

“Come here.” He murmurs, standing up from your bed to pull you into a tight hug.

You both cry into each other’s shoulders, fully letting yourselves go emotionally as you let out your pent up sadness. You’re getting each other’s clothing wet with tears, but neither of you care as you cling onto each other, not wanting to let go.

You don’t know how long you stay there or how long it takes until both of you calm down enough so that your tears fall silently.

“I told you this was gonna fucking suck.” Thomas mumbles against you, causing you to let out a laugh and sob at the same time.

You don’t respond, but after a few seconds, you pull away from his shoulder to look at him. Silence stretches between you before you whisper, “I love you.”

“I love you.” He echoes without hesitation before he leans his forehead against yours. You both bask in each other’s presence for a few more beats until Thomas speaks again, his words shaking. “Football won’t be the same without you, Y/N. I won’t be the same without you.”

“You played football for years before I became a part of your life. You’ll be fine, T.” You say quietly, though you are absolutely sure of your words. You bring a hand up to cup his cheek and wipe some of his tears away. “You’re gonna move on and be great and show people what you’re capable of.”

Silence stretches between the two of you before you take a step away from him as you remember something. Thomas frowns at your sudden withdrawal, but you explain yourself as you both wipe at your faces to dry them as best as each of you can.

“That reminds me…” You say, digging into one of the open boxes in the corner of your room until you feel a familiar piece of fabric. You pull out Thomas’ purple hoodie — the one he gave to you the night you officially became a couple. Damn, it feels so long ago now, but it hasn’t even been two years. “Here. You should probably take this back.”

He lets out a small laugh and takes the purple fabric from you to examine it. He seems lost in thought, but after a few moments, he shakes his head and hands it back to you. “Nah. Keep it.”

When you don’t take it, his hand reaches out to one of yours and he wraps your fingers around the fabric. You try to protest, but he continues.

“Don’t want you forgettin’ about me, now, do we?” He chuckles dryly.

“I won’t forget you, Thomas.” Your voice sounds so sure of your words that Thomas has no choice but to believe you.

He swallows and looks down for a second before he glances back into your eyes. “I know.”

“You’re gonna forget about me, though.”

Thomas shakes his head and his eyebrows scrunch together and he looks like he’s about to break again before he reaches out to pull you close.

“Never.” He mumbles into your hair before he pulls back. “Hey, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I will never forget you, Y/N Y/L/N. I couldn’t even if I tried.”

He brings his hands up to cup both sides of your face. His thumbs brush some fresh tears away before he continues to talk. “These eyes? Unforgettable. This beautiful face? Ingrained in my brain forever, sweetheart, I promise you that.” One of his thumbs lightly brushes over your lips. “Don’t even get me started on these lips. I’ll miss them for sure.”

Thomas pauses for a second before his beautiful brown eyes gaze into yours, letting you know that he truly means his next words. “I’m never going to forget any part of you, Y/N.”

You stay there, gazing at one another with nothing but pure love and admiration. Without breaking eye contact, you gingerly put Thomas’ hoodie (which is apparently yours now) back in the box you removed it from. You reach up to pull Thomas’ lips down to yours passionately.

Thomas responds, instantly reciprocating the kiss with the same amount of emotion that you pour into it. He moves his hands from your cheeks to pull your body closer to him. Your hand digs into the material of his shirt and suddenly, you can’t get enough of each other. You both need more — to be closer — but neither of you rush anything. You take it slow and try to take in every little detail about each other.

As layer after layer of clothing comes off, you two savor the feeling of each other’s lips, bodies, and touch. Every soft moan, every sigh, every gasp, every kiss… each and every moment that you spend with each other is savored in one final heat-filled act of love.

Afterwards, you both lie in your bed under the blankets, Thomas’ arm around your naked body and your head on his bare chest. You cherish each other’s presence for one final time, basking in silence until Thomas finally breaks it, his voice barely above a whisper.

“You still sure about this, sweetheart?”

You are quiet for a few seconds before you answer, sotto voce. “Yeah, T.” You listen to his steady heartbeat as you bring your hand up to rest on his torso. “You?”

He nods slowly. “Yeah.”

A few seconds pass and you subconsciously trace little circles on his abdomen with your thumb. Thomas’ arm tightens around your waist as he pulls your closer.

“I’m sorry things have to end this way.” He mumbles against you, his deep voice reverberating throughout his chest.

“Don’t be.” You murmur, exhausted from the emotional toll this day has taken on you. But you wouldn’t trade it for the world — unless there’s a way where it doesn’t end with you and Thomas going your separate ways.

You shake your head at yourself for thinking so negatively. You promised each other something back at that diner.

“It’s not the end, T.” You speak out loud, shifting so that your head rests on the pillow and you’re face to face with Thomas. “You said it yourself before and now it’s my turn to say it: this is a ‘see you later,’ alright? So I better fucking see you later, or else.”

He laughs (oh, you’re gonna miss that laugh) and his hand slides up the curve of your hip to pull himself closer to you. “Back at ya, princess.”

You both sniffle, but you know that your time together, for the time being, at least, has come to an end — especially as both of you begin to drift off no matter how hard you try to stay awake.

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” You whisper in Thomas’ warm embrace.

Thomas responds after he brushes a strand of your hair behind your ear. “You don’t have to.”

So neither of you do.

And you both fall asleep, bodies entangled with one another, content to be in each other’s embrace one last time before you move away.

The next morning, Thomas wakes up before you do and he slowly untangles himself from you as he wills himself to stay strong. He dresses himself as quietly as he can before he presses one last kiss to your temple.

Then, he takes one last look at your sleeping form before he leaves, keeping his word to you and not giving either of you a chance to say your goodbyes.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

A week later, your heart beats frantically as you drop a box of things you plan on leaving behind against the wall outside of your room.

It’s minutes before you’re supposed to leave for the airport — you want to leave early in case something goes wrong and you get delayed. Sighing, you walk back into your empty room to check for any last things you may have missed packing into the many boxes that are already stashed into your parents’ car.

“Y/N?” You hear your brother call out from downstairs. “I think there’s someone waiting for you outside.”

Who could it be? You’ve already said your goodbyes to Maria earlier that day when she’d helped you finish packing.

Erik gives you a sad smile as you pass by and you give him a confused look.

“What? Who is it?” You ask, eyebrows raised. “You know we have to leave in a few, right?”

“You’ll see.” Erik says, causing you to sigh.

After determining that your final sweep (even though you’ve done it three times now) is done, you make your way past Erik and open the front door. When you make it onto your driveway, you’re shocked to see Thomas Jefferson standing there with a sheepish grin and his hands in his pockets, looking as handsome as ever.

“Thomas…” You trail off, surprised to see him after your last day together the week prior. “What are you doing here?”

Your boyfriend (well… ex now, technically) walks closer and takes his hands out of his pockets. You can see him fidgeting with his fingers as he speaks. “I uh…” He breathes out a nervous laugh before one of his hands reaches up to rub the back of his neck.

You watch him from a few feet away as he struggles to get his words out.

“Well, I… as your… not-boyfriend wanted to say goodbye.” He says softly, shifting his eyes to the ground briefly before looking back up to gaze into yours. “I changed my mind. Leaving without saying goodbye just gutted me and made me feel like we had unfinished business. I had to see you one more time, Y/N. I-I’m sorry.” Thomas’ voice is unstable as he apologizes and you feel tears well up in your eyes as he continues. “I know this breaks our agreement and everything, but I couldn’t just let you leave before—”

You cut him off by stalking forward to wrap him into a crushing hug — a hug the two of you desperately need at the moment. Thomas doesn’t waste a second before his arms encircle your waist to hold you just as tightly to him.

Even though you had spent the entire day with each other just a week prior, the need to see each other — to feel each other — one last time has consumed you both. You agree that waking up to an empty bed without saying a proper goodbye (even though it’s what you had initially wanted) had crushed you, and it had caused you to be an emotional wreck to the following two days.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbles, sniffling before letting out a bittersweet laugh. “I just made this so much more fucking difficult for us.”

“It’s okay.” You reciprocate his laugh as tears stream down your face. “It’s so worth it, T.”

A few minutes pass by as you hold each other close.

“I know I’ve said this before, but I’m really gonna miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, T.” You say quietly. “So much.”

You’ve lost track of time and your mother is the one to finally bring you and Thomas back to reality.

“Y/N, we gotta go, honey…” Your mom speaks as softly as possible from her position at the front door, and you can see the guilt on her face as she watches her daughter’s heart break. “You’re gonna be late for your flight.”

You turn back to Thomas and give him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize, Y/N. You gave me the best year and eight months I could ever ask for… so thank you.”

You look up at him for a second before you sob and crash into his chest. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.” He replies softly before he steels himself. “But you have a flight to catch. Which means you need to go.”

You give him one last kiss, it’s watery from both of your tears but neither of you care.

“Go be great.” He says when you pull back. “You deserve the world, Y/N.”

He holds your hand until the grip slips when you take a step towards the car.

“See you later, Thomas.”

He smiles through his tears before he replies. “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

You get in the car and a few seconds later, your mother pulls out of the driveway (apparently Erik and your father are going to drive separately). As the car drives away, Thomas waves from your driveway until you can’t see him anymore. You know that’s the last you’ll see of him for a while.

And maybe, just maybe, you regret leaving him behind.

But a voice lingers in the back of your mind that gives you some sort of relief:

If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be.

