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loove-persevering · 4 years

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I’m Not Jealous! (Spencer Reid x Reader)

Description: {Request] Could you possibly do one of Reid getting jealous? Thank you!!

This case was a long one, taking everyone’s brains and energy it was completely draining. You and Spencer had spent the previous night working later than everyone else finally figuring out a geographical barrier that finally made sense, with the new information you hoped he unsub was right under your nose.

You sat in the main office of a police department in Florida talking to one of the officers who had a question about the case from the profile you had given out a few hours earlier, ‘’The geographical barrier shows that he hits within 15 mile radius of one specific area, we found that there are around 100 bars in that barrier which doesn’t give us a precise idea of where he’s going next, but we can cross off some of the places he’s already been and make a smaller geographical barrier off that maybe today,’’ You explain to him taking a sip of your coffee.

‘’Ah, I see.’’ The young officer says. You glance around seeing in the small office where you had set up that the rest of the team was inside, scared you were missing out on something of importance you quickly push yourself away from the officer’s desk trying to make your way back, ‘’So do you ever get a night off?’’ He asks you before you could scurry away. ‘’I mean you can’t spend all day here, right?’’ He says beaming a smile at you.

You politely throw a smile on your face not wanting to hurt his feelings, ‘’I’m pretty busy, don’t have much time when a serial killer is on the loose for a night off.’’ You say laughing uncomfortably.

‘‘Well I have some of my best officers out there looking for this guys, they take some of the heat off of you and do me a favor.’‘ He explains an amused smile on his face.

‘’What favor would that be?’’ You ask.

‘‘They take a shift, so I can take you out.’‘ He says and you let out a snort of a laugh.

‘‘Excuse me?’‘ You ask him. You glance back up to the room where everyone was noticing they were now staring at you confused by the situation, ‘‘Uh, I have to go.’‘ You quickly say throwing your cup in the trash and speed walking to the small room.

‘‘What was that about?’‘ Reid ask when you walk in.

‘‘Nothing, let’s just get back to the case.’‘ You say blowing it off. ‘‘Please,’‘ You insist.

‘’Y/N’s right, let’s get back to it.’’ Hotch orders. You glance up at him silently thanking him and he raises an eyebrow at you suspiciously. ‘’Reid, Y/N good work last night on the geographical profile, let’s try to narrow it down even smaller if we can. The police had statements from people from the last murder site let’s go over those and see if we can find anything.’’ He says sliding everyone a stack of papers.

Later that night you and Spencer again were the only one’s working, ‘’I can’t find anything,’’ You groan. ‘’Not a single thing connecting anyone, why is this impossible?’’ You ask Reid who was sitting across from you.

‘’We’ll find something eventually, we just have to look harder.’’ He explains.

You sigh tapping your pencil against the desk repeatedly and after a few seconds you notice him look up at you just quick enough to catch it then glance away, ‘’Sorry does that annoy you?’’ You ask him, ‘’Nervous habit’’ You explain.

Spencer laughs at your statement, ‘’I don’t think thats your nervous habit,’’ He says with a small laugh. You look at him as if you were questioning what he was saying, ‘’You fidget a lot that’s what you do when you need to move around, you’re nervous habit is sipping on coffee and hiding your hands with your shirt,’’ He gestures to your sleeves now which were rolled up to your elbow. ‘’You did the nervous one earlier after you came back in the room from talking with the cop,’’ He points out and you look at him amused dropping your pencil on the table laughing.

‘’Wow, stalker much?’’ You say laughing making him laugh. ‘’I’m kidding.’’ You say, ‘’Interesting though, you have a nervous habit yourself Dr. Reid.’’ You say smugly leaning back in your chair crossing your arms over your chest. ‘’You spit out random facts and sometimes even point out obvious ones and you sometimes avoid eye contact,’’ You say narrowing your eyes at him which he stares directly into yours making you both hold back a laugh.��

‘‘Nervous habits are shown to help us reduce anxiety, we find comfort in doing them which makes some of the anxiousness go away,’’ He explains, you just stare at him in response.

‘‘Okay Spenc,’‘ You say laughing, you glance up at him realizing that you had never called him that before and now you felt insecure doing it. You had only joined the team a few months ago and automatically hit it off with everyone, Spencer seemed to be the one you talked to the least and you couldn’t help but wonder if it was him avoiding you or that you got nervous talking to him because you had a crush on him.

You glance up and give him a nervous smile but he doesn’t say anything just glances back down at the papers and continued reading some of the statements, you glance back up every once in a while but he still seemed too busy to look up. ‘’I’m gonna turn in for the night,’’ You announce to him a little while later, ‘’Goodnight Reid,’’ You say this time correcting yourself.

‘‘Night, Y/N,’‘ He says sounding a little bittersweet.

_____

The next day you were determined to start fresh, you were more than ready to nail this unsub who had been killing woman in bars all over town. Walking past the officers desk from the other day he stops you once again, ‘’Miss Y/L/N?’’ You heard his voice, turning around you stand at the edge of his desk. ‘’I’m sorry about the other day, I realize now it was really unprofessional of me to act the way I did.’’ He says and you give him a sympathetic smile.

‘‘Well I’m sorry as well I didn’t mean to come off so cold,’‘ You explain to him.

‘‘If I had realized you had a boyfriend I would’ve never-’‘ He begins to explain.

‘‘Boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend.’‘ You quickly correct him.

‘‘Really?’‘ He asks sounding surprised. ‘‘I mean I just assumed you and the other young man seemed like you were- I mean he’s been glaring at me for the past hour,’‘ He says laughing nervously looking past you across the room at Spencer talking with someone. ‘‘He watches you like you’re the only person in the room,’‘ He says rubbing the back of his neck with this hand, ‘‘Anyway I’m sorry it was unprofessional to ask.’‘ He says.

‘‘Not a problem Officer, I appreciate the apology, really.’‘ You tell him sincerely.

‘‘Again none of my business but you’re friend over there he seems a little jealous for you to not be dating,’‘ He says sheepishly.

‘’I don’t think he’s jealous-’’ You pause as soon as the words leave your mouth. ‘’Oh my god!’’ You yell out in front of the office. ‘’Jealous!’’ You yell out and the officer looks at you confused. You run over to the rest of the team and Spencer almost looked nervous, ‘’The unsub is trying to make someone jealous!’’ You point out and you see Spencer’s shoulders drop almost out of relief. ‘’Dela Freeman was at two of our last bars and in her statement she said she had just got out of a bad relationship- I can’t believe I just remembered that! What if our unsub is her ex and he’s trying to make her jealous going to the bars and picking up these woman and when she doesn’t come back to them he kills them?’’ You explain.

‘‘That would explain the overkill,’’ Emily points out, ‘‘He’s mad because the one he desires attention from isn’t giving it to him so he uses what he has the girls he’s trying to make her jealous with.’‘ She elaborates.

Spencer coughs clearing his throat, ‘’That would also explain why the Bars are so local if she goes to school around here those are popular places among the college campus.’’ Reid points out.

‘‘Let’s get Garcia on the phone and see what we can find,’‘ Hotch says, ‘‘Nice work Y/N,’‘ He says before taking off. You try to hide the satisfaction on your face as he praises you, it always felt good when your boss told you good job but there was still so much more work to do, first you had to find a name.

______

Three hours later you sat in the back of an ambulance with the latest almost victim, you had made it just in time to save her although emotionally she was having a rough time she didn’t sustain any injuries which she was thankful for. Dela Freeman’s Ex was the unsub, she broke up with him after he constantly accused her of cheating and not paying him enough attention which fueled his accusations against her and it caused him to kill woman to try and get her attention back.

‘‘You’re going to be alright okay? They’re going to take you to the hospital and check you out. We called your parents and they’re on the way to meet you.’‘ You say squeezing her hand.

‘‘Thank you,’‘ She cries out to you, ‘‘Thank you so much.’‘

You give her a gracious smile before stepping out the back of the ambulance closing the door. ‘’Good one today,’’ You hear Morgan’s voice from behind you. ‘’How’d you figure it out?’’ He asks curiously.

‘‘The cop-he kept asking me out and then thought Spencer was jealous and it just clicked, believe it or not.’‘ You say laughing.

Morgan raises an eyebrow at you, ‘’So pretty boy was right,’’ He says amused.

‘‘About what?’‘

‘‘He thought the cop was hitting on you, said you seemed nervous.’‘ He says laughing.

‘‘He can’t tell when I am nervous, he barely knows me.’‘ You point out.

‘‘The kid knows more about you than you think,’‘ He says mysteriously but with a hint of something in his voice, ‘‘Between you and me,’‘ He whispers, ‘‘Boy wonder over there seemed more nervous than you when he saw the guy talking with you,’‘ He says winking at you.

You look at him a little stunned, Spencer nervous that you were talking to a guy? That was new.

Hours later you were back at the station taking everything off the boards and putting it into a filing box for records. ‘’Hey,’’ You heard Spencer’s comforting voice come into the room.

‘‘Oh, hey!’‘ You reply back turning back to your bulletin board taking another tack off. ‘‘I’m happy we finally got that break, we needed it.’‘ You point out to him referring to last night.

‘‘All thanks to you,’‘ He points out shuffling some papers in his hands so they align against the round table. ‘‘What clicked?’‘ He asks, ‘‘Even with Dela Freeman’s statement she never mentioned a breakup in them just what she saw?’‘ He asks.

‘‘Her friends mentioned they were out to help their friend get over an ex, in their words to get over someone you have to get under someone else,’‘ You say looking back at him a smile at the stupidity of that saying. He laughs along with you continuing to shuffle the papers on the desk.

‘‘Where’s everyone else?’‘ You ask.

‘‘I’m not sure actually, I was hoping you’d know.’‘ He says.

‘‘Hey,’‘ You hear another voice and look to the door where the young officer who had hit on you was standing, ‘‘Wanted to thank you for all your help, we uh- really appreciate it.’‘ He says giving you a smile, he glances over at Spencer awkwardly still showing him a smile of appreciation as well. ‘’My offer still stands though,’’ He points out winking at you.

You hold up the papers stacked in your hands, ‘’Paperwork’s calling,’’ You say laughing.

‘‘Not even a day off?’‘ He asks and you nod your head with a laugh. He pats the door frame where his hand was rested, ‘‘It was nice meeting you all.’‘ He says looking from you to Spencer back to you. ‘‘Have a safe flight back,’‘ He says before disappearing out the doorway.

‘‘Nice guy,’‘ You hear Spencer mutter under his breath.

‘‘Huh?’‘ You ask. When you turn around Spencer shakes his head dismissing what you had heard him utter under his breath. ‘‘He said something about you earlier you know,’‘ You point out causing him to look up. ‘‘Said you seemed jealous? It’s what helped me figure out what the unsubs motive was.’‘ You point out going back to the bulletin board letting out a laugh.

He stays silent for a few minutes and the silence encases the room, ‘’I was,’’ He says a few minutes later breaking the silence, ‘’I was jealous I mean.’’ He says causing you to stop filing looking up at him, he was staring at you back a little more wide eyed than usual.

‘’You were?’’ You say a little to happily, ‘’I mean you were?’’ You cough trying to adjust your voice.

‘’I was, I’m not sure why.’’ He says furrowing his eyebrows as if he was confused by the emotion itself.

‘‘I think I know why.’‘ You say smiling softly biting your lower lip to keep yourself from breaking out into a full on grin. He glances up gesturing for you to finish what you were saying, ‘‘You Dr. Reid have a crush on me.’‘ You say trying to sound as confident as possible.

‘‘I-uh,’‘ He immediately stutters, ‘‘That would be unprofessional-’‘ He points out.

‘‘Ah, ah, ah, there you go with the stuttering and the pointing out the obvious. You’re nervous habit, are you nervous right now?’‘ You ask teasing him.

‘‘What? No?’‘ He says his voice sounding a little higher pitched than usual a tell that he was lying.

‘‘You’re lying!’‘ You point at him a finger straight at his face, ‘‘I make you nervous!’‘ You say aloud.

‘‘That’s not true!’‘ He says lying even more.

‘‘It’s okay if I do,’‘ You say laughing, ‘‘You make me nervous too.’‘ You tell him, ‘‘In a good way.’‘

‘‘I do?’‘ He immediately fires back.

‘‘You do,’‘ You admit to him. ‘‘You’re always the smartest person in the room easily, you pick up on my nervous habits which makes me nervous because obviously you’ve taken the time to notice them. You work harder than anyone on this team and you just have this overwhelming sense of empathy for people, even the bad ones.’‘ You tell him, ‘‘I’m nervous to be around a person as good as you.’‘ You tell him smiling at him and he stares up at you wide eyed. ‘’Sorry,’’ You say laughing shaking your head.

‘‘Any room you go into you seem to have this quality about you that just lifts the mood, when you get praised by anyone you do a tiny victory in you’re head which is really cute.’‘ He pauses looking up at you. ‘‘With this job we constantly see horrible things but working with you and being around you makes it a little more bearable, even on the most terrible of days.’’ He says to you.

You hold back your words for a second, unsure of how to reply to what he just said but when you do you realize your words were going to change the friendship for the better, ‘’I said no to the officer because I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out.’’ You tell him. He smiles to himself then looks back up at you still sitting in the chair across the room, ‘’What?’’ You say looking at him, ‘’Do I have something on my face?’’ You ask him reaching up making him laugh more.

‘‘No, no, I just-,’‘ He pauses trying to gather his words, ‘‘Would you want to come over for dinner at my house? When we get back to Virginia at least.’‘ He asks.

You grin like an idiot not bothering to hide the smile on your face, ‘’I would love to Dr. Reid.’’ You say happily.

‘’I told you!’’ You hear Morgan yell, ‘’I told you he had it in him!’’ Morgan yells stepping into the room JJ following behind shaking her head laughing, ‘’My man!’’ He says and Spencer and you both shake your head in disbelief. ‘’Penelope owes me five bucks,’’ He says whipping out his cell phone ready to call her.

You laugh glancing up at Spencer who had a smile on his face staring back at you.

You couldn’t wait to get home.

#spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid blurb #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds #derek morgan #penelope garcia #jennifer jereau #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner #david rossi #jason gideon

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jq37 · 3 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 1

Meet the Maidens

It is back to school baby, both for D20 and, funnily enough, myself as well (something I hope will give me more time to get the recaps out in a timely manner fingers crossed).

As I’m sure you all know if you’re reading this, this season of D20 takes place in the world of Fantasy High but with a focus on Aguefort’s OTHER most badass adventuring party who we’ve so far only seen on the sidelines, the Seven Maidens! You’ll recall, they’re made up of the seven girls who were captured by Penelope and co. to fulfill the prophecy that would let Kalvaxus rule the world freshman year. And, in fact, we start with a flashback to freshman year so let’s just jump right in.

We find our seven soon-to-be heroines chained in the Red Waste in front of what we know and they will shortly learn in Kalvaxus’ lair--a crucial part of the prophecy that was the subject of season 1. The structure of this episode is sort of like 2 rounds of introductions--first here with the maidens meeting each other for the first time and then again at home with their families a la the first episode of Freshman Year so I’ll be glossing over certain things that we’ll get to later in their second intros.

Anyway, the first two to wake up are Danielle (aka Yelle: half-elf, druid) and Zelda (satyr, barbarian as we know). Zelda is her usual, adorably nervous self in contrast to Yelle who is no less sweet but in a super chill, granola girl, fuck the system kind of way. We actually learn that Penelope had her on board with the plan for a hot second when she thought it was just “overthrow the government” but didn’t know about the “install a just as bad if not worse evil dragon overlord” part.

Ostentatia (dwarf, cleric) wakes up next and is, as Izzy--her player--describes her “Jersey Trash.”, all blinged up with jewelry that she secretly made herself and didn’t buy. She wakes up pissed and ready to bodyslam Aelwyn which are both extremely valid emotions as much as I love Aelwyn. By the way, all of the girls recognize each other as girls who go to their school but none of them are really friends though they very quickly start throwing the label around because that’s what you do when you wake up chained with 6 other people in front of a dragon’s lair in a place called the Red Waste.

Katja (half-orc, fighter) wakes up and immediately cares about nothing more than the status of her beloved horse, Cinnamon and declares that if Cinnamon dies, she’ll die. This is a fantasy world so Ostentatia and Danielle are a little concerned that might literally be true via a soul bond or something but it’s more that Katja just really, really loves that horse. Danielle tries to cast a spell to locate the horse but can’t get the somatic components quite right with her hands manacled.

They all get into a discussion about the fact that everyone for a fact knows they’re all virgins now (you know, the real issue here) and what exactly counts as “virginity” for the purposes of this prophecy (like, does second or third base count or only traditional home runs using the baseball analogy) when Penny wakes up and is, just so excited to be here gang! Penny (halfling, rogue), who is one of the girls who has been kidnapped the longest, is adorably and honestly a bit concerningly exuberant to be surrounded by all these new friends, totally disregarding the fact that they are clearly in some deep shit. Zelda mentions that Riz, her old babysitee, knows they’re kidnapped and is trying to help and she lights up.

Next up is Sam (water genasi, sorc/bard) who immediately starts thrashing to get out of her chains and, when she can’t get free, is devastated by the fact that her ex betrayed her (!?) Finally Antiope (human fighter/ranger) wakes up all out of sorts having started her growth spurt while in the crystal and also having needed to pee right before she went in which becomes a problem all over herself (which Sam helpfully cantrips away).

With all of them awake, the stones they’re chained to light up and some of Kalvaxus’ minions (the ones who tied them up) show up to do minion speechifying. Yelle does a horrifying Animorph style morph into a waterbear (a tardigrade if you wanna get all Bio 101) to get out of her bonds but then Sam who has a serious one track mind re: getting out of here (Correct) and has exactly zero patience for these guys casts Tidal Wave and just knocks them off the cliff. Yelle frees Ostentatia who frees everyone else with Animate Object on their chains. Hands free, Yelle also casts Locate Animal and tells a very pleased Katja that Cinnamon is doing a full Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron down the highway searching for her.

The girls decide to explore the cave which has recently had most of its treasure moved (it’s currently in the gym for the Prompocolypse fight which is currently happening). Penny and Sam (who are in insanely different emotional places) find all these broken mirrors which Sam takes as a cue that they need to GTFO (which is what she was already doing) and Penny thinks would make a great material for friendship bracelet making which she starts doing as Sam physically pulls her away. Sam hears someone doing post-cry sniffles and is like, “Not today Satan,” still trying to leave. However, Penny sees that there is one mirror left and, inside, sees a ethereal looking human with flowing, preternatural, black hair who senses their presence and asks if Penny is someone named Anima. She asks for their names though she declines to give hers (hmm, feels very fae) and the girls give the fake names of Kelly and Cecelia which the figure says she will guard and not misuse. The figure says she is looking for her sisters (who she says when Penny asks are at Aguefort which...hmmmmm) and, all of a sudden, Sam and Penny are having a bad feeling about those mirror shards.

They ask her a question about the mirror and she gets really aggro when it’s referred to as “her” mirror as she would very much like to be out of it. The woman really wants to get out and says she can give them lots of power if they help. Sam pulls out her compact Mirror of the Past (magic item that does basically what you’d expect--shows you info from something’s past though in a cryptic way usually) to try and get some info on this thing and just barely avoids losing her mind in the process because this thing is ancient. Like eons old. She also learns the woman’s name (or maybe title): The Ending of Things (will be calling her Ending for now).

Yikes!

Right around now the other girls come in and can see at the angle they’re looking at her at the woman in the mirror is Not Really A Person and Antiope points at her and reflexively casts a ranger sense spell to try and clock its weaknesses and stuff but Ending grabs the spell energy like a lasso and tries to drag her into the mirror. She does however find out that she’s stacked with hella resistances (total immunity to necrotic damage and non-maj weapons, resistance to most elemental damage, and more).

Sam briefly considers using Lightning Lure to pull Antiope back before deciding on a much less ouchy Counterspell. Unfortunately, it’s not strong enough and now she’s being pulled in by her spell energy too. Yelle casts Erupting Earth which has some pros and cons.

Pros: Antiope and Sam are saved! Yay!

Cons: The mirror breaks and whatever was in it is fully freed. Not yay!

Shortly after (but not before Penny gives everyone their new friendship bracelets), someone calls into the cave looking for them--it’s Fig’s mom, Sandra-Lynn (with new art)! She’s happy and impressed that everyone is OK (also, Katja and Sam both have little lines that foreshadow their ~parental issues~ for the season--Katja being very moved by the simple act of Sandra-Lynn showing up for them and Sam saying that in her experience moms can be very evil).

As they all leave the cave, they all do checks and get some info:

Ostentatia: The mirror was kinda like a palimpsest (the crystals they were trapped in) and whatever this thing is is ancient and powerful.

Yelle: Gets the above info and the fact that when the thing left it wasn’t quite a bad vibe, just the vibe that something big and important is at play.

Penny: On an Arcana check she knows that what Danielle did 100% saved Antiope and Sam’s lives from whatever and wherever was on the either side of the mirror but the contact marked them in some way.

Katja: With History she sees some Primordial writing which is the writing of elementals (one of the things Ending has resistances to which might be relevant; also Sam reads Primordial but doesn’t get to read what it says)

Antiope: She knows that she and Sam are connected to Ending now somehow but it’s a two way connection which means they can also use it to their advantage.

Ostentatia casts Mending on the mirror shards which I think was to reconstruct the mirror but what it actually does is someone link their friendship bracelets. Cute!

And, with that, we cut to the present a year and a half later (which is Jr or Sr year for everyone).

We hop from kid to kid as they get ready to head in to school and get glimpses into their homes lives! Let’s do a quick rundown for each girl:

Antiope Jones

We see that Antiope is the youngest of five in what is essentially a military family full of basically every kind of fighter (she says she basically lives in a “Crossfit box”). There’s an 8 year gap between her and her sister Corsica who is the second youngest so her parents are kind of already living like empty nesters. When she comes downstairs she is promptly handed a protein smoothie and told two pieces of info: (1) from Corsica she learns that she overheard at school --where she teaches--that Aguefort needs to talk to her for some reason but she won’t say why which annoys the crap out of Antiope and (2) her parents lined up an internship for her at the Ministry of Adventure. She and her mom verbally spar a bit about them being all up in her life and how stressed she is and how she likes what she has going now with the Seven but her mom wins ofc because she’s a Mom and also a master tactician with a deft hand for loving mom guilt. On the way to school her bros (who include a gunslinger and an eldritch knight cause they run the whole gamut of fighter classes) Facetime her like, “Yikes Ant, heard about what happened with Mom, this is why you don’t fight her lmao.”

Sam Nightingale

This is a heavy one so strap in.

We check in with Sam who isn’t at her own family’s home but at Penelope’s family home which is off the bat eyebrow raising. It’s an upper middle class house and, on the way down, she has to pass Penelope’s bedroom which is conspicuously empty. Downstairs she’s greeted by Penelope’s human mom Rebecca who she learns is moving out soon because her elf husband is both cheating on her while away in Falinel and starting the divorce process. Sam clearly sees Penelope’s mom as a surrogate mom (for reasons we’ll learn in a second) and goes full ride or die assuring her that her ass is better than the ass of the woman he’s cheating with and offering to help burn his stuff even though drowning is more her specialty (she’s so cool). She also is a little stricken at the thought of Rebecca leaving her in the house alone but Rebecca says she can come with if she wants, she just didn’t want to disrupt her school life.

She also tells Rebecca that her bio-mom called recently which immediately sets Sam off. Through the convo we learn a couple of things:

Sam used to be an actor it seems.

And it seems like she was kicked out of the house after she transitioned or something similar which is why she lives with the Everpetals.

Now that it’s more “fashionable” to to be trans (her mom’s words, not mine) she wants Sam to talk to her so they can get her back in the game.

Sam is having none of that and tells Rebecca to just delete her mom’s number. Then they have a cathartic session of burning her cheating husband’s shit before Sam leaves in Sebastian--her sentient, seafoam blue, self-driving car with a very hot male voice which I am extremely jealous of. She picks up Zelda on the way to school and they commiserate a little and have a heart to heart about adults and change and how much Zelda wants to body slam Sam’s mom.

Penny Luckstone

Penny’s house is a whirlwind of activity and her harried parents get her and her 19 young siblings ready for school (no wonder she’s such a good babysitter). We see where Penny gets her type-A ness from as her mom and dad both have this cheerful but overworked energy of “EVERYTHING IS FINE” like that Good Place sign. Her mom spares a second to tell her that she recently got a letter for The Society of Shadows which is like a super secret rogue college (which her parents assume is legit even though they haven’t heard of it cause they’re Mumple people and also, if you've heard of a rogue school, how good could it really be?) Penny is excited except that it would mean she’d have to move and leave her party. Her mom is like “hey it’s a full ride and there are 20 of you guys so just take that into consideration but it’s ultimately your decision” before she dashes away to get to work because it is always Go Go Go with the Luckstones. She texts Sam for a ride and Sam swings by to grab her. This is not plot relevant but she has a booster seat in the back of Sebastian with her name carved into it and it’s important to me that you know that.

Katja Cleaver

Next up is Katja who lives in a Richie Rich style mansion and comes from very old money as she is descended from one of the first adventurers in Solace. She is in the barn with Cinnamon and the bugbear farrier they have employed (her name is Gertrude and a farrier is someone who does horseshoes). She eats the same breakfast as Cinnamon (hot dry oats and berries baybee) wo she loves so so dearly. Cinnamon is a magical horse--basically like a Find Steed spell that’s on all the time. She’s modeled the horse in her fave book series--the Babysitter’s Horse of course. Lockwood, the staff’s hobgoblin butler, is also there and they get a fantasy Zoom call from Katja’s dad who is in the middle of the insane 20th level adventurer stuff which he says might make him miss her graduation. She is extremely disappointed but just barely hides it from her dad (who seems to really care despite his not being around). She can’t hide it from the staff or Cinnamon however and Cinnamon offers to give her a ride to school via the scenic route.

Note: We also learn two sad facts about Katja from the conversation with her dad.

