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huramuna · 6 months

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wine red, tears gold - chapter 5.

king aegon II x baratheon ofc

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dropping this early cus its my b-day and this is how i celebrated: writing this. so sorry in advance! there is about a 5ish month timeskip in this chapter, so keep that in mind.

word count: 2.2k

please follow & turn on notifs for @huramuna-fics for my fic postings

content: smut, canon typical misogyny, canon typical violence, angst, fluff, arranged marriage, touch-staved aegon, aegon isn't a r*pist in this au but he is still a bad person and has his vices, ofc and aegon need to go to therapy together, justice for jaehaera, awkward sex, kind of a slow burn, infidelity, child loss, vomiting

blue - marina & the diamonds • gold - marina and the diamonds

warnings: rough sex w/ biting, hairpulling (non descript), miscarriage / loss of a child, vomiting, suicidal ideation

Warmth. She had been so snugly pressed to Aegon, her body riddled in hickies and bites, just reveling in his warmth. He smelled so nice, too— mayhaps it was just her cloudy, lust-dumb mind, but she felt so… at peace. As if this was where she was meant to be for once. Lyanna, for the first time, didn’t doubt that maybe Aegon did want her, in some proximity or fashion.

But then it was cold. She was asleep when he left, but her body noticed the change right away. Curling into herself autonomously, she clutched a pillow in the empty space where her husband had left.

She deluded herself into thinking that this was some sort of turning point, right? He hadn’t gone out to the Silk Street since their first encounter upon her wardrobe seat, had he? Then with their multiple, raucous sessions the night before—

When she awoke, he was gone. Lyanna tried to convince herself that he rose early. A quick query to one of the keep’s servants quickly brought the truth to fruition; Aegon had left the Keep late at night, towards his places of habit.

Oh.

There was a sting of hurt in the pit of her belly— but surely, he could’ve been going to other places. There are many more night activities in King’s Landing than just whoring, right?

She found her answer later in the day as she was returning to her solar from a luncheon with some courtiers. Aegon was passing her in the corridor— his eyes were red rimmed, hair a mess. He didn’t smell pleasant like the night before, but of cheap booze and even cheaper, strong scented perfumes. He didn’t even go to the effort to hide the prominent bite marks upon his neck.

Lyanna hadn’t bitten him the night before.

As they passed in the hall, their eyes connected. Lyanna had gone her entire day giving him the benefit of the doubt, as she imagined that people were too quick to write off Aegon, too quick to judge. The passion and fervor of him the previous night— surely it wasn’t faked? He… he seemed quite impassioned about it all, just as she— she didn’t misremember the look of warmth in his eyes, unless she was blinded at the time with sheer joy, her brain shutting out the things that might’ve seemed wrong.

The look of pure shame and self-loathing in Aegon’s eyes told her everything she needed to know.

They didn’t say anything to each other and Lyanna nor Aegon stopped their walk, merely slowed down their gaits to observe. The entire moment felt surreal for the Queen as she took in every minute detail, every piece of evidence from his night out.

Aegon, in turn, zeroed in on her eyes. The darkest of browns, almost black in their hue— it was so easy to get lost in them, like two huge pools of thick, voided ichor. But they weren’t so all encompassingly dark now, as there was a sheen of wetness upon them like a film. Tears rimmed her lash line, threatening to spill over.

The times that Aegon has made her cry was certainly outweighing the times he’s made her laugh.

How very typical of him. Just another thing to add to the list of fuck ups in his life, he thought. He couldn’t even bring himself to apologize. He just kept up his pace, even quickening it.

Off to ruminate in his agony of his own creation.

—

Lyanna was stuck in her melancholies— feeling sickly all the while. And still, something within her, brought to life by their one night of passion, wanted Aegon’s attention. She craved it, no less, like a warrior craves the swing of a blade or a whore craves the tinkling of coin.

So for the next few moons, she scratched the itch within her, bringing Aegon to her bed by any means necessary. More times than not, it was by igniting his blood with jealousy. Other times, it was by intercepting his nightly traipsing and having him come back to her chambers with a few well placed, and vulgar, words.

What had started as gentle, soft moments between them spiraled into borderline violent grappling, hair pulling and biting from both sides. Aegon would call her horrible names, enunciating each syllable with a smack to her bottom. Lyanna would bite, scratch and mark every part of him, as a way to tell whatever whores he still entertained himself with to back off. She felt like an animal, pronouncing her territory to other predators.

She knows it isnt healthy for either of them, bordering on self-destructive, but its best to be empty and fucked than empty and alone, right?

One eve, after they had a particularly tumultuous session. Lyanna’s dress was shredded on the ground, along with her small clothes. Her hair was a mess, strewn at angles unnatural from where Aegon had pulled at it by the fistfuls, skin marred. Aegon, on the other hand, was bleeding from his shoulder lightly where he had insisted that Lyanna bite him with all of the force she could muster. She was still hesitant to outright hurt him, even at his request— but she wished to please him.

Lyanna, nude as the day she was born, crawled into bed— she had pushed him off before he started bleeding onto the sheets— and settled under her heavy blanket. She watched as Aegon, nude in turn, muttered to himself and dabbed at his shoulder with a piece of her shredded clothing. Something inside of her felt hollow, looking upon the scene, the massacre they had made of themselves, of their marriage. It made her want to vomit.

Feeling bile rise in her throat, she streaked from the covers to an empty chamberpot, throwing up the contents of her stomach. It hurt, her whole body convulsing as the very essence of her was ripped from her in an acidic, foul tasting mess. Tears fell down her cheeks from her exertions— and her emotional turmoil.

Aegon, all the while, was unphased. He peered at her momentarily before uncorking a new bottle of wine and proceeding to take a healthy swig from it. “Are you quite done?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“… I… think so,” she murmured in return, wiping away the snot, tears and saliva from her face. Her body instantly ached, aided by Aegon’s heavy hand upon her bottom just twenty minutes before. “I need… water.”

“No water. We only have wine— unless you’d like to have a maid come to tend to you? I’m sure she would appreciate the mess you’ve made here.”

“The mess I’ve made?” she coughed, her eyes widened with disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re the one who begged me to fuck you instead of going to the whorehouse, wasn’t it?” he bit back, his voice laced with a venom.

“You make me feel like a whore— no, less than a whore. You would fuck a whore without being spurred.” Lyanna squabbled back, her stomach doing flips again. She sank to the floor against one of the walls, her back creaking down against it. Holding the chamberpot against her, she stared up at Aegon. “What… What is so wrong with me, Aegon? What is so wrong with me that I have to beg you to fuck me? Why… why?” she was murmuring frantically now, shaking her head. “Am I that ugly?”

The king turned to her, tugging on a silken robe that he had left there the night before. “You… just aren’t my type, Lyanna.” he whispered in return, looking down into the now half empty wine bottle. “No amount of jealousy, nor filthy things you say to me will change it. I don’t find you attractive, nor do you pull at my heartstrings in any particular way,” he paused, swirling the bottle. His brow creased, as if it pained him to continue to speak. “I’m merely fulfilling my duty.”

Duty. Duty. Those words stung, sending a wave of pure pain and shame through Lyanna, as if a dozen bees were making their home within her bones. They vibrated against the marrow, calling more bile from her stomach into the chamberpot. Gods, it fucking hurt. She knew what they were doing wasn’t healthy, but it had started somewhere soft, didn’t it? That was all… duty to him.

She felt increasingly faint, feeling too much all at once. Her breaths were thready, not coming out right and she couldn’t see through the mist of tears blinding her. Somehow, she was able to speak. “So… when you go to the Silk Street…” she sobbed, “What type of woman do you fuck? What is it that I am not?” her voice was tinged with a concoction of despair and poison, her now bloodshot eyes half-lidded.

Aegon was silent for a while— Lyanna had almost thought that he left— before he let out a sigh, downing the last of the wine. He hissed as the alcohol burned his throat, as if feeling some semblance of the bile that had scalded his wife’s throat in turn. “What type of women?” he echoed, chuckling lowly. “Any woman that isn’t you, Lyanna. It doesn’t matter, they don’t have to beg me, unlike you,” he had a wicked smile on his face and he didn’t look like himself— no, he looked like a caricature, violet eyes wide and wild. “How would the court react if they knew? If they knew that their lovely rabbit queen had to beg her husband, a known whoremonger, for sex? It would have to be the most hilarious thing they’d ever heard, mayhaps I’ll tell it to my next woman at the brothel.”

She felt numb. A prickling numbness spread through her extremities as she stared down into the bucket of her spew.

It was pathetic, wasn’t it?

She wasn’t exactly sure how long she’d been sitting there for, staring. It felt like she wasn’t really in her own body, as if her life had spiraled into some dark dream.

It must’ve been hours, as when she snapped from her fugue state— Aegon was gone. And she was sitting in a small pool of her own blood, leaking from between her legs.

—

The look of Lyanna’s face when he had said those terrible things— Aegon would likely never forget.

It was reminiscent of Helaena’s pale visage for weeks after Jahaerys was slain. Like a white, shrouded specter, flitting through the walls without any sense of purpose or drive. A ghost stuck inside their own body.

He laid on the pile of pillows in the brothel, some whore latched to his cock, and two more on either side of him. He was nursing his second bottle of wine of the night, the ladies urging him to drink more and more so that he could pass out and they’d go through his pockets.

Aegon’s addiction to the darker sides of life started as an outlet for pleasure. More wine made his stomach warm, made him jovial. More women than he could count had been on his cock, milking him for all he was worth. Gods, it felt good— to just be an epicenter of hedonism, an apex of debauchery and sin just for the pure thrill and act of it all.

Things changed, of course. After the war. The things that gave him pleasure before now felt like too much— to a point where it pained him. But he relished the pain in a way to where it became punishment.

Punishment for everything he’d done, everything he hadn’t done— when he drank, he saw their faces.

Helaena, Aemond, Daeron, Jaehaerys, Maelor, Rhaenyra, Daemon, Jaecerys, Lucerys, Joffrey, Rhaenys, Criston—

They stared at him blankly, as if expecting something from him, when he had nothing to give. He’s never had anything to give. He was stuck in a living hell— if not for Jaehaera and mayhaps his mother, he would’ve thrown himself from the ramparts like Helaena did. This was his punishment, for all their deaths.

He couldn’t allow himself to have anything good. And Lyanna… she was good. Good and pure and he was fucking tainting her, pulling her down to his level of disgusting, animalistic debauchery. He had to push her away somehow before it was too late, before she became soulless and as empty as him.

His head was foggy as he pushed the girls off of him. “Get off of me, fuckin’ whores,” he slurred, getting up with wobbly legs, hand planted flat on the wall. He heard a commotion slither through the brothel, until the door flew open.

‘Twas his grandsire and his loyal Kingsguard hound. Aegon narrowed his gaze. “The fuck do you want?” he spat, leaned against the wall with his softening cock in his hand— the whore had smeared her rouge lipstick all over it.

“By the Seven,” Otto muttered. “Where is your shame, boy?”

“It died with the rest of my family, grandsire. I suppose I have you to thank for it.”

“Me? I can’t— no. There are more pressing matters than your filthy self-loathing.”

“And what could be so pressing? I am quite busy, you know— I’m due for another whore in just five minutes.”

Otto’s brow furrowed, his face softened. The look on his grandsire’s face scared the hell out of him— he never looked so sorrowful, not since…

“Jaehaera? Mother? Are they alright?”

“Yes. They’re alright,” Otto paused. “Your wife. Lyanna. She’s… had a miscarriage. They aren’t sure if she will survive.”

“My… wife?”

“They say she was five moons along— the baby came out with wings and scales. ‘Twas a son,” Otto said, “Lyanna… said his name was Aeron. For Aemond and Daeron."

A son?

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon ii targaryen fanfic #aegon ii targaryen fanfiction #aegon ii targaryen smut #aegon ii targaryen angst #aegon ii targaryen fluff #aegon ii x reader #aegon ii #aemond targaryen #hotd #house of the dragon #my writing #wine red tears gold

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perpetualexistence · 5 months

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Sea Monster AU: "If you hate this so much, why is there a fire in your eyes?"

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Putting a song here about becoming/being a cannibal feels about right for a duo killing people and treating them like animals to the slaughter.

Originally I was just going to call this part 'The Routine', but then the idea for an Alejandro quote struck me and I had to change it. There is no scene in this part, but if there were this quote would certainly be there.

It ended up being harder to write than I originally thought. I couldn't figure out why until I realized I was trying to force a singular scene that would serve as a face-heel turn. When I decided to scrap it and go by death by a thousand paper cuts, suddenly writing everything else flowed a lot smoother.

Who knew that was how editing worked? You learn something new ever day when it's your first time writing something long-form.

But yeah, herein lies the beginning of Noah's descent into darkness! It also includes Noah's backstory in this AU. You'll probably notice it's got some inspiration from Slippery Slopes. What can I say? I'm not immune to an angsty Noah past. I do hope it's different enough!

Content warnings: Slight mention of eating people. And of course, Alejandro being manipulative. But again, to be the norm for this AU. Also! This relationship gets toxic and codependent at times, and this is one of those times. This part shows one of the foundations for that.

I will say though, the next part does get lighter!

Enjoy!

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The problem with Noah's suggestion is that he isn't a really good actor. Alejandro's smart enough to recognize this might be a problem before he tries to trick the first ship, and asks Noah to demonstrate how he'd try to convince someone that he's helpless. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

Alejandro decides he needs to teach him acting somewhat otherwise this plan is dead in the water. There's risks in teaching him how to lie, but if he's the teacher then he can learn Noah's tells so he'll still be able to read him.

The lessons are going as okay as they can be until Noah starts recognizing a few of these techniques as things that Alejandro did during the first few days of their meeting. He can't help but ask "Oh, like how you did with me?" because his mouth runs faster than his brain sometimes. This makes Alejandro feel A Certain Way about his past actions, but he tampers that down and insists that it was true with Noah.

They blitz their way through this tension by avoiding pursuing the discussion. Eventually Alejandro feels that Noah's ready enough, and so they begin in earnest.

Alejandro and Noah develop a pretty decent routine of Noah scouting out ships for Alejandro to either eat or spare. Noah has a walkie talkie/ear piece that he's connected to a radio that sits on the ship Alejandro uses to push him. That way he can subtly announce code for 'leave this one alive' or 'take no survivors'. Noah also makes sure to break any lines of communication that Alejandro wouldn't be able to take out in time. This includes scrambling sonar that would detect something as large as Alejandro getting too close. Once Noah gives the signal to begin, he makes sure that he's above deck. Alejandro fakes eating Noah first to cover their tracks in case any of the survivors realize that Noah showed up on the ship suspiciously before a giant eel showed up.

Alejandro originally intended on making a lot more ‘mistakes’ with innocents because he assumed that Noah was probably using the vigilantism as an excuse to not let Alejandro eat any humans. But Noah’s very aware that Alejandro probably would pull some bullshit like that, so he only sparingly requests for survivors if someone was nice enough to him. Yet Alejandro’s enjoying the vigilante side of eating people who deserve it much more than he’d anticipated since he really only agreed to it to make Noah happy. He doesn't know why exactly, but he takes more pleasure than normal when he's able to kill someone who was rude or cruel to Noah.

Meanwhile Noah's finding himself taking more and more pleasure in taking people down without realizing it. Noah finds himself on the receiving end of things such as being yelled at for being a stupid tourist by someone who's from out of town, to people trying to extort him for money to get back to land, he's starting to find it particularly hard to be as guilty as he was. This is partially due to him doomscrolling the worst things about humanity to help himself feel better about what he's doing. It's also partially due to the fact that for as messed up as it is, there's a part of him that enjoys the attention that Alejandro's giving him. Mind you, he hates being treated like a possession with no autonomy. But he does like being treated as someone precious who deserves the best. Plus he's not immune to Alejandro's charm and appearance. Made even worse by the fact that Alejandro being bigger means that he can see it in more detail.

An important thing in this AU, and the reason why Noah's slipping into a path of darkness, is that Noah in this AU starts off as Season 1 Noah. There's no Owen or Team E-scope to help him see the good in humanity. He's someone more passive in that he's easily influenced by those around him. And when that person is Alejandro? It doesn't do good things for one's moral compass.

It doesn't help that Alejandro's not only encouraging Noah viewing humanity as the worst, but he's rewarding it. Even though it's not part of their deal, Alejandro starts gifting Noah treasures from the ship after he wrecks them. He saves the prettiest for himself in an underwater cave where he keeps the spoils of his accomplishments. He just gives Noah the ones that are profitable for humans. Plus a few shinies. He wants his (precioso) hunting partner to look the part of someone successful. Noah's appearance is a reflection on both of them after all.

Noah knows this is a bribe to keep going. But he's also pretty desperate for money. His dad left when he was young and took most of his money with him, leaving his mom to raise nine kids all on her own. She and the eldest sibling took as many jobs as they could, but they still had to resort to a loan shark to stay afloat. The second and third eldest siblings became pseudo-parents to their younger siblings because the family certainly couldn't afford babysitters. Noah's mother hated resorting to this, but with little help from extended family there wasn't much choice if she wanted to keep the family together.

Noah actually ended up becoming a breadwinner in the family. Once upon a time little Noah had a poetry phase. He'd read it, and he loved to write it. He'd write out his feelings about the shitty family situation to cope. It was cathartic. Over time his love for writing it faded. Not out of anything negative. That poetry was there when he needed it most, but now it was just time for him to find something else. His interests in literature just changed. The thing was, one of his siblings found out about a writing competition with prize money and decided to submit one of his works without him knowing.

He won. It was a very decent chunk of money that helped the family that month. He knew the family needed it, so he started to throw himself into more writing competitions. He started to notice a pattern real quickly. His older, angstier poems were the ones that one prizes. The newer ones, his lighter ones, didn't. He only had a limited amount of the older poems he could submit before he'd have to make newer ones. But the family still needed money. So he forced himself into writing poetry (a medium he no longer cared for) about a time in his life he hated to discuss.

That combination created a gifted kid burnout who closed himself off to force himself into a state of misery that could be profited from. His mom and siblings would try to reach out to him because they could see that he was having a terrible time with this. But the bitterness he felt towards writing extended into bitterness towards his family for putting him into this situation. It's not fair. He knows it's fair. But emotions don't often go by what's fair.

By the time he met Alejandro, he no longer had to write. Most of his siblings had left the house, or had income of their own. They'd all chip in to help their mom with paying off the loan shark. Noah no longer has to be the breadwinner. But the damage was already done, and that bitterness had never been resolved. That bitterness made it hard to keep friends, because it seeped through even in places he didn't mean it to.

So when someone new enters his life that actually cares about him for himself? Who stays even when he's bitter? He'd be a fool not to do everything in his power to keep them. Even if it means he'll have to sacrifice others to do it. At least it isn't himself this time. And if he now has a means of taking power back from other people who have wronged him? He'll use it.

Alejandro doesn't know about any of this of course. Noah has told him a little, and that little is enough for Alejandro to make some assumptions. But not the whole story. As far as Alejandro knows or cares, all is going according to Alejandro's plan of molding Noah to be just as ruthless as he is so they can properly rule this lake together.

And then the power of friendship just had to come and throw a wrench into things.

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who-is-page · 2 years

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What's the spite convention for? eyes

Anon, I don't know if or how long you may have been following me for, but do you know how I got my start in alterhuman circles? How I ended up becoming at least somewhat known in communities, what inspired me to start writing and creating content in the alterhuman community, first on Tumblr, then on my own website and in my own publications?

Someone told me that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't "important" enough. That I could never hope to make an impact, that I could never hope to bring about change. And it lit a fire of inhuman fury in my heart that's never. Fucking. Gone. Out.

Watching Naia Okami look the OtherCon chair dead in the eye and sneer at him about his supposed lacking of any renowned, trying to frame it as something pitiful or making it self-serving that he continues to go out of his way to host this event, to use her words, "despite being a relatively unknown person in the community," makes me enraged beyond language could ever hope to convey.

How fucking dare someone try to imply that another individual and their work is worth less simply because of something as nebulous and finicky and impermanent as 'community fame.' What gives them the right? What sort of crown of authority do such snotmuzzles, with their myths on the importance of gilded fake internet points above all else, have?

I could be nice, and say that such language and perspective is because of a sole familiarity only with cookie-cutter content creations, pushed onto Naia and others due to how the modern Internet works with us artists desperately trying to appease the algorithm and similar. That, perhaps, given she is simply something closer to a television personality, it could be said she just lacks any understanding or experience of how much more important “heart” and “effort” is in any given piece than “fame”.

But I’m not going to be nice, because I don’t believe that to be the case. Because I’ve been at the end of that sneer before, if not Naia’s, then certainly others’. It’s never out of ignorance; it’s out of malice. It’s people trying to make themselves seem bigger by making everyone else seem smaller, trying to create their own little cliques with their ever-changing goal posts, trying to smear other’s achievements to hide their own failings and pitiful self-worth issues. It’s people kicking others down into the earth and standing on their back for a little extra height to try and proclaim themself a lord and all others peons. It’s people who don’t want a community: they want a narrative that they can control, that centers themself and others like them, whether that be in an exclusionary sense or merely in a greedy, spotlight sense.

It’s fucking immoral, it’s destructive, and it’s not behavior we, as a community, should ever condone or accept as okay. Maybe it’s the scholar in me, maybe it’s the psychopomp in me, maybe it’s something else, but I refuse to sit back and let someone try and demolish the hard work of a convention and disavow multiple convention chairs just because the people actually putting out the work for these amazing events aren’t also in these so-called “renowned” folks’ petty little groups, on their knees worshiping social status and popularity.

Fuck the groveling at the altar of upvotes, of likes, of views, of clicks. Fuck the idea that someone’s contributions to community spaces are based purely on how well they appease this nebulous god “Popularity.” It means nothing and I refuse to pretend that it means anything. This is my ode to that. This is me digging my claws into the ground and saying, no, fuck you, I was that person who was disregarded and insulted for being “new” and a so-called “unknown” and I will never stop supporting people who are accused and belittled of the same, but who still create and share their joy with others even despite that. I and others like me will outlast any pathetic exclusionary, spotlight-desperate attempts at a hierarchy of experience, in both the terminological sense and longevity sense, and this is my fuck you, go ahead and try to anyone who wants to think otherwise.

“Greymuzzle” isn’t a term that people get applied to them because they’ve shown up on television, or because they have oh-so-many TikTok followers. It’s a community term given based on what people actually do in the community, existing entirely outside of shit like having your own KnowYourMeme page; it’s a title that denotes respect and appreciation earned on your own merit, never something self-given and always community-bestowed. And people who sprout shit trying to advocate for some sort of nonsensical, holier-than-thou “You Must Have X Followers To Ride” bullshit system are no greymuzzles. Our community will never stop prioritizing what people make with their own two paws, and if I can help that in my own way by hosting a future event where anyone, especially, as Naia put it, “relatively unknown person[s]” can showcase the things they love to talk about, their art, their writings… then, by gods, it’s my fucking duty to.

#otherkin #therian #fictionkin #alterhuman #aok #kinshaming #long post #ALSO LITERALLY EVERYONE KNOWS WHO DINOCANID IS. NAIA. COME ON NOW.

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slytherinsnekxvii · 3 years

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let's talk about lily evans and the marauders, aka moony, wormtail, padfoot and prongs. given that i didn't use their actual names, i think you can figure out where this is going. it's also long as hell, so. canon vs fanon, marauder edition, except snek is sleep deprived.

now, before we begin, i don't dislike the marauders. or lily, tbh. if I'm being perfectly, genuinely honest, i still go back and forth sometimes but they've been growing on me for a while now. the canon versions, at least. fanon does them real dirty, and that's part of why i'm writing this, because i'm genuinely tired of it. it's an injustice.

you can at least make excuses for james and lily, who were so undeveloped that jkr practically dropped a fill-in-the-blank sheet of character information in our laps, but sirius, remus and peter were around long enough for y'all to get real acquainted with them.

in canon, sirius black is an unhinged mf. genuinely. this isn't to say he's a bad guy, in fact, we see that he's still capable of doing good things, still capable of love, still capable of all the things that prove he's actually not bad at heart, just,,, severely traumatised and very steeped in negativity from his time with the dementors. what i'm saying is that this man is absolutely, no questions asked, no holds barred demented, and how could he not be? the guy sat wrongfully imprisoned in azkaban for twelve years, a good portion of which he spent as a dog in order to protect himself from the dementors. he certainly wasn't completely insane, but you cannot tell me that he was all there. he got out of azkaban fuelled almost solely by the intent to get revenge on pettigrew, tried to commit murder in front of three witnesses who were also children—one of whom was his godson—ate rats and was also malnourished, which i'm certain did not help the situation any. this man is off his goddamn rocker, and you know what? you love to see it. good for him.

oh, but, snek, that's what he's like as an adult. what about when they were at school? before azkaban? my guy, the reaction he has to grimmauld place is not the reaction of someone without trauma. i don't believe that walburga and orion were the type to physically abuse their children, but whatever happened in that house helped to fuck him up enough that he skipped the joke of part of practical joke, and pranked snape by telling him how to meet a werewolf that he knew would be fully transformed and dangerous to humans. more than that, the werewolf was remus, whom he's friends with, and who—best case scenario—would be facing a trial if james hadn't stepped in. you can say that maybe he didn't think about or understand the gravitas of his actions, but at the end of it, that's not how properly sane people react to people they dislike, and that's not how they treat their friends. if anything, it reads like he was in the middle of a breakdown and absolutely losing his shit and he wasn't thinking at all.

my guy went through some serious shit, and was in no way completely mentally stable. we can see pretty clearly that he's got a serious dark side to him that probably would have gone unbridled had he not disagreed with his family, and yet, fanon took one look at him and went, "teehee, uwu bad boi go vroom."

fanon said padfoot is a pretty boy with nice hair who is tastefully traumatised from his horribly abusive household. sirius rides his motorcycle and plays jokes and flirts with anything that moves, but he can do no real wrong and always comes back to his soft, bookish, chocolate-loving boyfriend remus, who will laugh about his lycanthropy and quietly disapprove but secretly laugh at his friends' antics while hiding his smile in his cardigan.

respectfully, what in the absolute fuck.

i'd put that meme in here if i could, the one that's like, "well done, you've broken _______ down to its bare essentials," but no. i can't bc it doesn't even apply. this isn't a meme, it's theseus' fucking ship.

fanon broke it down, and replaced the pieces one by one until we got to this point, where we need to sit down and ask ourselves, "is this even the same character?"

the answer is no, by the way. it isn't. when people talk about woobifying characters—you know, taking away every flaw they have, romanticising everything they do and making them only capable of doing good, wonderful, lovely things?—this is what we mean.

and it'd be one thing if it was just the one character, but, no. fanon went all in and made them all squeaky clean and boring, especially peter, who draws the shortest of the straws.

remus got fucked, too. not just because fanon insists on sticking him into a relationship with sirius. which, we'll tackle wolfstar in a bit, but that's not even the worst of it. here, we have yet another example of blatant, rampant woobifying. again, is he a bad person? no. we know he's a good guy, we know he's generally kind and well-mannered, we know that he wants to fo the right thing but hey, fun fact. did you know that you can be nice and a coward? did you know that you can be benevolent and good and kindly and have the greatest of intentions and still be shady as fuck? no? ask dumbledore. the man played people like chess pieces when he needed to, and he was a twinkly grandpa. these are things that can coexist.

teenage remus is a coward who, understandably, does not stand up to his friends, likely for fear of being ostracised, and doesn't uphold his prefect duties as he should and takes part in their bullying of snape as a result. he lets them romp with him in werewolf form while they are in their animagus forms and then, he lets them continue to do so even after they have multiple close calls, which, again, had anything happened, would have resulted in a trial in the best case scenario.

grownup remus is still a coward, he tells no one that sirius can move about the school in his animagus form despite wholeheartedly believing that he's a mass murderer, he tries to run out on his wife and unborn kid. he isn't deliberately making attempts to harm anyone, but he's content to sit back and let things happen to him and around him so he doesn't rock the boat, although he is capable of action, which we see when he is more than willing to help sirius merk pettigrew in the shack. he can be careless, he runs out to the shack knowing he hasn't taken his wolfsbane and ends up transforming in front of the students he, as a teacher, is meant to be protecting. of course, this doesn't negate his good qualities, it just bears repeating that his flaws do exist, and they're pretty serious.

fanon moony is always pleasant and kind and soft-spoken and bookish, and he always has to have his chocolate. he knows when to tell off his friends, and he'll do it, even if he's secretly amused by everything they do and laughs about it with his best friend, lily evans, who coincidentally spends all her time with them so he and sirius can go on double dates with james and lily and no one has to remember peter exists.

why. theseus' ship 2.0. does the actual character still exist or is this something entirely different thing bearing the same name?

as for peter, who needs peter pettigrew, the actual, legitimate, fourth marauder when you have lily evans? canon pettigrew is opportunistic as fuck. he's latching himself to the biggest bad on the block and he's going all in. for teenage peter, that was james and sirius, and for adult peter, that's voldemort. canon peter is good enough at transfiguration to master the animagus transformation, just like his friends, and he's good enough at potions to brew the potion that gives voldemort a body. and honestly, you can't say he wasn't brave. he could've run off somewhere and died, or changed his identity or something after he faked his death and framed sirius, but, no. he goes and resurrects voldemort. that's fucked up, yeah, but it happened and honestly, i respect that it. he stuck to his guns.

fanon wormtail is lucky if he exists beyond being a spineless sycophant for james and sirius, or an evil conniving little rat who's looking to toss his entire friend group to the wolves at eleven.

of course, this isn't meant to negate his bad qualities, he still murdered people and framed sirius and sold out the potters to die, but his good characteristics do exist, and james, sirius and remus genuinely were his friends.

and now, we get to lily and james.

we have hardly any information on either of them. they're a pair of cardboard cutouts that we can paint and stick flyers to and colour outside the lines however we want. we can do whatever the fuck, as long lily is brave and smart and somewhat kind and james is brave and willing to die for his family. we were essentially handed a pair of ocs.

and yet.

what little bits of canon we have are thrown out of the window regardless.

james is privileged and rich, and he throws hexes for fun. he's willing to hex lily when she disagrees with him, and then, he goes behind her back to continue hexing snape after she believes that he's stopped doing so. and that's all we know about him until he dies for his family at twenty-one years old. once again, say it with me: this does not negate his good qualities. he definitely had them, he took sirius in when sirius ran away from home, he became an animagus to keep remus company as a wolf, and he saved snape in the shack, thereby saving remus and sirius by extension. him having flaws does not make him a bad person.

fanon prongs is a feminist. he fights for equal rights for women everywhere, and he constantly treats his girlfriend, lily, like an absolute queen. he's the hottest boy in school and everyone claps when he walks through the halls. mcgonagall and dumbledore are always patting him on the back and making jokes with him. he has a built-in dark detector that helps him sense when someone is a evil and needs to he punished.

give me a break. the dude's cool and all, but was the gary stu treatment necessary?