#thomas jefferson x reader #daveed diggs x reader #jefferson x reader #thomas jefferson imagine #daveed diggs imagine #high school au #hamilton fanfic #thomas jefferson fanfic #wideout #feel free to yell at me #but on the bright side #GET READY TO MEET NFL!THOM #what a man

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grilledcheeseandguavajelly · 3 years

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could you talk a bit more about your internship thingy? it sounds so fun!! (only if you're comfortable, of course!!) i think i want to do something similar 🤔

Of course!!! I’m so sorry it took me so long to answer, nonnie 🙈 I don’t know if there’s something specific you’d like to know, so I’ll just give a little overview!! And if you have more questions, feel free to message me or send more asks!! 🥰🥰

So my internship is in television production. Which sounds SUPER exciting, but because of the pandemic and the nature of internship site (they work in advertising), I didn’t do as much as I would have liked. However!! I did learn a great deal about pre- and post- production. I also got to work with some huge national companies (which I’m not technically allowed to talk about, shhhh 🙈) and be a production assistant on set while filming!! Here’s a breakdown of a typical day in my different “roles”:

Pre-Production Assistant: On days when I was working pre-production, I would do anything from budget catering for shoots to create call sheets and budgets for the entire project. I would also help with scripts and blocking with the director and director of photography. However, sometimes this also meant sorting through thousands of pictures to choose eight for a 30 second b-roll montage. So, definite ups and downs.

Production Assistant: These days were my favorite!! They were hectic and boring and long and they flew by. And I know none of that makes sense, but trust me. It was a journey 😂🙈 So on these days, I was more of a typical “intern” (think like the ones you see in movies and tv shows). I was constantly on the phone with my director before I arrived, getting everyone’s coffee orders, grabbing breakfast and lunch, setting up tents and loading up water coolers for the crew. This sometimes also meant assembling furniture or scrubbing the labels off of wine bottles and lighter fluid (don’t ask 🙈). I was in charge of snacks and keeping the crew happy and caffeinated throughout the day, but I was also in charge of making sure the set stayed quiet while they were filming. There were days where I sat in operating rooms for hours and opened and closed the door quietly while the director and DP argued about the difference between the procedure of a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. There were days where I was cleaning ketchup off of our actor, picking hot dogs off the floor and washing them to reset props, and getting charcoal all over my shoes (and clothes and face) as I reset again and again and AGAIN. These days have a LOT of sitting around and waiting. I mean… a LOT. It’s probably going to be over half of your 8-16 hour day. But you’re also the runner for anyone and anything. So when I was needed, I was sitting in lavish chairs while the lighting team color balanced for the camera, I was running to the grip’s truck and opening EVERY drawer to find a hammer, and I was taking notes and marking time points for voice over work. It was so much fun 🙈

Post-Production Assistant: This was the part of production I was most familiar with before I started my internship, and it’s pretty self-explanatory. On these days, I worked with the editing team, the graphics team, and the creative director. The one division I never worked with was audio, and it still bugs me because I wanted to. Post-production is where most of the “magic happens”, so to speak. It’s where you really see your project start coming together and where the most changes happen (in my opinion). One minute you could be clipping together a 30 second commercial, and the next you could get an email saying that the client wants it to be two minutes and they need it in three hours. And you don’t have enough footage. And graphics hasn’t even touched it yet. But you’ve got to figure it out. It’s a weird kind of rush 🙈 Honestly, post-production is so broad and there’s SO much that happens in this stage, it’s hard to describe it briefly.

My advice to you (not that you asked for any, but here we are) is to be prepared for anything. And be open to anything. If there’s one thing about any stage of production, it’s that it’s CRAZY and constantly in flux. But that’s what makes it so fun!! If you’re not going to school for production, try to familiarize yourself with film and editing software!! Go shoot a few videos on your phone and try out the free trial of Adobe Premiere. Mess around in Logic (if you have a Mac) or Ableton Live if you’re into music. Watch tutorials on YouTube and research different kinds of demo reels. This will get you familiar with what is expected of you in this line of work and what you should be prepared for. And then, start applying!! I find that most people in production are patient and willing to help you learn. They want to share how cool their jobs are!! And don’t be discouraged if you can’t find an internship — if you take the time to study up on the different processes, you can make your own projects in Final Cut (Mac) or Premiere (PC) without a ton of fancy equipment!! I would say, before you start applying, to try to create a few things on your own. First of all, you’ll see if you enjoy working in production. And second, you’ll have finished projects, however short, to present to potential employers so they can get a good feel for your skill level.

And remember: you’re going to be an intern. You’re not expected to know everything. You’re not really expected to know anything. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to say “I don’t know”, as long as you’re willing to learn. You’ve got this 🥰👏🏼

#are we suprised that this ended up not being brief???#no- of course not #I hope this was helpful!!#again- feel free to message or send asks with any more questions!!!#internship #production internship #production assistant #it’s so weird to think I’ll be graduating in two weeks #AHHHHH where did the time go???#ask me anything #asks #anon asks #production anon

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rebeccalouisaferguson · 3 years

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Back to the Future – Glass talks to Swedish actor Rebecca Ferguson about her roles in Dune, Mission: Impossible and the lessons we can learn from spaghetti

Rebecca Ferguson is on location in Budapest, possibly dressed up as a sci-fi high priestess with glowing blue eyes and a three-pronged bouffant. Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s 2020 reinterpretation of David Lynch’s 1984 Frank Herbert adaptation, needs reshoots of its own, so Ferguson is talking to me over the phone in between takes from what sounds like a galaxy far, far away …

In accordance with “soon-to-be-released-Sci-Fi-epic” law, Dune is shrouded in secrecy. As yet there are no behind the scenes featurettes, and no leaked stills to give an insight into Villeneuve’s vision for Ferguson’s character, Lady Jessica, the age-agnostic mother of Timothée Chalamet’s cosmic hero, Paul Atreides.

So, I do the only thing you can do when imagining the new cast of a reboot and attach Ferguson’s disembodied head to the beheaded body of her Lady Jessica predecessor. Et voilà, Rebecca Ferguson: live from Budapest, possibly looking like a futuristic, blue eyed, heavily bouffanted, Lynchian high priestess.

She’s called back from a location with better phone coverage and we’re discussing cities, from the “incredible” (Budapest), to the inhabitable (London, Ferguson’s second home), via LA, which, putting it mildly, fits neither criteria in the 37-year-old’s glowing blue eyes. “The idea of moving to LA has never, ever, ever been on my agenda,” she declares.

The first thing that strikes you about Ferguson is that she’s passionate talking about practically everything. “Look, there are people I love, who love it there … and I get it. When people there look at you and smile, there is a joy,” she pauses, reliving early encounters with LA, and smiles … “And a happiness which is so lovely and endearing and light – but I can’t take it too long. I just want to smoke a cigarette and kind of blow it in someone’s face.” An apology seems on the tip of her tongue, but she decides it would ruin the joke, and merely says, “I don’t actually smoke, by the way.”

She spends much of the year in a Swedish fishing village – “a different world”, she says, possessing all the things she loves: row boats, the ocean, her friends, grilling fish and just the right amount of smiling and joy. Ferguson’s open and only slightly sardonic disdain for the folly of wanton joy suggests, to me, two things. One: that while she clearly loves Sweden, the place of her birth and homeland of her father, the English side of her mother is potent.

And two: the ability to “get in and get out”, as she puts it, remains a priority. As a teen, Ferguson was unknown to the world but famous in Sweden as the star of soap opera Nya Tider. When the show ended and she was 15, she got out. “I studied, had a beautiful child, worked in restaurants, shops, God … in hotels – I did everything.” Everything but act, other than a couple of minor, un-recurring TV roles and student films in exchange for free lunch.

“I never wanted to go to drama school, mainly because I didn’t want to be like every other Swede in film. Not to criticise Lars Norén or … Ingrid Bergman, but all I could think was ‘I don’t want to be a drama student with a fucking purple beret on my head, I don’t want to be like them’. I think, now, looking back, I was just terrified I wasn’t going to get in.”

Eleven years after Nya Tider, Ferguson starred in Swedish language film, A One-Way Trip to Antibes. “And that was the gateway for me.” Soon after she was cast as Queen Elizabeth in BBC period drama The White Queen, which was less a conveyer belt towards ‘the big time’ as it was a treadmill cranked to 11. But playing Queen Elizabeth on the BBC isn’t without its drawbacks – play the role well enough and the whole world will think you’re English.

Being called Rebecca Ferguson probably doesn’t help, and her English is too perfect to be considered a second language. Most of all, though, it’s to do with the version of Englishness that lives so prominently in Ferguson: her mother’s version. “My mother is quintessentially English,” she says. “When she came over to Sweden, words and expressions like ‘whoops-a-daisy, ‘holy moly’ and ‘kerfuffle’ still existed – it’s how she spoke and it became the natural way of speaking for me, too.”

It made Ferguson a convincing Brit, laying the groundwork for the most seamless England/Sweden switcheroo since Ferguson’s own mother integrated so adeptly into her adopted home that, in 1975, she was awarded the ultimate endorsement: appearing on the sleeve of an Abba album. And yet, beyond the whimsical lingo, Ferguson is neither stiff, stoical nor repressed – three fundamentals of Britishness.

On chat-shows, she’s gregarious and tactile and warm, and this confuses people who go by the “if it looks like a Brit and sounds like a Brit …” metric. It’s a little like painting a cat with black and white stripes and saying, “what’s wrong with that zebra and why is it such an outrageous flirt?” “I’ve seen those bloody comments! It’s so weird. It makes me think I should stop touching people altogether, which is sad because, you know … we’re here, we’re together, we’re human beings.”

The problem is, when your wagon’s hitched to a vehicle like Mission: Impossible, where each instalment is an event, and every instalment ends with the promise of another instalment (Episodes 7 and 8 are in the works), chat show appearances are unending. Rumour is that number seven will be filmed in space, which is a worthwhile trade for the talk-show couch merry-go-round, depending on where you stand on heights. “In space? That’s news to me, but with TC nothing surprises me.”

TC is, of course, Mr Mission Impossible: Tom Cruise. “So,” I ask her, would she do it? “I would probably say ‘fuck off’ to that. Heights are my greatest fear and I’m not doing cognitive therapy acting … then again, I never thought I would jump 40 metres off that house in Vienna (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation). That was bloody terrifying. But I did it … and got to do something that I never thought I would do, so maybe it is all just therapy?”

