#if someone is triggered by violence they probably didn't read the fic.

[runawaymarbles]

When you love a fic but are deeply irritated by the author's notes. We all contain multitudes.

[newwritergirl]

Starting over | Part 20

Masterlist

Summary: Bradley and Jake are back in Miramar and are happy to surprise their girlfriend at the base. But when they enter her office they're not greeted with their girl but with an unusual chaos. Where is y/n?

Trigger warnings: 18+, Minors DNI, attempt SA, violence against women, blood, injuries, hospital, language

A/N: Here is the next part of my little TopGun fic. Finally we have our pilots back *.* Thanks for reading =)

Word Count:4.1k +

Jake and Bradley make their way over to y/n's office, when Bob leads Nat into Javy's teaching room, since the recruits have a short coffee break.

A soft knock is the only thing which can be heard in the empty office when both pilots enter the room. Their gazes land on the empty chair behind the desk.

"Where is she?" Jake asks confused when he turns to the other pilot who also looks surprised to see the office being empty.

"Maybe on a coffee run?" Bradley suggests and starts to make his way out of the office to search their girlfriend in the mass, where she probably gets herself a hot coffee.

"Hey, Rooster. Look…" Jake points to y/n's desk and on the floor. Papers and other items are spread across the floor. He takes a step closer to the wooden furniture when a shiny object catches his eyes. He bends down and picks up the plane shaped paperweight.

"What the fuck…" He mumbles when he sees that there's blood smeared on the front of the plane.

Bradley takes a closer on y/n's desk and immediately sees the puddle of dried up blood in the center of the table.

She must've hurt herself. But it's too much blood for a papercut or a cut from her scissors. He holds his breath and his whole body stiffens. Still confused from the bloody statue Jake notices the change in his boyfriend and turns around to see what Bradley just discovered.

"What happened here? Where is y/n?" The blonde whispers to Rooster.

Like two men on a mission they hurry out of the office, searching for someone who can explain what the freaking Hell happened there.

"Where's y/n?" Bradley shouts when he sees Maverick in the hallway on his way over to them.

Pete is more than confused, both aviators look panicked, almost out of their minds.

"She's not there. Her office is a mess, there's blood on her desk…" Jake rambles.

"Hey, slow down slow down. What's wrong?" Pete asks more confused than ever.

Bradley takes a deep breath and explains the situation to their superior. He knows that he has to calm down, the same way when they're on a mission or flying their jets. The three men make their way back to y/n's office.

"I didn't see her today and the Bronco wasn't in the parking lot when I came some minutes ago. I thought she starts later today, we had a big sever breakdown yesterday and she stayed until late in the evening to save some of the data." Maverick explains to the men in front of him.

They have to find her and when the Bronco isn't in the parking lot she's probably still at home. There has to be a logical explanation for the mess and the blood in her office. Maybe she just cut herself and searched for a band aid and just left her office in this mess because it was just too late and she was exhausted. But her office wasn't locked and the blood on the paperweight is also unsettling.

---

Jake drives as fast as he can to their shared home. Despite both men trying to keep calm and find logical explanation for the situation they can't help themselves and have a bad feeling which only increases when they finally made it to their house seeing the Bronco in the drive way with one tire parked in the rose bed.

Not waiting another minute Jake and Bradley jump out of the SUV and both sprint to the front door of their cozy home.

"Fuck, where are my keys." The blonde curses when he searches his pockets for the keys.

"Here let me…" Bradley steps around his nervous boyfriend and opens the door.

Finally entering their home they start to search for their girlfriend frantically. Jake stands in front of her closed bedroom door, ready to enter the room.

"Bradley, her door is locked, she has to be here." Jake says before he starts to knock at the locked door and shouts the name of their girlfriend. With one last verbal warning he kicks down the door but is greeted with an empty bed.

"Bathroom!" The brunette pilot sprints into the direction of said room, the last possibility where the young woman could be.

"Y/n? You in there? Please say something…" But both are confronted with silence.

"Baby, we're coming in…" Jake warns before he kicked down the second door for today.

---

The sight they're greeted with is nothing both could've been prepared for. Before them is laying their girlfriend curled into a ball under her fluffy towel. Ghostly pale, she almost looks dead.

"No! Baby…" Jake is the first one to kneel beside the still body of their girlfriend. The blue tinged lips of the young woman are just another catalyst to spiral further into panic. With trembling fingers he touches her carotid searching for a pulse. Bradley is still standing behind his boyfriend towering above both his partners too shocked to get into action.

"Pulse is steady, but she's extremely cold." The blonde talks into the quiet room.

"Babygirl? Can you hear me?" He softly turns her onto her back to access her body and looking for possible injuries. He gasps when he sees her head laceration and the small blood puddle where her head was positioned before he turned her on her back. The bruise on her delicate cheek and her black eye are a stark contrast to her ghostly pale face. He looks further down and his heart nearly stops when he sees the black and blue hand prints on their girlfriend's neck. Someone has beaten her and chocked her so heavy to leave these prominent hand shaped marks.

"No…" Jake's gasp brings the other pilot finally out of his shock and he also kneels down beside the blonde. Reaching for one of y/n's cold hands.

Hangman pulls the towel which is still hiding the small woman's body further down.

A turmoil of emotions is bubbling in his chest when he sees the full damage. Hand shaped bruises on her shoulders and arms, a dark purple bruise on her side, the blood on her head.

Rage, hate, helplessness and a huge emptiness is squeezing Jake's ribcage.

"Who did this?" Rooster growled when he sees their girlfriend's injuries, clearly inflicted by a human being. He feels y/n's hand switching in his big warm one. "Princess? We're here now, we're back. Can you hear me?" He soothingly whispers rubbing soft circles on her ice cold hand.

"P-p-please not… No…" The woman mumbles when she slowly opens her eyes.

---

She's cold, so cold. The underground she's laying on is also cold and very uncomfortable. Why is she so tired but is not engulfed in the cozy sheets of one of their beds? Y/n hears voices, a familiar mumbling but she can't comprehend where she is. Images of last night blend into her thoughts. Welsh grabbing her, hitting her, trying to sexual assault her. Is he still there? Is he back to finish what Michael once started and he continued? She knows that she needs to fight, for herself and for her future with her partners. Y/n tries to get rid of the warm hand that has her smaller one in a tight but not painful grip. Her other hand balls into a fist in an attempt to catch her attacker. But her whole body feels like it is made of cold unmoving granite. Pain rushes through every fiber of her body and she feels like it doesn't belong to her anymore. She has no control over her shaking and aching limbs. The young woman lets out mumbling noises, she can hear herself whimper but can't stop the sounds that are coming out of her mouth. The pain and the fear have fully taken control over her body and she knows that she stands no chance in case Welsh is back.

"Noo.." is the only word she form. She feels her heart beating furiously in her ribcage, panic bubbling further up in her lungs.

"Babygirl, you're safe. It's Roo-y and Jakey. Come on, show us your beautiful eyes." Jake coaxed her to open her eyes fully.

She knows this voice. It's Jake's warm voice and his signature nickname for her. But it has to be a dream, they're deployed. Maybe she's already dead or she is hallucinating.

It takes her some minutes to be somewhat coherent and register that her two boyfriends are really with her in the bathroom. She feels two warm hands enveloping her right one and she starts to squeeze as hard as she can as if she is afraid that the both men will disappear any second. A heart wrenching sob escapes her parted lips. She tries to sit up, she needs the physical contact of her boyfriends but her broken ribs and her other injuries are making it difficult for her to move her upper body.

"Hey, hey stay still okay." Jake tries to bring her back in the laying position but she grabs one of his arms and gives it another painful attempt to bring herself closer to one of her boyfriends.

Jake finally understands her actions and slowly sits her up. When y/n is finally cradled into the warm chest of the blonde aviator she lets out a painful sob. She survived. Welsh was not able to break her. He hurt her, he traumatized her, but he didn't get the chance to break her fully. She fought for her life and she escaped. Without help.

"Shhh… shhhh. Baby, we're here now, It's going to be okay." Jake says with a thick voice full of emotions.

"Gonna call an ambulance." Rooster says when he softly strokes y/n's bare back cautious of her injuries and painful looking bruising.

"No, no ambulance…please." Y/n throws herself into Bradley arms, fortunately he is able to catch her before she can hit the floor. Her eyes are open wide, full of panic and pain. She knows that she is in need of medical attention, but strangers intruding their privacy, seeing her half naked, bruised and panicked is the last thing she can handle right now.

"It's okay, Princess." Bradley whispers into the shell of her ear when she nuzzles her head into his chest breathing in his familiar scent.

"What did you say, Princess?" The brunette asks when he hears her mumble something into his chest. He feels her shaking so badly and her body is still ice cold. God knows how long she was wet and naked on the cold tiles. "Talk to us, baby." Jake encourages her to talk to both of them.

Y/n lifts her head, pinching her eyes shut when a wave of dizziness overcomes her and her vision turns black for some seconds. Bradley feels her wavering in his arms and cages her trembling body further into his arms.

"I- I fought back. He didn't... He wanted to, but I hit him…" Y/n stammers and squeezes Jake's thigh to ground herself against the strong dizziness which is still makes her head swim.

Bradley feels himself tearing up. Someone tried to sexually assault their girlfriend? He hopes he interprets her words wrong. But his gaze lands on her ripped and bloody blouse which Jake has in his hands now. The blonde aviator lets out an animalistic growl. Y/n shrieks into Bradley's chest afraid that Jake is mad at her.

"…not a slut…I'm not…" She starts to weep desperately, fisting Rooster's uniform shirt into her trembling hands.

"Princess, who did this to you? Do you know who attacked you?" Bradley whispers as calm as possible. They need to know who did this to their girl. Is her ex out of prison and found her? That's nearly impossible. Was it someone they know or just a random attack and y/n an accidental victim?

The young woman in his warm arms starts to weep harder, wet tracks of her tears are marking his uniform. It takes a minute or two before y/n can talk again. She takes a deep breath but whimpers when the pain in her ribcage reminds her of her severe injuries.

"…came into my o-office," she painfully breathes out, "W-Welsh…"

The last thing Jake wants is to scare y/n any further but he has so much rage in him that he has to storm out of the bathroom to cool off.

---

Welsh attacked their girlfriend, hurt her that bad that they have to take to the hospital rather sooner than later. He choked her, beat her and he tried to rape her. Jake had never felt this much hate and rage in his bones. The guy developed from an annoying blighter to a sexual offender. Welsh is now his greatest enemy. The urge to kill that bastard with his bare hands nearly overshadows all of his thoughts. To calm his nerves and not going off the deep end into something stupid he paced around the living room, still hearing the faint weeping and Rooster's muttering out of the bathroom.

He fumbles with the pockets of his now crumbled uniform, searching for his mobile. He needs to call the base and inform Maverick about the whereabouts of y/n. Jake has several missed calls from Pete, Bob and Nat. All probably worried about their female friend. After taking a deep breath to calm his nerves he hit the call button, almost immediately hearing the Captain's greetings.

---

"Princess…shhh." The brunette pilot absolutely understands his partner’s reaction to y/n's words. He has the same rage and hatred in his bones by now, but he has to stay calm. He needs to support the weeping woman in his arms and not let his emotions take over.

"…h-he ripped…blouse…" Y/n's breathing gets more laboured by every word but she needs to tell Bradley her thoughts, she feels like her emotions are going to suffocate her. "…I hit him…"

"You did so good, Princess. So good…" He places a soft kiss to her head, feeling her still wet hair. He knows that they have to take to the hospital, even if she is somewhat coherent now that she even could tell him pieces of the previous events she is far from being okay. When he cradles her deeper into his warm chest he strokes up and down her back to give her even more warmth. A painful cry of the woman in his arms brings him out of his raging thoughts. She's in pain. When he looks down her back he sees the angry bruise on her kidney area. This bastard kicked or punched her in her most sensitive area and hurt her weak kidney further.

"I'm sorry, Princess. I'm sorry. We- we have to get you up okay? You're shivering, we need to put on some dry clothes and we have to take you to the hospital." Her faint nodding against his chest is concerning him. In any other situation, high fever or pain, y/n would've fight tooth and nail to not go to the hospital. Her being content with seeing a doctor is a clear sign how much she has to suffer right now. His heart is breaking even more, if it's even possible.

"I'm going to pick you up, Princess. Gonna change in your bedroom, okay?" Bradley is determined to give her as much control over the situation as possible, even if he is well aware that she is nowhere near to walk into her bedroom or change herself into something dry.

When the pair finally made it into the bedroom he sits y/n down onto her bed. Her small shivering frame leaning heavily against his body as he sits beside her, contemplating his next moves.

"Roo-y…," he hears her saying in a small nearly inaudible voice, "is Jakey disgusted by me?" Y/n's voice quivers as she looks up at the brunette pilot with unfocused glassy eyes.

"Hey, hey, Princess. Don't you ever think one of us could ever be disgusted by you. We love you!" Bradley pulls her into his chest as cautious as possible, hoping that Jake would make an appearance as soon as possible to help him and more important to take care of their girlfriend. It's clear that y/n needs both of them right now.

"He… W-Welsh…" Y/n shivers when the name of her attacker goes over her lips, "he called me a-a s-s-slut…"

"Sweetcakes, you're far from that. You're kind, beautiful, loveable and so much more. We love you." Fortunately Jake finished calling Mav seconds ago and calmed down enough to join his partners and help Bradley with attending y/n's wounds and taking her to the hospital.

Both aviators have a silent conversation and Jake doesn't waste another second and starts to rummage for some dry clothes.

With y/n's favorite leggings and one of his Navy Academy shirts he crouches in front of his partners.

"Y/n, I need to take off your underwear, is this okay?" His cautious question is answered with a slight nod of the woman in front of him.

The whole process of dressing their girlfriend takes a lot more time than both of them would have anticipated. But when she is finally clothed the pain and the shock are back full force. Her eyes are more unfocused than before and she starts to mumble unintelligibly, no longer able to sit up even when most of her weight is propped up against Bradley.

"I called Mav, he enrolled us already in the military hospital. We have to take her in now, she seems to deteriorate. "

---

When y/n is settled in the backseat with her head in Jake's lap, Bradley jumps into the driver's side of Jake's truck. The brunette knows that Jake needs the physical contact of their girlfriend now, he needs to see her breathing and being alive in his lap to keep his calm on the drive to the hospital.

"I think she's burning up, Roo." The blonde aviator notes when he brushes his hands over the clammy forehead of the woman in his lap.

Rooster has the steering wheel in a vice grip, his knuckles already turned white. Images play in his head from the bits and pieces y/n told him earlier. He sees Welsh hitting her, slamming her head against the wall or the desk. He sees this disgusting man ripping her blouse. But Bradley also sees y/n fighting. Fighting against this monster that is much bigger than her. But she made it. He thanks his parents, he thanks God that Jake and he are already back and he prays that this trauma is not going to break her. He knows that he and Jake will be there for her no matter what but he just prays that she still has trust in them. He doesn't know what he is going to do if she is slipping into that shell of a woman she was two years before.

No he KNOWS what they're going to do in this worst case scenario: They will get her out of this and they will be her support system. They love her and this alone is enough to move mountains. A tear slips down his cheek. He's never been so emotional over a woman except for his mother. But y/n is special and nothing can ever change his and Jake's love for her.

---

Y/n's shaking seems to increase during the drive to the hospital. Jake occasionally checks her pulse at her carotid even if she's trembling and whimpering from pain he is afraid that she slips between his fingers. When they stormed into the bathroom earlier she looks so pale and with her blue lips Jake's first thought was that they're too late. That their love is already dead. Even now that he knows she's alive that moment killed something in him. He will never forget these seconds of pain in his heart.

"Babygirl, I got you. You're safe." Jake whispers in y/n's direction when she starts to mumble something he cannot make out.

---

Mav pulled some strings at the Navy hospital that one of the aviators could stay with her in the small cubical of the ER. So Bradley, the calmer one of them, is now looking at the several nurses and the two doctors working on his girlfriend. He already informed them about her previous medical conditions and the previous events, as much as he knows.

Behind the huge glass door of the ER a nervous Jake Seresin is pacing the waiting area up and down. Mav informed him minutes ago that the military police is out there in search of Welsh. But so far there's no sign of the disgusting piece of shit. As much as Jake wants to put his hands on that guy he knows that y/n needs him more than ever. So he tries to work on his rage to be calm for her when he can finally see her again.

A hand on his shoulder stops him to pace another round in the waiting room.

"Hangman…Jake, I'm sorry. I said I will keep an eye on her…" Bob's eyes are bloodshot when he looks up at his blonde colleague. The sudden movement of Jake's arm makes him flinch but instead of knocking him on his ass Jake envelopes his friend into a tight hug. The situation is taking a toll on all of them. They're friends, hell they are family and y/n is a member of that family since she first stepped foot on the base.

"There's no other to blame than that bastard and I need to restrain myself really hard not to go out there and find him myself" Jake growls.

The double door of the ER slides open and Bradley enters the waiting area, looking clearly exhausted.

The blonde aviator doesn't waste a second and hurries over to his partner hugging him into his chest, totally aware that now the cat is probably out of the sack for the other members. But he doesn't care that their poly relationship is no longer a secret between the three of them and Nat.

Slowly the other aviators make their way towards Bradley and Jake hoping for some good news.

When both release the comforting hug Bradley starts to speak not breaking the eye contact with his partner.

"Ehm, where should I start…" he pinches the bridge of his nose, his head hammering with a headache from stress and concern. "They glued her head wound and made a CT which was without noticeable problems, but she has a concussion. Her upper back, the side of her weak kidney is severely bruised, she has three broken ribs on the other side of her ribcage, fortunately they didn't injure her lungs. They put her on a broad-spectrum antibiotic because of her fever and her inflamed kidney. She's sleeping now, which is good." Bradley looks behind Jake to their friends to engage them in the conversation after all they're just as concerned as Jake and him.

Jake knows that there's more. Something must've happened, he can see it in his partners eyes.

Nat is the first one to speak up. "I think it's time for us to go home. Please tell her we said 'hi' and we're here for her and for you two." She hugs both her friends and waits for the other to say their good byes.

---

When their friends finally made their way home or back to the base to help find Welsh Bradley leads Jake to y/n's room. Even if the blonde can't wait to see for himself that their girlfriend is resting and was properly attended to he needs to investigate what has happened during the examination.

"What happened?" He stops his boyfriend by squeezing his shoulder. "You can't tell me shit, man. I know you." He softly strokes Bradley's back, his words came out harsher as he intended to.

"I told them the bits and pieces of what y/n told us what happened. And due to the accusation of SA, they did a rape kid." Bradley grabs Jake's hand to ground himself. He sees pure rage in Jake's eyes. "Hey, Jake calm down. They did it as a precaution, cause she was so out of it and not coherent. I told them that she said she fought him off before he got the chance but they told me it would've been safer when they do the kit. She freaked out. Her high fever… I guess she was back in her office. I heard her screaming and crying. They told me to wait outside during the rape kit… but when I heard her screaming and crying, Hell she begged them to stop I barged into the room. I was able to calm her down, but it was hard to see her in such a state." The brunette aviator is still under the impression of the events. Jake envelopes him in a bone crushing hug. "She was right though. The kit was negative." He breathes out, into his boyfriends shoulder.

"She's our fighter." Jake mumbles before they make their into y/n's hospital room.

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[amyispxnk]

I'd do whatever I could do

Summary - you're staying with Joel now, trying to figure yourself out and leaving the QZ to visit some of his friends

A/N: oh my god, I finally did it y'all - finally made the part two for this 👏 Also, I was going through the lyrics of this song and I kind of realised just how daddy issues Joel it is. I'm not gonna list them, but there are definitely a good few lines that stuck out to me. A part 3 might be simmering. We'll see.

Pairing: platonic/father figure!Joel Miller x f!reader (could probably be read as GN tho?)

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: violence, mentions of past abuse, PTSD, alcohol mention, language, angst, pet names, comfort, paternal issues, very brief mention of a gun

DO NOT COPY THIS FIC IN ANY WAY PLS AND TY.

Part 1 here

You reckoned you had stopped really taking the words in a few seconds after he slammed the door behind him, immediately shrinking back into the couch where you'd previously been sat staring into space, whilst he told you things about his day.

Your eyes darted up at him quickly, lip quivering already. You still didn't know exactly why. Why small things like him touching you too abruptly, raising his voice (never at you, but for some reason it still affected you), loud noises like a door slamming, affected you. But they really did, and he'd come to notice it after only a few days of you staying with him.

--

He came back home after a long, difficult, tiring deal. Since your arrival and staying at his place had been so recent, his old habits remained. One of them was to practically shout and stomp his foot in anger as soon as he got back from a trade went south, a bad day out.

"Fuck!" He had gritted through clenched teeth as he threw his bag on the floor, deadset on getting into the kitchen to his whisky to muffle the frustration of the day.

You froze in complete fear and horror as he rounded the corner, his eyes immediately falling onto your trembling figure, clutching the little food packet in one of your hands as your own eyes stared back at him, bulging out of their sockets.

"Shit." He muttered to himself, taking a few steps towards you - not expecting you to immediately drop the packet and raise your hands in front of you, almost cowering before him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry Joel p-please, I don't-" You stuttered, eyes welling up with tears as you flinched when he took another, more careful, step towards you, already apologising even though you didn't know what you had done.

"Hey, hey, hey. 's okay," he soothed. "C'mere sweetheart. It's okay." And somehow the sound of his voice, so gentle just for you, comforted you immediately.

You stepped into his open arms, body shaking hard with sobs as you choked on your own tears. "I'm sorry." You said, muffled into the fabric of his flannel.

"I told you it's okay. What happened, sweet girl?" He hugged you tight, right hand coming up to rub soothing circles into your back.

"I don't know." You murmured, unsure of what set you off so badly.

"It's okay baby, we'll figure it out. You're okay now."

--

That was the first time it had happened, now you were here again. He'd slammed the door, although he wasn't angry. It was just something he did out of habit to ensure it closed properly, but after he saw you shaking like before on the couch, his brows knitted in worry.

"What's wrong?" He asked, a hand coming to rest on your shoulder as you turned to face him slightly, jolting - not as aggressively as you used to - at the touch.

"Nothing. Just- you slammed the door. I think it's one of those.. trigger things you were talking about."

Naturally, Joel had racked his mind and scoured the dozen odd books he had in his apartment to try remember anything about this kind of mental health issue and the things you'd gone through, finally landing on some sort of PTSD. He'd explained it as best he could to you, telling you that the things like someone raising their voice at you and loud noises were 'triggers', things that reminded you of the times with your dad and made you feel that same fear you'd feel with him all over again.

"Right." He nodded, brushing your hair back and out of your eyes a bit. "'m sorry, sweetheart. I'll try not to do it again, yeah?"

You hummed a noise of agreement, making a space beside you for him to sit down on the couch.

He did so and cleared his throat. "Got some news," he began "'s nothin' big, really. Just thought you oughta have a bit of notice."

You turned to face him a little more as he looked up and met your eyes. "I have this deal, with a guy in Lincoln, and I'm due to go see him next week." He told you.

"So.. you're leaving?" You questioned, trying not to seem too hurt by it.

"No, no. I mean- if you don't want to come with me, then yeah, but I'll be back within the month. I just.. don't feel too safe leavin' you here." He explained, and you nodded.

