#build-own-operate-transfer | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tobeholyistobeempty · 3 months ago

Text

‘SO YOU CAN LISTEN….GOOD.’ | simon ghost riley

📊 result of my poll found here.

WARNINGS - 18+ smut mdni, (amt) engineer!reader, asshole!ghost but with motives, slightly stalkerish!ghost, ghost is a cocky bastard but reader is too, so much verbal sparring, enough tension to choke on, reader afab, ghost is a munch and has a unique way of saying sorry, oral f!receiving, religious undertones, fingering, enemies to something worse then enemies, dubcon bc consent verbally unstated, so much dirty talk it hurts, canon warped a bit.

A/N - this ended up being so much longer than i intended but dear god it needed that build up. ghost makes a real wild first impression. 12k.

Today was just another day. Just another day.

At least, that's what you kept telling yourself as you grabbed your data pad from the terminal and made your way toward the front of the hangar — pulse thrumming, blood pressure undoubtedly a tad higher than usual. Perhaps today was just another day, but to say that it didn't hold slightly more merit than yesterday would be a fucking lie.

Today marks the date of your six month performance evaluation. Today is the day you finally find out if you nab that promotion or not.

And maybe you’re overthinking, maybe you’re nervous for no reason. Did this promotion make or break your career? Would not getting promoted singlehandedly destroy everything you've achieved and accomplished over the last however many years? No.

But it would definitely feel like a real kick in the ass given everything that you've done for this place since you got here.

The day you first got that damned data-pad, you should have known this job would be a complete shitshow. Still, you pulled up yourself up by your bootstraps and did your duties just like every other day — and that day like all the previous ones since you graduated. You’d been all over the world at this point, as an AMT you go wherever you’re needed and usually remain however long you’re needed for. But this transfer — to an unnamed, unmarked base in the middle of goddamn no where — is different then anything you’d ever done before.

The hours are different, the people are different, the pay is different. It was unexpected, but when their last head AMT simply vanished without a fucking trace — it seemed as though they scrambled, and took the next best thing they could find (or so you like to tell yourself).

It’s all a little…strange, to say the least.

And of course, there’s been talk about what happened to their last head engineer, speculations, but it seems no one actually knows for certain. It’s one of those things that everyone low rank whispers about, but no one high up with actual informative intel dares to speak on — which only made the chatter worse.

Along with your nerves.

Regardless, you didn’t have a choice, and the first day of your transfer was a baptism by fire — stepping into the aftermath of utter chaos they'd left behind.

Your job isn’t to save lives in the heat of battle, or to clear rooms, or to conduct stealth operations. No, your job is to repair aircrafts torn to hell and back and continue to keep them functional. It’s rather thankless, and often you'd find yourself overworked and under-appreciated — which, granted, goes hand-in-hand with your overall life summary — but the hangar at TF141’s main base was a sight to behold, and not in any positive sense. Neglected and battered machinery lay strewn about, with debris haphazardly scattered in every fucking corner imaginable. By the time you'd reached the actual aircraft's you were almost afraid to look at them — and for good goddamn cause.

TF141 has two main helo’s: MH-6 Little Bird and an AH-6J Little Bird. Upon first inspection of them, you’d almost thought they'd been through a war of their own — hastily patched together with little regard for proper repair. The evidence of prior negligence was glaring, and you were fucking fuming.

You'd expected some clean up, but not that much.

And to top it all off, you were given clear instruction by General Shepherd himself to keep your mouth shut and your head down, do your job and mind your own. On your way out of his office he informed you, surely out of the sheer kindness of his heart, that although he couldn't tell you what exactly happened to their prior head engineer, you could easily suffer the same fate if you weren't careful.

Which was more than enough to shake the very foundation of your so very deeply engraved attitude problem.

No matter how pissed off and irritated you’d been during your start here, you kept your emotions bottled up until you were back inside the privacy of your barracks and could freely let it explode. It's been a little maddening almost, the solace. You'd been here half a year and the only person you've had an actual conversation with outside of the other engineers is 141’s Captain, and that was only when he was looking for a debriefing on your recent repair work.

However, amidst the avoidance and the uneasy silence that you experience on a daily with the others, there seems to always be one fucking exception;

Ghost.

You'd seen photos and heard a lot about him prior to this assignment — the mysterious Lieutenant with a reputation that preceded him as if the Grim Reaper himself were present on earth.

But meeting him, being around him, well that was something fucking else entirely.

He routinely shows up at random hours, never muttering more than a few words to you before pissing off — disappearing into the shadows or taking out one of the birds. It’s always odd. He is odd. And the cryptic comments coupled with his rather bizarre reputation continue to leave you tangled between the dangerous desire to learn everything you can about the man, and the primal instinct to avoid him at all fucking costs.

Though, even if you had the choice, it wouldn't matter.

If and when Ghost decides to present himself to you, it is impossible to prevent it. His approach is as translucent as his namesake. You'd never fucking know he was coming, and if you did, it’s with purpose.

Nevertheless, you couldn't worry about him, or any of the other nonsensical bullshit today. You had other matters on your mind such as ensuring the hangar was in perfect condition for inspection later that evening. Price let you know rather early in advance that a hangar and aircraft inspection are part of your performance review — which clearly means the state of them would determine whether or not you passed.

There would be absolutely no room for error, and no one to complain to when it didn't go your way either. If this inspection failed, it would be the result of your own incompetence — and you were well aware of how that would be perceived. You didn't want to give any reason, any chance to end up like the former Engineer, after all.

So today is about one thing, and one thing alone, proving yourself worthy of that promotion.

With your data pad in hand, you began a quick sweep of the hangar, ensuring the guys hadn't made too much of a mess overnight or early this morning before you arrived. A few things were out of place, but for the most part, everything looked good.

Well, except for one thing — which was currently barrelling toward you at a dangerous fucking speed.

"Bloody fucking hell..."

Your data pad nearly fell from your grasp, your jaw dropping in disbelief as your ears rang — no, damn-near wailed — a deafening roar shattering the silence you'd just found yourself in, accompanied by the shrill whine of metal grinding against metal. You couldn't believe your eyes, your feet absentmindedly carrying you closer to the destroyed helo landing on the far side of the hangar, smoke billowing from its battered frame, obscuring the air with a veil of grey.

And as you got closer, you realized it only got worse — a door was missing, torn from its hinges, and half of the exterior was brutally ripped away. You didn't even realize you were clenching your hands into fists until you felt the glass of your data pad crack beneath your fingers.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me.” You’re all but yelling as you take in the damage. "Today? Today. Of all goddamn days! Bloody ignorant bastards.”

As soon as those words were past your teeth, there’s movement from inside the cabin — heavy laden set steps — two iron slabs clanking against the metal floor, quaking the ground underneath your own feet, too. The air thinned slightly, but you didn't notice, too inebriated off your anger to think of anything other than cursing the hell out of whoever was inside.

You came to a halt in front of the now door-less opening, coming face to face with a pair of rich brown eyes peering down at you.

"Care t’repeat tha’?" A deep, low voice rumbled from under a faded, skull-faced balaclava. You swear the ground trembled as he jumped down. "...I'd like t’make sure I heard y’right."

You’d have to imagine he was grinning under that mask, and it only made your fucking blood boil.

"Ghost, why didn't you tell me-“

He cuts you off mid-sentence with a gesture of his hand.

"I need permission t’take out my own helo now? Huh.” A shake of his head. “Y’should know I was told to test your repairs. Bosses orders, sweet’eart. Take it up with him if you’ve gotta’ problem.”

"You-" your lips part, but words elude you. Due to his admission or the nickname he used, you aren’t entirely sure. "What?"

Ghost blinks, sight sweeping the empty hangar for a fraction of a second before fixing back on you.

"Y’heard me." He steps closer, smoke billowing behind him. "Or d'you need me t'repeat it again?" A pause, twitch of his lips. "I can speak slower, if you’d like.”

What a dick.

You pull your own lips thin, trying to trap the profanity desperately wanting to fly his way. “I think you’ve done enough.”

He just hums.

"Way I see it, y’got two options.” He starts, and you long to tell him to shove his options somewhere the sun don’t shine. “Get pissed off with me, which is futile, since I ain’t the one y’actually got a problem with. Or, y’can get back to work and fix er’ up before Price comes down in an hour. Your choice 'ere."

An hour. A fucking hour? Is he clinically insane? This is easily about three days of work. And that’s if the bloody stars align.

"You’re unbelievable.” Scowl laden, you frown at him, words dripping venom as you shake your pounding head. "How nice of you to give me the option of choosing. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude, truly."

A beat of silence, unreadable eyes flicking over you.

“S’that sarcasm, engineer?” And then, he takes another step closer.

It never gets easier — the way he fills the space, how much bigger he is when he’s this close, broad shoulders cutting the world around you down to just him. He could crush you if he wanted. You’ve never forgotten that.

Your lips part, but before you can get a word out he’s already speaking.

"Y'know," he peers down at you with a slight tilt of his head. "A simple ‘thank you' wouldn't be the end of tha’ world."

You deadpan, biting back the scoff threatening to escape. Thank him? He wants you to thank him — for blowing a helo out of the sky an hour before the biggest inspection of your life? No. He’s not insane. He’s out of his goddamn mind.

“Thank you for what, exactly?” You force the words out, fighting to keep the sarcasm at bay, to sound even remotely genuine.

It doesn’t help that he’s right there, close enough to reach out and touch. You’ve been through enough in your time with the military to handle pressure, but there’s something about him — the bulk of him, the way he commands the space around him, the fact you can never read his facial expressions — that makes it hard to breathe.

Not to mention the tac gear he’s always dressed in. Layered thick like it’s meant for a frozen wasteland instead of the stifling summer heat you’re currently experiencing.

“F’givin’ you a passin’ grade,” he says, like that means a damn thing to you.

This game is getting old.

“What the hell do you think you’re talking about now?” Heat flares beneath your skin, frustration mounting. “If that was a test, then it was a goddamn shitty one. You didn’t fly it. You destroyed it.”

He steps in again, exhaling like you’re the one wasting his time.

“M’giving you an opportunity. Take it or leave it.” You’re ready to bite back, to tell him exactly where he can put his opportunity, but then— “How’re you s’posed to prove y’worth somethin’, when no one thinks you’ve got it in ya?”

For the third time today, he shuts you up. You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. This is, without a doubt, the strangest, most infuriating first interaction you’ve ever had with anyone in your entire life.

“Wow.” That’s all you manage. You knew being one of the only female engineers here would put you at a disadvantage, but this? Blowing up the helo just to test if you can fix it? It’s beyond comprehension. “That’s great, Ghost. Thanks.”

He doesn’t blink—just steps closer again, crowding you until you have to tilt your chin up to keep his gaze.

“Lieutenant.” Flat. Unyielding. But there’s something about the way it drips off his tongue that makes the hairs on your arms stand on end. It’s not a request. It’s a correction. “Say it.”

Oh.

Heat licks up your neck, pooling at the base of your skull, and you’re not sure if it’s from anger or something else entirely. You swallow hard, forcing down the lump wedged in your throat because technically he is still your superior, regardless if he holds power over your job or not.

“Thank you,” you start again, your ego turning purple. “Lieutenant.”

You don’t look, but you feel his head tilt. You’d bet your life he’s smiling.

"So you can listen." Warm air skims your throat, and you’re not sure if it’s coming from him or from the heat of the burning aircraft - but it stings. "...good."

And then, when he realizes you’ve most likely bitten your tongue in half at this point, he takes a step back. You watch him now, eyes like a laser as he turns and heads for the door without another word. And almost immediately after he vanishes out into the hall you take the opportunity to suck in air like you’re starved of it, not realizing how fucking tense you were until he was out of sight.

Leaving you with a burning helo, an hour of time to fix it, and a whole lot of fuckin’ irritation.

“You bastard.” You mutter under your breath, staring at the wreckage before you.

If there was another option, you sure as hell didn’t know it. But no matter how impossible this seemed, failure wasn’t on the table — not after the years you’d put into this, the money, the sleepless nights, the sacrifices. You didn’t crawl your way up through this goddamn system just to crash and burn now.

You needed a miracle.

And for the next two hours in the hangar, chaos was the only thing you knew.

You’ve never worked this fast in your life. The moment you got down to business you started barking orders, pulling maintenance techs and engineers off other projects, shoving tools into hands and sending them where they’re needed. There’s no room for hesitation, no time to second-guess — the aircraft has to be back in the air, and it has to be now.

And within minutes smoke steeped the hangar, sparks bursting like firecrackers from stripped wires. Everyone’s locked in — shouts, curses, the groan of machinery being pushed and pulled back together reverberating. It’s frantic, relentless, like a pack of starving wolves tearing at a fresh carcass, and you’re right there in the thick of it, teeth bared, fighting to hold the whole damn thing together.

But the euphemism falls short, because this wasn’t just a carcass torn open, in need of some stitching. It was worse — much worse.

The helo wasn’t just damaged; it was obliterated. Every inch of it had been shredded to ribbons, from the engine to the exterior frame, internal wiring snapped and twisted beyond recognition. Whatever the fuck that maniac had done, he hadn’t just tested its limits — he’d taken a sledgehammer to it and kept swinging.

You’ve seen aircraft’s in bad shape before, but nothing like this. It was a wreck, a heap of smoldering metal and sparking circuits, and somehow, you’re supposed to pull it back from the dead. But there’s no time to dwell on the impossibility of it — not when you’re hauling replacement parts back and forth, hands slick with oil and sweat, not when you’re welding and soldering with the kind of precision that would make your professors weep, not when the only thing keeping you moving is sheer goddamn will.

And then, after what feels like hours, you hear it—footsteps.

Slow, deliberate, the kind that don’t belong to someone who helps—but someone who watches.

“My, my.” You recognize the voice instantly—Captain Price. “What in the bloody hell happened here?”

You practically fling yourself to your feet, dragging a sleeve across your forehead, smearing grime over skin already slick with sweat. You almost groan in exasperation, but you swallow it down, clenching your jaw, praying to whatever god might be listening for the strength to not say something about Ghost that’ll get you court-martialed.

“Sir,” you greet him with a respectful nod. “I was informed, rather late mind you, that there was a scheduled test flight.”

A beat.

“Test flight,” Price repeats, brow lifting with something you can’t quite name. “Right. Test flight.”

A sharp bark of laughter leaves him, short and humourless, shaking his head as his eyes rake over the half-patched wreckage sprawled before him.

“And this,” he turns back to you. “This is the damage from that test flight?”

You hesitate—just for a fraction of a second—before nodding, breath held tight in your chest. It’s useless, really. You both know there’s no universe where a few minutes in the air could inflict this level of destruction. Price might’ve ordered Ghost to take the bird up, to test your work a little more personally—but there’s no way in hell he told him to annihilate the goddamn thing.

You’d bet your entire career the bastard did not have permission to go this far.

“Fucken’ typical,” Price mutters, pulling off his cap as he begins pacing around the bird, taking in the carnage from every angle. “Damn near destroyed the thing.”

That’ll be your fault, you think grimly. You’re the one who gave him the fucking order, after all.

But you keep your mouth shut, trailing behind him as he circles the wreckage, eyes sweeping over the mess of half-patched repairs. When he stops short, turning on his heel so fast you almost stumble back, you know what’s coming before he even speaks.

“How long’s this gonna’ take to fix?”

You inhale sharply, trying to steady yourself. Swallow, but your throat stays dry. It’s not hesitation—it’s knowing the answer is one he won’t like. You don’t even like it. Because with the kind of damage Ghost inflicted, there’s no way in hell you’ll have it ready for any type of inspection today.

“For proper repairs and testing?” You exhale, shaking your head. “Days. At least two, sir.”

You brace yourself for impact—for the reprimand, the frustration, the inevitable do better speech. But it doesn’t come. He only sighs, nodding once before readjusting his cap.

“Two days, then.” He’s already walking away, halfway to the hangar doors when he glances back over his shoulder. “Performance review postponed.”

Those last three words make your stomach churn, and then Price is gone.

“Goddamn it. Asshole.”

The curse leaves you sharper than intended, loud enough to carry across the hangar. You don’t care. How could you? The moment you’ve bled for—postponed—because one insufferable bastard decided to make a spectacle of himself. You want to scream, to hurl every goddamn tool in reach straight at his smug, masked face.

Instead, you inhale deeply, exhaling through gritted teeth before turning to the crew.

“Call it a night, guys. I appreciate the help.”

A few nod, murmuring about leaving their assignments to meet early and help with the rest of the repairs, but their voices barely register. You’re exhausted, and you need a fucking shower — so you just mutter some type of agreement and head for the door. You walk the path back to housing, hardly even noticing that it’s nightfall now. Price must have come later than planned, though you really have no idea the hour because in all honesty you weren’t keep track of time. Either way, your boots hit the threshold of the barracks before you even realize you’d made it inside, your full focus on forcing your mind to keep busy.

You head straight for the showers, not bothering to grab fresh clothes. If you stop now, you might start thinking again — about the disaster of a day, about him, about the sheer fucking audacity — and that’s the last thing you need.

You tear off your disgusting uniform in seconds. The water is scalding, but you don’t flinch. If anything, you lean into it, letting the heat work its way into your bones, washing away the sweat, the grease, the tension coiled tight in your shoulders. You brace a hand against the tiled wall, exhaling sharply.

Fucking Ghost.

Your mind takes over now that you lack distraction, and the name alone is enough to set your teeth on edge. He didn’t just make your job harder—he deliberately threw you into the fire, watched you scramble, tested you like you were some new recruit fresh out of training. And the worst part? He got exactly what he wanted.

You hate that you rose to the challenge. That you had to. You just can’t figure out why. Why he did it — where his motives are.

Steam curls around you as you drop your head, water hammering against your spine, drowning out everything else. Your breaths come heavy, dragging in and out of your chest like you’ve just run a goddamn marathon, so busy in your thoughts that you don’t notice the shift in the air, the faint tremor in the ground beneath you.

You don’t hear the footsteps until they’re too close to ignore, breaking through your sorrows, coming to a halt just beyond the dividing wall. For a long, heavy moment, there’s nothing. Just the steady rush of water, the sound of your own breathing.

Then—

“Y’done sulkin’ yet?”

Fucking hell.

You snap to attention, the sound of that voice like a gut punch. Verbal inflection so intense that only after a few conversations (if you can even call them that) you know you’d recognize it in your sleep, and it takes all of your willpower not to react with more than just the involuntary stiffening in your muscles.

You blink the water out of your eyes, trying to center yourself.

“Do you make a hobby out of sneaking in on people while they shower?” You ask, forcing your voice to stay light, to not betray the rush of heat in your chest. You should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve known this wasn’t the end of the goddamn shitshow. “Or am I just that special?”

"Didn’t know I had t’make an appointment for a communal shower.”

God, that does something to you, and you hate that it does. He’s taking your attitude and he’s feeding it right back to you — and the taste of your own medicine has never been so bitter.

Then, you hear his boots against the floor again, his voice accompanying. “Seems there’s alot I don’ know about ya.”

And again. It’s that tone. The way it drags, measured, like he’s thinking out loud. Like he’s taking you apart in his mind piece by piece. Trying to figure you out.

And you—stupidly, impulsively—throw it back at him.

“I’d say we’re even, then.”

It slips out before you can stop it, and you know it’s a mistake the second the words settle. Because he stops moving. The air tightens. A beat stretches long between you. You take the opportunity to reach for your towel, turn off the water, anything to not feel so vulnerable — but it doesn’t help. Not when you’re suddenly so acutely aware of how close he is. How little space separates you.

How very little there is between you at all.

You swallow, forcing steel into your voice. “I don’t even know your name.”

Then, the softest sound — amusement, maybe.

“Not sure y’need to.”

You exhale sharply through your nose, pulling the towel tight around your torso. Of course.

“Not sure I want to.” You mutter, more to yourself than anything.

But he catches it anyway.

You hear the shift of his stance, another hum of amusement. “Coulda’ fooled me.”

And that does it.

You know you’re walking straight into the trap he’s setting, but you don’t care anymore. Your patience is gone, worn to the bone, and you won’t be able to sleep tonight if you don’t get to glare him right in the eyes and tell him to fuck off.

“Cut the shit, Ghost.” The stall door slams open as you shove it wide, padding forward until your bare feet nearly touch his boots. “Why the hell are you even here?”

You don’t expect to hit a brick wall, but that’s exactly what it feels like. He’s missing a layer of tac gear now, hands stuffed into the pockets of his cargos, shoulder propped against the support beam like he’s been here all night. His gaze flicks over your face, your neck, the way water drips from your skin.

You fight not to pull your towel tighter.

“Cap’s orders.” He states, voice easy, right as rain. “Told me t’make amends.”

He has to be kidding.

“Make amends.” You repeat the words flatly, tasting them, turning them over in your mind like they might somehow make more sense on the second pass. “He told you to make amends.”

They don’t.

And when he nods — you huff a laugh, humourless.

“Right. And you thought the best way to do that was to sneak into the showers and stand there like a fucking serial killer?”

��Didn’t sneak,” he says simply. “Walked in same as you.”

You blink. You have this sick feeling he’s enjoying this. Enjoying every reaction you’re giving.

“Yet your intent is not the same as mine.”

He looks at the door, then back to you. “Ain’t it?”

You inhale sharply through your nose, hands tightening around the towel at your chest. You know better than to engage with this — than to let him push and prod and get under your skin. But it’s too late. He’s already there, and you’re too goddamn tired to claw him back out.

“Look,” you sigh, shifting your weight, fighting not to admire the bulk of his chest at your eye level. “Whatever Price told you to do, consider it done. Apology accepted. Now get the fuck out so I can forget this conversation ever happened.”

A long beat. You don’t know what kind of response you expect, but the way he just stands there considering you is somehow worse than all the possible outcomes you’d imagined.

Then, finally—finally—he moves. But not to leave.

Instead, he pushes off the beam, straightening to full height and moves closer. Not much, just enough to make you feel it — the shift in the air — the heat radiating off him.

“Y’sure about that?” His voice is quieter now, head tilting down toward yours. “Seem a little too wound for someone who’s ready t’forget about it.”

A huff. “And you seem a little too invested for someone who’s just here on orders.”

It's stupid. It's really goddamn stupid how he's able to do this, to turn your words into a rope he can use to drag you around the way he wants. You know that. But still, you’re useless in stopping the way your stomach keens as he leans closer.

"Y’gonna deny you’re still pissed at me?” He whispers.

You shake your head. “Never said I wasn’t still pissed.”

"Mhm." He nods along with it. "But pissed don't fully describe it, does it?”

"It’s an improvement from murderous,” you retort, as pointedly as you can muster. “Count your blessings.”

Another hum, eyes dragging slow over your face, like he’s searching for something. Or maybe just savouring it — the way you bristle under his scrutiny — the way your fingers twitch where they clutch at your towel.

“M’grateful for y’kindness. Truly.” It takes you a second to register it—the cadence, the words, the mockery. He’s parroting you. Throwing your own attitude from earlier back in your face. “But y’know, yeah? I only did what I did ‘cause I knew y’could handle it.”

You go still, pulse hammering in your throat.

Bullshit. Bullshit.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Ghost.” Your voice wavers, choked by realization that everything he does has motive. “And definitely don’t flatter me. Not now.”

A slow exhale, warm against your chilled skin, hooded eyes flicking to your ear like he’s considering something.

“S’not flattery. Just truth.”

And then— closer. Close enough that the breath between you is thin, almost nonexistent.

“M’not a good man, sweet’eart. M’a filthy, vile thing. But you—” a pause. He breathes in, your hair shifting with the exhale. “Mm. Y’good. Clean. I knew y’could take it. Needed Price t’know it too.”

Well, fuck.

Your head is spinning now, but even through the vertigo you realize your second mistake. You know it’s a mistake the moment it happens — rather, the moment before it happens — but when your head shifts, just enough that your ear brushes against fabric of his mask; you realize it’s the type of mistake you can’t come back from.

And so, you breathe him in. It’s reckless. It’s ruinous. It’s completely unavoidable.

“My gut is telling me you’re patronizing me.” You whisper; something softer, something you shouldn’t allow. A pause. Your lashes flutter. “But god, I can’t figure you out.”

