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tciddaemina · 2 years

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for the sake of transparency

some of you may have noticed that there’s something a bit funky going on in the comment section of keep it simple, one of my one piece/naruto crossovers featuring zoro/kisame as the main pairing, so i thought i’d explain just to preemptively set the record straight. for context, this is a slash fic, and one thats very clearly tagged, listing both the M/M pairing and who the main pairing is as explicitly as the tagging system allows. i literally could not be more obvious if i tried.

and a while ago, in July, an anonymous user left this comment on my fic

which sort of pissed me off. to clarify - i do not give a single honest fuck about what other people decide to do in regards to their headcanons, ships, whatever. ship wars are a waste of time and i literally could not care less. if you think zoro is straight, all the more power to you, that’s a valid interpretation and i respect your opinion. but that only works if you respect that i may also choose to have a different interpretation, one that is equally as valid. this is my fic, that i am writing, and i can choose to write it however i want. that is what fanfiction is about.

the level of entitlement in this comment alone is offensive, this idea that you can dictate what others create or that there is only one acceptable correct way of looking a character or pairing emblematic of some of the worst of fandoms current mentalities.

if this guy didn’t like it they had entirely the choice to shrug and say ‘hey thats not for me’ and keep going, but they didn’t. and its on chapter 1 as well, when the fic was several chapters in, so it wasn’t like this guy skimmed over the tags by accident, got all the way in and was like ???wait gay??? and then decided to whine about it. no, all i can assume is that they were scrolling, saw the pairing and decided click in solely for the purpose of leaving a shitty little comment.

(also like. can we just acknowledge what a whack fucking suggestion this is? i chose to write zoro and kisame because they can be put together in a very fun and intense dynamic revolving around swords and bloodlust, that is why i wrote the fic. i honestly cannot tell if this dude just wanted me to what? rewrite the fic altogether with franky in zoro’s place? or just like, stop writing and go write franky/kisame instead? (i can only assume they think franky is gay because he’s sort of camp and more stereotypically gay, which is sort of offensive in its own right but go off.) either way its a very weird thing to order someone to do.

also please, franky/robin all the way. this is my own opinion mind, but damn if franky isn’t the straightest fucking person in the straw hats. again, my own opinion).

but anyway the comment fucked me off enough that i decided to be pretty and reply like this:

(this is not my art, but rather is an amazing piece by tumblr user cranity, found here. they have an amazing art style, for all that i found this image by it literally being the first franky/robin fanart in the results when i did a tumblr search. i essentially just shared the image in the form of a comment)

i’m more bemused by the whole thing than anything, as the discord server can attest, so apart from some initial confusion i just shrug and move on with my life. it earns a good laugh in the server if nothing else, so that’s good enough. there is no reply, and i honestly wouldn't care if there never was one

except whoo, anon is not done with me yet, because several weeks later i receive these. (sorry about the darkness of the images, my phone was on a light filter when i look the screenshots. also, i’d like to note that usually i would crop the persons name when discussing a story like this, but i want you guys to be able to see for yourself they’re the source of the emails)

what you’re seeing here is like a dozen spam replies and comments all by that same anon. the actual content of the comments was a bunch of links, as the anon tried to reply to my image with some of their own (Robin/Zoro frank art, to be precise, presumable to ha, pwned you). except that that is not how uploading images to AO3 works, you need to go through some specific html code for that, which means what this guy sent was only a bunch of links.

links which AO3 then ate. like a GC, AO3 recognized that hmm, if someone is sending dozens of comments in quick succession its probably not a real comment but rather an attempt at spam and bullying, and so AO3 ate the comments. i still got the notifications in my inbox, but when i went to the fic itself the comments didn’t exist.

and at this point i’m just like 🤣🤣🤣🤣 because not only has this person just failed to spam me, but they also fucked up how they tried to do it and couldn’t get the images to work anyway. rip my guy.

the comments never existed, so i don’t bother to reply. honestly this is just an ongoing source of fun amusement for the discord server at this point so i’m just bemusedly waiting to see things will continue to unfold.

and behold, another several weeks later, my inbox looks like this:

ya boy the anon is back and at it again, except last time they obviously got frustrated by the fact that their images were only coming through as links because they learned the html! (and wow, i love accidentally trolling someone into learning a useful new skill)

so what i receive in my inbox are essentially a bunch of comment replies that all look like this, featuring various zoro/robin fanart, presumable to prove to me the error of my ways in showing how utterly not gay zoro is. because man, this is really going to make me repent and show me how wrong i was.

except that wow, haha, anon still fucked it up because they sent a dozen of these and AO3 was like spam? and ate the whole lot of the again. which is how we get to the most recent interaction, now several weeks later again. having presumably seen that gasp, their spam has mysteriously vanished, they then leave this comment:

which honestly just makes me laugh. i’m not going to comment on their writing, because maybe english isn’t their first language and that’s not something i’m going to make fun of someone for, but man the rest is up for grabs. again, they are ordering me to switch the main pairing insisting in tears Zoro!Isn’t!Gay! and that since they said to stop i have to stop. because the word of some random fucko really is what governs all my writing choices, and how dare i not obey. forgetting not the little postscript, as if to remind me of the superior ship, as if they haven’t tried to repeatedly flood my inbox and comments already with just that.

again, it would be perfectly possible for this person to just ... walk away and never have to see this fic again. they could just not read it, not look at it, not engage, and go back to reading whatever het fic they prefer. they’re the one seeking this story out specifically to harass its author, outraged that someone in the world might have a perspective and opinion even lightly different than their own. nobody is going to stop making robin/zoro content because my fic exists, it literally impacts nothing and no one.

this is my reply:

so far there’s been no reply, but no doubt there will be one. i just wanted to lay the whole thing out here for the sake of transparency and as an explanation for whoever might be seeing the comments and wondering what the hell is going on.

i’m going to say it again, but i could not give less of a fuck about ship wars and how other people choose to headcanon characters. everyones opinion is exactly as valid. if the harassment continues and gets truly annoying, i’ll just put on comment moderation and switch the fic to only being visible to AO3 users. if they try to go after any my other works, i’ll just move the whole lot to being user-only, and if they still want to try spam me using an actual account i’ll just block them.

i do not care. this has no impact on my life, and while it would be sad that some non-user readers can’t access my fics, if that’s what has to happen then fine.

and so to RDemon, if you somehow find your way here to read this (because at this point I wouldn’t even be surprised) you can keep sending as many messages as you want and it isn’t going to change anything. your comments don’t make me angry, they don’t hurt me, they’re a minor inconvenience at most and have brought far more amusement as the topic of entertainment in the discord server than they ever have caused strife. it is honestly hilarious, watching someone get so worked up into a frothing rage trying to fight with me about something i could not care about less, and every message you send only makes me spitefully want to write Zoro getting absolutely railed by Kisame in the filthiest and most explicit way possible even more.

so cheers, RDemon, you’ve been a fun source of entertainment. know that we are very much laughing at you, and when i write the gayest Zoro smut i’m going to dedicate it to you

#comments things #real story #ao3 #just some little dude being shitty and throwing a tantrum #lollll #comment wall of fame #te talks

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

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It’s Only Fair

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing, Minor Spoilers for RE8: Village

Genre: FLUFF, Humor, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: It’s all fun and games while Corpse is simping over Lady Dimitrescu, seeing as how Y/N herself isn’t immune to that woman’s charms. However, things get ‘serious’ when Corpse has to deal with his girlfriend making heart eyes at the hammer wielding final lord - Heisenberg.

Requested by Anon. Hi darling! Thank you so much for this incredible request - it hit close to home, not gonna lie hehe. Thank you so much for the opportunity you gave me with this request, I had a ton of fun turning it into a fic and I hope you have at least half as much fun reading it! Love, Vy ❤

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Heisenberg remind you of Lucas from the seventh game? I don’t know, all this speakers communication is giving me flashbacks I’m not too fond of. That guy traumatized me.“ Y/N shudders in her seat from where she’s observing Corpse’s gameplay while keeping tabs on the speeding chat, answering as many of the comments as she can.

“No idea. Never played the game.“ Corpse wheezes out, feeling the pressure’s on and working up a little bit of a sweat seeing as how this is the last lord he’ll have to battle before probably having to square up with Mother Miranda. The fact he’s running low on ammo has been stressing him out but luckily he has Y/N there to comfort him every time. She doesn’t even need to use words to do so or even ask him what’s wrong - just placing her hand on his knee allows him to feel relaxed and as though everything will be alright even though it probably won’t be if he doesn’t collect some money, ammo or supplies for making ammo soon.

“Wooow, fake fan, huh?“ Y/N pokes his side teasingly, “No, nevermind, I know exactly why you chose to play this, skipping all the previous ones in the process.“ She prods on, continuing to mess with Corpse who gives her a side-smile after having held on a still face for such a long time, features frozen in his focused and on-edge state.

He rolls his eyes, deciding to play her game, “Oh yeah? Why do you think that is?”

She scoffs, “Maybe cause thee other games don’t have 9ft tall vampire ladies? I don’t know, I’m just shooting in the dark here.” She delivers another poke to his side, giggling devilishly as she does so.

Corpse quickly takes hold of her hand, murmuring: “Maybe...” under his breath before bringing it to his lips and giving her knuckles a kiss.

Y/N wiggles her hand free from his grasp, mock-offended by his words, “Knew it! I freaking- Whoa, hello there, sir.” She cuts herself off as the game enters into a scripted cutscene, showing off the final lord in all his glory. “Who is you?”

“Y/N, Heisenberg. Heisenberg, Y/N.” Corpse laughs, “I forgot you missed the episode where he was first introduced.”

“Damn do I regret that now.“ She whispers, eyes glued to the game instead of the screen of her laptop where she’s been fetching comments flying by. No one can blame the girl, she’s got a justified reason to be distracted. “Wish we met sooner, Mr. Heisenberg.“

Corpse finds his jaw on the floor in an instant as his head snaps to face his girlfriend, “Excuse me, what’s that supposed to mean?!”

Y/N frowns, narrowing her eyes at her boyfriend as she finally brings herself to tear her eyes off the screen where now the game has been paused. “What? You now get to complain? After I didn’t say shit about you drooling all over Lady Dimitrescu? It’s only fair I get my own simp-worthy subject, don’t you think?”

Corpse rolls his eyes, “This deal doesn’t seem like it’ll benefit you much - I get a hot, classy and rich vampire lady and you get...” he motions at the screen, his face twisting in a displeased expression, “...him.”

“Oh trust me, I’ll be perfectly benefited, don’t ya worry.“ She shoots him a wink, cackling quietly yet evilly at the shock-disappointment het comment is met with on her boyfriend’s part. “What?“ She asks though laughter, “He’s hella hot!“

“Ok, that’s it.“ Corpse gets up, pushing the desk chair Y/N’s sitting in forward, rolling it on its wheels towards the door, “You’ll be in exile until this chapter’s done with. I can’t have you simping all over the place, it’s bad for business. I mean, if you fall for guys who look like him, God knows what people will think I look like.“

“Well, you do need a shower but...“ Y/N comments through a fit of giggles, kicking her legs as to get up and off the chair but by the time she’s able to react, he’s already rolled her out in the hallway and shut the door of the recording room behind himself as though she can’t just open it and walk back in. Which is exactly what she does, much to his dismay - but she only pokes her head inside, “You’re right, it’s bad for your image, so I’ll clarify.“ She clears her throat, raising her voice as for it to be picked up by Corpse’s mic from across the room, “The two men in question don’t look at all alike, folks! Heisenberg is way hotter than Corpse!“

“OUT!“ Corpse shouts, sounding as threatening as he can while laughing his ass off alongside Y/N who has followed his ‘order‘ and stepped out in the hallway where her laughter can still be heard. “Guess the longer I don’t shower, the hotter I’ll appear to Y/N. Remind me to buy myself a cape as well. Wonder how much factories cost around the West Coast...“

“COPYCAT!“ Comes Y/N’s shout from outside the door, causing Corpse to break out in another fit of laughter.

Never did Corpse think he’d be trying to cop the ranks of a video game villain but here he is, actually googling the price of cape coats and he’s never felt more bemused with himself - ok, that may or may not be a lie considering he’s really digging the coats he finds for sale online.

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pascalpanic · 3 years

Note

so i read this scenario on reddit and i thought it would be a cute and fluffy fic idea if you want to write it :)

one of the Pedro boys (i was thinking frankie or marcus moreno but you can put any one of them that you feel like would fit the story) lands himself in the hospital and the reader visits him often cause they’re friends. they notice that every time they visit, his heart rate monitor speeds up, like not enough to cause alarm but enough to be noticeable, and that’s how she finds out that he likes her and they decide to date (after he gets out of hospital)

Appendicitis (Frankie Morales x f!reader)

Summary: ^^

W/C: 2.4K

Warnings: talk of being ill, vomit, pain, lots of talk of hospitals and that being a major setting, Frankie is a dad, language

A/N: welcome back to Josie’s quest to clean her inbox! This idea was so precious!! I hope you guys like it!!

Frankie is in fucking agony. Never has he felt something as painful as this, never has such pain radiated through his body so intensely that he has no choice but to vomit out his stomach’s contents.

He spends the day at home, occupying his daughter as best he can while he’s in such suffering. He figures that maybe it’s just really bad gas cramping or constipation. Marisol plays quietly, at her daddy’s request, watching her favorite Disney movies on the couch while nuzzled into his side. Frankie has never been so grateful to get her into bed at the end of the day.

After a full day of the pain, and realizing that it wasn’t going away no matter how many painkillers he took, Frankie gave in around midnight. Lying in his bed, skin turning gray and the pain now decisively in his right side, Frankie called you.

After a few rings, you picked up. “Hey, Fish.”

“Hi.” His voice sounds agonized. “How much do you charge for babysitting again?” He asks, the strain clear.

You’re confused, pushing the phone closer to your ear and thinking it might be the distance that makes him sound so odd. “Uh, you’re my friend, so free. You need me to take Mari?” You ask him.

He nods. “Yeah; how much for like a week though? I don’t want to impose though, and-“

His voice sounds terrible. “Frankie. Shut up. A week? What’s wrong? I can take Marisol for as long as you need, but I gotta know what’s going on.”

Frankie is quiet before he grunts softly in pain. “I think my appendix might be fucked up. It hurts like fucking hell. Mari’s asleep, I don’t wanna wake her or anything, but could you-“

You cut him off once more, sitting bolt upright. “I’m on my way over. Do you think you can hang on until I get there? I can drive you to the hospital, or we’ll get one of the boys.”

“That sounds good,” Frankie agrees. “Fuckin’ ambulances are so expensive.”

You chuckle softly. “Hang in there, Fish, okay? I’m gonna call Will, see if he can drive you and I’ll stay with Mari. How’s that?”

Marisol loves you. There’s no better solution in Frankie’s eyes: she behaves better for you than she does for him. She’ll be in good hands, happy for as long as he needs to be in the hospital healing. “Perfect. God, you’re a fucking angel. Don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve better than me,” you snort as you pull on a hoodie and slip on some shoes. “I’m gonna call Will. You got this, Fish. Distract yourself. I’ll send you updates.”

When you arrive at the Morales household, Will’s truck is already in the driveway. He lives closer, so it makes sense. Be quiet and don’t wake Mari, you remember as you slip off your shoes and head up the stairs of Frankie’s home. It’s quiet, unsurprising for this time of night, and you know Mari is a light sleeper. Frankie would never want to wake her at this hour.

Wandering into his room, you find Will standing next to the bed and an incredibly worn-looking Frankie. His skin holds barely any color, his face almost green in nausea. You rush to his side. “Frankie, holy shit,” you exclaim in a loud whisper, taking his hand. “You’re okay?”

“I will be if Miller mans up and gets me out of this bed,” he says, followed by a chuckle with no humor.

Will sighs. He’s wearing pajamas too, looking as exhausted as you are. Frankie groans as he hears Mari’s tiny voice over the baby monitor. “Fuck. You’re staying with her, Will’s bringing me?” He clarifies, looking up at you with bloodshot eyes.

Nodding, you squeeze his hand. “Give me directions quickly and I’ll go get her. You gotta sit up first, Frankie,” you reassure him.

