#i love touch!!!!!!!! and i love it when these fictional fbi agents touch each other with intention!!!!!!!

[emilyinsuits]

the way he so softly and gently grabbed her arm to get her attention and then put a firm strong hand on her shoulder to tell her upsetting information. ANWAYS i’m fine

[wonderinglostsoul]

Criminal Mind Fanfic

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: You are an FBI agent with a past and you were about to enter the BAU.

Trigger warning: BAU stuff like killing, violence, assault, mention of rape and suicide. I tried not to get too graphic with the decription

Note: This is a slow burn so I hope you can bare with me. I am trying to make it as short as possible. ( I actually wrote this note when I am writing the first chapter and now I have 8 chapters on my draft sooooooooo)

I know that it is a long read but I tried to make each chapter as interesting as possible by adding some case. And as a reward here is a smiling Thomas Gibson

You can view other chapters on Wattpad

Master list:

Chapter 1

You arrived at the BAU one hour earlier. No one was there yet so you roam around the office to make yourself busy, trying not to touch anything. You don’t want to evade any privacy or think that you were snooping even before you get the job.

As you roam around you study each of the desk. There is a desk with a lot of books and science fiction stuff. The desk was tidy but not organize. You know that this is a guy in his late 20s. He was hired by the FBI not because of his strength but his intelligence.

The next table was easier to identify because of a family picture on the table. It was the blonde woman who is an FBI and her husband? You figure that he is a cop. You were about to go to the next table when one of the office at the top of the stairs open.

“Can I help you?” A man says with a soft voice. He is fit, tall and handsome. You can see a hint of tiredness in his eyes. Or was it sadness? All you know is that he havent left his office since yesterday. You got a glimpse of the name tag on the door. It says Aaron.

“Mr. Aaron Hotchner, Hi I am [Y/N/L].” You hurriedly went upstair and held out your hand. “Nice to meet you sir”

He shakes your hand and spoke “You too. But you were early, our meeting was not supposed to be in an hour. Please come in” He opened the door.

When you enter the room you see some paper works. He go to one end of the table and he asked you to sit on another.

He read your file. You know that half of it are true but the other half? Its only your previous boss knows.

“This is a good recommendation that you’ve got. However, your experience with the bureau is… short. I am not sure if it can be sufficient with what we need right now.” He said while he continue reading your resume. You can see the hesitation on his face.

“I do understand that you wanted to hire someone who has experience. But I know that I can be of help with you here, sir. I can be of help so you dont have to pull all this all nighter and spend the rest of your time with your son.” You told him. He looked at you intently. You knew that he was not convinced but both of you also know that this interview is just a formality. Hotchner does not want to hire anyone through nepotism. And this scenario reminds him of how Emily Prentiss started in BAU and he is afraid that the history will repeat it self

He sighed and put the folder down. “ I want to be honest with you,” he said in a low serious voice. “I dont know who you are but everyone on the higher ups wanted me to hire you. But this job. What we do, its important and dangerous and if I cannot trust you or you lacking the experience you might be endangering us all”

“Then try me.” You said, sighing in between smile. “If my experience is not enough for you then put me on the field so I can show you what I can do. I know that I have all these backers but I also studied behavioral science and profiling so I know what I am doing. I pass my exam here in Quantico so I am qualified as any of the agents here. I am top of my class. ” You said with conviction. A knock on the door interrupted your meeting. The door opens and a bubbly blonde open the door. You figure out that she was not the same kind of agent that you are.

“I’m sorry, sir but the Texas PD called and they need our help.” She said.

“Thank you, Garcia. Tell everyone to meet at the conference room.” He said.

“Yes, sir.” She said then closed the door.

“I hope you have your travel bag with you. Follow me please.” He stand up and headed to the door.

We arrived at the conference room and everyone fell silent and looked at us.

“Everyone this is [Y/N]. She will be part of the team “Probationally”.” Hotchner Said emphasizing the probationally.

He starts introducing everyone. Reid, the guy with all the book, Jennifer, the woman with a kid and cop husband, Penelope, the girl who knocks at the Hotchner’s door, Morgan and Rossi.

They were talking about a mass shooting in Texas but they cannot find the shooter.

“An L.D.S.K. “Reid said as a matter of fact.

“What is L.D.S.K?” You asked.

“Long distance serial killer” Reid answers.

“A sniper?” You asked. Hotchner click the remote and shows the victims photo.

“Most likely yes. It seems that the victims were being assassinated. The shooter is from a high a place and shot in the victims in the head and the trajectory of the bullet is in downward position” Hotchner explained. Great! You thought. The last thing you need is a case related to your past

“We need to go to texas. wheels up in 30.” Hotchner added and then he headed out of the conference room.

Everyone started to stand up and followed hotchner. You stayed because you thought of something but Morgan interrupted your thought.

“Hey newbie, you coming?” He said,

“Yes, yes.” You said absentmindedly.

You arrived at the jet. Good thing that your previous boss told you to ready a travel bag because this assignment requires a lot of traveling. Derek and Reid are already seated beside each other, in-front of them is JJ. So you seated at the long couch beside them. Rossi and hotchner was seated at the other side of the plane. The screen opens and Garcia was at the monitor. Rossi and hotchner both stand up and join your area. Rossi seated beside you and hotchner seated on the armrest beside Rossi.

They started to discuss about the victimology. 2 of the victims are male both from a different age group and industry.

“I remember one of our L.D.S.K unsub. The nurse. He would use his car to hide himself and shoot his victim.” Morgan suggested

“Yes but he was not aiming for the head. He was only aiming for the stomach. And he was shooting as many victims as he could so he can save them. But this new unsub kills all the victim.” Reid said.

“Of course you remember it correctly. This is were you got your gun right, out of hotch pity because you saves his life.” Morgan teasing.

“I was able to pass my exam after that so I earned it fair and square” Reid answered.

“Alright, how about you [Y/N] do you have your gun. If not, I think Reid’s whistle is around here somewhere. “Morgan teases and started looking around

“She has a perfect score on her qualifying exam. She has the license to use any kind of guns” Hotchner said. You glance at him and you saw that he was looking at you. Everyone fell silent so try to join the quip.

“I can teach you when we comeback” You told Reid with a smile. “ But my tip is to Aim, shoot and follow thru.”

“Thats the same tip from hotch.” You look at hotchner and he was still looking at you intently so you smiled at him. To stop the awkwardness you address garcia,

“Garcia, do you know the height of the victim?”

“Not yet but I will send you the details as soon as I got the ME.” Penelope responded,

“And can you please check the trajectory of the bullet. Can they Identify the angle?” You added

“For what?” JJ asked,

“To find where the shooter was located during the shooting. We can narrow down the buildings and floors to search.” Rossi answered JJ. “That was impressive [Y/N]. You seems to know a lot about balistc.”

“Yeah” You answered.

“Rossi, [Y/N] and Reid, go to the hospital and check the bodies, you can get your answers there. Morgan, JJ go to the lasted crime scene. I will meet at the texas pd.” Hotchner ordered. They all go back to their seat. You read your case file again and analyze the crime scene.

“Newbie, what’s your story” Morgan asked you.

“What do you mean?” You answered peaking from the case file.

“What do you do before you join the BAU?” He asked, everyone was waiting for you to answer. Even Hotchner put down his case file to listen.

Of course you cannot tell them who you really are. It is confidential and they might not understand even if you tell them. So just tell them all the half truth on your resume. You study behavioral science and profiling in quantico. At the same time you do trainings to be a field agent. You have a short stint as an undercover agent and then you asked to be transferred to BAU to pursue your dream job and become a profiler.

“Why is it that your dream job is to become a profiler? It seems rare to find someone with that dream.” JJ asked.

“Because I can read people easily like an open book. For instance, you are married with 2 kids. You grew up in a farm and based on your body built you are athletic. When we are waiting for take off, you ere fidgeting your phone, contemplating whether to call or not but you opted to text. I concur that you had a fight with your husband and you just inform him that you were on the plane and might not be home tonight. I can go on but I dont want to be rude. But I guess you got my point.” You said apologetically.

“Thats amazing,” JJ said still in shock.

“I know, but it seems that I cannot read 100% of who they are and it still puzzles me how they can kill so many people. Do they have remorse or do they enjoy it so much. All I know is that there are alot of things that you can learn with the human behaviour.” You said passionately.

“I hope you’ll get what you needed here. “ JJ said warmly.

“Thanks” you answered,

The plane landed in Texas. When you embarked to the tarmac you see 3 cars waiting for you. You follow Reid and Rossi to the hospital.

At the hospital you confirmed that the unsub did the shooting at a high place. Approximately 18 floors. You asked garcia if there are building like that in a 10 mile radius and she confirm that there are 17 buildings. you were able to narrow it down because of the position of the victim when it falls. He was laying on his back so most likely he was facing the direction of the shooter.

You call Hotch and mentioned this to him. He asked Morgan and JJ to join you so that you can check floors 17 to 19.

You were able to find the bullet casing on the 18th floor and handed them with the ballistic team. Hotch asked you all to go back to the station to round up your findings.

On the way Garcia was able to find the connection on the victims. They were a member of robbers who were responsible on robbing a bank in the early 90’s. The statue of limitation was about to expire soon and they can now used the marked money that they were able to rob during that time. The team figures that one of the member was trying to eliminate the others to have all the share by themselves. There are still 3 members alive.

The team was able to profile the suspect. Male in their late 40s early 50s. Previous member of a gang. Not really an anti social but does not have any committed relationship in the past years.

The team investigated the bank robbery to identify the other suspect. You spent almost the whole day and still does not got anything. Hotch told everyone to go back to the hotel take a rest and start fresh tomorrow.

You were walking at the corridor when Hotch called you. You glance back and said “What’s up?”

“You did great a while ago at the building. You were able to identify the crime scene. It seems to me that you really know a lot with regards to guns and ballistic but it does not show in your resume.”

“It was just a hobby.” You said defensively. “I also read alot of cases before thats why I knew how to examine medical reports. And I guess watching alot of criminal drama also do good.” You told him smiling. Hotchner just nod but still examining you.

“Sure. Rest up and have a good night.” He bid you good night and open his door. You make way to your own room and started to settle in.

The next morning you all reconvene at the station. This time you made the connection. You were separated in 3 teams and went to each suspects house. All of them was out. On the 2 of the suspect you saw letters asking them to meet at the nearby plaza but the other one did not. Now you knew who is the unsub. Hotchner asked everyone to meet there but before you go with Hotchner to the car you realized something.

“Hotchner, wait!” Hotch glance back at you, holding the car door.

“I dont think that the unsub will be at the meeting place. If he used a sniper before, I bet he will also use one here. He will hunt both of them down.”

“You’re right!” He get his phone and dialed Garcia.

“How can I help you today lovely people.” Garcia greeted at the other side of the phone.

“Garcia, can you find a building near the park. around 10mile radius.”

“There are several, ma’am.”

“How about High rise building with atleast 18 floor?” Hotchner asked.

“There are 7 but there is one building with exactly 18 floors and the highest floor is currently renovated. I will send you the address.”

“Thank you!” You and Hotchner both shouted. You go in the car. Reid was waiting for you. While driving you called everyone and mentioned your finding. You will go to the building while the rest will go to the park. Hotchner also asked back up. While on the way you saw a taller building, atleast 20 floors high. You ask Hotchner to stop.

“Stop the car!” You shouted.

“Why did you find anything?” Hotchner asked.

“I am about to. You go to that building that garcia mentioned. I will check something here.” You said in a hurry. You were about to go down. When Hotchner asked you to stop.

“I did not authorized you to do any of this unless you tell me why. Why do you need to go to that building. What is the connection to the case?”

“I cannot tell you just yet. But I can promise you that I can help. just please trust me on this. If I screw up then fire me right here. Just trust me please.” But you know he will not do that so you immediately grab the black bag you stash under the seat and jump out the car. You heard the car go away but you did not look back.

You run in the building and asked the guard that you need to go to the roof. You show your FBI ID badge and they escort you immediately. When you were at the last floor you asked the guard to stay put and dont approach the rooftop until you said so.

When you are at the rooftop, you open your bag. Inside is your sniper. Which you always bring anywhere with you. What was not added in your resume is that you were a trained sniper of the FBI. You are one of the best there is. You assemble the gun and insert some bullets.

You position your gun and look into the scope to locate the building that Garcia mentioned. You scan the top floor and saw the UnSub. He was preparing to shoot. You scan the park and saw the target and you also saw Morgan, JJ and Rossi approaching the 2 targets. When suddenly each of the swat team started falling down. You knew that the unsub was shooting. Before anything else, you point your gun to the unsub. You can see him smiling. And with your instinct you pull the trigger. It hit the unsub in the head. You saw his gun fall on the ground when he lose grip and fell down. Your heart was raising. This is the first time that you use your sniper after that unfortunate event. You were still looking at the scope when you saw Hotchner go to the window trying to find the one who shoot the unsub but you know he will not find you because you are a few miles away that the naked eye cannot see anymore. You look at him at scope for a while. Trying to read his facial expression. You know that he knew you were the one who did this so you know that he was angry at you. But when you look intently at his face, it was not anger, but rather worry that was registering in his face. He was scanning every single building around but to no avail. He frowned then you saw Reid joined him. He talked to Hotchner. Based on his lip movement you read that the others are fine and the officer that was hit was not critical. You smiled and put away your gun.

You retrieve the bullet casing and put it on your pocket. You went down and join the team at the park.

When JJ see you she was surprised.

“I thought you were with Hotch and Reid at the building where the UnSub is?” JJ asked

“Something happened thats why we have to split. How’s everyone? “ you answered her

“Everyone was fine. Some of the SWAT Team got shot as we approached the target but there were graze, I dont think the UnSub has any intention to kill them.” Morgan answered.

“And what will happened to the robbers?” You asked him

“The statue of limitation will not expire until tomorrow so they can still be arrested.” Morgan answered. You smiled.

“Thats great.” You know they have questions. Its not normal that the boss will let someone alone especially during they apprehension of the suspect. And the bag that you carry. You look more suspicious than any unsub there is. But you know that this is your last day. so you do not care anymore.

When you arrived at the station you saw Hotchner. He was shocked for a second to see you and is that a hint of relief? No, you must be imagining. And in a split second his face become serious again. He raised on eyebrow and then look away. You know that you were fired the moment you left that car. So you just approached him holding your badge.

“Sir,” You said in a low voice. When he turn around you stretched your arm, offering him your badge. He just raised his eyebrow again at the sight of the badge then he look at you

“We will talk when we arrive in Quantico.” He said then turn back to whatever he was doing. You retrieve your hand and walk away, joining the rest of the team.

The plain ride was excruciating. Hotchner was quiet and pretending you did not exist. The rest was minding also there own business. So you just lay down on the couch and tried to snooze all the noises. You cannot believe that you were able to screw your dream job.

[thelibrarylesstrektraveled]

Practically Magic Chapter One - Homecoming

Summary:

Growing up in the same tiny mountain town, Y/N Owens and Dean Winchester despised each other. The only thing they ever agreed on was their need to escape. Life took them in opposite directions and neither of them ever looked back.

So, when their paths cross over a series of gruesome murders in their hometown it was no surprise that old friction heated up again.

Dean never dreamed he’d be teaming up with a psychic, the FBI frowned on that sort of thing, but he was desperate. When that psychic turned out to be Y/N Owens, Dean knew two things for sure. One, Y/N was the real deal and two, he was in real trouble.

Pairing: Agent!Dean x Psychic!Reader, Dean x Reader, AU Dean x You

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, John Winchester, Bobby Singer

Warnings: Slow Burn, Serial Killer Elements, Witches, Haters to Lovers, Claustrophobic Elements, Murder Scenes

Author’s Notes: This is an AU taking elements from the film Practical Magic and applying them to a fictional world where Dean Winchester is an FBI Agent. You will find parallels from that movie here, some quotes and other elements that capture the essence of the world of the Owens Witches. Hopefully!

Additional Author’s Notes: This is a unique reader insert story as I have given the reader a physical description including hair color, eye color and body type.

Additional Additional Author’s Notes: This was originally all one chapter and then I realized how long it was so you get two chapters posting at once! Call it an early Halloween present! Thank you all for your enthusiasm in anticipation of this story, hope you love it!

Chapter One: Homecoming

Word Count: 2697

Masterlist Practically Magic Masterlist

“My darling girl, when are you going to understand that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.” – Aunt Francis Owens, Practical Magic

Home. You were going home. After nearly eighteen months on a book tour that hit every state in the union and another twelve in L.A. working the film adaptation, Y/N Owens was going home.

The Witch in the Well had been a labor of love. A twisted fairy tale that was more than a little autobiographical. It shot to the top the New York Times best seller list and stayed there for a year. Like a comet streaking across the heavens, it came out of nowhere and took the world by storm. There were whispers early on calling you the next J.K. Rowling. Frankly, that was a can of worms on far too many levels. All you wanted to do was write, tell stories. To have enough success to pay your rent and buy a new pair of boots.

Your publicist had never seen anything like it. Everything was a green light. You were King Midas, everything you touched turned to gold. Unbelievable good luck. One in a million. A lightning strike! You had your suspicions that your family had used their collective mystical influence to tip the scales of the universe in your favor. Of course, you had no real proof. They were far too crafty to leave any sort of detectable evidence.

When you pressed the issue with your grandmother over a bottle of apple wine, she gave you the only confirmation you’d ever get.

Bah! People pray morning, noon, and night for the tiniest thing! Pray to make a yellow light. Pray the football team wins the big game. Pray the wife doesn’t notice the lipstick on the husband’s collar. Your book is brilliant and bound to be a success. It was only a matter of the right people seeing it. Call it luck if it suits you, but the universe has a way of balancing itself. After all this time, I’d say you were due for a bit of the good stuff.

Good stuff indeed! One minute you were renting a room above a garage in Portland, tending bar at night while you wrote during the day. The next you were checking your luggage on a first-class flight bound for New York. You had interviews on the morning shows and meetings with Hollywood executives in five-star restaurants. Five minutes of fame turned into a full-blown career that was not showing any sign of slowing down.

Of course, you’d never been any damn good at slowing down anyway.

A smile curved your lips as your foot pressed the accelerator. The Italian sportscar increased its already impressive speed, smooth as silk as it hugged the sharp curves of the narrow, mountain road. Blood red with leather seats, state of the art sound system, and a ridiculous amount of horsepower. Sex on wheels, it was purely to show off and you knew it. Going home was never easy for you. It meant facing reminders of a difficult childhood.

When your publicist suggested using your hometown as the location to launch the release of your second book, you immediately refused. It was tiny, remote, and no place you ever wanted to go back to. Unfortunately, you used it as the setting for your story. It put Silverton on the map in a big way. With the excitement already buzzing around the movie, it made good business sense to have a big bash for the next installment right where is all started. So, you relented. But you’d be damned if you were going to slink back quietly. Go big or go home. In this case, both.

You were too deep into Pink’s latest album to notice the blue and red flashing lights in your review. It took the sirens sounding to finally catch your attention. “Fuck,” you muttered, noting your speed at well over 100 mph. You quickly slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road. A simple charm for luck with the law passed your lips as you reached into the glove box and rolled down the window.

“Ma’am, do you have a valid reason for driving fifty over the speed limit?”