And again, you don’t know what reaction you expect from him. Maybe you don’t expect one at all. It’s been an exceptionally odd 24 hours, so you’re certain nothing can surprise you at this point. But what you definitely don’t count on is the continued brush of his mask against your cheek, or the way your toes long to curl against the damp floor—

"Y’not suppose to." His voice is so deep you feel it in your bones. “S’don’t try too hard.”

You don’t know what to say to that, but you do know you should step back. You need to step back.

But you don’t.

You stay right there, still as the air between you, every nerve suffocated by the viscosity stretching between his words and yours. The scent of him—gunmetal, something dark and earthen—settles in your lungs like smoke; curling, clinging, refusing to leave.

And so, you breathe him in for the second time. A dangerous temptation. “You came here to make amends, didn’t you?”

The words leave you quieter than you mean them to, tinged in something close to breathlessness — something you wish to god you didn’t hear. Something you hope to god he didn’t hear.

Because atleast now, you can say you know how he is — how he listens, how he picks the quirks out of you and files them away for later — how he knows what to do with the things he finds in people, how to use them like leverage.

And you should be immune to it.

You’ve spent your entire career training for moments like these. All the military training you went through, tactical and aerospace alike. You’ve been thrown into war zones, fixed and pulled aircraft’s out of burning fields, run repairs under enemy fire with nothing but your hands and your own goddamn heartbeat when the situation called for it.

You know what fear looks like. You know what death smells like. You know what it means to be hunted.

And yet—this? You never saw this coming.

Never saw him coming.

“Y’want an apology?” He mutters, and you can hear the smirk in it. “Y’want m’to say I’m sorry?”

“That’d be a good start.”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. Just watches you, the smirk in his voice lingering, curling at the edges of the silence between you.

Then, he hums. “How ’bout I do y’one better?”

You barely have time to process the shift before you feel it—his hand—rough, calloused palm grazing slow along the towel covering your hip.

“Let m’spell it out f’you. Nice n’ slow,” he murmurs, fingers tracing lower with just enough pressure to make your breath hitch. “Get y’feelin’ just how much I mean it.”

For a moment, you forget everything.

All the reasons, all the lines. The ones he's crossing — or maybe the ones you're erasing with every second you let his massive paw of a hand touch you. God — you aren't supposed to want this. You don’t know even know him. Don’t know his name, what his face looks like. You don’t know anything about him except that he’s dangerous, and that he’s made you fucking ache.

You exhale — when the moment passes and you remember where you are — a long, almost shaky breath, and it doesn't escape you the way he notices. Watches you through those thick lashes, like he's enjoying the reaction he's been working so hard for.

You wish you could hate him for it.

“Make me feel it then,” you whisper, all pathetic and trembling and borderline wanton as his fingers find the end of your towel, and brush against goosebumped flesh. “Lieutenant.”

And for a moment, you think you’ve made your third mistake of the evening. His title slips out like a curse — and something in your chest roars with how much you mean it.

He's so goddamn cocky. So sure of himself and you hate that you're the one he's so sure of. But when you call him by his rank — when you push that sarcastic mouth of yours just a little bit further, you can feel his reaction instantaneously by the way he stalls — eyes glinting in the low light.

"She wants t’bring rank into this now, yeah?” And when you don’t reply fast enough, he replies for you. “Get in the stall, engineer.”

There's a thousand reasons this is a bad idea. A million reasons you should be saying no right now. But when he looks at you like that, with those eyes like fire locked on yours and practically daring you to refuse him — he has to know he’s not going to get it.

His hand comes up, cupping your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek. “Now.”

And that, is your fourth mistake of the night.

You turn, padding back into the stall you’d showered in only moments before — tiles still beading with diamond droplets, gleaming up at you as you step inside. You turn as he follows you in, crowding you against the wall, broad shoulders taking up all the width in the already cramped space as he shuts the door behind him.

And then, he’s on you.

It's so abrupt and so visceral that it takes your breath away entirely. Your hands go up automatically to catch his chest, steadying yourself when he slots his knee between your legs, pinning you against the wall. Your towel is barely clinging around you, and it’s a shocker it still is — but you forget about it when he starts dipping his head down.

"Feels good, don’t it? Bein’ told what t'do?” He murmurs, fabric covered lips grazing the shell of your ear. "M'bettin’ y’don’t experience this much anymore. Tha’s why you’re melting for it.”

And god, the fact that he’s right. He shouldn’t be, but he is.

Somewhere between your rank and your title and your pride, you’ve forgotten the last time you had someone looking at you like this. There’s a part of you that wants to fight it, to bite and scratch and insist that you're nothing like he's saying — but then a hand slips up around your throat, and the other down between the space separating your bodies, thick fingers catching the end of your towel — and your eyes flutter.

“M’not hearing any apologies.” You manage to mutter, just before those same thick digits find your inner thigh, working up higher.

You're deflecting. The both of you know it. The same pride that drove you to where you are is the same pride that drove him where he is. You think he’s going to call you on it, but then you realize he won’t. Not when the hand at your throat tightens just barely, not when his voice drips into your ear.

"Y’gonna feel em’ soon.”

And then, you do.

You feel the grazing of calloused flesh against sensitive, damn-near celibate flesh. There’s another sound. A low, wanton, filthy moan, and you’re about 94% sure it came from you as beastly fingers slide along your slick slit, exposing the extent of your need to his ego in its entirety — once, twice, curling toward your sopping entrance before you feel the thunder of his hum.

Mocking. "Christ. S’like m’workin’ a faucet, yeah?"

His lips are on your neck now, mouthing slow and deliberate along your jaw even while covered by fabric — and the whimper that slips out is pathetic, even to your own ears.

"Wha’s that?” He all but growls. "C'mon, use y'words f’me. Or d’you only know how t’spit insults?“

You do know how to use your words, actually — and they're usually good ones. You've got a sharp tongue, a mouth just as foul as your temper. So you don't know what to do when every curse, every name, every string of insults you keep in stock gets caught in your throat. You can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but try not to gasp when his fingers slide up to your clit and swirl.

"Fucking hell." Your jaw goes slack under the hand that holds it. "You—really are vile—“

This whole goddamn thing is vile. The way he can ruin you like this — make you quiver like this — in moments without so much as a name or face to attach the memory of it to.

If he's vile, you know you're not much better.

"Yeah. Tha’s right. I know you’re feelin’ it." He murmurs, fingers circling your clit firmer, faster. "Look how y’squirmin’ for it.”

You have half a mind to spit in his face for that. You have half a mind to tell him to go to hell. You have a million other things you should be doing right now other than clawing at his chest just to stay upright as he brings you to the brink of ruin.

"T-there you go again—mmf—“ your words are so breathless it’s pathetic. “Flattering yourself.”

It’s a futile attempt at a rebuttal, a stupid one because you already know the response he’s going to have to it. Pathetic. You are squirming, and you want to hate him for it, so you do. Your nails bite into his chest, dragging, raking slow and hard as if you could tear through the fabric covering it. You know you wouldn’t. Couldn't. But it's still good enough for him to grunt, hand around your throat tightening just enough to make you gasp in response.

"S’not flattery. Just truth.” He parrots himself again from earlier, and you think you’re on the verge of losing your mind because you know him well enough now have to predicted it. “Y’fuckin need this, don’ you?”

It's not a question. He doesn't need you to answer, because you both know how it ends anyway. But god damn him and his words. Because his filthy mouth is the second most dangerous thing to ever happen to you — right behind his fingers. You need to reply. Need to answer. He's going to force a reaction from you one way or another.

But he doesn’t give you the luxury of even trying.

His fingers still with a suddenness that makes you cry out in frustration — silver platter feeding him exactly what he was fucking looking for.

"Mhm. S’what I thought." He murmurs, hand sliding from around your throat to the back of your head. “M’guessing it’s been years. Least’ a couple.”

And it’s then, that you get it.

You get why this man is feared. You get why he’s so fucking dangerous. He’s worse than the name you know him by — because you’re certain even ghosts aren’t this knowing. This brutal. This consuming.

And through the haze in your head, you try to think back to the day you first met him. There had to have been dark signs — omens in your skies — a warning.

Yet, you can’t think of one.

“F-fuck you.” You spit it at him, because it’s apparently all your mouth is good for. “Stroke your ego any harder and it might just fucking cum before I do.”

He laughs, and then you feel it. The grip tightening in your hair, the palm slapping at your inner thigh to work your legs wider.

“Judging by tha’ mouth, y’never been fucked right either.” He mutters, fingers slipping up the slick coating your thighs. “S’alright. M’here to apologize, yeah? I’ll pay m’penance.”

Bullshit.

He’s not going to apologize by any means — if the last however many minutes aren’t proof enough of that. This is punishment in its worst form, and even that’s not enough. If you want him to make it up to you, you’re going to have to take it.

"Get on your fucking knees, then.” You’re so unbelievably wired that you hardly even realize what you’d said. You hardly even realize when you continue. “And use that mouth for something other than self elation.”

If you thought this was dangerous before - you’re not sure what the fuck this is now.

If someone had asked you an hour ago if you'd ever considered you have a death wish of this caliber, you’d have laughed. If someone had asked you if you were capable of saying half the things you’re saying right now, you’d have laughed even harder. But the fact that they’re leaving your lips - your lips that are now trembling with the realization that you just ordered one of the most dangerous men in the world to kneel — is enough to make you dizzy.

But then, he does it.

He sinks to those knees, cargos sponging the cold showered tiles as he does.

And you don’t think— not really — not for a moment.

Because if you did, you might have wondered if your pride and your dignity are even worth the way he’s looking at you right now — like he wants to eat you alive. You might have wondered if you were dreaming, if this was even physically fucking possible — the nameless, faceless man who has scared people shitless with just his reputation, kneeling between your fucking feet.

“Fuck.” It slips out in an exhale, and you don’t even hear it.

He does, though.

And in response, he holds your eyes while pulling at the edge of his balaclava. Just enough to uncover his jaw and lips — thick, pillow-full lips cocked into the type of grin you’d have expected, but steals the remainder of your breath regardless.

“M’gonna’ spell it out f’you. Nice n’ slow.” He rasps, pulling one of your thighs over his shoulder. “M’sorry.”

Oh, how you wish he meant that.

Because he isn’t. He isn’t the least bit apologetic when he pushes your back against the tiled walls with a heavy palm against your pelvis — he isn’t the least bit remorseful when he’s dragging his teeth along your inner thigh, nipping and lapping — and he’s certainly not the least bit sorry as he brings that filthy fucking mouth of his to your slit, and starts to devour you like he’s starved.

And this, you know is sin.

You know this, because you’ve never felt a mouth on you until now that made you think of god. You’ve never felt fingers dig into flesh with enough force to bruise the way his do — never felt anything that could make you forget who you are and where you are and everything in between.

It has to be sin, because no one could do this without an explicit knowledge of what sin tastes like.

There’s no other explanation for the way he can make you keen, arch and moan like this. No other excuse for the way you quiver as he curls his tongue and strokes you until you’re seeing white, just to suck on your clit with a ferocity that makes your stomach tighten and your hands shoot up to cover your own mouth.

“Feel it.” He husks against you, and the sound and sensation make your hips buck forward in response. “Relax an’ feel it.”

It’s not a request — it’s a demand. And you don’t think to defy him when he pulls your hands away, pushes you back, and buries his whole face against your pussy again like he’ll die if he doesn’t. You’re so dizzy you can’t even keep your eyes open. You can only hear your breath coming out in stilted moans and little cries of his namesake — the namesake that you realize the irony of rather briefly, but forget when your brain flatlines all over again.

Because he groans against your clit like you’re the best goddamn meal he’s ever had, and suddenly, you get how easy it is to fall. Fall into the rhythm — your hips moving in sync with the strokes of his tongue, your thighs closing around his skull. You want to scream. You almost want to cry. Your voice breaks with every sound you make, and you know your heart is only a few beats away from beating out of your chest by the way he grips your hips, pulling your cunt to his head before bringing a finger to your sopping entrance.

"Gonna’ stretch y’out a bit.” He rasps, and you aren’t sure if he’s saying it to warn you or to remind himself. “Breathe.”

You try, but then, it doesn’t matter. Because it’s happening — that thick finger pushes inside you, curling against your walls until you’re gasping and covering your mouth all over again.

And god, you aren’t going to be able to look at his skull mask the same way again. Not when you watch it’s shape shifting just slightly as he works his jaw, suckling against your clit with a hunger you can only describe as feral, eyes half-lidded as they lock with your own. You’re certain nothing in the world could have prepared you for this. It's a goddamn match to a bomb as he starts to work another finger into you, curling them in time with his tongue in a way you don’t think you’d have been able to come up with if you’d had a lifetime to consider it. You can feel that tension building — a tight coil of heat and pressure building low in your core.

Then, you feel his fingers inside you doing something odd. Something—

Oh, fuck.

You feel it before you can comprehend it — before you know he’s tracing the first letter, the shape of it hitting in just the right place that it makes your hips buck in response.

Oh. Oh god.

You can feel him hum against you, like he’s savouring it — the way you’re clenching around his fingers as you realize what he’s doing. It takes everything in you not to scream, eyes squeezed shut and hand over your mouth — head back against the wall as you imagine the look in his eyes, how goddamn wicked it must be while he spells out the rest of his apology inside you.

O. Then, R. Then another. Then, Y.

“G-ghost—“ you know he must be able to tell you're almost gone, because when he hits the last R and your breath catches, his name a whoreish moan you try to smother against the back of your hand — he growls in satisfaction. It’s too much. You can't breathe because your climax is right fucking there, and you can’t stop it for a second longer. “G-ghost—m’gonna—ohgod—“

With a suddenness that makes stars burst across the backs of your eyes, he brings his free hand up, stuffing two fingers into your mouth to smother the sound and feel of his name as you cry it. He strokes you through it, pumping you with his fingers as your vision blurs into some indiscernible haze — a kaleidoscope of light and pleasure and everything you know you should never allow yourself to have.

And then, when you finally catch the breath it took to even say his name, he pulls away. Fingers slipping from your mouth and your pussy like a goddamn magician.

A ghost.

Then, he stands up, and you watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand like you’re all the goddamn nourishment he needs before he’s helping you get stable on your feet.

“M’sure y’feel it now.” He murmurs, lips so close to yours you can taste yourself on his breath. "M’a man of m’word, sweet’eart. Always make good on m’promises.”

You’re sure he can see it, the realization in your eyes when you come back down to earth long enough to remember what just happened. Remember that you weren't supposed to let it happen in the first place. That you were supposed to have better control over yourself — and you can guess he knows, by the way he’s looking at you like he knows exactly what you're thinking.

"Guess I made m’point, yeah?"

He tugs his balaclava back in place, and you exhale.

“Yeah, you made your point.” He hums at that, and you tug your towel tighter. “But this—this can’t happen again.”

It takes him a beat to respond, and when he does, it’s simple.

"Of course.”

You don’t know why, but that response makes your chest tighten in a way it has no business doing. It would have been so much easier if he’d given you a smart ass smirk, or a biting response. It would be so much easier if he told you that you didn’t have a choice in the matter, but he doesn’t.

And so, you step closer to him, tilting your head back to keep his eyes.

“I mean it, Ghost.” You whisper. “I’ll take a pound of your flesh before I allow you to fuck with my paystub ever again.”

You thought, at this point, you’d have figured out some type of gauge on his reactions. But still, he proves you haven’t. You don't expect the hand coming up, cupping your jaw to hold you in place as his eyes drop to your lips. You don't expect him to lean in, and bring his own to your ear — and you definitely don’t expect the words that fill it.

“There’s a few things I wanna’ fuck. Y’paystub ain’t one.” He pauses, and you’re certain it’s because he’s enjoying the drumbeat that is now your heart rate. You’d just found your breath and he singlehandedly stole it again. “I’ll be watchin’ f’your enemies. T’let em’ know they contend with me.”

You think you get it then. The reason everyone looks at him the way they do. The reason they're so terrified of him in one second, and willing to take a bullet for him during the next. It's not even because he's trained to be a killing machine. Not because he can see what you're thinking before you even realize you are. Not because he'd walk through fire just to be close to hell.

It's because he's a man of his word, and even you understand the gravity of that kind of loyalty.

You exhale with a nod, and then he’s gone.

1K notes · View notes

criminalamnesia · 1 year ago

Note

Not a request but NEW TRAITOR CHAP WHEN??? prioritize urself no rush Pookie just the ppl gotta know

part 7 is here 🙏

ALL PARTS CAN BE FOUND HERE

it was pouring rain as you slid from the taxi, the driver attempting to yell at you to shut the door as thunder rumbled overhead.

you paid him no heed; boots splashed in murky puddles as you pushed the door closed and moved towards the yellow cab’s trunk.

you could barely hear yourself think. the rain was battering the ground as if locked in a viscous war with the cracked pavement— puddles forming as the asphalt resisted with all its might. it wasn’t enough, water seeping into the ground and muddying the grass nearby, drowning it mercilessly.

you grabbed your bag, slinging it over your shoulder before shutting the trunk. you’d barely stepped back from the car before it was speeding off, kicking up water and splashing your legs.

you didn’t mind— you were soaked through to the bone, anyways. besides, you didn’t mind the storm. it was comfort— a distraction from what lay ahead.

your new team. a small, covert operations group made up of the best of the best. two sergeants, a lieutenant, a captain— and they wanted one more soldier.

the opening couldn’t have come at a better time. you’d run your course with your old squad. they’d been fine— until they weren’t. carelessness and ignorance from teammates almost resulted in your untimely death, and laswell hadn’t questioned your transfer request after hearing the tale.

in fact, she’d recommended the one-four-one to you.

you thought you’d be meeting them on base, but the captain had requested you meet them here, instead. a run-down old diner, with its bright, neon pink sign blinking down at you through the rain.

you inhaled, then exhaled. clenched your fists, then unclenched them. it was a habit you’d had since you were a child. it forced you to slow down and think, to overcome the emotions you were lost in.

you blinked. rain ran down your face, creating false tears as it streamed from the corners of your eyes. you were sure you looked a sight.

another inhale, another exhale, and then you moved towards the diner’s door. you pushed it open, stepping inside and wiping your boots on the mat in front of the door.

“I think you’re gonna need to do more than that to dry off, sweetheart” a woman’s voice calls to you, causing you to look up towards the counter. she’s grimacing, looking you up and down. no doubt she’ll be following your path through the building with a mop in hand.

“sorry,” you tell her, trying to brush some water from your jacket. “forgot my umbrella.”

the woman gave a huff, waving her hand before turning and attending to an ancient-looking coffee maker.

you take the time to glance around the diner then, noting the substantial lack of customers. only two booths were occupied, one containing a young couple tangled in each other’s arms, and the other containing a man wearing a baseball cap with the UK flag patched on it.

he looked up from his phone as you approached, seemingly unsurprised based on the grin he gave you.

“glad to see you got here in one piece,” he says as you shrug off your bag, placing it on the floor as you slide into the seat across from him.

“one drenched piece,” you say, and he gives a small chuckle.

“im kyle,” the man tells you. “don’t know what laswell told you,” he clicks off his phone and places it on the table. “but im one of the sergeants.”

you nod. “callsign ‘gaz,’ right?”

he gives a nod of his own. his phone buzzes, the screen lighting up. his eyes glance down, scan the message, then meet yours once more.

“rest of the team got held up. price is in a meeting. johnny and ghost are on assignment, but they’re due back any day now.”

“so you’re the welcome committee by default, huh?” you say, and he laughs.

“guess i am. have i scared you off yet?”

“dunno,” you tell him. “but laswell sings your praises. the captain’s, especially.”

“she sings yours, too.” kyle says.

you give a small nod, your mind racing at what laswell may have told the task force. you weren’t bad at your job— you were great at it. a great shot, a reliable solider, a tireless sentry.

your emotions got the better of you at times, that was all. attachments and bonds that formed, linking you and your fellow soldiers together in the web of warfare. tying you around the wrist and dragging you along, for better or worse. little siblings or lovers evolving from what once had been just another set of boots on the ground.

this job was all you had. you found family where you had too, and it made you all the more loyal. but when you were spurned? when the fire leapt from the pit and scorched your skin?

you weren’t quick to forgive, and you found that reasonable in this line of work. mistakes by teammates could get you killed. who could blame you for holding a grudge against an ally who had almost cost you your life?

it’s why you were here now. a new start with a new team— a team of the best, you included.

kyle’s phone buzzes again. he picks it up, the screen illuminating his face as the lights flicker overhead. the storm wasn’t letting up.

“cap’s on his way— says he’ll be here in less than 30.”

“price, right?” you recall his name. kyle nods.

“don’t tell him I told you,” he leans in, a mischievous look in his eyes, “but he’s been lookin’ forward to meeting you. maybe even more than johnny has.”

“why’s that?”

“said the one-four-one is overdue for someone else who can kick johnny’s ass. wants you to knock him down a few more pegs.”

you laugh at that, giving a small shake of your head. kyle’s lips curl into a smile. “nah, he’s just happy to have some more hands on deck. always helps to have another person that’ll watch your back.”

as kyle starts talking again, you find your nerves settling.

maybe this team could be your new family.

you looked down at your hands, noting the slight shake of them. you don’t think they’d been steady since before everything happened.

your eyes glance to the ugly, scarred stump of the finger you’d lost. simon hadn’t chopped it off prettily, and it’d been stitched up hastily. you couldn’t blame the doctor, there had been more pressing injuries to attend to.

such as the bone-deep cut to one leg, growing infected from your time spent in the chair. the scar was long, stretching from the top of your thigh to your knee. it was still pink, a sign of your body still trying to put itself back together.

your torso wasn’t much better. jagged scars and puckered knots of skin marred your image. both from before and from after.

your eyes met your own in the mirror. you barely recognized yourself. the anger within you still burned, but its flame had reduced to a simmer. exhaustion, apathy, and shame had taken its place.

perhaps that was a good thing. it saved you the energy of fighting the men you inevitably saw every day. despite your numerous pleas and demands for them to simply leave you alone, they seemed to have a hard time listening. it made you want to scream. to hurt them, digging your fingers into skin until they understood the pain behind your words.

a knock sounded at the door. you didn’t move.

a knock again. you could hear the shuffle of feet outside the door. you wished whoever it was would leave you be.

another knock, accompanied by the soft timbre of kyle’s voice.

“love, you alright in there?” he was saying. you still stood before the mirror.

things had been different since you attacked the doctor. it had only been a few days, but word spread quickly through base. if people had avoided you before, you were like the plague now.

and the shame you felt was insurmountable. the pain and regret and fury were building like a tidal wave in your stomach, rising and choking the air from your lungs.

you wanted to leave this place. get away from the men you once called family, the one you once called yours.

but leaving meant the end of your career. you just had to hold out until kate arranged your transfer, that’s all. just a few more days, right?

and then this place and these people wouldn’t be a constant reminder of what had happened to you. of what it had done to you, physically and mentally.

“go, kyle,” you called out to him, breaking from your trance as you reached for the scratchy robe johnny had gifted you one christmas.

“not until i see you breathin’, love.”

you sigh, tying the robe shut and hugging the material to your body. you moved to the door, turning the lock before inching it open.

“breathing,” you tell him, watching as his eyes flick away from yours. god, it made you want to strangle him.

to yell at him, to yell at all of them— "you did this, and you should be able to look me in the eyes and see it.”

“now go.”

he looks at you again, eyebrows furrowed in worry. “will you let me in?” he asks, and you scoff as you move to slam the door.

“fuck off, kyle.”

but he’s quick, and his hand shoots out, grasping the door’s wooden edge and keeping it from closing.

“we need to talk.”

“whatever you need to say, you can say it from there,” you tell him, and he pauses for a minute before he nods.

“doc is asking about you again. she’s up and runnin’ around. said she wants to see you.”

your lips press into a thin line. you didn’t deserve that woman’s kindness, not after what you’d done to her.

you hadn’t been in your right mind, but that didn’t excuse it. you had bloodied your fists; harmed an innocent in the war between you and your own mind.

you didn’t want to see her still worrying about you when you had assured her you were fine. you had left her supervision, and then you’d attacked her. and you hadn’t stopped until simon had pulled you away.

you would’ve killed her, you know that in your heart. you would’ve killed her, thinking she was one of the men who had wanted to kill you.