Her mother is Disney Princess dead* and

She wears one half of a friendship necklace and it seems like she’s waiting for someone to give the other half to. It’s implied earlier that the way Penelope got her was by promising to be her best friend. Sad!

*Edit: Well, she’s gone and we’ll leave it at that until next recap.

Ostentatia Wallace

Ostentatia wakes up and goes downstairs to have a very high energy in both directions interaction with her very fantasy-Italian mom and grandma. Her grandma is concerned her beard isn’t coming in--not knowing she shaves it on purpose which her mom is like, “Listen it’s fine but don’t tell grandma it’ll kill her.” She clocks very quickly that her dad isn’t there and his mithril working tools are gone. Her mom tries to play it off but she knows she’s being lied to and her mom relents. Her dad is at a meeting with the other workers of the shut down mithril factory and negotiations have ceased. It looks like he’s gonna be long term out of work. That explains where her dad is but not why the tools are missing. She decides to go do some investigating on her own and ambushes her dad in his car where, with the inaugural nat 20 of the season, she realizes he pawned his tools to get her 5 revivify diamonds. She's upset by this and he’s upset that she’s, in his eyes, questioning his ability to take care of his family. She’s like, alright, you did a thing for me, I’ll do a thing for you and she casts Animate Object to make his stuff steal itself back in a sequence that involves an animated crowbar using another crowbar which is just wild.

Danielle Barkstock

I’m gonna be real, Danielle’s life is exactly how you assume it is based on Who She Is As A Person so this one will be real short. Eco-friendly off the grid geodesic yurt. One super chill peace and love elf sorc mom and one rough and tough human ranger mom. She also knows and helps the Cubbies with their anarchist machinations because yeah, duh. She gets some messages from school on her crystal--one being a message from the principal saying that she and the rest of her party have first period off to meet with him and the other being a newsletter from the school showing, among other things, a photo of the Druid class doing a project but she’s not in it for some reason. She texts one of the other druids to see if she can figure out why she wasn’t invited but fully gets left on read. Brutal. Of course, she hasn’t messaged that person in 6-8 months so maybe that’s why.

Anyway, with that, all seven of our maidens make it to school and are all exuberant to see each other in a very teen girl way before getting to the principal’s office and learning that their party will be broken up at the year!

Bad!

Superlatives

I wanted to do something a little different for these recaps than the Bad Kid ones so instead of Honor Roll/Detention we are doing Superlatives and the inaugural one goes to...

Sam: Most Like To Survive a Horror Movie

Man she woke up chained in a ritual magic circle and she was Ready To Go Immediately. You will not catch this girl doing horror movie victim BS like exploring the spooky house or giving the creepy obvious ghost the time of day. She is hyper-competent and her goal is making it out alive and dragging her friends with her. Love her.

Random Thoughts

The season immediately starts with a bang or I should say a bing with Izzy trying to say “bling bang” and accidentally saying, “bling bing” and immediately getting roasted by everyone. I love the authentic girl group vibes (which include everyone clowning on her then immediately hyping up Zelda to the max after being way more awkward).

Handshake meme with Danielle and Moonshine from Naddpod. Also, Cinnamon and Horse from Centaurworld.

I love that Rekha and Erika just straight up were like, “Our characters are Asian”. Like obviously, make your characters Asian coded in your fantasy world--all my D&D characters are black like me--but it’s funny that they completely disregarded the, “There’s no Asia in this world so I guess they’re this world’s equivalent to--” Nah just, “I’m a half-elf and I’m Asian.” You love to see it.

I absolutely LOVE the choices the cast made to flesh out their characters based on the little info Brennan had about them, none moreso than rich horse girl Katja. Rekha is a genius.

“I only want one thing and he’s working” KATJAAAAAAA

Man if I was in that flashback I would have been wilding out so much with my flashback plot armor.

I appreciate that the first thing that Aabria has Antiope do is extremely uncool. I love it when players aren’t concerned about just being cool and on point all the time. Sometimes (read: often) that’s the less interesting choice.

But on the exact opposite side, she’s a ranger and an arcane archer which I think is extremely cool. Lmao also I didn’t mention in the recap but she HATES dragons now which, understandable. I’m guessing they're her favored enemy.

I can’t wait to see another group of kids interact w/ madman Aguefort.

Also, as a known Aelwyn-stan, I am very excited for the possibility of the Seven interacting with her cause as much as I love her they are under no obligation to acknowledge her redemption arc and I would love to see them throw hands.

I love the Greek myth naming scheme of Antiope’s extremely cool family as with her on the spot nickname “L-Cab” short for long caboose since she’s the youngest by a mile.

Also this is out of character not in character but Sephie is an extremely cool nickname for Persephone.

I wonder why Brennan didn’t let Sam read the Primordial in the cave. He just glossed right past her saying that she speaks it and she didn’t push it. Would it have solved his entire plot in the span of a flashback or was he just keeping things moving?

Sidenote, if I was married to an elf man and worried about aging like Rebecca, I would simply become a druid (or a monk or up my wizard levels so I could learn True Polymorph or Wish or something).

I wonder what the deal with Ending is. She seemed relatively sincere in the mirror but that doesn’t mean anything. She could be sincere and also Very Bad News.

There is an offhand comment by Brennan about how the dwarf forge god gives spells but doesn’t talk to his followers which I think means that Ostentatia is gonna be getting a direct god call soon enough.

Also she mentions that her dad is doing some criminal activity on the side which seems like a Problem for later. Honestly all of the kids have some pretty rich parent drama happening which should be interesting to see explored.

No nat 1s this ep and 1 nat 20 as I mention from Ostentatia.

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #the seven #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers

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fakecrfan · 4 years

Note

Do you think Basira and Daisy had a healthy relationship?

I am so glad you asked! I have had a lot of thoughts about their relationship, but had decided to shelve those thoughts because I was worried it would come off as me telling people to not ship Daisira, which is... not what I want to be doing. But you sent me an Ask and so I am compelled to answer!

My answer is: no. Their relationship is toxic in one of the most interesting ways I have seen portrayed in media.

This might be a bit confusing to hear, though. Normally when we call a relationship toxic, it means that one or both of the people involved are making each other feel bad. But Daisy and Basira seem to make each other feel... good. Basira is apparently Daisy’s last human attachment, and according to Elias in MAG 92, and “not being able to see Basira again” is one of Daisy’s biggest laments in the coffin. And on Basira’s end, Daisy seems to make Basira feel... secure. Supported.

From MAG 117:

BASIRA

But at least Daisy’s coming. I mean, I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But, she’s solid. She’s a… a fixed point, and if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing, relative to her.

From MAG 178:

MARTIN

We’re here for you.

BASIRA

No. She was there for me.

So, “attachment to humanity” “support” and “security” are good things in a relationship, right? Their love for each other (whether you read it as completely platonic or not) seems genuine, and they put each other first. That should mean that their relationship is Good!

Wellllllll no. Sometimes, a relationship can feel good while also... trapping you in a harmful cycle, or stunting your growth as a person. Think: a friend who is charming and fun who you love to drink with--to the extent that, even when you’re trying to manage an alcohol addiction, you end up going into situations with them that trigger your urge to drink. Also think: a friend who keeps bringing you sugary food even after you’ve been diagnosed with serious diabetes with potential life-altering complications--because you like donuts, they used to make you so happy.

Daisy and Basira are that to each other. In particular--Basira’s attachment to Daisy draws Basira back into dangerous situations and, by extension, causes her fall deep into that “siege mentality” that shuts down Basira’s more thoughtful side.

When Jon confronts Basira about Daisy’s crimes in MAG 178, this exchange occurs.

MARTIN

[Loudly] Enough. Enough! Someone has died! Show some respect. Or don’t you care?

BASIRA

[Incensed] Of course I fucking care!

…

[Quieter] That’s the problem.

MARTIN

I… I don’t understand.

BASIRA

I just… I don’t need him laying everything out for me like I’m some kind of idiot. I know, all right.

I don’t think Basira is making anything up here to make herself seem better. Basira already knew there was a problem with the police, before Jon confronted her. She already knew Daisy was corrupt to some extent, even if she had trouble facing it head on. And--she already cared.

That’s why she quit. She didn’t need a revelation from Jon or anyone else to open her eyes. She didn’t even need to see harm happen to an innocent bystander. Instead, she saw how the higher ups were covering up the killing of Maxwell Raynor, of all people--

BASIRA

They’ve given us a few days ‘compassionate leave’. I think they just want us out of the way while they figure out the official version of what happened.

--and she quit after that.

So, here we already have someone who is coming into an understanding of the police as a flawed system without anyone needing to tell her. Here we have someone who is already extricating herself from that system, because she cares about her impact on other people. From this point, she could easily have gone her own way, taken time to reflect and never hurt anyone again.

So what brings her back into the whole mess in MAG 88?

BASIRA

I’m looking for Daisy.

MARTIN

Oh for – Okay, I don’t know where she is! I don’t know where anybody is! Why does everyone… okay, why does everyone think that I always know where everyone is, all the time?!

BASIRA

Alright, okay, alright, sorry. They just… well, they said at the station that this was the last place she checked in.

--Her relationship with Daisy, of course!

She wants to leave the supernatural and the police behind. She tells Jon the Institute is bad (MAG 73) but she walks back in because she’s worried about Daisy. And then she throws herself right back in the fray to stop Daisy from killing Jon. Shortly after that, Basira has to sign herself off as a hostage to Elias…

ELIAS

She’s quite the killer, your partner. All in the public good, of course. And she was correct, I spent some time acquiring that evidence. Or creating it. And while your superiors don’t much care about the killings, the fact there is proof… They’re not happy. And they want you brought in.

--because of Daisy’s murders, Daisy’s reckless actions giving Elias leverage. Basira throws herself in with Daisy, and it draws Basira right back into a world of violence and the paranormal that she was trying to quit. It motivates her to, once again, cover for Daisy’s errors and justify them. This takes away any chance Basira could have had to gain distance from the violence, reflect, and get some perspective. Instead, she’s thrown right back into the siege.

Basira doesn’t even show any sign of frustration with Daisy at this. It’s not that Basira is 100% meek. We see her get frustrated with people later, express grievances, and hold people accountable later--but with Daisy she doesn’t do any of this. Instead, she immediately re-affirms that she’s on Daisy’s side.

BASIRA

Daisy, it’s… it’s okay. We’ll figure something out.

Of course, it’s not a one-way street, either. It’s not an uncomplicated “Basira good, Daisy toxic and bad” story. It’s a mutually reinforcing cycle where they are both complicit. We see that in season 4, when Daisy tries to stop feeding the hunt.

People like to rag on Basira for her actions in this season but... her actions are actually also more complicated than a simple story of “Basira sabotages Daisy’s progress.” Because Basira misses the more resolute Daisy, yes, and wishes she had a strong protector instead of another person to help... but even with that, she’s still willing to support Daisy’s progress away from the Hunt!

In MAG 133:

ARCHIVIST

You’re not happy she’s back.

BASIRA

I didn’t say that, John. I will never abandon Daisy, and… having her back is… (she sighs) But right now she’s dead weight, and I need to be able to travel light.

Basira wants someone powerful to protect her, is conflicted that she doesn’t have that but still will never abandon Daisy regardless. And, true to her word, she does support what Daisy is doing.

From MAG 140:

BASIRA

We’ve talked about it. If the Hunt takes her again, we don’t know if she’s coming back. And neither of us want that.

In MAG 146, she even praises Daisy’s path of resistance.

BASIRA

You didn’t know what you were doing.

[Daisy makes a pained sound, as if to contradict her, but stops.]

BASIRA

And since you did, you’ve spent every waking hour resisting.

So, Basira is--true to Elias’s word--being Daisy’s anchor to humanity. True to her own word, she’s having Daisy’s back, supporting her decision to quit the hunt even if it means Basira has less back up. So what changes?

MAG 155:

BASIRA

Because I’m not going to lose her.

ARCHIVIST

She goes hunting again, you might anyway.

BASIRA

And if she doesn’t, she might die.

Even at this point, Basira’s worst impulses are always about Daisy. Even when she undercuts Daisy’s progress, it’s about Daisy’s wellbeing. All she wants to do is make sure Daisy’s alive and okay, and to that end she will throw out all of her rationality and moral principles.

And then, when Daisy does finally give into the hunt, it’s for Basira.

It’s... funny to analyze and critique this behavior, because I have seen this sort of behavior in Jon/Martin fics treated as a sweet and romantic thing. You know, the “I want you to keep being a monster because I don’t want to lose you!” thing. And also the “prioritizing each other over everything else in the world” thing. Because the concept of unconditional support, of putting another person first above everything else in the world--it’s an alluring one.

But with Daisy and Basira, even though their relationship isn’t necessarily romantic, we see how harmful that mindset can be. How someone can care for you, prioritize you, make you feel like the whole world, and... the main effect of that is to stunt you, to give you so much comfort you never get out of a harmful cycle or change your behavior at all. How it can cause you to enable horrible things in the world, like police brutality.

That is the story of Daisy and Basira’s relationship. It’s about the effects of this cycle on Basira--yes, Basira specifically and not Daisy, even though the cycle is mutually reinforcing and affects them both.

Basira appears in nearly twice as many episodes as Daisy. Because of this, Basira is the one we see discussing the relationship and what it means to her. Basira is the one we see grappling with the psychological fallout of their relationship. It’s more Basira’s story than Daisy’s--not because she’s the “victim” or that she was morally pure but because... Basira is the one who ultimately grows past this.

After episode after episode of “she needs me” and “I can’t leave her” and “I can’t let her die”--after Basira endangering herself and stunting her own growth by centering Daisy

DAISY

Partner… Come…

[MORE FOOTSTEPS]

BASIRA

Not now. Not after everything.

--Basira finally breaks free, and moves on.

#taiey #basira hussain #daisy tonner #tma #the magnus archives #my post #tma meta

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dramaqueeenamby · 3 years

Text

Waves: Quarantine

A/N: It's been way too long since I've done something for the Wavesverse, and I apologize deeply. I have a few requests related to this series to complete, but I couldn't knock this idea.

Words: 4K

Warnings: None

Tags: @babe-im-bi @notacamelthatsmywife @missyperle @queenoftheworldisdead @tashawar @valkryienymph @letsshamelessqueen-m @hello-therree @mani-lifes @liquorlaughslove @toni9 @koko-michelle @theequeenofcurses @taylortheeshowpony

Waves

Summer placed her phone inside of the mount and made sure that it was secured before she sat back in her bed, getting comfortable with the mass of pillows supporting her back, and smiling tentatively. “Hi, guys.”

Summer!

Someone tell me this isn’t a joke???? Please???

She lives!

Sis, blink twice if you need help.

Summer rolled her eyes. “Ya’ll better stop. I know it’s been a minute since I’ve hopped on live, but it hasn’t been that damn long.”

Summer continued to read the comments where more than a few people pointed out she hadn’t gone live on Instagram in over three months. Her mouth dropped. “Ya’ll lying. It has not been almost six months, has it?” She placed her hand over her mouth when people started dropping dates in the comments. “Okay, I stand corrected. Damn, I’m sorry, guys.”

Don’t be sorry, bestie. Do better!

Damn, ya’ll are so entitled. Celebrities have lives too.

What life? We all been in quarantine.

Rich people quarantine be different from us poor folks, I guess.

“So that’s actually one of the things I wanted to talk about.” Summer cleared her throat. “And I’m going to try really hard to make sure I word what I want to say as clear and as effective as I can, but I know this is still going to end up as a salacious headline. So, it is what it is.”

Oooh, Summer about to drop some tea.

I don’t see her wedding ring, ya’ll…..

I’m scared omg.

Watch this be nothing but a role announcement.

She shrugged and took a deep breath. “Okay, so a few days ago, I did the Buss It challenge, after being harassed by Sanda. And can I just say that filming was a challenge in and of itself? Not necessarily the movements but preparing? I’ve got two kids, twins, who are like the Tasmanian devil. I was literally up at 3 something in the morning trying to record it because my wild children won’t let me be great.” She chuckled. “Kids are something else.”

Summer truly jumped through hoops and was a damn near acrobat trying to figure out when she could not only get herself done up but actually record the challenge. Being the perfectionist that she was didn’t help, but the fact that she couldn’t recall the last time she’d put on makeup and dressed up was a whole other fiasco.

Quarantine definitely brought out her bum side.

“All of that aside, I truly was satisfied and happy with the final product when I posted it. In hindsight, I should have just left it that, but I wake up every day and choose chaos, so I decided to read the comments.” She blew out a breath. “One of the most frequent comments and really, insults, I’ve received my whole career. Primarily, since I was cast as Storm, revolves around how I look. I.e., my weight. I’ve been called fat, obese, out of shape, and so many other things.”

It was 100% true. The minute Marvel announced that she’d been chosen to play Storm, the racists came all out of the woodworks. She was too short, too chubby, too dark, too black. And Summer didn’t care, not a bit.

“Even,—and I’ll tell you guys this, when I first started my SS training, that’s what I call it, SS for Storm Shape, there was a—person who worked for Marvel at the time who came to visit me while I was training.” She smiled thinking back on that day. She could still recall it so clearly. “He basically was pissed because to him, I still looked the same, fat and out of shape.” She adjusted her top and shifted in her bed. “That same day, I deadlifted and bench-pressed over 200lbs” She paused for effect. “What I need for people to stop doing is stop fucking projecting—and I’m going to cuss in this, so if you don’t like it, oh well. I work for Disney, but I’m a grown ass woman, and I’m going to say what I want.”

I am screaming. Summer said we getting alll the tea today!

So, it’s wrong to point out that someone is physically unhealthy now, cool?

The problem is that no one wants to see a fat superhero. It’s not realistic.

^^^^ Tell me you have a small dick without actually telling me you have a small dick.

“I saw Lizzo, whom I adore, post a Tik Tok where she basically said that she workouts to have the body she wants not what ya’ll want, and honestly? Same. She said that her body type is no one’s fucking business, and that’s so true. Ya’ll love to hop on this internet and pick apart people you don’t even know and criticize bodies you don’t even have to live in and move around with. And for what?” She shook her head, slamming her fist into her open palm as she spoke. She was fully invested now. “I know we in quarantine, but damn, pick another hobby cause being a bully is not it, sweetie.”

I really needed to hear this today.

Using Lizzo as a point of reference makes everything you’re saying null and void. Lizzo is clearly overweight and at risk for diabetes, heart disease, just to name a few…..

I been saying this! You can’t look at a person and say they’re unhealthy.

Bodies come in so many forms, and all are beautiful.

“Now, I bring all this up because a lot of people were commenting on my Buss It challenge and pointing out the fact that I’ve gained weight, and guess fucking what? I have, and you know what else?” She leaned over to whisper while covering her mouth with her hands for focused effect. “I don’t care.”

Summer laughed and shook her head. “As others have pointed out as well, yes, we have a gym in our house. I 1000% acknowledge the fact that having the resources that I do as a celebrity and someone who has money puts me in a different category. Hell, my husband has a whole fitness app. I recognize that. If I wanted to keep up with my workouts, emphasis on wanted, I could have. I own up to that, but I just didn’t feel like it, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is to send and leave mean messages calling me all kinds of names.”

Summer had thick skin. She always had. Growing up with her family, who always ensured to feed her self esteem and make sure she knew that she was beautiful, definitely paid off. It was just a combination of quarantine and not having a lot of opportunities to keep herself busy with work that had her feeling some type of way.

“And that’s something else I wanted to bring up.” She blew out another breath and tried to gather her emotions. This was the subject she was almost certain she’d grow teary eyed discussing. “I love my husband to death. My children are everything. Christopher’s family is like my own, but— I haven’t seen my family, like my mom, grandma, brothers, etc in almost a year.” She paused, dwelling on that. Almost an entire year since she’d been able to physically hug and interact with the people who made her who she was. “And I’ve always made it clear how much I fucking love my family. I live in Australia. I can’t do a drive by with grandma so I and my kids can at least see her on the doorstep.” She quieted again, eyes darting off as she quietly cursed. “I’m trying really hard not to cry right now.”

Please don’t cry, bestie.

This is the side of quarantine that people don’t talk about enough.

Has this woman never heard of FaceTime????

I feel her pain. I live in Europe, and my family is in the states. This quarantine has been brutal.

My grandma died from COVID, and I couldn’t even go to the funeral. Summer is bringing up a good point.

“Damn,” Summer chuckled bitterly and wiped at the tears that fell. “I’m okay, I promise. I just bring this up because quarantine has also been very hard for me in that aspect. At certain points, I’ve been down, I’ve been in my head a lot, and I just was not, for the most part, in a space where I felt like I had to keep up my fitness regimen. And that’s okay. I put my mental wellbeing ahead of making sure my body is socially acceptable. Sue me.”

I really appreciate her honesty.

Summer never goes beyond surface level in interviews, so seeing her this vulnerable is really surprising.

Are we supposed to feel bad for her? She’s rich. She can afford whatever help she needed.

These comments are not passing the vibe check.

Ya’ll are all mental health advocates, but when a black woman is opening up about her struggle, it’s discarded?

“And let me make this clear too, I have an amazing husband who is so patient and so kind. He’s one of the best people I can go to when my anxiety hits, so I don’t want this to come across as me complaining that I’ve been alone. I have him and our children. I just miss the rest of my family. That’s all.” She dried her eyes and started to read the comments, unsurprised by the mixed reaction. She expected as such and was unaffected. At least until she saw one comment.

@ChrisEvans: ❤️❤️❤️

“Evans!” Summer wasn’t expecting to see his name pop up. It’d been such a task convincing him to join IG, let alone teaching him how to operate it. “Let’s go live.”

Not my husband and wife in my head about to go live!!!!

Imagine being able to call Chris Evans your best friend

I still say they smashed idc

It’s Christopher Jamal Evans hopping on this live for me.

^^^ I’m so sick of y’all with that shit.

“Let me try to add him,” Summer spoke to herself, scrolling through the comments to find his so she could request him. “Alright, I requested him. Let’s see if he answers.”

She wondered if she should have sent him a text asking if he was available when he appeared on her screen, effectively splitting it with her on the top and him on the bottom.

“Punk.”

“Kid.”

Summer smiled and greeted, “Hi, best friend.”

He chuckled. “How you doing, Summer?”

“Clearly not as good as the people watching,” she chimed. Summer saw nothing but heart eyes and hearts in the comments. “These people really love you. You truly are a manipulative bastard. He’s an asshole, guys.”

“Don’t be jealous, Summer. It’s so unbecoming of you.”

“You can go to hell.”

“Language,” he playfully reprimanded. “Where are the kids?”

“At preschool. Things are finally starting to open back up over here. Thank God.” She clasped her hands together. “Y’all, please wear masks. Don’t be Karen’s.”

Chris laughed, grabbing his chest. “We’re getting there, Summer.”

“The lies you tell,” she countered. “Don’t A Starting Point, me. Ya’ll are far from getting there, and I’m tired of it. I wanna see my family.”

He sighed. “I know, but how are you feeling today?”

“I got rid of the kids, so that’s definitely a weight lifted,” she answered honestly, laughing when she saw judgmental comments in the chat. “Listen, if you’re a parent, you know where I’m coming from. You love your kids, but my god, sometimes you just need some space.”

“As soon as this all blows over, I told you to send em’ by me for a couple of weeks.”

“Best friend, I already purchased their tickets.” He laughed. “As soon as I get the green light, they are all yours. Feel free to keep them.”

“You guys see how she is?” He pointed to Summer, leaning and squinting to read what was being said. “I do love kids, especially the twins, they’re amazing.”

“He is really really great with them, guys,” Summer added. “One thing about Evans, he’s patient as hell and really, just a big kid. Why do you think him and Christopher get along so well? 40 going on 4.”

“I resent that.”

“Is it a lie though?”

He hesitated. “No.” They both laughed.

I’m loving the dynamic between these two so much.

Is it just me or are they flirting with each other…..

Ain’t nothing inappropriate about this conversation. Ya’ll are reaching…

Ya’ll remember that blind item that came out years ago alleging Chris (Evans) was the biological father of the twins? Hmm…..

^^^^^This kind of bullshit is the reason we’re in a global pandemic.

As always, Summer and Evans ignored any foolery that was being dropped in the comments when she caught a comment that didn’t contain some ridiculous rumor.

“Yes, it is true that Evans and Christopher weren’t allowed to do press together anymore. Ya’ll, they literally could not stay serious for more than a minute. I felt so bad for the poor interviewers.”

“Hey, we were not that bad,” Evans protested, his Boston accent more prominent.

She gasped. “You guys were terrible, Evans, and you know it. I was so mad when they put me with ya’ll those few times. I could barely hear the interviewers over your laughing and stupid commentary that literally no one asked for.”

“We did not.”

“There’s deadass video proof, Evans.”

“Fake news.”

She opened her mouth but caught herself. “I was about to say something.”

He laughed and asked, “Do you remember how we all got drunk before the Infinity War premiere?”

“No, ya’ll got drunk. I was big and pregnant, remember?”

“No,” he dismissed. “You were drinking with us.”

“Evans, how was I drinking when I was pregnant?” She challenged and reminded. “I got drunk with ya’ll for the Endgame premiere, not Infinity War.”

“That’s right,” he remembered and chuckled. “You think we’ll get in trouble for saying this?”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “You’re dead, Christopher never gets in trouble for anything, and I do what I want. I think we’re good.”

Kevin Feige watching this live right now like 🥴🥴🥴🥴

I never realized how arrogant she is……

LMAO. Not the whole cast showing up drunk to the biggest premiere of their lives.

Chris Evans is too damn fine to be approaching 40 and still single.

Their friendship is so goals omg

@ChrisHemsworth: Snitches

Summer’s jaw dropped as she caught the last comment, swiping up to click the name and make sure that she was reading correctly. “Christopher, what the hell are you doing on my live?”

Evans brows furrowed. “Hemmy is here? Shouldn’t he be working?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Summer supplied. “And how long have you been watching?”

@ChrisHemsworth: Long enough.

She smiled nervously and looked off to the side. “I feel weird now. I don’t like when he watches my lives.”

“Aren’t you guys married?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be shutting the fuck up?”

