#never have I ever watched so much svu in one week

[uncpanda]

Found Out

AN: The Law and Order SVU and Batman crossover no one, absolutely no one asked for, but I still wrote. Cause I can ;)

Warnings: Mentions of serial killers. Nothing graphic.

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x Reader

For being some of the smartest, most intelligent, detectives in the world, the superheros in your life are fairly oblivious. And on some level you’re really thankful for that. It allows you the freedom to do your job without their henpecking. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the people you work with, your second family, are some of the kindest, most intelligent, and hardworking detectives you’ve ever met, but they’re also oblivious to the fact that you’re married to a billionaire. 

You had never really meant to keep the worlds separate. It had started off innocent enough, you’d joined NYPD as a beat cop while Bruce was out studying to become the Bat. And when he got home you’d spent every spare minute helping him. Between that and the company he’d been too exhausted to ask anything other than a few questions about your job. He knew you worked for a large organization in NYC and that was it. He trusted you. And the boys were just as oblivious as their father. The only person who knew was Alfred. He’d been the once to come to your graduation from the academy while Bruce was still away. 

On the flip side, your SVU family knew very little about your home life. They knew you were married, they knew you had kids, but they didn’t know how many. After all, you’d only had the two pregnancies; Terry and Matt had both been big but welcome surprises. Then again ALL of your boys were surprises. And you had perfected your technique of avoiding the paparazzi for both SVU and Gotham High Society. 

Honestly, in your mind, there was no reason at all for your two worlds to meld. When you were at home, you took care of your family; when you were at work you tried really hard not to think of them, because despite crime fighting, you didn’t want them anywhere near these types of crimes. 

Of course, nothing lasts forever, but you figure twenty years is a good run, especially when Bruce is driving Dick away for his desire to be a cop. You watch them go back and forth for hours, before you finally step in. There are groans from the other boys about stopping the fight while Cass just grins, and you ignore all of them. 

“You’re going to stop this right now Bruce Wayne.” 

His eyes are hard, his jaw is set, “You don’t understand Y/N.” 

Out of the corner of your eye you watch Alfred roll his eyes in exasperation, “I understand better than anyone here.” 

His hands go to his hips, and you know he’s about to dig a very deep hole for himself, “Sweetheart, I love you, and I know you work the computers from time to time, but this is different. There are guns involved and he’d have to work inside the system.” 

“So?” 

“You can’t do both; there’s too much to hide.” 

You smile sweetly at him, “I don’t know, I’ve been doing both for the past twenty years. Then again, I suppose it might be different for me since I just worked the computers for a while.” 

He blinks at you, and you know he’s connecting the dots. You ignore him, and turn to your oldest, his eyes wide, “While I understand you wanting to do Bludhaven, if you want to do NYPD, we can drive into the city together. Let me know, I have more than a few favors I can call in.” 

Tim is the first to voice the statement, “You’re a cop?” 

You shrug, “First grade detective, but I’m taking the sergeants exam in a few weeks.” 

Jason stares at you, “Seriously? Are you joking right now?” 

“I joined when I was twenty. I’d finished college early thanks to AP classes, went in as a beat cop, and after five years I became a detective. I’ve been working at SVU for the past fifteen years. They’re like my family away from home.”  

You can tell there are more questions, but no one seems brave enough to ask them. You start to head out of the room, when Bruce asks, “Why did you hide it?” 

You pause and turn to him, “I didn’t. You just never asked.” 

As you leave you hear Alfred ask, “Would you like a shovel for the hole you’re digging sir, or should I just make up the couch for you?” 

You go  wait in your room, and lie down on the bed. A few minutes later Bruce comes in, and you look at each other. His brow is furrowed, eventually he asks, “Why didn’t you tell me? How could I not have known?” 

You smile at him, “I didn’t want you to know Bruce. I was on my own path, and I knew you would worry. At the start I told myself I would tell you eventually, but. . . you were so involved with Batman and you were doing so much good . . . I didn’t want to add to your stress. You were barely sleeping three hours a night at that point. 

“Then we Dick, and I considered telling you but he needed us to focus on him, and after a while it became easier to excuse it. It became my secret identity. Are you mad?” 

He lets out a laugh, “I dress up as a bat, and fight crime as a vigilante. I don’t think I can be mad. I think I’m worried.”

“About?” 

“Us drifting apart, not knowing you?” 

You shrug, “I’m me Bruce. I just also happen to be a cop. I see a lot of bad stuff, everyday. The last thing I want when I come home is to talk about it. Same as you guys. When I’m home I want to be happy, but if you want to know I’ll tell you on one condition.” 

He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, after a moment he asks, “What’s the condition?” 

“You can’t involve Batman. NYPD is not Gotham PD.” 

He nods after a minute. The two of you spend the night talking, you tell him about some close calls, you tell him about the one life you’d been forced to take, you tell him about your frustration. You tell him about Liv and Elliot, and how Elliot leaving crushed Liv, but she rose from the ashes to become a lieutenant. You tell him about Munch and Cragen, both of whom have retired. You tell him about Finn, Rollins, Amaro, Carisi, Dodds and Barba. It’s nearly six in the morning by the time you’re finished. 

“And that’s the majority of it.” 

You’re both lying on the bed staring at each other. Bruce has been largely silent, he’d skipped patrol, and only asked a few questions. A part of you wonders when his anger will hit; it doesn’t. Instead he says, “I am so freaking proud of you,” and then he kisses you. And you can’t help but think, that in a normal marriage, a normal family, this would have been a big deal, it would have broken them. In your family though? It’s another day. 

You call out of work that day to catch up on sleep and spend the day with your family. The boys come up with a bunch of reasons as to why they should have realized you were a cop. 

“You work really weird hours.” 

“You never wore heels to work.” 

“You never wore dresses either, come to think of it?” 

“Is this why we own a penthouse in NYC?” 

Jason is the one who asks, “Where do you keep your gun? I thought those weren’t allowed in the house?”

“You don’t need to worry about it. It’s locked up.” Logically, you know each of your boys knows how to use a gun, mainly for the purpose of knowing how to disarm someone holding a gun. You still don’t want them anywhere near it. For that reason, it’s kept in a DNA safe in Alfred’s room. 

When you go back to work the next day, you have your gun and badge on your hip. All of the men in your life focus on it. Bruce corners you in the kitchen as you’re pouring coffee into a travel mug and whispers, “You look sexy as hell with the badge.” 

You laugh, and then you kiss him. You’re the one who drops Cass, Tim, Damian, Terry, and Matt off at school. Jason is in college, and he drives himself. Dick is still contemplating his options. 

The fact that your family knows makes things a lot easier a few weeks later when Carl Rudnick and Greggory Yates escape from prison. You can hear the worry in Bruce’s voice, when he begs you to be safe and not do anything risky. You snort at that and he chuckles, “I know, I’m a hypocrite, but I’m your hypocrite.” You roll your eyes, because the big doofus, is in fact, yours. You also know he’s keeping a close watch on the man hunt. 

Three days later Rudnick is back in custody, but Yates is still on the run, back to Chicago you’re pretty sure. You’ve gotten maybe five hours of sleep total in those days? You’re exhausted, but you have reports to fill out, and Chief Dodds, the commissioner and a whole bunch of brass are hanging around. 

You’re in hour three of doing paperwork, when you hear whispers. Your eyes flicker up to find your husband smiling at  you from across the room. He’s holding a doggy bag full of food, he’s dressed in a suit that costs thousands of dollars, and you know that people recognize him. 

Finn leans forward, “What the hell is Bruce Wayne doing here?” 

You hear Carisi whisper, “Maybe he’s dating Leiu?” 

You can’t help it, you burst out laughing, because you sometimes forget it’s not common knowledge that Bruce is married, despite the ring on his finger. You avoid galas with the best of them after all. You call it the Batman tax; Bruce can fight crime and you don’t have to show up to stuffy dinner parties.  

Bruce smiles at the laughter, before approaching your desk, he settles into the chair next to your desk. “Really? No pictures of me or the kids?” 

You scoff, “Work stays at work, home stays at home.” 

He frowns, “I’m getting you pictures.” 

You don’t argue with him, “What are you doing here?” 

“I brought you food. Alfred and I figured you hadn’t eaten.” 

“I haven’t had anything outside of vending machine junk in days.” 

He scoffs, “What happened to taking care of ourselves?” 

You shrug, “I’ve been hunting serial killers.” 

His face goes serious, “But you’re okay?” 

“As okay as I can be. They got a few more people, our sergeant took a bullet to the shoulder, Rudnick is back in prison, but Yates is headed only God knows where.” 

His fingers twitch, and you know he’s itching to do something, but he can’t. He can’t get involved in this too. He has all of Gotham to worry about and thanks to the league, sometimes he has to worry about the world. 

He lets out a breath, “Can I join you while you eat?” 

“Yes. You can catch me up on the goings at home.” You lead him past your shocked colleagues, and a room full of shocked officials in Liv’s office and to the breakroom. While you eat, Bruce assures you that the boys are fine, but Damian apparently butchered the hedges again. Clark was apparently being a pain in his ass too. The man of steel wanted your family to come to Kansas for Thanksgiving. 

“I’ll probably have to work, use that as an excuse.” 

Bruce grins, “This job has perks.” 

You lean forward and peck his lips, “Lots of them.” 

When you’re finished you stand up to leave and there is a room watching the two of you. You sigh, and Bruce mutters, “It’s good to know the vultures remain consistent.” 

Chief Dodds is about to step forward and ask a question when you step towards Olivia, “Bruce this Liv. She’s saved my ass more than once over the years. Liv, this is my husband Bruce, remember I talked about him?” 

She grins, “Yes, but you failed to mention he was Bruce Wayne.” 

You feign nonchalance, “Did I? Hmmm.” 

Bruce smiles, it’s the one that has everyone jumping to meet his every need, the one that says he’s as innocent as a choir boy, and he would be your best friend if you let him. You smirk at him while he shakes Liv’s hand, “Thanks for watching her back. The boys and I appreciate it.” 

That’s when Finn steps forward, “That right, you guys have a huge family, right?” 

Bruce’s brow furrows in fake concentration, “We have Dick who is twenty, Jason is eighteen, Cass is Fifteen, Tim is fourteen, Damian is ten, Terry is six, and Matt is four.” He looks at you, “How’d I do?” 

“Perfect score.” 

“We have a full house, but it’s nice.” 

You nod, “Let me walk you out.” 

You make sure Bruce gets to his car, you kiss him, and promise you’ll be home by morning. Once he’s gone you head back up to find everyone waiting on you, it’s Finn who declares, “You have some explaining to do.” 

You sigh, life was easier when no one knew anything. 

[blackbird-brewster]

Thoughts About Tara Lewis (CM Evolution Spoilers)

Tara Lewis is Queer.