The registration and insurance papers kept sliding away from your fingertips. “Damn it,” you cursed, stretching further into the car. “Sorry, officer… this is a new car and I’m not really used to it.”

“Yeah, we don’t get many Maserati’s…. Y/N?”

You whipped your head around at the sound of your name in the pleasing baritone voice. The sheriff’s uniform and mirrored aviators suited him. No longer the boy you grew up with, still you’d recognize him anywhere, “Holy shit… Sam?”

He removed his sunglasses and smiled that lopsided smile that was oh so familiar. “Y/N Owens. It’s been a long time.”

“It’s been a lifetime.” You gave him an appraising once over. You had to admit, the years had been good to him. The Sam you remembered was a lanky, shaggy haired, over-grown puppy dog. A bit of a goofball but top of the class smart, and sweet as could be.

That first day of grade school, when everyone else avoided you like the plague, Sam came right up to you. Unbothered by the rumors that swirled around your family since before you were born.

“Hi, is it okay if I sit here?”

You looked up from your untouched lunch and saw a boy from your class standing beside you with a tray in his hands. You were completely alone. All of the other kids had clustered together on the other side of the cafeteria. Even the tables surrounding yours were empty. You were used to it and learned to be content with your own company. But being used to it didn’t make it easy.

“Hey, Sam! Over here!” A group of boys called to him, but he didn’t acknowledge them. He just kept smiling expectedly at you.

You always had a little trouble making friends. You seemed to say the wrong thing all the time. You’d blurt out secrets having no idea they were never meant to be uttered. Gran called it your gift, but it didn’t feel like one.

But Sam seemed different, felt different. He felt kind. When he smiled his eyes smiled too.

You shrugged, turning your attention back to the well-worn book in your lap. “Sure.”

“What are you reading?”

You held up the cover for him to see. It was one of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

Sam dug into his mac and cheese, “Cool! That’s a good one. Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favorite, though.”

Your eyes widened. You were an advanced reader for your age, most of your classmates hadn’t even heard of those books let alone read them. “Mine too! I’ve read it like ten times!”

He grinned at you, “I’m Sam, by the way. Sam Winchester.”

You smiled back, a genuine smile for the first time that day. “Y/N Owens.”

“Sam Winchester turned Johnny Lawman. You look good kid; the badge works for you.”

“Kid.” Sam repeated with a smirk, “We’re the same age, Y/N. Although I’d say time’s been better to you. I found three gray hairs this month.”

“You poor bastard.”

“Seriously Y/N, this car,” he ran his hand over the open window, “The book selling business must be booming.”

“It is, but don’t be too impressed. It’s a rental,” you confessed. “A bribe actually, from one of the studios vying for the production rights.”

Sam whistled, “Life in the fast lane, huh?”

“Something like that. Figured what the hell, if I had to go home, may as well be in style. Besides, I only have it for a few days. The dealership in Denver is picking it up at the end of the week.”

“So, you’re staying for a while?” Sam couldn’t help sounding hopeful. “I was surprised when Viv said you were having your release party in Silverton. I didn’t think you’d come back, like ever.”

You weren’t sure how to answer. Sam was right, you never intended to come back. But now that you were just a few miles away from home, you felt a pull you hadn’t expected. The closer you got, the stronger it got. Something down deep was saying you were right where you needed to be.

“There’s just no telling what the future will bring.”

Sam chuckled, “Yeah okay, well you keep this beauty under eighty or your future is going to include a hefty speeding ticket.”

You winked, “No promises.”

He patted the roof of your car and put his sunglasses back on as he straightened to his impressive height. “Welcome home, Y/N.”

Silverton, Colorado. A bustling mining town when the west was wild, now little more than a brief stop on the tourist trail. A collection of historic store fronts lined main street. Largely unchanged from the day you left, except for the miraculous addition of the upscale bar in the Hotel Baker. Smack in the middle of everything stood The Compendium.

The ornate, two-story building once housed the general store and had been in your family since Silverton was first settled. Generations of Owens’ had provided the community with everything from dry goods to ammunition, usually with a bit of mystical advice on the side. Not all that different from today. When your grandmother, Vivienne took it over she moved the magic out of the shadows and put it front and center.

Hells bells, everyone knows what we are anyway! Time to come out of the broom closet!

Gran’s motto was if you couldn’t find what you were looking for in her store, it probably wasn’t worth finding in the first place. Which is how an eclectic shop like hers was able to draw customers from five states over. Gran was a finder; it was her gift. Misplaced car keys, missing estate documents, lost loves. You need something impossible? Odds were Viv Owens had it in her back room.

You checked your reflection briefly in the front display window, your eye catching a huge poster advertising a book signing and launch party. A blown-up picture of you from the dust jacket of the book stared back. Your nose wrinkled. You’d spent most of your life in this town trying to go unnoticed, now you were about to step into the biggest spotlight Silverton had ever seen.

Determined to play your part, you squared your shoulders and pulled open the leaded glass door. The place was packed. Just like the rest of downtown, there were people everywhere. Not even the Winter Festival brought this many strangers to town. Your publicist was right, this was going to be big.

You wove your way through the crowd, noting the impressive display of The Witch in the Well booksin the middle of the main floor. It fit right in with the rest of Gran’s inventory of altar tools and curios. It smelled the same, dusty books and candle wax. It felt the same.

One of Gran’s many cats stopped grooming itself to peer at you. It’s bright, amber eyes gleaming against thick, black fur. With the indifference of bored royalty, it flicked it’s tail and sauntered off towards the back of the shop. You followed.

“The cards said you’d be along today.”

“So did the itinerary I sent you,” You replied, stepping through the velvet curtains that hid the entrance to your grandmother’s office. The massive, white dog that was stationed at her feet came up to greet you. You rubbed behind her ears affectionately,

“And I texted you this morning.”

She kept her silver head bent over the ledger, entering numbers long-hand, as she plucked up a tarot card and held it up for your inspection.

Daughter of Swords. Truth and courage.

“Fair enough.”

Viv snorted and shut the ledger with a definitive snap. “I like the red,” she said, waving a hand at you, “That color always suited you.”

You ran a hand through your newly cut and colored locks. You never liked the way you looked. Your hair was a mousy cross between blonde and brown. Your short frame always seemed to carry extra pounds and your dark eyes made you look more serious than you were.

When the L.A. stylist asked you what you wanted her to do, you gave her free rein.

“Anything, just not this.”

“Let’s try this again, Sweetness. How do you want to feel?”

You stared at your reflection, determined that it would never be the same. “Strong.”

She cut your hair short, very short. Leaving a long, dramatic side-sweep of bangs in the front and dyed it a deep auburn. It transformed your face from somber to sexy. Made your eyes seductive and accented cheekbones you never noticed before. You worked with a trainer. While you never met the Hollywood standard, you did develop some muscle mass and a new appreciation for your body. Flaws and all.

“Thanks, Gran.”

Vivienne Owens stood from her desk. You’d always admired her effortless beauty. Wand slender with thick silver hair and deep, brown eyes that matched your own. She took your chin in her hand and gave you a long, hard look before nodding with approval.

A mischievous smile split her face and she winked. “Welcome home, darling girl.”

You smiled back and watched as she plucked a dry-cleaning bag from the coat rack and disappeared behind the carved dressing screen in the corner.

“You know you’re tempting the gods by hosting your shindig on Samhain.”

You perched on the edge of her desk, petting the black cat who had decided to reappear. “Donna thought it would be clever marketing to have it on Halloween night. You were the one who offered up the shop as a venue.”

Her voice was muffled through the rustle of clothes, “Its practically a blaspheme. Your cousins in Connecticut were particularly scandalized. I don’t care what your publicist says, it’s simply not done.”

Your ears perked up, “Connecticut? You mean Agatha and Aiden?” Your fingers stilled in the cat’s fur, “They aren’t coming, are they?!”

“Y/N, everyone is coming. The entire Owens clan has already R.S.V.P.’d. Which reminds me, the house is already filled with wayward relatives, so you’ll be bunking in the carriage house.”

“Fuck me.”

“Another blaspheme,” she admonished you. “I should charge you for that.”

You made a face at the screen. You were a grown woman, damn it. You were entitled to speak as you pleased. “Put it on my tab.”

“Rates have gone up, its twenty for the f-word. And don’t roll your eyes.”

Viv came out from behind the screen, smoothing her hands down her sides. The dress was elegant, just a simple wrap in black paired with silver jewelry. Perfection. Your Gran could have given Jackie Kennedy a run for her money.

“Got a hot date?”

Viv smiled and a man’s voice came through the thick curtain, “Knock, knock.”

Your eyes widened as a familiar face came through from the store, “Fuck me.”

“That’s another twenty.”

“Y/N, good to see you,” Bobby held out a wide hand to you, “Sam mentioned you were back.”

You shook his hand. Your eyes darting between the pair, and you wondered how long this had been going on. “Sheriff Singer.”

He chuckled, remarkably good natured. He wore a suit, an actual suit! Beard trimmed, hair combed, spicey aftershave. Almost unrecognizable from the man you knew growing up.

The Bobby Singer you remembered was a scruffy-looking, whiskey soaked, hard ass.

“Bobby is fine. Sheriff Singer is what the kids call me when I bust ‘em for drinking beer behind the bleachers.”

“Bob and I are going out for dinner,” Viv informed you as Bobby helped her into her coat. “Lock up when you leave and take Juno with you. Her kibble is in the mudroom, she gets three scoops.”

Bobby couldn’t help smiling at your bewildered expression. “Have a nice night, Y/N.”

The happy couple sailed out through the curtains, and you frowned down at Juno who thumped her tail in response.

“It’s great to be home.”

[trektraveler]

Practically Magic

Chapter One: Homecoming

Summary:

Growing up in the same tiny mountain town, Y/N Owens and Dean Winchester despised each other. The only thing they ever agreed on was their need to escape. Life took them in opposite directions and neither of them ever looked back.

So, when their paths cross over a series of gruesome murders in their hometown it was no surprise that old friction heated up again.

Dean never dreamed he’d be teaming up with a psychic, the FBI frowned on that sort of thing, but he was desperate. When that psychic turned out to be Y/N Owens, Dean knew two things for sure. One, Y/N was the real deal and two, he was in real trouble.

Pairing: Agent!Dean x Psychic!Reader, Dean x Reader, AU Dean x You

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, John Winchester, Bobby Singer

Warnings: Slow Burn, Serial Killer Elements, Witches, Haters to Lovers, Claustrophobic Elements, Murder Scenes

Author’s Notes: This is an AU taking elements from the film Practical Magic and applying them to a fictional world where Dean Winchester is an FBI Agent. You will find parallels from that movie here, some quotes and other elements that capture the essence of the world of the Owens Witches. Hopefully!

Additional Author's Notes: This is a unique reader insert story as I have given the reader a physical description including hair color, eye color and body type.

Additional Additional Author's Notes: This was originally all one chapter and then I realized how long it was so you get two chapters posting at once! Call it an early Halloween present! Thank you all for your enthusiasm in anticipation of this story, hope you love it!

Chapter One: Homecoming

Word Count: 2697

“My darling girl, when are you going to understand that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.” – Aunt Francis Owens, Practical Magic

Home. You were going home. After nearly eighteen months on a book tour that hit every state in the union and another twelve in L.A. working the film adaptation, Y/N Owens was going home.

The Witch in the Well had been a labor of love. A twisted fairy tale that was more than a little autobiographical. It shot to the top the New York Times best seller list and stayed there for a year. Like a comet streaking across the heavens, it came out of nowhere and took the world by storm. There were whispers early on calling you the next J.K. Rowling. Frankly, that was a can of worms on far too many levels. All you wanted to do was write, tell stories. To have enough success to pay your rent and buy a new pair of boots.

Your publicist had never seen anything like it. Everything was a green light. You were King Midas, everything you touched turned to gold. Unbelievable good luck. One in a million. A lightning strike! You had your suspicions that your family had used their collective mystical influence to tip the scales of the universe in your favor. Of course, you had no real proof. They were far too crafty to leave any sort of detectable evidence.

When you pressed the issue with your grandmother over a bottle of apple wine, she gave you the only confirmation you’d ever get.

Bah! People pray morning, noon, and night for the tiniest thing! Pray to make a yellow light. Pray the football team wins the big game. Pray the wife doesn’t notice the lipstick on the husband’s collar. Your book is brilliant and bound to be a success. It was only a matter of the right people seeing it. Call it luck if it suits you, but the universe has a way of balancing itself. After all this time, I’d say you were due for a bit of the good stuff.

Good stuff indeed! One minute you were renting a room above a garage in Portland, tending bar at night while you wrote during the day. The next you were checking your luggage on a first-class flight bound for New York. You had interviews on the morning shows and meetings with Hollywood executives in five-star restaurants. Five minutes of fame turned into a full-blown career that was not showing any sign of slowing down.

Of course, you’d never been any damn good at slowing down anyway.

A smile curved your lips as your foot pressed the accelerator. The Italian sportscar increased its already impressive speed, smooth as silk as it hugged the sharp curves of the narrow, mountain road. Blood red with leather seats, state of the art sound system, and a ridiculous amount of horsepower. Sex on wheels, it was purely to show off and you knew it. Going home was never easy for you. It meant facing reminders of a difficult childhood.

When your publicist suggested using your hometown as the location to launch the release of your second book, you immediately refused. It was tiny, remote, and no place you ever wanted to go back to. Unfortunately, you used it as the setting for your story. It put Silverton on the map in a big way. With the excitement already buzzing around the movie, it made good business sense to have a big bash for the next installment right where is all started. So, you relented. But you’d be damned if you were going to slink back quietly. Go big or go home. In this case, both.

You were too deep into Pink’s latest album to notice the blue and red flashing lights in your review. It took the sirens sounding to finally catch your attention. “Fuck,” you muttered, noting your speed at well over 100 mph. You quickly slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road. A simple charm for luck with the law passed your lips as you reached into the glove box and rolled down the window.

“Ma’am, do you have a valid reason for driving fifty over the speed limit?”

The registration and insurance papers kept sliding away from your fingertips. “Damn it,” you cursed, stretching further into the car. “Sorry, officer… this is a new car and I’m not really used to it.”

“Yeah, we don’t get many Maserati’s…. Y/N?”

You whipped your head around at the sound of your name in the pleasing baritone voice. The sheriff’s uniform and mirrored aviators suited him. No longer the boy you grew up with, still you’d recognize him anywhere, “Holy shit… Sam?”

He removed his sunglasses and smiled that lopsided smile that was oh so familiar. “Y/N Owens. It’s been a long time.”

“It’s been a lifetime.” You gave him an appraising once over. You had to admit, the years had been good to him. The Sam you remembered was a lanky, shaggy haired, over-grown puppy dog. A bit of a goofball but top of the class smart, and sweet as could be.

That first day of grade school, when everyone else avoided you like the plague, Sam came right up to you. Unbothered by the rumors that swirled around your family since before you were born.

“Hi, is it okay if I sit here?”

You looked up from your untouched lunch and saw a boy from your class standing beside you with a tray in his hands. You were completely alone. All of the other kids had clustered together on the other side of the cafeteria. Even the tables surrounding yours were empty. You were used to it and learned to be content with your own company. But being used to it didn’t make it easy.

“Hey, Sam! Over here!” A group of boys called to him, but he didn’t acknowledge them. He just kept smiling expectedly at you.

You always had a little trouble making friends. You seemed to say the wrong thing all the time. You’d blurt out secrets having no idea they were never meant to be uttered. Gran called it your gift, but it didn’t feel like one.

But Sam seemed different, felt different. He felt kind. When he smiled his eyes smiled too.

You shrugged, turning your attention back to the well-worn book in your lap. “Sure.”

“What are you reading?”

You held up the cover for him to see. It was one of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

Sam dug into his mac and cheese, “Cool! That’s a good one. Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favorite, though.”

Your eyes widened. You were an advanced reader for your age, most of your classmates hadn’t even heard of those books let alone read them. “Mine too! I’ve read it like ten times!”

He grinned at you, “I’m Sam, by the way. Sam Winchester.”

You smiled back, a genuine smile for the first time that day. “Y/N Owens.”

“Sam Winchester turned Johnny Lawman. You look good kid; the badge works for you.”

“Kid.” Sam repeated with a smirk, “We’re the same age, Y/N. Although I’d say time’s been better to you. I found three gray hairs this month.”

“You poor bastard.”

“Seriously Y/N, this car,” he ran his hand over the open window, “The book selling business must be booming.”

“It is, but don’t be too impressed. It’s a rental,” you confessed. “A bribe actually, from one of the studios vying for the production rights.”

Sam whistled, “Life in the fast lane, huh?”

“Something like that. Figured what the hell, if I had to go home, may as well be in style. Besides, I only have it for a few days. The dealership in Denver is picking it up at the end of the week.”

“So, you’re staying for a while?” Sam couldn’t help sounding hopeful. “I was surprised when Viv said you were having your release party in Silverton. I didn’t think you’d come back, like ever.”

You weren’t sure how to answer. Sam was right, you never intended to come back. But now that you were just a few miles away from home, you felt a pull you hadn’t expected. The closer you got, the stronger it got. Something down deep was saying you were right where you needed to be.

“There’s just no telling what the future will bring.”

Sam chuckled, “Yeah okay, well you keep this beauty under eighty or your future is going to include a hefty speeding ticket.”

You winked, “No promises.”

He patted the roof of your car and put his sunglasses back on as he straightened to his impressive height. “Welcome home, Y/N.”

Silverton, Colorado. A bustling mining town when the west was wild, now little more than a brief stop on the tourist trail. A collection of historic store fronts lined main street. Largely unchanged from the day you left, except for the miraculous addition of the upscale bar in the Hotel Baker. Smack in the middle of everything stood The Compendium.

The ornate, two-story building once housed the general store and had been in your family since Silverton was first settled. Generations of Owens’ had provided the community with everything from dry goods to ammunition, usually with a bit of mystical advice on the side. Not all that different from today. When your grandmother, Vivienne took it over she moved the magic out of the shadows and put it front and center.

Hells bells, everyone knows what we are anyway! Time to come out of the broom closet!

Gran’s motto was if you couldn’t find what you were looking for in her store, it probably wasn’t worth finding in the first place. Which is how an eclectic shop like hers was able to draw customers from five states over. Gran was a finder; it was her gift. Misplaced car keys, missing estate documents, lost loves. You need something impossible? Odds were Viv Owens had it in her back room.

You checked your reflection briefly in the front display window, your eye catching a huge poster advertising a book signing and launch party. A blown-up picture of you from the dust jacket of the book stared back. Your nose wrinkled. You’d spent most of your life in this town trying to go unnoticed, now you were about to step into the biggest spotlight Silverton had ever seen.

Determined to play your part, you squared your shoulders and pulled open the leaded glass door. The place was packed. Just like the rest of downtown, there were people everywhere. Not even the Winter Festival brought this many strangers to town. Your publicist was right, this was going to be big.

You wove your way through the crowd, noting the impressive display of The Witch in the Well books in the middle of the main floor. It fit right in with the rest of Gran’s inventory of altar tools and curios. It smelled the same, dusty books and candle wax. It felt the same.

One of Gran’s many cats stopped grooming itself to peer at you. It’s bright, amber eyes gleaming against thick, black fur. With the indifference of bored royalty, it flicked it’s tail and sauntered off towards the back of the shop. You followed.