Evans lifted his hands in a defensive manner. “Touchy subject, I see.” They shared another laugh as he cleared his throat. “Why don’t you add him now? I’m supposed to be helping Scott cook.”

“My favorite Evans,” she gushed and furrowed her brows. “You, cooking? Since when?”

“Get out of here.” He waved her off and reminded. “I’m not the one who constantly causes near fires when in the kitchen.”

“So, you really just putting all my business out there like that?”

“Summer, it’s not secret to anyone that you can’t cook for shit.”

“Wow, it really be your own best friends.”

He chuckled. “Love you, kid.”

“Love you too, punk,” she blew a kiss. “I’ll text ya’ later.”

“Alright.” He smiled for the camera. “Thanks for having me everyone.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said jokingly. Evans and Summer said goodbye one last time before he left the live. She blew out a breath and ran her hand through her hair. “Baby, comment something so I can add you. It’s too many comments to wade through.”

Summer adjusted her phone and checked the time on the clock on the wall. It’d been a while since the kids were away at school, and she didn’t want to get so caught up that she was late picking them up.

@ChrisHemsworth: I can’t. I’m too drunk.

Summer released a mixture of a laugh and a snort reading his comment. “You are so damn petty.” She clicked his name and adjusted her outfit while waiting for him to answer. She almost cursed when it seemed like he wasn’t going to join, only for her to smile when his face appeared on her screen.

“Hi,” she greeted in a soft voice with a small smile.

“Hello, Sandcastle.”

“Did you just—I swear to god, it’s always something with you.” Summer rubbed her temples and shook her head. Christopher smiled in response. “Why aren’t you working?”

“I am.”

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“If you’re working, how are you talking to me?” She asked, sassily.

“Umm, a little thing called multitasking, ever heard of it?”

“Wow. You are an asshole.”

“That’s mean.”

“You’re mean.”

“Christopher, you are literally a child.”

“Does a child have muscles like this?” He flexed, and Summer stilled. Christopher stayed in ridiculous shape, but this was another level. He’d never been this massive, and she wasn’t too proud to admit that. Just not aloud.

She faked a yawn. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

They really just be roasting each other all the time, and I’m here for it.

Summer must be legally blind because this man is stupid fine tf

It’s gotta be steroids. That’s not natural.

^^^^^He’s the god of thunder.

Summer rolled her eyes at the typical nature of the comments. These were the reasons she limited her time on social media and especially stayed away from reading the comments. Her attention was redirected to the top of her phone. It was a text from Christopher asking her to call him.

“But we’re—oh, I get it.” She realized he wanted to talk to her, not her and her tens of millions of followers. “Alright, guys, I’m gonna get off here so I can talk to my husband, alone.”

“She just doesn’t want to share me with you all, that’s all.”

“Don’t even start, Christopher,” she lectured while he laughed and got serious, for a minute tops.

“Hope you all are taking care and staying safe,” he spoke honestly. “And we’ll talk to you soon.”

Summer waved and smile. “Bye, guys. Remember to be kind.” Summer offered a final smile before ending the live. Closing up the app, she moved to open FaceTime and called up Christopher. He answered almost immediately. “You know I hate when you watch my Lives. Now, how much did you see?”

“Enough to know you’re coming to see me tonight.”

She laughed aloud. “Funny.”

“I’m serious, Summer.” Focusing on him, she realized that there was no humor in his voice nor his expression. Summer also noticed that he didn’t have the Thor wig on yet, which was probably why he was able to go live with her. He was waiting to get into hair and makeup. “Leave the kids with Liam. It’s not like he’s doing anything.”

“Christopher!”

“What? Is he not a professional unemployed bastard.”

Summer’s smile remained as she shook her head. “You are so mean.”

“I’ll handle the flight arrangements. You, my beautiful wife, just make sure you get on the jet so I can handle you.”

“Christopher, you’re working. People with everyday jobs don’t just up and show up to their spouses workplace because they miss them or need a break from the kids. That’s how folks get fired.”

Christopher started to move around, walking somewhere, she realized. “What are you doing?”

“Hey, Tike.”

Summer’s eyes widened slightly. “Christoper!”

“Sup, man?” Taika asked casually, as Summer laughed again. Taika Waititi was such a character.

“You mind if Summer comes up for a few days?”

“Sure, man,” he replied almost right away. “Bring the kids and chickens too.”

“I am not bringing those damn chickens,” she immediately protested.

Christopher made a sound. “Ha, so you are coming!”

“I didn’t say that.”

Taika joined Christopher so that he was in camera. “Hey, Summer, why don’t you come on join? You can have a cameo. Chickens, too.”

She rubbed her temples. Taika’s and Chris’s friendship would never not make sense to her. They were cut from the same cloth. “One, hey. Two, I was already in Ragnarok. I’m good on the cameos. Three, what is with ya’ll and those creepy looking chickens?”

“Whoa, creepy? What did the chickens ever do?”

“Exist,” Summer answered dryly. She still hadn’t forgiven Evans and Christopher for convincing her to let the kids keep those damn things. Her home was becoming more and more of a farm with each animal that joined the household.

“Tough crowd, that one, ehh?”

“Always,” Christopher agreed.

“I can hear you both,” she reminded and groaned loudly. Summer would love to spend a few days away from the kids. Chris would be working, yes, but she’d at least get some time for herself. Even better, alone adult time with her husband. That had also been a bit tricky during quarantine because of her rambunctious twins. Still, she disliked using her status as a celebrity to gain things, and this would definitely be a case of using status for pull. “I don’t know….”

Deep in her thoughts, she hadn’t realized that Chris had walked away and returned to wherever he was prior to finding Taika, most likely his trailer.

“What if you only stayed a night?” Chris tried to bargain. “The flight is only an hour and a half. That will give you more than enough time to come here, let me fix you dinner, run you a nice bath, maybe get in the good ole’ horizontal tango—”

“You know I hate when you call it that,” she reminded quietly, admitting. “That does sound nice, though.”

“Or, I can come to you—“

“Absolutely not. Christopher, you’re already doing so much back and forth as it is.” One of the good things to come out of quarantine, to Summer at least, was that it forced many people to take a much needed break. Her husband was one of those people. Christopher had been working nonstop since she met him. Project after project, film after film, many of them Marvel films, which put a whole other layer of difficulty what with the strenuous physical requirements. Even now as he shot Thor 4, he was in the best shape he’d ever been, muscles nearly tearing the cotton of his clothes. He looked amazing, but it was what they couldn’t see that she was starting to grow a little concerned over. Christopher wasn’t as young as he once was. He had to slow down, eventually.

Summer realized this would be a perfect chance to have a conversation about just that with him, which all but led her to her final decision.

“Alright,” she conceded, finger up as she made her demands. “Three days, and I stay at the house while you shoot. We may be returning to normal, but we’re still in a pandemic. I won’t go around anyone except you.”

“So I get you all to myself? Hardly consider that a stipulation.”

“And…we talk.”

“After the horizontal tango—“

“I swear to God, if you don’t stop calling it that—“

“What was that, sweetheart? I wasn’t listening.” She saw that he had paused the screen, causing Summer to remember that she hadn’t even consulted with the babysitter. “Making flight arrangements for you.”

“Shit, let me text Liam and make sure he’s available.”

“He gets reception in the box?”

“Christopher! For the last time, your brother is not living in a box.”

“Do you know that for certain?”

“Goodbye, Christopher,” she prepared to end the call before smiling softly. “I love you, Christopher, and thank you.”

He winked. “I’ll always do anything for you, Summer. Anything.” A beat. “Don’t forget to leave the clothes. You won’t need them.”

“Christopher!”

#chris hemsworth x black!oc #chris hemsworth x black!reader #chris hemsworth fanfic #chris hemsworth fandom #chris hemsworth fanfiction #fic: waves

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bestworstcase · 3 years

Note

I like your thoughts on how Rapunzel was handling things wrong in “Rapunzel: Day One.” The episode tries to imply that Cassandra is wrong for not sharing her feelings with Rapunzel, but is a Rapunzel really the person Cassandra should be opening up to? Rapunzel never respects Cassandra’s boundaries. Cassandra’s a private person. Rapunzel doesn’t respect that. And just because Cassandra doesn’t want to open up to everyone doesn’t mean that she’s bottling things up.

ok so this is gonna be a long one bc tbh i like. fundamentally disagree that RDO, the narrative of RDO, in any way positions cassandra as the one at fault for the emotional conflict between her and raps.

to digress a bit - while tts is not immune to Aesop Episodes (e.g. rapunzel's enemy or you're kidding me) wherein the characters close out the story by talking about What They've Learned, ultimately i don't think tts can or should be read as a morality play. it's a story where sometimes characters just... fuck up and the narrative doesn't waste its time on hand-holding or spoon-feeding us the moral.

anyway, i submit that RDO is what i'll call a False Aesop Episode. it follows the basic structure of an Aesop Episode (protagonist acts badly -> protagonist learns a lesson) but the lesson rapunzel learns is a bad one. it's like if you took... say, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" as an aesop, the False Aesop here is rapunzel confidently eating a rotten apple and then being blindsided a few months later when the doctor who kept begging her not to eat food with maggots in it steals the moonstone from under her nose and runs off into the night with her new demon pal--

and that metaphor got away from me a little bit but you get the idea.

#1: constructing the conflict

the episode opens with cassandra. she's training; we see the sword fly out of her injured hand; lance suggests she take a break, and she answers, "thanks to rapunzel's little trick at the great tree, i have to relearn everything using this hand, so breaks aren't really an option."

she isn't harsh about it. her demeanor isn't all that different from her normal self—she even segues into a very typical concern (that the woods are dangerous and they should all be on their guard) and banters with lance a bit.

what this communicates, immediately and succinctly, is that:

1. cassandra's injury is severe. it's disabling. she's either in immense pain or she's lost all the strength in that hand or both.

2. cass is really upset about this, and not happy with rapunzel.

3. nevertheless cass is keeping her feelings more or less in check; the worst anyone could say about her is she's being a bit more curt than normal.

which is to say, she's acting quite reasonable. she's not taking out her hurt feelings on anyone else or being mean or lashing out, and she's not hiding her injury either. the most concerning thing about her behavior here is actually that she's focused on training so she can do her job instead of on healing or resting or taking care of herself.

then there's a pan over to rapunzel, who is angrily watching this play out while venting to pascal. "i get why cass is mad at me," she says. "she told me—" huge disdainful rolling of eyes here "—not to use the decay spell back and the tree, and i did, and she hurt her hand. but if she had just listened to me and stayed out of it, this all could have been avoided! and i feel like we could work things out, but she refuses to talk about it!!"

line this up against cassandra's behavior and spot the differences.

cass is focused on her injured hand. cass is upset because rapunzel accidentally mutilated her in the great tree. that's what this conflict is about for cass; her injury, and how she feels about being injured.

by contrast, rapunzel thinks the conflict is about them not listening to each other. she does acknowledge that cass was injured, but 1. she puts the blame on cass, and 2. has shoved the fact of the injury to the periphery of the conflict. it's not important, it's just a natural consequence of the real conflict, which is cass being mad and petty and refusing to talk to her about how she's unfairly blaming rapunzel for something that wasn't rapunzel's fault.

[i will add here that this behavior from rapunzel is 100% not knowing how to handle guilt and externalizing it as anger, and this thread of rapunzel burying her guilt gets picked up again in rapunzeltopia; it isn't that rapunzel doesn't care that cass is hurt, so much as she's just not emotionally equipped to process these feelings in a healthy way so it mutates into...this.]

and where cass handles her feelings in a pretty reasonable way, rapunzel rants and raves and draws cass as a literal monster with fangs and claws—she's stewing in her out of control emotions and concludes that she just has to find a way to force cass talk to her, which she does shortly thereafter by ordering—not asking—cass to come with her to search for parts to fix the caravan.

#2: the breakdown of communication

i've said it before but it bears repeating: cassandra might not be perfect, but she's a good communicator. in s1 and the front half of s2, she shares her feelings with rapunzel readily and frequently. when she tries to set boundaries with rapunzel, she's able to be clear and specific about what she needs. when she expresses frustration with eugene or her dad or rapunzel, she's very articulate about exactly what she's frustrated about. she can recognize when politer, softer refusals are being ignored and become blunter and more specific to ensure the message is getting across.

the moments when cass struggles to communicate are noteworthy because they're not normal. they signal that she's in acute crisis. think of how her unhinged rant about adira in RATGT heralded a complete emotional breakdown. she clams up in RDO because it's the only thing she can do to protect herself. because rapunzel is an inexperienced nineteen year old who learned all her social "skills" from a manipulative, egotistical abuser and nowhere in the series does that show more than in RDO.

rapunzel knows cass doesn't want to talk about the great tree, so she isolates cass from the rest of the group with the intention of forcing her to talk about it anyway. she's passive aggressive at first: chattering about inanities and trying to bait cass into 'opening up,' and acting vexed and guilt-trippy when she finds out cass brought owl along. she broaches the subject by going "too bad there's not an open-up-to-your-best-friend-about-the-thing-you-guys-are-fighting-about wand, huh?"

then she leads with "i know you're mad at me, but i did the right thing. i didn't have a choice," which... what can cass even say to that? she acknowledged cassandra's anger in one breath and followed up with "but you're wrong tho" in the next. that statement makes cassandra's feelings about her debilitating injury into an argument about Who Was Right.

this is a game that cass tries very hard not to play. "look, if you feel that way, then it's fine. we're good," she says, which is a statement that is not true at all on its face but - what it means is that if rapunzel wants to turn this into a debate about Who Was Right, cass will concede because that's not an argument she's invested in. cass does not want to put her feelings on trial so rapunzel can pick them apart and decide whether she deserves to have them or not.

so she disengages. the sun sets. they camp. rapunzel pokes her again, this time with a more direct approach: "cass, i need to talk about what we both know is going on between us."

and that's when cass throws up a WALL. prior to RDO, when cass is pressed on her feelings, she either: 1. opens up and explains to the extent that she's able (e.g. under raps or RATGT), or 2. flatly shuts the conversation down (e.g. cassandra vs eugene). but in RDO?

"there's nothing to talk about."

"i never said i was upset."

"what makes you so sure that you know how i'm feeling?"

this is cass falling off the end of her rope. this is a cass who spent the last year and a half with rapunzel running roughshod over every boundary cass exhausted herself trying to set. this is cass maybe a few weeks out from rapunzel screaming at her in front of all their mutual friends and then telling her "i am going to make decisions you don't agree with and i need you to be okay with that" when cass tried to open up about her deepest insecurities. this is cass spiraling into despair because she's seen that her best friend cares more about assuaging her own guilt and exerting her authority as a princess than she does about cassandra's feelings.

this is the moment when the friendship dies.

#3: the memory wipe, cassandra's apology, and the false aesop

the details of the tangled-but-cass shenanigans are not super important for the purposes of this discussion. suffice it to say that cassandra lashes out in the heat of the moment, seriously harms rapunzel by mistake, and spends the rest of the episode trying to repair the damage, then apologizes to rapunzel for hurting her. this is, obviously, the correct thing to do when you hurt someone, even if it was an accident.

you see the parallel here, yeah?

rapunzel hurt cass with magic by accident, and then made cass's hurt feelings all about her, blamed cass for the injury, twisted the facts to justify her own indignation, picked a fight about Who Was Right and invalidated cassandra's feelings, and pushed and pushed and pushed until cass blew up and lashed out at her.

cassandra also hurt rapunzel with magic by accident, and then she set aside her own hurt feelings from the argument they were having before to focus one hundred percent of her energy on brewing a cure and keeping amnesiac rapunzel safe, readily admitted her fault, and offered an earnest apology for losing her temper as soon as she could reasonably do so.

if RDO were a true Aesop Episode, this would be the lesson, and rapunzel would of course learn from cassandra's good example and reciprocate by apologizing for the accident in the great tree and her abysmal behavior afterwards—and in a reflection of how cass shared how bottling up her anger allowed it to erupt in a catastrophic way, rapunzel would probably confess that her demanding, selfish behavior came from a place of feeling awful about what happened and terrified that it would ruin their friendship.

but RDO is a False Aesop Episode. rapunzel isn't emotionally equipped to handle the intensity of her guilt, and she lacks the social insight and empathy to draw comparisons between what she did to cass and what cass did to her, so she can't connect the two situations in her head to understand what she's doing wrong. the true aesop flies right over her head, and instead what she learns is this:

1. she was right about cass being upset

2. backing cass into a corner fixed the problem

3. friends really do "just know"

4. being pushy and forceful was the right thing to do.

because the thing is, when cass apologizes for the accidental memory wipe, she truthfully explains why she acted the way she did—she's furious and she didn't want to talk about it, so she held it in as long as she could and then exploded when the pressure became too much—and for rapunzel, i think the explanation and the actual apology get conflated. meaning, cass says "i'm sorry for what i did out of anger" and what rapunzel hears is "i'm sorry for being angry."

and because of that misunderstanding, from rapunzel's perspective her own indignation has been validated and her behavior justified, because she was right all along and cass shouldn't have been angry with her in the first place and now everything is fine--

but it's not fine.

we're not supposed to share rapunzel's perspective here, because she's flat out wrong. nothing is really better and nothing has really changed, except that rapunzel got the talk she wanted and stops putting this intense pressure on cass. so as we enter the house of yesterday's tomorrow, rapunzel is taking it for granted that things are fine with cass, and meanwhile cass is still injured, still angry, still as aloof as she can be without getting rapunzel breathing down her neck again... and then she meets zhan tiri, who gives her everything she needed and couldn't get from rapunzel.

like, to my mind, this is the entire point of RDO, that rapunzel makes this catastrophic mess of trying to patch things up after RATGT and comes out of that mess wrongly thinking she succeeded. the episode is presented through the lens of rapunzel's perspective, but the lines are very wide and i absolutely think the intention is for the audience to read between them and understand the reality that rapunzel has sort of blinded herself to.

#tts #rta #interpersonal conflict......good #theres also a whole separate layer of stuff going on in RDO w the class dynamic #this fight coming on the heels of raps pulling rank in RATGT and all but ordering cass to shut up and deal. like -#in RDO cass is Literally Doing What Rapunzel Ordered Her To Do #being okay with the decisions rapunzel made that hurt her #except that's not what rapunzel wants really. rapunzel wants cass to be her friend #but cass learnt in RATGT that her friendship can't transcend her servitude #she knows now that when push comes to shove rapunzel will treat her like a servant so... she acts accordingly #er #long post

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winterscaptain · 4 years

Text

infirmity.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader

a/n: part four of our 100 arc, covering 5x02, haunted! I forgot how much i love this episode, so i really leaned into this one. it’s a labor of love!! i can’t wait to hear what you all think (i crave feedback and affection) and if you reblog, i’d love to see your cheeky lil thoughts in the tags!!

words: 4.3k warnings: language, bad decisions

summary: “a friend should bear his friend’s infirmities” - william shakespeare, julius caesar.

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | requests closed!

You knock on the door at 8:30 sharp. Almost thirty seconds pass before he answers, and you note the hand on his holster as he opens the door.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” you chirp. “Ready to go?”

He turns, gathering his things. “What do we know about this case in Kentucky?”

Thrown a little by the lack of greeting, you follow him into the apartment. The sight of the Foyet files on his desk aren’t foreign to you, nor are they a surprise. They’ve been there every time you came over during his leave (in fact, you’ve sat on them more than once), so why you expected them to go away once he was back you had no idea.

“Um, no connection between Call and his victims. They’re canvassing, but no sign of him so far.”

“Start with his recent history. Find the stressor.” His voice is flat, impassive, and you frown.

He was just getting better…

You’re about to head back toward the door when -

“Don’t move.”

Right. The alarm.

He stands by to arm it. “Ready?”

“Are you?”

+++

You arrive at the tarmac, Hotch in the passenger seat of your car. He looks a little resigned, but straightens and takes a breath before he opens the door, settling into his role as he steps out and straightens his suit jacket.

It’s always a little funny to watch him transform. You’re honored you get to see it, even if he’s in rough shape.

Especially then.

You climb the stairs and follow him in, settling in your usual place.

“Good to see you,” Dave says as Aaron scoots down the aisle. It makes you smile.

“You, too.”

Aaron gets settled and you shift, trying not to hover but finding it difficult to be separated from him after his weeks of absence. He greets the rest of the team, exchanging pleasantries and checking in with Reid about his knee.

“Any other attacks?”

JJ shakes her head, while Spencer elaborates. “Call’s proven hard to track. He’s never had a driver's license so he’s probably still on foot.”

“Or public transportation,” Emily notes.

You hum. “He wouldn’t take the bus. His face is everywhere.”

“Has anyone found a stressor?” You weren’t sure if Aaron’s brusque affect was going to continue once you made it to the plane, but his tone just about answers your question.

Stepping back into authority quickly, there, Aaron.

“He just lost his job,” Garcia supplies. “He’s worked at a factory since 1990. Made appliances since forever and not a single promotion.”

Derek tilts his head. “That’s a long time to be bitter.”

“Or he doesn’t care?”

JJ looks at Spencer and shakes her head. “Not if he’s got a family to feed.”

“Actually, he’s of the hermit variety as far as I can tell. He’s got no one. No wife, no kids, no parents.” You watch Garcia’s eyes flicker around the screen as she talks to you, doing what she does best.

“Nothing to live for.” Derek’s looking a little too pointedly at Aaron for your taste, but your evaluation is interrupted.

“So why hasn’t he killed himself yet?”

Your brain sputters at Aaron’s offhand delivery. “What?”

“Sprees usually end in suicide. If he’s got nothing to live for, why hasn’t he ended it?”

The energy in the room grows uncomfortable, fast. Aaron’s voice is still flat - you might go so far as to say it sounds dead, but that inspires a kind of heavy sullenness in your chest you’d rather not subject yourself to.

You wish Haley was around for no other reason but to kick his ass.

You’re thankful for Spencer when he answers Hotch’s question. “Because he isn’t finished, yet. We know he has displaced anger. He took it out on the first victim.”

“Well,” Aaron continues, “the stock boy represents someone. We need to know who.”

You meet Derek’s eyes and you can tell he’s trying to read you - trying to see if you’re as concerned as he is. You don’t give him the satisfaction.

+++

Later, you corner Morgan on the plane before landing, keeping your voice low. The case is in your lap so there’s a valid distraction when you need one.

“What’s wrong with you?”

He stops and turns. “I thought Hotch was cleared to drive.”

“He is.”

“Then why did you pick him up this morning?”

You shrug. “I wanted to.” His eyes bore into the side of your head and you look up with an exasperated huff. “What?”

He sighs. “He’s only had a month off.”

“Well,” you say, aware that you’re being pedantic before you even get there, “thirty-four days. That’s a little more than a month.”

His stare is withering, but you’re impervious. “And you think that’s long enough?”

“Are you asking me as his coworker or as his friend?”

“Is there a difference?”

You shrug. “Maybe.” Yes. “But if you don’t think he’s had enough time, you should tell him.”

He scoffs. “No thanks. I like my job.”

“You like him more.” A little smile crosses your face. “Though, I know you don’t like to think so.”

“No. I like you.” Derek corrects. “He also happens to like you, so I tolerate him for your benefit.”

“Much appreciated.” You return to your work, but Derek’s eyes linger. You don’t look up as you ask, “What?”

“What if he has PTSD?”

Still writing, you answer with a general air of nonchalance. “He was evaluated.”

“Oh, come on. We wrote those questions. Hotch knows exactly -“

You slam your pen down and lean back with your arms crossed. You draw Spencer's eyes and lower your voice again. “So, what? Are you going to pick at me until you get me to say something you want me to say?” You let out a sardonic chuff, settling back to work. “If that’s the case, you’re gonna be here a while.” You tip your head a little toward the little table by the window. “Your coffee’s getting cold.”

You admittedly feel a little bad for being short with him, but everything seems to be testing your patience today.

And if you’re honest, you’re worried about Aaron, too.

After a few minutes of work in silence, you call out to him again. There’s the smallest of apologies in your voice. “Derek?”

He looks at you, dark eyes open and yielding - concerned and forgiving. “Yeah?”

“He’s back because he has to be. He needs to know we’re here for him.”

“He knows that.”

You offer him a small smile. “Don’t let him forget it.” You pause, your head wavering a little bit as your tone turns a touch facetious. “I can’t do all the heavy lifting around here.”

You get a laugh out of him - just a little one - and it’s enough. “Don’t push it, kid. I remember when you were dead weight.”

You roll your eyes.

That’s enough, for now.

+++

Even your seemingly-endless patience with Aaron rapidly wanes as you spend more time at the crime scene. It’s frustrating.

“He was on an antipsychotic?” You ask with a little frown.

The pharmacist nods. “Well, that’s why I wanted him to calm down. He’s been off of them at least a month, now.”

“And when were you going to tell us this?” Aaron asks, harsh and sharp.

You look at him, your frown deepening.

What the fuck is that attitude?

“He’s armed, he’s delusional. Who’s his doctor?” Hotch’s tone grows even pointier, somehow, as he pushes harder.

“I don’t remember - my computer…” She gestures behind the desk, where the computer has been fried by a bullet.

“Great. That’s great.” He walks away, already making a call.

“Excuse us,” you say in an attempt to recover. Derek echoes you and you try to avoid running after Hotch as he strides down the aisle.

Long-legged asshole. Slow down.

“Hotch,” you call. He doesn’t listen.

“Call JJ and tell her about the meds.” He’s still walking. You’ve caught up.

Derek chimes in, gesturing back at the pharmacist. “This is not her fault.”

Aaron turns on him. “Morgan, he’s in a psychotic break. It changes everything.”

“You want to talk about this?” Derek asks, taking another step closer.

Squaring up to Derek’s shoulder, you’re ready to pull them apart if they get really heated.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

In some ways, Morgan’s admission on the plane was truer than he let on. You are the link between Derek and Aaron, almost like a balm. You see things in them that they can’t see in each other. It helps.

With a pang, you think of Haley, for some reason.

You miss her.