I woke up this morning and the SECOND I was conscious, I turned to my partner and said 'Tara Lewis is Queer'. I woke them up two times last night to tell them the same thing. I have echoed this thought back and forth to friends for hours.

It almost feels like if I don't constantly remind myself that Tara is now canonically queer, then maybe it isn't real. Maybe it was a dream. OR maybe it will be taken from us.

The thing about being in this fandom since 2005 is that I've lived a WHOLE lot of life in that time. I have been through relationships and divorces and insurmountable loss. I can't even count how many times I've moved in that time. I have struggled, I have flourished. All the while, Criminal Minds was a constant for me.

If you're newer to this fandom (Welcome!) then you might not FULLY grasp how wildly improbable it is to be able to say: Tara Lewis, a main character on Criminal Minds, is canonically queer.

When the show first aired I was in college, I had graduated HS an entire year early because the homophobia I faced was suffocating and genuinely dangerous. I was threatened all the time in my school. I came out when I was 15, in a small rural religious town. It was horrific.

I graduated HS and started college by age 17. Criminal Minds started around then and I loved it, because I was already a huge fan of crime dramas (SVU, TXF, Bones). It became a comfort show to me.

It continued to be a comfort show to be for nearly the past two decades. I remember waiting week to week to find out what happened next. Or waiting all summer to find out what happened after a cliffhanger. Or waiting each year for news on whether it was getting renewed or not, especially through the 2007 writer's strike when the fate of many TV shows felt so volatile and unsure. I remember watching the Valhalla arc and Emily's 'death' live. As each season came out on DVD box set, I would buy them and re-watch them (This was when Netflix was only dvd rentals and not streaming. Streaming wasn't even a concept then. We all just bough 8-disc DVD box sets and had to change the DVD every 3 episodes to binge a show)

I remember when the interview came out about how Emily was originally supposed to wake up in bed with a woman. I remember how devastating that was to me. Emily was my fave character back then (now she ties with Tara) and she had always felt gay to me and to find out she COULD have been canonically confirmed as gay but they killed that idea, was really hard. We didn't have a lot of wlw rep in media back then. The L Word was a trailblazing show but it's representations of wlw ultimately did WAY more harm than good (imo. I could write an entire thesis about how tLw really fucked up my entire understanding of what it means to be gay, but I digress)

I remember watching the way CBS treated AJ, Paget and Kirsten. I remember following articles talking about why the women were forced to leave the show while the men were celebrated and doted upon. (Reasons why I hate certain characters that are popular here iykyk)

The very first scene with Tara Lewis in S11 made my heart skip a beat. My soul was screaming 'SHES QUEER!!!! SHE HAS GOT TO BE QUEER!' even though I never once held my breath that would ever become CANON.

Here I am, still in this fandom, seventeen years later, and I get to say 'Tara Lewis is canonically queer' on a show that has gotten me through some of the hardest times in my life. On a show I turned to for comfort when everything felt like Too Much.

Because there is something so incredibly magical about seeing my favourite character and saying: Tara Lewis is Queer...and So Am I.

I know people are already like 'Emily was right there!?' or  'Why not make Emily queer!?' to those people I have one thing to say:

Please stop. Please stop and understand HOW important it is for TARA to be queer.

We have A CANONICALLY QUEER BLACK WOMAN IN HER 50s played by a sapphic actor. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW IMMINESLY RARE AND SPECIAL THAT IS?!?!? Do you have ANY idea of how IMPORTANT that is for representation?????

Emily Prentiss will never be confirmed queer in canon for many reasons. I have a LOT of thoughts about this, but that's not what this post is about.

This post is about celebrating one, extremely special fact.

And I couldn't be happier.

[storiesofsvu]

Habits of the Heart Ch 1

Warnings: Language, mentions of alcohol, mentions of cheating, some anxiety.

“5’s are in, Benson said we’re good ta go.” Sonny spoke, you glanced up at your partner from your desk, “Ya wanna grab a drink?” You gave a weary sigh, pushing back from your desk as you stood,

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” It had been one hell of a long couple of weeks, the case you’d just closed being more than you’d ever wanted to deal with. On top of all of it, your A.D.A. decided that sex crimes wasn’t cutting it and left back to D.C. meaning you’d have to deal with yet another useless lawyer who didn’t know what they had coming for the first few weeks before they finally got it. You’d been with SVU since you’d graduated the academy, partnered briefly with Fin while he showed you the ropes until Olivia had moved you and Carisi together. The two of you worked together seamlessly, from the way you complimented each other when it came to putting clues together to the way you broke a perp in interrogation, you were simply flawless. It helped that you clicked so much personally, often spending evenings after work together, you’d grab drinks, he’d made you dinner a few times, you spent more time with him than anyone else from the squad.

You arrived at your go to spot within a few blocks, it was close to the precinct and about halfway between your apartments. Ordering your usual drinks, you fell into an easy flow of conversation, Sonny told you all about his most recent visit with his adorable niece, mentioning that Bella wanted to see you again soon. You talked about how annoying your baby brother was being, constantly pestering you for ‘cool cop stories’ that he could tell his friends. A few hours passed before you even realized how long you’d been at the bar. When the bartender asked if you needed another round, you checked your phone, realizing how late it was, knowing you should probably get home, it was still a weekday. Carisi was kind enough to pay the tab, walking you out of the pub, 

“I’ll walk ya home Doll.”

“Sonny, you really don’t need to…” You briefly stopped, turning to face him, leaning against the brick wall of the bar, “I live less than five minutes from here.”

“I know…but a lot can happen in a few blocks.” His voice was low, and he was unbearably close to you, you could nearly feel his breath on your face, “Besides…” Before you could even imagine, his lips were against yours, meeting you in a gentle and soft kiss, his hand coming up to stroke your cheek. You nearly sunk into it for a moment before you gently tugged him off of you, 

“Sonny…” His face turned to concern, hands instinctively flying off you.

“Sorry…I just…I thought—”

“No..hey, it’s okay, nothing needs to be weird, I’m just not…into…it…” You could see his face fall, reaching out to stroke his arm you spoke again, “Hey…Dominick you’re absolutely amazing! You’re going to make the luckiest girl in the world incredibly happy one day, there’s no doubt in my brain you’d be the absolute best husband and an even better father…trust me..” He gave you a confused look, 

“Then…why?”

“You’re just not my type…”

 “What..you prefer jerks like Amaro?” You barked laughed at that, 

“Sonny…I’m gay…” His face scrunched, you’d shared so many personal facts over the last few years, yet you’d never mentioned anything about something like this.

“Oh God! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean ta—“ You cut him off with a hand over his mouth, flashing him a smile.

“It’s fine, most people don’t know anyways.” You linked your arm into his elbow, “You were walking me home right?” You gave him a smirk as the two of you moved through the streets of New York, he spoke after a few blocks.

“So…what is your type?”

“You ever watch Grey’s Anatomy?” He scoffed,

“I have three sisters, of course I’ve seen it.”

“Addison fucking Montgomery,”  You practically groaned, Sonny laughing at your response.

“Tall redheads with sultry voices, I’ll keep that in mind.” You free hand smacked his chest gently as you pulled up to your apartment, a smirk on your lips. 

“Thanks for the walk home.” You pulled him into a hug, willingly accepting the kiss into your hair, “Text me when you get home okay?” He nodded before moving down the street as you made you way into your apartment.

***

The following week rolled around faster than you wanted it to, you were at your desk attempting to hammer out details on a case when Olivia approached you a pile of files in her hands.

“Can you take these down to the D.A’s office for me?” You glanced up, 

“Yeah, ‘course. You know who I’m looking for?” She sighed heavily, running a hand over her face, 

“No. I guess just go up to the main office where Barba was, they should be there, no one gave me a name. Carisi was in court today, I told him to meet you down there.”

“Okay, thanks Cap.” You quickly grabbed your things together, tossing on your blazer before leaving the precinct. Always glad for the excuse to leave the office as you moved through the streets of Manhattan. Though the break wasn’t long before you were approaching Hogan Place, you found Carisi at the entrance to the building, greeting him as you moved inside to the elevator.

“Y/N, I’ve got a fuckin present for you.”

“Really?” You smirked, “I don’t see a coffee in your hands..” He scoffed at that, 

“I’ll buy ya one on the way out, geeze.” He rolled his eyes as the elevator dinged signalling your floor. “This present’s more of a person than a thing…” He smirked. Rolling your eyes you both moved easily though the hallway, you briefly knocked on the door of the A.D.A’s office, not noticing Sonny’s smirk as you pulled the files out of your bag, your head down.

“Hey, Captain Benson’s asking for search warrants for Hiller’s house, phone and computer, we’ve got the cause here.” It was when your head glanced up to actually see her that your heart practically stopped. You could practically feel Carisi’s grin oozing through the room.

“..Detective Summers….didn’t realize you were working Manhattan…” Casey’s voice was unsure, a hint of hesitancy shaking through it as she moved to take the files from you.

“I..didn’t know you’d taken over for our A.D.A…” Your voice trailed off, Sonny spoke from beside you, noticing that his surprise of Casey to you wasn’t going as planned,

“You two know each other?” You both quickly nodded out a ‘yeah’ barely looking at each other before Casey spoke again, 

“This is good, I’ll have your warrants sent over by the end of the day.” You muttered a thanks before nearly dragging Carisi away from the office and into the elevator, heart thundering in your chest, feelings completely overwhelming you.

“Doll what the hell was that?” He questioned, a hand on your back in an attempt to calm you down.

“That..”You began, attempting to hold all the tears and emotion back. “Was my fucking ex…” You knew that you ran in similar career fields but you didn’t think you’d actually end up working together, last you heard Casey had been working white collar crimes. 

“The one that cheated on you?” Carisi took your distress knowingly, if you were this rattled it clearly wasn’t cause you happily broke up with someone. You nodded your head as he pulled you into his arms, thankful for the empty elevator, “It’s okay Y/N, we don’t need to worry about her.” You pulled away sharply, he was surprised to find there weren’t tears in your eyes, 

“She’s our A.D.A., I think it’s something we have to worry about.” You rolled your eyes, “I can’t fucking believe this…” When the elevator dinged at the main floor Sonny couldn’t stop you, you’d left the files with him as you’d stormed off, wanting to be anywhere but near the DA’s office. 