“The cards said you’d be along today.”

“So did the itinerary I sent you,” You replied, stepping through the velvet curtains that hid the entrance to your grandmother’s office. The massive, white dog that was stationed at her feet came up to greet you. You rubbed behind her ears affectionately,

“And I texted you this morning.”

She kept her silver head bent over the ledger, entering numbers long-hand, as she plucked up a tarot card and held it up for your inspection.

Daughter of Swords. Truth and courage.

“Fair enough.”

Viv snorted and shut the ledger with a definitive snap. “I like the red,” she said, waving a hand at you, “That color always suited you.”

You ran a hand through your newly cut and colored locks. You never liked the way you looked. Your hair was a mousy cross between blonde and brown. Your short frame always seemed to carry extra pounds and your dark eyes made you look more serious than you were.

When the L.A. stylist asked you what you wanted her to do, you gave her free rein.

“Anything, just not this.”

“Let’s try this again, Sweetness. How do you want to feel?”

You stared at your reflection, determined that it would never be the same. “Strong.”

She cut your hair short, very short. Leaving a long, dramatic side-sweep of bangs in the front and dyed it a deep auburn. It transformed your face from somber to sexy. Made your eyes seductive and accented cheekbones you never noticed before. You worked with a trainer. While you never met the Hollywood standard, you did develop some muscle mass and a new appreciation for your body. Flaws and all.

“Thanks, Gran.”

Vivienne Owens stood from her desk. You’d always admired her effortless beauty. Wand slender with thick silver hair and deep, brown eyes that matched your own. She took your chin in her hand and gave you a long, hard look before nodding with approval.

A mischievous smile split her face and she winked. “Welcome home, darling girl.”

You smiled back and watched as she plucked a dry-cleaning bag from the coat rack and disappeared behind the carved dressing screen in the corner.

“You know you’re tempting the gods by hosting your shindig on Samhain.”

You perched on the edge of her desk, petting the black cat who had decided to reappear. “Donna thought it would be clever marketing to have it on Halloween night. You were the one who offered up the shop as a venue.”

Her voice was muffled through the rustle of clothes, “Its practically a blaspheme. Your cousins in Connecticut were particularly scandalized. I don’t care what your publicist says, it’s simply not done.”

Your ears perked up, “Connecticut? You mean Agatha and Aiden?” Your fingers stilled in the cat’s fur, “They aren’t coming, are they?!”

“Y/N, everyone is coming. The entire Owens clan has already R.S.V.P.’d. Which reminds me, the house is already filled with wayward relatives, so you’ll be bunking in the carriage house.”

“Fuck me.”

“Another blaspheme,” she admonished you. “I should charge you for that.”

You made a face at the screen. You were a grown woman, damn it. You were entitled to speak as you pleased. “Put it on my tab.”

“Rates have gone up, its twenty for the f-word. And don’t roll your eyes.”

Viv came out from behind the screen, smoothing her hands down her sides. The dress was elegant, just a simple wrap in black paired with silver jewelry. Perfection. Your Gran could have given Jackie Kennedy a run for her money.

“Got a hot date?”

Viv smiled and a man’s voice came through the thick curtain, “Knock, knock.”

Your eyes widened as a familiar face came through from the store, “Fuck me.”

“That’s another twenty.”

“Y/N, good to see you,” Bobby held out a wide hand to you, “Sam mentioned you were back.”

You shook his hand. Your eyes darting between the pair, and you wondered how long this had been going on. “Sheriff Singer.”

He chuckled, remarkably good natured. He wore a suit, an actual suit! Beard trimmed, hair combed, spicey aftershave. Almost unrecognizable from the man you knew growing up.

The Bobby Singer you remembered was a scruffy-looking, whiskey soaked, hard ass.

“Bobby is fine. Sheriff Singer is what the kids call me when I bust ‘em for drinking beer behind the bleachers.”

“Bob and I are going out for dinner,” Viv informed you as Bobby helped her into her coat. “Lock up when you leave and take Juno with you. Her kibble is in the mudroom, she gets three scoops.”

Bobby couldn’t help smiling at your bewildered expression. “Have a nice night, Y/N.”

The happy couple sailed out through the curtains, and you frowned down at Juno who thumped her tail in response.

“It’s great to be home.”

[canonicallysoulmates]

Last year, I did a post looking back at some of the j2 moments 2019 and the 2010’s decade had given us, this year with it being so shit and so many of us needing some cheering up I thought I’d do a 2020 version.

So before we say fuck off to 2020 here are some of the j2 moments this year has given us:

SM isn’t everything but it’s still cute when the boys interact with each other online and the year actually started with it, with both boys liking each other’s New Year’s pictures with their kiddos:

X

Those weren’t the only SM interactions, on a more recent example by which I mean December they had this cute little exchange under a pic Jared posted were he was sleeping:

XX

And Jensen liked this cute pic of his smiling boy:

XX

Of course nothing compares to the best SM moment of the year: Jared’s beautiful, emotional, touching, heartfelt birthday message for Jensen 🥺:

And Jensen’s reply ❤:

X

Before everything went under lockdown we got one convention, among the moments we got from it were:

- Jared talking about his birthday post to Jensen, calling Jensen his boy and saying that he has pictures of him and Jensen just hanging out on his phone

full gifset

- Fist bump

- And a hug

full gifset

To me one of the best j2 moments 2020 gave us was the release of this amazing EW photoshoot that I will forever be in love with (especially this cover I will never be over this cover) 😍

This photoshoot was the gift that kept on giving! Not only did we get beautiful new photos of the boys, but we also got some amazing content from the bts like

full gifset

Look at them! The way Jensen closes his eyes and leans into Jared, the way they look at each other this is what love looks like people! 🥰 Find someone who will look at you like how j2 look are looking at each other in that gif. 

And even the accompanying interview gave us a little something with Jared saying that he burrowed strength from Jensen when he was struggling with the job

Padalecki, 37, who’s been vocal about his struggle in the early seasons, says. “I borrowed strength from Jensen.” x

And this is barely the tip of the iceberg I’m just providing some examples of what that photoshoot gave us but it was a feast!

Summer seemed to be the never ending dry spell, many wondered ‘will we ever get j2 content again?’ and the answer was...yes!

Starting with a little interview the boys did with small moments such as

full gifset

And Jensen confirming he and Jared still live near one another.

When Jensen appeared for the second time on Rosenbaum’s podcast he spend a good part of it being fond over Jared and making them sound totally married sharing a story about Jared’s preferred breakfast burrito and how he and Jared have bickered over it and of course starting of the panel by making it clear covid or no covid him and Jared would be making out:

full gifset

The boys had a joint virtual Q&A panel filled with moments, they were joking around, they made each other laugh, and it all started with Jensen saying how handsome Jared looked.

When filming wrapped up Jared and Jensen had their own celebration with dinner and champagne at one of their favorite restaurants:

"Jared and I wrapped on Thursday, and Saturday night he and I went to one of our all-time favorite restaurants, just us, and toasted with some champagne," Ackles says. x

Those two can’t get enough of each other so they road tripped part of the way home together!

“He and I just drove together all of our stuff across the border. So, we drove up together for season 1 and we drove away together for season 15.” - Jensen in the Chelsea Davis interview

Jared mentioning their road trip during a TVLine interview & during a TVInsider interview 

With Supernatural coming to an end a lot of interviews took place and provided us with content:

The Talk interview gave us a married moment, when the boys were asked who had the messier dressing room Jensen replied Jared did to which Jared literally went no sir, no sir. 

The CNN interview had the boys admitting not working together will be an adjustment with Jensen saying “So, it will be different, and that’s probably when he and I will call each other and be like, ‘I miss you so much!’” as well as this moment  "Oh, I thought you meant we fell in love," Ackles quips."We fell in love, too," Padalecki jokes. When I add that plotline was only in fan fiction, Ackles retorts, "Or was it?" Padalecki erupts in laughter. "There it goes the internet."

In an interview with Chelsea Davis Jensen once again brought up that him and Jared will be contacting each other from their new shows

“Jared said it, he’s like I don’t think it’s really gonna set in until we walk unto the set of some other show. But that’s fine cause then we’ll just turn around and call each other and be like ‘what’s your show like?’”

Jared having a little fond moment over Jensen during one of the TVline segments

Jensen saying that 15yrs ago him and Jared got on a rollercoaster (Supernatural) and that he couldn’t have asked for a better partner:

full gifset

Jared comparing him and Jensen finishing the show to the time they ran the Seattle Marathon together (yes, the marathon they ran together and crossed the finish line holding hands) 😭❤: 

“There were a lot of tears all over but Ackles and I were looking at each other like, ‘Man’. It was kind of like finishing the Seattle Marathon. We did it. Dude, we did it, you know? We put in the work…I’ve been with you for 15 years, 15-½ years. I’ve seen you sweat. I’ve seen you bleed. I’ve seen you hurt. I’ve seen you going through stuff personally and put it aside for this show, for your character and I know I’ve done the same and it was bittersweet.”  x

Jensen talking about his and Jared’s Impala’s in the USA Today interview

Ackles says he was “floored” by the gift: “And it's cool, because now Jared and I can just drag-race around Austin.”

“If we get pulled over, it'd be like, ‘Don't worry. FBI Agent Robert Plant,’" Padalecki adds.

“We've got FBI badges in the glove box,” Ackles confirms.

The last virtual panel of the year was Jared’s and it was full of love for Jensen; Jared mentioned him often, unprompted he shared the story of when the twins were born and how hectic it was for him and Jensen to return to Austin in time for their birth honestly hearing him talk about it it’s clear how important that day was for him too and it’s just so sweet, he said him and Jensen will definitely work together again and he hopes it’ll be sooner rather than later, also said Jensen has a standing invitation to do whatever he wants on Walker, and implied he’s already looked at his schedule to see if he could make it up to Toronto where Jensen will be working in 2021. 

And these are just some moments; I know that with everything going on and time losing all meaning it might have seemed like we had a j2-less year but as you can see that’s not true cause not even a pandemic or this hellish year were able to stop or dim the beauty that is j2 and their relationship. 

This men make me so ridiculously happy, and with this being such a hard year for all of us, for some more than others, it makes me all that extra grateful for them and to them for bringing a smile to my face. I hope that with this post they will bring a smile to yours. I personally am looking forward to seeing what j2 goodies 2021 gives us, I’m hopeful there’ll be plenty, our boys have new projects coming out, God willing cons will be able to pick up again in a safe way, and there’ll be even more j2 content to enjoy. 

Until then, stay safe, take care of yourselves, and Happy New Years my fellow tinhats! ❤

[writeradamanteve]

Wanted to know how you would write the Bughead reconciliation if the following happened. After graduation and FP leaving. Betty tells Jughead about the cheating and he says that he can forgive her and move on. They have a moment but later at night Jughead can't sleep and keeps thinking about the cheating. He gets ups packs his things and leaves. This makes them both made at each other. Jughead for the cheating and Betty for him just leaving. They don't talk at all over the seven years.

The Point of a Gun

The FBI’s standard issue handgun is a Glock 17M - 9mm. It fits well in the hands of a trained agent, lies flat and compact against a body holster, and is perfectly weighed fully loaded for maximum accuracy and handling. 

Jughead knows all this because he had amassed enough knowledge about firearms to write about them in the crime fiction he publishes. He had done research on many handheld weapons--guns, knives, even candlesticks. Hell, he’d researched the impact of a golf club relative to the speed and distance of its swing. After all, he’d seen one crack open a skull. 

He’d always thought that if he ever found himself staring down the muzzle of a gun at point blank range, his dramatic self would contemplate the meaning of his life, but now he found himself studying the gun’s anatomy relative to the hands that held it with trained precision, how those same hands wrapped systematically around the grip, pointer finger precisely placed near, but not on, the trigger, and how those hands tapered to slim and bony wrists. 

He knew the shape of them, all too well, not just by sight, but by the curve and press of them against his lips, perhaps even by the salt-taste of its skin, with a hint of that vanilla scented perfume he liked so much.

It was hard to tell whether the memories that assaulted him were compelled by the inevitability of his mortality or by the person aiming the gun at him, because what he could remember of his past life right now were the moments painted by the brush of her golden, ponytailed hair, the touch of pink on her cheeks, or the accents of her green eyes.

His insides were fraught with opposing emotions--love and betrayal, joy and sadness, pleasure and pain. Every moment that had given his life meaning was tainted by the heartbreak that beset him that night he told her he loved her, that he forgave her, and then the moment she fell asleep, he got to thinking that if even the best thing that ever happened to him in his life in Riverdale would conclude in heartache, then maybe he should have gone with his first instinct 3 years ago. 

It was the last time his gaze fell on those shiny golden locks. He committed that image to memory, then he turned away, packed up, and left Riverdale, and Betty, behind him. 

If he ever did return, he was certain that he’d learned his lessons well, that moving forward would give him the wisdom to know better, and that giving himself the chance to realize who he could be without her was his way of growing up, or becoming.  

But right now it was all coming down to the point of a gun, where he realized that his mortality came second to the fact that Betty still had as firm of a grip on him as she did with her gun, because on top of everything else, all those memories of her racing through his mind, a voice in his head was whispering, so distinctly, Damn, Cooper. 

The soft breath she expelled when she caught sight of him was first filled with relief, followed by the quick retraction of her arms and her glock. Its muzzle was directed elsewhere, but at that point, he could see that her relief was morphing into something else. 

He noted the fury of her glare, but its intensity burned quick, more like a flash, immediately replaced by a frost so distinct that he wondered if the gun wasn't a better reception. 

“I could’ve shot you,” she said, letting another breath go as carefully, deliberately, she let the gun drop to her side.  

He could see her eyes taking in his suitcase, and the keys in his hand, but she only looked back up at him, as if waiting for him to say something. 

“Five Seasons was fully booked,” he said. “And the key I had still worked, so--”

“I’m surprised you kept it. I assumed you chucked your set into Sweetwater River all those years ago when you left.”

God, she knew him too well. 

“I did. These are dad’s.”

She made a sound, halfway between a snort and a derisive chuckle. “Well, you’ve already let yourself in. Feel free to--” she made a gesture with her other hand “--make yourself at home in your mother’s house.”

It didn’t escape him that her mention of the house’s ownership implied that if it weren’t for that fact, she might have told him to get the hell out. 

Polite, as always, gun notwithstanding. Because that’s what she was, wasn’t she? Proper, neat, but always ready to pick up a weapon or stain her hands with grease. 

She turned to head back up the stairs, her much longer ponytail swishing against the middle of her back, but she stopped at the bottom step and said, “Linens are where you left them and Polly’s room is perfectly fine for use. Should be something in the fridge for you to heat up.”

It seems like in spite of it all, the 7 years apart and the dead silence between them all these years, he still knew Betty Cooper. 

Only then did she resume her heavy-stepped climb.

He wondered if he should say anything else, but all he could do was watch her retreating figure, wondering if that whiff of vanilla was real or a figment of his imagination.  

[royallyprincesslilly]

Title: Rumor Has It {12}

Chris Evans x Famous Reader Uriah “Riah” Tyler-Evans

Warning: Plot, Cursing, Angst

Word Count: 4.5K

Summary: You and Chris have been married for four years after a whirlwind romance. You are both happy and trying to navigate marriage in the public eye while balancing your successful careers. In the entertainment industry, not everything is as it seems, the flash of a camera lens impairs vision. As scandal and flashing lights put a strain on your once fairytale marriage is it possible your Hollywood marriage can stand the test of the rumor mill?

**Inspired by a video seen of Chris and his co-star Ana De Armas on their press tour for Knives Out at TIFF where she kept touching his chest and face standing about five inches apart.

**NOTE: A WORK OF FICTION. NOT CREATED TO GARNER HATE OF ANY SORT.

**Loosley Edited/Proofread**

**Slightly Interactive**

Thank you guys for reading!!!! If you enjoyed this please LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG. 😊 ❤❤

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You weren’t crazy. That was the fact and no matter what you wouldn’t be made to feel like you were. Yeah, you understood he was hurt and probably disappointed that you would even think to ask him if he was being unfaithful after everything. It was his right to feel however he felt, it was also your right to feel the way you felt. Something was going on and you didn’t know if he was gaslighting you and leading a secret life behind your back, or if you were imagining things and this was all your insecurities speaking. You knew that if this continued your marriage wouldn’t survive.

 After Chris left he stayed gone. It wasn’t until the next day you were told by Jennifer his assistant that he’d made arrangements to stay in a separate room until checkout. You were hurt but you didn’t say anything. Though she knew something was up, she didn’t bring it up. You spent the next day apart while he continued work. When he came back to the room it was only to tell you that the schedule had changed, and he’d be flying out to LA sooner. He told you that you could fly with him or do your own thing. The way he spoke was so indirect, so aloof. It felt as if he were building a wall between you.

 When you tried to approach him, he backed away. If you tried to bring up the problem at hand he changed the subject. His annoyance was clear, so you decided to let him fly out and you’d find your own way. When you said that he hesitated and looked even more hurt. You didn’t know what the hell he wanted from you. he didn’t take the time to explain it either, he just left. You were keeping count, that was number two.

Thanks to the four-hour delay of your flight out of San Diego you had ample time to think about your situation and try to come up with a plan. You hated to think that bitch outplayed you and created an even bigger issue. Deep down you knew she wasn’t as innocent as she played, it was clear in the way she underhandedly set Chris on you by tattling to him about brunch. She could have kept it to herself, could have let it roll off of her, but she chose the sneaky route. This was a game for her. Before your flight took off you shot a message to Zora and Kizzy. It was time to get the Three Musketeers together, three heads were better than one.

 MSG: Meet me in LA. The Three Musketeers have work to do.

 The weather in LA matched your mood, dreary. The rain beat down on the concrete from the minute you walked off the jet. It was like a monsoon. Once you landed your phone went off with messages and notifications.

 MSG Chris: The weather isn’t so great. I tried calling to make sure you were okay. Maybe you should hang back a little longer to wait out the storm to be safe.

 It sounded like worry, but it could just as easily be him wanting to keep you away from LA for a few more hours so he could have extra time to fuck around.

 MSG Chris: I haven’t heard back. Call me when you get this Uriah let me know you’re okay.

 As you climbed into your waiting car Kizzy and Zora were waiting in the back.

 “Woah, how did you guys get here so fast?”

 “You said we had work to do. We know Three Musketeers is code,” Kizzy announced.

 You smiled. “Let’s go get that bitch,” Zora added.

 You busted out laughing and threw your arms around both of them. At least they didn’t think you were crazy.

 “I love you guys so much.

As the car drove through LA from the airport you filled them in on what happened in San Diego. The more you told them about Ana’s demeanor the more they thought she was behind everything. Both Kizzy and Zora firmly believed that Chris was innocent and that he would never do something like that to you. They were so sure about it you wanted to believe it too. You just didn’t know what the hell to think. The fact was he thought you were crazy.

 The three of you went through evidence over the last few months to either prove or disprove that he was being unfaithful. As you did you found new information, new pictures, and sly comments in interviews that you hadn’t even focused on before. The three of you were like Inspector Gadget on crack in the backseat of the truck. You combed over evidence better than secret agents and the FBI and came up with theories and theories for those theories.