He squeezes your hand back tight and sits up, his face contorting in pain. There’s a flush of redness to his cheeks, and it makes him look more human for a moment until it fades again. “She won’t fall back asleep unless she’s in this bed with you. She needs the attention. Uh, food is in the fridge, you know emergency shit,” he says, with surprising coherence for the pain he’s in.

You nod and ruffle Frankie’s soft bedhead. “Benny- fuck,” you wince, knowing the Miller brothers hate being mixed up. Somehow, even with their distinct personalities, you do it all the time. “Will. Send me updates,” you remind him as you stand. “And you, Francisco,” you murmur and press a kiss to his sweat-beaded forehead, “get some strong pain meds and get better for me and Mari.” You smile softly and walk out of the room.

The room next to Frankie’s is beautiful, a sage green paint and lots of woodland creatures painted on the walls by Frankie’s surprisingly artistic hands. There’s a crib covered by a creamy white canopy and the little girl pokes her head up, tilting to the side in confusion as she sees you.

It’s not fear, of course. Mari loves you, absolutely adores you in fact. She’s just… confused. Her little brain can tell it’s the middle of the night. “Where’s Daddy?” She asks, making uppy arms at you.

You walk over to her crib, picking her up and kissing her head. “Daddy’s got a tummyache, cutie,” you tell her and tickle her tummy gently, making her giggle and bury her tiny face in your chest. “He’s gonna go see the doctor and get it all fixed up, okay? You and I are gonna have so much fun,” you assure her, and she giggles again.

You can hear two sets of feet, slowly moving. “Let’s go give Daddy a kiss goodbye, okay?” Mari nods and rubs her little eyes.

Frankie’s got an arm around Will’s shoulders in the hall, looking absolutely agonized. He smiles a little as he sees you and his baby. “Hey, patita,” he chuckles. He dubbed her duckling from the soft tufts of fluff on her head as a baby. “Be good while I’m gone.”

Mari nods and puts a hand on either side of Frankie’s sweating face, making a little pout and giving him a kiss. “Love you, Daddy,” she says, a yawn overtaking her tiny face.

“Love you too,” he nods and looks up at you. “I owe you.”

“Friends don’t owe each other,” you shake your head. “Now get your a… butt to the hospital, Morales,” you tell him and pat Will on the shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

He nods at you and the two men shuffle along through the house until they can get Frankie into the car and on his way to (hopefully) sedation and a cure.

Yawning again, Mari’s big brown eyes look up at you from where you hold her on your hip. “Snack?” She asks you, pointing towards the kitchen.

Her little voice and tiny, pudgy fingers are too much. “I suppose. Only because we’re having special girls’ time,” you tease and boop her nose. Setting her on the counter, you grab some cubes of cheese and some berries, which you make sure are in small pieces.

Mari’s content to eat her snacks with you, and you can see her growing sleepier again as the plate empties out. “Sleepy?” You ask her, and she nods. “Alright, cutie pie,” you sigh and lift her, holding her to your chest as she wraps her arms around your neck and her legs around your torso. “Do you want me to cuddle with you?” You ask.

She nods. “Gotta snuggle for late sleepies. Daddy says that.”

The words melt your heart. Frankie’s always been so good with her, so warm and skilled and precious. It only makes your crush on the man grow every time his little girl babbles about how much she loves her daddy. “Does he?”

She nods. “Daddy sings for me.”

Frankie singing Marisol to sleep. The idea melts your heart. You need in on that. “What does he sing to you?” You ask. “What’s your favorite song that daddy sings to you?”

She thinks for a moment as you sit on the edge of the bed, allowing her to clamber off your lap and into the cozy king-sized bed. “Rocket Man.” It’s hard to decipher in her baby-talk, but you get it.

“He sings that for you?” You ask as you get under the covers, into the blankets that are still warm from Frankie’s body heat, that smell like his cologne.

Mari snuggles into your chest, and nods softly. “Can you sing Rocket Man?”

“Of course,” you nod and trace little circles into the toddler’s back, singing the Elton John song to her in a soft voice. It doesn’t take long, now that she’s in her daddy’s bed and got a snack, for her to fall asleep. She snores softly, and you follow suit not too long after.

It did turn out that Frankie had appendicitis. The doctors weren’t entirely sure what caused it, but you and the Miller brothers rotated your time with Marisol at home and the hospital with Frankie, as his stay was painfully long for such an active man. Santiago video chatted often, but being out of town prevented him from physically seeing Fish.

It took him about a week to recover, and that time was mostly spent napping or watching the television in his room. He’d bullshit with the guys or you when you were around, and he especially loved the time of the afternoon every day where one of you brought Marisol to see him.

Usually it was just you or one of the Millers who stayed in the room with him. The other two either stayed with Marisol or got to stay at home and rest for themselves. It was a lucky day when you and Benny got to both be with Frankie for a while, telling stories and laughing. It was your turn to be off-duty, but all you wanted from your free time was to be with the man.

Your presence has always made Frankie’s heart rate a little faster. It’s always made his palms a little clammy, and his pants a little tighter sometimes. At least now he can attribute it to the pain.

Every time his eyes catch yours, his heart monitor gets a little louder. It’s odd, but you shrug it off. It can’t mean anything. It’s just your Frankie. After an hour or so of spending time with the guys, you run to get fast food for the three of you. While you’re away, you receive a text from Benny.

Benny Boy: you’re fucking with his head, bro

You: what?

Benny Boy: the heart rate monitor is nearly silent right now. every time frankie looks at you it spikes, don’t tell me you haven’t been noticing that

You: do you want nuggets or a burger?

You: thats ridiculous, Benny.

Benny Boy: always nuggets. but seriously, his heart rate is at like 54 right now, he’s just chilling and kind of dozed off. let’s check it when you come back.

You: be prepared for the most boring science experiment ever. also, what dip do you want?

After you receive your bulging bags of food, stuffed from both Benny’s and Frankie’s massive appetites, you return to the hospital.

You: walking in. pulse status?

Benny: 60. he’s a little more awake now.

As you enter the room, Frankie turns to you and grins. “Hey. What did you get?” He asks.

You plop the bags on the small table overhanging Frankie’s bed and grin. “Just your usual order. I know what you like,” you shrug as you unpack the food.

Beep beep beep beep. HR: 77

Smiling at the rate of Frankie’s heart, more than you should really, you sit down back next to Benny and the three of you eat your food. It’s somewhat quiet, the chatter dying as you devour the fast food, savoring the grease and salt.

After everyone is finished, you stand and clean up the garbage, tossing it all away. You sit back down on Frankie’s bedside. “So, macho man. How’s the pain?” You ask, your fingers tracing his good side.

Beep beep beep beep beep. HR: 86

He shrugs. “It hurts like a bitch, and they said it’s gonna keep hurting like a bitch.”

“Poor baby,” you chuckle, cupping the side of his face and kissing his forehead softly.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep. HR: 96

Benny groans and stands. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom.” He smacks your arm as he walks past, as if rubbing in the evidence he’s found. “And then take a walk, I think.”

You’re still seated at Frankie’s side, on the inflatable hospital mattress. “Oh Benjamin,” Frankie rolls his eyes. “Why’d he leave so quick?”

You shrug, though you know the answer. “Who knows? Benny can’t even predict himself,” you chuckle. Frankie’s hand rests over his chest. You slide your hand over his torso and lace your fingers through his until you’re holding it. You can feel his heart thumping steadily against it. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Beep beep beep beep. HR: 104

He smiles. “I’m lucky I have you.”

You sigh softly as you look up at the heart rate monitor again. “I gotta say, you have a really high resting rate,” you say nonchalantly, as if you believe it.

Frankie’s face warms. “I, uh-“

“I’m kidding, Frankie,” you mumble softly to him, smiling a little. “I really like you, and I think that monitor is helping me know you like me too. When you get out of here, can we maybe go on a date some time?”

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep. HR: 112

Nodding enthusiastically, those floppy curls move with his head. “I would love that,” he tells you with a beaming smile. “God, have you been able to tell all day?” He asks as he looks up at the monitor, his ears burning with heat as he reads the pulse rate. It’s embarrassingly high.

“Yeah,” you finally admit and smile down at him. “But it’s cute. And it makes me feel all warm inside because I finally know you like me too.”

Big brown eyes stare up at you with all of the love in the world. “If I wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, I’d kiss you right now,” he promises. “But that’ll have to wait.”

“Yes it will,” you nod and kiss his forehead again, easing him back against the mattress he’d lifted up from slightly. “Now I’m going to go find Benny, and you slow down that heart rate,” you tease and ruffle his curls.

“I’m not gonna be able to slow it down with you around,” he says with a soft smile, his eyes slipping shut.

taglist:

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @blo0dangel @binarydanvvers @sleep-tight1 @apascalrascal @randomness501 @spideysimpossiblegirl @notabotiswear @pedro-pastel @sanchosammy @lv7867 @greeneyedblondie44 @hunnambabe @astoryisaloveaffair @emesispo @pedritobalmando @magikfanatic @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan

#frankie morales x reader #frankie morales #frankie catfish morales x reader #frankie catfish morales #catfish morales x reader #catfish morales #francisco morales x reader #francisco morales #pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader #triple frontier fanfiction #triple frontier #benny miller #will miller #will ironhead miller

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biggest-stupidhead · 3 years

Text

Second Chance

This was so much fun to write! I enjoyed participating in this collab so much and I’m so excited to read all the other fics as well. Congrats again @horseanon--simpforall ! Without further delay, here is my piece Rach’s 300 collab! I struggled on finding a trope that I liked, and I just kept crawling back to reincarnation.

Summary: He finds his way back into your life on a rainy day

Word Count: 1.4K

You weren’t in a hurry to settle down. All through high school and the first few years of college, you expressed little to no interest in relationships. You instead focused on school and work, of course, there were suitors, but none that intrigued you enough to pursue anything serious. Now that you were a senior in college, most of your friends had found boyfriends or girlfriends, meanwhile, you were still working at the same bakery that you had been employed at for the last three years.

The sky was dark and gloomy, holding promises of rain. You sighed, the bakery you worked at was small, and usually, it only required two people to run the counter. But your coworker called in sick, leaving you to man the register and serve the customers. The morning rush had just passed and you were basking in the few moments of peace as the first raindrops splattered against the sidewalk out front.

A soft rumble of thunder echoed off of the skyscrapers and you craned your neck to look out of the front window. The sidewalk was mostly empty since it was already past the rush hour. Another loud clap of thunder shook the windows and you sat up a bit straighter. The lights flickered and you found yourself hoping that the lights wouldn’t go out. If that happened then you would have to scramble to save the goods that needed refrigerating. Your thoughts were interrupted by the door opening, the wind howled and a few damp leaves blew in. The stranger wore a hood and was just finishing folding up his plastic umbrella.

“Man, it looks bad out there.” You chuckled as he sauntered up to the register, pulling his hoodie off of his face. Your breath caught in your throat as his features were illuminated, damp raven locks, pale ivory skin, and piercing grey eyes. He was beautiful

“Its… not ideal.” He hummed, his own eyes scanning you with skepticism as you straightened up behind the register. You noticed how his brows seemed to ease into a relaxed expression and his shoulders seemed to loosen as well.

“No, certainly not. But my plants were starting to get a little brittle if I’m being honest.” You tried to keep up the casual conversation, admiring the way he pushed a stray strand of hair off of his face. The action brought your attention to his ear, which was pierced, with a dangling cross earring. You swallowed thickly as he turned his attention off of you and onto the menu behind you.

“I’ll have a cup of earl grey and a croissant.” He said, digging into his pocket and holding out his card for you.

“Name for the order?” You asked, and he cocked his head to the side, shooting you a look of almost disbelief. Oh god, you hoped that he wasn’t some dicky celebrity that expected everyone to know his name.

“You….don’t know my name?” His expression seemed to fall and your own face twisted with confusion as you tried to place his face. It was familiar, but you were certain that you didn’t know his name. Had you gone to high school with him? Or maybe you went to the same gym and met in passing? No, you would remember a face like that. He sighed and averted his gaze, cheeks puffing out momentarily before deflating.

“Levi. Just...Levi.” You felt like you’d been shocked, the name stirred something deep inside of you. A memory? No more like a feeling. You fumbled with the paper cup as you scrawled his name onto the side. He remained at the counter, watching you prepare the water and pop the pastry into the microwave.

“You said something about plants?” His voice startled you, and you jolted, nearly spilling the boiling water in your hand.

“Yes, I have a small garden on the roof of my apartment building.” You clarified as you dunked the tea bag into the cup of hot water.

“Hm, whatcha growing?” He asked and you felt the heat accumulate in your face.

“Mostly herbs...I tried tomatoes, but the pigeons got to them.” You chuckled and he nodded in understanding as you passed him his order.

“You never were one to shy away from filth.” He huffed, a faraway look in his eyes as his hands reached for the food. Your fingertips grazed his and a painful vision played across your vision. A memory of a bloody hand holding yours as rain obscured your vision. You could barely hear what the person was saying, but you could make out your name.

You were brought back to the present as he slowly pulled the bag from your grasp, an almost hopeful glint in his eyes.

“W-What was…” You shook your head and clutched at the side of your face, he remained still, waiting patiently for a response.

“What do you mean…” You looked at him with frightful eyes as his expression knotted into one of concern.

“I mean...you haven’t changed,” Levi said, eyes soft as you steady yourself on the counter. You weren’t sure if you should be calling the police, or an ambulance to admit you into the psych ward.

“I-I don’t understand.”

“Tch, do you seriously not remember yet?” Levi sounded disappointed as he watched you rub the side of your face dejectedly.

“No, am I...supposed to?” You stammered as he stared intensely at you.

“I suppose not….but I do.” He looked sad and you felt guilty, you found yourself rounding the counter and gesturing over towards the small seating area, a makeshift collection of antique furniture near the large window. He shrugged and sank into one of the loveseats and even patted the space next to him. You fell into the spot next to him and he still looked at you with a deep sadness.

“I’m really sorry...but I just don’t understand.” You apologized, another flash of lightning illuminated the street, followed closely by a clap of thunder. The building rattled with the force of the storm and the lights flickered before sputtering out, leaving you and Levi in near darkness. He seemed unbothered as he shifted on the couch, his knee brushing intimately against your own.

“I can’t explain it myself, but I know you. You’re (Y/n), you look the same as you did the last time I knew you, only...now we’re in this lifetime.” He shrugged and reached into his pocket, fishing out a lighter, which he flicked, a flame sputtered to life. The warm glow illuminated the small space and your breaths both threatened to blow the tiny spark out.

“You...do seem familiar.” You admitted as he cupped the flame in his hands, this admission seemed to please him as he hummed thoughtfully.

“You aren’t just saying that now are you?” He chuckled a bit remorsefully and you waved your hands in an attempt to comfort him. You found your hand resting on his bicep, another memory washing over you with the action. This one was less morbid than the previous one. In this memory you were in some medeival looking mess hall, your cheeks were flushed and you held up a mug of ale to knock against Levi’s. His face was the same, although the clothing he wore was odd and unfamiliar.

You were shaken from the memory as Levi gently shrugged your hand off of him. A small sting of rejection made your chest clench but you tried to ignore it.

“No, I’m not...just saying that. I think that-I know this sounds crazy but… I think I remember too now.” You smiled a bit anxiously at him and his brows lifted and eyes widened slightly.

“Really?” He seemed hopeful once more, and you found yourself feeling the same. This was what you had been waiting for, him. It had taken you entire lifetimes to find him, and the search had proved successful at last. His shoulders sagged and he allowed his head to fall a bit limply back onto the sofa and you laughed breathlessly.

“Yeah...I remember now.” And you were telling the truth, you remembered him. From your previous life, one where he had been the only light in such a dark reality. A life that you hadn’t gotten to spend together, but now you had been blessed by the universe with a second chance. And you’d be damned before you passed that up.

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honey-hippie-harper · 3 years

Text

In-Laws Being In-Laws (Re-upload)

Hiii!

So, this is basically an old fic, which I deleted from my other account ( @dawniebb ) and was requested to be uploaded again.

This feels like a lifetime ago afgshjka, but I remember it was written for a Renegades content swap event, and it was for @healing-winston-pratt (hello, wifey!). The prompt was, basically, Nova and one of the Renegays being in-laws, and it was super fun to write! <3

If anyone’s reading this: Hi, you’re a beautiful human being, and I love you <3

In-Laws Being In-Laws

Dear Dread Warden,

I am not quite sure you will get this message because it is been a while since I last used my communicator but, in case you do: I hope you are having a nice morning.

