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sit-down-and-shut-up · 3 years

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time- a. hotchner

SUMMARY: you get kidnapped lol

WARNINGS: kidnapping (duh), some injuries but everyone lives, aaron being m a d, and reader being a freaking baddie

WORDS: too many 6604

A/N: sorry that it’s been a hot minute since i posted, im lazy

Aaron glanced up as the workday finally drew to a close, watching you wave goodbye to the team and stroll towards the unit chief’s office, just in time to see JJ as she ascended the steps on her way to the room as well. You started to wave, but JJ murmured something you couldn’t make out and you stopped. Aaron’s blood ran cold, and he mentally cursed himself for being naive enough to believe that things would work out for once. He turned to look at Emily and Morgan through the blinds, who’d been talking near Emily’s desk, and saw their eyes trained on you and JJ. Emily swore under her breath, then headed to the conference room with Spencer and Derek not far behind.

+++++

Aaron sat down next to you in the conference room, meeting your eyes and giving you a halfhearted smile. You returned the gesture and went back to scanning the grisly photos before you. He zoned out as JJ spoke, giving the rundown on each of the girls that had been abducted, then murdered mere hours later. The murders seemed somewhat random, with the exception that the victims were all girls in their upper 20’s. In fact, they were all 29, just like you were.

Something clicked in your mind, but you didn’t want to jump to conclusions. You could feel Aaron’s steely gaze on you, and you wondered briefly if he could tell what you were thinking. You were lost in your thoughts, to the point where you didn’t hear Aaron’s deep “Wheels up in 30.” After everyone had left the conference room, Aaron turned back to see you still staring at the photos, searching for something you couldn’t quite name among the blood spatters and empty faces. He walked over to you and gently tapped your shoulder, causing your head to whip up to face him. Realization washed over your eyes, and you mumbled an apology.

Aaron shook his head in response, saying “I’m sorry. I was hoping we’d actually get to go out tonight.” You sighed, then replied.

“Who knows? Maybe the unsub will be caught by the time we get there and we can go get dinner or something.” You laughed as you said it, but your laughter was tinged with a resigned sadness Aaron despised, wishing he could take you somewhere you’d never be forced to feel this way again. Aaron watched you for a few seconds longer, as your face darkened and you grabbed your files and left the room, heading to his office, where both of your go-bags were. He wanted to tell you so much, but wasn’t sure how to start. He wanted to tell you that he’d been planning to propose this evening, that he wanted to be with you forever. But he couldn’t.

+++++

Aaron noticed you lost in your thoughts again on the plane ride while the rest of the team went over the case. The sheer amount of bodies was enough to give someone pause. In addition, the unsub took a girl each Thursday, but never kept them for more than a few hours. Why?

The plane ride felt fairly short. You were hit with a wave of nostalgia as the plane touched down in New York, where you’d gone to college years earlier, and worked before you were transferred to the Behavioral Analysis Unit and moved to Quantico. As you walked into the FBI field office with the rest of the BAU, you couldn’t stop your mind from remembering the last time you’d been in the building, when working a terrorism case alongside Agent Joyner four years earlier.

She’d been killed immediately by a bomb in your SUV, and metal had been lodged in your left leg, cutting the femoral artery and nearly causing you to bleed out. If not for your Aaron, you would’ve died there, on the cold pavement. When Aaron came to visit you while you recovered from surgery, you managed to slur out that you loved him. At the time, he blamed it on the drugs you were on, until he showed up at your hospital room again a few hours later, to drive you home. You’d suffered hearing loss as well, and coupled with your leg injury, you couldn’t go in the field or on the plane for a while. As he helped you up and handed you the crutches you’d be relying on for nearly a year, you met his eyes and said confidently, “I meant what I said earlier.”

He’d paused for a second, before his lips spread into a rare smile, and he said, “I love you too.” You’d always known the relationship wouldn’t be easy, considering his recent divorce and your unconventional jobs, but you were fine with it. Being with Aaron was good enough.

Present-day Aaron subtly placed a hand on the small of your back, a sign of encouragement he’d adopted over the years. You glanced up at him and nodded, silently letting him know you were okay. He dropped his hand, and held it out to the new director of the New York field office: Agent Milenka, an enthusiastic but imposing woman you’d met at the Academy when you were younger. You caught Morgan glaring at her for a second, reminding you that Morgan almost got that job. Still, you knew that Morgan loved you all too much to leave the BAU for a job directing the New York field office. The team was his rock, the weight that tethered him to reality when he was at his lowest. Aaron introduced Milenka to the rest of your team, until she cut him off when he got to you.

“I know her,” she declared loudly, “I was her firearms trainer at the Academy, but she had to show me up and be better with a gun than I am.” Spite dripped from her words, but the mischievous smile on her face told you she wasn’t really upset. Aaron nodded slightly, caught off-guard by her remark, then interjected to ask where his team could set up.

Agent Milenka led all of you to an empty conference room, with the case files already arranged neatly and a blank evidence board at the front of the room. She turned on her heel and stared firmly at the team. If you hadn’t known her for years, you’d assume she was going to attempt to assert control over the case, but instead she said, “My agents have come to see this office as a family, and probably won’t take too well to the fact that I’ve called you in. If any of them give you hell, tell me, and I’ll make the devil look like a cuddly teddy bear.” She pivoted on her heel to leave, then turned back around. “Agent L/N, my office.”

+++++

You were shocked, to be honest. This woman could bring grown men to their knees, and now she sat in front of you, spinning in a swivel chair, teasing you over your obvious infatuation with Aaron Hotchner.

“Really, Milenka, I gotta get back to the team,” you sighed, rubbing your temples.

“Fine”, she grunted, making a shooing motion with her hand. “But here’s what I meant to tell you. I’m guessing you and your team want to know why it took this many bodies for me to call you in. I mean, I’d be wondering that, too. The bodies were all dumped two days ago, even though they’d all been dead for various amounts of time, so I’m guessing the unsub wanted to make sure I had to call you guys. Keep that in mind. He knows how this works.” The humor and mischief was gone from the agent’s voice, and in that moment you knew how she’d risen through the ranks of the FBI so quickly. Something about her made you want to do everything you could to solve the case as quickly as possible. She wasn’t someone you could let down.

You grimaced, then nodded, unable to say anything, and left her office, getting coffee from the espresso machine for you and your teammates as you walked back to the conference room. As you passed around the cups, Aaron watched you expectantly, obviously waiting for you to relay whatever information Agent Milenka had told you, and so you did. The reactions among the team members were the same, set jaws and darkening eyes. You didn’t know where to start with the case, until you remembered the idea you’d gotten back in D.C. You leapt from the black desk chair you’d just sat down in and practically ran to the evidence board, grabbing a red dry-erase marker and organizing the victim’s pictures from the first to the last to be abducted. You circled the eyes on some of the pictures, the hair on others, the widow’s peaks on some, and other various defining features.

“He’s working up to someone specific,” Spencer muttered as you worked. You whipped around, pointing a finger at him and downing the last of your coffee.

“Yes! Okay, so, look at this: The first and last girl are wildly different, but when you look at the chronological order of the victims, each one gains another characteristic that the next one didn’t have, like he’s working up to getting one specific girl, and kept killing those that looked increasingly similar to his real target!” You blurted the words, and watched as your teammates looked on in a mix of awe and horror, at both the board and a piece of paper Spencer had messily written on. Aaron, who was usually so emotionless, looked especially horrified, and scared. You shot Spencer a questioning look, and he held up the paper he’d shown the rest of the team. He’d taken the first letter of each woman’s name, and when lined up, they spelled out a message.

Your name.

+++++

“You’re off the case.” Aaron said, crossing his arms over his chest as you paced around the empty office he’d practically dragged you to.

“What? If some psycho is after me, I want to be the one to catch him!” You spoke firmly, almost yelling but not quite.

“If some psycho is after you,” Aaron started, sounding much calmer than you had, “I want you to be safe. Sending you out to hunt him down isn’t keeping you safe.”

You scoffed, then yelled, “As long as he’s out there, I’m not safe! If you let me help, we’ll find him faster. I can’t- no, I won’t- just sit here doing nothing while this man kills women just because he’s got some sort of vendetta against me!”

Aaron’s resolve broke down. You could tell from the way his back slumped and he pulled you into his chest. You wrapped your arms around him, basking in the feeling of calm it brought. Your anger dissipated when he held you like that, and he knew it.

He murmured, “I can’t lose you,” into your ear, and your heart broke from the way his voice cracked from fear and sadness. Aaron pulled away far too soon, and gave you a look that you knew meant to stay put, and pulled out his phone to call Penelope Garcia.

A few moments later, Spencer walked in, hands in his pockets. He looked unsure of himself, and you couldn’t figure out why until he said, “Hotch wants me to drive you to the hotel.”

You stared at him silently for a second, then mumbled curses under your breath and stormed out of the room to find your bag. Spencer put an arm out to stop you, then said, “He said he’d bring it for you tonight.”

You glared at him for a moment, before averting your gaze to the suddenly interesting polished linoleum beneath you. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t be mad at you.”

Spencer gave you a small smile, and replied, “It’s okay. You’re stressed. We all are. Hotch just wants you to be safe.”

You nodded, and he led you from the building to the shiny, black SUV parked outside. Aaron jogged out of the building towards you, and grabbed the handle of the vehicle before you could. You met his eyes, and he murmured, “I know you’re mad at me, but I need you to stay in the hotel room, okay? Lock the door, and I’ll be there tonight with your go-bag.” You nodded, and he paused a second before saying, “I love you.”

Your pride got the best of you, and you simply muttered, “I know.”

+++++

You’d been sure that the SUV’s tires were full when you’d arrived in New York, but the flat passenger tire begged to differ. Spencer pulled into a nearby gas station to fill up the tire, something you were fairly sure he’d never done before. You couldn’t help but laugh when he called Morgan to ask what to do, who responded that it would be easier for him to come fill up the tire himself. You mouthed that you had to go to the bathroom, and Spencer nodded as Morgan’s laughter came through the phone. You stifled laughter as you walked into the gas station, grimacing at the smell of sweat and cheap hot dogs.

+++++

Aaron wasn’t sure if he’d ever been so mad. No, mad wasn’t the word. Was there a word that could encapsulate the unadulterated fury coursing through his veins? He paced the conference room like a caged lion, practically screaming at Spencer and Derek through the phone.

“What the hell happened?”

Spencer was crying, he could tell that much from the muffled sobs, and Aaron couldn’t help but think that he might never see you again. He slammed the phone onto the table with nearly enough force to break it, and looked up to see Emily, Rossi, and JJ already halfway out the conference room, before he’d told them what happened. The four of them slid into the two remaining SUVs. Aaron screeched out of the parking lot, gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. Rossi kept shooting him worried glances he pretended not to notice.

“We’ll find her,” Rossi said, “But you need to stay calm for us to do it.”

Aaron nodded. He didn’t trust his voice to work right now. If he tried to speak, he knew he’d probably cry. He pulled into the gas station just before Emily and JJ, and a voice in his head reminded him that this might be the last place you’d ever see. Rossi hopped out of the car, giving Aaron a sympathetic look as he did so.

+++++

The team had been at the gas station for almost three hours, interviewing customers, collecting evidence, and talking to workers. Multiple people reported seeing a woman similar to who Aaron described enter the bathroom, but no one saw her leave.There was a window in the girl’s bathroom that had been broken from the inside, with blood on both the window and the glass. The forensics team ran the blood, and it was all from the same person.

Aaron didn’t need to hear the results to know whose blood it was. Spencer tried to help, informing him that she hadn’t bled out because women had approximately 4.5 pints of blood and that was at most half a pint, but Aaron cut him off. He couldn’t hear it, couldn’t listen to everyone talking about his girlfriend, the love of his life, as though she was already dead. He knew the odds, knew that she was almost certainly going to be dead within the first 72 hours, considering how the unsub had killed the other women.

He was going to find you alive. He knew it.

Because he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he didn’t.

+++++

Everything was fuzzy and painful and oh my god what is that stuff coming out of your side and out of your hand and holy crap you can’t move you’re tied up what are you tied to what’s going on and-

“You’re even prettier than I remember.” The voice sounded familiar, but the only thing your brain could fully focus on at the moment was the excruciating pain. You felt a hand on your side, and then a searing pain that was somehow worse than the pain you’d already been feeling.

“You got a piece of glass in your side. I’m getting it out.”

You felt pressure on the spot, and forced your head to move so you could see what was going on.

He was wrapping your waist in some sort of bandage to staunch the bleeding. You forced yourself to look around the musty room you were in. You were seated in a chair, with your arms tied to the back of the chair by a coarse brown rope and a metal chain and heavy shackle attached to your left ankle. Your eyes followed the chain, to where it connected to a silver hook jutting from the wooden floor, which was coated in a layer of dirt.

Dirt.

You must be in a barn, or shed, or something. You definitely weren’t in New York City anymore.

You vaguely remembered what had happened in the gas station bathroom. There’d been a man waiting in the first stall, who jumped on you, shoving your head against the mirror hard enough to crack your skull. You figured that you’d blacked out, and he’d jumped the window with you in tow.

Then another memory washes over you like a tsunami, flooding you with regret.

Aaron said he loved you, and you didn’t say it back. Now, you might never get to tell him that you love him again.

+++++

Aaron removed himself from the case, leaving Rossi in charge. He knew he’d only slow everyone else down with the torrent of emotions dancing inside his skull. So now, he’s resorted to sitting in your hotel room alone, wishing he hadn’t told you to go to the hotel. He’d been crying for the first time in years.

Aaron had no clue what to do, and it gives him newfound respect for the families of abducted victims that he speaks to. He pulled the sparkling diamond ring he planned on giving you tonight out of his bag, staring at it and imagining it on your ring finger. It doesn’t make him happier, instead it just turns the steady stream of tears into a storm.

+++++

Morgan, Rossi, JJ, and Emily, seated at the silver table in the conference room, were going over every last piece of evidence they have, while Spencer made a map of the abduction sites as Agent Milenka told him the addresses. They already established that the victims were high-risk due to their above-average athleticism, and each victim was taken from a high-risk location. Spencer looked for any sense of a pattern in abduction sites, but couldn’t find one. Eventually, he sat down next to Morgan and Emily, defeated.

“So all we know is that he’s obsessed with Y/N, and that he wasn’t remorseful about the murders of the other women.” Derek sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“Well, if he was able to subdue her, he most likely had the element of surprise. So, he probably isn’t physically strong, and needed that advantage to knock her out.” Rossi added, and Derek nodded.

Spencer looked up from the crime scene photos. “There’s no ligature marks.”

Derek nodded. “Yeah, we went over that. So?”

“Why knock the women out and transport them if you’re just going to kill them immediately instead of holding them somewhere? Why not just kill them wherever they already are?”

Emily’s mouth fell open. “Practice. So that when he had Y/N, he knew exactly what was going to happen. But he didn’t want to ruin the rest of the fantasy by taking someone else where he’s planned to keep Y/N. He wants that to be special.”

“So we know he’s going to be holding her somewhere secluded, then,” Milenka chimed in.

After a few moments of silence, the phone rang in the center of the table, and the team members all stared at it for a few moments before Derek turned to the computer next to him, where Garcia was currently on a video call with the team.

“Can you trace this call, babygirl?”

Garcia nodded. “I don’t have a trap and trace set up yet, but I can get one, honey. Just gimme one second.”

Derek’s hand hovered over the button on the receiver to answer the call, and when Garcia affirmed that she was ready, Derek pressed the button. Instantly, a somewhat timid male voice filled the room.

“Where’s Agent Hotchner? I want to speak to him, not any of you.”

The team shared a perplexed look, and Emily asked, “How do you know who is here and who isn’t?”

“The window’s open.”

JJ ran to the window, then turned. “He’s there,” she said, pointing to a man directly underneath where the conference window was with a phone to his ear.

The rest of the team sprinted down the stairs and out of the field office, with JJ not far behind. By the time they got to where the man had been, he was long gone. No one near the area said they’d seen him, either.

Derek turned and punched the wall out of rage, while Emily cursed loudly. The rapid darkening of the sky didn’t help with trying to catch an unsub, either.

Dejectedly, the team returned to the conference room, where Garcia excitedly said, “Your man forgot to hang up for a few minutes! I don’t know entirely where he went, but I know the direction he was headed!”

“Where, Garcia?” Spencer asked, desperate for a lead.

“Straight west.”

Spencer looked to Emily, who said, “Let’s go.”

+++++

The team knew the unsub needed somewhere secluded to keep you, but couldn’t figure out where. He’d been on foot when they’d seen him, so it had to be somewhat close. Or maybe he’d had a car in a parking lot somewhere? There were too many variables. They needed Hotch.

+++++

“Drink.”

The man held a cup to your lips, but you kept them closed tight. After trying to force you for a while, he gave up. Sighing, the man ran a hand through your hair, forcing your head upright. For a serial killer, he was surprisingly gentle.

“You need your strength,” the man murmured, but you looked away when he picked up the cup again. He set it down, shaking his head, then pulled a knife out of the back pocket of his blue jeans. You knew better than to scream. It was likely that he craved your pain, so allowing him that satisfaction would coax him to continue. He walked behind you, to where you wouldn’t see him. You closed your eyes, praying for a quick death, praying Aaron would find you, praying you could see your team one last time.

But you didn’t need to.

The man cut through the rope binding your wrists, then left the room. He was rarely in the room with you, and you wondered what he was doing outside of it. For the first time, however, he came back within a few minutes of leaving. You could theoretically move if you wanted to now that the rope was gone considering how long the chain attached to your leg was, but you were weak and hurting. The last thing you saw before your vision went black yet again was the man standing above you with a syringe.

+++++

Aaron was with the rest of the team, visiting each abduction site for something, anything to help the profile, when the unsub called him.

“This is Hotchner.”

“I have her, Agent Hotchner, and I treat her better than you ever could. You think what she needs is a big strong man to control her,” he mocked, “But you don’t truly love her. No one could, except me.” Although the man’s words were confident, he sputtered out the words like an old truck engine. It sounded like he was reading a script, as though he’d had to plan out what he was going to say beforehand. As soon as the unsub finished speaking, the tell-tale click of the phone hanging up sounded.

Emily, who’d been walking next to him, stopped, pulling out her phone to contact Penelope.

“Can you get the rest of the team on the line? I think Morgan and Reid are at the Central Park crime scene, and JJ and Rossi are probably still by Times Square.”

Emily could practically hear Penelope’s smile as she responded, “Can do, gorgeous.”

A few keyboard clicks later, Penelope stated, “You’ve got me, Morgan, Rossi, Reid,and JJ.”

Emily took a shaky breath before saying, “We think Y/N knew the unsub.”

“What do you mean, knew?” Reid’s voice sounded.

“He claimed that he loves her more than Aaron ever could. He thinks he knows her better than us, so he probably knew her when she used to live in New York.”

“She went to college here, didn’t she?” JJ responded.

Penelope chimed in, exclaiming, “She went to John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Graduated top of her class.”

Morgan cleared his throat, then added: “Maybe the unsub didn’t know her, but thought he did. He could’ve been stalking her when she lived here, then kept tabs on her when she transferred to the BAU years ago.”

“He probably found out about Y/N’s relationship with Aaron recently, and that’s his stressor.” Rossi added.

Emily stared into the distance. There was something off about this. The theory made sense, but at the same time, it felt, well, wrong.

Agent Milenka, who’d been surveying the crime scene Emily and Aaron were at, sauntered over.

“I know who did this.”

Aaron met her firm gaze, confused and intrigued.

“Who?”

“There was this guy she met at John Jay, didn’t talk much, but he ended up applying to the FBI just because she did. He made it in a few months after her and got a job as a forensic analyst at our field office here. They worked together pretty often, and he was never too strange, but you got the feeling there was something off. He started acting weird after Y/N’s transfer to the BAU. I ordered another psych eval for him a few months ago, and he failed. I fired him, and I haven’t seen him since.”

Aaron and Emily shared a look, both hopeful and sad.

“What’s his name?”

“Ian Foster.”

Aaron nodded, murmuring a quick thank you, then turned back to Emily.

“Call Garcia. We need all the information we can find on Ian Foster.”

+++++

Your head hurt. You were somewhere different now; the dirty brown floor had been replaced with plush white carpet, and the chair you’d gotten used to was gone. Your left leg was still shackled, but this time it was attached to a shiny metal spike in the center of the room. You surveyed your surroundings, noting the vast difference between your current location and your past one. The chain attached to your ankle was long, probably meant to give you full access to the room you were in but keep you from leaving. The walls were white and spotless, along with the queen-sized bed behind you and the dresser and vanity along the far wall. You knew you must look out of place compared to the neatness of your surroundings, with your frizzy, dirty hair and torn, wrinkled, and stained clothes. You realized that you’d never checked your holster for your gun, and in doing so, found it empty.

Great.

Sun shone through the window on your right, and birds chirped happily, as if mocking you. They were telling you that they’re free, while you’re locked in this stupid white room.

Your captor walked in soon after you woke up, and you knew he must be watching you through a camera hidden somewhere.

“Drink.”

Your eyes searched his face, trying to understand who he was, now that you had enough light to see.

“Foster?” You managed to croak out through your parched throat.

Ian nodded, then grabbed your face with one calloused hand, forcing you to open your mouth so he could pour water in, which you promptly spat into his eyes. Instead of causing him to stumble, all it did was make him laugh.

“I see you’re still as fiery as ever.”

You clamped your mouth shut, pursing your lips and staring him in the eyes until he left. After he was gone, you tried to move your arms as much as possible. Your limbs felt heavy, like you were attached to weights, but moving was somewhat possible, a little bit at a time.

For now, that would be enough. You just had to pray that Aaron could find you.

+++++

Ian Foster’s paper trail was a series of dead ends, but Penelope Garcia, being the lovely omnipotent being she is, was able to find two properties owned by his dead uncle in upstate New York that he was likely using to hold you.

Aaron couldn’t describe the relief that wrapped itself around him, like a soft blanket, when Garcia chirped that she’d found where he was. He’d refused to allow himself to think that you might be dead, and the knowledge that now he had your location was sweeter than any candy could ever be.

He wiped a tear from his eye that threatened to fall, and cleared his throat, nodding at Emily and Agent Milenka, wordlessly signaling her to join him as he ran towards the SUV they’d been using. Emily followed, calling JJ and Rossi to give them the address as she ran. The first property, an old farmhouse, was about 40 minutes away from their current location, while the second one, a pretty two-story house, was about three hours away. Hotch, Emily, and Milenka, being farthest from both locations, were driving to the house, while the rest of the team would check out the farmhouse first then meet them there.

+++++

There was this feeling, blossoming in your chest, comforting you, whispering that Aaron was on his way. You’d learned over the years that your instincts rarely lied to you, and you hoped to whatever God there was or wasn't, that this wasn’t one of the times they misled you.

So you knew what you had to do.

You acted nice every time Ian came to visit, roughly every half hour.

Then, after five visits, you drank the water he offered willingly. Gently, Ian helped you up off the ground, a gesture that would’ve been comforting had he not been a serial killer. He moved his hands until they were lightly situated on your waist, and gazed into your eyes with the crazed fanaticism of a deranged man. He leaned in for a kiss, and the second he closed his eyes, you drove your right knee directly into his crotch.

Serves him right for being dumb enough not to fully restrain you. While he doubled over in pain, stepping back, you set up for a roundhouse kick that you placed to the back of his knee, knocking him onto the ground in an ungraceful heap. While he was on the ground, you punched him in the throat with enough force to knock the wind out of him, leaving him gasping for air on the ground like a fish out of water. Sending another kick to his temple for good measure, rendering him unconscious, you searched his pockets for anything that could remove the shackle from your leg. Eventually, you settled for a wire cutter that you used to cut off the attaching chain, but your clumsiness left an angry gash in your leg in the process. Limping from exhaustion, you ran from the room as fast as you could with the pain in your side from the glass that had been lodged there and the blood from the cut in your skull dripping down your face and neck. Your head felt fuzzy and faint, and you knew you were likely to pass out from blood loss any second. You repeated Aaron’s name in your head like a mantra, telling yourself that you needed to get back to him first, then you could pass out from pain. Every part of your body ached, screaming at you to give up as you stumbled down the creaky carpeted stairs, leaving a trail of blood in your wake.

As you neared the foyer, you heard the engine of a car, along with footsteps. The door flew open, with Aaron directly behind it, followed by Morgan, Emily, Spencer, Rossu, and a few agents from the New York office. Aaron’s eyes scanned the room before settling on you, bloodied and bruised, and he ran to you, gathering you in his arms while you whimpered like a child. He whispered things in your ear that you couldn’t make out as you let the blackness at the edge of your vision take over.

+++++

Lights. Murmuring voices. Were you still in that house?

You opened your eyes to see two people, one man and one woman, leaving the room you were in. There was a pressure on your hand that scared you, and slowly, you turned your head to see the source of the sensation, and you were greeted with what was quite possibly the best view you’d ever laid eyes on: Aaron Hotchner asleep at your side, desperately clutching your hand.

“Aaron?” You murmured. He was a light sleeper, so you knew the sound would most likely wake him up. When it didn’t, you squeezed his hand while murmuring his hand again. His head jerked up, and his tired eyes met yours.

“Y/N.” His voice was filled with so much anxiety, grief, and regret that your heart shattered, as he reached up to ever-so-gently caress your face, then kissed you softly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.” His words took the broken pieces of your heart and smashed them again with a hammer, until you were sobbing against Aaron’s chest. He held you, and let you cry, becoming painfully aware of his inability to help in times like this. His specialty was catching criminals, not helping people through the trauma, and he entertained the thought of asking JJ to talk to you for a fleeting moment, before deciding that he couldn’t let you out of his sight for the time being.

After a few minutes, you sniffed and lifted your head to wipe away your tears, but Aaron did it before you could. You stared down at your side for a moment, watching the blood that seeped through the bandage every time you took a breath, while you gathered enough courage to speak without your voice wavering.

“I’m sorry. You told me you loved me, and I didn’t say it back, and that could’ve been the last-”

Aaron cut you off with a kiss, murmuring against your lips, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

You sat in silence with him for a while, leaning your head against his shoulder as he stroked your hair. Eventually, Aaron broke the silence.

“I saw what you did to Ian.”

You choked out a laugh despite the pain that ripped through you while doing so. “Yeah, I left him in pretty bad shape, didn’t I?”

Aaron nodded, smiling. “I’m proud of you. Most people wouldn't be able to escape a serial killer.”

“Well, I’m not most people, Hotchner.”

“That’s for sure.”

+++++

The rest of the team left for D.C. the next morning, but Aaron stayed to drive you home once you were discharged from the hospital. First, however, he dropped you off at the FBI field office to talk with Agent Milenka while he called Jessica to ask if she’d mind watching Jack for a few more days, explaining what happened to you. She practically viewed you as a sister, and after recovering from the initial horror, was happy to agree.

“Hey, Y/N! You’re alive!” Agent MIlenka called brightly as you limped into her office, bumping your crutched on the doorframe.

You chuckled. “Sadly, I am. Aaron told me it was you who figured out Foster had taken me. How’d you know?”

Milenka shrugged. “I may not be a profiler, but I sure as hell can tell when someone’s not right. The guy went almost crazy when you left New York. It just made sense.”

“But if that was his stressor, he would’ve started murdering earlier.”

“We thought at first that finding out about you and Agent Hotchner might’ve been the stressor, but it was impossible to tell when he’d found out, so we switched gears. I fired Ian a few months ago because he’d just been getting worse and worse, and eventually was a liability on cases. The last straw was him failing his psych evaluation. Maybe he felt that losing his FBI job meant he lost his last chance to be with you if he’d been hoping to transfer to your unit someday.”

You nodded slowly. “That’s around the time the kidnappings started, isn’t it?”

Milenka nodded. The two of you stood in her office in comfortable silence for a bit, until she stood up from her desk, crossing the distance between you and engulfing you in a nervous hug. She pulled away fairly quickly, most likely out of fear of hurting you, and awkwardly patted you twice on the shoulder. “Take care, Agent.”

“You too, Milenka.”

You turned to go, but stopped when you heard Milenka call, “One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Hotchner’s a good guy. Don’t let that one get away.”

You merely offered her a smile, then strode out of her office as elegantly as one can with a limp.

+++++

The ride home was nice, full of easy discussion, laughter, and a few guilty looks that Aaron snuck at your stitched-up side, wishing he’d listened to you.

You made a joke he didn’t hear, and leaned over in your seat so you could wave a hand in front of his face, calling his name in a sing-song voice.

“Aaron, you good?”

Aaron shook his head slightly, rubbed his eyes, then turned towards you. “Yes?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

You hummed in affirmation, then turned towards the window. The rest of the drive was spent in comfortable silence, until you arrived at Aaron’s house. You spent practically all of your time there. Honestly, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d stepped foot into your apartment. Aaron helped you into the house and to your shared bed, where you passed out immediately. You vaguely heard a soft whisper of “sleep well” before you were out cold.

Aaron watched you for what felt like hours, feeling pent-up stress and anger roll off of him in waves as he silently stroked your hair, grateful beyond words that you’d lived. You murmured something in your sleep that sounded suspiciously like “I love you,” before rolling over to curl against his chest, nuzzling your head against the crook of his neck. And for the first time in days, he allowed himself a smile. Aaron basked in the rare feeling of relaxation, thinking about how nice it would be to bottle up this feeling and keep it forever, until sleep finally pulled him into its soft clutches. And for once, with you safely nestled into him, he slept easily. He still hadn’t proposed, but that was okay. Now that you were safe, you two had all the time in the world.

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x reader #crimnal minds #criminal minds fluff #aaron hotchner fluff #aaron hotchner smut #Penelope Garcia #spencer reid #emily prentiss #derek morgan

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babyurthendofjune · 4 years

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This is my contribution to @meetmeinfleetwood‘s “to lovers” fic challenge! I chose the trope roommates to lovers and the prompt “I think I’m in love with you and I don’t know what to do.” This was fun to write thank you for allowing me to participate!

Thank you to my beta readers @tbslenthusiast, @witch-harry, and @sunflowers-styles! Y’all are the best!!

no warnings that I can think of other than alcohol tw // bc of the wine they share!

word count: 2.3k

writing tag | masterlist

It’s 5:45 p.m. when you finally leave work for the day. You should’ve just said to hell with it and went home at 5:30 like you were supposed to, but you were nice enough not to. Too nice you’d been told in the past, but it’s a flaw you’re willing to accept if it gets you a promotion to the position you ultimately dreamed of working when you started there 3 years ago.

After a quick stop to grab a bottle of wine (or two), your car can’t get you home fast enough. It’s Friday and you’re looking forward to spending time doing absolutely nothing for the next two days but curling up in a blanket and watching Christmas movies in the apartment you will essentially be alone in. Your roommate Harry shared the space with you, but kept to himself for the most part. Aside from dinners and movie nights on rare occasions when your schedule lined up, allowing you to spend the evening together.

As if your thoughts summoned him, your phone dinged, indicating a new message. Your eyes dart down to where it sits in the passenger seat, careful to keep your eyes on the car in front of you, waiting patiently for the light to turn red so you can grab your phone to respond.

It’s one simple word, “Home?” so you know he’s either still working or on his own drive home.

Your reply is just as direct, “Not yet. On my way! Movie night?”

The light’s green again so you tuck your phone back into your purse, ignoring the next ding until you arrive home. You’re through the door of your apartment and down the hall before you read his message, “Sure. Chinese or pizza?”

“Chinese! I’ll pick the movie and you pay for dinner?”

“That doesn’t sound fair :(”

“Alright fine, you get home before I’m out of the shower and in my pajamas you can pick the movie..deal?”

“Deal!”

The race is on then, both of you competitive and determined to win. You have a movie in mind that you’ve been dying to watch all day and you don’t want to have to rock-paper-scissors to break the tie like you usually do when the two of you don’t agree on who wins these little games.

You’d already shed most of your layers of clothing easily as you moved through the apartment; your boots kicked off by the door, jacket gone and thrown over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, cardigan pulled from your body and tossed on the bed by the time you made it to your bedroom. It doesn’t take long to strip the rest away and to gather a set of pajamas from your well organized drawer before darting across the hall to the shared bathroom.

You know you have at minimum 45 minutes to be done, an hour if he goes to the better Chinese place a little further across town, which he most likely would. You’d been dreaming of ending your week with a bubble bath, but you don’t take the chance now, just hop under the hot spray of the shower, hoping it will have the same relaxing effect. Your eyes are closed as you tilt your head back to wet your hair while one hand fumbles over the bottles to find your shampoo.

Eyes still closed, you tip the bottle to add a bit to your hand, but you freeze when you open your eyes temporarily to close the bottle and put it back on the shelf. It’s Harry’s shampoo you’ve grabbed instead and for a moment you don’t know what to do. You don’t know how many times you’ve teased him about how expensive his products are. But he would never let you hear the end of it if he came home and you smelled like him. Ultimately you would’ve felt too guilty to waste it, so you work it through and hope he never finds out. Pray that the act washes away just like the suds do when you rinse them from your hair.

By your hopeful calculations, you still have about 10 minutes left before he arrives by the time you're done in the shower. You decide to give him a fair advantage, venturing into the kitchen to decide which bottle of wine would pair best with dinner. When you make your selection, you pour yourself a glass, settling into a comfy spot on the couch. The black remote taunts you from the small wooden coffee, and you grab it. No harm in getting the movie ready while you wait, right?

You’re 2 glasses deep and 20 minutes into the movie when he arrives, a smirk on his face at the sight of you. Your eyes go wide when you see him. You’re not sure why, there had been many nights he’d found you in the same position, but tonight feels different. You gulp down the sip of wine, too tipsy and unaware that you’re staring. Had his dimples always been that prominent when he smiled? Even without your glasses you could spot that grin that stretched a mile wide across his face.

“Haroldddd..you’re home!”

He hated that nickname, had always despised when other people called him that, but falling from your lips it sounds like a prayer and he would gladly change his name to that if he thought it would make you the least bit happy.

“S’pose I lost, huh? Got the food pretty quickly but stopped to get this,” He holds up a bottle of wine, ironically the very same kind that you’re drinking now, “Shoulda known y’would already have some!”