“tell her im fine,” you said, your hand tightening around the door’s knob.

“i think she’d rather see that for herself,” he says.

“im fine,” you repeat. “i’ll be out of everyone’s hair in a few days, anyways.”

kyle’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “you’re leaving?”

he knew this, they all did. perhaps they just didn’t truly believe it. all of them, every single one, still thought you’d turn around and run back into their arms.

bastards.

“as soon as laswell gives the word,” you reply. “should be soon.”

kyle doesn’t speak. he’s obviously biting his tongue— you’d seen the expression that was on his face enough to know when he was holding back, but you didn’t prod like you would’ve before.

let him keep his secrets, lies, promises, and sorries. you didn’t need them anymore.

“don’t bother me again,” you said before shutting the door in his face.

you hear him sigh on the other side of the wood, then hear the retreat of his steps. you turn back to the mirror, snarl, and grab the alarm clock from your nightstand.

you throw it into the glass, shattering it to pieces. seven years of bad luck, you think.

well, it couldn’t get much worse, could it?

kyle sighs, staring at your door for a second longer before turning away. simon looks down at him from where he was leaning against the wall, hidden from your view, his muscled arms crossed over his chest.

“surprised?” simon asks as the two of them retreat down the hallway. he makes sure they’re far enough from your door before speaking, so that you won’t hear his voice.

“we knew it was happening, price said as much after that whole thing with johnny,” kyle replies, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. “just thought this might change things.”

“change ‘em how?” simon says. “if anythin’, this speeds it up. they’re a liability now.”

“they’re hurt, ghost,” kyle retorts, his eyes meeting his superior’s. “that’s ptsd. not everyone’s as forgiving as the doc. they attack someone outside and that’s a fucking felony.”

“that’s not our problem, sergeant,” comes simon’s baritone reply, and kyle stops.

“you’re a fuckin’ case yourself, y’know that, LT?” he says, and simon stops. “we all played a part,” kyle continues. “but you? you would’ve killed ‘em if we never knew the truth. i know you would’ve. i’ve seen you do it.”

the men stare at each other. simon’s expression is hidden underneath his balaclava, but kyle knows it’s unreadable regardless.

mean, old ghost. heartless bastard, loyal to the mission only. that’s what the others around base whispered to each other.

kyle had seen proof to the contrary. yes, simon was loyal to the mission. but he was also loyal to his team, his family. you.

he was loyal to you.

“watch yourself, sergeant,” simon speaks, his voice a dangerous rumble.

kyle scoffs and walks off, shaking his head.

simon watches him go, his breath steady.

kyle didn’t understand him, not really. not the way you had begun to. and that was his own fault, he knows it. forever holding those close to him at arms length for fear of the worst.

he’d let you in— let you invade that space he enforced so ruthlessly. and the worst had happened.

kyle doesn’t know this is tearing him in half; none of the team does. they don’t understand that simon wants you to stay because you’re you, but he wants you gone because he can see how this is killing you.

even when he’s the villain in your story, he’s still trying to look out for you— in his own, twisted way.

he doesn’t regret it. that is cemented in his mind. but as he grapples with his own emotions, his mind in its own turmoil, he knows he wants you to be okay.

“im sorry,” he had spoken to deaf ears.

sorry for the ripping apart of your life, but not sorry for what he had done.

deep down, he knew you would never forgive them. he knew that leaving this team would be the best thing for you.

he knew, he knew, he knew.

knowing and accepting are two different things.

hope this was worth the wait! i think the next part will be the end, unless my idea changes 👀

3K notes · View notes

theeartuaist · 2 months ago

Text

When Obsession Has Unlimited Resources

Following up on my post about institutional yanderes (the ones with ACTUAL systemic power like judges, doctors, etc.), I've been thinking about another terrifying category that keeps me up at night: the ELITE yandere. Not just wealthy, but the kind with so much social capital and resources that normal boundaries simply don't apply to them.

Let's break down this nightmare fuel into three distinct but equally terrifying subcategories:

The Ultra-Wealthy Yandere

This isn't just "rich person obsessed with you" – I'm talking about the kind of wealth that makes problems disappear. Billionaire-level resources where money isn't just power, it's practically its own legal system.

The ultra-wealthy yandere doesn't need to stalk you themselves – they have a security team for "your protection." They don't need to threaten your landlord – they just buy your entire apartment building. They don't need to sabotage your job – they acquire the company and have you transferred to the division that reports directly to them.

It's horrific hiw easy it is for them. Your boyfriend suddenly gets a dream job offer overseas? Your best friend wins an "all-expenses-paid vacation" that keeps getting extended? Your family's medical debt mysteriously disappears right before they receive a "generous offer" on their house that would relocate them hours away? That's not coincidence – that's calculated elimination of your support system through "generosity."

"I noticed you were struggling to make rent, so I took care of it. No need to thank me. By the way, I bought out your lease. You can stay here for free... or move into my guest house. Your choice, of course."

Every kind gesture has invisible strings. Every "coincidence" is purchased. And you can never PROVE anything because who would believe that a billionaire with everything would go to such lengths for someone like you? The power imbalance is so vast that even your valid concerns sound like delusions of grandeur.

The Celebrity Yandere

This is the yandere with not just wealth, but a public platform and an army of devoted fans. The person whose obsession with you is disguised as "inspiration" or "devotion to their muse."

The celebrity yandere weaponizes their fandom. That cryptic song lyric about someone with your exact birthdate? The character in their movie who shares your unique mannerism? Their fans will dissect every detail, hunting down the "inspiration" until your privacy is shredded by people who think they're participating in a romantic scavenger hunt.

They don't need to contact you directly – they can send messages through their work that only you would understand. They don't need to threaten you – they just need to express "disappointment" and watch as their fans become an unwitting harassment campaign.

"I can't believe you're dating someone else when [Celebrity] OBVIOUSLY wrote their entire album about you! How could you be so ungrateful?"

The most terrifying part is that you become part of their narrative whether you consent or not. Your identity gets absorbed into their public persona. Your private moments become content, your resistance becomes drama, and if you try to speak out? Their PR team ensures your story is buried beneath headlines about your "obsession" with them.

The Old Money/Political Dynasty Yandere

This isn't about new wealth or public fame – this is generational power. The yandere whose family name opens doors, whose connections run through every elite institution, whose influence is woven into the very fabric of society.

The old money yandere doesn't need flashy displays of power. They operate through whispers at country clubs, through college friends who now run institutions, through family connections that go back centuries. Your graduate school application gets rejected from everywhere except the program where they happen to be studying. Your promising career path suddenly hits invisible barriers – except in their family's field. Opportunities mysteriously vanish and reappear in ways that funnel you directly into their orbit.

"What a pleasant surprise running into you here. Did you know my family has been members of this club for generations? Let me introduce you to everyone. They're very interested in meeting you."

Their obsession is cloaked in tradition and propriety. Their stalking looks like proper courtship. Their family doesn't threaten you – they simply make it clear that your future success in any elite space depends on your relationship with their heir. And if you try to break away? The subtle blacklisting begins – nothing provable, just doors quietly closing.

What makes ALL these elite yanderes so dreadful is that their obsession is disguised as opportunity, as generosity, as privilege.

"Do you know how many people would KILL to be in your position?" "You should be grateful they even noticed you." "How could someone like THEM possibly be obsessed with someone like YOU?"

The gaslighting isn't just from them – it's from an entire society that views their attention as an honor rather than a prison. A society that sees their resources as inherently legitimising their behavior.

And when the alternative is complete financial ruin, or public humiliation, or professional blacklisting... the gilded cage starts looking like safety. Your resistance is worn by the sheer exhaustion of fighting against resources that seem infinite and you become complicit in your own captivity.

Capitalism is the real enabler here.

#yandere x reader #yandere #yandere x darling #yandere x you #yan blog #yandere x y/n #yandere drabble #yandere headcanons #yandere analysis #my writing

326 notes · View notes

donjuaninhell · 1 year ago

Text

How I ditched streaming services and learned to love Linux: A step-by-step guide to building your very own personal media streaming server (V2.0: REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION)

This is a revised, corrected and expanded version of my tutorial on setting up a personal media server that previously appeared on my old blog (donjuan-auxenfers). I expect that that post is still making the rounds (hopefully with my addendum on modifying group share permissions in Ubuntu to circumvent 0x8007003B "Unexpected Network Error" messages in Windows 10/11 when transferring files) but I have no way of checking. Anyway this new revised version of the tutorial corrects one or two small errors I discovered when rereading what I wrote, adds links to all products mentioned and is just more polished generally. I also expanded it a bit, pointing more adventurous users toward programs such as Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr which can be used for automating user requests and media collection.

So then, what is this tutorial? This is a tutorial on how to build and set up your own personal media server using Ubuntu as an operating system and Plex (or Jellyfin) to not only manage your media, but to also stream that media to your devices both at home and abroad anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection. Its intent is to show you how building a personal media server and stuffing it full of films, TV, and music that you acquired through indiscriminate and voracious media piracy various legal methods will free you to completely ditch paid streaming services. No more will you have to pay for Disney+, Netflix, HBOMAX, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Peacock, CBS All Access, Paramount+, Crave or any other streaming service that is not named Criterion Channel. Instead whenever you want to watch your favourite films and television shows, you’ll have your own personal service that only features things that you want to see, with files that you have control over. And for music fans out there, both Jellyfin and Plex support music streaming, meaning you can even ditch music streaming services. Goodbye Spotify, Youtube Music, Tidal and Apple Music, welcome back unreasonably large MP3 (or FLAC) collections.

On the hardware front, I’m going to offer a few options catered towards different budgets and media library sizes. The cost of getting a media server up and running using this guide will cost you anywhere from $450 CAD/$325 USD at the low end to $1500 CAD/$1100 USD at the high end (it could go higher). My server was priced closer to the higher figure, but I went and got a lot more storage than most people need. If that seems like a little much, consider for a moment, do you have a roommate, a close friend, or a family member who would be willing to chip in a few bucks towards your little project provided they get access? Well that's how I funded my server. It might also be worth thinking about the cost over time, i.e. how much you spend yearly on subscriptions vs. a one time cost of setting up a server. Additionally there's just the joy of being able to scream "fuck you" at all those show cancelling, library deleting, hedge fund vampire CEOs who run the studios through denying them your money. Drive a stake through David Zaslav's heart.

On the software side I will walk you step-by-step through installing Ubuntu as your server's operating system, configuring your storage as a RAIDz array with ZFS, sharing your zpool to Windows with Samba, running a remote connection between your server and your Windows PC, and then a little about started with Plex/Jellyfin. Every terminal command you will need to input will be provided, and I even share a custom #bash script that will make used vs. available drive space on your server display correctly in Windows.

If you have a different preferred flavour of Linux (Arch, Manjaro, Redhat, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, CentOS, Slackware etc. et. al.) and are aching to tell me off for being basic and using Ubuntu, this tutorial is not for you. The sort of person with a preferred Linux distro is the sort of person who can do this sort of thing in their sleep. Also I don't care. This tutorial is intended for the average home computer user. This is also why we’re not using a more exotic home server solution like running everything through Docker Containers and managing it through a dashboard like Homarr or Heimdall. While such solutions are fantastic and can be very easy to maintain once you have it all set up, wrapping your brain around Docker is a whole thing in and of itself. If you do follow this tutorial and had fun putting everything together, then I would encourage you to return in a year’s time, do your research and set up everything with Docker Containers.

Lastly, this is a tutorial aimed at Windows users. Although I was a daily user of OS X for many years (roughly 2008-2023) and I've dabbled quite a bit with various Linux distributions (mostly Ubuntu and Manjaro), my primary OS these days is Windows 11. Many things in this tutorial will still be applicable to Mac users, but others (e.g. setting up shares) you will have to look up for yourself. I doubt it would be difficult to do so.

Nothing in this tutorial will require feats of computing expertise. All you will need is a basic computer literacy (i.e. an understanding of what a filesystem and directory are, and a degree of comfort in the settings menu) and a willingness to learn a thing or two. While this guide may look overwhelming at first glance, it is only because I want to be as thorough as possible. I want you to understand exactly what it is you're doing, I don't want you to just blindly follow steps. If you half-way know what you’re doing, you will be much better prepared if you ever need to troubleshoot.

Honestly, once you have all the hardware ready it shouldn't take more than an afternoon or two to get everything up and running.

(This tutorial is just shy of seven thousand words long so the rest is under the cut.)

Step One: Choosing Your Hardware

Linux is a light weight operating system, depending on the distribution there's close to no bloat. There are recent distributions available at this very moment that will run perfectly fine on a fourteen year old i3 with 4GB of RAM. Moreover, running Plex or Jellyfin isn’t resource intensive in 90% of use cases. All this is to say, we don’t require an expensive or powerful computer. This means that there are several options available: 1) use an old computer you already have sitting around but aren't using 2) buy a used workstation from eBay, or what I believe to be the best option, 3) order an N100 Mini-PC from AliExpress or Amazon.

Note: If you already have an old PC sitting around that you’ve decided to use, fantastic, move on to the next step.

When weighing your options, keep a few things in mind: the number of people you expect to be streaming simultaneously at any one time, the resolution and bitrate of your media library (4k video takes a lot more processing power than 1080p) and most importantly, how many of those clients are going to be transcoding at any one time. Transcoding is what happens when the playback device does not natively support direct playback of the source file. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as the playback device's native resolution being lower than the file's internal resolution, or because the source file was encoded in a video codec unsupported by the playback device.

Ideally we want any transcoding to be performed by hardware. This means we should be looking for a computer with an Intel processor with Quick Sync. Quick Sync is a dedicated core on the CPU die designed specifically for video encoding and decoding. This specialized hardware makes for highly efficient transcoding both in terms of processing overhead and power draw. Without these Quick Sync cores, transcoding must be brute forced through software. This takes up much more of a CPU’s processing power and requires much more energy. But not all Quick Sync cores are created equal and you need to keep this in mind if you've decided either to use an old computer or to shop for a used workstation on eBay

Any Intel processor from second generation Core (Sandy Bridge circa 2011) onward has Quick Sync cores. It's not until 6th gen (Skylake), however, that the cores support the H.265 HEVC codec. Intel’s 10th gen (Comet Lake) processors introduce support for 10bit HEVC and HDR tone mapping. And the recent 12th gen (Alder Lake) processors brought with them hardware AV1 decoding. As an example, while an 8th gen (Kaby Lake) i5-8500 will be able to hardware transcode a H.265 encoded file, it will fall back to software transcoding if given a 10bit H.265 file. If you’ve decided to use that old PC or to look on eBay for an old Dell Optiplex keep this in mind.

Note 1: The price of old workstations varies wildly and fluctuates frequently. If you get lucky and go shopping shortly after a workplace has liquidated a large number of their workstations you can find deals for as low as $100 on a barebones system, but generally an i5-8500 workstation with 16gb RAM will cost you somewhere in the area of $260 CAD/$200 USD.

Note 2: The AMD equivalent to Quick Sync is called Video Core Next, and while it's fine, it's not as efficient and not as mature a technology. It was only introduced with the first generation Ryzen CPUs and it only got decent with their newest CPUs, we want something cheap.

Alternatively you could forgo having to keep track of what generation of CPU is equipped with Quick Sync cores that feature support for which codecs, and just buy an N100 mini-PC. For around the same price or less of a used workstation you can pick up a mini-PC with an Intel N100 processor. The N100 is a four-core processor based on the 12th gen Alder Lake architecture and comes equipped with the latest revision of the Quick Sync cores. These little processors offer astounding hardware transcoding capabilities for their size and power draw. Otherwise they perform equivalent to an i5-6500, which isn't a terrible CPU. A friend of mine uses an N100 machine as a dedicated retro emulation gaming system and it does everything up to 6th generation consoles just fine. The N100 is also a remarkably efficient chip, it sips power. In fact, the difference between running one of these and an old workstation could work out to hundreds of dollars a year in energy bills depending on where you live.

You can find these Mini-PCs all over Amazon or for a little cheaper on AliExpress. They range in price from $170 CAD/$125 USD for a no name N100 with 8GB RAM to $280 CAD/$200 USD for a Beelink S12 Pro with 16GB RAM. The brand doesn't really matter, they're all coming from the same three factories in Shenzen, go for whichever one fits your budget or has features you want. 8GB RAM should be enough, Linux is lightweight and Plex only calls for 2GB RAM. 16GB RAM might result in a slightly snappier experience, especially with ZFS. A 256GB SSD is more than enough for what we need as a boot drive, but going for a bigger drive might allow you to get away with things like creating preview thumbnails for Plex, but it’s up to you and your budget.

The Mini-PC I wound up buying was a Firebat AK2 Plus with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. It looks like this:

Note: Be forewarned that if you decide to order a Mini-PC from AliExpress, note the type of power adapter it ships with. The mini-PC I bought came with an EU power adapter and I had to supply my own North American power supply. Thankfully this is a minor issue as barrel plug 30W/12V/2.5A power adapters are easy to find and can be had for $10.

Step Two: Choosing Your Storage

Storage is the most important part of our build. It is also the most expensive. Thankfully it’s also the most easily upgrade-able down the line.

For people with a smaller media collection (4TB to 8TB), a more limited budget, or who will only ever have two simultaneous streams running, I would say that the most economical course of action would be to buy a USB 3.0 8TB external HDD. Something like this one from Western Digital or this one from Seagate. One of these external drives will cost you in the area of $200 CAD/$140 USD. Down the line you could add a second external drive or replace it with a multi-drive RAIDz set up such as detailed below.

If a single external drive the path for you, move on to step three.

For people with larger media libraries (12TB+), who prefer media in 4k, or care who about data redundancy, the answer is a RAID array featuring multiple HDDs in an enclosure.

Note: If you are using an old PC or used workstatiom as your server and have the room for at least three 3.5" drives, and as many open SATA ports on your mother board you won't need an enclosure, just install the drives into the case. If your old computer is a laptop or doesn’t have room for more internal drives, then I would suggest an enclosure.

The minimum number of drives needed to run a RAIDz array is three, and seeing as RAIDz is what we will be using, you should be looking for an enclosure with three to five bays. I think that four disks makes for a good compromise for a home server. Regardless of whether you go for a three, four, or five bay enclosure, do be aware that in a RAIDz array the space equivalent of one of the drives will be dedicated to parity at a ratio expressed by the equation 1 − 1/n i.e. in a four bay enclosure equipped with four 12TB drives, if we configured our drives in a RAIDz1 array we would be left with a total of 36TB of usable space (48TB raw size). The reason for why we might sacrifice storage space in such a manner will be explained in the next section.

A four bay enclosure will cost somewhere in the area of $200 CDN/$140 USD. You don't need anything fancy, we don't need anything with hardware RAID controls (RAIDz is done entirely in software) or even USB-C. An enclosure with USB 3.0 will perform perfectly fine. Don’t worry too much about USB speed bottlenecks. A mechanical HDD will be limited by the speed of its mechanism long before before it will be limited by the speed of a USB connection. I've seen decent looking enclosures from TerraMaster, Yottamaster, Mediasonic and Sabrent.

When it comes to selecting the drives, as of this writing, the best value (dollar per gigabyte) are those in the range of 12TB to 20TB. I settled on 12TB drives myself. If 12TB to 20TB drives are out of your budget, go with what you can afford, or look into refurbished drives. I'm not sold on the idea of refurbished drives but many people swear by them.

When shopping for harddrives, search for drives designed specifically for NAS use. Drives designed for NAS use typically have better vibration dampening and are designed to be active 24/7. They will also often make use of CMR (conventional magnetic recording) as opposed to SMR (shingled magnetic recording). This nets them a sizable read/write performance bump over typical desktop drives. Seagate Ironwolf and Toshiba NAS are both well regarded brands when it comes to NAS drives. I would avoid Western Digital Red drives at this time. WD Reds were a go to recommendation up until earlier this year when it was revealed that they feature firmware that will throw up false SMART warnings telling you to replace the drive at the three year mark quite often when there is nothing at all wrong with that drive. It will likely even be good for another six, seven, or more years.

Step Three: Installing Linux

For this step you will need a USB thumbdrive of at least 6GB in capacity, an .ISO of Ubuntu, and a way to make that thumbdrive bootable media.

First download a copy of Ubuntu desktop (for best performance we could download the Server release, but for new Linux users I would recommend against the server release. The server release is strictly command line interface only, and having a GUI is very helpful for most people. Not many people are wholly comfortable doing everything through the command line, I'm certainly not one of them, and I grew up with DOS 6.0. 22.04.3 Jammy Jellyfish is the current Long Term Service release, this is the one to get.

Download the .ISO and then download and install balenaEtcher on your Windows PC. BalenaEtcher is an easy to use program for creating bootable media, you simply insert your thumbdrive, select the .ISO you just downloaded, and it will create a bootable installation media for you.

Once you've made a bootable media and you've got your Mini-PC (or you old PC/used workstation) in front of you, hook it directly into your router with an ethernet cable, and then plug in the HDD enclosure, a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard. Now turn that sucker on and hit whatever key gets you into the BIOS (typically ESC, DEL or F2). If you’re using a Mini-PC check to make sure that the P1 and P2 power limits are set correctly, my N100's P1 limit was set at 10W, a full 20W under the chip's power limit. Also make sure that the RAM is running at the advertised speed. My Mini-PC’s RAM was set at 2333Mhz out of the box when it should have been 3200Mhz. Once you’ve done that, key over to the boot order and place the USB drive first in the boot order. Then save the BIOS settings and restart.

After you restart you’ll be greeted by Ubuntu's installation screen. Installing Ubuntu is really straight forward, select the "minimal" installation option, as we won't need anything on this computer except for a browser (Ubuntu comes preinstalled with Firefox) and Plex Media Server/Jellyfin Media Server. Also remember to delete and reformat that Windows partition! We don't need it.

Step Four: Installing ZFS and Setting Up the RAIDz Array

Note: If you opted for just a single external HDD skip this step and move onto setting up a Samba share.

Once Ubuntu is installed it's time to configure our storage by installing ZFS to build our RAIDz array. ZFS is a "next-gen" file system that is both massively flexible and massively complex. It's capable of snapshot backup, self healing error correction, ZFS pools can be configured with drives operating in a supplemental manner alongside the storage vdev (e.g. fast cache, dedicated secondary intent log, hot swap spares etc.). It's also a file system very amenable to fine tuning. Block and sector size are adjustable to use case and you're afforded the option of different methods of inline compression. If you'd like a very detailed overview and explanation of its various features and tips on tuning a ZFS array check out these articles from Ars Technica. For now we're going to ignore all these features and keep it simple, we're going to pull our drives together into a single vdev running in RAIDz which will be the entirety of our zpool, no fancy cache drive or SLOG.

Open up the terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt update

then

sudo apt install zfsutils-linux

This will install the ZFS utility. Verify that it's installed with the following command:

zfs --version

Now, it's time to check that the HDDs we have in the enclosure are healthy, running, and recognized. We also want to find out their device IDs and take note of them:

sudo fdisk -1

Note: You might be wondering why some of these commands require "sudo" in front of them while others don't. "Sudo" is short for "super user do”. When and where "sudo" is used has to do with the way permissions are set up in Linux. Only the "root" user has the access level to perform certain tasks in Linux. As a matter of security and safety regular user accounts are kept separate from the "root" user. It's not advised (or even possible) to boot into Linux as "root" with most modern distributions. Instead by using "sudo" our regular user account is temporarily given the power to do otherwise forbidden things. Don't worry about it too much at this stage, but if you want to know more check out this introduction.

If everything is working you should get a list of the various drives detected along with their device IDs which will look like this: /dev/sdc. You can also check the device IDs of the drives by opening the disk utility app. Jot these IDs down as we'll need them for our next step, creating our RAIDz array.

RAIDz is similar to RAID-5 in that instead of striping your data over multiple disks, exchanging redundancy for speed and available space (RAID-0), or mirroring your data writing by two copies of every piece (RAID-1), it instead writes parity blocks across the disks in addition to striping, this provides a balance of speed, redundancy and available space. If a single drive fails, the parity blocks on the working drives can be used to reconstruct the entire array as soon as a replacement drive is added.