He’s a force of nature,” Ferguson says. “I’ve never met anyone like him.” There’s a unique fascination around Cruise, due to his personal life and the idea that the line separating him from his Mission Impossible character, Ethan Hunt, has become almost non-existent; that the actor has permanently morphed into the character, who now spends his days playing the role of the actor he once was. Which is a crazy suggestion, obviously, but Cruise is so intensely fascinating that I can’t help such ideas whirl through my head whenever I see him interviewed “out of character”.

I ask Ferguson what it’s like to have a relationship with someone so divisive, who invokes such strong opinions, and whether she feels strangely protective of Cruise. “I don’t think I can. I feel there’s no need to be protective of him. He’s powerful … just the way he is. I feel like I’m supported by him all the time.” Nor does she tire of being asked about him. “He’s an interesting person to talk about, and a very interesting person to get to know.

The boyish charm, the need to always be doing fun things for everyone while making sure everyone feels safe … Sometimes we’ll start laughing and unbuckling our seatbelts just to fuck with him,” which weirdly is the only Tom Cruise anecdote I think I’ll ever need. “We’ve had some beautiful moments filming together.”

On which note, with our allotted 30 minutes long expired, I ask Ferguson what ‘together’ means to her, but she seems to have re-entered whatever foreign galaxy she started the interview in, and the question gets chewed up on its way over. She responds, “spaghetti?” which, after some clarification and deliberation, we decide to stick with, despite the kerfuffle. “Because togetherness is the opposite of isolation and segregation,” and nothing represents the importance of togetherness like than the profoundly sad sight of a lone strand of spaghetti.

by Charlie Navin-Holder

#rebecca ferguson #tom cruise #interview #photoshoot #nick thompson shoot #mi5 interview

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gutwrenchflowerbomb · 3 years

Text

Note: This is long but I felt like getting it out there not just for the sake of newer fans but because it’s been a long time since I’ve written about wrestling and I’d like to get into the habit again.

So I’m still pretty new to the current form of WRESTLING TUMBLR™️ but I am a Tumblr vet (joined in May of ‘09 baybee). I am also a vet when it comes to being a wrestling fan. I’m talking 25 years (since I was 10). And I feel this urge to be the cool aunt to all the newer and/or younger fans. I don’t wanna act like I am some super authority figure or that my thoughts and opinions are fucking gospel, but like...apply the wisdom I’ve learned over the years.

Especially as someone whose favorite wrestlers tend to be somewhere in the lower to upper mid-card range.

There is a lot of anger/disappointment/etc right now regarding AEW and some of the recent booking and I just wanna say a few things about it that hopefully will resonate or ease some of that.

-People who are upset with Kenny and/or the Bucks being the champs because they are EVPs :

They deserve it. Why? Because AEW is their baby. Yes, Tony Khan is a big part of it but ultimately the Bucks, Kenny and Cody are the originators. They took a huge risk and it has paid off handsomely. So why is it that just because they happen to be EVPs that means they can never be booked to win big? This whole industry is and has been booked that way. Plus, it’s not like they put the straps on themselves instantly. It’s been over a year and I think it’s fair to say they earned it. Also: they won’t have them forever. Wrestling isn’t fun when the belts never switch hands. We know this and they know this as well.

- Chuck and Trent being underutilized and Orange Cassidy being pushed the moon:

I am a HUGE Best Friends fan. Have been for years. In fact, one of the first shirts I ever bought that wasn’t WWE was a Best Friends shirt and I’ve worn that bitch to All In, Double or Nothing, All Out and Revolution. Do I think they could be on Dynamite more often? Sure. Do I think they are being buried or anything like that in favor of Orange? It’s not that simple.

I love OC. He’s cool, fantastic in the ring, looks good but most of all he is just soooo different than what most casual wrestling fans are used to. In this case, it’s worked out to his (and the company’s) advantage. I can’t tell you how many videos I’ve seen online that show people who don’t know shit about wrestling reacting to him in the ring. The Buzz is good and the result is TNT is VERY interested in OC. We all know TK loves him too. The result has been Orange getting more screen time. But I hope most folks realize this is not his fault. Plus, there’s always gonna be like...designated roles in a wrestling stable. There’s gonna be your singles guys, the tag teams and sometimes a woman or two. It’s just naturally how stables are. And people who are in stables generally are seen supporting their fellow members.

The Best Friends do appear to be on the back burner as far as storyline/prominence goes right now and that’s ok. There is so much talent on that roster, especially in the tag division. If you pull back and look at the episodes objectively, you’ll see that they (the bookers) really try to get everyone screen time as much as possible. When’s the last time PnP had a match? Or Jurassic Express? I can count on one hand the number of times TH2 have been on dynamite this year. That means that a lot of times a team won’t actually have a match on Dynamite for a while. They usually try to even that out by having them on Dark. Again, that is ok. The only alternatives to this would be to A.) cut screen time to several other performers in favor or just one or two teams or B.) have more performers on but the matches would have to be cut to 3-7 minutes. Personally, I would rather have longer matches less often then every week have some dumb ass short matches.

- My favorite ______ deserves ___!

Listen, everyone has favorites and naturally we all want to see our favorites as much as possible and want them to be dripping in championships. The reality is, if the same people/teams are the champions all the time it’s boring as fuck. Seriously. In good companies, there is a nice ebb and flow of changing of championships. Titles changes that happen too often lose their prestige. When they take too long to change hands it becomes boring and predictable.

In my over two decades of watching wrestling I’ve learned to embrace this. When your favorite finally gets booked in a higher profile feud, it makes it all that much more exciting and important. Take my current favorite AEW star: I am patiently waiting for Colt Cabana to get something bigger than his current position in the Dark Order. It may be a while. It might be in a few weeks. In the mean time, I just appreciate it when I get to see him at all.

- The women’s division is trash in AEW right now

It could be better, but believe me: it could be way fucking worse. If any of you remember the Diva’s Championship era of WWE know what the hell I’m talking about. I think that right now, with Covid-19 and injuries for some performers, the women’s division is in a holding pattern. It sucks. There’s no way around it. If you watch Dark, that’s where the ladies shine. There is often 3-5 women’s matches on there and they feature some bigger players and some lesser known jobbettes. Sometimes that means there’s a squash match. But often the performers are given a solid 6+ minutes to go at it. That doesn’t sound long but it’s actually pretty generous especially for those performers who are new/unknown. Yet on Dynamite we usually only get one MAYBE two matches and generally it’s involving the same people.

I think this is probably going to continue to be the case until the pandemic is under control and they are able to travel again. Not just travel in the sense of going to different cities, but also travel for performers. I personally cannot wait until we get some of the wonderful Joshi ladies back in the mix. I honestly think AEW really truly wants to have the women in their company to shine as bright as the men but they are struggling to figure it out. When the company was started, they had some big, well known names in the men’s division i.e. Chris Jericho. I mean, Double or Nothing we got Mox debuting. That’s some name recognition that the women’s division didn’t get and I think they have suffered because of it. That doesn’t mean that the women are any worse than men or that they are any worse than other companies’ women’s divisions.

I hope if anyone actually read all this comments to let me know what they think. Again, I never want to come off as an elitist (lol) or know-it-all but rather like the weird old cat-lady who’s lived through some.

#aew #all elite wrestling #personal opinion #kenny omega #the young bucks #best friends #orange cassidy #chuck taylor #trent?#wrestling #pro wrestling #colt cabana #long post #seriously this is a long ass post

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hearthandhomemagick · 3 years

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Food For Thought - Steven Universe

Hello there, I would like to tell you my story and journey with the amazingly beautiful, and wonderfully written TV Show...

Steven Universe.

I started watching this show when it first came out in High School. I mean, I was so excited to watch it that I anticipated the very first episode and sat down with snacks to observe it’s premier. I had become immediately enthralled not only with the art style, but also with the genuine wholesomeness and elucidations of processing emotions and life experiences. I was astounded that a kids show could express to me how to manage my emotions as well as connect with my moral standings. It’s a show I recommended to everyone, but often didn’t talk about because of it being a kids show, and me being almost being grown. It was my secret love until someone else brought it up.

This show stuck with me through the years, and helped me through some of my hardest moments in life.

I remember watching the episode, “Mindful Education” and melting into Garnet’s lesson of mindfulness and self-awareness. I had been going through a lot at the end of 2016, graduating and going through a rough election along with having to move states for college. My opinions were forming in the extreme area and I had a fire to protect my thoughts and opinions with no restrain or any form of control of my emotional reality. I was rambunctious as much as I was head-strong and, at times, hard-headed all together.

When this episode aired, I didn’t know why I loved Garnet and Stevonnie’s song, “Here Comes a Thought.” But I did, and it still carries with me into my life today.

I want to discuss a specific time, though, that this episode saved my sanity and opened my eyes to a concept I didn’t understand when I first watched it. I was on social media, and was defending my opinions against quite a few people by myself. Eventually, I was getting nasty comments from a bunch of millennials telling me,

“You’re too fucking stupid to understand, maybe you should go back to school, child.”

“You’re so emotional, and your emotions don’t matter here. Imagine being this dumb.”

“Imagine being a dumb bitch like Carly and saying you wanted to cut your penis off to look like a woman.” *NOTE I am not transgender, there is nothing wrong with being transgender and her insinuating such did not bother me. Her rhetoric insinuating trans was wrong is what irked me, this bitch was transphobic and had issues that she needs to repair in her own time. She wrote an entire post based around this context on her personal page using my real name, and she didn’t even know who I was.*

and my personal favorite, “Here’s the suicide hotline, I know your generation is prone to killing themselves and are overly emotional.”

Now, there were over 50, under 100, messages going back and forth where these people were just bullying me and I refused to back down. I wound up in a panic attack in my bedroom, literally wanting to kill myself because they were bullying me. The hotline would have come in handy if it were the actual hotline. I ended up going to my dad and older sister (my older sisters friend was the main one I was arguing with and her posy showed up on my post), because no one on the post was on my side.

