#but that train already left on that page for so many things...

[scarefox]

It's annoying that MDL has now two pages for cut and uncut version of a drama.

It does kinda make sense but is also unnecessary. It messes my lists up 🙈 especially when they make the second page when a drama is over and all the pics and comments, voting etc are on the cut version page already.

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 1 - The Introduction

Summary: Captain Price has been fighting the requests to add an omega to his team until those requests become commands. You find yourself traveling half a world away to join a pack of highly trained soldiers to balance out their dynamic. Not all of them are quite so happy about your arrival, but you're a good omega who does as you're told.

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Warnings: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, a/b/o typical classism and sexism, language, brief moments of panic on the reader's side, scenting, military inaccuracies, let's be real this is so unrealistic but it's a/b/o you're not here for accuracy.

Author's Note: I couldn't help it and I've found myself falling into the Call of Duty brainrot once again so here I am to bless you with some poly 141 a/b/o goodness. It's just part 1, I promise things will get better as the story goes along.

MASTERLIST | Next ->

“I don’t like this.” 

“Believe me, John, I know. But the higher ups are putting a lot of pressure on us with this initiative and I’ve pushed back as much as I can. They’re convinced it will be good for morale and team dynamics.” 

He wants to protest, but he’s been protesting this idea for three months. “What more can you tell me about her?” 

“Not much that isn’t already in her file.” Her tone is not lost on him. She can, but that’s not a conversation to be held over the phone. “She’s quiet and polite, a bit jumpy but she relaxes once she gets to know you. Remember, I picked her out myself.” 

That doesn’t make him feel any better.

He flips through the file again after he hangs up with Laswell. He almost has it memorized by now, having looked through time and time again since the letter was dropped on his desk three months ago. 

He stares at the photo, the headshot taken by the institute in her file. She’s cute, as most omegas are. American, but she had grown up on military bases. At least this world wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to her. He grimaces as he looks over her DOB below the photo. She’s young, younger than he would have liked, but at least she was old enough to drink. 

He sighs through his nose as he flips through her records. She’s been in the institute for nearly ten years, likely sent as soon as she presented. He flips through page after page of test results, notes from her instructors, personality and temperament analysis, essays and essays worth of information written on her and also by her. He didn’t care so much about what her instructors thought, he was more interested in her. 

“Christ.” He breathes as he pauses on the page with her statistics, rubbing his eyes. The file has everything in it, down to heat tracking and her early signs it was starting. 

As if he doesn’t have enough to worry about, now he’s going to have an omega under his care. 

He hasn’t considered taking an omega in well over a decade. Back when he had been young and reckless, he had once considered starting his own pack, but then his career in the military began to take off and he let that dream go. It became too dangerous, and he had seen many times what happened to omegas who were left behind during deployments for too long. 

His team didn’t need an omega. He had briefly considered it in the beginning as they adjusted to the new dynamics, but he knew it was too dangerous and their schedules were far too unpredictable for the sort of stability omegas needed. He had fought time and time again against the push to add an omega to the team. They had settled into their roles easily, and operated perfectly fine with the missing dynamic. 

Then the Omega Initiative was born and he found himself with no grounds to refuse anymore. Task Force 141 was getting an omega whether they wanted one or not. 

He can’t help the tickle in the back of his mind that something else might be going on. He flips back to the first page, staring at the omega’s photo. They’d be here in a week. She’d be flying with Laswell to London where she’d be given a few days to adjust before they’d fly in here and she’ll be left with her new pack. 

Price closes the file, leaning back in his chair. He has a lot to do in the next week. 

You stare down at the files laid out on the table. Four of them, hardly more than a single page each, most of which was blacked out. They’re all older than you, their birth years at least visible to you. Most of the things on the file you don’t understand, and you weren't even sure how tall they were since you can’t convert meters to feet in your head. 

You’re tired and on edge, nervous about tomorrow when you'd meet your new pack. You sit back in your seat, letting out a long breath. 

“I know.” Station Chief Laswell, Kate as you had been told to call her, takes the seat across from you. “You’re going to have to get used to hearing the word classified. What they tell you about themselves is, of course, up to them, but the things they do, the places they go, even with your security clearance as high as it is, that will all still be-” 

“Classified?” You finish for her. 

Kate smiles. “Exactly. It’s mostly for your safety. The less you know...” 

The less there is to make you a target. 

You’d been given that speech before you left D.C. You’d been given a lot of briefings, as Kate had called them, since you had been pulled into the director’s office at The Institute and told to pack your bag. You remembered Kate and the interview you had done a few days prior. It hadn’t been any different than the other interviews you’d done before, except that you were chosen this time. 

What had come after was three months of intense briefings and training, for what, you hadn’t really known at the time. They had told you little, at least until last week when Kate pulled you into her office and told you what was happening and why it was happening and where you were going. 

“You don’t have anything to worry about, though.” Kate continues, something you’ve been told over and over again during your briefings. “They’re all good men. John and I know each other well. I wouldn’t have picked you if I didn’t think you could handle them.” 

You continue to stare at the files. Two alphas, two betas. It wasn’t an unusual pack, evenly balanced, except for the missing omega. If the situation were different they may have elected to have two omegas to keep the even balance. This wasn’t a normal situation, though. This was a military pack, special forces at that. It wasn’t unusual for packs to form on bases, especially those stationed together for long periods of time. Alphas and betas united together with one purpose, one collective goal. 

That was why so many alphas were drawn to the military. 

That, and the excuse for violence. 

Omegas weren’t allowed to enlist, omegas weren’t allowed to hold many jobs at all. It was usually only in special circumstances, and even then, they were more likely to be assigned into a pack than be allowed to work and care for themselves. In a lot of ways you were lucky. You wouldn’t have to fight to find a pack, fight to find a match, fight for one of the few decent alphas left in the world. Your road had been chosen for you as soon as you presented. 

In a lot of ways, though, things were worse for you. 

“How do you feel?” Kate asks, looking you over. You’ve grown to like the beta Station Chief in the weeks you’ve spent together. 

“Tired.” You run a hand across your face. 

“The time difference will do that to you.” Kate says, giving you a sympathetic look. “Not to mention everything else.” Kate stands, stacking the files and pushing them to the center of the table. “I have a couple more errands to run, so get some rest. I’ll pick us up some dinner on the way back.” 

You look nervous. 

He can’t blame you. He’d felt a bit of a nervous twist to his stomach this morning as he’d finished ensuring everything was in place. He doesn’t often get nervous anymore, years and years of experience giving him the ability to expect anything and react accordingly. 

This is different, though. This isn’t a soldier he’s greeting, this is an omega. 

His omega. 

As Pack Alpha he had more of a claim to you than anyone else. It was his mark you’d wear, his scent that everyone would notice first. It was his duty to protect you, to ensure you have everything you need. You’re not another member of his team, you’re not even a soldier. You’re just a poor civilian that’s been thrust into this world of danger and secrecy. 

“Captain Price.” Laswell greets him, shaking his hand. 

He greets her back, but he can’t help his gaze as it flickers to the omega. You’re small, as expected of an omega. Your sweatshirt hides most of your curves, but your jeans hug your full thighs. Most omegas are small and soft, designed to be held and healthy enough to bear children when cared for correctly. 

He doesn’t even want to think about that. 

Laswell introduces you, your feet shuffling a bit as you step forward toward him. Coming from an institute, you likely hadn’t had much contact with alphas before now. You try to stand taller, look braver as you stand before him, but he can smell the tangy edge of anxiety surrounding your scent. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” You say, shaking his hand. It’s small and warm in his, your skin soft and slightly clammy. 

“The pleasure is mine.” He says, releasing your hand. 

You let it drop to your side, pulling your sleeve down over your fingers. You shift on your feet, your body language betraying your nervousness. Hunched shoulders, fingers tugging your sleeves over your hands, shifting your weight foot to foot as if you might take off running at a moment’s notice. Your eyes dart across the airfield taking in the movement around them. You’re on edge, alert, and likely a little overwhelmed. 

“I’ll show you around and let you get settled.” He says, his eyes shifting to Laswell. “You and I have some things to discuss.” 

You follow behind him with Laswell as he leads you towards the building that served as the 141’s home base. He points out different places you might find yourself visiting. The gym, the rec area, the mess hall, and finally their barracks. He leads you down the hallway where their rooms were located, pointing out each door before he gets to yours, sandwiched between his own and Gaz’s, with Soap and Ghost on the other side. 

He opens the door, letting you enter. He stays in the doorway, letting you explore the small space. Your bags had been brought in, the faint hint of the beta Corporal that had brought them in still lingering in the air. There’s four shirts folded neatly on the desk, one from each of them that they’d slept in for the last couple days to give you a chance to get used to their scents. 

“The lads are still running a simulation, but they’ll be done within the hour.” He says, drawing your gaze from the bed. “We’ll let you get settled in and I’ll come get you when they’re ready.” 

“Thank you, sir.” You say.

Laswell steps in as he steps away for a moment, letting the two of you say your goodbyes. You’d likely see Laswell again, and soon, but he knows after three months you’ll have bonded with her just a bit. 

Price leads Laswell to his office after she leaves your room, his ears picking up the sound of the lock clicking into place as they walk away. He’d left it on for a reason, wanting to give you the ability to feel safe and secure as you adjusted, even though you had nothing to worry about. 

“So.” Price says as he sits behind his desk, reclining back in his seat. “What can you really tell me about her?” 

Laswell gives him a knowing look. “The CIA has had their eyes on her for years now. The Omega Initiative as it is now, isn’t how it started. They were going to train omegas as agents, and she was one of the first names on that list. They had FIOT put a hold on her file once she came of age.” 

Federal Institute of Omega Training. The name was stamped on the front of your file. It was the highest rated institute in America, the place where most omegas born to politicians, government workers, and some military went. 

“They had agents go in and pretend to be interested parties just to make it seem like there was interest in her.” Laswell continues. “But, you know omegas aren’t cut out for this kind of work, so they changed the Initiative. She was still at the top of the list, but there were some...hesitations as to where to place her.” 

“What sort of hesitations?” He asks. 

“You saw those scores, John. She’s a good omega. Those purebred instincts are strong, and that makes her an easy target.” 

Most omegas born from an alpha/omega pairing were good at listening to their instincts. That was why they carried such a high standing, even among omegas. But, being so closely intune with their instincts made them more sensitive, more vulnerable. They were more likely to give in to an alpha, if the alpha knew how to play them right. 

Laswell pulls a file from her bag, sliding it across his desk to him. “She’d get walked all over in a larger pack, and the last thing she needs is to get hurt by an overbearing alpha.” There’s something hidden in Laswell’s words, his mind filing that away for later. “I need someone I can trust with her. She’s smart, learns fast. She needs a challenge, but also someone that won’t take advantage of her.” 

“It sounds like you’ve grown rather fond of her.” He says, flipping open the first page of the file. It’s the CIA’s data on her, everything they’d done in the last three months to prepare her for her life as a Special Operations pack omega. 

“Like I said, I’m the one that picked her for your team.” Laswell leans forward against his desk. “She knows what she’s in for. She was well prepared for this kind of life. She’ll let you mark her, no questions asked because that’s what she’s been told to do. She’s obedient, John, almost to a fault.”

“That could be dangerous.” Price says. 

“Yes, it could.” Laswell says. “I’m leaving her in your capable hands. She has my number, and so do you.” 

Price walks her back to the airfield, his head reeling a bit as he replays their conversation over and over. The hidden messages in Laswell’s words aren’t lost on him, and his gut feeling that something else was going on had been correct.

“Take care of her, John.” Laswell says. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you.” 

He hasn’t failed her yet. 

Your body is tingling. You’re not sure if it’s nerves or something else. You haven’t been around an alpha since the day of your presentation, when you had been pulled from your home and taken to the institute. You had nearly wanted to keel over when you came face to face with Captain Price. Your alpha. He’s a commanding presence, the tickling at the back of your neck still not quite gone even though the door is shut and locked. 

The bed is comfortable, not any worse than what you slept on in the institute. There’s extra pillows and blankets stacked at the end, likely for your nest when you finally settled enough to make one. The door to the private bathroom is cracked open, facing the end of the bed. There’s four shirts on the desk next under the window next to the bathroom door, and your bags are sitting in front of the dresser and closet situated on the opposite wall from the bed.

You push yourself to stand, ignoring the way your legs wobble as you stare down at the four shirts on the desk. They’re all olive green, folded neatly in the exact same way. You wouldn’t have known any different, except for the scents gently wafting from them, and the names on the tags. 

Price. You pick up the one that will be the most familiar, bringing it to your nose. Tobacco smoke, aftershave, something sharp like whiskey. All things you had scented on him in your short time together. Underneath you catch a whiff of his natural scent. Something woody, fresh. A tingle crawls up your spine, prickling in the back of your neck again. You drop the shirt on the desk, taking a step back to breathe in the unscented air for a moment. 

You’re breathing heavily as you go for the shirt next to Price’s. Garrick. You press the shirt against your nose, inhaling. Aftershave, different from Price’s. Some kind of lotion. Coconut oil maybe? You can’t pick up more than the base scent of beta, the soothing almondy scent. 

You take another deep inhale of it, letting the beta scent ease you before you let it drop to the desk beside Price’s. You grab the one next to it, looking at the tag. MacTavish. You lift it to your face, scenting another aftershave. There’s something citrusy mixed in as well, slightly watered down compared to the scent of the aftershave. Again, you can’t pick up more than the scent of beta, letting it ease the tickling on the back of your neck again before you let it drop back on the desk. 

One more to go. 

You pick up the last shirt. Ghost. The faceless one. You bring the shirt to your nose, wincing slightly at the sharp tang of gunpowder and metal, smoke and a lingering aftershave. You try to smell deeper, but your nose burns with scent blocker spray. You let out a huff, dropping it back onto the desk. 

This Ghost was dedicated to his anonymity. 

He’s going to be a problem. 

You sink back onto the bed, eyeing the shirts. Your senses have heightened, picking up the scents wafting off of them, mixing in the air. You pick up the sound of boots approaching, three pairs of feet making their way down the hall. You can hear them talking and laughing as they approach. There’s a pause outside your door and you hold your breath, sitting as still as possible. 

Of course they can smell you. You had sprayed yourself down with scent blockers before you left the hotel, but it had likely worn off by now. Even with the blocker, the scent of unmated omega wasn’t hidden easily. The entire base had probably caught a whiff of your scent by now. Caramel, vanilla, strawberries with the undertone of pure omega that made alphas go insane. 

“Coming, Si?” 

Your lungs burn as you hold your breath, and for a moment you’re afraid your heartbeat might be audible from how hard it’s pounding. Steps recede from your door and you don’t breathe until they’ve disappeared. 

You decide to unpack to keep your mind busy as you wait. You don’t have much, mostly clothes from the institute and toiletries. You don’t even have a photo of your family, that part of your life behind you. You put your clothes away, venturing into the small bathroom to put away your toiletries. There’s towels already inside, along with a few things like shampoo and soap. They’re all scentless, like the things you had brought from the institute. 

Nothing that could dampen your natural scent. 

You almost don’t hear the knock on the door, lost in your own thoughts. You take a steadying breath, hand hesitating over the lock. What if it wasn’t Price? What if it wasn’t anyone from your new pack? 

“Just me.” Price’s voice comes through the door. 

Of course he would notice your hesitation. He’s a trained soldier, he’s always going to be aware of his surroundings. You unlock the door, opening it slowly. 

Price greets you with a small smile, your nose picking up the scent of his aftershave and the lingering scent of tobacco smoke now that you’re attune to it. “They’re ready, if you are.” He says. 

You nod. “Yeah, I guess.” It wasn’t like you had much of a choice to say no. 

You slip out the door, closing it behind you. You’d ditched your sweatshirt, wearing a scoop-necked shirt to give them easy access for the scenting. Price leads you down the hallway, back towards his office. You’re not quite sure what to expect, the nervous twisting in your stomach coming back. 

“I thought we’d do it in a meeting room.” Price says, likely picking up on the change in your scent. “Somewhere neutral.” 

It’s smart, it’ll keep you from getting too overwhelmed by other scents or sounds. The last thing you need to do is panic and send them all into a spiral. Talk about a first impression. 

Price pauses outside a door, looking down at you. His gaze is kind, almost sympathetic as you take a deep breath. “Ready?” 

Not really, but you wouldn’t dare say that. You have to do this, and the sooner you got the awkward part over with, the easier things will get. You nod, hands tugging nervously at the bottom of your shirt. “Yes, sir.” 

Price opens the door, stepping in first. You’re glad for the few moments you’re hidden behind him as the scents in the room slam into you. Alpha and two betas, scents you recognize from their shirts. They stand as Price enters, and for a moment you want to stay hidden behind the alpha but you know you have to be brave. You were made for this. The words drilled into your brain over and over again at the institute flash through your brain. You have one job in life and this is it. 

You can hold power over them. 

The words from the book your bunkmate had smuggled in flash through your mind. “The Powerful Omega”, it had been titled. Authored by a progressive omega, it talked all about how powerful omegas could be, even those forced into traditional roles. You can get them all wrapped around your finger if you wanted to. 

You steady your nerves, clenching your hands into fists at your sides and step out from behind Price. Your skin prickles as three sets of eyes are set on you. Price is speaking but you’re not really listening as you take them in. You recognize the two betas from their files.

Gaz, you pick up Price doing introductions, has kind eyes. He’s tall for a beta, almost the same height as Price. He waves to you, offering you a small smile. 

Soap is the shortest of the four, more what you would expect from a beta. “Good to meet ya, lass.” He greets you, giving you a charming smile. He’s going to push your boundaries, you can tell. 

You’re beginning to see the dynamics already. 

“And Ghost.” Price says, your eyes finally moving to the place you’ve been avoiding since you walked in. 

All hulking muscle, Ghost seems to take up the entire room. Your heart flutters nervously as you meet his dark gaze, his face hidden by a balaclava with a skull painted on the front. His presence is oppressive, tickling the back of your neck. You’re not sure if you want to run or submit to him, every inch of him screaming alpha. 

Price’s hand on your back nearly makes you jump, your gaze finally drawing away from Ghost and back to him. “Come on, take a seat. Tell us about yourself.”  

Price sits at the head of the table, Ghost, Soap and Gaz to his left. You take the seat on the right, staring at the other three members of your pack. You jump into your spiel, things that they already knew if they’d read your file. There’s not much else to tell, since everything about you was in that file. That was its purpose, to make you look as appealing as possible to potential alphas and packs. 

“What about your family?” Soap asks, the sharp scent of your nervous energy spiking for a moment. “Do you still talk to them?” 

You shake your head. “Not for a few years. Institutes don’t really encourage keeping ties with previous packs, but I know there were a few omegas that did. It was hard to keep track of where my family was.” 

“Your father was a Marine, correct?” Price, even though they already know the answer. 

You nod. “Yes, sir.” 

“You lived on base?” He asks. 

You nod again. “Yes, sir. We moved a lot, but we lived in pack housing on every base. We were a family pack, and I was number four of eight by the time I presented.” 

“When did you get sent to the Institute?” He asks, almost regretting answering it. 

It’s a sore subject, he can tell by the change in your face and the slight souring of your scent. “The day after I presented.” You say. 

The tension in the room is palpable, Soap and Gaz’s eyes widening in shock as Ghost's shoulders tense just slightly. Price stares at you with a sympathetic look in his eyes. He knew it was likely shortly after, but that soon? Most would wait until the presentation had finished at least, and usually there was some downtime when it came to getting into an institute as well. 

“My father was a traditionalist alpha.” You say, something they also knew by your status. It was printed all over your file, squeezed in every place it could be as a reminder of your worth to whomever was reading it. “It was because we were already on base that they got to me so fast.” You explain. “It was my dad’s status in the Marines that got me into FIOT.” 

“What was it like, in the institute?” Gaz asks, wanting to change the subject a bit, if only to ease the sourness in your scent. 

You huff out a laugh, the corner of your lips lifting in a smile. “Not unlike the military, I think. We had strict schedules we stuck to every day. Everything was dictated for us, what we wore, what we learned, what we did with our free time and how often we got it. Even what we ate was chosen for us. We always had to be ready to be tested at any time, and we were always being observed.” 

“Your test scores were high.” Price remarks. 

You shrug. “I’m a perfect omega, or so my instructors always said. It comes easily to me. I don’t really have to think much about it.” 

“Did you really kneel for two hours straight?” Gaz asks. 

You huff out a laugh. “Yeah. There was one day...it was a couple years ago. I don’t know what caused it but there was something in the air. We were all on edge and worked up. The director got tired of us and made us all kneel in the mess hall during our two hour afternoon break. No cushions, no pillows. Just all forty of us, kneeling on the marble floor for two hours. Not everyone could do it. Quite a few got too fidgety, couldn’t handle the pain. Three even passed out.” 

“How did you manage it?” Gaz asks. 

Price wasn’t a fan of using instinctual habits as punishment. It left a bad taste in his mouth, and he can only imagine what else you could say they forced you to do with such nonchalance. 

“To be honest, I don’t remember most of it. I just let my mind go somewhere else and before I knew it the time was up.” You shrug.

“We won’t make you kneel for two hours.” Price says. “And definitely not without a pillow.” 

You smile softly. “Thank you, sir.” 

Price watches you, the way your eyes dart around the room again, the sour edge of your scent gone, but the tang of anxiety remains. You’ve relaxed some, though, your shoulders are not quite so tense and you’ve stopped picking at your nails. 

Ghost has remained silent the entire time you’ve spoken, eyes glued on you. You’ve tried not to look at him, finding your words get stuck in your throat whenever you meet his gaze. 

He’s going to be a problem. 

“There’s some rules we need to go over before anything else.” Price says. “You have freedom to roam this building as you please, but one of us will escort you if you need to go elsewhere at least until you’ve been marked. There’s other alphas on this base and I don’t want them getting any ideas.” 

You knew well enough omegas frequented the barracks on bases often. You don’t want to be mistaken as one. Even with their scents on you, you know that won’t stop some. You’re not even sure a mark will stop them either. 

“I want full transparency. If something happens you come to me, or you call Kate if we’re gone. If you need anything too, the same order stands.” You’re beginning to detect the edge to his voice, The Captain slipping through his more casual demeanor. “We have some downtime to adjust for now, but sometimes we may leave for weeks at a time. It will be rough, I won’t lie to you, but Kate pulled some strings and there’s an Omega Specialist that’s been brought in for you. You’ll meet her later, I’m sure she wants to do a full workup.” 

You’ve met many Omega Specialists in your time. The beta medical professionals that go through specialized training so they can assist and treat omegas better than regular doctors and medics. Most of them go through a residency at Institutes, studying and practicing on young omegas. The thought of having at least someone who might understand you on a deeper level is comforting. 

“I’m starving, let’s get the scenting over with.” Soap nearly whines, rubbing his stomach. 

His words strike a chord of nervous energy in you again. You had been prepared many times for the scenting. You’d seen instructional videos and done mock practices with your fellow omegas. Yet you feel like it’s not going to be enough. These were real alphas and betas, your pack. What if you don’t like the way they smell? 

What if they don’t like the way you smell? 

“If you’re alright with it?” Price says, looking at you. 

You’re taken aback by the offer for consent. You weren’t expecting it, as this was something you have to do. What would happen if you said no? Would they respect your boundaries? The fact you had been asked at all is shocking to you. You won’t say no, because you’ll have to do it eventually, and at least this way you’ll be walking around smelling like them. If nothing else, it might make this transition a bit easier. 

“Yeah.” You nod, swallowing down your nerves. “I’m okay with it.” 

All five of you stand from the table, your stomach churning with nervous energy. You try to clear your head, try to calm yourself so you don’t stink them out with your anxiety. You need your scent to be clear, to be as tantalizing as possible. 

“Don’t look so worried, lass.” Soap says as they gather around you. “We won’t bite.” He winks at you playfully. 

Your cheeks warm as Price steps up to you. He is right, that would come later. Likely during your first heat when Price would give you his mark and claim you as his. It wasn’t unusual for packs with multiple alphas to let more than one claim an omega, but judging from what you’ve seen of Ghost, you’re not sure that’s going to happen. 

He had a right to claim you too, but from the look of it, he was the least excited about your joining their pack. 

You tense as Price’s hands settle on your waist, lifting you up so you’re seated on the edge of the table, putting you closer to being eye-to-eye with them. They’re all so big, the natural consequence of genetics and their jobs. 

“Ready?” 

You turn to look up at Price, close enough you can see the freckles on his nose and the grey in his blue eyes. You nod, pressing your hands into the table as you bare your neck for him. Your heart is fluttering in your chest as he leans in closer, pressing his face against your neck. His beard tickles your skin as he rubs his face against your scent gland, warm breaths fanning against your skin. 

He pulls away just slightly, baring his own neck to you. You press forward, gripping the edge of the table as you press your face against his throat. You catch the scents you had picked up on his shirt in your room, the surface level scents that were environmental. You close your eyes, inhaling deeper. Woody. Pine? Spruce? It reminds you of a candle your mother used to burn. There’s another scent, the one that lingers. Petrichor, you think, rubbing your face against his scent gland. 

His hand on your side pulls you back from your scent-induced haze, and you force yourself back from him. You take deep breaths of the sterile air in the meeting room, picking up his scent more clearly now as it mixes with the others. 

“Good girl.” He says, squeezing your side gently. Something flutters in your stomach at his praise, some deep primal part of your brain preening at the thought of making your alpha proud. “Ghost.” He says, stepping back from you. 

You’re snapped back into reality as the hulking alpha steps up towards you, moving almost silently. You try to keep yourself calm as he stalks towards you, his sharp gaze burning into yours. 

He’s testing you. 

You won’t satisfy him, holding his gaze as he reaches you, his thighs pressing against your knees. One hand comes to rest next to your hip on the table, his body leaning in towards you. You’re enveloped by the black fabric of his sweatshirt as his other hand reaches up to tug his balaclava up. Stubble tickles your skin as he presses his face against your throat, breathing in deeply. He lets out a quiet sound as he scents you, almost akin to a growl. 

He shifts his weight, pressing his uncovered scent gland against your face. You close your eyes, inhaling deeply. Gunpowder and metal stings your nose again, along with the scent of his body wash. You press deeper into his throat, seeking out his natural scent. Something deep and musky washes over you, like suede or leather. There’s something fresh in there too, almost like eucalyptus. You press your face closer, inhaling it deeply. Your head spins, and you’re sure your knees would have given out if you hadn’t been sitting. 

Something rumbles in Ghost's chest as you scent him in a daze. While all alphas’ scents carried a natural musk, Ghosts seems to shoot directly to some deep part of your brain even Price’s scent hadn’t reached. 

You let out a quiet whine as he’s pulled from you, his mask back in place by the time you pry your eyes open. Ghost is leaning back against the wall, eyes back to their icy stare as he watches you. Your head is still spinning as someone steps up next to you, taking Ghost’s place. 

“How ya doing?” Gaz asks, eyes assessing you. “Hanging in there?” 

You nod, taking a couple deep breaths to try and clear your head. 

“You’re halfway there.” He says, leaning in closer. “Got through the hard part.” 

His breath fans your neck as he leans in, the familiar scent of beta flooding your senses. He was likely doing it on purpose, trying to calm you after the intensity of being scented by two alphas. You breathe in the almondy scent, relaxing into him as he scents you. Your hands raise, gripping his shoulders as he presses his neck close to your face. You seek out the source of the calming scent, pressing your nose into his scent gland. 

You’re drawn from the room and to the time your family took a trip to the beach when your father was stationed in North Carolina. Salty sea air, briney and clean, and something else, something soft. Like the clean linen scented spray your mother used on the laundry. You’re clinging to him, his arms around you as you relax into his scent. The tingling energy that had begun to build up at the proximity to the alphas fades as you melt into the calming energy of the beta in front of you. 

“Easy.” He says, his hand on the back of your head as he pulls you away from him. You take a deep breath, trying to clear your head. “Still with us?” He asks, meeting your gaze. 

“Yeah.” You say, sounding breathless. You knew scenting could be intense, but you hadn’t expected it to feel quite like this. 

“Almost done, hen.” Soap says, taking Gaz’s place in front of you. “Lucky there’s only four of us.”