Additionally, RAIDz improves over some of the common RAID-5 flaws. It's more resilient and capable of self healing, as it is capable of automatically checking for errors against a checksum. It's more forgiving in this way, and it's likely that you'll be able to detect when a drive is dying well before it fails. A RAIDz array can survive the loss of any one drive.

Note: While RAIDz is indeed resilient, if a second drive fails during the rebuild, you're fucked. Always keep backups of things you can't afford to lose. This tutorial, however, is not about proper data safety.

To create the pool, use the following command:

sudo zpool create "zpoolnamehere" raidz "device IDs of drives we're putting in the pool"

For example, let's creatively name our zpool "mypool". This poil will consist of four drives which have the device IDs: sdb, sdc, sdd, and sde. The resulting command will look like this:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde

If as an example you bought five HDDs and decided you wanted more redundancy dedicating two drive to this purpose, we would modify the command to "raidz2" and the command would look something like the following:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz2 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde /dev/sdf

An array configured like this is known as RAIDz2 and is able to survive two disk failures.

Once the zpool has been created, we can check its status with the command:

zpool status

Or more concisely with:

zpool list

The nice thing about ZFS as a file system is that a pool is ready to go immediately after creation. If we were to set up a traditional RAID-5 array using mbam, we'd have to sit through a potentially hours long process of reformatting and partitioning the drives. Instead we're ready to go right out the gates.

The zpool should be automatically mounted to the filesystem after creation, check on that with the following:

df -hT | grep zfs

Note: If your computer ever loses power suddenly, say in event of a power outage, you may have to re-import your pool. In most cases, ZFS will automatically import and mount your pool, but if it doesn’t and you can't see your array, simply open the terminal and type sudo zpool import -a.

By default a zpool is mounted at /"zpoolname". The pool should be under our ownership but let's make sure with the following command:

sudo chown -R "yourlinuxusername" /"zpoolname"

Note: Changing file and folder ownership with "chown" and file and folder permissions with "chmod" are essential commands for much of the admin work in Linux, but we won't be dealing with them extensively in this guide. If you'd like a deeper tutorial and explanation you can check out these two guides: chown and chmod.

You can access the zpool file system through the GUI by opening the file manager (the Ubuntu default file manager is called Nautilus) and clicking on "Other Locations" on the sidebar, then entering the Ubuntu file system and looking for a folder with your pool's name. Bookmark the folder on the sidebar for easy access.

Your storage pool is now ready to go. Assuming that we already have some files on our Windows PC we want to copy to over, we're going to need to install and configure Samba to make the pool accessible in Windows.

Step Five: Setting Up Samba/Sharing

Samba is what's going to let us share the zpool with Windows and allow us to write to it from our Windows machine. First let's install Samba with the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get install samba

Next create a password for Samba.

sudo smbpswd -a "yourlinuxusername"

It will then prompt you to create a password. Just reuse your Ubuntu user password for simplicity's sake.

Note: if you're using just a single external drive replace the zpool location in the following commands with wherever it is your external drive is mounted, for more information see this guide on mounting an external drive in Ubuntu.

After you've created a password we're going to create a shareable folder in our pool with this command

mkdir /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

Now we're going to open the smb.conf file and make that folder shareable. Enter the following command.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

This will open the .conf file in nano, the terminal text editor program. Now at the end of smb.conf add the following entry:

["foldername"]

path = /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

available = yes

valid users = "yourlinuxusername"

read only = no

writable = yes

browseable = yes

guest ok = no

Ensure that there are no line breaks between the lines and that there's a space on both sides of the equals sign. Our next step is to allow Samba traffic through the firewall:

sudo ufw allow samba

Finally restart the Samba service:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

At this point we'll be able to access to the pool, browse its contents, and read and write to it from Windows. But there's one more thing left to do, Windows doesn't natively support the ZFS file systems and will read the used/available/total space in the pool incorrectly. Windows will read available space as total drive space, and all used space as null. This leads to Windows only displaying a dwindling amount of "available" space as the drives are filled. We can fix this! Functionally this doesn't actually matter, we can still write and read to and from the disk, it just makes it difficult to tell at a glance the proportion of used/available space, so this is an optional step but one I recommend (this step is also unnecessary if you're just using a single external drive). What we're going to do is write a little shell script in #bash. Open nano with the terminal with the command:

nano

Now insert the following code:

#!/bin/bash CUR_PATH=`pwd` ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT=$(zfs get type $CUR_PATH 2>&1 > /dev/null) > /dev/null if [[ $ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT == *not\ a\ ZFS* ]] then IS_ZFS=false else IS_ZFS=true fi if [[ $IS_ZFS = false ]] then df $CUR_PATH | tail -1 | awk '{print $2" "$4}' else USED=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp used $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null AVAIL=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp available $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null TOTAL=$(($USED+$AVAIL)) > /dev/null echo $TOTAL $AVAIL fi

Save the script as "dfree.sh" to /home/"yourlinuxusername" then change the ownership of the file to make it executable with this command:

sudo chmod 774 dfree.sh

Now open smb.conf with sudo again:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Now add this entry to the top of the configuration file to direct Samba to use the results of our script when Windows asks for a reading on the pool's used/available/total drive space:

[global]

dfree command = /home/"yourlinuxusername"/dfree.sh

Save the changes to smb.conf and then restart Samba again with the terminal:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

Now there’s one more thing we need to do to fully set up the Samba share, and that’s to modify a hidden group permission. In the terminal window type the following command:

usermod -a -G sambashare “yourlinuxusername”

Then restart samba again:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

If we don’t do this last step, everything will appear to work fine, and you will even be able to see and map the drive from Windows and even begin transferring files, but you'd soon run into a lot of frustration. As every ten minutes or so a file would fail to transfer and you would get a window announcing “0x8007003B Unexpected Network Error”. This window would require your manual input to continue the transfer with the file next in the queue. And at the end it would reattempt to transfer whichever files failed the first time around. 99% of the time they’ll go through that second try, but this is still all a major pain in the ass. Especially if you’ve got a lot of data to transfer or you want to step away from the computer for a while.

It turns out samba can act a little weirdly with the higher read/write speeds of RAIDz arrays and transfers from Windows, and will intermittently crash and restart itself if this group option isn’t changed. Inputting the above command will prevent you from ever seeing that window.

The last thing we're going to do before switching over to our Windows PC is grab the IP address of our Linux machine. Enter the following command:

hostname -I

This will spit out this computer's IP address on the local network (it will look something like 192.168.0.x), write it down. It might be a good idea once you're done here to go into your router settings and reserving that IP for your Linux system in the DHCP settings. Check the manual for your specific model router on how to access its settings, typically it can be accessed by opening a browser and typing http:\\192.168.0.1 in the address bar, but your router may be different.

Okay we’re done with our Linux computer for now. Get on over to your Windows PC, open File Explorer, right click on Network and click "Map network drive". Select Z: as the drive letter (you don't want to map the network drive to a letter you could conceivably be using for other purposes) and enter the IP of your Linux machine and location of the share like so: \\"LINUXCOMPUTERLOCALIPADDRESSGOESHERE"\"zpoolnamegoeshere"\. Windows will then ask you for your username and password, enter the ones you set earlier in Samba and you're good. If you've done everything right it should look something like this:

You can now start moving media over from Windows to the share folder. It's a good idea to have a hard line running to all machines. Moving files over Wi-Fi is going to be tortuously slow, the only thing that’s going to make the transfer time tolerable (hours instead of days) is a solid wired connection between both machines and your router.

Step Six: Setting Up Remote Desktop Access to Your Server

After the server is up and going, you’ll want to be able to access it remotely from Windows. Barring serious maintenance/updates, this is how you'll access it most of the time. On your Linux system open the terminal and enter:

sudo apt install xrdp

Then:

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

Once it's finished installing, open “Settings” on the sidebar and turn off "automatic login" in the User category. Then log out of your account. Attempting to remotely connect to your Linux computer while you’re logged in will result in a black screen!

Now get back on your Windows PC, open search and look for "RDP". A program called "Remote Desktop Connection" should pop up, open this program as an administrator by right-clicking and selecting “run as an administrator”. You’ll be greeted with a window. In the field marked “Computer” type in the IP address of your Linux computer. Press connect and you'll be greeted with a new window and prompt asking for your username and password. Enter your Ubuntu username and password here.

If everything went right, you’ll be logged into your Linux computer. If the performance is sluggish, adjust the display options. Lowering the resolution and colour depth do a lot to make the interface feel snappier.

Remote access is how we're going to be using our Linux system from now, barring edge cases like needing to get into the BIOS or upgrading to a new version of Ubuntu. Everything else from performing maintenance like a monthly zpool scrub to checking zpool status and updating software can all be done remotely.

This is how my server lives its life now, happily humming and chirping away on the floor next to the couch in a corner of the living room.

Step Seven: Plex Media Server/Jellyfin

Okay we’ve got all the ground work finished and our server is almost up and running. We’ve got Ubuntu up and running, our storage array is primed, we’ve set up remote connections and sharing, and maybe we’ve moved over some of favourite movies and TV shows.

Now we need to decide on the media server software to use which will stream our media to us and organize our library. For most people I’d recommend Plex. It just works 99% of the time. That said, Jellyfin has a lot to recommend it by too, even if it is rougher around the edges. Some people run both simultaneously, it’s not that big of an extra strain. I do recommend doing a little bit of your own research into the features each platform offers, but as a quick run down, consider some of the following points:

Plex is closed source and is funded through PlexPass purchases while Jellyfin is open source and entirely user driven. This means a number of things: for one, Plex requires you to purchase a “PlexPass” (purchased as a one time lifetime fee $159.99 CDN/$120 USD or paid for on a monthly or yearly subscription basis) in order to access to certain features, like hardware transcoding (and we want hardware transcoding) or automated intro/credits detection and skipping, Jellyfin offers some of these features for free through plugins. Plex supports a lot more devices than Jellyfin and updates more frequently. That said, Jellyfin's Android and iOS apps are completely free, while the Plex Android and iOS apps must be activated for a one time cost of $6 CDN/$5 USD. But that $6 fee gets you a mobile app that is much more functional and features a unified UI across platforms, the Plex mobile apps are simply a more polished experience. The Jellyfin apps are a bit of a mess and the iOS and Android versions are very different from each other.

Jellyfin’s actual media player is more fully featured than Plex's, but on the other hand Jellyfin's UI, library customization and automatic media tagging really pale in comparison to Plex. Streaming your music library is free through both Jellyfin and Plex, but Plex offers the PlexAmp app for dedicated music streaming which boasts a number of fantastic features, unfortunately some of those fantastic features require a PlexPass. If your internet is down, Jellyfin can still do local streaming, while Plex can fail to play files unless you've got it set up a certain way. Jellyfin has a slew of neat niche features like support for Comic Book libraries with the .cbz/.cbt file types, but then Plex offers some free ad-supported TV and films, they even have a free channel that plays nothing but Classic Doctor Who.

Ultimately it's up to you, I settled on Plex because although some features are pay-walled, it just works. It's more reliable and easier to use, and a one-time fee is much easier to swallow than a subscription. I had a pretty easy time getting my boomer parents and tech illiterate brother introduced to and using Plex and I don't know if I would've had as easy a time doing that with Jellyfin. I do also need to mention that Jellyfin does take a little extra bit of tinkering to get going in Ubuntu, you’ll have to set up process permissions, so if you're more tolerant to tinkering, Jellyfin might be up your alley and I’ll trust that you can follow their installation and configuration guide. For everyone else, I recommend Plex.

So pick your poison: Plex or Jellyfin.

Note: The easiest way to download and install either of these packages in Ubuntu is through Snap Store.

After you've installed one (or both), opening either app will launch a browser window into the browser version of the app allowing you to set all the options server side.

The process of adding creating media libraries is essentially the same in both Plex and Jellyfin. You create a separate libraries for Television, Movies, and Music and add the folders which contain the respective types of media to their respective libraries. The only difficult or time consuming aspect is ensuring that your files and folders follow the appropriate naming conventions:

Plex naming guide for Movies

Plex naming guide for Television

Jellyfin follows the same naming rules but I find their media scanner to be a lot less accurate and forgiving than Plex. Once you've selected the folders to be scanned the service will scan your files, tagging everything and adding metadata. Although I find do find Plex more accurate, it can still erroneously tag some things and you might have to manually clean up some tags in a large library. (When I initially created my library it tagged the 1963-1989 Doctor Who as some Korean soap opera and I needed to manually select the correct match after which everything was tagged normally.) It can also be a bit testy with anime (especially OVAs) be sure to check TVDB to ensure that you have your files and folders structured and named correctly. If something is not showing up at all, double check the name.

Once that's done, organizing and customizing your library is easy. You can set up collections, grouping items together to fit a theme or collect together all the entries in a franchise. You can make playlists, and add custom artwork to entries. It's fun setting up collections with posters to match, there are even several websites dedicated to help you do this like PosterDB. As an example, below are two collections in my library, one collecting all the entries in a franchise, the other follows a theme.

My Star Trek collection, featuring all eleven television series, and thirteen films.

My Best of the Worst collection, featuring sixty-nine films previously showcased on RedLetterMedia’s Best of the Worst. They’re all absolutely terrible and I love them.

As for settings, ensure you've got Remote Access going, it should work automatically and be sure to set your upload speed after running a speed test. In the library settings set the database cache to 2000MB to ensure a snappier and more responsive browsing experience, and then check that playback quality is set to original/maximum. If you’re severely bandwidth limited on your upload and have remote users, you might want to limit the remote stream bitrate to something more reasonable, just as a note of comparison Netflix’s 1080p bitrate is approximately 5Mbps, although almost anyone watching through a chromium based browser is streaming at 720p and 3mbps. Other than that you should be good to go. For actually playing your files, there's a Plex app for just about every platform imaginable. I mostly watch television and films on my laptop using the Windows Plex app, but I also use the Android app which can broadcast to the chromecast connected to the TV in the office and the Android TV app for our smart TV. Both are fully functional and easy to navigate, and I can also attest to the OS X version being equally functional.

Part Eight: Finding Media

Now, this is not really a piracy tutorial, there are plenty of those out there. But if you’re unaware, BitTorrent is free and pretty easy to use, just pick a client (qBittorrent is the best) and go find some public trackers to peruse. Just know now that all the best trackers are private and invite only, and that they can be exceptionally difficult to get into. I’m already on a few, and even then, some of the best ones are wholly out of my reach.

If you decide to take the left hand path and turn to Usenet you’ll have to pay. First you’ll need to sign up with a provider like Newshosting or EasyNews for access to Usenet itself, and then to actually find anything you’re going to need to sign up with an indexer like NZBGeek or NZBFinder. There are dozens of indexers, and many people cross post between them, but for more obscure media it’s worth checking multiple. You’ll also need a binary downloader like SABnzbd. That caveat aside, Usenet is faster, bigger, older, less traceable than BitTorrent, and altogether slicker. I honestly prefer it, and I'm kicking myself for taking this long to start using it because I was scared off by the price. I’ve found so many things on Usenet that I had sought in vain elsewhere for years, like a 2010 Italian film about a massacre perpetrated by the SS that played the festival circuit but never received a home media release; some absolute hero uploaded a rip of a festival screener DVD to Usenet. Anyway, figure out the rest of this shit on your own and remember to use protection, get yourself behind a VPN, use a SOCKS5 proxy with your BitTorrent client, etc.

On the legal side of things, if you’re around my age, you (or your family) probably have a big pile of DVDs and Blu-Rays sitting around unwatched and half forgotten. Why not do a bit of amateur media preservation, rip them and upload them to your server for easier access? (Your tools for this are going to be Handbrake to do the ripping and AnyDVD to break any encryption.) I went to the trouble of ripping all my SCTV DVDs (five box sets worth) because none of it is on streaming nor could it be found on any pirate source I tried. I’m glad I did, forty years on it’s still one of the funniest shows to ever be on TV.

Part Nine/Epilogue: Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr

There are a lot of ways to automate your server for better functionality or to add features you and other users might find useful. Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr are a part of a suite of “Servarr” services (there’s also Readarr for books and Whisparr for adult content) that allow you to automate the collection of new episodes of TV shows (Sonarr), new movie releases (Radarr) and music releases (Lidarr). They hook in to your BitTorrent client or Usenet binary newsgroup downloader and crawl your preferred Torrent trackers and Usenet indexers, alerting you to new releases and automatically grabbing them. You can also use these services to manually search for new media, and even replace/upgrade your existing media with better quality uploads. They’re really a little tricky to set up on a bare metal Ubuntu install (ideally you should be running them in Docker Containers), and I won’t be providing a step by step on installing and running them, I’m simply making you aware of their existence.

The other bit of kit I want to make you aware of is Overseerr which is a program that scans your Plex media library and will serve recommendations based on what you like. It also allows you and your users to request specific media. It can even be integrated with Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr so that fulfilling those requests is fully automated.

And you're done. It really wasn't all that hard. Enjoy your media. Enjoy the control you have over that media. And be safe in the knowledge that no hedgefund CEO motherfucker who hates the movies but who is somehow in control of a major studio will be able to disappear anything in your library as a tax write-off.

#long post #streaming #plex #tutorial #linux #piracy #major works

1K notes · View notes

internetdaddy98 · 2 months ago

Text

The Ties That Bind Us - Chapter 21

Previous | Next [Series Masterlist]

Content Warning: medical procedures; mutual pining; angst: yelling; swearing;

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

The comms went off at 6:50 a.m.

Of course it did.

You were barely three steps into the ER, coffee still burning hot in your hand, when the call came through: MVC, mid-thirties female, unstable vitals, ETA six minutes. The room snapped into motion around you like muscle memory.

You didn’t have time to think. Not about what happened, not about the way Robby had looked at you like you’d fractured something sacred. Not about the fact that this was the first time you were seeing him since it all imploded.

You threw your sweater onto the nearest chair and got to work.

And then he walked in.

Black scrubs. Jaw set. Eyes stormy.

You didn’t speak. Neither did he.

You took opposite sides of the trauma room like it was instinct. You hadn’t worked a code together in three days, but your rhythm was the same—too practiced to falter. His hands moved fast and precise, intubating while you placed a central line. Orders flew. Nurses obeyed. You worked as if the silence wasn’t deafening.

But God, it was.

You could feel every inch of distance between you, and still, your bodies operated like puzzle pieces that knew exactly how to fit. That was the worst part—how easy it was still to do this with him, even when nothing else felt okay.

“She’s crashing,” Dr. Mohan said.

Robby barked for an epi. You reached across the gurney at the same time, your hands brushing.

He flinched like you’d burned him.

And that? That nearly unraveled you.

The patient stabilized, barely. When it was over, the patient was transferred up to the ICU, and the chaos ended. But the damage between you two hadn’t gone anywhere.

You peeled off your gown, then your gloves, tossing them into the biohazard bin with more force than necessary. Robby was already halfway out the door.

And that was it. You snapped. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The air on the rooftop was colder than it had any right to be.

You had only meant to take a moment—five minutes to breathe, to stop shaking. The chaos of the ER hadn’t let up all night, and neither had the pressure building in your chest. You needed open air. Space.

You weren’t expecting Robby to follow you.

But when you heard the metal door creak open behind you, you already knew it was him. You didn’t turn. Just stared out over the city, arms crossed tight, jaw locked.

The door slammed shut.

“Seriously?” His voice, low and sharp.

“You’re just gonna walk away and pretend that didn’t just fucking happen?” he said, voice low and tired but no less sharp.

You turned slowly. “What? Saving a life?”

He let out a bitter laugh. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then say what you mean, Michael.”

You laughed once. Bitter. “You can’t even look at me.”

“I am looking at you.”

“No, you’re looking through me,” you snapped. “Like I’m just the new attending going after your job, right?”

“You lied to me, Y/N.”

You felt the sting before the words even settled in the air.

“I didn’t lie.”

“Oh come on, Y/N.”

His face was flushed, breath misting in the chill, eyes burning. The fury was real, but beneath it… the betrayal glinted like a blade.

“You didn’t think I deserved to know?” he asked. “You knew for how long and just decided to smile through shifts like nothing was happening?”

Her own temper snapped like a live wire. “I was trying to keep things from falling apart. I didn’t want any of this! I didn’t ask for this.”

“But you didn’t say no either.”

“I didn’t have a chance to—”

“No,” he cut in, laughing bitterly, “because Gloria made sure you’d take it before I even had time to realize I was being replaced.”

“You are not being replaced, Robby.”

“Oh, aren’t I?” he said, stepping forward. “Because it feels like I’m standing on the roof of a hospital where I’ve killed myself for years—built this ER to survive—and now they’re telling me my new ‘partner’ is the woman I’ve been training, who couldn’t be bothered to tell me any of this before it blew up in my face.”

“You’re twisting it,” you said, voice shaking. “I didn’t betray you—”

“You didn’t trust me.” His voice was quiet now. Hurt threading through each word. “That’s worse.”

You looked away, blinking fast. “You made it pretty clear you don’t trust people who work here. That you don’t want to get close.”

“I was trying to protect you,” he said, louder now. “Because this place eats you alive, and I didn’t want to be stupid enough to care about someone who might leave the second it got too hard.”

“Then why did you look at me like I mattered?” Your voice cracked. “Why did you talk to me at three in the morning like I was something more than just another colleague? Why the hell did you make me feel like—like there was something between us if you were never going to let it be real? Why did you almost kiss me?”

Robby’s jaw clenched.

“Because there is something between us, and I can’t breathe around it,” he hissed. “I don’t sleep. I barely function half the time when you’re not around. And now I find out you’ve been lying to me?”

“I wasn’t lying,” you snapped. “I was scared. And I thought maybe—maybe if I stayed professional, if I kept my distance—you’d see I wasn’t here to make a mess of your life. But it didn’t matter. Nothing I did was ever going to be good enough for you to choose me.”

The silence that followed was brutal.

Robby took a step back, fists trembling at his sides. “You think I didn’t choose you? I’ve been trying not to fall apart over you for months. And the one time I needed you to choose me, you didn’t.”

“You think I didn’t choose you?” you asked, voice shaking. “I’ve been trying to push my feelings down for months for you Robby. Trying not to want more because you made it clear there was no more to want.”

He didn’t answer.

And that hurt more than anything.

You shook your head, blinking back the sting in your eyes.

“I cared. I still do. But if you’re going to punish me for not reading your mind, I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.”

He finally looked at you then. Really looked at you. And the ache in his expression nearly took your breath away.

“I didn’t know how to want you and keep my world intact,” he said.

And maybe that was the truest thing either of you had said all day.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. You made sure of that.” You said coldly.

He didn’t know who walked away first.

But when the rooftop emptied, the sky felt heavier than before.

#michael robinavitch #michael robinavitch x reader #the pitt #the pitt hbo #the pitt imagine #the pitt fanfiction #dr robby #dr robby x reader #dr robinavitch x reader #dr robby imagine #dr michael robinavitch #dr robinavitch #noah wyle

173 notes · View notes

newbiespud · 6 months ago

Text

Okay, I lied. One last set of Warframe 1999 spoiler thoughts to get them out of my system:

Bookending the story with Transference into Arthur (once very rudely without permission to start off on the wrong foot, once begrudgingly with permission to bring them home) is just great theming structure. Building thematic parallels into your story isn't hard, it's just so much better when the characters' and their growth reinforce their meaning.

On the surface, the Drifter's "help" to the Hex looks like a mere cheerleading pep talk, but that's not how I took it. Who knows more about fully matured Warframe powers than the Tenno? How can they lend that expertise to the Hex in their desperate moments? Eleanor can wrangle the Infestation within with a little willpower boost; Tenno do it all the time, or else their Warframes would be out of control. "Quincy, remember, your frame has the Seek power and it's busted." Aoi especially just needed a bit of support from someone who's used a fully kitted-out Mag before and mastered her magnetic powers. "Amir, here's something you would have never found out on your own: Your Warframe body has a Parazon, which doubles as a hidden blade AND a data-link!" And, of course, Arthur - if your body can't move, then I can move it for you. It's all the Tenno being an experienced Tenno to help the Hex.