“No.” Aaron’s interruption is sharp and it startles you out of your thoughts. “I want to find him - Garcia,” he turns, continuing on his warpath forward, “he’s been off his antipsychotic for a month. What else did you miss?”

Your mouth drops open and Derek’s about to deck Aaron while his back is turned. You push in front of Derek, getting between them to give him a chance to cool off. The last thing you want is to handle more wound dressings - for either one of them.

Aaron hangs up and walks out after what you imagine is a rather unilluminating update from Penelope. You turn, putting your hand on Derek’s shoulder and looking him in the eye.

Still think he’s alright? His eyes ask.

You grit your teeth. I don’t know.

+++

The psychiatrist and patient lay dead on the floor, Call nowhere in sight. Derek directs the local officers to check the perimeter, just in case.

You look at Hotch, who still doesn’t look completely checked in, himself.

Or maybe he looks too checked in?

I don’t know.

You’d be lying if you said his behavior didn’t freak you out. Though he’s standing beside you, you miss him.

Come back to me.

You miss the man who pliantly sat under your hands as you washed his wounds and brought him takeout and forced him to take naps in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday.

You miss the man who fought you for the remote and stole far too many of your fries, who would change the channel if you made the mistake of going to the bathroom on a commercial break.

That man was with you as late as Saturday. Returning has brought something else out in him, the part of him that spent (often very) late nights looking for Foyet has risen to the forefront.

“We’re too late.”

Before the rest of you can do anything, Aaron leaves the room, pushing past Dave in his haste to leave.

Emily calls after him, but he’s long gone down the hallway. They look at you.

All you can do is shake your head with a downturned curve of your mouth.

+++

After a little while, you go downstairs and find Hotch outside. Before you can say anything -

“I should have seen the blinking on the video.”

You huff at him. “Hotch, it could have been a nervous tic. You couldn’t have known - none of the records were available, yet.”

“But it wasn’t a tic. It’s a classic sign of long-term antipsychotic use, and I missed it.”

You step in front of him, squarely meeting his eyes. “We all missed it.”

He’s got another pessimistic jab that you choose to ignore just before Emily and Dave arrive with news from Garcia.

Oh, Aaron.

+++

The officer huffs. “I don’t care why he took him.”

Aaron had, once again, escalated the situation with local police. Tensions are high, and you only hope he can get his shit together at some point. “You should.”

Goddamn it, Aaron.

He continues, advancing on the police captain. “Call’s memory is no longer suppressed. He’s reinventing his past and unless we understand how, we’re not going to find either of them.”

“Well, I’m not gonna just sit around and speculate.”

It’s an old-fashioned Western standoff, now.

Who’s Clint Eastwood?

Well, Hotch has the looks but -

Quit.

Fine.

“Then don’t.”

The captain turns to you, Emily, and Dave. “You don’t think we should chase him either?”

“We need to get ahead of Call,” Dave answers evenly.

The captain looks at Aaron once more before storming off. The rest of you approach Hotch, and Emily’s a little frustrated when she reminds him, “There’s a kid missing.”

“They don’t need the extra manpower.”

You squint at him. “Since when?”

“If we had studied Foyet’s initial crimes -”

Oh for the love of fuck.

“- we would have known that a survivor didn’t make sense.”

“What does he have to do with this?”

Great question, Emily.

“All we had to do was stop and look at Foyet’s history. But we didn’t, and we lost two couples and a bus full of people. I am not making that mistake again.” He leaves the three of you stunned in his wake. After a moment, you follow him.

You always do.

+++

“Let’s go.”

You’ve got the address to the unsub’s home and you take the car with Aaron, the rest of the team following behind you.

He drives fast, but that’s nothing new. He throws the siren and floors it. You call SWAT yourself, getting Derek prepared for staging.

When you get out of the car, you throw your vest on, helping Emily with the straps across her shoulders before she can reach them themselves.

“Prentiss,” Aaron says, putting his earwig in. “Check in with the lieutenant, see if there’s anything we can use.”

She nods. “Yes, sir.”

“You good?” You ask, looking over at him.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

You throw your head to the side, and he takes your flank as you get closer to Emily. Her briefing with this particular lieutenant could go sideways, but you don’t want to leave him feeling trapped.

“...The kid’s in there. We got this. Tactical teams are covering the exits. He’s still focused on the old man.”

Emily squints, adjusting her comm. “For now, but we’re gonna have to figure out the safest way to get that kid out.”

“I’ve got a team in the back and one on the way. We’re going to infiltrate.”

“You do that and someone else dies.” The balance of firm and collaborative rests delicately on her tone. She’s doing well.

“Either Call or a child murder. Flip a coin.”

His tone frustrates you, but you leave Emily to her devices, checking your magazines for the third time. Your sidearm is in place, as is your backup.

“It doesn’t have to end like that. We get a confession out of Jarvis and he goes away, and Call gets his answers. No one else has to die.” She pauses, and a streak of white flashes in your peripheral. “Hotch!”

You whirl, ready to sprint after him as he walks decisively past the rest of you, past the gate, and into the house. After a moment’s hesitation, you make a break for it. A wall of arms stops you, and you know Derek’s behind you when you hear, “What the hell is he doing?”

No vest...Is he even carrying his gun?

“Let him go.”

You turn on Dave, your face plastered with fear and fury. “What do you mean let him go. Rossi -”

“I’m not letting him go in there solo.” Derek pushes against Dave again, but to your surprise, he’s locked in tight.

“We have to trust him.”

That cools Derek off, but not you. You thrash, freeing yourself from one of the local cops. “The hell we do.”

“Kid - wait, no.” The roles reverse, and Derek catches up to you and locks you in his arms before you can breach the perimeter. Your elbows don’t land against his vest, but you sure try. “You’ll get him killed.”

There’s only stress and silence as you stop struggling. All you can do is wait.

Derek keeps his arm around you, but you almost feel like the contact is for both of you. You take deep breaths, trying to slow your heart rate. It’s through the roof.

“What’s he doing?” Emily asks into her mic.

Dave leans into his comm. “Stalling.”

You can almost feel Derek’s jaw tightening. “He has nothing to lose.”

He has everything to lose.

You have everything to lose.

Don’t be a hero, Aaron. Don’t do anything stupid.

You hope that he can hear you somehow.

Too late.

Hotch appears in the window, followed by the boy.

There’s a quick SWAT conversation in your ear.

“Do you have the shot?”

“Negative, negative.”

He’s blocking the shot.

Goddamn you, Aaron. Goddamn you.

“Bringing the boy out,” a faceless voice on the radio says. The hostage runs down off the porch and you catch a glimpse of Aaron before he disappears behind the door again.

You turn your head a touch, keeping your eyes on the door. “Get him out of there.”

Dave shakes his head. “That’s his call.”

Your body is wound tighter than a coil and you’re not sure if you’re ready to storm in there or just start walking home.

There’s a gunshot, and you’re out of there like a bat out of hell. You launch yourself over the short fence and attach yourself to the first SWAT agent you see, remembering your training at the last moment.

You breach the house and find Aaron cuffing Darin, whose father is dead in the armchair in front of him. Your jaw has never been tighter.

Once you confirm that he is in fact still alive and still only has nine holes in him, you turn on your heel and you storm out of the house. You don’t stop until you’re leaning on the front of one of the cars, trying to catch your breath. Your hands shake and you don’t trust your knees to hold you up.

The relief wars with something hot and unpleasant, leaving you more exhausted than you’ve been in weeks.

You keep your head turned away from Aaron as he approaches you. It’s petty, but you also don’t want him to see the fear on your face.

He calls you with a sigh in his voice and it finally ignites the fear into anger.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” you spit. Your voice isn’t loud, but it certainly carries. JJ’s eyes flicker to you from the other side of the yard. “What kind of stunt are you trying to pull? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

His jaw tightens. “Let’s not do this here.”

Your brow draws across your eyes and your mouth opens, indignant. “Let’s not do this here? You’re fucking kidding me.”

In his current state, nothing is off the table. His temper is running short and you know you’re capable of pushing him until he breaks. It hasn’t happened yet, but today might be it.

Much to your surprise, a sigh leaves him, and he knows he’s stepped in it. “It was stupid. I’m sorry.”

You scoff, shaking your head.

His remorse only stokes your anger. Go figure.

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry. You could have died, Hotch. What you did was so beyond protocol I don’t even know if I should start with the necessity of your life because we need you as our unit chief or the importance of your safety as my friend -” You cut yourself off and look away from him, frustrated you even got that far.

He has nothing to say to that. You’re completely right. The guilt might as well be written across his face in Sharpie.

His absence fucked with you, to say the least. It felt awful, empty, in the field without him. And then when you were home - well, back at the apartment, he was only ever in pain.

Overall, your anxiety regarding his health and safety is riding high.

Much to your frustration, your eyes water, and your lower lip shakes - angry tears an ever-present threat. Your arms cross over your chest. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

He reaches out for your arm, but you throw him off before he can make contact, turning your head. You stare at the ground, watching him flounder out of the corner of your eye.

“Go. Go do your fucking job, Hotch.” His nickname is acid in your mouth. It feels like a punishment, a lash of a whip. He doesn’t move, and you turn on him, meeting his guilty brown eyes with your flinty ones. “Go. Make the arrest. They’re waiting on you.” You throw your chin to Derek and Emily, who are indeed waiting for him on the porch with the unsub.

With another heavy sigh, he turns and rejoins the rest of your team.

You stay where you are, directing coroner and local law enforcement personnel to relevant staging areas as the crime scene is processed and handled. Aaron’s eyes try to find yours, but you avoid them, focusing on someone, anyone else with crisp professionalism that hardly belies your fear.

You’ve never been so angry in your life. Even if you have, you can’t remember it feeling this wretched.

+++

He sits beside you on the plane once you’re up in the air and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. The rest of the team sleeps scattered around the cabin, but you suspect that at least one of them is faking it, waiting for some kind of spectacle or spectacular blowup between the two of you.

You haven’t spoken to Aaron since leaving the crime scene. You drove back to the precinct with Emily and Dave, staying close to JJ and Spencer while you packed your things. There’s a part of you that feels bad for creating what Strauss would call a “hostile work environment,” but the other part can’t bring itself to care.

You can’t even begin to articulate the fear that coursed through you as you waited for him outside that house. You couldn’t begin to explain the extent of your fear, but after the stabbing and the removal of Haley and Jack from your lives, the prospect of losing him in the field was beyond unbearable.

It’s frustrating to feel so comforted by his proximity while you’re still so angry with him. The familiarity of it all hardly blunts your anger. If anything, the relief at having him back at your side sharpens your anger into something that scares you.

The impossibility of it is beyond measure. You’ve known for some time now, but this is the first you’re willing to admit it.

I love him.

Fuck.

You love him. You love his son. You love his wife.

You love the weird look he gets on his face when he has to say “penetration” while he’s delivering a profile. You love the way he tries not to smile when Emily beats Spencer at chess. You love the way he twiddles with pens when he’s thinking or nervous or both. You love that each of his smiles feel like a gift just for you.

There’s nothing you don’t love about him.

Except, of course, the way he, with profound idiocy, endangered his life today for no particular reason in addition to his generally asshole-ish behavior.

“I would say I’m sorry, but I’m sure you know that.”

You do.

He waits on you, quiet and still.

You take a deep breath, finally looking at him. “You scared the hell out of me.”

He nods, his jaw flexing.

“Don’t do it again.”

He blinks once, slowly. You know he can’t promise that, but you appreciate his acknowledgment nevertheless. There’s quiet for a moment.

“Aaron…” You look at him, nothing but concern in your tone.

He shakes his head. “Don’t.”

“I was just going to say…” You swallow, trying to find better words but coming up short. “We’ll get him.”

+++

Derek’s voice echoes down to the bullpen as you finish up the last few pieces of your paperwork. “I will not stand by and watch this man kill himself.”

Aaron’s door is closed as he works. You’re not sure if you’re thankful for that, or if you’d rather he hear it. You can’t really hear Dave - not that you’d want to, you’re almost as pissed at him as you are at Aaron - but it doesn’t matter. You know what he has to say.

Derek’s voice drops lower than you can hear. Dave drops his head.

Moments later, Derek flies back down the stairs, grabs his jacket, and takes his leave with a cursory goodbye thrown in your direction. Dave returns to his desk and Aaron’s door finally opens.

You look up as his lights turn off, gathering your things at your desk. With a little sigh that looks a bit like defeat, he stops at your desk. The smugness doesn’t completely leave your tone. “Need a ride?”

Of course, he does. “Please.”

You rise and walk to the elevators together. In the silence, you tell him, “I’m still really mad at you.”

A sigh. “I know.”

+++

You walk him upstairs and take care of the alarm while he removes his suit jacket and throws it over the couch.

“Do you think Call’s gonna be okay?” You ask, still facing the alarm.

“I don’t know.”

“He got his answers,” you note, turning to him. “He killed the man who haunted him.”

His eyes are fixed on a spot on the carpet. “And what else is there?”

“Years of torture.” You both know you’re not talking about Call anymore, but it’s nice to pretend. It gives you the opportunity to say things you wouldn’t - shouldn’t - say to him. “Fear. Grief.”

“Think he’ll get over that?”

“How could he?” A humorless smile pulls at one corner of your mouth. “But at least he doesn't feel like he’s alone.”

He finally meets your eyes. “He doesn’t have anyone.” I don’t have anyone, his brow says.

“He has Tommy. He’s not alone.”

You have me. You’re not alone.

His brows pull low over his eyes, and you take another opportunity as it comes. “Do you want me to stay again tonight?”

“No, I’m alright.” He takes a little breath and you round the corner, pouring him a couple fingers of whiskey before making a slow, purposeful trek across the room. “Thank you,” he says, taking it.

“Of course. Anytime.” Now, you both know you aren’t talking about the drink.

Nevertheless, you pat your pockets for your keys, phone, and various federal paraphernalia, finding them all where they belong. “I should head out, then. Call if you need anything.”

He nods, watching you with quiet eyes as you close and lock the door behind you.

+++

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pterodactylterrace · 4 years

Text

Guys Like You Chapter 17

Title: Guys Like You

Chapter: 17

Chapter Summary: We'll get through this, I promise.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: I'm almost 100% sure this is legally inaccurate. It's a work of fiction, though so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also, vomiting and mentions of anxiety/poor mental state. Mentions of prior abuse.

{Prologue} {Chapter 1} {Chapter 2} {Chapter 3} {Chapter 4} {Chapter 5} {Chapter 6} {Chapter 7} {Chapter 8} {Chapter 9} {Chapter 10} {Chapter 11} {Chapter 12} {Chapter 13} {Chapter 14} {Chapter 15} {Chapter 16}

Lawyers, attorneys, case building, legal proceedings and court dates all swam around Faye's head to the point she was dizzy. Henry had taken immediate action and gotten in touch with his legal team right away, ultimately being referred to someone more specialized in custody cases who agreed to work with Faye's sister on the case. He as not about to let that slime ball come back after years and take their baby from them.

First, they had to file for Faye to be the sole parent and guardian of Briar, sighting the years long abandonment for terminating any rights he may have had. Then, they had to gather up everything they could proving he was an unfit father, picking at old wounds that Faye would rather be left alone. All she'd had to do was get in contact with her sister and within minutes she had over a dozen pictures of just as many occasions with Faye battered and bruised, or with her fingers in casts, or her lip split. Faye hadn't even known her sister had been taking them, but she had also blocked out a lot of that time of her life. Her sister had always been the more responsible level headed one anyway. She'd probably taken them just in case something like this ever happened.

Her sister had also filed for a restraining order against him on her behalf. She knew what kind of person he was and having a legal order of protection against him was a solid idea. It prevented him from intimidating Faye or trying to just take Briar.

Overall, they were assured by almost everyone that he stood no chance. He had walked out of her life before she was even born and never tried to be in contact since. No judge in their right mind would listen to a word he had to say.

That did very little to settle Faye's anxiety. Over the next few weeks Henry would often find her crying silently, her mind a million miles away dwelling on the what ifs. Briar had moved to sleeping in their bed the same night they had gotten the letter, more for Faye's sake than anything else. Having her daughter close was one of the few things that calmed her down anymore. Henry had tried everything he could think of to take her mind off of what was happening, but with little success. All it would take is one look at Briar and Faye would start tearing up again.

Faye had gotten so bad she would barely eat. She would only pick at her food, nibbling on a few bites here and there. Henry could tell she was losing weight, but he was unable to convince her to actually eat more. She just kept telling him she felt sick all the time. A few times she had even worked herself up into such an anxious mess that she was physically sick. Henry had yet to meet her ex, but he knew he hated him more than he had ever hated anyone in his life. Whoever that slime ball was, he had severely crossed the line. The woman he loved was a wreck because of him, something had to be done.

Henry took it upon himself to pack everyone for the trip to the states, not wanting to add anymore stress to Faye if he didn't have to. Briar had been given Dramamine before the flight and again almost halfway through to keep her from getting sick. Faye's chronically empty stomach faired far worse. She was in and out of the small airplane bathroom, Henry dutifully following each time as she brought up bile or nothing at all, her stomach desperate to rid itself of contents it didn't even have. She even threw up the Dramamine he'd gotten her to take. It was times like this he was eternally grateful he was able to fly privately. The entire flight would have been a nightmare if they had to deal with other passengers at the same time.

He had booked the biggest suite he could within a reasonable distance of the court house where hearings were meant to be held. They wanted to have some privacy before everything happened, though they were planning on staying with Faye's parents afterwards until they went back home. Faye wanted to be impressed and thankful for everything he was doing for her and her daughter, once again, but she didn't have the energy to do much more than squeeze him tight, resting her weary head against his strong chest.

"It'll be alright, darling. No one is going to take our princess away." Henry assured, tilting her head up to kiss her gently.

"It's just dredging up so many bad memories." Faye admitted shakily, wiping her eyes before more tears could fall. Between throwing up and crying she was sure she was dehydrated, her head pounding in synch with her heart to prove it.

"I know, but they're in the past now."

"But they're not." Faye hiccupped, hiding her face in his chest again. "All of this is happening right now."

"This is the last time he is going to have any contact with either of you. Go and take a long shower, darling. Try to relax. You need your sleep."

"I know I look awful." Faye sighed, reluctantly stepping away from him.

"Just as beautiful as ever." Henry corrected, digging through the bags to find Faye's shower bag and something for her to change into. While she was in the bathroom, Henry convinced the half asleep toddler to get ready for bed, handing her a pair of zip up pajamas along with her diaper, reminding her to go potty before he would zip her up.

The child was tucked into the middle of one of the beds, hugging her stuffed bunny tightly and falling asleep almost instantly. Henry went to check on Faye once he was sure she was asleep, smiling softly when he saw her stepping out of the shower.

"Feeling any better?"

"Not really." Faye sighed, letting Henry take the towel from her and dry her off.

"It will be over soon, I promise." Henry assured, pulling one of the shirts she had stolen from him over her head.

"Not soon enough."

~*~

"She ran out as soon as she found out she was pregnant. I tried to track her down for years, but I never could find her. That's the only reason I haven't been in my daughter's life. I could never find an address for either of them. She just vanished."

Faye felt her skin crawl at his words, physically shrinking away from him the moment he laid eyes on her. Everything just came flooding back, and suddenly she was right where she was years ago, having to put up with his lies and manipulations. She could feel more bile threatening to creep up her throat every time she looked at him.

"As you can see, the defendant never filed for sole custody of the child until very recently. It is our belief that she is using the child against my client for some perceived wrongs. She has even fled the country to make sure that my client has no access to the child."

"Alright. Miss Warren?" The judge shifted his attention to the other side of the room. "Is the plaintiff the biological father of the child?"

"Yes." Faye answered softly.

"And did you try to reach out to him after the birth of the child?"

"No, I did not. He left the second he found out I was pregnant. He avoided my attempts to contact him up until I gave birth. He made it pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with us."

"And did you in fact leave the country with the child in an effort to avoid contact with the plaintiff?"

"No. I left because I had a job offer in another country. My daughter came with me, because she is my daughter."

"Your honor, if I may?" Delilah stepped in, squeezing her sister's hand supportively.

"Go ahead Miss... Warren."

"As you can see from the documents I have provided, my client has only moved three times in the last five years. The first was into an apartment in the same town she resided in with the plaintiff before their split. She held a lease in that same apartment until a year and a half ago when she moved to England. She only recently moved from there into a home that she shares with her current boyfriend. For the plaintiff to be unable to locate my client, he would have had put little to no effort into actually looking for her."

"Does Mr. Young have any evidence of him attempting to locate the defendant? What efforts did he make?"

"My client did the searching by himself, there is no paper trail of his efforts."

"So you cannot provide any evidence of his attempts to locate the defendant or the child in question?"

"No your honor."

"Now, Miss Warren... the lawyer, do you have a statement to make?"

"Yes, your honor. As you can see from the documents I have provided you with, my client suffered abuse at the hands of the plaintiff for years. There are not only pictures of the injuries, but also documentation from several emergency room visits due to 'blunt force trauma' along with multiple domestic violence reports against the plaintiff. The plaintiff left shortly after my client revealed her pregnancy and no attempts to contact my client or the child in question are able to be confirmed. Tell me, Mr. Young. If you were so invested in your unborn child, what was the child's expected due date? On what day did my client suffer a miscarriage of one of the children she was carrying? What do you even know about the child you want in your life so badly now?"

"I don't know anything, that bit- the defendant kept her from me."

"Kept her from you, or you didn't try to make any contact?"

"I tried to make contact!"

"Enough, Mr. Young." The judge sighed, leaning back to look at the papers in front of him. "Tell me Miss Warren, what does the child in question know about the plaintiff?"

"Nothing." Faye replied softly. "She didn't have a father in her life."

"Would it be alright if we spoke to the child?" The judge asked, looking over to where Briar sat in the back of the room, playing with her stuffed bunny under Henry's watchful eye.

"Briar?" Faye called, the child popping up and running over to her mother. "Would you be ok talking to everyone?"

"Ok, Mama!" Briar eagerly accepted, scurrying over to the chair she had seen everyone else take a turn sitting in.

"Hello Briar." The judge greeted, smiling warmly at the child.

"Hi." Briar giggled, squeezing her bunny to her chest.

"I like your bunny. He is very well behaved."

"We be good." Briar confirmed, nodding her head surely.

"Now, Briar, can you tell me about your family?"

"Yeah! I have my mama and that my aunt Lilah! I see Nana and Grampy on the phone too! Oh! And I met Papa family too! We play in the big yard, then we all went to sleep in the couch room and they were all giggling, but I was good!"

"You met your Papa's family?" The judge asked, his brow furrowing.

"I like Papa family." Briar giggled.

"Mr. Young, has the child had contact with your family?" The judge asked.

"Yes, she has recently met my family."

"Mama?"

"Hold on sweetie, Mommy needs to talk to Aunt Delilah." Faye rushed out, turning her terrified eyes to her sister. "What is he doing? Briar has never met his family. I've never met his family!"

"I thought he just congealed in a gutter somewhere. What is Briar talking about? Who's family did she meet?" Delilah whispered back.

"Henry's. She calls him Papa, we met them just a few weeks ago."

"That's kind of adorable, we will circle back to that after we deal with this douchebag. Can you prove she's never met dingus's family?"

"We've only been back in the States for two days. I don't even know where his family lives. Like I said, I never even met them!"

"That's something. Where's her passport?" Delilah mumbled to herself, shifting through the various papers in front of her.

"Papa? Papa, I gotta go!" Briar whimpered, squirming in her seat.

"I'll take you since Miss Warren is too busy." David quickly offered, popping up and reaching for the child before anyone else had a chance to react.

"No!" Briar screamed, kicking and wiggling when he picked her up. "No! Not Papa! Not Papa! Help! Mama!"

"Hey, it's me. It's Papa!" David tried, attempting to wrangle the thrashing child.

"NOT PAPA! WANT HENRY PAPA!" Briar screeched, hitting him in the face with her stuffed bunny.

"David, put her down! You're scaring her!" Faye yelled, anxious tears welling in her eyes. She wasn't sure if it was her heart in her throat, or if the water she'd been sipping on was trying to make a reappearance. The sight of him touching her daughter was enough to make her sick.

"Mr. Young!" The Judge barked, finally succeeding in getting him to release the struggling child. Briar dashed to the back of the room, throwing her arms around Henry's legs, frantically trying to climb him as she cried.

"Hey, it's ok Princess." Henry soothed, lifting her up and holding her tight. "Can you go and sit by Mama after you go potty?"

"NO!" Briar squealed again. "Papa stay! Bad man! Mama!" Briar blubbered almost incoherently, squeezing her bunny tight as she gasped between sobs.

"Ok, ok. I'll be right here. I'll make sure the mean man doesn't touch you or Mummy again, I promise." Henry assured, grimacing when he felt a warm wetness soaking through his shirt. "Princess? Did you have an accident?" Henry asked her quietly, glaring daggers at the other man when she shakily nodded her head.

"He... he scare me."

"I know, it's alright. We'll get you cleaned up, ok?"

"Your honor, may I ask the child a question?" Delilah ventured, standing up and placing her hand on Briar's back to get her attention. "Briar, who is your Papa?"

"Papa." Briar sniveled, hiding her snotty, tear stained face in Henry's neck.

"Your honor, as you can see from the copy of the child's passport, she has only been back in the United States for just over two days. She has never met the plaintiff's parents in her life. She is clearly terrified of him, too. Can we please stop all this nonsense?"

"I've heard all I need to." The Judge decided, turning to look at David. "Mr. Young, you have lied to me several times and provided me no substantial evidence regarding any of your claims. The child does not feel safe with you, and for good reason considering the numerous cases of domestic violence against you. Your parental rights are hereby terminated, and the defendant's request for an order of protection is granted, effective immediately."

"You can't be serious!" He growled, turning his furious eyes to the judge.

"I am very serious, Mr. Young. Even if you did genuinely want to be in the child's life, your previous convictions against the defendant prove you to be unfit to care for her." The Judge continued.

"She's ok." Faye breathed shakily, finally forcing herself to stand on shaky legs, Henry instantly wrapping his arm around her waist to steady her.