 Once you pulled up at the house the case was closed, and the verdict was conclusive—or two out of three conclusive.

 “This bitch is scammin’,” Kizzy blurted out as you walked inside. Chris’ car was not in the driveway, so you knew he wasn’t home.

 “I agree with Kiz, Riah. Everything that we’ve looked at says she is doing this and controlling it. This bitch is trying to wreck your marriage. The posts are strategic.”

 “The interviews absolutely strategic. She is the instigator in all of them. your dumbass husband is being friendly. Unfortunately for him his friendliness always comes off as flirtatious,” Kizzy added.

 “And this picture?” You held up your phone of the picture of her in the “eat shit” sweater. This picture really boiled your blood.

 “Bullshit, but I cannot explain just how the backgrounds are identical. You said the room you were in for brunch looked absolutely different. It is not uncommon for hotels to keep their design aesthetic similar for normal suites but for the statelier rooms, I’ve seen them be different in unique ways. This picture is suspect,” Zora admitted. You nodded and walked into the kitchen and took out a bottle of beer from the freshly stocked fridge.

 “So, you two believe Chris isn’t cheating but this picture overthrows your theory completely. We can’t even come up with an explanation.”

 “Take a breath. I know it’s frustrating,” Zora began.

 “Where are they now?”

 “According to Chris’ schedule, he has the final junket in an hour at the Fairmount.”

 “So that means she is also there. Let’s go,” Kizzy said as she sprang to her feet and bolted for the door. You and Zora just looked at each other, confused. When you caught up with her she was already in the driver’s seat of your pink metallic range rover, a gift from Chris.

 “Where are we going?”

 “Where do you think? Get in the car!”

 You and Zora didn’t waste any time and hopped in. If you were a hot head and crazy, Kizzy was insane. She went from zero to one hundred in one second and when she was at one hundred it was known to stay the hell away from her, just like you.

 As you drove Kizzy went through the plan. Get to the hotel, maneuver through it without being seen, find the part of the hotel where the junket was, remain hidden. After that Kizzy went into two variations, one that was perfectly sane and the other was straight up stalker. No man had you go full stalker. You couldn’t believe you were considering this. Since you guys had the time Zora suggested finding different outfits. It was just like her to always find time for shopping. Her reasoning was if you were going to play spies then you had to look the part.

 Forty minutes later you were parked at the service entrance of the hotel dressed in all black. You had to talk them both out of masks. They were taking this a little too far.

 “So, plan A or B?” their eyes landed on you waiting for you to decide how crazy you wanted to go. Did you want to sneak around and find out what you could, or did you want to find her bag and sneak through it, phone and all. There would have been a plan C if you hadn’t talked them both out of kidnapping and scare methods.

 “Let’s start with plan A.”

 It shouldn’t have been so easy, but you slipped through the back of the hotel which led to the kitchen. The hustle and bustle of the kitchen made sneaking around difficult so the three of you did your best to blend in like one of the workers. That was also easy despite being mistaken for delivery men and having to carry in ingredients for the upcoming dinner rush. Ten minutes later the three of you’d made it to the service elevator rolling a room service cart.

 “Good thinking grabbing the cart, Riah. We’ll blend in for sure.”

 As you stepped onto the elevator you pushed the top floor button and waited. You prayed no one came on the elevator but after ten floors your hopes were dashed. On the tenth, six people filled the elevator which had you discreetly hiding your face behind Zora’s shoulder. Thankfully none of them paid you any mind. On the twelfth the six additions left the elevator but as you were pressing the close button a hand stopped the doors from closing.

 “Hold the elevator please.” A few seconds later a woman you recognized walked onto the elevator. Quickly you dropped down to one knee and pretended to busy yourself with something on the second trey of the car. You kept your head down hoping to stay hidden.

 “Thank you for holding it,” Ana said.

 You peeked up at Kizzy and Zora who had their heads dipped own as well, Zora had her face buried in a notebook that was attached to the car and Kizzy lowered her black hat and buried her nose in her phone. This wasn’t either of your first times stepping into Three bad bitches mode.

 “Come on Chris!” Your eyes widened just at the same time Kizzy and Zora both peeked down to you with their eyes just as wide.

“I’m here, sorry I’ve been trying to reach Uriah to make sure she made it through the storm. She’s not picking up.”

 You noticed Ana give her assistant Cora an eye roll.

 “Uh-huh,” was her only reply. Chris continued tapping at his phone. You felt four vibrations on your ass and guessed it was Chris texting you. Part of you felt good about that. He was in this elevator with her and you were the only thing on his mind. Ana cleared her throat loudly.

 “Sorry.” He slipped his phone into his pocket and looked at the two women beside him. “Where were we?”

 “You were going to answer if you were in for drinks tonight,” Ana mentioned.

 “Oh, tonight? I don’t know. It’s been a long press tour I really want my bed and some beer.”

 “I can deliver on one or both of those things if you’d like.” Again Kizzy and Zora glanced at you. The air in the elevator quickly changed. Chris made a move to look back and it sent your head buried deeper under the cart. He cleared his throat and pasted an uncomfortable smile on his face.

 “Choice is yours, I don’t want you to feel pressured. I know you enjoy our time together more with no pressure.”

 What the fuck is she talking about, you asked yourself.

 “I’ll let you know, but I’m leaning to not tonight.” The elevator doors opened, and he was the first to step out. You watched as Ana’s eyes dropped to his ass, it was then she let out a small moan.

 “Yummy.”

 You were seconds from jumping up and grabbing that stringy hair of hers but Zora’s and Kizzy’s hands on your shoulder pushing you down stopped you. when the doors closed again you looked like death.

 “She is bold, I’ll give her that,” Kizzy said. You dug your phone out and checked your messages.

 MSG Chris: Uriah I’m starting to worry. Please call me.

MSG Chris: I know we’re in a weird place right now and we’re both angry but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I love you. Just let me know you’re all right, please.

MSG Chris: I will always love you.

MSG Chris: No matter what.

Pushing away the influx of emotion that washed over you, you stuffed your phone back into your back pocket and pressed the open button on the elevator bank.

 “Let’s go.”

 The three of you stepped off the elevator and carefully walked down the hall that had several posters from the movie set up. You passed one of Chris as Ransom and you were tempted to stop and admire it, but you ignored it. as you passed each room you saw different actors from the movie being interviewed—Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Lakeith Stanfield, and others. When we passed Lakeith Zora almost burst into the room. She had the only crush on him and if she had the chance she would lock him in a room and have her way with him. If you asked her she’d say it was only a matter of time before he was hers. You and Kizzy had to hold her back to prevent her from blowing your cover. She was not happy but knew there was a job to do.

 After going down the halls and peeking into different rooms you saw the one Chris and Ana were on. They were in the midst of an interview. You watched on and took note of their chemistry. You could see why they were cast together, but it was clear she did not know the difference between pretend and real life.

 You bit your bottom lip nervously trying to keep the insecure thoughts away, trying to trust in the fact that Chris loved you, and that the chances of him being a sociopath were slim. You were mostly convinced but when you saw Chris reach out and touch Ana’s thigh just above her knee you saw red. She reached out to rest her hand on his but he moved it before she could. That didn’t deter her though, she reached out and took his hand and hugged it to her chest with a wide smile. You watched the back of his hand press against her breast where her cleavage was and decided to abandon plan A. You were ready to jump to plan C.  Almost as quickly as she put his hand to her bosom Chris took it back and gave an uneasy smirk. You pressed your back to the wall in the hall.

 “Plan B.”

 “That’s what I’m talking about,” Kizzy whispered.

 The three of you waited for your window of opportunity. The longer you waited the more time your rage festered. Every time the interviewers changed you got a message from Chris. Each of them showed his concern with reaching you. You knew he hated when you were radio silent and to remain that way would have been cruel, especially seeing he was genuinely worried about your safety.

 MSG: I’m fine. There were some delays and a lot of turbulence, but I landed okay.

 You didn’t have to wait long for a response.

 MSG Chris: Good, I’m glad you’re okay. Let’s talk. I have a little break at four, can you come by the Fairmount? I don’t want to leave things unsaid especially after everything we learned in therapy. I don’t want to backslide.

 At the mention of therapy, you softened, a little.

 MSG: Okay. 

The butterflies filled your gut even though you were furious at him. You took a few breaths and tried to still them, but it was no use. He still gave you butterflies.

 The three of you hung around spying but didn’t get much. There were a few breaks where Ana and her assistant chatted, and she pointed out to her how sexy Chris looked to which Cora agreed. Then there were a few moments where you caught her clearly trying to interject herself to initiate touching. The flirting was clearly one-sided, you could see that. You knew Chris’ flirting technique and you also knew his friendliness. He was being friendly; this was not flirting. That at lease placated your rage.

 By the time four o’clock rolled around you saw your opening. Cora who was holding on to Ana’s purse set it down and went over to her to go over some things. It was within reach, so you nonchalantly walked into the room took it up and walked right back out. You met Kizzy and Zora in a janitor closet and handed the bag off then made your way to an empty room to face your fate. The banquet room was empty. You walked to the side of the room where a stage was and slipped onto it. That was when you realized you still wore the black beanie. Just as you slipped it off your head and under your ass the door opened, and Chris walked in.

The sight of him sent the butterflies in your belly aflutter again. You took a few breathes and held one as he slowly approached you. The relieved look on his face changed to a timid one as he got closer and closer. Once he was about ten feet in front of you he stopped and stuffed his hands in his pocket.

 “I was worried.”

 “I know. There was a delay with getting the messages. I didn’t do it on purpose,” you explained. Chris nodded while keeping his eyes on you.

 “Riah, I don’t want to fight.”

 “You think I do? I don’t want any of this.”

 “Then how do we move past this?” He sounded exasperated like he was at his wit’s end. He probably was.

 “Have you slept with her?”

 “No.” The answer was flat out, clearly spoken and firmly meant. There was no quiver in his voice or hesitation with his response. Everything from that pointed to him telling the truth.

 “God, since when do you not believe the things I say to you? When have I lied?” He took a few more steps to you.

 “I don’t know,” it was a whisper. You were quickly being overcome with emotion.

 “Come on dragonfly, talk to me.” With five more steps he’d closed the gap between you, but he didn’t touch you. “Please talk to me.”

 “You’re making me feel like I’m crazy. I’m not crazy, Chris.”

 “I know you’re not,” he began before you cut him off.

 “You’re making me feel like it. Every time I tell you something or bring up something about her. You throw up this whole defense. Why?”

 “Why do you feel so threatened by her?”

 You wanted to throw something right at his head.

 “I don’t feel threatened by her or any woman. I know women like her; I’ve known them all my life. I’ve dropped any of them that came in my path. With you though—you don’t see what I see and the more I try to show you, the more you make me feel crazy.”

 “Uriah. I am not sleeping with her. I have never slept with her. I would never sleep with her. I am not that kind of man. I could never do something like that to you.”

 “Do you want to sleep with her?” Chris took a deep breath and slowly released it. you were actually afraid of this answer. Telling you he wasn’t, hasn’t and would never sleep with her doesn’t say a thing about him wanting to. It only meant his self-control was high enough to resist what he wants. It felt like forever passed as you waited for him to answer.

 “No.”

 “Why did you hesitate?”

 “Because with that answer, I knew you wouldn’t believe it. I’m not blind Uriah, she’s attractive. Have I noticed? Yes. Do I want her? No, and that includes having sex with her.” He took another breath and spoke again. “Do you remember when I had issues with you being around him?”

 He never referred to Christiano by name, it was always him. You nodded.

 “It was like this wasn’t it?”

 It was your turn to take a deep breath. Roles were now reversed. Chris hung his head and allowed the silence to stretch between you. No doubt he was remembering how hard that time was for the two of you. He accused you and questioned you every time Christiano made things difficult. His whole goal was to get you back and he didn’t care how he went about it. Christiano had no respect for the fact that you married someone else. To him, it was all about what he wanted, and how he remembered your relationship.

 “Wow. Full circle huh. Shit baby if you feel anything close to how I felt back then—I’m sorry. I didn’t—I wasn’t—I should have--.” The words escaped him, but you knew what he meant. He approached you and reached for your hand but hesitated when you didn’t make a move to meet him halfway.

 “You can’t--, look I know you feel justified in doing what you did but Riah, that wasn’t okay. You can’t just corner someone I work with because you think we’re having an affair. You can’t do something like that especially without coming to me first. I never did that to you with him because I know the industry. I know how easy it is to get a reputation and a label. You didn’t just compromise our relationship, and everything we’ve worked through, but you also compromised my career, our livelihood.”

 Though you were still steaming mad at him, that part of his argument was true. She could have run to TMZ or some other trashy blog instead of Chris. She could have done a lot of damage. You didn’t think that far, or you didn’t care. You wanted to throw it back at him but that wouldn’t resolve anything. You learned a long time ago in marriage being right meant nothing. Chris dug into his pocket to pull out his vibrating phone. As he peered down at it he shook his head.

 “Damn it, I gotta go.”

 You nodded. Chris stared at you for a few moments before he turned and walked out of the room to reappear seconds later.

 “There is something I have to tell you. Something--.” He was cut off by one of the event coordinators who appeared at his side.

 “Shit, I gotta go. I love you, Riah.”

 The way he said it felt different. It felt—strange. You didn’t have time to respond before he was gone leaving you there to wonder what he had to tell you.

 When you found Zora and Kizzy they were still in the closet combing through everything in Ana’s purse. Once you entered Zora quickly averted her eyes.

 “Anything?”

 Neither of them replied. Kizzy kept her eyes on the phone she held, and Zora continued rifling through the purse. They were being weird.

 “Hello, guys. Did you find anything?”

 Kizzy and Zora exchanged looks and just like that your stomach fell. They’d found something.

 “What did you find?” Again, they remained silent. Zora could tell you were getting annoyed, so she spun to you.

 “Okay promise you’ll be calm,” Zora breeched. Immediately you went into DEFCON mode.

 “What the fuck, Zo?” Kizzy held out the phone to you with a blank expression on her face.

 “Take it with a grain of salt, you don’t know the whole story.” You took the phone and looked through the messages section. You read through an exchange between Ana and Chris.

 MSG Ana: I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t plan that at all. It’s just that I’ve been going through a lot lately. Adjusting to the limelight has been really weird and I’ve lost people I thought were true. I’ve been really lonely feeling like I’m going through this beast alone. You were being so kind to me I guess I got carried away.

MSG Chris: I’m sorry you’re going through that and you feel so alone. We’ve all been there. I’m certain it’s the actor’s right of passage to lose people and experience bouts of loneliness. God knows I feel lonely a lot especially during filming and press touring. I understand. It’s no big deal.

MSG Ana: Really? If your wife ever found out wouldn’t she be furious?

MSG Chris: Initially maybe, yes. It wasn’t a planned thing. You know I have a wife who I love so there’s nothing to worry about there.

MSG Ana: I have to say something without making it weird. You’re an excellent kisser.

 Your eyes stopped at “kisser” and it felt like you’d sniffed something that was automatically affecting your brain. You knew “Knives Out” had no love scenes with them. You looked to Zora and Kizzy, but they remained silent, so you continued to read.

 MSG Chris: LOL. Thanks, I guess.

 You skimmed the following messages but found nothing incriminating just annoying little messages she’d sent to him trying to be cute. You scrolled and saw another exchange from just before you began therapy.

 MSG Ana: Do you wanna talk about it?

MSG Chris: No, I’ll be fine. Just marriage is hard.

MSG Ana: If I were married to you I wouldn’t make it hard. You’d be happy. does she even make you happy anymore?

MSG Chris: Of course, I love her.

MSG Ana: But it’s okay to move on if she’s not doing it for you anymore. There are plenty of women who would treasure you.

MSG Chris: Gotta go.

 The more you read the more you hated her. Another exchange caught your eye, this was from when they were filming.

 MSG Chris: I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to touch you like that. I have no idea how I grabbed there instead of your arms.

MSG Ana: LOL. It’s okay. I can’t say that it was a bad touch scenario. I should say thank you. it’s been a while since a man grabbed my breast. I was beginning to forget what that felt like.

MSG Chris: I’m so sorry.

MSG Ana: Don’t worry about it. It was an accident, it meant nothing.

 Clenching your jaw, you tried to swallow the vomit that wanted to raise up. Zora touched your arm in comfort but you brushed it off. You were ready to call an end to this “mission” but another message came in. One from her assistant, Cora.

 MSG Cora: Everything is all planned for your night with Chris. All that we’re waiting on now is just his confirmation. Also, I see the video of you in his room made it to tabloid. Damn you were not playing around when you said you were going to take everything that was hers. 

MSG Cora: Let me know if you need anything else.

 Kizzy and Zora looked at you and the three of you had the same expression and you were sure you thought the same thing.

 “This bitch!” 

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[shirtlesssammy]

5x05: Fallen Idols

Hey all! Welcome to Hate Watch Week! We’ve picked the best of the worst and are recapping them all week. These are our personal choices, and I’m sure they all (*but one*) have redeeming qualities, we just see the bad more than the good. Enjoy our snark  --and join in if you want :) (And if you’re still trying to guess our hiatus theme, this episode doesn’t count.) 

Then:

Angst-a-thon!

Now:

We meet Jimmy and his pal, Cal, both race car enthusiasts. Well, enthusiasts for one sports car: James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder. While Jimmy runs to get the camera, Cal sits in the car, ready to start the “Little Bastard”. Only, the air gets frosty and the car radio flickers on. We hear a crash and Jimmy heads back to the garage to find Cal’s head smashed into the jagged edge of the convertible’s windshield. 

Sam and Dean are on the case! Sam wants to know why this case is so important --what with the devil and apocalypse and all. “This is what we’re doing, okay?” Dean insists. Dean highlights that they’ve been away from each other for a while (*Ahem* maybe I don’t like this episode as much because the last two episodes were just Dean and Cas having fun times together? IDK. 5x03 and 5x04 were a wild ride that I watch over and over again.) 

THE HORROR:

They arrive at the local cop shop as FBI agents Bonham and Copeland. The local sheriff shows them the video “evidence” that Cal’s good buddy Jim killed him. The brothers are less than convinced.

The sheriff applied Occam's Razor, and done and done. 

The brothers want to interview Jim anyway. He tells them what he heard from the house: tires squealing, glass breaking. The car killed Cal. It’s cursed. Jim mentions that it was “Little Bastard” that did it, and Dean’s eyes light up like a little boy at Christmas. OoooohhhHHHHooo. Dean and cars and, well, don’t tell me he never had a crush on James Dean. We all have had a crush on James Dean. Sam “I can’t be any more straight” Winchester has no flippin’ clue what’s going on. Dean insists they check out the car. Bby boy. 

They head to the car, and Dean takes a moment. Sam asks for some exposition. Dean explains that after James Dean died, the mechanic bought the wreckage and fixed the car. 

The car fell on him, and death continues to follow the car wherever it goes (Ugh, I just went down a rabbit hole of what happened to the car and am now in a weird spiral of remembering how much I loved James Dean as a teen and how much Rebel Without A Cause meant to me. I’m not 90 years old. What a weird flex for a 1990’s kid to experience. But also not, since Dean’s right there with me, right?) 