Both told me, “If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” My sister told her friend to stop, and threatened the other girl for her nasty posts and comments. My dad tried to mediate on the post itself, but the people wouldn’t stop. I eventually had to take it down.

My family didn’t calm me down in this moment. Not even a little bit. It felt like a back-handed helping hand. Like they wanted to protect me, but also somewhat agreed with the people on the post.

The only thing that calmed my nerves in this moment, ultimately, was the song, “Here Comes a Thought.”

I sat in my room, sobbing, hoping to myself that it would make sense as to why it was okay for these things to happen. The song soothed over my nerves, eventually releasing my muscles and giving me a sense ease. I was able to process and realized a few personal things as well. I didn’t realize it, but before long, I was meditating to the song on repeat. I kept telling myself, “I’m okay, this is a thought. A moment. I am not my thoughts. I am not this moment.”

This was simply one of the ways Steven Universe has helped me process and understand myself more. I bring this up because I came across and article today that disappointed me to the core.

The Steven Universe Fandom has toxic tendencies.

I was shook.

How could a child’s show be turned into something so negative? Something that was meant to promote self-awareness, self-love, acceptance of character, and understanding of others had been morphed into a gatekeepers safe haven.

Now I know this isn’t the majority, and before you get offended, hurt or start defending yourself, I want you to ask yourself if what you are defending is an action you would defend from anyone else. If it is, by all means defend your ground.

But the one concept that eludes me, and offers zero substance in terms of valid arguments, is that men can not watch this show. Let me explain why men NEED to watch this fucking show.

My boyfriend watched this entire show, episode for episode, and benefitted from it. This show offered him coping techniques, an understanding of why love should come before war, and mediating every situation so you see and understand every perspective. These are things children shows didn’t offer him growing up, he has often and openly verbalized his need for this show in his childhood because of certain traumas, and we often continue watching it even after seeing every single episode and movie.

This show was never meant for one or two groups of people, and if you feel that way then refer back to the writers themselves who were literally trying to teach the lesson in the show over and over again to NEVER EXCLUDE PEOPLE FROM YOUR GROUP. You exclude people, and you create a division, a war of sorts. You immediately have become the thing Steven Universe advocated against in the first place.

This also leads into the whole “art” situation in the fandom.

This show is anti-bully. There are commercials for it and everything. It is expressed in multiple episodes why bullying is never a good thing in any situation.

You simply cannot justify the hypocrisy in bullying someone out of self-expression that literally harms no one. You can’t justify it.

Think about it. You draw or sketch a piece of art that took you hours, or even a few minutes. It’s your favorite character, and maybe you yourself are going through some mental thoughts regarding your weight that lead you to draw the character thinner or bigger. Size shouldn’t matter in any capacity when relating a character to ones self.

If you’re skinny, you’re beautiful. If you are thick or curvy, you are beautiful. If you are obese or overweight, you are beautiful. Weight doesn’t matter, but representation of body types in different characters does matter.

Imagine a child falls in love with a bigger character, but is experiencing body challenges where she is being picked on for being too thin or scrawny (it happens, I’ve seen it with my nieces). Who are you to say that making her favorite character look like her own body is wrong? Especially if art is a coping mechanism they use for mental health reasons.

Like Malachite, a fusion that was devastating and abusive in every way, you are taking the choice and voice of an entire being to make your actions and opinions “right” or “okay”.

There is so much more I could say on this show, and so much more I could say about the fandom. And I know it is not the majority of the fandom, but I did want to make everyone in the fandom aware that we are human.

None of us are stoic and balanced like Garnet, and even Garnet had problems in her relationship. None of us are strong and laid back like Amethyst, and even she had self-love issues. None of us are as analytical and organized as Pearl, and yet she had problems throughout the series.

None of you are perfect, and to act as if you are is defeating the purpose of a show trying to teach you how to be responsible for yourself and your actions. I’m not perfect either, and preaching about a fandom I’m not a huge part of sounds counter-intuitive, I’m aware.

But my nieces want to watch this show. My nephew watches this show with me. My boyfriend’s niece is going to start watching the show.

Please do not make a toxic environment for kids who need this show to grow up. Kids who experience trauma, and learn from this show deserve a safe space without people trying to justify bullying or force them to think that because they are a boy or girl, they can or can’t watch the show. Without people making people feel bad for being themselves.

Why don’t we create a new space? A space where everyone is accepted as they are, and negative behavior is addressed the same way the gems or Steven would address them. With education, perception awareness, and PATIENCE.

I know some will say, “It’s not my job to raise your child.” and “It’s not my responsibility to make people aware of their tendencies.”

You’re right. It’s also not your responsibility to bully people into changing themselves to fit your dialogue. Simply put, you’re responsible for yourself alone. But you have no right to complain on someone's behavior, art or experiences if you are not willing to be patient with correcting said behavior in yourself first.

Who knows, maybe I’m in the wrong here for not knowing the full story. All I’m saying is, if you see someone being a bully, being mean or even being a hypocrite, call them out in the sweetest way possible. Let them know we are facilitating a safe space for people who need a community rather than a closed off club.

Be the change you want to see in this world.

Learn, grow and prosper.

I wish you all well and genuinely hope we can all expand our perspectives to fully understand each other in healthier and more communicative based ways. We deserve that sort of kindness from each other.

#steven #stevenuniverse #amethyst #pearl #garnet #malachite #cartoonshow #art #love #patience #understanding #herecomesathought #foodforthought

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pinehurst · 4 years

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My Take on the First 3 Episodes

Let’s talk about Fugou Keiji for a second because I’ve been dying to talk about it.

After waiting practically 5 months, the long-awaited third episode finally aired. I remember back when Fugou Keiji was first announced the hype over Daisuke took over the internet. Good looking? Check. Rich? Check. Parted black hair? Check. Nonchalant? Sign me up. I also gave into the hype; heck, who wouldn’t? He’s practically the whole package; my dream man so to speak. The Jumin Han of another dimension.

Disclaimer: This discusses the only 3 episodes out at the moment and as new episodes come out I’ll most likely just create new posts so everything here isn’t really definite so to speak? My theories and beliefs are just based on the first 3 episodes so they may not be the most accurate thing out there.

Disclaimer #2: This is me just rambling on so things may not be in the best order so please bear with me (it’s mainly just my thoughts on how our 2 main characters have developed so far and any theories that I have)

Once the first episode aired, I was absolutely hooked on both the synopsis and the characters. Two detectives working together despite having completely different beliefs? Imagine the drama that would unfold!

Haru Kato, our main detective, would put his life on the line in the name of justice, taking extreme measures to uphold his humanistic values. The first episode heavily emphasized this idea. He insisted he take part in the entire bomber mission even though he wasn’t apart of the First Division. Ranks mean nothing in the face of human lives. Once he and Daisuke, the richer half of the duo, closed in on the van bearing the bomb, without any hesitation he jumped onto the van only to warn the driver inside, who happened to be a thief. This seemingly innocent civilian’s life was in danger: they had no right to die from a terrorist attack. He knew well of the dangers as there was only a minute left until the bomb detonated, yet his morals took over. If nobody is going to save her, he must do it. Would he have still done this if he knew that the driver was a thief? We can’t be so sure yet.

Even in episode two Haru’s traditional values prevail as he continued to pursue Isezaki, the smuggler in question, despite being exhausted and practically lifeless. The first two episodes really painted Haru as this character who is willing to go to the extreme and literally kill himself for the sake of others. His work method basically revolves around these old-school techniques.

Kanbe Daisuke lies on the opposite side of the spectrum though. He is far more materialistic and uses his wealth to buy his way through every situation. In need of a car? Just buy it from the prince of the Abura Emirates. A tower is affiliated with a smuggler? Just buy the tower and do whatever you must. He marches to the beat of his own drum, refusing to cooperate with Haru and even ignores his complaints. Haru is very clearly repulsed by Daisuke’s ways as he views it as though he’s cheating at life. Using money instead of working hard? Pathetic. Daisuke, on the other hand, just doesn’t seem to understand Haru’s views. Why go through all that trouble when you could easily solve it through a few million bucks? He doesn’t necessarily value human lives in the same way that Haru does either. As seen in the first episode, he almost ran over a mother and her son if Haru hadn’t intervened. But Daisuke’s character is far more complex in my opinion.

This is where my theories come into play. I suspect that something happened in Daisuke’s past that caused him to lose trust in others or even respect for other humans if we could go to that extreme. The series began with Daisuke playing the piano while saying:

“I had a father, and I had a mother. I believe I had a happy childhood. However, ever since a certain day, everything had changed.”

This led me to believe that maybe possibly his parents died from a tragic murder or anything that would cause him to lose sympathy or care for others. Or any type of sad backstory for that matter. Maybe this is why someone of his rank and wealth even decided to join the police/detective force in the first place rather than selfishly indulge in his wealth.

Anywho, the first episode really helped build my theory. This is especially notable at the end as Daisuke is driving the prince’s car up the bascule bridge to push the cleaning van with the bomb. He smirks that devilish smile that we all swooned over the first time we saw it as the van crept closer to the edge of the bridge. Once Haru jumps out of the car to save the “civilian” inside, Daisuke’s facial expression changes to a much more soft, almost confused expression. A few minutes later when Haru is hanging off of the bridge, Daisuke watches Haru helplessly hang. He’s the one who decided to help the civilian, now he’s suffering the consequences. Why help him?

Episodes 1 and 2 really helped to establish the contrasting personalities and mindsets between Haru and Daisuke, which I really enjoyed. The fact that our two main characters are as different as night and day made the show much more comedic, which I absolutely enjoyed! The subtlety in the expressions too: stunning. *chef’s kiss*

The third episode elaborated on their personalities and really added a sort of “depth” to them. Oh boy was this episode chaotic and full of new information. This is the episode where we see their first step towards true partnership, Haru’s backstory, and even met grammy Kanbe. Let’s dive into it.