“Oh good, you got some for yourself..this one’s almost empty..”

“M’not that late, am I?” He chuckles as he makes his way to the counter, looking between you and the bottle.

“Hey..it’s a small bottle! This is only my third glass and I’ve barely even touched it.”

“Rough day?” He’s pulling plates down now and retrieving a glass for himself from the cabinet.

“Rough week. Rough few weeks, really.” You take a few more sips as you watch him prepare a plate of food. You figure he’s just making his own, and you wait patiently for him to finish so you won’t be in the way. But when he makes his way around the counter, he’s holding two plates in his hand and wow you want to jump from your spot and kiss him. You restrain yourself, as hard as it may be, and try to focus on the question he’s asking you.

He holds the plates towards the table and then towards where you sit on the couch, silently wanting to know where you’d prefer to enjoy your meal. You pat the spot next to you, inviting him to move closer, knowing how much effort it would take to lift yourself from your warm, comfy spot to go eat at the table.

“Emily still on vacation?”

“Yes! And she expects us to do double the work while she’s gone! It’s her 3rd vacation this year. I know she’s the boss but..”

“Doesn’t mean she has to be a bitch to you.” He finishes your sentence for you, brow furrowed, upset at even the idea of someone mistreating you in the slightest.

“Right! Thank you!”

You hold your hand out to accept the plate he’s made for you, “Got our usual, hope that’s alright.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I was just joking earlier about you paying for all of it. I’ll pay you back for my half.”

He’s already shaking his head no, stuffing a bite of food in his mouth, “It was my turn anyway, r‘member? You paid for those tacos we had last week.”

“Right, I did. Forgot about that.”

You watch him devour a few more bites, your eyes darting from your plate to his, “Yours looks better.”

“Huh?”

Maybe it’s the wine making you more bold, you’d normally never complain, “Your plate it just..looks better than mine. Switch with me.”

“It’s literally the same thing..and I’ve already eaten half the noodles off mine.” He looks mildly annoyed at even the suggestion.

“Don’t care..it looks better. Switch.” You realized just how bratty you sound, so you add a quick, “Please?”

He huffs dramatically, switching the plates and giving you a sarcastic smile, “Happy?”

You return his smile, blissfully unaware of his annoyance in your tipsy state, “Very, thank you.”

You both turn your attention to the tv you realize now you had forgotten to pause, so the movie had progressed further, about 30 minutes in now.

His irritation has already faded when he asks, “What are y’making me watch?”

You start to explain the plot but stop mid-bite of your food, “Wait..have you never seen this movie?”

He shrugs, “Doesn’t look familiar.”

“Oh we’re definitely starting it over then!”

“No, ya don’t hafta..”

It’s too late, you’ve already discarded your now mostly empty plate of food, nearly knocking your glass of wine over in your excitement of making him watch one of your favorite movies.

Almost an hour in, you don’t notice that Harry’s eyes have drifted to you. In fact, they’d mostly stayed on you since you’d restarted the movie. Your facial expressions were better to him than any movie; the way your eyes softened at the more heartwarming parts, or when your mouth formed a soft ‘o’ and gasped at parts he was certain you had probably seen at least a dozen times before.

You clasp your hand over your heart dramatically and he doesn’t even flinch, just listens intently when you say, “I love this part..this is the moment.”

His eyes temporarily flash back to the tv then, “The moment?”

“Yeah, you know, the moment. Where the guy looks at the girl and realizes he’s in love.” You sigh deeply, “I always wanted someone to look at me like that.”

Oh, you mean like what’s happening now between us? God he hopes for just a glance from you, a chance to show you that you’re living your own moment now if you’d just look at him.

It’s tumbling out of his mouth quicker than he can stop it, his mouth working faster than his brain, but it’s a low enough whisper he thinks maybe you won’t hear.

“I think I’m in love with you and I don’t know what to do.”

You do hear him, though you don’t believe it at first. Your hand is still resting over your heart, searching his face for any sign of teasing or dishonesty.

“H..did you just..?”

He’s looking down at his hands, fingers fiddling with one of the rings adorning his fingers, nodding before replying, “I did.”

“How long?”

“Um..since the first week we’ve lived together? That first night we made dinner together and it was a disaster. Thought you were gonna catch the place on fire.” A giggle escapes him at the memory of you, rushing around the kitchen that night, face flushed red and hair a mess.

“That’s my moment? Almost burning our apartment down?”

“That and now, yeah. Just been strugglin’ with the best way to tell you. S’pose the wine’s making me a lil’ more fearless,'' He takes a deep breath, still not able to look at you in case he finds even a hint of rejection on your face, “But I understand if you don’t feel the same..”

“I do.”

His head snaps to look at you then, eyes widening for a second before he composes himself, “Really?”

You can’t stop the smile that blooms across your face at the sight of the thrill in his eyes. There’s a new buzz of elation in the air, but neither of you make a move at first. A pleasant tension fills the space between the two of you.

You break the silence, “So..what do we do now?”

“S’all up to you how fast and how far we take this. M’all in though, ready when you are, love. A cuddle might be nice while we finish the movie, if you’re up f’that.”

“I think I could handle that. I want something else first though.”

He’s trying to read your mind, thinks he knows exactly what it is, but he wants to hear you say it. Wants to hear the words he’s been waiting to hear for what feels like a lifetime now.

“Kiss me, Harry.”

You’ve already turned your body towards him; the movie, the food and the wine all long forgotten. He clears the space between the two of you easily, a hand on the side of your neck to add just enough pressure to pull you towards him.

Your lips crash against his, noses bumping at first but it doesn’t stop you, it only makes you crave him deeper and closer. You press your knees into his thighs, pushing yourself up so that you hover over him, your hair falling around his face. It’s still slightly damp from the shower, and his hand comes to rest on the back of your head now.

There’s a smug look on his face when he pulls away, a hand still placed on your hip to hold you steady. He’s still breathless when he asks, “Did you use my shampoo?”

When you wake up in his bed the next morning, you question if last night was a mistake. You don’t regret it, not for a second, just wonder if maybe things will be different in the morning light.

So when you barely touch the plate of eggs and toast he’s made for you for breakfast, he worries you’re having second thoughts about him, that he’s ruined any friendship you’ve already built by rushing into a relationship.

So when you say, “Did you really mean what you said last night..about loving me?” He visibly relaxes, dropping his shoulders and beaming at you from across his own breakfast plate.

“Oh, darlin’,” He plucks a piece of uneaten toast from your plate, winking at you as he does, “You don’t know the half of it.”

#harry styles imagine #harry x reader #my writing

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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 3 years

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WIP Wednesday Thursday

Title: Extraordinary

Pairings: HotchReid (side pairings Morcia, WillxJJ, others in flirtation)

Summary: League of Extraordinary Gentleman/Vampire AU;

Within the FBI there is a specialized team full of an elite selection of people. Unique individuals with very particular skill sets. And their job is to take the unusual cases: the ones that need to not only be solved, but are undetermined if the unsub is human, or something else entirely.

In a world filled with Vampires, non-human creatures, and subspecies unknown, there is only enough information to have them vaguely regulated. Rules that are so easily, and violently broken, all while hidden in plain sight among the unsuspecting public. Unrivaled for eons.

That’s where the BAU comes in.

Official Posting Date: Now posted on tumblr and Ao3, Click Here

Links: (Masterpost) (Snippet 01) (Snippet 02) (Snippet 03) (Snippet 04)

(TW/CW: This is pretty tame, Emily is just a little intense and eager because Spencer is... well, Spencer, and when she realizes all he can do? Oh she is chomping at the bit. Some trance-like things and witchy stuff and Hotch being territorial without being able to admit it.)

(the story so far/what you need to know for this clip at least: this takes place in chapter 02, what you will all see on Saturday evening, and this version is insanely unpolished (I’m about to go through and fix it up and give it a good make-over) but basically this is the first time Spencer is meeting Emily Prentiss and it makes... an impression. Also, Emily has been at the BAU for about 0.2 seconds and Hotch is already done with her. The sibling energy I love to see. It’s also hella long, as an apology for missing last week and being a day late. All you’ve missed is Spencer about ran into Emily turning a corner and she saved him from spilling his case files and coffee all over the floor. Now they are talking)

–

“I apologize, I thought you were an intern or still in the academy.”

“It’s alright, everyone does,” Spencer says without taking offense. He wouldn’t have gotten where he was or lasted very long if he did; however, if he had a nickel for every time someone had been surprised by his age, he’d be as rich as Father Rossi. His full hands actually aids him as he mentions, “I don’t usually shake hands with people, so don’t think me rude. I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.” He offers her a smile in exchange, and it is mirrored on her face just as her surprise kicks up another notch.

“Doctor, my my I am in for a trip on this team, aren’t I?” she laughs, and it’s a melodic thing that stretches over an expanse of time and history. Ballrooms in Russia and palors of France, Elizabethan and the roaring 20’s and everything in between all rolled into one. He’s not sure how he sees it, an impossible thing, but he can read it like a book and that must have something to do with what she is. “Emily Prentiss, it is a remarkable pleasure to meet you Dr. Reid. Now, I have to ask--” her tone is so charming and playful and probing he barely notices the nuance, “And I’m sure it’s taboo around here, but I have to know -- your regeneration process. Tell me what it is or what you do. You look so young.”

“I am young,” he states simply, finally stunned by a question he’s not usually asked.

“Yes, yes, we all can’t be a thousand years old like your fearless Vampire leader,” she waves off and Spencer’s eyes widen because… he hadn’t known Hotch was that old. Sure he’d said he’d been alive for the better part of a millennia, but he always said it like a hyperbole. A turn of phrase that’s off by a couple centuries. But --

A thousand years old.

That would put him…

God, that would put him alive, as a human, just before the start of The Crusades.

“Oh, did he keep that to himself? Oops, my bad. Pretend you don’t know. Anyway -- so are you a Shifter? Or use a particular spell? Oh, or is it a curse? I’m fascinated by curses, I don’t use them often myself but the rigidity of terms using a power so chaotic is just such a fun juxtaposition that I--”

“No, no, I’m… normal, human,” Spencer interrupts her, still the smallest bit shell-shocked, but now connects a few dots himself as she speaks. Realizes very suddenly that Ms. Prentiss appears ageless because she is ageless. She’s also a Witch. One of the broadest terms for subspecies categories, which really doesn’t do it justice. A Witch could be a number of things. Someone who uses magic and science and the very Earth itself paired with the spiritual planes to do impossible things. Witches are beings so powerful they should be uncategorizable. Something Spencer is fascinated by as well. He’s never met anyone like Emily. “I look young because I am young. I’m 27, I’ve only been with the BAU for the past three years. I’m a little excited to not be the newbie on the team any more,” he tries to joke, but Emily’s gaze has gone distant and sharp all at once.

“You’re only 27? And you’re a doctor?” She asks in clarification, Spencer nodding along each time. “You’ve been a doctor, since becoming an FBI agent?”

“Um, well -- I’m not a medical doctor. I do have three doctorates, though; in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering,” he finds himself shrinking a bit under her intensely interested gaze. “What?”

“Chemistry?” she asks, vaguely more distant.

“That was my first doctorate,” he murmurs back, not sure what has her looking so contemplative.

“You’ve achieved all of this: three doctorates, FBI agent, BAU -- in 27 years?” she questions, a grave yet wondrous sound.

“Technically I did all of that in 15 years. I graduated high school when I was 12,” he manages to do more than mumble, and Emily’s wide-eyed stare has him spewing forth information like it requires an explanation. “I have an eidetic memory, and I can read 20,000 words a minute, and my IQ is 187 so by human standards yes -- I’m a genius, and borderline on the advanced brain developments scale. But I’m still human. Nothing paranormal or extraordinary.”

The pause that follows is palpable.

“Oh,” she says in an exhale, “Oh, you young soul. You have no idea, do you? What you are capable of...” She tilts her head as she steps closer and Spencer is very suddenly aware that he’s not sure she’s blinked since they started speaking about his qualifications. What he can do, how he got to where he is. No one usually shows this much interest, he makes them uncomfortable for reasons he doesn’t always understand.

Emily doesn’t look uncomfortable, she looks… hungry.

“You are so very, very extraordinary. Exceptional, really. Look at all of what you’ve accomplished with just 15 years of life.” That astonished sound again, like she can’t believe her luck--

And then she’s in his space, gaze boring into his, and Spencer can see galaxies in the depth of her eyes. His breath stolen from him and feet rooted to the floor. So he doesn’t step away as she leans just the smallest bit closer, words resonating with echoes across ages.

“Imagine what you could do with a thousand.”

“Prentiss,” the deep voice of Hotch’s monotone (edged in something vaguely aggressive, and more than a little aggravated) breaks through their moment. The trance fading like a fog from Spencer’s eyes. “No recruiting. It’s in your contract.”

“You have such a gift, it’s a shame to waste it,” Emily whispers in a rush as Hotch approaches them from down the hall. More earnest than intimidating, now.

“Prentiss!”

“Think about it,” she winks, and then turns to give Hotch a smile that’s all teeth so sharp she resembles a shark. “Oh, what a sour face. What’s wrong? Were you planning on asking him first? You snooze, you lose.”

“Conference room,” he instructs, pointing the way Spencer had just come. “Team meeting in 20 minutes. Try not to summon anything between here and there.” She sticks her tongue out at him childishly as she leaves, and sends a quirk of a smile Spencer’s direction that shifts her whole expression into something comically entertained. He’s never seen Hotch interact with someone like this, like they were… familiar, even exasperatingly so. The closest in comparison is probably Father Rossi. But this is less like old friends and more like sibling rivalry.

The space Emily had just vacated is suddenly filled with Hotch, an overwhelmingly welcomed presence and it eases the tension out of Spencer’s spine and shoulders that he hadn’t even realized was there.

“Are you okay?” he asks, low and quiet. They’re the only ones in the hallway, but secrecy is a hard habit to break.

Spencer nods, still gaining his bearings once more. “I think so. That didn’t feel like hypnotism. I don’t know what that was.”

“Prentiss doesn’t manipulate minds or the wills of other people,” Hotch tells him, which is soothing if not for the foreboding question of what just occurred. “She doesn’t need to. She can do a lot of things: change her face, her voice, make illusions and talk circles around anyone -- even you.” Spencer looks up to him at that, aware that his level of intelligence is the only thing that keeps him safe from JJ or Hotch’s influence. His mind can’t be bent, or tricked.

“Then what was she doing? I felt compelled but… not against my will. What was that?” he asks, also quiet but much more high in pitch as his confusion turns his voice to a winded sound.

Hotch’s thin, stern frown does nothing to alleviate the apprehension caught up in his chest like a bad cold.

“Possibility,” he states, grim and not liking that Spencer had fallen prey to such a short moment with Emily Prentiss and her promise of what her craft could do for him. Hotch is well aware that Spencer’s gift of soaking up every speck on information he’s given like a sponge isn’t something to let wither and die like so many before him. There’s so much he could do with an infinite life, such as his and Emily’s, but the curse of living forever alone is not something to be taken lightly. And not to be decided by someone who still has so much more life to live unaided by other forces.

However, Emily was right about one thing. Hotch can’t deny that he’s thought about it. More than considered it as a definite possibility.

An offer, all his own.

–

Tagged list so far: @physics-magic, @thaddeusly, @ssa-noa, @ssa-sarahsunshine, @tobias-hankel, @reidology, @mintphoenix

#THIS IS JUST A SNIPPET #it's a very long one as an apology for missing last week and being a day late #and also because it's COOL and I have no self control #Emily and Spencer would be a terrifying duo honestly #Also Emily and Hotch have the best sibling relationship ever #if anyone wants in on that taglist hit me up via ask or comment or rb #the story is posted! Updates on Saturday evenings #Extraordinary #HotchReid #Katyswriting #Katyswip #wip wednesday

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sequinsmile-x · 3 years

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If Tomorrow Starts Without Me - Chapter 10

I cannot believe we are at the last chapter. I have no words to express how much I appreciate all the love for this story, for the version of Aaron and Emily that are in it, and the family I have created for them here.

It means...so, so much. Rating: Mature (smut in this chapter)

Words: 5.2k

You can read over on a03, or below the cut

Please let me know what you think <3

April 1993

Emily hated these events. How false everyone was - plastic smiles and lies scattered around the room in a way that made her skin crawl. She always had an escape route, a place of solace she could find when her mother was getting too much for her.

This particular event was always held in the same hotel, and so her hiding spot was always the same. A small, windowless conference room just down the corridor from the ballroom. Her mother had never found it, or her, so she cursed when she heard the door opening only 20 minutes after she had snuck off.

She sighs as she turns around, ready to tell off whoever had disturbed her only for her to come face to face with Aaron. “Oh, hi. What are you doing here?”

“I came to find you.” He answers as he clicks the door closed behind him. “I’m off duty now. And you promised me a dance if I remember correctly? Something about it being the perfect thing to piss off your mother.” His smile disappears when she doesn’t return it, discomfort clearly laced throughout her body. “Are you ok?”

Emily tilts her head slightly at him, unsure how honest she could be. Since they had gone for drinks together and he had told her about his ex, who she had since learned was called Haley, things had changed between them. They had always been friendly, but it had now taken a turn into flirting. Long glances at each other in the hallways of her mother’s home, lingering touches that definitely were not appropriate. There was something about Aaron that she trusted, something that made her want to be around him.

“I hate these things. My mother parades me around like I’m a thing to show off to society.” She scrunches her nose at the idea of it and looks at the floor. “All those men out there looking at me like I’m some prize to be won.”

He’d noticed it. The way the men in the room had watched her as she walked around with her mother, his blood boiling he saw slightly wandering hands as she was pulled into another dance she clearly didn’t want to be a part of. Aaron didn’t question exactly why it bothered him so much, not wanting to pick at that thread and unravel the friendship he had built with Emily in the time they had known each other. Spending time with her already meant more to him than it probably should.

“You deserve better than that.” He says, frowning in a way that makes her smile. She reaches for him on some kind of instinct, not even realising she's doing it until her finger traces the frown line between his eyebrows. Emily smiles at him, and takes in the genuine concern on his face. He cared about her and expected nothing in return, and she couldn’t remember the last time someone made her feel so safe.

So she bridges the gap between them and kisses him, and she would spend the rest of her life claiming he kissed her first.

For a moment he’s still, and she's worried she has read it wrong. That the subtle moments between them over the past few weeks since she’d dragged him to a bar against his will had all been in her head.

Then he kisses her back, his lips pressing back into hers as his hand moves to the back of her head, tangling in her hair to hold her close.

Emily pulls away from him, hiking her dress up so she can sit on the table. She drags him closer, spreading her legs so he could stand between them and she kisses him again.

Aaron pushes one of the thin straps of her dress off her shoulder, following the material with his lips. A soft sigh escapes her and it seems to bring him out of it, and he pulls back from her. He cups her cheek with his hand, running a thumb over her swollen bottom lip.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She replies before kissing him again, her teeth clashing with his with the force of it. His hands are all over her then, pushing her dress the rest of the way up her thighs. He bites her lip as he pushes her underwear to one side and she gasps into his mouth.

He takes her apart with his fingers first, covering her mouth gently with his spare hand as she cries out, worried they would attract attention from anyone walking past. Emily kisses him harshly then, shaking hands pulling at his belt buckle whilst she wraps her legs around his waist.

“Em, wait.” He murmurs against her lips, gasping as she grabs him, pulling him further into the cradle of her hips.

“If you ask me if I’m sure again, I’ll kill you.” She laughs, pressing a kiss to his dimpled cheek, wrapping a leg around him tighter to encourage him further.

As he enters her they both gasp, and she wretches her mouth from his to rest her forehead against his, her eyes closed as she adjusts. “Move, Aaron. Please fucking move.”

He complies, gently at first but goes harder, faster each time she begs him for it. She breaks apart around him, and nods into his shoulder at his unasked question, feeling him fall over the edge inside of her only moments later.

She leans her forehead against his, breathing heavily as her heart rate returns to normal.

“I’m sorry.” He says as he kisses her.

“What are you apologising for?” She asks, kissing him again, trying to regain her breath but finding herself unable to stop touching him

“You deserved better than that.” He says, echoing his earlier words of how other men had treated her.

“It was pretty good from my point of view. Excellent even” She says, biting her lip as she looks at him, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck. “But, if you think you can do better...we could always go to mine?”

Aaron doesn’t miss the tentative nature of her question, the way she seems nervous for the first time since she had kissed him.

“Won’t your mother miss you?”

She shakes her head. “No. And, if you remember, I have just moved into my own place. No interruptions.” She leans forward and kisses him. “At all.” Another kiss.

He grins against her lips. “Then lead the way.”

Aaron knows he would follow her anywhere. ______________________

Emily calls him 20 minutes after JJ, her name flashing on his phone screen making him immediately feel better. Relief floods through his body as he abandons packing the bag on the bed so he can answer his phone.

“I’m okay.” She says as a greeting, although she doesn’t sound it. He’s known and loved her long enough to know when she's in pain, even when he can’t actually see her. Aaron can hear the sound of the buzz of an emergency room around her.

“Em. The car you were in was hit by a truck. You’re not okay.”

She chuckles slightly, the sound dying on her lips, and then winces. “Fine, I’m not okay.” She admits. “My entire body hurts, but you don’t have to come here. I’ll be home as soon as we recapture him.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He says, feigning innocence.

“I know you’re already packing a bag and thinking of a way to get the kids to my parents, despite the fact that it’s midnight.”

His eyes drift to the bag on the bed, hurriedly packed with things he hadn’t even really thought about as he shoved them in. She has known and loved him just as long as he has done the same for her, so it shouldn’t surprise him that she knows this would be his instinct, but it does.

Aaron thinks he could be married to her for 100 years and still be surprised by her. Amelia cries out, despite him only just getting her settled back into bed.

“Is she ok?” Emily asks, sounding weary.

“She’s fine, Em. Just missing you I think.” He sighs. The separation anxiety was bad on both sides, Amelia was just the right age for it. Crying out any time Emily wasn’t in the same room as her, having spent her entire life with her mother just within reach. He knew Emily was struggling too. She had gotten used to being around the kids all the time, and when she left for work only a couple of days ago it felt very reminiscent of her first day back after having Theo and Amelia. Torn between her family and her job, knowing both were important parts of who she was.

Aaron hated that her first case back had ended up like this, with her hurt and too far away for him to see her. To check she was really okay. It felt like a taste of how she must have felt when he was in hospital, leaving him behind and not having any way of knowing how he was.

“I miss her too. All of you.”

“We’ll be here when you get back.” ______________________

She realises she should have expected it the moment she sees him standing on the tarmac as she gets off the jet. He was never going to leave it, to let her make her own way home despite her assurances before they took off that Derek was going to drop her home.

Emily can’t hide the wince that escapes her as she walks down the steps of the jet to the ground, the pain vibrating through her aching body, stiff from a long flight and a lack of movement.

She tries to smile as she approaches him. She wants to reassure him that despite her appearance, the black eye, the massive bandage on her arm and how slowly she was moving that she really was ok. The concerned look on his face tells her that she has failed, and he gently traces the bruise below her eye with the pad of his thumb.

“Sweetheart.” Aaron says as he wraps his arms around her, loosening his grip when she stiffens in his embrace.

Emily presses her forehead into his shoulder. “Hell of a first case back.”

He pulls back from her, and sees Derek standing behind her with her go-bag in his hand. “Let’s go home, the kids are excited to see you.”

Aaron grabs her bag from Derek and throws a grateful nod to the team, knowing that they would have looked after her in his absence. He guides her over to their car and tries to help her in, but she bats his hands away, claiming she doesn’t need help.

He says nothing when he has to help her clip her seatbelt into place, the pain in her upper body too much for her to do it herself. ______________________

Theo runs into her so quickly when they get back to the apartment that they don’t have time to remind him to be gentle. He recoils quickly when she can’t control her reaction, the yelp of pain that escapes her as her son wraps his arms around her at full force.

“It’s ok, Theo. I promise.” She says, hoping he doesn’t pick up on the breathlessness in her voice. “You just need to be careful, okay.”

He nods. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Oh sweetheart.” She tugs him back into her, hand cupping the back of his head. “You could never hurt me, ok?”

She leads them over to the couch so she could sit down, and Theo immediately sits next to her, fingers tracing over the large white bandage on her arm. “Did the bad guy hurt you?”

Emily smiles softly at him. “Yes, sweetie. The bad guy hurt me.”

He looks concerned as he reaches for the bruise on her eye, fingers less gently than Aaron’s had been earlier and she manages to suppress a wince. “Was it George?”

Emily’s smile falters at that, and she pulls her son into her as best she can, hugging him close. “No, baby. George can’t hurt any of us anymore, remember? Daddy made sure of that.”

She feels Theo nod against her and she sighs. There were moments when she would love to bring George Foyet back just to kill him again herself. Whenever Theo mentioned him, fear colouring his face, she felt the hatred burning for the man throughout her entire body.

“Someone heard that Mommy was home.”

Emily looks up to see Aaron holding Amelia in his arms, the little girl scrambling to get into her arms. She winces as she takes her, the strain on her upper body unavoidable.

“Hi sweet girl.” She holds her daughter against her chest and the little girl immediately melts into her embrace.

Jack appears next, his concern all over his face as he looks at her. The moment he registers the bandage on her arm and her black eye apparent. “I’m fine, Jack.” She says before he could ask. “I promise.”

He nods, hands dug into his jeans pockets. “I’m glad.” He clears his throat. “I was thinking we could get pizza for dinner?”

Emily smiles widely at him. “Sounds great.”

______________________

Aaron puts Amelia to bed, and observes Theo brushing his teeth at Emily’s request. When he’s done Emily isn’t in the living room like he was when he had left her.

He seeks her out like he always has, knows her well enough to know her hiding spots even in this temporary apartment they found themselves living in. She is exactly where he thought she would be, looking out of the large window in the dining room that overlooked DC. It reminded him so much of the first place they’d lived together, before the desperation that came with wanting to build their family, everything that followed with Haley and then Foyet. The place where he had learnt just how much he needed her.

“Em?” He speaks gently, knowing she is still on edge from everything that’s happened recently. She jumps anyway, and he doesn’t miss the wince that follows. Her whole body still sore from the car accident she’d been in, the pain of it only beaten by the guilt she felt for not being able to save the detective she had been travelling with.

She turns to look at him, visible relief on her face when they lock eyes. She tries and fails to smile at him before turning back to look out the picture window. “Did Amelia go down ok?”

“She’s out like a light.” He walks towards her, gentle as he wraps his arms around her from behind. She leans back into him and allows him to take some of her weight. The easiness that had always been present in their physical affection had returned. His initial hesitance around her was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He was always touching her now, reassurance that she was there next to her, and he wasn’t going to open his eyes to find that this had all been some kind of cruel dream.

“Good. She’s been having trouble lately. I think it’s all the change.” She speaks absentmindedly, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

He presses a kiss into her temple. “Want to talk about it?”

“Yes.” She says, swallowing against the lump in her throat. “But I don’t know where to start.”

He leads her to the couch and curls up behind her, gently dragging her aching body into the safety of his arms. Emily leans into him and hugs his arm across her chest, seeking comfort that only he could provide her.

“One of the men he killed today was home with his wife and son.” She says quietly the words of Dan Otley’s wife floating around her head like dust in the morning sun.

I was always afraid to believe it, you know? Because then it can be taken away.

“He was right there with his family and then…he just wasn’t.”

Aaron closes his eyes and presses a kiss to her temple. He knew what she was thinking, what fears would be tearing at the edges of her nerves. “Em, we’re all here. We made it.”

It had become a mantra of sorts. Something they’d say as they coaxed each other out of nightmares where they hadn’t been so lucky. Dreams where Aaron woke with the feeling of her blood on his hands seeming so real it would take her an age to calm him down, the only solution often being pulling his head to her chest. The sound of her heartbeat was the only thing that could assure him she was ok.

She’d see them all dead. Her husband and her children were stolen from her by a man she had never personally met. Emily would wake with tears already on her cheeks, shaking hands reaching for him as he held her fiercely. Reassuring words pressed into her skin as he stroked her hair.

“I know.” She replies softly. “But Theo still isn’t sleeping through the night. Jack is as angry as he was when Haley died. You and I are both a mess.” She half laughs, half cries. “The only one who is vaguely ok is Amelia and that’s because she doesn’t understand.”

Aaron carefully moves her so he can look at her. He tucks some of her hair behind her ear, letting his thumb trail down her cheek.

“Sweetheart, we’ll get there. All of us. It will just take some time - which we have plenty of.” She nods at him, but her eyes still betray how unsure she is. How terrified she is that she could lose everything. “What can I do to help?”

Emily smiles at him and cups his cheek. “You’re already doing it. I wouldn’t say no to a bath though.”

He guides her to the ensuite off of their room and runs a bath for her. Aaron can’t help the concerned look on his face when she slowly strips off her clothes, the black bruises left by the car crash all over her body.

“I’d say it looks worse than it is.” She quips. “But it feels pretty fucking terrible.”

He helps her into the tub. He doesn’t join her, in fear of hurting her, but he kneels on the ground next to her, fingers tangled through hers before he helps her wash the horror of a day she’d had away from her skin.

When they climb into bed and he lays as far away from her as possible she gives him a reproachful look. “Get the hell over here, Aaron.”

He wraps her in his arms, and he runs his fingers up and down her back. When she wakes in the middle of the night, images of watching a man get strangled in front of her replaying in her head, Aaron keeps his hold on her.

Just like he always would. ______________________

They go house hunting and it is every bit as painful as Emily remembers it being the first time around. Every property they are shown has something missing, something that just doesn’t sit right with them. Memories of their old house, the place they had planned to call home forever, haunting them at every turn.

Then they find it. A beautiful house in Arlington that ticks all of their boxes and more. The hardwood floors and white walls create a feeling of a new beginning. Enough bedrooms for the kids to have one each and one left over for a shared home office for Aaron and Emily.

Emily falls in love with the porch swing, memories of teaching Jack spanish flooding through her as the real estate agent raves about the wrap-around porch.

They sign the deeds that afternoon. ______________________

Aaron quickly realised that moving house while you had children was significantly harder than when you didn’t. He remembered when they bought their first house. How they slowly unpacked everything in between rounds of sex, christening every room they could. Many of them more than once.

This time they had no such luxury. Jack was moody, but helped distract Theo as the team helped them carry boxes into the house.

Amelia refused to be put down or held by anyone other than either of her parents. Pitching a fit as soon as she was passed to somebody else. Which is how Aaron found himself standing in his new kitchen, his daughter on his hip, as he unboxed their crockery one-handed.

The baby clearly felt as if she wasn’t being paid enough attention, because she slapped her hand to his cheek, her fingers digging into his dimples.

He huffed out a laugh. “Amelia, sweetheart, please be gentle with Daddy’s face. Your Mommy quite likes it.”

“Dada.”

He stops, almost drops the plate he had in his hand before he is able to put it down on the kitchen island. He looks at Amelia who is staring right at him.

“Did you just say, dada?”

“Dada.”

Aaron kisses the side of her head before leaving the kitchen in a rush, in a desperate attempt to find his wife. “Emily?”

“Aaron?” Her breathless reply comes back from the floor above, and he hears her racing down the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, but-”

“Jesus, Aaron.” She admonishes him, sighing. “Can you maybe not scare the shit out of me next time by shouting like the house was on fire?”

“Emily.” He says, stopping her before she could rant any further. She purses her lips and stands in front of him, hands on her hips. He turns his attention back to Amelia and bounces her on his hip slightly. “Amelia, who is this?” He asks, pointing at himself.

It takes a moment, and he briefly thinks he imagined it, but then he hears her sweet little voice again. “Dada.”

Aaron looks at Emily, and sees how tears immediately spring to her eyes. She steps towards them and hugs him, kissing Amelia as she does so. “What a clever girl you are.” ______________________

Emily misses the first time Amelia walks. It happened when she was away on a case. It hurts when Aaron tells her over the phone, a burning sensation in her chest as she fails to accept she missed such a pivotal moment in her daughter's life.

The pain eases when Jack texts her a video of the moment. The footage shows Amelia taking unsure steps between Theo and Aaron, the joy on her husband's face outweighing any upset she felt.

When she gets home two days later her amazing, loving husband recreates it for her. He makes her stand in the same hallway from the video and he asks Theo to stand a few paces away from him and Amelia before he sets the little girl on the floor.

Emily watches as Amelia toddles slowly back and forth between Theo and Aaron, Jack recording it on his cell phone, soft laughs coming from all of them. For the first time since that morning, when she walked into their old house and found a bullet hole in the wall and Aaron’s blood on the floor, she truly believed everything was going to be fine. That they had made it.

“Sweetheart?” She looks up to see Aaron standing at her side, Amelia in his arms, giggling to herself. “You ok?”

Emily nods and diverts her attention to their daughter who was now reaching out for her. She pulls Amelia into her arms and presses a kiss to the side of her head, her emotions getting the better of her as she thinks about her baby girl walking, and how grateful she was that they got to celebrate that moment as a family.

Aaron notices, as he always does, and he pulls Emily into a hug, holding her and their daughter in his embrace. He kisses Emily’s forehead and places a hand on Amelia’s back. “My girls.” He murmurs into his wife's hairline.

“Dad, gross.” Jack exclaims, making Emily laugh loudly as she leant further into Aaron.

“Yeah, Aaron. Gross.” ______________________

Emily wakes up first for once. She quickly gets out of bed and presses a kiss to Aaron’s cheek as she sneaks out of their room. She smiles when she enters Amelia’s room to see the little girl already awake, standing in her crib and reaching out for her mother.

“Morning, sweet girl.” She lifts the baby up and into her arms, pressing a series of kisses into her dark hair as she takes a seat in the chair in the corner of the room. “Happy birthday.”

“Mama.” Amelia settles in Emily’s arms, seemingly content to have an early morning snuggle with her mother. Her hand tangles in Emily’s hair as she talks to herself.