Anyway, to really confirm if the car was James Dean’s, they’ve got to match the engine number. Dean heads under the car to confirm, begging the car to not hurt him first. Dean takes his sweet ass time being nervous and writing down the engine number, but he makes it out alive. He tasks Sam with tracking down all the owners.

While Dean hangs at a bar, Sam discovers the car is a fake. 

Meanwhile, a nerdy man reflects on his day at his desk when the air gets frosty and he hears a creaking behind him. He turns and utters, “Oh my god, it’s you. You’re dead. You’re supposed to be dead.” Is it a long lost wife? An old rival? Nope. It’s a growling Abraham Lincoln. He chokes the nerd man until he becomes a victim of the blood cannon. Better angels of our nature, my ass. 

The agents meet the sheriff at the crime scene. They remark that there’s nothing strange about the victim dying of a gunshot wound where there’s no gun, no gunpowder, no bullet. Awkward. The brothers demand a reasonable explanation from the sheriff. He hunkers down and whispers, “Professional killer.” He’s thinking this is a Michael Clayton-type thing. And I love it because that’s the limit of his imagination. Sam and Dean know better but only because they live in the fringe of this world where monsters are real. 

Sam and Dean head to interview the victim’s maid, Consuela Alvarez. She’s very distressed, and can only speak Spanish. 

Sam pulls out his freshman Spanish to save the day. I only remember “Donde esta el baño?” Good job, Sam! The killer was a tall man with a long black coat and a beard. And he wore a hat. A tall hat. Dean cracks the code: A stovepipe hat like Abraham Lincoln. DEAN BEAN, so street smart he doesn’t even realize how book smart he is. Sigh. “Abraham Lincoln killed Mr. Hill,” Consuela confirms. 

The brothers continue to research. Dean watches the car video frame by frame until he finds one frame of a blurred red coated figure ---and INSTANTLY guesses that it’s James Dean ---but like Jim Stark James Dean. It’s not like James Dean wore the damn red coat outside of that movie role, lol. (Sidenote: Fun fact: Fry from Futurama’s coat is modeled after that red coat.) 

Sam realizes that they’re dealing with famous ghosts that are killing their fans. (Sidenote: I hope Misha Collins never dies.) The brothers wonder why these ghosts are haunting Canton, Ohio. They do more research. 

The brothers head to the Canton Wax Museum. They marvel at all the random wax figurines (and Sam is taller than Lincoln? Hmmm. They’re the same height. #Borisisanerd) Dean makes fun of Gandhi and Sam defends him, but uh, nope, Sam, nope. 

The museum curator shows up and the brothers introduce themselves as reporters for Travel Magazine. They’re writing an article on “how totally non-sucky wax museums are.” The curator points out that this place is unique. He points to Lincoln and tells the boys that’s actually Lincoln’s hat. Yep, he’s got real items from all the dead guys. 

He’s going to make wax museums hip again. And OMG Sam’s little thumbs up in response. STOP. 

Later, Sam loads up on salt rounds and walks in on Dean talking to Bobby about him. Dean gets off the phone fast and dismisses Sam’s questioning about the call. Dean’s not 100% with Sam yet. They head out to finish the case. 

At the wax museum Dean starts poking around. Let the tomfoolery begin!

Sam hauls out a metal trash can which they can use to torch all the priceless, one of a kind objects. (History-fan me cringes.) While he’s doing an ultra-close-up examination of Lincoln, the doors slam shut. Suddenly, Gandhi is on him! Gandhi is strong, he’s fast, and he’s out to kill. Dean torches Gandhi's watch and Sam’s attacker winks out. 

The next day, Sam mulls over the case in the motel room. Ghost Gandhi's quick disappearance has him troubled. He didn’t flame out like most ghosts, and he seemed almost zombie hungry. Sam thinks the hunger is uncharacteristic given Gandhi's tendency towards fruitarianism. (WWMGD? What would monster Gandhi do?) Dean dismisses Sam’s concerns, and Sam tells him that hunting together isn’t working. Dean doesn’t trust him. More than that, Dean’s trying to stick to their old patterns with the older brother telling the younger brother what to do. 

“Before didn’t work,” Sam tells him. That old dynamic chased Sam off into Ruby’s arms. “You’re gonna have to let me grow up.”

Dean’s phone rings. It’s the local cops, calling about another terrible incident. 

The Sheriff is…utterly at a loss with this next one. Dean and Sam head into the station to interview two teen girls. They tearfully recount the “horrible” “way horrible” disappearance of their friend who was kidnapped earlier by…Paris Hilton. 

Dean and Sam tick the obvious boxes. Paris Hilton isn’t dead, so they’re not after a ghost. Sam suits up in scrubs to do a detailed autopsy of one of the prior corpses. He pulls out two strange seeds from one of the victim’s stomachs. 

Sam fills Dean in on the excessive blood loss he discovered (something was feeding) and the seeds. The seeds are unusual, and he takes them back to the motel. There, he discovers that the seeds were indigenous to a forest in Europe, and the forest was ruled over by a god, Leshi. Leshi can take on any form and feeds on his followers. Dean hand waves the shapeshifting explanation for the audience by asking, “So how's he doing it? What, he touches James Dean's keychain and then morphs into James Dean?” Thank you, Exposition Dean!

The Winchesters arrive back at the Wax Museum, this time bearing a nice sharp axe. In a creepy closed exhibit they find the victim and…Paris Hilton. She (He?) takes out Dean and Sam quickly. When they wake a little while later, they’re tied to the fake trees in the exhibit. 

Leshi sharpens a blade slowly, excited to do the sacrificial ritual correctly this time. He explains that he’s settled in this town to stuff his face full of worshippers arriving at the wax museum. With the apocalypse nigh, there’s no reason to diet! 

Leshi grouses about the poor quality of worshippers these days. Dean fights whining with snark, and Leshi tells him that he worships somebody - his dad. “Poor little Dean. All you ever wanted was to be loved by your idol.” They fight and Sam breaks free and hacks off Leshi’s head.

The next day, we learn that the victim they rescued is going to recover. And even better? The bumbling Sheriff is putting out an APB on Paris Hilton. 

At the car, Dean admits his own culpability in bringing about the apocalypse, when he broke the first seal. He apologizes for being preoccupied with the wrong things. Sam responds with the hero speech with which we’re so familiar. “We gotta just grab onto whatever's in front of us, kick its ass, and go down fighting.” Dean’s on board. Hell, he’s more than ready to move forward. He hands Sam the keys to Baby and they roll off to the sweet sounds of Jeff Beck's “Superstition." D’awwww.

These Quotes are Hot:

We’re not your typical cops

Death follows this car around like exhaust

Christine is fiction, this is real

I'm gonna make wax museums hip again

Four score and seven years ago, I had a funny hat

You’re not the first god we've met, but you are the nuttiest

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[aion-rsa]

Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu

https://ift.tt/3k8nTTO

You thought movies were the only place to get your daily dose of horror? Oh you fool! You absolute FOOL! There are plenty of bingeworthy and scary horror TV shows out there and Hulu just happens to be a great place to find them. 

Hulu is home to recent hits like The Terror and Castle Rock but there are still more scares to be found for the horror enthusiast willing to dig deep. Gathered here are some of the best and scariest horror TV shows that Hulu has to offer.

Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see the additions to the best horror TV shows on Hulu.

Updated for October 2020

The Terror

Based on a 2007 book of the same name by Dan Simmons, The Terror season 1 tells a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to the arctic in 1845. In real life, the doomed men likely got lost and succumbed to the cold but the show asks “what if there was something more sinister than low temperatures lurking about?”

The Terror features a cast impressively full of “hey it’s that guy” guys like Jared Harris, Ciarán Hindis, and Tobias Menzes. It deftly turned itself into an anthology with the second season The Terror: Infamy that tells a ghost story within the setting of a Japanese interment camp in World War II.

American Horror Story

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story is revolutionary in quite a few ways. Not only did it help usher in a renewed era of anthology storytelling on television, it also was arguably the first successful network television horror show since The X-Files.

Like all anthologies, American Horror Story has its better seasons (season 1 a.k.a. Murder House, season 2 a.k.a. Asylum, season 6 a.k.a. Roanoke) and its worse (season 3 a.k.a. Coven and season 8 a.k.a. Apocalypse). Still, for nine years and counting, American Horror Story has been one of the go-to options for TV horror fans.

Castle Rock

Stephen King properties have made their way to television before. There have been miniseries for classic King texts like The Stand and ‘Salem’s Lot and even full series for works like Rose Red and Under the Dome. Still, none of those series has had the audacity to adapt multiple aspects of the Stephen King universe itself…until Castle Rock.

Castle Rock takes multiple characters, storylines, and concepts from the vast works of Stephen King and puts them all in King’s own Castle Rock, Maine. The first season featured inmates from Shawshank prison, extended family of Jack Torrance, and maybe even a touch of the shine. The show opened itself up for more storytelling possibilities in season 2, adopting an anthology format and bringing Annie Wilkes into the fold.

The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone is an all-time television classic for good reason. Join Rod Serling each episode for a new tale of mystery, horror and woe.

Read more

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The Words of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Are More Relevant Than Ever

By Chris Longo

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The Twilight Zone Marathon: A History of a Holiday Tradition

By Arlen Schumer

Whatever you do, however, do NOT drop your glasses.

The Strain

The most novel thing about FX’s vampire horror thriller The Strain is how it equates the ancient fear of vampirism with the more modern, global fear of pandemic. The Strain, produced by Guillermo del Toro Chuck Hogan and based on their novel series opens with a flight landing with all of its passengers mysteriously dead.

Read more

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

Movies

Lake Mungo: the Lingering Mystery Behind One of Australia’s Scariest Horror Films

By Rosie Fletcher

As CDC director Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) steps in to investigate, he discovers that there might be something more sinister…and ancient afoot than a simple virus. The Strain lasted for four mostly decent seasons on FX and if nothing else helped re-embrace the vampire as a monster and not some sort of noble antihero.

Stan Against Evil

To parody horror, one needs to love horror. And Stan Against Evil creator Dana Gould really, really, really loves horror. The longtime standup comedian and comedy writer brings his unique humor sensibilities and lifelong appreciation of horror to tell the story of a quaint New Hampshire town that just happens to be built on the cursed site of a massive witch burning.

Read more

Movies

Dana Gould Picks His 5 Favorite Monster Movies

By Dana Gould

TV

Talalay’s Terrors! The Director Breaks Down Her 5 Scariest Scenes

By Kayti Burt

John C. McGinley stars as the titular Stan, a disgraced former sheriff who opts to pick up the battle against evil after a close call. He teams up with new sheriff Evie Barret (Janet Varney) to defend the town (and sometimes world) from supernatural threats.

The X-Files

The X-Files is quite simply the gold standard for horror on television. Chris Carter’s conspiracy-tinged supernatural masterpiece not only inspired every horror TV show that came after it, but just about every other TV show in general.

Read more

TV

I Still Want to Believe: Revisiting The X-Files Pilot

By Chris Longo

TV

The X-Files Revealed: The Paranormal Roots of the Pentagon’s UFO Program

By Alejandro Rojas

The X-Files follows FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they investigate the unusual cases that traditional law enforcement won’t touch. For 11 seasons (and a handful of movies), the show expertly balanced a massive series-long story along with what came to be called “monster of the week” self-contained tales.

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural

When it first premiered on YouTube back in 2016, Buzzfeed Unsolved became a huge hit by appealing to one of the Internet’s favorite subjects: true crime. Still Buzzfeed saw all of that success and realzied there was still another audience to serve. Thus Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural was born.

Read more

Games

20 Scariest Horror Games Ever Made

By Matthew Byrd

TV

Helstrom Review (Spoiler-Free)

By Rosie Knight

In this spinoff hosts Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej examine some of the supernatural world’s biggest mysteries. With the right balance of skepticism and belief, Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural is a welcome entry into the paranormal investigation TV canon.

The Outer Limits

When The Twilight Zone premiered in 1959, it set off a brief little renaissance of anthology horror storytelling on television. The best of these contenders to the Zone‘s throne was probably the sci-fi centric The Outer Limits.

Read more

Movies

How Arachnophobia Became the Perfect Creepy Crawly Horror Comedy

By Jack Beresford

Movies

Disney+ Halloween Movies for Kids: The Best Family Films to Watch This Spooky Season

By Alana Joli Abbott

Outer Limits aired from 1963 to 1965 on ABC. In that span it generated 49 spooky episodes, several of which made an impact on pop culture. Alan Moore infamously borrowed the plot of the episode “The Architects of Fear” for the ending of Watchmen. The Outer Limits received a Sci-Fi Channel revival in the ’90s and is currently poised for another bite at the apple.

Freakish

Freakish stars several high profile (at the time at least) social media stars as students at Kent High School. The kids are gathered together at school on Saturday for detention, Breakfast Club-style, when a nearby chemical plant explodes, turning the local population into mutated zombies. The group must band together to survive.

Read more

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Netflix: Scariest Films to Stream

By David Crow and 2 others

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

By Alec Bojalad and 3 others

Debuting in 2016, Freakish ran for two seasons on Hulu. The show embraces its teenage soapiness and isn’t necessarily the most heavyweight horror option. But it’s a quick, fun watch for any zombie horror fan nonetheless.

The Exorcist

The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films ever made. The Fox series that bears its name and premise isn’t quite as good (few things could ever be) but it’s still an excellent horror story in its own right.

Read more

Movies

A24 Horror Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

By David Crow and 3 others

TV

How Helstrom Became One of Marvel Television’s Last Shows Standing

By Alec Bojalad

The Exorcist is a two-season long anthology series that follows two different cases of demonic possession. In the first installment, two Catholic priests assist a woman with a possession in her home. In the second, two new priests help a young girl battle evil.

Ghost Adventures

Since the turn of the millennium, television has not been lacking for shows involving paranormal investigations. But even within the crowded spooky market, Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures stands out.

Read more

TV

Ghost Adventures: Horror at Joe Exotic Zoo Two-Hour Special Premieres Oct. 29

By Tony Sokol

Culture

How Ghost Adventures: Quarantine Came Together

By Aaron Sagers

First premiering in 2008, Ghost Adventures follows paranormal researchers Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley as they travel the world looking for ghoulish occurrences to investigate. Over its 200-some episodes (not including specials), Ghost Adventures has proven itself to be the gold standard for people who just want to watch some dudes stumble around old properties in night vision.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Monsterland

Since Netflix acquired the rights to Black Mirror back in 2015, the streaming world has been a veritable arms race of sci-fi and horror anthology series. Hulu has already tried its hand at horror anthology with the Blumhouse-produced Into the Dark, and Monsterland represents the latest effort.

Read more

Movies

The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

By Gavin Jasper

Games

How Scorn Turned the Art of H.R. Giger into a Nightmarish Horror Game World

By John Saavedra

Monsterland is based on the short story collection North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud. It consists of eight spooky, unconnected tales and features the acting talents of Kaitlyn Dever, Bill Camp, Kelly Marie Tran, and more. The twist here is that each episode focuses on an urban legend from a different city within the United States. And given how weird this country is, the series won’t be running out of of stories anytime soon.

The post Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lSIDzp

[ogmosis]

CRIME FICTION INTERVIEW: ROD REYNOLDS

Rod Reynolds is one of the best crime fiction authors to emerge in the last five years, his Charlie Yates trilogy set in the USA up there with other British writers such as Ray Celestin as well as Americans like Attica Locke and James Lee Burke. I had heard of Rod's work in the industry, but it wasn't until lockdown that I had the time to indulge in his writing. His ear for American dialogue from the 1940s is excellent, while his plotting and characters draw you in - the protagonists and antagonists constantly criss-crossing the line between good and evil. After moving on from Charlie and Faber for the time being, his latest book Blood Red City for Orenda Books is set in London - the city where he grew up as a council estate boy. Rod kindly took time out from working on his new book to talk about his career journey, inspirations and fitting writing in around bringing up young children.

How did a lad from Camden end up mining 1940s America for his first published novels?

I took a sabbatical from advertising in 2010 for a year to try and write a novel. I took a distance learning course with The London School of Journalism. I had never written anything, even though I have always been a big reader of crime. I grew up on a council estate in Camden and I didn't know anyone who had ever done anything like that. It was only as I got older, one of my old bosses was writing a book and he said, "You know what, why can't it be someone like us". I wrote a novel, sent it off to a million agents and got rejected, but got some really nice feedback saying, “This story doesn't work, but keep writing”. I went back to work with a new job, real life took over for a couple of years and it got to a point where I needed to decide whether I needed to do anything with this or put it away as a flight of fancy. I had the idea for the book that would become The Dark Inside after I stumbled across a real-life case that inspired it and I did some research into it. I had the voice at least that would become the character of Charlie Yates and it was quite vivid in my mind, so to give myself a shove I signed up to do the Masters course at City, University of London in novel writing. I was really lucky as it was the first year they ran a crime specific course with novelist Claire McGowan, amongst others. I had some amazing teaching that helped me develop the book and I ended up getting picked up by my first agent before I graduated then, not too long after, I landed with Faber. Lucky coming together of different circumstances.

How hard was it to change your mindset from advertising to novel writing?

I was a buyer in advertising, so that was a very social job. Great in some ways as you could get to take clients to drinks, dinner and parties, but I was working silly hours. I had reached my natural conclusion with advertising as I had done my 10-year stint. I wasn't passionate about it anymore. I was specifically dealing with newspapers, which was a declining sector of the industry. I was already looking at having to change my skill set if I wanted to carry on, so it wasn't too hard for me to walk away in that sense. I miss being around the office with the team I worked with. If I could have done the job from Thursday lunchtime to Friday evening, I would have happily done that forever. The rest of the week I could leave out. One of the reasons that I wanted to do the City of London course, because I was working full-time, I needed something to structure me and find that time in my week to write. I was also working on a deadline that we were due our first child halfway through the course, so I had to get that done. After I left my job, I swapped with my wife once she finished her maternity leave so I was looking after our little one at the time. It was helpful in a way because the only time I could write was at nap time or in the evenings. No time to worry about whether it was perfect, so I just got the words out and got the book done. Towards the end of the second novel, we were expecting our second child so the book had to be done again. My kids are school age now. I kind of look back and think, "How the hell did I work to those restrictions?" It is like anything - you get used to it and find a way.

I think Charlie Yates is one of the most flawed and interesting crime fiction protagonists we have seen in recent years, so how did he evolve?

James Ellroy was the big starting point for me, even after I got into Chandler, Hammett et al. Charlie started out as a voice that I could hear in my head, even if that sounds ephemeral or arty. I had this world weary, beaten down, over the hill journalist who kind of hated himself. I could hear how he would approach this situation whereby he is taken from being cynical in New York City and plunged into this seemingly nothing story in the Deep South which suddenly becomes very important to him, because he can see the effect on people in the town, the victims and their families. It is a matter of life and death. It is based on the real-life Texarkana Moonlight Murders in 1946. I wanted to fictionalise that scenario. The reason he comes from New York is that I read that a journalist from The Times in London was sent over to cover it, but it felt a little bit contrived so the next best alien place for me was New York as it was closer to understanding someone's life from London than somewhere else.

Did the clever FBI through line arrive at the start of your outlining?