The episode started off with Daisuke, Haru, and Suzue visiting the Kikuko, or Daisuke’s grandmother. As of right now, it’s still unclear whether Suzue is Daisuke’s fiancé or sister, but either way she was in no way the focus of the episode. Daisuke seems much more submissive towards his grandmother, a side of him we’ve yet to see. This is even prominent in the opening song as Daisuke is seen smirking alongside the other members of the Modern Crime Prevention Task Force (MCPTF) yet he has a much more neutral face around his grandmother. Is it out of respect? Quite possibly. He is much more composed (even though he always has been) and compliant, furthering my case. Back to my theory, maybe his grandma raised him after his parents died and that’s where his respect grew from. The possibility is always there.

It’s also noticeable that Daisuke seems much more irritated towards Haru as in practically any screenshot from these first few scenes you could feel the pique radiate from him. Daisuke even gave Haru the stink eye a few times before Haru ratted him out to his grandmother (harsh). Whatever happened in Hong Kong must’ve been brutal, but it really helped throw a curveball in their relationship.

After that bop of an opening, it’s revealed that Haru is sitting next to a student facing lots of difficulties early on ranging from his sister’s bad health to failing his college entrance exam. Haru very clearly sympathizes with this kid as he also failed his first college entrance exam, and heck who wouldn’t feel bad for a kid going through this much stress? Imagine the absolute grief Haru felt when he found out that it’s that same kid who held a woman at gunpoint later on. When calling Kamei later on, Haru shouted:

“No! Don’t tell him. Absolutely not.”

Considering his relationship with his fellow peers, we can safely assume that he’s referring to Daisuke. At this point, we know that Haru doesn’t trust Daisuke at all. Like not even a sliver. That rich boy help him? No sir. No thank you.

This scene also unveiled the tension between Haru and the First Division. Haru and Hoshino are clearly not on good terms as they speak formally to one another, almost as though they weren’t partners a few years back. A flashback plays soon after and its revealed that all went downhill when Haru misfired and ended up wounding one burglar and killing one innocent civilian (who held a gun at Haru most likely out of fear; I mean, who wouldn’t be scared in such a situation). This ultimately led to his demotion to the Third Division. Lots of drama. Lots of tears. This backstory revealed exactly why Haru is unable to shoot anymore: his past trauma is to blame.

Haru still clearly cares for Hoshino though. When he and Daisuke listened in to the First Division’s call line, Haru practically prayed that the perp wouldn’t get shot, for both the sake of morals and for his friend. His “friend” is mentally incapable of shooting anyone and the perp just “isn’t a bad guy.” Haru is revealed to be an even greater advocate of morality and humanism than we previously thought. Even though this college student was hosting a stand-off, Haru refused to believe that he was any less human and hoped to find a way to prevent him from approaching death’s doorstep. So, to answer the question from earlier: yes, Haru would still save the thief if he was aware of it. He values human lives to the point that the First Division had the audacity to say that he “has no right to be a police officer.”

Daisuke listened closely to Haru’s wishes and worked to make them come true. He worked to find a way to bring the perp down without any bloodshed and practically did anything to conform to Haru’s wishes, ranging from allowing him to use HEUSC to setting off smoke rockets to prevent the perp from getting shot by the police. When the First Division chief insists that Haru shoot the perp, Haru is clearly hesitant. What if things go wrong again? No, why should he shoot him when he wants him to live? Should he just throw away his morals in the midst of panic? Haru is shown to try to reason with the perp and just couldn’t bring himself to shoot him. Maybe there will be some development in the future? Who knows.

Daisuke later on bribes the perp by stressing he’ll pay for his sister’s surgery in order to resolve the actual reason he decided to host the stand-off in the first place. Daisuke obviously did it for the mission and maybe he didn’t feel remorse whatsoever (heck who can tell what Daisuke is thinking) but I have a feeling that as the series progresses Daisuke will start to do these acts of kindness not only for the case but also out of authenticity. The perp seems intimidated (possibly by Daisuke’s lifeless expressions) and gives in and the day is saved! The third episode formally wraps up with another unforgettable bop.

The takeaway from the entire episode is that Daisuke started cooperating with Haru and even allowed him to use HEUSC. Was this because he had a change in mindset? Or was he just following his grandmother’s wishes? Personally, I believe it’s both but leaning towards the latter. Daisuke, as mentioned before, has a different kind of respect for his grandmother and would submit to her wishes. Since she said “don’t trouble your coworkers,” he decided to work with Haru rather than just alongside him. She also insisted that Haru help coach Daisuke, so once again, he’s following her orders. However, I do believe that Daisuke is rather curious about Haru’s lifestyle. They are quite different as a matter of fact. He wanted to understand how Haru could easily put his life on the line for other people and maybe even wanted to change himself. That’s unlikely considering it’s only the third episode, but that possibility is still there.

But I strongly believe that Daisuke had a change in mindset, even if it may be small. He jeopardized his life and walked towards the perpetrator only because he trusted Haru’s words: “He isn’t the type of guy to kill.” Maybe Daisuke did this only to follow his grandmother’s wishes. Maybe he did this out of sheer trust. Maybe he did this to try to better his relationship with Haru (the chances are, yet again, a bit low). Nonetheless, he still put his life at risk and this was one small step in their partnership (and one giant leap for fangirl-kind). That’s not to say that their relationship isn’t still iffy. Whenever Haru starts to speak in the car, Daisuke just puts the pedal to the metal and drives off into the distance.

Personally, I enjoyed this shift in character in Daisuke in the third episode. I've seen many comments regarding how it's sudden that his character changed, but I felt as though it made sense (as explained above). I see where they're coming from as we were robbed from the Hong Kong trip, and it’s evident that something happened in Hong Kong that caused a shift in their characters; however, I felt as though the third episode put emphasis on the fact that Daisuke is changing whether it be by his free will or his grandmother’s, or both.

In conclusion: I cry over pretty boys so much to the point that I wrote an entire review on them.

EDIT: So it’s been confirmed that we’re going to learn about what happened in Hong Kong in a drama CD. All I can say is yes

#i have nobody to talk to fkbu about #my solution: write an essay #harusupremacy #i actually enjoyed writing this lol #fkbu #fugou keiji #the millionaire detective #balance unlimited #fugou keiji: balance:unlimited

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cherrybloomn · 4 years

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Delicate - Chapter 3

Note: ok Chapter 3 is here. Your opinion is always welcomed (criticism included!). Its my first stoey ever so please be kind. I know I have much to work on, but I hope that it will get better and better.

I would like to thank very (VERY) much @musings-sans-muse and @shellbilee for your support, help, ideas, everything! You girls rock!!

Thank you @oddsnendsfanfics for your encouragement!

Warnings: swearing

April 2020

Naomi spent the whole March shooting her show in Berlin (as there was a theatre festival) and preparing the charity event for children. She managed to schedule everything– the place (Hyde Park), the catering, the guests. Obviously, everything was cancelled due to coronavirus restrictions. Everyone was forbidden to go to the tv studio, so Naomi worked on the new scripts of the episodes, watched movies, wrote reviews of new plays, etc.

Since their last lunch, Naomi had been regularly in touch with Henry, mostly via WhatsApp. They have met a couple of times. The more she talked with him, the more she liked him. He made her laugh. But not only that. He seemed to care about others, yet had this reasonable attitude - often saying that you can’t change the world alone.

She valued him for being the voice of reason. They have known each other for only two months, yet she told him a lot about her family and difficult relationship with her father (who was a real - life spitting image of Logan Roy from The Succession), her issues with James, her weird fascinations of criminal stories about murderers and disappearances and the II World War.

One day she had just come home and put the groceries on the kitchen island, when her phone buzzed. She picked up the video call. Henry. The thought of seeing his face and talking to him always shifted her mood. “Hello boy. Give me a moment I need to wash my hands. I’ve just been out in a bad, bad store.” She giggled and headed to the bathroom with her phone, placing it next to the sink.

“Of course. I can see your tits now, by the way. No worries though, I enjoy the view.” He chuckled lightly. Naomi rolled her eyes and quickly moved the phone to the higher counter. She took a minute to study Henry’s face. Something was off. She couldn’t tell if he looked sad or tired. It was off though. She was wondering why. In this very moment she also realized that he was one of very few people, who were… important to her. Not in a romantic kind of way. No. Naomi didn’t date, she didn’t want to build a relationship with any man, not anymore. Still, he was important.

“Helloo..” Henry waved his hand from the other side of the screen.

“I’m sorry. I thought of my round, perfect, little tits. Changing the awkward subject, how are you doing in times of isolation? You look tired. Is everything ok?” Naomi dried her hands with a towel, grabbed her phone and headed to the kitchen. She placed her phone on the kitchen island, leant on her elbows and focused on the phone screen.

“I’m fine. A bit anxious I think. Not my best day today. That’s why I’m calling. I expect to hear some entertaining story about your crazy childhood.”

She laughed, and thought for a moment. “I’m not in the mood today. You know, I almost got a role in the Moulin Rouge musical in the Old Vic. I mean I did get the part of Satine, and I was so excited, as it would be my debut after all these years. Unfortunately, they called today that due to the lockdown, the project has been entirely called off.” She shrugged “At least Netflix doesn’t disappoint. There’s the Money Heist premiere today.”

After a second she added “Join me today! Look I know it’s illegal, alright? But I can promise we will keep the two – meter distance. I can offer you good whiskey and whatever meal the chosen restaurant could provide. Except for pizza and other carbo shit. I’m on a low-carbo diet. You know I’d love to say I’m one of those women who can eat everything because they’re so cool and don’t care about their looks or have a wonderful metabolism. But unfortunately, I’m not them. My metabolism is my enemy and I do fucking care about how I look because the CEO of BBN asks about my weight like once a month.” She smiled at him “So, take it or leave it.”

“I take it. I can cook something if you want. Oh, can I take Kal with me?”