[set-phasers-to-whump]

Day 7: Post a link to your favorite whump fic of all time (or reblog it and/or make a list of them!)

ok i decided to limit myself to just 10 of my all time favorite whump fics. these are ones that i return to all the time, that i reread whenever i'm having a bad day, you know the vibe. all of them are very dear to me and i hope someone else will enjoy them too!!! i'll put them under a readmore since this got a bit long :)

Caged by Cargo - 911. Cargo is one of my absolute favorite writers and i've been in love with this fic for a longass time. the emotions and caretaking are absolutely top tier, and there's a lovely blend of emotional and physical whump. summary: "As Eddie stands in his kitchen after returning home from tonight's fight, he finally cracks. He starts falling apart and he knows there's only one person in the entire world he trusts to pick up the pieces. It's why he's dialling Buck's number before he even knows he has his phone in his hands."

Bloodshot Soul by OrionLady - bourne series. this one straight up has made me cry i can't even lie. it's a beautiful and very genuine exploration of the characters and the emotional whump is wonderfully painful. summary: "He cannot fathom why a crusty old skipper would care so much about a strange John Doe he fished out of the water, why he would smile and touch his shoulder and feed him pie. Then again, there are many things he doesn’t understand yet. The closer he and Giancarlo get, the less he wants to remember. An exploration into Jason and Giancarlo’s friendship during his two weeks aboard the fishing trawler."

In The Shadows of The Night by MissCrazyWriter321 - grimm. this fic is thee one that i turn to whenever i'm feeling sad. i love nick and rosalee's dynamic and this fic lets nick break down while keeping both of them perfectly in character. i'm absolutely obsessed with it. summary: "A board creeks beneath her foot, and he startles, but calms quickly when he sees her. “Sorry,” she murmurs. “I hope I didn’t wake you.” Obviously she didn’t, but she needs to be careful how she handles this. If she pushes too hard, he’ll just end up shutting down."

Eggs Two Ways by leslielol - law and order svu. something about the writing style in this one absolutely captivates me. like, there was a period of time where i straight up read this fic once a week and i'm not kidding. they're both super in character and it's a delightful read! summary: "It’s not often Barba has a reason to exercise a set of skills separate from those as a prosecutor. While sat in a holding cell nursing a broken nose, Carisi learns he’s as sharp as ever. (A missing-scene fic from 16x15 “Undercover Mother.”)"

Breaking all the things I'd wish to keep and Can't erase, can't rewind by Elisexyz - the man from uncle. ok yeah this is technically two. sue me. ely is like, my favorite fic author ever and i love all of her tmfu stuff, but these two hold a special place in my heart and make me go absolutely crazy every time (they go together btw). if you're into tmfu and for some reason haven't read her fics then uhh. get on that right now bc she's amazing. summary: "Napoleon maintains that attempted murder cannot be classified as an "accident"."// "“I didn’t think it was him.”"

the moon points to the sun by haloud - roswell new mexico. this fic has been making me insane for literal years. it's emotional whump and has a somewhat different vibe to the other fics on this list, but i absolutely adore it. this writer understands the characters so well and their style is absolutely incredible. top tier fic right here. summary: "They don't do apologies, Max and Michael. If they started, they'd never stop."

No Rules, No Winners by April_Valentine - person of interest. this is one of those times where you watch something and you're like 'man i wish they'd addressed this pain in the show' and then you find the absolute perfect fic that does address it. it's so tender and lovely and exactly what the episode was missing. summary: "Set just before the tag of "Baby Blue." After leaving Moretti's safe house, Reese goes back to the library."

The Car Accident by Tipper - sneaky pete. another one i've been obsessed with for literal years. it's on the longer side but it's so good, wonderful family dynamics and a really excellent storyline. summary: "After Julia found out who he was, all Marius wanted was one more Sunday night dinner with the family. It was a mistake. The trusting way they looked at him, the uncertain way she looked at him.... He left early, afraid to sink any deeper. The black truck came out of nowhere as he drove away..."

Too Hot (Hot Damn) by WasteTimeandType - the man from uncle. i loveee some heat exhaustion fics and this one is so good! i reread it recently when i was sick and miserable and seeing illya much more sick and miserable than i was really made me feel better lol. summary: "'Out of all the UNCLE missions, this was by far the worst. He’d been shot, stabbed, tortured with water and forced to run miles in a forest in the middle of Canada. All of that was preferable to this. The damn heat.' Illya suffers from heat exhaustion and Gaby and Napoleon take care of him. Kink Meme fill."

A Little Tender Care by ArgylePirateWD - person of interest. this one's a sickfic, i read it before i actually started watching the show and absolutely adored it, and i still adore it now. true to the title, it's super tender and soft and it's a really sweet read. summary: "The Man in the Suit doesn't usually take sick days. Usually."

and that's 10!! this is far from a complete list of all the fics i adore, but these are the first 10 (or 11) that i knew i needed to rec. if anyone wants more recs, lmk, i've got tons :)

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

Perfectly Imperfect, Chapter Eight

Word Count:  2303

TW:  Angst.  Mutual pining.

AN:  Part of a series.  The series masterlist here.

There wasn’t much Barba could do other than wait and keep an eye on the SVU schedule board.  Your name remained there, marked “LOA”, for an entire month.

A few weeks into your leave, though, Barba ran into your mother at the precinct.  She was there to turn in some paperwork, probably related to your disability leave.  Despite his earlier, tense interaction with the woman at the hospital, Barba couldn’t stop himself – he jogged over to her as she waited at the elevator bank, and he asked how you were.

Abby, again, looked him over from head to toe with an expression she had clearly passed on to you.  Finally, she offered up that you were fine.  “Healing,” she said.

“How long as you staying in New York?” he asked.

Another scrutinizing look.  “About a month,” she replied.  

“Can I – “ he started, then paused as Abby narrowed her eyes at him.  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Barba watched as she opened her mouth, probably to say something snarky, but she pulled short for some reason.  Instead, she shook her head slightly and said no, she had it handled and you’d be fine.

“But thanks for asking,” she added, and it was the first thing she said to him without an edge of sneering in her voice.

-----

Two more weeks after that – torturous weeks where Barba’s fingers itched all the time to shoot you a text to see how you were doing.  He asked Liv (first in subtle ways, then in less-subtle ways) how you were, but no one seemed to have a line on you.  You seemed closest with Rollins and Amaro, but if they’d been in contact with you, Liv wasn’t sure.

He would have asked Rollins, but the way she smirked at him anytime your name came up made him uncomfortable.  And he’d never ask Amaro – the man was still angry about the Muñoz case.

Then, one morning, you were there in the precinct like you’d never left.  Your arm was still healing – it was in a sling and swaddle, strapped to your chest – so you were on desk duty.  

Still, you were there.  He felt his heart leap to see you, even if you didn’t feel similarly about him.  You gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement, then bent back over your paperwork.

Even if it was awkward between the two of you, it made him smile to see your scowl as you fumbled to write with your less dominant hand.  It was the same expression you had when he first saw you that evening, the first time he ever saw you, bent over a copy of “Twenty Five Acts” at Forlini’s.

A scowl like that meant that you were healing.

-----

There had to be an upper limit to how fast you could heal, though, because as the weeks progressed, your scowls only got deeper.  Desk duty didn’t suit you:  you were relegated to paperwork (which was slow with your left hand) and pestering the forensic labs for results.  And there was your worst task – serving as an unofficial secretary and assistant to Captain Murphy.

It was no secret that Murphy ruffled feathers in SVU.  Everyone missed Cragan’s steady presence, and everyone thought Liv should be the commanding officer.  Murphy was all about big picture stuff, which Barba didn’t necessarily disagree with, but the man’s approach was all wrong.

Murphy barked orders at everyone, but he barked the most at you.  You ended up trotting along at his heels like a wary puppy, waiting for his next task, and Barba watched your face every time he was at the precinct.  You had a look somewhere between exasperation and rage; you looked like you were constantly tasting something sour.  Your hair was always loose now (Barba suspected that you couldn’t put it up one-handed), and the overall effect made you look like a disaffected teenager.

Once, when Murphy was worked up and giving his usual “big picture” speech, Barba caught your eye.  For a wonderful moment, you seemed to forget that he was your ex-boyfriend.  You rolled your eyes elaborately at him, then glanced at Murphy’s back and mimed shooting yourself in the head.  It was like the old days, when you’d share private glances in plain sight, and it surprised a laugh out of Barba that he covered with a cough.  

But then you remembered who Barba was to you, and you frowned before you pulled that expressionless mask over your face again.

*****

You wished you could have gone back to work fully healed, but NYPD’s disability benefits were paltry, and you were stuck halfway between fully functional and useless.

You were getting better with your left arm, but you still felt like a clumsy child.  Therapy was incredibly mild and easy at the moment, since your shoulder was slow to heal.  You had nerve damage on top of everything else, and your right hand was numb a lot.  The surgeon had assured you that it would heal, eventually, but nerves apparently healed slower than everything else.

So, for the time being, you were Murphy’s little errand girl and all around whipping post.  You weathered his rages (about NYPD, about politicians, about the day his car got a flat).  You scurried between the precinct and the labs.  You did desk work – CODIS searches and phone calls to other precincts and initial complaints from walk-in victims.

And you ran point on Barba.

It depended on the case at hand, and at first, it was just calling Carmen to get time on Barba’s schedule for SVU.  Then Murphy caught wind of your nearly complete certificate from Columbia (on hold, for the semester) and extrapolated that you had legal expertise.  Of course you didn’t, not really, but Murphy couldn’t handle dissenting information, so you went with it.

SVU was working a particularly tricky case, involving crimes in Manhattan, Queens, and Delaware.  Murphy had you type up the case file – timelines and victimology and each detailed crime – and then he reviewed it and shoved the thick folder into your good hand.

“Take this to the ADA, walk him through it, and don’t come back until you have a warrant,” Murphy ordered.

You didn’t even drag your feet.  You’d probably run headlong into a room of scorpions if it got you away from the Captain for a while.  It still hurt to see Barba, but the hurt was outweighed by your irritation at Murphy.

You couldn’t drive with your arm, so you bundled up and took the subway.  It took about twenty minutes to get to Hogan Place, which was twenty more minutes away from SVU.  You almost prayed for a subway breakdown.  Almost.

Once you were on Barba’s floor though, the familiar sick feeling crept over you.  You had been surprised to find that heartbreak felt a lot like the time you ate bad clams:  a flushed feeling, palms slick with sweat, nausea.  You wouldn’t be surprised if you broke out into hives at some point in your weird new work relationship with your ex.

You said hi to Carmen, and she led you into his office and shut the door behind you.  You pulled in a steadying breath and closed your eyes, and therefore missed the expression of happy surprise that crossed his face when he saw it was you.  He greeted you and offered you a chair, and you shrugged out of your coat awkwardly before you sat down.

“How are you?” he asked.

You wanted to shrug, but it hurt, so you half-shrugged.  If it were nighttime and if you had taken your nightly allotment of half of a pain pill, you’d tell him that you felt like shit all the time and that you both hated him and loved him in equal measure.  But you knew that’s not what he was asking.  He didn’t care about your personal life.