...oh, he needed to match fanon lily? right, right.

canon lily is a contradiction unto herself. she's supposedly a great friend, but since we see her at a point where they were already drifting apart, we see her putting little effort into keeping their friendship afloat. she victim blames based on rumours, she doesn't seem to care over much about what snape has to say about the people who have been tormenting him since day one. and she's justified, of course, she doesn't have to stick around. canon lily is a bit of hypocrite, she says that snape calls everyone of her birth mudblood, but then that begs the question why she still hangs around with him if that's the case. he calls her mudblood, she retaliates by calling him snivellus, and finishes up with a dig about his underwear, which, sure, it's kicking a man with a rusty spoon and pouring salt in the wound, but she's, again, justified. i get where she was coming from. and then, of course, she dies for her kid after marrying the guy who relentlessly bullied her quote-unquote best friend for their entire school careers. but, like i said, canon lily is, in many ways, a contradiction.

lily is basically a plot device. she pushes everyone's narrative but her own, and does little else.

of course, this trend would continue in fanon. fanon lily exists to be the perfect girl who gets really angry over the slightest injustice, and of course, she gets to be one half of one of the oldest enemies-to-lovers "it was just sexual tension" cliche pairings in the book. she's just,,, a mary sue. in so many fics, so many headcanons, she's just pettigrew's stand-in, a girl to form a gang with marlene, mary and dorcas—who happen to be more undeveloped ocs who also get the woobify mary sue treatment—to parallel the marauders. there is nothing compelling about her character when she's presented as a saint, and even less when she's supposedly the other moral compass for the marauders that doesn't actually work because she thinks that james is cute.

and this brings me to the next topic. jily. what, why, how. this was supposed to be a healthy, happy relationship that would have lasted in the long run? absolutely not. even for its time, i can't say that i see it lasting.

first of all, jkr presents james' crush on lily as just that: a crush. a mildly obsessive one, but a crush nonetheless, which she tries to liken to the pulling of pigtails. and then, we see that james' way of getting her to go out with him consists of blackmail, and when that doesn't work, he resorts to threatening her. this could have been set aside if he had actually, genuinely changed when they started spending more time together, but as we're told by sirius and remus, he didn't. he just got better at hiding what he was up to. and it has to be that he hid it, because if she knew, this further damages the character that she's set up to have and paints her out to be either unable to stand up to him or an enabler.

regardless, they get married. and while i have trouble believing that it was out of genuine love, there are scenarios that could make some semblance of sense. it's wartime, after all, and maybe lily is worried about her stability in the wizarding world, so why not marry into an established family whose son is already showing interest? or perhaps, she falls into the trap of every bad boy cliche ever, and she thinks to herself, well, i got him to be better then, maybe i can get him to do even better in the future. or maybe, she doesn't get into a relationship with him immediately and sees him on and off, until eventually, she accidentally gets pregnant and they scramble to have a shotgun wedding so as not to leave lily alone at nineteen with a baby. or maybe they marry each other because they're there and sure, neither of then is ready and they don't know what love even is but what else is there to do when there's a dark lord about? anyways, the point is, they get married.

and then what? if we count pottermore into canon, he goes on to further damage her relationship with petunia and vernon, to the point where she ends up crying. if we don't, she fades into the background enough that nobody has anything to say about her. she's harry's mum, she's james' wife, lily potter, she was kind and smart and brave and that's it. her agency is gone, anything else we have of her personality is gone.

jily just,,, wasn't built to last. and, yeah, this,,, this is a hill i'll die on.

same with wolfstar, honestly. there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work, but fanon has made it so fucking prevalent that it's literally everywhere no matter where you look.

first of all, i've said it before and i'll say it again. sirius is more likely to get with james that he is to ever end up in a relationship with remus. their chemistry is just,,, underdeveloped. net zero for a relationship.

secondly, sirius instigated the werewolf prank, and lupin would have paid the price for it. this could have been overlooked, but he doesn't seem the slightest bit guilty about any of it when it's brought up in poa. he could have been responsible for lupin losing the security of his place at hogwarts in the best case scenario, and in the worst case, his life. and he seems to look forward to full moons, even though they clearly aren't pleasant for remus, which,,, yeah, you're going to have fun, but like, maybe be concerned about the fact that your friend undergoes excruciating pain and it isn't a pleasant time for him? read the room, my g.

thirdly, they don't trust each other as much as fanon seems to think they do. they were both willing to believe each other the traitor before ever suspecting pettigrew. sirius thought remus gave away the potters, hell, he thought remus was a spy for voldemort, and remus was convinced that sirius was a mass murderer. neither of them needed to be convinced.

fourthly, maybe i'm reading too much into it, but like. sirius had money. remus had no money, since, yk, he was a werewolf and struggling for cash and still, sirius,,, did not leave him any money. i feel like if you had money to spare, you would give to your friend who is literally poor. but, again, maybe i'm reading too much into it and this isn't as valid a point as i think it is.

and ehh, the fifth reason is that it's,,, actually very much not the representation for the ltgbt community that fanon says it is but y'all aren't ready for that conversation.

anyways, just,,, even when you set the couple shit aside, the power dynamics between everyone here is fucked. like, james and sirius are clearly at the top of food chain calling the shots and egging each other on. then there's lily, who isn't even a marauder, but is always ever-so-slightly above remus but still not on their level, because, well. neither of them actually listen to her. remus is the novelty friend, the friend who's,,, alright, i guess, but you keep them around specifically because they're funny or they can dance or they have something that you can either show off to other people or keep as your little inside joke, your little secret, yk? and peter is just sort of there. like, yeah, he can do what we can but does that make him as good as we are? no. does he have a funny little something about him that we can exploit? nah. therefore he sits at the bottom. and like, yeah, james and sirius are on the same level, but james is yanking sirius' chain, not the other way around. anyways, like i said. power dynamic's fucked and it bothers me that we were given all of this, and fanon decided to take it all and throw it away so they could give us flamboyant!badboi!sirius black x softboi!motherhen!remus lupin going on double dates with feminist!trustfundbaby!james potter and saint!lily evans while ignoring peter pettiwho?

theseus' fucking ship, indeed.

anyways, this needed to be said. it might not make as much sense as i want it to, considering it's 4:12 in the morning as i'm posting this, after taking a break from writing to do some research and coming across way too much content about fanon marauders, but it's here and it still makes enough sense that you can read it and understand what i mean. and like, at the end of the day, you can go ahead and headcanon whatever you please, you can write fic and make art and do whatever you like, just,,, remember that they're exactly that. headcanons. stop presenting fanon as canon. please. i'm literally begging. we actually have evidence against it. just,,, acknowledge that they're headcanons and stop putting them forward as though they're able to fit into canon. please.

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mercy-burning · 3 years

Text

Fake Fiancée - Part 3

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Reader and Spencer write letters back and forth, both of them slowly starting to fall in deeper. Category: Smut (18+) Content Warnings: Strong language, sexual themes, masturbation (male and female), sexting, face sitting Word Count: 6.3k

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

MASTERLIST

NOTE: Hello!! Sorry this has been so long in the making, but for a while my inspiration for this story absolutely disappeared, and then I tried to think of how to bridge the previous chapters to the final one with absolutely no luck. And then I re-read Part 2 and got stuck on the letter, thus this chapter was born! I didn’t want to drag this miniseries out any longer than 4 parts, and the letter format combined with other inner monologuing and description really allowed me to do that in an interesting way that hopefully doesn’t feel rushed!

It was so much fun and very refreshing to write. I hope you like how it turned out!

Thank you all for being so patient while I get my shit together 😅 Love you guys! Enjoy 🥰

***

We've been sending letters back and forth for about a month now.

If I'm being honest, it took me about two weeks to decide whether or not I actually wanted to send one back, but could you blame me?

Here was this guy I couldn't stop thinking about after a one-night stand, only for him to catch me—months later at the same exact bar we'd met in—flirting with his friend. And then after our sexual encounter that night, all the things we said, the connection I thought we had, all of it...

He left it all behind the next morning, only to send me a letter in the mail.

I was pissed.

Sure, it was a nice letter, but the fact that he'd reduced what we had down to a piece of paper and scribbled ink had made me angrier than I cared to admit.

In retrospect, I may have overreacted.

Over time I started re-reading his words, and the more I thought about it all, the more I started to regret my anger. And more than anything, I just wanted to see him again. I couldn't stay mad at him, not when all I could picture was his pouty face and nervous hands. His sunbeam of a smile peeked through the clouds of my anger here and there, and the longer it settled, the more it bathed me in a warm light that should have made me happy. But all it did was make me long for him.

Once I'd actually started writing that first letter back, I wondered why I hadn't jumped on the opportunity in the first place. I mean, after all the cliché shit we'd experienced in our short relationship thus far, adding love letters to the mix was just as perfect as you could get, right?

Spencer,

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to finally write you back. Truthfully I wasn't sure I wanted to write you at all, but your letter kept drawing me back in. I couldn't stop re-reading it, imagining you sitting down somewhere and contemplating every word as you wrote them down. I wondered if you'd thrown out hundreds of pieces of paper after messing up when you could have just as well typed out a letter without wasting them.

And then by that point, all I could think about was just you.

I always pictured what your living room looks like, or your kitchen table, or your office, or wherever you sit down to write. I wondered if you looked like one of those hopeless writers in the movies that have a scruffy face, coffee stains on their white tee shirts, and messy hair that hasn't been washed in days due to lack of inspiration.

But in the end, the image that won out over all the others was just you as I remember.

I'm not going to lie, that image most of the time was your body above mine while I held my hand to your throat, but for the sake of romance I guess I should probably tell you what it was every other time— the outfit you were wearing the first time we met.

When I think of you, I think of your hand nervously clutching that beer bottle for dear life and the other one occasionally pushing your glasses up your nose. I think of your eyes every time they'd look away from me, probably to keep yourself from staring too long.

But the thing that always gets me the most is your smile— even when it comes in little flashes, after you've said something you probably thought was lame. You covered it up with that perfect smile.

I've dreamt of that smile nearly every night since I met you, and I wouldn't be opposed to seeing it in person again.

I'd love to meet you for dinner some time.

But since you did manage to "more or less abandon me twice now", I think it's only fair that you make it up to me first.

Make the next letter a good one, and we'll see what happens.

Yours, Y/N

P.S. I hope my handwriting is as pretty as you hoped. I'd hate to disappoint.

***

Y/N,

I'm incredibly grateful that you've given me a chance to redeem myself. Every night since I last saw you has also been spent wondering what your house looks like on the inside... What you looked like reading my letter (perhaps at your kitchen table?)

And this might sound silly, but I've also wondered what your bedroom looks like. You may be laughing at me, because I've been in your bedroom, but in my defense I was a bit preoccupied to really take notice of my surroundings— I was simply surrounded by you.

But since I've been to your home, I figured it was only fair that I invite you to mine, possibly for dinner. I don't know how to cook much— in fact I'm pretty awful at making anything that's not a can of Spaghetti-Os... But one of my co-workers is an excellent chef, and with a recipe from him and some practice under my belt, I'm sure I can pull it off.

But by "some" practice, I mean probably weeks or months of practice. So hopefully that gives you ample time to mull it over.

Perhaps in the meantime we can get to know each other through our letters. And who's to say, it might spare us the awkward "getting to know each other" stage of a first date. Though, pretty much every stage of every date is awkward for me, so it might not help at all.

Regardless, I'm very much looking forward to hearing from you again.

I do get called away for work quite often, however. So I apologize in advance if I can't get back to you as soon as I'd like.

But in any instance, you're still welcome to text message or call me. I know it isn't as romantic or personal as handwritten letters, but it's certainly practical.

Yours, Spencer.

P.S. Your handwriting is just as beautiful as I'd imagined it would be. And you could never disappoint me.

That being said, if you somehow decide that this letter wasn't up to your standards and reject my offer, I may just find myself in the deepest despair imaginable.

***

I was definitely way too in my head about this.

It was just a text. Sure, it was a risky text to send, but I had no doubt in my mind that it would be fine in the end.

So why was my stomach churning just thinking about sending it?

Some might have chalked it up to my fat ol' crush on Spencer, but I knew it ran deeper. It had to do at least a little with my history with Patrick... The man stood me up and sent divorce papers to my place of work rather than to my face... And as much as I liked to think I was completely over it, we'd been together for years, and it really did a number on me.

I didn't want to ruin this new thing with Spencer so badly that I was overthinking everything.

So even though I could see his face opening the text, my heart doing jumps at the mere thought of it, a bigger part of me worried that it would be a step too far in the wrong direction. I didn't want him to think I was only in this for... sexual reasons. Which, don't get me wrong, have been pretty damn great so far, but I really did want to get to know him and see where this went.

In the end I decided to hold off. I settled for something a little lighter.

Spencer,

Don't feel too bad about your cooking skills. I've been through my fair share of burnt frozen pizzas to know how you're feeling. So the fact that you've given yourself the opportunity to practice and learn a recipe just for me is extremely romantic, and I appreciate the thought.

I won't stop you from following through, though I'm telling you now that no amount of slaving away in the kitchen will make me change my mind about you. We could probably eat stale crackers on the floor and I'd still find you utterly fascinating.

Maybe that's a bit too extreme, but I hope you get my point.

Anyway, I'd love to come over for dinner some time. Whenever you think you're ready to show me those improved cooking skills, you just let me know and I'll happily make my way over.

In the meantime, I'm thinking of sending more with my letters. I don't want to give away too much, but I will say that I'm very crafty. And don't feel like you need to send anything in return, though I'll let you know if I ever change my mind.

Yours,

Y/N

***

In the bottom right corner of the letter, right next to her signature, was a red lipstick stain in the shape of... well, her lips. It was common sense to know that they were hers and no one else's, not just a stamp or a drawing, and rather her actual lip stain... But even without it, I would have been able to tell by their shape.

Was that pathetic?

I could hear her, picture her in front of me, hovering above me with red-painted lips in the shape of a smirk, visibly cooing as she called me names... I could feel the ghost of her fingertips trailing up my throat and tilting my chin up to look at her as she rocked her hips teasingly into mine...

The whine I let out truly was pathetic.

You pathetic, needy little thing, I could hear her say...

My hands clutched the paper so tightly I thought I'd tear it, but it didn't matter when all I could see while staring at it was her luscious, red lips... Her voice was right there in my ear, like she was really beside me, watching me...

Oh, God, what would she do if she saw me right now? Staring at her lipstick stained paper and subconsciously grinding down into my chair...

You pathetic, needy little thing...

My hips jolted with a small, broken shout of her name, and in no time the front of my pants were flooded with warmth. I felt her eyes burning into me from the void, sparking to life with amusement as her voice crept into the deep corners of my brain and whispered praises to me.

Ohh, what a good little whore... Getting off to the thought of me... That's it, sweet boy... Come for me...

By now my eyes had squeezed shut and the letter was crumpled in my hand, the other reaching down to add much-appreciated burning friction to my crotch as I rode out my orgasm. My whole body tensed and shuddered at every sensation, from Y/N's image behind my eyes to the sweet warmth that pooled in my underwear and soaked through onto my hand.

Holy mother of—

The next time I saw her, I was screwed. I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. I'd surely go red the second I laid eyes on her, and she'd know right away what I was thinking and feeling.

Simply put, it scared and excited me at the same time.

She'd utterly and thoroughly wrecked me, and if she didn't already know it, she certainly would soon.

Y/N,

I'm not sure what you intend to send in addition to your letters, but if it's anything near the sentiment of your lip stain, then you might have to refrain in favor of my poor, fragile heart.

See, it aches for you. It's bad enough I think of you always, but the moment I saw the shape of your lips on that letter, my heart almost shot straight out of my chest. Maybe it was the familiar shape of your lips or the implications of its place next to your name, signed after the word 'yours', that sent me into a tailspin, but whatever the case...

I'm pretty sure I've completely fallen under your spell.

I suppose I should also tell you that my heart wasn't the only part of my body that came to life at your added signature. I assure you, it took no time at all for me to come undone at the thought of your lips pressing gently against the paper, imagining that they were instead pressing to my skin... I didn't even have to touch myself, really. It just happened. Because of you and you alone.

I hope that wasn't too forward, but I felt it necessary that you know just how much of an effect you have on me.

If I could see you again in a millisecond, it wouldn't be soon enough.

That being said, I am determined to spend as much time as possible to perfect this dish for our dinner. Because you deserve nothing but the best, even if you insist that you could settle for less.

It's the least I can do.

Yours, Spencer.

And a week and a half later, when I didn't get a letter back on time, I was sure I'd messed up for good.

My mind was racing a mile a minute, yelling at myself for even thinking for a second of being that detailed in a letter without any consent. Sure, she'd taken it a step up by signing off her letter with a kiss, but I'd been absolutely idiotic in telling her that I got off to it.

I was honestly well and truly prepared to show up at her house with a big bouquet of flowers and an apology so wordy and probably too long for anyone's liking, in hopes that she'd forgive me for making this huge mistake.

Thankfully, though, it wasn't needed.

My phone chimed as I was pacing, my lip near bloody with how hard I'd been chewing at it, and I saw an unknown number attached to a text message and photo attachment.

The photo wouldn't load (I would have to plug it into my laptop and transfer the image there to see it— a fact which always irked Penelope to the core), but with the sentences I saw above the file, I almost knew exactly what I'd find when I had the means to see it.

There. Now we're even... Who says text messages can't be romantic and personal? XXX, Y/N

I felt like Bambi as I scrambled to my laptop three rooms over, stumbling over weak legs with my phone clutched tightly in my hand. My heart raced faster than it ever had as I started everything up and retrieved the right cord for my phone. With a few shakes and stumbles here and there, I briefly entertained the idea of upgrading my phone.

I probably would have left the apartment to do it immediately after seeing her photo attachment, but the moment it loaded up on my screen, my brain and body lost all ability to function properly.

A familiar burn coursed through the lower half of my body and tightened my chest at the sight of her, open and exposed and... wet.

My laptop screen was completely taken over by the image of Y/N's pussy, visibly glistening and aroused. A manicured hand—her hand— was in frame as well, middle finger resting snugly between the supple skin of her wet lips.

The fact that I only tasted her once felt downright cruel.

I tried to imagine it again— my face buried between the softness of her thighs. As much as I wanted to lay her down and indulge myself as long as possible, taking all the time in the world to slowly devour her and truly explore her for myself, what ran through my mind then was something more in the vein of our dynamic thus far.

My mind wandered, specifically to a place where I was the one laying down as she sat down directly onto my face and gave me what she thought I deserved. My hands were tied to the bed, maybe handcuffed. All I knew was that I couldn't touch her, and it bothered me. So I whined, and every time the sound left my mouth, she would let up, lifting further out of reach and causing me to instinctively reach my head up to chase her.

You greedy little slut... Take what I give you...

Desperately seeking her approval, I told her I'd be good and rejoiced when she lowered herself down to me again, allowing me to me completely wrapped up in her once more. My tongue lapped and lapped, gathering as much of her as I could before she'd inevitably leave again.

But she never did.

Somehow I kept my quiet, even though it was extremely difficult, and ate her out like my life depended on it. She glided smoothly over my face, coating more than just my lips in her arousal, and it thrilled me to my very core.

Every time I breathed in I could smell her, every time she groaned out my name my stomach fluttered, and it wasn't long before she was clutching my hair, shaking above me while I drank her in and repressed my whines.

My hips were uncontrollable though, bucking up into nothing and begging for any type of stimulation.

But then suddenly it was there— Her hand, firmly wrapping around my dick and gliding over it beautifully with a slickness that she must have transferred from her pussy. I could still taste her as I cried out her name, her movements quickening with every second until—

I didn't even realize I was actually alone until my eyes opened, cum coating my hand, my heartbeat heavy and loud, and the laptop screen in front of me a shade darker signaling a long period of inactivity.

I'd done it again...

And now we most certainly were not even.

I glanced over at my phone—plugged into the laptop—and then down at my lap, and my stomach knotted as my next move rang clear as day.

***

I woke up the next morning to texts from Spencer, and my heart picked up speed, a gentle warmth blooming through my chest at the sight.

I thought maybe he'd thank me for the photo I'd sent. Maybe he'd return it with an influx of messages along the lines of Oh my god, Holy fuck I miss you, and the like.

But what I wasn't expecting was to see a photo in return, of his hand that I'd dreamt of nearly nightly, wrapped firmly around his cock and all of it completely covered in cum.

Below the photo were three messages in a row, and each one gave me more butterflies than the last.

Sorry for low quality. No smartphone.

Also sorry we're not even anymore.

But I'm not sorry I did it- you're too perfect to resist.

***

Dearest Y/N,

I'm sorry you haven't gotten a letter from me in a while. And I know we've kept in touch through texting and calling while I was swamped at work, though now that I have some time off, I'd love to write you again. As much as I enjoy our virtual conversations, I still find sending letters to be my preferred method of communication (only second to speaking with you in person, that is).

Which brings me to the main point I'm trying to make.

I want to see you again. In person. I'm not completely confident in my cooking ability yet, but if you wouldn't mind the potential of it tasting awful, I'd love to have you over. I promise you nothing but the best, and I know that's a high promise, especially considering I probably haven't sold you on the meal, but it's true.

I'd do anything to please you.

And I really do mean 'anything', I hope you understand that.

Yours, Spencer.

***

The thought of seeing him in person again after so long made my hands way shakier than I would have liked. It made no sense the longer I thought about it, because it was obvious that we liked each other, and seeing each other in person wouldn't be a problem. Because it'd never been a problem before.

It irked me.

Still, I knocked on his door and physically shook out my hands, praying I could keep my cool when he finally opened the door.

But I should have known better.

One second I was staring at a large plank of wood, and the next I was staring into frantic eyes, golden and sparkling just as I remembered, but with an added glimmer of fear that matched the shakiness of my hands.

I don't know how long we stood there, just staring at each other, but the longer we did, the more we relaxed. His fear was gone, and the shaking in my hands turned into a dull hum that longed to reach out for him.

Still, I refrained, settling on a simple, "Hey, pen pal..."

By the way he looked at me, silent as ever, I started to wonder if that was a stupid thing to lead with. So I opened my mouth to apologize, to say anything else, but he beat me to it.

"Y/N... I... H—Hi, you look... incredible."

"O—Oh, thanks... Thank you, yeah, I um... figured I should... dress up a little. I know we're not going out anywhere, but I thought it might be nice."

He doesn't need to know that, Y/N, stop talking!

I gave him a small smile and a nervous laugh in an attempt to stop myself, hating how I was so nervous around him.

Spencer didn't seem to mind, though. He let me in and closed the door behind me as I quickly glanced around his apartment. It was littered with greens and browns, books everywhere, and I'd never felt more at home.

"Is it, uh... What you expected?"

"Hmm?" I turned to meet him, his soft voice pulling me from my wandering eyes.

"My apartment."

"Oh! Yeah, it's very you... I love it."

The compliment had his cheeks turning pink, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than kiss them over and over again.

And just like that, once again we were caught just staring at each other. I didn't know what he was thinking, and honestly, I didn't know what I was thinking either. All I knew in that moment was that Spencer Reid was standing right in front of me, close enough to touch, and I wanted to give in.

I was so wrapped up in the idea of feeling him that I almost didn't hear him speak. I wouldn't have heard him at all had it not been for his lips moving.

"I'm sorry, I haven't started dinner yet..."

"That's okay," I reassured. Or, at least I tried to. Really, though, I think it sounded more like I was uninterested in what he was saying, my voice flat and lifeless as I continued to stare at him.

Suddenly we were closer, and I had to look up higher to see his face, butterflies swarming in my stomach at the way he looked down at me.

"You're sure?"

"Mhm."

"I can start it now if you're getting hungry."

Food isn't what I'm hungry for, is what I thought. I almost said it, too, because he was even closer now, his hands coming out to touch mine. If they were humming before, they were certainly blaring with life now, growing hot under his light touch. And it took everything I had not to look down, because it had been too damn long since I'd seen his hands in person, and I wanted them on me immediately.

He could tell, too. He could sense my urgency, feel the longing radiating off my presence, and I knew this because I could feel his, too. His eyes practically dared me to say what I was thinking, and so I did.

"Don't you dare."

It was hard to tell who moved in first, but it really didn't matter.

I was here, in his apartment, feeling his lips glide over mine with reckless abandon, and that's all that mattered.

His hands gripped my waist so tightly I would have thought he was trying to hold me in place, to make sure I wasn't ever going to leave his sight again. And if that was the case, I would have let him hold me there forever.

My hands, meanwhile, clutched at his hair, forcing myself closer and closer to him with every sharp tug. I reveled in the way he whined into my mouth with every little thing I did, whether it was a tug of the hair or a roll forward of the hips, or even a swipe of my tongue over his.

He was putty in my hands yet again, and just like every time before, it turned me into a fucking goner.

Being with Spencer wasn't like anything I'd ever known. And the only other thing I'd known was Patrick. He didn't want me, not really, and even though he was good to me in the beginning, it was never like this.

I didn't come over to his apartment with shaking hands. I didn't send him fucking love letters almost weekly, and I certainly didn't get kissed like this...

Spencer was drunk on me, and I wasn't any sober myself.

"That picture you sent me..." I mumbled over his lips, still keeping myself as close as I could while I got out what I needed to say. "Where did you take that?"

We kissed for a few more seconds, unable to stay apart, before he answered, his voice just as breathy and brimming with desperation as mine. "My office. Just down the hall."

I kissed him again, hard, and then pulled back to look him in the eyes. They widened when I said, "Show me."

He dragged me through the apartment on rushed legs, and I almost laughed at the urgency, only stopped by the realization that I was just as urgent. It occurred to me that perhaps my laughing at his urgency might just be a slight turn on for him, given our history with my playful degradation, but still I pulled back— Tonight felt... different.

It didn't feel like we were headed in the direction of me calling him my dirty little whore throughout the night, and it was something I was more than okay with. In fact, I welcomed it, excited to see where this new night would take us.

We ended up in his office, which remained more or less the same aesthetic as the rest of his place. In the middle sat a small desk with a laptop and some papers scattered about on it, accompanied by a tall floor lamp and a rolling desk chair.

"Where were you exactly?" I mused, gripping his hand tightly and buzzing at the way his fingers flexed against my own.

"In the chair... I pulled the photo up on my laptop."

"Right. No smartphone."

Spencer hummed in confirmation before dragging me along to the chair, and I fucking giggled as he plopped down and practically pulled me right on top of him, the chair rolling back a foot or two. I went down for a bright, messy kiss that ended with his hands clutching my ass over my skirt and my own cradling his face.

His growing bulge nudged right up into my inner thigh, and I groaned lightly in his mouth, my fingers dragging softly down his jaw and neck until I reached his shoulders.

"What were you thinking about?"

He raised his eyebrow, and I rocked my hips forward with a sly grin, hoping to get my point across. "When you were looking at my picture, in this very chair, what were you thinking about?"

Seeing his eyelids stutter and his tongue dart out at my movements sent a rush through me, and I moved my hips once more to emphasize my urgency.

"I... I thought about you... riding my face. You tied my hands..."

"Oh?" I sighed, rocking forward again and humming into his neck. "Well, that can definitely be arranged if you want it bad enough..."

"Please, Y/N, yes... Please..."

The need dripping from every syllable made it near impossible to breathe, and I was suddenly very inclined to give him everything he wanted. With or without the begging.

So I reluctantly peeled away from him and stood up on weak legs. Staring at Spencer as he sat there, leaning back in the chair with disheveled hair and obvious desire in his eyes, made it all the better when I took my panties off from under my skirt and motioned for him to come forward. "On your knees?"

I would have demanded it in any other situation, but I was feeling a bit more sweet this time around.

And he seemed grateful for it, sliding the chair back further and getting down in front of me. I reached out and played with his hair, trying my hardest to commit his beautiful face to memory. I wanted it burned there for the rest of time.

"Hands?"

Spencer offered his hands to me, and I hummed happily, doing my best to tie his hands together with a makeshift knot from my panties. It wasn't really tight or secure, but it was enough for him to whine as he set them in his lap.

He watched intently as I dropped my skirt—a bit redundant now, but I thought it'd be a nice way to get him more excited. Plus I wanted to see his face (or at lease what I could see of it while it was buried between my legs).

I stepped forward then, looking down at him with a smile while my hands reached out to comb through his hair. "You ready?"

"Uh huh."

The look in his eyes right before I came forward and hovered over his face almost made my come on the spot.

But as fun as that would have been, I was glad for the way my body held off and settled for a beautiful, burning increase of pleasure that dragged out the longer he swiped his tongue through my folds. Actually, I forgot for a moment that I was supposed to be moving, riding his face like he'd thought about.

I willed my eyes open and clutched Spencer's soft locks of hair beneath me, gently rolling my hips and grinding down further on his face. The groan he let out not only felt good against my skin, but it sounded like pure bliss, eliciting a small whimper of my own as I tightened my grip in his hair and rocked faster.

"God, I missed having your mouth on me, baby... You're... so good..."

The longer I spoke the more breathless I became, not because the words didn't come easily, but because I truly believed them to be true.

Spencer really was so fucking good, his tongue the most delicate, divine object of the universe as it drew out every ounce of delight from my body. I may have been the one above him, calling the shots and directing him where and how to please me, but he was the one who clung to my soul like static and politely guided me towards damnation.

I wasn't even sure of my surroundings to tell you the truth. As my body tensed and took me through one of the most blinding pleasures I'd experienced in weeks, My eyes were squeezed so tightly it's like I saw the universe. All I knew was Spencer's lips sucking my clit and my hands deeply rooted in his hair as I shouted incoherently, stars swirling around behind my eyelids.

Truly, for all I knew, we could have been in space. It wouldn't have made any difference.

But eventually it came to be too much. I was reaching a limit I didn't want to get to so quickly, and so I flashed my eyes open and tried to adjust to this brand new atmosphere, unweaving my fingers through pretty brown waves of hair and stepping back to assess the situation.

What I found was the most beautiful man I'd ever known, panting like he'd just ran a marathon and yet harboring the most intense joy and desire a person could hold. He was on his knees, bound hands writhing in his lap as he awaited further instruction and licked up as much of myself on his face as he could before I stopped him.