The reason I am writing you this is that, as you must already be aware, right now Sketch and his teammates are taking part in the Annual Renegade Convention as special guests to be awarded for their heroic participation in the Second Battle for Gatlon. Hence, they are out of town. Due to my temporary resignation from the team, I declined the offer to attend the event and, for instance, to receive an award. This means that, unlike theirs, my routine remains the same as usual.

Unfortunately, I must see my therapist for my weekly appointment in two hours, and after that I will have to go to the supermarket to pick up some groceries and essential items. Under normal circumstances, given the nature of my relationship with Sketch, he would have driven me to the supermarket and then back to my apartment, as it happens to be located sort of far from the store and it could be pretty difficult for me to walk while carrying all those bags. However, as mentioned before, these are not normal circumstances and Sketch is not currently available.

I reach out to you with no intention to cause trouble; for instance, if I happen to be asking too much or disrupting your schedule (As I am conscious you are a busy person) and you consider you will not be able to help me, I assure you I completely understand. But: Could you pick me up from my therapist's office and take me to the supermarket afterwards?

I apologize for the inconvenience and I promise I will make sure this does not happen again. In addition, I also apologize for the alliteration in the greeting at the beginning of this message. I did not know whether you wanted to be acknowledged by your real name or your alias.

Sincerely,

Insomnia.

-.-

Hi, Insomnia!!!

So nice to see you!... Or should I say read you! Ha! It's been so long, it almost feels like an eternity! I hope therapy is going great! (We're all really proud of you!)

It doesn't bother me at all, sweetheart; of course I'll help you with that. Could you share the location of your therapist's office, please?

Oh, and also: What time do you want me to be there? (Not that I have anything to do today, I just want to be on time).

I'm excited to see you! Can I take you to eat something afterwards? How does that sound?

Take care!

(Agh. I forgot these things don't actually allow you to write your real name).

-S i m o n.

(Better).

-.-

He spotted Nova way before parking. She was sitting on a bench outside the building, staring anxiously at her phone. The body language of a nervous person.

Simon stopped the car right in front of where she was, and when she realized he was already here, Nova jumped out of her seat as if it had burned her skin, before jogging in an awkward manner towards the car.

Once she was inside, Simon couldn't help but feel a twinge in his stomach. He wasn't lying when he told her he was excited to see her. In fact, he was more than excited, and he had to hold himself back pretty hard to avoid hugging her, because it was evident she didn't want to be hugged right now, for she just directed a tiny smile at him and said:

"Hi."

She was the same Nova he had met some time ago, but at the same time she was different; she was wearing sneakers, skinny jeans and a basic white v-neck shirt; her hair was a little longer, too, to the point she could tie it in a cute little ponytail; Simon could tell she wasn’t wearing any makeup, but still her face looked healthier than before; less tired, with smaller under-eye dark circles and lips covered in chapstick. Finally.

She looked alive. More than before.

“Hi.” He finally responded.

Watching people get better was always satisfactory, but watching Nova get better was different. He had grown to appreciate her, since the very first moment he saw her with Adrian; since the very first moment he spoke to her and saw nothing but utter heartbreak in her eyes. Nova was hurting, and any sensitive person would’ve noticed that. So, watching her get better was a touching experience for him.

“You look so…”

Nova interrupted him almost immediately.

“I know. I...I barely had time to fix my hair. Gosh. It’s so uncomfortable and I want to cut it but I haven’t had time. I…”

“Oh, no, no, no! Your hair looks gorgeous! “ He chuckled, although he was confused by her reaction. “I was gonna say you look really good. Really, really good. The ponytail looks great on you.”

Nova gulped as she adjusted said ponytail.

“Oh.” She muttered in a hoarse voice. “...Well...Thank you. I thought…”

“No, no.” Simon waved his hand. “You look great. How.... how are you?”

She seemed to be processing the question, even though it was not that difficult.

“I’m…” Nova cleared her throat. “I’m doing great. How are you? How’s ...life going?”

“Absolutely great!” Simon smiled, clapping his hands together. “Things at home are great. You know, Hugh’s not currently here due to the Annual Renegade Convention. Adrian’s not here either (for sure, you already know about that) and Max…”

“Max went too, yeah.” Nova smiled. Her eyes seemed to brighten to the mention of Max’s name. Adrian had mentioned this fact about her a couple of times: Nova was fond of children. And even if she wasn’t, she had a tendency to protect and care about them. Since she had this type of strong personality, Hugh refused to recognize that as a truth, but Simon had no trouble believing it.

It was adorable.

“He called me when he got the invitation. He was eager to go.” She continued. “Which doesn’t surprise me. I...It’s his first time travelling, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Responded Simon. “We’re planning to go on vacation this year. Because, you know, the convention’s being held not too far away from Gatlon and sadly he’s probably gonna get bored.”

“Bored?” Nova shifted herself in the seat, awkwardly. “Why?”

“Well...those conventions are...well, conventions.” Simon shrugged, smiling at her. “There are a lot of speeches, one after the other and, sure, the guests that represent Gatlon can skip some of them, but others are mandatory and they’re like 2 hours long and it’s so boring and…”

Nova hissed, grimacing, to which Simon nodded in agreement.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to go.” He admitted. “Though I do wanted to be there when Adrian and Max received their award. Too sad.”

Nova tried to speak a couple of times, until she finally had found the correct words to said her thoughts out loud.

“Why...why didn’t you go, then?”

“About that.” Simon chuckled. “Tamaya is going to be there too, as a speaker. And she’s also receiving an award. So...somebody had to take care of the Headquarters and Kasumi and I were left with that responsibility. However, it’s been pretty peaceful, as you may have noticed.”

“I have.” Nova nodded. “Not that I...go out very much, but yeah. Things have been calm.”

“People are behaving for once. And it’s awesome.” he sighed.

Then they stayed in silence. For a while.

Nova stared out the window, avoiding eye contact, while Simon whistled as he tapped his fingers on the wheel.

Not a word. No small talk.

Nothing.

“Sooooo…” Said Simon. “Shall we go?”

“Perhaps we should.” Nova said, immediately, as a flash of relief crossed her face.

So Simon smiled at her once again as he turned on the engine, while Nova put on her seatbelt next to him.

-.-

It took her so little time to come back Simon confirmed she was one of those people who would strategically write their shopping list so they wouldn’t be going back and forth through the aisles. It also surprised him that, being a person so young, she was so...focused on everything.

She really had only bought groceries and essential items. No junk food. No silly things she swore she would need and then she didn’t. Not even candy from the checkout area.

Simon hurried himself out of the car to help her put the bags in the trunk, but once she saw him and guessed his intentions, she quickly said:

“It’s okay. I can do it.”

“I know you can.” He clarified. Because, well, she indeed was a strong person. “But maybe you could use some help. That’s...a couple of bags.”

“Yeah. I know.” Nova nodded, already carrying the first two of the bags. “But I can do it. Please. I’m already causing you too much trouble.”

Simon was yet again confused by her reaction, and he tried to talk to her about it. But just like Nova looked like she didn’t want to be hugged right now, she also looked like she didn’t want to talk about it right now.

So he just opened the trunk for her and held it in case it would go down by its own. It had never happened, but just to be sure. Sometimes Simon’s anxiety made him overanalyze some situations.

Less than 10 minutes had passed by the time Nova finished putting all her stuff in the car, Simon figured she was still training, since she was as agile and fast as she was the day she notified them she would be taking some time off from the team and the Renegades in general.

They got in the car again, and before the silence could get as uncomfortable as the previous one, Simon took the initiative to speak.

“I think...you forgot to answer a part of my message.” He said, carefully. “You know...the part where I told you that maybe we could...go to a restaurant or something?”

Nova’s face, ears and neck turned so red she became a human-shaped cherry, and although in other circumstances he would’ve considered it adorable, this time he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her. He had been there and done that many times; the messages Nova had sent were peak odd. The type of messages one would overthink over and over again because they had to be perfect. And if something, anything sounded off after you sent it, your world would be in shambles.

So he just smiled to assure it was okay. That he didn’t mind. That those messages didn’t have to be so formal in the first place.

And that, obviously, didn’t work.

For his experience, it never did.

“I...I...Yeah.” Nova scratched her brow. “Pretty much I...I...can recall not knowing how to word that so I just left it blank and I...must’ve forgotten to…”

“Nova.” Simon said, softly. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“Did I...offend you or something?”

“Absolutely no!” He said. “Why would you think that? It’s just a slip. I know it wasn’t your intention and to be honest I still want to take you to eat something so...yeah, there’s no reason to get weird about this. There’s no need to worry.”

Nova took a deep, hasty breath. She was flustered, son Simon tried to keep her calm; to make her feel like she was in a safe environment.

Why wouldn’t she be, in the first place?

She was his son’s girlfriend.

Why would he want to hurt her or make her feel bad?

“Nova, darling.” He said again. “Do you have something on your mind?”

“I do.” Nova cleared her throat, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t really...can eat out right now. I barely manage to afford my groceries, you know? It’s been…”

“But you’re not gonna pay your own bill. I mean, why would you do that?” Simon raised an eyebrow at her, genuinely confused, but still laughing nervously. Sweet rot, who had hurt this child so much? “ I’m the one who’s taking you to eat. You wouldn’t have to…”

“You don’t have to either!” She snapped. Not mad, but rather distressed, while breathing heavily.

Simon went still, afraid he would make it worse. Still, he couldn’t leave it like that, so he gulped and, once he reunited enough courage, he dared to speak again.

“What’s really on your mind, Nova?” He asked, this time in a more soothing voice. Nova’s whole being went red again, but the shadow of confusion in her expression was noticeable and hard to ignore. For this reason, Simon decided to provide some kind of scaffolding.

“For example: Why would you write a message that is directed to me in such a formal way?” He asked, patiently. “Why would you ask me to pick you up as if you were asking me to help you commit a crime? Why would you act so uncomfortable around me when it’s not the first time that we’ve met? Why would you…?”

“Because it’s you.” Nova answered, avoiding eye contact.

And he expected that answer, yes. But, at the same time, he expected to understand the statement once it slipped out of her mouth.

However, he didn’t.

“Can you elaborate?” He requested.

Nova clicked her tongue as she rubbed her neck, staring at the dash right in front of her.

“...I can disappear if you want me to. Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

“No. No, no.” Nova nodded, waving her hands, finally looking at him. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Then...would you tell me what’s wrong?”

Nova thought about it. She squirmed in her seat. Gulped. Coughed. Squirmed again.

Then, playing with her own hands, she spoke.

“...I’m ashamed.”

“Ashamed of what…?” Simon tilted his head to the side. “Ashamed of who…? What exactly are you ashamed of? ...Dating Adrian?”

Nova flinched.

“I would never.”

A spark of pride illuminated his thoughts and his insides in general, but Simon tried to pay little attention to it.

“I’m just...ashamed. Of everything.” Nova said, sighing. “I…”

And she cut herself in the middle of the phrase, realizing that once again she wouldn’t be able to finish it.

Simon didn’t realize he was frowning until he felt the muscles of his face slowly giving in. He understood.

And he knew that anything that had happened during the Second Battle for Gatlon had been her fault. She might have contributed in some way but, at the end of the day, she was just a child.

A very confused and manipulated child who just needed someone to listen without twisting her words as they pleased.

“...I just think that...if I were you I wouldn’t like me either.” She wasn’t crying, nor did she sound like she was about to any time soon. There was so much resignation in her voice that her words weighted as much as a giant rock. “Hugh gave me his blessing to...you know, date Adrian…”

“I can recall giving you my blessing too.”

Nova tripped on her own words.

“I mean, you did. You both did.” She said. “But still… It’s because… because you want him to be happy. And I get it. I really do. And I understand because, like I said, I wouldn’t like me either...I know I am loved. I know I matter for some people...but I also know I did...bad things, and I carry this sort of cursed last name…”

She stopped and breathed for a second before continuing.

“And I…” She finally looked at him. “I get it. You don’t have to pretend you like me, after all that happened. After I stole stuff from your house; infiltrated into your system; caused a terrorist attack...You really don’t have to pretend.”

Simon blinked, and if it wasn’t for her specific and controlled body language, he would’ve thought she was making excuses or even joking.

But Nova was telling the truth.

And it was heartbreaking.

“Perhaps you should think outside the box and picture a scenario in which you realize we’re not pretending.” That’s the only thing he said.

“Perhaps you should realize that we love you and you matter to us.” He reached for her hand and softly touched her knuckles. Her hands were shaking. “And that, yes, we want Adrian to be happy, but we also want you to be happy.”

Nova’s eyes seemed to be covered in crystals, but she remained in silence.

“You’re part of this family now, Nova.” He smiled. “And I’m sorry, but you’ll have to deal with that.”

Nova sniffed, swallowing, while lacing her hand into Simon’s.

“Artino and everything?” She muttered.

“Artino it’s not what defines you.” Simon chuckled. “You’re Nova. Just Nova... And we’re really proud of you. Not ashamed.”

She smiled back at him, wordless, and Simon gave her a quick handshake before putting his hands around the wheel.

Because even now, that her walls were crumbling right before her eyes, she didn’t look like someone who wanted to be hugged at the moment, and he accepted and respected that.

“I was planning to take you to my favorite restaurant, but maybe we can prepare a homemade meal instead?” He suggested. “You know? In-laws being in-laws? … Not to brag, but I make the best lemon pie in the world.”

Nova chuckled. Relaxed.

Happy.

“Sounds great.” She said, nodding.

“Excellent.” Simon turned on the engine.

“Let’s go home.”

#renegades trilogy #marissa meyer #dawnie writes #Simon Westwood #The Dread Warden #Nova Artino #Insomnia #Dawnie re-uploads saga #i love being a clown #no nomás tengo la cara de pendeja también soy JAJAJAJAJAJAJAAJAJAJA #this was before hcttr ruined my life #good times

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ohheyitsokay · 3 years

Text

storm clouds

Pairing: Agent Whiskey (Jack Daniels, Kingsman) x (f) reader

Warnings: none, this is entirely practice in characterization? I guess. Novice writing and over-description of random things

Wordcount: 2.3k

Summary: You’re a mysteriously casual secret agent that Jack gets paired with for a mission. You’re kind, capable, and kissable and Jack is confused (and smitten).

Notes: y’all this is the first fic I’m posting, I’m just trying to find my voice again. I had fun though, so please enjoy and be patient with me! Thank you!

Walking into the conference room, Agent Whiskey felt like he was entering the eye of a storm. Anticipation and danger felt one step away, but in front of him was a calm and overwhelmingly comfortable presence.

He had never met you before, never even seen you, but you had the air of a good friend, a cup of hot coffee, and a hoodie all rolled into one attractive person. Images of the two of you flashed in his mind: on his couch, in his truck, talking about life, laughing. The images alarmed him, and his guard was immediately up.

“What’s all this?” he asked, eyes narrowing slightly, moving his gaze to the familiar agents in the room.

“Agent Whiskey, we’d like you to meet Special Agent Cloud, our new friend from...” Champ trailed off, looking at you. Whiskey watched in disbelief as you tilted your head and then gave it an almost imperceptible shake.

“From an international classified department that we’ve recently been chosen to work with.” Champ said the last part with enough force that Whiskey had no trouble reading in-between the lines.

An agency even the Stateman didn’t know? Clearly a legitimate one, seeing as you weren’t in handcuffs, but what kind of mess was this?

“Nice to meet you,” you said, and he appreciated that you stood up to shake his had. Your grip was firm, but he was further confused to feel how soft your hands were - not fully foreign to work, but certainly less calloused than a typical field agent. Your voice, he realized a moment later, was without distinguishable accent.

“The two of you will be working together to infiltrate a wealthy suspected smuggler in Vancouver,” Champ continued, explaining the details of the target and mission. It was all seeming very standard until something caught Whiskey’s attention.

“Wait, I’ll be point and she’s on logistics, right?” he said, clarifying but confident.

“No,” Champ replied, once again looking at you questioningly.

“I’ll be in the field with you, Agent Whiskey,” you said, and much to his annoyance, he found himself unable to read your tone.

“Are you serious?” he said incredulously, and your eyebrows rose just a hair, “No offense, Agent, but you don’t look the type, much less like your old enough to handle this advanced of a mission.”