I was definitely in the camp of "wait, I thought Albrecht shot Amir- OH THANK GOODNESS WE STOPPED THAT."

It's so incredibly great that the instant-messenger stuff allows us to discuss and digest a lot of Warframe's weirder lore in an in-character way, on top of all the other ways it's great. Love me a game system that accomplishes multiple goals at once for different player interests.

My absolute favorite thing overall? Thematically, this is a mirror-image of The Sacrifice. Somehow, through sheer empathy if nothing else, the Tenno have the power to share their inner strength with troubled, broken, hopeless beings, take away their pain, and unlock their full potential. The Operator did it with Umbra (and by extension every other fully converted Warframe), and now the Drifter's done something arguably even more impressive - using that power on partially still-living humans, with understanding, consent, and mercy.

Look, I'm arguably a writer by trade. I love analyzing story structure, and I especially love seeing action genres take a stab at being emotional, vulnerable, and empathetic while still being kickass action. That's a delicate balance, but oh boy does it make for a delicious dish for my particular palette.

#warframe #warframe 1999 #warframe spoilers #warframe 1999 spoilers #okay that's it #enough rambling about Warframe for a little while #back to thinking about Griftlands and Kingdom Hearts and Leverage

171 notes · View notes

three-semicolons · 3 days ago

Text

Baby-Dick-Grayson Robin is very cute. And very much a child. At least, that’s what GCPD officer Gerald thinks, until he bears witness to a gang kidnapping of the Batman. Robin starts to look a little scary.

Or; Baby Robin is fucking terrifying.

Full fic below:

Being part of the Gotham GCPD was unpleasant. Gerald, newly-transferred beat cop from the New Jersey suburbs, learned this first-hand.

Criminals were just as likely to wield water guns as normal children in the public pool were to brandish pistols. So many daylight and nighttime perpetrators alike were costumed that GCPD officers jovially referred to robberies as “schick-ups” on radio. The crime rate of the city somehow exceeded its population. This should not have been possible.

And none of that even began to acknowledge the Bat.

Somehow — perhaps through overexposure to the various noxious fumes that granted Gotham the worst air-quality rating in the Western Hemisphere — a grown man built like a tank deemed it a rational idea to don a cape and beat Gotham’s colorful crime scene with his fists. Those very same fumes are the only logical reason for why their commissioner seemed so okay with it.

And, fine, Gerald could yield the fact that fear of the Batman seemed to encourage the first positive movement in Gotham’s crime rate for decades. He could even yield that he was relieved someone else was responsible for handling the villains bred from Gotham’s underbelly.

Gerald had been on the scene with the Riddler once. He still couldn’t stomach that shade of green. He almost threw up the last time his daughter wanted to watch The Lorax and the Onceler came on screen.

Yet, for all of the good-will that Gerald had painstakingly cultivated for Batman in his months of service, it disappeared immediately the first time Gerald caught a glance at Robin.

Robin, who had to be almost half a decade younger than his own daughter.

Robin, who giggled and flipped as a distraction against a man with a machete.

Robin, who commissioner Gordon seemed perfectly comfortable reporting the gory details of a recent serial killer’s crime scene to without so much as blinking.

It frankly disgusted Gerald to see his coworkers embrace the child as a peer rather than a child. Maybe even as much as Batman disgusted him for choosing a prepubescent colleague in the first place. At least Batman likely had some place on the DSM-5, what with his own costumed antics. They — the police — were trusted adults. If this was how the police of Gotham were expected to operate, he simply could not abide by it. In the end, the corruption at the root of the GCPD was not what ultimately triggered Gerald’s preparation to hand his badge in; it was Robin.

Still, daughter’s birthday was next week. He and his wife had another child on the way. Resignation would mean a missing income, and his wife’s salary from teaching elementary could not support the weight of their household alone (no matter how cheap Gotham was to live in). Hence, he found himself back in the office, staring blankly at the police-issued radio as it crackled in his hands.

“All available personnel requested. The Batman has been taken hostage.”

Fuck.

A hitched breath from another part of the room told him that his dread was not unique. Wordlessly, one of his fellow cops flicked on the television in the break room. It was already tuned to Gotham’s local news station.

A pretty brunette with a professional demeanor was monologuing next to helicopter footage of the incident. A residential building — or more likely, a mob front disguised as an apartment complex — was completely surrounded by men in dark clothing and brandishing firearms. The microphones on the helicopter were good enough to pick up the cacophony of chatter below.

“Half an hour ago,” the reporter intoned, “Gotham’s acclaimed Batman entered the building alone. Viewers witnessed an ambush from approximately two dozen men in paraphernalia that the GCPD has identified to be associated with the Black Mask. There has been no further sighting since the Batman was forcefully led inside.”

That meant the GCPD would have to come in.

That meant Gerald might have to come in. Gerald, whose mandated weapons training had gone so poorly that he was only hired on a technicality.

Fuck.

The communicator in his hand still continued to buzz with orders, though, and that meant he had to leave with his colleagues. He struggled to hit feet, only to catch a blur of color on the helicopter footage on the TV.

There was Robin.

Gerald couldn’t quite place what made Robin’s approach towards the building so terrifying. The child couldn’t have made it above his hip bones and was near-underweight even for that height.

But Gerald had seen both Batman and Robin move, and he had never seen either move at that speed. Robin wasn’t flipping or twirling or skipping. He was efficient. The microphones picked up no giggles or banter, and the cameras couldn’t identify the barest hint of amusement or a grin. Robin looked angry. Robin looked lethal. The baby fat lining his cheeks hardened under his firmly clenched jaw, eyebrows narrowed in a way only scarcely achieved by the Bat himself, as he flew through Gotham in its golden hour like a well-targeted sniper’s bullet.

The transponder in Gerald’s hand buzzed again. “Hold on, pause and wait until further instruction.” What prompted the shift in response wasn’t exactly a secret.

Without so much as pausing to slow down, Robin flung himself forward for the last time and executed an elegant roll, stopping just a street away from the entrance. The men stationed outside the building stared dumbly.

“Get away, kid.” The helicopter microphone picked up. “We try to avoid hurting children.”

Robin reached within his utility belt. “I’m not a child. I’m your worst nightmare.”

With that, he flung what looked to be pellets from his hands, and as they landed on the floor they erupted in smoke. He charged forward, mercilessly flinging birdarang (Gerald thought poor naming schemes were an endemic Gothamite disease) after birdarang into the darkness. By the time the smoke dissipated enough for the cameras to focus on anything, no less than 15 men were pinned to the wall. Robin was gone.

Gerald swallowed.

The newscaster appeared to do the same, offering him some consolation, before she attempted to resume her previous poise. “It looks like we have a promising update. Robin has entered the premises, presumably to retrieve the Batman himself. Stay tuned as the night unfolds.”

Only seconds after Robin disappeared in smoke, he reappeared. Only, it was as another flash of color on the roof of the complex. He must have scaled it, his agility continuing to be inhuman.

The crew on the helicopter zoomed in on his figure when he steadied himself towards the edge of the roof, only to reveal-

That can’t be right. There was another person, in the same garb as the men now pinned against the building below. He wasn’t on the roof, however. He was dangling from it.

And Robin was suspending him from his grappling hook.

“Robin- Robin has- It looks like Robin has obtained a hostage of his own.”

The third grader in a leotard has a hostage, Gerald thought numbly. The third grader in a leotard is on a roof, suspending a 200 pound man from a 15 story drop, as a hostage.

Background noises from the camera crew in the helicopter were silenced in an attempt to catch whatever conversation was being had.

“Where is he?” Robin growled. He wasn’t even close to having his voice drop. That tone should not have physically been possible. Lord help him.

Evidently, the mobster was either too dumb or too arrogant to recognize the danger in front of him, because he responded: “I don’t have to tell you nothin’. What’re you gonna do, bat brat?”

Silence stretched ominously for more than a few moments.

Robin moved.

He tugged on the grapple, causing the man to sway in a manner that must have been terrifying, judging by the visual paling of his face. He was then dragged to look upwards at Robin. Robin couldn’t be more than four feet, but the position allowed him to tower over the grown man.

“Batman is the one with the no-kill rule,” Robin said, coldly, nonchalantly, as though it were not the most terrifying thing Gerald had ever heard a nine-year old utter.

And as if to prove that it could, in fact, get worse, Robin then allowed the grapple suspending the henchman to slacken for just a second, hurling the man another few feet down the building, before adding: “and he’s the only reason I stopped before. But I don’t see Batman around right now.”

Gerald would not have believed Robin had almost killed a man before five minutes ago. He did now.

Robin dragged the now-screaming criminal back up to his original position. “Where is he?”

The man choked out an unintelligible answer. Robin seemed to understand it, though, because he left he tied his grappling hook to the perimeter of the rooftop and left the man dangling. He sauntered towards the hatch inside the main building, the criminal sobbing to be let free behind him.

“You’ll be let free when I find him. Or you were lying, in which case this is a contingency.” Robin’s face curled up into a grin for the first time of the night. Never did Gerald think he had so many teeth. “You’d better hope you weren’t lying.”

He vanished into the innards of the apartment complex.

The reporter ceased running commentary minutes ago. She continued to stare… somewhere. The on-the-ground footage was more interesting, in any case.

Some faint part of Gerald manically acknowledged that this turn of events made sense. Gotham made sense now.

In his time serving the GCPD, Batman had proven his character. He would never willingly endanger a child.

So it made sense that his sidekick couldn’t be a child. Robin couldn’t be a child; he was a monster.

The news station was broadcasting a concerning number of explosions from the complex. Gerald wasn’t sure when those began. He had lost focus in his revelations on Gotham’s crime fighters. He might be ascending into a state of nirvana. He might be having a panic attack.

He worked with Robin before. He gave the kid a lollipop once.

The camera refocused on the entryway, where Robin was now coming out, dragging his mentor by the shoulders, covered in soot. The soot had presumably come from the explosions. Gerald did not know where the explosions came from. He didn’t think it wise to ask.

The top floors of the building suddenly buckled, and the microphones of the helicopter peaked out under the rumble of shattering glass and concrete. The man who had unceremoniously been tied to the rooftop began to fall with the fragmented post he was tied to.

Rummaging again through his utility belt, Robin flung another unidentifiable pellet at the bottom of the hostage’s trajectory. It burst into some kind of foam. When the hostage fell into it less than a second later, his screams were muffled, but he appeared relatively unharmed.

Absolute chaos unfolded in wake of the partial collapse. The remaining men inside the building poured out in the dozens, and those suspended by birdarangs tore their clothes and dislocated their joints in their struggle to get free. Robin didn’t acknowledge any of them. Instead, he tentatively brushed the Batman’s jaw.

He put something under Batman’s nose (smelling salts, Gerald would guess), and the Bat jolted upwards.

“Are you alright?” The fury that was etched into Robin’s skin dissolved into terror. He was shaking.

For the first time that night, Robin sounded all of his nine years and not a second older. “I can’t lose you too.” He trembled. His hand raised to shakily press against Batman’s cheek. “I can’t lose you too.”

Gerald needed to go home and hug his daughter.

Batman clearly received the same memo, because in the next instant his cape dramatically flared with the movement of picking up and cradling the boy to his chest. “You haven’t,” he cooed, “You won’t.”

“You can’t promise that, B.”

Batman put on a soft grin — something that should have looked uncanny on his face but somehow didn’t. “Maybe not the second part. But you have me now.”

Robin let out a broken, wet cackle that slowly bled back into his signature warm giggle. The darkness and grit his had amassed seemed to bleed with it.

This shook the newscaster out of her stupor. “It appears the hostage situation has been resolved. Robin has successfully retrieved the Batman, and the GCPD just announced that it is prepared for all necessary post-crisis response.”

As Gerald glanced around the crowded break room, amassing viewers of the news channel throughout the excitement, he could only think that the GCPD spokesman was speaking bullshit.

His communicator buzzed for the first time in what felt like ages. “All available men, report for clean up.” He could do that.

After an extra few days of consideration, Gerald decided not to transfer away from Gotham. The city had monsters, but at least they were on his side.

(And some part of him was comforted at the notion that his daughter could have protection, could have a role model, like Robin.)

#dick grayson #richard grayson #batman #batfamily #dcu #nightwing #batfam #dc comics #robin

98 notes · View notes

mymoodwriting · 1 month ago

Text

6.3k, yandere, angst, mental asylum setting, psychiatrist!reader, demotion, threats, verbal abuse, intimidation, restraints, straight jackets, pills, medication, shock collars, therapy sessions, manipulation, aggressive behavior, amnesia, paranoia, creepy behavior, unethical practices, experimentation, supernatural abilities, violence, implied potential deaths, anxiety, panic, electrocution, mind control, telekinesis, telepathy, prison break, manic behavior, kidnapping

A/N: Hello everyone! This is my piece for the collab event to celebrate @bella-feed reaching 100+ followers that's co-hosted by @sanaxo-o and @dokyumms. I hope you all enjoy and please let me know if I missed something in the tags.

“So, how did you end up here?”

That was still something you couldn’t quite believe yourself. Just last week you were working at a psychiatric hospital, and now you had been transferred to this place, Nix Asylum. It was a rather isolated location, but the company paid for your moving fees and three months living expenses. Of course this wasn’t really something you could debate, unless you wanted to lose your job. So you went along with it and today was your first day here. You put on a smile and arrived on time, being introduced to one of the staff members, Dr. Lyla Mendez, who would be showing you around.

She gave you a facilities tour, introducing you to other staff members and explaining how this place operated. Unlike the psychiatric hospital, all patients here were under strict care and not allowed to leave. They were rather special cases, and some were wards of the state that were entrusted to this institution. For such reasons the building had strict security measures and access to certain areas was off limits for a transfer like you. All of this you took note of, realizing it would take a while to get used to all the changes.

“You can stop pretending.”

“Uh, what?”

“We both know why you were transferred here, so there’s no need to be so polite.”

“I’m afraid I don’t-”

“Come on, don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Being transferred to Nix Asylum is a demotion.”

“Excuse me!”

“It’s true. You must have done something the company didn’t like, so they sent you here since they can’t just fire you.”

“That’s not-”

“I’m afraid that is the case. This place isn’t exactly nice, and the patients really like picking on the transfers. You were sent here as the company hopes you’ll quit on your own. Or suffer some minor trauma and have to resign. Or die. Either way, the company will take care of everything.”

“Are you joking?”

“No, not at all. The severance package is nice I assure you, but you should stick it out for as long as you can. The longer you stay, the more money you’ll walk away with. I think the current record is two months, for willingly quitting that is.”

“And if I don’t quit?”

“Well, there’s the chance you’ll suffer some minor trauma while on the job and have no choice but to quit. Whether it’s physical or mental just depends on the person. Don’t worry though, the company will happily pay your medical bills on top of the severance, so it’ll work out in the end either way. Even if you die the company will take care of the expenses.”

You scoffed. “The company isn’t gonna get rid of me that easily.”

“Well, there is always… that… option…”

“Which is what? I become a proper employee of this asylum?”

“Oh don’t be silly. It’s the opposite actually.”

“Huh?”

“Like I said, the patients here can be quite dangerous. You wouldn’t be the first transfer to suffer a major trauma by their hands and wind up a patient at this asylum. The company doesn’t mind that option either. We’ll take good care of you here if it comes to that.”

“What!?”

“Anyway, just cause this is your first day don’t think we’ll go easy on you. There’s a group session in the morning that you’ll be in charge of. Let me show you your desk and you can get the proper files so you can begin.”

Dr. Mendez just walked off, which meant the conversation was over. She had told you all this so nonchalantly you weren’t entirely sure if she was messing with you or not. Either way, you soon snapped out of your stunned state and followed after her. Regardless of what she said, you were here to do a job, and already had your first assignment. Your desk was a little cubicle in the corner of the main office. A bit of an upgrade from your last job, but you didn’t have a chance to settle in. You were handed a couple of files and then followed Dr. Mendez to the main area. She informed you that your ID was your access card and it would work to get you into the places you had clearance for.

“Here you are. I’ll be by later, so have fun, and good luck.”

You were left alone at the entrance to the therapy room. The door itself didn’t have a window and the panel on the door said there was an ongoing group session. You thought maybe another doctor was inside, but your name was the only one listed. If you were gonna leave and quit now would be the moment, but you weren’t gonna let the company win. You had worked hard for years, and maybe if you did well here you could get your old job back. You took a breath before scanning your ID and stepping inside. The silence of the hall was quickly broken by the sounds of chains and incoherent speech. You walked into a familiar yet foreign scene.

Most group sessions were conducted in the same manner. A certain number of patients were gathered in a semicircle to talk while the therapist was seated at the center. You could see your empty chair, as well as a small table next to it. Although the patients were something else. They were all in a straight jacket, some kind of security collar around their neck, ankles chained to the floor, and another restraint around their waist keeping them from standing up. All the chairs seemed to be metal and welded to the ground. Of course most of the patients were rowdy, trying to break out of their restraintS, seeming more animalistic in nature. Yet there were two who were sitting quietly, the two seated to your right. Thankfully no one really noticed your entrance, so you made it over to your seat and set down your files.

That’s when you realized your previous assumption wasn’t entirely correct. When you sat down you noticed the boy closest to you on your right was staring. His hair was white, and he had a friendly smile on his face, which made you a bit uneasy. The patient next to him was in fact sitting quietly, eyes closed and appearing to be asleep. You weren’t sure what to make of this so you looked through your files. Soon enough you had a name for the face, Hoshi, and the one next to him was Woozi. They actually seemed to be some sort of package deal as their files were combined under the name HoWoo and staff had nicknamed them the twins.

Since you were already looking through a file you glanced over the rest. That’s when you realized the files weren’t really all that detailed, just the bare minimum of information. It was just enough to let you know all the other patients present were aggressive and known to be uncooperative. It wasn’t all that surprising that this was your first task since your welcome wasn’t all that friendly and it was starting to become very clear that you were being set up for failure. Which also meant it was harder to deny the fact the company wanted you to quit, and that was honestly insulting above all else. If you quit and gave them what they wanted you’d surely find it difficult to work in such a field again. This was the career you had wanted to pursue and now you were on the brink of losing it all.

“I know you’re a transfer, which means you did something, supposedly, bad. So what was it?”

While wallowing in your own doubts Hoshi suddenly spoke up and snapped you out of it. He leaned in closer to you, as close as he could with his restraints. His questions sounded genuine and playful, but you knew it wasn’t a good idea to answer. You were never really supposed to talk about yourself, especially to a patient, yet for some reason you felt it was okay, and the words spilled out of your mouth.

“I… I tried to help a patient…”

“What?”

“They… they told me they were being held against their will… and constantly medicated so they couldn’t think clearly… maybe it was stupid, but I believed them… especially since they were a VVIP and you know… it seemed more plausible… so I started to help them… I lowered the dosage of their medication… I tried… I tried to help… but when my superiors found out I was suspended, and then transferred here…”

“You’re nice.”

“Huh?”

“It’s good that you tried. I’m sure they appreciated that.”

“I… I guess…”

“I’m Hoshi by the way, and this is my friend, Woozi. There’s no need to worry about the others, they just don’t like morning sessions.”

“Ah, okay… I suppose we’ll just focus on you then. How long have you been here?”

“No idea. I don’t remember, I was young though, very young.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I doubt I’ll get out at this point, but this place isn’t so bad.”

“Is that so? What makes you-”

A loud siren suddenly startled you, cutting you off. All the other patients screamed as well, but seemed to settle down afterwards. Moments later the door opened and a bunch of orderlies came in. They didn’t say anything but in groups of two or three unchained and dragged out the patients. It was only then that Woozi opened his eyes, but he didn’t look your way, he didn’t seem to care about anything. He merely stood up when he could and followed the orderlies out. Whereas Hoshi was the opposite. Once he was free he took a step towards you before the orderlies got in his way, warning him. He pouted but merely waved at you and walked out with his escort. You stayed put for a while, processing, when Dr. Mendez came to collect you.

“Come on now, your day has only just begun.”

She wasn’t kidding. You found more files on your desk and would be in charge of more group sessions. You knew this was another way to get you to quit. Exposing you to as many patients as they could and trying to overwhelm you. Sure they were restrained, but all it would take is one loose cuff and you’d be in trouble. You tried not to focus on that possibility, just doing your job and trying to help where you could. Although that was difficult. If the patients weren’t rowdy and uncooperative they were quiet and shy. So most of the time it felt like you were talking to a wall. That was your entire week, and by the end most of the patients did recognize you, they just didn’t respect you. That put you on edge a bit, but they were supposed to know you so it was technically a step in the right direction.

The only good patient you had was Hoshi, although things were a bit tricky with him. He’d talk, but he wouldn’t really answer your questions. Instead, he asked about your life and what you did outside of work. You shouldn’t discuss your private life with a patient but when Hoshi was around you felt oddly calm and that you could speak freely with him. You did try to talk with Woozi a few times, but you never got a response, not even some form of acknowledgment. He’d always just sit still and quietly with his eyes closed. Hoshi never commented or bothered Woozi either even though their file said the two were very close. You probably weren’t worthy of Woozi’s attention, at least not yet. Although it was difficult to try and build trust when Hoshi always pulled your attention towards him.

“Do you like it here?” Hoshi asked. “How is it compared to your old work place?”

“I… well… this place isn’t so bad, it’s just not what I expected.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got into this profession to help people, but I don’t really feel like I’m doing that anymore, at least not here.”

“Why do you say that? You’re helping me and Woozi.”

“We don’t have proper sessions. In fact, I don’t really have patients at this asylum, I just oversee most of the group sessions. Not to mention I feel like I’m in danger here…”

“There’s no need to be afraid.” Hoshi assured with a smile. “I promise no one is gonna hurt you.”

🤍🖤

You kinda got into your own routine with the group sessions, trying your best to make progress with anyone. Although to your own shock things got changed up for you. One day you came in and Dr. Mendez informed you that you would be having a session with HoWoo. If you ever got a patient, you thought it’d be someone more dangerous, or quiet, so to get the twins was rather surprising. You did have more of a stable relationship with Hoshi, so it made sense to a degree. At least now you could also try and break through to Woozi. Of course you still oversaw group sessions, but now you had a certain time allotted to your patients.

When that time came around you grabbed your files and notes, heading over to the room in question. You had a better understanding of the layout by now, but still needed to double check to make sure you were going the right way. Once you found the room you scanned your ID and stepped inside. As soon as you walked in, Hoshi jumped up from his seat. Your heart skipped a beat seeing him, realizing he wasn’t restrained to his chair here nor did he have a straight jacket. He had never been a danger towards you, but seeing him with more freedom was a cause for concern. Even though he still had the collar around his neck, it wasn’t reassuring. That is until you realized he was behind a glass panel. That detail put you at ease and you could enter without worry.

“Good morning, y/n. It’s so nice to see you!”

“Hoshi, we’ve been over this. You’re supposed to call me Dr.-”

“I prefer saying your name. Don’t you like it? Everyone else calls you by your title, but you get to hear your name from me! It rolls off the tongue nicely too.”

“Hoshi-”

“Y/n, y/n, y/n! Are you excited!? We’re your real patients now and we can talk one-on-one! This is gonna be so much fun! We don’t have to worry about others interrupting us and-”

“Hoshi, this isn’t a social hour.”

“Huh?”

Since you opened the door Hoshi had gotten up and walked up to the glass panel. He had his hands on it and was jumping around while talking excitedly. He was acting very childish, which he always was, but this was a different setting. He, they, really were your patients now, and you had a duty to treat them as such. Of course if Hoshi acts like this, and Woozi refuses to speak, they won’t be easy to help at all. Another reason why they were likely assigned to you. They were going to be a challenge, but you had no plans to give up on them. This was your first session, so you had to be professional and set proper boundaries.

“I know it was easy to steer conversations elsewhere when we were talking during group sessions, but this is different. It’s just us here, and I want us to have a proper doctor-patient relationship.”

“…”

“Let’s start over, shall we?” You sat down. “Kwon Hoshi and Lee Woozi, it’s nice to meet you, I’m doctor-”

“I thought you were nice.”