Emily runs her hand gently up and down her daughters back, content to have some rare one on one time with her. “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

She still remembers the fear she felt that morning, walking into the bathroom to have her waters break a month early. Amelia making a dramatic entrance into the world that ended up being almost a prophecy for the year they would have.

“Is this a girls-only gathering or can anyone join?”

Emily looks up to see her husband standing at the door of the nursery, smiling at the two of them together. “What do you think, Amelia?” She whispers to the baby, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “We can make an exception for Daddy, huh?”

“Dada!” Amelia squeals, making Emily roll her eyes good naturedly while she mutters something about favouritism under her breath.

Aaron walks into the room and sits on the arm of the chair, and he presses a kiss to the side of each of their heads. “Happy birthday, sweetie.” He says as he kisses Amelia again.

Emily rests her head against his side. “What time is everyone arriving?”

“Not until this afternoon.” He lifts Amelia into his arms as he reaches for her, and stands up to place her on his hip. “So we can have a nice easy morning.”

A crash from outside the room happens almost simultaneously. “Theo.” Jack’s voice shouts out afterwards, frustration laced through his tone.

Emily laughs. “Since when did easy mornings exist in this house?” ______________________

When the party winds down that evening, the birthday girl is exhausted. The celebrations lasted well past her bedtime, and she passed out in her mothers arms for the last hour of it. Emily shifts Amelia in her arms as she walks upstairs to put her to bed, letting Aaron say goodbye to the rest of their guests.

She quickly changes her daughter into her pajamas, expertly doing it without waking her, and she lays her in the crib before kissing her gently, whispering how much she loves her against her forehead. Emily grabs the baby monitor as she leaves the room, softly closing the door behind her.

Emily checks in on Theo to see he was already asleep, the excitement of the day having worn him out. She sits on the edge of his bed and tucks him in a little tighter and she makes sure Archie is secure in his arms. She kisses him and gets up to leave.

“Love you, Mommy.”

She smiles and kisses his cheek again. “Love you too, sweet boy.”

As she walks down the stairs she passes Jack, who was heading up to his bedroom.

“Don’t stay up too late, Jack.”

He doesn’t stop as he walks past her, clearly already running late for when he told his friends he’d be online. “I won't, I promise. Love you, Emily.”

“Love you too.”

She goes in search of her husband and spots that the front door is slightly ajar. She finds him sat on the porch swing, a blanket half around him and a glass of wine in each of his hands. Emily smiles as she joins him, curling up into his side in the cold February evening, pulling the blanket around them both as she takes a glass from him and settles her cheek on his shoulder.

“Today was nice.” She says softly, snuggling into his side.

“It was.” He replies, taking a sip of his wine. “I can’t believe she’s a year old. So much has happened since then.”

She hums, turning her face to press a kiss to his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Em.” He replies automatically.

She pulls back from him to look at him, her eyes searching for something he couldn’t quite place. “I know I say it a lot, but I really do love you. You know that right?” She whispers, the cold air she breathes out almost louder than the words themselves.

“Of course I do.” He frowns, pulls her impossibly closer, wrapping the blanket tighter around them both.

“I mean it Aaron,” she pulls away so she can look at him, cups his cheeks in her chilled hands. “I love you so much it’s almost ridiculous. I can feel it with every part of me. When we were apart…” Her voice falters like it always does when they talk about it, a wound still too fresh to not be painful even after the two months that had passed since they were reunited. “When we were apart I realised how much I need you. I had a glimpse of my life without you in it and I hated it.”

“Em.” He places his hands over hers on his cheeks, brings them down to his lap and tries to seep some warmth into them. “What’s brought all this on?”

She sniffs. “I don’t really know. I just keep thinking that this time last year Amelia was born, and it was scary as hell. And we had no idea what was coming. That Foyet would attack you in our home, that he’d try to kill our kids. Now everything is great again.” She wipes a tear from her cheek. “And despite the new house and everything I still feel like I’m waiting for the next thing to go wrong.”

“Em, sweetheart.” He stops her, leans her forehead on hers. “I can’t tell you nothing awful will happen to us again, that we’ve had our share. Because if that’s how it worked we’d have hit our limit with what happened with Haley.”

She nods against him, closes her eyes to stop more tears from falling. “I know.”

“What I can tell you is that whatever happens, whatever tomorrow, or a week or a year from now brings, we can face it together. Okay?”

She pulls back, looks at him with tears in her eyes and sees just how sure he looks. How resolute he is in what he is saying, and she believes him. “Okay.”

He kisses her, like he has a thousand times before, and pulls her into a hug. “I love you so much, Emily. More than I did yesterday, less than I will tomorrow.”

She snorts out a laugh before muffling it into his shoulder, aware all the kids were in the house asleep. “That was so fucking corny.” She presses her forehead into his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” ______________________

I don't care what tomorrow brings, as long as I have you. - Molly Harper

#hotchniss #hotchniss fan fic #hotchniss fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #au fanfiction #CM fan fiction #ITSWM #WTB Universe #i'm going to go cry now #cannot believe it's done

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drprettyboyspence · 4 years

Text

You’re a Hero, Spencer Reid

Dr. Spencer Reid/reader

Summary: Late one night Spencer comes home from an especially difficult case. His girlfriend Y/n persuades him to talk about it. Inspired by the JJ/Will episode “Sick Day” (Season 12 Episode 2) This takes place during Season 15.

words: 4.9k

warnings: mentions of violence, mental illness (basically the amount of violence in a regular cm episode), angst, very very light swearing, nothing else to my knowledge!

a/n: I honestly love that JJ and Will scene so I decided to right one about Spencer. This made up case took we way too long to come up with and honestly I know way too much about lobotomies now lol, but I hope you enjoy!! :)

It’s 12:30 am, Spencer Reid trudges up the stairs to his second floor apartment which he shares with his girlfriend of 5 years, Y/n Y/l/n. His body on the verge of collapsing but his mind hyped up on adrenaline, Spencer pulls his key out of his pocket before unlocking the door, excited to finally be home after an energy-draining case. He knows he should sleep, the team very rarely gets much sleep during a case and the last one had been short but intense, so it’s been about 48 hours since Spencer has slept if he’s being truly honest. Spencer feels as if he’s in a trance, he’s exhausted but he just knows he won’t be able to sleep if he tries. His exhaustion leads him to crash into a chair near the table, causing it to scrape against the floor loudly. Damn it Spencer thinks, hoping he didn’t wake up his girlfriend but knowing he probably isn’t that lucky.

“Baby, you’re finally home! I missed you so much!” Y/n says, appearing out of the shadowy hallway, obviously having just woken up. She gives Spencer a hug and notices the way he holds on to her extra tightly, like he does when he’s feeling stressed or overwhelmed.

“I missed you too Y/n, so much.” Spencer whispers, still enveloping her in a tight hug. The last case had been harder on him than he’s willing to admit, but holding Y/n close to him makes him feel safe, he can’t lose her if he just never lets go, right?

“Are you okay Spence?” Y/n asks after Spencer finally lets her go. She knows the tells, she may not be an FBI profiler but she can tell when Spencer isn’t okay, and right now is unfortunately one of those times. She can see the way he holds her just the smallest bit too tight, she can see his eyes, droopy from exhaustion but darting around the room at the same time, still hyped up on the adrenaline from the case, and the eye circles that have become a signature look for her boyfriend are even darker than usual, showing he’s been without sleep for likely more than a day.

“I’m fine Y/n, really, you know how the job is, it's never easy.” Spencer replies, in a manner that shows Y/n he wants to talk about it, but he doesn’t know how to ask and doesn’t want to be a bother.

“Are you sure Spence? We can talk about it if you want to-“

“I said I’m fine Y/n! Please drop it!” Spencer snaps back at Y/n, regret immediately flushing over his face. He doesn’t yell at her often, and they hardly ever fight, he says he’s seen too many couples separated by tragedy to waste time on silly arguments and quarrels. “I’m sorry sweetheart, I didn’t mean to snap at you, I think I’m just high-strung and exhausted.”

“You can’t keep it in Spencer, it will all build up inside and stay with you, you know that. We need to talk about it if it's weighing down on you this heavily, I’ll put the coffee on, it looks like we won’t be sleeping for a while.” Y/n says warmly, walking across the kitchen to switch on the coffee machine. “Okay Spence, start at the beginning…”

40 hours earlier

“All I’m saying JJ is that you aren’t even giving science-fiction a chance, its not all-”

“Spence I honestly don’t care, I refused to go to comic-con with you back in the day and I still refuse now, but you can take the boys, they’d love to go.” JJ and Spencer abruptly finish their conversation as they walk into the round table room and see the rest of the team staring back at them with solemn looks on their faces.

“Let’s get started please.” Emily says promptly as JJ and Spencer take their respective seats at the table, everyone focusing their attention on Garcia.

“Alright my crime-solving friends today’s devilishness comes to us from the one, the only, sin city itself, Las Vegas, Nevada.” Long-time members of the team glance sympathetically at Reid, knowing how difficult it can be for him to go home, especially now that his mother has been moved closer to Virginia. “Those pictures on your tablet now, they are of Dolores Smith, the fifth victim in a series of what appears to be lobotomies gone wrong.” The team winces, remembering the last time lobotomies had come up in a BAU case.

“The fifth victim? Why weren’t we called in earlier, lobotomies aren’t exactly a common occurrence, even in Las Vegas.” Rossi asks.

“This unsub has been driving his victims out into the desert, even crossing state lines, victim number two, Susan Atkins, she was found in Utah, almost 400 miles away. They simply didn’t put it together until the last two victims were found in Las Vegas.”

“Garcia, anything connecting the victims, they seem to be of different sexes and ages.” JJ asks.

“Yes, this is where it gets tricky, all five victims were schizophrenic patients at Bennington Sanitarium.” It was like a chill went through the room.

“So they were all patients at a mental hospital?” Luke says, clearly confused about the strange energy currently in the room.

“Tell them Spence” Emily urges.

“Bennington Sanitarium isn’t just any mental hospital, it's the mental hospital my mom was in.”

The coffee machine beeps, interrupting Spencer’s telling of the story, he moves to pour the cups. Y/n places her hand on his knee before he can move out of the chair.

“Sweetheart, let me do it, you just sit here and try to relax, you’ve been through enough, the least I can do is a pour a damn cup of coffee for you.” Y/n picks out Spencer’s favorite mug, a Doctor Who one she had bought him for the first Christmas they spent together. They both inhale deeply over the cups of steaming liquid, as good as gold on a late night like this, the 1:20 am flashing over the stove only showing as a reminder that this night won’t be ending any time soon. “Alright, continue.”

36 hours earlier

“So here’s what we know. All five victims had recently been released from Bennington Sanitarium, they were schizophrenic, having been residents of the hospital for ten to twelve years.” Luke starts the discussion as the jet begins its descent into Las Vegas.

“Why were they released?” Spencer responds.

“Garcia, any information you can give us?” Tara asks the computer screen where Garcia’s face pops up.

“My friends, unluckily because of the discreet nature of mental health records, the mistress of all things technological is having a little bit of trouble narrowing in on the information you search for, but from what I can see, all five victims were taken out of the hospital after responding well to medication, I haven’t gotten to those records yet but I will hit you back as soon as I hear anything, peace out.”

“You okay Reid?” Emily asks Spencer as quietly as she can, knowing that this case is surely striking a nerve with him, all these victims sharing a very big part of their life with his mother, she probably knew some of them personally.

“I just have a bad feeling about this, and I tend to listen to those feelings very carefully. Let’s finish this one quick and get back to Quantico.”

“You heard the kid, let’s make quick work of this case and put this bastard away before he can even think about taking another victim.” Rossi states, earning nods from the rest of the time.

“I hate to burst your bubbles my friends, but a sixth victim has just been found in Las Vegas once again, 63 year old Barbara Sullivan.” Garcia popped in.

“Alright change of plans everyone, Matt go to the 5th dump site, Tara and JJ, you girls will go to the most recent dump site, Luke and Rossi will go the morgue, try to get any information you can about the lobotomies, Reid and I, we’ll go to Bennington and get insight into why each of these victims were released and what medicines they were on at the time.

“Sorry to interrupt, but why was Garcia having such a hard time finding the medical records, isn’t that type of thing usually a breeze for her?” Y/n asks. She’d become quite close to Garcia in the years she and Spencer had been together and there was nothing that girl couldn’t do.

“We were having trouble with that too to be honest, mental health records are usually rather secretive, but nothing a hacker like Garcia wouldn’t be able to crack in an instant. Can I have another cup of coffee baby?”

“Of course Spence, anything you need.” Y/n say before filling up another coffee, glad he’s finally relaxed enough to talk freely about whatever happened on this case that was so clearly affecting him.

34 hours earlier

“Dr. Reid, good to see you again, I wish we didn’t have to meet under these circumstances though.” The main doctor at Bennington says, having known Spencer over the years Diana had spent at the hospital.

“Dr., hello. This is BAU Unit Chief Emily Prentiss, we want to ask you some questions about the victims if that would be possible. I know it’s-”

“Excuse me Dr.! Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt! Wait, are you Dr. Spencer Reid of the Behavioral Analysis Unit? I’m a huge fan of your work. Work, oh god you must be here about the recent murders, tragic aren’t they?” A rather hyper man interrupts Spencer. Spencer awkwardly and reluctantly shakes the hand of the stranger, both him and Emily puzzled about this strange interruption.

“Mr. Robbins, if you would, please leave us alone as the federal agents and I have some important details to discuss. Actually, you may go home for the day, your services are no longer needed, see you tomorrow.” The high-strung man nods eagerly before waving once more and leaving. “I’m so sorry about that Dr. Reid, that would be the new data collector and organizer, Mr. Robbins, a bit hyper for my taste, but that man is a wizard with anything technological.” Just as Emily is about to resume questions about the victims, Garcia calls.

“What’s up Garcia? Anything you can tell us?”

“Emily, my sweet, sadly I come once again bearing bad news. A woman has just been reported missing, 54 year old Dana Reeley, schizophrenic, reported missing by her son 20 minutes ago, says he left the house for no longer than 20 minutes, came back to an empty house no signs of struggle.”

“Is it possible his mother is confused, left the house on her own?” Spencer asks, remembering times his mother had been so confused that she went off on her own.

“Definitely not, the doors had protective covers, the mother couldn’t get out by herself, it had happened before. By the way, I’m still having an extreme amount of trouble trying to figure out why the victims were taken out of the hospital.”

“Oh I can help you with that, each of the victims were taken out of this establishment due to the opinions of each of their respective children that they would be better taken care of under their own roofs.”

“Well, uh- thank you unknown male voice that I’m assuming is the Dr. running Bennington Sanitarium, that’s helpful information.”

“Dr. thank you for your time, but it seems we should we getting to the police station.” Emily says, realizing that this probably isn’t a good place for Spencer to be, and seeing his face becoming increasingly distressed due to the implications of the information the Dr. had just given them, if they’re going to need him to use his brain to solve this case they need to get out of here.

“Woah wait one second Spencer, all of the victims were patients at the same hospital that your mom spent years at, they were all schizophrenic, and they were all taken out of the hospital by their children shortly before their murder, that’s a-“

“Hell of a coincidence, I know, and you know me, there’s no such thing as coincidences. This was weird though, like a very small chance that this could be about me, but it was seeming more and more like I was to be more involved with this case than I had thought.”

24 hours earlier

The rest of the team had gone to bed hours ago, but Spencer is still awake, lying in the hotel bed staring at the ceiling. He debates calling Y/n, he tries not to bring his work home, he tries his hardest to keep the purest thing in his life away from the horrors and despair he sees everyday. He doesn’t want to put two and two together on this case, he doesn’t want to believe that this could all be because of him, all these victims, their lives ended early, simply because he decided to join the FBI those many years ago. It had happened before, Professor Rothschild back in 2009 and he doesn’t like to think about it, but Maeve was in the center of a case inspired by him as well. Spencer knows he’s overreacting, he knows he can’t blame himself, he didn’t kill those victims, and he didn’t force the hand of the unsubs, all he can do now is get some sleep so he can use his IQ of 187 to stop this son of a bitch, stop him from killing anyone else, ever.

The sound of a stomach rumbling interrupts Spencer this time.

“Spencer, when was the last time you ate? God knows how long its been since you slept and its probably been even longer since you ate. Tell me how long Spence, please.” Spencer looks down guiltily, knowing that Y/n is going to be mad when he utters his next words.

“I don’t know um I’m having trouble remembering-“ Y/n’s face tells it all, the man with the eidetic memory can’t remember when the last time he ate was. “It was yesterday afternoon, there were bagels at the Las Vegas police station, terrible ones but I ate one of those, figured I shouldn’t be drinking five cups of coffee a day on an empty stomach.”

“Yesterday afternoon? Spencer it’s 2:30 am!”

“Okay so the day before yesterday afternoon I guess, sue me Y/n!”

“Spencer Reid I know you aren’t trying to tell me you haven’t eaten in over 36 hours! You wouldn’t do that to me right? Sweetheart, you need food! What would you like?” Y/n notices that it’s strange, right now in this moment Spencer looks like a small child, shy and embarrassed.

“Um, could you…make pancakes?” Spencer quietly asks. Y/n could laugh, Dr. Spencer Reid, renowned FBI agent who will walk into an interrogation room no problem, is scared to ask his significant other to make pancakes.

“Pancakes is it? Sure thing sweetheart I’ll make pancakes.”

“With chocolate chips?” Spencer adds.

“Now you’re pushing it.” Y/n retorts back with a giggle, beginning to make the batter, if Spencer hasn’t eaten in 36 hours he deserves better than some nasty boxed pancakes, that’s for sure. “So what happened next Spence?”

17 hours earlier

“Good morning Garcia, any information for us?” Luke asks in the morning.

“Oh newbie how I wish it was a good morning, another victim has been taken, 43 year old Richard Saxons, his daughter reported him missing when she woke up to an empty house, hasn’t seen him since last night.” The team looks at each other with confused glances.

“Another victim? But he hasn’t dumped the last victim yet, this is a major change in M.O., do we think the last victim is still alive, we need to rethink this.” Emily explains.

“Okay why a lobotomy? That can’t be the easiest way of killing the victims.” Matt asks.

“Here’s the thing, this unsub isn’t necessarily meaning to kill the victims. Lobotomies began in the 1880s when Swiss physician Gottlieb Burkhardt removed parts of the cortex of the brains of patients with auditory hallucinations and other symptoms of schizophrenia. Later in 1935 Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz is credited with inventing the lobotomy. There are numerous negative effects and since the procedure literally involves drilling into the brain to slice up pieces of the frontal lobes, if it isn’t performed by a doctor there’s a very high mortality rate.” Spencer of course rattles off.

“That makes sense with what the medical examiner told us, the lobotomies were crudely done but there was no reason to believe the unsub is a sadist, no signs of torture, the bodies were often dumped with what could be taken as remorse.” Rossi adds.

“Okay so we’re looking at an unsub who’s trying to cure these victims of their schizophrenia.” Tara states.

“We need to deliver the profile.”

“We believe our unsub is a white male of medium build, we believe this because all victims have been caucasian and although there have been cases of serial killers crossing racial lines, overwhelming statistics show he’s most likely white.” Luke begins,

“He has come into contact with all eight victims including the two currently missing, he knew all of them suffered from schizophrenia and were recently released, he waited until they were no longer patients at the hospital , meaning he most likely has a close connection to Bennington Sanitarium and could be tied back to the crimes, if he works at the hospital it puts him between the ages of 25 and 50, he could be the janitor, a cook, any job like that.”

“We don’t believe he has official medical training because the manner by which the lobotomies were performed lacks the professionalism a doctor could use, but he also demonstrates knowledge of schizophrenia and lobotomies in general, which shows he isn’t dumb, most likely can hold down a job.”

“Important as well, we don’t believe this unsub necessarily means to kill the victims, he is attempting to help cure these victims of their schizophrenic symptoms, he may have experienced a loss caused by mental health issues or believes the treatment each of the victims received was inadequate.” Tara finishes the profile, all of the team stepping back into the other room.

“Hey Garcia you’re on speaker with the whole team here” Rossi answers his phone,

“Hey guys, this is just getting more and more strange, I finally got into the hospital records, it really seemed as though someone was hacking me from the inside, but I finally got in and here’s the kicker, all of the records of the victims have been deleted, who would even have access for that.” Garcia says.

“Okay we’ll looks into that Garcia, can you start looking at anyone who fits our profile, has access to the records at Bennington, and has purchased items needed to perform an at-home lobotomy in bulk over the last few months, if the missing woman has somehow survived, this unsub needs at least elementary medical equipment in order to keep her alive, hopefully we’ll see it in his credit history.” Spencer instructs to Garcia before Rossi hangs up the phone.

“You know who might have some knowledge about all of this, that guy from the hospital, I know the Dr. osaid he’s only worked there a few months but maybe he’s seen something, or maybe he’s noticed someone snooping around the online files, we need to go back to the hospital, Spence lets go.” Emily says.

“So Dr., you’re saying Mr. Robbins hasn’t been to work since you sent him home when we were here last? That’s odd. What did you say his name was again?”

“Anthony Robbins, like I said before, he’s an odd guy but does good work, no one around here knows him that well though.” Spencer and Emily nod their heads to each other before Emily calls Garcia,

“Garcia I need a background check on an Anthony Robbins, stat, and send Rossi and Luke to his house, we need to talk to this guy fast, he knows something.”

“Agents, are you thinking he could have anything to do with this? I can’t imagine Mr. Robbins doing any harm to any one, especially not the patients at this hospital, he is always the kindest to them, the schizophrenia patients in particular.” Another call from Garcia interrupts Emily and Spencer before they can answer.

“Things are starting to look a little weird, Anthony Robbins, 37 years old, native of Las Vegas, was born to Linda and Christian Robbins, he had a happy childhood, no signs of trauma or abuse that I can see. He doesn’t have a record, juvie or adult, but his life did change when he was 10.”

“What happened then Garcia.”

“Reid stop interrupting me, you know how I like to tell my dramatic story. When Robbins was 10 his 7 year old brother Charlie was diagnosed with schizophrenia, when he was 18 he was put into care at a mental hospital, not Bennington but a close by hospital.”

“Any interest in alternative schizophrenia treatments?”

“As a matter of fact my dear genius yes, Robbins has been publishing articles for years, and I’m looking at his recent purchases right now, Robbins has been purchasing health care equipment as well as tools needed for an at-home lobotomy, Anthony Robbins is your unsub.”

“Hey Rossi, change of plans, the guy’s our unsub. You sure? Alright you guys stay there in case he comes back, the guy must have a secondary location.” Emily says before hanging up her phone. “Alright Reid that was Rossi and Luke, Robbins isn’t at home and it looks like he left in a hurry, there’s gotta be somewhere else he’s working, Rossi also said he wouldn’t be able to hold anybody in that tiny apartment, there’s no room and neighbors would hear.”

“Okay let’s think, we profiled he may have suffered some sort of loss. Garcia do you see any type of loss in this guy’s recent history.”

“Charlie Robbins, his schizophrenic brother, died two months ago.”

“That’s right before the murders started, that’s gotta be the stressor.”

“Garcia what hospital was the brother treated at?”

“Uh, it looks like a place called Smith Sanitarium, he was there was there for almost 20 years.”

“Smith! I know where that is, it’s scheduled for demolition actually, closed down about a month ago and has been abandoned since, it’s only about a 15 minute drive.”

“That’s the secondary location, let’s go Reid.” Emily says, the two agents rushing out of the room.

“Spence, the pancakes are ready.” Y/n says, pouring syrup over the stack, just the way Spencer always likes them.

“Thank you so much Y/n, I don’t deserve you. I know talking about the case is supposed to make me feel better but I just feel like an idiot. I mean, he was right there the first day we were at the hospital, it was so obvious, why didn’t I see it?”

“Spencer stop that right now, you can’t blame yourself for any of it, you met that man for less than a minute when your mind was focused on researching the victims, there was nothing about him that should have screamed 'mad scientist performing lobotomies to mourn the loss of his recently deceased schizophrenic brother’, you can’t blame yourself.” Y/n reassures her boyfriend while reaching up to rub his shoulder. He begins eating the pancakes in front of him, groaning slightly at the taste of food after going so long without eating.

“I love you Y/n, not just because you’re amazing at making pancakes, seriously these are so good, but because you somehow always know how to make me feel better.”

“That’s my job babe, personal pancake chef and make-Spencer-Reid-feel-better specialist, now tell me what happened next, it seems like you’re almost at the end.”

10 hours earlier

“Alright Reid, the rest of the team and Las Vegas police are on their way and will meet us as soon as they can, but you and I are going to be on the scene first, they’re significantly further away than we are, we’ll have to wait for them of course, this man may not be meaning to kill his victims, but he’s killed at least 6 people nevertheless.” Emily says, driving as fast as she can through Las Vegas towards the abandoned mental hospital, Reid quietly looking out the window. Emily is strapping her vest on when she sees Reid walking towards the hospital alone.

“Reid, no! I told you, we need to wait for backup, it’s too dangerous!”

“Emily you know how much I respect you, but there’s two victims in there and if they’re on the brink of death, an extra 10 minutes is not something we have, I’m going in.”

“Damnit Reid” Emily whispers before running after him.

“Anthony Robbins, FBI put your hands up”, Reid loudly speaks as he walks into the hospital with his gun in the air, immediately seeing two victims in chains.

“Dr. Reid, I’m so happy you’re here! Let’s put the gun down so I can show you the medical masterpiece I have accomplished.” Mr. Robbins says while holding what looks like a grenade in his hand.

“Mr. Robbins I know you think you’re doing what’s right, but this isn’t what your brother would have wanted, these people did not ask for this, they were doing well with the medication, now I need you to put down the grenade and let these people go.” Sirens can be heard from outside and Emily appears behind Reid as well, noticing the grenade in the unsub’s hand, but Reid’s eyes are completely focused on the female victim, a woman with extreme similarity to his own mother.

“It’s such a shame Dr. Reid, I thought you of all people would understand, seeing as you went to Mexico to research alternative medication for your own schizophrenic mother.”

“That was different Mr. Robbins, I was attempting to research homeopathic remedies for dementia, not performing life-threatening surgeries on mentally ill adults.” Emily can tell that Spencer is getting angry, this case being too close to his personal life, they should be stroking this guy’s ego, not angering him.

“Mr. Robbins, Emily Prentiss here, I think what you have done is magnificent! I actually want you to come with us, the rest of the world needs to see this!”

“No, too late, Dr. Reid doesn’t appreciate my genius, so no one will be allowed to. Sorry, agents.” The man says before dropping the grenade. Emily grabs Reid, pulling him out of the hospital while he’s screaming, still not taking his eyes off the female victim. They make it out of the hospital just as it explodes, Reid staring back into the burning building in disbelief while Emily looks at the rest of the team, shaking her head.

At this point in the story Spencer’s voice cracks, tears start welling in his eyes. “I should’ve saved them, it was completely my fault. He was a classic unsub with a god complex and I did exactly what they teach you NOT to do. I let my emotions get in the way and three people died because of it.” Spencer gets out before he starts crying completely. Y/n enveloping him in a hug and allowing him to cry into her shoulder.

“Oh Spence, shh, it’s okay, that was not your fault. That man was holding a grenade, did you force his hand? Tell him to kill those victims, no.”

“But we should’ve been able to save them, we profiled him exactly right, and I ruined it all by raising my voice at him, plus I didn’t wait for the backup we needed, I was too focused on saving a woman who reminded me of my mom.”

“Spencer Reid, I need you to listen to me right now, look at me, okay, you can do that right? Look at me sweetheart.” Spencer lifts his head to look at Y/n, his teary eyes matching her sympathetic ones filled with love. “You, Spencer Reid, are a hero. You’re my hero, you’re a hero for your team, and you’re the hero of all the people you save every single day. Today was not a good day, but how many victims would that man have killed if your team hadn’t intervened. Today you didn’t save everyone, but if you stop now, you’ll never save anyone ever again.” Spencer and Y/n sit at the table holding hands in silence for longer than either of them care to count, before Y/n hears soft snores, realizing Spencer has fallen asleep in her arms, exhausted from the past days and the emotional release of reliving it all in their kitchen. “Come on Spence, let’s go to bed” Y/n gently shakes him awake and helps him to their bed, knowing that what Spencer needs is a good night’s sleep and a lot of love, which she is more than happy to give him, for the rest of her life even.

#spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds season 15 #criminal minds #reader insert #y/n #criminal minds imagine

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ncisfranchise-source · 3 years

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Although much has changed for NCIS as the CBS mainstay enters its 19th season, the plan is to give faithful fans the familiar show they have long known and loved.

Among the on- and off-screen shifts: Two characters were written out last spring, a pair of series regulars have been added for fall, Gibbs’ suspension took a deadly turn when he and his new boat went boom…. And on top of all of that, TV’s most watched drama has been handed its first time slot change ever, moving from Tuesday’s leadoff spot to Mondays at 9/8c (beginning Sept. 20).

TVLine spoke with showrunner Steven D. Binder about navigating this transition, bringing the big orange room’s “band back together,” and inviting fans to rediscover a familiar favorite when they now tune in on Monday nights. (Tiny bits of this Q&A have previously appeared in TVLine scoop and Fall Preview columns.)

TVLINE | We said goodbye last season to Jack (played by Maria Bello) and to Bishop (Emily Wickersham). You have since added Katrina Law full time, as well as Gary Cole, and we’re reportedly getting a bit less Mark Harmon. How does this season rank as far as the challenge of transitioning? The biggest transitions we’ve had to face were last season — trying to find a fitting end to the Jack Sloane character and then a fitting end to the Emily Bishop character. Now, Katrina’s here, so we’re getting a chance to get to know [Agent Jessica Knight], but as you might imagine, there’s some cleanup work we have to do based on the season finale that takes precedence over the more subtle character moments. Gibbs blew up in his boat, so we’re not going to open up with light banter in the squad room.

TVLINE | How much time has lapsed since Gibbs went boom? We’re going to go fairly real time. We decided it’s too interesting of a moment to skip ahead of unless you’ve got a really good reason to do that, and we didn’t.

TVLINE | As I noted after the finale, Gibbs swam away on his own volition after “playing dead” for what seemed to be a purposeful amount of time. Did I read that right? Yeah. We shot a lot of different things for that and there were a lot of different ways to cut it, and what we left with was something that we felt in many ways left all possibilities open. You see someone swimming away with purpose but he was pretty badly injured. Just speaking from experience, I got nailed by a car when I was 10, and if asked me how I was doing, I’d tell you I’m fine, and I wasn’t fine. So, all things are still possible with Gibbs. He’s not dead and we know he’s able to swim well enough to do that broad stroke we saw, but any number of levels of injury were possible for him at that point.

TVLINE | Is there anything else you can share about what Gibbs is up to when Season 19 opens? Well, he’d been hunting down a serial killer, with a reporter (Marcie, played by Pam Dawber) who doesn’t really necessarily have the tools to deal with a serial killer. And he’s been cut off from his team, from that portion of his world. In the beginning episodes, that’s going to change. We’re going to “bring the band back together” to some degree so they can do what we have liked watching for 20 years, which is these people solving crimes together.

TVLINE | It was made very clear that Gary Cole’s character, FBI Special Agent Alden Park, is not “replacing” Gibbs. But is he there to fill a void as “the well-seasoned law enforcement agent”? This is something I’d been saying we should do for a very long time, and when I took over as showrunner it was like, “We’re going to do this” — and then we just didn’t for a little while. I have been saying that we need to populate more characters in this show, in the vein of Joe Spano who plays Fornell, Muse Watson who plays Mike Franks…. The way you get those people who are really fantastic characters is you bring people in and you try them out and you see how it goes.

That was what initially motivated [the casting of] Katrina [Law]. With Gary Cole, you can almost imagine [that Agent Park] may be too close to Fornell in a lot of ways — he’s from the FBI, he’s in the same demo — but that was the initial impetus for bringing in characters. And we’re trying to do that this season with a little more forcefulness, bringing in people in the building who you haven’t necessarily seen but you know have been there doing stuff. And if something clicks, we’re like “OK, let’s bring that person back.”

TVLINE | But now some fans are worried that we won’t see Fornell again. I can tell you that we will be seeing Fornell for as long as Joe Spano would like to be on the show. He’s just fantastic. We have him at least in one [Season 19 episode] and possibly more. Possibly more.

TVLINE | What do you want to say about Mark Harmon’s reportedly reduced presence as Gibbs this season? I’d say that a lot of things are reported on the show that aren’t necessarily true. We are focusing right now on telling the best stories we can with the characters we have, and Gibbs is a part of that world, and I think we’re doing a pretty good job with that. It’s a little more complicated under the COVID regulations we’re under again, but one of things that we felt was missing in the last half of last season was that we had broken our band up and we wanted to get them back together. That’s really what we’re focusing on now.

TVLINE | I’m surprised to hear you say that, because it sounds like Gibbs might become some form of team leader again. I will tell you that it’s not necessarily in a form or shape you might have expected. It’s not typical, but it will be something that is ultimately really enjoyed.

TVLINE | What’s the aftermath of Bishop abruptly peacing out on Nick and us? It would be a really sad commentary on the Nick Torres character for her to just disappear like that and have it not affect him in some way. It could affect you in a lot of ways — you can be generally affected, you could be walking around telling everyone you’re fine and clearly you’re not…. But Nick Torres is tough exterior, soft interior, and we get a look at that soft interior.

TVLINE | Can you clarify what Ellie meant by when she said to Nick, “I didn’t mean for us to happen”? Was that not necessarily their first kiss? I think there have been hints dropped along the ways that that was not their first kiss. And you will get some more hints of the extent of their relationship. Normal people might leave toothbrushes at the other one’s house, but Nick Torres might do things a little differently! You’ll get more clarification on exactly how far that relationship might have gone, although, as you could guess, when consenting boy adult meets consenting girl adult, and they like each other, things happen.

TVLINE | Once you’re done with the early-season “cleanup work,” will NCIS return to a typical Case of the Week format? That’s the other thing we talked a lot about, and I will tell you that after we put some of these things to bed that we have been running with for a while, one of the things we said to ourselves was, “Let’s get back to some interesting cases without any overarching arcs.” Out of 400-plus episodes, 360 of them are described that way, but we’ve been not doing that for a while, so I think it’s time for us to sort of regroup and get back to telling good mysteries of the week with interesting characters, interesting stories, emotional hooks, and a satisfying ending.