"I don't want you to go. I'll- I'll come with you." You mumbled, and he gently tilted your head up to face him again.

"You're gonna be okay out there? Y'ever been out of the QZ before?" He asked. If you hadn't ever been outside then things could be quite difficult. It would be scary for a young thing like you. Not only that, but you had your triggers, and the gunfire paired with the infected would surely set one of them off - that's why he'd tried putting the entire trip off, but he had to go. That was how he made his living around here, he needed those supplies.

"Mmhm. I've also killed a few infected before, if you're worried about that. Not gonna be completely useless, I'd say." You said with a small chuckle, leaning into his touch subconsciously.

"Okay." He nodded, stroking your cheek gently before standing up and going over to the kitchen to make something for dinner. "And you're not useless, sweetheart, not at all."

-----

Bill and Frank. That's who they were. Bill was the guy he actually had the deal with, Frank was the one who'd convinced Bill to go along with it in the first place. Frank was the nice one, Joel had told you.

He'd explained a bit before you'd left and more when it came up in conversation as the two of you walked. In and out of forests, weaving between trees, trudging down dirt roads and kicking rocks, on your journey to Lincoln.

A journey that you still would've been able to complete within a day on foot, but that was before the apocalypse. Now there were buildings falling over eachother, and guards near your place of departure which slowed you down, and clickers and the likes which ensured you had to be completely silent in your movements, extending the time of your journey by at least 50%.

You watched as he slaughtered them all though. It should have scared you, at least a little, but it just amazed you. Admittedly, it had shaken you when you saw him completely beat one of the FEDRA guards to death when you were making your way out of Boston. You'd been caught, a guard that wasn't supposed to be there was there and Joel wasn't careful enough.

Things were almost okay, you probably could have haggled your way out of that situation, but when the soldier made a comment about you, a comment about what they might do to a 'bad girl' like you for sneaking out of the QZ, he had simply seen red. He didn't even know he had lunged for the man until he was on top of him, the crunch of the soldier's jaw and Joel's fist coming down on his face bringing him back to reality.

He was protective of you, and rightfully so, and you didn't even care how aggressive he could get with it. He wanted to keep you safe, and would go that far for it, therefore he cared about you. Someone actually cared about you.

"Okay, I think we're gonna stay here for the night." He said, pulling you out of your thoughts as you gave him a small smile.

"Okay."

You both set up a makeshift camp, eating whatever you could spare from your stash of food before getting ready to go to sleep - him denying your offer to take watch like he did before and he'd do everytime.

You sighed, walking off and quickly settling into the sleeping bag, melting into it and relishing the warmth it offered you as you hugged yourself to sleep, body heat almost suffocating you but in a comforting way.

--

When you woke up, you thought you actually were suffocating, throwing the cover off of you and crying out his name, the only person you could think of to save you. He was going to get you, he was back, he was coming for you and he'd never leave you alone, he'd take you from Joel and then he'd k-

"Hey, hey. That's not gonna happen, sweetheart, come on, come over here." You didn't realise you were saying those things out loud but it didn't matter as you crawled out of your sleeping bag, letting him pull you into his lap as he cradled you, rocking you back and forth as he kissed your head.

"It's okay, it's okay. Did ya have another nightmare?" He asked, voice calm and low as he tried to comfort you and calm you down.

You nodded quickly, sniffing and breathing erratically as you did.

"Sweet girl. It's okay now, it's okay." He reassured you, hugging you tight and pressing more kisses into your hair. "I won't let anything happen to you, you know that."

"I know." You said quietly, voice cracking as you wiped at your tears. "I'm sorry." You said, somehow in a voice even quieter than before.

He sighed, breathing slowly and deeply - something he knew helped, as he noticed you'd start breathing in time with him to ground yourself, regulate your own breathing during these situations. "Don't go and apologise when you haven't even done anything wrong, sweetheart. You're going through a lot and you're probably still processing everything that happened, it wasn't that long ago when you were still.." he didn't want to remind you of anything too sensitive, trailing off slightly. "Point is, it's all fairly fresh, and it's natural things like these nightmares are gonna be happenin', so don't apologise, okay?" He said, looking into your glossy eyes and brushing your tears away.

"Yeah. I'm-" You were already going to apologise again, making him frown slightly. "Thank you, Joel."

"It's okay. You try get some more sleep now, okay?" He gently helped you off his lap and pulled the sleeping bag back on top of your body, knees cracking as he got back up to walk away to where he was taking watch - when your voice called out for him again.

"Can you stay with me? Please, Joel? I'm just- I'm scared." You mumbled, face growing hot with embarrassment at how pathetic the question felt now you were speaking it aloud.

He pressed his lips together, turning his head to check the area once more before getting his own sleeping bag, placing it by yours, and resting his arm behind your head as you tucked your face into his chest.

"Goodnight." He said softly, stroking your hair slowly.

"Night, Joel." You mumbled into the soft fabric of his shirt, before passing out again, leaving him to lay alone with his thoughts in the cool night.

Thank you sm for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated and requests are open! 💞

Tags - @rosierogie @jjlevin

[sageteapost]

| ❝Ven Aqui❞ (Come Here) |

[ Ignis Scientia x GN! Reader ]

CW & Tags: Yandere and dark themes. Mentions of violence and blood. Lowkey creepy actions. Stalking (or more like, broke into your house) and unhealthy behaviors/thoughts. Do not read if this is potentially triggering. I do not condone this type of relationship. This purely fiction. (No established relationship. Pre-Altissa and VERY OOC Ignis. Song fic. GN! Reader.)

author's note: IGNIS!!! I love this man so much, and I've been craving to write something for him. But this time I wanted to write something more on the darker side! The song is "Ven Aqui" by Los Bunkers if you're curious, it just struck some inspiration for me especially from the lyrics teehee. I love Latino rock so much I swear. Oh and, the song is in Spanish! So, I will provide the original and translated lyrics.

"What in the Astrals have you done to me?" Ignis whispered to himself, standing in the shadows of your bedroom. He almost felt guilty, maybe even disgusted with himself with what he's doing.

He was supposed to be a gentleman. A man of integrity. And yet, he was – in your room in the middle of the night.

He kept saying to himself it's for your own good. To keep you safe as you slept. To take care of you in his own way.

And on those rare nights, to carefully tuck you in properly when you didn't.

But oh gods, you looked absolutely divine with how the moon lit up your face through the window as you slept soundly. He wanted to be close to you so badly again.

The last time he got close to you, was blissful to him as much as he hated to admit it. He could hear the small breaths you took, the rise-and-fall of your chest, everything. And it drove him wild inside.

However, this night felt... different. The reason being the way he was fighting the idea to reach over and touch your face. Just for a moment.

And he was losing.

Ignis soon stepped out of the shadows, ensuring his footsteps would not disturb your slumber. As much as he'd love to see you awake, you'd probably not enjoy the sight of someone watching you sleep.

Approaching your bedside, he squatted down before sighing softly. '...Bloody gorgeous,' he thought to himself. And eventually, he couldn't help it anymore and took off one of his gloves.

He could no longer resist the feeling.

And gods, did Ignis felt like he was drunk the moment his hand grazed your cheek softly.

Your skin felt silky under his fingertips. They felt... perfect. Just for him. He could feel your warmth breath on his hand as you slept as he silently watched the gentle rise and fall of your body.

And gods, he wanted more. So badly. But not here, not now. Despite him already committed such a huge violation in privacy, Ignis desperately wanted to cling onto some semblance of respect.

So, he stepped away, feeling like he was on a high and clinging onto to that feeling of warmth he had a sneak peak of. It was time for him to depart, unfortunately. Time is a cruel man that seems to go by faster when you're in bliss, it seems.

But oh, he could wait. He had all of the time in the world. It was just a matter of time until the day where you would be exactly where he wanted. Where you belonged—in his arms.

Ven aqui. No sabes cuánto te esperé. Oh, las noches que no me dormí. No sabes qué es morir después. Oh, de estar borracho y solo por ti. (Come here. You don't know how long I've waited for you. Oh, those nights I couldn't get any sleep. You don't know what it's like to die after, to be drunk and because of you.)

[k-slla]

Caution- this fic has themes, that might be triggering to some - read warnings carefully!

Trigger warnings: 18+ONLY, kidnapping, non-con/dub-con sex, smut, physical abuse, drugging, violence, language, PinV, angst, being held at gunpoint, Protective!Ben, just a little bit of fluff at the end

Square filled for @jacklesversebingo - "Fuck or Die"

Word count: ~3.3k

For the title I used a song from Nothing But Thieves 🤍

A/n: Also, this is my first Soldier Boy/Ben fic! Hope you'll like it! :)

My Masterlist

You opened your eyes, squinting hard as you tried to get used to the brightness. You looked around in the room you were held in, panic slowly rising in your chest.

Although you weren't tied up, you still felt like you were paralyzed. Your muscles were sore and even at your best effort, you couldn't bring yourself to sit up. "Ben! Help me please!" You called weakly out to him. You tried to remember something, anything from this evening, but couldn't recall a thing. Not until Ben came to stand in front of you.

His eyes mirrored something that you have never seen from him before- fear. If you looked half as bad as you were feeling, you weren't really surprised about that. Slowly all the pieces of tonight came back to you.

Being kidnapped from your home, your safe place. You and Ben had just fallen asleep on the couch after dinner, when you were suddenly yanked up from the couch and shot with some kind of sedative. Before you passed out, you saw that they tried to gas Ben with Novichok. But that was it. You didn't see what actually happened to him.

When you started to wake up again, you knew you were being driven somewhere, but all you could see were just some light flashes from passing streetlights piercing through the cloth that was pulled over your face. You remember hearing somebody talking, but couldn't recall what was being said. You didn't know then if Ben was with you or where you were taken. Even screaming seemed pointless. And before you were moved to some new location, they knocked you out again. You faintly remember being dragged across the hallways and forced at gunpoint onto the table you were now laying on, when Ben was brought back in to fulfill their torture. Abuse. Whatever this was. And he didn't even have a chance with fighting them, not without certainty of losing you for good.

That was only a few hours ago, but it felt like you've been held there for days.

Now that your eyes were adjusted to the light, you saw that the room was very sterile looking, almost hospital like. Next to the table was some metal cart with some syringes, filled with bright green substance, probably Temp V, and different sized scalpels. As much as you could raise your head, your eyes quickly scanned over your hands and chest. Luckily you saw no cuts, but deep blue, almost blackish bruises were scattered all over you. And you prayed from the bottom of your heart that they hadn't injected you with some shit again.

“Keep moving until we tell you to stop!" Someone ordered, standing at the head of the table, you were kept on.

"Let’s just fucking end this! Is this about money? I'll get you anything! Please just..just let her go." Ben tried pleading with them.

"This is not about money. What's happening right now, is just to teach you a fucking lesson." A masked man walked around behind Ben. "You fuck things up, you get punished. You really thought that you can just kill off Payback one by one and no one bats an eye? You think they were the only ones who betrayed you? Huh? What about the Boys, who run along with you? Where's your little entourage now, when it's time to save you and your pretty little lady?" He talked next to Ben’s ear slowly, almost like mocking this situation you were in. He walked around the table and stopped next to you. Ben glared at him menacingly, as if he knew what he was going to do next. You felt a cold barrel of a gun placed against your head. "No, no, no, no, no." You whispered under your breath, trying to keep the tears from spilling.

"I will fucking end you if you dare to touch her!" Ben tried his best, but couldn't hide away the fear from his angry shout. Harsh slap landed on your cheek, causing you to yelp from the sudden pain. Before Ben could do anything, the gun was cocked and ready to fire, forcing him to stop immediately.

"You know what? I don't think you will." Another one of them said in the corner. "Cause all of this tough guy behavior of yours is just an act. Underneath it all, you are just a fucking pussy, who joined army to get some loving from his daddy dearest, aren't you? All of you Supes are just fucking pathetic. But you are the worst of all. You're in need of constant validation of being the greatest. Even that you can't get without threats. You are replaceable. You should already know that. You were replaced." He enunciated the last part.

There wasn't much they could do to break through Ben, but hurting you was a sure fire way to piss him off even more than he already is. And, hell, he really was pissed. “Fuck, no one’s replacing me, pal.”

They let out a sharp laugh. “Well, since you have that stick so high up in your ass, someone’s gotta do something about it. Kick you down a few pegs. So, we’re giving you a choice, we'll make it real easy for you-” the gun pressed hard into your cheek. “Keep fucking her until we tell you to stop or bye bye Birdie.” You started to tremble all over the body.

“Everyone in Payback just sold me out. I was a fucking lab rat for Russians for 40 years.” Ben growled. “They just got a glimpse of the torture I went through in there. I’d call it justice. Why do you even care about them so much?” Ben tried to sound unphased to their threats, but you knew exactly what he was thinking of. What he was imagining in his head of doing to them, if it only wasn’t for the gun that was aimed at your head.

You tried to collect yourself and calm your breathing. "Ben, I know what you're thinking. Don't. Please. It's okay, darling.. I'll be fine." You raised your hand to caress his cheek, but couldn't reach him.

“You should listen to your girl. Everything will be fine, if you do what we say. So, Ben, what's it gonna be?” He lowered the gun from your face, slowly sliding it over your chest.

Ben looked into your eyes and let out a trembling breath. He leaned over to you to place a kiss on your neck and whispered. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I don't want to do this, but I can't take a risk with you. I can't, I'm sorry.." You nodded and felt your eyes brimming with tears. You reassured him as best as you could. “I know, it will be okay, Ben.”

Ben you’d grown to love was the complete opposite of the racist Alpha male with PTSD that he used to be, when he first got back from Russia. He was betrayed by the people closest to him and was then tortured in unimaginable ways for 40 years. Who wouldn't have issues after that? But he learned to love and trust again. He didn't let you in immediately, hell, he despised you for quite some time. But by staying by his side, you made sure he'd know that you wouldn't give up on him. And slowly, but surely, he started to open up to you. Of course, being who he is, he wouldn't let anyone but you to see the new man he had become, but he was there.

He kissed your lips softly once more and moved up again. Your body ached all over just even at the thought of him fucking you again. You weren't a Supe. You didn't have inhumanly high pain tolerance. Ben knew that. He knew he was hurting you and that’s exactly what those bastards wanted. For him to see you in pain. But he had to keep going or they would kill you. There was no question in that. And there was no chance in hell he was risking with fighting and losing you after everything you've been through together, so going against all his thoughts of telling him to fight, he lined himself up against your sore center again and pushed all the way in. You tried to suppress a moan from the discomfort and pain he was involuntarily causing.

He gave you a moment to get used to him and started to slowly thrust into you again. “Please, Ben…slow.” you said quietly. He whispered into your ear again. "Baby, I know. I'm sorry. Just a little bit more. It will be over soon." You had a hard time believing it. "How do you know that?'' Your voice was barely audible. Ben gently moved a strand of your hair away from your face. "Butcher will be here soon." He made a tiny motion against your ear and you realized he was still wearing his earpiece that Hughie had given to him. Fucking amateurs. Didn't even check for it. It wasn't easy, but you somewhat managed to relax under him, knowing that soon it'll all be over.

He moved awfully slow inside you, burying himself deep inside before pulling out. You closed your eyes and waited for it to end.

You knew this hurt for Ben as much as it did for you. His every move was painful as hell. With deep breaths, you shut your eyes and tried to focus on the slow rhythm of his moves. Your body had no resistance to him so you just swayed along with him.

Ben swiped away the tears from your cheeks as he kept slowly thrusting. You had gotten so apathetic that you didn't even know how much time had passed. Was it five minutes or an hour, it all felt the same.

Suddenly there was some commotion in the hallway that caught the attention of your abductors. “Last chance to run, you fucking cunts!” Butcher's gruff voice was heard amongst the gunshots. All the men ran out of the room to back-up their own and were immediately met with Butcher’s laser beams. His dark laugh thundered in between the shouts from the guards. “Benji, we brought your shield. Come out to play!” Butcher called out to him. “Thank God!” Ben mumbled and pulled away from you. He tried to gently help you up.

“Ben, go help Butcher, I'll stay with her.” Annie said when she lowered herself next to you. “No, Ben, please!” You called after him, trying to get him to stay with you, but he was out of the door already. You didn't want to see him go. Not because you didn't feel safe with Annie, but you were afraid that they would still find a way to hurt him somehow. “Y/N, look at me. He’ll come back. You know he will.” Annie tried her best to get you to calm down. You looked into her eyes and took a deep breath.

“I'll be right back.” She left the room for a second, and came back with what seemed to be a bedsheet to wrap around you. “I don’t see your clothes anywhere. This’ll have to do. Can you stand up?” You nodded but couldn’t actually bring yourself to do it. Gunshots and yells were filling the hallway, amongst them you heard blunt thumps, you knew far too well. Each hit of Ben’s shield was accompanied with his grunts. “Didn’t I...fucking… warn…you?” You had to shut your eyes tight to stop imagining the horror that was unraveling in the hall. Ben surely wasn't holding back with his rage. To that followed more shouting and fighting, but in the end, only two men were left standing.

“Jesus Christ, you’re a fucking psycho.” Butcher muttered to Ben, as they stepped back into the room, where you were still just sitting on the table. Ben’s lip snarled in disgust as he threw Butcher a hateful look. “These fuckers got what they deserved.”

His gaze softened immediately when he saw you again. With large strides Ben came to stand in front of you. He held your cheek softly while his eyes ran over your body, taking in all the bruises you had. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry. I should’ve fought back for you. I let this happen.” He spoke quietly, so only you could hear him. You immediately stopped his train of thought. “No! Don’t you dare to blame yourself, Ben. It was not your fault.” You ran your fingers gently through his hair, hoping to calm him down. He closed his eyes and leaned a bit into your touch.

“Okay, lovebirds, can we maybe get out of here now?” Butcher interjected. Ben rolled his eyes at Butcher before turning to you again.

“Are you able to walk?” He asked you worriedly. You shook your head. New wave of shock had overcome you and you were shaking again. “I- I don’t think so.” He then put his hand around you and picked you up in bridal style. You clung tightly onto his shirt and rested your head down on his shoulder. You let out a shaky breath, feeling safe in his arms now.

As he walked through the hallway, you couldn’t help but notice what you were leaving behind. Who once were your captors, were now just bloody beaten messes on the floor. Any other given day, that sight would’ve sickened you in your stomach, but today you didn’t feel anything towards it.

Ben quickly found the way out of the building. The cold winter air felt sobering around your skin. Hughie was waiting in front of the building in the car, ready to leave. You slowly climbed in the backseat, Ben and Annie joining on either side of you. As soon as Ben got settled in his seat, you grabbed his arm and tightly held onto it.

No one said a word for the whole drive. You didn't even know where you were or how the others found you and Ben, but you were sure glad that they did. You felt yourself becoming more tired with each passing minute, but couldn't fall asleep. You just wished to be home.

When Hughie pulled up in front of your house, Ben guided you out of the car. You entered the house and the scene that opened in front of your eyes was heartbreaking. You were clearly knocked out cold when it had happened, but apparently Ben did show quite some resistance when you were taken.

The hallway and living room of your home were totally wrecked. Table in the living room smashed to pieces, gaping holes in the wall panels. You swallowed hard, looking around in the room, and tried to blink away tears that were threatening to spill again.

Feeling Ben’s presence behind you, you instantly leaned into him. “Everything will be alright. I promise.” He said as he wrapped his arms around you to hold you tightly. You took deep breaths in as you tried to keep yourself together.

“I think I need a bath. Can you- can you please run one for me?” You looked up in his arms.

Ben laid a kiss on top of your head. “Of course, sweetheart.” He let go of you and walked quickly upstairs. You tightened your grip on the sheet, pulling it up so you wouldn’t trip on the stairs. The last thing you’d need on top of everything else, would be broken bones. You slowly followed him upstairs, when you heard the bathwater running.

You entered the bathroom and were immediately enveloped by the warm steam and the floral aromas of your favorite lavender bath foam and essential oils.

You were honestly surprised that he even had thought about using them. Ben stood in front of you and pulled away the sheet from your body, immediately grimacing again at the sight of your bruises. “It's okay, they don't even hurt that much anymore. Honestly.” You said and looked for his eyes, to make sure he'd not think that you're playing it down for him. He said nothing and you tried to figure out what he was thinking at that moment, but you couldn't read anything out of his eyes.

“Get in there.” He broke eye contact with you and turned to leave the bathroom. You didn't understand his sudden coldness towards you. “What's wrong, Ben?” You grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards you. “Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Guess I'm just overwhelmed with seeing you like…” The words died on his lips as he ran his eyes over your body. He left the room, closing the door behind him. He left you there standing and totally confused.

When you finally could move, and lower yourself into the hot bath, you could feel the stress and tension from the night starting to leave from your muscles. You really took your time in there, giving yourself a thorough head massage when washing your hair and afterwards lathering your skin in moisturizer, hoping it would make you feel like yourself again. It helped, a little bit. You dragged yourself out of the bathroom, feeling like you'd fall asleep on your feet, if you wouldn't be able to lie down quick enough.

To your surprise, Ben was sitting on the bed, now in his green suit. “Going somewhere?” You asked, stopping on the doorway. He slowly turned his head up. “Y/N, I can't -” He couldn't finish his sentence and ended up just opening and closing his mouth a few times, clearly in search of words. You stood in front of him and took his face into your hands. “It’s okay, babe.” You smiled a little. You figured, he was just trying to apologize to you again.

“No, It's not.” He said sharply, causing you to flinch. “I have to go. I can't stay-” You dropped your hands and took a step back suddenly, so the towel wrapped in your hair fell down. “What? No! You can't lea-”

“I have to.” He cut into your protest. “You're not safe with me.” The pain that started taking over your body wasn't even comparable with what you went through earlier. You felt your pulse in your chest and it almost made you want to vomit. “What do you mean that I'm not safe with you? Of course I am!” You kneeled down in front of him. “Ben, please..” you pleaded. “The only safe place for me is with you. You really can't leave me here alone...”

“All of this tonight wouldn't have happened to you, if you hadn't met me. I am the one who did this to you.”

“Stop thinking of it like that!” Your voice was trembling. “I know you don't want to leave.”

He took a deep breath in when you got up and sat onto his lap. With fingers locked into his hair, you gently turned him to face you. “I know you don't and don't even try to deny this. Everything that happened to me tonight, happened to you, too. Please let me help you. Let me be here for you.” You pulled him into a firm embrace. “I love you, Ben, and I can't let you go this easily.” You whispered and hid your face against his neck.

With a deep sigh, Ben's shoulders slumped slightly, and you knew he had let go of his doubts and fears. Or at least, he pushed them aside for the moment. “I'm sorry, Y/N. I love you, too.” He said finally and hugged you back tightly.

You sat in his arms for a while, before you spoke out again. “I know you just want to protect me, but all we need is a better security system for the house. It seems like a 100 year old Supe might not be enough anymore.” You said through small smile.

“Not funny.” He growled and locked your lips in a searing kiss before you could say anything else.

Taglist: @jackles010378 @cevansbaby-dove @deanwinchestersgirl87

[yanderes-galore]

FNAF 1 Bonnie yandere alphabet? I love him and he needs it lmoa

Sure! Looks like I'm back to primarily writing on mobile now since things look like they're back to normal :) As a celebration, you all get an extra fic before I'm back on my normal schedule (Which is writing then immediately posting instead of writing them the day before)

Yandere Alphabet - Bonnie The Bunny

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Manipulation, Violence, Murder, Jealousy, Kidnapping, Possessive behavior, Blood, Death, Isolation, Forced companionship.