Whiskey didn’t know why he was so annoyed at being wrong, and frankly, he surprised himself with how judgmental he was being. In all honesty, all his instincts weren’t even saying you were young, nor did you seem particularly unqualified. They were just saying he wanted to protect you. And he was afraid.

The other agents in the room began talking, all obviously trying to defuse a potentially tense situation., but you said nothing, a slow smile spreading across your face.

“Well you can’t be that old,” you said, causing everyone else to fall silent, “because you should know better than to assume a woman’s age.”

There was a beat of silence, and Whiskey was dumbfounded. Did you just sass him in front of everyone?!

He sputtered, caught between his previous annoyance and spikes of embarrassment and attraction.

You were laughing though, and it was contagious. It felt as though you had been friends for years and the banter was all part of the fun. The others in the room teased him, joining in, their laughter just a little bit giddy with relief.

The meeting finished with no further interruptions, and you were dismissed, giving him a wave and what he couldn’t sworn was a wink before you slipped out the door. You took the casual air with you, as the energy dissipated, he was reminded of how baffling what whole interaction was.

“Alright what in tarnation,” Whiskey said, turning to glare at his fellow Statesman agents, “was that?”

“Calm down, Jack,” Ginger shrugged, “she’s from a highly respectable agency. We need to play nice and get to know them for the future. You can’t actually be mad, you two already seem like a good fit.”

What was that supposed to mean? He felt his face heat up a little bit so he deflected the comment saying “I don’t even know what she does!” But Ginger just shrugged, tossing him a small camera made to look like a tie clip.

“Figure it out.”

Early the next morning he climbed onto the Statesman plane, only to find you already going over the mission research papers.

You were wearing comfortable clothes but you looked... beautiful. Your hair was a bit messy and the sunrise light streaming through the windows gave the illusion that the runaway strands were glowing. Your eyes were downturned, scanning the papers, making your eyelashes veil your eyes just enough, and your lips looked soft as you silently mouthed the words you were reading.

When you noticed him, he felt like a deer in the headlights.

You didn’t seem fazed, waving at him and gesturing to the seat across from you.

“I hope we didn’t get off on the wrong food, Agent Whiskey,” you said, reintroducing yourself by name. “I’m sure this must all seem very strange.”

He shrugged, knowing he had reacted too strongly before, considering how weird his life was normally.

“This flight is a long one,” you continued, looking a bit hesitant, “I’d like to get to know you better, if you don’t mind?”

He found himself agreeing readily, saying, “Well first off, call me Jack,” and allowing himself to smile at you.

You smiled back, and before he could notice how it made his heart skip, the two of you launched into conversation.

If jack wasn’t already enamored by you before the flight, he certainly was after. He found himself letting his guard down, telling you things about yourself and chatting with you like you’d known each other for years, the papers between you laying forgotten. You, in turn, were an open book concerning your domestic life, for all you weren’t allowed to share about your job. The end of the flight came far too soon, and Jack’s whole body felt warm and cozy.

When he helped you off the plane, your hand fit into his and for the first time, he noticed how something tugged inside him.

Shocked by this revelation, he pulled away as soon as it was polite, and hurried to the awaiting ca, hoping his long stride served as an excuse for his quickened pace.

By the time the two of you arrived in your temporary apartment, you noticed he was avoiding you. You questioned him, and he felt like a lad in love: vulnerable and earnest.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I just... I need...” what did he need? You waited, not pressing him, “I think I need to call my therapist. His insides buzzed with anxiety at his confession but you surprised him yet again, because you were blushing and nodding.

“Okay,” you said after a moment, pulling out your own phone, “knock when it’s okay for me to come out!” Your smile was kind as you ducked into one of the rooms.

When the doors closed, the bubble you two had created popped and separately you were both taking deep breaths.

Jack listened to his phone dial, and the tugging on his heart returned as he considered your beautiful, honest eyes, telling him silently that this was normal. He could hear your muffled noises through the door, and he moved towards his own room as his therapist answered. He didn’t exactly know what to say but he knew he needed to figure it out fast because for the first time in a long time, he felt like maybe he was more than just an agent.

Over the next few days, the feeling didn’t go away. The shared living space provided ample space for you two to prepare for the mission, but it was intimate. Even though much of your conversations were about analysis and tactics, all he felt like he was learning was how good you looked cooking breakfast. How adorably your expression changed when you were thinking hard. How his heart beat felt when you walked out of the bathroom, clouded by shower steam, beads of water sliding down your skin.

“Jack?”

He snapped back into focus, and he almost tripped. The two of you were walking to the Big Bad’s place, your professional heels clicking along the sidewalk. He blushed like a schoolboy caught daydreaming.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he fidgeted, “ what was that?”

“Just saying that I think it’s going to be the best way,” you said, and if he didn’t know any better, you were apologizing to him. His eyes narrowed and his heart protested, not wanting to argue with you.

“I just don’t like you going there alone.”

You crossed your arms at him.

“I’m not sayin you’re not capable,” he backtracked, “but it doesn’t make sense if we need to figure out how our agencies can work together.” He made a fair point, but you were prepared, having had variations of this argument over the past few days.

“Jack, the Statesmen already know what you do. Before we work together, before you put yourself and your agency on the line, don’t they need to see what I can do?” You had trapped him. Jack was already clenching his jaw. You were right, and the supervisors agreed with you. He should agree, too, since logically you two hadn’t known each other long enough to justify how badly he wanted to protect you.

“I just don’t know,” he said, trying not to sound too much like he was pleading with you. You stopped, turning to look at him.

You looked conflicted for a moment before, much to his delight, you blushed and reached up to touch his cheek.

“Trust the plan,” you said, and his had involuntarily covered yours, squeezing it.

You placed the other one on his chest and stood tiptoe to kiss his other cheek, making him want to forgive you instantly, once he remembered how to function. Your face was so close to his, he ached to kiss you for real but you pulled back, squeezing his had back before you did something that baffled him for a moment.

You pulled your weight onto your right side, gently grinding the heel point into the ground.

And then you disappeared with a burst of smoke.

Agent Whiskey immediately panicked, rotating, his eyes searching for you, until he finally saw you at the entrance of the corporate building.

A grin spread across his face.

“Well played, Special Agent Cloud,” he said into your communication piece. and he saw your wink before you were gone.

An hour later, back in your apartment, Whiskey found himself unable to stop pacing. He still had awhile before he was supposed to follow you but he couldn’t help but feel anxious. He’d known you less than a week - he was only nervous because of the mission. Because he couldn’t be videoing what you were doing. Because he couldn’t be part of the action. That’s all. It had nothing to do with the fact that you were kind and fun and clever and so mysterious and lovely he could kiss you. Nothing to do with the fact that he’d like to be showing off for you. Nothing to do with any of that.

Against all logic, suddenly the doorknob turned and Jack whipped around to see you sheepishly walking in. The two of you stared at each other for a moment before you turned as deep a red as your skin tone could manage.

“I’m so sorry Jack!” you said, holding up your hands in a gesture of peace. “Please don’t be mad! I was following the plan I promise, but then the secretary was in a bad mood and she just started talking and everything happened so much faster than we thought it would and I was just rolling with it and,” you gulped air, your words having sped up considerably, “and so many people were standing by me and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to contact you subtly but then all this stuff happened, and I wanted to impress you and I knew I had more time before you came and it was so chaotic and - “ you stopped, looking equal parts embarrassed and proud before your voice emerged again, much quieter, “I may have accidentally completed the whole mission.”

Jack was staring at you like you were an alien.

“Please don’t be mad,” you said, meekly, meeting his eyes for the first time since you started talking. “I really am sorry!”

Your eye in his pulled Jack out of his shock. He couldn’t believe you were apologizing.

“Darlin’,” he could feel himself grinning. The words I wanted to impress you rang in his ears, filling him with the confidence to slowly, gently step into your space. His face hovered just inches from yours and his hands were soft as on the space where your neck met your shoulders. “Don’t be sorry, you wonderful, talented, capable little thing.”

Your eyes flickered to his lips before you looked back up to him, your head tilting just a touch.

“I stole your camera to get footage for the Statesmen,”

Startled, Jack stepped back, his hand shooting to his tie,

“Wha- when- wait how-” he stuttered, completely baffled that he hadn’t noticed at all.

His eyes were wide and that helped you breathe again; you smiled at him. Did he have as much trouble focusing as you did when you kissed his cheek, your hand on his chest?

“Ah,” he found it in his memories, shaking his head in disbelief, “you really are something, aren’t you, darlin’?”

And he felt it again: the eye of the storm. Perfect comfort with something brewing just below the surface. Anticipation and danger felt one step away, but this time, Jack Daniels wasn’t even a little bit afraid.

#agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey x you #agent whiskey x female reader #jack daniels x you #jack daniels x reader #kingsman #maybe i don't know people

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mimi-cee-hq · 3 years

Text

An Incriminating Blush - Moniwa x Reader

Summary: As you finally allow Moniwa to help you with your project, you wonder if the guy you've fallen for would ever like you back.

Pairing: Moniwa x f!reader

Genres, tropes, etc.: fluff, pining, getting together, friends to lovers, second year Moniwa

Words: 1,461

Author's Notes: I'm back to writing for an underrated character. lol. Another one of those, 'I don't know if anyone will read it but I'm going to write it anyway' lol. It's been a long time since I've written something so if you're on my taglist and aren't interested anymore, just let me know through this Google doc.

Author's note 2: This is the one-shot version of the Operation Moniwa SMAU that I dropped. This fic is pure romance though. I couldn't keep up the comedy in the SMAU. lol.

*****

Biting his lip as he held the stylus, Moniwa's hand glided over your drawing tablet, outlining the roof of the cafe.

"I told you to stop drawing," you remembered Moniwa scolding you the day before.

You sighed, watching him as he continued to draw on the digital canvas. You preferred to do the work by yourself, but Moniwa's offers were persistent because you often took on too much work. Even with your school's art festival coming up soon, you continued to refuse his help until you finally injured your wrist.

Your eyes fell on Moniwa's arm and hand as he continued to draw strokes on the awnings. Two of his knuckles were wrapped with tape from a toss gone wrong. A splinter from woodworking class made its mark on his thumb. Yet his fingers moved precisely from the abundant practice from creating technical drawings.

Looking at his furrowed brows, you admired the man you had fallen for. "You're really good at this," you commented with a gentle smile.

Still focused on the drawing, Moniwa replied with a wide grin, "I told you to let me help."

You laughed, expecting this answer. "How's the volleyball team doing?" you asked.

Moniwa sighed and slumped back on his chair as he reflected on their recent team meeting. "They made me the captain for the spring tournament," he told you. "The third years decided to retire to focus on school."

"That really suits you," you laughed.

"You haven't seen what my kouhais are like," he said. "Those first years are going to give me so much trouble."

"I'm a first year too," you said with a smirk.

After thinking for a moment, he replied, "That explains a lot."

You laughed and punched his arm in response. "So how are the other guys doing? Sasaya? Kamasaki?"

"Oh them?" he hummed. "They've been trying to set me up with someone...," he explained, words trailing.

You felt your stomach tighten, knowing exactly why. You ignored it. "That's sweet of them," you said with a smile.

"I thought so too at first. But then it got awkward, so I told them to stop," he continued. "Especially when I found out it was you..." Moniwa suddenly pressed his lips together, realizing he said too much. "Sorry! I shouldn't have told you that!" he explained in a fluster. "Now I'm just making it more awkward," he added, slapping his own forehead.

"No! No! It's okay!" you reassured him. "It's not awkward at all," you lied. You had always thought that Moniwa had only seen you as a friend, which was why you continued to hide your feelings from him. You were content enough to continue with your unexpected friendship with him. You held it close to your heart, attempting to protect it from cracking under your care.

After Moniwa left, you sat on your bed, the mattress sinking under your weight. Heaving a sigh, you wondered if you should move on. You've liked Moniwa since you had met him at the skating park a year ago, before you had entered high school. You shook your head, wishing to direct your mind elsewhere only to start scrolling through your past messages with him.

Moniwa was eager to help you when your skateboard broke. The axel was rusted and caused the front wheels to be unstable. You tried to use it anyway, only to be met with frustration. The skateboard was a gift from your eighth birthday. You had it for six years.

When Moniwa said he could salvage it, you didn't believe him, especially since he was only a year older than you. With scrap metal from projects and access to the machines at school, your next skateboard ride was smooth as if it were new again.

Lying on your bed, you shifted and faced the other way. You knew Moniwa was the kind of guy who'd help anyone. But when he started helping your classmate, Ami, with her theatre set, you couldn't help but be jealous. You knew he must have been busy constructing it, which was one of the reasons why you initially rejected his help. But he continued to insist, especially after you injured your wrist. You couldn't help but feel a little special, only to remember that this was normal for his personality.

Sighing, you thought that maybe it was enough to just be friends.

*****

It was 7 o’clock in the evening when you popped your head into the back theatre room. You saw Moniwa from the hallway after leaving your own classroom. With the school festival a week away, Moniwa was alone putting together the large pieces of the ship deck for the play.

The deck was about six feet wide. There was just barely enough room for it because one side of the room was filled with rows of costumes while the far side was filled shelves of various props. You spotted a decorative mirror, a Victorian dress, and a few jousting swords.

You gave Moniwa a large wave to get his attention. His eyes lit up when he saw you and he placed his power drill on his work table once he finished fastening the screw. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I finished up my tasks for our class’s activities. So I ran away before the class president could nag me to do more work,” you laughed as you shuffled into the room. “I only wanted to take a break and see what everyone else was working on.”

Moniwa smiled, giving a light tap on your head. “Y/n, you should go back. You’re always running away from your class prez.”

You pouted, rubbing your head to pretend you were hurt. “And I thought I left the nagging.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come here,” he said with a smug grin.

You heard chatter and footsteps from the hallway and quickly pushed Moniwa further into the room. After taking a few steps back, Moniwa stumbled on some costumes that were on the floor and he barely caught himself when he almost tripped on them. You also slipped but Moniwa’s chest and arms prevented you from falling.

Lifting your eyes to meet his, you remembered that Moniwa looked taller when he wasn’t beside his giant teammates. But as your gaze focused on him, he quickly turned his head away from you. He didn't realize that his action did very little to hide his face. After glancing to the side to the decorative standing mirror, your eyes widened.

"Moniwa…," you said. "Are you blushing?"

"N-n-no I'm not!" he stuttered, frantically waving his arms. But it was obvious to you because he had turned his face back to you, now seeing an even clearer view of his red nose and cheeks.

When you raised an eyebrow, he promptly covered his face with his hands and threw his head back in defeat. "Sorry Y/n," said his muffled voice. "Pretend you didn't see that."

You saw him bite his lip as he turned away from you, presumably to leave the room. When you grabbed his hand, he froze. You felt his hand clam up.

"What if I don't want to pretend," you told him. Moniwa turned to you, blinking a few times, your words not making any sense to him. So you clarified. "Moniwa, I like you."

At first, he froze. He was so stiff that you thought he wouldn't move even if you were to give him a poke. But when he came to, his words rushed out of his mouth in a fluster. "What? Why would you like me? You're smart and pretty and talented and fun to be around…" He continued to ramble. "And I'm plain and boring and not very strong and–"

You quickly cut him off when you hugged his waist and relaxed onto his chest. He liked you. You couldn't believe he liked you. Moniwa just didn't understand how amazing he was. You were pretty sure Ami liked him as well. You sighed, wishing you had noticed his insecurities earlier. You've been watching him for at least a year. You felt like you should have known.

You laughed, more out of relief than amusement. He liked you back. All those memories of you anguishing over your unrequited feelings suddenly vanished and were replaced with joy. He liked you.

Moniwa flailed his arms when you fastened your hold even tighter on his waist. He quickly scanned the room, nervous that others might have seen.

"So are you going to hug me back or not?" you asked.

"I- Is that okay?"

You gave him a smirk, then a peck on the cheek. "Of course."

You once again saw that blush that you were waiting months to finally see. A blush reserved only for you.

*****

I hope you liked it. If you like my stories, here's a Google form to be added to my taglist and/ or check out my masterlist to see all of my writing.