TVLINE | Was going back to that trusted formula especially important with a brand-new time slot? So that if and when people do find you, they’re getting something familiar? That could be a reason we would give, and it’s great that it worked out that way. As a writer working with writers, some of us are eager to get back to doing the things that we know. When we get off brand, that’s not what our training is in. Sometimes you get the more interesting episodes that way, because people get pushed past their comfort zones, but I think we’re all feeling it, too, that want to go back to what works. It’s a new time slot, so let’s not make everything new right now.

TVLINE | Any germ of an idea yet for doing a crossover with NCIS: Hawai’i at some point, to bridge the two shows on Monday night? You know, I thought we left some good stuff on the table by not doing more of those in the past. I would love to do something like that, especially if I wrote it and got to fly to Hawaii while it was shot!

TVLINE | Hey, only if I in turn get to do a set visit. [Laughs] Exactly. We haven’t discussed it yet, but I’ve worked with and known [NCIS: Hawai’i co-showrunner/former NCIS co-EP] Chris Silber for a really long time, so that always makes those sorts of things easier.

TVLINE | Lastly, is there any contingency plan in your back pocket in case someone decides that this is NCIS‘ farewell season? There’s really a couple possibilities here. One is that we get cancelled tomorrow and then there’s nothing to be “contingent” about. The other option is that Gibbs is either solving cases in his 90s, or he gets a gold watch and retires. Neither of those things sound interesting to me, but at some point in time when that happens, if we find ourselves still on the air and people are thinking of retiring, you have to think about something befitting that character — and a gold watch ain’t it. But we’re not really thinking too hard at this moment about such things.

TVLINE | A handful of fans have been very doom-and-gloom, bleating “they’re putting the show out to pasture!” with a time slot change and all. I’m like, it’s TV’s most watched drama; it’s not going to lose its entire audience because of a time slot change. That’s our reaction, too. When a show is on the bubble and the time slot changes, it’s usually to Sunday at 10 pm, and that’s not what we got. We got Monday, an hour later.

TVLINE | And you’re leading out of two solid sitcoms, and teeing up a buzzy new drama. That’s right. We’re always the one leading in for everybody else, so I’m somewhat excited to be the show that gets a lead-in!

TVLINE | It’s pretty crazy, man. Nineteen years without a time slot change. Yeah. Like you said, it’s a No. 1 one show, plus it’s 2021, not 1921. People watch TV differently now. As someone said to me, “Oh, it’s just going to be available a night earlier?” These days it’s not all about when a show drops. But you can watch it when it drops, and now it will be available to watch a night earlier, that’s how they thought of it.

#ncis #interview

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imagineaworlds · 4 years

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I Love You (Part Twenty-Four) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of smut. Mentions of Dom/sub relationship. Talk of murder, shooting. terrorism, mention of bombing-- literally everything Criminal Minds.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 15467

Timeline: Season 3 Episode 20. Two months after part twenty-three.

It was a quiet morning at the office. At ten o’clock, we all gathered in the conference room to discuss cases, but before we could even sit down, JJ told us that there was nothing for our unit. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for this to happen, and it was always a relief because it meant that we would all get to go home early, which meant getting to see Jack sooner. With no paperwork to do, either we were all free to just wait around until something came about for us to do. That was the odd part. If we didn’t have a case, we at least had paperwork… but, nope. Honestly, if we wanted to, Hotch could just send us home for the day, but I think that all of us were still hoping that something interesting would come up. Also, what was the point in leaving if we could just be called back at any point? Might as well just stick around until three when I was supposed to pick Jack up from school.

While all of us were hanging out in the bullpen, JJ, Garcia, and Rossi with us, too, Hotch was up in his office. His door was closed, the blinds were tilted slightly, yet I could still catch a glimpse of him talking with someone on the phone. He seemed worried. He wasn’t pacing the width of his office quite yet, but he was tapping his fountain pen against his desk as fast as he could in order to keep his anxious body up with his racing mind. No one else seemed to notice, though—probably because they didn’t want to know if it had to do with a case yet. We were all content with just sitting around, chatting and laughing. If a case came up, so be it. If a case didn’t come up, that would be a miracle we would happily take.

“Do you think it’s about those shootings in New York?” I finally asked, turning my attention away from Hotch’s office long enough to gauge the team’s reactions to my question.

It had been on my mind for the past few days since we first heard about it on the news. The FBI hadn’t been called in to investigate the crimes yet, but we were all keeping tabs on it to see if it would get worse. There had been five shootings in the past two weeks, each of them in public spaces, but no witnesses. No one could describe the Unsub, let alone describe what happened It was like a ghost was shooting random civilians in the streets. Yet the NYPD was convinced that the incidences were all unrelated. Considering New York’s rising crime rates, it was a fair assumption, I supposed, but with five murders with the same M.O., our team was starting to raise brows and ask if the NYPD was ever going to call someone in for an outside perspective.

“Why would you think that?” Rossi asked. “Has Hotch said something about it at home?”

I shook my head. “We haven’t talked about it at all.”

“So, then, maybe it’s nothing.”

I looked back up at Hotch’s office, keenly aware that it wasn’t nothing. Something was wrong, it was just a matter of what. Perhaps it had to do with Haley, or Jack, or the Director, or another case he was just learning about. But if it were a case, wouldn’t it have gone through JJ first? It must have been personal, then, which meant that I would hear about it from him sooner than later. There was nothing to be worried about right now.

And then he stood from his desk and hung up the phone. Everyone seemed to be watching him with me now, trying to figure out if either Rossi or I were correct. Hotch grabbed his cell, a few files from his desk, and hurried to his door. The second it was open, he caught us all watching him, but he didn’t waver.

“Conference room,” he ordered, still making his way there.

We all leapt to our feet and scurried together towards the boardroom. “My money’s on New York,” I whispered to Rossi.

“I’ll take that bet.”

Hotch was standing at the monitor, the remote in his hand as he pulled up the news. When it was on, I heard Rossi sigh disappointedly. I grinned and elbowed his side playfully. Maybe he shouldn’t have actually taken that deal. The news was already talking about yet another shooting in New York, this time at a subway station in the middle of the night. No witnesses. No evidence. No leads. It was amazing that we were being called in this late.

“Don’t sit,” Hotch said. “We won’t be here long. We’ve been called in to help the NYPD with the random shootings.” Finally. “We’ll debrief more on the plane, but for now, what you need to know is that the police have eliminated any connections to organized crime, terrorism, or vendettas. There are no ties between any of the victims, and all of their records are clean. We’re looking at a randomized killer. He does the same thing every time. He keeps his head down, hood on, hands covered to hide his skin color. He shoots the victims quickly as he’s walking and doesn’t look back.” Hotch turned off the TV. “Wheels up in twenty. Garcia—” She looked up at the mention of her name, shocked that she was being addressed during a meeting she technically wasn’t even supposed to be at. “You’re coming with us.”

“Sir—”

“See you all on the jet.” Hotch collected his things again and pushed past the team to make his way back to his office so that he could grab his go-bag.

The rest of us were left in the boardroom, glancing between each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. It was odd that we weren’t even taking the time to sit down and discuss more of the case first. I mean, what happened to the case going through JJ, talking about it as a team in the boardroom, then discussing more on the jet, and so on? Why go to Hotch first and why was he in such a rush?

I made the first move, rushing back down to my desk in the bullpen to call Jessica to see if she could pick up Jack, and then text Haley to let her know that we wouldn’t be back for a bit. Jessica said she was fine with picking up Jack, and when I texted Haley, she thanked me for letting her know. She also told me to keep an eye on Aaron and to call Jack when we were at the hotel. When that was sorted, I grabbed my go-bag from under my desk and walked with the rest of the team out of the building.

When we got on the jet, Hotch immediately called for us to huddle up and start discussing the case. Since it had come through him, Hotch knew the most about the case. He knew what the cops had done for the investigation, he knew the victimology, the M.O., the possible leads, everything. We were just there to play catch up and then try to give what insight we could before landing in New York.

“Each victim was killed in a different neighborhood. There was no relation with their homes, their jobs, their hobbies, or so on. No similar physical or personality traits, according to the victims’ friends and family.”

“What leads do they have that they haven’t told the press about?” I asked.

“None,” Hotch shook his head. “Agent Kate Joyner has been leading the FBI-NYPD joint task force—”

“The FBI’s been involved with this already?” Morgan interrupted.

“Pretty much since the beginning. Kate called for our help after the sixth murder last night, though.”

“Wait. Kate Joyner?” Rossi clarified. “Isn’t she the agent from Interpole we gained a few years back?”

“I heard she can be a bit of a pain in the ass,” Morgan chuckled.

“I didn’t think so. We worked together back in the day when she was still working for Scotland Yard,” Hotch admitted.

“You… worked together?” Emily raised a brow. None of us were aware that Hotch had ever liaised with Scotland Yard before. One would think that I would have known about that. “When?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hotch deflected. “Let’s just focus on the case, please. She’s leading the case, we’re just there to profile. So, just… follow her lead on this one.”

‘Follow her lead’? We never followed anyone’s lead. We worked with other units, SWAT, and the local police departments that needed our help; but the only person we directly answered to was Hotch. Why was he changing that for this girl, Kate? What was more concerning to me was that Hotch knew who this woman was—they were clearly friends at one point or another, and I had never even heard of her. It was like Hotch covered up this entire part of his life that I didn’t know about. Like, when the hell did he go to England? When did he meet Kate? How long did they work together?

I took a breath to relax. I didn’t need to get caught up in my thoughts. The reality was that Hotch and Haley had been together since high school. He loved Haley with everything he had while they were still together. He would have never cheated on her, just as he would never cheat on me— though I couldn’t say she didn’t show him the same courtesy, but that was a theory for another time. Hotch was probably just old friends with this Kate lady, just as he was old friends with Rossi. There was nothing to be suspicious of, and there was definitely nothing to be jealous of. I just needed to remind myself that this was about a case, nothing else.

When we arrived at the New York field office, we headed up to Kate’s unit’s floor. She was supposedly waiting for us up there with the two lead detectives from the NYPD who were assigned to this case, too. On the way up, Hotch seemed nervous and fidgety, which certainly wasn’t like him. I mean, I knew from Rossi that Hotch used to be like that, so maybe it was just habits of seeing an old friend again; but it was still unsettling to see that he was so wrapped up in the thought of seeing Kate that he wasn’t even making eye contact with any of us or trying to tell me and Morgan that we needed to be on our best behavior.

Once the elevator doors were open, Hotch stepped out, leading us all into the office in search of Kate and the detectives. We looked around, taking in how big the office was. This unit that the FBI had given Kate was ridiculous. I mean, the BAU was considerably big, but this was almost twice that, and everyone was running around, busy with work around the case.

My shoulders fell and I stopped in place when I saw a woman approaching us with a smile on her face. That was definitely Kate, there was no doubt about it… She was gorgeous. She walked so smoothly, but still held a poise that commanded everyone’s reluctant respect. And when she saw Hotch, her smile grew even more.

“Aaron,” she welcomed with open arms.

“Kate,” he smiled back, accepting her hug.

My eyes stayed glued to them and their embrace, despite the fact that the rest of the team was glancing between them and me. ‘Aaron’? ‘Kate’? ‘Aaron’… I was still trying to convince myself that it was nothing, and I shouldn’t have to be that petty person who got all jealous suddenly without an explanation. It was nothing, right? Just two old friends reuniting… Two friends that happened to hug a little longer than necessary and then stare into each other’s eyes as they parted— Oh, my fucking god.

JJ linked her arm with mine and pulled me close. “Is it just me or does she look exactly like Haley?”

Oh, boy, I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one who took notice. I thought I was going fucking crazy. Kate’s blonde hair, her small nose, her brown eyes, her tight lips, her short height, her tall posture… She was a mirror image of Haley… Just… British. It was so odd. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be meeting Haley’s doppelganger. I mean, I never even expected to meet Haley in the first place, but now there were two of her. What the hell was I supposed to do with that?

I remembered how I tried to convince myself on the plane that there was no chance in hell that Hotch would have cheated on Haley, but when I saw Kate, I realized that it was entirely possible. If he really spent a long time in England, then he probably ended up missing Haley a lot… With someone around him who looked eerily similar to the wife he missed so much, if there was a night with one too many drinks or something, it was entirely possible that something happened between them.

I felt so stupid. I wasn’t a jealous person, and I certainly wasn’t one to speculate about Hotch’s past. We had both done things that we weren’t proud of. We had done things that we just hadn’t gotten around to discussing yet. But all the signs seemed to be there. But the worst part was that it pointed to the fact that Hotch seemed to have a type… A type that I didn’t amount to. I felt my self-confidence crash just by looking at Kate.

“Kate, this is my team. David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Spencer, Reid, Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, and—” Hotch hesitated when his eyes met mine. “And… Y/N Greenaway.” He must have recognized that the wheels in my mind were turning, and I was working overtime to understand what was going on. He must have also recognized my shyness and the way I didn’t wave or smile at Kate politely.

“Thank you all for being here.” Kate smiled less now, like she was just trying to be courteous compared to her genuine happiness in seeing Hotch for the first time in years. “If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask. For now, I believe that accommodations have been made for your technical analyst to review the city’s security footage. The rest of you, these are Detectives Brustin and Cooper,” Kate gestured to the two men standing to her left. They nodded and smiled shortly, seemingly less than impressed with our appearance. “I’ll leave you all to discuss the case with them. All I ask is that you run everything by me first. It’s been my experiences that having one butt on the line is enough.”

Detective Brustin rolled his eyes and mocked Kate's accent, “Yes, ma’am.”

Kate tried to ignore his rudeness after stepping closer to Hotch to whisper something. “Is there a chance we could talk privately before you go running off?”

“Yeah,” Hotch nodded with a whisper. They waited for a moment, their faces close together, their eyes searching each other’s.

As they walked off together, Emily and Garcia shuffled over to me and JJ.

“They, um,” Emily cleared her throat, “liaised together.”

“I don’t understand,” I admitted quietly, my go-bag falling to the ground. The girls’ grins disappeared in an instant when they realized that I wasn’t taking it all as a joke. “I thought I was the only one besides Haley…” My eyes followed Kate and Hotch as they walked into her office. She leaned against her desk, crossing her arms a little too tightly over her chest. Hotch didn’t sit or keep his distance. My breath hitched as he stood just in front of her, their knees practically touching. “They were high school sweethearts,” I continued to explain about Haley and Hotch. “I didn’t think that there was any point where they weren’t together before their divorce.” I looked over at Morgan, who had turned away from Rossi, Reid, and the detectives to pay attention to our conversation. “What did I miss?” I practically asked him directly, my eyes pouting.

“Hey,” Rossi called us all over. I broke away from my trance long enough to grab my go-bag from the floor and walk over with the team. “Morgan and I will go with Detective Brustin to the latest crime scene, find out what we can about this guy. The rest of you will stay here to help Reid look at the geographical information and start building the profile.”

“And Hotch?” Morgan asked.

Everyone looked back over at Kate’s office.

“Hotch… He seems a little busy. Just catch him up with your work here when you’re done.” Rossi avoided making eye contact with me as he turned back to the team. “Get to work.”

We all dispersed. Morgan, Rossi, and Brustin headed for the elevators; meanwhile, Emily, JJ, and I went with Reid to the boardroom we were given to work in. While they all got to work, I sat down at the table in the middle of the room and spun around in my chair to face Kate’s office. Her and Hotch were still talking privately, but his demeanor had changed entirely. He was a few steps away from her now, his arms crossed over his chest, his back towards her. We both stared at each other for a quick moment before he looked away.

Suddenly, Hotch was moving towards her door. They were finishing up. I pushed myself out of my seat and quietly hurried over to the door of Kate’s office. Hotch was wrapping up their conversation, though he was switching his gaze towards me every other step I made towards him. When I was within reach of him, he closed Kate’s office door behind him.

“We need to talk,” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the side of the room. I let go of his hand and turned back to face him with crossed arms. “I’m not a jealous person, Hotch. I never have been, and I don’t plan on starting now. I think it’s stupid and I think that we’re both mature enough to not run into any problems when it comes to any past relationships. But I need to know something, and I need you to be honest with me.” He nodded. “Were you and Kate ever together in any way?”

Hotch wrinkled his brows together and shook his head before chuckling at me like the question was unwarranted and unexpected. What else did he expect? Kate looked exactly like his ex-wife, and they hugged— something Hotch hardly did with anyone other than me— and they talked privately, and he was smiling at her, and laughing with her, and… Shit. I told him I wasn’t jealous, and I swore to myself that I wasn’t, but… Fuck. I didn’t know what else to think. Something happened between them and I wanted to know what. Not because I wanted to find reasons to be more jealous or protective because I knew that he would never cheat on me, but because… Well… I wasn’t entirely sure. But, dammit, I wanted to know.

“Kate and I are just friends,” he insisted. “We never did anything.” I cocked a brow at him, and he rolled his eyes slightly. “We never kissed, we never held hands, we never… did anything. Nothing. We’re just friends. I promise.”

I nodded. I felt like such an idiot. This wasn’t who I was. Hotch and I were both grown, mature people who loved each other more than anything. Even if something did happen, it would have been a long time ago, and it wouldn’t have affected our relationship. I was just relieved to know the truth, even though I felt like a total jealous moron.

“I’m glad you asked me, though,” he complimented with a smile. I looked up at him as he continued. “I’d rather you ask than silently get jealous over nothing and turn it into a thing.”

I knew in my mind that if Hotch truly did love me— which, of course, I knew that he did— then there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Hearing him say it to my face reassured me that all I needed to know was the truth, straight from his mouth, and I could move on and do my job. Like he said, there was no reason to ponder in silence and let jealousy build for no reason. Him and Kate were friends. I had to trust that. Hotch promised once that he would never lie to me, so if he said that there was no history between them, then there wasn’t. I believed him.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I love you, too.” He grabbed my left hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you. Seriously.” And then his phone started ringing. We both sighed at the ruined moment as he dug it out of his pocket. “Hotchner,” he said into it while still staring at me. “Alright. We’ll be there soon.” He hung up just as quickly as he answered. “Morgan says that there’s been another murder a few blocks from where him, Rossi, and the detectives are.”

“Let’s go,” I said quietly, turning away from him.

He held my hand tighter and pulled me back to face him. “We’re okay, right?”

I nodded. “I trust you, Hotch. If you say nothing happened, then nothing happened. I’m not going to question that.”

He searched my eyes for a moment. “Thank you.”

“You’ve gotta think of a more creative way of saying ‘thank you’ at some point.” I smirked, turning away from him again so that we could head down to the car, but he didn’t follow me like I expected. He was smiling at me, but he was waiting for an opportunity to go tell Kate about the new crime scene. Right. I forgot. Kate. Just as soon as I grew jealous of her, I had entirely forgotten about her. “Go,” I told him. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

He silently hurried off to her office to let her know. I rolled my eyes to myself and made my way to the elevators. I wasn’t jealous. I trusted Hotch. I loved Hotch. He made a promise to me a couple of months ago that he would never lie to me ever again. He looked me in the eye and told me that we would never hold secrets back. I asked Hotch straight up if him and Kate were involved, and he told me that they never were. I had to believe him. I did believe him. They were friends, just like he said. And he was only going to tell her because she was still the lead on this case, and she had asked us to keep her updated on any new developments. It made sense. I shouldn’t have been pondering it too long.

When they got to the car together, Hotch took the front seat with me, while Kate took the back. At least that didn’t change. I drove us down to the crime scene with Hotch’s navigation help. It was somewhat out there for us, but just like Hotch said, it wasn’t far from the other crime scene that Morgan and Rossi were looking at. But the scene had already been taped off, which made traffic horrible, and it was nearly impossible to get into our own damn crime scene. From the backseat, Kate had to argue with two different police officers about letting us in before Rossi finally noticed us from the street corner and waved us through.

“It’s definitely our guy,” Brustin said. “Same M.O. Middle of the day, random, no pattern in victimology, hurried off before anyone could get a good look at him.”

“There wasn’t a single witness?” I asked while getting out of the car. We were on a busy street corner. Hell, the cops were having trouble holding back the crowds. How did no one see a guy shoot someone in the middle of the day on a busy road in fucking New York?

Brustin shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Y/N, go talk with Rossi to catch up on what he knows,” Hotch ordered me.

Brustin squinted, almost like he was offended by that command. To be fair, the way Hotch phrased it made it sound like he didn’t trust Brustin or Cooper and what conclusions they had come to. While we obviously still held our team’s intuition to a higher standard and were more likely to trust what our friends would tell us, Hotch’s order was still offensive to the detective, and I didn’t blame him for feeling that way. That being said, I didn’t argue with him either. I nodded and walked up to Rossi, who was standing over the body.

“Seven murders and he’s finally communicating with us,” Rossi told me, handing me an evidence bag.

I looked down at what was inside the clear bag while raising a curious brow. It was a Tarot card— specifically the card for Death. If the title on the bottom of the card wasn’t obvious enough, the artwork of Death riding a rose that was trampling over a king was a sure tell of what was going on. But why do this now? Why send us a message after so many deaths? It didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit the M.O. Realistically, the obvious answer was that the Unsub was trying to tell us that he saw himself as Death. He viewed what he was doing as an act of defiance against a higher power, which would be the king in reference to the card, but outside of that, it could have been a number of things. This could have been personally or politically motivated, but it was unlikely that these killings were sadistic or sexual. We didn’t need a card to tell us that. These shootings were long distance kills. There was no satisfaction that came from them, especially with how fast the Unsub was fleeing the scene. But toying with us because he knew that the FBI was involved now… That changed how we were building the profile. It meant that this probably wasn’t personally motivated, which left politics.

“Are we absolutely sure that this is the same guy?” I asked Rossi. He looked confused, like he didn’t understand where I was coming from. I decided to clarify. “Sure, the M.O. is the same, but this card changes everything. Why would he deviate from what he knows?”

“To tell us that he knows we’re here.”

“Obviously. But why does he care? The killings are signal enough. Why communicate like this?”

“Maybe Reid will figure something out.” Rossi shrugged.

I nodded an agreement. Something was different about this whole crime scene compared to the last ones. Despite how rushed they seemed, they were still more… I don’t know, organized in some way. Before, the Unsub was waiting until the target was alone to shoot them. But this was the middle of the day, around hundreds of witnesses. And the change in M.O. almost made the scene feel sloppy, in some way. As much as I hated to admit it, Reid could possibly give us some insight into the card, or maybe Garcia would be able to find something on the street cameras. Either way, we were stuck where we were. Those who were still at the office would be more helpful.

The drive back to the office was slower. It felt like going down to the crime scene in the first place was a waste of our time. Maybe that was the purpose of the shootings. It was possible that the Unsubs were doing this just to lead us around on a wild goose chase while they were working on something bigger. If that were true, however, then what was the bigger picture? Why string along the police and the FBI rather than just go for it. Like 9/11, they could have gone for the big one first. Why this? Why make us run around?

None of my questions seemed answered by the time we got back to the field office. Kate and Hotch were trying to run through some theories, but I had tried to focus on putting the clues together myself. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help. We got out of the car, and we were walking in, but I had nothing to contribute to their conversation. I think my silence was noted by Hotch, but he didn’t say anything to me about it.

As we waited for the elevator, Rossi, Morgan, and Brustin met up with us. They all started talking with Hotch and Kate about hypotheses, but I still didn’t get it. My whole “thing” was taking a quick look at something and being able to put it together with a snap of my fingers. I liked that it was my thing. Sometimes it meant that I would come to conclusions faster than Reid, and that was always a win in my book. But this case. These crime scenes. This Unsub. None of it was adding up, and I hated that I was falling short.

The elevator doors opened to Kate’s floor and we all stepped out.

“What do you have?” Hotch asked after noticing how Reid, Emily, and JJ were all crowded around a computer.

JJ looked up at us shortly before returning her gaze to the computer. “Garcia sent us the latest shooting.”

Emily played the video for us as we all gathered around them. Kate pushed herself between me and Hotch, earning a slight scoff from me and Morgan as we were shoved around. I rolled my eyes slightly, then looked down at the computer. As the footage played, we saw our victim, still unidentified, hailing for a cab with a hot dog in hand. Classic New York. A few moments later, just as a taxi was pulling up, a hooded man walked up with a gun in hand, shot the victim in the back of his head, and hurried off in a sprint.

I cocked a brow. That wasn’t very nonchalant of the Unsub. His whole thing was making this as casual as possible. So now, not only did he break M.O. by shooting with witnesses around, then leaving a card to taunt us, but now he was racing away? It didn’t feel like our guy, if I were being honest. Maybe it was a copycat, or maybe this was just another random shooting like New York saw all the time. Since we hadn’t identified the victim yet, it was possible that this was a gang hit, or maybe a hire to kill situation, or something along those lines. But it didn’t match up with our Unsub.

“Garcia says that they’re different heights, too,” Reid told us while Emily played back the video footage of the first shooting. Again, the differences were standing out. It was so obvious. “And their body types are different.”

“We’ve got more than one Unsub,” Hotch sighed, putting a palm on his forehead.

That changed our entire profile. We weren’t dealing with one guy who was politically motivated anymore. We were dealing with a duo who were trying to make a point of something. Duos were always easy to profile, though, which was a relief. In every duo case, there was a dominant and a submissive. Much like mine and Hotch’s relationship, the dominant had control over the submissive, but their connection and attraction was through their crimes— which, obvious, wasn’t like me and Hotch at all. The question in this case was which of them was the submissive and which of them was the dominant? Based on behaviors, it seemed like the first Unsub, the one who had performed the first six kills, was relaxed during the whole endeavor, which meant that he had confidence about what he was doing. On the other hand, the last kill was sloppy and rushed. If I were to guess, I would’ve said that the first Unsub was the dominant. He wanted to perform the murders because he got the most enjoyment out of them and because he knew how to do it properly; whereas the second Unsub, the submissive, seemed less sure about what to do and if doing it was right at all.

The big question now that the dominant/submissive profile was built was… why? Why were they doing this? My original hypothesis based on deductions formed around the profile of one Unsub told me that this was related to politics, but a duo killing at random changed things… And why would the submissive leave the Tarot card at the crime scene?

“Until we know why we’re doing this, we can’t get ahead of them,” Morgan said. “I think that we should get out on the streets. Increase police presence to force them into hiding while we try to build a stronger profile.”

“I only brought you here to create a profile, Agent Morgan. I don’t need your advice about what to do on the streets,” Kate responded calmly, though there was a bite to her words.

Morgan shifted on his feet. “I understand that, Agent Joyner, and we’ll have the profile ready in the morning. However, I think that based on the profile we have as of now, the smart thing to do would be to—”

“I still didn’t ask, Agent Morgan. Thank you, but I won’t be tiring out our forces just for an overnight shift.”

“They’re targeting areas like 14th Street, 42nd, 59th, 63rd—”

“Morgan,” Hotch interrupted, “it’s not your call.”

Morgan glanced between me and Hotch, as though I’d give him backup on this. I didn’t know what to say or do, though. None of us did. The whole team was just standing there, listening to Morgan and Kate’s back and forth, and Hotch, with his boss tone, had to step in to diffuse the tension. I didn’t need to get mixed up in it. I didn’t need to choose between my best friend and my boyfriend. Hotch was right that this wasn’t Morgan’s call. We were asked in by Kate to consult, that was all. He tried to tell Kate what he thought was right, and if she didn’t want to hear it, then that was her choice. He didn’t need to argue with her about it.

“Take a walk for a bit,” Hotch offered quietly.

Morgan stared at me. “You’re not going to say anything?”

“Morgan—” I tried to explain, but he threw his hands up like he didn’t want to hear it, and he walked off.

I sighed, taking a defeated step back. Hotch and Kate both looked at me, but I didn’t look at them. Instead, I told Emily to play the two videos again so that we could get back to work. Morgan clearly didn’t want me to chase after him, so I wasn’t going to. Even though it made me feel like shit. If we were going to get these guys before they could kill again, then we needed to ignore distractions for a bit. I’d apologize to Morgan later. It would probably be a nasty argument, but I think he’d understand that I wasn’t about to choose between them while in front of the team and Kate. I wouldn’t choose between them anyhow. That wasn’t fair of him.

“I can’t stare at this any longer,” Emily sighed, giving up while moving out of the seat in front of the computer.

Hotch stood tall and crossed his arms. “We’re not finding anything new. I think it’s fair to say we’re all worn out after the long day we’ve had.” He looked to Kate, “I think it’s time to call it a night.”

She nodded. “Fair enough.”

“We’ll come back at seven in the morning to give our profile.”

Kate reached out for a hug to say goodnight, but Hotch dodged it just to give her a handshake. She awkwardly accepted his hand, then Hotch ordered the team to move out. Rossi and I exchanged a glance which said: “What the fuck?” as we all headed towards the elevators.

We all grabbed our go-bags from the trunks of our cars before heading into the hotel for the night. Emily, JJ, and Reid were talking ahead about the profile, meanwhile Morgan and Hotch were hanging back with me in silence. The three of us didn’t know what to say to each other. Morgan probably still felt stung by the fact that Hotch took Kate’s side and that I didn’t do anything to stand up for him. To be fair, though, Morgan was a big boy, and he could handle himself. He knew that he overstepped with Kate. He didn’t need me.

“JJ,” Reid croaked, coming to a stop.

I nearly ran into him when I noticed what he saw. The rest of the team took notice just as quickly, but we all stayed frozen in the lobby. JJ, however, perked up and hurried over to the lounge where Will was sitting, reading an article in the newspaper about the shootings we were working on. When he noticed that we were all standing there, he jumped to his feet so that he could hug JJ, who was running at him with full speed and force.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him as they parted.

“I tried goin’ to D.C., but when that didn’ work out, I took a train here to come see ya.” He bit his lip as he stared at her.

He was so in love with her. I wasn’t sure if anyone else could tell, or if even JJ and Will were aware, but he was absolutely head over heels for her. I could see it. I knew it because it was the same way Hotch looked at me. He looked at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered, and that nothing could change the way he felt about her. She was one of the lucky ones. I hoped that she knew that.

“Detective,” Hotch greeted, sticking his hand out for Will after we all approached cautiously.

Will shook Hotch’s hand politely. “I’m sorry for showin’ up like this. I know that y’all are working. But, um…” He hesitated as he looked back at JJ. “I can’t stand you being on this case with what’s goin’ on.”

I furrowed my brows and looked at Hotch. Did he know what was going on and elected not to tell the team because JJ asked him not to? Telling by how confused he seemed, I could tell that he didn’t know what Will meant either. Especially when he asked, “Is there a problem?”

JJ slowly turned to face all of us. She gulped as she found the courage for what she wanted to say. “I’m pregnant.”

“And I’ve asked JJ to marry me,” he said to Hotch.

Hotch smiled and shook Will’s hand again. “Congratulations.”

My eyes brightened as I threw my arms around JJ after Emily hugged her. I whispered a thousand congratulations in her ear. This was great news. We needed some good news, especially with how messy and dark our jobs were. A bright light like a baby was a gift and a half for us. I was so happy for her. While I didn’t realize that they were that serious, that didn’t stop me from hugging JJ as tight as I could and telling her that I was so excited for her and Will.

“We’ll give you two some privacy to sort things out, then,” Hotch said after JJ and I parted.

“Thank you, Hotch,” JJ said, hugging him shortly.

He smiled politely, but not like he was genuinely happy like the rest of us. He turned away to head for the elevators, and I started following him like it was an obligation, but JJ chased after him. When his attention was caught, he turned back to her and huffed, “You could have told me, JJ.”

“I know, Hotch,” she told him with lowered shoulders. “But you and Y/N—” She stopped herself. “I heard about what happened in St. Louis, and I didn’t want to… I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

I stiffened slightly. St. Louis felt like a lifetime ago. Back then, Hotch and I talked about having kids and if it were realistic for us. It turned into us having a string of arguments about it over the few days we were there, and, ultimately, I gave up because he seemed adamant on not talking about kids. He didn’t want to talk about it, let alone come to a conclusion, so I decided that he meant he didn’t want to have kids. At least not with me. And while that broke my heart into a million pieces, he tried to apologize and explain to me that he was just scared— but all that told me was that he was scared of having kids with me.

JJ had stumbled into the room while we were having one of those arguments, but I thought that she didn’t hear anything or forgot about it entirely. I never thought in a million years that she would have kept something like this from us because she was worried about stirring up more arguments between me and Hotch. Of course I was excited for her. I thought Hotch would be, too… And maybe he was, but at the moment, he just looked disappointed that she felt like she couldn’t tell him what was going on. Even worse, she didn’t tell him, and he was letting her come out into the field, which wasn’t safe. He probably felt like shit. Meanwhile, I felt like shit because she felt like she couldn’t come to me, a friend, because she didn’t want her pregnancy to impact my relationship? What kind of sense did that make? Hotch and I were our own people. We made our own choices. If we fought, we fought. Fighting was healthy. Talking about our future was good. She shouldn’t have been afraid to talk to me. I was a horrible friend…

“We’ll see you in the morning,” Hotch said to her before turning again.

JJ and I stared at each other for a moment. We both looked sorry. “I’m so happy for you, JJ. He’ll come around. I promise.” I squeezed her shoulder quickly, then ran after Hotch who was holding the elevator for me.

When the elevator doors closed, Hotch snaked his arm around my waist and pulled me towards him so that our hips were touching. As I smiled lightly and hugged him by putting my palm on his chest, he kissed my temple and whispered that he loved me.

At our room, I sighed as I closed the door behind us. It had been an incredibly long day, but the good news we just received in the lobby made up for most of it. Hotch set his briefcase down on the desk, and I put my purse beside it. We both sighed again as we put our go-bags on the floor, then sat on the edge of the bed. I pulled off my shoes while he stared at the window for a bit. When my feet were finally free, I reached down to grab my pajamas from my go-bag. I started getting dressed as the deafening silence hung in the air.