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Bonnie is one of the more intense yanderes of the original FNAF crew due to his persistence. He means well with his affection but quickly comes off as smothering. He just wants you two to be friends!

Yet you keep locking him away… which makes him more aggressive when pursuing you.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

As messy as he needs to be. He wants to play an innocent bunny act, but in reality he can get dark.

If someone thinks they can take his best friend from him, then he may just have to get rid of the issue.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Bonnie wants to care for you. Well, as best as he can when it comes to you being locked in the pizzeria with an animatronic rabbit.

He would not mock you.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

He tries not to but his actions probably come off as such.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

I'd say Bonnie is clingy which is a vulnerable trait. He's honest with how he sees you and gets upset with others around you. For the most part you can read him.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Upset and confused. In Bonnie's mind he thinks he's treating you well! Are you two not friends anymore? What did he do?

Perhaps he should try to fix this….

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

Not a game and hates when you try to escape.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

This one is shared with all the FNAF 1 members but here it is.

If he wants to keep his darling to himself he may feel he should hide them somewhere. If you keep trying to escape he may shove you into a spare suit. This is bad for a variety of reasons.

One, it's easy to die this way. Two, even if you didn't you can barely move.

That's probably the worst experience for him or any of the FNAF 1 crew.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Bonnie, no matter his intentions, will always call you "best friend" or "best pal". He wants to play with you forever and be your friend forever! Unfortunately...

Forever may include your death.

Yes and he'll cope before lashing out later. He twitches and glitches when irritated. Then, if he gets alone with the person he considered to close to you, blood may splatter across his blue/purple fur.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

Affectionate and playful. He makes songs for you and often tries to sing outside your door. Other times he'll patiently wait by your office door while staring through your window.

He just wants to play!

Why do you lock yourself away from your best friend?

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Bonnie would make songs for you and often asks to play games. He's childish with you. His courting is more like befriending.

Bonnie is friendly but impatient... test his patience too long and he may get twitchy.

A little. He has a friendly persona and a more aggressive persona.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Isolation and sticking you in the spare suit. He hates punishment. As a result he'll try to limit it. Ironically his punishments line up with the worst experience category.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

Due to the situation, most if not all but not intentionally.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Moderate patience, although leans towards impatient.

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

He'd have a hard time moving on if you died/would not move on from it.

He lost his best friend, no doubt to his own hands.

Of course he feels bad/guilty, even as a sentient robot.

A little but no.

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Unknown, loneliness most likely.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

Bonnie would immediately try to comfort. He's supposed to make you happy, not sad! As a result you're smothered with bulky hugs and nuzzles. Even though you keep struggling.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Yes, his whole character is different.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

Surviving until 6 AM and never coming back.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Unintentionally.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

Not a worship yandere but clingy enough to keep you with him, even through murder.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

The entirety of your job until you're about to leave.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

Unintentionally, yes.

[five-oh-thirst]

In Your Head

Pairing: Fox/Thorn

Summary: Fox has a hole in his memory that he can't seem to fix, and when he starts hallucinating about the clone he killed, it leads to dire consequences.

Tags & Warnings: 18+, character death, alcohol, drunkenness, hallucinations, paranoia, minor suicidal ideation, violence, whump

Word Count: 6.4k

Notes: So, this is a fic I wrote on my non-cloneshipping blog, and I repurposed it into a cloneship fic. All that I ask is that you please don't go looking for the original. I want to keep my two identities a secret. Thank you in advance 💙🫶💙

Read on AO3

Music Vibe:

Fox sat hunched over his desk and anxiously rapped his stylus against the side of his data-pad. He'd read the report five times now and each pass yielded the same results. His CC number was littered throughout the paragraphs, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember any of it.

He looked up at the chronometer again and shook his head. Time had moved, but he hadn't. He'd been sitting here at his desk doing flimsi-work since early morning, but the report stated otherwise.

It wasn't just the strange lost time that concerned Fox either, or the fact that his CC number was in a report. That was normal. What bothered him about this report was the fact that it clearly stated in paragraph four, line six, that he shot and killed a clone.

And no matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn't remember it. He hadn't moved from his desk, and yet, the timestamp put the incident at an hour ago. An hour ago he was at his desk. An hour ago he was doing flimsi-work.

Fox rapped his stylus faster and tapped his foot to match the rhythm, the nervous energy in his body escaping through the repetitive movements. He wouldn't shoot a clone without a reason, would he?

The Coruscant Guard had stunned countless rowdy reckless, and even dangerous clones, but a brother doesn't shoot another brother with the intent to kill. That's not part of their culture. Even 'bad' clones deserved to explain their actions, but those were few and far between.

It must've been a mistake–a typo. There had to be a logical explanation as to why his CC number was in the report even though he wasn't there. Still, he had this odd sinking feeling scratching at the back of his mind that it might not have been a mistake.

The clone he allegedly shot was from the 501st, from Torrent Company–one of Rex's men. Fox had sent a simple comm message to Rex offering his condolence, but Rex's silence worried him. It wasn't like Rex to leave a comm unanswered.

Fox dropped the data-pad onto his desk with a loud clack and his chair creaked when he leaned back. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and brushed the damp curls out of his eyes. It must have been a mistake. There was no other explanation.

He didn't have an explanation for the lost time, but there must've been a reason for that as well. Maybe he fell asleep. It's not impossible since he didn't get the best sleep. His caf was cold, so obviously time had passed since he last filled it.

The data-pad dinged and Fox leaned forward to see what the notification was for. He sighed and tapped on the icon to open it, and his brows furrowed as he read the new information. A surveillance holo-recording of the incident was now available and had been attached to the report.

Fox huffed. This should clear up everything. He tapped the icon to play the recording and watched intently. It was probably some trigger-happy shiny that he'd have a stern talking to later on… but it wasn't.

Fox's breath hitched and his eyes widened. That wasn't some random corrie. That was him. That was his armor. He had the fleeting thought that someone had stolen his armor and impersonated him, but he quickly realized he was still wearing it. He hadn't taken it off since he put it on that morning.

Panic rose in his gut and he continued to watch the recording. He flinched at the moment he pulled the trigger–a blaster bolt leaving the barrel instead of a stun bolt. He killed him. He killed a brother.

That explained why Rex never commed him back. Rex's emotional plea before the incident, Fox don't! stabbed him in the heart, turning his innocent condolence message into him just rubbing salt into an already egregious wound. The report noted the clone killed was ARC-5555–Fives–one of Rex's best men.

Fox only remembered the name because Rex sent him a holo-photo of his two new ARC troopers when they graduated. Rex was so proud. Then he lost one on Lola Sayu, and today, he lost the other–because of him.

Fox had seen and read enough. It was him, he knew that much, but he still didn't remember being there. He didn't remember aiming his blaster, or flicking the safety off, or giving a warning, or pulling the trigger. It was like he was sleepwalking, even though not a single clone out of millions had ever been noted to do so on record.

He found it even more odd that he was on-scene for the shooting and then left. It wasn't like him to leave a scene without getting statements or starting his report. Now that he thought about it, he didn't even write this report. If he didn't, then who did?

Fox yelled in frustration and kicked the leg of his desk. Why couldn't he remember? How could he have forgotten he shot and killed a brother? How could he have forgotten Rex's voice begging him not to? How could he have forgotten leaving his office or coming back?

Fox felt sick. Not only had he killed a brother, but he also killed one of Rex's–a beloved brother. With Rex's radio silence, he probably lost Rex too. Fox didn't blame him. Not after watching the footage. He would hate himself too, and he did.

Fox pulled a ring of keys from his belt pouch and inserted one into the lock on the bottom desk drawer. It clicked and he pulled it open, revealing a small stash of alcohol resting against the back. The glass bottles clinked together as he searched for a specific one.

Finding it, he pulled it out of the drawer and placed it on his desk. He leaned down to grab a glass, hesitated, then closed the drawer without taking it. He twisted the cap off the bottle, grabbed the neck, and tilted the opening to his lips. It was time to forget even more.

"Fox?" Thorn whispered as he peered into the dark office. "Are you in here?"

Fox groaned in response. His torso rested on top of his desk and the side of his face lay on the cool surface with one hand loosely wrapped around an almost empty glass bottle.

Thorn sighed and shook his head. "What are you doing, Fox?"

"Go away," Fox said, his words slurred and his body twitched.

Thorn ignored Fox's inebriated order and pulled up a chair to sit opposite the desk. "Talk to me."

"Nothin'... to talk about."

"You're drunk while on duty," Thorn said. He grabbed the bottle out of Fox's loose grip and set it out of reach. "Why don't we start with that?"

Fox slowly picked his head up to look at Thorn, and he struggled to keep it steady. "Usen'ye," he spat, then laid his head back down on the desk so the room would stop spinning.

Thorn tapped his fingers against the desk surface next to Fox's head to get his attention and Fox flinched at the magnified sound. "I read the report."

Fox groaned, but this time with more indignation.

Thorn crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. "I've got all night."

"You're so… annoying," Fox said as he slowly picked his head back up to look at his stupid boyfriend. "You know… that?"

Thorn smirked. "Part of my charm."

"Kark… ing… banthas… have more charm." Fox's head swayed as he tried to keep it upright. "You're ugly… too."

Thorn rolled his eyes. "You're getting off topic."

"Why… are you… even here?" Fox asked. He reached for the bottle and Thorn leaned over to move it again.

"You killed a vod," Thorn said flatly.

Fox huffed. "What... do you… know about it?"

"Nothing," Thorn said with a shrug. "That's why I'm here. To talk to you about it, because clearly it's affecting you."

Fox reached for the bottle again and Thorn moved it again. "I'm… not effective."

Thorn raised an eyebrow, stifling a chuckle. "Yeah, I can see that. You can't even talk straight."

"Blow it out your… exhaust port," Fox said, then reached for the bottle once more.

"Really?" Thorn asked, clearly annoyed at the silent game they were playing. He lifted the bottle out of Fox's reach. "If I give you the bottle back, will you talk to me?"

Fox smirked through heavy-lidded eyes. "Sure."

Thorn placed the bottle back down onto the desk and pushed it towards Fox. Fox grabbed it, sat back in his chair, and shot the last burning drops down his throat, then slammed the empty bottle down onto the desk.

"Talk," Thorn said. "Why'd you kill a vod?"

Fox chuckled. "I don't know."

Thorn knitted his brow. "This isn't a game, Fox."

"Nah," Fox said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Games… are fun. This... This isn't..."

Thorn tilted his head to the side and studied Fox for a moment. Even when drunk, Fox usually made some sense, but this particular time he was making zero sense. It wasn't that hard of a question, but his avoidance of answering it was making Thorn worry.

There was something Fox wasn't telling him and he needed to know what it was to help him get out of this slump and back to normal. Having a drunk Marshall Commander leading the Coruscant Guard wasn't going to get anyone anywhere fast. 

"Fox," Thorn prodded.

"Don't Fox me," Fox said. "How'd you… like it… if I said your name? Thorn. Thorn. Thorn. Thorn–"

"Alright, I get it," Thorn said. "Just tell me what happened."

Fox shrugged. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I don't remember."

"You don't remember shooting a vod?"

"Nope."

Thorn pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "You have to remember something? You killed him. Don't you remember that? Were you drunk then, too?"

"No, I wasn't drunk," Fox said, his agitation grew at the continued questioning. "I just don't remember!" He pounded his fists onto the desk, causing Thorn to flinch.

"Easy, cyare," Thorn soothed. He reached out a hand to try and calm him down. "It's okay."

"No!" Fox yelled. His body jerked weakly as he batted Thorn's hand away. "Is snot. I shot… a vod. I killed… a vod, and I can't… kriffin' remember!"

Thorn realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with Fox this drunk and worked up, so he decided to cut his losses and try again later. "Get some rest," he said before getting up from his chair. He looked down at Fox's dilapidated state, shook his head, then turned to leave.

"Bring me… more booze," Fox said.

Thorn turned around and scoffed. "You don't need any more of that."

Fox grabbed the empty bottle and threw it towards Thorn, but it hit the wall by the door instead and shattered into a million pieces. "Shabuir."

Thorn sighed. "We'll talk again when you're sober." He turned back towards the door and left Fox alone in his office.

Fox grumbled and laid his heavy head back down against the cool desk. He wasn't truly angry at Thorn, as annoying as he was. No. He was angry at himself. Angry that he couldn't remember what his own two hands did. Angry that he couldn't remember where his own two feet took him. Angry that his brain refused to put all of the pieces together or fill in the blanks. Where had his memory gone? Had it grown legs and walked away from him? Had it left him or did he leave it? Was that even possible?

Fox would stay lying against his desk all night if he could, but the ache in his back was beginning to overpower his drunken haze. Part of getting old, he guessed. He needed to try and make it to his couch where he could stretch out and fall asleep.

At least while asleep, he wouldn't have to think about it. That was the idea behind the alcohol in the first place; drink to forget, but it didn't have the effect he was hoping for. If anything, it only made it worse. Then his beloved Thorn butted in and ruined it further.

Fox tried to peel himself off his desk, but his body was heavy. He managed to sit up, but then slumped back into his chair, whacking his head against the back of it. He groaned at the pain and rubbed the aching spot.

When he opened his eyes, the room was spinning, and it made him feel sick. Well, sicker than he already felt before he was drunk. He chuckled to himself. The good stuff was really good. He hadn't been this drunk since he was a shiny new commander hot off Kamino.

Trying again, Fox planted his hands squarely on his desk and rocked to push himself out of the chair. He tried once and couldn't get it. He tried twice and still couldn't get it. He tried thrice and finally, he was on his feet, although he used a little too much force and fell forward onto his desk. Maybe it was better if he crawled to the couch instead of walking there. He let the weight of his lower body slide the rest of him off the desk until he was sitting on the ground and leaning against the desk.

He leaned past the desk and turned his head to see where the couch was, but he leaned a little too far and slumped over onto the ground. He groaned. This was a terrible idea. He wished he could get Thorn to come back and carry him to the couch, but that would bruise his ego into an irreparable state. No, he had to make it on his own.

With a little wiggle of his hips, Fox rolled himself onto his stomach and crawled towards the couch. Usually, it was closer, but right now it felt klicks away. Maker, he was tired. Why did he put the couch so far away from his desk? Or better yet, why couldn't it come to him?

Someone should've invented a moving couch by now, but no, the Galactic Republic was too busy making clones to do anything of real use in his lifetime. And yet, Fox continued to crawl towards his couch, cursing it every time he scooted closer. With one final push, he made it, but accidentally bumped his head against the leg. He cursed it again.

Now, it was just a matter of hoisting himself up onto the stupid thing so he could finally go to sleep. Once again, something that used to be so trivial was causing him grief. Why was it so high up? Why was the floor so far down? Why wouldn't the room stop spinning?

He wished he could steady himself long enough to get a grip, but his body was heavy from the alcohol. However, with a little more effort and a lot more cursing, Fox grabbed one of the cushions, pulled himself up, and flopped onto the couch.

Thank the Maker, he finally made it. Fox rolled off of his stomach and settled himself with his back against the back of the couch so he didn't suffocate himself within the couch cushions. Although, at this point, it didn't sound like such a bad idea.

He chuckled to himself about the thought. Thorn would kill him if he left him like that. Only his boyfriend would find a way into the afterlife and kill him all over again for being such an idiot. Although, to Fox, it was a comforting thought; Thorn coming after him like that.

Even if they tried to hide it from everyone, they were still a couple. Some days, when they fought, it didn't feel like it, but when push came to shove, there was no one he'd rather have his back in this war. Perks of growing up together and falling in love, he figured.

Fox released a wide yawn that made his stomach churn, but he was happy that his body wanted to rest. With a few slow breaths, he let himself drift off to sleep, wondering if he would wake up and finally remember or if his memory would still be adrift.

Fox groaned as he stirred from his sleep. He slowly opened one eye and saw that it was still dark out, which meant either he slept until the next evening or he barely slept at all. He didn't feel drunk anymore, so maybe he did sleep for a while; an absolute miracle.

Even more surprising was the fact that no one bothered him while he slept, which also meant Thorn kept everyone away and covered for him–the idiot. He'd need to apologize and thank Thorn the next time he saw him.

Fox carefully shifted to sit himself up, holding the side of his head as it pounded from the hangover. He hadn't had a hangover like this in a very long time. He'd have to look at the label on the bottle and get himself another one of whatever it was.

Blinking a few times to get rid of the glaze over his eyes, he looked around the room but frowned when he saw the broken glass by the door. Oh yeah. I broke it. He wouldn't buy another one of those anytime soon. Such a shame.

With a deep breath, Fox hoisted himself up off the couch and grabbed the arm to steady his shaky legs. He didn't feel woozy, but his body still felt heavy, like there were rocks in his head weighing him down.

He rolled his neck, then his shoulders, and then arched his back to stretch it out. One of his vertebrae made a popping sound and he groaned. Even though he tried to lie down in a good position, couch sleeping was still not as nice as a bunk. He needed some ibuprofen.

Fox hobbled his way to the refresher connected to his office and was–once again–thankful for the amenities he had access to as the Marshall Commander of the Coruscant Guard. It would've been embarrassing to walk down to the guard barrack's communal refresher to compose himself.

Thorn would've gotten a good laugh, though, the jerk. He would have said something stupid just to piss him off. But that was the game they chose to play because Fox had embarrassed Thorn on multiple occasions too.

Fox stepped into the refresher without flipping the light switch on and twisted the faucet knob to run the water cold. He cupped the rushing water in his hands and splashed it onto his face. The cool water felt good on his hot skin and soothed his throbbing headache.

He splashed the water on his face a few more times and then used one last good splash to smooth over his unruly curls. He patted his face dry with the towel and stared at himself in the mirror, except something about his reflection was… off.

Fox rubbed the towel across his face again, thinking he had some water stuck in his eyes that made his vision blurry, but the reflection still looked odd. He then used the towel to wipe down the mirror, leaving small streaks of water where he swiped, but that didn't clear it either.

Refusing to play with it any longer, Fox opened the mirror cabinet and grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen. He popped a few and swallowed them dry, wincing as he felt them go down his throat, and then closed the cabinet.

Hi Fox, a voice said.

Fox startled and stumbled back, crashing against the opposite wall with a loud thud. "Kriff, Thorn!" He turned his head towards the refresher door to rip Thorn a new one, but he wasn't there. "Thorn?" he called, but there was no answer.

He peeked his head out of the refresher to see if there was anyone in his office, but it was still dark and empty. It was just him; he was alone. He'd never had a hangover that made him hear things before. At least not that he remembered. Fox's heart raced with adrenaline.

Fox, the voice said.

Fox flinched at the sound of his name and whipped his head around to try and find who was calling his name, but there was still no one there. "Thorn," Fox said with a warning tone. "I swear to the Maker, I will kill you if–"

So, you like to kill, huh? the voice said.

Fox froze and his blood ran cold. He didn't just hear that, did he? The sound of another clone talking to him, yet he was still alone in the refresher. His instincts screamed at him to run and find Thorn, because clearly he was hallucinating, or sick, or dying, or all three at once. He shouldn't have been hearing voices, or at least he didn't think he should've been hearing voices.

Fox closed his eyes took a couple deep breaths to calm himself and hoped that whatever it was would go away.

It's rude to ignore people, you know, the voice said. Especially dead people.

Yup, he was crazy. He was one hundred percent certified crazy. Not only was he hearing voices, but he was hearing voices of the dead . What had he done while he was drunk and asleep? Conjured a demon? Summoned a spirit? Invited a deity to chat over some caf? The other option was that he was still plastered and hallucinating being sober. Honestly, both ideas sounded equally as insane, but did they make any less sense than him hearing voices?

"Whatever you are," Fox said. "I'm sorry for bothering you, but I'm going back to bed now."

Fox pushed himself off the wall and walked towards the refresher door to leave, but it slid shut before he could exit. He stared at the closed door and took another deep breath, then released it slowly.

He slid his hands over his holsters, but the blasters were missing. They must have fallen out while he was sleeping and he never noticed. He mentally kicked himself for being so absentminded as to leave them on the couch, but in his defense, there weren't many who would attack him in his own office.

Fox ran his tongue across his teeth and puffed his chest out before turning around to face whatever was messing with him, but when he did, there was no one else in the refresher besides himself. He bit his lip and nodded his head.

It must've been a dream. He was living in a dream and he couldn't wake up. That had to be the answer. There was no other explanation. Once he woke up, he was going to find Thorn and make him get rid of all of his liquor, because this nuttiness wasn't worth the trip.

I'm still waiting, the voice said impatiently. Are you gonna answer me or not?

Fox gritted his teeth and thought for a moment. If he answered the voice of the dead, was something bad going to happen to him? It wasn't like his life could get any worse. He was already a dog of the Republic, he'd shot and killed a brother, and he was probably the most hated commander in the GAR. There wasn't much else they could do to him.

Fox was startled at the sudden realization. The voice of the dead… a dead clone. Voice of the dead… a clone he killed. Fox's heartbeat pounded ferociously in his ears.

He took a few steps towards the sink and peered into the mirror, the same mirror where his reflection didn't look right. He was so groggy when he first came into the refresher that it didn't dawn on him to wonder what in the reflection was off, just that it didn't look right.

He stared at his reflection, and tilted his head to the side, furrowing his eyebrows as he studied the image, and then his eyes grew wide when he realized that the reflection hadn't followed the tilt of his head. He moved in closer.

Boo, the reflection said with a smirk.

"Kriffin' osik!" Fox screamed and out of reflex, he punched the mirror, cracking it. He heaved in heavy breaths and pulled his fist out of the mirror, his glove protecting his skin from getting cut by the broken shards.

The reflection sighed and sidestepped into the part of the mirror that wasn't as broken. Really?

Fox was on the verge of hyperventilating. Fear and adrenaline took control of every muscle in his body. His reflection was talking to him. It was moving without him. But it wasn't even him. He could see that now.

Fox took a moment to study the image in the mirror. The armor was white, like a shiny's, their head was shaven, and they had a goatee, and an Aurebesh tattoo on their right temple not far from a small linear scar. Fox's jaw dropped. It was him . It was the clone he'd shot and killed.

Figure it out yet? the reflection asked, sounding bored.

"You're…" Fox tried to speak, but he still wasn't sure what he was actually seeing.

The name's Fives, the reflection said while tapping his Aurebesh tattoo. You should remember since you killed me.

Fox was speechless and wide-eyed. He felt sick to his stomach. He knew who Fives was, but he still didn't remember shooting him. He never even met him, and the only images he had of him were in his ARC armor, not whatever he was wearing now.

Fox thought back to the recording that was attached to the report and remembered seeing himself shoot the white-armored clone. He had found it strange at the time, and it made him wonder why, but not enough to hallucinate about him.

"This isn't real," Fox said as he backed away from the mirror. " You're not real! You're dead!"

The reflection snorted. What? No remorse? No, sorry I killed you?

"I don't remember killing you!" Fox yelled, half in shock and half in self-defense. His back touched the hard durasteel wall and he slid down it until he was sitting on the floor.

Don't remember? the reflection asked. You shot me! How could you forget that?