Under normal circumstances, I would have wanted to absolutely ruin him. That adoring, desperate look in his eye would have spurred me to more devious endeavors, but all I wanted in this moment was to make sure he was satisfied. I wanted to take care of him, to let him know that I longed to make him feel as worshipped and adored as he'd made me feel.

I got down to Spencer's level, quickly removing the fabric from his wrists and hauling him to his feet, where he now towered over me, still waiting for words to address and instruct him.

Instead, I leaned up with soft hands upon his cheeks and pulled him down to meet my lips in a kiss that changed the tone entirely. It was erotic still, of course, what with my arousal infiltrating my taste buds and eliciting a soft sigh from the both of us, but our urgency manifested in sweeter ways... Softer lips, gentle touches of the face, and an exchanging of breath that was so smooth and seamless it felt like we were floating on air.

I was finding it hard to breathe again, but it wasn't an issue in the slightest. In fact, there was nowhere else I'd rather have been than right there, kissing Spencer Reid like we had all the time in the world.

When the breathlessness was a little too much to bear, we pulled away, though only leaving just enough space to breathe. Our lips stayed briefly connected while we caught up, and his hands found their way to the sides of my face. The way they practically engulfed my whole head brought a brief smile to my lips as I finally gave him the words he was looking for.

"I'm so glad I met you," I whispered.

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing."

We kissed each other again, naturally and with so much ease that I wondered how I had ever lived without him.

And then, as my hands slid gently down his chest, I felt it.

Something that felt very much like a ring attached to a necklace sat right where his heartbeat resided, and I knew exactly which ring it was.

"W—" I pulled back and circled the shape of it with my finger through the shirt, then looked up at him. "Is that what I think it is?"

Spencer looked briefly panicked, pulling away a little and fishing down the front of his shirt for the chain. "Oh... Um, yeah. I, um... I forgot to take it off, I'm sorry. I..."

"You... kept it?"

I observed the diamond as it laid flat on my palm, still attached to the chain and around his neck. Honestly, after all this time I figured he'd never found it or gotten rid of it, seeing as he never brought it up. And yet there it was, glittering in the palm of my hand as my other one presses firmly against Spencer's rapidly beating heart.

"Y—Yeah... It um... It was really the only physical thing I had to remember you—Well, at least until we started sending letters... And I guess I just... W—Wearing it has become such a habit that I forgot to take it off."

"You never take it off?"

I could tell he was nervous, and rightfully so given I wasn't really letting on how I was feeling about the whole thing.

Still, he answered my short question in such a small whisper I'd have thought he was trying not to get in trouble.

"No."

"Why?"

My words certainly weren't helping ease his anxieties, so I remained close, dropping the ring and focusing rather on his eyes. I softened the look in my own and glided my hands down to hold his. His fingers flexed against mine, squeezing them for dear life as he sighed out in relief and flashed me a soft smile.

"Because... I wanted you close to my heart."

With a smile that mirrored his eyes, full of enchantment and pure adoration for the person in front of me, I didn't use my brain and instead focused on what my heart was telling me, consequences be damned.

"I think I might love you..."

Spencer squeezed my hands tighter, that relief spreading out to all his features and brightening that beautiful smile.

"Funny... I was just thinking the same thing."

Our lips met once more, and I swear it was like nothing bad was ever going to happen for the rest of time.

I'd never felt that way. Not once with Patrick did my heart feel settled into place, even during the great parts of our relationship.

And now here I was, with a man who sent me love letters and kept every physical reminder of my existence, who kissed me like I was the most precious thing in the world and slowly mended my wounded heart.

He held me close the whole way to his bedroom and never let me go until the morning. Though, even then his arms outstretched towards me and his fingers flexed, needing to grab onto any part of me that he could find.

And as I was sure I always would, I welcomed him with open arms.

***

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#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader smut #criminal minds #criminal minds smut #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction

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misnomera · 4 years

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On racial stereotyping of the Haans in TMA...

Right so as someone who is ethnically Chinese I have NO FUCKING clue how I didn’t notice this more distinctly in my initial binge of tma (going too fast and not paying closer attention to character names and descriptions, probably) but the Haan family storyline is, all horror elements aside, pretty fucked up in terms of racial representation re: stereotyping. This got long as hell, but please please please take a moment to read through if you’ve got time for it. thanks.

To start off, the Haans are one of the few characters in tma with an explicitly specified race and ethnicity—Chinese—and pretty much the only explicitly Chinese characters in tma, other than the mostly unimportant librarian (Zhang Xiaoling) from Beijing. But like, Haan isn’t even a properly Chinese surname, at least not in the way that it’s spelled in canon (it should be Han, one a. A quick google search tells me that Haan as a surname has...Dutch origins??).

Of course, that could be chalked up to shoddy anglicization processes within family histories, which certainly isn’t uncommon with immigrant families, so I’m not going to dwell on names too much (although I also find it interesting that John Haan’s name is so specifically and weirdly anglicized that he changed his own surname?? Hun Yung to John Haan is a very big leap of a name change and frankly not very believable. ANYWAY, this is not that important. I don’t expect Jonny, a white Englishman, to come up with perfectly unquestionable non-Cho-Chang-like Chinese names, though it certainly would be nice. Moving on).

What really bothers me about the Haans is how they almost exclusively and explicitly play into negative Chinese immigrant stereotypes. I don’t even feel like I need to say it because it’s like...it’s literally Right There, folks. John Haan (in ep 72) owns and operates a sketchy takeout restaurant. They’re all avatars of the Flesh—and John Haan is Specifically horrific and terrifying because he cooked his wife’s human meat and fed it to his unknowing customers. Does that remind you of any stereotypes which accuse Chinese people of consuming societally unacceptable and ethically questionable things like dog/cat/bat meat (which, if it’s not already crystal fucking clear, we don’t. do that.), which in turn characterize us as horrible unfeeling monsters? John Haan’s characterization feeds (haha, badum tss) directly into this harmful stereotype that have caused very real pain for Chinese people and East Asians in general.

And Jonny does nothing to address that from within his writing (and not out of it either). And, speaking on a more meta level, Jonny could’ve easily had these flesh avatars be individuals of any race (like, what’s Jared Hopworth’s ethnicity? Do we know? No? Well then). Conversely, he could’ve easily, easily had a Chinese person be an avatar of any other entity. So why did he have to chose specifically the Flesh?

(This is a rhetorical question. You know why. Racial stereotyping and invoking a fear of the other in an attempt to enhance horror, babey~)

On Tom Haan’s side, Jonny seems weirdly intent on having other characters repeatedly comment on his accent (or rather, lack thereof) in relation to his race. Think about how, in ep 30 (killing floor), the fact that Tom Haan had spoken a line to the statement giver in “perfect English” was an emphasized beat in that statement, and a beat that was supposed to be “chilling” and meant to signify to us that something was, quote-unquote, “not right” with Tom Haan. Implicitly, that’s saying that it was unexpected, not “normal”, and in this case even eerie, for someone who looks Chinese to have spoken in fluid, unbroken English. Mind you, the line itself was perfectly scary on its own (“you cannot stop the slaughter by closing the door”), so why did Jonny feel the need to note the accent in which it was spoken in? Why did Jonny HAVE to have that statement giver note, that he initially “wasn’t even sure how much English [Haan] spoke”?

This happens again in episode 72 with a Chinese man (and again, his ethnicity is Explicitly Noted) who we assume is also Tom Haan. This one is rather ironically funny and kind of painfully self aware, because the statement giver expresses surprise at Haan’s “crisp RP accent” and then immediately “felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English,” and subsequently admitted that thought was “low-key racist.” Like, from a writing perspective, this entire passage is roundabout, pointless, and says absolutely nothing helpful to enhance the horror genre experience for listeners (instead it just sounded like some sort of half-assed excuse so Jonny or other listeners could say “look! We’ve addressed the racism!” You didn’t. It just made me vaguely uncomfortable). And again, having other people comment on our accents/lack thereof while assuming we are foreign is a Very Real microaggression that east asians face on the daily. If Jonny needed some filler sentences for pacing he could’ve written about Literally anything else. So why point out, yet again, that the crazy murderous man was foreign and Chinese?

At this point, you might say, right, but yknow, it was just that the statement givers were kind of racist! It happens! Yeah sure, ok, that’s a passable in-universe explanation for descriptions of Tom Haan (though not John Haan, mind you), but the statement givers are fake made up people, and statement’s still written by Jonny, who absolutely has all the power to write overt discrimination out of his stories. And he does! Think about just how many minor (and major!!) characters are so, so carefully written as completely aracial, and do not have their ethnicity implicated at all in whatever horrors they may or may not be committing. Think about how many lgbtq+ characters have given statements, and have been in statements, without having faced direct forms of discrimination, or portrayed as embodying blatant stereotypes in their stories (though lgbtq+ rep in tma certainly has their own issues that I won’t go into here). Jonny can clearly write characters this way, and he can do it well. So why, why, am I being constantly, repeatedly reminded in-text of the fact that the Haans are East Asian, that they’re from China, that they’re Chinese immigrants, that they’re second-generation British Chinese or whatever the fuck, and that they’re also horrifying conduits for blood, gore, and general fucked-up-ness? It’s absolutely not something that is Needed for the stories to be an effective piece of horror; the only thing it does is perpetuate incredibly harmful and hurtful stereotypes.

And listen, I love tma to bits. It’s taken over my blog. I’ve really loved my interactions with the fandom. And I am consistently blown away by Jonny’s writing and how well he’s able to weave foreshadowing and plot into an incredibly complex collection of stories. But I absolutely Cannot stop thinking about the Haans because it’s just. It’s such a blatant display of racial stereotyping in writing. And I’ve certainly seen a few voices talking about it here and there, and I don’t know if I’m just not looking in the right places, but it certainly feels like something that is just straight up not on the radar for a lot of tma fans. And I’m disappointed about that.

Just, I don’t know. Take a look at those episodes again and do some of your own thinking about why these characters had to be specifically Chinese (answer: they didn’t.). And in general, PLEASE for the love of god turn a critical eye on character portrayals and descriptions whenever they are assigned specific races/ethnicities (Some examples that come to mind are Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane, and Diego Molina), because similar issues, to an extent, extend beyond the Haans, though I haven’t covered them here.

You shouldn’t need a POC to do point out these problems for you when they’re so glaringly There. But for those of you who really didn’t know, hope this was informative in some way. I’m tired, man. If some of the only significant Chinese characters you write are violent cannibalistic men with a perverted relationship with meat, just don’t do it. Please don’t do it.

EDIT: Since the making of this post Jonny has acknowledged and apologized for these portrayals on his twitter and in the Rusty Quill Operations Update, which went up September 2020. A long time coming, but better late than never. This of course doesn’t necessarily negate the harm done by Jonny’s writing, and doesn’t make me much less angry about it, but is appreciated nonetheless. For more on this topic there’s a lot of productive discussions happening in my “#tma crit” tag and in the notes of this post

#tma #the magnus archives #magnuspod #tma 30 #tma 72 #tma crit #racism #sinophobia #racist stereotyping #tw cannibalism #tw violence #long post #tom haan #john haan

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astridthevalkyrie · 3 years

Text

pirouette

Finding Levi dancing with Hange isn’t nearly as shocking as finding out why. The night of the gala is a strange one, but she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

starring: dancing is a valid love language, reader and erwin aren’t fans of each other, petra is the best and pyxis knows all

a/n: decided to upload this fic here since it's only on ao3. i'll upload two other oneshots from ao3 as well. this takes place in my superior series, but you don't have to read any of the other stories to enjoy this one. enjoy! <3

Papers ruffle in her hands as she runs from the cafeteria, a slice of bread in her mouth. Along the way, she gets a few looks and some of the newer recruits ask if she needs any help, but she waves them off. The veterans know it’s pointless, and the most they provide is a sigh of exasperation or a look of understanding pity. She prefers the cadets’ approach, at least they’re being kind and not looking at her as though she’s either a lab experiment or an overworked maid. Well, she kind of is the latter and Levi is pretty damn sure she’s the former too, so the veterans aren’t wrong, but she doesn’t have to appreciate it.

Work like this is her air - if she’s not on an expedition, training, or running an errand for some higher-up, she’s doing paperwork that Levi is either too busy to get to or stuff he puts in the “fucking useless” list. Truthfully, she suspects he wants to put every single document into that pile, but he hates being idle nearly as much as she does, and so he still does some begrudgingly. However, the majority of the rather dull work falls to her, and she takes to it with relish, delighting in the fact that she can fake his signature and create details about things that never happened. For example, does Commander Erwin know that she saved five people in one fell swoop on their last excursion? Well, he certainly will once she drops this lovely piece of paper off!

Levi usually lets her get away with it (providing she doesn’t go over the top or imply that he’s too enamored by her beauty to do any titan-killing), but she’s still kind enough to let him skim the reports to confirm. With all her writing for the day done, she had shoved her last piece of bread in her mouth and sprinted towards his office. The sooner she submits these papers to the commander, the sooner she has free time to doll herself up for tonight.

She’s pretty sure the last time she got to dance was months ago, so a gala is a pretty big deal. Oh, she’s missed dancing so much, finding seedy bars and riling the drunk crowd up enough for them to encourage her and join in themselves. Of course, nothing can match the thrill of sneaking out during her cadet days, dragging along whoever would come, and having the absolute time of her life losing herself in the music. A gala, a stuffy event where people attend to make connections and dance nicely, is hardly her style, but dancing is dancing, and her jogging gets an extra spring as she thinks about pulling in some high class gentlemen and women and charming them with her moves. That’s what the gala is about, after all, playing nice. She’s done it before, and she can do it again.

There’s a single nice dress that she brought from home that should be enough for tonight. It’s a floor-length, figure-hugging black piece with an intricate white floral design along the right side, simple and sweet yet enticing. Originally, when she packed it, she thought it might come handy for nights when she just had to feel like a high-class citizen again. But while adapting to military life was tough, there was something honorable as wearing the same uniform as everyone else, and it made her feel like she belonged. So the dress is basically new, and tonight will be its’ debut.

As she gets closer to Levi’s office, she hears voices and stops, taking time to swallow the bread she’s been chewing. She straightens the papers in her hand and double checks to make sure they’re in the correct order and pats her uniform down for good measure. She takes a step, places a hand on the doorknob, and then hears Hange’s voice.

“You’re doing it wrong!”

“No I’m not, you’re just going too fucking fast.”

“It’s okay, shorty, it’s not for everyone.”

Curiosity peaked, she opens the door in time to hear Levi say, “What do you think of this, then?” before proceeding to dip Hange loosely, so that the woman is facing her upside down.

Time seems to freeze as she takes in the bizarre sight. Levi’s hands are on Hange’s waist while hers are gripping his shoulders for dear life, and one of her legs is up in the air dramatically.

The pair of them immediately stop seeing her standing there, astonished at the sight. They’re dancing together. Captain Levi and Major Hange are dancing. Together.

Levi’s eyes widen comically as he watches her, hands still around the major’s waist awkwardly. Hange, for her part, looks as though she’s just been caught stealing the commander’s horse. Both are panting, confirming that they’ve been at this for a while. None of them move.

Until a small giggle escapes her mouth. Immediately, she clamps a hand over it - she’s not supposed to laugh, but the sight is so strange and ridiculous that it’s impossible not to. Snickering, she salutes, trying her best not to break in front of her two superiors. “I - I’ve finished the reports, sir.”

Levi finally lets go of Hange, who miraculously doesn’t fall, finding her balance on the heels of feet and bouncing back up as though falling was never an option. “(F/N)! Good to see you here!”

“Yes, this is where I spend most of my time, Major.” She tries her best not to smirk.

“Don’t be cheeky,” Levi snaps, walking up to her. He’s actually sweaty, and she wonders exactly how long they’ve been doing this and what they’re doing and why in God’s name they’re doing it. Was this for the gala tonight? It must be, she can think of no reason that Levi would be taking dancing lessons. She wonders who Erwin has told Levi to impress tonight. “Did you put anything stupid in?”

“I said Oluo started crying at one point,” she says with no remorse for her crewmate.

“Realistic enough. Go hand them off to the commander, you’re dismissed for the day.” He walks back to Hange, stopping when he realizes she hasn’t left in the two seconds since he ordered her to. He turns around, raising a brow. “Oi, are you deaf or something?”

“Just wondering if you needed a towel, sir.”

Levi hisses like a cat. “I said don’t be cheeky, (L/N). Dismissed.”

Exchanging a glance with Major Hange, who’s hiding a smile of her own, she salutes again, and then turns and exits the room. Outside the door, she waits a few seconds, but she’s fully aware Levi will wait two minutes before saying anything, he knows her too well. Normally, she’s willing to hold out and try her hand, but she really, really needs to get ready. Not to mention Erwin kind of dislikes her anyway and it’s best not to make him wait for the precious paperwork, even if it is Levi’s responsibility, not her’s.

So she brushes aside her questions and skips to the commander’s office, drops the papers off and then heads to the female barracks, digging the dress out of the bottom of the trunk under her bed. She has about two hours to get ready, which would be more than enough time normally, but there’s a certain delight that comes with taking time to prepare for an event like this. To give it her all, like she does with every aspect of her life.

Once she’s cleaned up and put on the dress, she spins experimentally. The dress doesn’t give quite a satisfying swish like some of her fancier ones back home, but she’s not supposed to be swishing tonight anyway, she’s just supposed to look pretty, smile and flutter her lashes to beg richer men than her to give money to the Survey Corp. It works for what she needs it for. After pinning half her hair up and painting her face a little, she’s ready.

“Damn,” a voice comes from the door, “you look good, (L/N).”

Ricky, one of her best friends from her training days, is leaning against the doorway, dressed up in a suit and eyeing her appreciatively. She smiles brightly, holding her arms to the sides.

“How much funding do you think I’m getting tonight?”

“More than I’ll ever see in my lifetime, I’ll tell you that much.” He offers his arm and she takes it, closing the door behind her. “So what, you too busy to play our game tonight?”

Their game is pretty simple. In simple terms it’s hide and seek, except they hide in plain sight, using their surroundings to their advantage. The game started back when they would practice with their ODM gear in the forest, and they’d continued playing well into joining the Scouts, especially on boring days. The base is large enough to have plenty of spots to hide, which makes it fairly easy for whoever is hiding - it could take the whole day to find them. It’s always the most fun at galas like these, though, when they have to hide by acting high and mighty, like proper citizens of society. She loves playing, and hates to let Ricky down, so she tries to compromise.

“Maybe later in the night? I have to talk and dance with people Captain Levi doesn’t want to talk to because they’re beneath him - his words,” she adds quickly because Ricky is giving her that face that says “are you one hundred percent sure this is a healthy superior-subordinate relationship you share” and she doesn’t need him getting the wrong idea and thinking that her and Levi are dating. Which, granted, they are, but it’s still a private thing and she likes it that way.

“He’s got a bit of a superiority complex, doesn’t he?”

“A bit,” she says fondly. As much as she loves Ricky dearly, she can’t help imagining her captain escorting her to a dance, her arm looped around his and a haughty expression on her face as she walks in triumphantly telling those high-class ladies that are eyeing him to suck it.

Maybe not in those exact words, but something close.

Again, she thinks about Levi dancing with Hange earlier, and for the love of God, she can’t imagine what possessed him. She can’t even imagine the conversation that led to it, can’t fathom Levi walking to Hange’s office and asking in that cranky way of his if she can teach him to dance. The strangest thing is that she’s pretty damn certain Levi can dance well enough, since he’s attended these before, and she’s seen him. He’s not a great dancer, but he’s not bad enough to warrant lessons.

“God, you’d think after all the shit he put you through during training, he’d cut you a little slack now.” Ricky glances at her as they walk. “I don’t know how you put up with it, with no reward.”

Oh, there’s a reward, but he wouldn’t understand. She simply hums, shrugging.

“He’s Humanity’s Strongest, right? Maybe someone needs to cut him some slack for once too.”

Ricky scoffs, but he doesn’t push the matter further. They arrive at the ballroom that’s mostly unused, but looks magnificent for every occasion. Bright lights decorate the room in a dizzy glow, radiating everyone in the room and making them look a hundred times more gorgeous than they already look in their fancy clothes and expensive jewelry.

Speaking of jewelry, her hand flies to her neck and she realizes the necklace she planned to wear is missing. Dammit, she’d brought it to Levi’s room last night, excitedly telling him about how the silver would match his eyes (he hadn’t seemed as thrilled about this as she was). She’d left it behind this morning. Oh well, she could make do without a necklace, but it had been pretty and she wished she’d been a bit more focused on it instead of on stealing one last kiss.

Her eyes scan the room and she finds Levi talking to some important looking man, looking more miserable than usual. She disguises her laugh as a cough. “Duty calls, Ricky. I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, sure. Knock ‘em out, twerp.”

She makes her way through the crowd and as she gets closer she’s able to appreciate Levi’s appearance more. He always cleans up nice, but without that stupid cravat that she despises and a proper tie, he looks just sharp enough for her to want to swoon right into his arms. Of course, that’d be completely unprofessional, but maybe he should consider that it’s unprofessional to look that good.

Levi sees her and doesn’t even look back for a second glance. Ass.

She steps up to his side, smiling a charming, million dollar smile. “Pardon my interruption, gentlemen. I was just looking for a dance partner. The party’s started and I’m already feeling a bit lonely.”

Maybe she’s slathering the butter on too thick, but it works nonetheless. The man insists that the captain needn’t worry, that he’ll keep the lady company, and he escorts her to the dance floor, falling into an easy pace with her. She starts talking, singing praise for Commander Erwin and gently implying that the Scouts are ridiculously underfunded, so they need money if they’re to have any chance of surviving. She ends her plea with a tinkling laugh, one that communicates zero pressure. It’s his choice, and she’s loved dancing with him, and has she mentioned that his tie makes him look extremely dashing?

He’s already bent to her will, she thinks triumphantly as their dance ends. She curtsies unnecessarily and turns away, already looking for her next victim.

About eight dances later, she excuses herself to get a drink. It’s probably not attractive, the way she’s guzzling down the glass of water, but damn is she tired of kissing ass. Her throat is parched, and she’s especially tired of praising her own regiment, they’re not that great. She needs to refresh, and then she’ll be willing to go back into the fray.

Petra walks over to her, giggling. “If you don’t slow down, you’ll kill yourself.”

“Someone’s gotta suck up to them.” She flashes a wry grin. “How many have you pulled?”

“Three for sure, two as a maybe.” Petra sighs, taking a glass for herself. “I think we’re working much harder than those two.” She points to where Gunther and Oluo are downing a glance of wine, clearly cheering each other on.

“Disgraceful.”

“Embarrassing.”

“Shameless,” she finishes, setting her glass down. “You wanna get their heads back in the game? Take a break afterwards, dance with someone you actually like.” She wisely doesn’t suggest Oluo - defensive Petra is not what they need tonight. “Or find a nice place to sit and actually eat some food.”

Petra’s eyes shine in gratitude. “Really? Thanks, (F/N). But are you sure? There’s still lots of ravenous wallets left.”

“I can handle it. Besides, Captain Levi will probably get on my case if I take too long of a vacation from the dance floor.” She smiles. “It’s fine, I enjoy doing this.”

“God knows how. But I’m not complaining. Uh…” She hesitates, biting her lip. “Permission to use excessive force on those two, Lieutenant?”

“Granted. Just be discrete.” Serves them right for drinking on the job while she and Petra are working their asses off. She notices that even Levi hasn’t danced once tonight. What were the lessons for, then? Some new titan-killing technique she wasn’t privy to yet?

After Petra leaves, she finishes her water and makes her way to a group of women sitting at a table. With a gasp, she kneels down next to one of them. “Excuse my abruptness, but I absolutely adore your earrings! Wherever did you get them?”

“Oh!” The woman blushes, waving a hand as though she’s never expected someone to actually notice what she’s wearing. “I actually had these personally crafted. You know these merchants in Sina, they go on and on about quality, but in reality, all of their jewelry is…”

She goes on and on and (F/N)’s experience dealing with women like this since childhood keeps her from making any sarcastic comments. Instead, she nods and gasps appropriately, continuing to give her undivided attention to the woman. She is, after all, the one in the fanciest clothing. After hearing her story, she smiles and thanks her for the information (as though she’s going to actually use it), but adds solemnly that her commission just isn’t enough to afford such pretty things. The Scouts can barely afford the ODM gear as it is, and her hooks and swords aren’t exactly the most ladylike of accessories. The woman agrees vigorously, and all the other ladies at the table do as well to avoid going against the new status quo she’s now created.

A hand is placed on her shoulder. “Pardon me, ladies, mind if I steal Lieutenant (L/N) for a minute?”

“Hurry back!” the woman with the earrings chirps. “I haven’t even told you about my bracelet!”

“Of course.” She smiles brightly, turning and walking away from them. Once she’s a good few feet away, she brings her fist to her chest and salutes. “Commander Pyxis. It’s good to see you, sir.”

“Hm, I have to say, I’d hoped one day you’d be here trying to get money for the Garrison.” Pyxis chuckles, shaking his head. “But I suppose all the best go to the Scouts one way or the other. And by the looks of it, you’re doing good work for them.” He raises a brow. “But Erwin doesn’t have much to say about you. Any idea why?”

“I haven’t the faintest clue, sir.” She does have a slight idea as to why, but revealing that would be more information than she cares to share with Pyxis.

“Still, even he had to admit you were doing a good job out there.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Pyxis looks at something behind her and something akin to understanding dawns in his eyes. He chuckles again, and shaking his head, he offers his hand. “Would you give your old commander the honor of a dance?”

She glances at the ladies who don’t seem to need her back just yet, and so she agrees readily, taking his hand and falling into step. She’s missed the man, with his jovial presence and strange takes on every little matter. Once she asked him why he chose to join the military, and he responded that he thought the uniforms matched his skin tone. She supposed that was a fair reason.

“How many people have you danced with already?” he asks.

“You’re the ninth, sir.” She lets him lead her more towards the middle. “I’m sure you’ve charmed some people yourself tonight.”

“Benefits of having a silver tongue.” His eyes twinkle humorously. “As you know fully well. Erwin’s good for it too. Your captain, on the other hand…”

“He can be charming when he wants to,” she insists without real conviction. The problem is Levi never really wants to. “You know, he’s pretty soft on the cadets and new recruits unless they do something to piss him off.”

Pyxis gives her a dubious look. “If I recall correctly, you were one of the ones who he wasn’t so fond of.”

That’s only slightly true. Sure, they’d had their issues when she started training, but she insists that’s because Levi had fallen in love with her at first sight and was only trying to suppress his emotions. For some reason, he always declines this notion and counters that the reason he’d disliked her was because she was “a fucking nuisance.” It’s hard to believe him when he’s whispering these things towering above her in his bed, though.

“I just happened to catch his attention,” she says with a shrug.

“I’m sure you did. And continue to, because he hasn’t stopped looking in this direction even once.” Pyxis gestures behind her and with a confused frown, she turns to see Levi watching them intently, eyes darker than normal. She raises a brow, asking what the matter is. Has she forgotten to do something today? She double checks everything, but people make mistakes.

Levi continues to stare at her for a few seconds, then reaches into one of the pockets in his suit, taking out her forgotten silver necklace and dangling it up like a prize as an invitation for her to come take it. She gasps, rewarding him with a dazzling smile before turning back to Pyxis. “Commander, I have to - “

“You’ve been summoned. Yes, I see.” He gives her an appraising look. “Have you considered Erwin perhaps doesn’t like you because you distract Humanity’s Strongest Soldier?”

Her eyes widen. Damn it all, Pyxis is too clever for his own good.

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant,” he says, amused. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

She salutes apprehensively, but he waves her off, chortling to himself as he turns away. Well, that’s her shortest dance of the night finished. She looks back at Levi, still holding the necklace as he leans against the wall and watches her shamelessly. The middle of the ballroom isn’t ridiculously far from the wall he’s settled against, but it suddenly seems like miles are between them. She starts walking -

Only to get interrupted by one of the men she danced with earlier, asking if she’d like to go again. Mustering the politest smile she’s capable of, she declines, eyes locked with Levi. He looks both impatient and as though he’s enjoying her haste, almost as if she’s the one waiting for him and not the other way around. He starts wrapping the necklace around his fingers lazily, a small smirk playing on his lips.

Brushing the man off, she continues her trek, swerving as to not bump into people. Fuck, all the dancing she’s done tonight and now she starts losing her balance? Figures. Levi seems all the more amused at this show, and she doesn’t know when he suddenly started looking at her with such a...smoldering expression. A pleasant heat burns her cheeks. She quickens her pace, and finally, finally, she’s outside of the crowd. He’s so close, just a few more steps and -

Someone blocks her vision. She looks up to see Ricky, grinning proudly. “Found you!”

Goddammit, she is not playing right now.

But she can’t say that to him, it’d be too mean and this is one of her best friends. She looks up and gives him a tight smile. “Took you a good hour, right? Point for me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s dance.”

Before she can protest, he has her sweeped in his arms, laughing as he balances her weight against his own. She laughs too, but it sounds faker than every single fucking giggle she’s let out in the past hour. Straining to look over Ricky’s shoulder, she realizes Levi is no longer in the same position and she’s lost her visual on the target. She turns her head this way and that as she and Ricky dance, but he’s nowhere to be found. Well, shit.

At the very least, dancing with Ricky is fun, but Levi’s gaze is burned into her memory now, not to mention he has her necklace, which could definitely provide a new talking point with the high society ladies. That’s a bit low on her priority list now though, first she has to figure out just what’s making her captain act so weird today.

“Who are you looking for?” Ricky asks with a raised brow after the third time she looks over his shoulder.

“The captain.” She tries looking near where Erwin is standing, but Levi is nowhere in sight. He might be short, but he shouldn’t be able just to vanish. “Do you see him?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

She gives him a Look and Ricky grins, shaking his head and grabbing her hands. He outstretches his arms to start spinning her around. She laughs loudly, but in their created chaos, she missteps and stumbles.

“Shit! (F/N)!”

Spinning out of control, she shuts her eyes tightly. Her feet lose control and she brings her hands up to her face to shield from the inevitable crash.

Before she can trip, though, she’s caught in someone’s arms, landing face first against their chest.

“Well,” Levi drawls, giving Ricky an icy look, “I was about to cut in anyway. Thanks for that.”