Taglist: @celestialarchiveshq @whootwhoot @charmingchikara @megumiisee @anejuuuuoy @pastel-prynce + @iwaisa (because it's Moniwa)

#haikyuucreations #haikyuu x reader #moniwa x reader #moniwa kaname #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu fanfiction #moniwa fanfiction #dateko x reader #dateko #datekou #haikyuu dateko #date tech #date tech high #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu!!#haikyuu

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yes-i-am-happyaspie · 3 years

Note

Imagine: Peter's health class assigns them papers to take home and talk to family about, then bring back signed the next day. Only it's not some boring syllabus, it's the *awkward teenage stuff* and Peter's upset because all the other guys can just talk to their dad's about it. Tony notices his off mood, and eventually gets Peter to tell him what's up. And without a second thought, the man just reaches for the papers and starts going over it, not once making fun of Peter for asking questions.

OoOoOo! This sounds like a great opportunity to write a mini-fic! I've not written a less than 1,000 word fic in a while! I am way out of practice but his one came to 985 so I'll take that as an absolute win!

____________

"Hey, Mr. Stark," Peter mumbled as he walked into the lab and tossed his backpack, giving it a kick for good measure. He'd started Health Class at the beginning of the semester and the study unit they were about to start had him out of sorts. Not because it was the sex-education portion of the course so much as he'd been asked to go over a packet of topics with a parent. Topics like sex, abstinence, birth control, and the social aspects that came along with those things. The worst part was that there was no getting out of it. He had to have the last page sighed and turned in on Monday. It seemed unfair, the other boys in his class had a father or grandfather to have that discussion with and he was going to have to sit down with his aunt. Despite their close relationship, he felt awkward about it and knowing that the conversation was going to have to happen had left him in a sour mood.

Tony greeted the kid and looking up just in time to see him flop into his chair frowning. "You okay?" he asked with a quirk of his brow.

"I'm fine," Peter grumbled, then scrubbed a hand over his face. "It was a weird day, that's all."

"Weird how?" Tony asked with mild concern because typically the kid loved school and came bouncing into the lab with a million stories right on the tip of his tongue. He wasn't used to him being so quiet. "Someone giving you a hard time?"

Peter forced a smile and shook his head. "Nothing like that, Mr. Stark. Just a class I'm taking. The teacher sprung an assignment on me and I'm not really happy about it."

"What kind of assignment? Maybe I can help," Tony offered, already crossing the room.

"It's fine," Peter returned with a vigorous shake of his head. "I just don't like it, that's all. I'll figure it out, I swear."

Tony chuckled and placed a hand onto the overly-stressed teenager's shoulder. "I have no doubt that you'll figure it out, Kiddo. I was just offering," he said, giving the boy a reassuring smile.

Peter looked towards his mentor and then back down at his desk. "Thank you, Mr. Stark but I think I'm on my own on this one," he said, hoping that would end the conversation but of course it didn't.

"You know you're never actually on your own with anything, right?" Tony worriedly asked. "I don't care what the assignment is, you're allowed to ask for help. Hell, asking for help is a life-skill. One I'm hoping you'll master while you're still young" he added, leaving the words 'unlike me' unsaid.

Peter sat up and turned to meet his mentor's eyes. "It's not like that, Mr. Stark!" he nearly shouted. He'd not meant to imply that he was avoiding assistance. "It's just that I have to ask May to sign a paper and talk about some stuff and it- it's sort of embarrassing," he explained, a blush rising to his cheeks as he spoke. "It's not really nephew-aunt kind of material."

Tony nodded his head in mild understanding. Though he couldn't fathom what kind of material the kid wouldn't want to mention to his aunt. But there was only one way to find out. "Mind if I take a look?" he asked, holding his hand out in anticipation.

Peter chewed his lip and allowed his hands to hover over his bag. At least Tony was a guy and maybe it would be easier to talk to him about this kind of stuff but, then again, the man hadn't seen the topic yet. "Are you sure, Mr. Stark?" he hesitantly inquired.

"Kid, whatever it is, I can handle it," Tony replied with a roll of his eyes and waited for the kid to hand him the papers. Once he had it, he flipped through the pages and abruptly understood the kid's hesitance. "Oh," he said once he'd made it to the last page.

Having taken the man's reaction wrong, Peter's cheeks turned three more shades of red. "See I told you, Mr. Stark! I'm so-"

Ignoring the teenager's flustered interjection, Tony tapped the top page."-Have you read through this already on your own because there seem to be quite a few gaps in their information."

Slightly taken aback, Peter blinked at the man for several seconds before answering. "I- I just skimmed it," he said.

Tony nodded and beckoned the boy towards the opposite side of the room. "Well, let's take this to the couch so that we can read it together, I fill in the obvious blanks and then you can ask me whatever else you want to know. Sound okay?" he asked and was pleased when Peter agreed.

From there, they sat down and reviewed the packet. Tony added a lot more to the material, personalizing the facts with a few personal anecdotes that had Peter both blushing and giggling. Then once they had gone through the final topic, Peter asked a few questions and when everything had been seemingly clarified, Tony suggested they order dinner.

Peter nodded his head but made no move to stand up. "Hey, Mr. Stark?" he asked and waited for the man to him in acknowledgment. "Thanks for, uh, for doing this. You didn't have to," he said with nothing but gratitude.

"I wanted to do it, Buddy," Tony returned and then grinned teasingly. "Besides who am I to not impart my superior wisdom when it comes to the wild world of-" he began and wasn't surprised when he was cut off before he could finish his exclamation.

"-Okay! I get it!" Peter hurriedly interjected, laughing the whole time. "But seriously, thank you," he added once the laughter had died down.

Tony just smiled in return and ruffled the kid's already unruly curls. "Anytime, Kiddo. Anytime."

#happyaspie mini fic #marvel imagines #tony stark #peter parker #marvel #irondad and spiderson #spider man #iron man #marvel fanfiction #sex education #tw sex talk #irondad fandom #awkward conversations

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seijorhi · 3 years

Text

asks :))

what i have learned today is that y’all wanna get fucked by some monsters...

What does nostos mean? What language is it in? 🤔 also I of course loved it, mind blown as usual queen

it’s ancient greek! it means homecoming, the idea of a triumphant return home for the hero after a long journey. i found it through looking at the root of nostalgia. in this fic of course it’s kind of a grim tongue in cheek play on it. the reader’s coming back to the mountains, but she’s running away after a bad breakup, and the welcome she gets is... shall we say less than ideal haha

Just read nostos-

First of all as a person who reads monster shit- hell ya. Mhm. That’s some good shit right there. That was DELICIOUS horror. It actually had me a bit nervous and afraid to read what was gonna happen next 😳

Secondly- omg I wanna know what happened next (at the end) 👀 know what I mean??? 😼

ANYWAY AS ALWAYS you never disappoint and your writing is fantastic (if/when you write horror yandere stuff again I’ll be there- frothing at the mouth. A+++++ work ILY💖)

you want me to write the monster porn, just say it bby ghfjdkshgfjkd but ty

Omfg that fic was so good!

Did the readers mom know about monster kuroo?? Or was she just worried because of the previous murder? And did Kuroo somehow manipulate reader into coming back to the forest or was it just a big coincidence? (👁👄👁 there's no such thing as a coincidence)

Looking forward to your future work <3

ty nonnie!! i didn’t have the right space for it, but after kohsuke was ripped apart and eaten kuroo stayed by the reader’s side until late in the night, only disappearing when he heard the reader’s parents/search party approaching. they found her lying in pools of blood (and scattered half eaten body parts), shaking and unresponsive – they knew no animal could’ve done something like that. so they knew something lurked in those woods, but considering the reader had repressed the memories, her mom couldn’t just come out and say it <33

You are an AMAZING horror writer!!!

The uneasiness I got from the conversations with the mom is just *chefs kiss*

A+++++

ahh thank you!! horror is such a hard genre to write because i’m never sure if the suspense and everything’s gonna hit right haha

I read Nostos before going to sleep last night and at the time I was like “sure hope this doesn’t give me nightmares” and thankfully it didn’t lol. But I think I’m willing to take that chance again because it’s so GOOD and I think I’m just going to have to relive it – @ohno-otome

fhdjgbfhjkdfn i’m glad it didn’t give you nightmares bby!! but i also appreciate that haha, i’m an absolute wimp with scary movies and stuff but i just can’t stop watching them haha

I just wanna say that I was listening to "You're a psychotic villain playlist" on youtube while reading Kuroo's oneshot and I can't explain the emotions I felt, but I'd let Kuroo do things to me asdfghjkl – @itishebihime-samaforyou

ooh nice! sometimes the right playlist makes things doubly as fun haha

OH MY GOD!?!?! Nostos was soooo GOOD?!?!? Like it was so creepy (but in a good way), and scary and suspenseful!! And the ending!?!? Omggg honestly one my fav fics from you!! You did my mans Kuroo justice 🥺💖💕

TYYYYYYY i was genuinely concerned i was gonna scare everybody off haha

Ah! The new fic! Chiefs kiss! Magnificent! Bravo!🧚‍♀️✨🧞‍♀️🦖🦭🌹💫

tysm nonnie!!! <33

i’m pretty sure i’m in the same/similar timezone as you? and i do be staying up late to be one of the first to read your fics (i usually stay up late anyways). so imagine my surprise when i see you post in the afternoon. in conclusion, whether you post to align with your european and american readers’ timezone, my gmt+10 arse will still be one of the first to read your fics. also nostos sjdufigyyjf i have to admit, i recently just found out about monster fucking and nostos scratched the itch😫 i feel bad for kohsuke though

bby i always post at like 2-4 in the morning please get some sleep!! the fics will be there in the morning lmao. i kinda low key forget about my aussie/gmt+10 followers because i think there’s like... 3 of you haha

Honestly if i could give u a dollar everytime i got off to your fics, you'd probably be rich by now

lmao the idea that people find my fics hot enough to get off to still blows my mind lol

your newest kuroo fic was so SO good!! its totally okay if you dont want to answer this so you can keep things ambiguous but is monster kuroo planning on killing the reader after he's...done with them

thank you, bby!! but no, monster kuroo isn’t gonna eat her – he’s had plenty of chances to do that if that’s what he wanted, but he has other plans for the poor reader

RHI, I WANT TO STATE FOR THE RECORD THAT I AM OKAY WITH MORE MONSTER FUCKING IN THE FUTURE. i also want to say im not a monster fucker, but that just feels like a lie at this point. okay, now that that's off my chest, i love it. the mystery, the connections of kuroo to a cat. kuroo's probably gonna go and batter around his prey once they're under his grip like my cat does. hopefully the reader will come out somewhat unscathed, if they are ever allowed to leave 😌 love this, love how different it is, the way kuroo just tries to weasel in. very monster and yandere vibes, very you. have i said i love this yet?? id willingly let him get me drunk on his cock, maybe never leave the peace of the mountains again

‘i want to say that i’m not a monster fucker’ bby the denial will get you nowhere haha. just lean in and embrace it hgfjkdlkfgjnkdl ahh but thank you this is such a sweet ask ILY!!!

Omg omg the monster thing kuroo was in ur latest fic is so familiar to me abdhdmfnjfjf. I remember being told abt a monster with VERY SIMILAR characteristics to it (aka the not being able to go inside a house unless invited and using fire to lure ppl out) AND JFC IT TERRIFIED ME. Esp how when i told ppl around me and they didnt recognize what it was, but it was somehow known to the kid that told me abt it.

(Some ppl thought it was familiar but still didnt know what it was)

Do u know what im talking abt? Hopefully u do

-🥚

GHFJDK so the monster in this is kind of based off the nekomata spirit in japanese folklore - they can appear like people, torment victims by reanimating the corpses of their loved ones, they’ve been blamed for forest fires, so it was just fun to use that as a basis and then go buck wild haha. anyway thanks for the ask bby!

Rest In Peace Kohsuke, you would’ve loved Haikyuu season 5😔✊– @joyvstheworld

poor kohsuke deserved better, i’m just mean to the oc’s i throw into fics haha

Monsterfucking ❤❤❤❤❤❤ a little annoyed you're making me simp for yan Kuroo though (a vibe tho tbh). You're so extremely talented!!!! &

This is probably a stupid question, but how did Kageyama react when he couldn't find y/n? How is life with yan Suga? I imagine probably awful BUT yknow maybe the stockholm syndrome set in fast lmao. Sorry, I'm going on a binge reading your stuff. - @oracleofdin

i will not apologise for making you simp for kuroo he deserves it the man’s a snacc. and as far as your second question, suga’s a very caring, very smothering kinda yandere, so i guess in some ways it’s better than what the reader had with kageyama but... pick your poison haha

That was so good. I’m so shook rn I can’t comprehend anything but how good that was and how good a writer you are

TYSM NONNIE!!! <33

Ok, so, I just read Final Girl and the lil' ticket addition to it and just---

Well, ok I've been playing Dead by Daylight a lot lately? And I'm just picturing Tetsu as the newest killer "The Trickster" and I'm positively RANDY.

Your writing is ALREADY thirst inducing and just as satisfying, but this has SENT ME- If you're not familiar, please...

https://youtu.be/iowkiPobYYQ

Understand my thirst. (I'd also like to clarify, I use a different skin for him that gives him black hair and he looks like Kuroo with an undercut.)

~ @the-casual-hedonist 🌸

i love how feral y’all got for final girl kuroo. like bo and akaashi had his fans, but i put a spiked bat in kuroo’s hands and y’all lost your goddamn minds and i love to see it. fghdjkvhfjdkls thanks for the ask bby

idk why but I love preggo reader as long as I don't pretend it's me 😢✋ I hate babies n pregnancy anywhere else other than horny haikyuu fics

i think that’s a valid thing for a lot of fans. the idea of breeding is sexy, the actual getting pregnant and having a kid thing... not so much. but especially with non-con scenario’s, it’s more about the aspect on control than the actual desire to have kids. but yeah, i feel you

Sorry to bother but uh was just wondering in fracture did Osamu kill his wife or was it actually an “unfortunate event” ? Love your work btw!!

he most certainly did :))

LMFAO RHI i totally get not liking cheating/infidelity fics (towards reader) bc IT HIRTS ME SO BAD I CANNOT HANDLE THOSE.

id be reading fics those fics like: tf you mean my yandere aimt gonna baby me and only want me??🤨🤨🤨⁉️‼️

EXACTLY! listen i get that it’s a fucked up fantasy, but in my fucked up fantasy you damn well better have the decency to be loyal smh

Finders keepers is the most beautiful thing I've read by you: I read it twice like I normally do and here's what I figured out the second time (that's when I analyze it and find the little tidbits of things that are much darker than they appear (: )

To start I LOVE THE DETAILS OF THEM NEVER TEACHING READER ANYTHING- at first I assumed "oh they might see her as a little sister or child or something" but realized thAT WAS THE ISSUE!! they infantilize her and isolate her from everyone but her group. the small details like that are what make the story amazing 😎💅

ahh thank you so much, nonnie!! pls this is making me soft 🥺

I just wanted to stop by and say that I love your writing and I hope you're doing well!!! Drink plenty of water and keep up the amazing work :) but seriously you're one of the best fanfic writers I've seen on tumblr! I read your "Imitation" piece about kuroo and i keep coming back to it, it's so good! I did want to ask if you think it'd be possible for the reader to ever escape with the baby (or at least attempt to). Or if Kenma would "help" at all just to put an end to kuroo's antics lmao

kenma would in no way help the reader, and tbh by that point if kuroo did get her pregnant, she’d be far too emotionally dependant on him to actually even want to leave, but thanks for the ask!

You know who I think would be a perfect Yandere in the JJK world? Choso.

🚨Spoilers Ahead🚨

After being locked in a glass jar for however long he was, and all that happened with his brothers, I feel like he would absolutely never let his darling out of his sight. He would be possessive. Obsessive. And Oh So delusional. Sure he’d be your anything - he truly is a softy - but to what end?🤤

choso would make an excellent yandere, ngl 😌

what au/troupe of your fav character(s) that you have written do you like the most?

(rlly hope this makes sense🙏)

i am always a slut for soulmate au’s :))

#ask #anon #rhi answers #ohh so many asks #i love you guys <33 #fic q's

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whump-town · 3 years

Text

The Slow Crawl Back to Normal

This is the really long fic I wrote to connect the episodes in season five following Foyet’s attack. As there is a whole month between the episode 5x01 “Nameless, Faceless” and 5x02 “Haunted”. So, naturally, I can’t stand to let all the possible whump go unwritten. However, I am not amused with the material I have produced. I did write is so it is to your own discretion that you read it. Good luck

Word Count: 7870

Getting into all of this, there had been a level of expected conflict. Seven people, six of which are heavily conflicted with a broad spectrum of emotions about one of the others. Luckily, Reid’s managed to procure a little of that attention (mercilessly, really).