Fox pulled his knees to his chest, clasped his hands over his ears, and squeezed his eyes shut. "Just leave me alone!" he yelled again, trying to make the voice go away. "I said I don't remember!"

I'm not leaving, the voice said. Not until you remember what you did to me.

"Go away!" Fox screamed. "Leave me alone!" His breathing became labored and he felt like he was going to pass out. "This is… a nightmare."

Oh, Fox, the reflection chuckled, then pushed itself out of the mirror and folded its arms to lean on the edge of the sink and stare down at Fox. Your nightmare has just begun.

The next two rotations had Fox feeling insane. The voice inside the mirror wasn't just a voice anymore. It was a full-body apparition that followed him around wherever he went. He couldn't even take a piss without that thing watching him.

He still wondered if it was the actual Fives or if it was just a figment of his imagination; maybe the subconscious part of his brain conjured it up because of the guilt he felt for killing the clone. He wanted to tell Thorn about it, but even he had limits on disbelief, and besides that, he was at some senate event so he hadn't seen him since he threw the bottle at him.

Hour after hour, the apparition asked Fox if he remembered killing it yet, and hour after hour, Fox still had the same answer–no. Maker, he wished it would just take a hike and go haunt someone else, even if it was just for a couple of minutes. He needed peace.

There was nothing worse than trying to work or sleep while it watched him from across the room with its cold, dark, dead eyes and smug expression. If this was the real Fives, then he didn't understand why Rex liked him so much. He was an annoying piece of work for sure.

However, the third rotation was strangely quiet. The apparition was nowhere to be seen, or heard, and Fox was taking the much-needed alone time to catch up on the reports he'd been neglecting since it first appeared. It must have been a figment of his imagination brought on by stress or something along those lines. There was always a logical explanation for everything, or so he thought.

Fox looked up from his data-pad when he heard a soft knock on his office door frame.

"I brought you some caf," Thorn said with a smile. "Can I come in?"

Fox nodded. He was glad Thorn was back from the event, even if he didn't say it out loud.

Thorn walked into the office, placed the cup down in front of Fox, and sat leisurely on the corner of his desk.

Fox grabbed the cup of hot, black caf and deeply inhaled its alluring aroma. "Is this a peace offering?"

Thorn snorted. "You should be bringing me a peace offering for all that name-calling."

Fox winced at the vague memory, then took a sip. "Sorry."

"Apology accepted," Thorn says. "You're still a di'kut, though."

"Your di'kut," Fox smirked.

Is he a friend of yours? the apparition asked as it appeared next to Fox.

Fox startled and accidentally dropped the cup of caf onto his lap. "Kriff!"

Thorn also startled and jumped off the corner of Fox's desk. "Are you alright?"

Fox sighed. "Yeah. Just grab me a towel, will ya?"

Thorn walked off towards the refresher to grab a towel.

He seems like a nice vod, the apparition said as it watched Thorn with interest. Is he your cyare?

Fox chose to ignore the question and the ghost.

You know, the apparition continued. It hopped up onto the desk to sit in front of Fox, legs dangling over the edge. I had a cyare once–actually two. They're both dead, now… Like me. Must be nice to have yours still alive, huh?

Fox glared at the apparition and snarled. "Don't you touch him!"

The apparition chuckled. I'm a ghost, remember? I can't even touch you. The apparition reached out to touch Fox, but its hand went straight through him. See? I'm not going to hurt your cyare.

Fox continued to glare, not fully trusting what the apparition said. Thorn was more than just his boyfriend, but this was his issue to deal with, and he wasn't going to drag Thorn down this insane hole of guilt and self-loathing with him. 

Even so, it would be great if Thorn could see the apparition too. Maybe then, he wouldn't feel so crazy about the whole situation. A little validation went a long way in his mind. He just needed Thorn to see it once, then he could feel safe again–feel normal again.

"Fox?" Thorn asked with concern while handing him the towel. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Fox grabbed the towel and patted himself and the chair dry. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Thorn didn't look convinced, but he also didn't argue.

I'm not fine, the apparition said. I'm dead.

Fox wanted to say something in rebuttal, but Thorn's lack of comment about the elephant in the room made him wonder. He turned his head to the apparition and then to Thorn, and then back again. "You don't see it, do you?"

"See what?" Thorn asked, a confused expression on his face.

"Nothing," Fox said and tossed the towel onto the desk before slumping back into his chair. "Never mind."

"Fox," Thorn said hesitantly. "I think you should see a medic. You've been acting strange lately and I'm worried."

Yeah, Fox, the apparition added. You should see a medic for that missing memory issue. Maybe they can tell you why you killed me.

"I don't need a medic!" Fox exclaimed as he slammed his fists onto the desk. Thorn flinched and Fox bit his tongue and sighed. "Sorry. I'm just tired is all."

Thorn still didn't look convinced, and he shook his head. "Alright, I trust your judgment."

I don't, the apparition said. You shot me.

"Thanks," Fox said. His eye twitched. It was hard enough to keep his thoughts straight, but it was even harder when he had two people talking to him at once and only one of them was actually there.

"I'm here if you need me," Thorn said. He placed a firm but gentle hand on Fox's shoulder and squeezed. "Even if you just want to talk."

You can talk to me too, the apparition said.

"I appreciate that," Fox said, trying to give him the best fake smile he could muster.

Thorn threw Fox another look of concern but turned and left his office all the same.

Fox immediately turned his attention to the apparition. "Can you just shut up?!"

No, the apparition said. That's the whole point of haunting. I'm supposed to be annoying.

Fox dropped his head onto his desk and yelled in frustration.

The apparition hopped off the desk and knelt so its face was on Fox's level. Just tell me why you killed me, Fox, it whispered. And I'll go away.

Fox clutched the side of his head with his hands. "I'm trying," he choked out. "But I can't remember."

It had been a week and Fox was on the verge of losing himself. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He couldn't do anything. The reports were piling up and questions were being asked. Thorn continued to pry, and he appreciated the thought, but he wished he'd just drop it.

Every time Thorn came into his office or snuggled into his arms in bed, the apparition stared at him like he was a piece of meat. Fox knew the apparition couldn't hurt Thorn, at least, that was what he'd been made to believe, but what if he was wrong? What if it could hurt Thorn?

He couldn't let it get Thorn. It could torment him all it wanted, it could even kill him if it wanted to, but he would not let anything happen to Thorn. Thorn was too good for this kind of torturous hell. Thorn hadn't killed any clones. He probably hadn't killed anyone.

There was no reason for Thorn to be brought into this. It was Fox the apparition wanted. The clone's blood was on his hands, not Thorn's. Thorn had nothing to do with any of this and Fox would do anything to protect him. He would die for Thorn in a heartbeat.

Hi Fox, the apparition said while leaning against the door frame of the office.

"What do you want?" Fox said with disdain from where he sat behind his desk.

The truth, the apparition said with a smug grin. You've been keeping it from me.

"Like I've said," Fox said. "I still don't remember."

Not good enough, the apparition said as it pushed itself off the door frame and approached Fox's desk.

Fox stood up, his chair violently scraping across the floor. "I won't let you hurt Thorn."

What are you talking about? the apparition asked.

"Don't play dumb with me!" Fox yelled. "I know you're going to hurt him to get back at me."

Are you alright, Fox? the apparition taunted. You seem a little off today.

"Get out of my head!" Fox clutched the sides of his head. "I know what you're doing!"

What's the matter? the apparition taunted further. I've never seen you so unhinged before.

"Leave me alone!"

C'mon, Fox. The apparition walked closer. Just tell me.

Fox drew one of his blasters and pointed it towards the ghostly figure. "Get away from me!"

Whoa, there, the apparition said, putting its hands up and taking a single step back. There's no need for that.

Fox breathed heavily. "I'm warning you!"

You won't shoot me, the apparition smirked. You have no reason to shoot me. Put the blaster down, Fox.

"I won't let you hurt him!" Fox yelled, then fired a single bolt through the same spot as before, on the apparition's chest, through its heart. He watched as the apparition fell to its knees and clutched at its chest. That'll stop it. That'll shut it up. That'll make it leave him alone. That'll keep it from hurting–Thorn?

Fox panted as his senses began to clear. The vision of the apparition slowly dissipated, leaving behind the image of Thorn grasping the bleeding hole in his chest. A look of pain, shock, horror, and confusion painted his face as he looked at Fox.

No. This couldn't be happening. He didn't. He couldn't. Did he just shoot his lover? But it was the ghost! The ghost was right there. It was talking to him. It was taunting him. It was going to hurt Thorn.

"Fox," Thorn gasped. "Why?"

At the sound of Thorn's voice, the gravity of what Fox had done hit him like a ton of bricks. His eyes widened, tears brimming at the surface, and his voice quivered. "Thorn?"

Thorn collapsed forward onto the floor and Fox rushed to his side.

"No, no, no, no," Fox rambled as he rolled Thorn over and applied pressure to the wound. "I need a medic!" he yelled. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I… I didn't know it was you. There was a ghost and it was in my head and I couldn't remember." Tears fell from Fox's eyes as he tried desperately to explain.

Thorn reached up a hand to touch Fox's cheek and Fox grabbed it with his own.

"I'm… sorry," Thorn said weakly. "I… wish… I… could've… helped… you…" Thorn's hand dropped as his body went limp and he breathed his last breath.

"Where's my medic!" Fox yelled, tears now streaming down his face unabated. "Hang on, cyare." He pulled Thorn's lifeless body close to his chest and rocked him back and forth. "Please, don't go. Don't leave me."

The apparition appeared once again, crouched down in front of Fox, and looked apathetically at Thorn's lifeless body. It shook its head. And to think all of this could've been avoided if you would've just told me what I wanted to know.

Fox looked at the apparition. He was still in shock.

Oh well, the apparition said with a smirk. A vod for a vod. At least you'll remember killing this one.

Tagging a few people who were interested: @brokenphoenix99

[borahaerhy]

Dealer (7) - myg

Summary: Your boyfriend seemed like a dream come true: always wanting to be around you, making sure you would get home safe, never taking his hands off you. These little comforts became your whole world, and then the only thing you were allowed to have left in the world. Luckily, your boyfriends drug dealer turned out to be a much nicer guy.

Pairing: DrugDealer!Yoongi x Female!Reader

Genre: Mafia/drug kingpin au, Y/N coming from nothing, found family, Eventual smut

Warnings: Mentions of domestic violence, some guns are pointed at some people's heads, Jimin discovers the truth

Word count: 1.4k (obscenely short I know, I just couldn't make it flow the way I wanted to. Next chapter will be longer!)

Previous | Next

Note: If you are sensitive or triggered by abusive relationships or manipulation in any way, please do not read this fic, it can be very triggering. It will also be referenced that Y/n used to self harm, and has self-harm scars. This is fic is going to cover a lot of intense topics, and there will be a lot of drugs.

“Jimin?” You lowered the gun the gun to your side before dropping it completely, a small relieved smile encompassing your exhausted features. 

Jimin's eyes became small crescents as his smile took over him. He was probably just as tired as you were, heavy dark bags under puffy eyes, a gentle aching consuming his entire body from trying to find you, and having to climb trees and go through a maze to do so. 

You were both so relieved in that moment; you to see that the only hitman to find you was Jimin: the one person you knew would help you; and he was relieved to see you alive and uninjured. he didn't know what to expect upon finding you, he'd never come face to face with someone who'd met Seokjin and lived to tell the tale.

Then again, Jimin didn't know many good people.

He stood up quickly, ignoring his aching body as he rose to his feet, arms extended as he quickly wrapped them around you. You practically fell into his embrace, the familiarity of him in a world where everything was new brought you more comfort than you'd felt in months.

"Y/n, Jesus, I thought you'd be dead, what the hell happened?" Jimin let go of you only for his hands to meet your cheeks, his eyes scanning your face lightly before he hugged you again.

"Zeke happened, Jimin," Your answer was hesitant, dripping with anxiety, your small voice sounding weak and fearful as Jimin took a step back from you as he eyed you. He knew Zeke to be a pretty shitty person, but he still couldn't quite grasp how bad Zeke could've gotten to make you leave; especially with how you left. 

"What do you mean, what did he do?" He let go of you and looked at you, his brow furrowed and eyes concerned. You gulped and looked down, hands fidgeting as your heart began beating faster.

Just take a deep breath, you thought. It's only Jimin, he wants to help

"Well for starters, I stopped being allowed to have a phone after I met you," You paused, gaining the courage to speak a little bit more. "Zeke said I was being too flirtatious, and shouldn't be allowed to have a phone anymore."

Jimin ran his hands through his hair, turning away from you to face the wall before he turned back to you, waiting, begging for you to continue, to say something that made sense.

"I wasn't allowed to have friends, he stopped buying weed from the same guy he'd been buying from for years because I considered him a friend. I wasn't allowed to have a job, or leave the house, or talk to my family,"

"No, that's not-" Jimin voice was low, his eyes never reaching yours he was in so much disbelief.

"He hit me, Jimin," You cut him off, knowing if you didn't say it now, you probably never would.

He froze where he stood. His hands freezing in place where the were running through his hair, his posture remained slightly hunched over for a second, your words ringing heavily in his ears as he slowly moved to look at you.

One look was all it took.

Time almost seemed to stand still as he looked into your watering eyes, his own eyes mimicking yours. In that split second, Jimin’s entire world view completely turned around. He looked at you and only saw the pain that Zeke had caused instead of the light that he'd remembered you for. 

And in that split second he knew he’d rather betray his entire family, leave the only life he’d ever known than ever even attempt to bring you back to the man he’d grown up with. 

Seconds after you confession, before the full weight of it was even able to fully settle in, the door that you'd been shoved through almost 20 minutes ago burst open.

Yoongi's eyes immediately fell to Jimin, and his gun's sight didn't take very long to match his own, his arm raising as he stepped forward, the chamber pointed directly at Jimin’s forehead.

Until you stepped in between them.

The cold metal of the gun met your skin as you stood between the two men that wanted nothing more than to keep you safe. Yoongi froze, his eyes widening as all the color drained from his face; and he didn't dare move.

Everyone's eyes were wide and no one dared to move a muscle, Jimin behind you, Yoongi in front, and Jungkook standing in the door, his gun aimed at the ground; and they were all watching you, waiting to see what the hell you were doing.

"He's on my side, he's not going to hurt me or try to take me, I promise," Your words were calm and clear as Yoongi just kept looking at you, his eyes occasionally darting back to the man you stood in front of. "Just put the gun down, then we can talk.” 

Yoongi took one more hard look at Jimin before he sighed and lowered his gun, moving slowly and carefully as he did to avoid accidentally hurting you.

Everyone took a deep breath, taking a step back before everyone’s eyes fell to you expectantly. 

"Jimin is Zeke's cousin, He's the only member of Zeke's family I ever really met and got to know. I didn't get to tell him much, but I told him enough; he's not going to try anything,"

Yoongi looked back and forth between the two of you, clearly trying to think of a way to make this easier, which wasn't exactly easy considering you wouldn't let him kill the hitman.

"I-" Jimin tried to speak. 

"Shut up," Yoongi snapped before he turned to Jungkook. "What should we do?" Yoongi stepped over toward the door and kept his voice down, trying not to seem completely lost.

Jungkook sighed as he looked down at his watch, knowing whatever they were going to do, they had to do it fast.

"What’s the holdup?” Jin, who wasn’t even near the room just a second prior, was now standing at the doorway with Jungkook and Yoongi, Hoseok a few feet behind him warily scanning the hallway. “Who the fuck is that?"

Everyone turned to look at Jimin, who was still too busy trying to wrap his head around what you’d told him to fully grasp that Kim Sokjin was standing right in front of him. 

This time you couldn't step in front of the gun before it met Jimin's forehead, Yoongi pulled you back to ensure you weren't caught in the crosshairs, but Jin took notice to your attempts to stop him from shooting him, so he decided to hold off on pulling the trigger.

"Y/n, how do you know this man?" Yoongi still had a firm grip on your arm, not firm enough to hurt but definitely tight enough to make sure you weren't going to go get yourself shot.

"He’s here to help me-” 

"His name is Jay Park, he's the son of the man in charge. He's here to kill all of us and take you back to Zeke, why shouldn't I put a bullet in his head?" Jin's eyes stayed locked with Jimin's the entire time he spoke, though his question was directed at you.

"He's-"

"You shouldn't put a bullet in my head because I know more about the enemy than you do, Mr. Kim." Jimin paused, his confidence taking everyone back a second, no one expecting him to have the guts to say anything. "I know exactly how they are going to track you, how they plan on getting her back, and the lengths they're willing to go to in order to ensure that happens,"

Jimin very slowly raised his hand up to his ear, pulling out the earpiece and throwing it to the ground before crunching it under his boot. He then removed a phonw from one of his pants pockets and did the same.

"They can no longer track me. Feel free to search me for anything else that you feel I might be trying to hide, but you need to know that my intentions beyond this point are to keep her safe."

Everyone stared at one another, too scared to move from their spots as they tried to keep the men from killing each other. Jin smirks lightly before he lowers his gun. He pulls Jimin's arm and pushes him toward Jungkook.

"Make sure there's nothing on him, we've gotta move now," 

-

Note: I know I said I'd have this uploaded literal weeks ago, and it was completely written revised then, I just didn't think it was long enough and couldn't figure out how to seamlessly flow into the next scene, so this is a very short single-scene chapter, and for that I apologize.

The next chapter will be longer, that I will promise, but I don't know when that'll be up. My mental state is not the most groovy presently, so my motivation for writing is generally non-existant for the most part.

I love you guys, I'm finishing all the fics I've started, you'll just have to be patient with me :))) thank you all so much for being so understanding, I'll appreciate it endlessly.

Taglist: @pamzn @fvcuidk @cybm1n @limiworld @scuzmunkie @hyunjingin @nellyboosworld @giselleg7784 @zaeve @lovelgirl22 @rosquilleta @kooliv @bangtannie7 @strawberryjimin13 @anjoellamorte @limitlessdespondency @lalaoise @roxy1205 @lavender-ivy @orangecarrotlemon @billy-jeans23  @jwlmnbt @artemis1862 @namjoonsbuspass @luaspersona @wittyreader @be0mluver  @acquiescence804 @dustyinkpages @namjoonsbuspass @damiiworld @cynicalbitch666 @rosiejunnie @dahliasbouqet @bxcndd

[catboygretzky]

can you pls explain what aftg is? 😭 everything i've heard makes it seem like a fever dream wattpad fic (affectionate)

i mean. yeah fever dream wattpad fic (affectionate) is a good way to describe it.

you got these books. you got a made up sport that doesn't really make sense. the first 3 books are from the pov of an 18 year old runaway orphan boy who lies as easy as he breathes. also his father is a literal serial killer (he is who this 18 year old orphan boy is running from)

runaway orphan boy signs with a college team that is pretty much a home for fucked up college kids. the foxes. they're bad but they just got this new kid who was the best exy (aforementioned made up sport) player in the world before he broke his hand. how did he break his hand? well, glad you asked.

you got this cult (sports team) that is run by the literal yakuza. new kid, who i will call prodigal son bc his mom invented the sport and he is referred to as the son of exy, was part of this cult run by the literal yakuza. they broke his hand so he couldn't play. UNTIL HE DID! :o

BUT WAIT! prodigal son and orphan boy have MET! they met when runaway orphan boy's dad cut a man to pieces in front of them (they were tweens at this time). apparently runaway's serial killer father WORKED for the yakuza the whole time!!!!!

(you'll read prodigal son and runaway's interactions the whole sreies and go 'huh this is very homoerotic do they fall in love?')

then u got this psychotic 5 foot nothing goalie (who has a twin also on the team)(they've both killed someone)(btw)(also he's blond)(and gay) who literally could stop the yakuza if need be and WAIT! does runaway orphan boy only know how to have homoerotic interactions with other men? the answer is probably yes.* blond goalie and runaway actually gay tho and make out a lot

also runaway gets tortured (twice) but he's fine or whatever. more murder. violence violence. some great side characters.

i'd say 'did that make sense' but i *know* it didn't bc even with my knowledge of the books it doesn't make sense.

so just like. an underdog sports story but the yakuza is there is how i'd jokingly describe it but it is in fact,,,,so much more than that.

if u are not enticed by my description and are not able to suspend all belief and accept there will be loose ends bc runaway is a TERRIBLY unreliable narrator with trauma up the wazoo, you will never understand. but if u ARE enticed, welcome to brain rot central. here are the trigger warnings.

there's also a fourth book that just came out but that's from a completely different pov that i am holding so deeply to my heart right now, cannot make fun of it

(*runaway, blond goalie, and prodigal son were originally a throuple and the author took it out but did nothing to erase how gay they all are)

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/13/2024

writing cover letters like "Market Research Firm 953989464860, will YOU be my Valentine?"

also, a fallout 4 femslash fic for femslash feb

listening

Fresh Blood by the Eels off their 2009 album Hombre Loco. i would say this is another "i think a vampire probably wrote this low, grooving track" but there are several howls featured. wikipedia says it is about a werewolf. this song sounds like it has a simple bassline and simple drums but it knows what it's about. it's probably secretly really complicated but i specced in knowing about fabric, not about music.

it makes me want to ice skate really fast and also sounds like watching broken highway lane dividers go by late at night. fascinating that the back half of the four-plus minute song is fully instrumental. definitely a song for when you are traveling, or perhaps proceeding. spotify

Sun down on the sorry day By nightlights the children pray I know you're probably gettin' ready for bed Beautiful woman get out of my head I'm so tired of the same old crud Sweet baby I need fresh blood

i've been mainlining The Black Keys' album Brothers so it makes sense this popped up on my Discover Weekly spotify playlist

-

reading

in 2015, the year i dropped out of college, the closest comic/weird nerd shit store was a forty minute drive from my house. i bought the first issue of the serialized anthology comics magazine The Island bc i liked the Moebius-esque cover by Brandon Graham, before i knew who either of those artists were or that i liked them. i think it was ten bucks, and having to show my drivers' license really sticks in my brain for some reason. the point i am slowly approaching is that the magazine only ran for fifteen issues, and i didn't buy any other copies bc ten bucks a month was too dear for me, but it was a tremendous incubator for artists i would end up loving. about half the time i stumble across a lovely self-contained book that knocks my socks off i find out it started life in The Island.

All his life, Hank Cho wanted to join the ranks of the Habsec—the rulers of the orbital habitat his people call home. But when he finds a powerful, forbidden weapon from the deep past, a single moment of violence sets his life—and the brutal society of the habitat—into upheaval. Hunted by the cannibalistic Habsec and sheltered by former enemies, Cho finds himself caught within a civil war that threatens to destroy his world. A new barbarian sci-fi adventure by SIMON ROY (PROPHET, JAN'S ATOMIC HEART, Tiger Lung), originally serialized in ISLAND MAGAZINE.