Ricky salutes, stuttering an apology for letting their dancing get out of control. Meanwhile, she’s too mortified to even look at Levi. This must be his revenge for her snark earlier that day. She’s embarrassed that he had to catch her, but a thrill goes up her spine thinking of the way he was looking at her earlier. He’s clutching her tightly as he dismisses Ricky, and then turns his head down to look at her, face still planted against his chest.

“You plan to stay there all night?”

Levi might not like it if she answers in the affirmative, so she straightens up, coughing into her fist and looking as bashful as she can. “I apologize, sir. It wasn’t Ricky’s fault. I overestimated my ability.”

“Mm. Seems you get distracted around him.”

From the gleam in his eyes, she knows that he knows damn well it wasn’t Ricky who distracted her.

She places her hand in his. “Can I have my necklace now?”

“Why should I give it to you?” His hand is suddenly on her back and he’s tugging her just a little closer, raising their joint hands. “You haven’t danced with me yet.”

Her eyes widen in excitement and her breath hitches, hardly daring to believe what’s happening. “But...we never dance together at these things.”

He steps forward, forcing her to step back to match him. “I can’t tell you how less of a shit I give, (L/N).”

“This is a bold move, Captain,” she says, eyes twinkling mischievously, “are you sure you can handle it?”

Levi raises a brow and her stomach explodes in butterflies as he pulls her even closer and begins moving, matching her dare with his own. He never breaks his gaze from her, not for a single second. Soon enough, they’re gliding, dancing like she’s been doing all night, but this - oh, this is deliciously different.

They’re not talking, for one thing. Instead she’s focusing on everything about him, from his footwork which matches hers perfectly to his damn hand pressed against her back, making it impossible for her to move away. And she’s not going to look down, because this is her in her own element, and Captain Levi has something else coming if he thinks his newfound skills are going to make her fumble. She matches his every stride, letting him lead but never going slack, all the while ignoring how fast her heart is beating.

His hand makes it’s way slightly downwards to her lower back and she makes an affronted noise. “That’s lower than I allowed anyone else tonight, sir.”

“Different rules for me,” he claims, expression cocky, “stop moving if you don’t like it.”

“So is this why you were with Major Hange?” She smirks at the way his eyes narrow. “You were taking lessons just so you could dance with your favorite girl?”

Levi scoffs. “What makes you think you’re my favorite?”

With no hesitation, he’s pushing her back rapidly. Her heels click sharply against the floor as she moves back, gripping his hand tightly to keep from falling. “You’re getting overly confident, Lieutenant.”

“Y-yeah?” She’s not giving up so easily. “Then why were you dancing with her? And what are you doing with me now?”

He doesn’t answer her. Instead, he raises his hand and without any warning, twirls her under his arm, once, twice, thrice. He keeps going, still stepping forward, until the room is spinning. She can barely see what’s in front of her, now solely focused on not falling. Her feet are moving on their own, back and back, one around the other. His hand is the only thing keeping her on her them as he continues to spin her like a top, moving through the crowd who part for them.

She’s panicking, the floor disappearing under her. There’s nothing in the room anymore except Levi, who is very clearly in control of this dance and doesn’t plan to stop. No one will help her. Her only option now is to plead for mercy.

“Levi -” she gasps, breathless.

“Captain,” he reminds her harshly, they’re in public. “Good run, (L/N).”

With that, he releases her hand, and she loses her step. With a small cry, she stumbles back, reaching out to grab onto his shoulders. In a flash, he’s catching her right before she hits the ground, arms snaking around her waist as she wraps hers around his neck in panic.

There’s no sound at all for a second. She breathes heavily, chest heaving.

And then people start applauding. She realizes with a start that it looks like Levi has just dipped her perfectly, rather than dropping and then catching her. That sneak, he knew it wouldn’t work after it turned out so awkwardly with Hange, so he brought a whole new approach with her. Work her up so much that she trips over her own feet, and then catch her smoothly like it was all planned. Which, for him, it was.

“That was a dirty move.” She glares up at him, still in the same position, and his lips quirk.

“So you won’t ever dance with me again?”

“Oh, I will.” He brings her to her feet, but she keeps one hand on his shoulder, still shaky. “But not tonight. I think I’m done.”

Levi’s expression softens. “Do you want to leave?”

She smiles wryly - it’s amazing how he can go from her superior who’s hellbent on showing her that she’s not hot shit to her lover (boyfriend?) who’s concerned for her wellbeing.

“I can’t. I promised some women I’d come back to talk to them, and I told Ricky him and I would play our game later. It’s kind of tradition at this point.”

“Those women will survive just fine without you. And you two can play your shitty game some other time, when you actually want to.”

“What if I want to right now?”

Levi places his hands on her shoulders and turns her around, facing the crowd that has begun to intermingle again. “You want to play a game? Let’s play my favorite. It’s called ‘come up with the most accurate sounding guess about these rich assholes.’” He leans in behind her so he’s murmuring in her ear. “Mullet over there definitely has a drinking problem. He’s having three separate affairs too.” He turns her again. “And Tree Dress is worried that all her friends hate her, and she’s right. They do, because she overshares about her every single problem.” Another turn, and then he whispers, “Your turn.”

She’s trying her best not to break out into giggles. Keeping her composure, she nods seriously, clicking her tongue. “The Mustachioed Wonder by the punch table? He’s scared he’s going to be an unfit parent, so he plans to divorce his wife before she gives birth.”

Levi lets out a laugh and she can’t help herself, she does too. They must look so suspicious, she thinks, focusing on random individual people like this and laughing to themselves. But looking at the crowd like this brings to light how stupid this entire thing is, and as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, she likes this game purely because it’s such a Levi-esque pastime.

“I still have commitments, Captain.”

Still speaking in a low tone near her ear (probably because he knows it makes her shiver), he responds. “So many people vying for your attention. And you’re gonna choose them over me?”

She thinks about it. How many nights does she get to dance, to dress up all pretty and charm people with old and new friends? It’d be a waste to leave early.

But then, how many nights does she get with Levi so sweetly asking for her attention?

“Alright,” she breathes, “let’s go.”

They’re not five feet out of the ballroom when her legs start aching, the night catching up to her. She’s drained, goddammit, and her heels aren’t helping. She raises a hand motioning for Levi to wait, and leans against the wall, catching her breath.

“My feet are killing me,” she complains pitifully. Levi rolls his eyes, but without much hesitation, drops to his knees and takes one of her feet in his hands, taking off her heel. She watches him with rapt attention, adoration pulsing inside her. This. This is the reward that Ricky would never understand. Her captain, lowering himself to the floor to take off her shoes just because of a single complaint.

He hands her the heels and stands up, turning his back to her. “Get on.”

She gasps in delight. “Really?”

“Really. You did good work tonight, (F/N), now take a break. Come on, my office isn’t that far.”

Slowly, she hikes herself up on his back, clutching his shirt with one hand and holding her shoes with the other. Levi grabs onto her legs, wrapping them around his waist. He’s giving her a piggyback ride, and she thinks she’s died and gone to heaven, or maybe Hange’s drugged him.

Whatever the reason is, she buries her face in his neck and smiles against his skin. “Thank you.”

She can practically hear him roll his eyes. “You’re welcome, minx.”

He’s always so warm, somehow, and there’s no better comfort than hiding away from the world with him, tucked away into his chest knowing that he loves her even if he won’t say it. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter how many people were asking for her attention in the ballroom. Levi trumps the entire stupid gala, and she would choose him a hundred times over.

He carries her to his office and she hops down, legs still aching a little. On his desk, she spots a few piles of paper and gasps. “Le-vi!”

“What now?”

She hurries over to his desk and picks up the unfinished reports. “I thought you completed these! The commander’s gonna have my head, God.” Sitting on his desk, she grabs the pen and gets to work, scribbling details that seem hazy now.

Levi watches her impassively. “No wonder your handwriting is so shitty. You hold pens so fucking weirdly.”

“Says the one who wields swords backwards,” she responds without a beat, getting into her comfortable paperwork zone, “You have no room to talk.”

Not a single page is completed before he’s standing right in front of her, taking both the sheets and the pen from her hands and tossing them on the desk carelessly. He steps in between her legs as she gives him her best stern look. The paperwork is important. He knows that.

He leans in enough for her to focus on his eyes, unusually fond but with their usual tint of exasperation. Cupping her chin, he orders, “You’re not gonna think about the reports, or the gala, or your dumbass friend and his stupid fucking game. Right now…” He trails off, gaze dropping down to her lips. “I am the only thing you should be focused on.”

Well, if he insists.

She captures his lips hungrily, digging her fingers into the collar of his shirt and pulling him close. In turn, Levi cups her face and tilts her chin up to get a better angle. He steps even closer than he was before, and she laments that her dress is too tight to wrap her legs around him. To make up for it, she swipes her tongue over his lower lip and then opens her mouth invitingly. His tongue slips in with no further encouragement and now he’s overwhelming her senses just like he did back in the ballroom, exploring her mouth at his own pace, which is just slow enough to drive her crazy.

The difference between this and their little show during the gala is that this is a private affair. That, and this time around, she has no intention of letting him keep his precious control.

With one hand, she snakes her hand into his hair and tugs it hard enough for Levi to groan needily against her mouth, and just as his hands dropped down to her hips to squeeze them gently, she pulls back, smirking at the way his lips follow hers for a second.

“Minx,” he accuses, eyes narrowing.

“Consider that revenge for embarrassing me in front of everyone.”

Levi presses a hot kiss to her cheek. “Don’t worry, I think only half the room noticed.”

“Nonetheless,” she insists, holding a hand up to keep him at bay, “If we keep going, you’re gonna make me want to spend the night. And if I recall correctly…” She jabs her finger in his chest accusingly. “It was your rule that we limit ourselves to once a week.”

He looks at her disbelievingly. “Figures this is the one time you care about the rules.”

She gives him a winning smile, but unfortunately Levi is the one person who it doesn’t work on. Without having the courtesy to step back and let her reclaim her senses since she’s practically drowning in him, he fishes her precious necklace out of his pocket and holds it just out of reach when she reaches for it.

“That’s rightfully mine, you know.”

“Should’ve thought about that when you left it here this morning. Oh wait,” he says mockingly, “you were too busy begging for a last kiss.”

She scowls - begging is a bit of an overstatement. Early in the morning, Levi usually doesn’t need much persuasion, and he’s more than willing to let her climb on top of him and run her hands across his bare skin and kiss him slowly to prolong the time they have together. It’s just that sometimes she has to plead or whine a little because he has a thing for her putting her pride on hold for his sake. She’s not kinkshaming him or anything, God knows she enjoys it, but it’s slightly unfair of him to tease her about begging when he’s the one who gets off on it.

“Which you gave me. And now you can give me that. Or I’ll write you up.”

He laughs, a sight and sound that she’s never going to get tired of in her life, it’s just too rare for her not to appreciate it each time. Not a chuckle, or an amused scoff, but a real laugh reserved for her enjoyment alone. Levi’s beautiful when he laughs - his relaxed posture and once-in-a-blue-moon bright eyes make her heart stop. She doesn’t even realize her scowl has been replaced with a loving smile.

Still holding her necklace at bay, he kisses the corner of her lips. “Kiss me properly, and I’ll think about giving it back.”

Within the blink of an eye, she hops off his desk and wraps her arms around his neck. He wants a kiss? Then she’ll give him the best damn kiss he’s ever had.

Levi barely manages to grab hold of her waist before she’s pushing him back and kissing him searingly. He grunts as his back hits the wall, hands curling into her dress. “Fuck,” he whispers on her lips, as if he didn’t just ask for this. This time he’s the one desperately tugging her closer, cornered into wanting something. Her eyes close and she bites down on his lip, eliciting a soft moan from him.

Disconnecting from his mouth, she latches onto his neck next, trailing kisses down his neck and enjoying the way he swallows, his eyes closed and his mouth open as he lets out soft sighs. She traces his collarbone with her thumb softly right before sucking on that one spot that makes him release a broken gasp, fingers digging into her hips painfully.

It’s only then she pulls back, smirking cruelly. “My necklace, please.”

He takes a few seconds to catch his breath, which is her mercy really, because God knows if the roles were switched he wouldn’t even let her have that. Shoulders sagging, he glares at her as she crosses her arms triumphantly.

“I think that was more than a proper kiss, Captain.”

Begrudgingly, he holds up the necklace, motioning for her to turn around. As he places it around her neck, she feels his breath on her nape, making the hairs there prickle.

“Levi,” he says, out of the blue, fiddling with the clasp, “don’t call me Captain when you don’t have to.”

“Only in bed, got it.”

He turns her back around slowly and admires his handwork. She raises her chin a little, showing off the jewelry proudly. Not only has her property been returned, but it’s a sign of her triumph.

“Pretty,” he finally decides, tucking her hair behind her ear, “I’m glad you weren’t wearing it before or I never would have gotten you out.”

She takes his hands and places them on her waist where they belong. “Maybe if I had, you would have actually taken a good look at me.”

Levi’s eyes flash. “Did you want me to look at you?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me next time.” He cups her cheek with one hand, tilting her head to the side to plant feathery kisses from her jaw down to her shoulder. “Because it took all of my strength to keep my eyes off you tonight.”

She sighs, tilting her head back. “Levi.”

“Mm?”

“You wanna break out that bottle of wine I stashed under your bed?”

This stops him in his tracks and he stands up straight to glare at her menacingly. “You stashed what under where?”

“Come on,” she chirps, pulling away from him to skip towards his room (as best as she can skip in this dress, that is). “Get the glasses, the nice ones you keep around here somewhere.”

“I’ve told you not to stash your shit here.” Despite his complaints, he follows her into the room connected to his office, leaning down next to a drawer and taking out two wine glasses.

“It’s not my shit.” She retrieves the bottle of wine from under his bed, shaking it tantalizingly at her captain. “It’s our midnight adventure.”

“It’s not even midnight.”

She groans. “Let me have poetic license for once.”

“You’re a fucking menace.”

They both sit on his bed and she pours the wine, bringing it up to her lips to sip it testingly. Oh, that’s the good stuff, no wonder it cost a damn fortune. Drinking in silence isn’t as uncomfortable as it might look to someone on the outside looking in. Everyone knows that the first glass should always be drunk silently, to savor it. They take savoring things very seriously.

After downing the first round, Levi refills for both of them, but instead of drinking, he nudges his nose against her shoulder, closing his eyes and breathing softly as he rests his head buried in her neck. She sets her drink down to run her fingers through his hair, placing a small kiss at the top of his head. “Sleepy already?”

“Not sleepy,” he murmurs, finding her hand to hold, “just tired.”

“Me too,” she says honestly. She squeezes his hand and presses her lips to his temple. “I think we’re overworked, baby.”

Levi snorts against her skin. “Yeah. Exactly why we shouldn’t be wasting tonight on some dumb gala.” He waits a few seconds, and then mutters something quickly.

“What was that?” Her brows furrow.

“I said, we can break the rules just this once.” He kisses her hand, holding it close to his chest. “Stay the night.”

In the name of all things holy, does he have any idea what he does to her when he asks her things like so sweetly and sincerely? Obviously, if they were just a normal couple, she’d spend every night in his room with no hesitation, but due to Levi being who he is, that dream just isn’t a possibility. Which means that she needs to take what she can get.

“Of course. It’s your rule. I’m happy to break it whenever.” She grins cheekily.

“Of course you are.” He sets the bottle and glasses aside before gathering her up in his arms and pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck.

It feels ridiculously good against her tense muscles. She lets her head fall to the front, letting him do as he pleases. Levi brushes her hair out of the way, murmuring appreciation for how she’s put it up. His lips connect with her ear and he blows on it gently before sucking on her earlobe.

“You’re damn beautiful,” he mutters, “so fucking pretty and all mine.”

She drops all tension, a pleased sigh coming out. For someone who isn’t considered to be a people pleaser, he can be really good with his words if he wants to. His thumb presses against her shoulder blade, rubbing it right where it aches, all the while never halting his exploration of her neck. When he drags his tongue slowly behind her ear, she clenches her fists and releases a tortured gasp.

“You’re pent up,” he notes, and at her suggestive expression he rolls his eyes. “Not like that, you minx. Not after last night, at least.” That’s true enough - Levi stays up till 3 AM and makes it her libido’s problem. “I mean your muscles are tense. Haven’t you been doing your drills?”

“I have. They’re not as much fun when you’re not with me.” That’s a blatant romantic lie, it’s absolute fucking hell to let Levi run her morning drills, she always ends up exhausted for the rest of the day. “I’ve just been running around a lot over the past week. Haven’t had much of a chance to unwind.”

“Why are you doing so much?” he demands. “This is exactly why I asked Hange for help - because I wanted you to have fun.” Of course his idea of fun is flustering her. “I thought we’d be able to dance a few times tonight, everyone else be damned. But even if no one else noticed, I did. You’re exhausted, (F/N). I asked you to be in my squad, not to be everyone’s handywoman. You don’t need to keep doing things for me.”

“But I like doing things for you,” she coos, pressing her head back against his chest to listen to his heartbeat. “And I like being in the Scout Regiment. I want to help out where I can. I don’t want you to think I have any regrets.”

Levi doesn’t respond. He only sighs, still rubbing that aching spot on her back. She sits silently for a minute, until a smile creeps on her face as she realizes what he just admitted to.

“So dancing with Major Hange today was for me,” she teases, “because you wanted to dance with me. Because you wanted to see me have fun. Because you love me.”

“Don’t get carried away,” he warns, but when she turns her head to look at him, his eyes confirm everything she’s said, even if he won’t say it. If he won’t say he loves her, she won’t say she loves him either. She understands the fear. He doesn’t need to say it, though, that look in his eyes conveys everything she needs to know.

An idea sparks in her head and she stands excitedly. “We can still dance, right here. Without my heels, of course.”

“There’s no music.” He looks at her amusedly, leaning forward.

In response, she starts humming the first tune that pops in her head, something peppy and upbeat. Moving her arms to her own beat, she beckons him up. Levi scoffs, but he takes her hands and spins her into his chest. With her back to him, she sways with more energy, but she can hear him chuckling, and he wraps his arms around her waist, content to dance like this. It feels just right.

Levi twirls her again, just once. He then proceeds to pick her up just a little, so that she’s resting her forehead on his, looking down into his eyes, which are so full of adoration that she just has to kiss him like this, cupping his face.

Yes, this is definitely better than the gala. In this moment, she swears everything is perfect.

#levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman #aot #aot x reader #snk #superior #valkyrie stories

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juniorgman187 · 3 years

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Fighting Fire With Fire (Reid Fic)

Summary: Reader must lower her pride after a date goes wrong and the only one who can rescue her is her mortal enemy - Spencer Reid.

A/N: This was a beast of a fic to write. It’s been in my WIP since September, and I managed to go from 11 pages to 22 pages in three days. It is now my longest fic thus far. I am insanely fucking proud of it and I hope it does well. Category: Angst Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Content Warning: allusions to ‘catfishing,’ allusions to abduction, dub-con to taking provocative photos, alcohol, mentions of bruises, jealousy, carrying hug which implies weight of Reader (lmk if I missed anything) Word Count: 11.7k

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

I tried to play nice; I really did, but there was no getting through to him. Everyday started and ended with us fighting fire with fire.

Maybe the reason the two of you butt heads so often is because of how similar you are.

That’s what the team would say when Spencer and I got into one of our daily (sometimes hourly) arguments.

They constantly encouraged us to get to know each other so that we’d finally see the likeness, and until recently, I wasn’t opposed to the idea. I was willing to do whatever it took to get him to like me. However, as previously mentioned, my willingness quickly dissipated in light of recent events.

Voluntarily spending more time than necessary with him would be a recipe for disaster no doubt.

Somehow, in a matter of a month, Reid decided that he simply did not enjoy my presence, which was the nice way of putting it.

To be more crass, he loathed me to no end.

Initially, I was operating under the assumption that he wasn’t fond of change, and with me joining the BAU, the change was too much too fast for him, but after four weeks, his attitude toward me never deviated. Yet again, I made another excuse for him, arguing to myself that people are allowed to not like me. I could respect that, but where he lost my respect was how he made a conscious effort to remind me of how much he despised me. Even when I was at my nicest, he still treated me like a scelerate.

If there was a prize for gaining a mortal enemy in the shortest amount of time, I guess I already won that without even trying. He hated me with a burning passion, for reasons unbeknownst to me, despite the fact that all I’d ever try to do was be his friend.

For far too long, I kept denying the part of me that knew making peace with him outside of work wouldn’t go well and it’d simply go down in history as another failed attempt of mine to form a bond with him, so it was at this point that I decided to face the facts.

He didn’t make it easy for me, either. It was hard having to be kind to someone that was only ever out to get me.

He would constantly correct me but only after I said something incorrectly, just so he could prove me wrong.

“If each police officer patrols a street, we’ll be able to cover the entire comfort zone.”

“Actually, we’d need three more officers if we want to cover the entire comfort zone. There’s still 2.347 miles that are unaccounted for.”

I never understood why he couldn’t just say his piece before me so that I didn’t look like an idiot, but I suppose that was the point.

And he had this infuriating, unwarranted habit of judging my taste in cinema and literature. Anytime I told Emily or Derek about a movie I saw or told Rossi about a book I read, he felt compelled to share his antagonistic opinions as if I asked for them in the first place. Sometimes even spoiling the endings for me!

“Rossi, I just started reading Doctor Sleep!” I was so eager to tell Rossi that, so much so that I’d become blind to one dark cloud’s own eagerness to ruin the fun.

“The hotel burns to the ground, but the ghosts don’t die with it.”

He said it with such monotony and nonchalance, not even bothering to look up from his own book to watch my reaction to his menacing act. He just didn’t care!

The list of reasons not to like him truly did go on and on, so it was almost insulting how people would compare the two of us.

They’d bring up the congruence in intelligence, the same affinity for reading, and closeness in age, but it only made me madder. The last person I wanted to resemble was Reid, except today, I gained another glaring similarity to him.

“Look at you two. Did you plan your outfits or something?” Emily playfully pointed out after I walked into the conference room.

I eyed the doctor sipping at his cup of coffee who swiveled around in his chair to see what everyone else was seeing. Just from a short glance, I spotted his navy blue button-up with white polka dots that was nearly identical to the color and print of my dress.

“Well, looks like one of us has to go home and change.” His lips grew into a mischievous smirk behind the rim of his mug.

Was that a joke? Did Spencer Reid make jokes now?

“Ha ha. Very funny.” I facetiously remarked, taking the only open seat at the table which was next to the jokester himself.

“I’m kidding. You look really nice today.” He alleged without a hint of irony. He was complimenting me now, too? It was so unfamiliar that it felt like uncharted territory, possibly even a trap.

“Why? Because I’m dressed like you?” I wasn’t going to fall for his words now, maybe the version of me who would do anything to gain his approval would have. She would’ve smiled and said ‘thank you,’ but this me was going to challenge him if that was the last thing I ever did. “Bit of a narcissist are we, Dr. Reid?”

“Mmm maybe,” He wagered, tilting his head from side to side as if to contemplate the possibility. “Or maybe I just really think you look nice.”

Without even thinking, my heart skipped a beat. I was utterly repulsed by how I let his words have any effect over me. I couldn’t believe that he’d actually managed to fluster me with mediocre flattery.

It felt like years that I had to sit next to Reid at the round table before Hotch dismissed the team for the flight.

30 minutes later, and we were on the jet. I’d taken one of the seats at the table opposite Derek and Emily, with Spencer beside me.

Little things like this I could handle, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before he started bothering me. Morgan was listening to music and Emily was turned around in her seat, facing the back to talk to Rossi. Reid was playing himself in chess, and it took all of my self-control to not be a total asshole and knock the board and its pieces over and into the aisle. Luckily, I had a good enough distraction.

Grant: can you ft tonight?

Me: we’ll see. i might have to work overtime.

For the months that I had been talking to Grant, I was deliberately ambiguous about my job because I wasn’t exactly keen on telling him that I worked for the FBI and that I might not be able to FaceTime him since I was in the process of investigating a series of homicides. That’d surely scare him away and I was never one to flaunt my government job anyway.

Grant: you look stunning today

Me: you haven’t even seen me today

Grant: don’t need to.

Grant: you’ll always be stunning to me.

“Who keeps texting you?”

I looked up from my screen to see Reid fixated on his game but still engaged in my business.

“No one,” I harshly replied, making a conscious decision to turn my phone on vibrate so he wouldn’t hear the chime of my text notifications.

With one nimble side glance, Reid eyed my screen. I nudged him away with extra force.

“Nosy much?!”

This stunned him. He wasn’t used to my coldness, he probably expected me to smile in a chagrined manner and not confront it - as I would have done - but now I was fighting back, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he liked it.

I knew he could read fast, but how he managed to look at my phone so quickly it was like he never even moved his eyes - I didn’t know. Somehow, though, he managed to capture Grant’s entire username, and I didn’t doubt that he caught my entire conversation with him, too.

“Who’s Grant?” The name rolled off his tongue like he was insulted to even be saying it.

“No one.”

He didn’t respond soon after I said this, which I misinterpreted as a little victory for me since I almost believed he was going to drop the subject, but in true Spencer Know It All Reid fashion, he just kept going.

“‘You look stunning today B-T-W. You haven’t even seen me today. Don’t need to. You’ll always be stunning to me.’ Doesn’t really sound like a ‘no one’ to me.” His recitation of my entire PRIVATE conversation with Grant embarrassed me.

Did I forget to add his eidetic memory and speed-reading ability to the list of reasons not to like him?

“Shut up!” I nudged him, this time using much more force than the last. I was becoming more and more inclined to push over his ridiculous chess game so that he’d finally take me seriously.

“Oh, really clever by the way. Vaguely insinuating that you ‘might not be able to call him because you’re working overtime’ just so you don’t have to disclose the true nature of your job.” Spencer’s sarcasm was thick.

“Are you just jealous because the only date you’ve been on was a fake one with a serial killer and not even your actual girlfriend while she was alive?” My reference to Cat and Maeve caught the attention of the entire jet.

Each member mentally rolled their eyes thinking ‘Here we go again.’ And if that wasn’t their reaction, they were certainly cringing at the fight that was ensuing.

Things had been suspiciously good between the two of us today so it was about time we argued. We were due for our daily quarrel.

“Oh, that’s right! The only girls who like you are victims in our cases.” Now this comment was referring to Lila and Austin. (I had Penelope to thank for filling me in on all of Reid’s ‘entanglements’ after I was first reassigned).

“Really? You wanna go there?” He sassed back, diverting his attention away fully from his chess game now. “Do you know how many people get ‘catfished’ when using online dating websites? Or the statistics on how many people are raped, assaulted, or murdered by said ‘catfish’?”

“I’m not stupid, Reid. He and I have been talking for months. We’ve been on calls and Facetime before, too. We’ve just never met in person. Sound familiar?”

“What Maeve and I had is not at all comparable to what you and this ‘guy’ have. And just because you’ve seen his face before doesn’t mean he’s not a serial killer or operating under an alias.”

I had to scoff. Who was he to label our relationship valid or not?

“What’s it to you anyway? We all know you’d be ecstatic if this guy turned out to be a serial killer or catfish. You’d get to rub it in my face and say ‘I told you so.’”

This touched a nerve. He hated it when I attacked his nice-guy facade.

“Is it so hard to believe I’m actually concerned for your wellbeing?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Fine. If you think I don’t care about you, then don’t come crying to me when you realize he’s not the guy you think he is.”

“Oh, trust me, I won’t! It’s not like you’d be able to protect me anyway, Pretty Boy.” I sneered, using Morgan’s nickname for him as an insult got to him, and I could see it in the way his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared.

Hotch had to interject now. “Alright, (y/l/n), Reid, that’s enough. We need to focus on what’s actually important.”

I settled back down in my seat, facing forward and avoiding eye contact with Reid.

“Have fun on your date,” He muttered under his breath. “Hope you survive it.”

Bastard.

For the rest of the case, I was on edge. Deliberately avoiding him was a much harder task than one might think. I had to wait at least ten minutes for my coffee, so I wouldn’t be at the machine when he was there, and if I had to guess, he probably took longer just to make me wait in agitation. I had to awkwardly squeeze into a new spot beside Rossi and Hotch when we were delivering the profile. I had to ask not to travel in the same SUV as him.

And this exhausting routine went on for days. In fact, I’d managed to almost go the entire case without interacting with him. That was until Hotch sent us both in the field to apprehend the unsub.

“Are you sure?” I asked with clear reluctance.

“Are you questioning me?” Hotch replied sternly.

“No, sir.”

I was already on thin ice being the new recruit, so I knew better than to question any of Hotch’s orders. And as miserable as working with Reid was, I figured he’d at least ease up on the hostility when we needed to be professional. Evidently though, even in the field, he wasn’t willing to work together with me.

It was a quick decision, not careless in the least, however. The unsub had locked himself in his warehouse and refused to leave unless we were brave enough to drag him out of there ourselves. The ultimatum he gave specified that only one of us could do it and we both agreed that I should go in, seeing as he’d underestimate my strength as a woman, and I’d have the upperhand when I inevitably apprehended him.

However, he also explicitly told us that I couldn’t come in with a gun - it had to be an even playing field.

“You are not going in without a gun,” Reid ordered.

“We don’t have time to argue about this - I have a spare on me, okay? There are three hostages in there, two of which are children.” Without giving him a chance to respond, I handed him my gun and holster.

Had I let him waste a single second more of my time, we wouldn’t have been able to save the three hostages and successfully arrest the unsub. I saw this as a victory and I was almost willing to celebrate it with him, but it wasn’t long before he let our enmity tear us apart again.

When we got back to the precinct, I went to the locker room to change, then suddenly, Hotch came in.

“I’ve been informed that you went in unarmed against a fellow agent’s orders. This matter will be discussed in my office when we get back. I should warn you, (y/n), you do not want to make this mistake again.” Hotch left me with those foreboding words, and I knew, I knew immediately that Reid was to blame for this.

If I took a look in the mirror of my locker, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I saw that my face was turning a bright shade of red. I was fuming - bursting at the seams from the anger building within me that was desperately fighting to escape. I could imagine myself as a cartoon character with steam blowing out either of my ears. I was about to go on a rampage, and no one - absolutely no one - could stop me.

The last straw was hearing him come in. This was my opportunity to unleash what was already boiling.

“What the hell, Reid? ‘(y/n) went in unarmed.’ Seriously?!” I undid the velcro on my vest so hastily out of my blind rage that the spiky side of the velcro strip nearly sliced my finger. “Are you trying to get me fired?”

“If that’s what it takes to make you realize how stupid of a choice that was, then yes, I do.” He was so calm and collected in his inflection that it angered me all the more.