That doesn’t stop them, entirely.

Emily Prentiss blinks once, twice at the bulging supply bag in Penelope Garcia’s hands. The two stare at each other from where they stand. A distinct air of mischief in the room, the lightest thing to ghost through all day. And Emily lets herself immerse fully into that hope. Into its ease. “I thought I said only the important things,” she chides softly.

Garcia looks down at the bag in her hands and frowns. Setting it down beside Hotch’s leg, Garcia opens it with a distinctly sassy motion. “It is only the important things,” she defends. She opens the bag to allow Emily to look in and as she pulls it open Emily can smell Hotch. His soap and detergent soaked into the old beige sweater sitting at the top of the bag. Even in the thick cabin socks tucked into the spare spaces. “I had to pack his winter clothes,” Garcia explains. “He gets cold easily, you know that.”

Hotch does stay relatively cold most of the time. Which is how it’s so effortless for him to stay tucked under all the layers of his suits. Emily is glad someone thought of that in the face of all this madness. The paper-thin, rough blankets the nurses are allowing him now aren’t going to be very much help. They’ve all shared a room with him before. He requires several layers of blankets to sleep.

Something green catches her eye and without thinking, Emily reaches in. “What’s--” Emily moves the sweater aside and Garcia swiftly shuts the sides of the bag around Emily’s hand.

Garcia glances at Hotch and then back to Emily, whispering loudly, “that is his underwear. You can’t look at them.”

Emily tries to hide her amused smile. It’s cute, alright? Big bad Aaron Hotchner having his modesty protected by Garcia. “Alright,” Emily backs down, pulling her hand back away from the bag. “Did you bring me anything?” she asks.

Garcia nods, smiling once again bright in place. “I come with…” Garcia turns to the shoulder bag she has, pulling it around to her front. “Books!” She spreads out the pickings and Emily realizes these are Hotch’s books. Because one, even the books that are essentially just decoration they’ve been sitting on her shelves for so long, she still knows their titles. And two, the books are old classic romance novels. Pride & Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre. She would never seek out these sorts of books on her own.

There’s also the additional proof that she’s seen them in his boxes. He’s been in his current apartment for months and he’s still hardly put away a thing that doesn’t get immediate, daily use. She’d been there to help him move and had refrained from commenting on the fact that he buckled the coffee maker into the front seat so it wouldn’t fall over. Which had forced her to sit in the back seat (which might have been punishment for making fun of his “dad” jeans). So, she’d also opened his other boxes to help along the unboxing process and quickly sidetracked so she could bully him for his library.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Emily says, taking them with a grateful smile and presses a quick kiss to Garcia’s cheek. “What would we do without you?” Emily thumbs through the old novels distractedly and wonders what she’s going to learn from these books. Never mind, she already knows: that H0tch is an old boring romantic.

Which is also cute but she refuses to acknowledge that for too long.

“How is he?” Garcia asks.

Her tone is so hopeful that it makes Emily’s throat tight. The truth is grim. And her duty is to the truth but Garcia is all of the light of this job. Her hope and smile is always what greets them when they come home. In the times in which she falls, they’ve found themselves bathed in the darkest nights. Not a star in sight. Clouds hovering overhead. There is so much to consider and no time to dwell.

Emily never has to answer her.

“Sir!”

His head turns sluggishly to them, eyes moving around the rest of him as he takes in everything. Slowly, they slide back to them but he doesn’t ask where he is or what happened. He looks them both over. Typical Hotch behavior to take stock of a situation and then do little visual check-ins to comb them over for injuries. Even though he’s the one laid up in the hospital. “Hello,” he hoarsely greets. His pale lips curl up, a soft smile he has afforded only her. He can always do that one little thing for Penelope Garcia. But he can’t hold it for long and with a tired sigh, his lips fall to his more natural grimace. His blinks are slowing in rate, his eyelids already dropping again.

Although, yesterday, the doctor had been sympathetic to his situation today she is not. She’d allowed him to forgo from taking stronger doses of morphine and sedatives so that he might fight his body and stay awake long enough to say goodbye to Haley and Jack. The three different states of panic he’d worked himself into were enough not to allow her to make that mistake again.

Today, as drowsy and inactive as he has been, he has remained calm. Only waking once in a state of panic early this morning, writhing in pain and crying out softly for Haley.

“Garcia was just dropping some stuff off,” Emily informs him. “Some clean clothes so you can change out of this gown.” But she’s Emily Prentiss and she can’t stop there. “Not that I’m sure the nurses don’t love seeing your ass every time you go to the bathroom.” She looks far too pleased as she remembers-- “Oh and she was totally bragging about being able to go through your underwear drawer. She was just showing me a pair of your boxers when you woke up-- Ow!” Emily is taken by complete surprise when Garcia hits her.

Garcia red in the face vehemently denies this false claim. “I would never do that, sir! I did have to look inside the drawer but I promise I tried to keep my eyes closed so I wouldn’t see everything! I hardly saw anything at all! Just--”

“Garcia. Garcia?”

She comes to a stuttering halt, face still very flushed.

“I know you wouldn’t,” Hotch clarifies with a tired sigh. “Prentiss just has a flair for tall tales.” He says this under his breath, his eyes falling shut. It takes him a long moment but he manages to blink them back open. A few rapid shallow blinks as he forces himself to stay awake just a little longer.

Emily scowls down at him but she can’t really be mad. Not him, not when he’s like this. “I do not have a flair for tall tales,” her voice turns to a childish taunt near the end. Finishing it off with an eye roll and softly knocking the back of her hand against his.

It earns her a sleepy little huff and just the faintest smirk.

Garcia feels a little better having seen this demonstration. As the one left searching hospitals for news on him, half expecting someone to eventually break the news of his death to her, she’s relieved. No one has given her good news in two days. She hadn’t been able to leave the office yesterday in time to make visitor’s hours. All she knew is what Morgan had told her from yesterday: that he was agitated and weak.

Weak. Her boss? No. Her Aaron Hotchner is strong and brave and maybe a little sad but he doesn’t deserve this.

“Garcia?”

She looks up, taken aback by how softly her name comes out of his mouth. “Yes, sir?”

“Thank you for finding me.”

Tears gather in her eyes and she steps around Emily to squeeze his hand. “Of course, sir.” Then leaning down to kiss his temple, she adds. “Just in case though, I’m going to put a tracker in your underwear. I can’t have you all running off on me, okay?”

He makes one of those signature Hotch grunts, a soft noise that comes from the back of his throat.

“I love you, sir.”

If he finds anything in his boxers, he’ll consider that a lie.

----------------

Aaron Hotchner may be sedated and spending roughly 75% of the last three days hazing in and out of sleep but he’s not stupid. He’s been a profiler for the better part of a decade, longer really, and he didn’t just bat his eyelashes to work his way up to Unit Chief. “You’re angry,” he says.

Dave and Emily have been shouldering the majority of his visiting hours. Everyone has stopped by (even Reid, though it was two in the morning and that was an unapproved meeting) and continues to stop by but seemingly out of duty rather than because they want to see him. Not that Hotch can really blame them. He’s seen himself in the mirror, he’s not looking too hot.

Today is Dave’s day and he’s been with Hotch since seven-thirty this morning. Long enough to watch Hotch sip at some apple juice and neglect the chicken broth he was supposed to have for lunch. His lack of appetite is starting to become a problem and that is what Hotch assumes Dave is frustrated with. Reasonably, Hotch does know he needs to try a little harder but apple juice got boring two days ago and he’s not really a fan of room temperature soup.

Looking up from his Sudoku, Dave sighs. An obvious tell. He straightens the spine of his book. “I’m not.”

Hotch grunts, so he is mad. They’ve had this conversation enough over the years for Hotch to be able to tell. If Dave weren’t mad he would have spent more time clarifying he’s not mad at Hotch, not denying it. Rightfully, Dave always assumes first and foremost that Hotch thinks he’s mad with him. Which is fair because, right now, Hotch is fairly certain Dave is mad at him.

The sound of his grunt makes Dave look up and Dave finds himself looking at the side of Hotch’s head. The younger man avoiding his gaze. Fuck. Sighing, Dave places his pen in the middle of the pages and puts the book down. Way to go, Dave chides himself. Now he’s going to have to backpedal. Might as well call Emily now and tell her to come in and sit here with him. But that would only make matters worse. Then Hotch would have damning proof Dave is mad at him.

“I’ll-- I’ll try harder,” Hotch whispers, scratching dully at one of the bandages wrapped around his forearm. “I will.”

Dave leans forward in his chair, head hitting the palms of his hands with a groan. Does this nonsense ever get easy? “I”m not mad at you, Aaron.” He rubs at his face, around his eyes until he can sit back up. He’s not mad at Aaron, really. He’s fucking livid with George Foyet. With Hotch’s landlord who Derek has been on the phone with for the last two days arguing about nothing and everything. He annoyed with this hospital and the stupid rules but he’s not mad at Hotch.

Dave can tell Hotch doesn’t believe him. “Aaron,” Dave calls softly. He reaches out and puts his hand on Hotch’s thigh, pushing a little to get his attention. “I promise I am not mad at you, alright? You’re doing great.” That’s not really proof. In all honesty, now Dave’s thinking about how all this could have been avoided. If he’d just left Hotch in Seattle all those years ago. Someone would have taken him, surely, he was too good for that office but if Dave had left him for someone else they wouldn’t be here.

Haley and Aaron might still be married.

“If I was mad at you,” Dave asks, “would I have asked Derek to bring you better soup and popsicles?” He forces himself not to react when Hotch glances over after hearing popsicles. “Those little plastic ones that you like--” Dave knows the name but he’s baiting him.

“The colorful ones?”

Dave nods, “yes, those.” He’s not sure what kind of soup Derek’s bringing, likely just whatever is offered at whatever takeout place he stops at. But they are getting the popsicles. They had been the only thing in Hotch’s fridge. Garica had been appalled by this when she told him.

“It was empty, Rossi! Old coffee creamer, a half-gallon of oat milk, and popsicles. That’s it.”

Hotch hums under his breath, turning his head into the pillows. The only positive side to being sedated is that he doesn’t think about Foyet. There are nightmares but he can’t remember them. By the time he wakes someone’s already at his side, walking him through the steps of calming down. He can’t even remember what upset him-- or even if it was Foyet. The attack is fuzzy, lacking the hard edges of memory, but he does know this is temporary.

Soon, two days from now, if not tomorrow, they’ll lift him off the hard drugs. Rest will come second to recovery and he’ll remember.

But for now, he sinks into the thoughtless, dreamless slumber.

----------------

Technically, this is day two in recovery and he should be up on his feet being forced to walk the long empty halls every hour or so. Core strength isn’t built overnight but as Hotch is learning, it can be killed that quickly. For now, they let him rest as his first twelve hours here on the unit were full of rapid downs. He’d nearly pulled stitches having a nightmare and saying goodbye to Haley and Jack did a number.

Sitting by his side, JJ finds herself thinking about the hours she wasted. Where was her conviction? That gut instinct everyone else seems to run on? She’s known him for years, longer than Emily, and yet she hadn’t thought anything of his phone going to voicemail. Nearly a decade of working by his side and she knows, she knows he always answers. No matter the time, no matter what he’s doing-- grocery shopping, trying to shower, or feeding Jack.

If she calls, he answers.

Her guilt means nothing. It’s just some cruel tactic she’s deployed to distract her from what’s really bothering her. He’s alone. JJ had made those calls to the marshalls. She’d packed Jack’s bag, throat tight as she stacked his little shirts into his even tinier suitcase. And now they’re gone. Already ghosts that Foyet will not be able to find.

That Hotch won’t be able to find.

Her voice is small and trampled but she can’t stand the silence. “Sometimes I forget how he used to be.” It surprises her to hear her voice just as much as it does Emily, who sits on Hotch’s other side, a book loosely held in her lap. She knows Emily’s silence is shock and not just her ignoring JJ. Emily is just one of those people whose silence is often more telling their words-- the same is true for Dave and Hotch.

It’s under that attention that JJ now finds herself a little shy if not stubbornly selfish. Suddenly, her desire to speak is gone. The memory she bathes herself in is her own. To share it makes it lose its depth and the warm familiarity of Aaron. But on Emily presses. She waits silently for JJ to find her voice once again. And JJ decides that she’s being silly. Wistful if not a bit melancholy, which there is no need to be. Aaron Hotchner is alive. Steadily he breathes, he aches, and he lives right between them.

She looks down at the thin white blanket lazily dragged up over Hotch’s hips. Conjuring the image of that Aaron Hotchner from so long ago. Young and smiling with suits that didn’t really fit his long legs. “He was one of those fairytale romancers,” JJ says. She smiles at the look of horror and shock on Emily’s face. This, for that face, is why JJ had begun. They each have this version of him, totally unique to them, that they get to have in these moments. He is not the same man to JJ as he is to Emily. “You could tell he believed in love. He was so--”

Emily is sitting forward in her chair. The book she’d brought lays face down on the bed, inches from Hotch’s limply curled fingers. On he breathes with his trembling crescendo exhales and raspily choked inhales. Oblivious to them.

“He was so enraptured by Haley,” JJ confesses softly, looking to him now. Attempting to manifest one of his smiles from his thin, pale lips. “But mostly,” she finally confesses, “he was so… boyish.” Emily makes a surprised sound, flinching back a little as she considers this information. JJ finds herself watching Emily’s every expression. She wonders who it is that Emily knows as Aaron Hotchner.

JJ smiles as she continues, humored. She’s thrilled by this idea that there might be more to him. That if she tells Emily about her Hotch, Emily will tell her own version. And now, in her hands, she’ll have a larger idea of him. More. She wants more of him so that maybe less might be stolen.

“Once,” she admits, “I told him about the girls from my liaison classes.” It was years ago. So long she needs a moment to really remember the whole thing. Specifically for those little moments and flashes in his eyes. The blush on his cheeks when he laughed and looked away. How he’d shaken his head. “The girls down there are just… they were in awe of him.” She smiles, “and how could you not be? He is handsome and has great manners.”

Emily smirks, rolling her eyes. “Just having manners makes him better than the apes down the hall.” True. Half of the men that work in the building with them are creeps. It seems as if the only half-decent men in Quantico work on their team. Everyone else is more than questionable.

JJ nods in agreeance.

“...Em’ly?” Hotch groans. His eyes are pinched shut in pain. “ ‘m gonna be sick,” he mumbles. He swallows thickly, loud enough for JJ to hear.

Emily gets up in a flash, nearly tripping over her own legs. “JJ raise the head of the bed up,” she instructs.

JJ freezes for only a moment. She hasn’t spoken to Hotch since yesterday when he woke up and they figured out Foyet was targeting Haley and Jack. He’s been asleep every time since. Now, there’s panic in his eyes. As she raises the bed, he grabs her hand. His fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist. Enough to make her stop.

“Wait, wait!” He pants softly, breathing hitching as he writhes uselessly. His chest is on fire, only making his stomach churn more. A few seconds pass and he realizes that he’s going to vomit regardless. “Okay,” he says tightly.

JJ glances at Emily but continues on.

Hotch makes a pained sound, moving his hand from JJ’s wrist. He doesn’t open his eyes, just presses his hand into his stomach. The cramp of his churning stomach more severe than the agitated stitched across his abdomen. “I need the--” his hand wraps around the bucket but Emily keeps holding on.

It’s just water, JJ notes. Being a mother has numbed her to bodily fluids so she doesn’t mind vomit.

Emily doesn’t flinch either. The first time she had. It had taken them both by surprise. Now, for about the fourth time, she just shakes her head. Offering the comfort she can think to-- rubbing his back as tears stream down his cheeks. She already knows they’re going to threaten an NG tube, a longer stay, or something. They always have something to say nothing to help. He’s maxed out on pain meds and still in pain.

They want him to drink something other than water to get his blood sugar back up but hasn’t managed to keep anything down since they started giving him the juices.