“Do you ever think about it still?” Hotch asked, pulling off his shoes one at a time. I raised a brow. “Having kids, I mean. I know that we talked about it in St. Louis, and we said that we’d hold out, but… are there ever times when you think about it… or maybe… I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Regret the choice we made?”

I shook my head. “Not really. I mean, I know that we’ll talk about it again when we’re ready.”

“What if we’re ready now?”

I paused and looked at him. I asked myself what he meant by that, and if it was really what I thought it meant. I mean, there were a thousand different things he could have been insinuating, but I was scared to guess which one, or to take the words out of his mouth. We were obviously happy for JJ and Will, and baby fever was obviously a real thing, but I didn’t think that Hotch would ever let it get to him like this.

“I mean, would you even want to get married? I know that we said we’d wait to have kids for when it would make the most sense for us; and don’t you think that getting married first—”

“Aaron.”

I froze after saying his name to let the silence sit. I didn’t have to think about it. I knew what my answer would have been if he actually got around to asking me to marry him. Of course I’d marry him in a heartbeat. I would do the whole lavish wedding, or I’d do a spur of the moment, Vegas shotgun wedding where an Elvis Presley impersonator officiated it. I would have literally done anything to marry Aaron Hotchner. Whatever he wanted, I wanted. If he wanted to run away to Fiji and get married there, I would have booked the first flight. If he wanted to wait the appropriate two year engagement period, then have a wedding in a huge venue with all of our friends and family, I would have started saving up the money.

I didn’t need to think about marrying Hotch. I didn’t even need to think about having kids with him. He was the one in St. Louis who got all uptight about the prospect of it when I brought it up. If he thought that we were ready to get married and to have kids, then I was ready to ask him what the hell took him so long to come around.

“If you’d ever ask,” I began quietly, “I’d say yes.” I tied my hair back out of my face as I continued getting ready for bed, trying to break the tension in the room. I could tell that his eyes were following me, but I didn’t stop to take note. “But you can only ask if you do it properly and not while we’re on a case. Never, ever on a case. Do you hear me, Agent Hotchner?” I stopped long enough to see that he was grinning ear to ear while nodding. “Good.” I smirked as I headed towards the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.

Hotch jumped up from the bed, took his shirt off, and joined me in the bathroom to get ready for bed, too. We both started with brushing our teeth, and nothing was said between us. I kept catching him watching me through the mirror, and I rolled my eyes a few times at him. His question was still echoing through my mind, and I was sure that my answer was racing through him. I loved him more than anything. Truly. But there were times when I’d ask myself why he would look at me like that. I always wondered a lot if St. Louis was proof of some kind that Hotch and I were ultimately doomed to fail, but then he brought up kids and marriage again tonight, and I knew that he meant it. But why?

I finished brushing my teeth and washing my face long before him, somehow. Still facing the mirror, my eyes avoiding his reflection, I spoke up with, “Can I ask you something?” Hotch’s reflection stared at me for a moment before he nodded slightly. “Why me?”

“I don’t understand.”

My gaze fell to the faucet in front of me. “I mean, why… why me, Aaron? What’s so… I don’t know… appealing about me…”

Truth was, since first laying eyes on Kate, I couldn’t get over the fact that Hotch obviously had a type. Despite his insistence that nothing happened between them, there was still no denying that at one point or another, they had a spark, and some of that chemistry was still there. I asked myself that if I didn’t know Hotch, or if we weren’t dating, would he be with Kate? She looked so much like Haley, just like everyone had been whispering about all day. The fact that they had chemistry and she resembled his ex-wife, that would have been reason enough for him to seek her out once he was no longer with Haley, right? I mean, if I weren’t in the picture, maybe it would be her in the hotel room with him and not me.

I just didn’t understand how he could have a clear type, and then somehow end up with me. I tried to not be an insecure person considering I needed to have enough self-confidence to work in the field I was in, to take the chance of dating my boss, to bite back at Morgan and Reid playfully, and to stand up to Strauss when she was a pain in my ass. I needed to believe in myself or else I would fail in my career and personal life. But I was human, and sometimes I would look in the mirror, like I was doing just then, and I’d ask myself what Hotch saw in me. Why did he choose me? Why did he spend years silently passing by my office just to smile at me when he was married or, afterwards, when he could have had anyone else? Why me? What was so amazing about me that he could look me in the eyes and tell me that he loved me every day?

“Look at me,” he told me as he dropped his hairbrush on the counter. I reluctantly faced him. “I came alive when I finally met you. I saw colors for the first time. I could hear things I couldn’t hear before. I could feel things that I could never feel before. I look at you, and I see a lifetime of happiness waiting for me in your arms. When you first told me you love me, I could feel my heart restarting in my chest. I have lost a lot, Y/N… but meeting you… loving you… It’s the one constant I know I will have for the rest of my life. Every morning, I wake up and I look at you, and I think to myself that I got so damn lucky to find someone like you who loves me for me, while still encouraging me to do more, learn more, be more. I ask myself how anyone could come into my mess of a life and somehow choose to stick around, but somehow you do it. You continue to amaze me every single day when I see you at work, doing what you love, saving people’s lives. My heart melts every time I see you with Jack. My knees buckle every time you tell me you love me, and I swear I could listen to it forever.” He stepped closer to me and put his palms on my cheeks. “I look at you and I fall in love with you over and over again. I hold you in my arms and I think to myself that I should never let go because I’m so afraid that if I do, I might lose you somehow— and the thought of not getting to look at you every day, to hold you in my arms, to kiss your lips—” he dragged his thumb over my bottom lip— “to tell you that I love you every chance I can get… The thought of not having that with you because I might fuck something up… It terrifies me. You are the one person in the world who gets me. That’s why it’s you. That’s why it will always be you. You once told me that you’d never stop fighting for me, is that still true?” I nodded, pressing into his touch lovingly. “I knew the day I met you that I would do anything for you. I know that I’ll always fight for you. I know that I’d even die for you. That’s why.”

Before I could respond, Hotch leaned in close and kissed me with a fiery passion that expressed every word he just said to me in a way that both of us could feel. It was almost like his words were echoing through my body. I felt electric and on fire, all at the same time. I felt his love, warmth, and compassion with every second that passed by. Everything he said to me finally made sense when he kissed me, because I remembered that what he said was just as true for me as it was for him.

I loved Aaron Hotchner so much that it hurt sometimes. There were times when I would look at him and I would nearly cry because I was so happy, because I was so in love. No one had ever loved me like he did, and no one took the time to tell me why. Most people would have brushed off my question or allowed it to spiral into an argument because they couldn’t actually think of something to say. But not Hotch. He knew exactly what to say.

I jumped onto my tip toes and started kissing him harder to let him know that I heard him, I believed him, and I felt it all for him, too. I’d fight and die for him. I loved him more than anything in the world. Nothing made me feel more alive than kissing him. Nothing made me feel more at home than his arms. Nothing was more loving and comforting than the way he said that he loved me. The tug in my chest towards his heart skipped a beat as I thought it. I loved him. I loved him so much. I couldn’t think about anything else but how much I loved him. There weren’t enough ways to tell him just how much I loved him. The words didn’t exist, and even if they did, I didn’t have enough time in life to tell him every piece of it. There were a million and one reasons to love Aaron Hotchner, but I loved him for a billion different reasons.

Hotch lifted me off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his hips, and with my sudden height over him, I used it to dominate our kiss shortly. He set me down on the counter and pushed me away with a gentle hand on my neck. “You meant it, baby?” he asked me quietly, pressing his forehead to mine. “You’d say yes?” He was so stupid sometimes, I swear. He couldn’t just take yes for what it was. “And… and the other thing…”

“Aaron,” I whispered against his nose, “I love you more than anything. I don’t want to lose you either. So what do you think?” I smiled in response to his smirk. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Does that answer it?”

“Say it again.”

“Yes.” I pecked his lips. “I’d say yes, Aaron Hotchner. I’d always say yes.”

He grabbed my hips roughly and pressed a sudden, breathtaking kiss against my lips. I tried to grab ahold of him before I could fall back against the mirror behind me. We both giggled against each other. I loved him… I wanted to scream it from the top of my lungs— which I was sure was what he planned on making happen within the next hour or so— and I never wanted to stop saying it. I loved Aaron Hotchner. I would marry Aaron Hotchner. I wanted to have kids with Aaron Hotchner. I wanted to devote my entire life and being to Aaron Hotchner. I loved him, I loved him, I loved him. Yes, yes, yes. Always.

At seven, half of the team was already set up at the police station to give the profile there, while the other half of us were at the FBI New York Field Office to deliver the profile to the Bureau workers. Since this was a joint task force operation, it was imperative that the NYPD was also aware of what we were looking for. That being said, I was glad that I didn’t draw the short stick on that one. Emily, Spencer, and Morgan had to go downtown to talk with them, meanwhile Hotch, Rossi, and I went to the field office. They were well behaved and good listeners. The NYPD, on the other hand… with how Morgan lost it last night, I did not pity them.

Delivering the profile was fairly textbook, but the profile itself was anything but that. It seemed like the team heeded my advice about the Unsubs’ intentions, because the profile we built around them relied heavily on the fact that they were politically motivated. There was some kind of bigger plan at play, though we weren’t sure yet what it was. That was why we needed everyone else’s help. We knew that because there were two Unsubs completing the tasks of these seemingly random murders, we were dealing with a dominant/submissive pair. Explaining that part to the field office was fairly textbook, however. Because of how they had planned and executed these attacks, it was easy to conclude that they were sophisticated and intelligent. Therefore, at least the dominant had a steady job—which was also why they were only hitting at certain times.

When we concluded delivering the profile to the agents in the field office, I saw Hotch pull Kate to the side to discuss putting more men on the street. When they left, everyone turned to me. The snickers that had been plastered to their faces yesterday morning when joking about how they liaised together were now frowns and pouts of apologies. But I wasn’t jealous or upset. Not since last night. What Hotch and I discussed—what we practically decided—made me over the moon happy. How could I be jealous of Kate anymore when I knew that Hotch wanted to marry me and he saw us living our whole lives together? I trusted him. I had to remind myself of that. The team didn’t know these new developments, however. All they knew was that all of yesterday, I looked miserable while thinking about what could have potentially happened between Hotch and Kate. But last night… “Magical” felt like a hyperbolic term or one alluding to Disney, which in itself felt overdramatic, but… last night… Hotch and I… There were honestly no words.

While everyone went to go back to work after giving me soft, apologetic eyes, I grabbed JJ’s hand and practically yanked her into the women’s bathroom. She tried protesting, but I didn’t relent. Once the door was closed behind us, I turned to her with a giddy smile that only made her urge for answers more prominent.

“Hotch and I talked last night,” I told her, making sure all of the stalls were clear. She was watching me like I was a crazy person. I turned to her with a wider smile once I was sure that we were alone. “I think he’s going to propose once we get home.”

JJ’s eyes widened, but not in a good way like I had for her last night. She seemed genuinely shocked and almost… disturbed. “What?” she scoffed.

I tried to maintain my smile. “Yeah. We talked last night, and I think you bringing up St. Louis again brought up a good point for us, JJ. We’re ready. We’ve always been ready, but we’ve just been scared.” I took her hands. “JJ, I think this is it. Seriously.”

“I—” she chuckled back another scoff as she carefully tore her hands away from mine. “I didn’t realize that you two were that serious.”

My smile finally faded. “What?”

“I mean…” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You guys have only been dating for, what, a year? And you were already talking about kids around the six months mark or so? And now you’re talking about getting married? Don’t you think you’re moving things a little fast?”

I took a defensive, defeated step away from her. “What?” I repeated like a broken record.

“Listen, Y/N, dating Hotch and seeing Jack occasionally is one thing, but are you really willing to be Jack’s mother just as much as Haley is? Are you willing to spend more time with Haley for the sake of Hotch and Jack without making things awkward for them? Are you prepared for if Hotch makes a widow of you while on a case—or is he even prepared for if you make a widower of him? Have you considered any of this before taking the idea of marriage seriously?”

I thought that, of all people, JJ would get it. She hardly knew Will any longer than Hotch and I knew each other, and they were already having a kid together. Why was it that she got that opportunity freely, but I had to consider a thousand different things and jump through a million hoops to prove that I loved Hotch and that I would do anything for him? Yes, I was willing to be a mother to Jack—actually, I would have loved to be a mother to Jack. I practically already felt like I was. What was the difference in putting the actual label on it? And, of course I was willing to spend more time with Haley. There was obviously a cold shoulder feeling between us, but for the most part, we got along fairly well. If dealing with Haley meant being with Hotch and Jack, then, yes, I was willing to do that. And losing Hotch… No… I wasn’t ready for that. No one was ever ready for something like that. I was sure that Will and JJ weren’t even prepared for potentially losing each other. That wasn’t a fair jab on JJ’s behalf. It wasn’t. Losing Hotch was my worst nightmare. If anything bad ever happened to him, I’d die.

Before I could say anything to argue with JJ, there was a knock at the door. We both sighed off the tension as we looked away from one another. I cleared my throat. JJ opened the door slightly. I could see a sliver of Hotch’s silhouette, but he was keeping his back turned to not make it look like he was peeking into the women’s bathroom.

JJ looked at me slightly, “There’s another victim.”

I cursed under my breath. Before she could say anything else, I pushed past her and hurried out of the bathroom. Hotch and I brushed shoulders as I stormed out. I could sense that, behind me, Hotch and JJ were exchanging a glance where Hotch was asking for answers and JJ was shrugging off his gaze.

In the office space, I could hear that Morgan and Kate were fighting again. I wasn’t sure what was going on between them, but it was really starting to tick me off. There were a thousand reasons I should have been picking fights with Kate, but I knew that it wasn’t my place and there wasn’t time. I also talked to Hotch—you know, as adults do, and we solved the issue before it could be blown out of proportion. Whatever was going on with Morgan needed to be resolved soon or I was actually going to smack some sense into him.

“We could’ve had that guy!” Morgan exclaimed. “If you and Hotch just listened to me last night, this wouldn’t’ve happened.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Even if we were on that platform, odds are that they would have targeted a different, less policed platform.”

“Yeah, well, at least that woman would still be alive.”

“Morgan,” Hotch said, coming up from behind me to step between them, “second-guessing isn’t going to do any of us any good right now—”

Morgan turned his attention. “Hotch, how am I supposed to look these cops in the eye and tell them that we’re here to help?”

“You’re not. We’re here to give the profile, that’s all.”

“I said to put us at express stops. 14th, 42nd, 59th, 63rd. That’s exactly where they hit!”

“It’s not your place to have this discussion or make this decision, Derek!”

“My place?” Morgan scoffed. “My place, Hotch? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“You need to back off. You need to stay focused here and not let your emotions get in the way.”

Morgan chuckled. “That’s funny, Hotch. Focused. From where I’m standing, all of your focus has been on her,” he pointed at Kate.

Kate rolled her eyes, Hotch bit the inside of his cheek, and I sighed to myself while trying to practically hide behind Rossi. I didn’t want to get mixed up in any of that. Morgan had a short fuse since coming to New York. Whatever possible reason there was for it, I needed to wait until he was cooled down to confront him about it. As for what he said about Hotch and Kate, he wasn’t necessarily wrong. Yes, Hotch was going out of his way to stand up for Kate, even though it wasn’t his job to. I supposed that should have made me mad, but I couldn’t focus on anything besides what JJ said to me in the bathroom. I confided in her as a friend. I thought that she would have been excited for me, yet I was only met with skepticism. I hated it.

“Take a walk. Now,” Hotch said quietly and angrily.

Morgan huffed, giving up on fighting with Hotch again. He didn’t look at me as he turned towards the elevators so that he could catch some of that “fresh” New York City air. There was silence for the longest time in the office. Kate was watching Hotch, but he was watching me, and I was watching JJ. We all had different things on our minds, and none of it had to do with the case. Great. How were we supposed to save people like this? How were we supposed to put our jobs first when Kate clearly still had feelings for Hotch, and he was worried about me and the conversation we had last night, all the while I was mad at JJ for what she said. And then there was Morgan… Morgan was mad at practically all of us. He was mad at Kate for who knew what, he was mad at Hotch for defending her over him, he was mad at me for not having his back, and he was mad at the rest of the team for not taking a side.

“Kate,” Hotch whispered, nodding towards her office. She caught his hint and followed him there.

The rest of us stood around, completely clueless as to what we should do. Normally, we would head down to the crime scene to investigate, but that system had proven to be useless over the past couple of murders. More was getting done around the office than the crime scenes. But not this time. It felt like we were always in the wrong place. Maybe Morgan really did have a point. If Hotch and Kate had just listened to him, this wouldn’t have happened—or maybe it still would’ve happened, but at least we would’ve had cops on the streets to try and stop the Unsub, or maybe someone on the team could race to the crime scene to tell us if it were worth taking a look at or not. But now we had nothing. Kate and Hotch were talking privately and the rest of us were doing fuck all.

It didn’t take long for them to talk, however. Hotch opened the door to her office again, ushering her through, and then they met us back in the office space.

“We’re going to be putting all of our forces on the streets today,” Kate announced to everyone.

“Now?” I questioned. We had no proof that they would hit more than once in one day. What was the point of taking Morgan’s advice now? It would have been better if they just waited until tomorrow.

Kate squinted at me. “Yes. Now. We’ll all pair up, taking different streets and stations where we anticipate their next attack. Even if they won’t strike again today, it’s very likely that they’ll be scouting their next targets, which means that they’ll stick out like sore thumbs. Our job today is to look for people out of place and to question them. That’s all.”

I scoffed quietly and looked at Hotch. Now I know how Morgan felt “I’ll go with Derek, I guess.” I threw my hands up in disbelief of what I was seeing and hearing. I couldn’t believe Hotch was agreeing to this. We could’ve been staying to work on the profile instead of stalking the streets for no reason.

So while everyone quietly started pairing up, they kept an eye on me as I headed for the elevator. When I reached the lobby, I saw Morgan pacing angrily, hitting the wall with his foot every time he ran into one. When he spotted me, though, he stopped pacing, and his face softened a bit. My face was still hot with the anger that was building in my chest. Morgan’s frustration was rubbing off on me and I didn’t exactly appreciate it.

“Let’s go,” I huffed, walking straight past him. He followed on my heels. “Kate’s finally putting everyone out on the street.”

“You’re kidding,” he chortled.

“We’re all one step behind these two Unsubs, yet Kate seems about three steps behind us. I don’t understand why Hotch trusts her so much.”

“Their history?”

I shook my head as we pushed through the front doors of the building. “I asked him about it, and he told me that nothing ever happened between them.”

“Be that as it may, but they still have some kind of feelings for each other. She definitely likes him more, and I’m not saying he likes her like that, but… There was something there at some point, Y/N, and that’s all getting dragged up again.”

“I get that,” I said when we reached the SUV on the road that we were going to take to our assignment. “But that still doesn’t excuse his ignorance.”

“I know.”

We got in the car and I told Morgan where we were headed.

We were sitting in the car for a few hours, scanning the road, watching pedestrians as they passed by. Morgan and I chatted a bit about stuff outside of work because that was clearly a sore, irritating topic for us both. Unfortunately, there was a good hour or so where I had to hear about some of his hookups. Every detail. I think he forgot that just because we were best friends didn’t exactly mean I needed to hear about how many women he could sleep with in one night. I mean, hey, I was glad he trusted me with that information, but there were some things that were better unsaid.

“What’s going on with you?” I asked quietly. Morgan looked at me suddenly. “Why are you and Kate arguing all the time?”

Morgan sighed. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. She’s got you all riled up. For what?”

His grip tightened on the steering wheel out of frustration. “Hotch told me something yesterday.” I cocked a brow. “The Bureau’s going to fire Kate if she doesn’t close this case with a ribbon on top.”

“Okay. So? Why should you care? Do you like her or something?”

He shot me a glare. “No. If she’s kicked out, I’m at the top of her replacement list.”

My heart dropped to my stomach. That was why he was challenging authority. He could see the position in his future. He saw that he could potentially be running the New York Field Office soon, and he was letting it get to his head. The whole point of our job was that we weren’t supposed to let emotions get in the way, but he was doing the exact opposite, almost like he was hoping that Kate would fail. Obviously, we didn’t want this pair of Unsubs to keep killing, but… he wanted that job. And I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want him to leave us—to leave me, but it was a good fucking opportunity. If he ended up getting the job offer for one reason or another, I’d have to let him go, even though it would kill me. He was my best friend. He was my partner in the field. I didn’t know how to do this without him. But if I had to, then I had to. That was life.

“Morgan—”

“Garcia! We’ve got an officer down!” Emily shouted into the comms. Morgan immediately pressed his foot onto the gas pedal while l turned on the lights and sirens. “16th West of Union Square!”

We weren’t very far from 16th. I mean, in New York traffic, we were pretty far; but with the lights and sirens on, we moved somewhat faster through the crowd of cars. Morgan weaved his way through, honking at every car that refused to move, cursing at every pedestrian that was in our way, cursing to himself that we weren’t getting to Emily faster. This was what he wanted, though. He told Kate we should put cops on the streets. Yet look what happened. Cooper went with Emily, and she called it in, but what were we supposed to do if we found Emily lying on the concrete, too? I don’t think either of us would be able to handle it.

As we approached 17th, I could see the crowd surrounding an alleyway just on 16th. Morgan made a turn and sped up to them to see what was going on. While he slowed down, I popped my door open and jumped out, running with the momentum of the car a bit to make sure I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. I pushed through the crowd of pedestrians, calling out: “FBI! Move!” while shoving them around. When I got through, I saw them. Emily was crouched over Cooper, and there was an Unsub about ten feet away from them, bleeding out.

I cursed under my breath and ran to the Unsub, pulling off my jacket so that I could use it to put pressure on his wounds. He couldn’t die. We needed him. He was our only chance of getting answers. But he wasn’t conscious. He was breathing, yet he wasn’t awake. If we could keep him alive long enough, to keep the two bullet wounds in his chest at bay for just a few more hours, we could get answers.

I pressed onto my jacket on his chest with both of my palms. I was trying to stop the bleeding until the paramedics could arrive, but he was already bleeding through the fabric of my jacket. I didn’t know what else to do. The ambulances were close—I could hear their sirens just a few blocks away. But I didn’t know what else to do. With all the blood he lost… And then he started to crash. My breath hitched before I started performing CPR in a panic. We couldn’t lose him. We just couldn’t.

He suddenly woke up with a gasp. As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he tried to wiggle around, but I held him still to make sure he wouldn’t cause anymore internal harm. He looked up at me. “Let me die.”

I froze. I wasn’t going to let him die. No. “What’s your name?”

“Let me die…”

“No,” I answered quickly. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Ma’am, we’ll take it from here,” a paramedic said, racing up behind me. I didn’t even realize that they had already made it. So I moved back, letting them get to work since they could do more than I could. “Step away,” he insisted, pointing to the end of the alleyway.

I nodded silently, then slowly turned on my heels. As I slowly started making my way out of the alley, I glanced over my shoulder to get a look at the Unsub one last time. He was just a kid… seventeen or eighteen, maybe. He didn’t look like the type of submissive or dominant to be running around these streets. He just looked like any normal kid. So why? The dominant wouldn’t have gotten caught, and he didn’t fit the description of the submissive. So… what was going on?

“Are you okay?” Morgan asked worriedly, running up to a shell shocked Emily. She nodded slightly. “Is he going to make it?” We all looked at the ambulance where they were loading up Cooper to take him to the hospital.

Her gaze fell to the ground. “I— I don’t… I don’t know.”

I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. “You okay, kid?” Rossi asked me.

I didn’t say anything. That kid down there was going to die because I couldn’t do more… How was I supposed to live with that? I could shoot an Unsub, no problem, but trying to save a kid? It didn’t make sense why it was hitting me so hard. It shouldn’t have mattered. He should have been any old Unsub. But he was a kid… Hotch and I were talking about having kids… What if someone shot our— No.

“Let me get you something to wipe this off,” Rossi said, pointing to my bloody hands. He snapped at Reid, a signal to find a rag or something. “What happened?” he asked me, trying to get me to focus on something.

I shook my head. “I… Morgan and I got here afterwards… Emily… She…” I looked up at him as Reid returned with a rag and started gently wiping the blood off my hands. “He’s just a kid, Rossi. He doesn’t match the descriptions of our Unsubs.”

“You think that this is an unrelated, isolated case?” Reid inquired.

I glanced between him and my hands. The fucking blood wasn’t coming off. It was still wet, and it should have been wiped away with ease, but it was still there, drying, taunting me. I had a kid’s blood on my hands. “No,” I answered him quietly. “It’s the same; I just don’t understand how.” I shyly looked at Rossi. “He wanted me to let him die.”

Rossi’s face relaxed, almost like something important occurred to him. “I think we have a serious fucking problem,” he cursed under his breath. Reid stopped wiping my hands clean. When I looked down again, though, it didn’t look like he made any progress, so I started scratching at it. “We have multiple Unsubs, they’re willing to die— according to Y/N— they’re using counter-surveillance, there seems to be a hierarchy, a random thirst for blood, a need to create chaos amongst the masses—”

“Terrorists,” I mumbled.

“Exactly.”

“What do we have?” Hotch asked, running up to us with Kate hot on his heels.

Still scratching at my hands to get the blood off, I answered, “Cooper’s headed to the hospital, the Unsub’s too unstable to transport right now—”

“Do they think he’ll make it?” Kate inquired.

I stared at her for a moment before shaking my head. I continued talking to Hotch, “There’s a problem, though. This guy’s a third Unsub, and he begged me to let him die, Hotch. We were just talking about it…” I trailed off, unsure of how to proceed while still focusing on the damn blood that wouldn’t come off my hands.

Reid took over after noticing my awkward silence. “We think these guys might be terrorists.” Everyone’s posture changed. “The murders simulate bombings. Typically, with terrorist bombings, there’s one, less lethal bombing to gauge police response times, then there will be another bombing on another day with a second bombing to follow suit once the emergency responders get there. The targets are usually civilians for the test bombing and the first bombing so as to create chaos. The second bombing, however, is the main focus of the attacks, and that’s because attacking emergency responders is, in a way, attacking the government and the system itself. Today, what we saw was that plan finally being enacted. They’ve been test running with the past few shootings in order to get our attention, which is also what the Tarot card was for, and once they knew that they had first responders on the street, they went for it. If Emily didn’t shoot the Unsub, he would’ve shot her.”

I looked at the blood on my hands again to notice that it was gone. My palms were all red from scratching them up, but the blood had been gone ever since Reid wiped it away, and I hadn’t noticed. Something about how Reid mentioned that the Unsub lying on the ground probably seven feet away from us would’ve killed Emily made me suddenly less empathetic.

“This is the bigger play here, Aaron,” Rossi said. “This is what we’ve been missing.”

Hotch’s phone started ringing. He glanced at the caller ID first to see if it were something he could ignore while we were talking about a potential terror attack. It must have been important because he answered it and put it on speaker. “Garcia?”

“Sir, we’ve got a problem. I’ve been looking through all the cameras since the last shooting, and they’ve all been hacked into. That’s how they’ve been watching us. That’s how they’ve been ahead of us this entire time.”

“How did we not catch that sooner?”

“It was system wide. I had to check camera by camera to be sure.”

Hotch sighed. “Okay. Thanks, Garcia.” He hung up on her. “This isn’t just a theory anymore. If the shootings were just a test, there’s going to be something big.”

Hotch put his phone away in his pocket. “Morgan and Y/N, head to Homeland Security to discuss raising this to a terrorist watch level. It’s…” He hesitated. “It’s possible that there will be a bombing soon.”

“Morgan, you have bomb experience, so I want you to head this if it comes to that point,” Kate said. Morgan, Hotch, and I all seemed shocked. “If that’s alright with you.”

Morgan nodded. “Sure.”

Before jumping onto our toes so that we could hurry back to our car, Hotch stopped us to make sure that we would stay in contact. These guys were going after first responders and they were watching us. We had to consider that we were all targets. Morgan and I agreed. Then we hurried off. The second we were in our seats, Morgan started driving off. Neither of us had our seatbelts on.

The sun was already starting to set, which meant that it would be dark soon, and that we were running out of time. If this really was as bad as we figured it was, then it meant that a bomb could go off at any point. It could have happened before, during, or after our meeting with Homeland Security, and then what? The whole city would go under lock down, our whole team separated. It wasn’t ideal. So we had to race to convince Homeland Security that this was a real, viable threat.

My phone buzzed with a call that I picked up as soon as I could, not even bothering to look at the caller ID. “Greenaway,” I answered.

“Hey,” Hotch greeted, “I just wanted to let you know that Kate and I are heading back to the field office right now. When you and Morgan are done at Homeland, meet us there before we head to the hotel for the night.”

“Okay. Sounds good. I’ll let Morgan know.”

“Thanks. I love you.”

That caught me off guard for a moment, but I tried not to overthink it. It probably had to do with trying to prove to me and himself that nothing happened with Kate— at least nothing that mattered— or that our conversation last night shouldn’t matter, or maybe it really was just an accident. Either way, I returned the favor before hanging up and tossing my phone in the cup holder.

“What was that about?” Morgan inquired.

“Hotch wants us to meet up with him and Kate at the office before going back to the hotel for the night.”

“Did he say why?”

I shook my head. “I figure it’s probably just to review our meeting with Homeland Security, and then we’ll be set loose.”

“Hopefully. I’m exhausted.”

“I could use a drink.” I threw my head back against the headrest.

“What’s been up with you today?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road. I raised a brow. “Come on, Greenaway. I know when something’s wrong with you.”

“How—”

“Don’t ask because I won’t tell you how I know. But, seriously, what is it?”

“Did JJ tell you?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

He looked over at me. “No. But now you’ve piqued my interest.”

I silently cursed myself for saying anything at all. If I would have just kept my mouth shut, I could have denied that something was wrong, or I could have just avoided the topic altogether by not saying anything until we would get to the Homeland Security office. But now Morgan definitely wasn’t going to leave it alone. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to discuss Hotch with Morgan. I knew that Morgan loved me and he was glad that we were happy with each other… but after what JJ said, I was scared to talk about it with anyone else. I thought that, of all people, JJ would have understood; yet she took my heart in her hand and practically squeezed it into dust. I didn’t want Morgan to give me the same pessimistic opinion.

I let out a quiet sigh and stared at my sweaty palms. “Hotch and I talked last night about getting married and having kids.” I waited, trying to gauge if Morgan would protest just yet. He didn’t react, though. “I told him that I’d marry him in a heartbeat, and I’d have kids with him whenever. I mean… that wasn’t exactly what was said, but that was the gist of it… I was really excited about it, though, Derek. I felt like Hotch and I were on the same page about it, and I even figured that once this was all over with, he might even propose…” I hesitated when I saw his grip on the steering wheel tense. My shoulders fell in defeat. “JJ thinks we’re rushing and should hold off on making any big decisions like that.”

“I agree with JJ,” he insisted quickly before I could continue.

I felt my heart sink in my chest. My worst fear had been realized. It didn’t matter how happy anyone on the team was for me and Hotch, they didn’t understand why we were already talking about getting married a year into our relationship. Morgan would always give me shit for dating Hotch, but I thought that it was always because of the age difference, or the fact that he was my superior. But I never stopped to think that it was because he thought that Hotch and I weren��t actually that serious. We were. I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else but Hotch. Of course I wanted to marry him and have a family with him. Why wait if we knew that it was what we wanted? What was the point of dancing around it? I was serious about it, Hotch was serious about it… Why could no one else seem to understand that?

Morgan took notice of my silence, so he decided to backpedal and explain himself. “You know I love you, sunshine, but… Come on. I know that things seem really good, and they probably are because you’re still technically in the honeymoon stage of your relationship, but I don’t want you to jump the gun on this and get hurt like Haley got hurt. Hotch is different around you, there’s no denying it. I just worry that he might wake up one day and realize that he doesn’t want to be this new person anymore. He might want to be who he’s always been. And if that happens, I don’t want you to get hurt because of it. It’s easy to wiggle out of a situation like that when you have no legal ties. But look at Haley. She wanted out, yet she’s still tied to him. If you get married, or if you have kids, and things fall apart, what are you going to do? Stick around like Haley does? Stay in the BAU and pretend like nothing happened?” He looked over at me, reading the disappointed look I was wearing, and he grabbed my hand. “I want what’s best for you. If you really think you’re ready for the next steps, then I can’t stop you. But maybe you should just think about it a little longer—”

My phone started ringing. I thanked literally every higher power imaginable from saving me from hearing the rest of that. And, honestly, Morgan was probably relieved, too. It seemed like he was rambling in order to try and save his rapport with me, but it wasn’t helping. I knew that he meant well. I knew that he loved me. I knew that he was just looking out for me. But I really wanted his support on this when JJ wouldn’t give it. I felt like if even one person could be happy for us, then that was good enough for me. But Hotch and I cared too much about our team and what they thought of us to not take into account how they each felt about us. If there was any chance that our relationship was going to impact the team, they had every right to know about it beforehand in the same way Jack and Haley deserved to know.

“Garcia?”

“Oh, my god, you’re okay,” she sighed with relief.

I raised a brow and put the call on speaker so that Morgan could listen in. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“You haven’t heard?”

Morgan and I shared a look of confusion. “Penelope, what happened?” Derek asked this time.

“I—Wh—” She sniffled.

“Penelope,” he insisted, getting worried.

“There was a bomb in one of the cars. I don’t know where anyone is, I don’t know who took which car, I don’t know who’s okay, I don’t—”

“Woah, woah, woah, baby girl. Calm down. Use your words. Explain what happened.”

We heard Garcia take in a deep, calming breath. “There was a bomb in one of the SUVs.”

“Where?”

“Just outside of the field office.”

I nearly dropped my phone. Hotch called me from the car he and Kate were in on their way to the field office. He told us to meet him there. He— He was in one of those SUVs. I just heard from him— It couldn’t be him, right? Right… Please. My head started to spin.

“Have you heard from Hotch?” Morgan asked for me.

“I haven’t heard from anyone. You guys are the first ones I called. I didn’t know what else to do—”

“Calm down. It’s going to be alright. Call my phone and keep me on the line while you try to get ahold of everyone else. Y/N’s going to call Hotch, alright?”