“What are you even talking about? What ‘stupid choice’? You knew I had a second gun on me. And even if I didn’t carry it, I still would’ve had my vest on. I wasn’t going in unarmed or unprotected, so why would you tell Hotch that?”

“In the time it would take you to assess the danger, react, and then reach for the gun at your ankle, the unsub would’ve been able to shoot you twice - if not more. That’s going in unprepared, which is going in unarmed.”

I scoffed in disbelief that he was actually reprimanding me. “Are you kidding? This is all based on a technicality? Did your eidetic memory somehow forget about what happened with Maeve? Because my memory didn’t. I know for a fact that you went into that warehouse without a vest or a weapon. And unlike you, I had a spare and my vest. AND I actually apprehended the unsub. Did you stop Diane?”

This crossed a line and I knew it, but it was too late to take it back, and clearly, it was much too late to repair any relationship I had with him. We were far beyond the point of no return.

He was so mad that he didn’t even answer me. The only response I could gauge was from his body language, which by the looks of it, all the signs of anger were plain on his face. He clenched his jaw so hard I could hear his teeth grind. Even his nostrils flared so primitively. His eyes narrowed down at me with a glare that said, ‘I’m the predator and you’re the prey.’

“Yeah, exactly.” I spat when he stayed silent.

I turned around, starting towards the exit, but I was too furious to stop there, so I spun around and unleashed the remainder of my wrath that had been dying to come out.

“Look, I get it. I’m the new kid around here, and it sucks when someone new comes in and changes up the team dynamic, but any mistake I make, or any mistake Hotch thinks I make, could send me packing. You’ve been working in this unit for years, and even if Hotch questions your choices, he won’t reassign you. He won’t even threaten it. He’s willing to overlook your mistakes because he knows that what you have to contribute to the team is too vital to let go, but I haven’t even had my chance to show him what I have to offer. So when I do make a mistake, there is nothing for me to fall back on, nothing to redeem me, and no safety net, but you? You have years of experience on your back to break your fall. So don’t you dare act like you’re doing me a favor by reporting my ‘mistake’ to Hotch. You might be costing me my dream job, and if you think that makes us friends - think again.”

I stormed out of the locker room seeing red.

This war was far from over.

_ _ _

“You’re clenching your fists again,” Emily said under her breath. I was grateful that she said it in a hushed tone, otherwise she might’ve revealed my lingering anger to the whole jet, which wouldn’t have been good.

I immediately unclenched them, opening up my hands to reveal small, dark C shaped imprints on my palms from where my nails had dug into them.

I should’ve expected that she would’ve learned at least one of my tells by now. I did have many after all. Cheek biting, fist-clenching, leg bouncing.

“Something bothering you?” She probed quietly.

She set her book down to give her undivided attention to this conversation. That was enough to tell me that an excuse like, ‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ would not suffice. She wouldn’t be satisfied until I told her the truth, which I surely did not want to tell. So I settled for a half-truth.

“Hotch wants to talk when we get back.”

From my peripherals, I saw her knit her brows together in confusion. “Is . . . is that it?”

“Mhm.” I lied.

“But that’s not enough to warrant the fist clenching. Cheek biting - sure - you do it when you’re anxious, but not fist-clenching. You only do that when you’re angry about something.”

“Oh, so you have figured out all my tells,” I smirked.

“Pfft, I figured them all out the first week you got here, but I won’t tell you the rest, otherwise you might try and hide them from me,” She joked.

I shook my head playfully. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m just worked up about something - it’s nothing you need to worry about though.” Habitually, my eyes looked right up in his direction. I caught a glimpse of him sprawled against the couch, sleeping. He was lucky I wasn’t ranting about the little stunt he pulled earlier to Emily. He should be thankful that I was even trying to protect his reputation to her at all.

“I get it if you don’t want to talk about it, but it does help. Take it from me, someone who really only trusts myself, you shouldn’t hide what you feel.”

What you feel.

I clung onto those words.

What was I really feeling?

Was I upset that instead of receiving praise for the arrest I made, I was scolded like a child? Was I angry that Hotch believed what Reid had to say about my “problematic behavior” instead of believing in me?

Or did I feel betrayed that despite my best efforts to build a bridge, Reid was tearing it apart brick by brick? Burning it to pieces with the fire of his rage?

“Thanks.” I bleakly said to Emily. I would’ve told her the truth, but it didn’t feel necessary at that moment. If anything, it just would’ve reflected badly on me.

Truthfully, she was the closest thing I had to a friend in the BAU, and if I wanted a permanent spot here, I needed to make more of them - and fast.

“Hey, (y/n), we’re all going down to O’Keefs tonight to celebrate. You wanna join us?” Morgan asked, walking up the aisle and crouching down beside my seat to talk to me.

“Oh, I wish I could, but I have to talk with Hotch when we get back,” I explained, smiling politely.

“We can postpone the meeting till first thing Monday morning. I need to go home and be with Jack, anyway,” Hotch added.

I didn’t realize he could hear me from where he was sitting, which made me all the more nervous that he might’ve overheard the entire conversation between me and Emily earlier.

“Looks like I’m free,” I looked back at Morgan. “Does the offer still stand?”

“Anything for you, sweet cheeks.” He winked.

Judging from the lightness of the atmosphere, everyone, except maybe Hotch and Rossi, would be celebrating at O’Keefs - including Spencer.

I think I might’ve actually preferred to be scolded by Hotch tonight, instead of being silently glared at by Spencer, but it was already too late to revoke my confirmation of presence.

Because, if Hotch could hear me from where he was sitting, then Spencer could, too.

He already heard I was coming, and there was no way I was backing down.

_ _ _

In spite of the fact that I could barely hear myself think over the loud chatter and blasting music, I could still feel the rage radiating off of Spencer. You would think with how long his nap was on the jet, he wouldn’t be so cranky, but I guess he just couldn’t sleep off his disdain for me after our minor altercation.

I wondered if the team could see it, too. The way he was burning a hole into me with his fiery stare. The tension was palpable, as it has always been, but remember - I’m not the one who wanted it that way.

He started this. I was only making the feeling mutual.

“So what about you, (y/n)? Are you seeing anyone?”

I tried to hide my growing smirk behind the rim of my beer, but I knew I couldn’t hide much from them. Of course, right across from me, Spencer was glaring at me expectantly, waiting for the answer he already knew.

“Oooh, look at her - she’s blushing! Spill.” Penelope ordered, beating her palm on the table so enthusiastically it shook all the drinks on it.

“Well, there’s this one guy I’ve been seeing for a while,” The second I started speaking, I noticed Spencer rolling his eyes. I figured his apprehension was the only response of its kind that I would receive, but I was very mistaken.

“How did you two meet?” Penelope giddily asked, nearly jumping up and down in her seat.

“A dating app, actually.”

The table went completely silent, and I immediately felt my stomach drop. It was as if I’d just said something very wrong. With just a quick glance in front of me, Spencer was basking in this.

What a dick.

Emily hesitated to ask. “...Have you two met in person before?”

Now it was my turn to hesitate to speak. “No, not yet.”

I took another sip of my drink even though I wasn’t thirsty. I just wanted to hide any part of my face I could to shield myself from the five sets of eyes burning holes into me now, rather than just the one. Trying to make matters better, I spoke all too quickly, nearly sputtering on my beer. “I’m completely safe, though. Nothing sketchy’s going on, I promise.”

“Of course,” JJ agreed. “We totally trust you,” neglecting to attach the cliche, ‘It’s him we don’t trust.’ But if she had, it would’ve spoken everyone’s bubble thoughts right about now.

“Just be careful, mama.” Derek’s response felt the most sincere, and I honestly believed he was happy for me, but it didn’t change how much their judgement initially stung.

For the rest of the night, I didn’t talk. No one noticed.

Except maybe the last person I wanted to notice.

I quietly slipped away somewhere in the night when the conversation was at its highest precisely so they wouldn’t question where I was going or if I was okay. If they had asked, the truthful answer to the former would’ve been ‘just outside to get some air’ and the latter ‘no.’

The cool breeze drifted through the door like rising fog and for the briefest moment in time, I felt suspended in the space around me - I’d finally caught my breath. That feeling wouldn’t last long, though.

I’d intentionally gone outside to compose myself until I came back a person who wasn’t on the verge of tears, but apparently, trying to pull myself only resulted in my falling apart. A ball of yarn unraveling is the closest comparison I can draw to what I must’ve looked like, crying quietly on the street.

“I figured I’d find you here.”

It was the mere sound of someone’s voice that shocked me, but it was the person whose voice it was that led to the frustration that followed.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be inside talking to the team of people who also agree with you about Grant?”

He was too much of a nuisance to warrant exchanging eye contact with so I simply stared forward as I spoke and wiped the tears away that were still pooling on my lower lash line. I hoped he hadn’t actually seen me crying, but from what I could tell, he was probably standing there long before he said something. And if he was truly looking at me as deeply as it felt like right now, then he’d have noticed my bloodshot eyes, flushed cheeks, and unending sniffling.

“Is that why you disappeared back there? Because you’re upset they didn’t exactly like the idea of your relationship?” The pain in the ass really tried, he really tried to get me to look at him by facing me and making these gestures with his hands that should’ve gotten my attention, but instead, I stayed put leaning against the wall, keeping my line of sight straight ahead.

“(Y/n), they weren’t insulting you or judging you -”

“Then why did it feel like it?” For the first time since he’d joined me, I’d looked at him. I didn’t even mean to and I had every intention of denying him that privilege for the entire duration of our conversation, but as soon as I asked him my question, we locked eyes, and I saw it written all over his face.

He felt sorry for me.

Now, he could clearly make out how distraught I was from this unobstructed view of my face that was kindled by the dim, flickering yellow glow of the streetlight beside us. And he kept staring, looking into my eyes to read me just as easily and just as quickly as he read a book.

“All we want is for you to be safe,” His voice crackled momentarily, and it actually touched some part of me for how genuine it sounded. “We weren’t trying to judge you or to insult you, and I’m sorry if it felt that way, but if we want your safety, and you tell us about something that could be potentially harmful, then of course we’re going to be apprehensive about it. That’s how people that care about you should react.”

“So are you saying that I don’t care about myself because I’m engaging in something risky?” Isn’t that the most ironic statement of this year? The definition of our job was risky, and even if this wasn’t the safest relationship on the planet, it was nothing like what we put ourselves through everyday being in the field.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying -”

“So what are you saying?” I dared. He shook his head and sighed like he was about to give up, but I needed an answer. “No, please, do continue. Finish what you were gonna say. Since you apparently know everything, 187. Please go ahead - tell me what you think I should do.”

Tell me what you really came out here to say, I ordered him with my eyes.

“I think I respect you more than you respect yourself, and that’s really saying something. Because if you actually liked yourself as much as I do, then you would realize that subjecting yourself to this nonsensicality of a long-distance relationship is not only dangerous - but insulting to your worth, too. You deserve more than that, (y/n).” He couldn’t have been clearer when he murmured a low and firm, “Much more.”

The world was spinning on its axis too fast for me to process anything he said before snapping back at him. “So what exactly is it you want me to do?”

With utmost clarity in both annunciation and intention, he told me, “Break up with him.”

Not a shadow of a doubt in his words.

Then, like the phantom of the opera himself, he vanished back into the bar, but even if he had stayed, I wouldn’t have had anything to say to him. I was simply rendered speechless.

Circling back to my previous argument, I questioned once more why was it any of his business anyway? I was allowed to do as I pleased and I most certainly did not have to listen to him. And I didn’t.

But I should’ve.

_ _ _

My Monday morning meeting with Hotch wasn’t nearly as fire and brimstone as I thought it would be. It did however feel like the equivalent to an “I’m disappointed in you” parent speech. In some ways, I related to the average teen who was grounded. Except instead of my phone being taken away, it was my freedom. From now on, I could only follow executive orders that had been given to me. At least for the time being.

It was clear that, deep down, some part of Hotch knew what I’d done was the right call, but he couldn’t give me any favors. Not until they were deserved on my end.

Walking onto the jet after our meeting, however, felt more juvenile than the punishment itself. I was a kid again, re-entering my classroom after using the restroom, only to have all eyes on me as I came through the door.

As per usual, the only empty chair was next to Reid. There’d been too many instances of this happening to think it was just a coincidence. At this point, I had to assume it was by design. Whose design however? That I didn’t know.

“Hello, trouble,” He sang when I took my seat.

I could only assume that this new nickname was based on what took place in Hotch’s office - thanks to him, need I remind you - but I didn’t care to know the origin because that would require talking to him, and for several reasons, that was the last thing I wanted to do. The first of which was what happened less than three days ago. An event we both hadn’t mentioned yet, and I hoped we never would.

I took every preventative measure in the book. I changed seats with JJ. I moved to the couch. I even started reading in the little hallway between the kitchenette and bathroom of the jet to avoid sitting beside him, but against all my best efforts, he always found a way to bug me. When there’s a will, there’s a way. After exhausting any real reason he had to talk to me, he had to get creative.

“You’ve been on that same page for four minutes and twenty-seven seconds.” I heard him say when he walked up to the kitchen to reach for the pot of coffee. Almost expecting I’d ask him what he meant, he added the explanation casually. “It never takes you more than three minutes and twelve seconds to move onto the next page. So either you’re not understanding the material or you’re not actually reading.”

It was utterly hilarious of him to imply that either of those things were definitely the answer. “What if I’m just taking my time reading this page, genius? Ever thought of that?”

His eyes turned into slits as he leaned in closer to examine me. “You’re blinking rate just increased, too.”

“Stop!” I screeched childishly, pushing him away by his shoulders in an attempt to get him off my back, but he was far from off my back. No, he was right against it. More specifically, his hand was on the small of it.

Leaning in so close that his lips were practically pressing on the shell of my ear, he whispered, “Come find me when you’re ready to tell me the truth.”

He didn’t need to know his words or actions had any sort of effect on me, so I kept the most stoic facial expression on, and I didn’t say a single thing back. He turned back around to leave with the hand on my back being the last thing to go. His lingering touch caused a shiver to run down my spine while paradoxically burning my body from the friction.

I was disgusted with myself for having let him elicit any sort of reaction from me, even if he wasn’t aware of it.

“Yeah ... well, d-don’t expect that to be anytime soon,” was my poor attempt at a retort to shut him up.

“Whatever you say, trouble.”

_ _ _

Personal space can be a wonderful thing. Much less so when it’s invaded, however.

After what felt like the longest flight ever, all I wanted was to take a shower and go to bed. My wishes were granted when I was able to wash off the stress and exhaustion and slip into a blush pink satin pajama set Grant sent me that I’d been meaning to wear. The plunging neck of the tank top was lined with lace and adorned with the tiniest little bow at the center. To match the shirt, the hem of the shorts were lined with lace that trailed up the small triangular slits on the side of the shorts, where at the vertex of them was the same little bow detail. For such a pure and innocent color as baby pink, you’d think it’d be somewhat less revealing. The longer I started at myself in the mirror while wearing it, the more aware I’d become of the intentions behind why Grant had sent it.

How cute, I thought, rolling my eyes.

Gifts should always be appreciated, if for no other reason than the effort put into it, but this just felt slimy. There was obviously no valiant romantic intent behind the negligee, which spoiled the delight of receiving something out of the blue from him. What’s worse was that I wasn’t even sure how to thank him for something like this.

Me: thank you for the pajamas. they’re so cute!

Lying was easier over text message, in case you were wondering what the perks of a long distance relationship were.

Grant: good, I’m glad you like them. are you wearing them right now?

But sometimes, when you should lie, you don’t. And you regret it later on - take it from me.

Me: yeah, they’re super comfy

Grant: great! i wanna see them on! take a pic

As if to compensate for the indisputable hatred I had for this lingerie and what it stood for in our relationship, I did the only thing I could think that would make him think I really liked them. That I felt good in them.

I took pictures - not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, Yelp review pictures, though - provocative ones.

In the same breath I went to take them, though, Spencer’s words rang through my head.

You deserve more than that. Much more.

Shaking off the thought of Spencer, I decided against what the little voice in my head that sounded too similar to his would’ve said.

To add to the illusion, I situated myself within the hotel sheets and used the front camera to capture my chest that was very much on display in this top. In the middle of rolling around the bed, trying to find the angles that wouldn’t show my face of dejection, the door opened.

Instantaneously, I clawed at the sheets until they wrapped around me like a towel. I was ashamed to admit they provided more coverage than these ‘pajamas’ did.

My shriek of shock must’ve sounded familiar to the stranger intruding on me because no sooner did I scream than they questioned, “(Y/n)? What are you doing here?”

Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

“Spencer, what the hell are you doing in here?” I grumbled, struggling to maintain a tight enough grip on the sheets that would keep them from falling and unveiling a sight I desperately did not want him to see.

“I asked you first.”

Boy, if you only knew how badly I wanted to slap that smirk right off his face. “This is my hotel room obviously. Your turn.”

Returning just the same tone, inflection, and vocals, he imitated me. “This is my hotel room obviously.” Like one of those magic tricks he’d show Henry or Jack, he miraculously flashed a room key between his index and middle finger that wasn’t there before.

“No, that’s impossible.”

“I opened the door, didn’t I?” That damn smirk was still there when he asked this. Maybe, just maybe, if it hadn’t been so condescending, I would’ve thought his sarcasm was ... attractive. Disgusting, I know.

“Well, if you actually plan on staying here, then you’re sleeping on the floor or the couch, got it?”

My question went unanswered until I turned around to follow where he’d traveled in the time that I spent pondering how this happened. Now perched at the window, sitting on the arm of the chair in a way that chairs weren’t meant to be sat on, he continued to stare silently at me.

“What? What is it?” I urged.

“What’s going on with the …” He made a side to side sweeping motion with his key card. “Bed sheets?”

Consciously, I shimmied the fabric further up my body. Seeing as there was virtually no way to escape an honest answer, I confessed. “If you must know ... I’m wearing p-pajamas.” My own body was rejecting the shameful admission causing the word to stumble out of my mouth.

He didn’t need to know any more than that to gather what kind of garments they were. He already figured it out.

“Did Grant give them to you?”

I almost rolled my eyes at the implication. “What makes you say that?”

“Because I know you,” He punctuated every word perfectly. “And I know that you wear big shirts and sweatpants to bed because you don’t see the point of spending money on clothes that are only made for you to sleep in - especially if they’re clothes that make you uncomfortable like these ones clearly do.”

Although, I greatly despised the fact that there was even a little bit of a chance that I might’ve agreed with him, I still defended Grant. “It was a thoughtful gesture.”

“Thoughtful, right,” He scoffed. “And which head was he thinking with?”

I was baffled he had the gall to say such an innuendo. “Spencer!”

How dare he? So what if Grant bought me something provocative because he was physically attracted to me? At least someone was.

Despite the ferocity plain on his face, he chose not to pursue this conversation. Visibly biting back on words he knew would hurt me, Spencer managed to sound remarkably genuine when he promised me, “I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”

I want you to, was my very first thought. Oh, God, that’s so fucked up, was my second.

He underlined his sincerity by turning fully around until he was facing the window. “But we should probably put the sheets back on the bed if you plan on sleeping on it.”

He was so patient as he waited for me to remove the cloth from my body. It almost made me feel guilty. He didn’t grumble or gripe, nor did he pressure me to do it at all. So by rights, there should’ve been no reason for me to take so long to let the barrier fall - he wasn’t looking at me. But I was just so goddamn embarrassed.

This wasn’t me, and even he knew that.

“You can turn around now,” I mumbled quietly once my safety net of a bedsheet had abandoned me. My arms were crossed over my chest and my thighs were pressed so tightly against each other as if to limit the surface area that Spencer could scrutinize.

That never came.

He did look, I could tell that much. But it wasn’t a look I’d ever seen before. It wasn’t rage or annoyance or pity. It was a look of lust.

A look that made me positively weak in the knees. A look far more sensual than even my racy garments.

“I’ll just sleep in Morgan’s room tonight, okay?” He offered once he finally broke out of his incapacitation. Grabbing the two opposite corners of the sheets that I was holding, it was a team effort as we arranged the covers where they belonged. It was probably the longest period of time we’d ever worked together without fighting or talking at all for that matter..

Not a single word was exchanged between us while Spencer gathered his things to leave for Derek’s. The room started to feel dangerously empty in the stillness.

When he slipped past me to make his way out, I caught his upper arm, successfully pulling him back around.

I could’ve been sweet, I should’ve. But that wasn’t our thing. So I settled for what came naturally to us and what would set off the least amount of red flags - I didn’t play nice. “As long as you promise not to hog the entire bed with your behemoth body, we can sleep together -” Catching the words as soon as they came out and what they could’ve implied, I began backtracking. “Sleep in the same bed. Sleep as in rest. Not sleep as in … anything else.”

Then, in one of those rare moments- he laughed. He actually laughed. Like a real, hearty, sudden laugh. “I know what you meant, (y/n).”

I’ll never forget the smile that followed the world’s greatest laugh either.

Oh, God, I’m so fucked up.

_ _ _

Spencer’s POV

Domesticated animals are smarter than we give them credit for. Studies have shown that pets can actually sense time; They know when it’s time for their owner to leave for the day and when they’ll be coming home, too.

Animals aren’t dumb - and neither was I.

Like a dog sniffing out their owner’s imminent absence in the home, I could tell (y/n) was leaving the hotel room for the night. If her current state wasn’t convincing enough, then her behavior throughout the entire day supported that theory just as well.

Whether it was her phone, the clock on the wall, or her watch, she was evidently keeping a close eye on the time. She did it so often, though, that you would think she would just use simple deductions to figure out what time it was by estimating the time it was when she last checked, but nope. She rarely let more than a minute go by without monitoring the clock.

My suspicions didn’t end there. What’s more suggestive was the anxious fidgeting. She had her tells of anxiety - everyone does - but this was a level of stress I’d never seen her exhibit before, not even in the field.

She kept cracking her knuckles, even when she’d exhausting all the popping noises she could from them. Her leg-bobbing was another big tell, too. I tend to sit on tables rather than in the chairs at said table, allowing me to feel the earthquake occurring on the precinct floor. Her leg was bouncing up and down so vigorously it was practically shaking the room.

I would’ve asked her what she was so impatient about, but I feared I already knew the answer.

Grant.

And if I never heard that name roll off her tongue again, it would be too soon.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t ask where she was going, though.

Pretending to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I barely let my eyes venture far off the page when I loudly asked from the window seat, “So where are you going tonight, trouble?”

The faintest sound of a chuckle erupted in the bathroom, most likely from the nickname I hadn’t let die yet.

“Nunya,” was her ever-so mature answer.

I didn’t want to give her the chance to say ‘nunya business’ like I knew she would, so I quickly interjected with a monotone, “How clever of you.” If she wanted to be a child about this, then so be it.

“Let’s see. You brought your good heels out of your suitcase, which you only wear on special occasions. And you put on a different perfume than the one you usually use, so I’m assuming it’s new. ... If I didn’t know any better, trouble, I’d say you’re going on a date.”

She peeked her head out of the bathroom doorway to say, “You’re creepy, you know that?”

Seeing the small portion of her face that was embellished with a smile would’ve been enough if only I knew what dress she was hiding in behind that wall. I had yet to see that part of her ensemble, but if I had to guess, it would break my heart.

“Just saying,” I casually lied while clearing my throat.

“Well,” I heard her begin from within the bathroom. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Grant is meeting me tonight.”

Kill me now.

“I thought Grant lived in D.C.” Not that that would change much if he was already here.

“Yes, he does, but he’s driving all the way here to meet me. Seeee,” She drew out the word. “Would a serial killer do that?”

I refrained from giving the obvious answer: Yes.

“Well, I hope you don’t plan on bringing him back here. Otherwise, that’d be terribly awkward, don’t you think?” My allusion to the possibility that Grant would come back here to find me in her bed was borne from the intentions that were a complete contradiction to the words I’d just spoken. It, in fact, wouldn’t be terribly awkward. No, it would be fun. For me at least.

I would have loved to have seen the look on his face, and the worry on hers as she tried to explain who I was and why I had any right to be in (y/n)’s gravity.

The room went silent again while I stayed on the same page of my book and, unbeknownst to her, waited for her to enter the room. How long she was taking was starting to worry me, though.

“Need any help in there?” I called out.

“Nope,” She said through a strained voice that proved she was indeed struggling with something.

“Really?” I asked once more to give her another opportunity to lower her colossal pride. “Cause it sounds like you need help.”

“Nope. I’m good.” Liar.

I knew her too well. I counted down to the exact second when she finally scrambled to ask, “Can you help me zip up my dress?”

“Yyyup.” I’d already resigned to the fact that I would have to help her, bouncing happily off the bed when she finally admitted it and letting myself lose the page I was on as I tossed the book haphazardly behind me.

I was forced to join her in the bathroom for it was already hard for her to humble herself enough to ask me for help, so she certainly couldn’t be expected to lower her pride again and walk out to a place more convenient for me.

The first thing I noticed was that it was a space clearly not made for two. It was so cramped that I ended up right against her in order to fit. The second thing I noticed was how she made no movements to distance herself. She was so close to me that I could actually see the little hairs on the back of her neck standing up from where my breath ghosted on the area. The sterile smell of hotel bathrooms had been replaced by the flowery, aromatic scent of her new perfume, and my heart broke all over again.

Using the back of my fingers, I cast a barely-there caress on her neck to stroke her hair out of the way to clear the path of the zipper. The little hairs on the back of her neck stood up again.

She liked that.

“So do I get to know where you’re going?” I reached for the zipper on the small of her back. “For safety purposes, of course.”

“Aww, you looking out for me, Dr. Reid?” She teased in a seductive tone while gathering her hair into a makeshift ponytail that for the shortest second recorded in time might’ve reminded me of a constantly recurring intrusive image.

“Always, trouble.”

The zipper fastened with absolutely no resistance all the way to the top. My eyes flashed to the mirror to catch her expression, which told me everything I needed to know.

What a pretty little liar. She didn’t actually need my help.

Comprehending that the realization dawned on me, she gave me what she knew would shut me up. “We’re going to The Rooftop at Lamont’s.”

How effortlessly she slipped past me without a thank you or a glance in my direction served as a rude awakening.

“Well, you should take an umbrella with you. It looks like there’s gonna be a storm tonight.” This was my small way of coming to terms with the reality of the situation.

“Eh,” She waved my suggestion off with a dismissive hand. “We’ll be fine. Oh, and don’t even think about stalking me!” She warned before exiting the room.

In the blink of an eye, she was gone - my peace of mind having left with her.

_ _ _

The amount of sleep you need varies for each person and is affected by several factors. However, for most adults, 7–9 hours per night is the ideal amount. And I was slowly reducing that optimal quantity, hour by hour, until there was none left.

I would continue to sacrifice my sleep so long as I was awake for her return. If she’d asked why I was still up, I would lie. Though I wouldn’t look half so pretty as she did when she lied.

Losing rest seemed like such a small price to pay to make sure I was fully alert in the event that an emergency happened, even if I would suffer the consequences in the morning. But hey - that’s what caffeine is for, isn’t it? To re-energize oneself after staying up to guarantee one’s enemy’s safety.

Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly why Kaldi invented coffee in 750 A.D.

Besides the thunderstorm, my mind also made great company for situations like these. Granted, the visions it would project kept me up for a reason - they were all so awful.

There was simply no projected reality where things would turn out alright.

If she had the time of her life on her date, she would come back to throw it in my face that I’d been wrong, and her admiration for Grant would have deepened.

Or if he stood her up, she’d be devastated, but instead of letting me console her, she’d push me away as easily as she always did.

In a more neutral instance, perhaps she would admit it wasn’t as great meeting him as she thought it would be and the relationship would fade out for innocent reasons. Even if that seemed like the most favorable circumstance, she would eventually grow to resent me for planting the seed of doubt in her head in the first place.

But nothing- nothing I could have imagined would be as treacherous as what actually happened.

At exactly 1:09 a.m, my phone started to ring. I can’t explain to you what it was, but I just knew - it was her calling, and it wasn’t even her number.

“(Y/n)? Is everything okay?”

If she said something beforehand, I couldn’t hear her because the storm was too loud and her voice was too quiet. “Did I wake you up?”

I reassured her with a tone I didn’t even recognize. “No, no. I was awake. Why? What’s up?” The line went quiet again, forcing me to prompt her to speak in order to find out if she was still there on the call. “(Y/n)?”

“Spencer ...” She choked out a hoarse sob. “I need you. I need you to come get me, please.”

My eyes clenched shut at the dreadful sound of her sorrow, and I jolted into action. After scrambling to gather the keys to her car that she’d left behind, I fled the room faster than ever before.

“I’m on my way, (y/n). Stay right there. You’re at The Rooftop at Lamont’s right?”

The poor thing took the longest pause in history, either from shame or disorientation. “He threw me in the back of his car and drove me all the way to D.C. I …” Her breath caught on her dry throat again. “I, um, I managed to escape and now I’ve barricaded myself in a payphone booth. I haven’t called the police yet. You were the first person I thought to call. I just, I just needed to hear your voice.”

My knuckles turned an unfamiliar shade of white when I gripped the steering wheel, picturing her caged up in a rectangular box, dialing my number instead of 911 just so she could hear my voice.

“Everything is gonna be okay. I promise you. My ETA is 1:28. That’s in 19 minutes. Are you okay being there for that long or do you want to find somewhere safer?”

I could no longer distinguish the difference between talking to her right now and talking to a victim in distress. I was speaking with the same tone and inflection but feeling a sharp pain in my chest that wasn’t there before.

“I can stay here. Just ... don’t hang up, okay?” The fact that the possibility of me abandoning her over the phone even crossed her mind was more than enough to get me to drive well over the speed limit.

The list of traffic infractions only grew from there because honestly? Screw my safety or anyone else’s. Her’s was the only one that mattered. She was the priority.

She was my priority.

Throughout the entire call, I kept repeating, “You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.” Frankly, it was something we both needed to hear.

It was both the fastest and slowest 19 minutes of my life. Time no longer felt real when I finally found the payphone booth that boxed in my troublesome girl. No sooner did I drive up to the sidewalk than I ran out of the car to sprint the short distance to free her from her coop.

“(Y/n)!” I shouted, swinging the door open and throwing caution to the wind in the process. Immediately, she dropped the phone, not even bothering to replace it onto its receiver.

The pouring rain had stripped her of her dignity. Mascara ran down her face in pigmented streams of black. Her curled hair was dampened into strings. But worse of all, it hadn’t washed away the darkening bruises on her skin.