Breathlessly, Hotch falls back against the pillows. A light sweat had broken out over his face. “Sorry,” he groans, twisting slowly. His hips are stiff and chest tight but he needs to ease the ache in his stomach. Everything hurts and he can’t get comfortable.

“He can’t keep the apple juice down,” Emily mumbles as she passes JJ with the bucket. JJ follows her to the bathroom to the side of the room. Out of the corner of her eye she glances back at Hotch, watching him. Whether he simply doesn’t care if he’s being watched or hasn’t the presence of mind to consider it, she knows what she sees is a direct reflection of how he feels. No guards. No shields. Just his pale face and weak body leaning heavily into the pillows around him. Lips drawn in a grimace. Pained.

JJ tears her eyes away from the scene. She can’t stand it. Emily must be so strong, JJ thinks, to sit in here with him. To do what she does without blinking. If she weren’t so lost in thought-- stuck circling this stupid idea of all the ways she just keeps failing Hotch-- she would have come up with the idea earlier. However, it takes the sight of Hotch paling even more and grimacing to spur it.

Emily guides the apple juice back into his palm, despite the fact that he turns his head from her.

“Why don’t you water it down?”

Emily frowns, “what do you mean?”

JJ extends her hand and Emily hesitantly gives her the bottle. “Toddlers,” JJ says, “can have juice, right? But it can be a bit much. You have to dilute the juice with water. It can ruin their little teeth but mostly it can spike their blood sugar.” JJ takes the little pink cup Hotch has been sipping water out of and pours a significant bit of the apple juice out. Then she takes the bottle and fills the rest with water. Taking a sip… it’s about the same ratio she’d give a toddler. “You’re still drinking the apple juice, you’re just not going to upset your stomach.”

Hotch hasn’t been throwing up the water so it’s obviously an apple juice problem.

And, sure enough, he keeps the diluted apple juice down. It provides the extra benefit of forcing him to drink more water too as he has to finish at least, one bottle of apple juice a day.

JJ needn’t worry too much about the self-imposed diagnosis of her relationship with Hotch because he, sincerely, considers her a hero for that idea.

----------------

Hotch wakes from a nap he can’t remember falling asleep to take. His fingers are loosely wrapped around a popsicle. It’s long since melted into an overly sugared blue slush but there is only about a third of it left or what he guesses is about a third. As the palm of his hand is protected by a paper towel that was, at some point, wrapped around the popsicle but now just hinders his ability to see what’s left.

“What times is it?”

“Five thirty.”

Hotch flinches, looking over to his left and finding Morgan and Reid. When he’d asked the question he’d meant it for JJ or Dave. Both of whom are sitting on his right side, his currently favored side. He finds himself self-conscious of this blindness. How weak, stupid even, he must be to miss either of them. Reid is sitting in a bulky wheelchair. Each of either man’s movements measured out by the soft, plastic thunk of round game pieces being moved along the bored.

They’re playing checkers and he hadn’t even noticed them.

“Why does he always do that?” JJ asks no one in particular. She glances at Hotch with an eye roll of exasperation before adding, “always rounds up the time like a little old man. It’s 5:16. That’s hardly 5:30.”

Hotch swallows thickly around his confusion. It takes a whole minute for him to understand but, graciously, JJ has already moved on to another topic. Speaking to Dave now as she searches for something in the bags sitting at the table by his side. She’d meant Reid and his, admittedly, strange habit of significantly rounding up the passage of time.

She pulls out a little bowl, it’s lid fogged with steam, and sets it down. Even though it’s small enough for her to hold in one hand, Hotch’s stomach churns at the thought of having to eat it. Next comes another bowl. “Derek brought you soup,” she says to him. “Rice too but that’s just more so you have options.”

Vaguely, he can remember receiving his popsicle. JJ’s words filling in a memory. Derek had arrived in a flurry of white take-out bags. Emily and Garcia had been around at the time and he’d been only slightly up for small talk. Which they had been strangely understanding about. To the point, Emily hadn’t overwhelmed him with the options. She’d simply wrapped a napkin around the base and given it to him. Already open.

“Do you know which you’d like?”

He can feel himself working into a cold sweat. Overwhelmed with just a simple question. He looks at JJ and then at the rice and then the soup. He’s not sure what the right answer is. Over the last three days, that’s mostly what he’s learned. Though his body craves nothing, not food, and rarely even the need to use the bathroom, he knows it’s supposed to. His eating habits are now watched and, never once in his life, being the type of person to yearn strongly for foods he’s floored. He never knows what they want to hear.

Sure, he’s craved things. An oreo in passing or a specific brand go chips. Preferred a dipping sauce for fries but…

“The soup,” Dave says. He sees that look in Hotch’s eyes, the cast-off-- no one’s home-- look. “It’s your favorite,” Dave takes the soup from JJ’s hand, watching closely as Hotch comes back. He blinks slowly, taking in what’s happening, and nods. Hotch doesn't have a favorite soup but they don’t need to know that.

Hotch looks down, blankly, as Dave gently takes the melted popsicle from his hands. He feels… a strange attachment to that popsicle. Though melted he almost wants it still.

“Eat your soup,” Dave encourages replacing the popsicle with a spoon.

Hotch’s fingers curl slowly around the thin metal. He’s officially at a stage in his life where fine motor movements like this require heavy thought. Pure devotion. He can not think, breathe, or speak while doing these sorts of things. So, eating his soup is going to be far more difficult than he’d like it to be. Neverminded how humiliating his lack of coordination is.

And they’re all here.

His mouth opens, the words I’m not hungry forming but come with no sound. He shuts his mouth and swallows thickly. Again, his stomach twists with a strange vengeance. It’s just clear, brothy soup. Soup. So, why does it feel like his entire chest is pulsing with anxiety?

He flinches when a hand wraps around his own. Obscuring the view of the spoon, of his hand and he knows he can only fight off the tremble for so long. He drags his eyes up, forces himself to keep that hand steady. JJ is touching him but she’s not looking. “Would the rice be easier?” she asks.

White, tasteless rice. Unseasoned. Just rice.

He can’t make words pass across his lips but there must be something that his face betrays because without a word JJ puts the lid back on the soup and puts the rice in his lap. It’s closer than the soup had been. When he looks up, no one’s watching. Morgan and Reid are turned so he’ll see them if they turn to watch. JJ and Dave are settling down to their own respective tasks. JJ snacking on a piece of garlic bread and Dave kicking his feet up on the edge of his bed. No one's watching.

Swallowing thickly, he moves slowly. All of his attention goes to this task. The spoon grazes the top of the lid but no one looks at the sudden clink of the metal hitting the container. He glances up once more time before forcing the spoon into his mouth. He nearly misses but no one sees. A single grain falls back onto his lap. The white rice nearly lost in the sea of the other white blankets.

Though, none of them aware, tomorrow is going to be hard on them all. For today, he remains pliable. Succumbing easily to sleep and to their request. He flinches but he lacks the strength to get too far away. So he remains in his bed, watching them from behind hooded eyes and deep, sedated breaths. Tomorrow he will find the strength for defiance.

“Not too much,” JJ says, after a few minutes. He manages only about five bites and the spoon never has more than a pinch of rice but it’s setting heavily on his stomach and he’s done. “Done?”

Heavy and warm, he nods. He feels her take the spoon from his hands and lift the rice away.

“Hotch?”

It feels like only a second has passed but when he pulls his heavy eyes back open there’s only JJ. Reid and Morgan having left and Dave too, apparently. He hums, mouth too dry to form words.

“Can you finish this juice off for me?” She doesn’t wait for a reply, just places the nearly empty bottle into his palm. He’s tired and so he doesn’t fight the tender way she pushes his hair back from his face and places a kiss on his temple. She knows there are only a few more hours left before his guard slips back into place and he fights her every move. But, for now, she can appreciate that he doesn’t fight her help so long as it’s minimal.

There’s a straw in the juice so he only has to lift his arm a little to get access to the juice.

“Hello,” Emily steps into the room, smiling the whole way.

JJ glances at Hotch but he’s glaring down at the apple juice.

“JJ,” Emily greets, “you’re relieved of your duties. Hotch is safe with me.” Emily tosses her bag on the end of Hotch’s bed, right beside where his feet are. “Don’t worry about us Jayje, we're gonna watch movies.”

JJ glances once more to Hotch, satisfied he’s back to taking tentative sips from his apple juice. Okay. She needs to sleep and catch up on laundry. She’s leaving him in good hands. Nothing to worry about. Reaching out she touches his leg, getting his attention. “Behave.”

He nods and returns back to his own head, looking down at his lap.

It goes without saying that Emily is the one who needs to be doing the behaving.

----------------

He goes home far too early.

If the nightmares leave him paralyzed, the wounds ooze-- Surely, he is not healthy enough to go off on his own.

He’s a body caught in the loop. Just a capsule for time, each second measured out on his paling skin. Every minute, each hour-- the blood trickling down over his ribs. Slipping into the grooves of skin and staining his once white t-shirt. He breathes but he is not living. With no thoughts, no feelings is he even a thing at all? Just a body that remains where he was left five days before to watch the sunrise from his window and set on the other side of his house. Every day. For five days.

On the sixth day, as the sun sets over the top of the house-- noon-- there’s a knock at his door. The calendar on his fridge wrestles softly with the breeze coming in from the window Derek Morgan left open in the kitchen. Their names with their own smiling stickers and color-coded which had meant to be for Aaron alone wave pathetically with each coming breeze. It was meant to be a way to keep track of passing days and who would be coming to terrorize him every day. Garcia had hung it up and wrapped his fingers around a black sharpie, smiling when she added he could even use it to mark off the days until his hopeful return to the BAU.

The knocking on the door grows silent and breathily, Hotch whimpers out in relief. He can’t think, doesn’t want to, and is glad that today, not unlike the last five days, whoever it is has wisened up and chosen to leave him alone. All he wants is silence and pain. The only things he knows for sure are real.

As the nurse had watched them go, she spoke those same words over and over. Monitor. He’s meant to be monitored and watched.

Unless the shadows that warp into George Foyet-- and not just him but Hotch’s father, long and tall, and Carl Arnold and his cackling, taunting observations, and beasts and ghosts from his nightmares. Unless those monsters count, he’s been alone.

Outside his apartment door, David Rossi and Emily Prentiss argue loudly. Enough to stir the rest of the apartment complex’s occupants but none dare stick their heads out to inquire on the trespassing. They all know of the agent nearly killed and none want to get mixed up in that (that is, the few that remain).

“There.”

Emily looks up from her side bag and Dave from where he’s leaning, unhelpfully, looking in as well. For a moment, all Emily can do is stare down at the slightly ajar door. Slowly, her eyes lift to Garica and then back to the door. “You scare me,” Emily says as her face is split by a wide, proud grin. “That, though, was the sexist thing I have ever seen in my life! What are you hiding from us, Penelope Garcia?”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear Garcia shrugs modestly. Honestly, she’d learned a lot about picking locks from her brothers but, most of what stuck came from Reid and a phase he went through two years ago where he decided to learn how to pick every lock he could get his hands on. She’d picked up a thing or two, as well.

All the cheer dissipates quickly.

“Stay here.”

Emily glances at Garcia but neither disobey Dave’s order. Fearful of what they might find, really.

Dave pushes his way into the room, hit with the thick scent of heavy settling. Distinctly dusty scent. “Aaron?” He steps around a pair of discarded sweatpants, a puddle of dark grey fabric on the carpet. “Shit--” Dave winces as the sight of blood seeped into the fabric of Hotch’s shirt. “Aaron,” he cups Hotch’s cheek, shaking him.

Hotch groans, peeling his eyes open. Despite the deep panic settling in over his chest, his heart beating so hard that he can’t tell the difference between the rate at which his chest aches from the stab wounds and the pace of his heart. He shoves blindly at the arms grabbing at him. His mind chanting-- Foyet, Foyet, Foyet, Foyet--

“It’s me, Aaron!” Dave pins Hotch’s arms to the bed, startled by the ease at which it takes. “It’s okay, it’s okay!”

It’s not. It’s not okay. Hotch can see him, right now. George Foyet looms just behind Dave, knife poised in hand to kill. It’s not okay and nothing ever will be again. But… they can try, can’t they?

“We’re so sorry, sir.”

Hotch leaning heavily into Emily as Rossi crouches on the bedroom floor, making the best of the little light Hotch can take. He can’t sit up by himself, his head spinning and eyes burning, but with Emily’s right arm wrapped around his hips and Dave’s hand bracing his chest he manages to stay put. Mostly, numb to movement and their voices. He just… exists without thought.

Garcia is full of anxious movement and her constant shifting and rocking is hypnotic. It draws his shaky awareness to her. He’s nearly unaware of the cold air blowing against his bare chest. “Garcia,” he croaks. He feels himself wilting, shaking in Emily’s grip. She shifts their bodies and he remains upright, despite how far he’s pulling them down.

She perks up, “yes sir?”

“You don’t have to apologize to me.”

That doesn’t feel true. Not at all, not even a little.

They left him. For once in all the years that they have known him, they listened to him, and what made them think that was okay? They’d disregarded his orders in the field and pushed his buttons just to get a rise out of him. All for that disobedience to be thrown to the side the moment that he got home. He’d wanted to be alone and they fucking listened. Why did they listen?

There is a certain distortion that spoken word carries, impervious though is the thought. A fact only discovered through effect, is that there will never be the right word to express a thought. As it passes through the lips, it warps as all soft, loved things do. The teeth gnarl and grind and the face betrays meaning and the thought, as gentle as a butterfly's wing, with churn to dust right before the eye. Until nothing but the ash is left behind and there is only the fragment of an idea.

“I--I need help.” His words, the rocks on the boldface of a mountain, come crashing into the way of oncoming traffic. He means them feverishly, without reasons and no hesitation. No brakes, no way to stop. He’s nothing more than the stampede of tragedy as smoke fills the air, tires screeching as smoke plumes above. He, the rock, and them, the cars he collides so blindly with. “I’m, I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I’m alone.”

They are there in every moment, every breath. Overstimulated, he needs the breath of silence that passes between his own thoughts. A whirlwind of the fiber of his being lit on fire. He hadn’t known the loud thrum of the world in so long and he needs them to overpower it. He needs them to speak over the electric hum of the light bulb that hangs a fraction too low and swings with its loose wires. As the seconds tick by and the sounds kill him, he needs them gone. He needs nothing more than his thoughts and the hum and he doesn’t have the words anymore. No way to tell them that it’s all too much and entirely not enough.

That he hates how JJ touches his elbow when she’s near him. He’s certain that if she doesn’t touch him, if Garcia doesn’t ghost smiles his way, or Dave fondly knocks gently into him that he will find he doesn't exist. Nothing more than the air that he pulls lazily into lungs that no longer wish to function. Aaron Hotchner will simply cease to be and he’s no longer capable of deciding if that is what he wants. Still, his bones crave for the gentle stroke of a hand against his own. For someone to grab him by the sides of the head and kiss him until that dark pool of warmth settles once again in his stomach. To feel, in its full, love and hatred.

Please, someone, break down his so firmly built walls. Impose themselves. Force their love into the cracks Foyet’s knife has left. Anything.

It’s clear the line they walk with him. Waves lapping at his nerves. Left to perpetually guess at when they need to override his wishes and when they need to step back. It’s Hotch so it’s not easy work.

“You look good like this.” Dave smiles at the sleepy, inquiring glare Hotch sends his way but it’s hard to look intimidating while exhausted and with a head full of messy hair. Which is ink-like on the pillow, spread out in every direction. It makes Dave wish he were the type of writer that dabbles in the art of another world and, more than that, he wishes to create a character like Aaron Hotchner. So that he might force at least one version of this stubborn man to trust the love his team so willingly provides.

But men are often far more complex than what David Rossi is patient enough to put to paper so he is stuck in this world. With the grumpy asshole that he calls a close friend glaring up at him from underneath a hand-knit several toned green blanket, pulled all the way up to his chin and balled there in his fist. A gift from Garcia.

“I bought you a heating blanket,” Dave says, spreading the thick, soft material over Hotch’s long body. “Mmm,” he notes in disappointment when he finds the blanket just a little too small to cover all of his friend's long body. Which isn’t entirely surprising, nothing is ever simple with Aaron Hotchner. However, heated blankets? That’s rather simple.

Dave smiles, contently, as he cranks the blanket up. Turning the heat to the max and watching its immediate effect-- Hotch’s dark eyes drooping and his mouth falling limply from its scowl.