Instead, you explained Murphy’s edict to walk him through the case.  You handed him the thick folder and watched as he opened it, leafed through some pages.

“How’s that going?” he tried.

“Murphy makes me wish I hadn’t been wearing a crash helmet,” you joked weakly, but Barba looked up at you with an alarmed frown.

“That’s not funny,” he admonished you.  “Don’t joke around about that.”

You gave him another half-shrug.  What did he care?  That question was on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t ask it.  He’d stopped by the hospital, apparently, and he’d brought flowers.  Your mom had told you as much (“I put him in his place,” she had told you with a look of satisfaction).  Maybe he didn’t care, but he probably still felt guilty about dumping you, so you let it be.

“Anyway,” you continued more seriously, “here’s the case.”  Then you walked him through it, step by step, victim by victim, and you leaned forward to point at the pages as he turned through them.  You were focused on reading your own notes upside down, and therefore missed how he stared at you, sad, and like there was something he wanted to say to you too, right on the tip of his tongue.

*****

In the midst of the new case, and in the middle of her own weird dalliance with Nick, Amanda managed to notice the way you and Barba acted around each other now that you were broken up.  

She would never judge anyone for dating a coworker:  she was guilty of that too, and besides, detectives spent so much time at work, they were bound to develop feelings for their fellow coworkers in the trenches.

When you and Barba first broke up, it hurt Amanda to see how hard you tried to stay professional.  She felt almost like a big sister to you – you were so obviously green in relationships, she wanted to take you out for a drink and give you some hard facts about men.  They were treacherous in the worst of times and disappointing in the best, and she’d happily help you find a new one to help you forget the last one.  But she was caught up with Nick (one of the disappointing ones, in her estimation), and then the holidays came, and then you were out with a broken shoulder to match your broken heart.

And when you returned to desk duty, an awkward tension descended over the precinct any time Barba strolled in.  Well, he didn’t stroll quite so much anymore.  You obviously didn’t see it; you seemed to think that the man had moved on, but it was as clear as day that he was suffering too.  He stared at you when you weren’t looking, and even a woman like Amanda, battle-hardened to love, could see that he still cared deeply about you.  

He didn’t look at you like a man who had moved on.

And you – you glanced at him sometimes when you thought no one was looking.  Amanda could see the riot of emotions that played across your face, and the strongest one was still love.

There were a lot of long nights with the new case.  Every time SVU thought they’d found every victim, another cropped up in a nearby state, and so you built the case block by infuriating block.  

One night, the entire squad was at the precinct, and Barba was there too.  It was an all-nighter:  time was running out on some cases, and the coordination was tricky between all the jurisdictions.  Liv and Murphy slipped out to talk to the feds – they’d let the case stay with New York – which left Amanda and Nick and you and Barba behind to finish combing through some final details.

You ordered in and ate together.  Barba shed his suit jacket, Nick loosened his tie.  You ran your good hand through your loose hair restlessly, and your fidgeting reminded Amanda of the time she’d been shot and how she hurt late at night when she was due for a pain pill.  You were sitting across from Barba, and Amanda watched him as he watched you fuss with your hair.

When you got up to get a soda from the breakroom, Amanda watched as Barba got up to follow you, suddenly thirsty himself apparently, unable to resist following you.  Then Amanda noticed Nick watching too, his handsome face twisted into his trademark scowl.

“You seeing this?” he muttered to her.  “Ridiculous.”

Amanda nodded in agreement.  “Why can’t they see that they still care for each other?”

Nick turned to look at her, his scowl deeper.  “What do you mean?”  His dislike of the ADA was a known, and Amanda rolled her eyes.

“C’mon, Nick.  They’re perfect for each other.  They’re both wound way too tight, personality-wise.  When they were dating, they were both much better.  They’re uptight soulmates.”

Her partner scoffed.  “Yeah?”  He turned to look in the breakroom; you were struggling to snap open the can of soda, and Barba was pretending to mull over his drink options.  

Nick turned and looked back at Amanda.  “I think she can do better.”

Amanda rolled her eyes again.  “Well, I think – “ she started, but she cut herself short when you rejoined them and sat back down, Barba again on your heels by a moment.

“You think what?” you asked as you sipped your soda.

Before Amanda could think of a cover story, though, Nick chimed in.

“We were talking about you,” he said casually, not looking up from his pile of papers.  “We both think you’re doing such a good job that you should stay Murphy’s assistant when you’re released from desk duty.”

“Here’s what I think,” you retorted, and even though your left hand wasn’t your dominant one, it was perfectly capable of flipping them off, making them all laugh, even Barba.

[dearophelia]

Writer's first line meme

Rules: post the first sentence of your last ten fics. If you haven’t written ten fics, share as many first sentences as you have.

Tagged by @swaps55! Tagging @vhenadahls @theoriginalladya @starrybouquet @that-wildwolf and anyone else who wants to do this!

I have...not written ten things total in the past several years so I'm just gonna go with a liberal interpretation of "most recent" on AO3.

strange is the night where black stars rise (stargate, sam, the one with hastur)

She’s thrown out of the wormhole. By sheer luck, her shoulder, not her head, slams into the stone steps. Sam protectively tucks her head down as far as she can and she comes to a rolling stop on the dry, dead grass.

waves are universal (the heaven in hiding remix) (stargate, sam/jack, the one with time travel and alternate realities)

There’s a break in the guard rotation. Now or never.

church of scars (grey's anatomy, addison, the one with ghosts; unfinished)

“Are you sure?” Jake asks. He slowly zooms the spoon of applesauce toward Paige. Their daughter claps her hands in delight and shows no intention of opening her mouth for food.

i'll find your lips in the street lights (svu, olivia/barba, the one where barba is ace)

If Rafael’s learned one thing in his time with SVU (and he’s learned a lot, far more than he ever thought possible, but he’s trying to keep this to a list of one), it’s that adults telling each other the truth solves a whole host of problems.

gonna set your flag on fire (mass effect, liv/garrus, the one with nora; on pause)

Later, when it’s all over and Nora’s sitting on the back porch of her grandmother’s house watching the sun rise over the lake, she’ll think she should’ve told James she’d take the eezo job.

in this twilight our choices seal our fate (the song in the house of night remix) (svu, olivia/ellliot, the one with too much religious imagery)

Olivia stands at the edge of the driveway just inside the yellow tape. She takes a slow, steady breath. A breath to center herself, a breath to observe the scene. There will be pictures later and she’ll stare at them long enough and hard enough to imprint the front yard on her retinas, but this breath captures the scene alive.

dropsonde (singers in a lower choir remix) (grey's anatomy, addison, addison/alex, the one with the kid; as finished as it's gonna be)

Addison stares at the pair of scuffed brown heels scattered across the entryway in front of her. She stares harder, trying to make them into something they’re not. But the living room lamps are on timers during the week and the ugly one on the end table turns on, illuminating a woman’s shirt tossed over the back of the couch and a pair of black men’s shoes toed off in the hall.

[raulesparzascheerleader]

oh, what a night! lol! 🥳

a preview of a potential kiss probably got more views than this week's episode of svu. am i right??? 🥰

anyways, i really hope elliot and olivia finally share a passionate kiss together. there is so much fire between them that has never really went away. they deserve to know if there is an actual romantic future starring them, or if they are truly better off as good friends. 🔥

as i grew up watching svu, i realized elliot and olivia were beyond close with each other. it happens, you cannot help who you fall in love with. sometimes, you have to move on from that person. or, you jump right on into that fire not backing down. i still wish kathy was still alive. there was no need to have a permanent excuse for bensler to come to fruition. 💃🏽

ugh, rafa. my sweet angel baby. 🥺 he is not stupid. like, he probably looked at them during wheatley's trial with the realization that bensler was and is a thing. ❤️‍🩹

i wrote a post around a few months ago about how elliot treats olivia. i felt olivia was worthy of rafael's love. there is a possibility rafael is in love with olivia. my dumb arse deleted it, but if there is a reblog out there, i hope i can see it again. i should have never let some bully make me feel like i did something wrong. if any of you are going to interact with me, do not block me as a means to inhibit me responding. seriously, grow up. #the more you know 🌠🌈

every functional relationship should be founded on friendship. basically, people in a relationship are each other's bestest friend. to me, olivia knows who she belongs with. one of these men will have a broken heart, but they will find their own peace one day. olivia is finding her peace. i cannot blame her for wanting to act on her feelings for elliot with elliot. bensler needs to act on their feelings for each other, because that heavy cloud will continue looming over their heads with the intention of extinguishing their fire. ⛈️

if they are meant to be forever together, i am happy for them. if they are not, i am happy for them. at the end of the day, their happiness matters. there is no need to go through life wandering around wondering about if there was ever a chance. life is short, show and tell the person that you love how you truly feel about them. bensler waited around twenty-five years! they should celebrate their silver anniversary of meeting. 💕

[bluegoldrose]

20 questions for fic writers

@luthien-under-bough tagged me – so why not procrastinate on school work

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

60 (55 visible) plus 47 I’m going to eventually move over as archives from fanfiction.net

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 870,258

3. What fandoms do you write for?

A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Vampire Academy, Legend of Zelda, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, CSI, CSI NY, Star Wars, NCIS, Chronicles of Narnia, Without a Trace, Pirates of the Caribbean, Doctor Who, and Law and Order SVU

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? All 5 are ASOIAF/HOTD/GOT

Desert Wolves

Ripples on the Water

The Island of Rejected Princesses

A Brood of Dragons

In These Sweet Years

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I usually do unless I don’t feel like there is anything to say. The only time I didn’t was when there was too much going on in real life, and I didn’t have the time or energy to respond.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Uhhhh overall… probably some of the early stuff I wrote for CSI because I wrote a ton of tragedy fics when I was a teen. I don't feel like anything I've written lately has been that angsty? I could however be forgetting stuff.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I just wrote a Legend of Zelda fic called Restoring the Kingdom which is softest fluff. I mostly write positive endings tbh.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have. People suck. That's not to say that I haven't gotten a lot of good comments, I have, but the negative ones are so awful that you want to never bother again.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes. I did a lot of more dead dove stuff over this past summer for a challenge, but my normal is much softer.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I was going to do one with like all the crime shows I used to watch in the early 2000s. It never panned out, and I wasn’t a strong writer then, but it would have been a ton of fandoms rolled into one fic.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Basically, yep. Wildfire and Mine (Even if I Used to Deny It)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

People have asked, but I don’t think they’ve ever posted.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, and I don’t think it would work well with my style and attention.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don’t really have one.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

So many… Ripples on the Water is a big one I wish I could finish but doubt I will. There are dozens of fic and original ideas in my stuff too.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Interesting ideas?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Impatience! Also remembering that there is a physical world around the scene. Finishing stories…

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don’t prefer it because I think it slows down the story… I do have a fic I did this in French for, bad idea.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Legend of Zelda (hand written)

CSI (posted)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Shadow Bound Together (Vampire Academy)

I could go on and on about how much I love this fic. It came to me from idea to detailed outline in a few weeks. I pre-wrote a ton of chapters before posting, had so much foreshadowing baked into it, and never deviated from my initial outline. It was basically perfectly well behaved for me! The only things I would change are that the first couple chapters are a bit rough around the edges, but in a 250k fic… it’s ok. I love this fic.