"I told you everything would be ok." Henry whispered, kissing her forehead softly. "No one is taking our princess away."

"I sorry Mama. I had accident." Briar sniffled.

"It's ok baby. Did you pee on the mean man?"

"Uh-hu. He scary." Briar mumbled. "No sorry."

"You don't have to apologize to him." Henry assured. "How about we go back to the hotel and get you a bath? We can go out for ice cream after."

"Please." Briar whimpered, continuing to hide in Henry's neck.

"No need to be upset. You're not in any trouble." Faye soothed.

"How about you? How are you doing?" Henry asked Faye, gently leading her out the door.

"Better? I don't know. I'm happy but still so anxious." Faye admitted.

"After all of this I don't blame you, but it's over now, darling. It's all over."

Faye and Briar ended up sharing a long bath when they got back to the hotel, giving Henry time to use the exercise room to relieve some of his own tensions. He had no idea what he would have done if they had been ordered to share custody. He hadn't known the little girl for very long, but she was still his world. He was willing to give up anything if it meant keeping his family together.

When he had gotten back to the hotel room, both of his girls were dressed, Briar happily attempting to dry her mother's hair while she sat on the floor, calling out directions to the little girl. She handed the dryer off to her mother as soon as she saw Henry, happily throwing her arms around his legs.

"You back!"

"Yes, sweetheart, I'm back." Henry chuckled, picking her up and kissing her forehead. "You have to try harder than that to get rid of me."

"Ewww! Papa you smelly!" Briar whined, covering her nose with both hands.

"The audacity!" Henry gasped, hugging her even tighter, laughing when she groaned in protest. "I in no way smell like a sweaty gym sock."

"You icky, Papa!" Briar repeated, pushing his face away with one hand, the other covering her nose. "You take a bath. I get you toys!" She decided, wiggling to be let down. Both adults nodded along as Briar monologued her choices in what Henry should take with him, tossing each one into the tub. She had decided upon a rubber duck, a wash cloth, a Captain America action figure, a horse figurine, the hotel mouthwash and carefully placed his razor on the side of the tub, sternly reminding him not to cut his hair again.

"Ok, princess. Promise I won't cut my hair again." Henry agreed for what had to be the hundredth time since he'd had to cut his hair for work months ago.

"Briar, how about we go finish getting ready, and then when Papa's done, we can all go see Nana and Grampy?" Faye offered, wincing at the decibel of the scream that erupted from the little girl's chest.

"NANA! GRAMPY!" She cheered, racing past her mother, digging through her bag to look for her shoes.

"You might want to hurry, I don't know how long I can keep her here." Faye chuckled, her brows crinkling when she saw the look on Henry's face. "What? You said you were ok with meeting my parents..."

"No, it's not that. That's the first time I've seen you laugh in weeks." Henry pointed out, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.

"I'm trying to do better. Sorry I've been miserable to be around."

"Don't apologize for how you feel. Anyone would be upset if they had to go through that. I want you happy again, but I don't want you to force it. I want you to be really happy."

"Well, you can make me happier if you showered. The man stink is overwhelming." Faye teased, Henry rolling his eyes at her. "I see how it is, right back to teaming up on me. Just so you know, Kal is usually on my side."

"Guess we'll have to have a tiebreaker then." Faye shrugged, smirking as she left him alone in the bathroom with a shocked smile on his face.

When they finally arrived at Faye's parents home, Briar was about to burst from her seat in excitement. Faye barely got her out of the car before she was scurrying up the front steps, frantically ringing the doorbell. Faye followed behind her daughter, relaxing even more once she was in the familiar surroundings.

Delilah was the one to answer the door, her hair still up in it's sleek, professional updo, though she had changed into more comfortable clothes once she had gotten back to her parent's house. Briar audibly groaned when she saw her aunt for the second time that day. "Aunt Lilah! Where Nana?"

"She's in the kitchen, waiting on you." Delilah laughed, moving out of the child's way and wrapping her sister in a hug. "Told you we'd get through this."

"My sister, always there to save my ass."

"And you thought law school was a stupid idea."

"You said the same thing about art school, and look what it got me." Faye teased, nodding at Henry as he made his way up the stairs.

"Ok, you got me there. No one in my law firm looks anything like that. All the ones that ask me out for drinks are fat, bald and married."

"Is that where your standards are now?"

"Basically." Delilah laughed, ushering the two inside.

"Faye!" A short older woman cheered, bustling in from the back of the house with Briar on her hip.

"Hi Mom!" Faye greeted, pulling away from Henry to hug her mother. "Mom, I'd like you to meet my partner, Henry."

"Partner?" Her mother questioned, giving her daughter a strange look.

"It just sounds better than 'boyfriend'. More sophisticated."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Warren." Henry cut in, offering his hand to her only to be pulled into a surprisingly tight bear hug.

"Now, now! We hug around here!"

"Papa give good hugs!" Briar giggled.

"Yes, he does." The older woman agreed, patting his shoulder before venturing back into the house.

"Dad is around here somewhere. Probably break-fixing something." Faye mumbled, taking a quick glance around in an attempt to discern where he was.

"Just follow the sound of objects crying, you'll find him." Delilah laughed. "I think he said something about fixing the ceiling fan in the gremlin's room."

"Which one are you staying in?" Faye asked.

"I'll bite the bullet and sleep in the gremlin room. Not very often you have the chance to score in your childhood bedroom." Delilah teased, Henry shifting his gaze uncomfortably anywhere else.

"Like that isn't what happened when we visited your parents." Faye scoffed, grabbing his hand to lead him down the hallway.

"That's different." Henry mumbled, hefting their bags up as she pulled him away.

"How?"

"They're my family. There's not much I could do by now that one of us hasn't done before."

"Relax, I'm pretty sure my sister knows we've had sex by now. I would know, I told her."

"Only good things I assume?"

"Well the conversation started with me telling her she gave me the wrong size condoms when I moved away."

"Wonderful." Henry sighed, fighting back a laugh when he was led into a room with two twin beds against opposing walls.

"If you want I can help you push those together." A voice from behind offered. "Hi, I'm the dad."

"Hello, sir. I'm Henry." He greeted, setting the bags down and offering his hand, the other man gripping it firmly and resting his other hand on his elbow, giving a curt nod.

Faye's father wasted no time in sequestering Henry off into a different bedroom to hold up the ceiling fan while he worked on it. Henry wasn't sure what he was doing, and he had a feeling he didn't know what he was doing himself. He was either trying to find a bad wire, or attempting to electrocute both of them.

Faye and her sister had wandered back to the living room, curling up on the couch with her head in her sister's lap catching up on everything that had happened while they had been apart. Delilah had been killing it in her law firm, to say the least. She'd bought her first condo and a cat to go with it. The cat hated her, despite her many attempts to befriend the feline now sharing her home.

Briar spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen with her Nana, 'helping' her make cookies and brownies. Naturally, she had to sample everything that was being made. She also got sole ownership of the spatula, and she made sure everyone knew it, loudly yelling it to the rest of the house.

They weren't all back in the same room again until dinner time, Briar happily explaining to Henry that she had been the one to make the 'sketti' as she kept calling it. He had doubts to the validity of that statement. He also quickly figured out where Faye had learned to cook. Faye finally did more than pick at her food, actually inhaling three plates of her favorite comfort dish. After they had all stuffed themselves, the three travelers decided to head to bed, the combination of jet lag, the day's events, and the amount of carbs they had just consumed almost putting them into a coma at the table.

Briar went straight into the room at the end of the hall as soon as her pajamas were on, happily leaping onto the giant canopy bed. Surrounding it were stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes, along with tumble mats, a slide, a small ball pit, a mini trampoline and the biggest dollhouse Henry had ever seen. One wall was a chalkboard, several of Briar's artworks still decorating it from the last time she was there, the other walls were painted a soft purple, her name written in big silver letters on the wall behind the bed, peering proudly through the posters of the canopy.

"It's her room at my parent's house." Faye shrugged.

"Tell me again how I'm the one that spoils her?"

"There's more stuff in here now than there used to be."

"No there's not!" Delilah called from down the hall, Faye shooting an annoyed look over her shoulder.

"They're her grandparents, they're supposed to spoil her."

"Is this the biggest room in the house?"

"It used to be our playroom. Dad wanted to turn it into a home theater before I had Briar."

"Papa, watch!" Briar gasped, picking up a remote and turning on the TV mounted on the wall across from her bed.

"A TV of her own in her room." Henry half laughed. "And I get yelled at for sneaking her a biscuit!"

"You sneak her cookies just before dinner!"

"Your mother has been stuffing her with cookies since we got here."

"She hasn't seen her in a while?"

"That settles it, until I end up getting that kid her own pony I don't want to hear another word about me spoiling her." Henry snorted.

"She asked you for a pony, didn't she?"

"It's come up." Henry confirmed, tucking the sleepy, squirmy child in tightly with her bunny under her arm.

"She's not getting a pony." Faye grouched, kissing her daughter's forehead.

"But I want a pony." Briar pouted.

"Where will you keep a pony?"

"The stable where Papa ride horseys."

"You know, Mommy is pretty sure she asked Papa not to take you out there." Faye grouched accusingly, glaring at Henry as he pointedly avoided her gaze.

"She started crying." Henry mumbled, giving her a pathetic look. "I can't say no when she's that upset. It was just the once, I promise. She only pat them, she didn't get on a single horse."

"Wanna ride horsey."

"Anything else you do that I should know about?" Faye asked, raising a brow at her boyfriend.

"I leave my underwear on the bathroom floor every night then put them in the hamper each morning before you wake up."

"Strangely specific."

"It has been eating me up inside for ages. I finally feel free."

It felt like no time at all that Faye was curled up in her old bed, Henry sleeping in the one that used to be her sisters. It felt like even less time before she was jerked out of sleep, her stomach protesting strongly, bile rising into her throat. She jumped out of bed and rushed across the hall to the bathroom, not even taking the time to turn on the lights before violently emptying herself of everything she had eaten that day. Henry was right there only a few seconds later, having been awoken by her frantic rush to the bathroom. He held her hair back at the base of her neck, rubbing her back softly and trying to focus on anything other than her vomiting. He should have been used to it after Faye being literally worried sick for weeks, but the smell got to him every time.

"I think I ate too much." Faye whimpered, using some tissue to wipe her mouth and tossing it into the bowl, flushing it along with everything she'd just thrown up.

"You haven't eaten much in weeks, darling. Maybe you should try pacing yourself more?" Henry suggested, slowly helping her to her feet to rinse her mouth out.

"I know, but I just love my mom's spaghetti so much." Faye whined.

"I'm sure she'll make it again if you just ask her."

"Well that seems obvious now."

"Think you can go back to bed?" Henry asked, leading her back across the hall at her small nod.

After another two days of feeling nauseous, they had all come to the conclusion that her immune system must have been weakened by the stress of everything and caused her to catch some stomach bug. After a week and a half, she was wondering what kind of super bug she had managed to contract. The only time she could keep food down was when she would nibble at things throughout the day. Just how long would it take for her stomach to get used to food again before she could keep it down? She'd hoped she would be able to stomach something more substantial on their last full day with her family, muscling down her mother's homemade waffles until lunchtime. Two bites of mashed potatoes was all it took to tip her over the top, landing right back in the bathroom with Henry holding her hair back.

Thankfully they had noticed the pattern of small bits of food staying down in time for them to fly back to England. The fatigue of her being sick, along with how emotional she was about not being able to actually spend as much time with her family as she would have liked while she was there had her sleeping almost the entire flight. That left Henry dealing with Briar's motion sickness. He was slowly becoming convinced his entire world would be nothing but vomit for the foreseeable future. Faye finally gets to where she can eat just fine, only for Briar to be throwing up kool-aid and vanilla wafers while her mother got some well deserved rest. It was a good thing he loved his girls, otherwise he may begin to resent them soon.

@weallhaveadestiny @lunedelorient @summersong69 @mis-lil-red @lharrietg @amberangel112 @mansaaay @nostalgicb-txh

Ok, my taglist got deleted somehow. If I missed anyone, I’m sorry. If you want to be added, let me know. I’m doing my best to make the tags work, but it’s not going great, my dudes.

#henry cavill #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #guys like you #guys like you fic

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mego42 · 3 years

Note

Hey! I know the survey is coming, but I’m still so confused about the order of the scenes for the car/bank bit. Since you think the “choice” one happened before they go in (right? I don’t remember which one you thought it was) either way, do you mind laying out how *you* think the order of events were?

AH YOU MEAN THE EMPIRICALLY CORRECT ORDER (hahahahaha no i’m jk, @foxmagpie’s argument is extremely compelling)

that said, here’s the order i think it happened in:

1. the first car scene, beth going to get out of the car and rio asking if she’s really going to do this.

2. the final car scene where beth tells him she feels like she has no choice and he tells her now she does

3. they go into the bank

4. they get pulled over

(if you’re new to the debate, @foxmagpie’s order is 1, 3, 4, 2 which i can see mostly bc rio is a dramatique heaux who makes stupid ass choices around beth for the theatrics of it all)

rambling support for my reasoning under the cut.

i think it’s the above, though, for a couple of reasons:

1) i def think he calls her out pre-bank. first off, why else is beth taking off her seatbelt? they’re about to go in and do the thing.

he’s known what’s up the whole ep (he literally handed her the pelican brief, one of the books the wire was behind, in the opening scene) and has been more or less sitting back with popcorn watching to see how far she’s really gonna go with it. he’s also been like, p blatantly telegraphing that to her too and getting increasingly more annoyed and incredulous the further she takes it. he doesn't need her to prove she’s committed to this charade bc she has time and time again throughout the ep and i think he’s p pissed off (and hurt, tbh) over it and he snaps.

2) once snapped, i personally think it would be especially stupid to go into the bank with her knowing she knows he knows (this is so deliciously convoluted) without some kind of indication she’s not going to quadruple cross someone (if the double-cross is betraying him, the triple cross is betraying the secret service, so betraying him again would be quadruple right? whatever this math checks out)

but again, to megan’s point, rio loves his theatrics. i wouldn’t disbelieve him being like GOT YOU, then making her go in while she’s losing her whole ass entire mind like WHAT DOES THAT MEAN THOUGH and not letting her off the hook until after.

3) but also the music. like. the music.

4) rio looks so SMUG in the bank which, to megan’s point, could 1000000% believably be the fun of playing the secret service but i think there’s too much on the line with him and beth for him to be that complacent with it up in the air

5) beth’s whole MO in the bank, v subdued, v follow his lead. i’m sorry does that sound like a panicked and scrambling beth to you? that sounds like a beth who’s been (temporarily) defeated and is licking her wounds before figuring out her next move (bc like, for as much as i love her choosing him, that was obvs the only choice actually on the table when he’s LITERALLY IN THE CAR WITH HER and while i do think she actually is slow-mo choosing rio across a multi-ep arc that is almost certainly going to not last and end poorly, i don’t think it’s going to be straightforward and that quadruple cross is def coming up soon)

6) as for why beth looks so sketch in the pull over scene, while i do think rio made her pick pre-bank, i don’t think he told her what the whole scheme was. i don’t think. she had any clue what was in that bag and i lowkey think a part of her was p convinced the gun with her prints was in it and there was a good chance she was about to get arrested. (but the fingerprint! counterpoint: if you were beth and you’d seen rio wiggle out of everything he has, would you be 100% sure he wouldn’t say fuck it and try to wiggle out of that too?)

7) no but like seriously the music

8) also the matchy matchy crime marrieds shot that i’m apparently going to work into every post from here to eternity

it’s called visual storytelling okay. it means stuff. obvs open to interpretation stuff or i wouldn’t be sitting here arguing for my interpretation against megan’s but it’s still a puzzle piece.

8) ummmmmmmmmmmm i think that’s all i’ve got. there might’ve been another thing but i’ve forgotten it

9) OH WAIT NO I REMEMBER the show. has an established history of chopping scenes up, pulling out key pieces of them and then circling back after the fact to recontextualize everything that’s happened since (201, 204, 213, etc etc or maybe that’s it? that’s all my brain’s coughing up rn) so it would not be out of character to save the end of the first scene for the end of the show to bookend everything that’s happened in between

10) okay that’s all for real kthxbye

#gg 4x07 #DUELING ANALYSSSSSISISISSISIS however tf you spell that #your move megan #hahahahaha im jk #look she's probs right she's much smarter than me #beth x rio #i refuse to start a meta tag #nbc good girls #anon #shut up meg #imagine how much stronger my arguments would be if i could spell for shit

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vintagedolan · 4 years

Text

dark (part two)

this is a continuation of dark, which you can read here

after the break in, you try to put on your brave face, but you’re not as unaffected as you pretend to be

word count: 4.6k

warnings/tags: dark themes

feel free to send in requests! and check out my masterlist if you wanna :)

Nothing felt worse than overstaying your welcome, and although he would never say anything, you felt bad for taking up so much of Nick’s space in his already small apartment. So, you finally put your foot down on the third night in the twin bed, sitting up to look at Grayson as he laid against the pillows.

“We’re going back tomorrow. We aren’t gonna just hide out here.”

“Are you ready to go back?” There was no pity in his tone, just sincere concern as he rested his hand on your hip, rubbing circles. He was constantly touching you now, a reassurance for him more than for you.

“No, but we don’t really have a choice do we?” You let out a dry laugh, resisting the urge to scratch at the scab on your neck. It was still a bit tender, but you’d refused the bandage - it just made it more noticeable, put you on edge.

“Of course we do. We aren’t going back until you’re 100% ready. I mean that.”

“Grayson. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be 100% ready,” you admitted, hating that you sounded a bit weak, a bit scared. You’d never admit anything like that to anyone but Grayson, and you watched carefully to see how he was going to take it. It was like clicking through pictures on a ViewMaster, each one changing rapidly before your eyes - sadness, anger, fear, uncertainty. It was killing him to see you, his strong girl, feeling fragile.

“Hey. C’mere.” He didn’t wait for you, instead just pulled you tightly against his chest, knowing that at least if you were in his arms he could keep you safe. “We’ll rent a different house or something. Hell, I’ll buy a new house, sell the one we have.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” you joked, but even in the darkness of the room you could tell there was nothing humorous about it to him. His arms only tightened.

“I’m not being dramatic. I’m gonna do whatever it takes to make you feel safe again, and if that’s what I have to do then that’s what I’ll do.”

And Grayson was a man of his word.

It was mostly subtle things, and nothing out of the ordinary. Grayson was a protective man after all, and always had been, even in the first days of your relationship. But now, it was just that tiny bit more noticeable. Instead of resting his hand on the small of your back when you walked to the car the next morning, he held onto your hip, pressed you up against his side until you were safe in the passenger seat. He kept a hand on your thigh in the car, too focused on making sure you were okay to even listen to the music he put on. He put smooth cat on autopilot, knowing he was too focused on you to react quickly if he needed to.

You liked to think that you kept it together well, that you didn’t let any of the panic show. The tightening of your stomach as you got off the interstate, the quickening flutter of your heart when the tesla made the turn onto their street. But it was harder to hide your breathing when the gates came into view, the gates that used to make you feel so safe and secure. Grayson stopped at the end of the driveway, pulling his phone out and calling Ethan.

“Yo. We’re here, can you unlock the gates?” A beat of silence. “Yeah, yeah we’re good. See you in a minute.”

It took a moment before the gates swung open, revealing the rest of the driveway and the house. It looked less intimidating in the daylight despite the dark exterior, and you forced a deep breath in and out of your lungs. You’re safe. Grayson’s right here, he’s safe. You’re okay. The little mantra played in your head as you willed yourself to pull it together, to keep your chin high as he put the car in park. Just breathe in, and breathe out. That’s all you had to do.

Everything looked the same - the pull up rings were still hanging from the tree at the side of the yard, the tiny shed still stood beautiful and warm. It was Grayson’s house, your house, and you weren’t going to someone take that from you. It was a bit easier to breathe when Ethan appeared outside the front door, smile wide and welcoming. You realized how much you’d missed him, and you clung to that feeling, focused in on it instead of the daunting task of going back in the house.

Grayson was two steps behind you as you got out of the car, heading up the sidewalk before you could overthink it, eyes on Ethan.

You weren’t sure how his hugs were so different than Grayson’s but they were. A different comfort came over you when he wrapped you up - not better, just different.

“Missed you bub, how’re you feeling?”

You weren’t sure how to answer such a loaded question, so you gave him a simple “I’m okay. I missed you too” and he let it slide instead of prying like he usually would.

You breathed him in and settled yourself before he moved on to Grayson, pulling him into a hug that you knew was probably going to last a moment. You reached for the door, surprised when it held firm in the frame. Ethan had just come outside, it shouldn’t be locked, but you dug around your purse for your key anyways.

“Oh, we changed the locks, here I’ll get it.” Ethan perked up, pulling out his phone. He pressed a few things on his screen and held his finger down before you heard the click that signified the door had unlocked. “I’ll show you all, c’mon.”

Your feet didn’t move until you felt Grayson next to you, tall and strong and stable. He laced his fingers with yours quickly, squeezing three times like he always did - a small reassurance that he was there. You resisted the urge to close your eyes, to turn around and run back to the car. Instead, you looked over at Grayson, anchoring yourself to him as best you could before you finally walked inside.

It didn’t look any different, but it felt different. The vinyls and play button had been placed back on their shelves, the blanket Ethan always used and never folded was piled up on the couch like always instead of folded in the basket. It smelled like the new wakeheart candles, a mixture because they could never decide which one to burn.

“You okay?” Grayson’s voice was in your ear, low and warm as he moved his hand from yours and wrapped it around your waist. Being held up against him soothed you more than you realized and you were grateful to have the pressure to anchor you, especially as you realized where Ethan had settled.

The kitchen.

You’d thought coming back in the day would make it easier, but the light from the windows did no good. As soon as you rounded the corner you could see it perfectly, see where you’d been standing, where he’d been standing, feel his arm holding you captive, the knife on your throat. Your eyes flickered to the counter, relieved to see that someone had thought to put the knife block away for your sake.

Grayson reacted to you as you reacted to the room, immediately moving in front of you, blocking your view of anything but him. You shifted your focus to his face, tracing your gaze over all those familiar features - the spot in his eyes where the green shifted to brown, the scar on his chin, the stubble on his cheeks. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Hey, you’re okay. We don’t have to do this in here, not today.”

He took your silence as an answer, turning and moving down the hallway to the podcast studio, Ethan getting up to follow. There was something soothing about the stillness of the studio when you all made it in and closed the door - no sound getting in, no extra light. Contained... controllable.

It gave you the stability you needed to find your voice.

“We changed the locks. So that means he got in through the door?” You looked at Ethan, who was sitting on the table facing you and Grayson on the couch, knowing he would have gotten the full story from the detectives. It was in his personality to know every detail when something went wrong.

“Yeah. He paid off one of our construction guys to steal a key and make him a copy, told him he’d give him a cut after he sold everything he was gonna steal. He snuck over the fence in the back, so we added to that, made it taller and put a sensor there. And now the locks are only openable by our phones, and our fingerprints. Here, you can look.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it and pulling up the app. You scrolled through as he kept explaining, noticing all the different options and settings.

“So we can arm any door or window from the app now, and unlock or lock the doors. They’re all electric now, but we can also make it where it requires a key if we want. And you have to put your fingerprint in, so even if someone gets a hold of your phone they can’t access the house. We added more cameras outside too, and theres an option to upgrade and do in house cameras as well, but I wanted to see how you guys felt about that.”

“Thats up to Y/N,” Grayson said, pulling you out of your head a bit as you looked up from the phone.

“Why is it up to me?”

“If it’ll make you feel safer then we’ll do it. I mean, we haven’t done in house cameras before because people can hack that shit, but if it’ll make you feel better we’ll do it.”

You weren’t sure if it was the stress you were under or his casual tone, but his words rubbed you the wrong way for the first time since everything had happened.

“Look, I know that I’m the one with the cut on my throat.” Grayson flinched at your words, hand tightening on your thigh. “But this dude broke into your house.”

“Our house,” Ethan corrected. He never wanted you to feel like it was any less your house than his or Graysons despite the fact that you hadn’t paid for any of it.

“Okay our house. Still, I’m not the only one in this equation. This is a group thing.”

“A family thing,” Grayson mused, any annoyance you had with him fading away at his sweet words.

“A family thing. Which means it needs to be a family decision. And yeah, out of the three of us I’m probably gonna have the hardest time with everything because.... well, because.” You didn’t have to go into detail - just the way that their shoulders tightened told you that they were seeing the same thing in their head. “But I want you guys to feel safe too. Cause it could have been either of you. And the thought of it happening to you guys scares me just as much as the idea of it happening to me again. Hell, it scares me more.” You couldn’t dwell on that, just the brief thought of either of them in danger making your heart skip.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Ethan reached out a hand for yours and you took it, watching as he linked up with Grayson’s left, and when your hand found Grayson’s right you sighed, squeezing both of them as the tears started to prickle.

“We’re gonna take care of each other. Like always. Like family. Whatever we gotta do. Yeah?” Grayson was sniffling too though he tried to hide it with a smile at the end. His lip quivered anyways.

“Yeah. Always. Group hug?” Ethan spoke up.

You nodded, and the twins stood up in sync, you one beat behind before the three of you stepped together and hugged. You were a bit dwarfed by both of them, tall and broad, but the way they held you to them made you feel safer than you had since you entered the house.

“I vote no to the cameras by the way,” Ethan said over your head after a moment. You all leaned back so you could see each other, still holding on.

“I know I’m gonna hit the wrong thing and pick the wrong camera at the wrong time. It’s just my luck bro. Seriously.”

The mental image of you and Grayson in a compromising position on Ethan’s tiny screen was probably the only thing that could have gotten a true laugh out of you, and you were happy that it did. It cut the unintentional tension in a way that only Ethan could. The three of you squeezed together again before you let go, though Grayson’s hand stayed on your back.

“Okay, enough with the heavy. I’m hungry, but the kitchen is obviously a no go for mwah so... Monty’s?”

“Hell yeah, I’m driving, since you all jacked my car for three days.”