He’s right, you think as you bear your throat for him. You’re not sure you could have handled it had there been more of them. You already feel like you’re floating, enveloped in so many scents you’re not sure what to do. That tingling has begun at the back of your neck as Soap scents you, your eyes meeting Ghost’s. The look in them has changed, his body poised like he’s ready to strike at a moment’s notice. 

Soap pulls back, blocking your view of him as he bears his throat to you. You press your face into his neck, pushing past the scents you knew, and that beta scent, looking for him. 

You inhale deeply, the scent of warm spices invading your nose. It smells like the holidays, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger enveloping you. You can almost taste the apple pie, see the gingerbread houses. You cling to his shirt, holding him against you as you rub your face against his throat. 

You’re trembling just slightly as Soap withdraws from your hold. It’s subtle, but to them, highly aware soldiers, it’s likely clear as day. Your skin is buzzing, like the fluorescent lights above you. You can hear it now, the buzz of electricity. Your pupils are blown, the room suddenly clearer and sharper. 

“There she is.” The low grumble of Price’s voice begins to pull you from your heightened state, your eyes turning to him as his hand cups your cheek. 

You press into the rough palm of his hand, eyes picking up the grey in his beard and hair as he stands in front of you. He’s older than you, they’re all older than you. Older than you, bigger than you, stronger than you. A small tickle of fear begins to itch in the back of your mind, drawing you from your daze. 

You’re vulnerable, entirely vulnerable and incapable of defending yourself against them. Forgetting second genders, they’re all much stronger than you, not to mention trained fighters. You’d be fucked if they decided to try anything, if they wanted to do anything. You’d be entirely helpless against them. 

They could if they wanted to. 

It would be well within their rights. Even though you had just met, even though you bore no claiming mark, there was nothing stopping them. You couldn’t stop them, and no one would help you. 

“You hungry, pup?” 

Price’s voice cuts through your fearful daze. There’s a slight furrow to his brow, likely picking up the sharp edge seeping into your scent. Omega fear and distress was the one defense nature gave to your kind, aside from the omega itself. It’s a putrid scent meant to ward off alphas and betas. You’ve heard it described as smelling like sulfur, burning coals, gasoline, melting plastic, and sometimes even the ozonic scent that accompanied alphas in a true rage. It was a warning, but it doesn't always work. 

Pup. Price called you Pup. 

You haven’t been called “pup” since you were a pup. It’s a commonly used nickname for any status. You remember your father calling your older brothers pup, even after they presented. It could be derogatory, but it’s more commonly used affectionately. He’s trying to ease your discomfort, the fear welling up inside you. 

The door is open, the fresh air of the hallway watering down the heavy mix of scents that had become trapped in the room. Soap and Gaz have already stepped out, Ghosts hulking figure blocking the doorway for a moment as he follows them, leaving you alone with Price for a moment. 

“Alright?” Price asks as your gaze meets his again. 

You nod, still leaning into his touch. “Yeah, ‘s a lot.” 

“I know.” His thumb strokes your cheek, a knowing glint in his eyes. He leans in closer, lowering his voice. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but Soap nearly passed out when we scented him.” 

You cover your mouth to stifle your giggle. It wasn’t unusual for scentings to become so intense that the receiver passes out. You’re sure if there had been more than four in your new pack you would have passed out. 

“Come on.” He says, wrapping an arm around your waist to lift you off the table and onto unsteady legs. He doesn’t even grunt with the effort, moving you easily. The thought sends a shiver down your spine, but it’s not entirely one of fear. 

His hand is warm on your back as he leads you out of the room, the clean air in the hallway clearing your head further. Most bases have circulating air systems, constantly filtering out scents to keep things as neutral as possible. They’re less effective in smaller areas though, especially after scents were intentionally projected. Most military members wore scent blockers, at least while performing their duties. You remember your father coming home at the end of the day with the dull burn of scent blocker still on his clothes. 

Your head is still spinning a bit as you follow them out of the barracks and towards the mess hall. They seem to almost walk in a formation, though you suppose with years of having it drilled in your head, it’s almost second nature. You’re sandwiched between Soap and Gaz in the middle, Price in front and Ghost bringing up the rear. 

The other personnel on the base give your group a wide berth, and even in the mess you can feel the glances, but none of the stares linger. Price guides you next to him as you get your food, adding things to your tray for you. That tickling feeling starts again at the back of your neck as he makes your plate, your omega preening happily at the knowledge of what he’s doing. 

He’s proving his ability as a provider. 

In more primordial times he might have gone out and hunted for food to bring back to you to prove his capabilities. Even in more modern times, he might have hunted as some alphas still did, or he would have gone to the store to keep the fridge stocked full of food. Alphas are good at adapting to their surroundings and situations. He’s proving his capabilities in the way he can. 

You’re also silently grateful to not have to think too hard about the choices in front of you. Even after a week, British food is still a bit unfamiliar to you. It’s not entirely indiscernible, though, and you’re sure you could pick out things that sounded good if you had to. At this moment, though, with your head still reeling a bit and the unsettling energy of a new place filled with unknown alphas and betas, you’re happy to let Price do it for you. 

He carries your tray and his to a table, sitting you next to him. Gaz takes your other side, Soap and Ghost sitting across from you. The choices in their seating arrangement don’t feel quite so random to you, and you quickly realize the arrangement is similar to the room setup in the barracks. 

A beta for each alpha, you think. Gaz and Price. Soap and Ghost. 

Then there’s you, stuck somewhere in the middle of them. Somehow you’ll fit between them, squeezing into their perfect dynamic. Omegas are supposed to help balance packs, but as you sit with the four members of your new pack, you can’t help but feel like you’re only going to make things more difficult. 

NEXT ->

I'm willing to put together a taglist if people are interested...

[racew1nn3rs]

─ 𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘪𝘪. (𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳) ⛵️

⤷ summary: miami and monaco. just lando being horribly down bad and y/n being at her wits end. poor oscar just can't escape the train wreck that is two losers with feelings and zero (0) emotional competency .

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liked by landonorris, ynusername, and 45,790 others

tagged oscarpiastri and landonorris

mclaren sorry to report that the only good thing about miami was the weather! (and the celebrities)

17,492 comments

user1 it's okay admin, you can say the car was shit

mclaren yeah the car was shit

user2 mclaren team is cursed i fear

mclaren alr where my witch baddies at? please unhex us pls pls pls

user3 uhm!!!????

mclaren desperate times desperate measures and all that jazz

user4 normal people: oh no the car is bad. yn: we're cursed for generations to come ☹️

landonorris i didn't get to meet shakira, what's the point of going on living

mclaren there is none! kys

landonorris oh wow

user5 nahhhh she gettin fired 💀

user6 not a single photo with lando's face 😭

user7 boohoo ☺️ OSCAR FANS, THEY BROKE BUT WE UP ‼️‼️‼️

user6 ok enough

landonorris post me challenge (difficult)

mclaren uh no (: go talk to hr bro we do not careeeeeee

user8 this beef is crazy, yall havent made up yet

user9 DOES ANYONE EVEN KNOW WHY THEYRE BEEFING 😭

oscarpiastri yeah

mclaren hey oscar! great race

oscarpiastri don't ever lie to my face like that again

maxfewtrell gonna build the car myself at this point

user10 i see a podium in our future everyone say thank you max

user11 y/n livestream when 😔

ynusername (;

user11 WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

user12 lando and admin flirting again, who could've guessed

user13 ... she told him to kill himself

user14 the enemies to lovers is enemying 🤩

user13 yeah, it's giving enemies to lovers but no lovers only murder

mclaren truth.

user12 ARIANA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HWRE

user15 mclaren, fire everyone and hire y/n as the engineer/ strategist/ driver/ pit crew/ pr

mclaren we winning 🥱

oscarpiastri you'd be the only one finishing cause everyone else would die ☝🏻

mclaren shut the fuck up oscar 🙄

user16 flying cars they said 😔

mclaren how the mighty have fallen

user17 WE THE BEST TEAM ON THE GRIDDDD YUHHH

mclaren i'm gonna hold your hand while i say this

user18 it's been 20 years since i've seen my husband 😞 (admin won't post pictures of lando anymore)

mclaren your husband is ugly as fuck

landonorris what the fuck!

mclaren get off your phone loser

user19 full oscar picture when (i'mbeg ging you please i needg it nowe)

mclaren BAD DOG DOWN OMFG

lilyzneimer i would argue you were the best part of miami

mclaren YOU ARE SO FINE YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH BEAUTIFUL GIRL 🤭

oscarpiastri GET AWAY FROM HER YOU FREAK 🤺

user20 y/n being unprofessional on the team page, who's shocked

mclaren and the world kept spinning

user21 we all know who was really shit here (looking at you lando)

mclaren it's not funny when you do it.

landonorris when she defends you 🥴

mclaren i'm telling a trusted adult danielricciardo

danielricciardo what the fuck makes you think i can be trusted

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would you like to join? yes or no

now loading...

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The image flickered onto the screen as the broadcast began. Lando, clothed comfortably in sweats, a cap, and his streaming headphones, looked briefly off camera to where his guests sat waiting to be introduced.

He glanced up at Streamlabs and was shocked to see he had upwards of 30,000 viewers. He had only just started the stream and many people had likely not even gotten the Twitch notification yet. He shook off his shock and plastered on his usual smirk.

Everything is fine. I am totally and completely fine.

"Welcome, welcome. How are you all doing today? There's a lot of people here already. What's the special occasion guys?" He joked, being met with a scoff from the girl to his left.

Everything is not fine at all.

Lando almost never felt nervous when he would stream. After all, he was just playing game with his friends, the chat comments streaming through at a speed he could barely read. Even then, being in Formula One for so long meant he was used to being watched, his every little move being observed nearly constantly since his debut in 2019.

And yet all it took was her presence and suddenly he was nervous. His palms were sweaty, his heart was beating at a mile a minute- honestly you would think he were racing. How could he be expected to be funny and charming when she was here. She never seemed to struggle much in the department. It was almost entirely natural for her. Being perfect was like breathing air to Y/n he suspected.

As he watched the chat messages stream past even quicker on his monitor, he finally caught Oscar's gaze out of the corner of his eye. The younger man quirked a brow at him. What's your problem? His teammate seemed to say. He ignored him. Stupid Oscar and his stupid opinions and his stupid, uncomplicated love life. Lando envied the Australian most days, but now he just wanted to punch him straight in the jaw.

"Alright, it seems like most people are here already, so I'll just get started. I'm sure you're all wondering who my special guests are. The suspense must be killing you surely," He teased his audience. He ignored the completely accurate guesses in his chat.

Was he so predictable that it could be assumed it was either his teammate, Y/n, or Max were his special guests? Or was this a more unfortunate warning sign that he was just plain old boring.

"Seems like most people in chat were smart enough to figure it out! Please give a warm welcome to my guests! The lovely, stunning, awe-inspiring Y/n!" He cheered as the girl groaned, rolling her chair forward so she was behind him and within the frame of the camera.

"Oh and also Oscar's here," Lando added boredly, voice almost entirely monotone. Oscar scoffed loudly and he shot into frame kicking Lando's chair roughly, almost knocking him over and startling a laugh out of the girl behind them.

"Your an asshole mate," Oscar scoffed. Lando didn't hear him. The melodic laughing in his ear from Y/n was quite frankly the only sound his brain could process.

Who knew a laugh could sound so beautiful.

Who knew I could be so god damn embarrassing, Lando thought miserably.

"Guys do you see what I have to put up with!? How I get any shit done around here is a wonder," Y/n scoffed, "Anyways, welcome everybody, this is my stream now." Lando squawked indignantly.

"Excuse you, your in my home!"

"Yeah, unfortunately," she muttered with an eye roll and Oscar laughed.

"You should be grateful! Although these aren't the circumstances I was hoping to have you here under for the first time," Lando said with a completely unsubtle wink.

Y/n grimaced and Oscar doubled over with the force of his laughter.

"Viewers I am so sorry, please leave now, I have no way to muzzle him and apparently I can't sensor him," Y/n scowled.

"I fear he might enjoy that," Oscar muttered with a shake of his head.

Oh you motherfucker, Lando thought. Talk about subtle.

"If it was you, I probably would," Lando said to the girl and she planted her palm into the center of his face and shoved him lightly.

"Oh gross, cooties or STDs or whatever it is you men carry," Y/n shook her hands off and fake gagged.

"EXCUSE ME!" Lando shouted as Oscar nearly fell out of his chair.

"You're excused!"

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Y/n was holding on to her sanity by a thread. Or whatever was smaller than a thread... a hair or something. They had been answering fan questions for nearly 15 minutes already and Lando had decided today would be the day he would do nothing but flirt with her incessantly. He was like a child with a question or dog with a bone; He wouldn't let it the fuck go.

The sound of text-to-speech beginning dragged Y/n out of her thought spiral.

"Lando, what is your favorite video you've ever filmed?" The question asked.

Oh brother, Y/n thought. She looked at Oscar and he only laughed. How helpful.

"Probably the water TikTok challenge," Oscar hummed in agreeance.

"Why?" Y/n asked in confusion. She realized belatedly that asking Lando anything right now was probably a bad idea. She had set herself up this time.

"I don't know, I'm just a personal fan of anything that involves your hands in my hair," He smirked and she rolled her eyes. Her stomach flipped as she looked at his eyes. How could such a stupid, stupid man have such nice eyes (and lips, and teeth, and-).

"Well that's interesting," She smirked back, leaning her body toward him, ignoring the way she was blushing down to her chest. Her ears felt hot. It was hard to focus when she felt like she was burning alive, an unfortunate side effect that seemed to come with the irritating Brit in front of her.

"That was my favorite too," she added and Lando's eyes widened. Oscar looked at her in confusion over Lando's head.

"Really?" Lando asked, suprise clear in his voice. His smirk fell away for only a moment, but it was long enough for Y/n to notice.

Poor little Lando Norris, she thought. A bit too easy to read, this one.

"Yep," she grinned, before letting her face fall. "I'm a big fan of anything that means I can drown you." She responded in a monotone voice. Oscar cackled. The poor guy had hardly been asked any questions. Y/n found she didn't feel too bad anyway. The asshole was enjoying her suffering far too much.

Y/n knew the chat was going wild at their interactions, but she didn't really find herself caring. Maybe this was a bad look from a PR stand point, but then again didn't they always say "any press is good press."

Y/n wondered if the idiots who said that had ever had an inappropriate attraction to their asshole of a coworker, who just so happened to be public figure with fans who were becoming more aware of the tension with every day that interacted.

Probably fucking not.

Y/n watched as Lando's faux upset face cracked into a smile as he began to laugh heartily. She couldn't help but smile. Y/n was finding it hard to hold onto whatever grudge she had before. Maybe Lando Norris and his perfect smile, and his stupid jokes and his charming attitude weren't all that bad. Maybe, just maybe.

But they had absolutely no affect on her. None at all.

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liked by maxfewtrell, oscarpiastri, and 38,924 others

tagged landonorris

ynusername monaco post-gp (help me this guy is stalking me i can't get rid of him help hel

11,209 comments

user22 damn he took out my girl mid-sentence 😔

user23 Y/N POSTED LANDO?? AM I DREAMING?? AM I HAVING A STROKE??? OH GOD AM I DEAD

user24 girl calm the fuck down

user25 DOES THIS MEAN THE BEEF IS OVER

ynusername yes! (he has a gun to my head)

user26 LANY/N SHIPPERS WE RISE ONCE MORE

user27 get it together, they've posted together ONCE

user28 is lany/n in the room with us

user29 "lando and y/n getting along isn't real, it can't hurt you!" OH REALLY

landonorris i had other plans but i cancelled them to be your tour guide, you're welcome

ynusername me when i fucking lie

oscarpiastri do my eyes decieve me

ynusername shut up oscar

landonorris yeah shut up oscar

user30 couples that fight their friend together, stay together

ynusername i can and will block you 😃

user30 oh.

oscarpiastri no it's fine i didn't want to be invited

oscarpiastri i totally hate the ocean, it's not like i surf or anything

oscarpiastri looks boring, would've hated to go on a boat

landonorris other than the fact that i lost my flip flop in the ocean, it was fun i guess

user31 good job lando this came off exactly as nonchalant as you hoped king

ynusername HAHA LOSER YOU LOST YOUR SHOE

oscarpiastri I LOST SOMETHING ONCE 😞

user32 close enough, welcome back brocedes

ynusername literally what is the correlation here

user32 idk leave me alone

user33 um so this is actually insane

user34 i screamed so loud my neighbors called the cops because they thought i was being murdered

user35 can you be normal

user36 this might be the first original experience

user35 no, not original, just embarrassing

user37 i want to be excited about this but it feels so sinister

ynusername good, it should be

maxfewtrell never in my 23 years of living could i have expected this (lando messaged me to tell me what he was doing today)

user38 posting a comment is optional

maxfewtrell i have fomo, can i live

user39 lany/n shippers all around the world cheered

user40 oh you different friend!

user41 onto something ❌ on something ✅

user42 and the crowd is... the crowd is leaving??

user43 my crew lets go

user44 "war is over" we all say in unison

oscarpiastri not likely 💀

user23 HELLO OMFHADFSLJ

danielricciardo oh so you can hang out with him in monaco but not with me

ynusername sorry babygirl 😔 i didn't mean to abandon you

danielricciardo ew never fucking mind

maxverstappen1 i live in monaco too! hope this helps

ynusername i knew that already! hope this helps

maxverstappen1 oh.

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ynusername posted to story!

(caption: he won't leave me alone, this is sick)

17,822 replies

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landonorris posted to story!

(caption: she's trying to convince me it's cold out... girl no it is not)

24,006 replies

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I AM SOOOOO SORRY THIS TOOK 5 MILLION YEARS TO BE UPDATED!! i am hoping to be more consistent moving forward, but my schedule is a bit of a mess with school. hopefully i'll be able to get some requests fulfilled soon as well though!

most importantly, thank you so much for all the love and support on this fic!! the amount of comments, asks, and dms asking about updates was staggering and it makes me so happy that you all like to so much (: receiving such positive feedback for this fic has honestly rejuvenated my love for writing so much, and i can't express how much the support means to me.

please keep leaving comments and dms with your thoughts, i love reading them <3 hope u enjoyed!

-

𝙩𝙖𝙜 𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

@lemon-lav @slutforpopculture @m4rt10ne @urfavsgf @sadsierra2 @96jnie @sltwins @poppyflower-22 @alliumiae @livelovesports @liberty-barnes @the-holy-trinity-l @iliwyss @awritingtree @redpool @elliotts1one @velentine @chaoticmessneutralplease @5sospenguinqueen @charizznorizz @2pagenumb @mxdi0 @cwiphswmwasohmm @tremendousstarlighttragedy @lnspipedrm @itseightbeats @tinycoffeeroom @woozarts @personwhoisther @a-beaverhausen @love-simon @annabellelee @ravisinghs-wife @chezmardybum @greantii @weekendlusting @monserelates @sapphiccloud @halleest @deamus-liv @gigigreens @morenofilm @laneyspaulding19 @lanireadss @dear-fifi @moldyshorts1997 @oliviarodrigostan13 @eugene-emt-roe @ilivbullyingjeongin @im-a-ghost666

[slasher-fxcker]

Slashers seeing their future S/O for the first time

Part 2

Including: Billy Lenz, Brahms Heelshire, Jesse Cromeans, Michael Myers & Thomas Hewitt

Warnings: Swearing, (Brief mention) Attempted Sexual Assault, Violence, Mention of Voyeurism, Mentions of death, slashers being slashers. This page is 18+ Minors do not interact.

A/N: AAAND here is part 2! Hope you guys enjoy this first piece. Believe me there are many more to come. Feel free to send requests through!

Billy Lenz:

· Billy was excited about the new tenant in the house, it had been a while since he had any fun. He had been waiting for you to move in since he heard about it. He listened to you all day, moving your stuff around, there were other people too, movers he assumed. All day he listened to your voice and couldn’t wait until he could hear it on the other end of the phone.

· He had spent the day thinking of all the dirty things he wanted to tell you, all the ways he wanted you to scream for him. Of course, he had worked himself up, he waited until not long after midnight and decided to venture into the house. Poking around silently in your things while you slept. It wasn’t until he snuck into the living room did he realise that you were laying on the lounge. He froze not sure if you were asleep or not, luckily for him you were. He crept closer, watching your face. “Pretty, so pretty,” he mumbled to himself over and over again, along with a few other profanities.

· You moved slightly at the sound of his voice, repositioning yourself when he noticed your top slip open slightly revealing some of the bra you wore underneath. Billy could barely contain his ramblings at this, his mumbling getting louder as he pawed himself through his pants. You stirred again and he raced back to the attic as quietly as he could to finish what he had started downstairs. Yes, Billy was definitely excited about his new tenant.

Brahms Heelshire:

· Brahms had to admit, he was hesitant about getting a ‘nanny’. He didn’t trust people and he didn’t want to be left alone. He knew you would be there soon and he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t slightly excited. The knock at the door had him rushing through the walls to one of his hiding spots closest to the entrance. As the door opened he was surprised to say the least, you were younger than he imagined and way hotter. He would be lying if he said he didn’t imagine how he would be able to watch you during your stay, see you in bed, in the bath, some might find it shameful but Brahms was getting excited just thinking about it.

· After listening to you speak to his parents he had decided you would fit nicely into his routine. They had introduced you to the doll and he was surprised to see how at ease you seemed interacting with it. You didn’t stare at them like they were crazy, you were kind and acknowledged the doll as if it was Brahms himself. It made him feel seen, as silly as that sounds.

· Brahms had to admit, he wasn’t sure about getting a nanny at first, but seeing you speaking to the doll and imagining all the ways he was going to keep you on your toes sparked something in him. He found himself more excited than he had been in a long time.

Jesse Cromeans:

· Jesse wasn’t exactly excited to meet his new assistant, his last one had been the definition of incompetent. Jesse was a busy man, he didn’t need to be held up by another useless member of staff, he already had enough of those. The knocking on his door broke him out of his train of thought, “Sorry to interrupt sir,” he didn’t turn around or acknowledge there was a presence in his office, “I just wanted to introduce your new assistant Y/N,” he took his time before turning the chair around and what he saw definitely surprised him.

· He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been you. You seemed so soft and small, innocent in a way, he noticed the way you looked away when he had been staring too long. Jesse stood abruptly, which he noticed seemed to startle you as your eyes met his once again. You didn’t miss the small tilt of his head as his eyes scanned you before holding out his hand towards you.

· He took in your meek demeanour as you approached him and took his hand in your own, you didn’t seem afraid but definitely hesitant, which he could understand. He also noticed the moment you seemed to realise you hadn’t spoken yet, you had stopped shaking hands but neither of you had let go as you looked up at him and spoke, “It’s a pleasure to meet you sir,” Jesse didn’t miss the stir inside him when you called him that, looking up at him with your bright innocent eyes, “I’m incredibly excited for the opportunity to work for you.” Oh yes, Jesse was a busy man but he was sure he would be finding time to make sure you enjoyed your new position.

Michael Myers:

· Michael was bored. He had that itch that snuck upon him some nights, as he roamed the streets looking for his next kill. It had been almost a week since his last and the buzz hadn’t lasted very long. He had followed a pair of men into a park, they were loud and definitely had been drinking. Drunks make for an easy target, he stayed far enough back that he couldn’t see them but could still hear them so he knew he was on the right path.

· “Well what do we have here,” Michael stopped when he heard one of the men speak, “Shouldn’t be out here alone,” the other man said. “Just leave me alone,” he heard a third voice, a softer voice. Michael moved forward to be able to see what was happening. He stood by a corner just in time to see one of the men grab your arm as you tried to push past them, “Slow down honey, we can take you home if you want.” You pushed him and told them to leave you alone again. The man backhanded you, knocking you down to the ground and the other one crouched down to hold you down.

· Michael wasn’t sure why but something about you made him falter, you seemed so small yet watching you try to fight these men off like you had a chance made him feel something. He wasn’t sure what it was, he wasn’t used to feeling anything but something told him to stop the men. Before you could even scream you heard the man that was still standing groan out in pain and looked up to see a large knife sticking through his chest. “What the fuck,” the other man yelled lunging at Michael, he took care of him quickly. Once both bodies were on the ground he stood there looming over you, he wasn’t sure whether he was going to kill you yet. If it was anyone else they would already be dead, but something about you made him hesitate. You looked up at him and neither of you dared to be the first to move, you broke the silence, “You… you saved me.” Michael just tilted his head, he wasn’t sure what to do with that information. He needed to think, he needed to get away from here. How had a regular night of killing turned into this? Yes, Michael had been bored, but you seemed like someone who would change that.

Thomas Hewitt:

· The heat was especially unkind to Thomas today, he had been called down to help Luda at the service stop. Of course, he never minded helping his mama but the heat in the shop was stifling. He was grabbing some of the last boxes from the store room when he heard the bell on the front door chime. “Oh, look at you dear, my goodness you're all grown up.” Thomas relaxed when he realised his mama knew who was in the store, he had figured it was the new family that had moved in. Luda had told him about an old friend of hers who had moved back with her daughter. She seemed especially excited when she spoke about introducing him to you.

· “Evening Miss Luda, mama wanted me to bring you these.” You say handing over the basket, “Oh goodness, its been years since I’ve had one of your mamas pies.” she checked the contents before replacing the lid, turning back to you she remembered you hadn’t met her son yet. “Tommy, come out here, I’ve got someone I want you to meet.” Thomas hesitated before letting out a gruff sigh and walking back into the store. He walked towards you both but kept his eyes to the ground, he didn’t need to see the look of horror on your face when you found out Luda had a monster for a son.

· “This is my boy Thomas,” Luda introduced him, Thomas was expecting you to hide away from him or brush off the introduction all together, but instead he heard your timid voice as you held out your hand, “It’s nice to finally meet you Thomas, I’m sure you’ve heard as much about me as I have you.” He finally looked up then to find the most beautiful pair of eyes he had seen staring straight up at him expectantly, no fear in sight. He seemed taken aback, not expecting you to be so pretty and certainly not expecting you to be so kind. Before he could think any longer he noticed the slight blush across your cheeks and realised you still had your hand out.

· He hesitantly reached out, not sure if he was more afraid of spooking you or himself. Thomas gently took your hand in his before giving it a soft shake. You didn’t know how someone as large and strong looking as him could have such a soft touch. You were both still holding the others hand and staring at each other when Luda broke you out of your trance. “Well now that you’ve finally met, why don’t you and your mama join us for dinner?” Luda suggested. You and Thomas finally broke your gaze and you quickly composed yourself agreeing. You turned back to Thomas, “Well it was lovely meeting you Thomas, I guess I’ll see you tonight.” You smiled at him before turning back towards the door. He felt the blush on his face warming up and realised the Texas heat wasn���t the only thing that’s making him sweat.

[skipper1331]

We listen and we don’t judge // Alexia Putellas

a/n: short one

It was all over your foryou page - the 'we listen and we don’t judge' trend. So obviously you had to do it with your girlfriend.

After you had explained the rules to the Barcelona captain, you sat down next to each other at the dining table, your phone recording.

"Hello guys!" you greeted, Alexia greeting in her mother tongue, "today we‘re doing the we listen and don’t judge trend" you explained once again how it works for those who didn‘t know, "and I’m very excited how this turns out" you laughed, grinning at Alexia who held your hand underneath the table.

"Do you want to start, amor?" she asked.

"Yes okay." you thought about it for a moment before you came up with one, "we listen and we don‘t judge"

"Sometimes when you leave the house for training i eat the chocolate bars you get from the physio and when you ask where they are i tell you that you probably ate them already"

Ale chuckled before she answered, "amor, i buy them in the store. I know you like them. Since I’m injury free the physio doesn’t buy them anymore. It was a treat for every step of recovery"

"What? You didn‘t tell me that" you huffed, playfully.

"Yes because you always look so cute with the guilty mischief glint in your eyes when you tell me I ate them"

"Hey!-"

"We listen-" she cut you off, encouraging you to join the end of her sentence "and we don‘t judge" you said in unison.