Initially it was only going to be a standalone book, then I was going to write a second novel set in the same universe with different characters - something that Ellroy has done and I love. When Faber bought The Dark Inside, they asked for Charlie to come back and that wasn't too tricky. Colt Tanner came about essentially as someone I wanted to write to challenge myself and have fun with. He is unashamedly on both sides of the law. He is willing to do bad things, but he is on the side of the angels in his own mind. He is utterly convinced that the ends justify the means because of what he is trying to achieve. Charlie has got his own flaws and is riddled with self-doubt, while Colt is absolutely certain of his own moral rectitude.

How difficult was the Bugsy Siegel arc to write about?

I have been lucky enough to travel to Las Vegas a number of times over the years and I wanted to write something set there in the early days because it was such a sleazy, strange, literal desert outpost that became almost overnight this gambling mecca. I hadn't planned to involve it in the series and, when I travelled to Texarkana on a research trip and I was finishing up a draft of The Dark Inside, we were driving to Memphis to catch a flight to somewhere else and we passed this town called Hot Springs. I started reading up on the history of this town and how it had been run by this English gangster, who was sent down from New York and all this incredible history that it had. Bugsy Siegel was a regular visitor there and it looks like he took some of its influence as the blueprint for Vegas. Suddenly it just came together. That was book two sorted and I had a story I wanted to tell, and I can then link that straight to Bugsy finishing off the Flamingo in Vegas throughout book three. I was very lucky that Hot Springs, this town in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas that was really isolated in a valley fifty miles down the road from Texarkana, was Siegel's favourite location.

Are you a pantser or a plotter?

I love dialogue. I enjoy it the most and find it the most natural. I am a reluctant plotter. I started out as a pantser with a plan only really in my head but, with each book, the more I plan at the start the more it helps me at the back end. I was worried that it would stifle creativity and actually it is not really the case. I can now start with the synopsis and a route map I know I am going to try and follow. If I veer off from that and find better ways that is not a problem, but it is when you don't have that and don't know how to get from A to B or E to F in the middle of the story - that is when you can end up struggling.

Did you struggle getting back into a British groove for the new book?

All the stuff that I had written had been set in the States, even my first novel that was unpublished. You think it would be easy to write British as it is all around us and I am also writing in the present day without having to worry about anachronisms and regional dialects which was a tricky thing with the previous books, but it took a while to get those beats to make it sound authentic and the way I heard it in my head. I am not one for sharing my stuff until I am absolutely happy with it and satisfied it is as good as I can make it, then I am quite lucky in that I have a couple of trusted readers that I send it to. One will tell me if the story is good and then one will find any tiny mistake that I have made and picks up stuff even copy editors can miss. Karen Sullivan from Orenda Books is great. She does the first edit for Orenda, then we work with West Camel who is her editor and he goes through it a second time and incorporates his feedback. It is nice to have that two-stage process. Blood Red City is out in paperback and has done really well. Financial Times picked it as one of their summer reads. The reviews have been great and people have been getting in touch to say that they have enjoyed it. Orenda have a big network of bloggers and readers on board and that is helpful as it touches on themes that some people might find off-putting. It starts with financial crime and I didn't want to put it solely in that direction as it is about murder and London. Orenda have a small team, but they have built an incredible presence.

What are your hopes going forward?

The story I am working on at the moment has elements of a psychological thriller about it, even though it didn't start out that way. This new one was supposed to be a big departure. I was looking at something like a Sliding Doors thing with parallel lives, but at the start of lockdown I cut half the story, which was quite painful, but I am enjoying writing it. I also have a second book with Orenda, which is going through edits and is set in the present day in the States based on another real-life case. Hopefully that is out in 2021. As a community, you will do well to find a warmer or more welcoming bunch of people than we have in crime fiction. You think there would be some competitiveness, but I haven't seen any.

Find out more about Rod HERE.  Buy Rod’s Charlie Yates trilogy HERE. Check out his new book Blood Red City HERE.

[tinsley-goldsworth]

band-aids don’t fix bullet holes (chapter 1)

read chapter 1 on ao3!

 summary: from the start, ricky and c.c. were the best of friends but ricky didn’t know c.c. wanted to be more than that and in the end, everything came full circle

Wc: 1633

Tw: Graphic Descriptions of a murder

a/n: this is set in the buzzfeed unsolved universe and i kind of tweaked the canon (even though it hasn’t fully been established) to fit the plot!

~

From a young age, Ricky Goldsworth and C.C. Tinsley were the best of friends. They grew up together in a small neighborhood and spent the majority of their childhood running around and wreaking havoc, in an innocent, child-like way of course. Ricky was the one who always came up with the ideas and C.C. always tagged along, glad to help out a friend. The adults in the neighborhood found their friendship endearing and never really got mad at the two friends for the troubles they got themselves into.

As they grew up, Ricky and C.C. discovered their interest in mystery books and furthermore, murders. They loved reading Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes books and while C.C. was more invested in the detective work and the forensics behind certain cases, Ricky was more interested in the creativity of the murders. When they graduated elementary school and moved onto middle school, the duo began reading about murder mysteries that occurred in real life and enjoyed watching detective shows.

In 7th grade, Francesca also joined their small friend group because she also loved murder mysteries and detective books and introduced Ricky and C.C. to the world of secret agents and spies. She explained that she wanted to be a spy one day and got Ricky and C.C. hooked on a great spy television show. During Halloween, the trio decided to dress up in loosely related costumes so Francesca dressed up as an FBI agent, Ricky dressed up as Jack the Ripper, and C.C. dressed up as Sherlock. Their costumes captured the true oddball nature of the friends.

Many people would assume that C.C. and Ricky would grow apart and branch off to find new friends in high school but they were still the best of friends in high school. Their love for murder mysteries didn’t die either and C.C. and Ricky took a forensic science class together during sophomore year. One day, when they were doing DNA analysis in class, Ricky had turned to C.C. and mused, “Isn’t ironic that as you’re learning how to solve crimes, you’re also learning how to commit a crime and get away with it? Like with all the stuff we learned this year in forensic science, I could, hypothetically, murder somebody right now and not be caught.”

“If our forensic science teacher heard that, I think she would have a heart attack,” C.C. responded and the two laughed before returning to their work, never addressing that remark again.

It wasn’t until junior year when C.C. realized that he was crushing on his best friend. He never consciously thought about how attractive Ricky and thought that wanting to hold your best friend’s hand was normal which, to his surprise, apparently was not. C.C. found himself constantly admiring Ricky, no matter where he was or what time it was. He thought that Ricky looked beautiful when he was stressed about the chemistry test when he was laughing, and even when he was simply watching television.

Because the town C.C. was in wasn’t very progressive and kind of homophobic, it was difficult for C.C. to accept his feelings. He found it difficult to accept that he liked boys in addition to liking girls and it took him about half a year to finally come out to himself. After moving on from that obstacle, C.C. had to accept that he was crushing on his best friend and that his best friend probably was unaware of this development of feelings. Even if Ricky did know, he probably didn’t feel the same about C.C., which is why C.C. never ever wanted to admit his feelings aloud.

Francesca used her abnormally accurate observational skills to quickly determine that C.C. had a crush on Ricky and C.C. knew that Fran knew, but didn’t want to admit it, partly out of shame. On a sunny afternoon, Ricky, C.C., and Francesca were studying for finals together and Ricky had to bike back to school because he left his notebook in his locker, which left C.C. alone with Francesca. The moment Ricky closed the front door, Francesca took her opportunity and excitedly asked, “So, when are you going to ask him out? You clearly are into Ricky! You need to confess your love!”

“Fran, have you been watching spy dramas that are centered around romance lately? Sorry to break it to you but love in real life is very different from fictional love,” C.C. awkwardly replied, frowning a bit as he returned to studying. Francesca pried the notebook away from his hands and continued on as if she hadn’t heard his words.

“I’m pretty sure Ricky is into you too! I can’t really read him but I think he likes you back. You should totally ask him out!” Fran was speaking a mile a minute, a habit that became evident whenever she was overly enthusiastic. She looked like a little excited puppy, clearly ecstatic about the idea of C.C. and Ricky dating.

“I’ll do it when I’m ready,” C.C. lied, hoping that would make Fran drop the subject and she did, dialing her excitement levels back down to the minimum. Fran didn’t mention C.C.’s crush on the oblivious Ricky Goldsworth but would always raise her eyebrows anytime C.C. began staring at Ricky with lovestruck eyes.

Much to Francesca’s dismay, C.C. wasn’t ready to admit his crush on Ricky even after they finished senior year. He knew that he might not ever get the chance to admit his love for Ricky after graduation but decided to bite his tongue and hold his peace forever, hoping that he would be able to move on and find a girl in college that would help him get over this dumb crush of his.

Regardless of C.C.’s remorse, graduating from high school was a sentimental experience. The three friends were going to different colleges and parting ways so they tried to make the best use of their last few days together. Fran was going to New York to study sociology, C.C. was going to Boston to study forensic science, and Ricky was going to California to study criminal psychology and the three had consulted with each other before choosing majors. They spent the last few days together up all night, going through photos and taking a stroll down memory lane. When they officially had to part ways and move into their college dormitories, Francesca, C.C., and Ricky held a party for themselves, promised to stay in touch, and went off to college.

Unfortunately, C.C. lost contact with Ricky halfway through freshman year but occasionally texted Francesca. C.C. tried contacting Ricky several times but his texts never sent and Francesca couldn’t get a hold of him either. Even Ricky’s parents didn’t know what was going on with Ricky and claimed to not have seen him for weeks. C.C. knew this was a red flag and something was wrong but was too busy with school work to take time to investigate.

It wasn’t until C.C. got a job as a private investigator when he looked into the case of Ricky Goldsworth. He searched all public records and every lead he found led to a dead end. C.C. finally gave up on the case, deciding that Ricky probably moved to a new country to start a new life.

Then, he was assigned to a new, intriguing case at 11 pm on a Monday night. The investigation agency refused to disclose the particular details of the case, insisting that he showed up to the crime scene before looking at the gathered information so C.C. drove to the crime scene. When he arrived at the crime scene, he was greeted with one of the most gruesome sights he would ever see in his entire life.

The victim’s body was sprawled on the body, limbs splayed out and bent in crooked positions. His mouth was agape and his eyes were open and devoid of any emotions. There a giant hole in his chest where the murderer tore out his heart strategically, reminding C.C. of the Jack the Ripper murder. Dried blood had formed a dark pool around the victim’s body and there was no murder weapon around. The murder was so bizarre and unique that it was almost poetic and outlandishly creative.

The victim’s name was Harold, according to the secondary, who was also assigned to this case, at the scene. He was enjoying his Monday night by watching some television when the murderer came in at around 9:30 pm and killed him. Harold was a relatively boring man and didn’t seem to have any reason to be the target of such a horrific murder but here he was, flesh rotting by the minute. The secondary also claimed to have been interviewing witnesses and neighbors to gather a list of suspects. C.C. was thankful that the secondary already did all the heavy duty work and left C.C. the most exciting part of the case.

“Who are the suspects?” C.C. wasted no time getting straight to the point. This case was the first case that had intrigued him in a while and he was itching to catch the suspect and get a confession. Solving this case would certainly look good for his reputation at the investigation agency.

“We don’t have many suspects,” The secondary frowned, glancing at his notes and circled a note. “But we do have one suspect that we should look into.”

“What’s their name?” C.C. glanced over at Harold’s corpse, wondering who could ever have the audacity to perform such a grisly murder.

“Ricky Goldsworth.”

~

chapter 2 is out!

[poeticsandaliens]

In the morning hour she calls me (post-finale MSR )

This is my take on the post-MS IV canon compliant babyfic. Title is taken from Country Roads (John Denver). Based in part off a post from @foxmulders about Mulder and Scully’s magic teenage son who can explode heads but knows nothing practical about adulting. Tagging @today-in-fic.

Pairing: MSR

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Slowly and strangely, Mulder and Scully reconnect with their son. 

He bought the ring years ago. She saw it tucked away in his underwear drawer, once, during the early days of living with him. Two silver bands twirled around each other in a neverending optical illusion. It had taken her a second to realize what it was, another second to realize what it meant, and a third to remember that no, they weren’t already married. They certainly fucked like newlyweds, on every surface that would hold them and some that wouldn’t. They had cracked every piece of furniture but the coffee table.

She wondered for months if he’d actually do it, drop to one knee and go through the romantic motions. Or if he’d wander into the living room one day, unshaven, hands shoved in his pockets and casually ask her to marry him. The funny thing was, meeting Mulder had solidified her desire never to get married. He was everything she found attractive in a man, and he irritated her endlessly in spite of it (and in hindsight, at least partially because of it). 

He never asked. When she peeled out of the driveway with her life measured in boxes and medical journals, she was glad for it.

They are slurping cheap shaved ice at a roadside shack, indulging the July heat. Scully has one hand wrapped possessively around a cup of mechanical snow and raspberry syrup, the other shoved into her pocket, pressed flat against her stomach in an ongoing attempt to even process the last week’s events. She can still feel her muscles ripple beneath her touch. She wonders what will come first: the vanishing of her taut abdominal muscles or the baby’s fluttering kicks. What will she hear first: a new heartbeat on a sonogram or her son’s heart beating itself back to life on the river bottom, some confirmation he sends her that he is alive and well? She feels it in her gut, but she waits for him to tell her himself.

“Hey Scully,” Mulder’s hand is on her shoulder. “You okay?” 

She nods vacantly. “Thinking,” she replies. About what, she doesn’t have to say. She eyes the grape slush at the bottom of her cup. “Ready to go home?”

“Yeah, but first,” he says, almost sheepishly, in his something to say that I want to be a surprise voice that she always indulges. “I was thinking too, about everything that’s happened in the last couple weeks. I mean, Spender’s dead, Monica’s dead, Skinner isn’t out of the woods yet, William…” he trails off. William is—their son is. Mulder rummages around his jeans pocket. “And I realized, why don’t we get married? Not now, exactly, or even at some set date, but sometime.”

Her bottom lip trembles. “Mulder…”

“Scully, will you marry me sometime?”

And there is the ring. The wedding band he saved for over a decade, that Scully had all but forgotten about, in his outstretched palm over the sticky table. His hands have blue syrup on them. Her eyes water. 

“Yees,” she promises. “Sometimes.” She takes his face in her hands and plants one on him, right there between the shake shack and the Taurus. He tastes like blueberries and cheap candy.

That night, between shuddering orgasms and sweet breath and beads of perspiration, they finally break the coffee table. 

                                                 *        *       *       *

Sunrise curls through the window. Her stomach churns at ungodly hours of the morning, so she kneels each dawn before the porcelain god, then compulsively organizes the kitchen. She needs something to do, even more so since Kersh had informed them of their suspension. So she moves the salt shaker three inches to the right to make room for a potted succulent.

Hey, Dana. Nice plant. It’s Willam’s voice. She’s never heard it in person, but God, she’d know it anywhere. That cavalier, undeniably Mulder-ish tone, as if he were a stranger who could waltz into her life without preamble. 

“William…” Her lungs flatten into her ribcage. “Jackson…”

I’m sorry about the whole dying thing, he says carefully. But you understand why I had to do it. They have to believe I’m gone. They have to believe their experiment failed. 

“William—” 

He cuts her off. Do you think you could answer some questions for me?

“William they may claim ownership of you, call you their experiment. But no matter what, you’re still a person. No matter how afraid and bitter I ever sounded. You will always be our son, and you have a place here if you want it.” She sighs through her nose; she hopes he knows what she’s telling him.

Worry about the little one right now. Of course he knows about the baby. For a moment she’s squared up to give him a talking to for being a know-it-all, but he’s such a stranger to her still. She lacks that kind of authority. That thing’s… what, the size of a blueberry? William continues. That’s what you told that Mulder guy. It’s a lot more fragile than I am. I just need to ask you a question. There is an awkward pause. She counts second until finally, William mutters, if I cut the mold off a sandwich, can I still eat it?

She can’t see him, but oh, she sees Mulder’s son. She stifles a weepy laugh. He isn’t making promises, but she chooses to focus on the fact that he hadn’t refused to come home, either. She’ll see him soon—she can feel it written like a prescription in the fiber of her bones.

                                          *       *        *       *

William communicates sporadically, over the next few weeks. She will be swinging on the front porch, as Mulder collects dead branches and hurls them across the property for Daggoo, and William’s voice will slice into her consciousness. Images will flash through her mind, sometimes the mundane and sometimes the extraordinary. One day he asks, What is it called again when you can make an object float? Telepathy or Telekinesis? The next day, can I put this burrito into the microwave with the wrapper on? And so on. What’s an easy way to hide the bullet scar in my head? How do I get coffee stains out of a white t-shirt?

Sometimes, he sticks around in her head long enough for Mulder to notice. He catches that glassy look in her eye, asks her to tell William he loves him, wishes he would come home. She always says the first part, never the second. She understands now, she cannot ask William to simply melt into their family. “He’ll come when he’s ready,” she promises Mulder, curious if William can still hear her.

I don’t feel like a William, he muses one day. That’s what you named me, right? I don’t feel like Jackson either, but I’m not sure if William is what I want to be called forever.

“We can call him Will,” Mulder suggests cautiously, hunched at his desk. He’s taken to inscribing their adventures in brilliant fiction. His reading glasses suit him. 

I’m okay with Will. Like that boy from Pirates of the Caribbean, the one who died and came back. He was pretty cool. Man, I loved those movies as a kid. He’s stopped paying attention to what he relays to her. She enjoys those oblivious moments before their connection is severed. 

                                              *      *      *      *

She lies on their tattered couch, a medical journal propped half-heartedly against her knees. She’d stopped reading awhile ago, when the flopping and fluttering began in her stomach. She’d felt it earlier, tiny jerks of movement from the inside, but nothing like this. This is the most tangible, physical reminder of the impossible baby developing inside her. She has softened, her body less wiry now, but still, she’s hardly showing; only Mulder takes notice, and he’s particularly interested in her breasts. She presses her fingers into the side of her belly and is rewarded with somersaults that make her wonder if the baby that make her think of acrobats in the Cirque de Soleil. She thinks of an old X-file, a town of Floridian sideshow performers. If it seemed odd once, she and her family would fit right into it now.

There’s a knock on the door. Skinner comes first to mind—he is their only contact with the FBI, the only person who knows where they live. She and Mulder aren’t the type to make couple-friends at local restaurants. 

Mulder thumps downstairs to the door. “I’ve got it, Scully. Don’t get up—” his words catch in his throat. 

“Mulder? Who is it?” Scully swings her stiff legs over the couch and moves to join him. She fetches her sidearm from a drawer, just in case. Her heartbeat quickens as infinite possibilities flicker through her head—agents, assassins, aliens, for God’s sake. Even that crosses her mind, if only for a second. 

But oh–there are no thick-coated men in black outside the door but her son. Their son, lanky and shaggy and taller than his father. He wears a denim jacket, ratty black jeans that cling to his legs and a t-shirt with what Scully presumes is a band name plastered across the front in such spectacular lettering she has to squint to make sure they’re letters.  

“Hey, Dana. Mulder. I’m in town for a few days and I thought, maybe I could crash here?” He looks almost guilty, his lower lip sticking out like Mulder’s. She’s struck by his rumpled, rebellious frame and how closely it resembles Mulder in his youth. And if there was ever any doubt who his father his, she can cite the genetic tendency to die dramatically and spring back to life. 