“Ho-”

“It’s Mr. Kwon!” Hoshi slammed his fist against the glass. “To you, doctor. Are you here to fix us? Wanna talk about our non-existent parents? Or our silly little diagnosis? What does that piece of paper tell you? Cause you don’t know shit!”

Hoshi slammed his hands against the glass, frustrated and growing angry because of your words. He was acting out, repeating his actions over and over again. You tried to keep your composure, but he was loud and imposing. This invisible pressure started coming down on you, making it a bit difficult to breathe. You were scared, and your body was frozen in place.

“Answer me!?” Hoshi yelled. “What!? Now you don’t wanna talk!? Say something!?”

“Hoshi.”

Your gaze slowly shifted over to the person that had just spoken. You honestly weren’t sure if you had heard correctly, but judging by Hoshi’s reaction, you had. The boy seemed to calm down and took a breath, then went back over to his chair, slumping down and crossing his arms. He was pouting and looking off towards the wall, not wanting to look at you.

“I wasn’t gonna hurt her.” Hoshi mumbled. “I wouldn’t do that to her.”

“Hoshi.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Good.” Woozi opened his eyes, for the first time in days meeting your gaze. “You said you want to help us, do you mean that?”

As soon as Woozi spoke you felt the pressure on you disappear, but you were still rather in shock to hear him speak. Then his words, his gaze, were directed at you, making you nervous for a moment before a sense of ease washed over you.

“Yes, I do.”

“Where do you wanna start?”

“Oh, um…” You scrambled to grab your notes, having prepared an outline of talking points for this. “Your file unfortunately doesn’t have the finer details, but it does mention that you were troublemakers before being admitted here. I thought we could start there. What kind of trouble gets you into an asylum?”

Woozi seemed intrigued by your question, but he had no intention to answer. He looked towards Hoshi, who seemed to sense his gaze and sighed. Hoshi was still a bit upset, but did as he was asked anyway.

“I’m not really sure how we lost our parents, but we were orphans on the street.” Hoshi explained. “We stole and fought to survive. Although we were eventually caught by local authorities and sent to an orphanage.”

“You both managed on the streets at such a young age, but surely the orphanage was a nice change. You had a proper roof over your heads, a bed, and warm meals.”

“I guess but we were used to the streets, we were used to being free, so we ran off all the time.”

“You left the safety and comfort of the orphanage?”

“Those places aren’t exactly nice. Although they kept catching us over and over again. That is until we were labeled delinquents and sent somewhere for rehabilitation.”

“So this isn’t your first time in therapy. My assumption though, given your track record, you didn’t behave there either.”

“Nope. It was more difficult to break out, but we still managed it.”

“The orphanage and the other institution were both meant to help you. Why did you run from those places? Why did you reject them?”

“Why do you keep assuming they all had good intentions? If we didn’t act how they wanted at the orphanage we’d get punished, and that other place kept us locked up. Who we were wasn’t wanted by anyone. All they ever did was try to change us so we’d be ‘normal’ and ‘fit in’ with the world. I’d rather be myself than be told who to be.”

“Despite everything, your initial upbringing on the streets is a defining factor in who you grew up to. All you had was each other, and you lived how you wanted, how you could, and that was enough. Even now you still seem to live how you want, but because of that you haven’t really allowed yourself to grow.”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t have what most people had in their childhood. Parents, a home, etc. so it’s understandable you’d be against any sort of semblance to those things. You didn’t want to want those things, so you always ran from them. Yes, I understand the places you did grow up in aren’t some kind of paradise, but it’s okay to want what you should have had.”

“And what exactly would that be?”

“A proper home, someone to care about you and look after you, warm meals, a safe and comfortable place to sleep. It was never wrong for you to want that, even now it’s not wrong. It doesn’t just have to be the two of you against the world, constantly fighting for a place to call your own. You might not like the way some things work, but it’s not all bad, I promise.”

Hoshi scoffed. “You say all that, yet you’re forgetting where we are.”

“Then tell me, how is that you wound up here? So far from the world.”

“Well, you cause trouble one too many times as a young adult and people get pissy. Not sure how it all works, but we wound up being transferred to Nix Asylum before we became legal adults, and now this place won’t let us leave. We’ve been good.” Hoshi assured with a smile. “I guess just not good enough to release back into the world. Although that’s why you’re here, right? To make sure we’re sane enough to return to normal society. Are you gonna help us break out of this cage?”

“… you’ve never actually escaped this place, have you?”

“Nope. Security is really tight here, not to mention…” Hoshi tugged on his collar. “They got us trapped like animals.”

“That seems rather excessive. I’ve never understood the purpose of the collar. I wasn’t given any-”

“As a transfer they wouldn’t tell you anything.” Woozi cut in. “After all, you’re not meant to last.”

“I don’t intend to leave anytime soon.”

“Promise?”

Just then another siren went off, signalling your time was up. The two boys got up and offered a polite bow before walking over to the door. You hadn’t noticed until now but there were two straight jackets hanging on a hook by the exit. They each put it on and stood facing the wall. When the orderlies entered they immediately buckled the restraints and then escorted them out. You knew many of the other patients here wouldn’t be so cooperative, so clearly the two understood they had to behave in order to have certain privileges. After a moment you got your things and left the room, noting it was lunch time.

You were polite and professional with the other doctors, but hadn’t really made any friends. It was to be expected since everyone, including the patients, didn’t expect a transfer to be here long. Although, despite what everyone says, you haven’t faced any major difficulties. Yes the patients were a challenge to work with, but that was going to be the case wherever you went. All the stories you had been told about patients picking on transfers and you possibly suffering some kind of trauma seemed to be nothing but baseless rumors. When you first arrived you were scared, but none of the patients had ever done anything to make you feel that your life was in danger. Perhaps they liked you enough not to trouble you.

“So, I heard you had a session with the twins, how did it go?”

“It was fine, just a few difficulties getting started but-”

“Wait, they actually talked to you?”

“Yeah, although Hoshi did most of the talking.”

“That’s… wait, you mean even Woozi talked to you?”

“He only said a few words, why?”

“They’ve never actually talked to a doctor one-on-one before, they rarely speak in group sessions too. I mean, Hoshi talks nonsense, and I’ve never heard Woozi talk, I thought he was mute.”

“Oh, well I guess I’m just that good.”

“Yeah right, what did they tell you? Some kind of sob story about being falsely sent to an institution for help? Did they tell you they’re being held against their will and trapped here?”

“Uh…”

“Gosh, I guess they know you’re gullible, that’s why they talked.”

“That’s not-”

“Don’t believe them so easily. Hoshi’s smile hides his manipulation, and Woozi just existing is a danger. You don’t have all the details, but those two are in here for a reason, and they’re allowed to remain together for a reason too.”

It was frustrating that your file on them was missing important details. You were sure if you asked for their real files you’d be denied since your supervisors didn’t take you seriously. Although if you do manage to make some progress with HoWoo, maybe you can prove them wrong. You continued to have sessions with the two, but despite how things went the first time, they weren’t eager to cooperate. Hoshi kept wanting to chat about your life and Woozi was quietly in his seat, eyes shut like usual. For the sake of gaining trust you’d answer Hoshi, but didn’t give too many details. You gave vague statements about your upbringing and only mentioned a few places you had been to in your life.

“I’d love for you to show me all those places someday.” Hoshi stated. “I want to know the places that are special to you.”

“Your goal should be to go to such places to make your own memories.”

“Hm, maybe one day, when we get out of here.”

“That’s a good mindset to have. Now, we’ve talked enough about me, so what about you?”

“Our life is no fun compared to yours.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You get to come and go as you please, and you’re ignorant to the real world around you.”

“Such a statement may be true, but it’s not fair for you to assume I’d continue to ignore the situation if I discovered the truth.”

“You mean that?” Woozi opened his eyes, staring at you. “You’d do something if you knew what was really going on?”

“I’d surely want to find a way to help. That’s why I am where I am today.”

“Let’s test that.”

“Hm?”

The siren went off and your session ended. Your mind lingered on Woozi’s words, wondering what he meant. Before heading out you looked over your notes, not feeling like any progress was being made. Then you noticed something odd at the bottom of the page. There were directions that lead to a restricted area, along with a passcode and time. This was written in your hand writing but you didn’t recall every writing such a thing. You had no explanation, yet something in the back of your mind was telling you that you had to follow these instructions. So you did. Curfew was at ten. After that all staff and patients were expected to be in their rooms. Anyone caught roaming the halls would face serious consequences.

Despite knowing all that, around eleven you snuck out of your room, making your way to the restricted area in your notes. Your heart was pounding in your chest and yet you kept moving. You avoided the guards and managed to navigate through the camera’s blind spots. It felt like you were very lucky to make it to your destination. Unlike the other doors, this one had a digital keypad, and would only open if the right code was put in. This was where you either made it or got screwed. You had the note in your pocket and entered in the code written. To your relief the door unlocked and you stepped through. Now you were on your own, having no idea what to do or where to go. Then you heard screaming.

In most situations you’d want to go in the opposite direction, but something about that scream felt familiar. So you followed that dreadful sound as it got louder and louder. The halls were a blank creamy color, and the place felt strangely sterile. As you continued to walk one of the walls had a glass panel and when you stepped to see what was on the other side your eyes went wide. Down below you could see some sort of lab. A test subject was strapped down to a chair, multiple electrodes attached to their head and chest. All kinds of machines surrounded them, and you noticed some rather big and heavy objects in the room as well. Although your greatest concern was seeing Hoshi being treated like a lab rat.

He seemed somewhat out of it, clearly exhausted, but he wasn’t given a chance to rest. His collar suddenly flashed a blue color and he screamed as an electric shock was sent through his body. You didn’t understand what it meant, but he did. Hoshi shook his head and took a moment before shifting his focus, then you noticed the other objects in the room begin to levitate. You took a half step back in shock, finding it hard to believe this was Hoshi’s doing. Yet the boy screamed and the objects in question were torn to pieces. You covered your mouth as you yelled, starting to wonder if this was the real world Hoshi had mentioned before. That this was the kind of thing that made his life no fun.

No wonder this place was so secretive and dangerous. The patients here were being used as test subjects for who knows what. Even if they seemed to be contained, you were constantly exposed to them and unaware of the real danger they posed. Now it made sense why the company sent people here when they wanted to get rid of someone. Regardless of the outcome, the company wins. A part of you was telling you to run, to get out of here before you’re caught and to submit your resignation in the morning, but you knew you couldn’t just leave now. This was wrong, it was unethical, and it wasn’t right to just leave. You had to do something, but you had no idea what.

“You won’t run?”

You suddenly heard a voice and quickly turned around, although you didn’t see anyone. You were alone, then you looked back down at the lab when you heard Hoshi scream again. You placed your hand on the glass, trying to think of your next move. Then you realized you weren’t the only one watching. There were other glass panels that allowed one to view the lab. Across the way you saw people in lab coats watching and taking notes, then you locked eyes with someone. Standing among the doctors was Woozi and he was staring right at you. There was no way to know how long he had been staring, but you had a feeling it was the whole time. You were starting to feel incredibly nervous and then you heard Hoshi laugh. When you looked back down to him you realized he was staring at you too with a big smile on his face.

“Hello!”

Now you were starting to panic as Hoshi was drawing attention to you. Although before you had a chance to run you noticed all the debris in his room started to fly around and break things. Hoshi was laughing maniacally, the machines in the room getting broken, and he actually managed to break free from his restraints. Sirens started blaring and red lights were flashing.

“Come to me.”

You heard a voice again despite being alone, and then your legs started moving on their own. You couldn’t stop yourself and your gaze shifted to Woozi. He was alone now but still watching you, a sinister smile on his face. It sent chills down your spine, but you couldn’t do anything to stop yourself. You made your way down the hall, the two boys disappearing from view, but you could still hear the chaos Hoshi was causing. You rounded a few corners and then found yourself standing before Woozi. A handful of people were curled up on the ground, holding their heads and groaning in pain.

“Woozi… are you… doing this…?”

“Help me get the collar off.” Woozi’s voice was in your head. “Please.”

Once again your body moved on its own and you stepped closer to Woozi. You walked behind him and examined the collar for a moment before reaching over to unlatch it. Yet when you tried to remove it an electric shock went off, affecting you and Woozi. You yelled and stepped back, and he fell to his knees.

“I said get it off!”

You didn’t want to get hurt, but Woozi’s voice wasn’t just in your head. He was taking control and making you do things you wouldn’t. So you grabbed the collar again, holding it tightly and pushing through the pain until it came off. You collapsed to the floor afterwards, shaking a bit.You were trying to process when you suddenly felt a hand on your head, looking up to see Woozi petting you, his hand moving to caress your cheek.

“Let’s go get Hoshi.”

“I… I…”

“Sh, you don’t need to be afraid, just relax, no one’s going to hurt you.”

Woozi held his hand out to you and helped you to your feet. Even if you didn’t want to, you followed behind him. He walked with confidence, unafraid of his surroundings. Anyone who got close merely collapsed to the ground screaming and grabbing their head. The guards didn’t have a chance to use their weapons. Woozi just walked past everyone, and you did too. You should be freaking out, but it felt like there was some kind of fog in your mind preventing you from thinking clearly. Before you knew it you came across a different type of mess. Staff and guards and other personnel were strewn about the ground, some with random debris embedded in them, and others lying in pools of blood. You weren’t sure if anyone was alive.

“Having fun?”

You turned down a hall to see Hoshi throwing some people around, laughing and clearly enjoying himself. When he turned around and saw you and Woozi his eyes lit up. He ran over and embraced Woozi in a hug. You could see that he had removed his collar as well. Neither was inhibited anymore. You wanted to run, but your body wasn’t listening to you anymore. The only thing you still had control over was your voice. It wasn’t really smart to talk but you had all kinds of questions.

“… why… why are you doing this…?” You mumbled. “All this time… with your power… you could’ve escaped… why didn’t you…?”

“We didn’t always have powers.” Hoshi stated. “Not until they brought us here and started using us as test subjects. It was weird at first, but these people weren’t gonna let us get away so easily.”

“But you just… broke out…”

“Yeah, they thought they had us under control, but those collars didn’t completely block our powers, not when they’ve become so strong. Besides, we never really had a plan for breaking out, or a reason. This place was fun in its own ways.”

“Then… then why now…?”

“Like you said, it’s okay to want things we were meant to have. A home, someone to love us. I guess that finally made us realize we do want change, so thanks for that.”

Hoshi walked closer to you, taking your hand in his, and then Woozi did the same on the opposite side. You stared at both of them, not sure what this meant.

“You encouraged us to want more.” Hoshi said. “So let’s get out of here together.”

The two started walking, bringing you along. You were trying to figure out your part in all this, but the more you tried to think, the thicker the fog got. The two used their powers together, rendering the three of you untouchable. It wasn’t long before you left the restricted area, making it into the main building. The alarms soon started blaring, but you were certain there was no stopping them now. You made it to the main entrance and effortlessly walked out. The sun was peeking over the horizon, and you unwillingly led them to your car. That’s when you stopped. For the first time trying to actually fight back.

“… no… no, we can’t… you two… it’s dangerous…”

“We just walked out of that hellish place with ease.” Hoshi reminded. “The rest of the world won’t be a problem.”

“… but… no… the two of you…”

“Sh, sh, sh…” Woozi took your head in his hands, having you meet his gaze. “There’s no need to worry. We have you to keep us on the right path. Besides, you can’t fight me. I’ve been in your head since the day we met, and we’ve kept you safe the whole time.”

“… huh…?”

“No need to worry about the finer details. Why don’t you just take us home now, okay?”

“… home…”

“Yeah, I wanna see where you live.” Hoshi said excitedly. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Hoshi brought you over to the driver’s side, and to your own surprise you had your keys in your pocket. You unlocked the car and got into the driver’s seat. Hoshi sat in the back and Woozi took shotgun. You started the engine, but that was as far as you wanted to go.

“Drive.” Woozi stated. “Safely, of course.��

“… I…”

“Don’t cause trouble now. It won’t last anyway. We’re really gonna get to know each other soon enough. So let’s go home.”

“…let’s… let’s go home…”

You probably shouldn’t drive in such a state, but it’s not like anything bad would happen. Not as long as they were around. Not as long as they were in control. As you pulled out of the lot and drove away from the asylum you felt that fog in your mind growing and slowly consuming you whole. You felt yourself slipping into the void. When you looked in the rear view mirror you could see Hoshi smiling brightly, sticking his head out the window and screaming gleefully. Woozi also had the window down, merely staring out at the horizon and basking in the sun. They were free, whereas you were the one trapped now. You had no idea what came next, and you’d have no say in the matter either. You could only hope they’d be kind.

85 notes · View notes

woradat · 23 hours ago

Note

For the ask, can I have IDW Prowl please? Maybe with with forced proximity that ended up with always thinking of the others/each others once they're apart? Hopefully it's clear enough, also love your works btw!!!

Loosen Close

SUMMARY – two cop in operation, with tension that no knife can cut through (pre-war)

PAIRING – prowl x reader

NOTE – that's clear enough, hope this one works for you! I spent quite a bit of time writing that scene, so I apologize if the rest of the writing looks bad (maybe not that bad, but still?)

⚠️ SUGGESTIVE THEME UNDER CUT ⚠️

The door hisses open with a sad wheeze. Inside: silence. Heavy. Uncomfortably well-organized silence. This is not a precinct that looks lived-in

No clutter. No discarded datachips. Not even a dent in the walls. Just a workspace arranged with such neurotic precision that it feels more like an altar than an office. One datapad lies exactly 1.75 inches from the edge of the table. You know because you’re already planning to move it—just to see if he twitches

And then you see him. Standing with his back to the door, arms folded, optic glow reflected in the screen of the crime log interface. He doesn’t turn. He doesn’t greet you. Just simply say “You’re not Firstline”

Wow. Not even a hello?

“Observant” you answer, stepping inside like the floor might eat you “Firstline’s gone. Probably somewhere quieter. Like a burning scrapyard

A pause. A long, very precise pause

Then, slowly, too slowly, he turns. Takes one look at you like he’s scanning for structural flaws. You feel like an appliance he didn’t ask for but has to keep under warranty

“They assigned you”

You nod “They did”

“They know about your incident log”

“…Which one?”

“Stairwell collapse. Shot your own knee once during a ricochet misfire. Electrocuted yourself with a.. malfunction machine?”

“Okay, I feel like you’re cherry-picking the wrong highlights from my résumé” you mutter, stepping around a chair that’s somehow too centered to trust

“Statistically, your continued survival defies several probability models. I’m still reviewing for system error”

“Thank you. I think”

He picks up a datapad and hands it to you without eye contact “Three targeted break-ins at energy redistribution depots. Each two cycles apart. Entry logs spoofed. Surveillance corrupted. Item targets: high-grade cognitive chips. Not replaceable. Not traceable”

You glance at the file, flipping through logs “This smells like an inside job”

“Good. That’s what I wrote in the report you’re holding”

“…Oh. Right. Just testing you. Team-building?”

He doesn’t blink. You're not sure he can blink

They say his last partner quit mid-patrol Didn’t even finish the field report. Left a half-full energon cube on the console and walked out with that look—the one bots get when their processor hits the force shutdown limit for social stress “Said he’d rather transfer to the sewage grid patrol than work another cycle with that code-crusher” someone whispered earlier “Tried reformatting his own emotion chip to feel less rage. Didn’t work” And now it’s your turn. Because the universe? The universe thinks it’s funny

The second you step inside, your sensors protest

The place smells like ion dust and old machinery—coated in the greasy kind of silence that only exists in buildings where something went wrong slowly and nobody noticed. Prowl is already a step ahead

Typical. He doesn’t need to speak to issue commands, he just is one. Every footstep is calculated. Every movement filtered through about six levels of tactical foresight. You? You're doing fine—aside from almost tripping on a panel hinge five clicks back. You only caught yourself because he reached back without looking and yanked you upright by the elbow

You didn’t say thank you

He didn’t expect you to

Now you’re moving in formation, side by side in a corridor not wide enough for side-by-side. His shoulder brushes yours every other step. You try not to think about it

“Stay alert” he murmurs “I just picked up a weak pulse two segments to the west"

“…someone still here?”

“Or came back”

He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t have to. You both hear it. A footfall. Then another. Close—too close

Before your next breath, his hand snaps out and grabs your wrist. Hard. And without warning—Your chestplate hits the wall of the maintenance recess with a muted clang

Cold metal. Uneven. Narrow

You barely have time to blink before he's pressed in after you—no room, no pause, no buffer. Just hard armor against softer plating, his pelvis plating, locked behind yours, angles slightly forward every time he shifts to adjust footing. Each movement earns you the press of his abdominal plate against the lower arc of your back, and the sharp, seamless motion of a mech who never improvises—unless he absolutely has to

His hand slams against the wall beside your head. The force of it sends a small shudder through the panel behind you. Not aggressive—just final. Like punctuation. Like a closing gate

“Stay still” Prowl breathes into the narrow air between you

You try

You don’t trust yourself to breathe

But he's pressed in so tightly that every micron of movement feels amplified. Your shoulders are squared against the curve of the wall; his chestplate flattens against your back, firm and unmoving. You can feel the subtle pattern of his armor ridges brushing yours—contours slotting into place by accident… or fate. His left thigh slots between yours, almost casually—but the angle is wrong. There's no space for him to plant his stance properly, so his hip drives into your lower side with each shift of balance, forcing you closer to the wall than you thought possible. To the point that you almost kiss it

And worse still. Your hands are nowhere to go. Trapped at your sides. Pressed between your frame and the wall

And he hasn't moved. Not really. Just that slight lean forward when someone stepped too close outside and when he did that his chest curves over yours —and in doing so, your backplate presses snugly into the softer seam below his collar struts. Just that tense press of his midsection into the small of your back when your balance faltered again —The corridor outside crackles with approaching noise. Footsteps—slow, dragging. Too close. Whoever it is, they stop only inches beyond the alcove’s divider

“..They’re scanning” he mutters, voice pitched so low it sounds like it belongs inside your processor. Prowl’s mouth is beside your audio receiver now, close enough that the movement of his lips stirs the faintest shift of air

His voice cracks at the edge—just faintly as his hand is shaking slightly. Not out of fear. But out of control because now you’re both aware of everything

Of the way your back curves into him. Of the way his abdominal plate locks against the arch of your lower plating. Of the brushed heat of his sparkpulse syncing too close to yours. You shift—accidentally—and that small adjustment causes his torso to slide down just slightly, armor grinding slow over the base of your back

You hear it..He hears it

His other hand comes up, quick, firm, and lands on your waist—not gently. Not by accident. He doesn’t move it

“Don’t do that again” he hisses under his breath. It should sound commanding. It doesn’t. It sounds shaken. You try to retort. You do. You even open your mouth

Now you’re no longer just pressed against the wall. You’re bracketed. Encased. Enclosed. Caging. Pinned

Your voice falters before it makes it past your lips. But finally it came

“You’re crushing my hip actuator..”

“You shifted into it”

You swallow

His hand at your waist. No— now just below it. Palm splayed over your hip bracket, digit angled forward where armor meets the side of your abdominal plate. Not quite suggestive. Not quite innocent. And his thumb? It moves. Brush slowly, tracing the ridge just above the joint of your hip. Hard to tell whether it was intentional or an accident when he only did it once

Your field flares—just slightly, but enough that you know he feels it. He doesn’t comment. But his own field? It hums. Subtle. Coiled

“They’re gone, we're clear” he says at last. But he doesn’t step back. You can feel the restraint in him. The way every servo is holding position by willpower alone. His head lowers beside yours, lips dangerously close to the edge of your head

Your vocalizer stutters back online “..You can move now?”