"Sí, um, sometimes when I look through the newest football footage and you‘re nearby I make sure that you only see the best of me and my skills, so you’re impressed by me." she admitted with a shy smile, tracing patterns of the back of your hand.

leaning over to whisper in her ear, "I’m always impressed by you, don’t worry" before you said, "we listen and we don‘t judge"

"When we‘re going out and I ask if I should drive, I always hope that you say no because I don’t want to drive, I’d rather be the passenger princess with the privileges than the driver."

Alexia looked at you - indeed you often asked if she was sure that she wanted drive and that it wouldn’t be a problem if you sat behind the steering wheel but Alexia always had a feeling. Besides she loved driving you around.

"We listen and we don’t judge"

"When I’m in the supermarket and you ask me to buy something for you and it isn’t on the paper list, I forget about it most of the time. And when you ask where it is and i suddenly remember it, i tell you that the store didn‘t have it" she innocently smiled at you, the judgmental expression on your face obvious.

"Te amo, eh?"

"We listen and we don't judge" you replied.

"When we watch a movie I pretend to fall asleep, so you would carry me to bed"

"You cheeky girl" the midfielder kissed your cheek before her arm went around your shoulder, pulling you a bit closer.

"We listen and we don‘t judge"

"If you try to cook my mother's food, I tell you every time that it tastes delicious, even if sometimes it doesn't taste that good" she said, quickly adding, "because I really appreciate the effort" smiling.

"Yeah, that‘s fair. Your mum is an amazing cook"

With that being said, you continued little game for a bit before you said your good byes to the camera.

"I thought you‘d admit worse things" you said, smiling at the catalan, happy that her statements were harmless. You had seen many horrific statements on the internet which left you shocked and wondering how these people stay in their relationship.

"Why would I, amor? I like being with you and I wouldn’t ever judge you" she said with heart eyes. The girl so in love with you.

And truth to her words, there‘s never been any occasion where she had judged you. She trusted you in everything and besides, mistakes happen too, so why would she judge that? Nobody was perfect, she wasn’t perfect, neither were you. Even though she truly believed that you were the closest thing to perfection.

"Te amo mucho"

[jello-chennie]

✧ Izuku, as quiet, bashful, and nerdy as he is, is a total closet perv.

✧ genre/tw smut ⚠︎

✧ w/c 569

When the almost unbelievably pretty foreign transfer student makes an entrance on her first day in 1A, Izuku’s stomach was set afire by the downy wings of butterflies running amok inside him.  But when you turn around to write your name on the board at Aizawa’s behest, Izuku can’t help himself when his eyes start to wonder across the shape of you—when you turn back around, Midoriya is almost hypnotised by your pretty eyes and charmingly kind smile, and those butterflies quickly turn into extra blood that sit heavy in his balls. 

Midoriya isn’t able to get up to join his friends at the lunch table that day.

He thought he already had it bad before, but discovered new parts of himself after your arrival.  

Izuku who desperately tries to eavesdrop on conversations you have with the many people who hurry to try to introduce themselves to you, totally not in an effort to overhear you giving out your instagram handle.  And Izuku definitely didn’t blow through an entire box of tissues in the one night alone.  And of course he wasn’t dying of shame while having a conversation with his mother on the phone about the sudden wave of bulk pack tissue box purchases on their Amazon account.  It’s totally just a cold he caught.

He almost feels a little pathetic at the fact that there are only sweet and appropriate photos on your social media pages, but that’s more than enough for him—for a short while.  The more time he spent around you in class, the more he craved you.  He eventually found himself on some very specific porn sites in an effort to find an actress that even remotely resembled you.  That seemed to make the issue worse, as he then started to have some very vivid dreams of you with little left to the imagination, thanks to his helpful visual aids.

He tells his friends that he’s just been adding in extra workouts in the morning when they ask why he does his laundry so frequently these days.

And when the two of you become partners for a training course one day, Midoriya is enthralled by your personality and your quirk.  He immediately starts analysing it all, but quickly needs to run to the onsite restroom when he starts trying to estimate the size of your tits. In the small port-a-potty, he imagines himself taking the measurements with his palms.  Once he finishes and takes a moment to breathe, he cringes as he thinks in retrospect of himself from a few moments earlier:  Izuku had one hand held in the air, palming around nothing, as he fucked into the other one. This time he really thinks himself pathetic.

When you become closer as friends, beginning to spend time casually together in each other’s bedrooms, he smiles innocently in your face, while a stolen pair of panties sit snug in his pocket.  He also pretends to be deeply invested in his economics textbook when he overhears you complaining about constantly needing to go underwear shopping a few months later.

Eventually, you fall for his boyish charms, and the two of you begin to spend time together as a couple.  And in the most unsmooth way possible, he acts shocked and pretends to know nothing when you find a familiar long lost pair of pink panties hidden amongst his things.

[tsukumomei]

OKOKOK in my mind in the “puppy love” fic, reader is moving to spain

and then three years later sae comes to spain cause he gets scouted by re al you know the story

and so they meet again ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 (they have cute “dates” if you will, where she shows him around spain and what not 🤭)

now idk if you’re taking requests at the moment, or even want to write a part two for this, but i (and many others i feel like) would LOVE to see this!

no force though, if you do wish to write it take your time, and if you don’t it’s all fine too!

much love, xoxo 💋

a/n: This is actually insane because this is EXACTLY what I had in mind for a bonus part! I was originally going to end it when they saw each other again, but I took your request and wrote about their dates too. Enjoy! Mwah! I wouldn’t consider this a part 2, though—if I ever write one, it’ll still be from Rin’s POV. But I’m open to writing more bonus parts for this fic, so feel free to send me an ask! ^^

—RIGHT WHERE WE LEFT OFF

ft. Sae Itoshi

a bonus chapter for Puppy Love

synposis: Sae moves to Madrid after getting scouted by Real, but he has two problems. One—he hates it. The city feels unfamiliar, foreign, nothing like home. Two—he’s determined to forget about you. But the harder he tries, the more his own mind betrays him—because no matter what he does, everything leads him right back to you. wc: 3.1 k

The shuffling in Sae’s carry-on grows more frantic as he impatiently searches for that notebook from you.

It was the first thing he stuffed into his bag.

Flipping through the worn pages, his eyes finally land on the last one—covered in messy scribbles, but the only thing that stands out is a single line written in red ink at the bottom:

"Wait for me. ❤️ Y/N"

Sae presses his thumb against the words, as if touching them could somehow bring back the past. Could somehow make you feel real again.

He leans back into his seat, staring out at the endless stretch of sky beyond the plane window, but it’s not Madrid he’s thinking about. It’s you.

This morning, back at the house, he’d been kicking a soccer ball around the backyard, the steady thud of leather against concrete filling the quiet air. Rin was there too, watching him with a knowing look before finally speaking up.

"Nii-chan, it was just puppy love."

Maybe it was. Maybe Rin was right.

But if it was just puppy love, why is it still lingering?

Why did he still worry—that if you ever came back, that you’d be mad at him for not being there?

It’s been three years.

The chances of seeing you again were close to impossible.

—

Sae steps into his new apartment in Madrid, rolling his suitcase inside as his manager gestures around the space.

“This is your living room,” his manager begins, flipping on the lights. The apartment is modern, minimalistic—exactly what Sae expected. “Kitchen’s over there. Fridge is stocked for now, but you’ll need to do your own groceries after this week.”

Sae nods, setting his bag neatly by the couch.

“The bedroom’s down the hall,” the manager continues, walking ahead. “Bathroom’s connected. There’s a desk if you need to study or review game footage. Wi-Fi’s already set up.”

Sae peeks into the bedroom—plain, clean, nothing extravagant. Just a bed, a nightstand, and a small window overlooking the street below.

“You’re across the hall?” Sae asks as they return to the main area.

“Yeah,” his manager confirms, crossing. “If you need anything, just knock.”

Sae scoffs lightly. “I’ll be fine.”

His manager gives him a once-over, then exhales. “Good. Then I’ll leave you to settle in.”

With that, the manager steps out, leaving Sae alone.

The moment the door clicks shut, Sae gets to work. He unzips his luggage, methodically putting his clothes away, setting his toiletries in the bathroom, and neatly stacking his training gear by the closet. He takes mental notes of what he needs—more food, basic supplies, maybe an extra pillow.

Once everything is in place, he pulls out his phone and dials home.

His mother picks up almost immediately. “Sae?”

“I just landed and got to the apartment,” he informs her, his voice steady. “Everything’s fine.”

“That’s good,” she says warmly. “Have you eaten?”

“I will soon.”

“Don’t just eat whatever’s fastest. Make sure you’re getting proper meals.”

Sae hums in acknowledgment before adding, “Tell Dad I made it safely. And Rin, too.”

“Of course,” his mother says. There’s a brief pause, then a softer, knowing tone in her voice. “It feels real now, doesn’t it?”

Sae leans against the counter, staring at the empty space around him. His new home. His new life.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

After a few more exchanges, he hangs up, setting his phone aside.

His eyes drift to his carry-on, to the one thing he hadn’t put away yet.

The notebook.

The worn cover, the slightly frayed edges—he traces them with his fingers before flipping it open once again. The pages are filled with your handwriting, messy yet familiar, scrawled with thoughts and doodles from years ago.

It’s ridiculous, really. He hasn’t seen you in three years. He has no idea where you are, if you’re still in the same country, if you even remember him the way he remembers you.

But memories flood in anyway. The afternoons spent at the park, your determined expression when you first crashed his soccer game, the way you always talked too much but somehow, he never minded. The way you scribbled on his arm once with the same red ink you used to write—

"Wait for me. ❤️ y/n"

Sae exhales sharply and shuts the notebook.

Maybe it really was just puppy love.

He stands, grabs his wallet, and heads for the door.

He needs to get out, get familiar with the city. He’s going to live here now, after all.

—

The city is foreign, unfamiliar—Sae hates it.

He was never one for traveling. The only reason he’s here is to play soccer at an international level, but outside of that, it feels suffocating in a way he never expected.

The streets are too loud yet too quiet at the same time. He doesn’t understand the conversations happening around him, the unfamiliar syllables blending into meaningless noise. The people pass by in a blur, all strangers, none of them acknowledging him beyond quick  glances.

It’s not like he’s stupid enough to get scammed—he’s careful, always aware of his surroundings. But that doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t belong here. It doesn’t change how frustrating it is to have all this free time and nowhere to go, no one to turn to.

The city is alive, buzzing with movement, but it only makes the loneliness feel sharper.

—

Today marks his second week in Madrid.

Sae realizes just how useless he is when it comes to directions.

The sun is already beginning to set, casting a golden glow over Madrid, and he has no idea where he is.

The street signs might as well be in a foreign language—which, technically, they are. He squints at them, but the unfamiliar words blur together, useless in helping him find his way. And as for Spanish? Well, he knows about as much as a toddler forming his first sentence.

Great.

Of course, it’s at a time like this that he remembers you.

Because you were always the human GPS between the two of you, navigating streets like you had a built-in map inside your head. You always knew the right turns to take, the fastest shortcuts.

And right now? Right now, he is the one most in need of that skill.

Rin thinks Sae is perfect, so he probably doesn’t even know about this little flaw of his.

Sae scoffs to himself, shaking his head. It’s ridiculous that, even now, when he’s supposed to be moving on, he still finds himself thinking about you.

He exhales sharply, pushing the thoughts away.

Enough.

With renewed determination, Sae steps onto the crosswalk, telling himself—again—that it’s time to leave his childhood love in the past.

But by the time he reaches the middle, doubt creeps in—just enough for him to hesitate, just enough for him to misstep.

And just enough for him to accidentally bump into someone walking from the opposite direction.

"Perdón," the girl mutters, barely sparing him a glance—until she does.

She stops short, eyes widening in surprise.

"Oh."

Sae blinks.

"It’s you."

For a moment, the city fades into the background. The people rushing past, the hum of conversation, the faint honking of impatient drivers—it all disappears.

You look different now. Your hair is dyed, a little wavier than before. A stylish bag hangs off your shoulder, outfit effortlessly put together in a way that makes you stand out even in the middle of Madrid.

But to him, you’re still the same stubborn girl who once barged into his soccer game with Rin, the one who never asked for permission—just demanded a pass like you belonged there. The one who never looked at him like everyone else did.

Your eyes are the same. That’s what catches him the most. Time has changed a lot of things, but not that. They still hold the same warmth, the same quiet confidence.

Sae wonders if he looks different to you, too. If you notice the way his shoulders have grown broader, the way the exhaustion lingers under his eyes. If you can tell that beneath all the fame and titles, there’s still a part of him that never stopped waiting for you.

Neither of you speak. Just stood there, caught in something neither of you were prepared for.

Sae exhales, then—without thinking—extends his hand toward you

But before you can take it, a sharp whistle cuts through the air.

"¡Oye! Move it!"

The traffic officer’s whistle cuts through the air, snapping both of you out of your daze.

Startled, you both turn at the same time, realizing the light has already turned green—and you’re still standing in the middle of the crosswalk.

Reality has always had a way of interrupting you two, hasn’t it?

Sae clenches his jaw, frustration flickering across his face. Meanwhile, you weren’t handling it any better—because instead of just walking away like a normal person, you were flipping off the traffic officer and hurling a wooden spoon at him.

Where did you even get that? Sae has no idea. And honestly, he’s not sure he wants to.

But then he feels you grab his arm, yanking him across the street as you break into a run—both of you fleeing from the traffic officer, who Sae can only assume is cursing you out in rapid Spanish.

And just like that, his expression softens.

—

“Whew, that was close,” you say between heavy breaths, still catching your breath from all that running.

Sae glances at you, unimpressed. “Maybe if you didn’t throw a spoon at him, we wouldn’t have to run.”

You roll your eyes, waving him off. “Oh, please. That guy already hates me. This isn’t even the first time, you know.”

Sae raises a brow. “Not surprised.”

You nudge him with your elbow. “Hey! Rude.”

He exhales sharply, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “What did you do to piss him off before?”

You smirk, tilting your head playfully. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Sae gives you a look—unamused but intrigued nonetheless. “I would, actually.”

You grin, pretending to think. “Let’s just say… it involved a churro cart, an old lady, and a very, very unfortunate slip on my part.”

Sae stares at you for a moment before shaking his head. “You’re a menace.” 

You flash him a cheeky smile. “And yet, here you are, running away from traffic officers with me.”

He huffs but doesn’t argue. Because, somehow, you’re right—because he’s relieved that he can finally talk to someone other than his manager, and just as relieved to see that you haven’t changed at all.

Isn’t it ironic? The very day he decides to finally let go of your memory, fate throws you right back into his life.

But something nags at him. You haven’t asked about Madrid, about why he’s here. It’s like you’re not surprised at all, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to bump into him on the street.

Sae narrows his eyes slightly before speaking. “Hey, you’re not gonna ask?”

“Ask what?” you blink at him, confused. Then, as if remembering something, your face lights up. “Oh! Where are my manners?”

Before he can react, you throw yourself at him, wrapping him in a warm embrace.

Sae stiffens, caught completely off guard. But before he can say anything, you sigh dramatically against his shoulder. “I missed you so much! I can’t believe you followed me all the way to Spain. Oh, you really do love me.”

He clicks his tongue, exasperated. You’re being an idiot again—definitely pushing it.

But he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t deny it.

Instead, after a brief hesitation, he exhales and wraps a single arm around you, listening as you ramble on like no time has passed at all.

—

“Maybe I should put a tracker on you.” you tease, walking a step ahead of Sae as you lead him through the narrow streets of Madrid.  

He exhales sharply, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I would’ve figured it out eventually.”  

You throw him a look over your shoulder. “Yeah, sure. After getting lost for another three hours.”  

Sae doesn’t bother denying it. Instead, he follows as you turn into an alleyway, stopping in front of a small, unassuming café tucked between two buildings. 

“This place has the best tostada con tomate in the city,” you say, nodding toward the café. 

“The old man inside—Rafa—he always yells at me for ordering too much, but then he sneaks me an extra pastry for free.”  

As if on cue, the door swings open, and an elderly man steps out. His eyes land on you, and a slow grin spreads across his face. “¡Ah, mira quién es! La niña que me arruina el negocio.” (Ah, look who it is! The girl who’s ruining my business.)  

You laugh, stepping forward to greet him. “Don’t lie, Rafa. You love me.”  

Rafa scoffs but affectionately ruffles your hair before turning to Sae, eyes narrowing in scrutiny. “¿Y este quién es?” (And who’s this?)  

“My amigo,” you reply smoothly, though there’s a glint of mischief in your eyes. “He just moved here, so I’m showing him around.”  

Rafa studies Sae for a moment before nodding in approval. “Bien. Come inside. I’ll make sure he eats something decent.”  

Sae barely has time to protest before you’re dragging him through the door, the scent of warm spices and grilled meat immediately filling the air. The restaurant is small, a little tucked away from the busier streets, but it’s lively, filled with laughter and the soft hum of conversation.

When the food arrives, you dig in without hesitation, taking a bite and immediately letting out a dramatic sigh. “Oh my god,” you moan, clutching your chest like you’ve just ascended to heaven. “This is it. This is what happiness tastes like.”

Sae raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You sound ridiculous.”

“You sound jealous,” you retort, shoveling another bite into your mouth. “You haven’t even touched your food.”

Sae watches you for a moment. The way you eat so shamelessly, without a care for how you look, is something he vaguely remembers from when you were kids. Some things never change.

“I’m just letting you be the poison tester,” he mutters, finally picking up his fork.

You roll your eyes. “Please. If Rafa wanted to kill me, he would’ve done it years ago.”

Rafa, passing by, snorts. “She’s not wrong.”

Sae sighs, finally taking a bite. He won’t admit it, but it’s good. Really good.

Just as you’re finishing your plate, you glance at your phone and stand abruptly. “Be right back. Don’t go running off without me.”

Sae only scoffs in response, watching as you disappear towards the bathroom. The moment you’re gone, Rafa leans against the counter, wiping his hands on a towel before turning to Sae with a knowing smirk.

“She talked about you before, you know,” Rafa says casually.

Sae tenses slightly. “Did she?”

Rafa nods, chuckling. “Not by name. Just 'some guy I used to know who’s hopeless with anything besides soccer and even worse with emotions.'”

Sae huffs. “Sounds like something she'd say.”

Rafa shrugs. “Well, if you’re sticking around, you better get used to her dragging you everywhere. She’s got a habit of making lost people feel at home.”

Sae doesn’t respond, just looks at him, expression unreadable. Rafa only chuckles, shaking his head as he wipes down the counter.

A moment later, you return, eyes narrowing the second you spot them. “What’s this?” you ask suspiciously, sliding back into your seat. “What were you two talking about?”

Rafa smirks, tilting his head towards Sae. “Oh, nothing much. Just sharing stories.”

You gasp dramatically, pointing a finger at Sae. “You weren’t talking bad about me, were you?”

Sae finally speaks, deadpan. “Wouldn’t need to. You embarrass yourself enough.”

You scoff, reaching over to steal a piece of food from his plate. “Unbelievable. I leave for one second, and you two become best friends conspiring against me.”

Rafa laughs. “Don’t worry, querida. He’s not that easy to befriend.”

You nod sagely. “That’s true. I had to force him to like me.”

Sae rolls his eyes. That was true for most people, but definitely not for you.

He liked you from the get-go, like there was a gravitational pull towards you that he just couldn't escape from.

The day continues like that.  

You don’t take him to the usual tourist spots—the grand plazas or famous museums. Instead, you show him the Madrid you love.  

A tucked-away bookstore where the owner lets you sit and read for hours without buying anything. A tiny family-run tapas bar where the food is cheap but incredible, and the owners greet you like family. A rooftop spot where you swear the sunset looks better than anywhere else in the city.  

Everywhere you go, you introduce him like he belongs there.  

By the time the sky turns golden, Sae realizes something.  

This isn’t just a city to you. It’s a home.  

And for the first time since moving here, Madrid doesn’t feel so unfamiliar to him anymore.  

Maybe it’s because he’s finally seeing it through your eyes.

And maybe that so-called puppy love Rin kept telling him about is beginning to grow into something more.

a/n: "Puppy Love" is the one and only beloved Sae Itoshi fanfic franchise that will remain untouched by despair. I wholeheartedly believe that at some point during his four years in Spain, Sae had his dreams crushed and utterly heartbroken. But in this au? nah. no angst, no career-crushing disappointments, Just endless, tooth-rotting fluff and relationship bliss. The kind of soft, sweet moments Sae would never admit he enjoys. Because for once, he deserves to have something go perfectly right.

[trensu]

Steve had always wanted to be a skilled fighter. The schools that churned out the best fighters all happened to be schools for holy warriors. It was possible that Steve maybe sort of lied a little (with the help of his friends Robin and Dustin) to get into this school by claiming he was full to the brim of religious fervor but hadn’t decided who to pledge his sword to yet. It shouldn’t have worked, if he were honest with himself, but by some stroke of luck it did, and he finished his training as one of the top combatants. 

The issue now was that he had to pick a god whose crest to carry. There were all sorts of gods. Gods of water, gods of air, gods of agriculture, war gods, cat gods, plant gods...the list was endless. And while Steve was one of the best fighters around, he was most definitely not one of the best researchers. Thankfully Dustin and Robin were very clever and knew where to find details about the many gods in existence.

“So what kind of god do you want to follow? Maybe we can start there,” Robin asked.

“Uh…a good one?”

“You’re no help at all, you know that?” Dustin grumbled.

They suggested a local god known as Carver who stood for righteousness, but Steve turned that down. It didn't feel like a good fit. They suggested a love god by the name of Chrissy, who valued love of all kinds, romantic, platonic, familial...Steve had been tempted, very tempted, because Steve had always carried an excess of love in his heart. Robin had vetoed that one stating that Steve was already too reckless with his love and she wouldn't stand by and watch him break his own heart over and over again.

Dustin suggested a god of knowledge, Clarke, who blessed and guided those with curiosity, imagination, and a knack for invention. Steve shot that one down immediately. He was never one to be overly imaginative or curious; he preferred to deal with concrete things. Out of their quickly dwindling list, Robin reluctantly suggested Hargrove, a war god favored by a nearby kingdom, but if Carver was ill-fitting, then Hargrove was outright repellent to Steve.

"C'mon, Steve, you gotta pick someone!" Dustin huffed in frustration. 

Robin thunked her head against the table in the library where they were looking up deities. She was obviously at her wit's end too. Steve, however, just dug his heels in with a particularly stubborn scowl.

"I can't just pick anyone!" Steve said. "If I'm going to pledge my sword to someone, it has to be someone...someone good. Someone that, I don't know, someone I can believe in, even when--no especially when things go wrong. That’s the whole point!"

"Yeah, I get that," Robin sighed, a mix of fond and annoyed, "but this is the eighth book we've gone through and the only one left here is called the King of Darkness which is hardly going to--huh."

Robin paused mid-rant to look at the page more closely. Steve and Dustin both huddled around her to peek into the book as well. Dustin also made a sound of curiosity.

"That's weird," Dustin said.

"Right?" Robin asked enthusiastically.

"What? What's weird?" Steve didn't get what caught their attention.

"This god only has a couple of sentences," Dustin explained, "And they don't really make sense. Something about dark creatures and the undeserving? The grammar and structure is all weird though."

"It looks like a half-assed translation," Robin added with a nod. "We should find the original text."

"Yeah! And if we can make a better translation, we could get it added to the next edition and they'd have to put our names on the book," Dustin said excitedly. Robin's eyes lit up at the thought and they both rushed off to the stacks to track down any original sources.

"Guys! Guys, what about my..."

The librarian hushed Steve, irritated. Steve groaned in defeat.

"...godly choices. Yeah, fine," Steve slumped back on his seat. "I need to find non-nerd friends."

Two days later, Robin and Dustin finished translating a slim, dusty book. They were nearly vibrating in their seats as Steve reviewed their notes on what they found. Dustin gripped his arm and gave him a shake.

"So? What do you think?" he asked excitedly.

Robin slung her arm across Steve's shoulders. With more tenderness than Steve expected, she said, "I know it doesn't seem like it, he doesn't really fit with your whole style, but it could work."

"Yeah," Steve said with a hopeful smile. "Yeah, this feels right."

--

It took longer than Steve would've liked, but eventually he managed to track down a small, crumbling shrine. It was an alcove carved near the entrance--no more than a crack in the stone really--of a cave at the edge of a lush forest. He almost missed it, it was so drowned in overgrown crawling vines and weeds. It bore a modest statue, no bigger than Steve, standing atop an equally modest plinth. There was a spot that obviously held a plaque once, but it must’ve been dug out by thieves at some point.

The sight of it made something in Steve's chest twinge; a strange pang of melancholy at seeing a god so forgotten and abandoned. It surprised him as he had never been particularly religious, but there was just something about this one that drew him in.

It was the middle of the day, so Steve quickly made camp and took advantage of the light to begin clearing the shrine. He started where the plaque had been, scrubbing off the dirt and moss that had filled the indentation. He knew a good smith; he could commission a new plaque to be made. After that, he weeded the immediate area around the plinth where worshipers would typically lay their offerings and pray.

By the time he finished that, it was late afternoon and he decided that was good enough for today. He had to eat and get a few hours of sleep so he could be alert once night fell. When he curled up on his bedroll, he couldn't help the grin that spread on his face. He was going to offer himself to his god tonight, and with any luck, his god would accept him.

--

He woke to a multitude of high pitched squeaks and the sound of many, many flapping wings. The sun had just fully set, and the stars that could be seen through the canopy burned brightly. Steve took his time to fasten on his armor and scabbard properly, and fixed his hair so not a strand was out of place. He took a few deep breaths to calm an unexpected bout of nerves before going to the shrine and kneeling.

His god had no official prayers. Or rather, the prayers for his god were forgotten. Robin and Dustin did their best to find anything prayer-like but it had been in vain. They suspected that most of the god's holy items and lore were purposely lost. Lacking that, Steve decided it was best that he introduce himself.

"Um, hi," he started and immediately winced. "Sorry. I'm not used to...this. I couldn't find any of your…holy words? Prayers? The right ways to speak to you, I guess.

"I'm Steve. Steve Harrington. I'm a fighter. I finished my training a few weeks back. I was the top of my cohort when it came to combat. I'm good with my sword and I know how to take a hit. I can turn just about anything into a weapon if it's needed."

Here Steve paused for a moment, straining to hear but there was nothing other than the typical sounds of a night out in the woods. Steve took a breath and plowed forward.

"I want to be more than a fighter, though. I don't want to just wave a sword around for nothing. I want it to...to matter. So I spent a lot of time trying to decide who to wield my sword for. It took me a while, but I found you. I want to be your shield and sword, if you'll have me."

Steve stopped again to listen. Nothing. Robin warned him this might happen. Gods didn't always accept warriors who offered themselves to them, and forgotten gods weren't always reachable. It was fine, though; he’d try again tomorrow night. Steve turned in just before dawn, eager for night again.

--

Steve worked on clearing the vines tangled around the statue's legs and feet. He yanked out the thick, scraggly vines, and carefully picked apart the prickling thorny ones. There was a particular gnarl of vines that didn't seem like they had a stranglehold on his god's statue. They were healthy and strong, and the way they curled and grew looked more like a caress than an invasion. He decided to leave those on, though he gently rearranged them while removing the more invasive vines so they looked more decorative.

When night arrived with the sound of squeaks and wings, Steve went to kneel at the shrine. He introduced himself again, gave the same spiel as the night before. Still he heard nothing. He scratched the back of his neck in mild insecurity.

“I guess I should tell you I didn’t find you on my own. My friends Robin and Dustin helped me. They’re way smarter than me, you know? Total nerds. I can swing a sword like nothing, but books and research? Yeah, that never works out for me, so they helped me look up all sorts of gods.

“There’s a lot of them. Way more than I thought. Dustin and Robin both recommended me ones or vetoed others. They were getting frustrated with me because I kept rejecting the ones they gave me. 

“Then Robin found you. Kind of by accident, to be honest. But she did her research thing and I knew that I wanted to carry your symbol. It took me forever to find this shrine. Robin said this was probably the only shrine you had left, so I had to find it. 

“Dustin kept saying it was on the other side of the forest, but obviously he was wrong. Not that he’ll ever admit it, the little shit, but whatever. I’m sorry your shrine was abandoned like this, but I promise I’ll fix it up. I’m good with my hands, I can do it.”