Garcia made him the green blanket he loves so dearly. She’s recently gotten really into knitting. Though, she’s not very good. The blanket she made Hotch is her best yet even if it’s somehow crooked. It’s a dark, dark green and Hotch has used it every night since Garcia gifted it to him in the hospital. He’s very partial to it.

Content (already falling asleep) Dave feels alright leaving Hotch in the living room while he makes some dinner. Of course, as soon as Dave has rolled up his sleeves and is trying to get some vegetables chopped up Emily has to go bothering him. Dave may not have raised children but he swears to deal with the two of them, is exactly like it. He’s seen the way children do one another. Going to brother the peaceful one to entertain themselves.

“Emily,” Dave fuses, placing a hand on his hip. He quickly drops it when he realizes he must look exactly like his mother had when fussing with him. “Leave him alone,” he finishes.

Emily acts offended, throwing her arms in defense. “I wasn't doing anything!” But they all know damn well she’s still going to go bother Hotch.

She’s stuck in this apartment and hasn't brought anything to entertain herself. Besides, he’s her friend. The whole point of him is to entertain her. That’s what friends are for. “Scoot,” she orders, glancing over her shoulder at Dave. He’s chopping vegetables, probably choosing to ignore them.

Obediently, Hotch pulls himself up. Scowling at her, not heated but just because that’s his face at this point, as he does as she requests. “I’m not sharing my blanket,” he mumbles assuredly. Mostly because he knows she doesn’t want the blanket anyhow, he just needs something to say.

Emily sits down beside him, hip-to-hip, it’s a snug fit. “Here,” she reaches around him and places a pillow in her lap, motioning for him to lay back down.

He’s already moving to obey when he grumbles, “why can’t you sit somewhere else?”

She rolls her eyes and Garcia grins at them. “I want to sit with my friend,” she answers. “Is that a crime?”

He hums, “no but it’s annoying.”

There had been a time when Dave had been jealous of the natural relationship between Hotch and Emly. Despite having known Hotch the longest, Dave can see that his friend is just easily comfortable with Emily. The oddness of that companionship is undeniable but he craves for the proximity they allow one another. So guarded except for when it comes to one another. But Dave has, also, come to terms with the fact that Hotch is just… odd.

Emily may be able to command Hotch to do things. As she had just moments ago when she’d gone into the living room and pulled his head into her lap. Dave wishes he could have that comfort. The sleepy way that Hotch had only minimally fought her until he’d settled down and caved to her. But Dave has what even Emily doesn't. Though he may allow Emily into his personal space he only wants Dave when he wakes up screaming from nightmares. When he needs help.

The same way that only Garcia can tuck blankets snugly around him. JJ can argue about how much food he’s eating and get him to eat more. Only Morgan can offer him help when he’s too tired to walk. Reid is the only person allowed to hold his hand. They take what they can get and pride themselves on what little that yields.

“What if I was bitten by a zombie?” Emily asks. “Would you handcuff yourself to me so we could be together?”

Dave quirks an eyebrow at that, shaking his head but continuing with his current task in the kitchen.

Hotch’s low response is inaudible but he hears Emily’s huff of indignance. “That’s not ridiculous, Hotch! I would handcuff myself to you! That’s love, you ass. Garcia would do it.”

Dave looks up, watching Garcia nod from the chair on the other side of the room. She’d been knitting silently, the clack of the plastic needles hypnotically drawing in comfort into the somber apartment. She doesn’t even stop knitting to look and conform with a serious nod that she would, in fact, handcuff herself to them if they were zombies.

Emily doesn’t seem to have learned her lesson with the zombie question. “What about if I was a worm? Would you let me live in your suit pocket?”

Dave hears Hotch’s zero hesitation reply-- “No.” He smirks but says nothing. Hotch adds, “I’d leave you on a pear tree.”

Emily frowns, “I don’t like pears.”

“I know.”

Garcia huffs a laugh but clamps her hand over her mouth when Emily shoots her a glare.

“Dave,” Emily calls. “He’s being mean to me.”

Dave shrugs, “I told you to leave him alone.” And as frustrated as he could let himself be he can’t. Lowly, he can hear Hotch replying to everything asked of him. The soft chuckle he lets out when Garcia says something to him and he can see the little grin in his voice when he speaks to the two of them.

Just give it some time, Dave assures himself. Before he knows it, they’ll have Hotch back. All of him and things will go back to the way they always are. They just need to decide if they’re really ready for that.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner whump #david rossi #emily prentiss #penelope garcia #spencer reid #derek morgan #jennifer jareua #jennifer jareau

73 notes · View notes

winterscaptain · 4 years

Note

i really love a joyful future bc its so soft!! but like imagine Jack and Hotch talking about Haley after the twins are born, like having time alone with one of your parents when you have so many siblings is already kind of hard pressed so like imagine idk the anniversary of her funeral or something and they talk about her and go out for ice cream or whatever and then come back and they both are kinda down bc theyre sad but then like seeing everyone cheers them up even a little :( i cant,,,

haley day

Aaron Hotchner x Female Reader a joyful future fic

oops i made it a fic and its only a little off topic! please forgive any errors - i wrote this in like two hours yikes

universe: a joyful future words: 2291 warnings: discussion of death

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | ajf faq | requests closed! edited: november 27th, 2020

When you woke up, Aaron was already gone. There was a note on his pillow, and you stretched as you reached over for it.

Jack and I are off for our hike at Maryland Heights. We’ll be back sometime in the late morning/ early afternoon. We won’t have service until we’re back down the mountain - don’t be nervous if you don’t hear from us.

We’ll swing by to pick everyone up so we can go visit H all together. I’ll call when we’re an hour out.

I love you.

You held the note to your chest for a moment before slipping it into the manila envelope in your bedside drawer. You kept all of Aaron’s little notes - post-its from work, little things in your go bag, notes from mornings like this. They brought an absurd amount of joy to you, and he kept writing them, so you kept keeping them. You weren’t even sure if he knew you kept them, but you supposed some little fun secrets were good for a marriage every once and a while.

Isaac was already up - your sweet boy, with a bowl of cereal in his lap and cartoons on.

“Good morning, my love,” you said to him as you passed, kissing him on the head.

He wiggled in his seat. “Hi, momma.”

You continued into the kitchen, making yourself a cup of (already brewed) coffee. “How long have you been up?”

“I woke up when Jack and Daddy were getting ready, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep so Daddy put the TV on and put cereal where I could reach it and told me I was only allowed to wake you up if there was a fire or someone got hurt.”

You huffed a laugh at his matter-of-fact tone - imitating Aaron beat for beat. “Is that so?”

He nodded.

You returned with your coffee mug and planted yourself next to Isaac on the couch.

“Momma?” He asked, after a little while.

“Mhmm?” You set your coffee down on the table and tucked your legs up under you, facing him.

“What’s Haley Day?”

You opened your arms to him, and he put his cereal down and curled into you. “Can we talk about Haley Day when Dad and Jack get home?”

He nodded and you pressed a kiss into his dark hair.

+++

The boys leisurely hiked the path in relative silence, enjoying both each other’s company and the scenery.

“How are you, Dad?” Jack asked, after a while.

“I’m good, bud.” He thought about it for a moment and laughed lightly to himself. “I’m really good, actually.”

A small smile crossed Jack’s face. “That’s good.”

“What are you thinking about over there?” Aaron said, noting the pensive expression on his son’s face. It was odd - it was a little like looking in the mirror, but Jack would pull these faces that were so Haley. It had startled Aaron more than once.

“Who says I’m thinking about anything?”

“I can hear you thinking.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Fuckin’ profiler.”

“Excuse me?” Aaron laughed. He was a stickler for language around the little ones, but he knew Jack swore like a sailor when he was out of the house.

“I said, fuckin’ profiler.” Jack tutted. “Looks like your hearing is failing you in your advanced age, old man.”

Aaron pointed at him, eyebrows raised. “Watch it.”

After a moment, they both broke, laughing out loud. They quieted after a minute, walking a little closer together.

“I’m just thinking about mom - Haley,” he clarified. “It kind of hit me this morning how…much that all was.” He looked at Aaron, brown eyes curious. “Are you okay, Dad?”

One side of Aaron’s mouth pulled up. “I’m alright. It was really hard for a while, but it gets easier to carry. I know you don’t remember, but you’re old enough now to know that the year before Haley died was...not great. That’s what I had the hardest time handling.”

“The divorce, right?” Jack’s head dropped as he looked at his feet, still marching confidently up the rock-lined path. Aaron was suddenly grateful, deeply so, for the gift of his son.

“Yeah. Certainly not a shining moment for either one of us, but I think she made the right choice. She was stronger than me by a long shot, and always managed to do what had to be done.”

Jack hummed thoughtfully, and Aaron knew he could take what came next.

“When she was killed, I had to grapple with the idea that she died angry at me.” Aaron looked up, letting the dappled light from the trees strike his face.

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

Jack kept his eyes up, trained on the path, as he spoke. “I think that’s an easy way to feel guilty, but she didn’t die mad at you, Dad. Aunt Emily told me how brave you were, how you talked to her until you couldn’t anymore.”

Aaron opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted.

“Don’t be upset with Em. I asked and she told. Not her fault.” Jack pulled a mouthful of water from his pack before he continued. “I think she wanted you to know how much she loved you, you know? Like, Emily told me she reminded you to not be so serious all the time and to tell me stories about how much fun you guys had when you were young and cool.” He shot a smirk over to Aaron, who rolled his eyes with a smile. Jack squinted into the middle distance. “Were you mad at her that day?”

“No,” Aaron answered quickly. “Not at all.”

“What were you, then?”

“Scared.”

“Her too, probably.” Jack’s tone was simple, as if it was the easiest thing in the world to understand. Maybe it was. “You made her feel less scared and you kept calm, even when you were probably more scared than you’ve ever been in your whole life. I only remember her a little, but I think she’d love you for that, don’t you?”

Aaron was quiet for a moment, just looking at Jack as they walked. “When did you get so smart, kid?”

Jack shrugged. “You didn’t answer the question.”

Yep. He’s my son.

He couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his mouth as he retorted, “You’re right, I didn’t.”

Jack crossed the path to bump his father’s shoulder. They were almost the same height, and Aaron imagined Jack would pass him up by the end of the year. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, Jack.” He reached up to ruffle Jack’s hair, but he ducked away just in time.

“C’mon, man.”

Aaron scoffed. “You are your mother’s son - that much is certain.”

“Which one?” Jack asked with a grin.

After a moment of thought, Aaron huffed another laugh and said, “Unfortunately, both.”

Jack’s grin softened. “You miss her, don’t you?”

“I do. But guess what?”

His brow furrowed.

“You remind me of her so much sometimes it’s like she’s right here with us, you know that?”

This time, Jack let his father muss the hair on top of his head. “Really?”

Aaron nodded. “All the time.” Then again, under his breath. “All the time.”

+++

Aaron called you around noon on the way back from Harper’s Ferry. “We’ll be home in about 45 minutes - traffic isn’t bad at all and we’re just now at the state line.”

“Sounds good, honey. I’ll start the ball rolling with the girls.”

You could hear a pair of chuckles on the other end of the line and perhaps a muttered “Good luck with that shit.”

Language, Jack Hotchner.

Chewing on your lower lip, you added, “Also, Isaac asked. I think it’s time - for him, at least.”

“Alright. We’ll go sit on the porch when I get home. Jack, are you good helping the girls get ready?”

“For sure,” Jack’s assent sounded a little distant, but it made you smile.

+++

You and Aaron settled on the porch swing with Isaac on your lap. Aaron held out his hands palm-up, and Isaac rested his little fingers on Aaron’s.

Aaron closed his hands around Isaac’s, holding his attention. It was something you two had established early on with the kids: when Dad holds both of your hands, look at him and listen.

“Mom told me you asked about Haley Day today.”

Isaac nodded.

“Before I tell you what Haley Day means, I want to remind you that Mom and I love all four of you exactly the same, okay?”

Isaac nodded.

“Alright, bud.” Aaron took a deep breath, and you smiled at him over Isaac’s head. “You know how you and Sophia and Caroline came out of Momma’s tummy?”

Little brown eyes looked back at you and you nodded encouragingly.

“Yes.”

“You know how Mom and I are married and wear these rings and live together?”

He nodded.

“And of course you know Aunt Jessica, right?”

A smile broke out across Isaac’s face as he nodded again.

“Before I was married to your mom, I was married to Haley. Haley is Aunt Jessica’s sister, and Jack came out of Haley’s tummy before your mom and I met.”

There was a little bit of confusion splashed across Isaac’s face. “So Momma isn’t Jack’s momma?”

You put your hands on his shoulders, and he looked up at you. “Not everyone is like you and me, bud. You came out of my tummy and I’m also your mom, but some people’s moms aren’t the same person they came out of. Does that make sense?” You were going to continue, but you closed your mouth.

We aren’t going to start the “not everyone has a mom” conversation today. Baby steps.

“So you’re still Jack’s mom, too?”

“Yes, sir,” you said with a smile. “But at the same time, Haley is also Jack’s mom. So he kind of has two moms, which is also a normal thing for some families. I’m what’s technically called a step-mom.”

He nodded sagely and said, “Some of my friends at school have step-moms,” but then his face fell into almost comical confusion. “Where did Haley go?”

You gestured to Aaron and Isaac whirled around. Aaron’s eyes flickered back to yours, and you returned his gaze with soft eyes.

Aaron took another breath before speaking again. “Haley died when Jack was four - just a little younger than you are now - and so it’s really important for Jack and me to have Haley Day so we can remember her and spend time together. Today is her forty-ninth birthday, and sometimes birthdays of people who died are really hard.” He swallowed, and his eyes misted over. He looked up at you.

It’s okay. Don’t hide from your son. It’s okay.

He blinked rapidly, and a few tears fell. Tears pricked at your eyes as well as Isaac scrambled off your lap and into Aaron’s.

“Mom said that people who have died can’t come back and you can’t see them anymore. Is that true?” He asked.

Aaron wrapped one arm around Isaac and placed his other hand on your knee. You grabbed it right away, holding him tight. “Yeah, bud. Mom’s right.”

“Do you miss her? Sometimes I miss my friends who moved and I can’t see them anymore.”

Aaron laughed and squeezed Isaac tight to his chest. “I do miss her. It’s a lot like when your friends move away. She was one of my best friends.”

“Is Mom one of your best friends?”

You brushed tears off your cheeks with your fingers and grinned at Aaron.

“Yes. Your mom is one of my best friends,” he said with a smile that matched yours. “And Mom knew Haley, too and they were friends. There are a lot of pictures of Haley and Jack and me and Mom on the bookshelf in the living room, but they’re a little high up for you to see them. I can show them to you later, if you want.”

There was quiet for a moment, as you both let Isaac process the concept of life and death and parenthood in his little four-year-old brain.

That’s a lot all at once.

“Do we get to do anything special for Haley Day?”

Aaron looked down at him, “Yes, sir. We’re going to go visit the place where she’s buried and then go out for ice cream. How does that sound?”

“Really good.”

“Really good, alright!” Aaron rose with renewed vigor, and Isaac clung to his neck as he readjusted his grip. “Can you go get some shoes on and we can go?” Isaac nodded and Aaron set him down with a pat on his shoulder.

You tucked yourself under Aaron’s arm as Isaac ran back into the house. Through the window, you could see Jack swinging Sophia up over his head as a reward for getting her shoes on. Caroline was attached to his pant leg, begging to go next.

“That went alright.”

He nodded. “Yeah, it did.” He kissed the side of your head and inhaled. “Thank you.”

You looked up at him. “For what?”

With his hand, he gestured vaguely to everything around you. “Being here, I guess?” He laughed lightly through his nose. “Just - thank you. I know it’s not always easy.”

You placed your left hand on his chest and rested your head against him as you spoke. “I know you worry, but I have never once felt like second-best or a replacement. Not even a little.”

“I do worry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t, please.” You patted his chest twice, a break. “Now, I believe we promised at least one of our children ice cream and I would hate to have a mutiny on our hands. We’re outnumbered two to one and I don’t need Reid to tell me those aren’t great odds.”

He laughed and pressed a sweet kiss to your lips. “There’s no better partner to fend off hangry toddlers than you, darling.”

+++

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