“Cooking – ok. Sounds cool. Kal – Henry, in general of course. But you need to keep in mind I’ve got two Pomeranians – and as much as they love people and small dogs, they sometimes hate the big ones. So, bring Kal with you and in case there’s war, I’ll take Marilyn and Audrey to my neighbor.”

They discussed the details about the dogs’ meeting and decided to meet at 6 pm. Naomi took her time to call her mum and friends, take her dogs for a walk and take a shower. Afterwards she applied a bit of makeup, put on her black Nike leggings and white tank top. She let her hair loose so that it could dry quickly. Just after she poured herself a glass of water, her phone buzzed and Henry informed, he’s waiting outside with Kal. Naomi called her dogs and all of them headed to the small park near her apartment. Naomi couldn’t stop laughing when she spotted Henry with the Salvador Dali mask on – a kind of tribute to Money Heist, which they were going to watch.

Unfortunately, just as Naomi thought, there was no love between Kal and Marylin. At least Audrey accepted the big bear immediately. Naomi decided to take Marylin to her neighbor, and the rest of them headed to her place.

Much to Naomi’s surprise, Henry cooked a delicious dinner, and they spent the whole evening watching five episodes of the Netflix series. Being her kittenish self, Naomi gently touched Henry’s knee with her toes from time to time. “Heey… relax.” She said with a smile. “I can tell you something nice, wanna hear?”

Henry raised his eyebrow and looked at her with a smirk “Go on, entertain me.” He gently rubbed her ankle with one hand, the other one was supported on the back of the sofa.

“Alright..” Naomi closed her eyes for a moment and enjoyed the delicate massage. Finally she looked him in the eyes. She smiled shyly and turned her face away, “Henry.. Do remind me please, is your dad a boxer?” She asked coyly.

Henry seemed a bit puzzled “No, no. Have I ever said that he was?”

“Well no...but damn, I’m asking because you’re such a knockout!”.

They both burst out with laughter.

“What a cheesy pickup line, I love it! Where do you know that from?”

Naomi started to play with her hair “Well, it happens to me all the time” she joked. “It’s nice to see you laughing.” She added after a second.

At around 3 a.m. they decided it was really late, so they were to terminate their evening with just one glass of Jack Daniels (due to her diet Naomi didn’t drink alcohol, but promised to have a goodbye drink).

Naomi brought two glasses to the living room and sat on the sofa. Henry was sitting on the opposite side. Once Naomi extended her hand and handled him a glass of whiskey, he slowly grabbed the glass with one hand and held her wrist with another. “What a massive rock!” He said, looking closely at her two - carat diamond engagement ring. He gently caressed her knuckles with his thumb. His touch, ever so gentle made Naomi shiver. Something about it felt so wrong and so right at the same time. “Has James proposed to you? I had no idea”. Henry let go of her hand and supported himself on the back of the sofa.

“No, of course not. It’s an engagement ring I was given by my husband. I often wear it.” Naomi didn’t like to talk about her marriage with anyone. She felt very comfortable with Henry and they talked about many personal things, but she never mentioned her married life.

Henry slowly nodded. “You never talk about your marriage.” He took a sip of his drink and after a couple of seconds asked “Do you still love him?”

Naomi zoned out for a second, focusing her eyes on the floor. Her hand tried to retrace Henry’s touch on her knuckles. This touch. So delicate. It was one of the most intimate moments she’s ever experienced. Why was it so intimate - she didn’t know. She had had a lot of sex lately. Mostly with James. James never touched her this way. Why? Why had nobody ever touched her this way, she thought.

“Naomi.” Henry’s low, but soft voice snatched her out of her thoughts. She looked at him with slightly parted lips. What were they talking about? Oh, right. Her ex-husband.

“Do I love my husband? Because I wear the engagement ring? No. Not at all. I just love expensive jewellery with big diamonds.” She chuckled looking at her engagement ring. “That’s the secret. But no. I have no feelings for my ex - husband. As for why I don’t talk about my marriage, there’s just nothing to talk about. I was 20, he was 34 at that time we got married. I wanted to be an actress, he was a serious entrepreneur. I wanted to run away from my mum, who was trying to take over my whole life, and he was looking for a young woman to build a home with. At some point it didn’t work out. We had a nasty divorce and division of assets. He then moved to Moscow, and as far as I know he still lives there. The end.”

Naomi refilled Henry’s glass with whisky, Naomi willed herself to focus back on the conversation and not on the ghost of his touch that lingered on her skin. “What about your love life, Mr. One Hundred Questions to Naomi Poesy?” She asked and winked at him.

“You know how it is Naomi. It’s just hard to get involved with someone, if you have this kind of job. It’s all about either accepting my schedule and traveling with me, or building a long – distance relationship. It hardly ever works. Also…”

Naomi suddenly held her right hand up in a stop gesture. “I’m sorry, but I just have to interrupt here. That sounds like you’re trying to find a justification. I mean – and I’m really sorry for sharing my opinion unasked – but building any relationship is hard in general. Do you really think your situation is any different from a situation of CEOS or anyone who has a career, money and power? The scale may be different but the issues are all the same. I mean a CEO of a big insurance company does have the very same problems. He asks the same questions - if his new other half is with him because of his status, money, position or because she’s in love. And the schedule thing – sure it’s hard to build a relationship when you’re on the set for a couple of months and it literally consumes all of your time. Trust me though, it’s not easier if you work as a physician or a lawyer, or if you work in a big tv corporation like I do. Instead of being on the set for a couple of months, people work their asses off every day, because they have loans to pay, plans to realize. And they usually don’t have any breaks. The fact that you get back home to your other half after 9 pm does not necessarily make your relationship better. It’s just the matter of what you’re expecting from a relationship.”

Henry just nodded and added after a moment “I just want to have a family of my own.”

“Well. But this is not the answer to the question of what you are expecting from a relationship. I mean, obviously everyone wants to start a family. The question is – what does it mean to you? Some want to start a family because they hate to be lonely, some feel like they need to take care of others, and some just feel like it makes them feel complete. You know sometimes you meet the person you resonate with, you feel the great chemistry with, but it just doesn’t work because of lots of other factors like the timing, circumstances etc. So, what I mean is that you really need to know what you expect from your partner so that you can fight for it.” She thought about what she said for a minute “Hm.. it sounded much wiser in my head before I verbalized it.”

Henry laughed and looked her in the eyes licking his lips. That gentle touch. After a few seconds of glancing at each other she smiled at him and shyly turned her face away. “Ok, enough. Don’t try to charm me here.” She grabbed her phone from the coffee table. “Man, it’s 4 am! I’m not surprised I’m bubbling something half intelligent. I should be sleeping already, I have promised to help Sarah tomorrow morning. This morning. If you want to you can stay, I have a guest room and a spare toothbrush.”

“Thank you, but I guess I better get back home.” He grabbed his phone and ordered an Uber. “I just have to say” he started as they both stood up and headed towards the hall. “You are so tiny without high heels!”

She laughed “No shit Sherlock.”

“No, but seriously. I wanted to say” he stopped there and looked at Kal. It seemed like he was fighting with his thoughts whether to verbalize what he wanted to say or not. “I really like spending time with you.”

Naomi crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t date Cavill.” She said with a smile.

Henry just nodded and leaned towards her, so close that their faces were just inches away, and said “Well, pity.” He chuckled and leaned even closer to give her a goodbye kiss on a cheek “Bye, girl. Get some sleep.” He then took a step away and called for Kal, who was already bouncing on his legs ready to go.

Naomi reached to open the front door for them, but instead of doing it, she turned towards Henry and leaned against the door. She noticed his clenched jaw, then placed her eyes on his lips and eyes. She slowly grabbed the drawstring of his hood with her right hand and wrapped it around her fingers. “Hey.. I don’t, but what would you do if I did date…?” she asked playfully. She bit her bottom lip in anticipation.

“Naomi..” Henry smiled lightly at her, and tenderly touched her cheek, moving his fingers from her cheekbone through her lips to her chin. He was slowly studying her face. Naomi looked at him stunned, her lips parted, she was not expecting that.

“I’m 37. I’m too old to play this game. Please, don’t play with me.” He stroked her cheek once more with his index finger and stepped back. He fastened Kal’s leash. In the meantime Naomi unlocked the door and moved back.

“Goodbye” He gave her a warm smile and left.

Naomi quickly closed the door and tried to understand what had just happened. She felt all the emotions at once - arousal, humiliation, sadness, anger, happiness. She brushed her fingers through her cheek. That gentle touch. She took a deep breath. In her entire life Naomi had always been the “tough guy” - first in ballet school, at home, when her mother suffered from depression, and Naomi had to take care of her mother and her brother, then drama school. Establishing her position in television was not easy either. Oh, and her marriage. She was just a girl when she got married and her older husband always knew better. The random men she fucked after she got divorced. James. They all wanted to have her, possess her. And she kind of liked it. It made her feel attractive and in charge. But that touch was somethings new.

Naomi felt the tears welling in her eyes, as if for the first time in her life, she experienced such a gentle touch. And it felt so good.