Simon Roy's Habitat asks: do you want to hear a story about a generation ship gone wrong? this is a guy who really knows how to draw mechs and all their fiddly bits and loves doing it, which is a really transferrable skill to lovingly detailing the crumbling brutalist neo-mesoamerican architecture. the Habsec cannibals and their bits and pieces of scavenged armor blend in so well, it's genuinely shocking when we see someone in full, kept up, incredibly colorful armor. gorgeous, gorgeous book. love a fucked up generation ship.

found while perusing the stacks of the library that was closest to a bunch of other admin errands i was running, bc i finally have a tx drivers license and can start collecting tx library cards

-

watching

im also asking myself why the hell i'm watching yellowstone with my bestie and her husband. it has every trigger warning and a lot of them would make me decline the experience had i looked them up beforehand. however, the inevitablilty of each little tragedy feeding into the circular threshing maw that is the Dutton family is really clicking for me. like well! that mom sure did die in the most traumatizing way possible! and wow that really does go a long way toward explaining why the daughter is self-medicating to an alarming degree AND why no one else is doing anything about it bc they're all still mad at her for being very tangential to her mom's death!

the amount of Stuff that happens per episode is truly astonishing. one of my favorite parts of the ttrpg Beamsaber is the downtime between missions, bc you get to have some really bonkers interactions with people who don't usually interact. despite its huge cast, Yellowstone doesn't yet feel incoherent or like it's jumped the shark in its first season bc it's really successful at getting its huge cast to have unexpected interactions with each other. this sounds a little bit like praising it for knowing how to be good television, but this is a neowestern about a land grab that's also a familial dynasty drama that's really leaning into the familial dynasty part of it. it would be very easy for this to become incoherent or bad at switching between storylines, but so far it's really good at it. it's not beamsaber or black sails bc nothing will ever be beamsaber or black sails but it's really scratching that itch of many small rapidly shifting factions and rapidly shifting political goals bc each child is their own horrible little faction and they have a lot of time where they're trapped in cars or helicopters together getting around their ranch, which is simply too large.

we're trying to watch the yellowstone franchise in release order, and the yellowstone prequel with tim mcgraw came out between the first and second seasons. we will not be continuing this. this is a bog standard wagon train western. cripplingly boring after the brazen insanity of the first season. also i think it is in poor taste at best and irresponsible at worst to show a suicide on screen.

i said i don't know why i'm watching this but i do know why i'm watching yellowstone, and that's bc my bestie keeps seeing tiktoks about it. sometimes im influenced in real life

-

playing

changed my sheets this week and didn't chortle at the TOP OR BOTTOM tag which is how i know im having. a brain time. another way you can tell im having a brain time are these screenshots of the Breath of the Wild map. as you may or may not remember from last week, last week i had very little of the map filled out.

now is this EXPLORED? good heavens no. i have under 40 shrines DISCOVERED. i have simply beelined to each tower and went VERY fast. or was very sneaky. the three towers i have not bothered to climb yet are the ones i would have to actually fight some guys about. fuck the akkala tower for real.

i love to accidentally get way too close to dragons and die. some fun things about this run: incredibly, exceptionally rainy. except for the stint in the literal desert and the five minutes in the snowfield it has been raining about 70% of the time, which has made climbing very annoying. another fun thing about this run: exceptionally low ancient shaft drop rate, which makes getting ancient arrows to safely kill guardians from afar very difficult. bc as discussed above i have optimized this little blond boy to be very fast and very sneaky to get up the towers very quickly in the two minute spans of time it is not raining.

another fun thing about this run: not very good at successfully spitting out riders next to horses. you can only see the tip of spinch's hat bc he is underground.

i have unlocked the elephant and the falcon, i haven't gotten much farther than finding painkillers for the goron boss and stalled out at the yiga clan stealth mission. bc despite liking being a sneaky fast sniper out in the world, i fucking hate an enforced stealth mission. i don't think i ever got past this part in my other run either.

not jacked enough to unlock the master sword, i think you need twelve hearts? i would rather have more stamina so i can get faster horses + the princess's horse.

after i unlocked a bunch of towers i spent a goofy amount of time in the Lake Floria system herself hunting for treasure chests (there are easily fifty chests in the water. wild) to get the 10k rupees to unlock the last great fairy. i also spent several real-life hours video game mining video game ore. this was deeply annoying bc i sold off all my gems to get 10k rupees and then had nothing to get those sweet sweet high level upgrades with. this was the point on sunday night where i realized i was getting irrationally annoyed with a game that is supposed to be fun, and is NOT meant to support the kind of grinding i was doing. that was enough video game for one day thank you.

did you know there's a korok in the shrine of resurrection? me either.

also did you know magnesis ACTIVATES on the windmills in Hebra but i can't figure out how to get close enough to any of them to do anything about it. annoying.

this has got to be so funny from ganons point of view. i unlocked the elephant and the falcon in under a week of in-game time and then spent several in-game months mining and collecting clothes. would that make ganon more or less anxious d'you think

making

cross stitch update. this confetti in the rover square. i am dying. here’s what it will look like finished, and a link to buy the pattern

i had such high hopes for pin stitches as a thread finishing method but i had to rip out a mistake near a pin stitch and accidentally ripped out the entire pin and single confetti cross stitch. so what the fuck. i am an insane woman who likes to fully submerge and lightly hand wash projects before they get framed to remove all the oils (yes i wash my hands before stitching, i do get paranoid) and i am not confident pin stitches will hold up to that. oh well. the loop method is pretty great in halving the number of ends i have to weave in, even though i feel like it is extremely wasteful and leaves me with lots of short useless lengths my cats would love to eat. so the gains from halving thread management are really not offset by the meticulous cat management i must embark upon every time i do my fun relaxing hobby.

and the back, which is a horror. and will only become more of a horror. but once this is framed no one will actually see it so it's FINE. i am FINE with this. i started this knowing there was going to be lots of confetti. that's the point of this masochistic pattern

i wrote the first chapter of this fic last summer and outlined the emotional beats (but not much else) while procrastinating moving and have finally lightly polished the first chapter and threw it on the archive. im trying to let things molder less and just fucking post them in the hopes this activates the writing part of my brain again but who could say what's going on up there. this is still something that hasn't quite returned to me post-covid round 2

this will eventually be an E-rated 5+1 fic fixing all the fucking bullshit around Cait Fallout4's companion quest. she will NOT go in the magic chair that tortures her into not being a junkie and being the perfect waifu. she is going to stumble backwards and accidentally into some harm reduction and get railed by a mean top. the mean top and the harm reduction won't fix her but they certainly won't hurt.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Insinuation 2.9 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

 I had been justified in everything I had said and done, right? 

Yes, Taylor, 112 fucking percent.

Maybe it was just because I wasn’t used to violence or raising my voice.

Yes, that's exactly it, now get back to asserting yourself. Even if it does mean leading yourself down the 'Warlord of Brockton Bay' career Path.

Alec grinned as I came back, but I couldn’t decide if it was because he was glad or if it was at my expense. 

Based on what I know of him from fic, probably mostly at your expense, at this point.

“Glad you came back,” Lisa told me, a bit of a smile on her face, “Alec, can you go get the first aid kit?  It might be in the storage closet.”

Lisa probably is. Didn't Taylor remind Lisa of her brother that committed suicide or something?

There was only one spot of real damage, a puncture where it looked like a fang had buried itself deep in the top of my forearm and then dragged an inch or so down towards my wrist as it made its exit.  The area around it was already turning colors with bruising.  I wasn’t sure how deep the puncture was, but I was pretty sure it should have been hurting more than it did.  The blood from the injury had trickled down my arm, and was still welling out.

I shudder to think how many injuries and scars Taylor will have by the end of this

“That was awesome, you know,” Alec told me, as he returned with the first aid kit, “I didn’t think you had it in you to kick someone’s ass.”  I glared at him, but he just sat on the back of the sofa, his legs kicking like an excited kid.

I'm not sure Taylor realized she had it in her, tbh.

Alec complained, “We all do, Brian made us all take a comprehensive class less than a week after we were gathered as a team.  Such a pain in the ass, believe me.  He’ll make you do it too.” “I already did,” I admitted, “One of the first things I did.”

Good old planning schemer Taylor.

Brian just looked at me and flashed that boyish smile again.  I looked away, embarrassed that a guy like him would get pleased like that on my account. 

On the other hand, for all the reasons that people consider Taylor into girls, she definitely does also seem to be pretty clearly into guys.

The other day someone, while making a shitty argument about what fanfic is, said something to the effect of 'brian wasn't shipped with Taylor' in Worm, which... I mean, yes, technically, because OG characters aren't 'shipped' by their own writers, but also like... I mean...

That's pretty fucking shippy text right there.

While Alec continued laughing, Brian got to his feet and ran up to the smaller boy, at which point he got Alec in a headlock and began punching him in the shoulder repeatedly.  This abuse only made Alec laugh harder in between his cries of pain.

Is Alec just a masochist, or what? :rofl: (More likely this is mostly just roughhousing, but w/e)

 “It’s a bit complicated to explain, but basically, Alec can get into people’s nervous systems.  This lets him fire off impulses that set off reflexes or make body parts jerk into motion.  It’s not a dramatic power, but with timing, he can make someone fall over midstep, drop something, lose their sense of balance or pull the trigger on a gun.”

Really, seems like the Undersiders' whole schtick is powers that don't seem flashy but can be overoptimized. That's super powerful, situationally.

Sitting a few feet away, Bitch muttered, “They aren’t freakish.”

Yes, you fucking psychopath, they absolutely are.

(Whether or not I will grow to like her later doesn't mean I like her now)

It was hard to think of Rachel by her real name.  Bitch seemed really fitting given the stunt she had pulled.  I apologized to Lisa, “Sorry.”

Right there with you. But honestly, I'm with the PRT. Hellhound works better. I would not be able to take myself seriously calling someone by the codename 'Bitch' all the time.

Lisa added, “It’s not just hearing.  It also cuts off radio signals and dampens the effects of radiation.”

Powers. Are. Bullshit.

It was like someone had taken a scalpel to reality and the blackness was what was there when everything else was gone.  

So.... Vantablack?

Vantablack.

(Also, that is quite evocative, and yet not descriptive at all, but damn if it doesn't make the point)

“Home, I guess,” I admitted, “My dad will wonder where I am.”

The only member of the Undersiders with a concerned parent.

“Taylor, if there’s anyone that’s making you make this call… the bullies or someone else, tell me everything is fine.  If you’re not in trouble, tell me your mother’s full name.”

And the prize for "Father trying his best to actually be a good dad for change" goes to...

(genuinely though, he is trying)

“Better than ever.  I kind of made some friends,” I said.

I wouldn't go that far yet. You haven't even committed any crimes together yet.

“They seem like good people,” I lied.

I mean, for a given value of 'good', it's not even a lie.

[alonelystargazer]

For the writers' truth or dare ask game: 🍄🍬🪲🧩

thanks for the ask moth! :)

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

For HakuHiro, I can imagine that neither Hakuri nor Chihiro grew up with friends, and so they are each others first real friends. Hakuri grew up in an abusive household on his family's estate, and only had his pet praying mantis as his 'friend', and most likely didn't go to a traditional school. Chihiro didn't go to school either because him and his dad were in hiding all those years, so he might have been home-schooled and never met any kids his age. They make good partners in battle but they are probably a little awkward as friends at first. And I can't imagine either of them having any experience with dating. To me, it would be pretty funny if Shiba played wingman and gave them advice on how to rizz the other up.

putting the rest under a read more

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

ngl I had a hard time choosing a character because I don't wanna be a hater, but ughhhh I guess I'm gonna go with Gojo, sorry! It's a fairly minor grievance, though.

I don't think Gojo should have allowed Yuuji to pull that prank on Megumi and Nobara when Yuuji came back from his two-months of training. How the hell do you expect those kids, who believed their friend and classmate DIED two months ago, to react when he suddenly pops out of a box all happy and dandy and ALIVE??

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

hehe thanks for encouraging me to write something! my HakuHiro fic hasn't been opened in days 😅

Three months have passed since he fled from his family and the estate. 'Exiled' would be more accurate, in this case. It took the death of that young woman with icy skin to make him realize that lifestyle didn’t suit him at all, and he needed to get away from it. A harsh lesson learned at the cost of her life, and for that he needed to make her sacrifice worthwhile.

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

I won't read most dead dove content except for maybe gore and violence.

Any untagged triggers or warnings will also make me click away, not because there's something that I find triggering, necessarily, but I think it should just be common courtesy.

Most people are thrown off by bad grammar or misspellings but I wanna be fair because English could be someone's second or third language, or someone who's just starting out as a writer. But if it does get to a point where's I can't understand anything then yeah I'll stop reading.

There are some formatting choices like no spaces in between paragraphs or super long run-on sentences with 10 commas and nor periods or long blocks of text that will also make me click out of a fic.

[cryinonthebusdyinlittlewuss]

I have such aviseral and intense fear of prison. The idea of being trapped is horrifying, but something about EVERYTHING about prison turns that dial to 11. As a kid I didn't even know wha happened in vision but I was terrified anyway, and didn't trust cops bc I believed they'd put me there. All this to say I didn't know something not actually associated with any kind of trauma can trigger someone so so badly. I tried reading Ravenous on ao3 (Izuku has like a feral quirk and a mysterious past, a vigilante deku fic that turns into a prison life fic for SOME REASON halfway through) and I had to drop it because he was not getting out of prison fast enough. I kept trying to put it down and calm down but at some point you just gotta stop triggering yourself for a good read yk. Anyway good fic would recommend but maybe not for anyone who doesn't like excessive blood or violence and obviously, prison. The feeling of helplessness and being trapped this fic gave me will haunt me probably forever amen.

[crdteezv]

Back 2 You - Hendery

Paring: !childhood best friends/roommates to lovers to exes to lovers again! hendery x afab! reader

Genre:  college au in the beginning, non-idol au, HEAVY ANGST & smut 

Synopsis: You grew up with Hendery and have been best friends with him ever since you were little. But as you both got older, things started to become more complicated. After all that has happened, can you ever bring yourself to trust and forgive him…

Warnings: !fuckboy! hendery,  HEAVY TOXICIXY, cheating(he did it tho…), lots of arguing, heavy alcohol use (he is lowkey an alcoholic…), SLIGHT domestic violence (only happened once), the reader lowkey a perv in the beginning, dirty talk, teasing, kissing, fingering, choking (receiving), oral (giving/receiving), throat fucking, manhandling, use of sex toys, heavy degradation, rough sex, slight humiliation, edging, overstimulation, unprotected sex

Word Count: ~11k words (officially the longest I ever wrote I genuinely don't know how this happened...)

A/n: I hope you enjoy this because it's one of the first fics that's very story-driven. This one is not for the faint of heart so if any of the warnings trigger you, you shouldn’t read this fic! 

Growing up, you used to be next-door neighbors with Hendery. Ever since you were little, you were really close with all his sisters. Both of your parents would have you guys hang out with each other all the time. You'd practically be at their house every weekend. He never had a brother, so he was always stuck playing alone with his action figures.

One day, you left his sisters for a little bit to go play with him, and since then, you've been closer to him, hanging out with him all the time, up until high school. People started assuming that the two of you were dating, which caused a lot of conflict in your friendship. He didn't care, and you weren't sure why it mattered so much to you. You knew that you just weren't ready to tell him you liked him. You started to develop feelings for him and didn’t want to come to terms with it. So, you distanced yourself, but Hendery, being Hendery, would constantly bother you and just wouldn’t leave you alone.

Eventually, you have gotten over everything in senior year and go back to being good friends again. The feelings you once had for him suddenly just went away.

That was until the two of you became roommates after high school.

You both used to joke about how you always wanted to live together when you were kids, but you actually made it happen. That summer after high school, you both worked hard and eventually rented an apartment together. No one in your family questioned it since they knew that your relationship was completely platonic and didn’t see each other in a romantic way at all.

Now, you were both juniors in college and were loving it, especially Hendery. Ever since you both started college, he would attract so many girls and was pretty much the life of any and all parties.

Parties weren’t really your scene, but you would go to them every once in a while. Every time you went out with him, it was like you would see a different side of him. When he is around you, he is always so calm, but when he goes out to party, he gets sloppy drunk and tries to hook up with every girl he sees. It was getting overwhelming for you having to always drag his ass back home and be the one to apologize for him after any messes he made. You practically became his caretaker always having to help him sober up after the party. So, you just stopped going to parties with him altogether. It just got worse as time went on; he would start coming home late at 4 or 5 am, and you knew that meant he was probably with some girl. Deep down, a part of you would get almost annoyed and irritated when he was out with someone this late.

Almost as if you felt jealous, maybe?

This was all put to the test when one night Hendery was getting ready to go on a date with a girl. He was asking you for advice on what to wear and how to act. You were just sitting idly by on the couch, reading a book. You heard him call out your name and walk into the living room. It seemed he had just hopped out of the shower because he had his towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was still wet, and you could see the water droplets slowly drip down onto his body. You even looked down for just a second and discovered that he had a new grown happy trail.

Why was he so attractive?

But him being shirtless didn’t make things feel awkward between the two of you because you guys were so close to each other; it didn’t even matter. Plus, whenever he was home, he was shirtless the majority of the time, so this didn’t faze him.

“Okay, so which shirt should I wear for the date? This pink one or the green one?”

He presented you with two different colors of dress shirts, and you pointed at the pink one since you thought that would suit him better. He smiled at you and walked back into his room, and you heard the door shut. You covered your face with your hands, trying to compose yourself. Tonight was a big night for Hendery because this would be his first serious date, and you felt bad for feeling this way about him. 

To be fair, you never really had much dating experience. You only dated one guy in high school, and it wasn't even a serious relationship. These days, you didn’t know why, but you couldn’t stop thinking about Hendery. Even when you pleasured yourself, sometimes he would come into your mind. You felt guilty perceiving him in such a perverted light. He was your best friend, and all you could think about was him fucking you.

It’s been 15 minutes, and he finally got out of his room, and you saw Hendery all dressed up in formal attire.

“Wow, you look fancy. Where do you plan on taking her?” You said enthusiastically.

“Oh, I’m taking her to a nice high-class restaurant that’s on the outskirts of town.”

In a sarcastic tone, you replied, “Oh, that's nice.”

He could clearly tell that you were upset with him for something. He knew you acted passive-aggressive when you were mad at him.

“Okay, tell me what is it now?” You gave him a confused look and didn’t understand what he was asking.

“Come on, it’s obvious I did something wrong this time. You only act like this when your mad at me.”

You rolled your eyes and said, "For the past month, you've been coming back home drunk and loud, making it impossible for me to sleep. I'm always the one who has to help you sober up, and it's just getting exhausting for me to clean up after you all the time."

“What? I don’t come home late every night—”

"Hendery, for the past three weeks, you've been coming home smelling like alcohol at 4 am. You're probably going to do the same thing again tonight—"

“Excuse me?” You could tell that he was starting to get annoyed, and you probably shouldn’t get on his bad side now. You got up off the couch and made your way over to him.

“Oh, you heard me the first time.”

“Okay, look, I think I seriously like this girl, and I wanted things to be different with her, and—”

“Let’s just be honest here, you don’t care about her, and you're just doing all this to get into her pants. You’re just going to have a couple of drinks with her and then come back home and expect me to pick up all the pieces for you—”

You walked closer to him, and you were face to face with him. You poked his shoulder to bother him and said in a serious tone, 

“The only thing that’s on your mind all the time is sex. You could never be in a serious relationship with anyone.”

The tension in the room was thick, and it fell silent for a second. This was the first time you had said something so harsh to him. You could feel that he was about to snap. He grabbed your hand and stopped you from poking him. The look in his eyes almost made your knees buckle out of fear.

"Take back what you said," he demanded, squeezing your hand even harder, the pain becoming increasingly unbearable for you.

“Hendery, stop it, you’re starting to hurt me—” You began to protest, but he continued to advance, causing you to retreat until you were backed against the couch with nowhere else to go.

“I won’t stop until you take back what you said,” he insisted, his grip tightening even further.

He had completely lost control now.

With some effort, you managed to free your hand from his grasp and push him away from you.

“What’s your problem? Were you actually trying to hurt me?” you exclaimed.

“No, but I don’t appreciate you basically calling me a whore and claiming that I can’t be serious with someone—” he shot back, his irritation evident.

“Because you literally CAN’T,” he continued, walking back towards you and crossing his arms, giving you an annoyed look.

“How do you know that I can’t actually be with somebody?” he challenged.

“Are you kidding me? Every other night, you come home late after fucking some random girl you met at a party. You brag to me all the time about the girls you sleep with, and I’m getting sick of it.”

“Oh, come on, sweetheart, you’re just jealous and you wish you were one of the girls that I fuck every night,” he taunted, his tone dripping with condescension.

Your rage began to boil over at the audacity of this man. Not only was he undermining your feelings on this situation, but he was also claiming that you were jealous. 

 You were at your breaking point.

“I know you did not just say that,” you retorted, your voice laced with disgust and attitude.

He looked at you with a cocky smirk, as if this whole situation was amusing to him. He drew closer until he was face to face with you, then knelt down and whispered in your ear, 

"You're just jealous, sweetie. You wish instead of me being out all the time, I was the one with you. Don't think I don't hear you moan my name sometimes when you're all pent up. These walls aren't as thick as you think they are."

Your body froze for a moment, unable to move a muscle. So all those times you were getting off, Hendery had heard every little thing. Little did you know, he would sometimes get off to the sound of your moans, but of course, he wouldn't tell you. You began to squeeze your thighs to alleviate the stress of the situation, but he beat you to it and placed his thighs in between yours. He lifted your chin with his hand, forcing you to look at him.

“Oh, don’t get all shy on me now, love. Just a second ago, you couldn’t stop bitching and complaining, and now you're completely silent—” His grip on your chin tightened,

 “How pathetic.”

It was as if his whole demeanor had shifted from before. Earlier, he was happy and ready to go out on his date, and now he was almost scaring you. 

You were in such a state of shock that you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything to him. It was as if he was a completely different person now, and you were terrified of him. He started to lower his hand from your chin down onto your throat, slowly choking you. As he watched tears start to pour down your face, he almost seemed to enjoy this.

You decided enough was enough and started to speak to him. “Stop it. You’re hurting me again—”

“Oh, you want to talk now?” he said in a playful manner.

You nodded your head, and he let go of your throat, leaving you coughing and gasping for air.

“Look, I don’t know what has gotten into you tonight, but I’m going to need you to apologize.”

“And what if I don’t?”

You looked at him with such anger and said, “Then I’m going to have to kick your ass out of here. I have no room to tolerate your bullshit anymore.”

He knew you were serious, and that he should just stop acting like this. But there was a part of him that liked seeing you in this state. He would always piss you off growing up, and some things just never change.

“Fine, I’ll back off… if you admit that you want me.”

Oh, he is just crazy.

Not only does he lack empathy for how hurt you may feel right now, he has to be so entitled even in a time like this.

“NO, I don’t want you and I don’t need you. Not now or ever.”

He just leaned back against the wall and gave you that same smirk from before. 

“Oh really? Then why do I always hear you moan my name? It seems to me that you want me—”

He approaches you again, but this time you tripped and fell back onto the couch and now you’re looking up at him. Before you can get up, he pins both of your hands down.

“And it seems that you need me now more than ever, don’t you, sweetheart?”

You felt yourself wanting to give in, and it was getting harder to control yourself. He has such a way with words, you were starting to forget why you were even arguing with him in the first place. He practically manipulated you, and you played right into his hands.

A part of you didn’t care.

“Fine, I will admit I might need you just a little bit—”

You were cut off by him as he leaned down to kiss you. You began to make out and started to feel the tension between you guys start to disappear. You both passionately make out, and he lets go of your wrists, and you wrap your arms around his neck. You felt connected in this moment and didn't want to let go of each other.