“Oh my god, Spencer!” She cried as she ran into my open arms.

Her body collided with mine in such a gentle manner that I had to wonder how that was possible at all or if it was a figment of my imagination. Was our collision actually that gentle or did it seem that way because of how good it felt to have her arms and legs latch around my entire torso, crossing and connecting somewhere in between?

With one arm under her thighs to hold her up, I pulled her impossibly closer to me by cradling the back of her head with the other hand.

Her small hands found their way into my hair, a new sensation I tried not to indulge in so as not to let my attention stray away from the little life I was holding in my arms.

She was so cold.

Shivering from my warm embrace, her teeth chattered as she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Spencer. You were right I should’ve listened -”

“Shh, it’s okay, (y/n),” I said with the hopes that I could make the pounding heart that was thumping against my shoulder settle down until it reached her standard heart rate of 67 beats per minute.

After a second of just holding her wordlessly, she spoke again.

“I don’t wanna fight.” She surrendered so easily to me that I could hardly believe this was her at all.

“I don’t wanna fight with you either.”

That was entirely true. Fighting with her was the last thing on my mind. The first was getting her into my car.

It was easier that I imagined it would be, but then again, it’s easy to do things when you’re motivated in this way.

Before I loosened my hold on her to shut the passenger door, she squeezed me a little tighter, as if to be absolutely certain this was real and not some cruel dream.

“Thank you,” She hummed into the crook of my neck. From where her shoulder was digging into my throat, I couldn’t exactly respond verbally, so I settled for rubbing my hand up and down her back comfortingly.

“Let’s take you home,” I basically said to myself seeing as it was too quiet to be discernible.

“No,” She shook her head rapidly. “Take me to your apartment.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to go back to the hotel right now. I need to be somewhere I feel safe.”

My apartment is closer than the hotel, I reasoned, pretending it was the logic of it that made my heart swell and not the statement I would fixate on for the entire duration of the ride there.

I need to be somewhere I feel safe.

And that’s wherever I’m with you.

_ _ _

Reader’s POV

Porcelain wall tiles gleamed back at me, mocking my wretched misery. They were much prettier than me, but then again, anything else would be prettier than me right about now.

I certainly wasn’t the belle of the ball in my bare naked state. The fact that I was sitting in a pool of my own washed off dried blood didn’t help either.

I would’ve looked away from the bright white walls, but where else were I to look? Into the pair of eyes that I was deliberately avoiding? The ones that were staring a hole through me right now? No. I couldn’t bear to meet those eyes. So I kept looking forward at the mean walls - those mean, mocking walls.

“Is the water warm enough?” He asked, dipping a finger into the bathwater to test it himself.

I watched as his hand snuck into the tub and swirled around some water, causing soap bubbles to revitalize.

For a reason I didn’t know nor could remember at this given moment, Spencer drove me to his apartment. That memory of why I was here was fuzzy, but the rest following my arrival was more vivid. Perhaps because it was all unfolding right now.

“I think I should go,” I murmured. The bathwater had gone cold, and the silence was too deafening. If I didn’t leave now, then I would be trapped forever.

I leaned forward with my knees still pressed to my chest to protect my modesty while I tugged on the silver drain plug of the tub to release the suction.

“You can’t go home. You’ll be alone again, and who will be there to help you that time?”

“I don’t need anybody’s help.” I responded curtly.

“Then why did you call me tonight?”

“Why did you answer?”

He was stunned by how I didn’t miss a beat with my question, stunned enough to purse his lips in contempt. “Should I have declined your call then? Said ‘no’ instead and let you fend for yourself? You know what - my bad, (y/n). I sincerely apologize that I care about you.”

I scoffed at his factiousness. “No, what you should’ve done is whatever the hell you wanted to do. But clearly, since you said ‘yes’ and came to my rescue like I’m some victim in a case - you wanted to be there. I could chalk that up to you having a hero complex, but I think it’s time for you to admit you just wanted to see me at my worst so you could throw it in my face like you’re doing right now.”

He clenched his jaw in fury, muttering under his breath, “I should’ve left you in that booth.”

This crossed a line, but I was just as ready to cross it, too.

“But I bet you liked saving me. Seeing me as a damsel in distress that you could white knight. You like that, Spence? Does my weakness settle your deep rooted fear of inadequacy in strength?”

Shouldn’t have done that.

For a second there, I was sincerely scared of the response I might’ve just elicited, so I shot up from the tub and grabbed the towel on the rack, quickly wrapping myself in it and avoiding Spencer’s gaze the entire way out of the bathroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Judging from the loudness of his voice, he was right on my heels, following me close behind.

“You’re smart. Figure it out.”

“God, why do you have to be such a pain in the ass? I don’t want to leave you like this.” It never failed to amaze me how he could both show disdain and concern for me in the matter of a sentence.

“Well, you’re not leaving me like this - I’m leaving you like this.” My clever remark angered him more.

Seemingly from out of nowhere, Spencer called out from the end of his hallway, “What are you so scared of?”

Reaching the end of my rapidly fraying rope, I spun around to throw my arms out to my side in just the same defensive manner as he did. “Nothing! Maybe I just don’t wanna be stuck in the apartment of the man who hates me! Can you blame me?”

He ran a hasty hand through his hair, pulling at the strands out of pure irritation. “Why do you keep saying I hate you? How can any of what I’ve done for you tonight suggest that?”

He’d chosen his words carefully and for that, he was smart. His inclusivity of the word ‘tonight’ meant I could only reference his actions from the past few hours, which wouldn’t help my case, as opposed to the months and months that he’d given me the cold shoulder, which would have helped my case. But again, he was smart - he had me in a deadlock. I couldn’t accept defeat, but what could I possibly argue against his point?

My body literally shook from the power of the deep groan that tore through my chest. “God, what do you want from me, Spencer?” I wanted nothing more than to be far, far away from him, but my body was resisting all those urges. Lunging forward, I pointed the sternest index finger at him, staring the most unforgiving glare into his soul. “Tell me - tell me what you want! Because when I was nice to you, you-you treated me like shit. And then when I stopped being nice to you, you still treated me like shit. So what -” I had to laugh to alleviate the sheer rage I was feeling. “What the fuck do you want from me? Because it’s like no matter what I do, it’s just not good enough for you!”

His eyebrows had furrowed and his eyes softened. He didn’t look angry whatsoever. No, he looked hurt.

“Not good enough for me?” He leaned down to my level to look right into my eyes. “You are everything … everything to me.”

With one last breath, I cried out in anguish, “Then why? Why do you hate me so much?”

He gulped back the lump in his throat - the last barrier that kept him from telling the truth.

“I ... I never hated you. I just need to be in control of my thoughts and feelings at all times, otherwise, I feel-I feel like I’m going crazy. Like I’m on the verge of a psychotic break that I’m genetically predisposed to have. But when you came around - I lost all my control. You were inhabiting my dreams, you were stealing my sleep, occupying more and more space in my brain until there was no more room left to take. God, I think about you all the time, and I literally cannot physically stop it. I have no control anymore,” and somehow him saying that sounded something like an ‘I love you.’

“The only thing I could control was how I treated you. I thought being awful to you would get you to despise me enough to make me despise you, too, and while it was easier to be angry at you, it was so much worse having you hate me.”

“I never hated you, Spencer.” Never.

“You should have,” He rasped. “I know I don’t deserve you, but I wish to spend every day proving that I want you. Oh, I want you so bad,” He sharply inhaled through gritted teeth, and I unconsciously laughed in return. His pain wasn’t funny in the least. What was amusing was knowing that he had the same excruciating longing for me that I had for him.

“I don’t want control anymore if it means I can’t have you.”

He leaned in so carefully that I almost didn't register the movement at all. Our hearts were pounding to the same synchronized beat. We were the shore and the tide one in the same. Our breaths would draw in and out, in and out, as he held my face so gently. We were still the shore and the tide, but more than anything we were drowning in the ocean of ourselves. The rising waters of his admiration threatened to flood every empty nook and cranny of the room until it swallowed me whole. All I could feel was him, everywhere, filling absolutely everything.

“Wow ... I finally got you speechless,” The cocky bastard hummed happily, letting his words vibrate on the smallest part of my lip.

“Oh, shut up,” I declared through a smirk I needed to fight off before finally closing that nearly imperceptible gap between us.

All the forces in the world couldn’t tear us apart after we connected. They were no match for the force Spencer’s hands had as they pulled me impossibly closer. The pressure might’ve even been unbearable had it not been for the velvety pair of lips giving me back all the oxygen it stole from my lungs just seconds ago. They were so soft, like freshly washed sheets, like biting into cotton candy, like floating for the first time, feeling utterly weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’s so effortlessly sweet.

Not nearly as sweet as the words that followed our parting.

“Not enough for me?” He repeated, recalling my previous claim. “You’ve had me since the day you walked in, trouble.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

fingers crossed this fic doesn’t flop!

complete taglist: @muffin-cup @s1utformgg @no-alarms-no-surprises-silence @jemimah-b99 @justanothetfangirl @kylab @rainsong01 @calm-and-doctor @inkstainedwritergirl @rexorangecouny @ashwarren32 @carooliina @fortheloveofcriminalminds @watermelongubler @obsessedmaggiemay @k-k0129 @aperrywilliams @eevee0722 @spencersmagic @spencerreid-mgg @half-blood-dork @goldeng1rl8 @just-a-bunch-of-fandoms @random-human-person @masumiyetimziyanoldu @dreamer-writer-fangirl @kalamitykait @jinxy175 @apolloroid

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#spencer reid #Spencer Reid fic #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid kiss #fighting fire with fire #juniorgman187 #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction

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egcdeath · 3 years

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checkmate

summary: you’ve always refused to lose, and love was no exception. (gone girl-ish au)

pairing(s): ransom drysdale x dark!reader, a special mystery guest ;)

word count: 3.7k

warnings: 18+ because of heavy themes! faked death, framing of crimes, manipulation, alluding to sex, alluding to cheating, terrible relationship dynamic, very loose usage of the word crazy/psychotic, implied mention of self harm, brief choking & slapping (in a non sexual way lol), pregnancy trapping (idk if thats the right term), the reader is a very bad human being, overuse of italics *please let me know if i’m missing any warnings!

author’s note: this is my 2nd submission for @stargazingfangirl18’s 5k soft dark challenge, i decided to make the reader dark >:) but ransom is also not a good person. I used these prompts: “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.” & The town golden *girl isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks.

this is definitely the most unhinged thing i’ve ever written, but blame @literate-lamb for making me write this because when i pitched this to her and said that i’d probably never write it, she enabled me.

okay that's enough from me. join my taglist if you want :D

“I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving sister, the straying husband. I've always hovered above their stories, nodding in sympathy and thinking how foolish they are, these women, to let these things happen, how undisciplined. And now to be one of them! One of the women with the endless stories that make people nod sympathetically and think: Poor dumb bitch.” Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Your whole life, you’d considered yourself a competitive person. Constantly overcompensating for one thing or another, whether it was the chronic desire to achieve perfection that had been installed in you since you were a little girl, or your persistent internalized sense of inadequacy. You realized early on that it was much better for you to win than for you to lose, no matter the physical, emotional, or mental cost of the prize of perfection.

For the most part, this mindset worked out for you. You graduated as Valedictorian from your high school, neared the top of your graduating class at Harvard. God knew you earned it, all those tears you shed into overpriced textbooks, all the popping of unprescribed Adderall, and robbing yourself of the parties and social events that the rest of your peers gladly indulged in.

You were just different, which was why you gained a job nearly immediately after your exit from school, quickly climbing to the top at the Blood Like Wine publishing company after only a few years of being there.

And one night, at the party celebrating the release of A Thousand Knives when you laid your eyes on Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the grandson of your boss, you knew that you needed to have him. Rich, hot, a bit of an asshole. You deserved to finally complete your image, and that socialite flavored eye candy seemed to fit the part perfectly. Luckily for you, he was desperate. It only took a few tugs on your dress’ V-line, and a number of knowing smirks to find yourself being finger-banged in his family manor’s bathroom.

From there, you wormed your way into his life. Leaving belongings at his place as an excuse to come back, and offering booty calls in the middle of the night. Ransom must’ve been much more desperate than you originally thought, as it really only seemed to take one night of stroking his hair while he vented about his family to make him want to be with you. Men with mommy issues were always so easy.

Except, he wasn’t that easy. The longer you got to know Ransom, the more fucked up you realized he really was. He had no boundaries at all, became jealous and enraged at the drop of a pin, and occasionally told you things that made the hairs on your arms rise.

This of course all came to a head after the night of Harlan’s 85th birthday party. When the news broke of his tragic death, you’d immediately known it was the works of your Hugh. If your intuition wasn’t enough, his confession in the shower, where he’d demanded you take off your clothes to display that you were without a bug, certainly was.

You were completely devastated. The man that you’d invested so much into for years had thrown both his and your reputations down the drain in just a matter of hours. Of course, you felt bad for Harlan too. He was a good guy (when he wasn’t instigating a family fight).

Still, you showed up during the funeral in your best mourning clothes and dawning your biggest crocodile tears. You rubbed Linda’s back while she mourned the loss of her father, and the new truth about her husband. You played dumb when interrogated by some Southern private investigator, even giving Ransom an airtight alibi. You testified on his behalf in court with enough conviction to grant you an Emmy.

You’d gotten so far, devoted so much energy into him, that you simply refused to lose now.

To your friends, you’d seemed to lead a near perfect life. Dream job, dreamy boyfriend, dream bank account, but it wasn’t enough. You wanted more, you just didn’t know what.

It dawned on you while sipping mimosas at the country club, Ransom playing tennis with his friends just a few yards away from you while Danielle showed off her brand new engagement ring, a .59 Carat Asscher Diamond, that if you heard her speak of again, would probably make you lose your shit.

You zoned out as she droned on and on about the shape, and how Matt proposed to her in their own private room in one of the most exclusive Parisian restaurants, instead focusing on how you could find yourself in the same position as that airhead next to you. In all honesty, you couldn’t stand the idea that someone was doing better than you, let alone someone in your own social circle. Dani got all the bragging rights of being engaged to the heir of some tech giant, being the first in your friend group to get eloped, and worst of all, Matt wasn’t even making her sign a prenup.

You blankly watched Ransom from afar, taking occasional sips from your sweet drink, while you thought of how you deserved all of that and more, and you were going to get it one way or another.

——

It didn’t take much to come up with something, your first and most obvious plan being to simply ask Ransom when he was going to propose to you. Of course, this wasn’t the first time you’d tried to approach him about this subject, you just wondered if maybe this time things would be different.

Panting heavily after a rather rough night in bed, you rolled off of your boyfriend’s chest and gave him a messy, yet sincere kiss. You knew your man well, and if there was any time to pop the question, it was in his post-nut haze.

“Baby,” you said breathily, “I wanna ask you something.”

“Shoot,” he responded casually, glancing over at you.

“When’re you gonna propose to me?” you hummed.

Ransom groaned and shook his head, rolling his eyes, “this is about Matt and Dani, huh?” he tutted, then extended a hand out to your warm cheeks so he could gently caress one with his thumb. “Thought we agreed marriage is just a piece of paper and it’s stupid.”

You huffed in response.

Of fucking course.

“I never said that,” you muttered, setting a hand on his broad chest. “Besides, it’ll be good if you get pissed and decide to like, kill your dad or something. Y’know, spouses don’t have to testify against each other in court.”

Ransom chuckled as if this whole thing was funny, like your feelings were some kind of sick joke to him. “You know my lawyers, babe. They could prove that bees don’t make honey. That bears don’t shit in the forest. I appreciate your attempt, though. This has been some really nice pillow talk.”

“Whatever,” you muttered, pinching his nipple in retaliation before turning your back to him and yanking the blanket onto your side.

You weren’t sure why you were so surprised that he was being stubborn, most of the time you felt like you were pulling teeth from the man. But that’s why you had a backup plan! You always had a backup plan. That’s what separated you from your boyfriend. Where Ransom was extemporized and impulsive, you were calculating and prudent.

Although you devised your plan that very afternoon while watching your partner backhand small green balls, you were going to need some time to get everything in order, to prove Murphy and his stupid law wrong in making sure that everything that could go wrong wouldn’t.

After all, love was a game. And you sure as hell weren’t losing to Hugh Drysdale.

——

You sacrificed too much to have your plans ruined by some trust fund baby with impulsivity issues. You deserved your dream marriage, the stability you wished you had as a child. You wanted the white picket fence, and everything that came along with it. Your desire to be the best, to be perfect was what drove you to poke holes in every condom in the box, what led you to draw liters of your own blood in hopes of staging a fake crime scene, to buy a cheap getaway car and burner phone off of Craigslist, and reach out to a high school boyfriend who you knew was in a position as desperate as you.

You planted seeds of doubt in your friends throughout the following weeks, feeding them lies about Ransom’s behavior, how you were afraid of telling him that you did in fact see two faint red lines on that damn plastic stick– only half of the statement truly being false–, telling them that he was behaving erratically lately.

It all was going without a hitch. Ransom didn’t seem to notice anything was off, despite your frequent visits to the bathroom and newfound affinity for true crime documentaries.

You almost felt guilty, knowing the world of pain you were about to throw the man into. Granted, he deserved the pain. You were in a relationship with a genuinely terrible person, and that person had made a conscious effort not to commit to you. You tried to make this easy for him, give him a chance to say a few words to you and slide a ring on your finger, but no, he always seemed to take the hard route.

You slept like a baby the night before you were setting your plan in action. You made sure to uphold the facade of everything being fine, making Ransom a nice breakfast before sending him halfway across town to the hardware store with an oddly incriminating list.

Once he was out of the house, you hurried off to the fridge in the garage where you’d been keeping a small stash of your own blood. It wasn’t pretty, but it had to be done. You poured the blood throughout the kitchen, splattering bits of it on the counters and cupboards. You poorly cleaned the mess, just as he would.

You put your next move in motion, falsifying a home invasion. You tossed over a table and some chairs, throwing books and photos onto the floor, but left some aspects slightly untouched, like an upright picture frame to give yet another hint that things were not exactly what they appeared.

You left a tiny blue post-it note on the nightstand of Ransom’s side of the bed, a quick and simple doodle of a ring along with the first initial of your name inked onto the tiny piece of paper.

With that, you were off. Technically missing, soon-to-be presumed dead.

----

The days following your disappearance had gone even better than you’d initially planned. Local news coverage had been all over you, search and rescue groups were assiduously looking for you, your parents had opened a tip line, and begged for you to get home safe on news segments. But the best part of it all was that Ransom had been briefly found himself in police custody, only to be released shortly thereafter. His past of an accused murder quickly made your disappearance even more of a national story, and you watched the whole thing unravel from the safety and comfort of your high school boyfriend, Andy Barber’s Newton home.

Of course, you fed him the same lies you’d given to your friends, and seeing the rather lonely position he was in, he gladly let you stay with him. You were absolutely having a hay-day with it all, dedicating hours of your day to watching Ransom slowly unravel. Maybe it was a bit sadistic of you to enjoy torturing your partner so much, but he needed to learn his lesson. You deserved better. You needed Ransom to rise up to your level, allowing you to finally complete your image. To let you two appear to be the perfect couple. Really, this was all on him.

Andy, for the most part, had been a good host. He was gone for the majority of the day, dedicating himself to his work while you lounged around on his dangerously cozy couch. Around two weeks into your stay, you were sharing a box of pizza in the living room with your old lover when something interesting on the television caught your eye.

Ransom, broadcasted on CBS, being interviewed on your disappearance.

You watched with wide eyes as Ransom begged for your return on national television. It was one thing seeing your mother plead for you to come back, the same woman who had installed such toxic behavior in you sob for your return, but Ransom. You’d never loved him more than in that moment.

“Hugh, if you could tell Y/N one thing, what would it be?” the interviewer asked.

Ransom turned, looking straight at the camera, directly into your soul, “Y/N, I love you so much. More than you’ll ever know. I need you to come back safely, to see you, to hold you again. I’d give anything in the world for that right now,” he looked down, a tear falling down his cheek. “I can’t live without you in my life, I-”

His sentence was cut off by Andy grabbing the remote, and turning off the TV. You turned your head and frowned deeply at him.

“Why’d you do that?” you asked with a bit of a pout.

“I just couldn’t stand listening to him talk about you like he hasn’t treated you like shit for the past few years. C’mon, let’s get ready for bed.”

Your blood boiled. Andy was once a means to an end, but now he was interfering. He was clearly much too selfish to see that you and Ransom were quite obviously soulmates. A match made in hell.

You followed him to bed regardless, curling up on what had been your side of the bed for the past few days, and staring at the wall until Andy’s breaths moved from a soft and rhythmic pattern to loud snores. God, those snores were obnoxious.

You slipped out of bed and to his dresser, grabbing two soft ties from the drawer, and daintily tying his wrists to each side of the bedpost.

“What‘re you doing?” he mumbled, instinctively yanking both of his wrists as he awoke.

“I’m going back home,” you whispered.

“You can’t be serious,” Andy huffed, tugging on the restraint attached to the headboard.

You shook your head, “I am.”

“I should’ve known. Why would you do something like this? Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in with the law?”

“Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in when the world finds out that you kidnapped me?” you retorted.

This threat seemed to wake him up right away, “what about this was kidnapping? I gave you a nice home, fed you, I didn’t even make a pass at you. I didn’t do shit to you,” he hissed. “You think I can’t prove that? I’m a lawyer, for god's sake!”

You nearly laughed, “Okay, Andy,” you paused for a moment, “As a lawyer, who do you think everyone’ll believe? Someone who the world was on a wild goose chase for in the last two weeks? Or the man with a family history of violence? Must I remind you that your father and your son have killed people?”

Andy shook his head, face pinched in sorrow at the mention of his deceased son, clearly a low blow. “You’re insane,” he muttered.

“Swear to god that you won’t tell a soul what happened here,” you leaned over him, getting right in his face. “Or I promise, Andrew Barber, I will ruin you. You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars, or disbarred, or whatever the hell I decide to do with you. So keep your goddamn lips shut.”

You pulled away and he solemnly nodded, not bothering to put up a fight. You loosened the fabric around his left wrist and walked out of the room. You picked up the keys to Andy’s Audi on your way out, checking the time as you adjusted the driver's seat.

9:45 PM. Fatherhood really changed the man.

You pushed that thought aside and began your drive home, which turned out to be a surprisingly short trip. When you pulled up in front of your home, you were met with a slew of reporters outside of the house, along with a police car that seemed to be permanently camped there.

As you slowly got out of the car, a gasp, followed by a loud silence fell across the crowd. You limped for dramatic effect up the driveway as cameras followed you, and glanced back at them pathetically. From your peripheral view, you noticed the officers get out of their vehicle.

You finally got to your door, ringing the doorbell and waiting. You blinked harshly a few times, conjuring up the tears you needed to really make a spectacle of the event. After a few minutes, Ransom opened the door, eyes widening as he looked at you. He stepped out, and you wrapped him in as big of a hug as you could manage, genuinely missing his embrace. It was possible that you even let out a few real tears in the moment.

Your emotional embrace was interrupted by the man you recognized as Lieutenant Elliott, the same officer who’d been assigned to Harlan’s case.

“Ma’am,” he began, only to be shut down by you.

“Please, just let me be with my boyfriend,” you pleaded, crocodile tears streaming down your face as you spoke with the officer. You still needed time to get your story straight.

“Just give us the night, Lieutenant. We’ll come in first thing tomorrow morning,” Ransom added, furrowing his brows at the officer that he’d come into contact with far too many times.

He looked to his partner, who shrugged, then to you, “enjoy your night.”

Cameras flashed around you as civilians, journalists, and newscasters alike attempted to catch your attention. You grabbed Ransom’s hand and dramatically pulled him inside, insincerely attempting to hide your face by ducking and covering half of your face with your arm.

As soon as you were in the privacy of your own home, Ransom threw you against a wall.

“Why. The fuck. Would you pull a stunt like that,” he hissed through gritted teeth, eyes wild, and a hand around your throat.

You whimpered as he tightened his grip, rage clearly flowing through his system uncontrollably.

“Do you know what you did to me? You almost had me thrown in fucking jail. Do you understand that?”

You nodded weakly, “Ran,” you whispered, “the baby,” you glanced down at your stomach.

He paused, dropping his grip on your neck and staring at you in awe, “no…”

You nodded again.

“How…? You told me you were on the pill… You- you made me use protection…”

“Surprise?” you said weakly.

“You’re a psychotic bitch.”

“I’m your psychotic bitch. And no child of mine will be born out of wedlock,” you taunted.

“That’s what this is about?” Ransom laughed manically. “You did this all because I won’t fucking marry you?”

You didn’t even have to respond.

“I should send you to the loony bin right fucking now.”

“What happened to all those things you said to me on TV?”

“You’re fucking delusional. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. And you will. I’ve had to put up with you and your stupid little antics for way too long. How do you think I felt when you killed your own grandfather?”

Ransom scoffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “you are so fucked up.”

“I’m the fucked up one? You killed your own blood in cold blood! You’re unhinged!”

“You faked your own death for attention, and got pregnant while doing it! Is that baby even mine?”

“The fuck are you trying to say, Hugh?”

“I asked if it’s even mine.”

“Really. You’re accusing me of cheating on you. That’s rich considering Mia, Layla, and whoever the fuck else. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous? You couldn’t have a normal adult conversation with me!”

“Are you kidding me? I asked you time after time to marry me and it was always some bullshit excuse!” you wagged a finger in his face as you spoke. “Oh, commitment scares me, oh, marriage is just a piece of paper, oh-“ you mocked his voice in a deeper tone before you were cut off by the sting of his hand against your cheek.

“Can you shut the hell up?” he growled at you as you held your own cheek, before you reached out and slapped him back, “I can’t believe that I’m stuck with such a deranged bitch for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe work on your vows a little, dear. I don’t think that those words are as charming to me as they’d be to the rest of our family and friends.”

“You can’t be serious,” he groaned.

“But I am,” you hummed, rubbing your cheek softly once again. “Look at how fast your life fell apart without me here. How quickly the public turned on you. Imagine how upset they’d be if you left me. I love you, Ran. I really do. You and I are perfect for each other, can’t you see that now?”

Ransom took a step away from you, pacing slowly in front of you. He ran a stressed hand through his hair, and took a long and drawn out breath, clearly at a loss for words.

“So when should we have the wedding? I’ve always wanted a Spring wedding, and I know it’s a little short notice, but I don’t want to be showing too much in my wedding dress,” you grabbed Ransom’s bicep gently, as if you were just having a regular old day with him, as if you hadn’t been choked and slapped moments ago. “But we can make it work. We always make it work, right?”

Your now fiancé stared vacantly at the wall ahead of him, giving you a slow, empty nod of agreement.

“It’s settled then,” you smirked. “I’ll start looking at venues. You find me a nice ring, okay Honey? One that puts all those other bitches’ rings to shame,” you sighed pleasantly to yourself, “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.”

You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before hurrying up the stairs and into your bedroom. You heard a distant shriek of “fuck,” from Ransom, but you truly could not care less.

You hopped into bed, grabbing your laptop from its charger and promptly opening it. You couldn’t help but to smile at your own reflection on the empty black screen. This wasn’t how you imagined your engagement, but you did the impossible. You tied yourself down to Hugh Ransom Drysdale, he went down kicking in screaming, and you were likely in for a lifetime of cheating and resentment, but you did it nonetheless.

You finally won.

#ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #dark!reader #ransom drysdale x dark!reader #ransom thrombey x reader #ransom thrombey x you #knives out #knives out fanfic #siris5ksoftdarkchallenge

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heloisedaphnebrightmore · 3 years

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Regardless of the bond [James Potter x Reader]

Title: Regardless of the bond Pairing: James Potter x Female!Reader Word count: 3.3k Published: 19 April 2021 Author: Heloise Daphne Brightmore Summary: [x] The existence of soulmates was hard for you to believe. You wished to be one of them, but after your 18th birthday, when you were supposed to experience a difference, you are left disappointed. Knowing you didn’t have that special bond and you had to continue watching the one you liked so deeply love someone else makes you want to just disappear. Bingo: [x] This is part of my Make me feel Bingo Card by @girl-next-door-writes

Square filled: Alternative Universe

Harry Potter Characters Masterlist | Masterlists

Make me feel Bingo Masterlist

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Soulmates were a very widely known myth that many believed and wished to experience, but some found it to be a silly little idea created by those who romanticised the idea to be with someone for the rest of their lives. The thought of loving someone and being loved unconditionally was indeed one that many wished to have, but since soulmates were rather rare, people often ignored its existence and chose to find love themselves. According to the myths, some people experienced finding their soulmate with a simple touch, where for a mere second, they saw images of their future life together. For some it was a sensation, a pulling force telling them that they belonged together. There were some theories where they could recognise each other’s scent. Many different myths have been spread throughout the centuries, but there was one mutual theory in all of them. When it happens, you just know it, you feel it, every single fibre of your body screams for that certain person to stay in your life.

You were one of those who believed it but didn’t think it would ever happen to you. You hoped, of course you did, but you were more logical than to rely on an old myth. Having such a strong connection was a lovely idea, but it was hard to believe that it would be handed to you on a silver plate. All the fairy tales you have heard about from your parents said that the soulmate-bond would be activated after your 18th birthday if you had one. But of course, it’s been a month and you have felt no different than before, reassuring you that you weren’t any special.

You were seated in the Gryffindor common room, legs thrown over the arm of the sofa, hanging down on the side as you doodle little drawings on a piece of ripped parchment.

“What are you doing?” You heard a voice and as you looked up, you recognised Lily standing in the doorway.

“Just drawing,” you replied, turning back to your parchment, ignoring your friend.

“Good, good,” she nodded and took a seat beside you, staring at your doodles.

“Is there anything you want?” You asked, turning back to her with an expectant expression, brows running high.

“Nope,” she popped the ‘p’ as she shook her head. You frowned at her rather strange behaviour, but once again turned back to your drawings, trying to ignore her staring. However, it seemed to be a task easier said than done. Feeling Lily’s breath on your neck and her eyes attached to your drawing, whilst squirming in her place chased all your creativity away. You folded up your paper and looked at your friend once again.

“You are being fairly annoying,” you stated with a grimace.

“I didn’t even do anything,” she huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest and turning to the opposite direction, giving you a side-glance every once in a while.