#henry cavill #henry cavill x other female character #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #slow build

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watchwithbee · 3 years

Text

the fosters, s1e11

tw: brief mentions of (fictional) past r*pe and s*xual a*sault, foster siblings having romantic/sexual relationships, poor mental health, father figure fighting an alcohol problem, somewhat shitty commentary but that’s everything I post lmao

1k words

(started about 10 minutes in)

HELL YEAH JUDE

PREACH

STAND UP FOR YOURSELF BBY BOY

ALSO HEY BRANDON YOU PIECE OF SHIT

WHAT THE FUCK DUDE

I’M STILL PISSED AT HIM

Ju: you’re no better than liam >:(

Me: FUCK HIM UP BABY BOY

B: I love callie

[egregious puking noises]

Look ship whatever you want

Just acknowledge when things are problematic

Ship brallie to your heart’s content as long as you don’t condone in*est IRL

I’m not here to police ppl, I’m just giving opinions no one asked for cause that’s the entire purpose of this blog

Oh no jude

Poor boy

I literally hate brandon sm he needs to get his shit together

[aggressive vibing to the theme song]

[weeping] you’re surrounded by love and you’re wanted

I used to think the theme was cheesy

Now i literally love it sm

The RUBBER DUCKY

THE HAND HOLDING

Ugh ads

I really think people are overlooking jude’s feelings rn

Omfg stef’s mom (her name is sharon, bee)

I love her

I love jude and sharon’s dynamic it’s

Chef’s kiss

Immaculate

Sh: I’m not gonna break up with him cause I love his bed

“Subtext, by calvin klein ;)”

Oh right this is the bed that fucks up their marriage

Ju: I’m a taco :D

Me: [I can’t find it but the clip from b99 where boyle says I’m gonna need a minute

It cuts to a black screen that says one minute later than cuts back to charles tear and snot stained face after clearly crying a lot

Boyle: sorry for the sobbing and the wailing and the weird snorting noise I made at the end

But yeah that’s me rn]

Oh god not more jesus lexi drama

I wish mariana and jesus got along better

Also jake t austin jesus walked so noah centineo jesus could run

I love that typed out it looks like I mean jesus the religious figure

Oh shit

Lexi needs to stop gatekeeping and mariana needs to stop taking the division of time as a personal offense

I mean she and jesus are both taurus so I’m not surprised they’re clashing

Oh god callie why did you run away w wyatt

I hate wyatt

I hate the aliens dialogue

W: the government is making it seem fake oOoOoH

Literally hate it

Callie “he’s better off without me” addams foster is getting on my last fuckin nerve

Like the insensitivity?????

The not actually caring about the people around you under the guise of caring about them??????

The only difference between martyrdom and soupyslide is press coverage

The whole Wyatt And Callie On The Run thing is getting old and it’s been happening for like 10 minutes

Self sacrifice isn’t cute sis

WYATT WHAT THE FUCK

He claims to care about her and yet

Deletes the fucking voicemail from her mom??????????

What???????

Christ stef is fucking crying

Sh: my love…

STEF AND HER MOM BOTH CALL PPL MY LOVE

SO FUCKING CUTE

Now wyatt is playing the good guy???F???

Okay hold up

Look

Callie and brandon are both at fault for kissing each other at stef and lena’s wedding

which was SO cute btw

the wedding not the gross kiss

I will say that callie, who was literally r*ped by L*am, was incredibly emotionally volatile then bc everything with him had been stirred up and she just found out he wouldn’t go to jail

No one would be surprised if she did something impulsive and self destructive bc of the trauma, especially something related to having an inappropriate relationship with a foster brother

Brandon knew about all of this and he wasn’t having flashbacks or a bunch of trauma about anything

He should have stopped her or at least pushed her away

And he didn’t

I’m not saying Callie isn’t at fault too, what I am saying is that brandon had more responsibility in that situation and didn’t do what a decent person would do

WYATT AND BRANDON ARE BOTH BAD FOR CALLIE

SHE DOESN’T NEED A RELATIONSHIP RN SHE NEEDS A LOVING SUPPORTIVE FAMILY

Callie is so clearly sprialing rn

At least Wyatt is actually trying to help her

No one can handle a stressful situation in this show

I can’t describe how much I hate the pseudo end of the fucking world energy they’re going for

At least wyatt had the decency to not immediately try to share a bed w her

I like how flustered he gets cuddling her

That’s cute at least

I don’t like that callie didn’t consider that sharing a bed would make him nervous or uncomfy

OH SHIT THERE THEY ARE

MOMS HAVE ENTERED THE CHAT

And now callie, feeling trapped again, is going to run away yet again

And do something impulsive

Yet again

Jfc

Look I have trauma and a strong fight or flight response too, but I dont hurt the people I love

Hitching a ride with a trucker??????????? She’s going to put herself in a very avoidable irreversibly bad situation

I love mike getting to be a good dad figure

It’s rare with the whole alcoholic plot

I really hate that too btw

He has a comforting presence

Let him be a good dad

Mariana you can want to be vegan but pls don’t be a toxic vegan

Let people make their own choices

I love frazzled mike trying to be a good dad

I wish mariana would be a little bit more of a problem solver

If she doesn’t want any animal products or peanut butter offer to make your own lunch maybe??????

I hate how fast Jesus and Mariana forgave brandon after the whole “We ToOk YoU iN wHeN NoOnE eLsE wAnTeD yOu!!! sTeF iS mY mOm!!!!” bullshit

“Mom’s car won’t start” lmao

What the actual fuck callie

If she’s this at risk for such self destructive behavior she needs way more help

HOT GIRL WITH PINK MULLET

MARRY ME

Oh god not the begging for a job scene

I hate this part

I’m a little over half way done with the episode so I’ll cut it here, part 2 will be up shortly

#the fosters #anti brallie #netflix #show review #idk what else to tag this #s1e11 #the fosters s1e11 #watch with bee

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rotzaprachim · 5 years

Text

in secret, between the shadow and the soul 1/2

Kanej, Inej-centric. Teen ish, marriage of convenience, 3000 words

(About 6 years post Crooked Kingdom)

Read here on ao3

The apothecary asks her how long it’s been since she’s been intimate with her husband, and Inej almost chokes, says no, she hasn’t been in a very long time. Honesty is always difficult in her carse- dealing with her own past, own demons is hard enough without having to watch other people attempt proper emotional responses on her behalf, and maybe the apothecary senses that because she doesn’t ask more.

----

“It’s legal more than anything. A question of economics,” Kaz said, and Inej nodded, because it's kerch and how could it be anything but? Certainly nothing as tawdry as emotion or desire, let alone love, could interfere with so large a life decision.

Only Kerch citizens can hold berths in the water, and its significantly easier to manage bank accounts and conduct major financial decisions of the kind Inej needs to make on the near daily when restocking her ships. There's one route faster than all the others to becoming a Kerch citizen.

Inej suggested it before Kaz did.

She isn’t ready for marriage, she said. She isn’t ready to be tied to a man, to be anything more or less than herself alone. The Kerch made the whole business easy by never referring to this thing they’re doing as a marriage, all the paperwork is about Economic Units, Civil Unions. There’s so many pages of jargon it made Inej’s eyes bleed. Future children held less inches of fine grey type than agreements on pigs and shipping company stocks, and were described in the same economic language.

Kaz went through the whole thing line by line until the shore she was going to call for an annulment before they’d even gotten the damned thing notarized, or else make herself a tastefully rich and very young widow.

“It’s a contract,” he said. “You should know all the details before you sign your life away.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Inej said, irritated by the last several pages about Property Division in the Event of Medium Sized or Larger Storms, Grisha Attacks, and General Flooding, “I’m not signing my life away.”

“When you get married, it might be difficult to annul if you’ve still got a legal Kerch-”

“When I get married?” she shoots back challengingly. “To who?”

“I don’t know. That fire-tongued revolutionary who writes you poetry and will make you a new world. The Kaelish tavern maid who always pours you a free beer in her bar while you sing about the plight of the repressed. Someone hopelessly moon-eyed and optimistic, who thinks the world shits rainbows and knows what you’re worth.”

“You, Kaz Brekker,” she finally sighed, “are a hell of a lot dumber than they say you are.”

---

She doesn’t tell her parents. She’s not ready for that conversation.

---

She doesn’t tell Nina. She’s not ready for that conversation either.

---

The whole thing was finished in a notary’s office in ten minutes.

Kaz’s gloves were off, more because they both need to be fingerprinted than anything else.

He swore a short, official oath of his loyalty to both her and the Kerch market, promising not to cheat in foreign ports and to provide for and any hypothetical children. She thought of the paid-off indenture and the ship and the found parents and berth twenty-two and and her room in the house in bought on the Zelverstraat and thought that maybe he’s better at doing that than he thinks he is.

She swore a shorter official oath about fidelity and staying true and all her children being her husband’s, because to do otherwise would be bad economics and make her a poor investment, a value-destroyer, on the family line. Because it’s Kerch and of course it is.

---

“What are you thinking about?” he asked her afterward in an attempt at being casual. They’d been sipping at warm lukewarm flagons of beer in one of the harbour’s more reputable establishments and looking out at the water for twenty minutes.

“I’m thinking,” she said slowly, tasting her words, “that Alys Van Eyck is a very, very lucky woman that we came around when we did.” She’s still thinking about the various punishments for women who pollute the family line, which even if motivated by economics over faith as such things would be in Fjerda, are not dissimilar in practice. She’s realising more and more the Kerch neuroticism over bastardry probably comes from having so many of the young men gone for half the year at sea.

Kaz guffawed, which was not a sound she was really used to him making. “You never fail to surprise me, Wraith.”

“How is the Vrouw Dazi”

Kaz shrugged. “Not useful to my purposes anymore. Wylan’s got her an Bajan set up in a little cottage outside Pijl with a tidy sum tied to not making too much noise.”

Sometimes she fantasized about breaking into that cottage and putting on a performance similar to the one that sent Pekka Rollins screaming from Ketterdam. She didn’t, because she didn’t subscribe to the idea of the sins of the father and thought Saartje Kazanja deserved a da with his mental pieces mostly intact. But saints take all, she wanted too.

“How’s Saartje?”

“I don’t know. Kid? Looks more like she could be ours than Jan Van Eyck’s, that’s for sure.

The tips of Kaz’s ears went red before he finished that sentence and he stared into the foam at the bottom of his glass, head turned decisively away from her.

“Fine, I think. In school now. No reason to keep tabs.”

They toasted her new Kerch citizenship. Inej swore she saw his hand shaking.

----

Her citizenship documents, stamped with a wax seal of three flying fish and a small Kerch flag came three days later, expedited by Kaz in ways she cannot begin to fathom. It’s only then she realised that they’re for the new Vrouw Rietveld, that she made her vows to Kasper Rietveld. It’s only logical- Rietveld can be the upstanding businessman who only exists on paper in a way Kaz Brekker cannot, all the better for her dowings, but it still feels like a piece of himself gifted to her.