There was no response to his admittedly disorganized ramble. It was fine, he told himself. He needed to be patient. He’d come back the next night.

–

Around the statue’s waist there was another tangled mess of vines, except these vines had died and rotted to dark sludge. There was fungus growing on it, and it reeked. It was gross. Steve scrubbed at it for hours because the rot had stained the stone. He was able to get rid of the rot and most of the stains before going to catch a few hours of sleep in the afternoon.

Night fell and Steve was kneeling for the third time. He repeated most of what he said the previous two nights. There was still no response. He thought maybe he was pushing too hard. He’d never been the super talkative type anyway. He could share the quiet night with his god, if that was what his god wanted.

A few hours passed when he was startled out of his near meditative state by the sound of snapping twigs. He leapt to his feet, hand on his scabbard. Someone–a man by the look of it–stumbled out of the woods. He was pale and dark haired, dressed in ragged clothes that were probably awful even when they were new. He looked like a vagabond. 

Steve stepped in front of the shrine, protectively. The stranger grinned at him and Steve could already tell he was not going to enjoy the conversation that was about to happen.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Steve asked firmly, cutting the man off before he could speak. The smile only grew wider.

“I could ask you the same thing, sir,” the man said, adopting the annoyed huff of a wealthy lord. Steve scowled.

“I asked first.”

“I asked second!”

“You didn’t ask me anything,” Steve responded, somewhat smug. The man paused and then snorted a laugh.

“Yeah, okay.” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “You got me.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” Steve repeated shortly. The teasing grin was back, and Steve felt his scowl deepen.

“Nothing and no one, m’lord,” the man bows mockingly.

“I’m not a lord.”

“Huh. Could’ve fooled me. You’re certainly as demanding as any lord I’ve ever met.”

“Oh fuck you,” Steve snapped. “I’m a holy warrior.”

The man laughed at him outright.

“Well that doesn’t sound very holy warrior-ish. Are your type allowed to swear?”

Steve grinded his teeth and decided it was not worth it to continue this conversation for much longer.

“Look, if you’re here to steal, I’ve got nothing on me.”

“That’s exactly what someone with something to steal would say.”

“Well, I don’t! I’m on a pilgrimage and I don’t want to spill blood on holy ground. So.” Steve wrapped a hand around the hilt of his sword. “Leave. Please.”

“Holy ground? Here?” the man barks out a laugh. “Don’t you know what this place is?”

“Yes,” Steve says shortly, placing himself more firmly between the shrine and the man. “Please leave. There shouldn’t be violence done here.”

“Oh, it’s far too late for that. This place used to belong to the King of Darkness. It’s said he was so evil that nothing grew here until he was run out and defeated by the god of righteousness. You know the one. Really plays up the holier than thou thing by making his hair all gold and glowy? Gotta say, you could give him a run for his money though.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No really! Your hair is great. Way better than Carver, even with the glowy thing.” 

“Not that!” Steve said in frustration. This guy really liked the sound of his own voice and Steve was starting to get a headache. It was near dawn and all he wanted was to spend the last hour or so in the quiet night with his god.

“So you agree your hair is better than a god’s?” The man tsks at him. “That’s pretty blasphemous. Are you sure you’re a holy warrior?”

“No! I mean, yes. Wait,” Steve growls at his own bumbling. “No, I’m not better than any god. But I am a holy warrior. Kind of.”

“Kind of.”

“Look, I’m working on it so I need you to leave. You’ve insulted him enough already.”

“Your god is the King of Dark–”

“Call him that again, and I will draw my sword,” Steve said, voice steely. “He’s the Lord of Night, and I won’t let you insult him at his own shrine.”

The man goes quiet for the first time since he showed up. He looked almost surprised, his mocking grin gone. His eyes flicked over to the dilapidated statue and then back at Steve.

“Lord of Night doesn’t sound much different than what I called him,” the man said lightly.

“Well, it is,” Steve told him. “Now, will you please leave?”

The man stared at him for a moment before shrugging. “Yeah, alright.” And then he left as suddenly as he had arrived.

The tension that had built up in Steve’s shoulders drained away. He went back to kneel in front of the shrine again when he noticed the barest hint of sunrise on the horizon. He cursed under his breath then was hit with a wave of embarrassment at cursing in front of the shrine and the whole situation that had transpired.

“I’m sorry about that,” Steve said, abashed. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

–

It happened again.

now with an additional snippet here and here

ps: i do not do those reader tag list things. if you'd like to keep up with my stuff, follow my writing tag: trensu tells stories

[finelinemia]

THE COLLEGE CAFETERIA - PART 2

^ Part 2! I'm so glad you liked the first part <3, I don't know how many parts I'm planning on making, not too many (maybe 4 or 5), I hope you like it a lot 🩷

SUMMARY: You're reading a book in the university cafeteria when a guy you've never seen on campus approaches you. (part 2)

Word Count: 1.5k

[uni!harry]

You quickly enter the college cafeteria to escape the cold. After all, it's autumn, almost winter, and we already know what England is like.

You approach the counter and order your usual, a latte with almond milk. The cafe owner, who already knows you because you're there every Tuesday morning from eight to nine to avoid the class of the teacher you're almost 100% sure hates you, nods and starts making your coffee.

Your body turns toward the tables as you rummage through your tote bag for the book you're reading this week, this time a fantasy one, because even though it doesn't seem like it, the boy's comments from last week have affected you a little, even though you don't want to admit it completely.

When you finally manage to get the book out, you raise your head to locate your usual table, but there's someone else sitting there, who smiles at you when your eyes come into contact with his.

"So, from what I see, you only come here on Tuesdays, at eight," he observes. "So I'm assuming... you're only missing one class, on Tuesdays, from eight to nine. And now the question is: Why?"

You frown a little "How do you know I only come on Tuesdays and not any other day of the week?"

"Because I've come here every morning this week for my cappuccino, and you haven't been there even once." That answer is quite surprising, has he really come every day of the week to see if you were here? Or maybe he just comes every morning to get his coffee, don't think you're that important.

He leans on the table. "Now are you going to answer my question?"

"As I told you last week, it's none of your business." That makes him laugh. "What are you doing at my table, anyway? Don't you have a workout in twenty minutes?"

"Your table? I didn't know it had an owner... And yes, I have training in 20 minutes, very observant you are, but I came to get my morning coffee and chat a little with my best friend. I told you I was going to get be your type…” Oh, he has come to play. “You can sit here if you want."

Although you didn't want to admit it either. You still wanted to play hard to get.

"No, thank you." You say as you take a seat at the table next to him and place the book on this one, opening it where you had left off the night before.

“Ouch.” he says, pretending that a bullet has hit his heart. "You know how to hurt a man's feelings, and I came all the way here to see you..."

"You say that to every girl?"

"Only the ones I like," he says, winking.

You weren't sure exactly why you were being so rude to him. Probably because of the comments he made to you last week. But things hadn't ended so badly, had they? In the end you were messing around a bit and ended up finding out your names, and at least he's trying to start a conversation.

"New book?" he asks, moving to the chair next to you. Having him so close made you nervous, but not in a bad way, rather in a butterflies-in-your-stomach kind of way.

You nod, still staring at the page, even though you weren't reading anything because you were more attentive to his movements. "Fantasy."

"Oh, look at you, switching from romcoms to fantasy books, you're evolving," he says, smiling, trying to get on your nerves again. "What's this about?" He slightly lifts the book from your hands to read the title on the cover. "'The Cruel Prince'... let me guess, it's about a cruel prince?"

"My God, you're so funny. Haven't they signed you for the circus yet?" you ask, finally looking up from your book and at him.

He laughs. "Oh, come on, I'm just trying to make conversation." He tilts his head, a good-boy gesture. "So… if you don’t want to talk about the book, tell me why you're only missing that class. It must be something serious for you not to even think of showing up there." You could see from his face that he was genuinely interested in what you had to say, as if you could see a hint of concern in his eyes.

But it was a story that made you feel uncomfortable; you don't like talking about it, especially with a stranger. It's a topic you haven't even talked about with your friends or family, so talking about it with a guy on campus you just met didn't seem like the best idea.

"It's about a mortal girl who, along with her twin sister and her older sister, are taken to a magical world against their will and grow up there... and at school she meets a prince who basically bullies her until they end up falling in love." You tell him rather reluctantly, trying to avoid the topic of why you don't go to that class.

"Another enemies to lovers? Who hurt you so much?" he says, frowning.

"How do you even know what enemies to lovers is?" you say, looking up from your book at him.

"It's not that difficult to interpret..." There are a few seconds of silence. "I have a sister, she also likes to read, she's constantly talking about that… But you've again avoided the topic of the class you always miss on Tuesdays.”

My God, this guy is not going to take no for an answer.

"I just don't like the teacher. I don't feel comfortable in his class," you finally say looking back at your book, praying he won't ask any more questions about it.

He must get the hint that you're uncomfortable talking about that, because he quickly changes the subject.

"What do you study by the way? Please, pleeeease tell me literature, that would be the biggest cliché in the world." he asks, narrowing his eyes, waiting to see if he's guessed your career.

That makes you laugh a little; it really would have been a cliché. "No, I study psychology." You look up at him again. "And you?" You surprise yourself by trying to strike up a conversation with the mysterious boy.

"Wow, I didn't expect you to ask," he says, more surprised than you'd imagine. "I study art history."

That is a surprise.

"Wow, that is... really?" you ask, and he laughs a little.

"Is it so strange to believe?" He leans back and crosses his arms.

"I mean... it's just that... well, it’s a bit strange, you play soccer and stuff and you don't look like..." You're not sure whether to keep talking because you're afraid of screwing up.

"That's very stereotypical of you," he says, smiling.

"I owed you one for last week," you remind him.

“Touché.” He laughs, and you can't help but notice the dimples forming on his cheeks. He's really attractive, not just a cute college boy, he was beyond that. "So, psychology... have you already psychoanalyzed me?" he asks, leaning on the table, tilting his head slightly.

"Yes, and I can say with certainty, I'm very sorry, you are indeed an idiot." You say, feigning sadness as you place a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"Oh my God." He puts a hand to his chest and looks worried. "Is it serious? Can it be fixed? Tell me it is."

You have to try really hard not to burst out laughing. It felt good to joke around like this; it's been a while since you've done that.

"You're in luck, we can fix it. You just have to keep seeing me on Tuesdays at eight. We'll take care of it." It had been very brave of you to come out with that answer.

On one hand, you thought, what the hell, if he has come every morning to the cafeteria to see if you were here, that means something. But another part of you said you were an idiot for thinking a guy on the football team was even the slightest bit interested in you.

But then he smiled, and all the bad thoughts fled with that smile. "Sounds good to me, all for my sanity, right?"

"Of course," you nod, "anything for your mental health."

"Cappuccino for Harry," the owner announces, placing the to-go coffee on the counter.

Harry stands up and picks up the coffee from the counter, taking a sip and turning to me, just like he did last Tuesday.

"Nice to see you again, [Y/N]." He picks up his training backpack from the floor. "See you at my appointment next Tuesday, Doctor." That makes you smile more than you should. You watch as he heads for the door and turns back when he reaches it. "By the way, the book is upside down."

It can't be. You quickly look down at the book, and sure enough, It's upside down. You hear him laugh one last time before the cafeteria door closes.

You let out a laugh, it's been upside down this whole time and you didn't even notice because you were more busy looking at him than at the book. Damn.

"Latte for [Y/N]." the owner announces again and you offer her a small smile before taking the cup in your hands and taking a long sip.

.

.

.

Thanks for reading! 🩷 If you liked it, you can leave me a heart and repost it so it reaches more people.

[qqueenofhades]

This is dark, and I totally understand if you’re not comfortable answering this, but I genuinely feel like you’re the best person to ask.

How do I stay informed without spiraling into this absolutely unhealthy, blood boiling and borderline mouth frothing anger?

I feel like a barely follow anything any more so cutting down media consumption isn’t an answer, but in the small bit of news I saw tonight I’m literally hot to the touch and having an invasive thought spiral of “Why isn’t he dead? Someone needs to kill him! SOMEONE KILL HIM! KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL KILL KILL MAIM UNTIL THERES NO REDS LEFT FOR THE SAKE OF US PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD KILL THEM ALREADY-“

This isn’t healthy. I know it isn’t healthy. But even knowing the statistics of non-violent revolution vs violent revolution, I can’t help but feel like we’re watching a trolley problem unfold in the worst ways because the modern population is a bunch of cowards.

This isn’t helped at all by the fact I have personal reasons from the last admin that I need to see them SUFFER. And far worse than just some dealership fires.

Oh hon. Please recognize that I am only a tired middle-aged queer academic on the internet with no formal medical or psychological credentials and thus am definitely not the best person to help you here, but because you have said that you value my opinion and trust my advice, I hope that you will consider what I say and see what you can do. (It is hard. It is super hard. I know.)

First, please consider whether you need to be informed. I know that a lot of us have guilt complexes around "consuming" the "right kind of news" and having the "right kind of opinions," because social media has beaten it into us that is the only way to Do Activism (wrong). If you're feeling so completely wrung-out right now that even a little information is overwhelming you, you can just not look, period. That is okay to do. If you need permission from Someone On The Internet to just cold-turkey yourself, then this is it. If you want to stay on Tumblr but can't take seeing any political/news content at all, then you can block, unfollow, tag-and-content screen (remember that you can do more than just block tags; you can block any words that you don't want to see), literally whatever you need. You can block the usernames of people who consistently post political content that distresses you, even if you agree with it. You are not obligated to be constantly informed to the point of trauma. You do not owe anyone a social media presence, or your attention, or so forth. After all, you alone can't do a whole lot to change it, and you need to take care of yourself. We are in a shitty, shitty time right now. Things real bad.

That said, it sounds to me as if you also need to take the next step and get some proper support, especially because you recognize that these thoughts are intrusive, spiraling, and unhealthy but don't feel as if you can stop them on your own. Uncontrollable rage response is a common PTSD symptom, and we are all hella traumatized right now, for literally every imaginable reason. This is a real mental health issue and not just something that you can control by screening your internet content/news consumption/social media presence further, though that might help. So I would really suggest that you start the process of finding a therapist or similar other medical professional who is trained to help and support you and who can offer structured resources that friends and even random well-meaning Tumblr users such as myself can't. It sounds scary and difficult, but it's not, you can do a bit at a time, and it will be necessary so you don't feel so completely raged-out and shaken and scared all the time.

If you have health insurance, you can go on your provider's page and easily make a list of nearby doctors for different kinds of issues, i.e. in this case mental health and counseling. Many of them have extra identity-or practice-specific information listed (such as "LGBTQ-friendly" or "great bedside manner" or "does telehealth appointments" and so forth) and you can also read the reviews for individual practitioners to see if they sound like someone who might be the right fit for you. In other words, you can do a lot of screening even before you arrive in their office and see if they're someone you might be able to work with and open up to. (And as noted, many of them also have virtual options if Zoom feels less threatening for an initial contact.) Make sure that they ARE in-network because you don't want to get socked by expensive appointment fees (health insurance sucks etc), but if you don't have insurance or only a very basic coverage level, you can also search for local or community health-center practitioners who might be able to offer sliding-scale fees or major discounts. There are usually affordable options if you do a bit of looking. If you are at a university in any fashion, make use of the student health and counseling centers. They are there for you!

As I said: things are just flat out terrible right now, and we can't do much about it on an individual level, but we still have to figure out how to take care of ourselves and get through it somehow. Please do not feel guilty if what you need to do right now is go into total news blackout and get some professional help. That is honestly the least of what could be expected from living every day in a stupid and traumatizing situation like this one, and there are plenty of other people who will carry on fighting back while you are tapping out to do some self-care. You do not have to do this alone.

Eventually, you may be able to regain some equilibrium and plan out how you're going to manage the next few weeks/months/years, how you're going to find joy in small things, how you're going to plan to continue living your life even in the face of rampant murderous and unavoidable idiocy, etc. This may or may not be comforting, but as a historian, I can attest that people of previous generations have pretty much always thought the world was ending due to [insert stupid issue du jour.] That, unfortunately, is the story of humanity in a nutshell, and until we break that cycle, it's going to continue that way. However, the bright side is that the world has not ended and has gone onward, and the odds are decent that it will do so again this time. I can't offer much more than that, but I think that's important.

Courage. Take care of yourself. We can do this together. Stay strong. Much love. I am proud of you.

[whatlurksbean]

Prefacing this with a note that WLB is absolutely one of my top two favorite comics (out of many) at the moment, and I look forward to every new page. There's just one thing that's been bugging me a lot.

Do the cats on the island not have a sense of smell, is there some other explanation, or is the fact that certain things are never noticed through smell an oversight? There are two major plot points that make me ask this.

The first is Thresher being poisoned. Lavender is one hell of a fragrant plant- my shitty human nose can pick it up easily just walking by it outside. The cats even remark on the smell of lavender in contexts aside from the Big One. If the lavender was straight up visible in Thresher's poisoned prey, surely someone would've noticed the smell? Especially Thresher himself with his nose right up in it.

The second is even bigger- Gull and the Family assuming Tusk ate her baby. Even assuming Tusk could somehow have eaten an entire infant child without getting blood on her face or the ground, surely the lack of the scent of fresh blood and gore would've been very obvious. Was this just Gull that nose-blinded by hate, and got everyone else to follow along, while Tusk's supporters were too panicked to think to point this out?

If it is an oversight, I can't blame you, I also write xenofiction and it's hard to consistently consider the physiological differences another species has from us. I just keep thinking about it and I'm really curious what the actual situation is.

There is logic to my choices, but i'm surely underestimating the power of the cat sniffer.

For Thresher, I don't think the family cats are well versed in plants from the forest. The do not have an official medic role, there is very little medical training around for them about plants. Sturgeon only knows lavender is poisonous from Petrel. Thresher may have noticed a smell, or even seen the plant, and he would have just brushed it off as something the bird / mouse ate or lived near before dying.

Auklet only picked up on it being a problem because he is more perceptive to his brothers health. Initially I didn't have him say that he "noticed the lavender" but rather "I've seen plants in his food." but people were getting confused enough on what Sturgeon was doing, so I decided to clarify it better and just make Auklet a little smarter. Because I don't think he or thresher would really know what Lavender is. It doesnt grow on the beaches. But I will make that logic sacrifice for clarity.

As for Gull, I think she was already convinced by her own bigotry that Tusk was guilty, despite what logic pointed to. Tusk was alone with her deceased kitten for hours and hours, and then he disappears without a trace. And Tusk hasnt left the cave, and surely no one would help her break the law and bury ray, and hake was within her sights the whole time. There was only one option in Gulls mind, and no one else in the family cared enough to fact check her. Gull is an elder and has helped deliver most of their kittens in the family, why would she lie? Tusk must be the monster here.

And cats CAN cannibalize their newborn kittens, it does happen and it is absolutely possible for there to be nothing left. It especially tends to happen with stillborn or sickly kittens, like tusks.

The smell part is definitely an oversight on that part though, I don't think I even thought about it for that scene. I don't think about what my food smelled like after i've eaten it. But I think that even if this was brought up by Hake or whoever, Gull wouldn't be convinced she's wrong. And it's not like Tusk would offer them to smell her breath.

idk, there is logic to my choices but it is certainly not wholey realistic, and it never would be in a xenofiction story, so I am okay with that.

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

For the Backstories prompt! I wrote a lot so uh oops.

Etho is a living glitch as well as the oldest thing in existence, although he’s not the first Player, that goes to Steve. Etho went about for a while, refusing being patched and annoying the Devs, but eventually he started seeing more Players running around, and decided that he wanted to try the whole Player thing out.

After he became a Player he started working on his own world, gaining a little audience in the process. Whenever he’s in his let’s play world he’s watched by ten beings that he calls the Script Writers, although they’re pretty harmless and don’t actually have control over him. They like to leave him suggestions for what he should do and watching him is their favorite activity. Etho knows about them, but they don’t interact with him outside of leaving him ‘scripts’, so he mostly ignores them.

There had been an incident where the book they left him had gotten most of its pages torn out, and any words left were corrupted beyond repair. Etho eventually found the stolen pages in the side of a mountain, as well as the thieves. He’s not sure where the 404 clones came from, or how those twisting halls and rooms even got there, but he hasn’t seen either of them again in a long time.

Pearl’s past is a bit less chaotic (though she definitely still had crazy things happen). She’s from a small village and lived a pretty normal Lunar childhood. She was born during a clear night underneath that world’s beautiful Milky Way, gifting her magic related to the wide and colorful expanses of space alongside the usual moon related magic.

She was trained in the arcane and observatory, and considers herself very close to the Sky Mother. She met Grian when they were both pretty young, and after many more years she joined Hermitcraft — just in time for the moon to come crashing down. Pearl eventually found out that Tango had been claimed by the Sky Mother thanks to her amusement at his attempt to destroy the moon, and has offered him help with figuring out his new Lunar magics.

Speaking of Tango, the first several years of his life were very eventful. He wasn’t born, instead having been a patch of fire that gained sentience and a bit of magic. He wandered around on his own for a while, building himself an organic body based off of features from various beings and mobs he came across. He was chased away by quite a few Players and away from quite a few villages before meeting Skizz, who quickly ‘friendnapped’ him and took him home (much to Impulse’s disappointment and confusion).

Tango didn’t talk to Imp & Skizz for a couple months, but eventually he got used to them. Besides, living with them was a lot more comfortable than wandering aimlessly, and it was nice to finally talk to people who didn’t try attacking him. Impulse was pleasantly surprised that Tango didn’t immediately book it as soon as he managed to get outside again, and Tango’s been friends with Imp & Skizz ever since.

It's been hard for Tango to get used to this new form of magic- it's nothing like the fire abilities he's had his whole life. But Pearl is helpful, and he's already thinking of ways to use it in minigames.

-Mod Mleem

[sailorspica]

the stars have all gone | iii

crocodile x f!reader, explicit oral (f receiving) and penetrative sex, can be skipped if you watch for the large ♂. part three of a series. mentions of past basil hawkins x reader. selfship-coded; reader is an astrologer, hawkins' former navigator, and a different race from both of them. post-timeskip canon au, 5.4k words.

You left the cafe through the front at your insistence, to assure the owner and few afternoon customers that the former Warlord was leaving the premises. Daz Bones leaned against the wall, and Crocodile only had to nod for the man to leave, waving a nonchalant hand.

"Your associate?" you asked.

"One of them," he said, which was more information than he strictly had to share, considering the secrecy you knew shrouded Baroque Works. Somehow you didn't think his old subordinate was who he meant, though you came up blank on who he might consider more of an equal. As if hearing your thoughts, Crocodile added, "We're meeting later. After I finish here."

You felt a pang of disappointment that he was leaving again, but quickly realized his idea of unfinished business was you, collecting you, and you bit your lip and focused on matching his strides that he already shortened to accommodate you. "I can't exactly host you or anything. I know a good sandwich stand, though."

"I'm a pirate," he reminded you.

"And how many pirates dine and dress like you?" You batted at the lapel of his fur coat.

"You could, too," he said.

"I'm not a pirate."

He ignored that. "Anything is better than Impel Down."

You stopped. "Okay, first: you were there for a few months, at most. Second: this stand gets their rolls from us at bakery. It's more than a notch above prison food."

Crocodile looked down at you, glancing, oddly, at your boot-clad feet, and offered his left arm. "You walk slow."

"I'm not eight feet tall," you grumbled as you reached up to clutch his forearm. It wouldn't be at a height that made sense for you without him squatting.

"Even six feet would make a difference," he groused, looking at your hand by his hook.

"Is that your normal height limit?"

"My partner was six two."

Partner. The upper ranks of Baroque Works operated in pairs, you learned when their mugshots were published two years ago. But what did he just say? It's poor form to sleep with subordinates. Did a partner count? His counterpart was the only one at large, now a bona fide pirate. Did he—?

You made yourself relax your hold on him. You had no business being possessive over someone you meant to turn down.

You led him downtown, sometimes pointing out landmarks, and noticed people who'd normally give you a wave or a polite smile didn't meet your gaze because of your company. Damn. He'd done awful things, but so had you. So did anyone whose business wasn't splashed across the World Economic Journal. Crocodile and Daz were known quantities around here, so you wondered at the chillier reception until you passed a newsstand, all Reverie coverage. His gaze also drifted that way.

"The dissolution doesn't affect you, does it?"

"Not directly."

Vague.

The pair of you had something of a walking dinner through public parks on the way to your flat, the silhouette of the hotel where you apparently slept together receding in the skyline. It felt a little ridiculous to explain to a pirate that your boardinghouse was quite conservative, strictly for unmarried women who had to be employed or enrolled in training of some sort, so you hoped he'd be out of there by midnight once you gently but firmly declined his offer and sent him on his way after a nightcap of bottom-shelf whiskey. You only had a small dining table and a writing desk, and he elected to sit at the latter while you hunted down your tumblers.

"You drink brown liquor but can't handle wine?"

"Wine's like juice," you defended. Especially port. You didn't forget his sweet tooth.

But he wasn't looking your way anymore, instead peering at the topmost page on your desk. "May I?"

"Go ahead."

He held it to the lamplight, and you recognized it as your own progressed chart, done more for practice than predicting your future.

"You write prettily," he said. "Prettier than you speak."

"Thank you," you said with an eyeroll. You sat at the edge of your bed behind him and moved to set his tumbler on the coaster by your ephemerides, and Crocodile grabbed the glass from your hand before you could land, his broad fingertips dwarfing yours. He took a sip and made a face at the taste, and you giggled, earning a warning glare.

He scratched at the back of his head with the side of his hook, the ice cubes in his glass clinking as he gestured. "These almost look like Poneglyphs."

"You've seen one?"

"In Alabasta."

You tilted your head. "They predate the Void Century, so they're probably simpler than Poneglyphs, or components of their characters."

"Have you seen one?"

"In the paper, so not any detail. The Big Mom Pirates found it." You chewed your lip, debating whether to continue. "We know the astronomers who named the seven visible planets, but not the outer ones. Symbols for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto just appeared 800 years ago."

"Dangerous talk," he said.

With a dangerous man. Your last captain wasn't even interested in the history of his own tools. The first deck he used was yours, discarded once you realized tarot lacked the structure that kept astrology interesting even in your skepticism, and you'd never seen him use the second, less showy deck you gave him.

"Well, I imagine you won't sell me out. I think pointing out a gaping epistemological hole doesn't make treason."

"And you're not a pirate?"

"Every scientist and scholar should be one, by that logic."

Crocodile picked up the page again. "Pluto..."

"Uh, it's—" You scooted to the edge of your bed and grabbed a pen to point out the ♇. "It looks like that—kind of stupid, just a P and an L—but you also see—" You stood and snatched it from his hand, bending over the desk to draw a ⯔ and a ⯓ next to it. "Depends on where you are."

To your further surprise, he laughed. "Oh, Nico Robin. You liar."

You froze. "What?"

"I'm not stupid," Crocodile said, not really to you, it seemed. "I looked at that stone the whole time she 'translated' it. That was the very first character." He pointed at the third symbol.

"That one's really not widely used," you said, though you were quite lost. "It's regional to some parts of the Grand Line, maybe."

"Or it was suppressed," he challenged, weirdly animated. "Because it's the name of an ancient weapon."

"Hmm." There was more to Alabasta than he claimed. "If you think I can read at an archaeologist's level, I'll have to disappoint you," you said primly, trying not to feel hurt.

You moved to sit back down on your bed, and almost yelped when he pulled you into his lap instead, his left arm going around your waist and his hand gripping your hip. "Witch," he muttered near your temple, "I'm content with your skills."

"Well, I can't do witchcraft..." you said faintly. "And we haven't sailed together." What alarmed you more than his forwardness was that you wanted to melt backwards, to feel his body caging yours. "Crocodile..." you started.

"Sir."

"Is this really a good idea?"

"Hmm?" he grunted, faux-innocent. "I wanted to hear more about these glyphs."

"From here?"

He studied your profile slyly, his right elbow resting on your desk. "It's an absurdly small room. How else am I supposed to see?"

"This is hardly navigation, sir."

"But you use them for navigation."

"Yes, but my notes are my business."

"Would you sail with an observatory?" He nodded at your telescope by the window. You knew he didn't make empty promises; it was a very real offer.