[qvid-pro-qvo]

headcanon: “when the svu boys knew they were in love with you”

created in conjunction with @hurricanejjareau. 

1. rafael barba -

his head’s on the desk, and he’s fairly sure any coherent thought has long since fled his mind. rafael’s breaking down, slowly, and somehow you know. you always know. you have to get a text, or something, a call from whoever decides to unload the weight of the world on rafael’s shoulders. oh, don’t worry, carino, your boyfriend is simply working himself to death again. 

because you always show. and this time, it’s in the nick of time. he’s about to collapse, perhaps quite literally as he leans against his window for what he’s calling a break, when you push open the door to his office with a... look. it’s not angry, not even disappointed, just the perfect mixture of concerned and amused and exasperated that makes him feel so incredibly loved. 

loved. in love. in love with the way you walk over with a decaf coffee to remind him of the taste, give him enough energy to drag him back home and make sure he cleans up before collapsing into bed next to you.

rafael barba loves you, and falls asleep before he can overthink it. an ultimate blessing, because the last thing he really processes is that he’s got his arms around the love of his life, and he’s unsure if that’s a feeling he’ll ever get over. 

2. sonny carisi -

sonny realizes he loves you at the exact moment he says it. 

it’s not premeditated. it’s not thought out. it just happens. he’s watching you try your hand at cooking (”it’ll never live up to you, sonny carisi”), and he can’t help but come up behind you and kiss your temple as you tell him about your day. he’s watching your hands move a little as you speak, watching the way your brow furrows and your eyes widen as you describe your day, laughs with you but quiets so he can just hear your voice as you speak. it doesn’t matter what his day was like (long and boring and tedious) because you make it better just by being there. and before he can think about anything else, he’s thinking it and he’s saying it. 

“i love you.” 

and of course you freeze, of course you do. and sonny goes bright red, because that’s how sonny carisi works - his face lights up like a goddamn fire hydrant, and he’s stumbling to take it back, to apologize. because holy hell, he loves you, and he’s looking at you and blinking, eyes wide, as it hits him all at once.

you smile at him, though. and that’s what matters in the end. smile at him, offer him a taste of what you’ve been stirring, and he knows that it’ll all be okay. 

3. nick amaro - 

nick doesn’t doubt you’ll like zara and gil. he has no reason to. 

hell, he’s almost positive zara will love you, in her both arms open and gripping you tight kind of way. and gil will adore you, in his shyer ask you questions until you’ve bared your soul to the kid kind of way. they’re good kids, great kids, and you’re incredible in the way that makes him smile when he thinks about you. 

what he doubts is that everything will truly slot into place. because maria is halfway across the country, and cynthia is still holding back that little bit of her life that she absolutely has the right to, and nick is so damaged that he’s unsure he even has the right to ask you into his life at all. 

but because you’re you, you come in like a little bit of a wave. a gentle rush of warmth over everyone. and you woo maria with your grin, and you charm cynthia with your gentle teasing, and zara and gil have just as much fun racing you on their bikes as they do fielding grounders from him. and he’s watching you, your hair in the wind looking wild as the three of you laugh ahead on the path, knowing that the warmth in his chest won’t ever go away. 

he loves you. he really loves you. and he can’t help but hope that maybe he can have it all. just this once. 

4. mike dodds -

mike’s in the hospital... again. because of course he is. he’s pretty bad at staying out of it, if he’s honest. and all he can think about is you. 

he’s been in enough of hospital rooms to know they’re not the greatest places in the world. he’s very aware of every part of him that’s hurt and busted, but all of that takes a backseat. because all he can think is how your face must’ve looked when the doctors called you, how your eyes must’ve narrowed, how your jaw must’ve clenched. you’ve been with him through a lot, so he knows your eyes roll with the frustration before telling her you’ll be there as soon as you can. he knows you better than he knows himself. 

and when he hears your voice outside his door, everything else fades away. because even though you come in, exhausted, glaring, arms crossed over your chest, he knows exactly what you’re thinking. even in the face of your frustration he gives a bright, wide smile. one you return, despite yourself. 

“you’re impossible, mike.” 

“i know.” 

mike dodds is really lucky, he realizes, in that moment, to be so in love with someone so special. he’s in love with you, and nothing else matters. and he knows that no matter how many time he ends up in this exact spot, watching you walk into a hospital room, you’ll always be there. 

5. peter stone -

peter gets home before you, for once, and it feels a little bit like a miracle. one he’s determined to take advantage of, as he shrug out of his pullover and gets to work. 

there are things that fall apart as the both of you dive into your work weeks - things like the dishes, the living room, the bedroom. there’s a lot of going, going, going, and then the week is gone. but peter is home early, and he finds himself diving in without thinking. 

he doesn’t exactly know why he does it - maybe because he knows that your shoulders will sag in relief as you come through the door and realize the weekend can start exactly how it’s meant to, with relaxing against him on the couch with a show pulled up you can both finally finish. maybe because you love the feeling of clean sheets after a shower in the evening. maybe because after everything this week has thrown at you, you deserve to come home and not worry about a thing. 

and then it hits him as he’s turning down the bed, folding the comforter back so it’s perfectly laid out so you can crawl right in if you want to - he loves you. he loves you, and so things like this are the easy option, and he smiles to himself as he finishes up the bed, smiles even wider when he hears the jingle of your keys outside the door. 

-

tag list: @crazyshannonigans // @writefasttalkevenfaster // @altsvu // @ssaic-jareau // @encounterthepast // @mijop // @bureaudart // @1234-angelika // @nuvoleincielo // @wanniiieeee // @averyhotchner // @barbasbodaciousbeard // @caracalwithchips // @xxlovingfandomsxx // @mad-girl-without-a-box // @alliekenner 

[itsjustmyfantasyroom]

Unexpected

Warnings: Based on two episodes with my twist. Just case talks, the squad actually not being friendly, hurt reader and fluff

I wrote this SO long ago, second guessed putting it up, but its time it saw the light. 

WC: 2226 

Enjoy x

“I told you not to put her on the stand. All you guys do is treat me like I don’t know what I’ am doing. I handed you all a solid case that didn’t involve her and you have blown it”

“You’re out of line Detective” Rafael spat back to you.

“No, you’re out of line Counselor, you know it all”

“You need to calm down Y/N” Liv said firmly with a slightly raised voice.

“I’ve had enough of this crap I should have stayed in Brooklyn, at least they listened and wanted me there”

You stormed out of Rafael’s’ office slamming his glass door behind you making the whole wall shake.

“Is she always this emotional?” Rafael frowned at Liv

“Well, No. She is right Rafa, about everything” He rolled his eyes at Liv.

“Who’s the ADA here?”

“You, but she is right”

You had been at Manhattan SVU for 4 months after transferring from Brooklyn SVU. You and Sonny were old friends. You had finished the academy together, and then finally crossed paths again in Brooklyn. You actually wished you had stayed there. Back in Brooklyn you were one of them, you got along with the ADA, and everyone was close friends. Sonny had recommend you to Liv after you cracked a big string of rapes and she wanted to meet you. Liv offered you the position and you stupidly took it, thinking that you would have been welcomed with open arms, how wrong you were.

From the moment you walked in you felt like an outsider, even Sonny was different with you, even though he was your partner. He never backed you up on anything, you were always wrong. They treated you like you didn’t belong there and never took on board anything you had to say. Even if they asked you for after work drinks, you were left out and would leave early. It got to the point that you dreaded walking into the bullpen every morning. Rafael was the worst of all, he treated you like you were invisible, which you hated because you had feelings for him from the moment you laid eyes on him.  

A huge case had come in. A women had accused an Olympian, and once it was made public 2 other women came forward. You had a funny feeling about the 3rd women that came forward, all she had was the story, nothing else to back it up. The first two victims had doctor’s reports and had told someone as soon as it happened. You had worked hard on your own to make a new case file with just two victims who had all the evidence from their attack and gave it to Rafael one day when he was in the squad room before the trial started.  

“She is lying”

“You don’t know that” Sonny said back to you.

“Barba don’t put her on the stand, I have given you everything with just the other two victims, it's bullet proof.”

“Why Deactivate? Because you have a feeling?” he smirked at you “Three victims have come forward, three victims will be put on the stand”

“You’re making a big mistake”

“How about you let me do my job. We don’t go off feeling here, we go off evidence”

“Yeah and she has none” you snapped back.

Rafael ended up putting her on the stand and the defence ripped her to pieces. She confessed that she was paid by another Olympian to say she was attacked by the other just to get him out of the running for the Olympics, which ended in the case being a mistrial and he got away with the other two attacks.

Rafael had felt bad after Liv walked out of his office. He had put the case file you had made him in his draw the day you gave it to him, not even bothering to take on board what you said. Rafael pulled it out and had a look, you had been right. You had given him a bullet proof case which would have guaranteed the attacker would have been put away.

You were a good Detective and very beautiful, but you never looked happy, you were always stand offish and never got involved with them. Everything fell into place in his mind. Everyone did treat you like you didn’t know anything and they never included you. He thought back to how he treated you and regret filled him. From the first day he meet you and you smiled at him, his tummy filled with butterflies. But he didn’t want to get hurt, so he did what he did best and closed himself off to you, clearly doing a lot of damage.

You sat in Forlini’s on your 2nd double vodka soda. Everything was running through your head, you were so angry it was making you cry. After everything that had happen, you pulled your phone from your pocket and opened your emails and sent one to Liv asking for a personal week next week, and then emailed your old Lieutenant asking to have a meeting with him when he was free.

You couldn’t do it anymore. It was all too much. These last 4 months had been horrible. Your old Lieutenant didn’t want you to leave in the first place, but had told you there was a position for you whenever you wanted to come back. You hit send when you felt someone sit next to you. You looked over and it was Sonny.

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Why do you care?”

“Come on Y/N, why are you acting like this?”

“You’re really asking me that question?” You frowned at Sonny.

“What do you mean?”

“From the moment I walked in, all you guys have done is make me feel unwelcome. You’re my partner and you don’t even back me up. I hate it here, I wish I never made the transfer. We were friends before here, you’re so different. I don’t know you anymore”

“I didn’t mean-Why didn’t you talk to me about it?” Sonny had a sad look on his face.