“Of course,” Mulder says and wraps him into a hug, and he lets out a little oof of surprise. He takes it in stride, though, turning to Dana with a twinkle in his eye that wasn’t there before. When she hugs him, her arms fit around his waist and not his shoulders. God, he’s a foot taller than her. 

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

He shrugs awkwardly. “I didn’t want you to.” 

“Come,” Scully says, because she’s not sure what else to say, here on the front porch of their unremarkable house. “Come inside.”

He follows her into the house, glancing around at the creaky furniture, explosions of books and manila folders, and a smile spreads across his face. “This is a cool place.”

“I’ll show you the spare bedroom.” Scully gestures to the stairs. But when she turns around, Will’s eyes are fixed somewhere else. Her breath catches, because there on the desk is the first sonogram of her unborn child. The other physical evidence, paired nicely with the barrage of kicks where her belly pokes almost unnoticeably over her slacks.

“How old is it?” he asks, and there’s an unidentifiable cadence to his voice.

“Thirteen weeks.”

He nods slightly. “You two are cute parents.”

Her heart cracks at the present tense. Are, she thinks, not will be. Are. She remembers that when three days later, he vanishes from their lives once again. 

                                          *        *        *        *

They see him once or twice more in the coming weeks. Scully has learned to recognize the rat-tat-tat of his beater car pulling into the driveway. When he does come back, he often brings some strange, uniquely tourist-y food from wherever he’d last stayed, and they work it into the evening meal. Mulder reminds her that their son has a lot to unpack at his age. 

She gets mental postcards of his life. Breathtaking scenery, shadowy forests backlit by an industrial flashlight, harkening back to her youth. He asks about laundry at first, then about her old cases. Verbally, in immense detail as she’s walking or reading or shopping for a shitty IKEA crib, she gives him the X-files. Every case feels like a pound of weight off her shoulders. She tells them like an epic, passed orally from bard to bard. It is Will’s turn now.

                                            *         *       *        *

Whoever called it a ‘baby bump’ had an extraordinarily easy pregnancy, she muses bitterly. Twenty-three weeks, she was a fuller, freckled, flush-faced painting of herself. A little heavier, probably healthier if she’s not lying. She’d hit twenty-four, like a fucking timer, and done a double take in the bathroom mirror. She looked pregnant—not long gone due-any-day, but undeniably with child, her midsection smooth and rounded out, protruding slightly even beneath her pajama shirt. 

Mulder had looked at her like she’d plucked the sun out of the sky and handed it to him. She had lain in the backyard grass next to him and it felt like they had come out of time. He pressed his hands to the sides of her belly and grinned. He had, in the course of one afternoon, told the baby about Flukeman, Sasquatch, and the Mothmen in vast detail. 

Strolling through the supermarket, she feels exposed, like her life is laid out for the world to see and judge. To line up her crow’s feet with the stretch marks on her stomach. She swears Will wasn’t this big at twenty-four weeks, or perhaps the frame he grew into hadn’t started out as tiny and tightly wound. 

“Did you ever hear the one about the woman who gave birth to a beetle?” the check-out attendant asks her. “When he got older he really bugged her!” The guy belts out a jolly laugh, and if she were anyone else she might take it in stride. 

She purses her lips. It’s not his fault that he hits too close to home. She can’t think about it, or it’ll all consume her again—Pennsylvania fields littered with tiny, mutated bodies, devil-children cremated outside mansions, insects pulled from women’s wombs. Will sliding into the world in some Godforsaken ghost town into the arms of a woman who seventeen years later would inevitably die in vain.

The woman who gave birth to a beetle? He came out of her screaming and wide-eyed and wet, like any other baby but greener than poison. He suckled her breast with pincers. She read it in an X-file, once. 

It’s too much. She presses herself into Mulder later, kisses him hungrily, seeks in him the antithesis to all her anxieties. He takes her from behind because that’s all they can manage now, and she comes so quickly and loudly it’s almost embarrassing. 

                                                    *      *      *       *

Mulder pokes the peak of her belly. A foot pokes back. She indulges him—all smiles and salt-and-pepper stubble, pushing up her t-shirts reverently touching the ponderous curve of her. She remembers his absence seventeen years ago too distinctly. She pretends not to adore the wonder in his eyes. 

The rhythmic puff of a shitty tailpipe rouses them. They know that car. He helps her off the couch in a daze of frantic limbs as they hurry to the door because he’s here, in all of his snarky, ratty adolescent glory. He looks good. He looks genuinely happy, for the first time since they met him. He looks stronger than last they saw.

“Will,” Mulder calls across the driveway because he can’t help himself. Will waves at him with a crooked smile, ambling up to the door. He has a backpack with him, and a box of what appear to be butter croissants. 

“Hi Mulder,” he says as he’s engulfed in a hug. “Hi Dana.” His gaze flicks to her stomach; hi eyebrows shoot up, and does he realize how long he’s been gone? 

She smiles at him. For a brief moment she’s worried she should have more to say, but Will has been a more constant presence in her life than in Mulder’s simply because he can slip in and out of her mind as he pleases. Right now, she’s said enough.

“I need to put these on the table,” he says, holding up the croissants. “They’re to share.”

They sit around the cramped kitchen table. They bustle awkwardly, preparing sandwiches and opening windows to let the evening sunlight in. With it comes a summer warmth, a red glow on the windowsill. “Why don’t we go outside?” Will suggests. Every time he opens his mouth, Scully expects him to tell her how long he’s staying. Or, she expects an apologetic air, to be able to read the conflict in him and know he will leave in a day or two. She hasn’t felt it yet.

Scully nods and moves to get up from the table. Slowly, with a conscious effort she resents. She sways as she stands, her balance off-kilter. It’s been so long since she’s looked like this. It shocks her how unprepared she is for the shift in her center of gravity. These days it feels like her skin his made of leather, her bones of cold ceramic, and before she can reassure her near-grown son, say, “oh this is normal, you know,” Will’s hand shoots out to steady her.

The heartache flares. It should be the other way around. It should be the other way around. She should have been there to hold him up as he tottered. “Dana?” he asks, and his voice is laced with unanswerable questions.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m just not used to this yet.” She smooths her hand over her belly, her palm jumping as the baby’s foot protrudes out one side. She feels Will’s dark eyes on her, suddenly so much younger than the rest of him. Perhaps he thinks of his own birth. She certainly does. She thinks of how Mulder put his hand right there when he kicked, and how painfully long ago it all was.

“Remember,” she tells him, “we can’t be young forever.”

Will looks at the otherworldly shape of its foot, pushing on her like a drumskin. He looks at the sharp lines of her cheekbones undercut by the quiet, tranquil determination in her eyes when she touches the errant limb. He looks at Mulder looking at her, with unadulterated wonder. It slips out of his mouth, clearly unexpected. “Can I feel?” 

Scully is misty-eyed—some combination of hormones and her body awash with history—when she nods. She sways again; it’s all so overwhelming, and Mulder moves behind her, his hand on the small of her back. She takes Will’s callused hand, her eyebrows raised at him to make sure it’s okay, and places it on the hard mound of her belly. 

He grins. “I can feel it move.” A laugh escapes him. She guides him to where the foot pushes out lopsided. He taps it, and it taps back. She flashes back again to Mulder, in the hospital, his palm flat on the skin that enclosed the amoebic creature to become Will.

William is a boy tailed by Death; it clings to his skin like spiderwebs, haunts him wherever he flees to. She hopes Will finds peace here, feeling his sibling move inside her. It is unspeakably weird, all of it, to have the baby she mourned for decades turn up grown before her eyes. In a way, she’d always pictured him outside of time. But neither does he last forever, so here she stands with stubbled spook-writer Mulder, her adult son holding her steady and clinging with one finger to her unborn child. 

She wishes they could hand Will the sun, but all they can hand him is home, whatever that may be.

[ariabauer]

100 Carmilla Stories - RunWithWolves Masterpost

Missing Hollstein? Already re-watched the series dozens of times? Need some Carmilla in your life? Then I have the fics for you. Seriously. I’ve written 100 Carmilla stories and categorized them here for your convenience (some stories fit into multiple but i did my best)

If you want...

Fake Dating/Marriage - i just really love this trope

Politician Carmilla has to get engaged to someone for her campaign and ends up with her long time best friend Laura. Marriage of Convenience

When Laura hears that actress Carmilla is fake dating her ex, she has some words for her best friend. A Rational Irrationality

Princesses Laura and Carmilla told the world they were dating to get out of arranged marriages. It’s easy til they fall in love. Not Really a Royal Romance

Laura wakes up in the hospital to find ex Carmilla at her side after they apparently got married a decade before. The Girl Who Got Away

As far as anyone knows, pHd candidates Laura and Carmilla hate each other. Lab Manager Laf is onto them. Worst Lab Partner Ever

General Fantasy - Supernatural beyond just vampires

Hollstein are dragon riders and Carmilla is not taking the responsibility seriously enough for Laura. Just A Girl and Her Dragon

Vampire Carmilla never expected to find old roomate Laura working a magical flower store in Diagon Ally. Lophii’s Blooms

Carmilla never wanted magic and Laura can’t unlock her own, they’re stuck together until they figure it out. circle of magic au Magic of My Own

Movies at Silas come to life and drag Carmilla into the role of Prince Charming while Laura gets sleeping beauty. Silas Movie Night

Werewolf Laura and Vampire Carmilla don’t get along and Carmilla doesn’t understand why Laura doesn’t turn her over tot he hunters. Like Cats and Dogs

Carmilla’s the best surgeon in the hospital but she swallows her pride and asks Dr Hollis for help when she gets an unusual sickness. Paging Doctor’s Hollis and Karnstein

Laura is angry because Carmilla thinks her blood tastes gross and spits it out instead of killing her. False Advertising 

Clockwork Au: Laura and Carmilla to each have creatures made of clockwork (dragon and cat respectively) that represent their souls.  Silver and Gold 

Myths and Fairytales - sometimes you need a Hollstein happily ever after

Sassy Laura barges into Carmilla’s castle with a rose and demands a curse be lifted from her father.  Beauty in A Beast ft Catmilla

Cupid Laura is determined to find vampire Carmilla’s soulmate even if Carmilla doesn’t want her too. Stalked By Cupid

Totally-in-love Laura and a tiny kitten Catmilla. Princess and the Frog twist, The Princess and the Kitten

Goddess of Spring Laura is accidentally kidnapped by Lord of the Dead Carmilla. Hades/Persephone AU. Queen of the Underworld 

Carmilla goes overboard into the ocean during a storm and never expected a mermaid to pluck her from the sea. Kissed a Mermaid

War is over and shepherd god Carmilla can’t wait to go home to her wife. Sumerian god au. The Shepherd God

Orphan Laura falls in love with witch!Carmilla and chases after Carmilla when she runs. King Arthur au. Sword In My Stone Heart

The gods disappeared and Greek demigod Laura demands Sumerian demigod Carmilla help her save them. Daughter of Love and War

Science Fiction Fun - time travel and space and oh my!

Carmilla’s time machine keeps taking her to a small human child. When Carmilla stops coming back, grown up Laura stows away. Time Travel Malfunction

After graduation, bffs Carmilla and Laura take their spaceship on a roadtrip with definitely no pining. Roadtrip To the Stars

Captain Hollis is forced to let cocky co-pilot Carmilla join her starship crew as she tries to stop black holes from devouring the universe. Star Filled Memories

Cops or Superheroes Au - nothing like a good bout of crime fighting and a mystery to get flirty Hollstein roaring to life

Laura as a detective and Carmilla as the flirty annoying writer following her around as they try to solve murders.  Write Me A Murder

Laura who doesn’t have superpowers trying to navigate a school for the superpowered featuring asshat with superstrength Carmilla. Powerless

FBI agent Carmilla trapped in a bank/bomb heist and sending flirty notes to the hostage negotiator Laura. Don’t Let Go

Supervillain Carmilla and superhero Laura being arch-enemies and yet their alter egos are roommates. Beneath the Boots and Leather

Special Agent Hollis would have an easier time getting through the laser field if her annoying partners wasn’t so flirty. Mission Flirtable

Vampires know there’s no such thing as superheros. Laura didn’t get the memo and she’s now Carmilla’s problem. Not a Superhero

Fire Princess Carmilla has flames at her fingertips and still isn’t ready for her air-powered roommate. atla au Fire In My Veins and Air in My Lungs

Star Reporter Laura is determined to get an interview with Superwoman if only her incompetent partner Carmilla stopped getting in the way. At The Daily Planet

Batwoman doesn’t have time for dating even if Wonder Woman ‘call me Laura' makes her heart flutter. No Dating For Batwoman

Could Be During Canon? - Trying to fit stories inside the world we love

Reincarnation AU where Carmilla's vampirism allows her to die and then come back to life 9 times. Nine Lives to Die

Carmilla plans a date after Laura asked her to the Zeta party. s1 Date Like it’s 1698

Each episode written in an extremely snarky tone in Carmilla’s diary.  Dear Creampuff 

Countess Karnstein is looking for the partner who dances in step with her.  The Right Partner

Laura is the girl who cares and Carmilla doesn’t know what to do when she stops. s2 story. A Question of Caring

8 times Laura uses a Bandaid and 2 times she doesn’t.  Stick an Apatosaurus to My Heart

Even though Laura’s dead, alt-Carm keeps hearing her heartbeat everywhere she goes. Floating Through A Stone Wall

Laura breathes until she doesn’t. Carmilla doesn’t breathe until she does. With Human Breath

Hollstein gets trapped in the s2 cellar with a magical snowstorm raging upstairs. Cuddling for warmth. Colder Than Our Hearts

Hollstein says hey a lot. It’s kind of their thing. A look at all seasons and the movie and what that word means. Hey

Canon Alternatives - twists on the way it went

Carmilla dies from the Dean’s sword and Laura brings her back, binding them together forever. The Golden Heart of Paris

Laura gets her heart back but doesn’t wake up so Mattie comes to her with a deal. Hold Her Hand

Danny is dead and the the campus is gone and Laura Hollis has had enough of people dying in her name. An Explanation for Deification

Laura saved them all from Vordenberg but paid a price Carmilla wish she hadn’t to channel a god’s power. Behind Your Ancient Eyes

Laura had meant to do romantic things for Carmilla, she’d just thought they’d have more time. I Meant To Do That

LaFerry fic where Laf is a ghost and keeps stealing substance from Carmilla so that Perry can touch them. Define Death

Saving Laura to be the only reason Carmilla would ever willingly get back inside the coffin. Coffin of Starlight

Barely friends Carmilla and Laura literally glued together including obligatory shower scene. The Sticking Incident 

Mircalla’s doesn’t remember her past but her next client looks familar and, instead of taking her ‘services’, just wants to talk. Find You In the Dark

One Carmilla was bad, Laura has no idea how to handle 2 version of her ex girlfriend when they’re stuck in the library. Split Personality, Literally

Laura has amnesia but is thrilled to find out the hot vampire by her bed is her wife. Absolute jackpot Wake Up With a Hot Wife

Carmilla’s soul is trapped in the pit and Laura and the scooby gang have to figure out how to put her back together. Colours of A Soul

After Canon Ends - what could happen next

Post Movie Hollstein and their daughter go looking for the fountain of youth. Retcon the retcon. Family Trip to the Fountain

Papa Hollis gives a speech at a Hollstein wedding that gives all the feels as he tells Laura’s life story. That’s My Daughter

Vamp Laura going through a photo album and telling stories about her adventures with Carmilla. A Live Well Lived 

Laura, her father, and eventually Carmilla leave letters on Laura’s mother’s tombstone. Until We Meet Again

Mortal Laura and immortal Carmilla trying to figure out their lives and how to handle forever. Dandelion Promises

Vampires can’t go inside churches but Carmilla still likes to listen to the bells. Laura follows her. post movie. Monstrous Grace

Laura leaves a letter for Carmilla to give to all of Laura’s reincarnations over the centuries. The One Who Loves Her Next

Pregnant Laura has weird 2am cravings for Carmilla to try and fill. 9 Months of Mustard

Musical Hollstein - Trying to write melody with words

Tired world class musician Carmilla gives beginner Laura lessons and falls a little bit in love with her and the music. Teach Me to Play

Carmilla’s sent to interview her ex, pop star Laura. It’s been years and Carmilla can still see the brokenness her mother put on Laura’s face. To Hope Beyond an Unfinished Melody

Coffee Shop and Cooking Hollstein

Laura moves in with the hot coffee barista she has a crush on it’s both the best and the worst. Coffee Cupcake Crush

Laura can’t make coffee but she can set up all her customers with each other, the only person she can’t find a match for is fellow barista and ‘cupid-in-crime’ Carmilla. The Ultimate Coffee Shop Au

Angsty chefs Hollstein run a cooking show but when things get hot in the kitchen, they become secret exes with benefits. Cooking With Hollstein

Human Hollstein - Nothing supernatural. Just our girls being cute.

Billionaire playgirl Carmilla can’t bring herself to be a playboy when it’s Laura she’s taking as her date. Read The Carmilla Karnstein Special

Laura sees a girl on the subway but couldn’t speak to her so writes a ‘missing person’ ad instead. Missed Connections

Aggressive salesman Laura sells girl scout cookies with tiny Laf and knocks on Carmilla’s door. Just Buy the Cookies

Adorable sticky note conversations between broody Carmilla and the girl on the day shift who stole her mug. The Mug Thief 

Drunk Carmilla comes into Laura’s tattoo shop and demands a tattoo on her butt.  Tattoos and Bikinis

Laura literally falls into Carmilla’s lap on the bus and a spunky older gentleman gives love advice. Strangers on a Bus

Laura’s not very good a camping and the night’s cold when your tent collapses, might have to share sleeping bags. To Build A Tent

Librarian Karnstein  enjoys annoying Professor Hollis by rearranging the books to see her scrunched nose. Librarian Hottie

Laura signs up to be a toymaking Christmas elf but gets a grumpy partner who hates making toys. Christmas Trains

Hockey player Laura is determined to get concessions booth worker Carmilla to love the skating rink. Cookies Cupcakes and Hockey Captains.