“You told us to take it!” Grayson argued.

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t miss her,” he countered, pulling the door of the studio open and leading the way out.

You were able to keep your mind off of everything for the most part once you were back outside and in the tesla. You got Monty’s to go and ate in the parking lot, caught up on everything regarding the candle launch prep and the podcast between bites of fries and sips of milkshakes.

You’d hoped the dread wouldn’t come back when you made it home, but alas, the pit returned to your stomach at the movement of the gates. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The sun was setting over the house. Most days it would be beautiful. You’d probably pull your phone out, run around to the back yard to get a better picture, maybe even have Grayson boost you up onto the roof.

But not that night.

Now, it was just a reminder that darkness was coming, and you were going to have to face the house again. The front door seemed to mock you after it closed behind Ethan as you stood frozen in the driveway. It was staring you down, daring you to try it again, to see if you could keep it together better than you had earlier.

“We can go somewhere else. We don’t have to sleep here tonight.” Grayson’s voice was low enough that Ethan couldn’t hear. “We can go to Ryan’s.”

“Coop is there, you’d die in your sleep,” you countered, accidentally admitting you’d already considered it.

“I have my inhaler, I’d manage. Or we can go to Ster’s.”

“We’re sleeping here. I have to get over it.”

“Woah, hey,” he turned you by your hip, a mixture of disbelief and anger in his eyes. “None of that. Don’t put that pressure on yourself.”

“I just mean that I can’t keep avoiding it. I gotta at least try to do it. I love this place, I don’t wanna be scared of it.”

He searched your face, looked for anything he could read. You weren’t sure what he was looking for, but you just focused in on his features again. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Okay. But you have to promise me that you’ll tell me if it’s too much. Even if it’s just a little bit too much. Okay? You promise?”

“Yeah. I promise.”

“Okay. Then we’ll try.” It caught you a bit by surprise when he leaned down to kiss you, hand coming up to your jaw. You knew his fingers grazed over your cut, knew he felt it, pretended like he didn’t. You pretended too. “I’m proud of you. My strong girl.”

You wanted to deflect it, make a joke about how he was definitely stronger even though you knew that wasn’t what he meant. Anything to keep your heart from swelling up, overwhelmed as it usually was by the fact that he loved you as much as he did, somehow. Instead you just wrapped your arms around his waist and let him guide you back into the house.

“Let me set up your alls phones before we go to bed, so you can do shit in the morning if you want,” Ethan said from the kitchen when you appeared. You handed your phone over, let him do what he wanted as you tried to process everything in the kitchen.

The spot two steps to the left of the sink was where he’d trapped you. But it was also where you had tried Grayson’s french toast for the first time, watched his face light up when you told him it was perfect. The spot on the counter where the knife block was supposed to sit used to be where the speaker sat, the source of so many late night ice cream dance party nights, the background noise to the tiger cub wrestling matches the boys sometimes had. You focused on those memories, hoping they’d override the most recent, the persistent one that kept nagging at the edge of your mind as you fought against it.

Ethan passed your phone back after a minute, moving on to Grayson’s. You fiddled with the settings, glad to see that you could check any of the outside cameras that you wanted to. You could arm and unarm the door, see the last time it had been opened and by who. It was a complex system, and you didn’t even want to think about how much it cost - you knew Grayson would say it didn’t matter anyways.

Once Grayson’s phone was done you gave Ethan a final goodnight hug before the two of you headed towards your room. You held your breath a bit when you went around the corner - an unconscious habit that would unfortunately stick around for almost a year. You kept your hands at your sides as you walked, not wanting to touch the wall like you had that night, not knowing if it would cause a reaction in you or not.

Getting to the bedroom made you breathe a bit easier. The bed was made, but definitely by Ethan considering the pillows were on the wrong side. You still smiled at the gesture, knowing he’d come in and made it welcoming for you to come back to. But seeing the window above the bed, the closet doors, the general lack of light - so many places for someone to hide, to sneak up on you, to wait for when you aren’t looking. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Do you wanna shower? I know you said that shampoo at Nick’s was weird, it might feel good to use your own stuff,” Gray offered, obviously seeing that you weren’t sure what to do.

“Yeah. Yeah that’s probably a good idea.”

You moved to the drawers, grabbing a pair of underwear and one of Grayson’s shirts before you headed towards the bathroom.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, no it’s okay. I got it,” you answered on instinct. Surely, surely you could handle showering by yourself.

“Oh. Okay.” The worry in his voice rang like a bell, and you frowned.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I just... can you leave the door open? Don’t like you being where I can’t see you right now.” It was his turn to be a bit shy. Grayson never liked acting like he needed help, never liked admitting that he had a weakness. You were alike in that way. The fact that he even said anything made you want to melt into a puddle.

“Of course I can baby. I’ll be quick.”

“I’m gonna get some work done, just yell if you need me. I love you.”

“I love you too.” You leaned over on the bed, giving him a quick kiss before you went into the bathroom, having to stop yourself from closing the door. Grayson’s new bathroom was very aesthetically pleasing, with the dark green tiles and the marble fixtures. It was cozy enough, and you’d been in it enough times that you felt comfortable there as you brushed your hair.

Grayson’s eyes flickered away from his laptop when you stripped down, watching until you got under the stream of water in the shower. He cursed himself for getting the tempered glass that you couldn’t see more than an outline through.

You’d been in that shower so many times, but something about this time just felt... off. You couldn’t place it - maybe you felt exposed because you were naked, or claustrophobic because of being closed in. You tried to swallow it down, ignore it, distract yourself by starting your usual routine, lathering up your hair with shampoo. Still, your heartbeat sped up, thundering in your chest, so loud it was in your ears.

You’re safe. Grayson’s right here, he’s safe. You’re okay.

But Grayson wasn’t right there, he was too far away, out of your sight. He could be in trouble, he could be in danger, you’d had no idea that there had been a man in the house before, who was to say there wasn’t another one now?

You couldn’t catch your breath, couldn’t focus, couldn’t move as everything started to close in around you.

“Gra- Grayson!” You yelled it, probably louder than you needed to.

The only time Grayson had ever heard you sound like that was a few nights ago, and his blood ran cold.

“Y/N? Baby?!” He was on his feet, laptop thrown to the side without a care as he ran into the bathroom, throwing the shower door open.

The panic in your eyes was blatant, naked chest heaving as you tried to breathe. And then he as in the water with you, holding onto you.

“Shh, shh shh shh I’m here, I’m here, you’re okay.” He reached past you, turned the water off to quiet everything down as he pulled you to his chest. You clung to his now soaked t-shirt, unable to form any words.

“You’re safe, nobody is gonna hurt us, I’ve got you. Just breathe with me angel, just breathe.” You heard his words through one ear, but the vibration of his chest in the other was more soothing than anything he could say. Just knowing he was there and safe helped you to fill your lungs again little by little, each breath getting deeper, slower as he held you, rested his cheek on your shampoo covered head, let you get yourself calmed down.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen you panic, so he knew that letting go of you wasn’t going to help anything. So when he shifted and you clung to him on instinct he immediately moved to reassurances.

“Hey, I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here. Let’s get your hair washed out and get you dried off, you’re shivering. I’m staying, I’m not going anywhere.”

You nodded against him, let him reach around you and turn the water back on. It was cold at first, making you jump until the hot water caught up and rained down over you again.

“You’re gonna get all wet,” you mumbled, looking down at his soaked sweatpants.

“That’s why we have a dryer. Lean your head back, I gotcha.”

You did as he asked, focusing in on the feeling of his hands on your scalp to avoid the uncomfort of having to close your eyes. He did it as quickly as he could, running his hands through the way he’d seen his mom do so many times, making sure he got all the suds out before he was reaching for the handle again and turning it off.

“Hang on just a sec.” He moved quickly to shed off all his wet clothes, leaving them in a pile in the corner of the shower to be taken care of later - his only concern was you. You let him lead you through the motions, from stepping out of the shower to drying off, stepping into your undies and pulling his shirt over your head. For once, it didn’t effect you that he was fully naked in front of you - you were too distracted, too overwhelmed by everything he was doing for you, the way he took care of you like it was his favorite thing to do. If you asked him, he would say that it was.

Eventually he moved the two of you into the bedroom, grabbing a towel on the way out so he could dry himself the rest of the way off and pull on a pair of clean boxers. He looked at you for a moment, and then he shook his head.

“We’re not sleeping in here tonight.”

“Grayson-”

“We can stay in the house, but we can’t sleep in here yet. I can’t sleep in here yet, so I know you aren’t going to sleep either. But I have an idea. Do you trust me?”

You nodded, secretly relieved at the thought of not having to sleep in the bed.

“Okay, grab the pillows, and I’ll get the comforter,” he instructed. You did as he asked, waiting for him to get situated and take your hand before he led you out of the room. You still held your breath when you went around the corner, letting it out when you saw that no one was there.

He turned into the pod studio, letting you in first before he closed the door behind him. It was silent, but in a comforting way, everything but Grayson muffled.

“I don’t know if this is gonna work, but I felt good in here earlier. Safe. So I think we should give it a shot in here tonight. Whadda you think?”

“I feel safe in here too,” you murmured as an acceptance, and at your word he got to work. You expected him to move over to the couch but instead he put the comforter down on the rug on the floor. You followed his lead and moved the pillows to the top of it, waiting.

Finally, he laid down at around the midway mark of the width and reached up for you to join him. Putting your confusion aside you crawled down to him and curled up against his chest, unwilling to put even an inch between you if you didn’t have to. His plan came together when he threw the extra half of the comforter over the top of you both, creating a bit of a cocoon. Any other night, you would have been worried about sleeping on the hard floor, or getting too hot. But not that night. That night it was exactly what you needed. Just you and him, safe and warm and together.

“I’m sorry about earlier, I don’t know what caused that,” you mumbled, tracing patterns over his heart, a few 47s, a few shapes.

“You know you don’t have to apologize to me. For anything.”

“You don’t like to see me upset,” you countered.

“Of course I don’t. Would be kinda fucked up if I did. But if you need me, I’m gonna be there. Even if it’s just to help you wash out your hair,” he teased, resting his cheek on your forehead.

“Your ‘strong girl’ who can’t even get through a solo shower,” you scoffed, poking fun at yourself.

“Always my strong girl, no matter what. But strongest when she admits she needs help.”

You couldn’t find the words to answer, and he didn’t ask for them. Instead, he just kissed your forehead, a silent promise to keep you safe through the night, and every night after that.

#I wrote 98% of this today WHAT #but here she is :')#i hope you like!!#lynds writes #grayson dolan fic #grayson dolan #grayson dolan fanfiction #grayson dolan imagine #dolan twins fanfiction #dolan twins #dolan twins imagine

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the-ghost-king · 3 years

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Interestingly enough the fandom isn't always rational with their criticism. Take Percy and Rachel for instance. A perfectly healthy cute and functional relationship dynamic, but people really hated it because it got in the way of Percy/Annabeth.

I think it can also come down to the fact that not all situations are exactly equal if that makes sense. If you have a character dynamic in couple A, that often playfully bully of fight with eachother that's a different dynamic than relationship B, where one person has trauma resulting from bullying and the other parter behaves in roughly the same way as couple A do. In that case the behavior may be seen as inappropriate. Not that this example has anything to do with the ships at hand, but I think a long form meta examining the different paralleling issues from both relationships and their validity would be easier.

Also I haven't seen anything about about Nico/Will being called toxic. Yikes, what are people saying exactly, because I don't doubt a lot of people might be projecting unconcious bias.

Oh absolutely, I may seem young but I remember the Rachel vs Annabeth ship wars all too well... I do not want to go back 😅

The rest is under a read more though, I got a little carried away talking! Also this isn't my best post on the issue by far so please feel free to check out the tags I mention later on!

(AN: I use nblm alongside mlm in this post because some nblm individuals will consider their attraction to men as gay, or queer, while others will not and those individuals are often closely connected to mlm experiences and they also deserve to talk about their thoughts and feelings if they wish. I am aware nonbinary people are not a monolith and not all nonbinary people will categorize themselves or their attraction this way, it's up to nonbinary individuals reading this to determine where they fall on what)

As for Solangelo being toxic some of the conversations revolve around the ableist nature of the ship, this is definitely most obviously a dynamic in BoO, and it's a more than fair point about the ship I don't have anything negative to say there in the slightest!

(The above parallels with the idea that Will is introduced as a "healer character" for the "sad gay kid", which is a fair criticism as well but one that's often left rather one sided, because while that is true- if it's a way Nico likes being treated (watched closely for injuries and cared for) then it's not wrong, and in ToN Will is seen overstepping Nico's boundaries which causes a healthy argument about Will doing so and he stops, so if Nico doesn't tell Will "no" or some variation he's obviously not horribly uncomfortable with the situation, or from the way it would be interpreted alongside previous text, there's fair reason to think he likes it)

The thing with Solangelo I see often is "Nico is still processing trauma, and internalized homophobia and isn't ready for a relationship" which is a huge misunderstanding on how trauma and internalized homophobia work as a whole, because the experiences can be different for everyone. You can absolutely date someone while processing internalized homophobia, you may struggle with certain things but it is absolutely doable for some people. And trauma is such a varied thing, and it's not like he's solely relying on Will either, he is seeing Dionysus for therapy and getting the help he needs! Your life doesn't have to go on hold for therapy no matter how much trauma you are sorting through! (Not disclosing my medical history or anything but I have struggled with both things and my life didn't stop for me to deal with them, I made new friends, went on dates, etc- it is possible depending on the person so the very narrow view of "this is unhealthy" and "this is impossible" rubs me wrong when it's treated as fact over opinion, because it's an opinion).

There's also constant discussions about how fandom (in current) fetishizes both Nico and Will, which I, and other mlm and nblm have spoken our own thoughts on multiple times to be largely ignored by the biggest perpetrators of this "they're overly fetishized narrative". There's also fairly consistent discussion of how fandom treats Nico and reduces him to uwu small gay boy, which more often than not seems to mean "effeminate" rather than actually harmful stereotyping (yes queer men are allowed to be "girly" especially considering there is some canon text that could be interpreted with that meaning, if there wasn't a plausible way to determine canon that way I wouldn't care if people were going after others feminizing Nico a bit- but the issue is again, fact and feeling aren't the same and fandom seem to conflate the two rather often).

(Some of that ties into nonbinary Nico head canons which are common as of current, and that argument quickly becomes transphobic is people don't watch themselves... Even without bringing nonbinary Nico into the equation, headcanoning Nico as femme isn't bad or wrong, and to say otherwise becomes gender policing which is bad).

There's also this weird obsession with there being a "correct way" to ship mlm ships (specifically solangelo), which when considering it's not mlm or nblm saying those things, it becomes really uncomfortable. Especially because the wording of some posts is less "hey this is homophobic" and comes off more like people are more upset at seeing an mlm couple than at the fact that they're being shipped poorly.

All of this in combination with the constant, talking over of queer guys (specifically mlm and nblm) comes off really messed up, and yeah homophobic.

It's not something that can be pinned down to one specific thing but rather a series of smaller microagressions (which in sure most of are intended in good faith but are being filled with subconscious bias) that build up over time- which is why my concern is that solangelo is facing harsher criticism/different treatment that percabeth simply for being a queer ship.

I can't be 100% sure on that like I said, because that's something that is hard to gain tangible evidence for, or maybe even impossible :/

If there wasn't so many other small things going on alongside the harsher criticism of solangelo, I would honestly just ignore it... But the weird policing of "how to ship solangelo" while proclaiming it's "overly fetishized" all while speaking over a not insignificant number of mlm and nblm who have agreed with certain opinions, or taken time to write their own (+ some of the rhetoric that can be found on he blogs of people commonly expressing these opinions) is super uncomfortable and definitely homophobic... Even if they were treating the ship kind of weird, but treating the queer guys talking about it well and actually listening (because the current solangelo fandom probably has the highest proportion of queer guys in comparison to any other fandom I've been in with an mlm ship as of right now) I wouldn't be so bothered... But sadly that's not the case..

(I'd also like to note out of my posts criticizing the current conversations happening around the issue my post saying "listen to mlm voices" got a lot more notes than some of the other ones, which I can't say is specifically anything, because like solangelo perhaps being treated unfairly to percabeth, I am willing to acknowledge there might not be an issue- but it's weird how often mlm and nblm's posts on "listen to us" will be uplifted but never any actual criticism... Just a thought)

I detail things a little closer and in more detail in some of my posts tagged #fandom homophobia, #mlm fetishism, and #gender policing in fandom, it's not a full or comprehensive list (I've only really started speaking up in the last month or so), and it is largely solangelo specific. However I am always interested in listening to the voices of other queer guys about the issues and hearing out their thoughts as well (people aren't a monolith and I'm interested in trying to be as nuanced as possible!) and I acknowledge that although I am mlm and am going to be a little better at recognizing issues and calling them out (although I like every person am not perfect of course)

So yeah! That's a bit of the current ongoings, again not a full comprehensive list, and definitely not my best explanation ever but I think the point gets across well enough? Definitely check out my other tags if you're interested in more, there's also definitely more posts I need to make on some of the things I've seen (maybe not all of them so solangelo fandom specific, and maybe some of them even more solangelo fandom specific) but it's rather slow work in progress!

#asks #anon #long post

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chrisevansgoodgirl · 3 years

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Okay, so, here’s a question: Would you really, as a scorpio, be able to imagine yourself in a relationship with Steve? Because I am a scorpio, and as much as I loooove Steve, I can’t 100% imagine myself dating him (I still read fanfics with him, duh)😂Because I have a guy in my life that’s just as sweet as Steve probably is, but all I could do was sleep with him, and that’s it..Like, he became waaayyy too clingy - in the sweet, nice way..And idk what it is, but I just can’t stand being in a relationship with someone so nice 😂😂😂 (even though I’m probably gonna regret it, right?)..Of course, we have to consider Steve’s different side! Like, would he have a darker side in real life? Because, on the other hand, I don’t necessarily think he’s always nice - the movies showed us that, I think, but now I mean to his partner..you know, like, would he be able to tease his partner? Or would he be serious all the time? The only thing I know is that he would be supergood in bed, I don’t doubt that one bit😌All I’m saying is that I need my partner to be rough a little bit and not just during sex!! 😆 And one more thing, I hear that scorpios and cancers have a good compatibility, and when I imagine nomad!Steve? Yeah, there’s something there...it’s just that a lot of people paint him as the goody two shoes, the nicest person on earth and like yeah, he probably is but there’s so much more to him and because nobody talks about it makes me like him as the guy who i’d be friends with😂😂So... y o u r t h o t s?

This is such a fun question! So, I used to not like cancers at all bc I was like blah, they’re always crying , but I have since discovered that I am a baby who could cry at most given moments in the day ☠️ so I definitely get where you’re coming from.

I also admit that I have a bad habit of being a little mean sometimes. Just a bit, it’s this thing about like pushing boundaries. And I will push you if you don’t stop me. I think Steve is big on respect so if I tried an attitude with him, I 10,000% believe he would not let it slide. I don’t think he would automatically go hard and just bend me over his knee BUT I think he would make it very clear how important respect is in the relationship and maybe give you a bit of a lecture. And he just has this authority about him (which is conflicting bc I have no respect for authority, but I also want him to act like he has some type of authority over me) and like I think his tone would be really low. And his jaw would do the thing 😩 and he would say it really quiet. And it would honestly be kinda scary. Like you would pretend for your ego that it wasn’t scary, but it definitely was. In a hot way tho.

I actually think Steve lines up with a cancer pretty perfectly. Obviously that was never the intent of the writers, they aren’t fact checking the zodiac when they’re coming up with plots, but it just played out that way. First, he has those puppy eyes and yeah, sometimes I worry that he wouldn’t be able to get rough with me. But second, he is so passionate. He started a war over Bucky! I think he would do anything for someone he loves and that might include getting a bit dark. Nomad!Steve was dark but you know what? I bet Steve like a month or two after the snap was really dark.

I feel robbed that I didn’t get to see it but tbh the fact that they time jumped just makes me think my theory is correct. He was over compensating with that support group. I personally think he had someone low key, and that relationship maybe was a little bit dark. That’s also a head canon of mine for Steve. Sex matches his mood. if he’s in a good mood, the sex will be light and fun. If he’s in a bad mood... 😃

That’s the thing, cancers do cry a lot but I think that they let all of their emotions control their actions. And maybe that’s mostly sadness and obsession/clinginess, but I feel like they can get mad and a little mean too if they feel like it’s justified.

So let me tell you some of the things in a relationship that I think would drive Steve crazy. Like he would lose his mind, he would be out of control, and it would be fucking hot.

If you don’t tell him something, if he thinks you’re keeping a secret. Like there are the simple secrets that might irritate him but if he thinks you’re holding something back about your feelings, like you don’t trust him, or there’s something you maybe don’t want him to know he’s not opposed to fucking the answer out of you.

And if someone else flirts with you? 😱 he’s going to make you cry that night. He will literally make you beg for everything. He won’t let you come, he won’t be sweet or soft. It’s literally about to cross the line of degradation with how cold he’s being. And you’re so desperate in the moment to get him back to loving you and being your sweet Steve, but afterwards, you’re fucking pissed that he plays you like that. And all he does is fucking smirk about it. 🙄

If someone mistreats you in any way shape or form. You literally have to tie that bitch down bc he has murder on his mind. Your boss asks you to cover three shifts in one week and he’s giving you that look. He’s very serious about you not letting anyone take advantage of you. Your friends are being lame, hanging out and not inviting you, or they said something rude. He’s just like great, so what are your plans to make new friends? And he’s dead serious. You get a bad grade and he’s seriously considering getting your professor fired.

Oh and he’s allowed to be jealous but if you try it? Nope. Absolutely not. You made the mistake once about making a comment about Sharon. Y I K E S. He didn’t fuck you for a week until you apologized and promised that you knew he would never do anything to hurt you. Then he made you ride him until he wasn’t hard anymore. He’s a fucking super soldier. He lasted all fucking night.

#ask tag #thanks for coming to my ted talk

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nightcoremoon · 3 years

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why am I a jerkass who rains on everyone else's parade when I say I don't like gory horror films because I find movies whose plot consists of some dude stabbing a bunch of people to be fucking stupid pointless boring schlock that only exists to stroke the boners of people who enjoy watching other people die vicariously from a good safe distance, especially when their sequels just cheaply kill off all of the survivors from the earlier films thus rendering the plot of the earlier ones L I T E R A L L Y COMPLETELY FUCKING POINTLESS

but when someone says they don't like seeing sexual assault portrayed in movies (valid) and that people who put them in are evil and bad and dumb and bad tasteless artists, everyone is like yes yes good perfect okay you have the correct opinion here have a good star

hey newsflash assholes, if you're watching a fictional movie about a clinical sociopath who butchers animals, beats the absolute shit out of people they don't like until they're crying and shitting their pants and bleeding out the eyes and pleading for mercy, tying a dude to a chair and then slicing his jugular and glaring in his eyes until he bleeds out, bludgeons some guy for no fucking reason until his blood and brain spatters the kitchen floor, stabs his (naked) sister 17 times (after slowly tracing his fingers on her leg no less, ew), stabs a nurse in the neck with a fork and killing her for literally no reason, then a decade and a half later going back to his hometown just to stab a dozen people with ice skates and pitchforks and good old fashioned kitchen knives, and having the film depict this all in graphic bloody detail

and your ONLY problem is that somewhere along the way two disgusting scum workers at an asylum took a brand new catatonic female patient into his room and fucked her until they messed with his masks so he just breaks their fucking skulls open (which define his character as someone who clearly has no compassion for others but will shatter your bones and strangle you just for touching his stuff), and it's that a girl was raped and not that you watched a guy pulverize two men into bloody giblets...

idk man something about that feels wrong. you're okay with watching fictional murder but not fictional rape even though neither are glorified or justified and it exists purely to cause discomfort and distress in the viewer because it's a fucking horror film and horror is supposed to expose you to depravity and as art it serves to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

don't get me wrong rape is bad but like

so is fucking murder.

why can't I express my discomfort in society's gratuitous endorsement and desensitization to killing in fictional media without people taking it as a personal attack and then turn around and do the exact same thing to rape

it's a double standard and it's so stupid

you can eat popcorn and watch jason voorhees rip teenagers in half and then berate me for not having a good time bathing in someone else's blood and then in the same breath #cancel rob zombie's director's cut of his halloween reboot because there's a rape scene in it. the violence is okay; you like the violence, no, you love the violence. that's perfectly fine? violence is good. freddy can force a recovering addict to OD on heroin, that's fine. john doe can force a fat guy to eat spaghetti at gunpoint until his fucking intestines burst, that's okay. mark hoffman can lock an innocent woman in a brazen bull and cook her alive just to fridge her and punish her husband for a lie that he made, that's awesome and wonderful and /super cool/. it's bullshit.

I'm not here to say YOU CAN'T like nightmare in elm street. you can like the texas chainsaw massacre. you can like my bloody valentine. you can like the thing. you can like wrong turn. you can like saw. you can DISlike rob zombie's movies. you can fast forward through the rape scenes in halloween, house of 1000 corpses, and the devil's rejects if the scenes make you uncomfortable (as they are intended to do so because it's a fucking grimdark edgy music video inspired horror movie). I'm not here to tell you that YOU CAN'T have an opinion on things.

but it's a special kind of entitled to insinuate that not only is your opinion the divine right of kings and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong and dumb and evil, but that a squicky scene you don't like actively makes the entire film Objectively Bad™.

maybe I don't like the fact that tatum gets crushed in a garage door. maybe it squicks me. maybe it unsettles me. maybe I think that it detracts from the film when all billy had to do was just stab her one and done without making a huge ordeal out of it. maybe I think it only exists to make a spectacle out of death and gorify- sorry, I mean glorify, murder, because it's exciting and intriguing to some who take solace in the macabre. "the effects are cool". maybe I don't like it. but you can like it.

I can dislike it. you can like it. we're both valid. that's how opinions work.