I silently thanked him for knowing me well enough to know that I would want to be the one to call Hotch. He probably understood that I was fearing the worst, thinking that it was Hotch and Kate in that bombing. He knew that I’d be desperate to get off the phone with Garcia so that I could get ahold of Hotch. I thanked him for knowing me like that. I thanked him for being my friend who looked out for me. Even if he was an asshole only a minute ago.

“Okay,” Garcia agreed. She hung up the call on my phone, and moments later, Morgan’s phone started to ring.

As he answered, I started dialing Hotch’s number. It started ringing. One. Beat. Two. Beat. Three. Beat. Four. Beat. Five. Beat. Click.

“You’ve reached Aaron Hotchner. Leave your name and message and I’ll get back to you when I can.”

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfiction #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner imagine

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OK, May 10

You can buy a brand new copy of this issue without the mailing label for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Inside Kim Kardashian's Wild New Single Life

Page 1: Big Pic -- Jenna Dewan enjoyed a stroll around her L.A. neighborhood with 13-month-old son Callum, whom she shares with fiance Steve Kazee, in a stroller

Page 2: Contents

Page 3: Contents

Page 4: The world watched as Prince Harry came face-to-face with the royal family for the first time in over a year to say farewell to his late grandfather Prince Philip, and now that he's back home in Montecito, California, with pregnant wife Meghan Markle and their 23-month old son Archie, Harry's been reflecting on the emotional reunion and preparing for what lies ahead in the coming months -- although the trip inevitably had its share of awkward moments, he's generally happy with how it went, and things had been especially frosty between Harry and The Firm following his televised tell-all, but the main thing is they broke the ice, and he's finally communicating properly with his family again -- in fact, Harry is said to have enjoyed low-key meetings with several relatives before heading back home to the States, including his grandmother Queen Elizabeth and cousin Princess Eugenie, although he did not have a one-on-one chat with his estranged father Prince Charles and it was more of a civilized catch-up than an intense sit-down because it wasn't an appropriate time to delve into recent tensions; however, Harry did take the opportunity to reassure everyone it wasn't his intention to upset them and that he loves them all very much and they, in turn, echoed their affection for him and they mutually agreed to keep moving forward positively and constructively and there's a still a lot of unfinished business, many are hopeful that all will be resolved when Harry returns to the U.K. for a memorial honoring his late mother Princess Diana on July 1 and this could be Harry's last chance to sit down with his family and properly repair things and Harry and Prince William have both agreed to meet before the event and have a frank discussion about how they can do their best to fix the damage that's been done and air their grievances in a calm and pragmatic manner

Page 6: Next spring, Johnny Depp and his ex Amber Heard will head back to court in the latest installment of their ongoing legal drama, but this time, Johnny, who filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Amber following a 2018 op-ed where she detailed her experience as an alleged abuse victim, is determined to clear his name one and for all -- Johnny and his team have new and explosive testimony from two of the responding officers, plus new body cam footage, that they believe will finally turn things around in their favor and they're convinced it will show that Amber made up claims about their alleged May 2016 brawl in an attempt to ruin him and the video shows a neat apartment with nothing out of place, nothing broken or anything to suggest a knockdown fight had just occurred -- Johnny's always maintained his innocence and now he's confident this evidence will prove it and Johnny's also working on a tell-all that he intends to release as soon as he's declared innocent and the tome will vividly detail what happened on that night in 2016 and throughout their year-long marriage and Johnny feels Amber never really loved him and his friends warned him not to marry her, but he didn't listen, and he's paid a dear price for it

Page 7: A fateful chapter from Ashton Kutcher's past could be coming back to haunt him as he's being urged to take part in the upcoming documentary on his late ex Brittany Murphy and it's stressing him out to no end and so far, he wants nothing to do with it -- the documentary is going to look for clues as to why it all ended like this for Brittany, and producers want Ashton to tell his side of the story and the thinking is he may have little choice but to participate because he had a front row seat to Brittany's life, and her fans want him to shed light on what really happened

* Alec Baldwin and wife Hilaria Baldwin knew that having six kids would be a challenge, but they're realizing it's even harder to find nannies who are up to the task of tending to their brood because Alec and Hilaria have some pretty high expectations for the kind of people they want to employ and what the job entails and it's been a logistical nightmare hiring and scheduling a rotating team of caretakers -- in addition to children Carmen, 7, Rafael, 5, Leonardo, 4, and Romeo, 2, the parents welcomed baby Eduardo in September and their sixth child, Lucia, via surrogate in March -- long hours and multitasking are a must given the meal prep, diaper changes and homeschooling, plus the nannies have to know how to deal with a cranky set of kids without losing their cool and Hilaria's every bit the mother hen, so she won't settle for anything less than perfection

* Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna have had it with the romance between their daughter Amelia Hamlin and Scott Disick -- Amelia recently raised eyebrows when she was spotted with bruised lips, which often occurs after lip filler injections, and Harry and Lisa drew a line in the sand and they're concerned that Scott is convincing her to mess with her appearance, especially since she's talking about boob and butt surgery to keep his eyes off other girls and ever since the couple hooked up last October, Harry and Lisa have been sitting back and hoping that Amelia would come to her senses, but it's clear she's in way too deep now, and that they need to make their feelings known, but the worry is that Amelia will be pregnant before she knows it, so Harry and Lisa are ready to take the bull by the horns before Scott ruins their daughter's life

Page 8: It's been nearly four years since Matt Lauer was fired from Today amid a sexual assault scandal, and he's still being snubbed by his old Hamptons crowd -- Matt, who retreated to his waterfront estate in the celeb enclave after a colleague accused him of assaulting her at the 2014 Olympics, has done everything he can to regain his place in the community, but he's remained persona non grata despite his best efforts; he'll turn up to fancy events and be super friendly with everyone but most people just turn their noses at him -- the disgraced ex-anchor, who hooked up with public relations exec Shamin Abas after his 2019 divorce, has been talking to friends about marrying her in a big Hamptons wedding, but it's hard to imagine there'd be much of a turnout and people have had ample time to put out the welcome mat, but it seems like they've shut their doors on Matt for good

* Former Playboy Bunny Kendra Wilkinson has gone from living the high life to pounding the pavement to earn a paycheck, and she's missing the glam old days -- Kendra, who enjoyed a pampered existence as Hugh Hefner's girlfriend and Girls Next Door star, has had to bring home the bacon in the wake of her 2018 divorce from Hank Baskett to help provide for their two children, Hank, 11, and Alijah, 6, and being a single mom is a lot harder than she thought it would be and she currently resides in a humble Calabasas rental and recently snagged a job as a realtor and was hired by Kyle Richards' husband Mauricio Umansky and she's working long hours and weekends, and she looks pretty burnt out and Kendra tries not to complain and is sucking it up as best she can, but she can't help but think about the times when she didn't have to worry about bills and rent and could sleep in as long as she wanted

* He was once Hollywood's biggest bon vivant, but Jack Nicholson has become a total hermit, and friends are concerned that he's harder to get a hold of than ever and Jack's shut himself away in his hilltop home on Mulholland Drive, and everyone is worried about his state of mind -- the actor, who was last seen in public looking disheveled at a January 2020 Lakers game, says he just wants to spend his retirement in peace and quiet, but his loved ones wish he'd make himself a little more accessible -- Jack's admitted that he yearns for one last romance, but how can that happen when he's hiding at home? Jack turned 84 in April, and it's as if he's resigned to spending the rest of his life alone and it's so sad, but it seems there's nothing anyone can do for him

Page 10: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- stars wow in sexy shoulder-baring dresses -- Ella Balinska, Renee Zellweger, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Page 11: Adrienne Warren, Martha Hunt

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Rainey Qualley vs. Celine Dion in Chanel, Melissa Wood-Tepperberg vs. Idina Menzel in Alice + Olivia

Page 13: Ellie Goulding vs. Charli XCX in Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood

Page 14: News in Photos -- Gavin Rossdale took his beloved dog Chewy with him to tennis practice in the park in L.A.

Page 15: Jeff Goldblum stopped at celeb hotspot Craig's for dinner with wife Emilie Livingston and their kids Charlie and River in West Hollywood, newly single Real Housewives of Orange County star Braunwyn Windham-Burke hit the beach in Miami, Natasha Lyonne continued filming her series Russian Doll in NYC

Page 16: Amber Rose enjoyed lunch with her son Sebastian whom she shares with Wiz Khalifa in L.A.

Page 17: Anchor Robin Roberts filled viewers in on current events during Good Morning America in NYC, Kristen Taekman got all gussied up at her home in NYC, Howie Mandel showed up to the America's Got Talent set in surfing gear in Pasadena

Page 19: Bling Empire's Cherie Chan and fiance Jessey Lee grabbed a bite with their daughter Jadore, pro wrestler Ariane Andrew (a.k.a. Cameron) fueled up with a healthy sip

Page 20: Wells Adams stocked up on some essentials at the grocery store in L.A., Rachel Brosnahan protected herself with an umbrella while filming The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in NYC

Page 21: Jon Hamm and his new rescue dog Splash get some fresh air in L.A., Whitney Port in a beige sweater dress and matching boots while recording her podcast in NYC

Page 22: Selling Sunset's Christine Quinn brightened things up in designer duds while walking her dogs in L.A., Monique Green attended the drive-in premiere of her new series Big Shot in L.A.

Page 23: Irina Shayk and her daughter Lea De Seine walked hand in hand around NYC, friendly exes Sara Gilbert and Linda Perry take a stroll in L.A., Law and Order: SVU stars Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T snapped a photo together in between takes

Page 26: Inside My Home -- Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's designer digs

Page 28: Home Town stars Ben and Erin Napier recently announced they're getting ready to welcome their second child, a girl, and the famously private pair, who chose to keep the news a secret to avoid any extra unwanted attention or stress, could not be more excited -- this baby is a miracle because Erin was told years ago that pregnancy would be unlikely due to a past health issue and when their first daughter Helen arrived, they were overjoyed, and they never imagined they'd be blessed with a second -- with Erin's due date just around the corner, she and Ben are busy prepping Helen to become a big sis and they have no doubt she'll be wonderful because she's very warm and empathetic toward others and she loves to hug so the baby will be extremely loved -- after the newborn's arrival, the busy HGTV stars will take some much-needed time off and they're a team, and Ben plans to be there to support Erin and make sure she gets her needed rest, but they both love what they do, so it won't be long before they're back in front of the cameras -- while baby No. 3 chatter has already begun, the college sweethearts aren't getting ahead of themselves and Ben and Erin always dreamed of having a big family, and if they can, there will be more children, but if it doesn't happen, then they will be quite content as a foursome

Page 29: Kacey Musgraves is head over heels for her new boyfriend Gerald Onuoha, but friends are worried that she may be rushing the romance -- Kacey, who hooked up with the Nashville-based doctor after calling it quits on her three-year marriage to Ruston Kelly in July, tends to jump into things with her heart and this relationship falls into that category and Kacey, who was spotted snuggling up to her physician beau while out and about in L.A., is on cloud nine with this guy, but when she has to hit the road again it's not like he can pull up stakes and follow her -- she's not thinking straight about the future, and her friends are bracing for trouble once reality sinks in and Kacey would be wise to slow things down and not get ahead of herself

* George Clooney turned the big 6-0 on May 6, and his wife Amal Clooney is being a bit of a birthday buzzkill -- George wants a big, booze-soaked sky's-the-limit bash in an exotic locale like Mexico or Italy with his old drinking buddies like Rande Gerber, but Amal is pushing for a quiet family celebration at home with their children Alexander and Ella, and it's led to a few arguments -- George figures it's his chance to finally let off steam and that it's his choice on how to mark the milestone occasion and he wants Amal and the other wives to come and join in on the fun, but watching George get wasted certainly isn't her idea of a good time and she sees nothing wrong with a dinner at home

Page 30: Harrison Ford is finally set to start filming the new Indiana Jones movie this summer, and his wife Calista Flockhart will be keeping a close eye to make sure he stays safe on the set -- Harrison has been training hard to get in shape and is feeling great, but at his age, you can understand why Calista is concerned and protective Calista plans to accompany Harrison as he shoots the fifth Indiana Jones installment in London and other locales and he's still capable of doing his own stunts, and a lot of it is thanks to Calista, who made sure he stayed fit with weight training and proper nutrition, but Harrison's going to have the best people in the business looking out for him so he doesn't get hurt again, otherwise Calista wouldn't have given him the green light

* It's barely been three months since Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker went public with their hot and heavy romance, and they're already talking about getting engaged and pregnant, not necessarily in that order and Kourtney fully believes this isn't just a honeymoon phase, but that Travis is the man she's going to share her dreams with -- as for Travis, he's been telling everyone he's hit the jackpot with Kourtney and Travis, who has two kids of his own, has already started shopping for rings and he's planning an ultra-romantic proposal because he's big on grand gestures and he's still looking for the perfect ring, but that doesn't mean the baby-making has to wait until it's on her finger

* Love Bites -- Zac Efron and Vanessa Valladares split, Brooks Laich and CrossFit athlete Katrin Davidsdottir dating, Tan France and husband Rob are having a baby this summer

Page 32: Cover Story -- Kim Kardashian single and loving it -- ready to mingle, an unattached Kim is having fun exploring her dating options -- she did all she could with Kanye West and now she needs to steer a new course for herself -- she's been relishing her single status and feels like she can finally breathe again -- Kim may be living it up, but her four children remain her primary focus -- the eligible bachelors who've caught Kim's eye: Drake, Rege-Jean Page, Brad Pitt, Lewis Hamilton

Page 35: Jennifer Aniston's on such good terms with her old flames she still talks to ex-husbands Brad Pitt and Justin Theroux regularly and has even stayed in touch with her former beau John Mayer -- Jen and Brad have a lot of complicated history, but she's glad they reconnected and are friends again and she thinks the world of Brad, and they support each other -- Justin recently revealed he and Jen text and FaceTime, and the divorced duo will always share a special bond -- although she and John split in 2009, Jen and the musician still hang out from time to time and they flirt here and there and when John's in town, Jen's down to meet him -- but friends are urging the star to finally and firmly move on from her exes and they think she needs a fresh start, and Jen's been on a few dates with someone who isn't famous and Jen's not looking to get married again, but she'd like to have a partner to share her life with and this guy could be the one, she's just got to give the relationship a fair chance, without any distractions

* Weeks after announcing she'd called it quits with Alex Rodriguez, Jennifer Lopez is feeling sad and disappointed and she didn't want to believe the rumors about Alex's wandering eye, but the Madison LeCroy thing was the last straw -- it's not the first time Jennifer's been fooled by a bad boy as cheating rumors plagued her romances with Sean "Diddy" Combs and Casper Smart and she's wiser now -- Jennifer's saving grace is she's got a jam-packed schedule so it won't leave too much time to be broken-hearted and she's a busy mom of two with a million projects up in the air so don't expect her to be dwelling on the past for too long

Page 36: Young and In Love -- Why wait? These stars were in their early 20s, or teens, when they tied the knot -- Olivia Wilde married an Italian prince when she was 19, Hailey Baldwin married Justin Bieber when she was 21

Page 37: Demi Moore married rocker Freddy Moore at 17, Uma Thurman married Gary Oldman when she was 20, Cher married Sonny Bono at 18, Macaulay Culkin married actress Rachel Miner when he was 18

Page 38: Jessica Simpson married Nick Lachey at age 22, Kate Hudson married rocker Chris Robinson when she was 21, Drew Barrymore married when she was 19 for only 19 days

Page 39: Janet Jackson married R&B singer James DeBarge when she was 18, Kim Kardashian eloped with a music producer when she was 19, Solange Knowles married and a baby at 18, LeAnn Rimes married a backup dancer at 19

Page 40: Interview -- Anya Taylor-Joy thrilled to pieces -- The Queen's Gambit star is still processing her phenomenal success

Page 42: Role Models -- like mother, like daughter -- these stars are inspiring their kids to stay healthy and fit -- Brooke Burke, Gisele Bundchen

Page 43: Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber, Christie Brinkley and Sailor Brinkley-Cook, Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba

Page 46: Style Week -- Saweetie has a new sunglasses collaboration with Quay

Page 48: What's Hot Right Now -- stand out with a statement piece from the 8 Other Reasons x Draya Michele capsule collection

Page 49: Make Me Blush -- follow spring 2021's hottest beauty trend and create a flush with a pop of peach, pastel pink or terracotta -- Mindy Kaling

Page 50: Mother's Day Gift Guide -- Molly Sims

Page 54: Entertainment

Page 55: Reality Check -- your small screen guilty pleasures are back and here are all the details -- Bar Rescue, The Real Housewives of New York City, Teen Mom 2, Million Dollar Listing New York

Page 58: Buzz -- The ACM Awards in Nashville -- Carrie Underwood and CeCe Winans, Keith Urban and fellow emcee Mickey Guyton, Kenny Chesney and Kelsea Ballerini

Page 59: Blake Shelton, Chris Young and Kane Brown, Miranda Lambert and Elle King, Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley, Maren Morris and husband Ryan Hurd

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Jessica Alba on not being afraid to complain, Justin Theroux on dating, Jodie Turner-Smith on her and Joshua Jackson being perfect partners, Rob McElhenney on expectations of men in Hollywood

Page 61: Chrissy Teigen on her break from Twitter, Courteney Cox showing off her extremely organized kitchen on Instagram, Lance Bass on the basic thing in his past he'd like to move on from, Amanda Seyfried on confiding to the Mank costume designer about her pregnancy, John Stamos on getting together with wife Caitlin, Eiza Gonzalez on developing body confidence

Page 62: Horoscope -- Taurus Henry Cavill turned 38 on May 5

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Rege-Jean Page

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marvelgbt-posts · 4 years

Text

you’ve changed

i thought the song goes well with the scene (sw: peter cries) where peter cries so if you wanna play it there, you can :)

Request: Hi I hope your having a good day or night depends on the time your reading this. How about a Peter Parker x Male chubby reader were they dated before thanos snapped his finger and the reader didn't get snapped away and spent the next 5 years living out his life and when peter comes back he finds the reader but their in their 20's and divorced with a kid. Then they try to work things out. It could have angst but have fluffy ending. Maybe the reader waits till peter is olderand ask him to marry

i absolutely l o v e this idea, ty for requesting ^^ it's somewhere after homecoming, but mj already knows about peter, in the first part. The second one would be uh after endgame lol

youtube

You weren’t popular amongst your peers. Hell, no one really knew you or your friend group of four. You didn't mind, nothing like that really bothered you all. Michelle was currently using Ned as a reference for another one of her art pieces that would bring some sort of “revelation” to those who viewed it, like the ones you see when browsing your Instagram feed about global warming or species endangerment.

Peter, on the other hand, was working on his new suit upgrades. Behind Mr. Stark’s back, he wanted to make his suit more powerful, especially since his parental lock was taken off - also behind Stark’s back, but he didn't have to know (though, of course, he already did). You were working on school assignments since there was nothing better for you to do anyways. Both you and Peter worked on the floor while MJ had Ned sat on the bed in a position where he looked as if he were murdered.

You glanced over at Peter; he peeked over at you simultaneously, the two of you smiling as a bit of pink made it to both your cheeks. You went back to your respective work, as did Peter.

…

“Peter?” you whispered, careful not to wake MJ and Ned up; MJ next to you on the ground and Ned, snoring on the top mattress of Peter’s bunk bed with an arm and a leg slung over the edge. “Yeah?” he whispered back, equally as cautious. You sat up a little, “I can’t sleep…”

“Yeah, me neither..” he responded.

“Can I, um.. Sleep next to you? Maybe?” you asked shyly, before shaking your head, “nevermind.. That sounds stupid, just forget it.”

“No!” Peter winced, looking up to Ned dangling over the edge of the bunk, before lowering his voice, “No, it’s fine. You can come up here, I don’t mind.”

You carefully slipped out of the blankets you shared with MJ and hopped into bed next to Peter. He was at least a head taller than you, if not half. He awkwardly shifted to the wall, and you felt like cringing. You were always a bit.. soft.. You weren't obese; oh no, you were the average healthy weight, and you could complete the mile somewhere in its required time. It wasn’t like you were unhealthily big, it was just your body shape. You had big thighs and a tummy that would show through shirts that were too tight (for your liking, anyway). Compared to Peter’s secretly toned body, you were like a marshmallow, and you disliked it very, very much.

However, Peter loved it, though he’d never admit it. Sure, you took up a little over half the space, but Peter honestly could care less. You felt him nudge your side, moving to come a bit closer. He was just in boxers and a t-shirt. You had pants and a hoodie, and Peter could just barely feel your body warmth. He looked at you, and you could just barely make out the shape of his eyes, how they looked; begging, big, puppy-like eyes. You bit your lip, suppressing a giggle, “Careful Parker, that’s pretty gay..!” you joked silently. He let out a breathy laugh, “Nothing’s gay about cuddling with your best friend..!” You chuckled, opening your arms for him to come into. He rested his chin on top of your head, wrapping his arms around your upper body while you wrapped your arms around his slim waist.

Like magic, you both found the sleep you’ve been craving so much.

~~~

You watched in fear as half of the people around you began to vanish in clouds of dust. You looked over to MJ, who was accompanying you to a bookshop that had just opened a few days ago. She looked down to her feet, which began to slowly fade away, before looking up at you in fear, “y/n, i–” but she was gone. You tried to grab her hand, her shirt, anything, thinking it would somehow stop what was happening. But you couldn't, if anything it sped up the process. You cried, trying desperately to grasp some of the ashes of one of your best friends before she was gone– to no avail.

Crying there in the streets of New York, watching as people screamed for their loved ones, you curled up into a fetal position, tears streaming down your cheeks. You knew Peter had skipped a school field trip to join Iron man and the other well-known Avengers in whatever was causing this, but you had no idea where Ned was, if he was alright... And, well, you already knew MJ was long gone.

What about your parents? Were they disappearing as well? Quickly, you ran back in the direction of your small Queens apartment, praying to whatever gods were out there that they were safe and unharmed.

~~~

The hallways of Midtown high school were crowded as those who had disappeared from the ‘Snap’ reunited with their friends. No one realized that, for five years, they had all gone missing. Sure, they remembered the process, but for them, it was like taking a five-minute nap rather than a five-year-long one. Peter was almost breathless as he saw MJ and Ned on campus, a wide smile on his face as he jogged up to them, surprising the both of his friends as they all had a moment, hugging, shaking hands, glad that everyone was safe.

Well...

Almost everyone.

“W-Where’s y/n?” Peter asked, looking around to try and find your small and round frame that he missed since he’d left Earth. MJ and Ned shared a look, and Ned bit his lip. “He-... he’s not here..”

Peter choked on his breath, “He died?!”

“What? No, no,” MJ was quick to confirm, waving her arms almost frantically, “He wasn’t uh, what do you call it? Snapped? He stayed here, he grew up.. He’s like, twenty now.”

Peter couldn't believe it. You would’ve been way older than him now! “Tell me you’re kidding, is this a prank?”

MJ shook her head, as well as Ned. No. No, no, no, that can't be true. If it was, were you lost from them? Did you know where they were? He was scared for you, imagining your chubby, short form frightened and worried for everyone's sake. He looked desperately at his two remaining friends, “Do we.. Do you know where he is? His location?”

Ned beamed, “I’m your guy in the chair, of course I know where he is!”

…

Peter was hesitant to knock at your door, knuckles moving towards and then away from the wooden surface. He had to admit, your place was nice, on the outside at least. He could judge the inside once.. If… you answered the door. Once Peter got the courage to finally make his presence known, a few seconds later a child peered through the window. He was surprised, but smiled and waved to the kid. She smiled and waved back, before looking behind her. Peter assumed that was, hopefully, you. The door opened, and Peter had to look up, like, wayyy up. You had gotten taller, and slimmer. Peter noticed you were more built, and he had to stop himself from lowering his gaze and letting his mind melt into the gutter. “Peter..?” you asked, almost dumbfounded at the sight of your high school crush. The little girl from before wrapped her arms around your leg, looking up at Peter with wide eyes, “Daddy, who’s this?”

“Daddy?!” Peter blurted out without thinking. This was all happening so fast. “y/n?” he looked up at your face again, and you nodded. While much had changed about you, he was glad your smile remained the same. Soft and bright and infectious.

“Yep, this is my daughter, say hi honey,” you looked down at your daughter, who shyly waved and grinned at Peter. She has your smile, Peter thought to himself.

Wait, if this was your kid, that meant.. You were married? He couldn't imagine it, the thought of it. The life he imagined so many times over and over in his head, about what life would be like with you in the future, ruined because of some giant purple alien with a lack of brain cells and the face of an avocado’s backside, and a woman he didn’t know of.

“Peter, would you like to come in? I bet you have questions..?” you asked, and Peter shook his head to get out of his thoughts, before nodding, “Yes, please.” Here you two were, speaking formally as if you were business partners. You invited him inside, and your daughter moved to the couch, taking a small, pink, fluffy bunny into her arms as she sat down. “Emily,” you said sternly, making Peter flinch, “What did we say about shoes on the couch?”

The girl, Emily, promptly removed her velcro slip-on shoes before looking to her father, who smiled in approval, “Good girl!” She smiled, and Peter giggled as he sat himself on the couch. You sat on the opposite side of him, your daughter moving from next to Peter, to your lap. You sat her on your knee as she played quietly with her bunny stuffed toy.

“So, you, uhh, grew up?” Peter asked awkwardly, and you chuckled bitterly, “yeah, haha.”

“You’ve changed,”

“Five years does that to you, I guess,”

“This your daughter?”

“Yep. Emily. She’s three.”

‘That means you had her around, what, junior year? y/n, I didn’t know you had it in you…!’ Peter joked to himself in his mind. But there was a burning feeling in his stomach. This domestic lifestyle; a quiet house, a child, and later on he found out you had a german shepherd named Skittles (Emily had named him). He wanted this life for so long, ever since he realized his feelings for you, with you. But you had lived a life without him, not that he blamed it on you.

After an hour or two of recalling the last five years of your life to Peter, including meeting Amanda, your ex-wife, and having Emily, it was time for him to leave.

“It was nice talking to you again, Peter,” you said shyly, another thing that hadn’t changed, thankfully. He bit his lip, lingering on your porch a bit, “Uh, hey.. y/n..?”

“Yeah?”

“So.. you aren’t with your ex-wife anymore, right?”

“Yep, no contact, nothing,” you were holding Emily in your arms, resting her on your hip. You could see conflict in Peter’s eyes, so you let her down and shooed her off playfully to go entertain herself with toys. She obeyed, and you turned to Peter, who looked up at you with glossed eyes. You felt your breath hitch, “Peter.. What- are you okay?”

He nodded, biting his lip, before shaking his head, “no, no I’m not okay! You grew up, you have a life now.. I didn’t even get the chance to be a part of it.. You– I loved you! I still do..” he cried, wiping his tears as he sobbed. You looked down at him, and you couldn’t help but sigh. He was still a child, of course. He hadn’t matured at all, since he’d basically been frozen in time. He was still the same childish teenager you knew five years ago. “Peter..” you whispered soothingly, wrapping your arms around him. It was now your turn to rest your chin on his head like he would do all those nights in freshman year. You held him in a protective embrace, and he just held onto your back, gripping at the fabrics of your t-shirt. You shushed him, “Peter, it's okay, I’m here..”

“But you’ve outgrown me! You’ve lived your life, you have a daughter, you got married, all without me! I wanted to be the person you could count on, the one you would go to sleep and wake up to at night, someone you loved, but instead.. I-.. you…” he didn’t know how to finish his sentence, instead crying into your shoulder. “Peter, I understand..” You whispered, “I loved you, too, I still do.. It’s just.. Our age gap now, I don’t think we can make it work now..”

Petr let out a shaky breath, nodding, “Yeah… I’m sorry,” he said, and you shook your head, “You don't have to apologize, none of this is your fault…”

Peter looked to your chest, still holding tightly onto you, before he perked up, looking up at your eyes, “Wait, y/n, I think.. Could you… What if I graduated? Wait no, that didn’t come out right.”

You chuckled. Peter shook his head, “no, listen to me. I know I’m five years younger than you now, but.. If I came back after graduating high school, when I’m older, would you be willing to, I dunno, make it work?” You thought for a minute, biting your lip, “Maybe… it would give us enough time to.. Catch up, fully…” the look on Peter’s face, it made you melt.

~~~

Ever since that day, Peter had been visiting you and Emily almost every day. Emily became used to him a few weeks in, now looking forward to her favorite visitor to knock on the door. She would open it and squeal, “Uncle Petey!” and Peter would always carry her when he walked in, without ail, and lift her up and make her giggle. The fact that Peter was treating your young like one of his own, it made you fall even more in love.

One day, you and Emily were in the kitchen, finishing up homework for her first-grade class. She huffed, “This English stuff sucks! I’d rather do math, and be super brain smart like Uncle Peter,” she said, crossing her arms. You sighed, and a giggle came from the doorway of the kitchen. You looked behind you to see Peter leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed, “English is important too, kid,” he said, sitting next to Emily, across from you. He was eighteen now and on his way to a promising college. He had a lot of responsibilities already, with his senior grades coming to an end and taking up half of Stark Industries with Pepper. You were proud of him, to say the least.

“In order to be super smart,” you said, “you have to be well-rounded. That includes English, young lady. Come on, it can’t be that hard,” you took a look at her paper, “Oh shit, wait this is hard.”

Peter and Emily gasped, “Language!” they said at the same time, making the three of you giggle. “y/n, I have something to ask you,” Peter said, glancing at Emily, “privately.”

Emily sighed, exasperated, “What?! Why can’t I know?!” she whined, kicking her legs a little. You chuckled, ruffling her hair a bit, “Get to finishing that homework, kid, we’ll be right back.” Emily pouted but got to work regardless.

“What is it Peter?” you asked once the two of you made it to the living room. Peeter looked into your eyes, he had grown taller, almost as tall as you now. “So, uh, I talked with Mrs. Stark, about things… I uh, I think I’m gonna move into the Stark Tower, focus on my studies there, help Pepper with running the Industry and prepare Morgan. She’s seven now, you know, just a year younger than Emily... They’d be great friends.. Emily likes math, Morgan is a science buff, like her dad.. Uh,”

“Peter, what are you getting at?” you asked, a small grin forming on your lips. He rubbed the back of his neck, “I’m getting at- uh, what I’m trying to say, what I’m asking is if, you and Emily would like to stay with me in the Tower? It would be easier for us to see each other.. And Morgan would love Skittles, and Emily, she wouldn’t be lonely when she comes home. Morgan is homeschooled at the moment, they could both be homeschooled together so they aren’t lonely, you know? A-And–”

“Peter,” you cut him off as he began rambling. He looked up at you, clearly shaken and desperately awaiting your response. You smiled, “Of course, I'd be happy to move in with you. But I might reconsider the whole ‘homeschool’ thing. I want Emily to be raised normally. She’s smart, sure, but she still needs school. Homeschool, we can think about when she’s older.”

Peter grinned, hugging you, “Of course! We can do that!” he giggled, and you heard a cheer come from behind the two of you. You turned around, a scowl on your face as you saw Emily, not doing homework. “Emily! Why aren't you finishing your English homework?”

She blushed, “The kitchen and the living room are right next to each other! How could I not overhear..?” she paused a moment before speaking up, “Are we really gonna live at Stark Tower..?” You sent Peter a look, and he smiled and nodded, “Mhm! Right next door to Uncle Pete!” Emily was ecstatic, and that was an understatement.

~~~

An eleven-year-old Morgan and ten-year-old Emily were playing Wii Sports in the lounge, Morgan purposefully losing to Emily since she had been winning too easily the last few rounds. She was treating Emily exactly like a younger sister, and it warmed your heart as much as the coffee you held warmed your hands. Emily cheered, having won another Tennis match. Morgan faked sighed, “Huff, that doesn’t make sense, you’re cheating!” she playfully shoved Emily, and they both giggled. Eventually, Pepper came into the room, “Morgan,” she called sweetly, and both daughters looked up, “it’s time for you and Emily to head to bed.” The girls groaned but nonetheless followed directions.

You nodded over to Pepper, “I’m gonna head to my room now, got some work to do,” to which Pepper responded with a nice, “alright, sweet dreams y/n.” You waved goodbye and made your way to your room.

…

You were covered in your bedsheets, warm and on the verge of falling asleep when a knock came from your door. You sat up, a groggy and sort of annoyed “Come in,” emitting from the depths of your throat. Peter came in, a little embarrassed, you could tell, that he had disturbed you at this hour, “y-y/n, can I come in? I.. can’t sleep,” he admitted, looking at his bare feet. You yawned, not being able to stay mad at him, and nodded, patting the space next to you. No longer had you filled up more than half the space in the bed like you had 5 years ago, Peter noticed, beginning to miss those times when you did and feeling a little bitter that he had missed so much time with you.

You took initiative and wrapped your arms around Peter’s shoulders, bringing him into your now toned chest. Peter went red; you could feel the heat of his face against your skin. Peter wrapped his arms shyly around your waist. He was twenty-two now, and you were twenty-seven. It didn’t seem like much of an age gap now as it had seven years ago. He bit his lip, should he ask now?

After a few minutes of conflict, Peter opened his mouth to speak, until he realized you had… already fallen asleep.

‘Great,’ Peter sighed, ‘The one time I manage to muster up the courage to ask, and he’s asleep.’

…

Another few months had passed. You were in the kitchen, going through your phone while making another cup of coffee for yourself, before you felt Peter wrap his arms around you from behind, resting his head in between your shoulder blades. “Good morning, handsome~” you teased, to which earned a groan in response. You had been dating for around four or five months, but it honestly felt like longer. Well, of course you were dating before making it official, you yourselves just didn’t know it yet, but pepper sure knew, as well as morgan, Emily, May, Happy, and everyone else you knew.

‘Today is the day,’ you thought to yourself, handing Peter a cup of coffee as he opened up his tablet to begin working on lab assignments. He thanked you and you kissed his cheek, before leaving the kitchen to the lounge, sitting on the couch while waiting for Peter to join you. ‘Today’s the day,’ you repeated the thought, ‘I’m going to ask him, today’s the day.’ Peter eventually joined you and you cuddled for the whole day, Peter finishing his assignments all the while.