“Breathing down my neck and staring at me is quite creepy and as much as I love you, your behaviour is very unusual so spill it, what’s going on?” You asked firmly, causing Lily to scrunch her nose and pout in a child-like manner. She was a very smart witch and an even better friend, but at times she was capable of getting on your nerves with a simple look. “Come on, I don’t have all day to wait for you,” you rushed her as you stood up and tossed the folded parchment in the drawer of your desk and closed it with a thudding sound.

“I have overheard a little discussion between James and Sirius. They were talking about you,” she smirked playfully, wiggling her brows as though you were supposed to understand.

“I’m not sure what kind of reaction you are expecting of me,” you frowned in confusion.

“Well, certainly a happier one than the one I’m getting now,” she grimaced. “I have been hearing nothing else from you, but how much you’ve liked James since the first time you talked,” she tried to lead you to the right direction, but you still stood there cluelessly.

“So?” you asked.

“So? James and Sirius were talking about you,” Lily repeated slower as if you didn’t understand before.

“I heard you for the first time too, I’m not stupid. I simply don’t understand what you want from me. James and Sirius are my friends, they will inevitably talk about me if I come up in a subject,” you shrugged nonchalantly.

“You are unbelievable. I overheard James telling Sirius that he has feelings for you,” Lily exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. But instead of excitement you gave her a deadpan expression. “Okay, I’m not sure what’s going on with you today, but I’m honestly starting to think you are broken or something,” she huffed.

“We both know that James has been running after you for years, Lils. Sure, we are close, I love him to bits, however, I am nothing but a friend to him. I’m not sure what you heard or what you misunderstood to be exact, but we both know James has liked you for years and I find it hard to believe that his last year will be the one where he changes his mind so abruptly,” you explained. Whilst a part of you wished to believe it was true, a more logical side made sure to crush those hopeful thoughts that tried to sway you.

“I’m sorry, but I’m quite sure of what I heard. And why couldn’t he? Crushes come and go, and he hasn’t asked me out or showed any interest in me for the last month or so. I do believe he has feelings for you, but you have been friends for so long, you can’t expect him to just walk up to you and confess,” Lily tried to pressure your logical side, but you couldn’t find it in you to agree. You have liked him for so long, you were numb to even the thought of him ever reciprocating your feelings.

“Ok, I accept that. Now that we have concluded this conversation, can we actually grab something to eat?” You asked whilst walking towards the door and opening it for Lily, waiting for her to follow you.

“You’re definitely broken,” she huffed, annoyed by your nonchalant behaviour.

“And you are rather annoying today. I’m glad we both have negative feelings towards each other. It will be a beautiful day,” you put on a fake smile, earning a grimace from Lily.

“You have been avoiding him recently,” she added with a side-glance, making you groan as you headed down the stairs to the common room.

“Can we stop talking about him for a second?” you asked, pleading with the girl.

“Fine, but I’m not giving up just yet,” shrugging, she hurried up her steps and walked out the common room, leaving you farther behind. Rolling your eyes, you heaved a heavy sigh and followed her to the Great hall.

As you sat at the Gryffindor table with Lily on your right, eating your usual morning toast, James took a seat on your other side whilst Sirius sat down beside Lily, followed by Remus and Peter across the table.

“We have a beautiful day today, don’t we?” James beamed, his unusually positive attitude making you frown. Everyone seemed to act unlike themselves and you certainly didn’t like the way they behaved.

“I guess,” you replied with a grimace. “Would have been better if Lily didn’t start my day by dancing on my nerves,” you groaned.

“I was simply stating facts,” she huffed.

“That could possibly be a definition of annoying too if we dig deeper,” you retorted.

“It’s not my fault you are hard-headed,” she rolled her eyes.

“It’s not my fault you are spreading false rumours,” you shrugged nonchalantly.

“It’s not my fault you can’t see the forest from the tree,” she grimaced.

“Woah, woah, let’s just stop it there. We have quite an intense breakfast on our hands. What do you say we just continue eating quietly?” James asked, trying to stop your bickering.

“Been doing that until you arrived with your overly-positive attitude,” you replied as you bit into your toast.

“I’m sorry for having a nice day. Instead of being gloomy, you could try it too,” he raised a questioning brow, wearing a playful smirk across his face. In normal circumstances you would have returned his smile, feeling all warm inside, feeling your cheeks flush. He had a certain vibe that always made you feel happier even if you were down. But not in that moment. It just didn’t work.

“Will take your advice into consideration,” you huffed as you stood up from the table, finishing your breakfast. “See you later,” you nodded and headed towards the exit. You barely reached the first classroom across the corridor when you heard your name being called.

Turning around you, you saw James walking towards you in a haste. “Hmm?” You hummed in a questioning tone.

“You are acting strange recently. I can’t talk to you, I barely see you and honestly, I feel like you are avoiding me,” he stated, nervously rocking from one foot to the other. Indeed, you have been trying to keep a distance from the boy, knowing he fancied Lily whilst you liked him. Since your birthday you expected some kind of sign that would lead you to your soulmate, but it never happened. No images, no scents, no touches. The person you liked for so long had a crush on someone else and when you finally thought you might have a chance to find someone to connect with, you had to release you as one of many didn’t have a soulmate.

“Look, I just prefer being alone nowadays,” you lied. Imagining a pitiful look in his eyes, knowing why you have been avoiding him was something you never wanted to see. He was always supportive, and you could always rely on him, but this time you couldn’t possibly open up to him. You didn’t want his apologetic looks.

“Seven years. It’s been seven years since we first met and almost as long since we have become friends. I think I know you fairly well. Sure, people change, so did you and I, but we have changed together, for me you are still the same person I befriended. I don’t understand why you think that I would believe you. Wanting to be alone on occasions is fine, you have always done that, but you never closed me out completely until recently. I need to know what’s going on,” he pleaded, his words, his eyes, even his tone screaming for some kind of an explanation, but you couldn’t give him what he wanted.

“I’m sorry,” you simply apologised and started walking away. Giving him an explanation would have revealed your secret and you were not ready for that. Maybe once when your feelings were finally gone and you decide to sit down to talk about the old times, being nostalgic, maybe then you would have the courage, but not in that moment.

“Sorry is not enough,” he raised his voice as he hurried after you and grabbed your wrist. The feeling of his warm palm across your skin sent shivers down your spine. Your lips parted in surprise as you felt electricity run through the spot where he held onto you, starting off your heart in a quick pace. Feeling your cheeks heat up, you turned around and looked into his brown eyes as wide as yours, trying to figure out the unusual, sudden feeling. You felt your chest compress, air stuck in your lungs as you watched the man you had feelings for being just as shocked as you were. Knowing, hoping, believing what that certain electrical feeling running through you meant, it frightened you. You never wanted to be bonded with a man who loved someone else and the simple thought of you having to watch him run after his loved one made you feel as though your heart was shattering into the smallest of pieces, where picking them and trying to mend them wasn’t an option anymore.

Both of you stood stunned, his fingers firmly around your wrist, staring at each other, wordlessly trying to communicate. It was James who recovered first and let go of your arm, leaving it to fall beside you. You wanted to speak, you wanted him to speak, but none of you knew the right words to voice. In your shocked state you just wanted to disappear, you wanted to run away. The awkward silence was making you mad and frustrated, wanting nothing but to get as far from him as possible. So, you did. You hurried off, the sound of your heavy steps following you through the corridor. Hearing James’ pleading voice to stop you didn’t seem to work, you hurried your steps, not knowing where you were heading.

“Stop!” James appeared in front of you, stepping out of a hidden door you have not seen before.

“Leave me alone, James,” you pleaded, desperately needing some time alone.

“You felt it too. I know you did, so stop running away,” he stepped in your way as you tried to walk around him. He was determined to keep you there, to talk to you, to finally stop you from avoiding him.

“Why? I felt nothing. Just get away from me,” you raised your voice, even though you have never done it before, but it didn’t work. James wasn’t giving in.

“Enough,” he raised his voice this time, but it wasn’t threatening nor aggressive, he was firm and somewhat assertive. “You can avoid me if you like, you can ignore me if that makes you feel better but telling me that you didn’t feel anything when I touched you, lying to my face, that I will not take,” he exhaled slowly. “I know you felt it too and we both know what it meant. You are not stupid and nor am I. And if you feel like pretending that it didn’t happen,” he swallowed and heaved a heavy sigh,” we can do that, I will not force you. I’m only asking you not to run away from me,” he pleaded with you.

Feeling the tears collecting in your eyes, you tried to keep them in bay, not wanting James to see you so vulnerable. A heavy sigh left your lungs as you looked up at him, locking your eyes with him. “I— I don’t know how to handle this, James. You have been in love with Lily for so long, I don’t know how to react. I don’t want to be bonded to someone who already loves someone else,” you finally voiced your thoughts, finding it hard to resist the pleading look across his face.

“I never loved Lily,” he shook his head with a deep frown. “I was in a way infatuated with her, I liked the idea of liking her, but I didn’t love her. And I don’t feel that way anymore. I haven’t even tried getting closer to her in the last couple of months. If you were here, you could have seen it, but you decided to avoid me at all cost,” his tone, his demeanour, his firm stance radiated confidence and sincerity. Indeed, you haven’t seen much of him and you couldn’t judge what happened around your friend circle recently, but it was hard to believe that after all this time he just gave up on Lily.

“Look, whether you like her or not is not my business really and you don’t owe me any explanation. Maybe in the future you will like someone else, and I will be happy for you, but we have been friends for so long, I don’t want this stupid bond to stand in your way. So, let’s just pretend it didn’t happen, alright?” you tried to compromise, but James shook his head heavily in reply and stepped closer to you.

“How can you be so silly? You and this bond will always be standing in the way of me liking someone else, because regardless of that stupid bond, it is you that I like,” he confessed, his eyes a storm of emotions. He reached for your hand, cupping them in his, squeezing yours gently. “I like you. I really do. It has nothing to do with that bond,” he swallowed nervously. You tried to respond, say something, but instead you kept opening and closing your mouth as if you were a fish out of water, gaping, finding it hard to breath. It was hard to believe, but you couldn’t deny the tiny bit of flame you felt deep within you, hope that meant you still had a chance with him.

“But why?” you exclaimed in shock, not even realising your own words. James let out a mild chuckle, your words catching him off guard.

“Because you were always there for me, because you always knew what to say to me, how to hold me, how to deal with me. Because whenever I’m around you I’m both calm and nervous at the same time. Because you make me feel like a little child, wanting to smile whenever I see you. You are beautiful of course, but regardless I feel as though there’s this pulling force between us. I didn’t realise that I liked you until you were avoiding me. And it was not because of the bond, but because I realised that you were not there beside me and I missed the smallest of details that makes you—you. Scrunching your nose, pouting, grimacing at my silly ideas, scolding me for not studying. Every single little detail that makes you— you, was just missing from my life and it was killing me. I do like you more than you can imagine with or without that stupid bond,” he replied with a lopsided smile across his face, leaning his forehead against yours.

“But Lily—” you wanted to say, but he cut you off.

“There is no Lily. There’s only you and me. I just want you to maybe give me a chance to try if we work, if this— whatever is between us works,” he pleaded and instead of a reply, you stood on your tiptoes and attached your lips to his. He was hesitant, he didn’t know what was happening, but he didn’t let his chance slip out of his hands. He let go of your hands and cupped your face for better access, devouring your lips, losing himself in the moment where it was indeed only you and him.

“I like you. I like you so much,” you breathed against his lips, stunning him. His eyes widened at your words, clearly shocked by your sudden confession.

“But you have been avoiding me,” he exclaimed.

“I couldn’t be around you. I couldn’t watch you run after Lily anymore,” you shook your head, nervously biting your lip.

“I’m so sorry for putting you through that,” he hinted a small kiss on your forehead. “I promise I will make up for it if you give me a chance.”

“Wasn’t I clear enough?” you giggled softly as you placed your hands on his, holding your face. “There is nothing I want more than to give us a chance,” you smiled, reassuring him that you wanted him just as much as he wanted you.

“Well, since we have already missed the beginning of the first class, we could start off by trying to regain the last month you have so rudely taken from me,” he raised a questioning brow, hoping you would agree.

“I guess we could skip a class after all,” you giggled softly.

“Or more than one,” he wiggled his brows as he captured your lips once again, impatiently waiting for all the memories you were to experience together.

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#james potter #james potter x reader #james potter imagine #james potter oneshot #james potter fanfiction #james potter x reader imagine #james potter x reader oneshot #james potter x reader fanfiction #girl next door's make me feel bingo #harry potter #james potter x yn #james potter x y/n

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avengers-age-of-fanfics · 3 years

Text

just for you, honeybee (1/?)

pairing: bucky barnes x female!reader, steve rogers x reader (platonic!)

word count: 3,172

warnings: a few curse words, bucky being cute, steve being awkward but also a great friend

authors note: hello! this is my first ever post on this account and the first chapter to a new series! im not sure how many chapters this is going to be as i got inspiration to write it a few days ago but im hoping to keep up with it. also, once TFATWS ends, i intend to do a series based on that as well! anywho, i hope you enjoy this and please leave feedback/lmk what i can do to improve! thank u :)

summary: dating back to 1943, you, james barnes, and steve rogers were best friends, including bucky being your boyfriend. when you get a notice that bucky died in the war, you make it your mission to find closure for yourself and protect steve as he is the only remaining piece of bucky you have left. once you are offered the super soldier serum, you and steve must make your way through world war 2 - and the unknown future hardships to come.

James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes laid across from you on your bed, eyes softly glancing over your features as your hand grazed over his cheek and jawline. You chuckled to yourself, “looking a bit scruffy, Buck.”

He hummed, eyes now fluttering closed at your touch, “thought you liked it, doll.”

With a quick kiss to his lips, you nodded, “oh I do, don’t worry – no reason not to, really.”

Bucky let out a soft laugh before he ran a hand over your cheek, “I gotta get goin’ soon, doll. ‘Uniforms at Becca’s.”

With a sigh, you rolled onto your back and stretched, “she’s a saint, you know, washing and steaming your uniform for you.”

Bucky nodded in agreement with you, “that I do know, honeybee. I’ll meet you at Stevie’s, yeah?”

As you got out of your shared bed, you looked back at Bucky, “of course! Gotta see you off before you go put your life on the line, no big deal.” Bucky quickly dropped the conversation immediately after, understanding how you're feeling.

You weren’t mad at Bucky for joining the army – you couldn’t be, it wasn’t his fault. He was drafted and you knew that if he could stay, he would; and you knew you were being slightly immature about him leaving. You just wanted more time with him. So many people you knew had received letters that their loved ones hadn’t come back, that they had died in battle. It wasn’t fair, but when was life perfectly balanced?

By the time you got changed and got yourself cleaned up, Bucky was straightening out his shirt before he turned towards you, eyes hesitant. You walked to him, buttoning up his final buttons before you ran your hands over his shirt, “I’ll see you soon, Buck, okay?”

Bucky ran his tongue over his lips, “I know, honeybee. Try to keep Steve out of trouble for the time being, okay?”

You laughed, “I’ll certainly try my best – now get outta here!” With a smack to his ass, Bucky gave you one last kiss before he headed out the door to see his sister, Rebecca. You had asked her to iron Bucky’s uniform before he got sent off to war, wanting him to look his best – but you were sure he would look handsome in anything.

Looking in the mirror, you straightened out your favorite belted Peter Pan collar dress, fit with a pair of white heels; only the best for your Buck. You had begged him multiple times to let you register to become a nurse, in the slight chance of being close to him, but he always responded with the same answer: “I want to make sure I have someone to come home to, doll.”

You’d never tell him, but your heart warmed every time he said that.

Doing one more look-over, you smiled to yourself, grabbing your purse as you headed out the door. Steve’s apartment was only a few blocks away from your own, and honestly, you wanted to spend more time with him before Bucky left. The two were inseparable, and you knew Steve was going to struggle with Bucky being gone – that, and the unknowing if he’ll come back.

With sharp and prideful steps, you made your way across the street, saying hello to familiar faces and grabbing a newspaper from Grover, a vendor along the streets of Brooklyn. He stopped you before you headed off, “heard your boy’s goin’ off to war, y/n. How ya doin’?”

With a soft chuckle, you glanced down at the newspapers in your hands – one for you, Steve, and Bucky while he was on the train. You looked back at Grover, “I could be better, if I’m being honest. But I know he’s doing a good thing, so my silly feelings shouldn’t hold him back, Grove.”

Grover grumbled with a roll of his eyes, “you and your selflessness, just like ya ma. I’m telling yous, y/n, that boy loves you to the moon and back. Ain’t nothing he wouldn’t do for ya; if you asked him to stay, he’d go and fake his death to make sure you two go runnin’ off into the sunset together.”

With a laugh, you pushed the tears back, “and I love him too, Grove – but I can’t ask him to just not go. That just isn’t how it is, you know?”

Grover nodded, “yeah, kid, I know. . .Now get lost, I got customers to deliver these too.”

You glanced down at the stack of newspapers, “I’m headed over to Steve’s, anyone near his you gotta drop them off to?”

The vendor let out a hum and rested his head in his palm, “hmm, I think just Richie and Betty Davis right next to Rogers’ place. They get two, you good carryin’ an extra bundle?”

You gave Grover a look as he held up his hands, “just as fierce as ya mama, too – and being Barnes’ girl, probably the wrong question to ask.”

With a laugh, you held out your stack of papers, “pile them on, Gro. I’ll see you later, alright?” The vendor nodded and shoo’ed you away as you continued your journey to Steve’s apartment. Once you arrived, you left two newspapers on his neighbor’s doorstep, knocking once as you crossed back over to Steve’s.

As the Davis’ door opened, you knocked on Steve’s, already hearing rustling inside. Betty was at her door, “y/n? That you, sweetheart?”

With a turn, you greeted Mrs. Davis with a smile, “hi Mrs. Davis, how are you? How are the kids?”

The woman smiled back, “’mm, they’re good – always askin’ when the next batch of those delicious brownies are coming!”

You laughed and noticed Steve had opened the door, small statute waiting until you were done talking with Betty, “I’ll drop them by the next time I get to bakin’, Mrs. Davis. I’ll see you!” You waved to her, as did Steve, as he stepped aside to let you in.

Steve looked at the newspapers, then back at you, “you look great, y/n. . . Looks like I’ll be tellin’ Buck to shut his mouth when he sees you.”

You chuckled, “’cus he’ll catch flies or the obscenities he’ll be sayin’?”

Steve let out a laugh, “both, definitely both.”

Now that you both were in the safehouse of his apartment, you finally got a good look at your little army-hopper. He spotted a new black eye and a small cut on his cheek, yet he still looked as if he could go again if he wanted to. You nodded towards him, “where’d you get into a scuffle at this time?”

He shifted his feet until he let out a sigh, “behind a theatre. They were showin’ commercials for the army and some guy just started saying stuff.”

With a bite of your cheek, you sat down on one of his chairs, “so you had to fight him?”

“Just gotta be one of the good guys in the neighborhood, y/n.”

“I know, Stevie.”

An hour had passed and, in the meantime, you and Steve enjoyed some tea and tried to complete your own crossword puzzles. A small conversation had taken place between the two of you, talking about plans once Bucky was off fighting the war. You had talked about Steve moving in with you, but he was always so stubborn, wanting to prove that he could live on his own. You never thought that he couldn’t, but it could be a money saver.

One more glance at the clock, you figured it would be almost time for Bucky to show up. And, just like that, a knock was heard from the door and you smiled, getting up to answer it as Steve stayed back, grumbling at the pieces of paper in his hands. Opening the door, you saw your James Buchanan Barnes standing tall and proud in his new uniform.

Bucky whistled, glancing over your outfit as you did the same to him, “you look gorgeous, honeybee – even though I told you to not dress up.”

He stepped inside the apartment as you crossed your arms, “I mean, Steve agrees that this is kind of a big deal, so I think a nice dress will suffice.”

Steve and Bucky clasped hands and Bucky nudged his shoulder, “thought you were supposed to be a good influence on my girl, Steve.”

The smaller man shrugged, “kind of is a big deal.”

Bucky shuffled his feet, “yeah, well, I don’t want it to be. Let’s just go to the future and then see me off, alright?” The three of you stood in silence, light tension hanging in the air. With a sigh, you grabbed your purse, “well, off we go! C’mon now, boys.”

Bucky, you, and Steve headed to New York World’s Fair, hooked arms leading towards Howard Stark’s Expo. With bright lights, fireworks, and amazing technology surrounding you, your eyes failed to see Bucky staring at you with so much adoration. He never wanted to leave you – he’d stay if he could – but he had been drafted. All he wanted to do was stay in Brooklyn with you and Steve, and just never leave your arms. Hell, really, wherever you went, he went.

But that wasn’t the case in this scenario.

With a hand on your waist, Bucky looked up at Stark’s presentation of his repulsor technology with a flying car, head shaking in disbelief. While his car may have only hovered for a few seconds, the idea of not even needing to touch the ground to drive absolutely boggled your mind. During the presentation, Steve glanced up at you two and silently snuck off, hoping you didn’t notice his absence for too long. But he knew you and how observant and protective you were.

However, once you glanced around after a few minutes and found Steve in front of an army poster within the United States Armed Services Recruitment center. Squeezing Bucky’s hand, you slightly pulled him towards where Steve was, trying his best to fit his head within the frame.

With a slight push of his shoulder, Bucky nodded his head towards the Expo, “come on, we’re goin’ dancing – and hopefully find yourself a girl.”

Steve shook his head, “you – uh – you go ahead, I’ll catch up later.” He looked around, trying to divert the conversation between him and his best friend.

“Steve,” you started, “please? Just this one night?”

Bucky held your hand as he looked back at Steve, “you’re really gonna do this again?”

“I just – guys, it’s a fair, I’ll try my luck,” he started, looking between you both.

Beside you, you felt Bucky grow agitated, “that’s who, Steve from Ohio?”

“Bucky,” you said, squeezing his hand once more, “let him try one more, okay? We can go dancing and Steve will catch up later. If he doesn’t, I’ll hang his head on my wall like a prize.”

The boys let out a chuckle as Steve continued, “one last time, alright? I promise I’ll come later on – Mac’s, right?”

You nodded your head as Bucky sighed beside you, “don’t think you got to prove anything, Steve.” A small pause came over the three of you as Bucky continued, “don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

You started to walk back with Bucky, letting go of his hand as he continued his conversation with Steve as he let out a small laugh, “how can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” You held up a finger at Steve, “you better mean that about himself, Rogers.”

Steve held up his hands, “yes ma’am! And Bucky –“

Bucky turned around once more to his best friend, “don’t win the war until I get there.” With a mock salute, Bucky dragged you back towards the Expo as you waved back at Steve, making sure he’d meet you at the bar before your boyfriend was shipped off.

With a sigh, Bucky wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close as he kissed your head, “that punk is gonna get himself in all loads of trouble, honeybee.”

You held his hand that was around your shoulder, “I’ll keep Stevie in his place. Seriously, Buck, try not to worry about him.”

“I just,” Bucky gripped your hand, “I don’t wanna come back to nothing, you know? Steve’s my best friend and if he somehow gets himself killed here or in the war, I don’t know what I’d do.”

You pulled Bucky to a stop, putting your hands on his cheeks, “James, look at me, please.” With soft eyes, Bucky looked into yours, “I promise you, Steve is going to be okay – he won’t do anything stupid, at least without me. We’re going to be okay, and you will, too. . .’cus if you aren’t, I may go and kill Hitler myself.”

Bucky chuckled, “I don’t doubt that for a minute, sweetheart. I love you, you know that, right?”

You leaned up, kissing Bucky softly before pulling back, hands tight on your waist, “I love you too. Now C’mon, I wanna go to Mac’s and celebrate my newfound freedom.”

Bucky groaned and pulled you even closer, “maybe I should tell Steve to keep an eye on you.”

With a mock salute of your own, you giggled at your boyfriend, “aye, sir, my new mission is to protect Steven Grant Rogers from being an idiot!”

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh, “toughest job in this whole war, honeybee.”

As the night continued on, Steve actually showed up to Mac’s and had a new look in his eyes.

‘Hmm,’ you thought to yourself, ‘looks like I gotta ask him about something later.’

Steve, you, and Bucky didn’t drink, but instead enjoyed each other’s company before Buck was shipped off; this really only included Bucky and Steve making fun of each other and you keeping the boys in line. Laughs and a few smacks on the head filled the atmosphere, but you knew it wouldn't last long.

By the time it was nearing close to Bucky’s train departure, the three of you took to the streets and headed to the train station, silence enveloping you. Bucky’s hand was wrapped tightly around yours as you dreaded this goodbye, even if you had high hopes he’d return to you and Steve.

At the sight of the train and fellow troops heading into their cabins, Bucky turned to Steve, “you take care of yourself, alright punk? I don’t want any letters from my girl telling me that you’ve been actin’ out.”

Steve shoved his shoulder, “you’re acting like I’m 12 years old again. I’ll be fine, Buck.”

Bucky nodded, but looked to his best friend, “and Steve?”

Steve held his breath but let go, “yeah, Bucky?”

“Please take care of her.”

Steve glanced back at where you stood, picking your nails as your anxiety was pricking at your skin. He nodded, “I will.”

Bucky let out a sigh of relief, “thank you, pal. I love her, so make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid either, okay?” Steve nodded in response.

Bucky then headed over to where you were standing, his eyes raking over your beautiful dress, your heels, and most importantly, your face. He did not want to forget a single thing about you or your features – he wanted them committed to memory. With a gentle hand, Bucky tilted your chin up towards him, “you alright, honeybee?”

You nodded, too afraid to use your voice as tears flooded your eyes. Trying to dry them up anyway, you nodded once more, unable to look at Bucky. He sighed, “c’mere, sweet girl, I got you.”

With no hesitation, you fell into Bucky’s arms, tears threatening to fall as you felt his hands rest upon your back and your head. You sniffled, “I’m going – I’m going to miss you so much, Jamie – so, so much.”

Bucky kissed your head, “I’m gonna miss you too, sweetheart. Don’t you dare think that I won’t for a second. You’ll be the first thing on my mind every second of the day.”

You breathed, “can living through this war be the first thing on your mind? And maybe completing a crossword puzzle?"

Bucky let out a small laugh but held you tighter, “just for you, honeybee.” Pulling back, he wiped away stray tears that threatened to fall from your eyes, a soft smile on his face. “You’re gonna be alright, and I’ll be comin’ home to you in no time.”

You nodded, a few tears slipping free from your eyes as you looked up at Bucky, thumbs rubbing over his cheeks and light stubble. You slowly traced over his lips, his nose, and his eyebrows, committing everything about him to memory. With a small smile, you leaned up, catching him in a kiss once more, “stay safe, you hear me? And take this damn thing with you - maybe you'll complete it." With gentle hands, you handed him the newspaper you had gotten today.

He carefully took the newspaper from you, already hoping the crossword puzzle would be easy this time around. Then, Bucky pecked your lips before he headed towards the train, “gotta come back for my best girl. I love you!”

As he stepped onto the train and hung out the window of a cabin, he continued yelling, “I love you, y/n l/n! I love you!”

You cried, a bright smile on his face, “I love you too, James Buchanan Barnes!” Blowing kisses towards him, both you and Steve watched as the train slowly started to pull away, seeing him mindlessly hand his ticket to the worker, not bothering to tear his eyes away from you or his best friend.

“I love you!” he shouted once more, all before his train sped up, leaving you and Steve behind on the platform.

Wiping your eyes and your nose with a cloth, you cleared your throat and turned to Steve, “gah, sorry. Let’s uhm – do you want to head back to my place?”

Steve nodded towards you, “yeah, yeah that sounds good. You alright?” He hooked your arm with his as you headed out of the station, continuing to wipe your eyes. “Yeah,” you started, “I’m okay. I knew this was coming. . . I guess I just hated the whole ‘saying goodbye,’ you know?”

Your best friend rubbed the back of his neck, “I get it, y/n, but he’ll come back – he has a reason to, and that’s you.”

Your heart fluttered, and tears welled up in your eyes once more. With a quick sniffle, you reached into your purse and grabbed your key, unlocking your door to your apartment. Once inside, you quickly got to making tea for you and Steve, something to get your minds off of your missing puzzle piece.

Once tea was made and you both were sitting in your living room, you turned to him, “tell me, Stevie. Please.”

Steve looked at you, a confused look etched upon his face, “tell you what?”

You leaned back into your chair, picking at your nails once more, “what happened at the recruitment office? I’ve known you long enough to see that there’s something you’re not telling me, there’s something in your eyes, Stevie, so please, just tell me.”

Steve seemed shocked that you were able to read him like that, but was defeated. With a sigh, he turned and reached into his handbag, pulling out a file, “there was this Doctor there, Doctor Erskine, who uh – he approved me for the army, y/n. But it’s for an experiment, something they call a super-soldier experiment, I’m not sure. But, I’m going – I leave in a couple days.”

How is your world falling apart this quickly?

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psychicdreamfriendoperator · 3 years

Text

Nightmare Repellent

I was bitten by the inspiration bug, and the idea was so cute that I couldn't resist!

Full disclosure: I didn't come up with the headcanon, mind you— I'm just writing based on the ideas I saw here!

Though, I suppose this is some sort of continuation of this . . . ?

This is my first time writing a full drabble . . . fingerscrossed that I did well!

— Psychic

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

You stared at it for a long time.

You finally spoke, to no one in particular, still running your fingers all along the stuffed toy, “It's cute.”

Your fingers ran against the stuffed mane, which was coloured an almost atrocious shade of orange. Then, you traced over the eyes, which were ovals of black thread.

As a final examination, you pressed firmly on the nose— the stuffing seemed to sink in, but then it popped right back to its original shape.

“Well made, too.” You concluded.

“Maybe," You mused to yourself. “that's why Free called this a ‘nightmare repellent’. ”

You rolled onto your back and held it high above your head. You were plagued with nightmares so often these days . . . although it was a caricature of a real lion, the stuffed toy was a much needed comfort.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

It reminded you of your lover. Though, knowing the lion, he probably bought the toy based upon its species alone. Still, as cute as it was, and as accustomed as you had grown to its presence, the plush was missing something.

Slowly but surely, the toy integrated itself into your various routines. You buried your face into its fake mane when you slept. During your television marathons, you squeezed it against your chest. It observed you peacefully from a nearby shelf whilst you cooked.

That is how, after how ever many months, the lid of your sewing kit was pried off, and its contents gutted all over the coffee table. Your eyes crawled among the various threads you'd forgotten, and the small pieces of fabric that were left over from past projects.

Your little friend (you really ought to name him) seemed to watch you with curiosity. You met its black threaded gaze, and inspiration met you in return.