"The crow's nest is fine."

"But this is quite an office you have here."

You had a library of ephemerides, all difficult to source since they came from small presses if not from Mary Geoise. Besides a bulky globe useful only for coordinates, you had various instruments: an abacus, a drafting compass, sextants and telescopes of different size, your old single-dial log pose, and a conventional magnetic compass, both useless in the New World. On the Grudge Dolph, you had some privacy as the only woman, but that meant Hawkins had to come to your bedroom with navigation questions, which was always treacherous. Not unlike Crocodile, one foot from your bed now.

"Beggars can't be choosers," you sniffed.

"And where is this ship of yours now?"

"Not mine," you said too quickly. "And I don't know. We don't keep in touch. Last I heard they formed an alliance." Which you hardly agreed with. "When did you dock here? What's your ship like?"

"It's a loan. Once I repossess some funds, I'm hiring a shipwright." You winced. Poor bastard, whoever it was owed him. "What day is it... Been here two weeks."

"Seems a little long, for you." He only lingered in one place for days at time.

His arm around your waist grew heavier. "You're quite elusive."

No. You were the only reason he was here? You assumed you were just a detour from tasks at hand.

"Seriously?" you said softly.

"I asked." It felt like he spoke to the crown of your head. "At the restaurant, the hotel. You could've left a number with the front desk. The damn host wouldn't tell me who was there that night..." The same confidentiality that benefited him, both of you. "...and I only had your first name. If Daz hadn't overheard one of your clients, I would have hunted your Magician."

Hunted. Crocodiles never did so without reason, your grandmother said when she spun tales of the old country. And it was forbidden to hunt them first.

"I can't serve someone I'm attracted to," you said finally. "And you don't sleep with subordinates."

"It's poor form." His breath whistled across your hair. "So why should I care?" With that, he brushed your hair aside and kissed the back of your neck, pulling a gasp from your lips. "Aren't we pirates?" You shivered, and he kissed the shell of your ear. "Make sure you remember this time," he muttered lowly.

♂

You leaned into his warmth, the solid wall of his chest making you feel strangely safe even with a sharp hook holding you to him. He exhaled through his nose as your ass settled against the growing bulge in his trousers. You turned your head so you could only see his jaw in your periphery, how tall he was. "Make it memorable, then."

"Minx."

You smiled as you reached up to pull his face down to yours by his nape. He tasted like whiskey and tobacco and heat, and you surprised yourself how fearlessly you butted your tongue into his mouth all while grinding backwards in his lap. His right hand found the inside of your knee and spread your legs open, his warm palm bunching your silk skirt up.

You whined as cold air hit your damp panties, which he quickly amended by rubbing at you over the thin fabric. "Ah—!"

"This wet, bird?" he breathed by the side of your head. "Just from a little conversation..."

"You too, old man," you challenged with a wiggle, to which he swatted at the inside of your thigh. "Ow!"

He promptly soothed it with a flat palm. "That's not what you call me."

"Sir," you drew out, singsong and annoying, and his eyes narrowed. The next thing you knew, he tossed you onto your bed, and the sheer size of him knocked the breath from your lungs as he rolled your panties and holster down your legs, the knife your last captain gave you clattering to the floor as Crocodile yanked you to the edge of the mattress.

"Quiet," he ordered lowly, sinking to his knees.

He laid his hook flat on the inside of your right thigh, and you shivered at the cold metal and how carefully and heavily it rested with the sharp tip closer to your anterior, away from the soft skin he massaged and kissed on your opposite leg at as he groped his way up, up, finally pressing his face to your slick folds and breathing deep.

"Sir—!"

"...hide from me." You caught the end of his murmur into the juncture of your thigh, and one of his thick fingers dipped into your entrance just as he licked at your clit, earning a throaty moan from you you hardly recognized. You only grew more slippery with his attentions, and the sound of not just your arousal but his spit mixing with it, licking and kissing around his own finger, was lewd and humiliating as your body adjusted, welcomed him back. Because it was familiar, the breadth of him between your legs, the spices and tobacco on his skin, the weight of his hook splaying your leg open to the side. One limb free, you traced your left sole down his back, feeling his shoulder blade move under the skin there, and it stimulated nerves you forgot you had. "Oh, sir—" Your voice came out breathy, and you futilely covered your mouth with your hand to suppress your noises, your other hand tangling in his hair.

He hissed at the sting, but didn't warn you off, instead lapping more insistently. Curious, you tugged with more intention, and he groaned before lifting his head. "Do that again."

You obliged, grinning up at the ceiling at the quiet whimper he made against you. Yes, sir.

But after that, he scissored a second finger into you, and the stretch burned sweetly, not painfully. You petted at his scalp to let him know you were okay, and he rolled your clit with his tongue with a satisfied hum. Smug bastard, you would've said out loud if you didn't feel the beginnings of an orgasm at how patiently and ruthlessly he prepared you. Your grip on his roots tightened along with your walls around his digits, and he kissed at your lips, pulling away some to watch his fingers moving, the stones of his rings glinting in the candlelight.

"Sir, can I please—?"

"So polite," he said dryly, like his face didn't glisten with your shared mess. "Yes, bird, come."

Like it was an order (it was), your body tumbled over the edge before you realized. Your would have flailed wildly if it weren't for his holding you down, his sticky fingers landing on the knee thrown over his shoulder. He watched you fall apart almost like he couldn't do anything else, and you moved to cover your face with your hands at his scrutiny when he snarled, "Don't hide from me again."

"Wasn't hiding..." you protested, and you didn't know if you meant now or the weeks he spent looking for you.

You managed to choke your surprised squeal to a whisper when he kept going. He coaxed his middle and ring fingers back in gently with a would-be chaste kiss to your puffy, throbbing clit. "Didn't get to see," he grumbled against your skin, and took up that slow, torturous pace again.

He's insane, you thought. Not for how he held you down and devoured you like prey, but how methodical this was, like he both knew you and just how much loosening you needed to take him. You only felt him through his clothes when he pulled you into his lap earlier, and you swallowed, unable to fathom him bare. You came a second time with the addition of his index finger and, to your embarrassment, your asshole fluttering against his tongue, and you felt him smirk at how your hips jerked with enough force to jostle him.

"Please, no more, sir, I want—"

"Not yet."

"It's too—" Tears were trickling out your yes. "S'too much, I don't need—"

"Yes you do." He pressed his hook into your leg, and somehow you knew it was more of a caress, how occupied his hand was now with massaging you open.

"Aren't you—don't you—?" There was no way he was doing this unbothered.

"This is for both of us," he said simply, kissing your knee. "Be patient."

Shakily, you nodded, and didn't know if you pushed his head down or simply followed him. You grabbed around for a pillow to muffle yourself, making sure to pull it away when you were close so he could see, whatever he meant by that. You weren't sure how many orgasms he'd pulled from you when he joined you on the bed at last, finally loosening his cravat and losing some layers. You watched him undress, hazy in your current state, and would have whistled at the sight. Noticing your look, he raised one cocky eyebrow.

"Not fair," you mumbled.

"What isn't, bird?" That pet name again as he crawled beside you, testing the limits of the double bed.

"You can't look like that and be one of the strongest men alive."

Crocodile laughed, truly laughed at that, and it was a lovely, rich resonance against your chest that surely traveled down the hall if your animal whining didn't. "Flattery?"

"You asked." And you meant it. He wasn't as trim as pirates your age who walked around with their shirts open—if anything he was softer than in his wanted posters, all the fine food and wine evident—but still so clearly strong, how he manipulated your body with both ease and care. And there was the thick, long cock that only made sense for his stature, proud and hard, that you couldn't believe ever fit inside you.

"Well," he said lowly, pulling you over him. "Who said you can be intelligent and charming all at once?" He looked ready to take it back at your snort of laughter. "You know I don't go out of way like this for anyone."

You had nothing to say to that, so you cast off your rumpled dress off and pretended not to notice his heated perusal. "Um," you started. "How did we—?"

He easily wrapped his left arm around you and propped himself up in your pillows, leaving you straddling his abdomen. His large hand skimmed down to your hip, his hook resting above your ass as he smirked up at you.

"Oh."

With a man of more average height, his face would be much closer, but you were simultaneously far from his lips and his lap. Feeling lost, you elected to scoot up his torso and plant a kiss to his jaw, resting your hands on his broad shoulders. His brow quirked in amusement, but you could tell he was surprised at the gesture.

"Help me?" you asked shyly.

"Demanding thing." But he obligingly held your hips, guiding you down his body. "Slow." An order, like he was telling a pet to chew their food. Now sat splayed across his thighs, you reached for him, and lord. He was heavy in your hand, more thick than long, and you swore you felt him twitch as your fingertips traced the velvet of his skin.

"Pretty," you said unthinkingly.

You gave his cock a few experimental pumps, and he grunted. "I thought you couldn't wait anymore." His voice was tight.

"You don't get to be the only tease."

"Fuck."

"Language. Sir." Despite your threat, you lifted yourself slightly, and guided him where you were desperate for contact. You only meant to gather some lubrication by rubbing your pussy along his length, but his weighty tip knocking against your clit had you falling over his body. "Oh shit," you panted, your cheek planted on his sternum. He grunted at the friction. This position made you less self-conscious, somehow, your breasts squishing against his hard chest, your hands planted on either side of him, and you rolled, spreading your lips around his girth.

"Witch," he hissed.

"Not a—witch—" you corrected, like you weren't rocking against him, feeling his precum trickle between the two of you. "I'm a sci—scientist, it's just—observation—"

"Shut up," he growled, and you only picked up the pace. His hook pushed you more firmly against him, and you moaned at the increased pressure. "This really enough, bird? Just humping like—"

"Shut up," you whined, chasing something you couldn't see. At that, he moved his hand from your hip to your front, reaching for his cock like he could somehow take back control, but you sat yourself more upright and batted him away, widening your stance and finally, finally sinking onto him.

He grunted out a slow exhale watching you, and you bit your lip, the discomfort present even with his diligence. "Take your time," he murmured, the base of his hook rubbing at your back. You just sat there for a moment, still keeping some weight to your knees because if you took any more of his considerable length you'd surely hurt yourself. Your breath was coming short and shallow, and to your surprise, his large, jeweled hand came up to hold your chin and jaw. "That's it, bird." His thumb collected tears you didn't realize were falling. "Do you need—?"

"Nnnhmm." Whatever the hell you whined was in the negative, not even knowing what he was going to say. To stop? Never. A break? No. Help? Maybe. All you knew was you were probably ruined for other men for a long, long time after this, how perfectly overwhelming he was in every way. The smell of his sweat, the infernal pitch of his laugh, the taste of his skin, and the cruel size of him all threatened to make you fall like you never had, and oh no. You intended to send him off, didn't you? But how could you now that you'd found your bearings, with the perfect drag of his cock through you, just how much you spread for him?

His eyes were somehow darker as he looked up at you, wandering from what you were sure was an ugly, pinched expression on your face to the bounce of your tits, and his hand moved from your hip to thumb your clit lazily, not particularly helping but teasing. Frustrated, you pitched forward slightly to chase that pressure, and the dark chuckle at your desperation died in his throat when you purposely squeezed around him. "God, woman," he said through gritted teeth.

"Yes, sir?" You sounded delirious in your own ears, your hands finding some purchase on his broad chest, and you teased lightly across one of his nipples.

"You weren't so..." He grunted at another evil little squeeze you were quite proud of. "...maddening last time."

"How was I?" You slowed to a grind.

"Not quite pliant. Didn't seem drunk to me. Still—you—" How was he so sure who that was? "—but you didn't go out of your way to torture me."

"Torture? Hah—" He started fucking up into you shallowly, and you stuttered. "F-from an ex-con?"

"I don't exaggerate," he said lowly as he sat up, pulling you with him with his hook on your back and his hand in your hair, his movements becoming sharper, deeper at this angle. Your eyes widened when he prodded at your lips with his fingers, which you happily slurped into your mouth. Just two of them were thick, stretching your lips obscenely, and you wondered if you'd ever suck his cock like this. No, this is it. No more. You needed this gag, him pressing down by your soft palate as he took over, bouncing your tired body in his lap like a doll while your moans blended into sobs. You were aware your spit must be pooling in his palm, trickling past his wrist, so you latched onto his forearm with both your hands as if to spare him, but more to feel even closer, closer than this.

"Look at me."

You were so full of him that the thought of seeing him was almost too much, but you complied as he slowed to a halt. Blinking back tears, you saw some strands of his hair escaped its styling to fall across his brow, which was crinkled with exertion and restraint, and you could have fallen in love with the concern and hunger in his eyes. You pulled his fingers from your mouth and kissed at the tips, meeting his gaze all the while.

"Beautiful," he murmured.

"Wan' more." You sounded like and idiot, but he smiled down at you indulgently.

"Do you?"

You nodded.

"Are you close?"

"Uh-huh."

"Come with me."

He started moving again, cradling your head in his hand and pulling you tight to his front with his arm, but in your state of bliss, you answered a different question, a few beats too late. "Yes, sir."

"Hmm?"

"I'll—shit—I’ll c-come to sea with you." You splayed your hands on his back and met his strokes, riding in earnest.

He didn't so much as pause. "I knew you would."

"How?" Wildly, you thought your progression had a 9th house midheaven, maybe he could read it, maybe—

"Because who else is there to fuck you like this, hmm?"

Oh.

"Shut up!" Your voice had a wobbly whine to it the closer you got. "'M not becoming a pirate again for sex."

"Really? Tell—" He grunted, and your ego had never been bigger, hearing how you affected him in turn. "Tell yourself that—in my cabin—every—night—" He punctuated it lewdly, a sharper thrust at each word, but you squealed into his pectoral at how deep he reached.

"Fuck, sir, shit. There—"

"Here, bird?" Repeating the motion, strain in his voice.

"Yes, yes—ooh, thank you—sir—I'm—"

You saw white behind your eyes as you went limp in the crook of his arm, and you dimly registered his hand gripping your jaw, him murmuring somewhere close to your forehead, and god, if only he could kiss you.

"So pretty like this," he was saying, and you nipped at his fingers, sucking his thumb into your mouth, and he chuckled at that. "Let me—"

"Mhmhm!" You released him. "Yes, sir, you too."

He really gripped you, pressing the cuff of his hook to your right hip, his fingers digging into your ass, as he chased his own pleasure, threatening to reignite yours, too. You were just along for the ride, falling over him, your arms looped under his and your hands on his shoulder blades as he moved in and out of you, slow and deep. You were almost sleepy, silly enough to try to tease him. "Do I feel good, sir?" you cooed, your cheek on his chest.

"Yes, witch," he bit out.

"You said 'every night'? I'm not sure you can keep that up." You knew he was glaring down at you without looking. "You're a busy man, is all, sir."

You felt his dick twitch inside you, and you wondered if it was the teasing or the title that got to him, but his breathing became shallower, and a low whine sounded in the back of his throat, only legible to you with your ear on his ribcage. His movements became a little more frantic, his hand creeping between the two of you to pull out with a 'pop', and you felt warm liquid land on your back as he pumped his heavy cock of its last drops.

"Woman..." he said lowly as you rolled off of him, taking care not to get his cum on your bedding. "I think you're evil."

"And what does that mean, really?" You padded off to your pitiful ensuite to clean yourself up, only for him to follow moment later.

"This is tiny," Crocodile said in distaste, looking from the top of your shower curtain to the sink.

"Even by my standards," you conceded.

♂

Considering where his mouth had been, it wasn't wild to use a bathroom concurrently, and really about the intimacy that shipmates would share. Still, Crocodile wiped your back and your inner thighs carefully with a damp washcloth, his large fingers ghosting over where he'd gripped you, with you sat on the counter so he wouldn't have to crouch. "Sorry," he grunted.

"It's okay," you said, looking over your shoulder at the pair of you in the mirror. You'd always wondered how couples your sizes worked, and now you had an answer. Couples. You shook your head. "I like it." He hadn't held you that tightly the first night, since you didn't wake with any marks, and none developed the following days. "Did I really ride you already?"

"No," he said simply.

"What?"

He shrugged, dragging the comb he borrowed from you through his hair. "Just wanted to see you like that."

You hopped down and glared at him. "So you babied me back then." And it can't have been as satisfying as tonight.

"I didn't know what you could handle," he defended.

You scoffed and turned on your heel, back to the studio's bedroom area. It was a damn mess, your silk dress strewn over your desk and chair and possibly torn, yet his clothes were folded neatly in a pile. How he managed that bewildered you. You whipped the sheets up to straighten them and replaced a quilt, and became slightly wistful at the thought of leaving this place.

Crocodile emerged from the bathroom to your woolgathering. "What is it, bird?"

"I'm probably getting kicked out tomorrow."

"I told you to quiet down."

"Not just that. Men aren't allowed in here after sundown."

He looked around himself, blinking. "Is this a convent?"

"No, Crocodile. This is what it's like being a woman who isn't a noble. You've worked with some before, clearly."

"Sleeping with them is new."

Your heart fluttered, and you internally slapped that part of you that wanted him all to yourself. "Seriously? Nico Robin's new wanted poster is—"

"She was practically a teenager when we met," he said.

"Oh." You were going to say gorgeous. "We're about the same age."

"You're younger."

"Have a type?"

You could tell he didn't enjoy this line of questioning, but he played along. "Dark haired, scholarly... you could wear more heels, I suppose."

"You've only seen me in heels."

"Taller ones."

You plopped onto your bed, not quite freshly made but innocent-looking. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. "'Bird'."

Then you heard his footsteps, and his sitting on the edge of the bed. "It's a, uh, legend in my homeland." Oh. He was embarrassed. "There's supposedly a bird species that lives with crocodiles. Helps clean their teeth."

"You called me a toothpick."

He laid back beside you, and it was utterly boyish how he covered his eyes with his hook in embarrassment. "Can we not?"

Smiling, you laid on your side to enjoy the sight of him, and you luckily had some reprieve. "You know, there's crocodiles where I'm from. Here in the New World."

"How do you know if you've never been?"

"My grandparents call politicians buwaya and marines baboy."

"Sounds like wani."

"Crocodiles and pigs," you translated.

"This is awful pillow talk." He mirrored your position, making you eye-to-eye for the first time, and his irises were so pale you could almost see your own reflection in them.

"Aren't you a politician, Desert King?"

He brushed a lock of hair behind your ear. "No one's been quite so... opinionated about it."

"About?"

"Utopia."

"I've hardly said anything."

"Today. Let's see if you still feel the same way as before."

You had no idea what you said then, but you knew where your beliefs aligned, so, "Well, it sounds impossible, for one. If my understanding of Baroque Works is correct, they all thought of themselves as early investors, no?" He grunted affirmatively. "So show me a document or something. What your utopia is. Is it a monarchy? Are you really trying to be king? What's the future look like without you? Does that matter to you? Is the military purely defensive, or do you plan to conquer?"

"God, woman. Does your brain never stop?"

"Only during really, really good sex."

"During? So I need to keep you happy to have any peace."

"Sounds like marriage." He glanced over your way, and whatever you read in his expression terrified you a little. What does he think of— "I mean it. If you really want me involved, let me know what it is, buwaya."

"And if you fucked a Marine, would you call them a pig in bed, too?"

"They might like it too much."

Crocodile laughed at that, and drew you into his chest, and you thought you were in real danger of feeling at home there.

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

TOWER OF BABEL (VII)

NAVIGATION || RAVISHING ALLURE MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER VIII

PAIRING: Nikto x F!Reader (Soulmate AU)

WORDCOUNT: 7.4k

WARNINGS: Angst, intense stalking & stalking behavior, talks of death/injury, toxic modeling standards/expectations, dark implications, symptoms & descriptions of dissociation, scar descriptions, etc. (Series 18+)

A/N: This is where some of the more serious/dark aspects come into the story involving Seraph's job and the pressures that are put on her. It's only implied in this chapter, but in the next, it'll be talked about more. Just to let you all know.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The day after your meeting, your gifted clothes came to the lobby of the penthouse. 

You’d gone down with Nikto and picked up what you could, bags and bags of designer goods including purses, makeup, and jewelry. It was excessive—like Fedorov was trying to buy your silence; buy your affection so you’d cozy up into bed with him. 

This job tried you every day, but that was a line you would never cross. Never.

Still, the items needed to be taken and packed for the trip regardless. Eyes would be on you from the moment this adventure from hell started until it ended in what hopefully was a peaceful fashion. 

But you severely doubted it would be anything close to peaceful. 

You take another gray dress and slip it into the garment cover, legs folded on the floor of your living room as you hum under your breath. Music wafts out from your record player, and you’re desperately trying to focus on the task at hand. Nikto reads from the couch. 

“Have they called you yet?” You ask, not looking up as you slide the cover’s zipper, missing it once as your hand shakes unexpectedly. 

The Russian responds with a slow and even, “Нет. No calls.”

You sigh, licking your lips. 

No one had been telling you what was in that last gift at AMA—not even your mother. Aly had said it was probably nothing when she’d been briefly over to assist with the clothes, on a tight break in her schedule, but you weren’t too sure of that. 

Pale eyes blink slowly, and a page turns. “No use thinking. Pack.”

“You make it sound like it’s that easy,” you huff, body leaning back and spine resting against your various rugs. The penthouse was warmer today, and you wear comfortable loungewear; shorts, and a dark baggy t-shirt. Your head shifts, arms out beside you. “How are you so calm about everything? My heart feels like it’s constantly going to break out of my chest.” 

Your phone goes off on the coffee table, a short buzz that has to be either your mom or Alyona. Rubbing a palm into your right eye, you hear the bear grunt and close whatever he was reading, finding it pointless to try and focus if you continue to speak to him.

He stares for a moment, hidden face a mystery you long to solve. With a tap of his finger on his thigh, he explains.

“Training,” you blink, intrigued. Nikto seems to notice, tilting his head and looking down at you. “You are scared, Woman, yes?”

“Of course.” You had no trouble admitting it. “Anyone would be.”

“In military,” the air of the penthouse moves with the weight of his broken words, the rough bleed of vocals. You really did like his accent—it just added so much to his already intimidating form. Just a stack of bricks being constantly grated against one another. “We were taught how to become used to it—the adrenaline. Fear. In the end, it held little over many; failure was the only fear that never left.” 

Your brows furrow, lips frowning. “You fear failure, Nikto?”

You expected a blunt refusal, quick words. But the man had been softening to you over the time you’d known him—if that was your own doing, or something more, you can’t quite tell anymore. Any talk on soulmates has feld you like a rabbit in a dark wood to shy away from the looming presence of something bigger; parties and scorned maniacs.

You still wonder if ignoring the gifts was the right thing to do. Would that make it worse? You think you’d read about that somewhere. 

A trigger. But the stalker had already pushed one of those, hadn't he? What could he do that was worse than killing three men? Mutilating animals?

Nikto surprises you. 

The man blinks, not looking away from your pleasing eyes—even now, your pupils were small with anxiety; he’d noticed how you adamantly avoided social media and the news, plastered with your pictures and the case. The window had never been opened fully since he’d been here, only a creak of natural light slipping from the crack of the half-risen blinds. 

For a gruff beast of action, his eyes missed nothing.

“Yes,” he grumbles, blinking away for a moment before his attention returns. “But it is…lesser than what you feel. Незначительный. Minor.” 

A small smile flickers your lips, skull to the ground even as it aches slightly. 

“I like it when you speak to me—it helps,” you mumble honestly. It wasn’t flirting, not really. 

The Russian looks slightly confused at your sentence, but that doesn’t stop his shoulders from minutely tightening. You chuckle, shifting your head to the ceiling where your little bits of painted glass hang. 

“Nikto,” you point upwards. “That one—the bird. What color is it?”

This was a game you’d taken a fast liking to. You’d point and ask the color; Nikto would answer. 

“Red,” is his monotone reply after a glance. Eyes from behind his mask shrouded in dark paint. You doubted the face grease could come off anymore, the chemicals already bone deep. 

“I thought it was orange,” you sigh. “I still can’t tell the difference.” 

“Obviously,” is the dryly amused response, with you glaring without venom and putting your hands to the ground to help push you back up. 

“Hey,” you try to hide your teasing smirk. “I’m getting better at it—”

Your voice is strangled off as a sharp inhale, eyes blinking rapidly, and your vision blurs in a moment of ricocheting pain flaring in the base of your skull. Snapping one hand to the back of your head, you strangle down a small scream, reducing it to a whimper of utter agony. 

Neck bending forward, your mouth fills with saliva as your spine pulls in, yet you can’t even focus on that. You feel like if you even have a single thought, your brain will explode out of the back of your head. 

Nikto startles, eyes widening, but he doesn’t waste time on shock. Feet already rush over at the slighted change in the air, a hand grasping the base of your neck tightly, attention snapping into place. Your breath puffs as your frantically moving face tenses and eyelids twitch. Your nerves were on fire. 

The Russian watches, confusion and a certain unease striking him through his pounding heart. What had happened? One second you were speaking and the next your body was so steel-like it shook harder than he’d ever seen it. 

“Seraph,” he barks, face close to your head, looking at the spot you grasp at with your visible knuckles, the sound of your gasping pants leaving his throat echoing with reverberations of unease. 

Nikto pulls at the skin of your wrist, peeling your hand back before you draw blood, trying to assess what to do. He only sees it then.

It’s a rabid-looking thing, the scar. With your hair as such, your fingers stuck in the knots, they’re pulled back just perfectly to see it. Pale blue eyes stare unabashedly, struck dumb for a moment in their concerned sheen.

It spans from the base of your skull upward, a jagged bulge of healed tissue and fissures—the shade of skin is different there, hyperpigmentation just as Nikto had. Halfway up the back, the rough line breaks into two places, creating a ‘Y’ with the one nearest to the right stopping sooner than the other. 

But it was deep. Deadly-like. An indent lives at the middle point.

For someone so in tune with the ways of the body, Nikto was horrified and fascinated at the very implication; how had you…survived this? Your entire skull might have been broken open from the force of whatever had happened, judging by the strength needed to achieve such brutality. Was this the injury that you’d been speaking about? 

An overwhelming emotion takes him by the lungs. 

Your body had scars just like his did.

Form curling even farther forward, your legs pull into you, and Nikto finds that at the moment, none of that even matters. 

“Seraph,” he orders again, equally as urgent but noticed less sharp. His thumb curls your wrist to trap itself at your pounding pulse; running as if being chased by whatever nightmares he hears you whine from in your sleep.

You swallow down your bile with a clicking of your throat and a small cough, eyes stinging. 

“Burns,” your lips whisper, lids closing firmly. “God, my head burns.” 

It’s a brief thought—a small moment of slip-second thinking that had saved his life many times. 

A chilled palm spreads itself over the back of your head, directly over the broken fracture of flesh, without an utterance of a word. The effects aren’t immediate; you don’t just calm down and stop panicking. But it helps. Like a light in the dark, it helps. 

After a minute, the chill seeps into your bones. It goes deeper and deeper, the large grip of Nikto’s fingers stuck into your hair perhaps a little harder than they needed to be, but you weren’t about to complain at the pressure. After two minutes, your panting slows to a small ragged wheeze—feeling like a sick duck as your beady eyes finally open. You see the unblinking pale orbs directly to your right almost immediately after the abyssal dots go back to wherever it was they came from. 

He doesn’t speak; you didn’t expect him to. Nikto was arrogant, prideful, but he never spoke unless he knew he had something he needed to say. A blunt hound who never hesitated to bark, but only when he could see something was up in the tree. 

When you’ve seemed to calm down, the hand on your wrist leaves with a brush of rough gloves to the skin, making you shiver. You notice the hastily tossed material of the matching product, belonging to the other limb, near your knee. 

Cold fingers. Cold hands. A corpse would be jealous, but you’d never felt so thankful. 

Nikto studies your face rapidly, and your raspy voice levels out a meek, “Sorry.”

Barely visible brows furrow tightly, almost disgusted. You perhaps misinterpreted that expression the wrong way, because just as you’re about to rush into a wild explanation as to why, how, and every excuse you can give, you’re once more taken off guard today. 

Bulky arms circle your waist and under your vibrating knees. 

With a sluggish reaction, you blink rapidly as you’re settled against the hard Kevlar of his chest—kept firm in his grip. Your legs hang, hand stabilizing yourself on Nikto’s pec. 