“And what’s the point in that? You would just laugh it off and go back to ignoring me with the rest of them”

“I’ am sorry”

“Bit late for that. Just go”

Sonny looked at you, got down off his bar stool and walked away.

A couple hours later you were on your 5th drink, it was getting dark out. You could feel the alcohol making your head swim. But you felt numb which is what you wanted.

“How many of them have you had?”

“What’s it to you?” You didn’t even look up to see who it was.

“How many have you had Detective?” Rafael was standing next to you frowning when you finally looked up.

“Why does everyone seem to care all of a sudden?”

“Excuse me” Rafael sat down on the chair next you and ordered some water and fries.

“What do you want Counselor?”

“Look, I should have listened to you. You were-you were right”

You looked up at him through glassy eyes.

“Doesn’t matter now anyway, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ am going to transfer back. Well hopefully I can. I mean I want to. I have a meeting next week. I hope the boss says yes” you skulled down the last of your drink.

“Why do you want to leave?” he all of a sudden filled with sadness.

“You’re as dumb as Sonny if you don’t know the answer to that question” He frowned to you “All you guys have done since I started here is leave me out and treat me like I don’t know my stuff. And you are worst of all, you treat me like I’ am invisible”

“No I d-”

“Yes you do. I can’t believe I ever had feelings for someone like you”

Rafael sat there and watched you, not sure if it was just the alcohol talking or if you really meant what you said. You felt uncomfortable him starring at you so you started to get down off the bar stool.

----

“Do you always let your girlfriend drink this much on a Friday night?” the Doctor gave Rafael a funny look.

“She’s not my girlfriend, she’s a co-worker”

“With the amount of alcohol in her system and the knock to the head. We will be keeping her in for tonight. She needs her concussion monitored. Maybe you should take better care of your co-worker while drinking.” The Doctor gave him a dirty look.

You woke up to a dark room and a crashing head ache. You let your eyes adjust and a figure caught your attention. You turned your head and Rafael was sitting there with a hospital blanket over him. You tried to adjust yourself, but you made so much noise, it woke him up.

“Sorry I woke you” you muttered.

“It’s ok” he rubbed his face “I’ am glad you’re awake” he gave you a soft smile.

“What happened?”

“You fell and hit your head on the bar. You have a concession”

“Explains the head ache” he laughed at you “Thanks for staying, but you can go now”

“No it’s ok, I’ am happy to stay”

You laid back down looking up at the ceiling.

“Did you mean what you said?” Rafael asked softly.

“Which part?” you sighed back.

“All of it”

“Yeah. I have next week off and I’ am going to talk to my old Lieutenant when he tells me what day I can” tears were filling your eyes.

“OK. But I’ am not just talking about that”

You took a deep breath and let out a small sigh.

“Why does it matter now anyway” You spat back at him sitting up in bed. Rafael walked over and sat on the edge grabbing your hand in his.

“Because I would like to know. Please”

You pulled your hand out of his,

“Of course I meant it. I just needed 5 drinks to finally say something. But like I said it doesn’t matter now”

“Can we ta-” Rafael started to say before you cut him off.

“No”

“Can I talk?” you finally looked into his eyes, they were such a beautiful shade of green and you slightly nodded.

“I’ am sorry. About the case, about making you feel the way you felt. I didn’t realise how I was treating you. I’ am sorry, please think about staying.”

“It’s a little too late for that.”  

****

 You were let out of Hospital the next day. Rafael ended up leaving early that morning, the DA called him in for a case. You got home and showered when there was a knock at your door. You were shocked when you opened it, seeing who was standing there, Liv, Sonny, Amanda and Fin, each holding a brown paper bag.

“What are you all doing here? Ah I mean come in” you stood aside and let them all in.

“Barba called Liv and told her what happened, so we decided to come over and I’ am going to cook” Sonny said back to you.

“And we want to apologise” Amanda grabbed your shoulder “For making you feel the way you do. We didn’t mean it, we were assholes and we don’t want you to leave”

“I know you have got in contact with your old Lieutenant, but please reconsider” Liv looked at you with a small smile.

Lunch was amazing and for the first time you felt like part of the squad. You just hoped that it would last. Everyone had left after helping to wash up, clean up, the left overs put in the fridge. You had just sat down on the couch when there was another knock on the door, you were even more shocked with who was standing there,

“I know everyone has left, but I brought dessert” Rafael had a big smile on his face “Can I come in?” you moved out of the way to let him make his way in, sitting the bag he was carrying on your kitchen bench “Sorry I wasn’t here with everyone else, the DA wanted me to go over a case, took longer than I expected. How are you feeling?”

“A bit better, thanks. Why did you call Liv?”

“I was worried about you. And, I guess, I hoped she would talk you out of leaving”

“Why?”

Rafael walked over to you, grabbing your hand to pull you around to look at him.

“Because, I like you”

“Is that how you treat people you like? Hate to see how you treat people you love”

“For that. I’ am sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was protecting myself”

You raised your eye brows at him. Before you had chance to say anything back, his lips came crashing on yours. Butterflies filled your tummy and you lent into him moving your head for him to deepen his kiss, Rafael resting his hands on your neck, you resting yours on his waist. After a moment you pulled away to catch your breath and looked into his eyes,

“That was unexpected” you smiled at him, Rafael smirking back at you.

“I really want to see where this goes, I promise I don’t love how I like”

  Tags: @detective-giggles ​ @beccabarba  @witches-unruly-heart @dianilaws @scarletsoldierrr @lv7867  @permanentlydizzy @averyhotchner @infiniteoddball @fandom-princess-forevermore @madamsnape921 @annabelleb49 @alwaysachorusgirl @thatesqcrush ​ @lovelymischief

[uncpanda]

Found Out

Prompt: Batmom as a SVU detective 

AN: This freaking thing has been in my mind for years. I actually have some -ideas for one-shots with this if it does well? 

-Dick shadowing reader

-Dick joining NYPD

-The boys coming to visit

-Bruce and Reader attending a Gala for the department. 

-The squad stoping by the penthouse

-Barba getting a job with WE after his final episode. 

-Evil Socialites realizing exactly who batmom is, and just how much she could ruining their lives, corporations, the works. Like especially the judge from the latest season who was RUDE AF to Carisi. 

Let me know what you think! 

For being some of the smartest, most intelligent, detectives in the world, the superheros in your life are fairly oblivious. And on some level you’re really thankful for that. It allows you the freedom to do your job without their henpecking. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the people you work with, your second family, are some of the kindest, most intelligent, and hardworking detectives you’ve ever met, but they’re also oblivious to the face that you’re married to a billionaire. 

You had never really meant to keep the worlds separate. It had started off innocent enough, you’d joined NYPD as a beat cop while Bruce was out studying to become the Bat. And when he got home you’d spent every spare minute helping him. Between that and the company he’d been too exhausted to ask anything other than a few questions about your job. He knew you worked for a large organization in NYC and that was it. He trusted you. And the boys were just as oblivious as their father. The only person who knew was Alfred. He’d been the one to come to your graduation from the academy while Bruce was still away. 

On the flip side, your SVU family knew very little about your home life. They knew you were married, they knew you had kids, but they didn’t know how many. After all you’d only had the two pregnancies; Terry and Matt had both been big, but welcome surprises. Then again ALL of your boys were surprises. And you had perfected your technique of avoiding the paparazzi for both SVU and Gotham High Society. 

Honestly, in your mind, there was no reason at all for your two worlds to meld. When you were at home, you took care of your family; when you were at work you tried really hard not to think of them, because despite crime fighting, you didn’t want them anywhere near these types of crimes. 

Of course, nothing lasts forever, but you figure twenty years is a good run, especially when Bruce is driving Dick away for his desire to be a cop. You watch them go back and forth for hours, before you finally step in-between them. There are groans from the other boys about stopping the fight while Cass just grins, and you ignore all of them. 

“You’re going to stop this right now Bruce Wayne.” 

It’s eyes are hard, his jaw is set, “You don’t understand Y/N.” 

Out of the corner of your eye you watch Alfred roll his eyes in exasperation, “I understand better than anyone here.” 

His hands go to his hips, and you know he’s about to dig a very deep hole for himself, “Sweetheart, I love you, and I know you work the computers from time to time, but this is different. There are guns involved and he’d have to work inside the system.” 

“So?” 

“You can’t do both; there’s too much to hide.” 

You smile sweetly at him, “I don’t know, I’ve been doing both for the past twenty years. Then again I suppose it might be different for me since I just worked the computers for a while.” 

He blinks at you, and you know he’s connecting the dots. You ignore him, and turn to your oldest, his eyes wide, “While I understand you wanting to do Bludhaven, if you want to do NYPD, we can drive into the city together. Let me know, I have more than a few favors I can call in.” 

Tim is the first to voice the statement, “You’re a cop?” 

You shrug, “First grade detective, but I’m taking the sergeants exam in a few weeks.” 

Jason stares at you, “Seriously? Are you joking right now?” 

“I joined when I was twenty. I’d finished college early thanks to AP classes, went in as a beat cop, and after five years I became a detective. I’ve been working at SVU for the past fifteen years. They’re like my family away from home.”  

You can tell there are more questions, but no one seems brave enough to ask them. You start to head out of the room, when Bruce asks, “Why did you hide it?” 

You pause and turn to him, “I didn’t. You just never asked.” 

As you leave you hear Alfred ask, “Would you like a shovel for the hole you’re digging sir, or should I just make up the couch for you?” 

You go wait in your room, and lie down on the bed. A few minutes later Bruce comes in, and you look at each other. His brow is furrowed, eventually he asks, “Why didn’t you tell me? How could I not have known?” 

You smile at him, “I didn’t want you to know Bruce. I was on my own path, and I knew you would worry. At the start I told myself I would tell you eventually, but. . . you were so involved with Batman and you were doing so much good . . . I didn’t want to add to your stress. You were barely sleeping three hours a night at that point. 

“Then we adopted Dick, and I considered telling you but he needed us focused on him, and after a while it became easier to excuse it. It became my secret identity. You mad?” 

He lets out a humorless laugh, “I dress up as a bat, and fight crime as a vigilante. I don’t think I can be mad. I think I’m worried.”

“About?” 

“Us drifting apart, not knowing you?” 

You shrug, “I’m me Bruce. I just also happen to be a cop. I see a lot of bad stuff, everyday. The last thing I want when I come home, is to talk about it. Same as you guys. When I’m home I want to be happy, but if you want to know I’ll tell you on one condition.” 

He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, after a moment he asks, “What’s the condition?” 

“You can’t involve Batman. NYPD is not Gotham PD.” 