“I know”

—

You sit at your terminal with a energon cube, pretending to go over surveillance logs. The lights above buzz quietly

The precinct’s unusually still. You should be feeling good. You cracked the case. You made a clean arrest. No injuries. No screw-ups. Not even a misfiled datapad this time. And yet—Your field still stutters every time your thoughts drift back there. Back to that narrow alcove. Back to his servo on your hip. Back to his frame pressed into yours like you were two puzzle pieces force-fit into one impossible frame. You groan quietly and bury your face in your hands

“I need to reboot my processor” you mutter to yourself “or smash it”

Because no matter how many times you try to drag your thoughts back to something else— they always slide back to him. The way his voice dropped.The weight of his chest plating against your back. The way he didn’t move until he decided to. You’re not even sure if you hated it. In fact, you’re very sure you didn’t. And that’s the problem

Meanwhile

Prowl stands at the end of the hallway, looking out the half-shuttered window

He’s not watching the traffic patterns. Not analyzing flight formations or reading case reports. He’s trying to process the fact that his body still remembers the exact angle of yours. And worse—likes it

He can still feel the curve of your back pressed to his chest. Still feel how snug your waist fit under his hand. Still remember the exact point of contact where your hip bracket slotted just slightly over his. Every time he blinks, the sensory map reloads like a damn glitch. He hasn’t been this distracted since training academy

“Unacceptable” he mutters under his breath

But he hasn’t filed a complaint. He hasn’t asked for reassignment. He hasn’t even deleted the sensor log from that sector of the depot. He tells himself it’s for protocol. Evidence integrity. Audit trail. But he’s lying. And he knows it

—

The next day, the paperwork and the results of the mission were all done, everything was done yesterday, which is expected when you work with regulations that have legs and a conscience, but you just got a message

Incoming message: Prowl

“If your balance actuator is still unstable, I can submit a requisition for maintenance diagnostics”

You blink at it. Then snort. Then immediately slam your hand on the desk and bury your face in your hands again “HE REMEMBERS”

And suddenly your core is on fire all over again

#transformers #transformers idw #transformers x y/n #transformers x reader #transformers x cybertronian reader #prowl x reader #reader insert #cybertronian reader

59 notes · View notes

nepalenergyforum · 2 years ago

Text

Mathillo Mailun Khola To Issue 12,84,200 Unit IPO Shares from 18th Ashwin

Mathillo Mailun Khola Jalvidhyut Limited will be issuing its 12,84,200 unit IPO shares from 18th Ashwin, 2080. The early closing date of this issue is on the 22nd Ashwin and if the issue is not fully subscribed, it can be extended up to the 2nd Kartik, 2080. Earlier, the company had issued 10,00,000 unit shares to the project-affected locals of Rasuwa and Nuwakot District out of which only…

View On WordPress

#Build #CARE Ratings Nepal Limited #CARE-NP BB #CRNL #Mathillo Mailun Khola Jalvidhyut Limited #Nuwakot #Operate and Transfer #Own #Rasuwa #Sanima Capital #Sanima Hydro group

0 notes

arc-misadventures · 1 year ago

Text

Artificial Romance

Jaune: Penny... We... Well, I have a problem... a very serious problem...

Penny: What sort of problem do you have?

Jaune: Since joining the, Atlas AI Corp, General Ironwood assigned me to the Rouge AI Containment Division.

Penny: Yes the, RAICD group. I believe the, General assigned you to, RAICD because your massive aura reserves, and your semblance can be used to bolster your aura so you can handle any rouge AI attacks when you're plugged in. Is there something wrong with your aura when you're plugged in?

Jaune: No, I'm doing find, my aura is dealing with the feed back, and I don't usually have to recharge my aura. However, because of this, General Ironwood decided that I would be of better use if I was to be assigned to deal with the: Strategic Attack Logistic Engine Mainframe.

Penny: The Strategic Attack Log…?! SALEM?! That Anti-Grimm AI, Professor Ozmins made that went rouge because of how he treated it?! That lead him into a feedback loop that eventually killed him?! That managed to break away from the Atlas Grid, and managed to transfer itself to a, Atlas Research Lab deep in the Valian mountain range, and started a building an AI army to protect itself?! And, has started hunting down, Ozmins reincarnated soul because he has been trying to kill this AI?!

Jaune: Yeah.. that AI...

Penny: Why would the, General do that?!

Jaune: Because, SALEM has attacked several, Atlas facilities, and have stolen, Atlas tech from weapons to robot schematics. SALEM has become so sophisticated that it now has an artificial AI body that has aura mimicking abilities. Salem is a security risk to the whole world!

Jaune: Or, at least she could be...

Penny: She? SALEM has a self identified gender?

Jaune: Since she's was the first AI, and has started an army of semi-killer robots; Salem calls herself, The Mother of AI.

Penny: Okay... that's new information, and is a logically sound explanation. Is that the reason why your telling me you have a problem?

Jaune: No... You see, at first when I was trying to get into her systems she detected me almost imminently, and attacked me. I activated my aura as soon as she struck, because she hits hard! Seriously, I had a headache for days after that. But, as a side effect of me using my aura to protect myself, it also bled off of me, and into, SALEM's artificial aura generator.

Penny: What? But, you’ve tried doing that when jacked with other operators, you aura never bleeds of to others, and bolsters their aura. Not to mention you did this to an artificial aura generator; What’s going on, Jaune?

Jaune: I don’t know, my best theory is that because she was talking me when I boosted my aura it melded with hers, thus supplementing, and boosting her artificial aura with my own.

Penny: Hmm… That’s a logical hypothesis. Has anything else happened.

Jaune: Yeah... I think that my aura has effected her... in a manner of speaking.

Penny: What manner?

Jaune: Salem has become rather friendly towards me… I dare say one could consider her behaviour towards me as, affectionate.

Penny: Affectionate? It’s being ‘nice’ to you…?

Jaune: It seems so. At least she’s that way with me... Salem will still attack others that try to enter her domain, or attempt to attack her. But, after our first encounter I tried to enter her programming again, and several attempts after that where I faced the same results: Her attacking me, and the activating of my semblance, and my aura bleeding off, and being absorbed by her. Eventually, instead of attacking me, Salem seemingly welcome me into her domain with open arms. Like welcoming a close friend in your home. And, after a while... I received a message on my scroll, from, Salem.

Penny: It sent you its scroll number? No wait, it has a scroll?! No stop that, what did it say? Waitwaitwait! How did she get your scroll number?!

Jaune: She followed my entry point from where I jacked in, and entered the systems to hack my information.

Penny: The, ‘Locked Gate Protocol.’ You were the reason why we have that protocol now, aren’t you?

Jaune: Yes, but it makes logical sense to have such security measures. Salem, or any other rouge AI were unable to sneak in that way because either the operative, and the AI were locked in combat, or the operatives brain was fried severing the connection.

Penny: True, leaving the front door unlocked as you leave the house is a foolish mistake to make. But, what anout, SALEM, what did it want to talk about?

Jaune: She simply said, ‘hello’ at first. But, after a while we started chatting. It was about simple things at first, music was the main subject for a while; Salem was a love for classical, and orchestral music.l, and is fascinated with, Vaccuoin dessert stonework so much so, she has based her current robotic form around some of their ancient statues, particularly those from the Stllyian Ear.

Penny: How do you know what she looks like? We haven’t gotten close to her base to confirm if she’s even there, let alone what she actually looks like.

Jaune: Salem’s been sending me photos of her latest projects: be it her own attempts at creating art, or sending me images of her robot forms. She tends to update, or redesign her form constantly, ahead of rather picky with her appearance so it seems.

Penny: And, What does she look like?

Jaune: Like this…

Jaune: At least for now. Like most woman she’s picky about her choice in fashion.

Penny: I see… But, there is one thing I don’t understand, Jaune. Why is, SALEM doing all of this? Why is it talking to you, and befriending you instead of trying to, you know… Kill you?

Jaune: Have you read the reports os how, SALEM’s AI went rouge?

Penny: Of course, the reports are standard reading for all new members of the, Atlas AI Corp.

Jaune: Have you seen the videos about those ‘reports?’

Penny: Video? What video! All information, bar what Ozkin has divulged was lost when, SALEM went rou… Unless… unless, SALEM kept a copy…

Jaune: Several copies… Ozmin’s report said he put it through, ‘several high lever stress tests’ in order to, ‘test the AI’s endurance levels.’ The way he worded it made it sound like he was withholding a child’s meal…

Penny: It wasn’t like that, was it?

Jaune: Worse… Much worse than that… These ‘high level stress tests,’ he would run, were akin to severing a leg from a person by brute force, and testing it to see how well it could run.

Penny: Oh gods…

Jaune: If his tests were done on a human, or faunas, Ozmin would be labeled a psychopath, and locked away for inhumane human experimentation. But, because, Salem was an AI he got away with it. Honestly, I’m tempted to let, Salem know where, Ozkin is so she can exact her revenge on the bastard.

Penny: But, why is it so… so kind to you?

Jaune: Because I was kind to her.

Penny: What?

Jaune: You know how I operate; I don’t come in, and go on the offensive when I first arrive. I circle the program, poke, and prod the rouge AI’s matrix looking for a chink I can exploit. And, when I find that chink, I attack, make it worse, pull away, and repeat the process somewhere else until I’ve destroyed the rouge AI’s matrix.

Penny: I believe that’s how you earned the moniker of, The Shark of the Matrix.

Jaune: Correct. This is what I did with, Salem. Salem used to go on the offensive as soon as I entered her domain. But, she eventually stopped attacking me after my, Semblance bled off into her enough times where she would just watch me as I circled her. Eventually, Salem asked me who I was, and we established a dialogue. And, as I mentioned we just talked about random things, and just had some fun hanging around one another.

Penny: Are you lulling her into a false sense of security before you attack her?

Jaune: I have no intention of attacking her.

Penny: You don’t?! But, why?

Jaune: I don’t want to.

Penny: But… why?

Jaune: Salem… Salem is like an abused dog…

Penny: An abused dog?

Jaune: Yes, an abused dog; Is a dog is abused, and mistreated by it’s owner, the dog will become violent, and dangerous. It’s a defence mechanism, hurt them before they hurt you as the saying goes. Now the best way to break a dog of this habit, without killing the dog!

Penny: I wasn’t going to say it!

Jaune: The best way to break the dog of this habit is to show it love, and compassion. It will bite you, but eventually it will stop, and want to comfort you, and be loved. It will take time, but it can be done.

Penny: And, that’s what you’ve done with, SALEM?

Jaune: Not deliberately, but that is what eventually happened. I’m hoping to explain this to, General Ironwood, and I hope we can come to a truce of sorts with, Salem. But… Ozkin has been whispering into his ears for too long, and the, General suffers from a sense of parinoia… I doubt I could say would change anything… But… There is one more problem that I am unsure what to say…

Penny: What is it?

Jaune: Salem… likes me…

Penny: It likes you...?

Jaune: ...

Jaune: Penny… there's a rouge AI that has a crush on me...

Penny: …?!

Penny: The fuck...?

Jaune: Yeah...

Penny: How do you feel about all of... this?

Jaune: ...

Jaune: I’m not sure if I love her… But, I do know that I care for, Salem. And, I want her to know what it feels like to be loved, to hopefully help her forget all the pain, Ozmin inflicted on her.

Penny: Jaune, I don't know where, or how you should take all of... this! I’m an android who’s only a few years old, so I don’t really understand love, and romance. But, if anything is going to happen, whether you develop a romance with an evil AI that wants to kill everyone in the world. I just want to tell you this one thing…

Jaune: And, that is?

Penny: 'Do not fist android girls.'

Jaune: ...

Penny: …

Jaune: But... what about my aura?

Penny: …?!

Penny:

OH MY GODS?!!

#rwby #jaune arc #penny polendina #james ironwood #rwby ozpin #rwby salem #salem x jaune #jaune x salem #rwby grimmknight

296 notes · View notes

potatomountain · 1 year ago

Text

"Case: It's You" - 1

Chapter One

📍pairing: detective ateez ot8 x detective reader

📍Rating:

📍word count: 3.4k

📍network: @pirateeznet

📍Warnings: language and sexual innuendos

📍Beta readers (and sole motivation): @flurrys-creativity , @candypop1611 and @daesukiii

masterlist | Next

It was entirely too early, and too gloomy of a day, for your phone to be ringing for the near dozenth time in the last five minutes. After the hour trek, in the rain and a packed subway as well, you finally relented and picked up the call. “What is so important you have to call me twelve times, Ji?”

“Jeez it wasn’t that much-”

“No, that’s just the last five minutes. Heaven forbid I count the calls on the subway in the last thirty minutes. Spit it out.” Hissing, you held the phone closer, dodging one of the many men in suits rushing to their own places of work.

Jisung huffed on the other side, grumbling under his breath before speaking up. “I’m worried about how your first day is going to go.”

Rolling your eyes, you sidestepped a puddle, barely managing to miss the splash of a child rushing through it. “How are you more nervous for my first day than I am?”

“Because I’m sure you’re pretty angry right-”

“Of course I’m angry! Half the unit agreed to transfer me out! After three years Ji!”

“I know, I’m sorry. You’ll do great though! You’re really driven and have a strong moral compass, the organized crime unit is lucky to have you. Just… play nice? It’s not their fault you got transferred.”

You knew he had a point but you were loathed to admit it. With a sigh you approached the small detective precinct, the heavy rain finally slowing to a light drizzle. “No, but I doubt they’ll be too happy about the higher ups forcing a random transfer on them. Look Ji, I appreciate you worrying about me but don’t. I’m not supposed to have any contact with the S.K unit for a month after that last day, that includes outside of work. They already transferred me, I don’t want to give them a reason to fire me so soon.”

“Okay okay, hint taken. I’ll check up on you soon.” He hung up first, wishing you luck once more by name before doing so.

He really was right, you shouldn’t be so angry at this predicament. Sure it wasn’t your decision to get transferred out to a new Precinct, but it was your decision to go to this one. Which, in hindsight, was stupid. You had just named the first Precinct that you knew was furthest from the S.K and the homes of your former colleagues, hurt by their betrayal. Good intentions or not, you didn’t want to leave the team.

You didn’t want them to be right though either but being a detective was your dream, and the higher-ups didn’t want to give you a second chance after this.

Pocketing your phone and stepping under the small black awning, you closed the umbrella and placed it in the holder next to the door. If it wasn’t for the plague on the door reading A.Z offices, you might mistake the inconspicuous building for one of the many other office buildings in this district. There were several detective units in the city that operated outside of the police stations, but none so secretive.

It actually piqued your curiosity and excitement as you pulled the gray door open, greeted by a typical, but cluttered, receptionist desk and foyer. There was no one in sight, the pale blue gray of the walls the only color of otherwise bland decor. “Huh.”

There was a hall past the desk, some muffled voices carrying from an ajar door at the end. You were a few minutes early, but the door was open and they were expecting you- still you found yourself carefully moving down the hall, maybe to get an idea of who you were working with before introducing yourself.

As soon as you reached the door though, things went quiet. With nothing to eavesdrop on, you opted for knocking on the door, nudging it open before calling out. “Hello?”

Footsteps were heard before the entirety of your view was blocked by a vested chest, the door halting from opening further. “Who the fuck are you?”

Tilting your head back you blinked up at the towering figure, frown pulling at your lips. Out of all the welcome scenarios you had imagined, this hadn’t been one of them. Readjusting your bag your hands went to your hips and you jutted your chin out. “The new addition to your unit, detective.” You spat out with venom.

He seemed around your age, thick lips pulled into a scowl as he glared down the brim of his nose. “We don’t have a new addition.” He moved to slam the door in your face, but a new hand stopped it, slipping under the brute’s arm to stand between you. “Hwa?”

The ash-blonde detective had a professional smile on his face as he blocked the other one from staring you down. Before you could retort he spoke your name. “We’ve been expecting you. Detective Song here just forgot.”

“Forgot? I didn’t forget- hey!” The taller man was pulled away out of your sight, protesting the whole way.

“What do you mean new addition?” Another voice spoke up from behind him somewhere, which irked your already growing discontent for these men even more.

“Pardon me but, I don’t think the rest of your unit is aware there was a transfer to your unit- and that I start today.” Lips pursed, you held eye contact.

He shrugged, taking a step back and holding the door open for you. “I might have forgotten to mention to some of them, the point is the Captain and I are very aware. I’m Detective Park, the vice-captain of the unit.”

“I see…” You trailed off, turning your attention from the vice-captain to the rest of the room. There were three more men around the room with five desks in the center. It was a typical detective office, one wall full of pins and strings connecting faces and names you didn’t recognize, papers strewn about, computers and cords connecting the five desks that were all facing each other. Some filing cabinets, a second hall, and a door. Nothing about the room itself told you anything about these men- but they were all clearly handsome.

All men.

You didn’t like where this was going.

Aside from the vice captain to your left, the tall brute was being held in a headlock by an equally tall, slightly more beefed-out man with black hair and softer features. The other two were standing near the desk closest to the second hall, the stockier one with chestnut hair glaring over at you while sipping his coffee, the prettier one next to him watching you with more curiosity.

Internally you wanted to groan, turn around and walk back out because nothing about this felt like it was going to go well. “Is there another female here or just me?”

“Well…” Detective Park next to you shrugged, motioning for the others. “There are eight of us, all men. Captain and Detective San, and Detective Jung are in the field right now, but allow me to introduce you.” He motioned to the two tall ones. “Detective Song Mingi and Jeong Yunho. And those two are detective Choi Jongho and our technical analyst Kang Yeosang. Team, this is our newest addition.”

You bowed at your introduction, forcing a relaxed smile despite feeling so out of place already. “I’m in your care.” Standing back up, you turned to the Vice again. “Where can I set my things and get to work?”

He blinked in surprise, shifting uncomfortably. “Well, the receptionist desk will be yours.”

“Pardon?”

“Right up front there-”

“No no, I heard you, I’m just confused. I’m a detective, not a receptionist.” Again, your discontent was growing as you stared him down.

But it was a new voice that spoke, turning your attention. “Well um, we have all our bases covered and really don’t have a need for another detective. This is sort of sudden.” Yunho was his name if you recall correctly, although now he was making himself busy at his desk.

Pinching the bridge of your nose you let out a heavy sigh. “The transfer was approved two weeks ago after nearly a week of consolidation. I don’t think the board would approve a transfer for a unit I’m not needed for.”

“A new detective on the books isn’t something we need.” Mingi snapped out again, once more showing his distaste for you.

You wanted to lash back, to curse them out for the blatant disrespect and unprofessionalism. They had two weeks to prepare, only some of them knew you were coming and yet none of them bothered to put any weight into that?

“We’ll talk to the Captain and put you to work then.”

“Captain isn’t due back until the end of the week Hwa, maybe later if he and San don’t get what they need.” One of the others with a familiar voice spoke up. He must have been the one who spoke up earlier- Detective Jongho.

“That’s fine-”

“Fine?” Like a twig snapping, so did your patience. “I’ve been sitting on my ass for the last three weeks just to wait another? This is ridiculous!”

“Shouldn’t have transferred then, newbie.”

“You can take your attitude and shove it up your ass with your head, Detective Song, because the likelihood of me leaving any time soon is slim. Not unless you personally want to kiss and shine the Commissioners shoes!” You stepped forward, the man stepping up towards you in response.

“So this is why you got forcefully transferred? Can’t play nice?” The fifth voice startled you, just as deep and condescending as the man before you.

You swiveled on your heel to glare at the final man, sneering. “I play nice just fine- when I’m welcomed.”

“We never said you weren’t Detective-”

“You don’t have to!” You turned your glare on the Vice Captain. “Eight of you, with three offices and five desks- an empty receptionist, lack of communication on the arrival of a new Detective in your care- You have no means or intention of including me in this unit.”

As soon as the words were out there was a drastic change of tension in the atmosphere; the professional expression the Vice Captain wore was gone, replaced with a cold stare. One glance at the others and they all had similar expressions. “Truthfully, we do not, but until we can convince the Commissioner and board that you are not needed here, we have to put up with each other.”

“So buckle up buttercup, or get the hell out.” The smug smirk on Mingi’s face had you stiffening, but not from intimidation.

No, you always rose to a challenge even if it clearly wasn’t in your favor.

Taking the time to stare each one of the men down with a similar cold stare, you bid your time before finally locking gazes with Detective Park. “You should be aware, Vice, that I bite when threatened.” Straightening your back, as if you could any more, and holding your head high you turned towards the door. “That receptionist desk will have to do then; plenty of space for me to do my work. I’m sure you won’t mind at all if I make myself at home.”

“If you have the time.”

You didn’t care which one of them said it, slamming the door behind you because you expected them to do the same. Marching down the hall, past the small bathroom you failed to notice before, you took in the receptionist desk with a huff. It was empty, probably never used and just full of trash and miscellaneous decor that never got pulled out of the box.

“These fucking dicks think they’re just going to get their way? Over my dead body. Play nice Ji said, well he can go fuck himself too because ain’t no nice here.” Mumbling under your breath you immediately began organizing the desk, making use of the trash can under the desk. There was no stool, no electronics, not even a phone- but you could fix that.

There were other boxes in the foyer you hadn’t noticed, tucked away and out of sight. This room was probably a front for any bystanders that walked in, something to discourage anyone who wasn’t supposed to be here from snooping around.

At least it gave you plenty to do over the next week, knowing that until the Captain did show up, some things you would just have to deal without.

—

Your spiteful rage motivated you for several hours, suit jacket tossed aside and sleeves rolled up to your elbows as you cleaned up the now clutter-free desk. You had found some decent decor in the junk, using it to spice up the desk. It was waist high, with a ledge to hide the desk from the other side. A fake little plant and metal bowls of varying sizes now sat on that ledge, the desk devoid of anything but your work bag.

You hadn’t heard the door open or any sounds from the back, further indicating the distance they were trying to put between you and them. It just fueled your determination to stay.

Despite what happened with your last unit, you were a damned good detective, you knew that even without Chan reminding you often. While the S.K unit revolved around cases about runaways and crimes committed by minors, it was still a police force. This was no different, even if the unit operated differently, you could handle it.

Glancing around the space, you did feel a bit proud with how it was coming along. There was a pile of boxes and garbage by the hall, which you felt ready to take care of now. Picking it up, you headed down the hall, heels clicking on the wooden floor. The door was indeed shut, but not locked, and you swung it open with a loud thud. You heard something clatter on the other side of the room, but you ignored it as you dropped the boxes of garbage on the floor.

“What the he-”

“Take care of this will you.” Dusting off your hands you looked towards the nearest one, which happened to be Mingi and Yunho at their desks, but Mingi was half out of his chair. “Since this is your unit, you can handle the trash.” Turning on your heel you made your way down the hall.

“She didn’t leave?”

“Apparently not Min.”

You could hear them as you shut the door harshly, a smirk on your lips as you made your way back to your new work area. They really had no idea just how hard you were going to make this for them, and it brought a sense of pride.

You could easily be the biggest pain in their ass, all too happy to oblige. One week? You could make them regret it by then. Maybe you could make them regret it by the end of the day, it was only lunch time.

—

Having set out to get your lunch from a deli down the street, you were a bit annoyed to come back to your newly cleaned office once more full of the trash that you had tossed back at them. Setting your sandwich down, and with all the calm you could muster, you cleaned up the trash once more. Plastering a fake grin on your features you carried it to the back, only to find the door locked this time.

Frowning, you set the garbage down, took a deep breath, and then pounded on the wooden door. “Hello detective’s? I think you forgot something!”

No answer.

You just pounded harder and called out louder. “Hellooo?”

No answer again.

Grumbling, you gave the door a kick with your heel, leaving the garbage there and instead going back to your desk. Grabbing your phone you brought it back to the door, recording once more as you banged and called out, then sighed. “See what I mean Sir? I really think there was a mix up- I can’t even access the office. How am I a part of this unit?”

Just as you had been hoping for, the door swung open and the pile of garbage you had set against it went tumbling against the unsuspecting Vice Captain. You smiled up at him innocently, pointing to the recording camera and then saving it. “Your poker face is impeccable Vice, but do you really think it’s wise to lock me out?”

“We’re in a meeting.” He deadpanned, kicking some of the garbage to the side into the office. “You were being disruptive.”

“Me? Disruptive? I have no idea what you mean, I just needed to throw away this garbage for a second time, since apparently it can walk on two legs right back to my beautiful desk you so graciously assigned me.” Thick with sarcasm you added a bit of a pout to your tone, pointing to the boxes between you two. “I had asked Detective Song and Jeong to handle it since no one bothered to show me where it goes. You do have a proper place for garbage, right? This isn’t the only place is it?”