“What did I say?” He asks heavily, looking down at you as your shock bleeds away to focus on how to calm your heart. “Seraph?” Nikto prompts, his fingers digging into your clothes. 

You try to think, stuttering, “You don’t like it when I apologize.”

“So do not,” the Russian grunts, clenching his jaw out of sight. His words are low, and he rolls his shoulders. “That is the end of it.”

He sets you down on the couch, sinking into the multiple plush pillows. You feel weak—limp. Not looking into the man’s eyes, you curl your hands around your waist, leaning back and being careful to not hit your head on the back. 

Nikto watches with hidden concern. 

“Explain,” he utters, not moving an inch from in front of you. It’s a minute or so before you can find the words. All the Russian does in that time is shift his arms over his chest—fix the stance of his feet. You can feel his eyes like a knife, but you can’t feel how his brain is on high alert; vigilant to any pain that may be hidden from him. 

“Happens sometimes,” you whisper, one vibrating hand coming up to lightly run over the back of your skull. You trace the scar softly, feeling the pulse underneath. “It’s just… sensitive.”

Nikto’s eyes narrow. 

After a pause, where it’s obvious you feel some sort of embarrassment judging by your avoiding gaze, the great beast sighs long. A slow blink makes his dark lashes up and down. 

He hated how he despised that look on your face.

Moving, Nikto sits beside you, leaning back with a grunt and extending an arm behind you on the hardwood of the couch’s frame. 

“Tell me. I want to know.” You side-eye him, knees pulled up to your chest. It has a distance to it, your focus. Everything feels like it’s underwater. 

“It’s not a good story,” you force a broken huff, smiling wobbly. Numb eyes don’t waver over the lines of your face. 

“No,” Nikto bluntly says. “I did not expect it to be. Nonetheless…” he trails. “I am asking if you are willing to answer.” 

It wasn’t like you were against saying what had transpired, but there was a lot of history there—so much. The event had happened when you were young, so many years had passed to a point where the mental pain of it had dimmed to all except the consequences. The aftermath. 

This was a give and a take; you consider yourself a fair person. 

“How did you lose part of your finger?” You turn it around, licking your lips and staring at his neck. The man’s body stills at the question. 

Nikto slowly loosens a grumbled scoff. But it isn’t a feral thing. Perhaps he was even impressed that you had the forethought to gain something of his story when you’d already told so much of yours. 

He reminds himself once more, not dumb. 

“Very well,” Nikto’s head tilts like a wolf, his knee hitting the place where your feet hang over the edge of the cushion. He looks you up and down as his finger taps the wood behind your head. “Second year with PMC. Operation in far-off country—we do not care to remember which anymore.” You listen, heart calming with every scrape of vocal cords. Nikto explains slowly, thinking over every word carefully as his vision trails to rest at your nose. “Hostile hiding under floorboards.” The Russian rolls his shoulders. “I was reaching down to grab at the hatch; it confused me because it was partially open.” 

Your body lightly turns his way, the side of your skull meeting the hard build off the inside of his forearm. Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath, getting everything under control again one second at a time. As if a book, you turn the pages of Nikto, painting a picture of his tale, oblivious to the way his eyes are stuck on your face. His arm stays completely still for you.

He longs to look at that scar again, and he can’t understand why.

“...Large knife came up through the wood. Cut it off and damaged the others near it. It is numb most days. Barely can tell I still have finger. Very inopportune, but all was not lost.”

“What wasn’t lost?” You hum, sighing, and open your eyes again. The Russian’s gaze darts away. 

“I killed him,” he says numb-like, a vicious smirk in his voice. “In the end, it was only us who could tell the story, yes?”

“Does it hurt?” You change the subject back to his scars, liking how his forearm acted as your pillow. You could feel his tendons as they pulled.

“Sometimes,” Nikto shrugs at your quiet question, thighs over the couch cushions. “Like all the others. Natural.”

He doesn’t need to ask if yours do.

You dwell on what he insinuates about his body—the scars you already thought he’d have; why he wears that mask. 

“I fell,” you share, not letting a long silence linger. Nikto’s feet shuffle on the floor, but otherwise, like a waiting cat, he was completely beholden to your soft voice. “Far. Cracked my head open on a rock.”

There’s so much more to it—but this is the version you always tell everyone. It’s less…complicated. Gets you less looks of pity, even if you’re not sure Nikto is the type to do that. 

The large man hums, nodding. He wants to know more; he’d have to look into it further on his own. “You are lucky to be alive after an injury like that.”

“Yeah,” you whisper, lips twisting. “Lucky.” 

Your skull pulses. 

“But, anyways,” you wave a hand, locking gazes. “Thank you.”

Nikto’s knees crack as he stands, moving away; his heat leaves. Hands situating themselves at the collar of his vest, the Russian’s throat rolls with a noise of acceptance. 

“It is my job. Do you require anything?” 

“I think I’m okay,” you admit, feet delicately moving to the rug on the floor. It’s back to packing, pushing this to the back of your mind just as you do the remembrance of his fingers tight in your hair; tight at your wrist. Nikto’s hard voice in your ear, saying your angelic title. 

Your throat clears itself, blinking, as you stand. 

The man takes it as lightheadedness, one foot moving closer. Your hand raises, and he stops. A small chuckle moves out of your mouth, side-eyeing him with a crinkle to your lids.

“I’m okay, Nikto. Trust me, please.”

He sighs, fingers twitching. But he doesn’t grumble any blunt vitriol, he just watches. Always watching. 

Your spirits are lightened by his presence. 

Brushing down your t-shirt, you close your eyes and shove away the memories, tiny tingles of pain still present as they go up and down your spine. 

“Now, we have to get to work,” you brush past the episode, used to them. “It would be helpful if you lent a hand, Big Guy.” 

Your joke leads to a huff, fingers taking back their book from the table—all in Russian script, so you didn’t know what it was—and a roll of eyes.

“That is not my problem. Your clothes, your parties.”

“The parties you’re going to have to go with me too,” you smirk, eyes glimmering as you grasp your phone, flipping it over to turn it on and look at the text you’d received. “I hope you like suits.”

Pale eyes widen before a growled Russian sentence wafts over the music from the recorder. You laugh, already knowing the contents of curses and refusals. He was so much like a child sometimes it takes you aback. A brute, utterly refusing what was in front of him and owning a short fuse. 

“Oh, calm down,” you blink, signing into your phone. “I’m good at finding clothes as long as you tell me colors and shades. You’re in the best hands in the business, Nikto.”

“Do not say it like that,” he barks, eyes narrowed and his body moving forward to pass you, most likely to go back to your bookshelf and return the book, seeing as he’d get nowhere with it now. “I do not want your hands, Whelp.” 

“You’re saying that now,” you tease, pointing with your free finger. “Everyone says that before they have a taste of—”

“Quiet.” 

You laugh, spine lightly bending forward, and Nikto’s back turned to you to where you can’t see his face soften at the sound. His body unconsciously loosens, orbs gaining a distance that has nothing to do with his condition. Your existence is a curse to him, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

It’s only after you’re able to calm down, the Russian putting his book away with a large hand, when you finally look down at the text you’d gotten. 

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

‘I sent you a gift and you didn’t even open it?’

Your face freezes mid-smile.

 ‘I’m giving you everything you wanted—you didn’t open the letter I gave you in the grocery store, either, did you? I waited for hours for you to show up! Hours for you! I’ve waited YEARS to be near you! I love you more than anything in my life and you’re ignoring me? How can you do that when I’ve risked so much? Please, Seraph, I love you but you’re breaking my heart—I’m trying so hard to be kind to you. Please, don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Это любовь с первого взгляда! Я не могу жить без тебя! 

I’m trying to forgive you, my Сладкая, I promise. I’ll always forgive you, but let me show you how much you mean to me.’ 

Images pop through, scent quickly as your glee stiffly drops like glass to the floor. You’d never felt yourself go so still as when you’re halfway through the block of text and you see yourself at the grocery store, alone, and Nikto’s shadow disappearing around the aisle. More—so much more. You in AMA...in…in the photoshoot wearing nothing but the lingerie, skin on full display.

Your eyes flood with tears, jaw open.

He had been in that fucking room. He’d been there when your manager had brought in the dead birds—he, he had…

He’d been right there.

You can’t speak, you’re only looking down at the continuing barrage of photos. 

Outside of the Consulate building, walking down the street, talking with Aly on a girls outing from months ago. Your phone vibrates with every one, quivering hands already moving but now more so. Like a rabbit being hunted down. It shows an escalation—the more you see the closer this freak was getting in each, slowly slinking with vile intentions until the last. 

An image of the direct back of your head, a hand reaching, and almost touching, exactly where your scar lives.

You’re going to vomit.

The entire device is snatched by gloved fingers.

Nikto glares in confusion, ears twitching at every buzz of your phone. “What is wrong with—”

The man is suddenly more wound up than a dog under a noose.

Rushing past, you only reach the kitchen trash can two seconds before your bile rocketed from your mouth, heaving what little you’d managed to eat of Nikto’s cooking into the bottom with a tight sob. 

Nikto’s hand holds the thing—reading, looking, with dead eyes. Dead eyes that gradually become enraged with a certain type of anger that breeds in silence. The skim, a ruthless finger tapping the screen and dragging the conversation back to the top before he stares. He stares and stares and stares at the pictures. At you. 

The way you live your life, oblivious to the threat right behind you. Stalking closer.

Nikto can’t remember a time he’s felt so angry at an enemy before. Not just an enemy, no, an animal. This wasn’t like the rules of war, this was for pleasure; for a selfish need. He knew how to keep himself separate—had to for his sanity—but this was something no one could not get wrathful at. Even him.

He hears you wretch, vomiting into the trash just below the island where he’d made the both of you lunch, the choke of your sobbing breaths. The sounds make his hands tighten over the phone, to smash it to pieces like a toddler with a block castle. 

And then the device buzzes one more time as Nikto silently finishes reading the first text you’d been sent. 

‘Don’t worry about the bodyguard, Seraph, I can take care of him, too. We can finally be together, just like it’s supposed to be.’

Nikto is hitting the call button before his brain catches up to his finger.

Slotting it to his covered ear, he breathes like an afflicted hound, eye buggy and chest rattling with air. Panting echoed from behind his mask, the hot breath moving back to warm his slashed and burned flesh. 

It picks up on the second ring, but nothing is said. No words from the other end. 

In the corner of his eye, Nikto sees you hyperventilating. The former soldier speaks entirely in Russian, slipping back into his native tongue as easily as he slips into violence—it is nothing more than a slide of sandpaper.

“I am going to watch the life bleed from your eyes,” he grinds out. “And then I’m going to make your corpse wish it had been set on fire instead.” 

Nikto hangs up, tossing the phone to the coffee table and making a mental note to get Yaromir and Galina to trace the number. Stomping over to you, your body was away from the trash now, hand to your mouth. 

“I’m okay,” you say hurriedly, tears tracking your cheeks. “I’m okay.”

“You are not,” Nikto wishes he could go to the shooting range—wishes he could spar and slam someone down to a wrestling mat. He needs flesh under his fingertips. 

The Russian’s chest is wide and rising with the pulse of untamed lungs. The bulge of his pecs stuttered over their course and the old scars he carries itch under the barrier of his gear. 

Growling, the man clenches his eyes shut, shaking his head to the side firmly. 

But there was something about the implication of you being threatened that made Nikto need to feel the weight of his service weapon in his grip. To feel the recoil of a bullet being sent into someone. A nameless figure; a silent phone call. 

Nikto scoffs, rolling his neck and shoulders. 

Thinking like this was making him reckless. 

“I guess I should have told you about the letters, then,” you taste bile on your tongue, images swirling in your head—paranoia was firm. Suddenly, every memory was tainted. You gag on your saliva, coughing. 

Nikto doesn’t respond to the self-deprecating comment. 

Once more today, hands move to touch you, pulling at the space under your arms and lifting. Blinking, you’re moving around when your feet are flat on the ground—hands going to rest on the edge of the counter behind you.

Nikto’s hands stay stuck at the meat of your limbs, great head tilted. Eyes lock on the tear tracks spreading down your skin, and he pauses. 

A thumb slowly pushes at them, spreading the liquid along your flesh as your blurry vision stays at his neck. With a shuddering inhale at the unneeded attention, your head lightly sags forward—connecting with Nikto’s chest. 

He tenses, looking down at you from the corner of his eye.

After a minute, his nose releases an unheard sigh, and his arms lower to his sides.

Nikto lets you rest there as long as you need.

—

You’re in the bath tonight, and Nikto listens to the water sloshing as he pushes the envelopes around from inside the lockbox. 

It was safe to say you hadn’t gone back to packing.

That woman, Alyona, was here—she’d made a big fuss about the texts before she’d taken you with her and led you into the bathroom to clean yourself up. You were both in there now—talking. Nikto wasn’t going to act like he wasn’t eavesdropping; he didn’t care if your friend or you knew it. It was mostly about the parties, the talk, and the Russian could understand that Alyona was trying to occupy your mind. 

His mission was more important. 

You’d passed him the box and watched as Nikto had retrieved the letter from your coat pocket. The former soldier had already called the investigators and promptly told them to arrest Sergi, or they would have him to deal with—there hadn’t been time to respond before he’d hung up and smashed his phone to the nightstand of your rented room. The resounding echo had made both parties in the bathroom go silent for a minute before hesitantly starting back up.

And now, there was the scratchy English script of a stalker in his hands. He felt disgusting even touching them; he was glad he’d put his gloves back on. A permanent sneer was stuck to his hidden face like a curse, eyes narrowed.

Standing, the man trades weight from his thighs as he reads the letter that had been stuck in your jacket. 

‘My Сладкая, 

This is the one-hundredth letter I’ve written to you, though you haven’t been sent all of them yet. I’m still waiting for you to notice me, and I’ve grown disquieted by your response to the way I disposed of your three guards. Was that not what you wanted every time you looked at me?’

Nikto’s hand comes up to rub at the fabric over his neck, digging until he feels the bulge of his scar against his fingertips.

‘I thought you would be thankful, but now you have that man following you everywhere. He took your doves from you—the doves that were supposed to make up for the misunderstanding about the dead men. You looked beautiful with the red fire moving over your face that day, you know? It caught every curve and the softness of your skin perfectly. Here—I even took a picture for you to enjoy as I thoroughly have. I hope it brings you the pleasure it brought me to run my lips over your holy image.”

Fingers crumble the side of the letter, creasing it. Not once do they delve into the envelope to look for that picture. If he had the choice, Nikto would rip this entire thing into little bits.

‘I think it’s time that we meet—alone, Сладкая. I’ll be waiting tonight at the café for you, so we can run away together. And start this life together. I think it’s time. Yes. I will ravage you with all of the beautiful things in life; jewelry, dresses, makeup, my body. It is mine, isn’t it? You? You’ve told me with your eyes, so why are you still ignoring me? You look at me every day. I look back—you love me! I know you do! Why are you still being such a—’

It falls off into nothing but rabid script; illegible even to Nikto’s best abilities. The letter is saturated with something—spots of the paper pulling in on itself with droplets off…

Nikto stills, disgust and insult moving in his gut. There wasn’t any DNA on the box, but they certainly had some here.

Dropping the letter into the lockbox on the nightstand, the man takes the top and rams it shut with a rattle of the nesting dolls on the upper shelf. Nikto removes his gloves and tosses them into the garbage bin. 

Stalking to the bathroom door, he moves on instinct. Ever the animal. 

Knuckles rasp to the wood. Conversations halt once more.

“Seraph,” he eases, accent tight. “You are well?”

A bead of silence, the moving of water. 

“Yes, Nikto,” your voice is still shaky, but it comes out from under the door. 

Nikto stares at his feet, blinking. With a grunt, his feet shift and he forces out, “Good. You will call if you need us.”

It wasn’t a question.

Moving back, he nods to himself firmly, shaking out his right hand—he can’t seem to stop being on edge. Every creak, every shadow of your decorations moving, made his eyes dart to them, honing in as if behind the scope of a rifle.  

Nikto brought his hands to the side of his skull, pushing in. You were messing with his head, he tells himself again. The moments of dissociation were becoming more frequent as of late, and he could feel it in the back of his mind even now. A glaze over his brain that made everything feel like it was worlds away from him—it was sharp and sure of itself. Words jumbled, ‘I’s came out as ‘We’s, things were lapsed from his brain; important things. Moments of confusion—aggression. Leaving you behind in a grocery store at the flip of a coin. Snapping at you in real anger when you were just curious. 

He can’t do that. He can’t lose his grip. 

From inside the bathroom, your eyes stay locked on the door, your head resting on the wall behind you as your skin soaks in the claw-footed tub. 

“I don’t know if this is good for me, Aly,” you confess lowly, eyes shifting back to the wall ahead of you, a little black and white ceramic fish on a shelf. Candles let off the scent of linen and pine. 

Alyona sits on the stool a few feet away, watching your face worriedly. 

“Солнышко,” she starts slowly, “we both know it isn’t. It’s going to pass—I can’t hope for more than that.”

It’s like a repeating record—It’ll be okay, just keep strong, push through.

It wasn’t Aly’s fault; she’s involved in this too. 

“Is Nikifor worried about you?” The woman’s head perks, her lips twitching as the orbs inside of her head soften.

“Seraph, you don’t have to change the subject—”

“Truly,” you move a hand up from the water and rub at your face. “Really, Aly, I need a distraction. Please, just…talk. You know I love to hear about the two of you.” 

She sighs, looking to the wall. After a moment, she chuckles, head tilting down. “Yes, he’s worried. He worries about you as well. You have a home with us, little Солнышко—I want you to know that, yes?” Alyona brings a hand to your cheek, pinching in good nature. 

You shuffle away in mock annoyance, lips twitching. 

“...I know, Aly.”

“Good,” she huffs. “I would not be a good friend if you didn’t. At least that brute is taking care of you, it seems.”

“He’s a good cook,” you ease out. “You should try it sometime.”

Gray eyes blink at you, shocked. “He got you to eat a meal?” 

“You’re saying it like I never do,” you chuckle, eyebrows pulling in as the dimmed overhead light shines down on your avoidance of the problem at hand. 

“No, it’s not that,” Aly’s eyes rove with unseen emotion, her concerned heart gaining a smidge of affection for the man outside of the door, whose shadowed feet can still be seen pacing. “I am…glad, Seraph. Food is always the way to someone’s senses, eh?”

Your lips twitch, but the weight on your chest remains. A tense pause grabs the both of you.

“I wish you were coming with,” you have to admit on a stiff tongue. “Ever since I first got here, you’ve been with me for all of it—the parties especially.” Your open mouth stutters. “Aly, I don’t think I can do it again by myself. All of those people; what some of them expect from me, it…it’s just…” Getting choked up, you move a hand to your mouth, covering it. From behind the flesh, you mutter, “I can’t do it again, it’s just the same as staying here, as a matter of fact, I think staying would be better.”

“You need to think rationally,” Aly shakes her head, getting closer to take your hand in both of hers. She squeezes, her top shiny in the light as it moves. “Nothing is worse than staying in this city. The man outside the door agrees. It is the safest option for you, even if,” Alyona closes her eyes, looking away as she opens them. She never finishes her sentence. 

“I don’t want to,” you fight a whimper. “Aly, we tried so hard to get out of them sending us like meat.” 

But there’s nothing that the woman can do to you when you say it like that, and even her expression gets far away. Alyona’s eyes blink fast, getting glossy before they avoid your eyes for the rest of the night. 

“I’m sorry, My Seraph. I’m so, so, sorry.”

And that’s all that can be said.

When night comes, you don’t think you sleep at all, and by Nikto’s pacing of his room, the occasional pause to peek his head through your doorway, neither does he. 

—

The time to leave came far quicker than you could anticipate as the days blended. Chelyabinsk was nearly a three-hour drive if you went the fastest route, and in the time before it, you and Nikto hadn’t spoken much about the letters. They’d been taken by the investigators the next day, along with your phone, for testing and tracking. While you’d been given a new device, it was a tiny thing that died more times than not; you had three contacts—Alyona, Nikto, and your mom.

You’d been assigned a driver by AMA for the trip, and thus, the all-black vehicle had arrived in the small hours of the morning as you had finished a hurried call to your matriarch. 

“I’ll be back soon, Mom,” you’d explained. “Business. I’ll keep me busy.”

She had said it was a good idea like everyone else. Aly and you were the only ones to know the truth. Dread was a fishhook in your throat, but the fear of staying here was just as prominent. Those pictures haunted your mind.

“Nikto,” you ask, grabbing one of your suitcases on the street with a grunt. “Can you…?” The item is taken and easily lifted into the trunk. “Thank you,” your voice breathes out a sigh into the early morning air.

You hadn’t been to Chelyabinsk in a long time. Your brain knew that it would be most of the same—you needed to be careful of who you spoke to and how you did it. While regular crime was only moderate, corruption and bribery was your main problem when entering the place. You were on Allurement’s payroll, would your CEO’s influence be enough to stop anyone from trying anything with you? 

If you stuck to where you were told to go, you should be fine. 

Along with yourself and Nikto, photographers and media know-hows would be tagging along; makeup artists and stylists. A team of people who mostly refuse to look at you at all, only a few familiar faces among them. 

But, thankfully, only you and your guard would be in this car. 

“You can get in,” Nikto comments, blinking at you in the dark street, the lights of the car and the penthouse behind you all you have to differentiate between shades of black and gray. Your eyes had been constantly narrowed so you could try and see better. “I will load the rest.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” you smile sheepishly, “I’d like to stay out until we leave. I get fidgety when I’m in the car for too long.”

His shoulders shrug, taking another of your bags from the ground. “Very well. You will eat on the way there, then.”

Your eyes blink, attention pulled back from the shadow of a man walking across the street, raising hair on your arms. 

“What was that?” You tilt your head.

Nikto huffs. “Eat. On the way there.” He raises a brow. “You need breakfast.”

“Oh,” you at your neck slightly. “Sure, yeah. But what about you? Do you want me to turn around or something so I won’t see your face?”

“No need. We ate as you dressed. Packed the remaining for you.” You’re brushed past, the purse around your shoulder connecting with Nikto’s thigh as his boots clop over the concrete. 

Your lips twitch, expression still worried but the tease sneaking out instinctually. “I need to start calling you Mother Bear, Nikto.” 

“It will be the last thing you do, Whelp,” he grumbles, eyes looking over his shoulder as he packs the last suitcase away. Amusement is like liquid stone inside of them. 

So the trip ensued. 

You entertained yourself by staring out of the window as the cityscape rolled back, already missing the sanctity of your penthouse as you fiddled with a small stuffed bird in your grip. 

“I spy…” you mumble twenty minutes in, trying to be normal again. “Something tall and gray—”

“Tree,” Nikto grunts, trying to read one of the books he packed. 

“No,” you say, defensively. “It was,” your mouth opens and closes, scouring the passing scene but finding nothing. “Fine, yes, it was a tree.”

“I spy something blue.”

“That’s not even funny.”

“I believe it was funny. Perhaps you do not have a good sense of humor, Woman.”

You glare, throwing your stuffed bird directly at his forehead and watching it bounce off. Nikto doesn’t even look away from the words on his page, flipping to the next with a deep chuckle in his neck. 

Rolling your eyes, you groan and slouch into your seat.

You had to say, though, that as the city disappeared, so did your anxieties. It felt good to be near dense croppings of trees again—only an open and uncrowded highway and Nikto beside you. His pale eyes would watch you every so often, and you would do the same, studying each other as time passed and a gradual silence fell.

“Can I use you as a pillow?” You ask with only an hour left on the trip. 

Nikto’s halfway through his book, and up until now, you’d kept to yourself, lost in thought. 

“I am not comfortable,” he utters, leg shifting. He glances, but his numb eyes don’t do much until they move back to where they were prior. “And my Kevlar is hard. It will aggravate your head.” 

You had to wonder how fast he caught onto that fact about you. A smile grows on your face, and you shift to grab your jacket, folding it and tossing the item onto Nikto’s thigh. His head darts down right as you move to rest there, body sideways and legs folded against the door. 

“I like it when you worry—it’s cute,” you stifle a yawn, ignoring his digging eyes. “Wake me before we get there?” 

Your ears don’t wait for an answer, your fatigue from missing an entire night of sleep catching up where Nikto’s never would. He watched you rest for the remainder of the ride, hand hovering over your shoulder until it slowly slipped down to rest on it with a grumble of exasperated Russian under his breath. But the man had noticed the bags under your eyes—unable to be hidden by makeup. He found it in himself to let you sleep, even if the infection of your warmth made his head go loose; how your slackened face looked peaceful. 

The knowledge of what you’d just experienced was still with him, even as he linked his feelings together as pointless. This was a waiting game, and everyone else seemed to have time except for you. 

He didn’t like it. There was a nagging in the back of his gut—instinctual understanding as a hired gun who’d gone through many deployments. This was bigger; something was going to happen soon. A tipping point.

Nikto had a feeling you felt it too, as your head nuzzled his thigh in your sleep, shoving yourself into your jacket as tiny grunts moved from your lips; eyebrows furrowing. 

Bad dream, the Russian clocked immediately, his book long placed at his side and his one elbow against the window frame. 

Pale blue eyes watched for a moment, looking at your deep red blouse and the long back skirt that lightly cascaded over the side of the seats. His hand at your shoulder—hard and immobile, twitches as it tries to keep you steady, feeling the muscle under your flesh writhe. 

Only when you can’t seem to calm down does he do anything at all. 

Nikto can easily stamp an expression of annoyance on his face, of bored numbness, but instead, a sliver of something that could be considered softness bleeds from behind his eyes; something that even if he were to look into a mirror, he couldn’t name himself. 

A finger brushes up your neck, scarred and broken, most of a finger missing and the nearest ones fuzzy with nerve damage. It hovers, steady, before his hand moves to massage along the base of your scar. It’s an awkward angle, no mistake. After all, he was practically grabbing the side of your neck to reach, but it was all he could offer short of waking you. 

When he couldn’t sleep, he’d do the same to himself; it helped, he thought, feeling skin on skin—a caress that eases aches. Call it pathetic, but the sensations he was feeling doing the same to you were nothing short of trance-inducing. To understand the pulse of your heart—your breath returns to a slow puff; brows settling back down at only his circling thumb. 

A bit of that infectious pride trickles into his eyes; smug. 

Nikto grunts, and leans back into his chair, continuing his work to settle you, and smirks softly under his mask. 

Only roughly half an hour to go, and then it was back to guard duty. But perhaps he could close his eyes and rest as well. 

You made for quite the distraction.

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[crazyunsexycool]

Between the pages of a journal

Pairing: Stucky x 40s!Reader

Summary: You had been in a relationship with Steve and Bucky up until the time they went off to war only to lose them both. Years later when Steve and Bucky have reunited the receive the letters and journals you had written. Through them they learn about your life without them.

word count: 6.0k

Warnings: character death, the blip/snap, implied domestic violence, major angst, some fluff... let me know if I forgot something.

A/N: Not really sure how I feel about the ending but over all I loved writing this and I hope you like it too.

Steve stood with a bouquet of your favorite flowers in his hands as he looked down at the slightly dirty headstone. One that sat towards the back of the small cemetery with your name on it. His fingers trace over your name after placing the flowers down. The date of your death mocks him. It was the day he woke up. The day that he had come back to life was the day yours had ended. In fact the difference had only been a few hours from the time that you closed your eyes for the last time and the time he opened his. 

On good days Steve was grateful for that. You didn’t have to watch him walk back into your life looking as he did all those years ago while you were stuck in a bed, withering away. Wishing you had been able to live the life they had both promised you. On bad days he hated he didn’t get to say goodbye. But he had already been through the process of seeing someone he loved die when Bucky fell off the train. He wasn’t sure he would be able to do that with you. It had been you who begged him not to go. The fear in your eyes when Bucky got his orders still haunts him and it doubled when he told you he had been accepted. Now all that Steve has is the headstone with your name on it to grieve for both of his greatest loves. And he did it often.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope. 

Something Steve hadn’t felt in a long time. It bloomed in his chest the longer he looked at his long lost love. But just as quickly it faded.