“Mhm, I’m glad you’re finally admitting it. I knew it was a matter of time before—”

You don’t let him finish talking; you push him off of you and switch positions, shoving him down on the couch. Now you’re on top, straddling him, and he was a little shocked by your sudden act of boldness.

“If this is going to work, I’m going to need you to be quiet for me—”

You slowly unzip his pants and take out his cock from his boxers.

“You talk too much.”

Something about you being so stern was making him even more aroused. He nods his head, and you begin to stroke him with your hand. You pump up and down his shaft, and he is grunting and moaning for you.

You decide to take a step further and lower your mouth onto him. He throws his head back from pleasure and loves feeling the warmth and wetness of your mouth. You begin to bob your head up and down as you see him loving every second of this. You even used both of your hands to stroke him at the base simultaneously.

 The moment is ruined when Hendery gets a phone call from the girl he was supposed to go on a date with. That doesn’t stop you, however, and you just keep on going as usual.

“F-fuck can you slow down-”

You were taken aback as he shoved you all the way down to the base of his cock, holding you in place to answer the phone call as if nothing was happening.

“Hey, I know this is last minute but—”

You somehow managed to start moving again, causing him to squirm and find it hard to speak coherently.

“Oh, I-I’m fine. I’m just a little h-held up with something, and I have to canc—”

You started moving faster, getting back into the rhythm from before, causing him to bite his lip and throw his head back. He was starting to lose his mind.

“F-fuck… I MEAN, I’m sorry, I have to cancel, and I’ll call you later, alright, bye.”

He hung up instantly and grabbed your head with both of his hands, and face fuck you. You began to gag as your throat closed up around him. You felt that he is starting to get close because his dick started to pulse and twitch in your mouth.

“Mhm, I can’t h-hold it in anymore—”

He instantly came, his release pouring into your mouth. Without wasting a drop, you swallowed it all. You felt dizzy after all that had just happened. You could’ve been caught, but you wanted to make Hendery suffer so much that it didn’t matter. You found yourself drifting as you tried to fall back onto the couch, but he switched positions, leaving you underneath him again, your face down and your ass up in the air.

“Oh, princess, we’re not done just yet. There’s still another hole of yours I want to fill.”

Goosebumps coursed throughout your body, and you were too stunned to say anything as you watched him start to take off the tie he had on and use it to tie up your wrists.

“Ah, this will be a nice handle for me to use to fuck you. Just how I could use these too—”

He gave your ass a hard smack and then roughly grabbed your waist with both of his hands.

“God, you look so pretty to me. I can already see a wet spot forming in your leggings, sweetie.”

He began to remove your leggings and panties, pushing them down to your ankles, leaving you with just one of your oversized shirts on, without a bra. Since you were at home, you didn't feel the need to wear one.

You felt Hendery start to slowly feel all over your body, groping your tits. He had lifted his hand under your shirt and began to give them a light squeeze. You let out a little whimper and started to squirm for him. He didn't like that and gave your ass another smack.

“Stay still for me, baby.”

“Mhm, I-I don’t know if I can—”

He started to twist your nipples and slowly kiss on the back of your neck. He knew exactly what he was doing and knew where all your sensitive spots were. You started to moan out for him, which just made him hard for you. He couldn’t take it anymore and stopped what he was doing altogether, positioning himself into you. You felt him rub the head all over your wet entrance, and then he shoved himself deep into you, eliciting a scream of pleasure out of you.

He began to penetrate with slow and deep strokes, gripping your tied-up wrists for support and balance. He felt that he could lose himself in you and he wanted to take things slow. But now that he felt you wrapped around him, it drove him crazy.

He didn’t know how long he could keep this up and started to lose control. You did too as you frantically started to fuck yourself roughly back onto him. You were lost in your own world and didn’t care about anything but Hendery right now. He let you do all the work for a second, even lifting his hands off you. He was enjoying the view of you being so desperate for him that you were almost using him to get off for your pleasure. This is just how you would masturbate to the thought of him on those late nights, and now you were fucking him.

But enough was enough, and he wanted to wrap all of this up.

He grabbed your wrist again and started to pound you into the couch at a rougher pace. You screamed out for him to slow down, but he was now ignoring you, using you now for his satisfaction. He was so consumed by all the lust that he didn’t care if you were satisfied or not. Then he remembered that you’re not some random girl that he would hook up with and that you mean more to him than that.

“Okay, love, I want you to come with me, alright? I don’t think I’m going to last very long here.”

He didn’t have to tell you twice. You both went at each other at a fast pace, and he finished inside you while you came alongside him. It was so much that he had to spray the rest all over your ass. Before you could say anything, you felt the couch start to shake a little, leading to it breaking.

“Oh no… did we just—”

“Oh, relax, sweetie. This couch was getting old anyway. We can just get a new one.”

You both laughed it off, and he laid you on top of his chest for a minute. Eventually, he got up and gave you a washcloth to clean you up. He even went to the fridge to get your favorite ice cream. You felt comforted to know that he does all this because he cares about you.

It made you wonder if he treats all the other girls like this.

“Hey, look, I want to say sorry for being such a jerk towards you tonight, and I wasn’t going to take her out—”

“WHAT? SO YOU LIED TO ME?”

“Oh, well… if you put it that way, then yeah, I lied. But I only did this to test you. I knew if I confronted you about your feelings for me—”

“Wait, you did all this because you think I like you?”

He was a little taken aback by your question. Did he read the situation wrong this whole time?

“I-I mean, yeah. I see the way you always look at me ever since we were growing up. Especially in high school, you just couldn’t keep your pretty little eyes off of me, even when you distanced yourself from me.”

“Oh, that’s so not true—”

“Then why can’t you look me in the eye right now? You only do that when you lie or if you’re extremely nervous. It seems like you’re both of those things right now.”

God, you forget that at the end of the day, he is your best friend and he knows everything about you. He can read you like a book.

“OK FINE! I admit I always had a crush on you. It’s just I was afraid that it would just get in the way of our friendship. So in high school, I stopped hanging out with as much  to try to get over my feelings for you.”

He was still a little surprised by all the things you were saying. You were finally confessing your feelings for him, but he didn’t know that you felt this strongly for him. He couldn’t begin to understand why you felt this way about him out of all people.

“Now my feelings came back for you since we started being roommates. I thought I would be fine, but sometimes seeing you come out of the shower and even walk around in just some sweatpants really gets to me. I—”

He stopped your rambling love confession with a passionate kiss. It felt sincere and comforting all at the same time. He placed one of his hands on the side of your cheek and lightly caressed it with his thumb.

“Look, I fully understand how you feel about me, and I like you too. I know it’s hard to believe, but I was hoping that hooking up with other people would distract my feelings towards you, but it hasn’t been helping. I sometimes imagine the girl I’m with is you—”

“WHAT? You’re such a pervert, you know that?”

"Says the one who secretly watches and gets off to the thought of me," he retorted.

“You know what? Touche. I guess we’re both crazy about each other. I’m just glad to hear you like me too. I genuinely didn’t know you felt this way about me.”

“Yeah, I’ve always known. All my sisters would do is tease me about it. They always tell me just to tell you, but I was always scared you didn’t see me in that way.”

You gave him a kiss on the cheek and smiled back at him. “Of course, I see you in that way. But what about the girl you were supposed to go on a date with?”

“Oh, I actually was never going to go through with that date with her anyway. I planned on flaking on her since I assumed this was going to happen—”

“Wait, how did you know this was going to happen?”

“Oh, please. It was a matter of time before you fell for my amazing charm,” he said playfully.

You rolled your eyes and gave him a light punch on his arm. He acted like it hurt and said, “Ow, what was that for?”

“For being too cocky. Also, you're evil for using that girl to try and get to me—”

“Oh yeah? But that doesn’t matter because I belong to you now.”

You felt your heart skip a beat at that moment. He always knew what to say to make you feel overwhelmed.

“And now our first date can be at that restaurant you’ve always wanted to go to! We should go there next Friday!”

“Alright, it’s a date!”

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

You’ve been dating for almost a whole year now, and things have been going great. Both of you always go out on cute little dates, and he treats you well. At first, your relationship had a rocky start because you found it very hard to trust him. I mean, it’s only fair since he used to be a big player. But ever since he got with you, he has completely changed as a person. It was almost as if he had a soft spot when it comes you.

One day, you and him were assigned a group project with this other girl, Lia.

Now, you always thought something was off about her from the day you met her. The way she would act around Hendery really rubbed you the wrong way. She always laughed at something he said, even though it wasn’t funny. She would even find a way to touch him, whether it was playfully punching his arm or his thigh. You even brought it up with Hendery, and he just said that you were making a big deal about it.

“Look, babe, I think you’re overreacting a little bit. Me and her have always been friends ever since high school.”

“Um, I don’t know, I’m serious, Hendery, something is off with her. Whenever I would text her about the project, she would either not respond to me or respond days later.”

He was actively getting ready to go to his friend Yangyang's birthday party. Hendery doesn’t go to parties as much as he used to before, but since this was for his best friend, he had to make an appearance. He was putting his shoes on now and he was almost ready to go. You weren’t planning on going with him because you didn’t feel so good. He offered to stay with you, but you didn’t want to get in his way because he was looking forward to the party. He even planned most of it.

“Look, honey, I’m sure Lia doesn’t like me or anything. Last I heard, I think she’s talking to someone.”

That gave you some relief knowing that now. You almost felt bad for painting this evil picture of her. He could tell how anxious and worried you looked. He walked up to you and gave you a kiss on the forehead.

“Baby, if you're worried that much, I won’t even stay long at the party. I will go and make sure everything is ok and come back home, alright?”

You nodded, and he gave you a kiss goodbye as he walked out the door, leaving you alone in your shared apartment.

Fast forward, it was starting to get pretty late and Hendery hadn’t come home yet. But you didn’t let it bother you because a big fear of yours is that you didn’t want to seem too needy and clingy to him. You called him once, and he didn’t answer and left him a couple of text messages, but he hasn’t seen them. You just told yourself he was busy trying to make sure everything at the party was going well, and you didn’t want to be in the way of that. So you decided to go to sleep at this point because you were tired of waiting for him.

It’s 2 am now when you get a phone call, but it is from your best friend.

“OH MY GOD, you need to check what I texted you just now. It’s crazy, and I’m sorry this happened to you, but I had to be the one to tell you,” she exclaimed.

“Well, what is it-”

“Look, my phone is about to die and I can’t stay on the phone for long so just look at the photos I sent you alright?”

“Fine.” She instantly hung up and you went straight into your messages with her. 

What you saw that night completely changed you forever.

It was photos she took, and it was of Hendery and Lia being together.

He never mentioned that she was going to be at the party, and all the photos made you want to burst into tears. You could see that she was sitting in his lap, and he looked very happy to be with her. There was even one photo where he had his hands around her waist, and they were making out with each other. In the last photo she sent, it looked like Lia was leading him to a room upstairs, so you already knew what probably happened next.

Hendery just cheated on you.

Not only did he belittle your feelings on how you felt about her, but he made it seem like everything was ok when in reality he just wanted to get into her pants. It makes you begin to question whether all those late nights when he said he was at the "gym," he was actually with her instead. It makes sense why she would feel so comfortable touching him in the first place. All the pieces start to come together. No wonder she used to be so passive-aggressive with you all the time and so dismissive.

She was jealous of you and wanted Hendery for herself.

Before all of this happened, you and him started to become a little more distant. You would always ask him if it was something you did, but he would always reassure you that it wasn’t your fault. You began to blame yourself for all of this happening. If only you had encouraged him to stay home with you, none of this would have happened. Tears started to pour down your face, and you were continuously sobbing. You just couldn’t believe he would do something like this to you.

Here you thought that Hendery had changed.

So you decided to confront him about it when he came home. You went straight into the living room and sat there until he came back.

Some time passed, and now it’s almost 4 am. You had fallen asleep for a bit, but you were awakened by the front door being opened. He tried to shut it softly, almost as if he was trying to be sneaky. But you turned on the light and gave him an intense death glare.

You were furious.

Rightfully so. Your childhood best friend, now boyfriend, not only cheated but broke your trust. You could never trust him or look at him the same way ever again. He gave you a look of fear, almost as if he was afraid of you. You got up from the couch and started to walk towards him.

“So, what happened to you coming home early, huh? Do you realize what time it is right now?” You said in a serious tone.

“U-um yeah, Yangyang wanted me to stay longer, and I-”

“Are you serious? Hendery, if you’re going to lie to me, don’t use your friends as a cop-out.”

He gave you a confused look, and he couldn’t register what you were talking about.

“Hendery, I know you were with Lia tonight. I saw everything.”

The look on his face was almost priceless. You had never seen him look so worried and scared for his life.

“I don’t know what-”

"CAN YOU JUST STOP LYING? I gave you a chance to be honest with me, and now you want to lie to me not once but twice. God, you're such an asshole.”

“Oh, I’m the asshole? You wait for me to come home this late to make lies and assumptions about Lia after I told you-”

You cut right to the chase and showed him all the pictures on your phone.

He immediately wanted to fall to his knees at this moment. He has now been caught, and there are no excuses for what he has done to you.

He tried reaching out to grab your phone and said, “Hey, where did you get those-”

You swiped your phone and backed away from him. When he was approaching you, you caught a whiff of alcohol coming off of him.

He was clearly very intoxicated right now.

He hasn’t been this drunk since last year when he would come home late after parties. He was clearly unstable right now because he could barely stand. You almost started to feel a little worried for him.

“Was I not enough for you, Hendery? What did she have that I didn’t?”

He gave you a dazed look because he genuinely didn’t know how to respond to this. Even he couldn't understand why he did all of this in the first place. Ever since he has been in a relationship with you, he hasn't been to any parties and didn’t have that much fun. That’s why he originally planned this one for Yangyang. But he didn’t even know that Lia was going to show up. One thing led to another, he just kept on having drinks with her, and he couldn’t stop it.

 Just for one night, he didn’t even think about you.

“Look babe, I don’t know why I did it, okay? I will be honest with you, I used to have feelings for her a long time ago, and I was even going to take her out last year and-”

“Wait a minute, the night that I confessed to you, you were supposed to go on a date with her? Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Well, I thought I was completely over her, so I didn’t feel the need to tell you-”

“Oh, you’re such a jerk. You lied to me and told me I was overreacting and that it was just all in my head. You made me feel stupid, and you said she was talking to someone else. Was that all a lie too?”

“Technically no because she lied to me too.”

“And you think that’s supposed to just make things better? You’re such a terrible person; I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

“It’s not like you’re any better anyways.”

He hit a nerve with you. You knew that because he was drunk, he was probably saying things he didn't mean, but you couldn't stay calm anymore.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, you heard me, sweetie. You’re just as bad as me. All you ever do in this relationship is control me and don’t let me be free. You stopped me from going out to parties as much, and I barely go out as much because of it.”

“Are you actually stupid? I didn’t say you couldn’t go; I just didn’t trust you because I knew some shit like this was going to happen. You’re starting to really piss me off now.”

“Then how about you just shut up then-”

You gave him a hard slap on his face. He had finally crossed the line. He was clearly upset about what you did, and he pushed you against the wall, causing one of the photos to fall against your arm and onto the floor. It scratched your arm a bit, and it was evident it was going to leave a mark.

“WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?” you yelled at him in anger.

He pinned you against the wall and looked down at you with frustration. You had never seen him this mad at you before. He had never been this violent towards you, and you were starting to feel scared of him.

He just started crying out of nowhere and tried to caress your face with his hands. “Baby, I’m so sorry and didn’t mean to hurt-”

“Get out now.”

He looked shocked and almost surprised by your response.

“If your ass is not out of here by the morning, I’m calling the police. I don’t want to see you ever again. Do you understand me?”

He instantly regretted all the things he had done to you. He knew you were serious because you had never spoken to him like this before.

"Me and you are done, Hendery."

You push him off of you and go straight into your bedroom, throwing all of his clothes and stuff out into the living room. He keeps begging and pleading for you to stop, but you ignore him; you have made up your mind at this point.

“Babe, please, I’m sorry. I clearly drank too much, and I shouldn’t have laid my hands on you. I promise we can fix this, and I'll do better-”

“NO, WE CAN’T. What don’t you understand when I say get out now? We’re done, and frankly, I just want you out of here immediately.”

“B-But where am I going to sleep tonight?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You should’ve thought of that before you went out and cheated on me. Here's all of your stuff; get out of here now.”

“I live here too, you know-”

“Well, not anymore.”

He starts to accept this outcome. He knows that nothing he could say or do could change your mind. He starts to make his way over to the front door and gives you a look of guilt. He really messed up this time; he was not only losing his girlfriend but his best friend.

“Oh, I know it’s too late to say this, but happy one-year anniversary.”

Holy shit.

You lost track of the time, and you realize that today was indeed your one-year anniversary with him. The fact that all this had to happen on the day of your anniversary makes everything even more painful. He closes the door behind him, and you never see Hendery ever again.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Seven years had passed, and you had established yourself in your career. You got a job offer that brought you back to your hometown. Three months into this new job, you had become close with your coworkers, who invited you out for drinks to celebrate. Excited for a night out, you dressed in your favorite outfit and headed to the bar, catching an Uber to meet your colleagues.

Little did you know, Hendery happened to be at the same place too. At first, he didn't notice you until Yangyang pointed you out.

"Hey, isn't that-"

"Yeah, it is her. I haven't seen her since we broke up. She looks so different now."

"Dude, I know. You were stupid for cheating on her in the first place."

“Tell me something I don’t already know. We probably would have still been together now if I wasn’t such an idiot."

As time passed, he began to miss you and being in a relationship with you. He longed for your company and missed all the time you had shared. Every day, he regretted hurting you and wished he could’ve fixed the relationship.

“Well, I don’t think it’s too late to properly apologize. Besides, that was years ago, I’m sure she is probably over it by now.”

“Oh, I know for a fact she is not. I really broke her heart, and she is not just going to move on from that.”

You were not over it. You still get triggered when you think of him. Even now, you don’t want to forgive him at all.

But another part of you still missed him.

You often imagined how life would have been if he never cheated. You envisioned feeling happy and fulfilled being with him. But he made his choice, and it was to not be with you.

“I wish I could just-”

He stopped as he noticed you laughing with one of your male coworkers. You were sitting pretty close to him and looked like you were really intoxicated. You were pretty much a lightweight and tended to get pretty “friendly” when drunk.

Hendery felt a little jealous seeing you with someone else. But he knew you guys haven’t been with each other in a very long time, so of course you would move on from him. It still hurts to see you with someone else.

“Dude, you're staring way too hard at her,” Yangyang said.

“No, I’m not,” Hendery replied as he looked away from you.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”

"So much," Hendery replied with a sigh.

“Listen, I say you go talk to her and try to work things out. Even if she doesn’t forgive you, give her a better apology than before.”

He was right.

The night you and Hendery broke up, he was too intoxicated to even give you a proper apology.

“You know what? You’re right. I’m going to talk to her right now-”

“Woah, do you really think it’s a good idea? She looks pretty occupied now, and maybe you should talk to her after-”

“No, it has to be now. What if I don’t get an opportunity like this again? This is my sign to do it now.”

Yangyang nodded his head as he watched how Hendery made his way over to your table.

As he approached you, your whole demeanor started to change. You went from being carefree and happy to anxious and irritated.

“Unbelievable. I thought I never had to see your face again,” you said in a harsh but serious tone.

All your coworkers at the table noticed the shift in your behavior. They had never seen you so angry before.

“Look, I don’t want to take too much of your time, but can I-”

“Can you what? Make a fool out of me for the 2nd time now? Not in front of my friends. I would appreciate it if you leave now.”

Things started to get uncomfortable not only for you but also for your coworkers.

“It will just take like 5 minutes. Can we please just talk-”

“What is there to talk about? Just leave me alone. You’re pissing me off even more than before."

The guy sitting next to you noticed how your body was starting to shake a little. He didn’t know why the two of you broke up, but he saw that he was making you feel uncomfortable. So, he decided to do something about it. He sat up and placed a hand on Hendery's shoulder.

“Hey man, just back off, alright? She clearly doesn’t want anything to do with you. So I suggest you—"

Before things escalated, Yangyang intervened to break up the altercation between your coworker and Hendery before things got messier.

"Sorry to interrupt, guys, but let's just step away for a moment," Yangyang said, attempting to defuse the situation.

"Wait," you exclaimed.

Everyone at the table turned their attention to you, curious to hear what you had to say.

"Um, that won’t be necessary, Yangyang. I'll hear Hendery out and see what he has to say," you announced.

Your coworkers were shocked by your decision, and the one who had tried to defend you earlier asked if you were sure about it. You nodded in response.

Yangyang stepped away, and you followed Hendery to a table in the back where your conversation wouldn't be overheard.

Hendery stared at you, struggling to find the right words. You were just as beautiful and intimidating as ever. 

“Uh, are you going to say anything to me or just keep on being a creep?” you asked.

He let out a soft chuckle and said, “Nah, it's just you're still so pretty, and you look so different now.”

“Yeah, it's because I've been happier since we broke up.”

“Ouch, okay, I deserve that. Look, what I did to you was so wrong, and I don’t know how I can make it up to you. I'm seriously sorry for—”

“Oh, don’t act like you care now. You know, after we broke up, a small part of me was waiting for you to come back to try and make things right, and I hated myself for feeling that way. To have given you the benefit of the doubt, but you know what you did instead?” 

He looked worried about what you were going to say next.

“You decided to go back to your old ways and sleep with every girl you see, and you didn’t even try to text or call to give me a proper apology. It’s almost as if you wanted to find a reason to break up with me so you could go back to being a whore again.”

Hendery was a little hurt and taken aback by what you said. He knew you were a little buzzed and tended to speak bluntly because of it.

He hated that you were right about everything.

“Okay, you’re right. I was being childish, and you have every right to hate my guts right now. But that's why I want to make things right between us—”

“Make things right? Are you serious? You made me feel stupid all these years, I thought that I did something wrong and I wasn't enough for you. You made it seem like I was the problem.”

“Listen, I know none of this is okay, and you don’t have to forgive me. I just want you to hear me say that I’m sorry.”

You started to get up and said, “Well, you should’ve told me that seven years ago.”

He stopped you from walking away, grabbed your wrist, and said, “Look, I shouldn’t have cheated on you, and I should’ve just communicated how I was feeling about you. Instead, I was too much of a coward to say anything. I am a different person now.”

You rolled your eyes, as if you were going to believe anything he said. He was just saying this so he could find his way back into your life.

“Yeah, right? You've changed?”

You sat back down in your chair and crossed your arms at him.

“Actually, I have. I stopped drinking so much that I only do it on occasion now. I even went to therapy, and it really helped me out a lot. Probably the best thing I could’ve done for myself.”

He said this with such conviction, and it seemed genuine. He maintained eye contact with you, and that’s how you know he was telling the truth. Whenever he lied, he could never look at you in the eye.

You were starting to believe him.

Maybe you were being too harsh on him. It had been over seven years since you last saw each other, and people can change in that amount of time.

Even someone like Hendery.

You finally started to come around and cracked a little smile.

“Fine, I guess you have changed. The old you wouldn't have tried this hard to apologize to me.”

He was shocked when you initially turned around and decided to forgive him after all this time.

"So, do you forgive me?" he asked.