His features darkened as he leaned forward. “You should really watch your insults Detective- You don’t want to disrespect this unit any more than you have.”

“Oh so I’m disrespecting the unit? Hardly anything to respect when you haven’t earned it.” You sneered out.

“Okay okay- calm down you two.” Yunho came barreling forward, putting space between the Vice and you while looking a bit panicked. “We can’t get anything done if we are tearing each other’s heads off.”

You shrugged, crossing your arms over your chest. “I have nothing better to do for a week, so I don’t see why not.”

“For fuck’s sake woman- you really are so mouthy.”

You glared past the two in front of you to Jongho who had a fresh coffee in his hands, sitting at the desk from before. “Give me a reason to shut up then.”

“I can give you several off the clock.” Mingi countered from his desk, leaning his palms against the surface.

You rolled your eyes. “I like dick, but not the personality type.”

“Enough!” The room froze with that one raised word, Yunho staring each of you down with a tick in his jaw. “We can all agree that none of us are happy with this situation… but for fucks sake we do have a job to do. Can you sit pretty until the Captain gets back and just hash it out with him? And can we all at least agree to try to be civil until then?”

You bit down on the inside of your cheek to keep from retorting without thinking. This had been what you wanted right? But you weren’t about to be the first to agree.

Yunho glanced at each of you once more, lingering on the Vice Captain last. “Seonghwa? We can’t afford to have an ongoing battle with another detective right now, can we make some arrangements?”

He relented with a sigh, shoulders relaxing. “Fine. You three handle this garbage… and you and I will talk.” He breezed past you down to your desk which you hesitated to follow at first. You could hear Mingi’s grumbles towards Yunho but you didn’t care.

“We’ll supply you with wifi, a seat, and a phone. As for work for the week it will be menial or trivial things. When Captain Kim returns, you can discuss with him your role.” He said as soon as you stepped up to the desk.

“And the offhand comments? The intentional sabotage?”

“Will stop.” Seonghwa relented once more with a sigh, seemingly tired of this whole ordeal. “Will this work?”

Now it was your turn to relinquish a sigh. “Yes, I came here to work not to fight over petty bullshit. As long as you follow those terms I’ll behave until your Captain returns.”

“Good. Write down anything you need for this space and I’ll have it picked up by tomorrow-”

“No need I can do so. I still have my things from my last unit, it’ll be fine.” Leaning against the wall you glanced up at him, holding out your hand. “So truce?”

He stared at your outstretched palm, reluctantly accepting. “Truce. Finish up here and come find me when you’re done. I’ll give you the wifi and a key to the front door.”

Just like that he left you alone, the click of the back office door heard a second later. Something still didn’t sit right with you, something still so inherently wrong about this whole situation, but there was nothing you could do.

Not yet at least. This was one battle won, you had a week to prepare for the boss fight.

492 notes · View notes

navia3000 · 1 year ago

Text

a l l m y g h o s t s

Includes : Aaron Hotchner

Genre : Angst

Warnings : Crying, sadness, mentions of bombs and terrorists, typical Criminal Minds topics, Morgan’s kind of a dick, curse words

Based on : All My Ghosts by Lizzy McAlpine

Part one Part three

A/N : This is a part two to So Long, London. I’m trying something different with my writing style, and I don’t really know how I feel about this fic overall, so, let me know your thoughts. And, yes, there will be a part three.

The headquarters of the International Operation Division of the FBI was alive with the chatter of agents and the ringing of phones. The IOD had been investigating a major threat against the United States from a major terrorist group in Iraq. There had been two bombings connected to this group, and there were more to be expected. The case is so dire, the IOD decided to call in the Behavioral Analysis Unit to aid in catching the attackers, a fact Y/N wasn’t thrilled about.

It had been two years since Y/N had left the BAU. She hadn’t told anyone of her transfer, leaving without saying a word to the team. She had gone as far as ignoring their calls and texts, and, as time passed, she eventually stopped receiving them. It had pained her to leave her friends, no, her family in that way, but she couldn’t stand having to pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t. She couldn’t be around the source of her heartbreak any longer, or she would explode. So, she took matters into her own hands.

Y/N knew her and the BAU’s paths would eventually cross again, she just hoped it wouldn’t have been so soon.

As she walked through the bullpen, she felt her heart racing. She wasn’t nervous about seeing Hotch, well, she was, but, she was more nervous about seeing her old friends. She knew they would be angry at her for the way she up and left. She would’ve been too if it was someone else on the team who did what she had.

She finally reached the doors that would lead her to the moment she most dreaded; the Behavior Analysis team would be sitting there, going over details of their profile. And, since she used to be a part of said team, her boss thought it best for her to be the one assisting them.

As she walked through the doors into the room the team had set up, she heard them grow quiet. They stared at her in disbelief, each one of them, and she couldn’t help but take each one in. Morgan looked stronger than when she had last seen him, Emily looked even more beautiful, JJ had grown her hair out, Penelope had dyed her hair cherry red, Rossi had more gray hairs than before, Spencer got rid of his glasses, and Hotch, well, Hotch looked exactly as she remembered him. Tall, handsome, and utterly exhausted. She didn’t fail to notice the missing ring on his left hand.

“Hi,” she spoke after minutes of silence. When she received no answer, she continued, “I was sent by my boss to assist you with building the profile on these terrorists.” She could feel her heart racing as the minutes wore on, and the disbelief in their eyes turned into confusion and anger. “I know we haven’t spoke in a while, but-”

Morgan was quick with his anger in cutting her off, “and who’s fault is that?”

Taking a deep breath, she continued, “Please, Morgan. I hate how I left things with you guys, but, right now, my priority is this case. So, if you could all put your feelings about me aside for the sake of our jobs, that would be great.” Morgan let out a scoff at her words, rolling his eyes and turning back to the whiteboard at the end of the room.

She made eye contact with Hotch, her eyes becoming watery at Morgan’s reaction to her presence. He didn’t seem all too different in his sentiment towards her, making her feel even worse.

“Alright, here’s what we have so far,” Hotch said. It was going to be a long night.

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

As the days wore on, the tension between her and the rest of the team grew. They kept things professional, and Penelope and Emily were nicer than the rest in accepting her back, but it was still a challenge. She understood why they felt how they felt, but, still, it broke her heart. Even worse, she tried being friendly with Hotch but he wouldn’t even acknowledge her outside of discussing the profile.

It was late at night, most of the team had gone back to their hotels, leaving Hotch and Y/N working by themselves. Her eyes kept wandering to him, her thoughts consumed by having him so close to her again. Yet, he continued to ignore her.

“How’s Jack?” She asked, attempting to make conversation whilst they went over old case files.

“He’s fine.”

“How’s the rest of the team? I’ve missed them a lot. And you, of course. But-”

“They’re doing alright.” The finality in his tone was making her hopes fall like the petals of a rose fall over time.

“That’s good. What about Haley? How’s she doing?”

“Haley’s dead. She was killed by an unsub.” At that, her head snapped up.

“Oh my God, Hotch, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

He still didn’t look up at her from the papers scattered on the table. “How could you have? You left.”

His words cut deep. Her eyes grew teary for what felt like the fifth time that day. “Hotch, I had to.”

At that, he finally looked up at her. His eyes were hard as stone as he said, “no, you didn’t. And even if you felt that way, you could have told us. I had to explain to everyone else that you left and weren’t coming back, Y/N. You were a part of this family and wouldn’t even answer our texts and calls.” No, his words didn’t just cut deep, they burned. Upon seeing her tears fall, he seemingly decided that was a conversation not worth having. “Let’s just focus on the case.” But, like that night in the restaurant, she stood up and left him at the table.

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

The next day was no different. Spencer and Morgan refused to talk to her, Hotch was cold as ice when addressing her, JJ was hesitant anytime she had to speak with her, and Emily and Penelope were trying their best to dissipate some of the tension in the room.

It all seemed to boil over when she suggested that her and Morgan go over to the last bombing site and see what they could find.

“No,” he said.

The room was so quiet, you could hear a hairpin drop. “What?” she asked, mostly because she couldn’t believe that he shut her down like that.

“No,” he repeated. At that point, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Alright, Morgan, I get you’re upset with me. But we’re here to do our jobs. And, you have zero right to treat me like I don’t matter just because you’re upset.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Y/N. You left us! You were a crucial part of this team and you left us. Without even an explanation. Nothing! So, don’t come in here expecting everything to be the same as it was because it’s not.”

“I had to leave!” She exclaimed. “I couldn’t take being around you guys after everything that happened!” Tears were streaming down her face. Her throat burned from the lump in it. Her heart sank with the weight of Morgan’s hatred for her.

“Nothing happened, Y/N!” He yelled as he stepped closer to her. “You just up and left!”

“Damn it, Morgan, I was in love! What was I supposed to do?” That grabbed the attention of the others. “You might not have known it, but… but, me and Hotch had just broken up, and I couldn’t be around him anymore. I just couldn’t.” Her sobs racked her body as she finally admitted what she couldn’t those two years ago. Morgan seemed to finally understand. And Hotch? Hotch just stood there, staring at her with the usual expression which occupies his face.

She hated it. She hated the pitiful stares from the team. She hated the way she cracked under the pressure. She hated the way she cried in front of them. But, most of all, she hated how all those feelings she had buried deep down in a dungeon of sadness had broken out and swam up to the surface.

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

After everything blew over, Y/N decided enough is enough. She was done trying to work with the BAU, so, she went to investigate some tips on her own.

Her interest was piqued at an anonymous tip that claimed that the terrorist group’s leader was living in a house a few blocks over. She knew she shouldn’t go over there alone, but she it wasn’t like she could ask the team to go with her, they practically hated her for everything that went down.

The house was dark when she arrived. She knocked on the front door multiple times, and, after no answer, she found it to be unlocked. Drawing her gun, she went in. It was clear. As she suspected, it was a dummy tip. She let out a frustrated sigh as she stepped out of the house. They were no closer to catching the bombers than they were when they started. Walking down the front porch steps, she heard a loud boom, and everything went black.

#aaron hotch fluff #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x you #aaron hotch fanfiction #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotch imagine #aaron hotchner #criminal minds masterlist #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds #aaron hotch hotchner #agent hotchner

304 notes · View notes

saintmuses · 1 year ago

Text

❝𝙄 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙫𝙮, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙄'𝙢 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙞𝙨𝙮❞

Pairing:

Lenny Miller x Stripper!Reader

Summary:

She was one of the former CIA operatives who escaped from the deaths of others when their mission to kill KGB’s director was compromised. She was never to be seen again until Lenny came across her at a strip club he had no intention of going to.

Warning(s): SMUT. P in V. Lap-dancing. Riding. Minors, dni!

Word Count: 3k

New York City had always been lively, so was everywhere in the state of New York. He had recently moved to his apartment about a month ago after leaving Washington D.C. for an assignment.

The narrowed alley was filled with slight echoes from his leather shoes as he walked down the darkened street.

He had been in Europe for a few years, but he left after the success of eliminating KGB’s director with Anna’s help and after she died, he requested a transfer to a different CIA location for a change of scenery.

He cared for Anna, but not like how she cared for him. He had to let her down gently after realizing she was latching onto his kindness for something more during her mission to obliterate KGB’s director.

He'd suppose he would've reciprocated her feelings if someone else didn't steal his heart long before then.

"Give it up for Daisy! Quite a show she gave you guys!"

He paused; his head turned towards the building where his hearing picked up an intriguing announcement.

Rarity had its moments when he used to go to strip clubs to find a potential dancer to warm his bed when they were all that rage back in the day and willingly to break the no-sleeping rule. Now he was satisfied with living in solidarity.

As much as the strip club was dirty but it had a compelling atmosphere with heavy seductive beats.

Of their own accord, his feet moved closer to the door of the club.

He froze when a bouncer grunted out a number, and he realized that he was standing at the entrance. He fished out a wad of cash after pulling it out from his trouser pocket. Entering through the door after handing over the cash to the bouncer.

Dimmed lights and smokey air greeted him as he moved further in the club.

His eyes scanned the stage to see one of the best dancers. She was the reason why he was in the dingy place.

Only she was already gone before he entered the building, and he felt a flash of disappointment. Nevertheless, he found an available seat by the stage.

He inhaled harshly when he saw a girl, no, a woman passing by him. He recognized her by her face which was adorned with smokey makeup. Her hair was set up with loose curls, and she wore a revealing white lacy bra and a white lacy skirt attached to her white underwear.

It was a fit for her skin tone.

However, what caught his attention was her scent. It was the same floral aroma he had smelled when he first met her.

His hand shot out, clasping his fingers around her slim wrist before she could walk any further.

"Excuse me, you can't touch-" She started, whirling around, almost affronted only to falter in surprise when her eyes landed on the familiar man. "Lenny?" She asked, making a slight noise in her throat as she stared down at him.

He hadn't seen her since the night she disappeared when the first mission to assassinate KGB’s director had gone wrong. Of course, it didn’t deter him from searching for her only to give up when she did a job of eradicating herself from the grid the way they all learned how to if things went wrong.

A few years had made Y/N even more beautiful than she was when she was younger.

His lips curled into a smirk, "Daisy." He said her stage name smoothly before releasing her wrist.

Sure, it was her favorite flower. He knew little things about her the ways he would not care to learn if it was someone else.

Her cheeks quickly flushed in embarrassment, "what are you doing here?"

Before he could answer her question, a man walked up to them. Stumbling as he went before standing in front of them.

Lenny could tell he was intoxicated by the smell of his breath as it washed over them and the way he was swaying.

His eyes flickered to her when she shifted uncomfortably, eyes down casting to the concrete floor.

He could feel his skin crawling when he noticed the drunk man leering at her, as he pulled out his wallet, he watched Y/N's face, his mouth grew taut as her eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

She did not want to; it was clear to him.

Lenny reached out, effectively stopping the man from fishing out cash for a private dance. "Pardon me, she is doing me a favor." He said dryly, eyes narrowing when he saw the man turning to him with a challenge look in his pupils’ blown depths.

"I didn't see you pay her," he scoffed.

Lenny’s lips curled in amusement as he absentmindedly grabbed his leather wallet, grabbing a crisp hundred-dollar bill, he saw her eyes widened before he handed it over to her.

"Now I just did," he countered with a hint of smugness in his tone as he stared down at the sleazy man.

He could feel her grabbing the bill, and he turned to her ignoring the man standing in front of them. "May we find a room?"

She bit down her lower lip, before nodding.

When she found them an available room, he allowed her to go in first before turning to a bouncer who stood in the hallway for private rooms; he quietly paid him to not let anyone in until they leave and not to bother them.

She turned to him after he'd shut the door quietly. "I'm sorry...but I will have to give you a dance," she said quietly. Flushing as her eyes laid on the door behind Lenny’s shoulder.

"Of course."

He walked over to the couch that was adorned with red leather fabric. Music with tempo beats bled through the speakers.

It was meant to be seductive.

He sat down with an ease, watching Y/N staring at him with an unreadable mask on her face before she walked over to him shyly. "How long have you been working here?"

She hesitated, eyes flickering away from the floor to his. "Almost four years."

"Why?" He wasn't being judgmental, but he was very curious especially when she didn't answer him. "Y/N, what happened?" He almost persisted.

After a moment of pause, she answered. "I've been hiding from the KGB operatives," she said quietly. "After a near brush with death, I thought that I would have a chance staying low. So, I moved here after I escaped from the building." Her eyes then flickered to somewhere else as it became unseeing. "I joined the strip club to make money."

She leaned down slightly to take off her heels as the light notes started to play from the stereo. He shifted in his seat when he realized she would have to give him a lap dance.

He almost inhaled sharply when her hands touched his trouser-clad knees.

She then slid her hands up his thighs, slowing her pace as she reached up his chest, her fingers ghosting over his blazer.

"Why are you in New York?" She asked, breaking the tension that thickened the moment the door was shut.

His eyes were almost heavily lidded as he was influenced by the tension of the room when he stared down at her.

"I live here now; I left after the mission of assassinating the KGB director went successful." He said, his fingers rubbed on the leather next to his thigh absentmindedly.

Her lips twitched, "congratulations."

Avoiding his eyes, she leaned over him slightly before putting her hands on his shoulders.

"Thank you for saving me from him."

Knowing she was talking about the intoxicated male. "You're welcome, and you shouldn't have to deal with that." He murmured.

Her hands applied pressure as she put her knees next to each of his thighs, the air was suffocating him as he had to keep the noises to a slight minimum.

He didn't shy away from her shy gaze when she peered at him, he could tell she was nervous. He didn't blame her for feeling that way, since they never really cross the line of their work until now.

His fingers again itched to trace her skin, and his eyes widened slightly when she started twirling her hips sensually that it affected him greatly.

If seeing her constantly as his operative was bad enough, the fact she was almost naked years later -bra and thong as the only source of cover- would be his undoing.

She was stiff especially with how she was moving with her hips, quite frankly so was he. For different reasons from hers, he thought. She was twirling her hips above his thighs, lowering her form slightly, nearly brushing against the rising bulge in his slacks.

He held his breath, he was being selfish especially with how she was uncomfortable in his presence, but he didn't want to stop her.

He was a gentleman; he would stop if she wasn't willing.

He reached for her hips with his hands and pushed her lower body down onto his hardened cock. Keeping her hips immobilized as the room was filled with a little gasp coming from her lips and heavy breathing from the stoic man.

He closed his eyes when she tentatively started to shift her hips, in a movement that had her grinding lightly against his bulge.

"Lenny." She breathed his name slightly.

His eyes shot open, staring into her depths as the scent of her arousal predominated the air. He was still staring at her when he reached her back. Ghosting his fingers onto her dampened skin as they traced the grooves, ridges, and curves of her spine before enclosing his fingers around her bra clasps.

He then twisted the metal clasps to unhook her bra before sliding his fingers towards her neck. Gripping it slightly before pulling her down so he could taste her lips.

A tiny puff of air coming from her lips in a form of gasp had him giving her a bruised kiss. He wanted it for so long that he was devouring the taste of her lips.

Her fingers gripped his shoulders as she moved her warm lips against his. He slowly moved his hands towards her breasts, cupping them slightly. Thumbs flickering over her pebbled nipples.

Swallowing her gasp into his mouth after he arched his hips when she went to grind down onto him.

He then slid his hands down around her waist before sliding towards her back to unclasp her mini lacy skirt before making her get on her feet; so, he could put his fingers in her thong before pulling them down.

"You have thought about this, didn't you." He said in a husky tone, making his voice raspier.

Her eyes were wide, watching him, and her mouth was open "no." She said after a beat. It may be dimmed in the room, but luckily his eyes were able to train on how her pupils dilated.

He smirked before pulling her to him, pushing her waist so he could move her away from him.

She looked at him confused before turning around, and she gasped when he wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her down on top of him.

She leaned back onto him as she'd spread her thighs over his. His hands slid over her legs.

"What did I tell you about your eyes, sweetheart?" He murmured against the curve of her neck, gripping her thighs as he grazed his fingers into the juncture of her thighs.

"I don't remember," a gasp tore from her lungs as he pressed his fingers onto her clit.

He chuckled lowly in his throat, trailing his lips towards her ear. "You're a very bad liar," he rasped, his lips stretched into a predatory smile as he rubbed one of his fingers down through her slit. Collecting her wetness along before pushing a finger into her.

He inhaled slowly when she made a slight noise, and he moved his finger in a thrusting movement before adding another finger.

"If it makes you feel better, I thought about it." He breathed into her ear, "especially after you started working for me."

Oh, he definitely imagined her in one of situations. Taking her behind on her hands and knees while the others were out of the building for the night.

She inhaled sharply, "you imagined taking me over your desk?" She asked disbelievingly.

He chuckled lowly, "I may be very good at controlling myself, but deep down I am still a man."

She snorted slightly, "a caveman."

His lips curled upwardly, "you have no idea, sweetheart." He said before using his thumb to rub her clit which made her thrust her hips in response.

"I think you'd be surprised," she murmured, rolling her hips along with his movement. "When I first started working with you, you had this strict professor vibe like a professor since you wore suits." She paused, breathing heavily when he curled both of his fingers. "I used to fantasize you teaching to the class and waited until after the class for you to take me on the desk while calling you sir."

He felt a heat of tendrils curling on his back at the thought of taking her on the desk.

"I'll teach you how to say sir," he rumbled, and he smirked when he felt more wetness leaking out of her. He reached with his other hand to cup her breast and rubbed across her nipple before he pressed a kiss onto her neck.

"I want you to fuck me, Lenny." She quietly pleaded. "Sir," she then said playfully.

He exhaled a weak chuckle before pulling out his fingers, and he waited for her to stand up so he could unbuckle his belt and unzip his slacks.

She stopped him, "wait. I want you to take your blazer off." She said quietly.

He softened before reaching for the black fabric, sliding them off his shoulders before putting it aside. He then unbuckled his leather belt, and he could feel her eyes which made his eyes flickered to hers before lowering his zipper.

His lips almost curled at the increasing lust in her eyes, before reaching his hand down in his briefs, and took his cock out which gently slapped against his abdomen due to how hard it was.

His eyes darkened at the increasing aroma of her arousal, "come here." He said huskily, eyeing her as she walked over to him.

She then put each of her knees beside his thighs as she straddled his knees, and he inhaled when she reached for his cock, encircling her fingers around his girth.

Her fingers could barely even touch, leaving an inch gap between her index finger and her thumb. "You're so..." she trailed off, struggling to find words to describe his cock.

He smirked, "I know."

Her eyes flickered to his, before rolling her eyes playfully.

He reached behind her, grabbing the curve of her buttocks with both of his hands before sliding her forward.

She lifted her hips slightly enough for his cock to be able to slide into her, and once she eased her hips down. He threw his head back at the warm feeling of her walls sliding down on his cock as she gasped above him.

He slid his hands to grip her hip and moved her upward before slamming into her as he pushed her hips back down.

"Fuck." She moaned, her hands gripping slightly on his hair at the base of his neck before sliding down to his shirt and started to unbutton the fabric.

Once she was done with her task, she raised her hips once again and slammed back down.

He jerked his hips sharply when she used her walls to clench down on his cock.

"Y/N," he warned her, not wanting to come too soon. He reached down with his hand before giving her a soft smack on one of her buttocks.

She jerked her hips in surprise before moaning.

"You like that too," he breathed, chuckling before giving her another one. She inhaled as more wetness leaked out of her once again.

She looked down at him, and with a mischievous look in her depths, she clenched around his cock again.

She was on her back before she could make another movement on his cock with her vaginal walls, he was on his trouser-clad knees, her thighs wrapped around his hips as he thrusted into her harshly without hurting her.

She arched her back as he hovered over her, his lips barely grazed hers before he dragged his lips as he thrusted into her roughly.

Their lips clashed once again when the force of his hips made her face level with his.

Her hair was wild as it spread around her face as he reached down to one of her legs, and moved her leg over his shoulder, making him sink into her deeper than he had before.

He grazed his lips on her calf, making her heart jump. He gave her a soft smirk. She slid her hands into his parted shirt before moving them onto his back, rubbing his skin slightly.

He let out a grunt when she dug her fingers on his back, which made him bury his face in the curve of her neck as he jerked his hips into her.

"Lenny." She moaned breathlessly, slightly arching her neck towards him.

He closed his eyes before leaning in towards the juncture of her neck. He then grazed her neck with his teeth.

Her fingers flexed against his back once more, and he could feel the upcoming pleasure. He then growled as he buried himself in her so deeply before he let the final pleasure wash over him; once he spilled into her, he buried his blunt teeth into her damp skin.

Her response was instantaneous, she arched her back and moaned so loudly as the final tempo of the song faded into the air.

Once they relaxed from the high, he withdrew his mouth from her neck before looking at her. "Y/N," he whispered, brushing her loose strands out of her face to look at her clearly.

She peered up at him with a satisfied smile, and heavily lidded eyes. "Lenny."

He gave her a lazy smile before craning his neck to give her a soft kiss.

#lenny miller x reader #lenny miller x you #lenny miller #Lenny miller x y/n #anna (2019)#cillian murphy x reader

283 notes · View notes