“Bucky?” Steve stood in the middle of the street. Chaos erupting all around as he looked at the brunette with confusion and concern. 

“Who the hell is Bucky?” 

Just as quickly as he was there, Bucky was gone. Steve tried to look for him but there was no use. He had been arrested along with Nat and Sam. 

If there was one single word to describe Steve Rogers at the moment it would be determined. As much as it hurt that his oldest friend and lover didn’t recognize him. Steve knew he had to save Bucky. If not for him than for you. It was one of the promises he made to you the morning he left. He would keep Bucky safe and they would come back home to you. At least now he could keep half of the promise. 

The next time Steve would see Bucky it would be in a helicarrier. Blow by blow Steve tried to remind Bucky of who he was, what they meant to each other. In the end Bucky walked away after saving Steve. Still it was better knowing he was out and free than knowing that he was still under hydra’s control. 

It would take some time but eventually Steve would find Bucky once again. With time and help, Bucky was free of hydra’s control and they slowly rebuilt their relationship. Soon Bucky began to remember you as well. 

Now Steve didn’t feel so lost or so alone. The ache of loss was still there but it was made easier when he was able to turn in bed and find Bucky asleep next to him. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There were many things Bucky and Steve needed to adjust to in the modern times they were now living in. Being able to love each other without fear of being persecuted was a liberating experience. So they found themselves walking hand in hand on a beautiful Saturday afternoon through a small park in Brooklyn. The same park that the three of you frequented when you didn’t have anywhere else to go. 

You always packed a picnic and your journal, Bucky always had a new book to read out loud and Steve always had his sketchbook and pencils. There was one specific tree the three of you preferred to sit under. It was close to a small pond with the best shade and it was surrounded by bushes which afforded you the privacy the three of you craved.

 While to the outside world it looked like you were being chaperoned by Steve while on a date with Bucky, the reality was that you were dating them both. This little corner of the park allowed the three of you to be free to love, touch and kiss each other as you wished. 

It was this tree that provided cover for the three of you so long ago that Steve and Bucky came to look for now. Where Bucky carved your initials in the trunk within a heart. They hoped the tree was still there and they were gladly surprised that it was, initials included. The only difference though was the fact that there was a wrought iron bench in the once cleared space. Steve and Bucky make their way over.

“Y/N, would have loved to have a bench here.” Steve commented as he sat down. 

Bucky hummed in agreement as he inspected the small plaque screwed into the armrest. 

“Steve, look at this.” 

The blond leans over to look at the inscription. His breath catches in his throat.

‘Til the end of the line. 

A couple of tears hit the small plaque. Steve’s chin rests on Bucky’s shoulder and his arm wraps around the latter’s waist. They both just take a moment to look at it and appreciate that you had taken time and money to have this placed here in their honor. It felt like fate mocked them now that it was them that used this bench to remember you. For the remainder of their time in that park Steve and Bucky talk about their past, especially about you. 

“Remember when she chased Tommy Phillips down the street with a broom?” Steve chuckled but it took Bucky a moment before he smiled.

“He kept following her home, right? Always tried to ask her out whenever we weren’t there to walk with her.” 

“She ran right by me and only stopped because that cop was on the corner.”

Their smiles fade after a moment. 

“I wish she were here. She would definitely love all this shit.” Bucky said as he waved his hand around vaguely. 

Steve moved closer and gave Bucky a quick chaste kiss on the cheek before resting his head on Bucky’s shoulder. The blond took a deep breath before looking up at his love through his lashes. 

“It’s rude to stare.” 

“Well it’s not my fault you’re handsome.” Steve’s compliment makes Bucky blush. 

“There’s something I want to talk to you about.” 

“What is it?” 

“I think it’s time we go see her. I know she’ll want to see you.” 

Bucky looked up at him with a pained expression.

“What if she hates me?”

“She would never. She’s called me everyday since she heard you were alive.” 

“Ok, we’ll go.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you sure I look ok?” Bucky asked as the couple stood in front of a door waiting for someone to answer their knocks. 

“You look great baby, and trust me she’ll just be happy to see you.” 

Steve had cupped Bucky’s face with his hands and leaned in to give him a kiss. 

“What the fuck is going on here?” 

They parted at the voice.

“Hey, watch your mouth.” 

“I can say the same about you James.”

A staring contest happened until Bucky looked down.

“I’ve missed you, Becca.” Bucky said as he looked at his younger yet older sister. She was shorter and her hair was fully gray. The wrinkles were evidence of the time that had passed but the mischievous glint in her eyes told a different story. 

She opened her arms and her brother gladly accepted the embrace. 

It had been a shock to Bucky to learn that he had one living relative. Well one living sister, he of course knew of the kids all three of his sisters had but he couldn’t seek them out. Mostly for safety but truly he kept his distance because of his guilt. Who would want someone like him in their family? 

When they finally pull away from each other in a hug that felt that lasted years and seconds at the same time, Becca cupped Bucky’s cheek softly. Her thumb moved back and forth on his cheek as he leaned into her touch. This time her eyes were full of tears and relief.

“I’ve missed you too. Now come in, we have so much to talk about.” She had grabbed Bucky’s hand like she did when she was younger and they had to cross the street. 

They made their way into Becca’s cozy living room and sat down. Steve took the armchair while Bucky and Becca sat together on the couch. The latter started telling both of them everything they missed after they had disappeared, from meeting her late husband to her children and grandchildren. There were tears and laughs exchanged. 

“I think we should head out Becs. But I’ll come by again soon.” Bucky promised as they all got up and headed towards the door. 

“You’re both welcome anytime.” 

They stop at the door, Bucky and then Steve hug Becca. Before the door is opened Becca speaks up again.

“Oh I can’t believe I almost forgot. I have something for you.” Becca shuffled along into the hallway and opened a door to a closet. “I’ll need your help Buck.” 

He walks up behind her and she points towards two boxes high up on a shelf. Bucky pulls the first one down and hands it over to Steve before grabbing the second one. 

“What’s in here?” Steve asks, his curiosity piqued.

“Letters and journals. They all belonged to Y/N. She wrote the letters whenever she missed you and you know she wrote in her journals all the time.”

Bucky and Steve looked at each other and then back at Becca.

“Why did you keep them?” 

“Because she asked me too. The day she passed, I was with her and she asked me if I could hold on to them. Maybe someone would want to know about the love she had for both of you. It broke my heart when it was announced you were back.” She turned to Steve. “She would have loved to see you one last time.” 

“What happened to her?” 

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask earlier.” 

“We never stop thinking about her but it hurts to know she isn’t here anymore.” Steve says with a sad smile.

“When we were informed that you were both gone she was a wreck. Ma forced her to move in with us so that we could be there for her. She would stay up in your room for hours just writing. We could hear Y/N crying for hours on end. This was just her way of coping.”

Both men thanked her again and they were gone. On their way to their shared apartment in Brooklyn they didn’t really talk, each of them holding a box under their arm. It was heavier than anything they’ve carried in the past. It was all that was left of you.

They didn’t know it yet but their heart would break with every single letter or entry of your journal they read.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

March 10th, 1945

My love,

I received your letter last night. I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone. You know Bucky wouldn’t blame you, and neither do I. But please, if not for yourself than for me, take care of yourself. I don’t care that you have that serum, don't do anything reckless. We’ve already lost Bucky, I don’t know if I’d be able to live knowing I lost you too. 

I know you think the Barnes’ hate you but they don’t, they’re just as worried about you as they were about their son. They know how much we love Bucky and they can’t wait for you to come back home. 

I love you so much. I can’t wait to see you again.

Love, 

Y/N

P.S. I’m with you til the end of the line.

Steve tried and failed to swallow the lump in his throat, the tears won as they slowly trailed down his cheek and onto the aged paper. It was a response to the letter he had sent you, telling you about Bucky’s death. He felt so much guilt then, still did from time to time. Once Bucky was free of hydra’s hold he reassured Steve he wasn’t to blame. 

Steve was sure you’d blame him too. But the return to sender stamp with the date on the envelope the letter had gotten to him too late. It was just a day after he had crashed the plane into the ocean. Now decades later you gave him peace. Somehow he felt that it wasn’t fair. 

That night Bucky held Steve close. Placing soft kisses on his cheek and whispering sweet nothings in his ear. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Normally when they didn’t have missions or early training both men loved to stay in bed, pretend the time they were living in wasn’t real, that you’d walk in through the door at any moment and take your place in between them. That your lips would search for theirs and your hands would roam their bodies as gently but demanding as they did before. 

This time when Steve woke up the spot next to him was empty. He got up and walked toward the living room, the closer he got the more he could hear small sobs and sniffles. When he rounded the corner he found Bucky sitting in the middle of the room. Letters and journals sat open around him. Bucky was currently reading a journal and when he heard Steve’s footsteps he looked up. His eyes were rimmed red, it was obvious he had been there a while. 

“What are you reading?” 

“Nothing.” Bucky held the notebook close to his chest. 

“If it’s nothing then I should be able to read it too.” 

Bucky shook his head as his grip on the journal tightened. He averted his eyes when Steve sat beside him and held his hand out. Reluctantly the brunette moved to hand the notebook over but stopped. 

“You have to remember she was grieving when she wrote it.” 

May 3rd, 1945

 What did I do to deserve this? We were supposed to be planning the rest of our lives. Now I have to plan two funerals. The only thing in those matching empty coffins was my heart. 

What am I supposed to do now? Everything I had planned was with Steve and Bucky. 

 I hate not knowing what comes next and I hate them for making me love them. How could they do this to me? How could they leave me alone?

Steve put the journal down and sighed. He remembers going to the cemetery and finding the headstone that was being removed with his name on it, the one to his left was Bucky’s. He’d never allowed himself to put too much thought into what that must have been like for you. Mostly because he would break his own heart thinking about you mourning them alone. He knew it wasn’t fair and there was nothing that he could do to make it right. 

After that day they became obsessed with your writing. There were years worth of it but they decided to pace themselves. Instead of sitting down and reading for hours they instead decided to read one letter and one journal entry a day. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

July 4th, 1945

Dear Stevie,

Happy birthday my Love. I miss you so much but I find some comfort in knowing that at least you and Bucky are together somewhere, hopefully looking down on me. I went to the park today for the first time since you both went off to war. It’s not the same without you here but it was a beautiful day, you would have liked it.  

I signed up for an art class and it went as well as you would expect. Everything at my station, except the canvas had paint on it. Even my dress. But I think you’d be proud that I went for it. The little painting I managed to make is hanging up in the living room next to yours. If only we had convinced Bucky to paint something I would have a perfect set. 

I’ll never stop loving either of you.

Y/N

P.S. I’m with you til the end of the line.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Through missions and long days of training recruits, both men carried some of your writing with them. As time went by they noticed your shift from grieving to trying to survive. It was a journey for them reading your struggles in your everyday life. Steve and Bucky would be lying if they said they didn’t have a favorite letter or journal entry. There were some that reminded them of the happy young woman they had fallen for. Those were the ones they carried with them. 

****

Bucky had been through a difficult mission. He had been confronted by his past again and he was putting his walls up as he sat away from the rest of the team on the jet. Some of the others tried to talk to him but he just kept quiet and his eyes fixated on the wall ahead of him. Sam quietly walked up to him and placed an envelope on the seat next to him and walked away. That caught Bucky’s attention and he turned to see his name in your handwriting. He picked it up and opened the envelope as carefully as he could until he was able to retrieve the piece of paper out. 

August 25th, 1946

Dear Jamie,

I took the girls to Coney Island today. I know they wished you could have been here with us. Becca and Elizabeth finally convinced Mary to get on the cyclone. It reminded me of when you made Stevie go on and he threw up afterward.

 They had a great time. Maybe next time I’ll try to win something for them at one of those game booths but I’m not as good at them as you.

It was nice to be with them. They’ve grown so much in such a short time. You’d be so proud at how well they’re doing. Elizabeth has started reading all of your books and Mary is starting to like science more. But Becca looks the most like you and she’s taking the role of protective big sister very seriously (wonder where she got that from?). I promise to keep an eye on them since they like getting into trouble from time to time. 

I love you so much,

Y/N

P.S. I’m with you til the end of the line.

Bucky smiled as he imagined poor little Mary on the Cyclone. Then his smile got slightly bigger as he recalled the day you had mentioned. You had been so mad at him for making Steve get on. But it didn’t take much to get on your good side again. 

Bucky finally looked back up, his eyes meeting Sam’s. He nodded in a silent thanks to his teammate.

 It was no secret amongst the Avengers that both men had been in love and dated the same woman at the same time. No one really said anything, except the occasional joke from Tony. Sam and Nat took it upon themselves to ask them questions about you, especially when they seemed to be having a hard time at work. At the mention of your name they could see how the super soldier’s demeanor would instantly change. 

Their shoulders would drop, a small smile would appear on their lips but it was the sense of longing Nat and Sam saw in their eyes that really let them know you meant more to them than being just some girl from their past.

~~~~~~~~

They had been more than halfway through your journals and letters when they finally found another interesting entry. There was both a sense of relief and a bit of jealousy as they read it.

June 18th, 1950 

I’ve met someone. I’m still not sure how I feel about it but he asked me out on a date. Johnny Richards is his name and he seems kind. Becca has tried to make me say yes that Bucky would want me to move on but I’m not so sure he would, ha! He’d probably pout and cross his arms over his chest and give me his puppy dog eyes to convince me to not go out with him. 

Steve looked up to find Bucky sitting exactly how you had described him and he smiled. 

I think I’m going to say yes though. He’ll never be Steve or Bucky but I think I deserve to find some type of happiness. We’ll just have to see how the first date goes. 

They read the rest of that journal quickly. Your entries talked about how your dates with Johnny were going but mostly they compared him to them. Steve and Bucky weren’t even sure you realized that you were even doing it. With everything Johnny would do for you, you would write down how Steve and Bucky would have done it instead. They found it odd however that the journal was left incomplete. It prompted them to start looking through both boxes again only to come up empty handed. The one thing they did realize was that journal entries picked up in a new notebook with the year 1952. 

“That’s almost two years missing.” Bucky finally said after rechecking everything. A sinking feeling in his chest the longer they searched only to find nothing. 

“We can ask Becca tomorrow. We should get some rest.” 

~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning both men head over to Becca’s home hoping to get some answers. However when she opens the door she isn’t surprised to see them. She dreaded the conversation she was going to have with them but she still ushered Steve and Bucky into her living room. 

“What happened to Y/N between mid 1950 and 1952?” Bucky asked, not bothering to sit down. He feared he already knew the answer.

Becca sighed as she reached into the pocket of her robe and produced another letter. She held it out for Bucky to grab. “You should sit.” Is all she said.

December 24th, 1951

Mr. Barnes

Please help me. He keeps hurting me and I don’t think I’ll survive the next time.

Y/N

The writing was sloppy and in the corner there was a faded brown spot. Through tear filled eyes Bucky looked at it closer. 

“Is this blood? Becca, is this her blood?” He looked up at his sister with rage and a pain in his chest nothing would ever be able to get rid of. 

Bucky and Steve had sacrificed their life only for them to find out that their girl had been hurt and they weren’t there to protect her. They hated themselves. Steve more than Bucky because Bucky had been drafted, he didn’t have much of a choice but Steve? Steve had done everything he could to get into the army. He left you alone and for what? 

“When daddy read that letter he was enraged. Called up some old army buddies and they handled it. But Y/N, she was broken in more ways than one. When they got to the house he had beaten her so badly she could barely move. She was in the hospital throughout the new year. When she was released we brought her home again. Then she never left. Y/N took care of Ma and daddy ‘til the day they died.” 

Steve was fully sobbing now. No matter what he would have done, one of the people he loved would end up hurt. If he hadn’t  signed up for the experiment with Erskine, you wouldn’t have been hurt like this but Bucky would still be in with hydra. 

“You can’t blame yourselves.” Becca sighs. “If she could see you now, see that you’re alive and together, that you saved Bucky from those monsters she would be so happy.”

“She suffered the rest of her life because of us. Was she ever truly happy after this?” 

Becca looked away from her brother with a small frown on her face. That was all the confirmation they needed to know that you had never found happiness again. They left without another word to Becca or each other.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Steve and Bucky didn’t speak for a while. Anger rolled off of them in droves. The issue was that neither of them knew who that anger was directed at. Was it at themselves or each other? The war, the draft, the serum, or the son of a bitch who dared put his hands on you. 

Their relationship suffered, missions almost failed, they were more reckless than usual and it went on like that for weeks. There was no lecture from anyone on the team that could make them see that what they were doing would get them or their teammates killed. 

Steve and Bucky had one moment. A single moment when they realized that they weren’t to blame. They apologized and forgave each other for being cold and distant. It’s not what you would have wanted. Just as they were getting back on track Thanos happened and Steve lost Bucky all over again. 

~~~~~~~~~~

5 years later

The team had one chance and they took it. They defeated Thanos. Now Steve has another. He checks himself over again and smoothes out his hair. The day was beautiful just how you said in your letter. Everyone was already celebrating the 4th of July. But as Steve stepped out of the alleyway all he could think about was the conversation he’d he’d with Bucky before he left on his mission to return the stones.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I come back.” Steve said with a smirk.

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” Bucky replied as he brought Steve in for a hug. 

Steve pulls back slightly only to connect his lips with Bucky’s. 

“Make sure you find her and make her happy. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be alright.” 

“Don’t worry Buck. Everything will be alright.” Steve smiles before heading up to the platform. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too, Bucky.” With that final word Steve disappears.

Now here he was just a block away from the park he’d frequented when you were all together. All of the stones were back in place all he needed to do was find you. And that he did. You were sitting on the bench here and Bucky frequented. All of your attention was on the letter you were writing. Steve could recite it from memory now. 

He took a moment to admire your form. You were wearing his favorite dress. The one he bought for your birthday right before he left for the war. Your hair was pinned back the way you loved. Steve smiled, you were more beautiful than he remembered. He finally gathered the courage to step up to you and hoped that this would go well. 

“Is this seat taken?” 

“Yes it is.” You respond without even looking up.

“Are you sure I can’t have a seat kitten?” 

Your head snapped up in the direction of the intruder. His voice had been familiar to you but it couldn’t be who you thought it was. His eyes were so familiar to you but it wasn’t possible because the owner of those beautiful ocean blue eyes had died. Still the sense of familiarity made the ache in your chest lessen and the same of your lover slip from your lips.

“Steve?” 

“Hi sweetheart.” He said as he sat down next to you. 

With hesitant movement you brought your hand up to his cheek. Steve closed his eyes and leaned into your touch. 

“Am I dead?” 

The question made Steve chuckle. “You’re not dead, kitten, I’m really here.” 

The answer made you start to sob uncontrollably and your tears made Steve tear up. He pulls you into a hug and tries to soothe you as best as he can. After some time you finally pull away and look at him. Steve kisses your forehead, then your cheeks and finally presses a long awaited sweet kiss to your lips.

“How is this possible?” You say in between hiccuped breaths. “You died. You-your friend Howard, he showed up and told me everything.” 

Steve takes a deep breath and explains everything from waking up in the future to traveling back in time only leaving out the part about Bucky.

“So are you staying?” You look up at him through your still wet lashes. 

“I can’t stay-“ 

You pulled away from him and stood up. Heartbreak and anger rolled through you.

“Why would you come to see me if you’re leaving again? This is so cruel. Do you know how much I’ve cried for you? Since the moment you left to become a lab rat. It wasn’t fair then and it’s not fair now.”

“Hey,” Steve stands and cups your face. “I would never leave you again. I came to get you, if you’d like to come with me.” He pulls out a watch from his pocket. 

“What about the Barnes family? I can’t just leave them too.” 

“I think they’d be happier knowing you’re with me and Bucky.” 

A small gasp escapes your lips as you look from the watch to Steve who’s smiling. 

“Bucky? How is that possible?” 

“It’s his story to tell.” 

“He’s not dead?” 

“Nope. He does think that I left him to stay here with you though. But I think we deserve to be together again. So what do you say?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The platform comes to life again a minute after Steve had left. To Bucky’s surprise and slight disappointment Nat appears. He disguises his heartbreak behind a smile as Nat walks down and hugs Sam and then him. 

“Glad to have you back.” He whispers into her ear. 

“Glad to be back.” 

“Come on, I’ll buy you a beer and tell you everything you missed.” 

“Buck, aren't you going to wait for Steve to come back?” Sam stopped him.

“Nah, I’m going to grab a drink with a friend. You can come if you want.” 

“You’re a jerk, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told. Now let’s go.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bucky got home late. He had been trying to avoid the emptiness. Not only in the home he used to share with Steve but the empty feeling in his chest. It was the punishment he deserved or so Bucky thought. To live the rest of his life alone with only the thought of your and Steve’s happiness. He could make due with that. 

Bucky sets his keys in the bowl by the door and takes off his jacket. His thoughts were elsewhere so he didn’t immediately pick up on the fact that he wasn’t alone. Still, he was quick and he pulled the gun he always had on him out. 

“You can put the gun down, Buck.” Steve stepped out from the darkened office door. The streetlights filtering through the windows provide the only source of light. 

“Steve? What are you doing back?” 

“Did you really think I’d leave you alone?” 

“But what about Y/N?”

“She agreed with me.” Steve smirks.

“What are you-“ Bucky’s words die on his as you step out from behind Steve. “Y/N.” He said your name as if it was the most precious thing in the world. 

Bucky’s steps were slow and heavy, as if the world itself sat on his shoulders. You met him halfway way with arms wide open. Bucky fell at your feet, his arms settling around your hips and his head resting against your stomach. 

“Oh honey.” Your body shook as Bucky cried against you. All you could do was run your fingers through his hair. “It’s ok. We’re together again baby.” 

You managed to get on the floor with Bucky and cup his face and press multiple kisses over his face. 

“I missed you, doll.” Bucky says between kisses. It’s frantic and uncoordinated and desperate. 

Steve joins you both on the floor wrapping his arms around each of you. There are more shared kisses amongst the three of you. Someone eventually gets up and pulls the other two along with them. The first night the three of you stay awake just talking and catching up. You tell them things that aren’t in your journals and they tell you about living in the present. Reluctantly Bucky tells you part of what happened with hydra. You can see the guilt in his eyes and all you can do is comfort him. 

The sun is barely starting to rise when the three of you finally fall asleep in each other's arms. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you did wake up you were disoriented by the room you were in until you remembered where you were. The bed was empty but even back in the past both boys were early risers. You fixed your hair and changed before walking out to find Steve and Bucky. As you neared the living room you heard more than two voices talking animatedly. 

“You still haven’t told us what took you so long.” A man said as you got closer. 

Steve opens his mouth to answer but his whole face lights up when you turn the corner and stand at the entrance of the living room. The reaction caused Steve’s friends to turn around and look at you. 

“I was picking someone up.” Steve says. 

“Please tell me you’re Y/N.” The woman had asked and you smiled and nodded. 

“Y/N, this is Nat and Sam.” 

“I have so many questions. Especially about Bucky.” Sam said as he stood up. 

Before he could even stretch his hand out to greet you properly Bucky came up from behind you and wrapped an arm around your waist and glared at Sam. He had flowers in his hand which he presented to you. 

“Thank you honey.” You kissed his cheek before turning back to Sam. 

“Let me put these in water and I’ll answer all your questions.” 

Bucky groans as Sam gives him a shot eating grin. You chuckle and when you come back you move to sit down. Eventually Steve and Bucky sit on either of you as Sam and Nat ask you about what they were like back in the day. 

With time this would become a routine until you met everyone on the team, including Howard’s son. They had questions and you had the answers. You were sure to include all kinds of stories, especially the embarrassing ones.

 It hadn’t gone unnoticed how much more relaxed and happy Steve and Bucky had been. Bucky smiled more and was more open with others. Steve had handed over his shield to Sam and was starting to enjoy his free time. Bucky was still required to go on missions but it was ok. Whenever he came back from a mission you and Steve doted on Bucky. From having his favorite movie on or playing his favorite songs and dancing in the living room to cleaning him up and cuddling in bed. Life in modern times wasn’t always easy for you but fortunately Bucky and Steve were always there to help you. 

You still wrote in your journal and on occasion letters for your loves for them to find. The entries were vastly different from what Steve and Bucky had first read. Your journals remained an ode to the love you had which transcended decades and heartbreaks and loss. Now they reflect your joy, love, hope and happiness. The love you had for each other grew with each passing day and you were able to build the home the three of you always dreamed of. 

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[aperrywilliams]

More Than You Expect (Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader)

——————

Author Masterlist

Part 1: More Than You Know

Part 2: More Than You Say

——————

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!exBAU!Reader.

Summary: You have a new life, and Spencer isn't in it. But somehow, you both cross paths again. Will it be just like the wind passing, or will it stick?

Word Count: 7k

TW: ANGST WITH "HOPEFUL" ENDING. Strong language. Mention of sex, illicit acts, jail, typical CM things. A character gets injured (nothing life-threatening). If I forgot something, please let me know.

A/N: The last part of the trilogy "More Than You..." It's done, folks. What started like a one-shot a year ago is complete now. Thank you for all the comments I got about this one, your likes, and your reblogs. Tell me your thoughts about it.

——————

Big changes are usually something people are eager for or afraid of. You are in the second group. You don't like changes. There's no way you stayed in the BAU for more than a decade if it weren't in part for fear of making big changes in your life.

It's not that you don't like to imagine new things or dream of something different, but uncertainty is something you aim to avoid at all costs.

Although your predisposition, when you confessed your feelings to Spencer on a fateful afternoon at the BAU three years ago, you knew a big shift was coming, and there was no turning back. That same night, after he left your apartment, you knew it would be the last time you would see him.

And boy, that one was a hell of a change.

After thirteen years of spending together almost every day, he would no longer be a part of your life.

You handed your resignation letter to Emily the next morning. She tried to convince you to stay, but deep down, Prentiss knew whatever reason she could give you, it wasn't enough. You had already made up your mind.

-----------

From one big city to another. New York welcomed you with open arms. The NY FBI field office did, too.

Although you chose to stay as an FBI agent, your job would be slightly different from the one you had been doing at the BAU when you joined the Organize Crime division.

It was a little intimidating at first. There was a lot of action, certainly a lot of undercover missions, a bunch of criminals, too many drug busts and guns. In summary, a lot of everything. But with time, you learned that OC has so plenty of shit targets as the BAU had. It wasn't rare to come face to face with psychopaths sometimes. And your training as a profiler has come in handy more than once.

After you left DC, you never looked back. You asked Emily to please not tell anyone where you would go. You also write a letter to Garcia, pleading not to track you down, assuring her you would be fine, and if the future would make you cross paths again, so be it, but please do not push it. She replied with a full four-page letter, agreeing with your request but giving you her thoughts about why she felt you were doing wrong.

You appreciated her honestly, but it was done.

No listening to Prentiss's instructions, Spencer tried to reach you regardless. Your phone kept receiving daily calls and texts for months. You didn't reply to any of them.

Until someday, it stopped.

You should have felt relief, and sort of you did, but it was a bittersweet feeling knowing the last string that kept it joined to your old life was cut.

That was the change, and you took it.

Were you doing okay? Did you accept it without consequences? No.

But the new job needed to do its magic. You were so consumed by what you were committed to doing that nothing else mattered.

In the past three years, you have gone undercover so many times, some of them with direct life risk, but you were in one piece. You have been shot and stabbed, though, giving you enough scars to talk about.

Your teammates were and are still very surprised by your versatility and compromise. Your philosophy? Do the job, take another case, work your ass on it, and catch the bad guys.

They even started calling you the Lone Ranger. Why? Although your work involves a task group with more agents, most of the time, your missions are in solitary— weeks or months of not having contact with your team until there is some break in the case.

Once the job is done, you return home and just shut off from the world.

You only socialize after work a little or the bare minimum. Just a few colleagues know things about you besides your prominent former career as a profiler in DC. And certainly, nobody knows the true reason why you moved to New York in the first place.

It's better this way, and you are used to it.

And what about your current love life? While in DC, you didn't have one because you were pining for Spencer; in New York, you don't have one because nothing seems too serious to think of it.

Flings? Of course. But that's all. In some way, you became the same kind of person you criticized in Spencer.

Life works in mysterious ways.