"but people get triggered by rape"

people get triggered by drugs. people get triggered by food. people get triggered by religion. people get triggered by a lot of things. people get triggered by slit throats, strangling, and hanging. you're valid for your triggers and you can avoid whatever fucking content you wish but if you think only your very particular specific trigger is the one that's valid, screw everyone else? go fuck yourself. you selfish piece of shit. you're not the only person in the world. it isn't hard to respect that you're not the only worldview in the world.

but then again, maybe it is hard, considering nobody fucking does it. everyone's trapped in their own little world where they're the only one who matters. they don't give a single shit about anyone else but themselves and others they can project onto because they're similar. they don't care if you can't match them in any way. you're a freak if you're different and you don't matter.

never mind the fact that 90% of slasher horror is misogynist, ephebophilic, racist, exploitative of the mentally ill and physically deformed, in some cases appropriations of the non-christian religions, and in the other 10% it's actually a horror comedy.

but if a white girl is sexually assaulted that's the only time anyone bothers being compassionate

now a disclaimer because I know for a fact that people are gonna put words in my mouth and take shit out of context and point out things I didn't explicitly state outright and try to make me out to be some fucking evil boogeyman

not saying you SHOULDN'T be compassionate to rape victims and I'm not saying I personally enjoy rape scenes in movies and I'm not saying that I particularly like the inclusion of those scenes in those movies and there is certainly a conversation to be had on the very misogynist nature of hollywood cinema as a whole in the horror genre especially and we should keep in mind the thermian argument and it's a complex issue, I know I know I know so shut the fuck up I don't owe you a passing grade on clout or the semantics of discourse or virtue signaling.

it's just stupid that people only get upset if a fictional white girl gets raped in a gore porn movie when it ~doesn't suit the narrative~. ok, this is the narrative: scary man stabs, the end.

scary men stab all the time. scary men shoot. scary men suicide bomb. scary men patent insulin and sell it at an upcharge poor diabetics can't afford. scary men drop bombs on kids in syria. scary men put mexicans in concentration camps. scary men slaughter thousands of men and women for their religion or their sexuality or their skin color. scary men do a lot of bad shit. your silence on these issues does much more harm to society than *checks notes* a scary movie about bad people doing bad things and facing karmic retribution for it.

TL;DR rape is bad, and murder is also bad, and american horror films have 100s of problems, and people need to start voicing their opinions as opinions and not pretending they're facts because it's super fucking annoying

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shewhowillnotbenamed1 · 4 years

Text

Snowed In

-Hey! From the prompt list Dialogue 41 & 42, Situation 100 & 101 & 105 and as a setting I was thinking about an accommodation on the mountains :) -Omg... I am the anon with the make up sex while stuck in a snow storm... I forgot to say the pairing: Damirae💜💜

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Over an hour and still, she hadn't moved.

Raven sat on the cream-colored leather couch in the Great Room, staring aimlessly out of the A frame window. Not far beyond it, towering pine trees stood perched on the mountains where they continued to amass a heavy coating of frost. But Raven was hardly admiring the foliage in an illustrious winter landscape. With her head nestled in her hand and eyelids drooping, she had to be dozing off.

Damian's heavy footsteps creaked on the hardwood floor to little reaction, so she was definitely asleep. He brushed her shoulder, and she didn't budge an inch. "Raven." He murmured as he nudged her. She let out an incoherent mumble. "I know..." Damian said softly, staring at her sleeping face through half-lidded eyes. "But, you can't be comfortable sleeping like that..." Gently, his fingers plucked at the zipper to her coat.

Suddenly, she blinked, sitting up, ramrod straight. Promptly, she gathered up her coat around her body. "What exactly are you doing?" Raven asked accusingly.

It was an electric shock - so abrupt it was like a switch had been tripped.

"I was trying to help, that jacket was practically suffocating you," he grumbled. Through emerald slits, he regarded nothing but suspicion in her narrowing amethysts. "Don't get excited." As he drew back, he half considered retreating to the other side of the room to avoid the bursts of icy wind she blasted his way. But then, he took another look outside the window. "Raven, the storm is getting pretty bad out there. I don't think..." He saw her eyes flicker, in understanding.

"Jaime, Jon, Kori... They're not coming...?" She confirmed carefully. "Are they?"

"Well according to the weather reports, no." Damian answered, with a long pause to inspect his phone, glancing at an influx of warning messages and weather alerts for the area. "At least not today, they're not."

"I see..." Raven sounded worried. "We really are snowed in..."

"So it seems," he said, his tone taciturn. "You should at least make yourself comfortable." Damian shrugged. "Unpack?" He added under his breath.

"I'm comfortable here."

Damian frowned. "The chalet is hardly a shack." His vert orbs flitted over the high beams ceilings and A shaped walls of windows. "You don't have to confine yourself to the couch." He sighed. "But, since no one else is here yet... you can get the first pick of all the rooms." This seemed to appeal to her, as Raven immediately started to wrestle with her suitcase. "I can help you with that," he offered.

"I've got it." Raven continued, her back to him. Undismayed, he reached down for the handle. "I'm okay - thanks." She yanked her bag up from the floor and marched away in the opposite direction without another word.

Had he offended her without knowing it?

Damian could attest to feeling discomfited. Watching those tall black boots retreat was like watching a painful burn singeing and etching its way through flesh. His chest felt constricted each time she pulled away from him.

The way she had acted, as if he had played some part in arranging and orchestrating the whole thing as some sort of convoluted plot to get her alone.

Damian ran a hand down his face in defeat.

It was shaping up to be a long afternoon leading into what would undoubtedly be a long night.

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

Begrudgingly, Damian shut his laptop and decided to see how Raven was settling in. He knew he was hardly being a gracious host, but she wasn't exactly making it easy on him.

They were stuck together in a snowstorm, for an indeterminable amount of time, but it could be worse. Raven was hardly someone to let out endless strings of complaints or run herself into the ground with horrifying hypotheticals. No, there was no fear of that with her. She was rational and level-headed to her core - everything one needed in a crisis.

But it also meant she didn't need him.

The way she had recoiled from him... He had never known his heart or his head could be so unbidden to the laws of gravity. The hollow that carved into his chest when Raven walked away without a second look - it was a new level of unnatural. No, there wasn't much fear of anything with her. Their present situation had rendered her general level of apathy.

Why did all that apathy extend to him?

As Damian stared down the endless hallways of the chalet, he realized he didn't even know which room she had selected.

Maybe, he was a bad host after all.

Just around the corner from the corridor of windows, the answer arrived. Remnants of steam escaped before evaporating into the air above an open door. In the second largest bedroom, Raven sat on the bed in a white robe, her legs bare, black polish on twiddling toes, and an open book in her lap.

Oh, Gods.

He had found her - all of her.

Here Raven was barely dressed in bed and still so distractingly damp from the bath. By the way he was practically zeroing in on her heat-signature through the fabric, the green laser-beams had to be scorching her.

It was a minute before he realized he was there to check on her. He was not supposed to linger in her doorway uninvited, staring at her for longer than appropriate. Of course, Raven in a state of indecency was something Damian couldn't just tear himself away from. This storm was surely testing the limits of his survival.

"Hey." He rapped on the door frame gently. "You look relaxed..." He managed tightly. "I presume you've settled in?"

"Oh, Damian..." Raven closed her book and leapt up. "I'll just be a minute." She rose quickly to close the door.

Damian's hand twitched. This was the second time. For the second time today the sight of him or their proximity made Raven flinch. An electric impulse fired straight to his synapses - something in him snapped.

"No, you won't..." He heard the dangerous utterance from his lips, barely registering himself saying the words. And in a flash, the wood was barred firmly behind his rough palm.

Briefly Raven looked fearful, but it went away as quickly as it had come. "Damian...?" Her brow furrowed in frustration. "What is this?"

The time for politeness and niceties had elapsed. His tone had gone harsh. "We've been here for hours and you've barely said a word to me."

"That's not true," Raven said quickly. "Besides, that was just seven." She corrected him.

Unbelievable.

"You're incredible." Damian leveled her a blank stare to match the sarcasm. "I know you don't like me." Her lips parted and his curled. "Tch." He held up a hand. "You were silent for hours, so I'll talk." Sharpened icicles hurled his way, pitched off of a bone-chilling glare. But, it barely pierced his hide and he continued. "You think I'm arrogant, or emotionally stunted - whatever." Raven's usual sullenness shifted to annoyance. "But, it doesn't matter. We don't know when this storm is ending or how long we'll be stuck together."

"Way to state the obvious..." Raven muttered under her breath.

There was no doubt Raven thought he was a bad host now, if she hadn't already. And while hosting her was exceedingly difficult, Alfred would haven been ashamed of him regardless.

"Look, we have all the same friends... shouldn't we be able to get along? Or try?" Damian offered more gently. "I feel like I don't know you..."

Raven released the huge sigh she had been holding in. "You're right." Damian felt his stomach drop and all that previous frustration became misplaced. He hadn't actually wanted to be right. To be here and know that Raven would rather be anywhere else - with anyone else. It was more painful than endless bites of arctic wind. "Although...only about some of that." Raven murmured, rubbing her shoulder. And then, she frowned. "But mostly, that - you don't know me."

"What...?"

"You don't know me." Raven said again. "Not aside from the fact you think I would make baseless judgments. And about someone I don't know... Or at least someone I don't really know..." She shook her head. "You and I... we've never spent any real time together, certainly not like this." She gestured to the snow covered windows.

That sounded like a challenge.

"You think...I don't know you?" Damian cocked his head, his green eyes boring into her. "So, let me. We've got time." The husky undertone his voice took up was involuntary. "We'll see if you're right..."

Raven's eyes darted between the muscular mass of man and the door, apparently not anticipating that turn. "Damian, I...don't know if that's a good idea right now."

"Why not?" Damian pressed. "We don't exactly have anywhere to be." His ire began to rise. "You've been acting like you don't want to be around me since we got here. And I want to know why."

Damian angled his body to her own, fixing her with a darkening glare of his own. And this time she broke the electric webs of their connection, seeking solace in the hardwood floor.

Raven huffed. "Fine." In a very low voice she spoke. "Sometimes... I'm emotionally stunted - too..." She crossed her arms. "It's not you." She sounded strained.

This was why?

"Oh..." Damian's lips started to quirk up in a half-smirk. But wait. "I thought you hated me."

"No..." Raven sank down onto the bed, her legs folded under her. "You make me nervous."

"I do?" He scoffed. Damian shook his head. "Well, you're the one who's intimidating..." He could see rose creep up her cheeks out of the corner of his eye. "You froze me out way worse than the weather out there by the way." She made him second guess everything. Like staying at the chalet was subpar and not up to her standards.

"Pfft." The purple orbs rounded the ceiling, as if it was child's play to practice that level of stoicism. "So says the man who just took over the board of Wayne Enterprise." Raven quipped. "It is a very nice chalet, by the way - a present from your daddy, perhaps?"

"Oh, I see." Damian began, crossing his arms and leaning closer. "You do know how to joke. I knew it."

"Go ahead." Raven flushed mid-glower. "Tell anyone you want, no one will believe it. Or that this conversation ever happened."

"I don't care about that, or what anyone thinks. I like this side of you... I always knew it was there." Damian said bluntly. "I actually wanted to give us some time alone on this trip, to get to know each other." No denials, no filter, Damian told her.

"You - did?"

"Yes." This time, Raven didn't flee and he sat down across from her. "But at a restaurant or a late night movie... At the top of the ski lift." Damian avoided her gaze. "I didn't mean for it to be in a blizzard..." His shoulders sagged and he trailed away. "But if something aligned in the universe to make this happen, I'm glad to be with you..."

Raven's eyes shone and she granted him a smile. It was the most stunning and sincere smile he had ever seen; Damian hadn't known her face could even move that way. "I suppose it could stand to be worse..." His hand playfully brushed the ends of the sash holding up her robe and Raven's cheeks burned brighter. She cleared her throat, as if suddenly realizing what was happening. They were sitting in her bed together and she was half dressed. Raven flew to her feet, and they both eyed the door. "This was great - you're great, but I should change... Really..."

"Don't..." Damian rose slowly, moving tentatively to her. "Not just yet." Suddenly, he was irrationally afraid that if she closed the door to change - she might change. Raven's walls would be replaced and this conversation forgotten.

He fingered the neck of her robe as she stared at him. "Damian, I..." Seconds after he closed his eyes, he felt two hands press hard into his chest. "Stop." Damian froze, feeling foolish. And somehow, this exceedingly was worse than before.

"Raven, I thought...you were done avoiding me..." Blinking jade orbs glanced around at the room. "What just...happened?" He asked. It was unclear whether he meant the change in lighting or her...

It certainly was peculiar. Evening was approaching, but it wasn't as dark a few moments ago.

Was it?

Raven answered his thoughts. "The lights." She flipped the light switch over and over. No feedback. No flicker or spark. Just darkness. She shook her head worriedly. "I think the power went out." Quickly, Raven turned on her phone's flashlight.

"Oh." Damian watched her search through drawers and closets for flashlights and batteries, or any emergency supplies. "Look, I'm sorry -"

Raven ran a hand through her hair. "Where do you keep your candles?" She asked, not bothering to bemoan the circumstances that were decidedly less than favorable. Her survival instincts had kicked in at full-force.

Damian slowly came back to his; he knew the place better than she did. He would take care of this and salvage things as best he could. "The matches and candles are in the kitchen. I'll get some supplies - flashlights and blankets. And then, I'll find you. For now... Wait here." He brushed her shoulder. And Damian disappeared with a glowing phone screen lighting up the hallway of a suddenly cavernous chalet.

Raven called after him. "Where would I go?"

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

Damian shuffled the split birch logs onto the fireplace and prodded them with iron tongs. After the fire was adequately tended, he shut the glass door and sat down to watch the flames. "It should start to heat up in here soon." He called over his shoulder to her. "You should join me in front of the fire." He patted the fur rug. "With the power off it's going to get cold in here fast."

"I'm not cold." Raven eyed the spot next to him with disdain.

"Raven, there's no way you're warm in that." Damian gestured to her robe.

"I feel fine - and I'm fine here." She crossed her legs on the couch.

Damian blinked in disbelief. There was a harrowing storm outside and she preferred to suffer in silence rather than be anywhere near him. "We can't be doing this again... Are we back to that?" He spat.

"Back to what?" Raven countered lackadaisically.

"You're avoiding me," Damian volleyed pointedly. "Aren't you?" His finger jabbing the air before falling to his side.

"I'm not avoiding you - we're in the same room." She glanced around at the living room.

Damian stared blankly at the glass encased fireplace before him. "And you couldn't be further away."

Unexpectedly, Raven rose to her feet. She marched over to him, with her chin high and her arms folded over her chest. The molten glare she wore rivaled the burning logs in the hearth.

She stood in the center of the candles she had placed around the room. And as she did, Damian tried not to think of how the glowing purple reflected the firelight, or the shapes and shading sliding, flickering their way across dewy skin.

The fireplace.

And Raven before the blaze.

The smoky smell of logs aflame was a drug of vetiver and earthiness of the deep forest. Even a thousand cold showers wouldn't quell Damian's head or cool his body; he would have to stand out in the storm for any chance to alleviate the burning in him.

"We're not doing this, Damian. You owe me an explanation, and not the other way around." She swallowed sharply. "What was that in my room? Before...what were you trying to do...?"

"You know what it was." His jaw hardened. "Don't act like you don't."

"I mean..." Raven hesitated. "Why would you want to do that...with me?"

"You don't know why...?" Damian frowned. He had told her everything, and she was giving him nothing. "Tch..." He clicked his tongue. "I don't know, Raven, why would I want to touch you - or spend time with you...?" He threw up his hands. "Why would I say those things or try to kiss you?" She blinked, turning away. "Of course, all that and still - I'm the last person you want to be stuck here with."

"Stop," she ordered. "Just, stop." Raven settled down next to him. She didn't speak for a moment, instead she licked her lips and parted them. Mulling over her thoughts to select her next words carefully. "Damian, you're not."

He shook his head, refusing to look at her. "Raven... Don't. Unless you mean it." Damian drew a palm down his face. "Just, don't." He couldn't bare much more of the back and forth - the cruel sport.

"You're not...the last person," she whispered. Raven placed a firm, comforting hand on his black turtleneck. And when his back went rigid, she crept over in front of him to replace that hand on his chest. This time it was not to push him away, but to caress him. "Hey... Damian." She jostled his shoulder, until he glanced up. "Look at me, please."

Raven was kneeling before him on the rug with her knees disappearing into the ivory fur. The robe was so loosely tied, he could see a satin strap. Then, it gave way to an edge of a lace cup. An unrestrained warmth rose up inside him. His pants tightened, the heavy viridian stare darkened around the sight. "You ought to fix that." His voice was raspy when he spoke at last. Damian crooked his head in warning. "Unless you want to...give me a little show..."

Raven held his gaze for an everlasting breath, before she reached down. "What would you do if...I did?" Pale fingers deftly tugged the sash, allowing it to fall open completely. The crackle of flames licking up logs faded away. The snowflakes fell in slow motion. Time stood frozen. Raven's robe was draping off her, fabric bunched up on her arms, exposing her in ways he had only dreamed of. "Isn't this what you want?"

Damian breathing became labored, his body tensed from the strain. It was as though prying his eyes away from her would cause physical pain.

All that coursed through him was a need to feel her against him. It was surging through his soul and possessing him. Suspending his thoughts and taking over every action. It was overpowering and all too much - just as it was not enough.

No more layers or barriers between.

It was exactly what he wanted.

"Yes... And you...?" He growled low under his tongue.

"Yes, Damian."

At last, his lungs became functional as he resumed a normal intake of air. The need to touch her would splinter him to the core.

"Tell me... how you feel - I need to know."

It was brief, but her body trembled. "I..." Her teeth caught her bottom lip. "Don't want to be here with anyone else. Or stuck with anyone else," she murmured in an echo of earlier. "Just you..." She was open. For him. "I need you..." Those words sent shivers down his spine to his shaft. The space between them had become too vast.

Damian longed to rise to the mountain summit with her, he wanted to be out there on the peak before they plummeted together into a pit of madness.

He couldn't take it.

By the way she was sweeping locks off her neck, Damian surely would weaken from exposure.

The column was bared, almost in beckoning. At last, Damian cursed in Arabic, taking hold of Raven, his hands gripped her shoulders, and pushed her body backwards onto the rug.

Lashings of hair splashed out to stain the pure white fur with purple.

It was more breathtaking and more stunning than the snowflakes descending from the sky. More flawless than the untouched landscape outside the windows, a winter wonderland crafted from brush strokes by the hand of Thomas Kinkade. The pure white of the snowfall beyond the chalet held no candle to Raven's miles of opalite.

Before him was the inconceivable, a fantasy of snow-colored skin framed by a mauve colored bra with lace scallop edges in plum. His pine eyes lingered on the bow in the center of her matching panties. A shudder wracked through him and it was the wild call of the raven. Damian desired nothing more than to answer her. To consume her with his heat, his mouth and his hands. Damian dragged his fingers to her collarbone and the tops of her breasts, splaying a hand across her hammering heartbeat.

Little more than thin scraps of satin stood between him and her skin.

All those layers.

He'd had enough of the layers and the walls.

No more.

Frenzied fingers ripped the robe clean away. But, there was still too much space and too much fabric between them. He needed her bare. A haze lifted from Damian and dark fingers dove for the hook to shed her of the balconette bra. Unbound, at last, her chest rose and fell like tides.

If there was anything on this Earth that he had ever found so captivating...

The cream color of her flesh blurred beautifully, bleeding into the rug. Save for pink lips, mouthing frenetic little nothings and her nipples, red and hard, it was almost difficult to tell where it ended and she began. His cock pained at the confinement. Pupils enlarging at the sight, he was voracious and evidently, she was breathless. He traced the spaces his hand had occupied with his mouth. His lips and tongue circled around her neck and chest in spirals. Over and over.

Damian ignored Raven's gasps and hisses, he teased her and nipped everywhere but at the stiff peaks. Pleading, liquid purple seared straight through him. By the needy grunt of his name, the tug of his hair - Raven needed him.

This is exactly how he wanted her.

Damian's hand smoothed down her shapely legs, drawing his eyes up and down her figure.

The firelight was casting on them a mesmerizing glow. The setting sun was starting up more shadows around the room to accompany all the flickering shapes from the candles in tiny glass jars. It was hypnotic. He had gotten his alone time with her. Despite nature's intervention, it couldn't have been more intimate if he had planned it himself.

Damian was unable to resist, threading his fingers through the silk of her hair. And at last, his teeth caught a nipple, rolling it between them. Raven moaned heatedly and amethyst eyes had become molten, her hips were turning. Each nip from his mouth and every brush of his fingers sent a rush of pleasure, a cacophony in a cyclone slipping across her skin and over her center. All the sensations were heightened by the luxurious fur lapped along every naked curve. Damian shifted their bodies onto their sides. Raven's leg started slinging up over him, coming to rest at his hip.

He rumbled low in his throat. Raven had curled her leg tight to bring him right up to her core. Their pelvises ground in circles, in fraught intimation of the act they frantically desired. They cradled each other close, while their bodies clamored to meet each other's heat. Raven's eyes squeezed shut, no doubt watching a motion picture, the whirlwind of her pleasure behind her eyelids.

Oh. This.

He had longed to claim her forge himself with her firelight.

Immerse himself in her hearth.

Lust was taking her over, Raven was grabbing his shirt with one hand with the other threaded through his belt loops, yanking hard. She wanted his pants off. But when he wouldn't yield, she wrapped another leg around his waist as though to tell him she wanted him on top of her.

His dark chuckle gave way to grunts. A frantic rocking of her hips sent him prickles of pleasure. The hardness brushing softness. Like a match striking his skin where he needed it most, Raven drove her barely covered core over Damian's length in his jeans.

"You like this..." She let out a little noise that was all the affirmation he needed. "Oh I know you do. You can't deny it any longer..."

Raven nibbled her lip. "Do you, Damian...? Just as sudden you know how I feel -" And Damian turned her chin back to him.

"You like being here with me -"

Defiantly, she seared him with his eyes. "I haven't anywhere else to be." They fluttered to close as he drew his lips to her sensitive neck to bring forth the shudders of her body vibrating its betrayal.

"You like...my hands all over you..." His hand flew to her breastbone. The midline of her chest, down her abdomen, it dove between their bodies in search of wet and warm. Damian's fingers ran over the front of her soaked panties. Up and down.

"Oh, Gods..."

Raven's body twisted and twitched, pulling at the sweater she held tight in her fist. "And you..."

"Damian, I -"

"You like me..."

They disappeared under the side of her underwear to dive straight for her hearth. And all was lost, to the sea of sensation, their minds had gone hazy, clouded over with pleasure from the frenzy of his fevered touch. Damian tried to steady his thoughts.

"Oh, you're soaked." Raven was reckless, moving wildly, she rocked her hips into his hand, while his thumb reached up, rounding the pink pearl. Over and over, dizzying, electric in ovals. Circling, until brilliant green, orange and red blurred in her eyes and she couldn't control her body or the noises escaping her.

"Fu-ck." She burst out. It was so uncharacteristic, a smirk started to slide straight onto his face. But, little mattered, because she was close. Very close. A well of pride began surging up and swelling in his chest at the pleasure Raven was receiving by his fingers, their push into glorious pink. "Mmm-"

Yes.

In a rush, he had caught her plump mouth against his own. Her body shuddered like she was on the verge and he too was shaking, on the brink of losing his body to the wilds. The wind had swept his sanity away from him ages ago. They were out in fierce zephyrs, a storm of their own creation, they never wanted to resurface from.

Not even to come up for air.

Raven and Damian grasped each other fiercely, desperate, nearing drunkenness in their mutual hunger to share heat.

He hissed when Raven gripped his back. His hair. His forearm. Indented skin under her iridescence. Delicious pale folds were lifting from the floor to meet his hand in time. Ascending - rising up to mountains and descending - dipping down into valleys. Raven cried out - her chest thrust out each time her hips bucked down.

Damian felt her core clenching his fingers and drenching them, shivering, savoring the sweetest release. He needed more than warmth or heat - he needed hers. Damian captured Raven's lips in another kiss, tongue seeking tongue, fierce, needy and wet. In the fervent exchange, he marveled at everything around him.

He and Raven were weaving themselves together into something he barely recognized, but he wanted it. All of it - the messy, the vulnerable, the raw...

Everything.

This was just the tip of the iceberg of what he wanted to do with her. To be with her.

"No, don't stop -" The sentence ended in a high pitched shriek.

Yes.

A full-fingered jerk of his hand sent her falling into him, her face buried straight into his shoulder, breathing heavily on his neck. A zenith on the horizon. Raven was right on precipice, begging for relief. Another curve upward, and at last. Her body's climax sent streams of syrupy sweet down his hand.

And with it visions. Oh, how her sacred water sent him visions.

They formed, crystalline behind his eyes like the surface of a snowflake at its microscopic core.

Before him was the opportunity to get to know Raven in the best way.

Wholly and completely.

To stay up all night talking and feeding each other imported macaroons as they lay in bed. This was only of course, after they were sufficiently sated from earlier activities and basking in the afterglow. Surely they needed to spend adequate time getting acquainted with each other in the sheets.

In the morning, they'd take an extended dip in the indoor pool and then, in one of the outdoor hot tubs. And there, he would finally pluck the knotted string of her drenched black bikini. When they overheated, their skin reddened from the hot water and steam, they would run out onto the mountain. And none but the wilderness would see the shapes engraved into the snow from where their love-making had dissolved the powder around their bodies.

Damian hoped the snow storm wouldn't die down for another day or two or three. Then, it would be him and Raven alone. Exploring each other. Tasting each other. Making love. Damian could pleasure her until she lost all control, screaming out to mountain tops, purple eyes alight with showering stars that sparked off into the night. And when the waves subsided, her black polished fingernails would retreat from where they had dug lasting impressions in his back.

One didn't have to leave the chalet to know they would be the most memorable souvenirs from the trip.

But if she wanted to see stars he hadn't created behind her eyelids. They could sit beneath them, out there on the deck, on the mountain. Here, away from the city lights in Gotham, they could find clarity in an unobscured night sky.