You were a little hesitant at first but decided to nod your head yes. He let out a sigh of relief as if a weight was being lifted off his chest.

“I forgive you, but it will take some time for me to accept you back into my life. I mean, we were really good friends, and you messed up our friendship as well.”

“I know, and I want to apologize for that too. My sisters would come after me for being such an idiot.”

“Oh yeah, how are your sisters? I haven’t talked to them in so long since I moved away.”

“They’re good! They always hoped that we would someday be good friends again!”

You guys began to catch up more, and it was starting to get pretty late. Your coworkers approached you and asked if you were coming with them, and you said you were going to stay back and talk with Hendery some more. As time went on, Yangyang had left too because he didn't want to interrupt what was going on between you two.

It was now midnight, and you had no ride home.

“Hey, I have no problem taking you home. Unless you’re not comfortable with that—”

“No, I don't mind. I don’t live too far away, so you can drop me off.”

He nodded, and you got into his car and sat in the passenger seat. You guided him on how to get there. Suddenly, it started to rain really hard, and it was getting harder for him to maneuver his way around. Eventually, you arrived at your place. You offered him to come inside, just until the rain started to dial down. He agreed, and you both ran inside into your apartment building. You made it into your room and put all your stuff down.

You were so focused on getting inside that you didn’t realize how Hendery's clothes were drenched in the rain, and his hair was wet. His wet clothes were clinging to his figure, making you see the outline of his body. He pushed his long hair back to stop it from covering his face.

Why were you still so attracted to him?

“Hey, your clothes are very wet. I can put them in the dryer for you.”

"Aw, thanks, I appreciate it."

He starts to take off his shirt, but you stop him.

"Whoa, you don’t have to do that in front of me. Just go to the laundry room, and I'll find you a t-shirt or something."

"Oh, please, don’t act like you've never seen my body before. It's just like when we were roommates, right?"

"Yeah, but it’s different now... just go put your clothes away."

He agreed and put his clothes in the dryer. You gave him one of your baggy shirts to wear while he waited. You sat on the couch and got comfortable, keeping a normal distance from each other. You talked more about life and what you've both been up to since being apart.

"So, whatever happened to Lia? How long did that last?" You said playfully, knowing their relationship was bound to end.

"We didn’t even last a week."

You started laughing hard, and he chuckled a bit too. You both knew he never actually liked her and just jumped at the first opportunity he had.

"Of course, it didn’t. What happened with that?"

"So, apparently, I was too 'boring' for her, and she wanted to be with someone more fun."

"That’s so stupid. God, I really never liked her. Still don’t know how you tolerated her."

It was crazy how you both went right back to the way things were. It felt purely platonic between the two of you, and you could freely talk about anything. It didn’t feel weird or awkward at all. You both were mature about the situation.

"So, what about you? I'm sure you dated some guys after we broke up."

"Surprisingly, not really. I had to heal and work on myself afterward. I didn’t meet anyone until after I graduated. I tried hookups, but they didn’t really help. So, I waited to be in a relationship with someone, and I did."

Hendery was very curious about what you meant by that.

"So, what happened with him?"

“So, the relationship ended a couple of months ago, and it was pretty off and on. We just weren't going to work out since I had to move back here. We didn’t want to do long distance, so we just broke up.”

You were so deep into the conversation that you didn’t notice how close Hendery sat next to you. He was only a knee's length away. He patted your shoulder and said, “Dang, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Ah, it’s alright. It was completely mutual, and yeah, it still hurts me a little. That’s why I went out with my coworkers to drink tonight, to try and ease the pain.”

“Wait, really? Now I feel even worse. I ruined your night out by dumping myself back into your life—”

You grabbed onto his arm and said, “Oh no, you didn’t ruin anything. Actually, a part of me is glad you did that. I missed having my best friend in my life.”

He smiled and got up from the couch, walking around your place a little bit. He looked at all the pictures on your wall and noticed the cracked photo frame that he broke the night of your breakup. It was a photo of you and him when you were kids.

“Whoa, you still have this? I can’t believe I hurt you that night. I really shouldn’t have done that.”

You got up and made your way over to him, replying, “Yeah, it’s fine. Plus, I struggle to let go of things, so I've kept it ever since. Also, look, the scar is still there too.”

You lifted up your sleeves and showed your arm to him. He had a guilty look on his face, and all this just made him feel even worse. He still couldn’t believe that he put his hands on you. Even though the scar was just a little scratch, he still felt terrible. He looked over to another photo, and it seemed to be a photo of you and your ex. He picked it up and said, “I’m assuming this was him?”

“Yeah, I tell myself I will get rid of it, but I just can’t bring myself to do it, you know?”

Hendery knew exactly what you were talking about. He still had photos of the two of you when you were dating. He looked back on them every now and then to reminisce on all the good memories you had together. He knew that you were in a vulnerable state in your life right now. You broke up with your boyfriend a long time ago, and you’re still trying to cope with it.

But, he couldn’t stop thinking about how much he wanted you right now.

He feels terrible, but he can’t help it. You were wearing an off-the-shoulder baggy shirt with some shorts. He just couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. He felt like such a creep for having such lewd thoughts about you, and he didn’t know how long he could take it anymore.

"So, where's your room?"

"Nice try, but that's not going to work on me."

"What are you talking about? You're the one making it weird. I just asked a simple question."

Maybe he was right. You had been in your head a lot recently, and you tended to overanalyze things. He just wanted you to give him a little tour of your new place. You led him into your room. He saw that you kept it very simple, and instead of having lights on, you had candles lighting up your room. You both decided to chill there and play some music. Then, you started to talk more about life and didn’t even realize you were both lying side by side with each other on the bed. He then noticed a mysterious box you had next to your bedside table.

"Hey, what’s in that box next to you?"

You began to panic and forgot to put it away in your drawers. You couldn’t think of an excuse off the top of your head, and you said, “Oh, it’s nothing, you just reminded me to put it away-”

"Okay, now I know you’re lying to me because you always stumble on your words when you do that. Let me see it."

He tried to reach over you to get it, but you stopped and started to play fight with him. You were trying to push him back enough so you could secretly hide it somewhere when he wasn’t looking. You don’t know how this happened, but he is now on top of you and pinned your hands above your head with one of his hands. You were squirming under him and started to laugh at your struggle.

"Let go of me now."

"Aww, but where's the fun in that? Let’s see what you’re hiding in here."

He grabbed the box and opened it, and to his surprise, he saw what you were trying to hide so desperately.

All of your sex toys.

When you were together, you never really had any, probably just one or two. But this box was filled with so many things, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

"Wow, I didn’t know you liked all of this."

You started to become embarrassed by this situation, and the position you were in wasn’t making it any better.

“L-look, it’s not what y-you think. I-”

“Oh, don’t try and explain yourself now, sweetie. I knew secretly you were probably into a lot of things.”

He knelt down to your ear and whispered, “But I couldn’t ever imagine you being this much of a slut.”

Shivers ran down your spine as you felt your body go limp. It’s been forever since he talked to you like this before. It was as if his whole demeanor had changed, and he was starting to get serious.

“Well, people change, you know? I’m not the same person you used to be,” you said in a flirtatious manner.

He felt himself start to become hard for you. The way you looked so fragile and weak under him, with you pinned down with one of his hands, was really doing something to him.

He couldn’t hold himself back anymore.

“Oh, really now? I want to see this new version of you, so let me just-”

You had some handcuffs in the box, and he decided to cuff you to the headboard of the bed.

“U-um, what are you doing? I don’t think we should-”

“Come on, baby, don’t act like you don’t miss this. I mean, look at you down there?”

He took off your shorts, and he saw a wet spot formed in your panties. You were too embarrassed to say anything.

“Mhm, don’t act all shy now. This is only just the beginning. Let’s try using this on you-”

He lowered your underwear down past your ankles, and now you’re left in nothing but your t-shirt. He grabbed one of your vibrators and started to use it on you. You let out a loud moan from the sudden sensation you were feeling on your clit.

“P-please, slow it d-down-”

He brought it a level higher than before and started to laugh at you. He enjoyed seeing you trying to keep it together.

“God, you look so pathetic right now, and it’s actually kind of cute.”

You started to tense up a bit from his words. He started to spice things up by shoving one of his fingers into your aching pussy. You let out a loud scream and quickly covered your mouth with his other hand.

“Shh, baby, you don’t want your neighbors to find out what’s going on here. I need you to be good for me and try to keep your voice down,” he said in such a calming tone that it was starting to put you at ease. But you spoke too soon, and he added a second finger into your cunt. He was thrusting into you at a rough and hard pace. Tears started to form in your eyes as you bit your lips to hold back your moans.

“F-fuck, if you k-keep this up I’m going to-”

“I know, so why don’t you cum for me, okay?”

You nodded his head as he set your vibrator to the highest setting and continued fingering you at a rougher pace. When you came, he removed the toy and his fingers, then used his mouth to clean everything up. This took you a little off guard, but you felt satisfied.

You couldn’t believe this was happening right now.

He took off your handcuffs, and you felt like you were going to pass out. But Hendery took off his shirt and lowered his sweatpants down to his knees. You could see his hard-on protruding through his boxers, clearly aroused by you.

“Oh, we are not done yet, sweetheart. I’m not fully satisfied yet, and I can’t hold back anymore.”

He took off your shirt, and your chest was exposed to him. You felt the cold air on you, and that made your nipples start to perk up.

“You look so pretty, how can I ever resist you?”

He grabbed both of your legs and placed them over his shoulders, shoving his cock into you. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, and you let out a loud moan. He wasn’t slowing down either. He was desperate for you, pounding into you with a rough and hard pace. He lowered his head to your chest and started to kiss all over your tits. He couldn’t help himself, and he had been wanting to do this to you all night. He started sucking on one of them while groping and squeezing the other with his hand. Then, he switched and repeated the same actions on the other boob. You were practically seeing stars at this point and didn’t know how long you could last.

“P-please, I-I don’t know if I can-”

“Yes, you can. You've done it before in my mouth, and now I want you to cum all over my cock.”

He was being so blunt, and he knew exactly what he wanted from you. He began thrusting aggressively into you and wrapped his hand around your neck. He felt you tighten up when he started to choke you, and he took note of that.

“Aww, you like this, don’t you, baby? You’re so needy for me, it’s adorable.”

There he goes again, making you feel all flustered for him. It was starting to become humiliating for you.

“Ah, shit, I’m going to cum soon. Do it at the same time with me, please,” Hendery exclaimed.

You nodded your head, and he went faster than before. The headboard of your bed was aggressively hitting the back of your wall. You knew for a fact that your neighbors were hearing all of this right now. But you didn’t care. You were lost in your own world with him, and nothing else mattered to you right now. You both started to be loud for each other and you eventually both finished at the same time. He was bottoming out inside of you and didn’t stop until he was satisfied.

You both fell back, side by side. Looking up at the ceiling, you started to question if this was really happening. Secretly, you both had thought about this before. Hendery turned to face you and said,

“Hey, I wanted to say I’m sorry for putting the moves on you this fast. I mean, you're still recovering from a breakup and-”

You stopped him from talking by kissing him. He was a little startled by this, but he wrapped his arm behind your waist and brought you closer to him.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything. Tonight was amazing, and it was the first time in a very long time I had someone make me feel this good.”

“So what about your ex?”

“Well, he was… interesting to say the least.”

“He didn’t make you cum sometimes, huh?”

You punched his arm playfully and began to laugh. “Yeah, he wouldn’t, and sometimes it was so bad I had to imagine it was -”

Shit, why did you have to say that? You were practically delirious because not only were you still trying to process what just happened, but it was 3 am, and you said anything that came to mind since you were very tired.

“Wait, what?”

“Uh, nothing…”

He grabbed your chin and had that condescending look on his face. “Come on, honey, tell me what you were going to say.”

You felt flustered again and said, “Fine, I sometimes would think about you so I could finish afterward.”

“Oh wow, to be honest, I would sometimes think about you too.”

You playfully slapped his arm and said, “Pervert.”

“Says the one who used to secretly watch me all the time.”

“Touche.”

You both laughed it off and cuddled for the rest of the night. You wondered what happens next from here. You both still have feelings for each other and didn’t want to walk away from this.

“So, how do you want to take things from here?” You said.

“Well, I don’t want you to feel pressured to do anything. If you just want this to be it, I’m completely okay with that.”

“No, I missed what we had, and I don’t want this to be the end.”

“So, what are you saying?”

You sat up from the bed, and he did the same as well. You crossed your legs and faced him in his direction. You grabbed his hands and looked at him, saying, “I want us to get back together.”

Hendery had a worried look on his face.

“Are you sure about this? I really hurt you last time, and I don’t want to cause you any more pain.”

“I’m completely sure now, and I know you've changed since the last time we saw each other.”

He nodded his head and gave you a kiss on the lips. He spent the night at your place, and from that point on, you took things slow. You were both just happy that in the end, you found each other again…

[sojourner-between-worlds]

Rather than subject myself to the Complete Humiliation of posting old things anew on ao3 but since judging from that poll I made ages ago now that ya'll just as desperate for content as I am, lol, I have decided to link all of my old Yugioh 5Ds fics here, complete with short (spoiler-free!) commentaries about what you can expect from these ancient monstrosities. (Yes, the links are to ffn; don't complain about ads if you still aren't using an adblocker in the year 2023.)

Under the cut since there are quite a few and commentary doesn't help make it any shorter of a post, lol.

General Notes: **Posted in FFN publication order; fics posted on deviantArt at an earlier date have that noted. **The earliest fic is 13 years old. I won't tell you how old I was but... it was much younger than now, lol. I was 16/17 okay? A Baby. **As stated above, commentary is spoiler-free so feel free to read that before clicking through (actually, I'd recommend it; there are trigger warnings on a several of them that appear in those notes). **I had not seen the sub at all/ all the way through at the time, so all names/terms are from the dub. Similarly, some details may also be different. **Feel free to laugh at all of these, but please laugh about them here on tumblr and not on FFN. If you leave me a comment over there, I won't know you came from here and that it's in good faith instead of just being mean-spirited. (Or, if you feel you must comment there, at least tell me you came from this post. But I would love to interact over them and I probably won't do that with FFN comments.) Feel free to laugh (because God knows I did while re-reading some of these), but let me laugh with you.

Proceed at your own risk.

A Secret Kept Originally Posted: April 7, 2011 (First posted on dA -Aug 14, 2010) Summary: When questions of his past surface, Yusei uncovers a 20-year-old secret that someone will do anything to keep hidden - even if it means murder! Length: 22 chapters (~36.5k words) Commentary: -- This was originally posted in three parts on dA but was combined for ease of subbing on ffn. -- Trigger Warnings: ya know, murder if that wasn't clear in the summary, lol; gun violence (in relation to the murders), vehicle accidents, dubious science -- Don't ask me what I was on when I named OCs, okay? I don't know. Pretty sure in my head "Kale" was not pronounced like the leafy green stuff, lol. Maybe there was supposed to be an accent on the 'e'? I don't know so don't ask. (I'm laughing about this, okay? Feel free to laugh too.) -- There's one chapter early on that gave me second-hand embarrassment so hard that it is the reason I am not posting these on ao3 at this time. I contemplated cutting it out but then realized I couldn't because, as terrible and cheesy as it is, it's too relevant. Just. Just keep that in mind. -- Medical Inaccuracies. Because I was Young and it makes for better drama. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. It's so terrible. It killed me ten times over. I am so sorry. -- I had zero concept of the layout of the garage apartment. But, then again, I feel like most people don't, lol. -- The timeline is waaaaaaay off in places. Whoops. In my defense, streaming as a whole was pretty new at the time and I didn't have a way to re-watch episodes yet except pirating, which, you know, I had to do for the last 20 anyway, but I digress, lol. -- I have nothing to say about the plot except: Yeah. It gets Weird in places. The resolution is also Weird. Probably not any Weirder than the sequel, though, honestly. (....or any weirder than some of the things that happen in canon, for that matter.)

Changing the World Originally Posted: April 25, 2011 (First posted on dA -Sept 11, 2010) Summary: Crow is fed-up with the way Kalin is running the Enforcers! What happens when he walks away? Length: 4 chapters (~4k words) Commentary: -- Slightly canon-divergent but still fits in the overall narrative. -- Trigger Warning: suicide (It wasn't actually suicide but you don't even find that out in this fic, so.) -- Why did I ever think first-person POV was a good idea? It is not. -- Very loosely tied to both a collab listed below (A New Hope) and Angels and Devils but not truly necessary to read this one first. (Its connected by one name and one event. That's it. That's all. lol) -- I started rereading this one and then Did Not. Make what you will of that.

Shattered Soul Originally Posted: May 1, 2011 Summary: Yusei has always been the quiet, almost shy one of the gang. Jack is the one to explain why this is since only he, Martha, and Dr. Schmidt know the truth. Some reasons were never meant to be understood... and this is one of them. Length: 12 chapters (~21k words) Commentary: -- Trigger Warnings: semi-graphic depictions/descriptions of child abuse, graphic self-harm, gang violence and murder (mentioned) -- The second half of this fic was entirely unplanned when I started, so there is an abrupt shift in story-telling about half way through. -- The timeline doesn't quite match up correctly with canon, but I'm just gonna blame that once again on not really having a way to rewatch episodes back then, lol. -- This one actually got a sort-of one-shot re-write, lol. The re-write ended up almost entirely different, but this was where that idea came from. (You can actually read that one on ao3 because it's pretty recent.) -- If I were to actually fully re-write this one in the future (I never will), I would absolutely not format it like this. The format is pretty terrible, and some things should just...not have been written the way they were, lol. (Please excuse the info dump that is chapter 4, for example.) -- This one is also loosely tied to the collab listed below (A New Hope) but not necessary to read first since we didn't actually get that far into the collab for it to make a difference. Just a fun fact for you. (There was an unresolved plot point that was intended to resolve in the collab, but we didn't get that far. So if you read this and wonder about something, yeah it was probably that, lol.)

Scattered Memories Originally Posted: June 7, 2011 Summary: 50 Yugioh! 5D's related one-shots and drabbles. Length: 18 chapters (~14k words) Commentary: -- Clearly this is not 50 chapters. I never finished it because I started writing for a different fandom and lost interest. Ironically, I also started a theme challenge for that fandom as well that I never finished (though that was because my hard drive crashed and I lost the list, lol). -- I did not reread this one since it is just one-shots. There's nothing terribly memorable about them that bares mentioning, however, so... make what you will of that.

Chain Reaction Originally Posted: June 23, 2011 (First posted on dA -Dec 28 2010) Summary: If you had the power to change the past, would you? This is the question Yusei receives from a mysterious stranger. Will he accept the invitation to stop Zero Reverse from ever happening? Length: 10 chapters (~18.5k words) Commentary: -- Ye old cringey "what if"/alternate timeline fic. Except it doesn't actually happen. And nothing is explained at the end. -- I read about the first page and noped out of it. Maybe it gets better, hard to say. Let me know if it does if you actually dare to read it, lol. So unfortunately I can't really warn you about anything since I haven't read it in who knows how long. Sorry. You're on your own on this one, folks. -- (I do remember it being fun to write, but that doesn't really mean much. I'm sure I had fun writing all of these, after all, lol.)

The Camping Bet Originally Posted: June 26, 2011 Summary: What starts out as an argument between Jack and Crow turns into an all-out bet, guys vs. girls! The guys don't think the girls can last in the wilderness without electricity and running water; the girls think likewise of the guys. Who will win the bet? Length: 8 chapters (~12.5k words) Commentary: -- I only wrote about the first half of this one, so when there's an abrupt shift in writing style, that's why. Debated not including it, but I still like the premise honestly, and it was a lot of fun to write. -- Features my former best friend's OC, Elodie Kumari. You don't really need to know anything about her for this fic, though. Except that she's dating Crow? I think? I didn't reread this one, either. -- Incorrect geography. I did not look up places in Japan. I used the Boundary Waters in MN, USA, because I've been there. I have no regrets about this, however. -- I did skim the first chapter, but since I didn't re-read it in full, I apologize that I can't alert you to anything weird. Like replacing all of the 's's with 'z's in Sherry's dialog since she's French. I'm sure that seemed like a good idea at the time... *shrugs*

Darkness Before Dawn Originally Posted: Sept 24, 2011 Summary: Sequel to A Secret Kept. The worst has happened: Yusei is dying and the doctors can't figure out why. Now the gang must call on an old enemy for help… But will he be able to help? Will the gang find out what's going on before it's too late? Length: 11 chapters (~17k words) Commentary: -- I don't know where this absurd premise came from, but also it's really not that absurd within the Yugioh universe, so. Whatever. (It's so nutty but somehow I still love it? Idek.) -- Medical Inaccuracies. In part due to the dubious science of the previous fic, but hey. Also because of, ya know, magic and stuff. But also because Drama. Same as last time. -- Look. All of these are cheesy. But this one? Takes the cake. By a mile. (Also very majorly shippy --YuseixAki-- if you're into that, lol. Very minor JackxCarly and CrowxSherry but like. barely.) I had to stop reading a couple of times to gather myself. It is an ooey-gooey mess. -- So many epithets. I am so sorry. -- Also so many typos. I don't know why its so bad in this one, but it really is. -- (Also, where were the twins through all of this? I have no idea but I didn't write them in this and it actually makes zero sense that they aren't present, considering certain events. Me @ past!me: care to explain yourself? lol)

Angels and Devils Originally Posted: Nov 6, 2011 (first posted on dA -Feb 7, 2011) Summary: Naomi Mori may live in the Satellite, but her life isn't as horrible as most - that is until one so-called friend turns everything upside down. No shippings, mostly OC's with mentions of cannons until the second half of the story. Length: 4 chapters (~12k words) Commentary: -- Ye old cringey OC story. 'Nough said. -- This one was originally posted in two parts (Looking for Angels and City of Devils) on dA but was combined for ease of subbing on ffn. -- Trigger Warnings: gun violence (someone does die), suicide (that's actually not but still), implied attempted sexual assault (me @ past me: excuse me but why) -- The only reason I posted this one over to FFN was because of the collab listed below because Naomi plays a large part in it and readers needed to know who she was and her history. -- Side note: as someone who actually plays the game now but didn't when I wrote this, the deck I created for her is absolutely terrible. As in, nonfunctional except for anime duels where you always get exactly what you need, lol. -- I have no idea if half the cards I use in these duels are real cards or not. I know I made some of them up, but at this point, I don't remember which ones, lol (with the exception of one that is very obvious when you read it). There is definitely some Absurd Things going on in this duel. I'm pretty sure I did not count cards and even though I'm not counting them now either, I'm pretty sure this character does not have this many cards available to him, lol. Little Me did not know anything about dueling, lol. Take everything with a grain of salt.