She could forge Rietveld’s name for her own purposes too; they practiced on old betting slips that she then threw into the fire. Kerch women can legally make almost every kind of financial decision and dealing, less due to the Merchers’ Council’s upstanding opinion of the female gender than the portion of the year the men are at sea, the incredible odds they won’t come back.

(They’ve rather flipped that scenario.

“How much cross-stitch will you do do fill up the void of my absences, she chided him. “They say the old sailor’s wives used to knit lace from the white froth of the sea.” Nowadays Wealthy Kerch women waiting for their husbands to come home tended to stick to knitting hats and scarves for orphans. So saints-damned many hats and socks, and yet you could still scarcely move for the number of bare-headed, barefoot orphans come winter. It was one of Ketterdam’s greatest mysteries.

“Inej,” Kaz sayid, eyes closed, genuine concern cutting his voice. Ever more she was picking up a sailor’s sense of gallows humour.)

---

They exchanged rings at the registry. Inej’s was a simple band, no gemstones but she suspected it was solid gold. Inside was etched a wave pattern, an endless strip of open sea.

Wearing it on her finger meant something, soo she looped it onto a sturdy chain that she hid between her shirt and her beating heart. That seemed appropriate, doable. Young sailors often took the bracelets and handkerchiefs of their sweethearts out to sea as good luck tokens; Inej had a gold wedding band.

Kaz’s fingers brushed the chain in the warm dip between neck and collar as he said goodbye to her on the docks, and after she nodded infinitesimally, telling him to go on, finish this chapter of the story, he slowly pulled up the rest of the chain and found the band.

“I thought-” he said, but she looked him in the eyes, square as she could, and he halted. She doesn’t know what he thought.

“There was not and is not and will probably me a different man for me than you, Kaz Brekker.

He swallowed thickly and then slowly lifted her skin-warmed band to his lips, even though he did not believe in luck, had said he believed in nothing but her.

---

The Kerch don’t have seperate words for “husband’ and “man.”

---

“Mijn mann,” she says in response to the curious looks her crew gives her after the band slips free during repair work, and it doesn’t feel like anything more or less than the truth.

“Mijn mann,” she says tacitly when border authorities raise their eyebrows in suspicion at her Kerch passport.

“Mijn mann,” she begins her letters back to him. “Dearest Inej,” his come back, sometimes even “Loveliest Inej,” but he never uses a possessive pronoun form.

---

Having any kind of passport, official documentation, feels alien and strange. She comes from a people without a land, and for her entire childhood they Suli were denied any official documentation of Ravkan citizenship. That’s changing now, but many are still wary, and with very good reason to be.

---

The quick bureaucratic sketch to mark Vrouw Inej Rietveld as a Seetsen Van Det Kerchrepublik, looked absolutely nothing like the drawings on the three individual sets of national wanted posters that keep cropping up in seedy port cities. Absolutely none of the above get her nose right.

“I look white in this one,” she said, holding a particularly egregious example up to Aigerim, who commiserate mightily. “Look how fucking straight this nose is. No eyebrows.”

Hitting the nose furnishes very fun target practice for when her fingers itch to throw knives.

Inej wins a lot of games of darts in a lot of seamy seaside pubs tucked into a lot of different gritty port cities.

---

They dock in Pijl before Ketterdam to catch their breath and do repairs. Ketterdam’s a good place for business and to look for secrets and plan strategy but a shite location to re-sew a sail or patch up a wall, unless you like replacing your supplies every time they’re stolen. The prices of grain and barrels of water and apples are lower are lower closer to the fields as well, even if that involves bartering loudly in a Centraalmarket that smells like spilled cider and pig shit, straw crunching underfoot, rather than the hallowed halls of the Exchange.

It takes her three days to come down with the evil hybrid chest cold-stomache flu of her fucking life. Ameera shoves her back into bed with ginger tea and another blanket. The thing they don’t tell you about awesome pirate ships with awesome international crews is that you also get the full spectrum of awesome international germs.

By the fourth day, she’s putting on all three of her coats and stuffing a wad of kruge and her passport into a pocket to visit the clinic in town.

---

Other people seem to register this whole being-married business than Inej ever does. She just prefers the expedited customs lines.

The splotchy faced, matronly woman at the clinic sits her on a paper-covered table and reads through a list of questions on a clipboard. Nian loves the lab smell of pure alcohol, would probably dab it on as perfume if she could, but Inej only associates it with injury, with being patched and stitched up after a bad scrape, with the white-coated doctor who came in every two weeks to swab Tante Heleen’s girls for disease, with the brown bottle of the stuff she uses to clean blood and worse off of her knives.

“Family history of pulmonary infections?” the woman asks her. “Smoking, alcohol, jurda use?” Every question makes her squirm slightly, as if in the historyof her wheezing lunghs is some sin she’s committed and will only now find out about. Nejn, nejn, nejn. Inej forgot how much she hated being looked at.

No grisha in her family that she knows of- scribble scribble scribble- but a lot of bad eyesight.

“When was the last time you had intimate relations with your husband?” the woman asks bluntly, and that’s the question that knocks the air out from her. The woman’s thin yellow eyebrow quirks up, but Inej manages to disguise her gasp as a particularly bad fit of hacking. She knows its nothing but a bit of intrusive medical questioning, but words can have many meanings and the answers to questions can be both yes and no at the same time and a certain turn of phrase can punch like a fist and cut like a knife. So she just says “six months ago,” and gives the woman her answer for the write-up.

“Long time.”

“He’s a sailor. I cry as I wait for him to return to me.”

“Ghezen’s speed that he does.”

---

She isn’t quite sure the Kerch even believe in Ghezen as anything beyond a bit of window-dressing to their financial affairs and the punchlien to jokes. Not like she honours her saints, the small painted icon of Sankta Inej she also keeps next to her heart, her daily prayers in the dark comfort her her room. She stands with Merjan, one of her crewmates, at the grave of Sankta Mahari, Queen of Mercy and Patroness of the Lost as they read the ancient prayers together, their voices settling into the steadiness of bees. Our queen, protector of our people, give us mercy, pray for peace, pray for us, pray to bring light to the shadows of the things we have done.

Sankta Anastasia, Sankt Dmitri, Sankta Mahari, she whispers into her knuckles, her fingers moving along the prayer rope with the decisive snapping of wooden beats, pray for our safety in the storm and bring us to the shore.

---

If Inej has found her own name, written with a familar jagged hand, among the prayer-knots tied to the Zentzbridge in a plea of mercy from the sea, she will not mention it.

---

Ketterdam is ugly and bright and familiear. You can smell the rotting flesh and beer smell before you see the smoky smudge of the city on the horizon. The crew makes quick work of unfolding the grishaworked official three-flying-fish flag that gives them clearance to enter the harbour without having their decks searched by the council of tides and carefully docks at Berth 22. Considering that the berths are now being numbered out into the two-hundereds, its a plum location, but its also damn close to the action, meaning that she can already see the glimmer of plastic beads floating on the water, the dark smudges of drunkards bobbing along. A few of the crew memebrs are going to get their pockets picked right off the bat. Inej already has a slush fund tucked away for precisily this reason. She’s getting better at this, she hopes, being a leader. Predicting what will happena dn why and when. Being someone that other people- many younger and more vulnerable than her- can rely on.

“AIGERIM,” she screams as she buttons up her city coat, “only two of thsoe pink trinks with the paper umbrellas MAXIMUM. You hear me?”

“Yeah, boss.”

She sighs. She doesn’t want to be anyone’s boss. “If there’s anything like what happened with the canal and the Stadwatch last time happens again, I think I’ll find the decks need a good scrubbing.”

Aigerim gestures wildly. “Course, boss..”

She tries to take deep rbeaths to calm her nerves. Maybe she’s becoming a worried old crone forty years early, but she’s the one who survived this hellhole of a city. She’s the one who survived this far. In this world, twenty-three is a badge of honour.

---

He cuts a familar figure on the docks. THey each have their own webs now, know of each other’s doings three or four times removed, like recognising a faovrite drinking song on it’s third round of translation. The recognition of a familiar trick, hand, murder method. Kaz will read in a news paper of a mysterious storm that’s tripled the price of indigo and sweet-wood fans after a whole line of ships went missing off the Southern Pelagic Reefs and Inej will hear in a greasy Kaelish bar about the shocking downfall of an old Kerch trading family and they will each smile, privately, and admire the other’s handiwork.

But seeing him in person is something altogether different, and she still rushes over the slats of the quay, coat streaming behind her, stopping abruptly when she comes to him. They pause there for a second and then he lifts his arms and they wrap themselves together around each other, hesitantly but then warmly, firmly, sturdy as a sailor’s knot and with all the inevitability of the sea wearing stone to sand.

“I’ve missed you, Wraith,” he says into her hair and she shrugs into him, her head level with his chest. His chin rests neatly on her head now, if he leans down slighlty, and she swears that wasnt the case the first time they embraced, the first time she left Ketterdam. He denies that the Ice Court, Van Eyck, all that happened while he was a boy not finished with growing. Yet she herself’s tried on that first Wraith outfit- a costume of sorts, really, how different was it from the Scarab Queen’s glass-bead veil in the third act of the Komedie Brute- to find it no longer fit, that she couldn’t easily do up the buttons on the front. She has more of a woman’s set of curves to her hips and long, hard-earned muscles on her legs and thighs, and even if she is creating some new kind of legend it is under her own name now.

Sometimes, Ketterdam feels like that too-small jacket; it cannot fit the woman she’s becoming. So she sews herself a new coat from the fabric of the world.

“Mijn mann,” she says, because she likes the way his body flinches and then stills under her fingers with those words, sharp and unexpected as any knife. “I’ve missed you too.”

#my writings #kanej #i'm surreee there's spelling mistakes #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #kaz x inej #kaz brekker x inej ghafa #kanej fic #six of crows fic #grishaverse fic

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