He nods after a minute. The two of you spend the night talking, you tell him about some close calls, you tell him about the one lifes you’d been forced to take, you tell him about you frustration, you tell him about Liv and Elliot, and how Elliot leaving crushed Liv, but she rose from the ashes to become a lieutenant. You tell him about Munch and Cragen, both of whom have retired. You tell him about Finn, Rollins, Amaro, Carisi, Dodds and Barba. It’s nearly six in the morning by the time you’re finished. 

“And that’s the majority of it.” 

You’re both lying on the bed staring at each other. Bruce has been largely silent, he’d skipped patrol, and only asked a few questions. A part of you wonders when his anger will hit; it doesn’t. Instead he says, “I am so freaking proud of you,” and then he kisses you. And you can’t help but think, that in a normal marriage, a normal family, this would have been a big deal, it would have broken them. In your family though? It’s another day. 

You call out of work that day to catch up on sleep and spend the day with your family. The boys come up with a bunch of reasons they should have realized you were a cop. 

“You work really weird hours.” 

“You never wore heels to work.” 

“You never wore dresses either, come to think of it?” 

“Is this why we own a penthouse in NYC?” 

Jason is the one who asks, “Where do you keep your gun? I thought those weren’t allowed in the house?”

“You don’t need to worry about it. It’s locked up.” Logically, you know each of your boys knows how to use a gun, mainly for the purpose of knowing how to disarm someone holding a gun. You still don’t want them anywhere near it. For that reason, it’s kept in a DNA safe in Alfred’s room. 

When you go back to work the next day, you have your gun and badge on your hip. All of the men in your life focus on it. Bruce corners you in the kitchen as you’re pouring coffee into a travel mug and whispers, “You look sexy as hell with the badge.” 

You laugh, and then you kiss him. You’re the one who drops Cass, Tim, Damian, Terry, and Matt off at school. Jason is in college, and he drives himself. Dick is still contemplating his options. 

The fact that your family knows makes things a lot easier a few weeks later when Carl Rudnick and Greggory Yates escape from prison. You can hear the worry in Bruce’s voice, when he begs you to be safe and not do anything risky. You snort at that and he chuckles, “I know, I’m a hypocrite, but I’m yours.” You roll your eyes, because the big doofus is in fact yours. You also know he’s keeping a close watch on the man hunt. 

Three days later Rudnick is back in custody, but Yates is still on the run, back to Chicago you’re pretty sure. You’ve gotten maybe five hours of sleep total in those days? You’re exhausted, but you have reports to fill out, and Chief Dodds, the commissioner and a whole bunch of brass are hanging around 

You’re in hour three of it, when you hear whispers. Your eyes flicker up to find your husband smiling at  you from across the room. He’s holding a doggy bag full of food, he’s dressed in a suit that costs thousands of dollars, and you know that people recognize him. 

Finn leans forward, “What the hell is Bruce Wayne doing here?” 

You hear Carisi whisper, “Maybe he’s dating Leiu?” 

You can’t help it, you burst out laughing, because you sometimes forget it’s not common knowledge that Bruce is married, despite the ring on his finger. You avoid galas with the best of them after all. You call it the Batman tax; Bruce can fight crime and you don’t have to show up to stuffy dinner parties.  

Bruce smiles at the laughter, before approaching your desk, he settles into the chair next to your desk. “Really? No pictures of me or the kids?” 

You scoff, “Work stays at work, home stays at home.” 

He frowns, “I’m getting you pictures.” 

You don’t argue with him “What are you doing here?” 

“I brought you food. Alfred and I figured you hadn’t eaten.” 

“I haven’t had anything outside of vending machine junk in days.” 

He scoffs, “What happened to taking care of ourselves?” 

You shrug, “I’ve been hunting serial killers.” 

His face goes serious, “But you’re okay?” 

“As okay as I can be. They got a few more people, our sergeant took a bullet to the shoulder, Rudnick is back in prison, but Yates is headed only God knows where.” 

His fingers twitch, and you know he’s itching to do something, but he can’t. He can’t get involved in this too. He has all of Gotham to worry about and thanks to the league, sometimes he has to worry about the world. 

He lets out a breath, “Can I join you while you eat?” 

“Yes. You can catch me up on the goings at home.” You lead him past your shocked colleagues, and a room full of shocked officials in Liv’s office and to the breakroom. While you eat, Bruce assures you that the boys are fine, but Damian apparently butchered the hedges again. Clark was apparently being a pain in his ass too. The man of steel wanted your family to come to Kansas for Thanksgiving. 

“I’ll probably have to work, use that as an excuse.” 

Bruce grins, “This job has perks.” 

You lean forward and peck his lips, “Lots of them.” 

When you’re finished you stand up to leave and there is a room full of people watching the two of you. You sigh, and Bruce mutters, “It’s good to know the vultures remain consistent.”

Chief Dodds is about to step forward and ask a question when you step towards Olivia, “Bruce this Liv. She’s saved my ass more than once over the years. Liv, this is my husband Bruce, remember I talked about him?” 

She grins, “Yes, but you failed to mention he was Bruce Wayne.” 

You feign nonchalance, “Did I? Hmmm.” 

Bruce smiles, it’s the one that has everyone jumping to meet his every need, the one that says he’s as innocent as a choir boy, and he would be your best friend if you let him. You smirk at him while he shakes Liv’s hand, “Thanks for watching her back. The boys and I appreciate it.” 

That’s when Finn steps forward, “That right, you guys have a huge family, right?” 

Bruce’s brow furrows in fake concentration, “We have Dick who is twenty, Jason is eighteen, Cass is Fifteen, Tim is fourteen, Damian is ten, Terry is six, and Matt is four.” He looks at you, “How’d I do?” 

“Perfect score.” 

“We have a full house, but it’s nice.” 

You nod, “Let me walk you out.” 

You make sure Bruce gets to his car, you kiss him, and promise you’ll be home by morning. Once he’s gone you head back up to find everyone waiting on you, it’s Finn who declares, “You have some explaining to do.” 

You sigh, life was easier when no one knew anything. 

[cellsshapedlikestars]

Hello!

I love all your work so much and I saw that you were going to be taking a break from your Bachelor universe so I wanted to throw some prompts your way to maybe help get some other creative juices flowing *waggles eyebrows*

1) switched at birth AU

2) Everyone already knows their dating AU

3) Law and Order (SVU AU)

4) you’ve got mail AU

Thank you anon, I'm glad you like my writing!

Now that I've finished my Bach fic, I've been at a bit of a loss what I want to do next. Maybe it's because I'm all out of new ideas, maybe it's because work has been absolutely hectic, but my creative brain is completely empty. So I figured, why not try to do one of these prompts?

Here's the thing: I have never seen SVU or You've Got Mail. And I'm pretty sure Switched at Birth is also a TV show I have never seen? When I saw "everyone already knows" my immediate thought was "oh! like in Friends!" but then I remembered I have absolutely read that fic somewhere?? Like someone already wrote that for Jonsa. (I tried to find it again but have had no luck.)

So I chose switched at birth as a concept - I'm not sure if you meant the TV show or not, but I just wrote whatever popped into my brain.

A warning: this turned out a bit more angsty than I intended, and isn't necessarily Jonsa? It is if you squint. A few other notes, Alayne is a completely separate person from Sansa, Lysa is not related to Catelyn, and Baelish never knew Catelyn either. Sorry if it's confusing and/or not at all what you were looking for!

.

.

Sansa feels as if the world has dropped out from beneath her.

They all sit in the drawing room of what she can only describe as a mansion (and she knows that next to her, Father is likely seething. This is the kind of money he aspires to, but will never be able to reach. He will never have a name. Father is a Baelish, he could never be a Stark.)

She stares at the family sitting opposite and her heart sticks in her throat at the sight of them – the mother, the three sons, they all have the same copper hair that she does and she swallows against the rising tears.

This is what she could have had, she thinks as she averts her eyes, but she only manages to catch sight of the family portrait above the mantel. A father, a mother, siblings. She could have had all of this, if not for the slip-up of an overworked, underpaid nurse sixteen years ago. She could have been Alayne Stark. Instead she is Sansa Baelish.

Switched at birth.

Alayne sits with her family (that should be Sansa's family), and she doesn't look as out of place as she should. Her dark hair matches Mr. Stark's – matches the other daughter, Arya. Alayne fits right in.

Sansa sits with Father (no, not her father; the man who raised her) on the opposite couch and wonders if her Mother (no, not her mother) had known, somehow. Is that why Mother had always been so cruel to her? Why she always seemed to hate Sansa for reasons she could never figure out? Perhaps Mother had known, somehow, that Sansa wasn't hers. Sansa remembers reading fairy stories of Changelings – how the mother would know, insist the child wasn't hers, how no one ever believed her. Is that why Mother threw herself off the roof all those years ago?

“Well this is fucking awkward,” the girl, Arya, mutters, and it breaks the silence as Mr. Stark sighs and presses a hand over his face and Mrs. Stark begins to scold her for her language and impropriety. Sansa watches Alayne laugh, and she feels more than ever like an intruder. She may share the Stark blood, but it seems as if Alayne and Arya are more alike than not. And by the way the brothers are trying to hide their own laughter, it seems Alayne fits in with all of them.

Perhaps it wasn't a mistake to switch them, Sansa thinks bitterly. Perhaps the Starks are better for having Alayne.

….

She is forced to get to know the Stark family, though she does not think she wants to. She doesn't want to look at their life and wish it could have been hers – wish that Ned Stark with his kind eyes and calm voice could have been her father. Wish that Catelyn Stark with her smiles and her freshly baked cookies could have been her mother. Wish that she could have been surrounded by siblings and dogs and even two strange psuedo-adopted-but-not-really brothers that she meets later on named Jon and Theon. The Stark household is chaotic and confusing and Sansa tells herself she would have hated growing up here.

….

She isn't surprised to find that she's not sad Father isn't her real father. In fact, there's a sort of joy inside her that when she turns eighteen, she can be free of him. He is still her legal guardian, the courts have decided, but she has less than two years before she is free and they aren't actually related and so she doesn't have to feel guilty about her dreams of leaving him.

It grows inside her as the weeks and months go by – a hatred she has never truly let herself feel before. She hates him, despises him. She always has.

Catelyn Stark is insistent on getting to know her because Sansa is her daughter, but Sansa can tell that Father has no real desire to get to know his own real daughter. He does not care about Alayne – no, what he cares about is ingratiating himself into the Stark family. She wonders if the Starks can see it like she can. She hopes not – she doesn't want them to think she's only coming to these weekly meetings for their money and their name.

In all honestly, she's not actually sure why she keeps coming to these meetings. All they do is remind her that the Starks will never truly be her family. All they do is highlight how much Father cares about social climbing. These meetings are painful and every week when she finally gets home and takes a shower and gets into her pajamas and climbs into bed, she sobs into her pillow for what could have been.