-----------

"The NYPD called us an hour ago asking for one of our most wanted, Vincent Clark," your boss, Agent Lindstrom, says as Monday's morning meeting starts.

It's not something uncommon. Local police have their own OC task force, and you have worked together more than once. The weird thing is that from one moment to the next, they request information from a target, of which, in theory, only your team knows.

"And they want information because-" you enunciate the obvious question.

"They're working on a case involving a string of civilian murders in Manhattan, and for some reason, his name came up," Lindstrom fills.

"Murders? It doesn't sound like Clark's MO," John Miller - a colleague - muses.

"Certainly not. NYPD has to be wrong," you back Miller's observation.

"And why NYPD-OC are investigating civilian murders? Does it have to do with some kind of operation?" Adam Taylor - another teammate - asks.

"Not quite. The local task force is helping 1PP because things have been escalating pretty quickly," Lindstrom explains. "But we here must find out why Clark is a person of interest and verify if they're indeed wrong about him. We don't want them to blow up our intel for no reason. So, Taylor and (Y/L/N), you're assigned to go with NYPD and help to clear this up."

That's how you got a new assignment. And not as undercover; that's a shift.

Taylor is driving this time, and you only look out the window, focusing on nothing in particular.

"You okay?" He asks after some time, resting a hand on your knee. You turn to see him.

"Yeah, why?"

"You are too quiet. Maybe you are mad at me?" Taylor asks tentatively. You raise an eyebrow.

"Why would I?" He clears his throat at your question.

"Well. Because, you know, we haven't talked about the other night."

The other night. Adam is referring to when you came back from your last undercover mission of four months and ended up in his bed at the end of the day.

You tensed at his response. You knew it was a bad idea to sleep with him, but you always thought about it as stress relief, and you thought he understood the same.

"There is nothing to talk about, Adam. We both know what it was." You try to sound cool but soft as well so as not to hurt feelings - if they were there.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I just was making sure you were okay with it."

Why do men have the compulsion to mask a question that only cares about them, like uninterested concern about you?

"I am. Don't worry," you assure Adam with a confident smile.

To your ease, the conversation ends there.

You always have kept your distance in this job, with the prerogative of not getting involved with colleagues. What went on with Taylor is still bothering you because it was something that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

-----------

The NYPD quarters welcome you with Captain Novak's handshake. Soon, you learn he wasn't aware the locals had called your boss for intel.

"I'm sorry you had to come here. We are already having the FBI help on this," Novak explains. It's a way to say they don't need you there.

But you have a job to do, so you can't just leave.

"Due to the information we got, I think we can be useful too, Captain," you point, as Taylor backs you up saying something similar.

Novak understands he should use all hands available, so he agrees to have you stay and join the group working on the case.

"Yeah. I think any information would be useful in this case. Come on, I'm going to introduce you to the task group working on this." You and Taylor follow him down a hall to the end, where a large meeting room is.

After opening the door, Novak is ready to make the formal introductions.

"As I told you, an FBI unit is helping us on this. Here is the BAU team. Agent Prentiss, Rossi, Alvez, Jareau, Lewis, and Reid."

Your breath suddenly hitch in your throat at the sight of your old team there. And everyone is looking back at you with a perplexed look as well.

Novak continues talking. "These are Agent (Y/L/N) and Taylor from the OC division." After a second of contemplation, Novak let out a chuckle. "Ha, it's weird. I have to introduce two FBI teams working on the same case with the NYPD."

The guy has a bizarre sense of humor, but he has a sense of humor nonetheless; you have to give him that.

Not that you keep a count, but it has been three years, two months, and twenty days since the last time you saw them. Plus seven hours if you consider the last time you saw Spencer. Since the night you kicked him out of your apartment.

You can't help but make eye contact with him. You both look shocked. And how not to be? Neither of you woke up this morning thinking about seeing each other again.

"Agent (Y/L/N), it's nice to see you again. Good thing OC wants to help here. I can tell you about what we have got so far."

Emily speaks, breaking the silence and setting the rules of the current interaction. She is as surprised as everyone, but it would be time for that later.

It's a welcomed way out of the uncomfortable moment, and you take it.

"Sure. Do you think Agent Taylor could catch up with the intel you got from the current suspect?"

Emily nods. "Of course, Lewis, Reid, can you help agent Taylor on that? Captain Novak, maybe you can give some insight from the locals, too?"

Tara and Novak agree verbally, while Spencer only gives a curt nod.

Spencer makes brief eye contact with you before leaving the room.

Hell, what were the odds of something like this happening? You chose OC in another city precisely because you would hardly end up working on the same case.

Well, fuck the improbability.

When you're left alone with the rest, you don't know whether to ignore the elephant in the room or acknowledge the three years in which none of them have heard from you.

"It's good to see you, bella," Rossi cuts your mind spiral.

"Yeah, hope New York has treated you well," Luke seconds.

"I'm sure OC is happy to have you," JJ adds.

Each one of your former teammates offers you positive words you didn't expect to hear after leaving the way you did.

"Thank you, guys," you mumble gratefully.

Prentiss speaks up before things turn too emotional.

"Okay, okay. We'll have time for that later. Now, we need to crack this case. Tell us (Y/N) what can help us catch this unsub?"

You proceed to explain your concern about whether they are focusing on the wrong suspect. Emily listens to you carefully, and the rest share their impressions. There is no clear conclusion, but you decide to proceed with caution, given Vincent Clark's importance to your team.

"Okay. This is what we are going to do. Luke, you and JJ track Clark's associates first. Discretely, of course. Dave, can you check with Garcia about what these buildings in this list have in common?"

Once they are all gone with a task in hand, you stay alone with Emily.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know they would call you for this case," Prentiss muses. Your mouth goes agape. Why is she apologizing to you?

"Emily, it's okay. It's me who should be sorry for disappearing like that. I - I never contacted you, and you have the right to -" You can't finish your idea because Emily cuts you off.

"I know what are you going to say, and no. We are not mad (Y/N), we understand. You didn't want to be found, and we get that."

You surely appreciate her reassurance, but it doesn't make the guilt go away.

"Spencer does, too?"

Emily furrows her eyebrows. "In a way, I think he does. But he won't tell you that," she confides.

It's better than nothing.

"Is he okay, though?" You ask, believing if his life improved after your departure, you could feel a bit less shitty.

"I can't answer that. You will have to ask him."

Emily's assertiveness strikes again, you think. She's right. It's unfair to talk about Spencer with you when you were adamant about her not speaking with him about you.

You nod. "Fair enough."

For the rest of the day, things are pretty hectic. Police officers and FBI agents are coming and going; new information comes to check, and there are more witnesses to interview. There's so much movement that you haven't been able to stop a second and think about how you feel seeing Spencer after three years.

Emily has been cautious about not assigning you tasks where you might coincide, but you still can see him in the police station, and you've even exchanged furtive glances from time to time.

Taylor catches you doing it one of those times.

"What's wrong?" At the question, you turn to see him.

"Uh? No. Nothing." You're too distracted to notice Adam doesn't believe you.

"So, they are your former team in DC," he remarks, trying to get you talking. Since you arrived at 1PP, you have barely said a word not work-related to Taylor.

"Yeah." It's the best you can give him. You know what Adam is doing, but you won't engage. You have a lot on your plate already.

Your mind starts mulling the idea of talking to Spencer. But why would you do that? You were very clear the last time you spoke about your need to step aside. You were explicit to him about not having the strength to keep supporting him in his free fall. Sure, he promised to change and all that jazz, but you knew staying would only have brought you more pain and disappointment.

Despite all the reasoning, in the back of your brain, there is still the question of whether he really did what he said he would do. It's a morbid thought you have sometimes entertained.

Taylor's hand on your shoulder brings you out of your thoughts. You look at him in a daze. "Novak is calling us," he announces, frowning. Adam knows there's more going on in your head than you let on, and he has a suspicion about what - or rather who - it's about.

-----------

It's late at night, and still, there are no clues solid enough to catch the unsub. You all start to feel the exhaustion but keep going. You haven't seen Spencer, Tara, or Rossi in a few hours, so you think Emily sent them to the hotel for the night.

Taylor told you he needed a break as well. So you're alone in one of the offices, going through folder after folder in case you overlooked something.

You're so focused that you jump when you notice the silhouette of someone standing in the doorway.

It's Spencer.

"Jesus! You scared me," you exclaim with a hand over your chest.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to do that," Spencer apologizes, closing the door behind him. His voice is calm and collected. You inspect him with curious eyes.

"What are you doing here?" You ask, a little harsher than you have liked. Spencer contemplates his response for a couple of seconds.

"Uh, I just wanted to say hi and to know if you were doing okay?"

His voice is unsure, and you look at him in disbelief. It's your confusion that prompts him to continue. "Well, if this had happened months after you left, I would possibly have come to yell and accuse you for leaving like that. Now? Just let's say I wanted to make sure you are doing okay," he clarifies, hands in his pockets.

"Well. I'm doing okay. I hope that satisfies your curiosity." Your response is curt and snarky, and you don't know really why. He hasn't said anything out of the ordinary. Spencer doesn't seem surprised by your tone, though.

"It does. Thank you."

And maybe it's enough for Spencer to turn and leave you alone, but you have the question at the tip of your tongue.

"So you're not mad at me?"

Spencer narrows his eyes. "Uh, I didn't say I'm not mad. I said I'm not here to throw it at you," he clarifies.

For some reason, the answer to your own question ignites an old bitterness you thought was gone.

"Oh, thank you very much," you mock. "A bit bold of you, don't you think?"

Spencer scoffs. "Bold? Bold being mad after you left from one day to the next?"

And there you go. So, Spencer's main problem is that you left in a hurry rather than the reason why you did it.

"What did you expect? Did you think I was going to stay after what happened?" You ask with incredulity, standing from your spot and crossing your arms over your chest.

"Maybe not. But head-ups would have been nice," Spencer matches your sarcasm.

"Yeah, and a goodbye party, too," you deadpan, and Spencer breathes a humorless laugh. Your irony is pushing his buttons the way you know it does, even after all these years. But why are you doing it? You don't really know.

"(Y/N), you literally disappeared! I was - we all were worried. I know you didn't want to talk to me or see me, for that matter. But why leave the BAU like that?"

Spencer looks distraught just at the mention of that fact. You don't interrupt his rant.

"For months, I really thought something bad had happened to you until Emily told me you were actually okay and that I should stop bothering you."

"It took you long enough," you mutter under your breath.

For a long time, you thought your reaction and later decision to leave like that was too much. Maybe it wasn't necessary to drop everything to start over, but you knew if you wanted to leave behind thirteen years of a lot of things, thirteen years of Spencer Reid, you needed to do something big—a major change.

"Yeah. It took me long enough. But don't expect me to be cool about it. It hurt (Y/N). It hurt like hell," Spencer admits.

"Why? Weren't you living the life you wanted?" you ask sardonically, and you see how Spencer's jaw clenches.

"You know I didn't. And I told you back then I realized about that, too," Spencer says, referring to the last time you saw each other—the night you kissed, and he told you he loved you, but you didn't believe him.

"But I get it. I understood why you didn't trust I was telling the truth, and it was fair. But to disappear like that? It was a lot (Y/N)."

In some way, you truly think Spencer's feelings about what happened are reasonable, and even you can understand the grudge he holds against you. But you are not in place to admit that to him. Not when the memory of what happened starts to burn in your brain and heart again.

"Are you done?" Pettiness is the only thing at hand you can use for now.

Spencer sighs. "I don't want you to think I'm admonishing you or whatever you think I'm doing. I really get I did wrong back then, and I hurt you. I'm not dismissing that fact."

"Good! Because here I was thinking you already forgot," you state, raising your voice.

"Jesus, (Y/N). Can you stop that?" Spencer's voice raises, too, to match yours.

You are about to make another remark when the door opens.

"(Y/L/N), we are going to -," Taylor starts to say but is cut off when he sees you with Spencer arguing. You both get startled and turn to see him. "Am I interrupting?" Taylor questions with eyebrows furrow.

"No-"

"Yes-"

You and Spencer reply in unison and make Taylor hesitate. "(Y/N)?" he asks you directly this time, tentatively approaching. He looks worried, and you don't want to make a fuss right now.

"It's okay, Adam. We are discussing something about the case. I'll finish here and join you, okay?" you say, with a soothing hand on his elbow.

"Yeah, okay. Yeah. I'll be with Novak," an unconvinced Taylor says as he retracts from the office, leaving you and Spencer alone again.

When you turn to see Spencer, he has his eyes trained on you, analyzing you. It's a piercing gaze you haven't seen in him in a long time—years, to be exact.

"What?" You ask, trying to break the trance. It seems to work because Spencer clears his throat.

"Nothing. Uh. I should go. Emily must be looking for me," he mumbles before passing you. Almost leaving the office, he turns for a moment.

"I really wanted to know you were okay. I'm sorry for what I said after that."

When the door closes behind him, you are left standing, questioning whether the last ten minutes have actually happened.

-----------

'I'm sorry for what I said after that.'

Why is he sorry? Is it because he didn't mean it? Is it because he didn't want you to know?

It's not that you feel guilty, or maybe you do to some extent. Whatever it is, the thought of Spencer in the past three years has haunted you in many ways and forms.

Yeah, you came to New York to put distance between yourself and him, but what you never saw coming is that sole fact started to weigh on you in many aspects of your life. At first, you thought that due to the bond you both had forged for years, things would not look very good. Sure, it was going to take a lot of work, but you thought time would do its magic.

You tried—you have been trying hard. And even though you still believe it was the right thing to do, why have you yet to make peace with yourself?

Why has happiness been elusive to you? You haven't been able to make real friends; you haven't been able to have a healthy relationship. You've immersed yourself in the job, hoping sooner rather than later, the moment when the pieces finally fit together will come.

Will it ever happen?

When you think about that, your mind wanders to Spencer and whether what you're feeling now is anything like how he felt at the time. Or maybe how he still feels. You don't know. The times you have thought about it always end with the conclusion it's not the same. He had you back then. You don't have anybody.

Seeing him now only has fueled your self-struggle, and although you think it's not fair to take it on him this time, your actions haven't reflected that thought.

After considering your encounter in the precinct office, you concluded the best thing to do is to keep the peace between you both. To be civil and avoid the bickering. You are an adult; you can do that.

What you didn't expect is it hasn't been necessary to put your resolution into practice since you haven't run into Spencer again. The times you've seen him, he's barely made eye contact and immediately gone in the opposite direction from you.

In the meantime, the hours have passed, and you are almost ending your second day on the case, at least with more progress than the day before.

There is a good clue about who the unsub is—Albert Thomas, who has a direct link to Vincent Clark, your target from OC. Indeed, the unsub would be part of Clark's team.

Given that, you and Taylor inform your boss, and he allows you to participate in the takedown only if you can get Clark as well. It would be the conclusion of more than a year of chasing him.

It is a complicated operation, so everyone—officers from the NYPD, the BAU, and the OC division—prepares to catch Thomas and those involved with him.

Upon arriving at the abandoned building where you expect Thomas to be, Emily sends you in pairs to different points. You go with Taylor to cover the back door. Upon entering, you realize it is suspiciously quiet. The lighting is bad, but you don't want to use your flashlight so as not to alert them about your presence. You go first, and Taylor covers you. You arrive at a room where some light sneaks in. You go a little forward and peek, realizing Clark is filling some briefcases with money. He has his back on you, so he doesn't notice your presence.

"FBI! Hands up!" you shout, approaching with your gun pointed at Clark. He turns around but doesn't seem scared. Why? He is not alone.

Unfortunately, that thought comes too late. In a matter of seconds, Thomas pounces on you, throwing you to the floor. Your weapon falls meters from you. You know Taylor is behind you, but you see Clark grab his briefcases and run towards another escape door.

“(Y/N)!” Taylor shouts, and you barely hear him in your fight with Thomas. But you know if he stops to help you, you'll lose Clark.

"Go for Clark!" You shout him back, rolling on the ground after Thomas jabs your face with his fist.

You can't see Taylor, but you know he is hesitant. "Go!" you insist until you hear him running outside. Now, you can focus on Thomas. You manage to asset a blow to his jaw and push him away from you, but as you are kneeling and about to stand, he is on the floor pointing you a gun.

Where did he get that?

He is going to shoot you. You can see it in his eyes. You know the profile, too. He hasn't nothing to lose. You need to think fast. Talking to him won't make a difference. You decide your best chance is launching at him and pray the bullet doesn't hit you badly.

But before you can do so, you hear a gunshot. You close your eyes because you think it's coming from Thomas's gun. When you notice you don't feel any impact and you hear Thomas's screams of pain, you dare to open your eyes.

Spencer is standing with his revolver pointed at him. He was the one who shot, preventing Thomas from shooting you.

You let out a sigh of relief before collapsing to the floor. Although you didn't get shot, you are very beaten up, and the adrenaline rush leaves you without the energy to keep yourself on your feet.

Spencer is fast to catch you before you hit your head. There is commotion around, but you can barely hear anything. Even Thomas's screams sound far away.

"Hey, hey. I've got you," Spencer mumbles, adjusting you in a lying position, holding the back of your head in his hands.

"Thank you," you breathe out.

You won't notice much of what happens next. Paramedics come to check you out, but you only focus on the squeeze of Spencer's hand in yours. It's the only thing that grounds you as your eyes begin to feel progressively heavy. There comes a point where everything goes black, and you lose consciousness.

When you wake up, you are in a hospital bed. You see Adam with his back to you, talking on the phone, possibly to your boss. When he hangs up the call, you get his attention.

"What happened?" Your voice is raspy, so you assume it's been a couple of hours since you got there. Taylor turns and gives you a little smile.

"It's good to see you awake."

Adam tells you he caught Clark, and they can link him not only to Thomas's murders but to all the evidence against him you have been collecting over the last year. Adam also tells you what the doctor said about your condition. Despite the pretty bad blows you got, there is nothing serious, and you will be able to be discharged in a few hours.

"Where is Spencer?" you blurt out, not fully registering what you asked. A slip you quickly try to disguise. "I mean, the BAU. They have Thomas in custody?"

"Yeah. They brought Thomas to check the GWS, and after his discharge, he got into custody. And yeah, Agent Prentiss and Agent Reid came to check on you a few times," Taylor adds to his recounting with a knowing look you prefer to ignore.

Why does learning they came to check on you make your chest feel warm? You blame the medication the doctors surely gave you.

As Taylor said, a few hours later, you are discharged from the hospital with instructions to go home and not back to work in a week.

Your boss gives you the instructions on the phone. He sounds very happy to have Clark in custody and even mentions a promotion for you for such a successful operation.

You should be happy, right? But in all honesty, it doesn't feel like it.

You decide to go home to catch some needed sleep. Maybe sleeping helps to stop overthinking things. But before you can doze off, a ding from your phone grabs your attention.

Emily P: 'I hear you were discharged. We are leaving tomorrow morning. Would you like to celebrate with us and have a drink tonight? For old-time's sake?'

A nostalgic smile forms on your lips. A drink with your old team? Why not? Even if Spencer is going to be there, you already think it's time to make peace with what happened for your own good and mental health.

-----------

The sound of music and laughter makes the bar feel lively and festive. Upon entering, that's the first thing you notice. The second thing you notice is you haven't been to this place for a while, being one of your regulars when you just moved to New York. At the back of the bar, you can see Emily, Luke, JJ, Rossi, Tara, and Spencer talking and laughing, each with their drink of choice. It's good to see them like this, relaxed, enjoying the moment. It brings back very good memories.

"(Y/N)!" Emily calls you, and everyone turns to see you. You wave and stroll where they are.

When you sit down, the first thing they do is ask you how you feel after the beating Thomas gave you. You don't know if it's on purpose or not, but no one is referring to the fact he almost put a bullet in you.

The conversation flows animatedly. While you tell the most notable anecdotes from your missions in OC, they review some of their most important cases from the last three years of the BAU. The ones who talk the most are Emily, Luke, and Rossi. While JJ and Tara rather break jokes and are more affected by alcohol than the rest. Spencer is the quietest of all, but he also participates in the conversation and even asks you questions about the things you say.

If you thought it might be an awkward instance, your former team proves the opposite, even considering the circumstances and reasons why you left the BAU. And although no one refers to it, everyone tacitly knows that it is there.

They don't resent you. They understood you needed to leave, and although you didn't tell them the reasons, they knew. Even Spencer seems comfortable when you have thought he wouldn't.

The conversation comes to a stop when Emily raises her glass, clearing her throat.

"Well. Uh. It's a weird time for this, but I do think things happen for a reason," Emily prephase, looking at everybody. "So, okay. Here we are tonight with an old friend who left the nest a few years ago," Emily looks at you. "To say goodbye to another of our own who is also embarking on new paths," now her eyes settle on Spencer. "I wish you the best in your new life. We'll miss you a lot. To Reid and his last case at the BAU," Emily toasts.

As everyone raises their glasses and cheers, you can't help but look at Spencer with surprised eyes.

Is he really leaving the BAU? After all these years? Did his last case end with him saving you from a bullet?

He gives you a short glance before sipping his beer.

"Come on, we want a speech," Luke demands, and everyone backs him. You're still in shock to say anything.

Spencer's cheeks redden a bit as he clears his throat before speaking.

"When Gideon recruited me for this job, I never imagined all the things I would experience in 17 years working here—the good and bad. I will always fondly remember everyone I met here and had the honor of working with." Spencer's eyes now focus on you.

"On my first day, I was so nervous I thought I was going to mess it up. But in the conference room, I met someone who was also on her first day. Knowing I wasn't the only one helped me not to run away."

Everyone is listening with raptor attention, and you know they are looking at you from the corner of their eyes.

"Do you remember the times we said everyone would leave before us?" He asks you, and now it's your turn to feel your cheeks burn.

"Well, it didn't happen that way. But I guess Emily is right, and things happen for a reason," he muses. "I wish some things could have been different, but we can't change the past," he says before averting your gaze. "I only hope the bond we forged all these years remains, even if we don't see each other that much or at all. I thank you for everything you have done for me, especially at my lowest points. I apologize for the little I gave in return," his gaze returns to you. "Thank you, guys. I'll miss you all."

Everyone clinks glasses, and Spencer's eyes keep on you. Why does the air feel suffocating from one moment to the next? You don't know what to do; the intensity of his gaze is overwhelming, and you think if you don't do something, you will faint right there.

You discretely apologize and get up from your spot. You need air.

Once outside, the cold of the night hits your face, but it is welcomed.

Your heart is still beating fast. Why are you so affected? Is it because Spencer is leaving the BAU? Are the memories he brought back during the toast?

"Are you okay?" A shy voice says behind you. It's Spencer. He followed you outside. You turn to see him with pained eyes, and Spencer worries even more. "What is it? Do any of the bruises hurt?"

Spencer believes your discomfort is physical. How ironic. In the last hours, you had even forgotten the beating you got.

You shake your head. "No, I'm okay. It's not that," you admit, and Spencer doesn't say anything, waiting for you to continue. "Is it true? Are you leaving?" He nods. "Why?"

It's weird how that fact has shaken you—or maybe not that weird. You never pictured Spencer in a place other than the BAU. You even talked about it several times. Like you, Spencer has never liked to make big changes, and you understand him more than anyone because you still feel the same about that.

"It doesn't make sense for me to stay anymore. It has been like that for a while," he shrugs.

"But you love the BAU. You always told me it was your life," you remind him. Spencer lets escape a little chuckle.

"You told me the same thing years ago, and you left nonetheless."

"It wasn't the same," you dismiss, shaking your head.

"I know. But since then, I've been questioning my reasons to stay."

"Why?"

Spencer takes some seconds to contemplate his response.

"Well. Maybe because it should have happened sooner? Honestly, I think the only reason I lasted this long after I was released from prison is because you were there supporting me. And well, after that? It took me months of therapy to realize it and almost two years to make the decision," he confesses. You are quite shocked hearing him talk about prison and therapy. Those things were banned for to mention three years ago.

"Months of therapy?"

Spencer shrugs again. "What can I say? I took your advice. You were right. I needed help to know what I really wanted."

His words bring you back to that night. The last time you saw each other. You wondered for a long time if Spencer got to make sense of what you said to him. Did he understand how hard it was for you to decide to step aside?

"You know? At first, I started it because I had the secret hope you would come back. And I promised you to change. With time and the certainty I had lost you, I began to accept I had to do it for myself."

Spencer's eyes drift to the distance like he can see those moments of realization he had back then.

"Did you?" Your voice is soft, trying not to cut him off from his reminiscence. His gaze comes back to you.

"Yes. And I thank you for it. I know I said a lot of other things at the precinct, but above all, I understood. I still think it's unfair, though."

"Unfair? Why?"

"I pushed you to do something I'm sure you didn't want to. It was me who should have left, not you."

"Spencer-" you start to say, but he cuts you off.

"I know, it is done. But what I said at the toast? I really meant it. I wish some things would have been different. Jeez, there are a lot of things I should have done differently. I wish I hadn't gone to Mexico. I wish I had told you I loved you sooner. I wish I hadn't chickened out when we first kissed."

Spencer's voice trembles a little. He is pouring out a lot of emotions, and you are there trying to digest all of them.

"But you said it yourself. It's done." Your tone isn't accusatory rather than nostalgic. He nods, clearing his throat.

"I know. And I can't go back in time to change it," Spencer acknowledges.

"Why are you leaving, then?" You are not saying it as if it's the wrong thing to do this time; it's more that you need confirmation that he is not running from reality as he did back then.

"Because I need to find my fresh start, as you did it. Well, and because after 17 years, to stay catching serial killers is not healthy, according to my therapist," he pulls a face after his last statement, making you chuckle.

"Am I listening correctly? Will Spencer Reid do what a shrink recommended to him?" you quip.

"What can I say? I'm a new man," Spencer shrugs, and you smile for real.

It's clear to you that he says it jokingly, but there is some truth behind it. It is not that people can go completely against their essence, but time has proven to you that things can change, and it's not necessarily totally good or totally bad. It's just different in shades of gray. And as something different, there is nothing wrong in looking for another change from time to time, even if that throws you out of your comfort zone.

As you both stand there, you realize that things in life are not linear. They are constantly coming and going. It's laugh and cry, condemn and forgive, mess up and amend.

"It's getting cold here," you start, and Spencer nods. "But I know a coffee shop nearby that is open this hour. Would you-? I mean, so we can keep talking. You don't have to, of course. I know you guys have a flight early in the morning." It's tentative; you can't really read him. Are you overstepping? Your overthinking dissolves when you see a grin forming on Spencer's lips.

"I, uh. I'd love to. I mean, to keep talking. Sure."

"Great. Okay. This way," you point, starting to stroll down the sidewalk. You adjust your coat to shield your neck from the cold as Spencer shoves his hands in his own coat pockets, walking beside you.

In a comfortable silence, you both bask in each other company. Is it like it used to be? Not quite. But it's a familiarity you can relish—a newfound understanding of what changes mean between you both.

Enough to lead you to talk for hours, laughing at your own silliness and crying at the painful admissions, causing Spencer to lose his flight the next morning.

Enough to make you leave New York months later and start teaching at the FBI Academy while Spencer gets his tenure at Georgetown.

And who knows? Maybe it's the same understanding that, six months later, will make you pursue a new step after a kiss under the street lights on a cold night in DC.

——————

Spencer Reid's Taglist: @dreatine @nomajdetective @jayyeahthatsme @rosalinasam2 @averyhotchner @lovelyxtom @princessmiaelicia @pastelbabygirl19 @reidsbookclub @alexxavicry @gspenc @spencerreidisbae123 @calmspencer @pauline5525mgg @anamiad00msday @milivanili99 @laylasbunbunny @leahblackk @miaxx03 @missabsey @taintedstranger @khxna @hiireadstuff @pleasantwitchgarden @dysphoricsanity @levi-of-starz @themoonchildwhofell @silver138 @lovelybaka @shinytinywhispers 

For those who asked for a part 2 or/and part 3: @gghostwriter @sebastiansstanswhore @evvy96 @pillsbury-doughgirl @singinghamtaro-blog @atlantica-angels @lukesmainpiece @ladyofhellhounds @gubzgirl @shqwqrma @hereforfun-31 @reader1402 @theoraekenslover @rac00ns-are-c00l4 @s1lngwns