You only hoped the final result would meet your expectations.

With gentle, yet deliberate action, you sorted through your available stock. You inspected each spool. With a stern eye, you chose the colours you thought were best suited for your latest project.

Near silence enveloped your home, the only noise being the telly as you couldn't work in complete silence.

It was a peaceful few hours until your door swung open. It slammed against the wall with a loud noise.

And it was because you knew that you pinched the bridge of your nose. It didn't matter how many times you told him to knock— Free just barged in.

You didn't need to see who the intruder was; you knew.

He could never stay over for too long, and once he'd used up all the hot water showered, he would be all over you until it was time for him to leave again.

You expected him to make a beeline for your bathroom, but instead, he leaned over your shoulder.

He was so close; it made the hairs on your neck stand erect. His breaths felt warm; this was normally erotic for the both of you, but today . . . you were working on something, and it felt bothersome.

When you didn't react to his presence, the lion's hands were rest on the table; they stood at either side of you, locking you in place.

You didn't look up from your embroidery, “That’s the plan.” It was coming along rather nicely, actually.

“That suppos’d to be me?”

You’d completed the eye scars not too long ago— less detail was more in this case, so they were simply represented by dark red thread. Now, you were trying to figure out what to add next.

But of course, he’d already walked off. You could spy only the back of him, but you could certainly hear whistling as he made his way over to the bathroom.

A moment of silent contemplation passed before you craned your neck skywards, wanting to meet the gaze of your lover, “Free, what do you think I should do now?”

You murmured a curse beneath your breath; it just wasn't fair that such a large mammal could walk so quietly!

You fumed only briefly for you caught sight of your lover’s shoes. And, just like that, you had caught sight of inspiration.

You didn't bother to take your supplies with you, bit you of course brought the stuffed toy. It was tucked securely under your arm until you stepped into your bedroom. You set it down upon the bed, and walked briskly over to your closet.

“Free won't mind if I borrow his suit,” You knew that you were only projecting on the thing, but your as-of-yet-unnamed stuffie seemed to agree.

You threw open both doors and they spread widely, hanging off the hinges. You scanned the interior, glossing over your clothing.

“This is such an ugly brown,” You tsked, pulling the suit jacket off of its hanger. “How does Free pull this off?”

But then, you spied what you had came for.

You pressed it against your form, and, as expected, it was far too large for you. That was fine, of course. You weren't stealing Free's clothes to wear them — not today, at least.

Your little friend would have a new suit and tie soon.

Like a busy little bee you worked at a steady pace. The fruits of your labour manifested and you could not have been prouder of yourself.

For the rest of the day, all into the night, you gushed and gloated about your handiwork.

“This is probably the best thing I've done in a while!” You were sprawled over Free's lap, your toy held tightly within your grasp.

“Why wouldn't I be?” You snorted, turning your head to the television. You were supposed to be watching a movie, but you'd spent most of its runtime obsessing over your new nightmare repellent.

The lion tsked, though, in that playful way of his. His claws massaged the fur at the back of your neck, and you relaxed. “As long as you're happy, babe.”

“I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of afraid when you brought it home” —You cut yourself off—“but not because I don't trust you or anything.”

As . . . eccentric as Free was, you found him to be a good listener when the situation warranted it. The both of you enjoyed the other's company.

You laughed nervously, “I've heard that lions know when they're going to die, so, I thought that you were giving it as a final gift or something like that.”

You fell asleep to the hum of the television screen.

He would never say it out loud, but he’d been very worried for you. It was both surprising and relieving that such a simple toy made you feel better.

When you fell asleep, Free slouched over, putting his feet up to make himself more comfortable. He couldn't help but stare at his gift to you— your nightmare repellent.

Felines were superstitious creatures— caricatures of your lover, or of your lover's species could ward off malicious spirits that caused bad dreams. Of course, these caricatures were normally made from flesh, bone and blood.

Somehow, Free doubted that you would appreciate something like that.

But, the only other alternative was a toy. He felt silly buying a stuffed caricature of what was pretty much himself, yet, it was for a good cause.

He didn't mind as much as he should have.

He was taken aback when he saw the modifications you had made. Disbelief changed to pride— to think that he was warding off your bad dreams!

You captured his appearance with just some string and piece of his suit jacket.

Yet, you hadn't been able to capture his scent.

Free's eyes met the toy's oval-shaped pair. In the darkness, with only the television screen for light, he groaned.

“I'm gettin’ soft.”

The stuffie was pried out of your grasp and nestled squarely against his chest. If he was doing this right, his scent would be all over it by tomorrow night.

He hoped it would help, he truly did.

#beastars #beastars imagines #beastars headcanons #beastars free #beastars x reader #beastarsxreader

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lucyintheskywithxanax · 3 years

Text

Light Shall Smite Her

Pairing: Mildred Ratched x Reader

A/N: hello @serawalkerwrites, this is my humble gift to you as your SP secret gifter 😌😘 I’m so nervous to post this, I hope you’ll like it. If you don’t, in the words of Puck, “This weak and idle theme, / no more yielding but a dream, / gentles do not reprehend. / If you pardon, we will mend.” x

(please bear in mind English isn’t my first language, so my apologies for weird sentences)

Word count: ≃ 5 600

“I heard the new head nurse is very beautiful.”

Rosie waited expectantly for an answer. You hummed.

“I said,” Rosie repeated, in a louder, slightly annoyed voice, for she was excited and couldn’t bear your ignoring her right now, “I heard she’s very beautiful.”

You gave her a sideways glance by way of an acknowledgment, not bothering to stop your quick scribbling.

Rosie rested her elbows on the table and leaned towards you. “Don’t you care?”

“I’m writing,” you mumbled.

“Aren’t you interested, though?”

“Listen, Rose,” you started, setting your pen down and finally meeting your co-worker’s eyes, ”my break is over in five minutes, and I want – no, I need – to finish this, so would you be so kind as to postpone this conversation until later?”

Rosie straightened up with an irritated click of her tongue. “Fine,” she hissed. “I was just trying to be nice. Knowing you’re single, and all.” She turned, made to leave, but suddenly stopped to mock over her shoulder, “And by ‘and all’, I’m referring to the pathetic rant I had to suffer through last night about how ‘lonely’ you feel and how ‘unfair’ the universe is. I’m just trying to help.”

“Thank you, Emma Woodhouse,” you called after her as she angrily stomped out of the room.

With a sigh you resumed your writing. You hadn’t meant to be so harsh with Rosie, but you really needed to get rid of your thoughts and ideas by writing them down before your break was over. If you didn’t, the words would howl reproachfully in your head for the rest of the day, make a racket and fog your brain till you were finally able to spit them out on paper.

Just a few minutes more, you begged the clock on the wall. Your wrist was aching. Two more lines, and then you finally sat back in your chair with a huff like a warrior who has won their hardest battle.

You glanced up at the clock. Break over.

The clinic was unusually quiet today. A few patients looked up at you as you passed them on your way down the corridor. You offered them smiles, blinked at the sun when you glanced outside.

The lobby was deserted. You worked at the front desk, and were in charge of most administrative tasks – a rather boring job, but it paid well and left you enough time to write.

You were sorting out schedules when Rosie crossed the lobby, pushing an old man in a wheelchair. She shot you a moody look and mouthed something you didn’t understand. Five minutes later she was back; and, planting her elbows on the front desk, mouth tight and eyes studying your face, she started, “So, as I was saying, the new –” but before she had time to finish there was the sound of a door opening, heels, a voice speaking quickly, and then two people walked briskly into the lobby.

And one of them was a male nurse you knew called James, a boring, conceited person you couldn’t care about; and the other – but someone had drugged your coffee. There was no other explanation.

James came to a halt before your desk. With a contemptuous look to Rosie, he pushed her to the side, and ignoring her angry hiss announced proudly, “Y/N, this is Mildred Ratched, our new head nurse.”

You stared at her. The world around you vanished. It was as if someone had shone a spotlight on her, the rest of the room going dark as the audience held their breath. You were suddenly too hot, the air in your lungs was burning gas and it hurt – but Mildred’s face stayed perfectly composed.

She gave you a polite smile and extended one hand to you as if nothing terrible was happening, as if you and her were meeting for the very first time and the only thought crossing your mind, as it had two years ago, simply was, What a beautiful woman.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Mildred said, red lips curling up into a smile.

You knew that smile. It was the smile that reached her eyes but was fake and cold and meant to signify, I know what I’m doing. I’ve got this. There’s nothing you can do but submit.

You shook her hand. Mildred saw the way your arm trembled when you drew it back and pressed it against your chest.

“I’m giving Miss Ratched a tour of the clinic,” James was saying, with a note of pride in his voice. “She’s been very impressed by our equipments.”

“Yes,” Mildred answered, gaze boring into you. “The place where I used to work certainly didn’t enjoy such modern facilities.”

Your brain took over. It really was the only way you could survive this moment. You swallowed and locked up your heart and let coolness and calm seep through you.

“The place where you used to work?” you asked. You congratulated yourself on how neutral your voice sounded.

Mildred’s brow pushed up slightly, for she knew exactly what you were doing. She knew you. And despite your best efforts, you felt heat creep up your cheeks, heat creep up your ears, heat everywhere it was too damn hot.

But you would be damned, you told yourself, you would be damned before you averted your gaze from hers.

“Oh, it was a small place,” Mildred answered – and was her smile turning a little cruel? “You wouldn’t know it,” she added, and just like that, with her smile lingering on her lips, she turned from you and gestured for James to lead the way.

You stared at her back as she walked off, gait as decisive as you remembered it to be, but with that nervousness to it, as if she were constantly running from something. Do you only know where you’re headed?, you had asked her once – and she had gazed at you thoughtfully as she’d blown out cigarette smoke, and hadn’t answered.

“What was that all about?”

A door slammed shut, making you jump. Only know did you realize that your fists were tightly clenched, and your lungs were burning from lack of oxygen. You forced yourself to take a deep breath.

“What was that all about?” Rosie asked.

You glanced at her. “Don’t you have something to do?” you snapped.

Mildred and you. The story was a simple one.

She had been a nurse at the local state hospital, you had been a professional writer; you had met at a coffee shop, where you would both spend your Saturday afternoons. You had talked. You had laughed.

The sparkles in her eyes when she would talk about things she loved, things that made her happy, had caught your attention. So had her smiles, and her laughs, and every little thing she had said and pointed out.

You had ached. And then one day you had been bold enough, and leaned in to kiss her. And she, with a half-disgusted, half-shocked laugh, had pressed one hand to your chest to push you away – and in a voice that was only slightly shaking, had demanded what the hell you thought you were doing.

Turned out she had been hunting. For a young, happy woman, who would “fill the needs” of her brother, just recently got out of prison. You had gawped at her as she had explained the whole scheme to you, talking for all the world as if she were having a perfectly casual, perfectly normal conversation –

And then –

The anger and the disgust and the pain and the betrayal. You had stormed out of the coffee shop with the need to scream and to destroy something. To make someone bleed. To make someone pay for what you were feeling.

And the hatred – how you hated her. And yet, there had been signs, you had seen them – how she would bite her lower lip sometimes when she listened to you talk, how she would glance up at you, eyes a little darker and a little stormier and a little shy, how when she would reach out to cup your face in her hands, to comfort, to reassure, her touch would linger and her fingers would hold as if you were made of the most precious star matter in the universe – you couldn’t have been wrong. She had wanted you. You knew it. But she had been on a mission, and nothing could distract that kind of a woman from her goal.

To know you had been used, to know you had been seen as nothing more than a piece of meat to be fed to a hungry animal, made you feel dirty and disgusted with yourself. You couldn’t get rid of the feeling. So, with a desperate need to get rid of yourself, of the way you had been seen, you moved and got a new, different job – tried not to think of the reasons why you applied to a clinic of all places. You made yourself new, in a way.

And now – now your old self slammed back into you with a vengeance. It wouldn’t have been a problem, not really, had it come alone; but it was accompanied. It stood hand in hand with hope. And hope – hope was the worst.

The rest of the day passed quickly. You focused on your work, let your brain hold the wheel and did your best to ignore the thing, the thing that was warm and insistent and that you could feel growing in your chest, from making too much noise. It was adamant it would make itself known, though, and you were well aware it would only take a spark to set the fire roaring – and sure enough, at 5:30pm, as you were gathering your things and about to leave, the warmth started to burn – for Mildred, in her nurse uniform, walked up decidedly to your desk and, lips curled up, said, “Doesn’t your shift end at six?”

You clenched your teeth as you slowly looked up at her. “You’re not the boss of me,” you retorted, low and mean.

Mildred’s mouth twitched. “I would not be so sure of that.”

“I arrive earlier in the morning so I can leave earlier in the afternoon,” you snapped, louder this time.

She hadn’t changed a bit. She still looked exactly the same. You stared at her impeccable hairdo, at her collar, trying not to pay too much attention to the pale column of her neck; up, past her lips – a shudder, at the reminder of how they had felt against yours – to meet her eyes again, and catch a glint of amusement in them.

You cleared your throat, pretended the heat that flooded your face was fueled by anger, not embarrassment.

“So how’s your brother?” you taunted.

Mildred blinked. Her smile faded. She glanced over her shoulder, then leaned towards you and said, “Can we talk somewhere private?”

“Why?”

“I have things to say to you.”

“Things to say to me?” You snorted. Crossed your arms against your chest. “I don’t care what you have to say. I’m going home. Move.”

She didn’t move. She stood resolutely planted in front of your desk, eyes boring into yours, so you picked up your bag and walked around her, bumping her shoulder to make a point.

She flinched, as she always did when you would touch her without warning. You felt her gaze burning the nape of your neck as you hurried off. It was all you could do not to run when you reached the door.

“This woman isn’t trustworthy,” you told your boss the next morning.

He barely looked up from his paperwork. “Which woman?”

“Miss Ratched.” You pretended you felt nothing, pretended it was not like music, when you uttered her name. “You made a mistake hiring her.”

“Did I?”

“She doesn’t have the credentials for the post of head nurse.”

A glance at you, annoyed and distracted.

“Her credentials are excellent.”

“They’re fake,” you insisted, shaking your head. “Everything about this woman is fake. Believe me, you cannot trust –“

“Miss Y/L/N,” he interrupted with a sigh, “if you do not have proof for these allegations then you’re only making me lose my time.”

You sat at the front desk in a bad mood. Patients glared at you when you answered their questions too shortly, and you glared right back at them until they lowered their gaze. Every time you heard footsteps, every time you heard a voice, your heart would speed up and your head buzz and you would look up, half in fear, half in (but that was hard to admit and, at first, you denied it) hope, expecting to see Mildred. You didn’t, though. The hours passed by and the nervousness in you increased, but Mildred never once crossed the lobby. She wasn’t in the break room at lunch; a nurse told you she had gone out to a restaurant with a friend.

At 5:30pm you left in an even worse mood. You told yourself it was because you hadn’t had the opportunity to be mean to Mildred, to take out on her some of your resentment and anger. There was no other possible reason, and if there was, it certainly was not that you were disappointed you hadn’t had the opportunity to at least steal a glance at her.

At home that evening you tried to write, but the words had disappeared from your brain. You sat at your desk, eyes glazed, fingers unmoving. There was something in your chest that was made of emptiness and yet weighted heavy near your heart.

As you lay in bed you tried to summon bright images in the dark, the brightest you could create, red sunsets and turquoise oceans, anything to outshine the image of Mildred. You tossed and groaned and got too hot. In the corner of your room it seemed to you something was crouching, and looking up at you, and hoping.

In the morning you opened your window and stuck your head outside. The air still carried the chill of winter and made you shiver. But your blood was boiling. It was boiling still when you got into your car, boiling when you settled at the front desk and turned on your computer.

You decided it was boiling out of anger.

And yet – did anger make one’s heart beat so very fast at the mere sound of heels on tiles?

You told yourself it did.

It wasn’t until your lunch break that you saw Mildred. As usual, you gulped down your lunch to have time to write; and you were just starting when the door opened, and without so much as an introduction Mildred walked in and stopped right in front of you.

You looked up from your work.

“What do you want?” you growled.

Mildred gave you a pacifying smile.

“Good afternoon,” she started, lacing her fingers together in front of her. “As I said the other day, I merely want to talk.”

You snorted, and pretended to focus on your writing. But just as last night, words fled from your brain. Mildred’s presence was taking all the room inside your head, filling it with her scent and her colours, her voice, the shapes of her body. Your heart was beating too fast, your pen was frozen on the piece of paper, and out of the corner of your eye the blue from Mildred’s uniform was too bright, it was too flashy, it drew all of your attention.

After a few, long seconds of tense silence, you dropped your pen on the table and almost barked, “Fine, go ahead, talk.” You met Mildred’s eyes and tried to scowl, tried to convey to her the vehemence of your anger. “Say what you have to say and then get out and don’t talk to me ever again.”

“You’re quite overreacting, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’ve got some nerves, wouldn’t you say?”

More silence, as you both stared at each other. Mildred’s gaze wasn’t cruel or angry, you noticed; if anything, she looked nervous.

“Since you want us so badly to speak,” you said before she had time to, “answer this question: what would have happened, if I hadn’t tried to kiss you?” You waited, but since she didn’t answer, merely kept on looking at you with one hand sliding up her other arm to hug herself, you went on, “What would have happened, uh? You would’ve dropped a sleeping pill in my drink, kidnapped me, locked me up somewhere for your brother to do to me whatever he wanted?”

Mildred let out a short, offended laugh. “Don’t be so crude.”

There was yet another pause, during which she looked at you, nervously, and you looked at her, angrily; and then, entirely of its own, your gaze flicked to her mouth, and she noticed it, and her eyes widened a little.

You looked away and cleared your throat, praying – praying! – that the heat you could feel everywhere didn’t show in your face.

“I would merely have introduced you to Edmund,” Mildred answered eventually.

You met her eyes again. “I don’t believe you,” you growled. A pause. “Why did you wait so long?”

“I needed to make sure you were the right one for him.”

“And how many women,” you went on, slowly standing up and slamming your fist on the table,” did you try out before me?”

Mildred’s eyes darted to your hand as it hit the table. She jumped slightly, fear widening her eyes, and for a moment regret washed part of your anger away. You took a step towards her with the intention to reassure, no longer to fight.

You caught yourself, though. You stopped, and folded your arms on your chest.

“Answer me,” you growled.

“You were the first,” Mildred said, voice a bit tight. She hesitated, stroked her arm with her thumb. “I had no idea you were the kind of woman who doesn’t like the company of men.”

You laughed mirthlessly. “And you think that excuses everything?”

“It must have made it more unpleasant.”

“Any woman would know how fucked up it was,” you growled. “Except you, clearly.”

Silence settled between you two. Mildred’s thumb was still stroking her arm nervously, and you found yourself staring at it, as if drawn by the repetitive movement.

“I apologize for what I did,” Mildred said after a few moments.

Your eyes flicked back to her face. “Do you really? Do you really mean it? Or is it another lie, meant to coax me?”

“I do mean it,” Mildred replied.

“Then prove it.”

Something like annoyance flicked across Mildred’s features; but then, as quickly as it had come, it faded, and the nervousness settled back.

“How?” she asked.

You took another step towards her, meaning to invade her space, just a little, just to show her you had the upper hand. An idea flashed in your brain, but you couldn’t quite see its contours through the mist of boiling anger, so when you voiced it, it was without fully knowing what the words would be.

“Let me make sure you’re the right one for me.”

You paused. You decided you rather liked these words.

Mildred’s mouth opened, closed again. She titled her head, eyes narrowing.

You took another step forward.

“Let me,” you breathed, extending one hand to brush invisible dust from her sleeve, “try you out and decide whether I want you for myself.”

Mildred held your gaze with a stubborn, challenging – amused? – kind of fierceness, and you noticed how she had started breathing through her mouth, how her cheeks were coloring, not with embarrassment, but with excitement it seemed; like a champion in the starting blocks, adrenaline racing through her veins.

Something was drumming in your ears. Certainly it was your heart, but maybe it was something else - and this time you couldn’t fool yourself into thinking it was anger. Anger never drummed, anger thundered. Desire – longing – had its own particular kind of music.

You wondered, vaguely, if Mildred could hear it too.

She blinked. The fierceness in her gaze faded. She looked away, the black in her eyes turning sad and shy, then looked up again, hopeful this time, and you couldn’t help but marvel at the mirror that was her gaze, always reflecting, always revealing.

“Alright,” she said.

Your lips twitched into a smirk.

And then, just when you thought you had won, she smiled that victorious smile of hers that reached her eyes but was always cold, except this time it was warm, and there was mischief shining under it like a child up to no good.

“You have 24 hours, not a minute more,” she said, playful, almost singing. “Make the best of them.”

And then, and then - she lifted one hand, brushed the back of her fingers down your cheek, to mock your previous touch and remind you who was in control. Her cold skin made you shiver and instantly ache for more; and you would have leaned in and crashed your mouth against hers had you not regained control of yourself at the last second.

She left you with a glance over her shoulder as if to dare you to follow her. She left you standing burning and aching, trying to process what had happened.

You collapsed on your chair, because this all meant, dear you this all meant – that you had been right? That she was interested in you?

You raised a hand to your chest as if that could help slow down your heart. You did not know what you should be feeling. There were too many emotions, and which one was supposed to be right? You needed someone, a guide, to point out and say, This. This is the proper emotion to feel.

You spent the rest of the day in a state of overwhelming nervousness. Every minute you expected Mildred to appear with a cup of coffee or a bouquet of flowers for you. Nothing happened. The afternoon went by as usual. Rosie stopped at your desk for a chat. An old man threw up in the lobby and the cleaning lady cursed.

When the clock reached 4pm, you almost got up and stormed into Mildred’s office to demand what she was doing. Why the hell wasn’t she trying to win your heart? Why wasn’t she being excessively nice, voice dripping with honey, wide eyes begging?

You couldn’t believe the nerves of this woman, and you were fuming, until you saw her crossing the lobby with a young nurse in tow, and she glanced your way, and smiled. And her eyes weren’t wide, they weren’t begging, but they were nice, and they reflected the genuine good intention of her smile.

This is when you realized. There would be no excessive attentions or sweet little lies to flatter. She was aiming for the exact opposite of what you had run away from. Honesty. Being herself.

A little while later she walked up to your desk with a bunch of reproaches because you had messed up with a few patients’ schedules. Her tone was firm, her gaze hard. Brief apologies dropped from your mouth before you had time to think them. You eyed her curiously as she walked away, and kept on gazing at her long after she had disappeared. Then you cleared your throat, and willed yourself to focus on your work again.

When you saw her again, you were making ready to leave. She had changed into a long, forest green pleated skirt and a creamy white blouse with cuffed sleeves. You eyed her up and down as she came close to you, which made a small smug smile tug at the corner of her lips. You prayed all the gods the heat in your cheeks didn’t paint itself pink, and pretended you were busy with your handbag.

“Dinner?” Mildred asked simply. “I know a place.”

The place in question was a small, cozy and fashionable restaurant with a menu of fancy dishes that made your eyes widen. Mildred asked for a table on the terrace, in the setting sun; the waiter pulled out a chair for her with a respectful bow of his head, and for you with merely a nod.

You said something about the sunset, about how glad you were the weather was getting warmer, how dearly you loved the spring; you pointed out flowers. Mildred lit up a cigarette and listened to you speak, her gaze kind and attentive, and it struck you how easily you two were falling back into your old routine. How peaceful it was, how natural it felt to just sit there with her as the sun yawned and stretched, as cigarette smoke and laughter curled lazily up towards the sky.

Mildred folded her napkin and set it neatly on her lap. You glanced at her as you pretended to muse over the menu; and when Mildred’s gaze met yours, an awkward laugh burst out of your mouth and danced in Mildred’s eyes.

“I honestly do not know…” you started.

“Try this,” she smiled, tapping a finger on the menu.

“I do not trust anything with asparaguses in it.”

“Trust me, then,” Mildred retorted with a laugh.

The laugh died prematurely as your face hardened. Mildred swallowed, glanced down at the menu, looked up again to meet your eyes.

“I’ll have it myself,” she said in a slightly subdued voice. “So you’ll know what you’re missing out.”

You hummed, and took a sip of your drink to swallow the lump in your throat.

Dinner passed in easy, casual conversation. Sometimes, after you had said some random thing, Mildred would smile a shy, fond smile at an object on the table or at something around her, like sharing a secret with herself. You didn’t notice the waiter when he came back. Mildred let you steal a forkful of her meal, and laughed victoriously when your eyes widened at the rich taste that filled your mouth.

For dessert you both ordered rose and lemon Turkish delights, and fell in a comfortable silence. You watched Mildred and she watched you. At one point she ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip to lick off powdered sugar. You felt yourself blush. Mildred noticed, smiled a little smugly; when your eyes met again, hers flicked down to her glass, and her smile turned shy.

“You never answered my question,” you said.

“Which question?” Mildred smiled at her glass.

“How is your brother doing?”

There was cruelty in your words, but you thought you were entitled to some of it. The sun had set by now, the moon and the stars were not out yet: there was no witness.

Mildred’s smile faded. She looked up at you, a little reproachfully.

“He’s doing fine,” she said after a short while, in the voice she used at work with the other nurses. “Better than I thought he would. He found a job taking care of animals at the local shelter. It makes him happy.” A pause. A soft, dreamy smile to the tree on your left. “The animals help ease his mind. They give him purpose. He says he likes caring for innocent souls, that they would never hurt anybody, not because they can help themselves, but because the very idea would never even cross their minds.”

“That’s nice, but I was referring to his love life.”

She searched your eyes. “Nothing much to say about that.”

“So you didn’t find him the perfect spouse?” you asked with a mirthless laugh. “What happened? Set the bar too high?”

A gust of wind tangled in your hair, like a reproach from the universe, but you chose to ignore it. You brushed the strands of hair from your face and scowled at Mildred, awaiting – demanding – an answer.

Someone turned on the overhead lights, which threw a sudden bright, yellow glare on Mildred’s face and chased all the shadows.

“I stopped searching after you,” Mildred replied.

You snorted. There was a need to be cruel that was growing inside you and that was too loud, too outraged to be ignored. It was a military leader, and it had at its command an army led by Resentment, Pain, Anger and Revenge.

“What happened?” you mocked. “Got tired so quickly? Got so disappointed in me you thought it wouldn’t be worth your time?”

Mildred refused to take the bait. She stayed completely calm, face impassible and gaze bold, but soft. Her behavior made Anger give a low war cry and charge.

“The truth is,” Mildred said, and she leaned over the table towards you, and smiled and with her smile was swept away the impassiveness on her face to let a loving intensity shine, “just before you left I had made up my mind to keep you for myself.”

You clenched your fist. “Then why the fuck,” you hissed, “did you push me away?”

“I didn’t! All I did was inform you what my plans had been, for the sake of honesty –”

“For the sake of honesty?” you repeated. “Are you kidding me?”

“But then you ran away,” Mildred finished. Had there been the slightest note of reproach in her voice, you would’ve jumped to your feet and broken something.

“As if you cared,” you growled.

“I tried looking for you,” Mildred said.

She paused. There was a nervous twitch to her mouth that, in the absence of shadows, you saw.

“I don’t believe you,” you growled.

“But you disappeared. You moved, didn’t you? You changed your job, you disappeared so completely and I –”

“Bullshit.”

“– and I tried to find you, but there was my job, and there was Edmund, and I couldn’t give up on him when he –“

“So you gave up on me instead.”

Mildred cut herself short. Silence hung heavy as she struggled, weighed up ugly truth against beautiful lies, until she said in a breath, “Yes.”

A sense of victory washed over you, but it felt sick, unsatisfying, and you wondered whether defeat wouldn’t have been better.

For a long moment none of you spoke. Then you realized in your anger you had leaned towards her, too, and your faces were only a few inches apart.

Mildred’s eyes flicked to your lips. You stopped breathing. You were so mad, you swore if she tried to kiss you right now you would flip the table, rip off the lights, break your chair. She had no right to ask to come back in your life, not after what she had done, and you were so mad, and definitely not leaning in and your lips were not parting as if to taste the air she exhaled –

Mildred raised her hands to cup your face. Her touch was like thunder, except you were not a tree but the sky; you had not been hit and burnt, but sublimated and illuminated.

You flinched, and sat back in your chair.

“So?” you asked, folding your arms on your chest. You couldn’t quite meet Mildred’s eyes. Your face was burning.

Mildred raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“So what happens now? What’s your plan now that you’ve found me?”

Mildred smiled. “That,” she answered, “is entirely up to you.”

Was this a blatant lie? You stared at her, forcing yourself to silence the fresh burst of anger her words triggered in you. For if there was one thing you were quite sure of, it was that Mildred Ratched never relented. When she sank her fangs into a prey, she never let go. She would forever be just a few inches behind you, the shadow gliding on your walls day and night, the fingers brushing your shoulders and making you jump.

“So tell me,” Mildred asked after a short while, “do you like what you see?”

You almost said no. Just to tempt her, just because you could and being cruel was so easy and felt so good. You almost said you would disappear again and change your name so she could never find you. Because deep down you knew that if you really, really tried, you would forget her. Only be reminded of her face once in a while in the middle of a crowd or in a poem.

But did you want that?

You pursed your lips to hold back the word “no”. Mildred would have looked confident enough had it not been for the flicker of nervousness in her eyes. They were so dark, her eyes, they sometimes reminded you of a big cat, crouching in tall grass, silent, body taut, ready to jump on its prey.

She had jumped. And you had run away. But now she was jumping again, and this time, you had seen her coming. And you let her claws sink into your flesh.

You shifted on your seat with a low noise of anger at yourself, glanced up at her and blurted out moodily, “Yes.”

Victory shone in Mildred’s eyes. A smile danced across her lips. She leaned towards you, hands coming up to rest on the table with her nails digging into the wood, her gaze so intense, so wild, and when her lips parted to say something you slipped one hand around her right wrist, pushed back your chair so you could lean across the table, and kissed her.

It was a quick, angry kiss, pulling away before it really had time to start. Mildred blinked in surprise. You scowled at her, your mouth a tight, angry line. Your hand clutched her wrist to prevent her from moving.

“Yes,” you repeated.

A smile. Soft, nervous, hopeful.

“Am I forgiven?” she asked.

“No,” you growled, eyes riveted to her lips. “You’ll have to make it up to me, times and times again.”

Mildred’s lips curled up.

“Oh,” she breathed, “I can live with that.”

#spgiftexchange #sarah paulson #sarah paulson x reader #mildred ratched x reader #mildred ratched #fics

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