You checked your watch, sighing, “Pete, I gotta go pick up Emily,” you said, kissing his cheek and nudging him off you. He whined, “If we homeschooled Emily, you wouldn’t have to worry about picking her up!” he whined, and you had to hold back a laugh. Peter had picked up Emily’s habit of whining. You swore she was becoming more like Peter’s child every day.

…

Peter began sleeping with you since you two began dating. It helped Peter with stress from work and his recurring nightmares of Tony’s death. It also helped you, since you had trouble sleeping as well. One night, however, as you both were staying up late talking and kissing, a hesitant knock came at your door. You looked to each other before Peter sat up to allow whoever was knocking to come in. It was Emily and Morgan. “Hey girls,” you sat up, voice calm and soothing, “What’s wrong?”

Morgan spoke up, “Mom’s out of the tower right now and the storm outside is scaring us,” she admitted, and Emily nodded her head. You cooed, and Peter opened his arms for the two children to come into. They climbed into bed, sleeping in between you and Peter. Emily had her head against your chest, listening to your heartbeat as she hugged you. Morgan had her back against Peter, who was sleeping on his side, petting her hair gently. The two of you were shirtless, but warm from the blanket, and the girls loved it.

A loud crack of thunder scared them both, and Emily clung onto you. You looked at Peter, who had the same look of sympathy as you. You sighed softly and began humming a tune from a song you’d heard once, calming the kids down until their eyes began to droop closed. Eventually, they were sound asleep against the two of you. You smiled, seeing as Peter was beginning to look a bit tired as well. “Pete,” you whispered, careful not to wake the girls, “Mh?” he responded tiredly. You played with Emily’s hair lovingly, running your hands through her h/c locks, the ones she inherited from you. “Emily really loves you, y’know?” Peter smiled, “That’s good to hear,” he said with a yawn.

“Yeah, she really looks up to you, kinda makes me jealous,” you admitted. Peter leaned forward, not wanting to crush Morgan. “Hm? Yeah.. I can tell she wants to follow in my footsteps, but it’s scary. If I mess up, she might too, you know what I mean?” Peter looked down at Emily, “I don't wanna be the villain in her storybook.”

You brushed Emily’s bangs out of her face, nodding, “Welcome to my life. It’s been hard ever since I divorced her mother. I don’t recall ever telling you this, but her mother was an alcoholic, which is why I left her and took Emily with me. She was never physical, but yelled at Emily a lot, even though she was only two years old.” Peter nodded in understanding, “That.. I’m sorry about that,” he said, looking up at you. You shook your head, “Don’t be. It’s in the past, and Emily hardly remembers any of it now… but, her looking up to you, reminds me of how she’d normally look up to a parent..”

Peter flushed red, “But, I’m just her uncle…”

“You don’t have to be,” you said immediately after, and Peter looked as if he would cry, “y/n, don't tell me y-you’re..”

“Peter, I think... I think I want to marry you, have the life Emily and I never got to have with Amanda. I know it won't be exactly the same, seeing as we’re both men. But I know Emily won't mind, and honestly, that’s all that I think should matter..” you looked up at Peter to see him crying, “Oh, god, no Peter don't cry..!” you said but he just shook his head, before biting his lip and nodding, “If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, then yes,” he said, a little choked.

…

The next morning, you broke the news to Pepper, who was a little more than excited. You then told May, who threatened you with your life, going on about how if you ever broke Peter’s heart she’d blah blah blah. You laughed at Peter's embarrassed face. Happy could have cared less, mumbling an “It’s about time, jeez”. Then, you told Emily, who took a second to process it before she jumped up and hugged you both, kicking and jumping around and just being a happy little ray of sunshine. You and Peter could say– without a doubt– her reaction, her happiness, that was what was most important, what made it all worth it. Time really has changed you and Peter both, and it was safe to assume you both wanted to keep it that way.

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker mlm #x male reader #gay imagine #marvel #spiderman #marvelgbt-posts #peter parkerr x male reader

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professional-benaddict · 5 years

Text

Starker Britain, 1938 AU

Tony, 18+ Peter, interwar period, Britain, chronic illness, doctors and exams, May and Richard Parker alive but absent, soft pxrn, 2.7k

For the mood boards here

Tag list: @carey-roza @annoyingcatto @strawberryparkers @starker-3000 @starkerprince @urfavisastarker @misssecretstudenttree @80zmdewrit3rbabe

It took two nurses and a very determined doctor to get Peter to breathe, and scream, when he was first born on a very hot and dry August day in 1920. Ever since that day, breathing has been a struggle for the boy and the blue tint in his skin when he was just a babe still lingers on his fingernails, around his eyes and on his lips till this day. Some would have thought that having a sickly son would make Richard and Mary Parker want to spend time with their only child, but in reality it had the opposite effect and made the pair hide away from the son, using work as an excuse. Some would say that it was no excuse at all, however, as Britain needed everyone to do their part to rebuild their homeland after the Great War. And, with another war building up in the Eastern horizon, international relations are not the only ones turning tense, but also family relations and the Parker family is no exception. Richard is called back to do his duty for his country as a Major, while Mary has to start training hundreds of new nurses to treat the wounded soldiers that are coming, which is her duty as head nurse at the hospital in town.

Peter’s parents are so rarely around the Parker estate, so Peter is left alone in the huge house with the maids, his books and Gladstone, a rough looking, but kind hearted English bulldog. Peter finds enormous comfort in his pet, as well as some irony in them both struggling to breathe. Besides petting Gladstone and reading books, Peter looks forward to his weekly visit from the family doctor, Tony Stark. The doctor is American, and even after all these years, Peter is still incredibly intrigued by the way the doctor talks and moves. The boy finds the older man very exotic and endlessly fascinating and always has a list of at least a dozen questions that he has prepared to ask the doctor when he arrives at 1pm on Thursday. The list includes mostly questions about how life is in America, but sometimes also about technology and medicine.

“Thank you, Hogan.” Tony smiles, stepping out of the car with his medical bag in one hand. The driver gives a wordless nod and exists the car as well to go and have his usual smoke as he waits for the doctor to return on one of the benches in the large garden surrounding the Parker estate.

Before heading in to see his patient, Tony usually always makes a quick stop by the stables, offering the happily nickering horses sugar cubes from the palm of his hand. The doctor has always been fond of horses. It reminds him of home back in America. But, to his disappointment and confusion, Tony finds none of the Parker’s three horses to be in the stables, which is odd to say the least. Waving a greeting to one of the gardeners, Tony heads down the gravel road to the back of the building instead of taking the steps leading up to the front door.

“Afternoon, Doc.” The gardener smiles widely, showing the gap between his front teeth as he pushes his hat further back on his head to meet the doctor’s eyes. “Back so soon?”

“It’s Thursday.” Tony points out with a chuckle. He always comes on Thursdays.

“Oh, right, right, silly ol’ me. This summer heat has been getting to my head, I fear.” The gardener huffs, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

“You be careful, Barry, the heat is not to be messed with.” The doctor says, his voice a bit sharp with concern for the hardworking older man. Just like the doctor, the gardener has been serving the Parker’s for decades now. The gardener tips his hat with a grin and says his thanks before excusing himself to continue tending to the flower beds. But, the doctor does not let him go just yet.

“I couldn’t help but notice that the horses are all gone. Have they gotten sick?”

“Oh, the army came and took them, Doc.” The gardener says. Tony nods thoughtfully and thanks Barry before heading off, adjusting his hold on his bag and continuing ahead till he reaches the backdoor of the kitchen.

The kitchen is surprisingly quiet, so Tony guesses that the maids and kitchen staff have just finished with lunch and are taking a break. Setting his bag down on the counter, the doctor peels off his jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt before washing his hands thoroughly. By the time he is done, one of the maids enters the kitchen and startles with a little yelp.

“Oh, it’s you Doctor Stark! I didn’t hear you come in.” The maid squeaks out and resumes what she came to do by setting a tray down on the counter.

“Afternoon, Emily. Was that Peter’s lunch you just brought back?” The doctor asks, eyeing the considerable amount of food that is still left on the plate. At least the glass is empty.

“Yes, Doctor Stark, he hasn’t been eating much, sadly. Major Parker had to cancel his trip home last weekend.” The maid, Emily, replies dutifully.

“May I see?” Tony asks, extending his hand. Emily nods promptly and goes to one of the cabinets. From behind a large jar of flour, she pulls out a little notebook and hands it to the doctor. Tony accepts it with a ‘thank you’ and flips through the pages, humming thoughtfully as he looks at the newest food logs since his visit the week before. The boy has been eating less and less. “Thank you, Emily. I assume he is in his room?” The doctor says, handing the notebook back to the maid who puts it back in its hiding place.

“Yes, Doctor. Shall I make some tea for you?”

“That would be lovely. And some biscuits as well, if you could?” Tony smiles, placing his jacket over his forearm and takes his bag in the other hand before heading upstairs. He greets the maids as he passes them and then pauses by a door, knocking three times and chuckles at the familiar growls coming from behind the door before entering.

Like always, it is Gladstone who greets him, or rather comes to inspect to decide whether to let him enter his master’s bedroom. The bulldog has never bitten anyone, although he is fully capable of doing so and gets that point across with his growls and rough huffs as he blocks the way into the room.

“Hey, boy, will you let me in?” Tony chuckles and crouches down to let the dog smell his hand. After a sniff and another growl, the bulldog waddles back to his owner, using the seat at the bottom of the bed to climb back up to join his master on the queen sized bed. The doctor knows that he has been granted access and closes the door behind him.

With the thin and light silk curtains drawn, the large bedroom bathes in the gentle and pale yellow light that the midday sun casts. Everything looks peaceful and quiet and the curtains dance lightly in the gentle breeze coming through the open balcony door. The doctor is pleased to know that the boy is at least following some of his advice. Having all the windows and doors shut would just make his breathing worse.

Turning his attention to the bed, Tony finds Peter on his back, sleeping peacefully. Or as peacefully as he can with his slightly laboured breathing. The boy’s chest rises and falls a little too fast for the doctor’s liking, but at least it is even. He must have fallen asleep just a moment ago since the maid was just here. Tony hates the fact that he will have to wake the boy, but it is a necessary evil.

“Peter…” Tony starts gently, sitting next to his patient on the bed and taking his delicate hand into his own, feeling his pulse under his fingertips. “Peter.”

The boy stirs slowly, blinking his eyes a few times, but does not open them yet. He huffs a little, his lips curling into a soft smile at the familiar and comforting sound of his doctor, whom he has known his entire life. The doctor was actually the one who held him even before his mother did when he was first born.

“Hi…” Peter murmurs, not opening his eyes yet, but tilts his head towards Tony. The doctor feels how the boy’s hand tightens its grip in his, like an infant does on reflex.

“Hi.” Tony replies softly. “Won’t you open your pretty eyes for me?”

Finally the boy obliges and cracks his eyes open so that honey brown eyes meet darker brown ones. Peter feels his heart flutter just a bit at the warm smile that Tony returns him. He traces the smile lines in the older man’s face with his eyes for a split second. One can easily tell that Doctor Stark is a kind doctor based on those smile lines.

“Have you had trouble sleeping too?” Tony asks, getting to business. Peter frowns at him and coughs a little before placing his hand on Gladstone’s square-shaped head. The dog hums in content and settles his head down on his master’s hip to be pet.

“Too? Have the maids told on me?” The boy asks with a quiet chuckle. Tony notices the sad undertone in the sound in an instant. He does not even need to ask to know that the boy is quite disappointed with his father for canceling his weekend trip home, again. At least his mother does not make any promises, so she does not end up breaking them either.

“Yes, Emily tells me that you haven’t been eating properly. Must I stress to you once more how important it is that you at least maintain your current weight?”

“Don’t waste your breath.” Peter shoots back, a playful grin on his face as he looks at the doctor pull out the stethoscope from his bag. It is still the same bag that Tony had with him when he got the message that Mary Parker had started labour and delivered Peter into the world. That was now nearly 20 years ago. But, the stethoscope is a new one. Tony rolls his eyes at the cheeky response. Snarkiness is a good thing. It means that the patients still have some fight in them.

“Speaking of, how has you breathing been?” Tony asks, putting the earpieces in place after unbuttoning the soft and white cotton tunic that the boy is wearing. Peter of course lays back and lets the doctor do as he pleases, keeping his gaze fixed on Tony’s eyes as he places the diaphragm on his vulnerable and ghostly pale chest.

“Not any better, nor any worse.” Peter says, coughing weakly and clearing his throat.

“The same?” Tony rephrases, placing the chest-piece just under Peter’s left nipple.

“The same.” Peter repeats, still keeping his eyes fixed on the doctor.

The rest of the check up goes by like always with Tony checking the boy’s temperature, blood pressure, eyes and throat all the while Peter tells the doctor about the books he has finished since the last visit. The finished books include two different ones on botany and three of Doyle’s detective novels. Sometime during Peter’s summary of the second botany book, Gladstone had hopped down from the bed and trotted to the balcony to growl at the gardener down below.

“‘The Hound of Baskerville’ again?” The doctor asks, putting away his medical instruments now that he has finished the exam. Only one thing remains now.

“Yes, again! It is the best one I have ever read.” Peter replies, and it is hard for Tony to argue with that. The boy’s knowledge about literature is far greater than his own and after many heated, yet friendly discussions, he was wise enough to stop questioning the boy about literature when he was ten. “Is not Doyle famous in America?”

“I am not sure. It has been decades since I have been home.” Tony muses, taking out the neat case with the glass syringe from his bag. Without needing to prompt him to, Peter turns over on his side, pushing the expensive cotton sheets and his underwear down to expose his plump ass. The boy’s voice is slightly muffled when he speaks.

“Because you’ve been here.”

“Because I have been here.” Tony replies softly, readying the syringe and shushes the boy gently when he sticks the thick, metal needle into the plumpest part of the boy’s ass. Whimpering quietly, Peter tries his hardest to not kick and squirm, although he would very much want to. The injections really are dreadful, but he would have a hundred of them to get to converse with the doctor.

Finally, the doctor pulls the needle out, but the pain is still there, throbbing and demanding Peter’s attention. Tony knows this and sets the syringe aside before rubbing a comforting hand on his patient’s bony hip. Having a tendency to get lightheaded after the injections, Peter needs a few moments to collect himself and Tony provides comfort and sympathy through gentle touches. He brushes back the boy’s curls from his forehead and lets his hand slip down from his hip and to his lower stomach, resting there just above his public bone. It is a wordless question and Peter replies with a shake of his head.

“Not today, thank you, Doctor Stark.”

“You’re upset about your father.” Tony points out, pulling his hand back to rest on Peter’s hip again. The boy nods, staring right in front of him and watching as the curtains dance in the breeze coming through the open windows again. It smells dry and hot.

“I’m upset at my father.” Peter corrects, taking a deep breath before continuing. He shifts his hips slightly, allowing the doctor to pull his underwear back up. “They even took Lady.”

“Hmm, yes, Barry told me. I’m very sorry about that, Peter. I know how much you loved Lady.”

“Father would have known. Right? He would have known that they were taking everyones’ horses and he could have warned us. But, he chose not to.”

“It could have been out of his hands, Peter.” Tony points out, but Peter does not respond. The doctor frowns softly, knowing he made a mistake by defending the Major. “Perhaps they will return her. They might have collected too many horses.”

“Perhaps.” Peter says blandly, not believing the dumb lie at all. He is not a child anymore. Tony of course notices that he has only made the situation worse and backs off a little, letting his hand go from the boy’s hip. But, suddenly Peter grabs his hand and pulls it around his torso and to his mouth, resting the doctor’s fingertips on his lips.

Tony huffs out a fond little laugh and scoots closer to the boy, so that his thigh is pressed against the boy’s back where he is still laying on his side, facing away from the doctor. The boy’s breaths tickles his skin. He can faintly feel the soft flesh of the boy’s lips, then the soft vibrations when he speaks.

“Don’t go…”

“I’m still staying for tea. Emily will bring it up soon.”

“No, I mean- don’t go.”

“Where would I go?”

“To the war.”

Tony cannot help but scoff out a chuckle at the ridiculousness of the idea. Twisting his hand, the doctor gently presses his thumb to Peter’s bottom lip.

“Someone has to stay behind to take care of the ones at home too.”

Tony can feel Peter’s lips curl upwards in a smile at that, however it does not last long before he relaxes the muscles and purses his lips in a kiss to his thumb. Major Parker may have taken Lady, but he had made sure that Tony was not called in to the medical corps. However, the doctor decides against telling Peter that.

“Because charity starts at home? Like my mother always says.” Peter says, his voice slightly bitter at that, but his lips are soft.

“Because you are the future.” Tony corrects and moves his hand to cup Peter’s cheek, tilting his head towards him to finally kiss him on the mouth. Gladstone growls and barks widely at the gardener, but the pair in the bed do not pay the pet any mind.

#my fics #starker #starker fic #starker fanfic #starker fandom #tony stark x peter parker #tony stark/peter parker #tony stark #peter parker

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allie1804-fan · 4 years

Text

New Beginnings (Chapter 7)

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New Beginnings Baby Drabble

New Beginnings Baby Drabble No2

Warnings : mentions of loss, grieving and some explicit content

For the first few days Emily convalesced after the surgery and they didn’t leave home. They had only told a few people about the pregnancy (Keanu’s mum, her parents, Karina, Chloe) but so far Karina was the only one who knew what had happened.

She’d obviously told their mother and had offered to make the other calls but Keanu said he’d do it. 4 days later he still hadn’t faced up to it. He didn’t quite know how to form the words in his mouth. Just thinking about it made his stomach churn and brought the trauma of this loss AND of his daughter over 20 years before back in living colour. The hospital rooms, the doctors’ words.

Emily was facing similar struggles. She spent most of the time in bed but restful sleep was hard to come by and she too kept reliving the pain and the shock of discovering the pregnancy wasn’t viable.

Toward the end of the week he was forced to deal with it though. They were dozing in bed at just after 9 when Emily’s phone rang.

“What?” he heard her whisper as she listened to the voice on the phone.

“No, I’m not there because my baby is dead” she hissed.

He reached over and grabbed the phone from her realising what must have happened. They had been due to go for the first scan that morning but somehow the system hadn’t caught up with the obstetrics department to let them know about the ectopic pregnancy.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing calling here?” he berated the poor woman on the phone, don’t you have proper communication channels, it’s been 4 days!”

Emily could hear the beginnings of a flustered apology from the woman but it was quickly cut off as Keanu ended the call, immediately feeling terrible for unleashing his anger on someone whose fault it clearly wasn’t.

He sat up and sighed, pulling Emily to his chest.

“I’m gonna have to make those calls today. Chloe and your mum will be expecting us to check in”

Emily just sniffed acknowledging that this was the next step they had to take.

“Can we go back to the counsellor” she asked “I think we probably need some help dealing with this ……….. rage.”

“yeah, I’ll call her too. If I don’t I’m just gonna hurt someone or something!”

Chloe got a taxi over as soon as she heard the news, leaving Rosie and Jamie with John. She couldn’t drive yet because of having a C-section but she didn’t want to wait to offer some comfort to one of her oldest friends. When she got there, she just climbed into bed with Emily, wrapped her arms around her and held her friend, letting her cry it out.

OCTOBER

The next 3 months had been tough and sometimes just one day seemed to pass agonisingly slowly but gradually their lives felt like they were getting back on track. Accepting that they’d likely never have their own biological children was a harsh reality to face especially when close friends like Chloe and John had already completed their families, watching their children grow and take on their physical and personality traits.

Babysitting for Chloe and John had been one of the biggest milestones they’d faced along the way. The image of Emily sitting on the sofa at Chloe and John’s house giving Rosie her bedtime bottle was seared into Keanu’s mind, making him remember the day Emily had held Jake and felt the pull inside to have her own child. They’d talked the idea through with the counsellor before offering to babysit. It almost felt like doing it would cauterise a wound. The counsellor had explained that while confronting their loss in the form of baby Rosie might feel like it would burn them too deeply, it was one way of facing the pain full on. The alternative was boxing it up and not letting it breathe and Keanu remembered doing just that after Ava. The only way his sadness and rage has made itself known for years was through acting. Otherwise it had been boxed away into his early 40s and when he did face it, its power after 6 years surprised and terrified him. He was determined not to do the same this time

The fact that they were no longer trying helped as did the fact that their time thinking she was pregnant was so brief. At least she hadn’t started to really think about when the baby was due and the future in too much detail. Having known friends who’d been through loss before, she knew that building a little dream future only to lose it was often the hardest part. Still, they were still letting go of a precious dream and some days that pain hit either one of them like a ton of bricks.

Another aspect of life that helped the clouds to lift was that each had exciting new projects coming up that were going to keep them very busy. In anticipation of having no more free time, they booked a trip back to Italy. First came a week in Capri visiting Keanu’s sister Kim and then another week back in Taormina Sicily.

They had a wonderful time despite Emily being laid low for a couple of days with a stomach flu but she made a swift recovery and they were able to enjoy their time visiting their favourite restaurant again and discovering historical sites that they’d missed on their first visit.

They ended their trip in what was becoming a sort of tradition with them – a whole morning in bed where Keanu dedicated himself to bringing her to multiple orgasms before finally taking her to the edge of heaven, burying himself deep inside her.

They vowed to take each day as it came, enjoy their work, live in the moment and love each other.

On her return Emily planned to get a coil fitted so she could stop using hormones and be secure with her birth control until she no longer needed it. After the ectopic pregnancy they’d used condoms briefly and then she’d restarted the pill. For the trip, Emily had deliberately left no gap between 2 courses of the pill towards the end of their holiday to avoid spoiling it with a period. Once she was back she could visit her gynaecologist and move forward.

A couple of weeks after their return to LA, Emily had her appointment about the coil. She explained her circumstances to the nurse who was sympathetic about what she’d gone through. The work up involved some blood tests, a smear and a pregnancy test just to be sure especially since she hadn’t had a period for almost 6 weeks by then. They made a follow up appointment for the following week with Keanu too since she recommended they have a chat with a counsellor before the coil fitting, just to make sure this was the best route for them as a couple. The coil would usually stay in place for a minimum of 5 years and since they’d had a relatively recent loss, they were a little cautious.

The next week they were madly rushing to squeeze in the appointment then run on to a training session for Keanu and a writers’ room for Emily.

The doctor came into the consulting room to Emily’s surprise as she was expecting the counsellor or nurse she’d seen the week before to just run through the results and check in that Keanu agreed with their course of action.

“So, I have the results of your tests here and they mean we won’t be progressing with the coil fitting today”

Emily huffed a little, irritated that this whole procedure was becoming far less straightforward than she’d expected.

“Why not, what’s wrong?”

Actually nothing is wrong at all …… our tests indicate that you’re pregnant”

Their mouths fell simultaneously agape and they looked at each other in shock”

“that can’t be right, I’ve been on birth control ………….” Emily stammered. She was surprised to find herself less than pleased with this news. She squeezed Keanu’s hand as a wave of fear rushed through her. She wanted a baby so much but being pregnant had become inextricably linked with loss and despair.

Keanu’s thoughts were much the same – after all, as far as he knew, he’d got two women pregnant in his life and both times had ended in disaster.

“What birth control have you been using?”

“For the past 3 months I’ve been on the pill and I took 2 packets consecutively recently as we went on holiday”

“And have you had any stomach upsets or been on any other medication such as antibiotics?”

Emily started to shake her head but then Keanu tugged her hand

“you had that stomach flu in Italy, remember, you were throwing up for a couple of days ……. His voice drifted off and the doctor grinned

“That will likely be the reason” he said “the pill was probably not absorbed into the bloodstream when you were sick causing it to fail. It’s a very common mistake not to realise your birth control is compromised when that happens. Well why don’t we take a look to check what’s going on” he said beckoning Emily over to the consulting table. “We want to be sure everything is in the right place given your last pregnancy was ectopic.”

Still in shock, Emily lay on the table and eased her trousers down to reveal her flat belly. The doctor rubbed on the cold jelly and pulled over the wand of the ultrasound machine.

Keanu felt light-headed. He realised he’d probably been holding his breath since the doctor started explaining how come she might be pregnant. He blew out his breath slowly, eyes fixed on the screen.

The screen showed the cone shape image in white generated by the ultrasound waves and within it the black oval shape of Emily’s womb came into view.

“There it is” the doctor declared happily while Keanu and Emily both stared wondering what on earth he was taking about. Then he helped them, pointing to a little peanut shape within the dark circle whose image seemed to flash on an off.

“There, that’s it, do you see now?”

“Yeah but why does it keep disappearing? Keanu asked

“That’s its heart beating – I always think of it like a little lighthouse flashing to tell you it’s still there”

“So it’s in the right place, not ectopic this time” Emily asked, her voice wavering.

“Everything looks perfect” he smiled reassuringly at them both. “I tell you what, why don’t I just give you a minute alone. If you keep holding the wand right there you can watch your baby and get used to the idea. I guess it’s quite a shock”

“I’ll say” Keanu muttered softly.

As the door closed behind the doctor, Emily just stared at Keanu

“Oh my god this is …”

“unbelievable” he finished her sentence

“mmmm” she nodded

“I don’t think I’m gonna make my writers room” she laughed

“nor me my training” he agreed.

They turned and looked at the monitor again and sure enough there was the little flickering peanut letting them know it was there.

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New Beginnings Baby Drabble

New Beginnings Baby Drabble No2

#keanu #keanu reeves fanfic #keanu reeves fanfiction #romance #angst #babyloss #pregnancy

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krystabel02 · 4 years

Text

Complicated: Raphael x OC x Spencer Reid - Chapter 1

Authors Note: This is the first story I’m actually posting that I created on my own. I hope you all enjoy this.

Masterlist

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It's dark. Everywhere she looked and turned, there was nothing but darkness. Then out of nowhere, a particular turtle appeared in front of her, seemingly out of nowhere. The same turtle Angel fell in love with months ago, the same one who stole her heart, and inevitably, the same one who shattered it. She felt her blood run cold, her heart seemingly skipping a beat. There was nothing Angel could say or do. All she could do was stare at the turtle in front of her. The turtle glared at Angel before pulling out his sai. He made his way over to Angel. She wanted to move, but she couldn't. Once he was close enough, the turtle held the sai up, bringing it down to stab her.

Angel sat up in her bed, panting. Her body covered in sweat, and her heart racing. She couldn't do anything but sit there as the silent tears ran down her face. Eventually, Angel let her head fall into her hands as she cried.

Every night it was the same nightmare. Time and time again, Angel had continued to experience this over and over. It mentally drained her and made her feel as though she was hopeless. Angel quickly shook those thoughts out of her head.

No. Not again.

It had been six months since Angel and Raphael broke up, and six months since she left. Of course, a couple of weeks after she left, she received repeated phone calls and text from Raphael. It was so severe that Angel had to change her number to get Raph to stop. Angel wrapped her arms around herself as she took a deep breath. Looking over at the time, she decided to go ahead and get ready for work. Angel made her way into her bathroom to shower and get herself prepared for the day.

After making sure the water was the perfect temperature, she stripped her clothes off and stepped into the shower. Angel stood under the water for a good five minutes, letting the warm water run down her body as she closed her eyes. A shower was what Angel needed, especially after the nightmare she had. She almost didn't realize how long she was in the shower, but once she did, Angel had stepped out and dried herself off. Wrapping the towel around her, Angel makes her way back to her room and pulled out a pair of black pants and a black tee, as well as a black belt and a couple of socks.

Angel stepped out to her living room towards her coffee table. She bends down, grabbing a gun holster and hooking it to her belt where she could easily and quickly draw her gun, after grabbing her credentials and badge. Clipping the badge to her shirt, Angel couldn't help but let her mind think about the nightmare she had. What did it mean, and more importantly, why was she still thinking of Raph. It's been six months since they broke up, and Angel should be over him. He certainly was over her. It brought painful memories whenever Angel thought about how he left her for his ex-girlfriend. Angel didn't want to even imagine what they were doing right now. In her heart, she knew it would break her, and there was no time for that. She had her new life now, a new job, a new place. Yet, with all this change, Angel had also built a wall around her heart. She didn't want, no, she wouldn't be able to handle it if it was broken again. Angel shook her head gently before she a cup of coffee and walked out the door. Making sure her door was locked, Angel makes her way out of the apartment complex towards her car.

It took about 30 minutes, but Angel eventually arrived at the FBI headquarters in Quantico. Stepping out of the car, Angel takes a deep breath and closing her eyes, she enjoys the beautiful weather outside. After a couple moments, she makes her way into the building towards the elevator, pressing the button for the 6th floor. It took a few minutes, but eventually, the doors to the elevator open and Angel makes her way out of the elevator. She walked into the bullpen of the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

There, sitting at his desk, was Spencer Reid. Spencer was the first agent she informally met on her first day, and she was lying if she didn't mention he was the most intriguing. Unlike most guys who have a very macho attitude, Spencer was the complete opposite. He was socially-awkward and often stuttered, but he was absolutely brilliant. A genius in straightforward terms.

Spencer had three Ph.D.'s in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering, as well as two BA in psychology and sociology. What's more impressive was he has an IQ of 187, eidetic memory and can read 20,000 words per minute. If Angel hadn't seen this with her own eyes, she would have never believed it. Despite Spencer being socially-awkward, the two had actually become close friends. They both connected through their love of books, Doctor Who, and of course, coffee. During the time they have known each other, they've gone on multiple coffee dates where all the conversation was about was the most recent book they've read or the latest Doctor Who episode.

Spencer looked up from his file and smiled at Angel. It was apparent he had developed a bit of a crush on her. How could anyone not? She was clearly gorgeous, but she also was smart, kind, courageous. The list went on and on. While Spencer really liked Angel, he knew she wasn't ready for a relationship right now. They didn't talk much about her ex-boyfriend, but enough to see that she wasn't available to date anyone at the moment. It didn't matter, Spencer was willing to wait for her.

"Angel, hey. Did you see the new episode last night?" Spencer asked as he stood from his desk, walking over towards Angel.

Angel smiled, letting a small laugh escape her lips before shaking her head. "Unfortunately, no. I was on the phone with my parents last night and ended up missing it." Angel said, laughing as she put her bag down next to her desk and her coffee cup on top of the coaster sitting in the top right corner of her desk.

Spencer faked a gasp, his left hand going up to his chest as he let out a laugh. "Angel, how dare you. You have disgraced the name of Doctor Who." He joked before letting out another laugh, leaning against a desk opposite of Angel before noticing that she looked tired, and almost as if she was crying. "Angel, is everything alright? You look like you've been crying recently." Spencer asked, his voice immediately lowering, his eyes full of concern.

Angel mentally cursed to herself. Of course, Spencer would notice. She works with profilers who see every little thing about behaviors. Angel sighed, biting the bottom of her lip. Of course, she had told Spencer about the nightmare and described it, but it still wasn't easy to admit it. ".....I had the same nightmare again last night," Angel eventually admitted as she looked up at Spencer, her eyes casting so many emotions. Pain. Sadness. Anger, a little bit. Angel hated that she still thought of Raph, especially after seven months.

Spencer sighed as he walked over, gently pulling her into a hug. A gesture he'd done so many times, it felt natural. All he wanted to do was protect her. But how can one possibly protect someone from nightmares? It was impossible. He may not be able to stop them, but he can at least bring some comfort to the woman he was in love with. "I'm sorry, Angel. Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe a Doctor Who session with popcorn and your favorite candy?" Spencer asked before pulling away, looking her in her deep brown eyes.

Angel looked Spencer in the eyes before letting a sigh out, then she smiled at him. "A Doctor Who session sounds amazing, Spence," Angel said as she pulled away, grabbing her coffee and taking a sip.

Spencer and Angel eventually sat down at their appropriate desks, filling out paperwork as the rest of their team made their way in. Not even five minutes after their Unit Chief showed up, Emily walked out of her office, holding up a file and motioning to the briefing room. "Guys, we've got a case. Meet in the briefing room." Emily said in a firm tone as she walked towards the room.

Spencer and Angel both nodded before standing up and making their way as well. They took their usual seats next to each other at a round table with a screen in front, showing the crime scene photos. One by one, the team filed in. First, Rossi, then JJ, Lewis, Simmons, Alvez, and Garcia.

Garcia takes her usual place standing next to the screen with her remote in hand. "All right, my furry friends, pack your bags because you are headed to the Big Apple. NYPD is reporting 3 bodies of female victims, ages 20-25, and brunettes. The bodies were all found in alleyways next to garbage bins. They had no clothes on, and there were multiple stab wounds to the chest and genital areas, however no signs of sexual assault. Our first victim is Victoria Duncan, a 22-year old college student. She had just moved to New York about 6 months ago but was reported missing three weeks ago when she didn't show up for her psychology class for a few days straight. Professors say she was a great kid who wouldn't miss school unless there was a reason. Next, we have 20-year old Madeline Nelson. She worked as a waitress at a local diner, and she was reported missing about a week after Victoria when she didn't show up for her shift at work. One of her co-workers went to her apartment only to find she wasn't there, and that's when she called police. Our latest victim is 24-year old Jessie Malcolm. She worked at an insurance company, a typical 9-5 job. She was reported missing last week after she also missed her shift at work. Police say there are no obvious ways their paths would have crossed. They all lived in different parts of the city, hung out at different places, even had different banks. There's no sign that any of the ladies even knew each other." Garcia said as she showed all the victim's pictures of their face, bodies after death as well as the dumpsites.

No matter how many dead bodies Angel has seen, they always managed to creep her out to some sense of the word. Though, she never let it bother her. Angel looked over the crime scene photos of the bodies, looking for any signs of restraints. "Garcia, is there anyone who's gone missing recently that fits the description of our victims?" Spencer asked as he looked up, leaning back in his chair slightly.

Garcia shook her head softly before responding to Spencer, "Not yet, but I will double-check and let you know."

Emily nodded before looking to the team. "Alright, if this unsub has a schedule, we've got a few days before he finds his next victim. Wheels up in 30." The team nodded in unison before standing up, grabbing their files, and heading to their desks to grab their go-bag and equipment.