A New Hope Originally Posted: Jan 2, 2012 (First posted on dA -May 2011) Summary: Construction has begun on the bridge that will finally connect the City and the Satellite. But certain people aren't happy with the City's decision to unite the two places and will stop at nothing to make sure the bridge is never completed! Length: 12 chapters (~37k words) - Discontinued Commentary: -- I am still Mad at myself and my collab partner for having never finished this. It tied so many fics of both of ours together and resolved some previously only hinted at story lines. But -- wouldn't you know it -- we got stuck on a duel. We technically wrote past that, intending to just come back to it later, so there are probably at least 3 chapters that never saw the light of day because we never frickin got the duel written before we both moved on to other fandoms. *sigh* (She's also the one who had the notebook we passed back and forth so I don't even have access to those chapters anymore. Hard to say if she even has it anymore. It's very sad. I'm very smad about it, lol.) -- The first couple chapters are okay but a few chapters after are kind of a drag, not gonna lie. But they are also now essential because said collab partner decided to rewrite her OC story (that is rehashed in this one) and never finished the rewrite but also deleted the original. So those few chapters are really the only place the full story exists now, sadly. (If you really want to read what there is finished of the rewrite, you can here: Birds of a Feather. Also, if you are in desperate need of yet more really old and cheesy fics, her writing was always better than mine, haha.) -- After the first ~5 chapters, I really, really still love the plot, okay? Parts of it were really, truly genius. I kind of wish I could go back and finish writing this fic, but sadly...I cannot. For a lot of reasons, I won't get into here, haha. But yeah. If you can get passed the opening few chapters, I think you may still enjoy the rest of it. -- There's this really weird part where we wrote in first person despite the rest of it being in third person. I stand behind that decision for what we were wanting to do, but also terrible. Horrible. Should not have done that, and I think we could have found a way to write it in third. -- While I have reread this one recently, actually, that was still probably at least six months ago so I didn't reread it for the making of this post. Therefore, not a lot of commentary on the fic itself other than the parts I can remember.

Lay Your Weapons Down Originally Posted: May 27, 2012 Summary: After being married for two years, everything they fought so hard for is falling apart. Yuaki Length: One shot (~1600 words) Commentary: -- There was supposed to be a companion piece to this with Jack and Carly, but obviously I never wrote it. -- Contains the above collab partner's OC shipped with Crow but that's not the focus and you don't really need to know that much about her beyond that. -- Honestly? Didn't reread it. Super cheesy if memory serves, though, haha.

I Never Meant For This To Happen! Originally Posted: June 8, 2012 (First posted on dA Jan 26, 2011) Summary: Kalin is hauled away by Sector Security. Yusei wonders at his friend's mistake. Length: One shot (~750 words) Commentary: -- Nothing really. Didn't reread it either, honestly.

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There we have it; ye old 5Ds fics. If these haven't completely scared you off from my writing, I do have a whole three fics I've written recently that you can find on ao3. I hope you enjoyed reading these (or at the very least that they gave you a good laugh at the absurdity of it all).

[hotchley]

look at how his tears ricochet

It's Results Day eve so as you can imagine, stress levels are high. Which means if you have anything negative to say, don't. Anyways, this is that crying in the shower fic that's probably been in the works since last year. There's also a shocking lack of actual crying in the shower. And much like 100, it got very dark very quickly. If any of the triggers may impact you, give it a miss. There's no shame in that. I'd rather you be safe than upset. And yes, the title is from my tears ricochet, it was the only thing better than crying in the shower

Onto the fic!

Trigger Warnings: crimes against children (kidnapping and being held but they are rescued), abuse of power (hotch feels he's crossing a line), intergenerational trauma, discussions of cycles of abuse, intrusive thoughts surrounding caring for children, negative self-image, disassociation, extremely self-destructive behaviour, canon-typical violence, someone injures a person when in a state of disassociation (it is not excused, just explained and help is being found), mentions of parentification, brief implications of potential hypothermia, blood- if I've missed any, let me know!

read on ao3!

It happens in the middle of an interrogation. Like most times, there is no real warning that it is going to happen. It just does, causing his voice to break slightly as he shoves his hand into his pocket so the suspect does not notice that they were shaking.

Emily's eyes dart to him. Of course she has noticed. She always notices. She frowns at him for a moment, and then swiftly takes over, pretending that Hotch's pause was one of anger as she snaps at him before turning to their suspect and telling them everything is going to be okay.

Hotch takes that moment to pull himself together and he forces himself to breathe. It is not the time. He cannot fall apart. Not when there is a little boy out there, desperately screaming for someone to help, and the man sitting between him and Emily is the only one that can do anything about it.

"Tell us where you took him," he says, keeping his voice dangerously calm. It makes him sick, impersonating his father, but it is the only way he can fulfil the role that he has to play. 

The only way he can act like he was filled with such anger and hate is if he closes his eyes and pretends he was a fly on the fall when his father would come home after a difficult day at work, ready to take it out on his wife and eldest son.

He just dreads the day where the line between the role he is playing and the person he really is becomes too blurred and he can't tell the difference. Because one day it will come, and on that day, he will kiss Jack's forehead one last time and leave. He will leave, and never return and Jack will eventually understand. 

Aaron Hotchner is not a good man. He is a coward hiding behind fancy credentials and a hard stare. There had been a time, only a few years ago, where he believed he was better than his father. He thought he had broken the cycle and saved his son from the same fate he had suffered, but he hadn't. Hotch had only ever known a broken mother and a twisted father, but at least he had them.

What is Jack going to know? His mother is dead, his only memory of her being one of fear and sadness. He will grow up believing she was perfect and beautiful and ethereal- which she had been- but in a way that is unhealthy. In a way that nobody living can ever compare to. And he will grow up with a father that is so afraid of the man in the mirror that most days, he didn't even look at it.

"I've not taken anyone anywhere," their suspect says with a smirk.

Hotch fights to keep a hold of that anger. He needs it, to survive this interrogation, to get through to this case, to go home as the loving father that doesn’t lash out at the wrong people. He needs to hold onto the anger so he can convince himself it isn’t his. 

That it is just an act. A ruse. 

He tells himself it is no different to the women flirting to gain information. Only it is. It really, truly is.

"If you don't cooperate with us, I swear, I will find you and I will hurt you so badly you'll wish I had killed you when I first found you,” he snarls. 

Deep down, he knows this is wrong, and he is bordering on the thin line between getting information and causing fear, but he is a bad person. He does not care. All he cares about is the little boy that is never going to know a normal life. The little boy that he is still no closer to finding. The little boy that he sees Jack and Henry in.

“Will you? I don’t think you have the guts to do that. I think everything you’re saying is a lie that is part of a silly facade, designed to shake me and force me into giving up the location. Which, by the way, I do not have. Because I haven't kidnapped anyone. As I have said, multiple times now."

“You can say that till you’re blue in the face. But you’re lying. You are telling a filthy lie, because that’s the only thing you’re good for. It’s the only thing you have ever been good for. If you’re not going to cooperate with us, then that’s fine. It’s your choice. But we’re going to find the child you took. And then I’m going to treat you the same way I treated the man who killed my wife.”

He’s toeing a line, but he’s spiralling and he needs to hurt someone. None of the management tips are working. He wants to feel blood on his knuckles and bruise the flesh of someone else. 

“Are you? What did you do to him? I bet it was terrifying,” their unsub mocked.

Emily opened her mouth to intervene. Things were getting out of hand. And even though she had no idea what she was meant to say, there was a reason her and Hotch were doing the interrogation together. She had always been the best at pulling him back from the edge.

“I fought him, and I beat him to death. I beat him past death. And it still wasn’t enough. Maybe it’ll be enough if it’s you.”

The unsub- no, not unsub, person they’re interrogating, innocent until proven guilty and all that- doesn’t react. They’ve got years of hearing empty threats and having other threats be carried out to react in any sort of way that would give Hotch what he so clearly wants.

But Emily reacts. Barely. But she does it. It solidifies the spiral into the abyss. It’s strange to think about how one single movement can completely change a person’s life. Because again: she hardly moves. All she does is flinch. Ever so slightly. She is scared- any rational person would be- but not of Hotch. For him. And more importantly, she’s shocked and disappointed. Shocked that things had gone so far and disappointed in herself for not realising there was something going on earlier. She is not disappointed in him. She would never be disappointed in him.

Hotch sees Emily react. And for a single moment, he becomes Aaron. Emily morphs into Prentiss because they could use this to their advantage. They could use it to find the child. Convince the unsub that Emily is truly on his side. Convince him that Emily is so disgusted by Hotch that she will sympathise with a man that may or may not be innocent. Build that trust till he lets his guard slip and then sneak in till he tells them everything they could possibly want from him.

“I get it now. You have a son, don’t you? Tell me, Agent Hotchner. What kind of parent do you think your child is going to be with you as a father? You know, since you seem to be no better than your own. I think it’s going to be everything to witness. Who do you think you are, trying to break the cycles when they are present in your blood and all your DNA knows?”

Aaron’s eyes widen and the facade cracks a second time.

Emily focuses on the words and not the emotions they invoke, and she finds the crack in the armour that she was searching for.

“Did you break any cycles?” She asks, as gently and conversationally as she can.

“How could I? He’s still- he’s in my head, and he’s in the people I see in the street, and he’s just so present and I can’t get away from him until I do everything he tells me to do-” The suspect trails off and Emily can’t help the way her heart twinges. This is a man that has only ever known pain and destruction. A part of her wonders if he ever stood a chance, when everyone and everything turned their back on him.

“What did he tell you to do?” She carries on.

Hotch closes the door behind him, but she forces herself to maintain eye contact with the suspect. They’re so close. And someone else needs to be strong.

“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god, I’ve ruined everything. I’ve- I’ve taken something from him. I’ll tell you whatever you need to know, I swear. Just- don’t make me go back to that house. Please. Don’t make me.”

“We won’t. Just tell me where the little boy is, and you won’t ever have to go back there again. I promise.”

The unsub tells her, and then Emily’s the one gently closing the door behind her as she tells Garcia to get as much information on the building as she can, and then follows JJ and Reid into one of the cars. Hotch is nowhere to be seen, and she hopes he’s with Derek and Dave. They’re braver than her and they’ll say the words.

When they find the child, it’s Morgan who wipes his tears and wraps a blanket around his shoulders. Aaron is shaking too much to do it. Emily notices that his gun is still holstered and wonders if it will be like the months following Foyet’s death. They scheduled unofficial arms qualifications randomly, under the guise they wanted help with technique. Just to be sure.

Although the boy is terrified and just wants his parents, they all know that with the right resources, he will have a life. A good life, full of joy and love and sadness and anger. Perhaps it won’t be as normal as it should have been, but he has not been given a death sentence. Each of them are proof of that. Little pieces of themselves get revealed during the course of each case, and it was probably the little details of their childhoods that had been mentioned in passing that allowed his parents to breathe properly.

The father goes to hug Hotch. He steps away, and JJ closes her eyes. Aaron turns and wipes his eyes with such little subtlety that suggests he is more far gone than anyone had initially suspected, then holds his left hand out.

His left hand. The one he shoots with.

They take it gratefully. The mother watches him, a knowing look on her face. She makes no attempt to hug him, but she does smile and say her thank yous. Aaron returns the smile, and says they could contact him if they needed anything.

As they walk away, it occurs to the remaining members of the team that her hair had been the brightest blonde any of them had seen. Maybe she had more in common with Haley than they had initially assumed.

Before returning to the motel, Aaron pulls over at the police station. Nobody gets out with him, even though Emily stops behind him. She wants to get out and ask what is going on- there are some things that cannot be explained through a text message- but it’s too risky. None of them know how long he will be in there for, and if they get caught talking about him behind his back he will retreat into himself ever more.

Aaron’s return to the car is preceded by a woman who looks like a defence attorney. Derek notices that she’s holding a card. Aaron’s hand has ink stains along his pinkie. Lord only knows what they were saying to each other.

“It was a good case,” Dave says. 

Aaron doesn’t take his eyes off the road. If he hadn’t been turning so smoothly, Spencer could’ve convinced himself he wasn’t really there. That he was looking without seeing anything. Perhaps he was. They’d been to the town before, a few years back, but Aaron’s memory for roads was unparalleled by all but his.

As soon as they enter, Aaron is walking up the stairs to his room. Upon their arrival, there had been a shared relief that they wouldn’t need to share rooms. Long and back-to-back cases wore on everyone’s tempers and love for one another so it was a relief to have space and time away. But now it feels like a curse because there is nothing they can do to stop him from isolating himself.

“Give him space,” Dave says.

The question remains the same as it always does. How much space do they give before it becomes irresponsible? And how much of a watch can they hold over him before it becomes insulting?

Everyone nods, then starts to go about their post-case rituals. Derek is on the phone to Penelope, JJ and Emily are changing into more comfortable clothes so they can go for a walk and Dave is finding the nearest bar. Normally, Spencer would either join Emily or Derek. Today, something tells him to go upstairs. His room is next to Hotch’s.

“I think I’m going to go for a nap,” he says. The team appreciates being told when plans change.

“Sure, that makes sense,” JJ says. She’s texting Will, so he understands her detachment from the conversation. Emily and Derek nod, also already preoccupied.

“Spencer. Remember. Space,” Dave says. He’s not being unkind.

“I know. I won’t forget,” he says. Of course he won’t. But that’s not what he means.

“You’re a good kid.” Dave calls the people he sees as children that. He’s not used the term with Aaron in at least three months. It’s the third time that case that Spencer has heard it in place of his name. He wonders if Dave knows.

“Thanks,” he says before turning and walking upstairs.

He knocks on Aaron’s door. “It’s me.”

Aaron pauses his pacing. “Spencer, I know you’re just trying to help but I really, really need to be alone now.” His voice hardly shakes, but he can’t tell whether he’s grateful or not. He needs them to know that he’s struggling otherwise there’s no point in screaming, but he wants them to run before they help.

“I know. But I’ll be here if you need me.”

He nods, then remembers Spencer can’t see him. “Thank you.”

Spencer walks away and into his room. Aaron puts the lock and chain on his own one, breath already coming in short breaths. He feels the familiar haziness of a post-case drop and knows that he needs to eat, drink and sleep before he completely crashes.

There’s nobody watching him but Haley’s knowing gaze and Jack’s childish innocence. And they aren’t real, it’s just a moment in time that Jessica had once captured. Haley doesn’t know anything about him anymore, she’s six feet under and it’s his fault. Just like how Jack no longer has a childish innocence because it’s been stripped from him.

Just like his.

Just like the unsub.

Just like their victim.

He reaches into his bag for a water bottle to hold, but his hand closes around something soft instead. Confused, he pulls it out.

It’s a giraffe. The mother had handed it to him when they’d first interviewed her, saying that as soon as they found her baby, he could give it to him and he would feel better. Safer. Like he really did get to come home.

And in between everything else that had happened, he’d forgotten. Now there is a boy that is going to have to trust that nothing bad was going to happen as the darkness closes in, and he would be forced to confront it without his favourite item. He had already lost enough.

It’s stupid, to be getting so overwhelmed by a giraffe plushie. But it isn’t about the plushie. It’s about everything else.

He’s getting overwhelmed. He is starting to feel disconnected from his body, like he’s watching his life play out from someplace else and that there’s a thought he can’t quite put into words, but thinking it will do something terrible.

He drops the plushie as his throat starts to close. Every small detail from the case seems to be coming to the absolute forefront of his mind and there’s nowhere to lock them away because it’s all too present and too much.

The images pile up on top of each other, each more damning the one before. The smirk before the unsub had assessed his character, turning his insides to ice. The dazed expression on the boy’s face, as though he couldn’t quite believe he’d been saved. The gratitude the mother had shown, even though he didn’t deserve any of it because- because

Emily had flinched. 

She’d flinched away from him and closer to an unsub because she felt safer there than with him.

He’d scared her.

And he didn’t know if there was anything- words, actions, sacrifices- in the world that would make up for that.

Before he can fully process what he’s doing, ice cold water is assaulting his back and freezing his skin even through his suit jacket and shirt that he makes no effort to remove even though they were a present from Dave and dry-cleaning will be hell.

He’s so unaware that he doesn’t even know he’s crying till he tastes salt. The realisation only causes him to sob harder because this is who he really is. This is what happens when the walls come down and there’s nobody left to pretend for.

He falls apart, and it’s disgusting to see.

His clothes are soaked through. He’s starting to shiver. Hair is plastered to his face and he can’t bring himself to push it off because now he looks messy. The tears falling from his eyes mix with the water that is still cascading with too much pressure. As he stands to turn it off, he slips and bangs his hip against the tub.

Maybe he screams. Maybe he doesn’t say anything because there’s nobody to hear him. But he can’t help but feel as though it’s a sign. He knows he needs to get up and get out of the shower because he is shivering and uncomfortable, but perhaps there would be something good in giving up. If he gave up, he would never scare anyone again.

What Aaron hadn’t accounted for was scaring someone whilst he was still alive, and the response it would create.

Spencer heard him fall from his room. Or more accurately, he heard something from Aaron’s room as he stood opposite the door, debating whether or not he should go in. He understood they needed to respect his space, but there was something uncomfortable about sitting in his room whilst his friend was struggling so close to him.

“Hotch?” He called out.

There had been no response, and he had hovered for a few moments.

Aaron did scream. Spencer heard it. And whilst he didn’t have Derek’s strength, he did have Derek’s technique. Within seconds (and on his first attempt) the door flies open. Aaron isn’t in the bedroom, and he panics for a second.

Then he hears the shower running.

He should have known. Back when Gideon was with the team, he used to set a timer as soon as Hotch said he was going to shower. And if it went over a certain number of minutes- nobody else on the team ever knew quite what the number was- he would go in and make sure everything was okay.

Reid had thought it was strange until he saw Hotch’s suit hanging up to dry.

“Hotch? I’m coming into the bathroom,” he announces. But if his suspicions are correct, Hotch will be too far gone to process his words.

Spencer doesn’t have the words. Hotch is sitting in the shower, hair plastered to his face. His eyes are red, silver lines embedded onto his cheeks as tears continue to silently stream down his face. The water is causing him to shiver, but it’s like he hasn’t even noticed. He’s still talking to himself, but the words aren’t making any sense.

And that strange but familiar sensation, of watching your parent become your child, washes over him.

He needs to do something. Anything. 

Again, he doesn’t have Morgan’s strength, but he has the same first aid training as a paramedic. He knows how to lift someone safely. Hotch will likely support some of his own weight since he’s conscious, but Spencer knows he needs to be careful or he risks hurting himself.

“Aaron, I’m going to put my arms on you. It’s just to lift you out of the bathtub. That’s all,” he says.

He doesn’t get a response, but they don’t have time to wait for Hotch to come back to himself. He just turns the shower off, and leans forward. Then it suddenly occurs to him that he needs to make sure that everything is normal, or at least not bad enough to require immediate hospitalisation. 

It happens in the space of a second that feels like every millisecond plays out in slow motion. Aaron touches Spencer’s face. With his hand, and a shocking amount of force. Then Spencer’s hand falls away and there’s a sudden surge of pain. 

When he presses his hand to his face, it comes back streaked with red. Perhaps it indicates some deeper issue with his relationship to his body and the strain it can survive, but his first thought is not concern for his hearing or his health. His first thought is fear about how Hotch will react when he realises what he's done.

But now he’s back to being himself, and Hotch is still sitting and shivering.

He does the only thing he can. The phone rings twice before it’s answered.

“Spencer?”

“Derek,” he whispers. 

He hears movement, and he knows he doesn’t need to say anymore. He’s not sure he’d be able to say anymore either.

“Hotch? Can you hear me?”

Hotch doesn’t reply. Spencer sighs. Until Aaron comes back to him, he isn’t quite sure what he should do. He doesn’t want to try and lift him again because it could be dangerous. His face hurts, and there’s blood dripping onto his shirt, but he can’t turn his back. Not yet.

But he needs to. 

He walks backwards, keeping an eye on Hotch. Then he turns, runs into the bedroom and pulls the duvet off the bed. It’s the best he can do, even if it’s not ideal.

“Aaron, I’m just going to put this on you because you’re really cold right now,” he says.

Aaron nods, and Spencer almost cries with how relieved he is by that small motion. And then he starts to panic because it means he needs to hurry up and clean himself up before Hotch starts asking questions.

“The door had been left open. I assumed that meant I was meant to come straight in,” Derek says.

Spencer jumps, and turns around. He’d been dabbing at his face and shirt using the basin that was in the room. “Yeah, I-”

“What happened to you?”

“I don’t- he didn’t mean to.”

“Spencer. What is happening?”

Aaron screams

Derek and Spencer look at each other, then run into the bathroom. Hotch has thrown the duvet off of him, and is back to shivering. His arms are wrapped around his knees and he’s rocking himself back and forth. His eyes are no longer completely glazed over, so it’s clear he’d come back to himself.

“Hotch?” Derek whispers, trying to use something his father hasn’t tainted.

“No, no, no, get away. Get away from me. Get away or else I’m going to- I’m going to hurt you. I’ll hurt you. Same way he did. I’m not better. I’m not better, never have been. Get away. Get away. I’m bad. I’m a bad person and you can’t- you can’t be here,” he murmurs.

Derek looks to Spencer. “Hotch, you are better than your father. You didn’t intend to hurt him. And I know you’re scared. But it’s okay. Spencer forgives you. Spencer forgives you, and so do I. You have made amends already. We’ll deal with everything later, and we will get you help and this will not happen again, I swear. But right now, I need you to do what I say. Okay?”

“He forgives me?” Aaron asks.

“Yeah Hotch. I forgive you. It’s okay,” Spencer says. He knows how terrifying this must be. He knows that Aaron will do everything he can to make sure he learns to never do it again. And he knows that Hotch will never have to learn alone, because he’ll be right there.

“It’s all going to be okay,” Derek says. “You just need to get out of the bathtub and start to warm up. Can you do that? For us and for Jack and for yourself?”

Aaron nods. He stands on shaking legs, and then he takes Derek’s hand with a slight smile. 

Spencer grins at him as he walks past.

Aaron doesn’t relax when they get him in the bed. “What if it had been Jack?”

It’s the unspoken question they’ve been asking themselves since the case started and they realised it was only a matter of time before he lost control. But at that time, everyone had assumed that would simply be an emotional outburst. Jack knows how to handle everyone’s tears. Has done since his mother’s funeral.

“It wasn’t. It wasn’t, and that’s what we need to focus on. It wasn’t Jack this time and it won’t ever be Jack because you’re going to get better. I promise,” Derek tells him.

Aaron doesn’t seem convinced, but he’s too tired to fight. “You never break your promises,” he whispers.

Derek doesn’t believe that’s true. “No, I don’t.”

“Do you want us to stay?” Spencer asks.

Hotch shakes his head. Then he hesitates. “Yes. Please.”

“Okay.”

He falls asleep a few moments after that, and the shivering stops a few minutes after that. He looks more peaceful. Younger as well. And like he’s not hurting. Like he remembers who he really is.

There’s no guarantee that it won’t happen again. But there is a guarantee that he will try and make sure it never does. And that’s enough for all of them. Because across town, there’s a boy sleeping in his own bed whilst his mother and father start to forgive themselves and each other. 

And in that motel where the mattresses are slightly lumpy, the water never reaches the optimum temperature and the coffee feels more like water with a bit of flavour, there is a man who has enough love for his family to do whatever it takes to get better. Love alone isn’t going to save Jack Hotchner-Brooks, and that much is clear. But his father’s desire to do better and be better and make sure he never knows a touch laced with anger, and the rest of their family’s support to make sure he’s able to find that help, is.

Aaron will wake up in the middle of the night, feeling too cold and disoriented. Derek will ease him back to sleep, and Spencer will be okay despite his injuries. Then the sun will rise on them once more, as it always does, and they will start their own journey to getting better. Somewhere along that journey, Aaron will forgive himself.

And then he’ll suddenly feel warm inside, and it will taste like Haley’s surrounding him with all her love.