High School Hollstein Stories

Nerd Laura becomes the quarterback and only reluctant cheerleader Carmilla doesn’t change around her. A Classic High School Love Story 

Laura is desperate for cookies and Carmilla ate them all after high school home ec. How to Avoid Kale

Hollstein neighbours shoot nerf guns and marshmallow guns and water guns at each other. War of the Windows

Hollstein becoming friend in kindergarten and then grow up together while getting into all kinds of trouble. Loving Trouble

Hollstein with Animals - Fluffier than fluff because animals are fluffy

Reluctant dog walker Carmilla can’t say no to vet Laura’s requests to walk various animals so they get exercise. Puppy Dog Eyes

Pet Store worker Carmilla saves Laura after she kills Laf’s fish. Again and again. One Fish Two Fish

Carmilla’s cat to keep bringing home some mysterious girl’s underwear. Drawer of Lingerie

Carmilla’s cat gets Laura’s cat pregnant and Laura demands Carmilla co-parent the kittens. Bonus unexpected canoe. Kitten Kisses 

Carmilla rescuing Laura from evil spiders in the laundry room. For Fear of Spiders

 Playing With Words - Hollstein examined in a story

The story on campus before Carmilla reached room 307 told like Welcome to the Nightvale. Welcome To Silas

Writing the movie plot before the movie came out with Hollstein engagement and Ell closure. It’s Not About the Plot

Laura’s a baker, Carmilla’s a firefighter. An examination of what a Hollstein story really is. A Generic Carmilla Story

Detailing the 100 little ways Hollstein fell in love over the seasons. 100 Ways They Fell in Love

Soulmates - because who doesn’t love some soulmate Aus. Usually twisted from the typical soulmate version or an original idea

Tiny literal hearts to pop up every time Carmilla looks at Laura and all Carmilla wants is for Laura to NEVER SEE THEM.Love is Orange

The scars from one person to show up only on the body of their soulmate featuring a Carmilla who is scarless for centuries and a Laura who will only wear long sleeves.  Scars Inside

Timer soulmate au where Carmilla meets a tiny five year old Laura on her first day of school and suddenly finds her timer has started counting down to the moment they fall in love. A Broken Pocketwatch

A mirror will let you see your soulmate every year on your birthday but everyone is convinced there’s been a mistake when 21th century Laura sees 17th century Carmilla in the mirror. The Mirror Between Us 

Fairy Laura follows her soulmate compass through a jungle only to find a panther. Carmilla’s not interested in soulmates. Follow Your Arrow

Everyone is born with a soulmate marker to write the name of their chosen soulmate on their skin. Vampires don’t have ink. s1-3 We Chose Each Other

Child countess Carmilla wished on stars for a best friend and got an imaginary lion. Centuries later, child Laura makes the same wish and finds a panther on her doorstep. Wishing On Imaginary Stars

Carmilla has never seen color until the world starts flickering when a kid can’t find their mom. A Hint of Colour

You can hear the music of your own soul and your soulmate but vampire Carmilla can’t hear the music. After Ell separates them, can Laura find her again and again? In Every Universe You Are My Symphony

This has been a 3 year labour of love. The stories vary in length from about 2k to over 100,000k for a total of more than half a million words. Have suggested stories? Let people know! It’s a big list!

Hope you enjoy them and thank you for all of your support creampuffs! <3 Aria

[glenngaylord]

The Revolution Will Be Televised - Film Review: Judas And The Black Messiah ★★★★

In the early 1990s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, I was an active member of ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a grassroots group who helped to improve the lives of people living with the virus in ways gentle and compassionate and in other ways loud and dotted with instances of civil disobedience.  The frequent chapter meetings gave me pause, however, when I felt their membership criteria felt too lax.  Nobody was vetted and anyone attending could vote. In the back of my mind, I envisioned a federal infiltrator in our midst whose goal was to undermine our actions. I’d wonder that if this person existed, were they influenced by our message and did their loyalties shift?

I write this not to draw a direct comparison to the inner workings of the Black Panther movement of the late 60s and the extraordinarily compelling film by Skaha King, Judas And The Black Messiah, but to explore the journey I took while viewing it. Because King and his co-writer, Will Berson, have told the true story of the Chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party and the FBI informant sent to undermine his efforts, the film doesn’t quite deliver the expected genre tropes. I expected specific story beats, and when they didn’t happen, it gave me the opportunity to reflect on what the filmmakers have tried to accomplish. As a result, we have a cinematic rarity in which truth is better and deeper than fiction. By the end, I felt the gut punch of its message I would not have felt had we’d been given the “Hollywood” version.

The story begins with Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) using his fake FBI badge in order to steal another man’s car.  When things go awry, O’Neal finds himself blackmailed by the FBI, who in the person of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen under heavy prosthetics) labels the Black Panthers a terrorist threat. O’Neal must work for them as an informant in order to take down Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and his Chicago Chapter. Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) will serve as O’Neal’s point person who dons a nice guy persona yet reveals the nefarious systemic racism at the core of the FBI’s plan. All of this seems like the perfect setup for a crime thriller, and under King’s direction, we get the exciting set pieces, the epic speeches, and the suspenseful close calls O’Neal experienced.  King plays with every toy at his disposal to deliver an epic story in the style of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. With his excellent Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, King whips through spaces with breathtaking clarity. Whether he’s whooshing towards a male and female Panther member as they try to defend themselves during a police shootout, or when we stay tight on Hampton during one of his rousing speeches, King shows his gift for precise yet epic storytelling.

He has also been gifted with actors at the top of their game. Stanfield conveys the complexity of a man at war with himself, who clearly believes in the Panther’s mission (a position the real O’Neal did not admit to) yet feels the vise grip the FBI has on him. A stunning scene in which he stares down Mitchell as Hampton gives a speech reveals so much just by the looks the men give each other. In another scene, we fully understand his inner turmoil as he says what he would do to a rat within the Panthers. A suspenseful sequence in which O’Neal is forced at gunpoint to hot-wire a car to prove he’s a real thief shows us just how good an actor Stanfield is at playing a guy who is forced to act. As O’Neal rises through the ranks to become Hampton’s Chief of Security, I found myself covering my eyes at times worried that he was too close to the flame and would get caught. It’s tricky, complex, and the typical plot-driving engine of this type of story.

Kaluuya, however, brings something so different, so unexpected to this story, it forces you out of your comfort zone and causes you to see the film in a different light. Sure, Hampton has a galvanizing presence whether he’s in front of a crowd or with his fellow Panthers, but when he’s alone with his girlfriend, Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), a poet who works as a writer in the party, the film delivers such a wave of tenderness, allowing you to really feel what’s at stake. Kaluuya, already a veteran of outstanding films, outdoes himself here. Fishback delivers such a touching performance, a gentle soul who loves so deeply and yet who feels helpless as she witnesses the slaughter. The Black Panther Party may have fought violence with violence when necessary, but they also united disparate  communities, fed hungry children, and passionately strived to preserve their dignity. It’s not difficult to connect the dots to the current Black Lives Matter movement and to understand that so much change is still vitally needed. Were they, like ACT-UP, too democratic in allowing people with unknown backgrounds to rise through the ranks or did they lack the proper technology to check backgrounds?

Regardless, King gives us the emotional truths of its characters through its Agent/Informer and Leader/Romantic Partner dynamics. While the big expected reveals don’t come to pass because they didn’t happen in real life, King gets right to the heart of things by making his characters’ feelings and their mission matter the most. I felt punched in the stomach by how O’Neal’s storyline resolved, something so much more layered than fiction. King has reframed a movement and gives us a Fred Hampton, whether it’s by Kaluuya’s commanding depiction or the real man seen in a clip at the very end, worth remembering in this taut, exciting film.

[stunudo]

New Around Here

A Criminal Minds Fan-fiction

Featuring: Hotch x Female Reader         Setting: Late Season 12

A/N: Happy Smuturday! This is following my dreams of what Hotch and Jack are up to now. Also unprotected sex, wrap it up folks! Also the ending sucks formatting wise. Hooray for mobile and not getting still.xoxo Stu

The bearded man had been coming into the diner nearly every weekday for lunch for the last two weeks. The only reason you noticed him at all was he tended to nod at you in your usual booth in the corner, that and he was rather attractive. You guessed he knew you were the boss by the way you knew the regular’s by name and kept busy on your laptop scheduling the deliveries and checking the accounts.

Today was about that time to make a formal introduction, since he had become your latest regular after all. You waited until he was served his Tuna Melt before beginning your usual circle through the dining area. Elsie was the Tues-Thurs-Sat server and you were glad you had her diligence on your staff. She smiled warmly as you started in the far corner, “Y/N? Will you drop off Table 5′s check for me?”

“Sure thing, Elsie. Good job today, that late breakfast crowd was brutal.”

She shrugged, “Eh, no biggie, they were generous too.”

The Gerritsens were in the back booth, like every Thursday. An old couple that had matching windbreakers on despite the bright afternoon outside. They had been married for 58 years and made sure everyone knew it. Then there was Old Tom, perched at the counter grumbling at the day time talk show hosts, his extra bacon BLT half finished as he slurped his fourth coffee refill.

These faces were like home, imperfect yet welcoming. You felt so lucky to have them come back week after week.

Aaron was getting used to the pace of his day, which naturally meant much less structure than when he led the BAU. He had started teaching at the local community college along the California- Nevada border. His alias was that of a newly divorced dad from Minnesota, the Marshals had arranged him to become James Spivey. Jack had been given the name Jordan, a slightly easier transition than his father. He was adjusting to the new school and making friends quickly.

Considering Peter Lewis was still on the run, the Hotchners were given a larger security detail than most Witness Protection participants. Aaron felt his shadow at all times, but so far the civilians hadn’t caught on. Jack’s Marshals were posing as security guards at school and they regrouped in shifts at the small family’s residence. Lecturing gave him some thing to do and let him use his experience without exposing his past. The diner just off the small campus gave Aaron a respite from socializing with the other faculty.

He ate his deliciously fried sandwich before starting his side salad, because no one was here to scold him. The lovely owner was making her way to touch base with her regulars, which was earlier than her usual routine. Aaron had noticed her over the course of his time in town and how she seemed to brighten the mood of everyone she interacted with. He had learned she had inherited the diner from an uncle and left a career in Nursing somewhere in the South. Profiling was not an easily forgotten ability; he had figured she was single and a workaholic.

“Need anything else today Professor?” The red headed waitress asked, refilling his water glass.

Aaron wiped his mouth with a napkin and shook his head. “Not today, thanks Elsie.” She was studying Elementary Education at the school, he had seen her on campus on her off days.

“Take your time,” She smiled gently and left the bill upside down in front of his unused coffee mug.

“How was everything today?” You asked, trying to sound casual. He had already left cash on the table to cover his lunch. He wasn’t playing on his phone like so many people who ate alone did these days. He had brought a newspaper along, but hadn’t touched it since getting his meal. His dark eyes were relaxed, yet you were on guard, feeling them float over your body.

“Wonderful as always.” He smiled, the lines along his eyes crinkling.

“So, being new around here, how’d you find our little hole in the wall?” You asked, picking up his cleared plate, a force of habit.

He smirked now, “I, uh, teach over at the school. This is my first semester there, you have a perfect location.”

“Yeah, tell that to my night crew, the drunks showing up demanding coffee and pie at two a.m. are real, charmers.” You rolled your eyes. “I’m Y/N, the owner, by the way. You are?”

He didn’t miss a beat, “James, but please call me Jim.”

“Nice to meet you, finally, Jim.”

“You too, Y/N.” He stood, gathering his things. “I have a class at 2, see you tomorrow?”

“You got it.” You brushed his firm arm with your finger tips and left him with a gentle wave.

Aaron spent the next two weeks casually flirting with Y/N each day during his break between lectures. She was fascinating, but not too pressing on the personal details. He wanted to ask her out on a real date, somewhere she didn’t know the menu or the farm where the eggs were laid, even. But how to do that without exposing his always present body guards?

“So, I’m just going to do it then?” She approached him first, before he even settled into the booth. This time was different, she sat across from the former FBI agent with her hands in a teepee. “If you can get a sitter, how about we hang out tomorrow night?”

“Well, Ja-Jordan is old enough to take care of himself for a few hours.” Aaron admitted.

“Is that a yes, Jimmy?” She rose her eyebrows.

He smirked, “That’s a yes, Y/N. Can I pick you up?”

“7 o’clock sharp?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

If the first date went well, then the following three were phenomenal. You hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. But you felt guilty taking Jim away from his son so often, especially since the boy’s mother was out of the picture.

“So, another good bye kiss on my doorstep?” You asked begrudgingly. “You know I have a very nice place, you could even sit down and have a drink with me. In my living room.”

“You don’t say?” Jimmy laughed like a bark. His dark whiskers scratching along your jaw. His voice deep and sensual. “How do I know this isn’t a trap, Y/N?”

“Because you can leave any time you want to Professor Spivey.”

“Who said anything about leaving?” He nibbled your ear, his strong hands pulling you closer to his tall body.

“Don’t you have to be home before bedtime?” Your voice hitched as his hand slid down your ass, his long fingers hovering just below the curve.

“Nope, Jordan’s at a sleepover, my evening is all clear.”

“Wrong. Your dance card is filled, sir.”

“Lead the way.”

Aaron hadn’t had time to think about romance in over a year. The prison break and the subsequent trail of dominoes led them right back to Peter Lewis. But now, he was safe. Jack was at a friend’s house that was covered by four different US Marshals and his two personal body guards had secured the perimeter of Y/N’s house before they had arrived. He was as relaxed as he had been since going into witness protection.

“This is the foyer,” Y/N murmured, walking backwards into the unlit house. Her hands were sliding off his coat as she kicked off her shoes.

“It’s a nice foyer,” He chuckled, not looking around at all. She grinned, reaching in for a deep kiss. Her wine from dinner lingered on her lips, her tongue tantalizing. He maneuvered out of his own shoes without falling over.

“I’m not giving you the full tour, you can see it in the morning.” She was pulling him by his collar now, miraculously walking backwards and kissing him without any missteps. Too quickly her lips disappeared and Hotch had to open his eyes to see where she went. She had backed into the carpeted steps, landing soundly on her backside.

Her pouting expression was priceless as he tried to stifle his amusement. He slid beside her on the soft gray stairs. The only light coming from above the sink the kitchen around the corner, casting Y/N in stark relief. Her natural smile returned when she watched Aaron try to lay comfortably on the stairs.

“There are worse places to make out.” They both laughed, knowing their teen-aged selves had found plenty, however far apart they grew up it was a given. He gave up sitting beside her and perched himself between her legs, supporting himself by his forearms along the stair her neck rested upon. She seemed so small beneath him, her larger than life personality delicately packed away inside. He couldn’t wait to unwrap this unexpected treasure.

His gruff face began trailing along her neck, his sure hands un-tucked her blouse, his hands raked up her bare torso. She squirmed beneath him, deftly she hitched her skirt up, to spread her thighs, beckoning him closer. He dropped down a step, pinning her down his waist in line with her unfurled knees. She shrugged out of her top, his rough lips leaving hot trails to her chest. He bit at her nipple through the fabric of her thin bra. She purred into a giggle, her nails dragging his shirt from his belt now.

You were letting it get ridiculous, stripping in the stairway while you had a perfectly good bedroom just yards away. His body has covered in scars, you didn’t see them at first, with your head thrown back. But your wandering hands had traced over enough of them to sneak a glance. His dark eyes looked ashamed, you stroked his chiseled face.

“It’s a long story, Y/N.” He seemed wary. You drew his face to yours, bringing him back to the task at hand.

“Let’s skip that tonight.” You reached down in between your bodies, stroking him over his pants. His voice huskier than usual as he whispered in your ear.

“I hope you don’t mind rug burn.” You thought he meant from his beard and you shook your head that you didn’t mind. Instead this dark and handsome man danced his fingers into your panties, stretching the fabric to the side. He had freed himself from his pants while you were distracted by his mouth. Suddenly your eyes popped opened understanding his comment. And then Jim slowly entered your center, soaked with your want. He delved inside of you as far as he could and kissed you fiercely as your hips rose from the stairs to meet his momentum. Your shoulders were going to kill you in the morning, but right now the heat from the friction added to the building tension throughout your bodies.

He was in great shape, his legs supporting him and half of you as his hands kneaded your hidden breasts. You whimpered as he changed rhythm, your nails raking down his back now. He grunted as he sighed, pulling back from his pinnacle. His muscular hand reached between your folds, rubbing your clit in a motion that was both too fast and not forceful enough. Your whined, driving into, increasing the sensation for you both.

Suddenly a phone was ringing from back in the foyer. Jimmy froze, panting. His forehead pressed into your collar bone. He removed himself from you, his thumb rubbing your cheek tenderly. As he straightened up you rolled on to your side, your body sore from the odd positioning. He quickly found his phone and began redressing. His voice soft, you realized he was talking to his son.

“It’s okay buddy. I will be right there.”

“So much for the sleepovers?”

“I am really sorry, Y/N. Nightmares.” You waved it off.

Thus ended your evening, but not the possibility of more to come. You showed Jim out, it was weird you could have sworn an SUV pulled out of your neighbor’s driveway right after him.

Part 2: Come Around Again

[pjstafford]

“This” not That:  A Review of the X-files Season 11 second episode

“This” made me sentimental.  It felt so much like a gift.  It was everything that we wanted but didn’t get from Season 10.  It was as if Glen Morgan, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson  read the fan fiction or the criticism  of season 10 or just said -”Fuck it, why don’t we have some fun for old time sake.”  it was beautiful.  

The Ramones on an episode where Richard Langly appears!  I personally love that they didn’t say the character had never died, but they brought him back not as a hallucination or a ghost but in a cybernetic afterlife that wasn’t working for him.  It seemed appropriate for a lone gunman to end with that fate.  It made the character more real that he had a problem and he called on Mulder to help.  

The most sentimental moment of all for me was  the scene at Deep Throat’s grave.  David Duchovny played this moment so well I wondered if he had watched old footage of when Mulder had talked about watching the funeral from afar.  It was such a fallback moment.  It forced us to  not just to the original run but far back to the beginning of the show- to the origin of “Trust no one.”

This episode did what season 10 failed to do - it connected the present to the past but, yet, didn’t seem contrived and wasn’t done in flashbacks.  It connected us through sentiment.  Mulder still misses Deep Throat.  He was gone when Langly died.  There are events from the past that shape the present.  Suddenly we are emotionally connected with the current agents as we were not in season 10. 

I am a partial “shipper”.  MSR is part of the story at this point.  They had a child together.  They were clearly together in “I want to believe.”  Yet, I was fine with them being estranged in season 10.  I want there to be a good story end.  A happy MSR ending of the season would be great but a good story that wasn’t a happy MSR ending would be ok as well.  However, there is the romance and then there is the heart of the partnership and relationship.  My least favorite piece of season 10 was that Scully and Mulder no longer trusted each other.  Scully said “he fears my judgement.”  She asks if he had taken his meds after she diagnosed him with depression.  That was not acceptable.  They don’t have to be lovers and they can be arguing,, but they have to be each other’s constant, their one in 7 billion.  They have to be each other’s partner in the truest meaning of the word or it is not really the X-files. 

The opening of this episode when they have fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television they were in fact like every old married couple I know.  i instantly thought of all the requests from fans - we just want to see them doing normal things with each other.  Of course in the X files we don’t stay with normal long, but the viewers got the sense that Mulder and Scully could be domestic.  She says they couldn’t go back to “our home.”They joked and touch and Mulder told her she was “adorbs.”  It wasn’t romantic really.  It was Mulder and Scully as of old.  

Remember when the X-file commented indirectly on what was current in the world without directly commenting on what was current in the world.  We gof that in “This”.  I enjoyed the references to the Executive Branch and the relationship with the FBI and the comments relating to the Cold War.  I liked the tag line and attributed it, quite frankly, to our country’s most recent election.  

A criticism is that the ending was anti-climatic after a lot of intensity.  A little strange to think that the cybernetic afterlife can simply be turned off with a key.  I was happy that it didn’t quite get rid of the back up; although a little concern we left Langly in a version of Hell.  

Finally, while I normally comment on Mulder’s appearance because David Duchovny is... well, he is all that!  In this episode, Gillian Anderson was in fact adorbs.  Natural healthy beauty with a great sense of humor and adventure.  I found myself thinking about the pilot.  

I read that it was the lowest ratings in the series history?  What a shame because it was an episode so worth watching.