Raven would whisper the names of constellations and mythologies into Damian's ear, her low rasp, like sin and the filthiest dirty talk. Her arms would drape his neck, as she sat in his lap, nestled into him. In counter, Damian would whisper back tales of corvus, watching her stunned expression morph into delight. She would stroke his cheek and seal her mouth to his. And with every kiss, their breaths would mingle together as one.

Damian delved a finger into his mouth for a taste of Raven's sumptuous glaze. It was intoxicating, with the creamy flavor causing his eyes to close in pleasure.

At this, he could see them, in matching robes. With their hands, pink from the chill, they would clutch mugs of the darkest, drinking-chocolate, hand-cut marshmallows and dollops of thick whipped cream. And when, Raven licked her finger, the corner of her mouth would tug about as Damian fought off a knowing look.

They would have found themselves back where it all began - in front of the fireplace, and Raven in a robe. Such sentiment wouldn't be lost. And Damian would begin to press her back onto the rug, and reveal her bare body. He would spread her legs apart and start lifting her thighs right up to his face.

With the hot chocolate abandoned, Damian would drink her down until his craving for rich, decadence was properly sated. Those strokes of a silver-tongue, would embolden Raven's wantonness, while her body wracked with wave after wave of a maelstrom. Before finally, wrenching her fingers through his dark hair, screaming wild abandon to the mountain.

Damian's thoughts swirled, blowing, scattered snow, thinking of all they would be.

All they could be.

Everything and anything - possibilities seemed absolutely endless.

The chalet, this night, it was theirs to explore. Together.

Damian traced the bridge of Raven's collarbone, inhaling the spiced plum and lilac. He whispered lovingly in Arabic, pressing the seam of his lips along her chest, as they trailed downward.

Whatever the universe had wrought brought them to this. It wouldn't end - this was only the beginning of the storm and what was between them.

A flash of bright lights overhead was sudden.

The muffled sound of a generator and the heat began to pour in.

The power was back. The storm must have started to die down. Damian and Raven sprang apart. Purple eyes widened, as Raven stared at his body, completely covered while she lay half-naked. Fighting off a furious blush, her arms quickly surrounded her chest. Oh Gods. The lights were fixed, the storm was ending - the spell was officially broken. All that was left was for their friends to burst through that door for normalcy to resume.

And if they did, would she pretend this never happened?

Damian wasn't sure he could handle it. "Raven...?" He tried tentatively. She wasn't looking at him, her body in an instant had gone rigid and cold. It had little to do with temperature, it seemed to be a reflex where Damian was concerned.

She lifted her eyebrows to his confusion. "Well, this turned out all wrong, didn't it?"

He hadn't been sure what she would say next, but he wasn't expecting this. "We both... I thought we both wanted this." Damian let out a frustrated noise, not bothering to mask his hurt. No. Why would she bring him paradise, just to rip it away? "You can't believe that... It wasn't wrong."

It was beautiful and at the very least he wanted to maintain it that way in his memory.

"Yes, I do." He opened his mouth in protest, but quickly stopped. A pale hand snatched up the hem of his shirt, and began to raise it, revealing the set of deeply tanned abs. Raven cocked her head at his shocked face. "It is... if I'm the only one naked."

The only thing that could truly make him cold was if she disappeared from him.

"Raven..." Immediately, he lifted his sweater overhead and Raven smoothed the static from his hair. "Just... don't do that again." And Damian affixed his mouth straight to her own.

No more layers. No more distance.

Just him and her.

And the chill was but a faint memory.

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tamakeey · 4 years

Text

there are children present (pt. 2)

doctor! ushijima wakatoshi x doctor! reader

a/n: yeah, there’s probably gonna need to be a part three because I have a lot of ideas and it’s too much to put all into part two sorry :(( but lmk if you’re interested in part three :))

so it's been a little over a year since y/n has been working at the clinic

still as popular as ever with the children due to her caring and gentle nature

ushijima is still ushijima (the same tall, stoic face doctor that scares the children until they realize he’s nothing but a softie)

their feelings for each other: yeah they’re still growing bigger than atsumu’s ego (or at least cutting it close)

the two doctors: still as oblivious as ever, never noticing the subtle hints they throw at each other (it’s mainly y/n throwing the hints though, ushijima never catches them causing his red headed counterpart to slam his head against the wall

the nurse trio continue to pick on their assigned doctors for not making any big moves

and when their doctor refuse to reveal their feelings, what do they do?

of course they rant to one another about their struggles in bringing to two doctors, who were smart enough to graduate medical school and pass residency but cannot confess for the life of them, together

“I swear waiting for them to confess is like watching paint dry” -semi

“SEMI SEMI USHIJIMA REFUSES TO CONFESS AND I SWEAR IM GOING BALD FROM THE STRESS”-tendou

kawanishi truly believes that he may graduate with his nursing degree, pass his board exams, and get his license and a permanent position at the clinic before they can even mutter the words “I like you” to one another

their feelings are so obvious the receptionists, reon and yamagata has caught on and take every second they see two walk into work together to make comments on how cute of a couple they would be

it flusters y/n but ushijima keeps his stoic face and replies with “we’re just friends” (even though he’s blushing internally)

moral of the story is, their feelings are painfully obvious to everyone except the two doctors

so it’s another typical day in the pediatrics center

y/n typing away at her cubicle while semi and kawanishi complains about her lack of courage

“just confess to him please, it’s getting painful for all of us” kawanishi says bluntly while hitting his head against the cubicle wall, already knowing what the doctor was going to say

“no, he doesn’t like me that way, I don't know why you all keep insisting that he does” y/n replies with a semi mouthing the exact words she says after hearing everyday for the past six months

“do you not hear tendou screaming in distress everyday and screeching about how ushijima is as dumb as a brick” kawanishi asks

“I thought he was inferring to ushijima’s lack of social awareness, which is adorable but also very dangerous in this field” y/n replies

“how are you a doctor but you’re so dumb?” semi asks rhetorically

“do you tune out the half where tendou is complaining ushijima’s love life and how he has the chance for it but isn’t taking it. he even shouts your name in there most of the time, what’s not clicking?” kawanishi rants

“look I'm too nervous to make the first move with ushijima and I cannot read his emotional 100% of the time, so confessing is out of the question. now there’s a patient coming in five minutes and you two have to do your typical nurse routine before I go in so hop to it” y/n spews out

typical nurse routine in case it was unclear: take height and weight, check patients blood pressure and ears, and record their temperature and reason for being in the office and such

semi and kawanishi grumble as they sanitize their hands and walk out of the office area

y/n takes a deep breath and slouches down in her chair as she begins to think of the conversation she just had with her troublesome nurses

after a few minutes of contemplating their words, the two nurses return with the file report of the patient, signaling the female doctor’s need in the examination room

as y/n makes her way to the examination room, she runs into ushijima who came rushing into the pediatrics center

“what has you rushing?” y/n asks an exasperated ushijima

“I was almost late since I was coaching shirabu today but it went a little more overtime than how I originally planned the session. also, we spent a good time waiting for his friend to show up only to find out they had to take a raincheck because the kid has a doctor’s appointment today” ushijima replied

“oh I see, well I need to get to a patient right now but I'll catch up with you after” y/n says

ushijima gives her a nod and a pat on the head before rushing to the office to hopefully clock in on time

as y/n knocks on the door, she opens it to find a little boy with a bowl cut sitting on the examination table fiddling with his fingers

if bowl cut did not give it away, it’s our favorite rock lee look alike and if that didn’t help any it’s goshiki :)

the toddler look up upon hearing the door open up and begins visibly shaking because doctor visits are scary

“hello goshiki, my name is dr. y/l/n and I heard you’re not feeling the greatest today, wanna tell me what’s wrong” y/n asked the boy gently, crouching to his height

goshiki hesitates on answer and sits silently while mumbling too quietly for y/n to hear

“I'm sorry sweetie, I couldn’t hear you? could you speak up, I promise I won't hurt you. I’m here to help you feel healthy and strong again!” y/n explains, trying to get the poor frightened boy to open up

“my friend and I were playing volleyball the other day and when he served the ball, it hit my head really hard and everything went black” goshiki says

“I'm just worried if it he may have a concussion so I took him in” goshiki’s mother continues causing the doctor to nod and examine goshiki’s head

I see, so we are going to have to run a couple cognitive tests but from the looks of it, I think it may just be a bruise” y/n asserts causing the poor boy to shake at the word tests

“don’t worry, we do not need to do any shots or blood test. it’s just little memory things, unless you want an MRI scan to be 100% sure. but from what I see, I don’t believe it is a concussion” y/n continues

goshiki looks at his mom silently begging her not to make him take the scary test to which she replies that an MRI would not be necessary to goshiki’s relief

“well then goshiki, you ready to play some brain games. do your best!” y/n encourages the boy causing him to get fired up

because she had him at games

‘OKAY!” goshiki exclaims bouncing on the examination table

y/n begins to grab cards with little picture on them and handed them to goshiki to begin memorizing

she would test him after giving him 5 minutes to study the cards

little did she know, tendou decided that April fools would come early this year and decided to put a picture of ushijima within the cards

just for shits and giggles you know

tendou’s line of thinking you ask why not fluster y/n while she's caring for a patient, that would be hilarious

after five minutes of goshiki studying the cards, he hands them back to y/n

“okay goshiki, can you name at least five of the cards out of the ten that I gave you?” y/n asks, still unaware of the picture of the giant doctor

“blanket, bed, apple, chair, and penguin” goshiki recites

y/n looks at the first five cards to see goshiki had named them in order

“perfect, do you think you can do all ten?” y/n encourages

goshiki nods excitedly and continues

“bear, flower, water, ball, and ushijima” goshiki says, eyes sparkling at the last word

y/n visibly jumps, her cheeks turning red

“wait a minute, dr. ushijima is not one of the card options” y/n questions

“yes he was, his picture was the tenth card I studied” goshiki says innocently

y/n begins vigorously going through the cards she handed goshiki only to see the little bowl cut boy was correct

the tenth card was in fact a photo of the tall, stoic doctor

goddammit tendou y/n thinks in her head, knowing it was for sure his doing

“I'm impressed that you got all ten but how did you know that was dr. ushijima?” y/n asks curiously

need I remind you, y/n’s face is as red as tendou’s hair

“he's my favorite volleyball player in the whole entire world, I wanna be an ace just like him. I was going to play volleyball with him today but mommy said I have to go to the doctors” goshiki explains, his face visibly deflating when mentioning his missed opportunity

“I see, goshiki do you mind waiting in here for like 5 minutes for me. I need to print your papers to take home but my printer isn’t working in here?” y/n asks politely while goshiki nods

y/n takes her leave and makes her way to the office room where she sees ushijima looking at paperwork, sitting in his cubicle

“ushijima-san, can I borrow you for a few minutes?” y/n pops her head in his cubicle and politely asks him

ushijima nods while throwing his paperwork on his desk

“it’s a small world I swear. my current patient was the child you were supposed to coach today. he apparently is a huge fan of you and was super sad that he missed an opportunity to meet his idol” y/n explains

ushijima catching where y/n was going with his nodded and opened the office door for y/n, signaling her to lead the way to the patient’s room

“you don’t have a patient coming in soon do you?” y/n asks, concerned that she’s putting him off schedule

“I don't have a patient coming in for another hour, so it’s fine” ushijima replies

soon they make it in front of the examination room

of course the three troublemaking nurses are staring at them behind a wall thinking what’s going on for them to be going into a room together

I tried finding a reference picture but scary pictures popped up and now I'm scared but basically it’s like one head on top of another, if you can find it lmk I think I'm searching up the wrong thing

y/n knocks on the door to goshiki’s room and then walks in with ushijima following behind her, but he’s hidden by the curtain

“hi goshiki, there’s someone I would like you to meet” y/n says which ushijima took as a cue to come out from behind the curtain

when I tell you goshiki squealed, he screamed so loud, washijou could hear it from his office which was on the opposite side of the pediatrics center

receptionists yamagata and reon can hear him from their little windows

everyone in the waiting area heard it loud and clear, concerned for the child who they believed were screaming bloody murder

anyways after goshiki had his internal fanboy moment, he climbed off the examination table and ran up to ushijima, hugging his legs

“OMG ITS USHIJIMA, HE’S REALLY HERE. I LUB YOU” goshiki screaming, jumping up and down while holding onto ushijima’s khaki colored slacks

“pleasure to meet you goshiki, I heard you also love playing volleyball” ushijima answered

“YES I LOVE VOLLEYBALL, I HOPE TO BE AN ACE JUST LIKE YOU” goshiki exclaims waving his little arms all over the place

ushijima chuckles and y/n swears she’s never heard anything more melodic in her life

“I’m glad I inspire you to be a better volleyball player. I hope you will be able to make it to shirabu’s next volleyball lesson, I look forward to working with you” ushijima replies

“YES SIR” goshiki said bowing repeatedly

ushijima approaches goshiki’s mother to begin working out a schedule fit for goshiki

all while y/n continues to stare at his face with a fond look

suddenly, she feels a tug on her scrub bottoms and looks down to find goshiki looking up at her with a questioning look on his face

“Dr. y/l/n, do you love ushijima-kun?” goshiki asked innocently while tilting his head to the side

this caused the female doctor to turn a bright shade of red and attempt to deny it to the best of her capabilities

waving hands

repeatedly saying no

what you think of, she probably tried it to convince baby goshiki that she had no feelings for the volleyball-playing doctor

“why are you so red dr. y/ln?” goshiki asks causing ushijima to turn around and look at her worriedly

he begins walking over to y/n and places his hand on her forehead to check for her temperature

“are you alright? are you sick perhaps? maybe you should take the rest of the day off and rest” ushijima speaks to the poor doctor who turns even redder by the minute

“no no I am perfectly fine, it’s just that I’m overheating in my white coat, nothing else” y/n responds waving her hands in fast motion

ushijima chose not to question it but goshiki could tell she was lying

I mean who gets hot in a hospital, when it’s the middle of winter

“c’mon goshiki, we have to go. we don’t want to miss your playdate with shirabu now do we?” goshiki’s mother breaks the tense air

hearing his best friend’s name, he shook out of his thoughts and nodded quickly

“dr. ushijima, is it too much to ask for your autograph?” goshiki asks

ushijima turns to the kid and nods as if saying “I don’t mind”

ushijima takes a piece of paper out of the functioning printer and grabs a pen from the cup placed near the computer

he signs the paper, writing a little note for the baby mushroom boy

he hands it to goshiki and as he reads it, he squeals

to my number 1 fan, thank you for your support :)

goshiki grabs his mother’s hand leaving the examination room, waving to the two doctors

not missing ushijima staring at y/n’s smile as she waves happily back to goshiki

“are you sure you’re feeling well y/l/n?” ushijima asks

“I am perfectly fine, thank you for checking up on me” y/n responds

they stare fondly at each other and begin leaning towards one another before a certain red head barges in to tell ushijima that his patient is here

“USHI YOUR 2:30 IS HERE, OH SHOOT! TAKE YOUR TIME :)” tendou screams causing the two to break apart

just a side but semi and kawanishi definitely watched the whole thing, banging their head against the wall while cursing at the stupid red head

before anyone comes for me I love tendou but they’re mad he cockblocked

“I should go see my patient” ushijima says curtly, bowing at the female doctor and making his way to the examination room his patient is currently waiting in

y/n is fanning herself while thinking about the moment she had with the handsome doctor while her two nurses are cursing out the red head

“YOU COULD’VE WAITED LIKE FIVE MINUTES, WE WERE SO CLOSE TO ENDING OUR MISERY” -kawanishi

“TENDOU YOU IDIOT I HATE YOU” -semi

I don't usually do POV changes but THIS IS NO LONGER TAKING PLACE AT THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE BUT IT’S GOSHIKI AND SHIRABU’S PLAYDATE

goshiki makes his way into shirabu’s house

he bows at shirabu’s mother before making his way to his best friend’s room

“SHIRABU, I MET USHIJIMA TODAY!!” goshiki screams

“asahi (god), can you please keep it down” shirabu responds

goshiki then explains what went down in the doctor’s office while shirabu listens intently, ears perking up at the mentions of goshiki’s female physician

“wait, what did your doctor look like” shirabu asks poking goshiki’s tummy with one of his taped fingers

goshiki goes on to explain her appearance and shirabu can suddenly picture her due to...

“oh my asahi, ushijima has her picture as his phone wallpaper and he’s always staring at it during our volleyball lessons” shirabu says to goshiki

“that’s funny because when he walked into the examination room, dr. y/l/n kept staring at him and always turned red whenever he was mentioned. do you think they’re like best friends?” goshiki asks

“no you idiot, they like each other” shirabu says, hitting his forehead at his best friend’s stupidity

“but dr. y/l/n said she doesn’t like him like that” goshiki responds

“but why would she tell her secrets, especially to some kid she just met goshiki” shirabu says, internally questioning his friendship with his fellow bowl cut mate

after arguing about it back and forth, shirabu ended their verbal dispute by throwing a volleyball nearby and effectively hitting goshiki in the forehead

pls stop the goshiki abuse, just praise the poor boy :((

“okay, forget about this arguing. but goshiki I think you know what we have to do” shirabu said smiling deviously, gears turning in his small mind

thus the children begin plotting operation: you should have come to volleyball lessons

a/n 2: hello!! ik it’s been awhile but I’m currently having to deal with getting ready for college so there’s a lot of meetings, stress, and getting all my paper work in. the updates will be kind of slow because I want to make sure all the updates are decent in length but also has a good story line and written well (it’s probably still pretty bad but I'm trying my best) but thank you for your continuous support and I hope you're enjoying the series so far :)) <33

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #ushijima x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #ushijima imagine #hq x reader #hq imagines #hq scenarios

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sarahwyland · 4 years

Note

hey! this isn't a specific prompt per se, but i was wondering if you could write something based on Nick attending Baxter High. Like something post part4 with a completely different outcome (ofc). I just really like the idea of the new transfer kid being Sabrina's boyfriend. Thanks!! ❤️

I 100% need to be writing “a story in 140 characters that you can shoot and produce in pandemic times” for grad school, but I had this idea while I was cleaning my kitchen and here we are. <3

“I’m drawing Roz a comic,” Harvey said. “The last scene will be me asking her.”

“That’s brilliant,” Theo approved. “I’m trying to write Robin a song. Cheesy, but he’ll love it.”

“What about you, Scratch?”

Nick looked up from the book he was reading. Both Harvey and Theo were looking at him expectantly.

“What about me?” he questioned.

“You got sucked into a book again, didn’t you?” Theo stated. “This is lunch, Scratch. It’s your chance to escape from classes and schoolwork, not pick up a book for fun.”

“That looks more like a brick than a book,” Harvey added.

“It’s War and Peace,” Nick said. He wasn’t a big fan of lunch periods. Sabrina had a different lunch and he found the whole thing rather obnoxious. Lunches at school were their thing. Instead, he got to sit with Harvey, who actually wasn’t all that terrible, and Theo, who was pretty damned cool. “It’s pretty good.”

“Captain of the wrestling team and he’s reading War and Peace during lunch,” Theo said to Harvey. “For fun.”

“We’re talking about prom,” Harvey said. “How are you asking Sabrina?”

“I have to ask her?” Nick questioned. “She’s my girlfriend. Doesn’t that make her my built-in date?”

“She’ll be expecting a promposal,” Theo told him. “All the others will be getting them and she’ll want one, too.”

“I’m sorry, a promposal?” Nick repeated. “What in the Heaven is that?”

“It’s what it sounds like,” Harvey answered. “A proposal to go to prom.”

“That’s stupid,” Nick stated.

“It is,” Harvey agreed. “And Sabrina will expect one. Roz, too.”

“I’m doing one for Robin too,” Theo added.

“And what do people do for these promposals?” Nick asked. “Pass a note in class and say ‘check yes or no?’” He would just send her a note on her hand if that was the case. They tried to refrain from using magic during Baxter High hours, but magic markers were easy to hide.

“Cheesy stuff,” Theo explained. “Last year, this girl’s boyfriend put those chocolate kisses all around her locker and left her a note that said ‘now that I’ve kissed the ground you walk on, will you go to prom with me?’”

“I’m not doing that,” Nick stated.

“We wouldn’t let you,” Harvey assured him.

“You could send her a cheese pizza, have them write, ‘I know this is cheesy, but will you go to prom with me?’ on the inside of the box...”

“Theo?” Harvey said. “Stop talking.” Theo shrugged good-naturedly. Harvey gave his attention to Nick. “People do things like stand outside of windows with signs or decorate their date’s car. I’m making a comic book for Roz, Theo is writing Robin a song. Just come up with something that’s uniquely you and Sabrina.”

The bell rang to indicate the end of lunch. Nick stood like the rest of his classmates, but his mind was on this whole concept of a ‘promposal.’ He thought it was utterly stupid. Sabrina was his girlfriend. They had literally been to both Heaven and Hell together. Did he really have to do something as ridiculous as putting candy around her locker and coming up with a terrible pun to ask her to go to prom with him?

He met Sabrina at her locker.

“Hey you,” she greeted as she swapped out her books for her next class. Nick leaned against the locker next to hers.

“Mortals are stupid,” he declared. She raised an eyebrow.

“What have the mortals done now?” she asked. It was a great source of amusement to her, watching Nick attempt to navigate the mortal world as a normal teenager. She knew there were some days when it was a sheer miracle he hadn’t cursed all of Baxter High - minus her - by day’s end.

“They use so many puns,” Nick stated. “So many terrible, unnecessary puns.”

“And where did this come from?” she asked. She closed the locker and allowed Nick to take her hand. This was their routine. They met at one of their lockers between classes, walked to class if they had it together, to an appropriate parting place if they didn’t. It was one of Sabrina’s favorite things about having Nick at Baxter High.

“Just something Harvey and Theo said at lunch,” he shook his head. A flyer for prom caught his eye. “We going to that?” he asked, nodding at it as they passed.

“I’d like to,” Sabrina hinted. “If someone asks me...”

Nick huffed to himself. He was going to have to come up with one of these dumb promposals.

“Someone will ask you,” he assured her. He lifted her hand to his lips outside of their classroom. “Time to pretend the mortals have history right.”

Sabrina laughed and followed Nick into the classroom. She enjoyed learning both the mortal and magical versions of history. Nick had a hard time not correcting the teacher.

Nick barely listened that day, however. He tried and failed to come up with a way to ask Sabrina to prom. If Harvey was creating a comic and Theo writing a song, he had to do something equally as big, something that Sabrina would love. She deserved that from him, after everything they had been through.

Except, several days later, he had nothing and the promposals had started at school with poorly made signs and ever worsening puns. In a moment of desperation, he found himself in the Spellman kitchen.

“Hi love,” Hilda greeted. “Sabrina’s out with Roz, but she should be home soon...”

“I actually stopped by because Sabrina isn’t here,” he admitted. “I need some help...”

“What can I do for you?” Hilda asked as she worked on that evening’s dinner. She and Cee had moved back in during those few days in which they thought Sabrina was gone from this world and never left after she returned to their plane. “I’m making that chicken casserole you like, by the way.”

“Excellent,” Nick smiled. He himself had all but moved in. “Do you know anything about these ‘promposals’ mortals do?”

“Isn’t that what they call asking another to prom?” Hilda asked.

“Yes, and I need to come up with a way to ask Sabrina.”

A howl of laughter sounded from behind him.

“Dammit,” he cursed. He turned to face Ambrose who was beaming from the doorway. “Of course you showed up right now.”

“I do love watching you play mortal, Scratch,” Ambrose said with barely contained glee. “Tell us more about your dilemma.”

“You know what? Never mind. I’ll figure it out...”

He tried to leave, but Hilda clucked her tongue to stop him.

“Ambrose, leave the boy alone,” Hilda said. “How can we help you, Nicholas?”

“I need an idea,” Nick said. “Literally any idea...”

“Have a seat,” Hilda waved at the kitchen table. “We’ll see what we can come up with.”

“Yes, Nicholas, let us help...” Ambrose made to sit down.

“Out,” Hilda directed him. “You won’t be helpful.”

“And miss Nicholas wrestle with a stupid mortal tradition? Absolutely not.” He took a seat and folded his hands. “Now, Nicholas, here’s what you do. She loves blueberry pancakes, no?”

“They’re her favorite,” Nick nodded.

“Have Hilda make up a batch,” he continued.

“I could do that,” Hilda nodded her agreement.

“Just make sure you make enough for the rest of us,” Ambrose advised her. “Anyway, present her with the pancakes and a note that says ‘I love you berry much. Go to prom with me?’ She’ll love it!”

“Ambrose!” Hilda chided. “That’s a terrible idea!”

Nick dropped his head to his hands.

***

In the end, Nick came up with the idea all on his own, despite Hilda’s best efforts and Ambrose’s merciless teasing.

“Come on, Scratch,” Sabrina tugged at his hand. “I want popcorn and candy before the previews.”

“I’ll never understand your love of previews,” he commented. “But before you blow inside in all your glory, perhaps you may want to pause here on the sidewalk and read the marquee?”

Sabrina gave the Paramount’s marquee a precursory glance, expecting to see a listing of the night’s movies.

Except...

It said something else.

She stopped in her tracks and read it again.

Go to prom with me, Spellman?

She turned to Nick.

“Well?” he asked.

She was glowing.

“Nick...” She threw her arms around and kissed him soundly. “Of course!”

He chuckled against her lips and kissed her again.

“So I did it right?” he asked. “This whole promposal thing?”

“You did it perfect,” she assured him, arms still looped around his neck. A thought occurred to her. “Is this why you called mortals stupid last week?”

“It’s also why I’ve been a little distracted lately,” he admitted. “I thought the fact that you’re my girlfriend meant I had a built in prom date, then Kinkle and Theo started talking...”

“Technically, you do,” she told him. She pecked his lips. “Thank you for going along with this whole mortal promposal thing anyway though.”

“Anything for you,” he said. “I love you, Spellman.”

“I love you, Scratch.” She pecked his lips one more time. “Now let’s go get some candy.”

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