Angel couldn't help but let her mind wander. New York City. The same place she left seven months ago, and the same place that her first love lived at. She prayed to whatever god was up there that she didn't run into Raphael. With her bad luck, though, She probably would.

No matter. It doesn't matter if Angel does see Raph again, she's going for her job, and that's that. Whether she was ready or not, she knew she needed to prepare herself to see him again if the time comes.

#tmnt x oc #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid angst #tmnt angst #tmntcrossover

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specialagentlokitty · 5 years

Text

CM x SPN x Reader - Hey Brother

Part one:

P.S. let me know your thoughts 😘

Hey brother, There’s and endless road to rediscover

Hey sister, Know the waters sweet but blood is thicker

Oh, if the sky comes falling down, for you

There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do

Running up to Hotch’s office, you knocked on the door quickly before throwing it open, proudly holding the file in your hand before slamming it on his desk.

“See not late!” You grinned.

“One minute (Y/N), one minute.” He chuckled.

Rolling your eyes you sat down on the chair, leaning back and folding your arms. Hotch copies you with a little grin of his own.

“Not late though.”

“Sometimes I think you do this on purpose.”

“Me? Never!” You raised your hand in mock defence.

Hotch rolled his eyes at you, but the playful atmosphere was soon done when Emily came running in panting. Both of you were quick to jump to your feet and run over.

“Emily?!”

“You’ll want to see this.”

Turning around Emily jogged down the stairs, you and Hotch following close behind. She led you both all the way to the interrogation rooms where four armed guards stood. This caught your interest.

“Who are they holding?” Hotch asked.

Beckoning you two into the viewing room where the rest of the team where. You both turned to the glass, what you seen made you want to cry.

“Dean Winchester, covered in blood showed up here a few moments ago. He won’t say anything to anyone, they want us to try and break him.” Rossi explained.

“He’s escaped multiple times, what can we do?” Reid asked.

“He and his brother Sam have the longest criminal record we’ve ever seen.” Garcia mumbled.

Everyone stood in silence and watched, dean just stared straight at the glass, you felt like his eyes were on you. He was older now, he appeared more tired and worn. You’d heard about the things they’d done, how many sacrifices they had made and you weren’t there to support them.

Hotch dished our tasks while you and JJ were told to observe and try catch him out. JJ kept turning her gaze to you though, worry written all over her face.

“Are you okay?” JJ whispered.

“Yeah... yeah.. what happened to him?”

JJ shrugged, going back to watching the interview. As the hours ticked by, you grew more restless and JJ grew more suspicious. Eventually around 1am they left, figuring out some rest would do them good before they tried to crack him again, once you thought it was clear you asked the guards to leave.

“Are you sure ma’am? He’s dangerous.”

“It’s fine, just for 20 minutes okay? Please?”

He seemed unsure but nodded, walking away with the others. Quietly you slipped into the room, unaware of the person slipping into the observation room.

“Dean? Dean? Wake up!” You hissed.

“(Y/N)...?”

Nodding you gave him a once over, he didn’t seem hurt but the Winchester’s were known for hiding their pain. Placing your notepad on the table you sat opposite him.

“Your turn to interrogate me?” He chuckled darkly.

“No moron they’ve all gone home, we have 20 minutes. What happened? Where’s Sammy? Where’s Cas?”

Deans face immediately darkened, you knew something was wrong.

“Dean...”

“Someone has them.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know...”

“Then why’d you hand yourself in?”

“Because I knew you’d be here. (Y/N) I need your help... we have to find Sam and Cas... please?”

Deans green eyes softened as he watched you, you two ended on bad terms years ago. When he found out you wanted to join the FBI and drop hunting. He didn’t like it, he yelled at you so never come back and you were no sister of his.

“Dean... i.. I can’t.. I’ve built something here... I left that all behind me...”

Shaking your head you got up, going to leave the room when Deans voice cut through the thick tension.

“He missed you... I missed you... please... help me find them (Y/N), help me found our family... we made a promise when we were kids remember? That we’d never leave each other, and I know I broke that promise when I turned my back on you, but Sam never did. He always kept tabs on you, if you won’t do it for me then do it for him? Do it for Sammy... for Cas... who knows what’s happening to them... there’s nothing more important then family.”

“Don’t you play that bullshit on me Winchester! You weren’t saying that when you tossed me out because of my career choice!” You snapped

Dean visibly flinched, his shoulders sagging. He turned his head away from you for a moment then looked at you again. This time Deans face was written with sadness.

“I know... I made a mistake and I wish I could change it but I can’t. You can’t change the past, but you can change the future, please I want to be your brother again, I want us to be a family again. There’s nothing thicker then blood, and you know it. There is nothing this family wouldn’t do for each other.”

Squeezing your eyes shut you rested you head gently on the door, you were torn. Your brain was saying to leave and not look back, to put it behind you, to listen to reason you had something here. Good friends, a home, a great job you’d even fallen in love. But your heart was begging you to help, to find your family. Because family is everything and you never forget family, you never leave them behind.

“I know there’s nothing in the world you wouldn’t do for family (Y/N), no matter how many times we fought you always forgave us. I’m begging you, please... your my sister and I love you, I can’t do this without you...”

Taking a deep breath you snapped your eyes open, you knew what you had to do

#criminal minds x reader #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #david rossi #emily prentis #spencer reid #derek morgan #jenifer jareau #penelope garcia #supernatural x reader #supernatural #spn x you #spn x y/n #spn x sister reader #spn x reader #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #hey brother

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

Text

Lost Heart: Chapter 20

The Holiday Spirit

Magic can be a dangerous thing to play around with, particularly when that magic is tangled up in a curse. When Nathalie Sancoeur experiments with magic that she doesn’t fully understand, it sends her on a path to become Paris’ most dangerous supervillain and tips the balance between superheroes and supervillain.

But which way will the balance fall?

links in the reblog

Marinette honestly Could Not Wait until she got her free time back to herself.

She and Adrien had been meant to get together after school on Wednesday to hang out, after she finished with her visit as Ladybug with his mom and he finished up whatever he was doing, but by the time that she had finished talking with Mrs. Agreste (who wanted to take up her old mantel of Paon in the final battle, even though she was still recovering) and then visiting Master Fu with Chat Noir to update him on, well, everything, and then get a bit more training with defensive spells, it was time for dinner and Adrien wouldn't have been able to come over anyway.

It was a good thing that she wasn't having any trouble with the concepts that she was getting tested on, because she hadn't had that much time to study before it was time to go to bed so that she could get a decent amount of sleep before her next day of exams. Then it was time to get up again, go to school, push through a couple more exams and her group presentation with Adrien, run an errand for Master Fu at lunch (Duusu was still inhaling mountains of fruit, it seemed, and Mr. Agreste had sent another shipment that she then had to deliver to its actual destination, part by part, and then he had needed her to pick up a couple ingredients for another potion after that), go back to school, do one more test, remind everyone that the holiday party was the next day and please remember to sign up to bring treats if they hadn't before, and then she had to give Adrien another excuse about why she couldn't hang out after school before running off with Chat Noir to accompany Jade Turtle to the Tsurugi home.

She and Adrien had yet to talk about their accidental kiss and if it had meant anything. It hadn't been in front of anyone (at least not on purpose) to "prove" that they were actually dating, and hadn't been at all staged. Marinette was tempted to read into it, to think that maybe Adrien saw her as more than a friend after all, but it just wasn't the right time for that. The final confrontation was creeping closer and closer, and as soon as it was over, his father and Nathalie would both be taken to jail. He wouldn't have the additional surprise of getting his mom back at the same time- after all, he had known about her for a good chunk of the week now- but it was still a lot.

...she had really liked kissing Adrien. It hadn't been a long kiss, and she had still been giggly from his kissing attack, but it had been really sweet, and his nose kiss afterwards?

Adrien was too cute, he really was.

But now wasn't the time to think about that, when the two superheroes and Jade Turtle were transformed and approaching the Tsurugi house. Master Fu had called ahead and Madam Tsurugi knew they coming (and Kagami was still at school, so they didn't have to worry about her overhearing their conversation with her mother), but Ladybug still had to have her head in the game.

After all, they had a lot of questions for Madam Tsurugi. Some were about how the curse had interacted with her diminishing eyesight, of course- Jade Turtle was particularly interested in making sure that the curse hadn't kept spreading after her eyesight was entirely gone- but they also wanted to find out how she had ended up with the Miraculous in the first place, and also, well…

"Mrs. Agreste mentioned that you would have known about both the Peacock and the Butterfly being in her possession-"

"Emilie?" Madam Tsurugi sat bolt upright, clearly startled, and Ladybug frowned at Jade Turtle. Perhaps Madam Tsurugi had asked why they had come and it was a bit weird that she hadn't ever approached the superheroes to tell them about who Hawkmoth was, but there was no need for Jade Turtle to lead in with such an aggressive statement. "She's- is she awake? The last I heard, Mr. Agreste told me that she was getting worse!"

Jade Turtle smiled slightly, watching Madam Tsurugi carefully. "Yes, well, there has been an interesting turn of events lately. It might be difficult to explain everything that's happened, but in summary, Mrs. Agreste has been awakened, Mr. Agreste has surrendered to us but hasn't handed himself over publically yet, Ms. Sancoeur had been using Heart to transform with the Peacock, and now she's snatched the Butterfly and we have recovered the Peacock and removed the curse."

"Just like that, huh?" Madam Tsurugi asked, frowning. "Emilie and I tried so hard and didn't make a single dent in that curse. But I suppose we didn't have the knowledge to manage it." She sighed. "But yes, I did know that she had the Butterfly. And it didn't take a genius to figure out who had taken it."

"And you didn't tell anyone," Jade Turtle prompted. "Was there any particular reason why?"

Madam Tsurugi looked uncomfortable as she shifted in her seat. "Well, at first, I just wasn't in the country. My daughter and I have been in Japan for the past couple years, trying to get a blind fencing group established there. I didn't keep up with the news in Paris that much, because all I really cared about here was Emilie and my old fencing academy. Once we moved back to Paris, I heard enough about Hawkmoth to figure out that the Butterfly Miraculous was involved. I confronted Gabriel, but he told me about his plan to use the two main Miraculous to get a wish- a wish to change the timeline, for the curse to be removed from the Peacock before either Emilie or I used it."

"So your eyesight would not have deteriorated faster than normal," Jade Turtle filled in. "I see."

"I didn't tell anyone anything, as the akumas seemed annoying but largely harmless enough. I was a rather irritated when my own daughter was akumatized shortly after we arrived, of course, but Mr. Agreste claimed that he only got impressions of feelings when he akumatized people, not names." Madam Tsurugi sighed. "Shortly after that, I signed a contract with him. He promised to do his best not to akumatize Kagami or I, as well as ensure that his wish would remove the curse before I used it. In return, I would not tell anyone about his secret identity. I only realized after the fact that the contract was entirely for his benefit- it was not a steel-bound promise to not akumatize us, only that he would try to avoid it, and once the timeline was rewritten, the contract would vanish and I would have no memory of it. He could set the time that the curse would wear off to simply happen before Emilie took over, and I would never know the difference."

"But he had the contract to hold over your head, then," Chat Noir filled in, looking more interested now. "If you went to the police, he would get arrested, but he could get his revenge by showing the contract to the police and saying that you had known for a while and kept it secret because it would benefit you."

Madam Tsurugi nodded sharply. "Precisely. And I know exactly how publicized that would be. Our family honor would be destroyed."

Ladybug winced, thinking about what (admittedly little) she knew about Kagami and her family. Family honor was a pretty big thing, one that was Not To Be Messed With, and Mr. Agreste had taken full advantage of that to pinch off a threat at the roots.

Thank goodness Mr. Agreste hadn't been anywhere near as crafty of a supervillain as he was a businessman. They might have actually been in trouble then.

"Of course, it might have looked better for us had I simply ignored the possible repercussions and gone forward myself," Madam Tsurugi added. "Now, I've said nothing. I sat back and allowed a supervillain to run over the city, even after I knew that the attacks were getting more dangerous. I let my fear about the repercussions of reporting Gabriel and Nathalie silence me, and now public opinion will destroy me."

"If he bothers to pull out the contract," Jade Turtle told her. She scoffed.

"The police will find it. There were multiple copies, and I don't doubt that he scanned it and has copies on his computer as well." Madam Tsurugi sighed. "He won't think to destroy them. And I suppose I deserve it. I prioritized my desires over what the city needed, and that was an action unbenefitting to a former superhero. I can only hope that my punishment will be a reprimand and nothing worse."

"We can hope." Jade Turtle glanced towards the superheroes, then back at Madam Tsurugi. "That wasn't the only question we had. We have talked some with Mrs. Agreste about what the Peacock was being used for and why and where it came from, but she still tires easily and we don't want to risk being seen near the place that she's staying while the Purple Lady is still active. So we were wondering, well… about everything."

Madam Tsurugi nodded. Her shoulders relaxed slightly- clearly she had expected more of a scolding from them. "Yes, well, it is a odd story, and I might as well start from- from the very start. As I'm sure you know, I am a champion fencer. I trained from a young age and showed good promise- and this was coming from a champion family. Soon enough, I had my life's goal- to beat my uncle's record number of championships. He was legendary, and I wanted to be, too."

Ladybug listened, attentive. She could see where this was going, honestly. Losing eyesight on its own…well, that already had to be hard. With what was starting to sound like a lifelong goal to beat a legendary relative's record, a goal that extended family members were no doubt aware of…

"I was a champion, getting sponsorships so that it could be my job and I could focus all of my energy on training. And then I started losing my peripheral vision. I had needed a fair amount of correction prior to that, but black on the edges of my vision- that was new." Madam Tsurugi sighed, her shoulders slumping ever-so-slightly before she caught and corrected herself. "I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which is genetic and progressive, tunnel vision closing in. I was crushed, but I wasn't going to let it slow me down. Fencing helmets do obscure vision and it's not as though we're really going to get attacked from the side."

Ladybug nodded. She could remember that, from her brief brush with fencing. Having the helmet had been pretty disorienting at first, since she was used to fighting with nothing obstructing her vision, but it was easy enough to work around when she only had to deal with attacks from the front.

Madam Tsurugi continued, emotion making her voice waver ever-so-slightly. "I kept winning despite the handicap, even when I was pregnant with Kagami. I gave birth to her between championships and gave myself no recovery time. The black was creeping inwards, and so I had to fight while I could. I moved to Paris after a number of years, because my trainer in Japan was doubtful about how long I would be able to fight with reduced vision and I had heard about a different trainer in Paris, one who had won championships but who also had trained blind fencers at his school before- not competitively, or at least not competitively at the level that I was at- but I figured that he might have some ideas for me to work with my decreasing vision."

"And that was when the portals started opening?" Jade Turtle inquired. Madam Tsurugi nodded.

"Correct. Shortly after I moved to Paris, the portal first opened."

Ladybug listened intently as Madam Tsurugi detailed how she had become the Royal Peafowl, getting the Miraculous and the associated book and scrolls from a Chinese friend of the family who knew that they were magic and had protective properties but hadn't known specifics. Shortly after moving, she had met Emilie, with her talent for languages and cryptograms and other word puzzles, and they started the slow process of deciphering the book, starting with a page that- thankfully- had pictures of the creatures that they had dubbed demons. They found a spell to make people forget about both the tear in the sky and the sentimonster, which perhaps was a little unnecessary but seemed like a good idea, to reduce public panic…and then realized that using the pin seemed to be speeding up the rate of Madam Tsurugi's tunnel vision.

Like, quite a bit. Her doctor had expressed concern, but at that point…well, the Royal Peafowl had become a duty, even if she was only needed a couple times per year.

They had stumbled across the idea of feeding the pin after that, completely by accident after Mrs. Agreste had set a banana down next to the pin and had watched as it immediately vanished by chunks. They tried that for a bit, and then Madam Tsurugi decided to pass the pin on to Emilie, since she didn't have any pre-existing conditions for the curse to latch on to. Using the pin had made her a little tired at first, even though she was feeding it as often as she could, but it didn't seem like anything to worry about. Emilie had largely hidden how the Miraculous had affected her after several years of use, which was made easier by distance- Madam Tsurugi had moved back to Japan after retiring from competition. The decision to end her competitive career had come after another eye condition had sprung up, taking the center of her vision and leaving her with only a fuzzy ring of vision between the black creeping in from the outside and the black spreading out from the middle. While she could still fence, it would not have been at the same level and she had wanted to go out on a high.

A high which, unfortunately, had come one title shy of tying with her uncle's record.

"I had started teaching fencing well prior to that, thankfully," Madam Tsurugi told them. "So even though I no longer had my sponsorships as a steady source of income, I did still have a job- and yes, I am still teaching now, even though all of my sight has gone. I can demonstrate moves, and we use blind fencing as a teaching tool, even with fully-sighted fencers. Since the helmets obscure some vision, we take that to the extreme to teach our fencers how to use other factors in their environment to tell them where their opponents are and where they're likely to move."

Chat Noir blinked in surprise. "I- I've never heard of that training technique before."

"I'm not surprised. It's not a common technique. Many people, I've found, underestimate the value of using training designed for blind fencers when they themselves can see." Madam Tsurugi's smile was thin. "Their loss."

"Indeed."

"At any rate, Emilie was looking for solutions for the problem, as she did not want to continue dealing with the threat forever," Madam Tsurugi continued, picking her story back up. "The tears were getting more frequent, we could tell that much. Emilie talked to my friend who had given me the Miraculous in the first place, and between the two of them, they managed to track down the Butterfly and buy it off of someone, maybe a month or two before her last battle. The idea was for her to learn how to use the Butterfly in place of the Peacock. We had suspected that, given the pictures in the book, there was something wrong with it. But Emilie learned about how the Butterfly worked right before it got shipped to her, and, well, she had concerns about sending a person- even a person with superpowers- up against the demons. It seemed like there was a very specific set of powers she would have to give her superhero, too, for them to be able to accomplish the same thing as her sentimonsters had."

Jade Turtle hummed in confirmation. "It would be harder to get the Butterfly's powers to be as effective as the Peacock's against that particular threat. It could be done, of course, but it would be hard."

"So Emilie didn't even try using the Butterfly, to the best of my knowledge, and instead focused on finishing her translation of a spell that would fix the tear for good." Madam Tsurugi sighed. "She had told me, of course. We were excited about it. She was going to give the brooch more food than ever to try to keep it from affecting her too much. The next thing I knew, I heard that she had fallen into a coma. One power use and two spells were too much of a power draw, and the demon appearances had gotten too close together. She hadn't had enough time to recover. I figured that she would recover soon enough, since the worst of the tiredness- to my knowledge- usually vanished pretty quickly. The fact that she didn't…"

"Ah, I might know what went wrong now," Jade Turtle said, a small smile on his face. "Mr. Agreste didn't know about the food for the pin. If he had, it's possible that she would have been out for a couple days before waking up again. Or perhaps not, it's impossible to tell how much exhaustion she was hiding."

Madam Tsurugi was frowning. "But why- why wouldn't she tell him about that? Emilie is smart, she would have known that something new like using two spells instead of one could be dangerous. And I wasn't in the city when that went down, of course, and I wasn't meant to come visit for months. I understand not telling everyone, but I had figured that Gabriel at least knew about the food! That he was trying that, at the very least!"

"Well, she's awake and well out of danger now," Jade Turtle soothed. "We were able to undo what the curse did to her, and she's recovering."

Madam Tsurugi leaned forward at that, suddenly intent. "You said- I hadn't caught it before, but you didn't just wake her up, you undid the effects of the curse? Would it be possible- I mean, I always knew that I was going to lose all of my vision and I've accepted that and have figured out how to keep teaching, but I had expected a bit more time with my vision before it went completely...and it's been several years since I've been able to see my daughter fence at all, and I've heard that she's made great progress. I know it's been years, but might it be possible to- to undo the curse's effects on me?"

Jade Turtle considered her, his expression softening. "Well, we can certainly try. But I must warn you- with the curse getting tangled up in a preexisting condition, that could make things more difficult. I don't know how it will respond to the cure. It may not help, it may return you to the vision you had before using the Peacock, it may end up where you would have been without the curse's interference, it might just fall somewhere in between." He paused for a moment, then spoke up again. "If you don't mind me asking, how far along should your blindness be, given the rate of progression prior to when you started using the Peacock Miraculous?"

Madam Tsurugi's brow furrowed as she thought, fingers tapping against her legs. "Approximately? It's hard to say, of course. Before I used the Peacock, my tunnel vision was about….so." She held up her hands, curved, to illustrate the boundaries of her vision.

Ladybug exchanged a glance with Chat Noir. Madam Tsurugi's hands were maybe a shoulder's width apart, held about the same distance out in front of her face. Thinking of fighting with that much peripheral vision gone…

It couldn't have been easy. And Madam Tsurugi had been fighting at a very competitive level even with her vision like that, and even for years past that. That was incredible.

"Now, if I remember correctly, I would be more like….so." Her hands moved closer, just wider than her face. "Or even narrower, I don't remember. And of course, it's hard to estimate when I can't, well, see, and of course that was only their best guess."

Chat Noir leaned forward, expression curious. "Was your vision like that, then, when you did your last championship? Just out of curiosity."

Madam Tsurugi managed a small smile, bringing her hands together a fraction more. "Like so, if I had to estimate, and even with the strongest correction available, what was left of my vision still wasn't clear- legally, even if I still got shapes and colors and could do without a cane in public- I was blind."

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged another look, and Ladybug was pretty sure that her jaw was on the floor. That- that was incredible. No matter how else she felt about Madam Tsurugi and her somewhat morally grey involvement in this whole mess, there was no denying that the woman was a serious role model, particularly when it came to not letting handicaps hold her back.

"That is quite impressive," Jade Turtle said, his smile clear in his voice. "You are quite the powerhouse to be reckoned with, that's for sure. And we'll certainly see what we can do about the curse's effects on you."

Madam Tsurugi inclined her head, the picture of steely composure. "I greatly appreciate it."

"Ladybug, Chat Noir, I thank you for your time and for accompanying an old man," Jade Turtle told them, smiling at the two superheroes. "It is much appreciated. You may take your leave now, and if you can spare the time, ma'am, I'd like to try a few spells to try to get a better picture of how the curse interacted with you."

Adrien and Marinette practiced their presentation for Madam Mendeleev's class one last time over a warm breakfast of quiche and freshly baked bread, spread with plenty of butter. They had it down pat now, their timing absolutely perfect and no delays as they tossed the presentation back and forth between the two of them.

They made a fantastic team, they really did.

"Last day before the holidays," Adrien said cheerfully as he tucked the thumb drive with the presentation on it into his bag. "One quiz, one presentation, and a whole lot of lazing about and talking about holidays plans. Fantastic."

"It'll be fun," Marinette agreed. She carefully placed the Yule log cake box into a bag and set it near the rest of her things by the door. "You absolutely went overboard with the number of chips you're bringing, I just want you to know that."

Adrien laughed. "I didn't buy them myself, you know. My father had the Gorilla get them for me, and he just asked what kinds of chips people liked. I gave him a short list of examples, and he, uh...decided to get them all. Or almost all, at least."

Marinette grinned. That was pretty funny, actually. She knew that there was a reason why she liked the Gorilla.

It didn't take long to bundle up and carry both food and party supplies across the street and to the school. Marinette set her cake box and Adrien's bag of chip bags into the large box behind Ms. Bustier's desk, placed the receipts for the party decorations in front of Ms. Bustier's computer, as their teacher had requested, and then started setting out the supplies for making their snowflakes and other decorations on the folding table that Ms. Bustier already had set up. Adrien helped, unpacking her bags and opening packages of construction paper so that it didn't take so long to set up. The result was pretty impressive, really, with four shades of blue paper, one white, one black, and a variety pack, plus a whole slew of glitter glue and a few skeins of wintery-colored yarn.

"I'm going to get markers, colored pencils, and scissors from the art room," Marinette told Adrien. She had asked the art teacher about borrowing the supplies as soon as she and Adrien had come up with their first few ideas for the party, and he had agreed right away. "Want to stay here and make sure that the food doesn't walk away? We had problems with that a couple years ago."

"Really? That's terrible!" Adrien planted himself in his usual seat, sitting up straight. "I'll guard the room."

Marinette nodded, then dashed out of the room and down the hallway. Mr. Ross would be there by now, and he would no doubt have the supplies ready. Then she could grab them, get them set out, and then write down what was going to go on- when they were going to actually eat the food, for one, and when they had to be cleaning up the art supplies- on the whiteboard.

Chloe had never done nearly as much for their holiday parties, but for most of the years when she was class president, they were too young for her to be put in charge of planning anything. Then, for the last year of her class president run, she had her butler plan and bring in everything. It had been a very nice party, to be fair, but it felt a little too formal for a school party.

"You're doing such a good job, Marinette!" Tikki told her, popping her head out of Marinette's purse. "The party should be a lot of fun!"

"I hope so," Marinette said, thinking about all of the rushing and frantic planning that had gone into pulling the party together. "I really, really hope so."

"Alix, Kim, stop using the glitter glue as face paint! That is not its intended use!"

The four of them exchanged amused looks as Ms. Bustier hurried up the classroom steps to try to regain order in the back of the room. The class was hard at work, most busy cutting snowflakes and making little snowmen. Ivan and Max were working together to hang up the silver garlands around the room and to zig-zag some of the yarn back and forth between the outer windows and the hallway windows so that people could hang their finished snowflakes up in the air instead of just on the windows and blackboards. Nathaniel had brought his window paints and, with both Ms. Bustier's and Mr. Damocles' permission, was painting a winter scene on the outermost window while chatting with Rose, Juleka, and Lila.

It looked very wintery and festive. Minus, of course, Alix and Kim and their "winter warrior paint", aka glitter glue smeared across their faces. Marinette wasn't sure that Kim had thought things all the way through when he had painted the glitter glue over his eyebrows. Something told her that he was going to have a bit of a painful time getting it out again.

"My sisters would have an absolute field day with all of these supplies," Alya said as she smeared some silver glitter along the edge of her snowflake. "They love glitter glue. They've got an entire shoebox each filled with the stuff." She grimaced. "They need to be heavily supervised with they use it, though, or they'll end up with it in their hair and all over their clothes."

Nino grinned. "She's still bitter about it because the last time she was babysitting, her sisters got into the glitter glue without permission and decorated their clothes. And because she hadn't been paying attention, she got to do all of the cleaning."

Alya scowled at him. "Okay, it wasn't entirely my fault that they got into the glitter glue. Nora put it away too low, so they could actually reach it. And I had to get that article done for the Ladyblog tracking how the akuma attacks were getting more dangerous. I should have been able to do that without worrying about them. It's not like I took the glitter glue down and then ignored them."

Marinette winced in sympathy. She could only imagine how difficult it would be to get glitter glue out of clothing. She had said before that Alya's family needed a locked arts and crafts chest, like she had had when she was younger (and still kept, to lock things away when Manon came over), but apparently nothing had come of that particular suggestion.

"So d'you think that your father will be better about the holidays this year?" Nino asked Adrien, changing the subject before Alya glared a hole in her bottle of glitter glue. "I think you said something about him being a little less of a recluse lately, right? So he might actually come out and celebrate with you on his own without you running off?"

Marinette paused mid-cut, glancing over at Adrien. She knew why Mr. Agreste was coming out more- with Nathalie's heart pretty much gone, he couldn't send her out, and he wanted to get a break from her and that had the side effect of him spending more time with Adrien- but Adrien didn't know that. He had to suspect that something was up, though, considering that suddenly he wasn't seeing Nathalie at all and his mom was back under really strange conditions. Adrien's face was carefully neutral, though, giving nothing away.

"It's hard to say with him," Adrien said at last. "I'm not going to get my hopes up about anything, that's for sure. And I'll not run off this year, I just- I just had to get out of the house last year."

Marinette slid a hand over, bumping it gently against Adrien's thigh in silent support. He flashed a smile over at her, curling his fingers around her hand and giving it a light squeeze.

He would have his mom this year, she knew at least that much (and Alya and Nino did not). However, he might not have his father. It would stink for him to have his father go to jail so close to Christmas, but if Duusu recovered by then and the Purple Lady attacked, they would take her down.

It would be lovely for Paris to have their supervillain taken care of before Christmas. It would be less lovely for Adrien.

At least he would have his mom. She had to focus on that.

"Well, if you gotta get out this year- seriously, just call one of us up," Nino told him, gesturing to himself, Alya, and Marinette. Then he grinned. "Though I suppose that I don't even need to guess who you're going to go to first- what do you bet, Alya, that Adrien would go to his girlfriend first, or little old us?"

"Well, there's only one person who can give Adrien Christmas kisses, and it's not me," Alya said, grinning widely. "Or you. So I'm going to guess that he's going to go for the Dupain-Cheng place first. By the way, guys, when were you planning on telling us that you've worked your way up to kissing, hmm? Or were you going to keep that secret, too?"

Marinette could only groan.

Their last day before break went by in a rush. The single test that they had went smoothly, the presentation that she gave with Adrien went off without a single hitch. They had lunch, one more class, and then their last gym class of the semester.

She could have done without the dodgeballs. It was a relief when the clock on the wall marked the class as half over and she, Alya, and Adrien could leave to set up the table of food. Nino opted to stay and keep playing, which was probably for the better as Mr. D'Argencourt looked less than pleased about the three of them leaving.

"Party time!" Alya trilled as they walked into Ms. Bustier's room. "Oh, man, look at all of that food. I hope no one ate too much at lunch, 'cause we're gonna need people to bring their appetites."

Ms. Bustier laughed from her spot at her desk. "I've already had to shut down the proposal of an eating contest between Alix and Kim, Alya, please don't encourage it. Leftovers are fine."

"And Alya, while you're over eying up the food, can you grab the tablecloth?" Marinette called. "That and the clips. Once the tablecloth is on and secured, we can set all of the food out."

Alya nodded, diving into the box of food. She came up seconds later with the plastic tablecloth. "More snowflakes! There's a distinct lack of red and green going on this year, I noticed."

"Yeah, well, not everyone celebrates Christmas." Marinette accepted the tablecloth and started unfolding it, tossing one side to Adrien so that he could help spread it over the table. "And I tried last year to keep our party from being specific to any particular holiday, but all it took was a little bit of red and green and a picture of a Christmas tree and all of a sudden everyone was calling it a Christmas party. So I wasn't going to give an inch on that this year."

"And it worked, I think," Adrien chimed in. "Everyone is calling it a holiday party. Or a winter holiday party. Or just a winter party."

Ms. Bustier was smiling. "That's very thoughtful of you, Marinette. I know several people in our class celebrate other holidays instead, and it's nice for them to feel fully included in the class celebration."

Marinette couldn't hide her pleased smile. It had maybe taken a bit of work to ensure that all of their activities would be fully winter instead of suggesting Christmas at all, but it had been worth it. Both Nathaniel and Sabrina had seemed very happy without all of the Christmas imagery hanging over them.

"Unfortunately, I don't think everyone who brought food quite got that memo," Alya called from where she was digging in the food box. "We have Christmas tree-shaped sugar cookies."

Marinette sighed. Those, she knew without even looking, were from Rose. Still, Rose had meant well. "At least it's just the one thing."

"And gingerbread men, too."

"To be fair, I don't think those can be considered strictly Christmas unless they're frosted like Santa," Adrien pointed out. He snagged the packet of tablecloth clips from where Alya tossed them, giving the tablecloth one last tug to straighten it before starting to clip it in place. "They're regular winter holiday cookies, just like the Yule Log cake."

Marinette laughed. "I'm starting to think that your definition of 'not specific to any holiday' is more based on what your stomach wants to eat."

Adrien's exaggerated pout in response made her laugh even harder.

Slowly, the table filled up. Bags of popcorn were combined into one large bowl, bags of chips were set up, platters of cookies were uncovered and arranged, and the punch bowl was brought out and filled up. Plates and silverware- proper ones instead of paper and plastic, thanks to Chloe and her father- were stacked at one end of the table, and cups for the punch went at the other end. The Yule log cake was the last to go out, sitting proudly at the end of the table. Shaved chocolate for the bark dusted the top and sides, and smooth chocolate frosting covered the cake itself.

It looked fantastic.

"I can't wait to eat that," Adrien said, arranging the last of the discarded packaging in the now-emptied food box before coming over to stand next to Marinette. He slung a casual arm over her shoulder and Marinette leaned into his side, relishing in his heat. It was perhaps a little chilly in the building and Adrien- well, Adrien was warm. He also had a very snuggly sweater on. "All of this looks delicious. And the classroom looks great, too."

"Yeah, people really did a good job with the snowflakes." Marinette glanced around, smiling at the snowflakes hanging from the yarn strung across the classroom. They were all sorts of sizes and colors, ranging from delicate and lacy (thank you, Rose and Mylène) to large, chunky, and haphazardly smeared with glitter (a la Kim). "And Nathaniel's snow scene looks great."

"It really does," Adrien agreed."Speaking of our classmates, I think people are coming up. I hear a distant rumbling of feet."

Sure enough, there was a chattering in the hallway that was slowly getting louder. The first of their classmates started coming in, Rose wielding a bag of party games that she had no doubt hidden in her locker as she trotted in at the head of the pack. There were a lot of excited faces in the group, especially as they caught sight of the spread of food. Alix and Kim still had glitter paint smeared across their faces as they came in (and Kim was missing a chunk of one eyebrow- based on the somewhat scrubbed appearance of the glitter glue around it, she suspected that he had tried getting the glitter off and failed), and several other people had pulled on holiday sweaters. People started serving up right away, excitedly opening the bags of chips and piling their plates high. Nino bypassed the line to set up the playlist that Marinette had asked him to make, the wintery music filling the room within seconds. Rose started singing along, and it wasn't long before several other people chimed in.

Looking around, Marinette couldn't help but be pleased at how the party had come together. Everyone seemed to be having fun, the classroom looked amazing, and it - well, it was well worth the last-minute hassle of putting things together. If she took a step back, ignored everything else going on in the other side of her life, and stayed entirely in the moment, well...

It was really starting to feel like the holidays.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #Lost Heart #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste

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