…

“You know the party's inside, right?”

Sansa startles out of her reverie and whirls around, heart pounding, to find Jon Snow standing behind her, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket.

It's Christmas and the snow is thick on the ground and she's shivering in the thin wrap that she came outside with, her coat in a closet where Mrs. Stark had taken it hours earlier.

“Are you allowed to be smoking?” she asks instead of answering and he laughs, pulling one out of the pack and placing it between his lips.

“I'm eighteen,” he shrugs, speaking around the cigarette dangling out of his mouth. His hands come up and he lights it, with one cupped around the end against the cold winter wind.

“I can't imagine Mrs. Stark approves of smoking,” she sniffs, then shakes her head no when Jon holds the pack out to her in offering. She watches his mouth twitch into a smile for a moment, like he knew she wouldn't take one, before putting the pack back in his coat pocket.

“Seems you don't approve, either.”

“Well, I am her daughter.” She says it and means it to be a joke, but the words come out soft and it wavers at the end.

Jon watches her for a moment, then unzips his coat and shrugs it off and holds it out to her and she stares at it blankly, her mind not processing the gesture. He shakes the coat, like he's insisting she take it and she finally does, slipping it on and then closing her eyes at the immediate warmth of it.

“I get it,” Jon says after a while, when he's halfway down to the filter, clouds of smoke drifting up into the night sky. “I mean, not exactly, I'm not sure there's anyone who can understand... you know-” he gestures at her. “But I get what's it's like - to be a Stark, but not. They practically raised me, but I'm not... I'll never actually be one of them.”

“I used to read fairytales,” she admits, turning her face from him because it's easier to talk into the dark, snow-covered landscape than him. “About secret princesses, and the king and queen were always so happy to have their daughter back. In the stories, there was never another princess who already took her place. Who fit in better.”

Alayne is a perfect Stark, she thinks. Over the months, she's seen it – how Alayne plays football and hockey with her brothers and sisters, makes jokes that Sansa would never. She's nothing like Sansa, who always preferred reading poetry to playing outside, with perfect manners and perfect posture. Cold and reserved. She wishes she were more like Alayne – more like a Stark.

She hears Jon sigh and take one last drag of the cigarette before he puts it out in the snow. “You're a lot like Cat, you know,” he says finally, and she feels something twist painfully in her chest. “And Bran. I mean, I don't know you that well, I guess, but...”

She shakes her head because he's wrong. She's nothing like any of the Starks (though she's not a Baelish, either). Jon sighs again, louder this time, with more annoyance.

“You are,” he insists, and she finally turns to face him again and opens her mouth to argue, but he gets there first. “You'd see it if you let yourself. If you actually tried. Cat's... Cat is trying so hard. You should see how she gets before you come over. Everyone is freaking out about it but you won't even try to get to know them. And I might not get how you feel, but Alayne? Have you even tried to talk to her?”

That painful twist in her chest tightens, it swoops down into her belly and up into her throat. “I am-”

“Like I said, I can't imagine how it feels, you know? And I'm sure it's a lot, and you're allowed to feel how you feel, but the Starks are... they want you here, I promise. But if you don't want to be, if you don't want them in your life, maybe this should all stop, cause it's hurting them and I think it's hurting you. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to force it if it's not what you want.”

Her mind is blank, she can't think of a single argument, though she wants to argue. She wants to say that Alayne hasn't tried talking to her, either. She wants to insist that she is trying, but... but she's not. Not really. She's holding herself at a distance, she's already decided she doesn't belong.

“What if they don't like me?” The words slip out of her, unbidden, her voice barely a whisper. It wavers in the dark. (Her deepest fear – that if she lets them get close to her, they'll decide she isn't worth it, that they don't want her.)

She's not sure what response she was expecting, but it's not for Jon to smile – he does, gives her a little half smile and raises his shoulders in a shrug. “I don't know you that well yet, but so far I like you just fine. And I'm not even a Stark.”

“You seem like a Stark,” she tells him, and watches something flicker across his face and she doesn't know him well enough yet to tell what it is.

“I'm not actually related,” he says, though she already knows this. “Not by blood or anything.” For a moment he brings his hand up to rub at the back of his neck and he suddenly won't look at her and she wonders if she said something wrong. “We should go back inside,” he seems to change the subject and she hesitates, but then he holds out his hand. After a moment, she takes it, and follows him back inside, out of the freezing night air and into the warmth of the house. In the distance, she can hear voices and laughter, she can smell the cinnamon and pine in the air.

She could get lost here, if she let herself.

“There you are,” Mrs. Stark looks up as they enter the kitchen, and Jon lets go of her hand. Mrs. Stark narrows her eyes at Jon, then looks at the back door, like she guesses what he was doing out there and doesn't approve.

“I'm uh...” Jon starts, looking between Mrs. Stark and her, “I should get back to the party.” Before he goes, he turns back to her and she remembers she's still in his coat and she hurriedly takes it off, feeling heat high up on her cheeks as she does. “Try,” he says, voice too low for Mrs. Stark to hear. Then he takes his coat and leaves the kitchen – leaves her in the kitchen. Alone. With Mrs. Stark.

“Are you having fun?” Mrs. Stark's voice is light, but there's something underneath, a hesitance.

“I am,” she says back, wondering if she should make some excuse and leave. Wondering if Mrs. Stark doesn't want to be here talking to her.

(Try.)

“I wanted to thank you for inviting me,” she blurts out, and Mrs. Stark looks at her sharply. “I had some of the pumpkin pie, it was really good.”

It's such a stupid, nonsense thing to say, but Mrs. Stark looks pleased.

“It's a family recipe,” Mrs. Stark says, and then – a bit of hesitation - “I could teach it to you, if you'd like.”

Sansa's breath catches in her throat and it takes her a moment to say, “I like baking.”

“So do I. I could never get Alayne or Arya into it.” Mrs. Stark says it with a fond smile and Sansa feels something break open inside of her and she realizes, she knows, that she wants this. She wants to know this family, she wants to be a part of it. She doesn't want to take Alayne's place, she never could, but she...

“You could teach me,” she whispers. “Sometime. I'd like that.”

“So would I,” Mrs St- her mother, says with a smile that lights up the room.

[drabbles-mc]

I Like Me Better

Nestor Oceteva x F!Reader

Request from Anon: Hi! If you’re doing requests can I get a short fic based on the song I like me better by Lauv with Nestor🥺

Part 2 can be found Here

Warnings: language, lots of softness and pining

Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: (I know I’ve posted this story like 5 times today alone. So sorry to everyone who has been getting bombarded with it while I figure out my posting/tagging issues. Love y’all and I owe you xo) This story definitely took on a life of its own once I sat down and started writing it. I love me some Soft Nestor and the whole “almost relationship” type of deal. Hope you enjoy!

General Mayans Taglist: @mayans-sauce​ @thesandbeneathmytoes​ @paintballkid711​ @tomhardydallasstarsgirl​ @queenbeered​ @sillygoose6969​ @sesamepancakes​ @yourwonkywriter​ @chibsytelford​ @gemini0410​ @multiyfandomgirl40​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​  @plentyoffandoms @georgiaaintnopeach​ @twistnet​ @garbinge​ @themoonandthewicked​ @bucky-iss-bae​ @encounterthepast​ @everyhowlmarksthedead​ @rosieposie0624​ @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​ @mijop​ @xladymacbethx​ @blessedboo​ @holl2712​

You were laughing as you watched snowflakes get stuck in Nestor’s facial hair and braids as he talked to you on the phone. Ever since you moved, the two of you had one weekly scheduled phone call, and one video chat. No matter what either of you were doing, you always made time for those two things. Even if for the rest of the week you didn’t really get to talk to each other, you always had those two things.

When Nestor said he was going to have to talk to you on the go before he called, you didn’t expect it to be quite so literal. You figured maybe he’d be driving, but wherever he was, he was walking, and it was snowing. He didn’t look thrilled about either of those things.

“I’m not made for the fucking snow,” he was trying to sound annoyed but you could see the laughter building up inside him.

“Good thing you didn’t move with me to New York then,” you laughed as you watched him brush snowflakes off of his eyelashes, “You’d never last out here.”

“Why would you voluntarily put up with this every year?”

“It’s pretty when you’re not being a baby about it,” you laughed, “Where did Miguel send you anyway?”

“Into the cold, that’s where,” he kept a serious expression for a moment before laughing.

“Next time you wanna experience the cold, come do it with me! My door is always open.”

“You’re the only person worth braving this shit for, Y/N,” he chuckled.

“Well,” you smiled at him from the warmth and comfort of your couch, “me and Miguel, apparently.” There was a knock at your door and you sighed, “Hold on a sec, I gotta grab that,” you got up and walked over to the door.

When you unlocked and pulled the door open, the phone dropped from your hands as you took in the sight of Nestor standing on your front step. You squealed, throwing your arms around him in a hug that swept you off the ground. He laughed as he held you tight against him.

He gently set you back down, making sure that your feet didn’t land in the snow on your steps, or on top of your discarded phone, “I told you, you’re the only one worth braving this shit for.”

“I can’t believe you’re really here!” without thinking better of it, you reached and cupped his face in your hands, still trying to wrap your head around the fact that he was actually standing right there in front of you. He let out a slight shiver and it snapped you back to the situation at hand. You laughed as you waved him inside, “Shit, come inside. Get out of the cold.”

You grabbed your phone off the ground before you shut and locked the door behind the both of you, mind reeling from the fact that Nestor was at your house. You’d been back home to visit a couple times since you moved away, but he’d never made the trek to New York. You couldn’t blame him—you knew what his life with Galindo was like. You were surprised that he was able to be that far away from the family without it causing some kind of issue.

“What brings you out my way?” you took his coat from him and hung it up, chuckling as the snow fell off of it onto the floor.

“You,” he replied, looking up at you with a smile as he took his shoes off, “I wanted to see you, and not just through a phone screen.”

His words made your entire body feel warm. You motioned for him to follow you into the kitchen, nodding towards the counter for him to sit while you got the both of you a cup of coffee. He needed it more to warm up than anything else. He looked around your house with an approving smile. You’d given him the video tour after you had moved all of your stuff in, but it looked so much better in person. It felt so homey. Your walls were covered with photographs and artwork that you’d brought from home. Nestor smiled to himself when he saw that he’d made it up on the wall in a few pictures, along with the rest of your family and friends back in California.

You set the hug down in front of him, and he chuckled when he saw I ❤ NY printed on the side of it. He cupped his hands around it, letting the warmth seep into his fingers from the ceramic, “Fitting.”

You sipped from your own mug with a smile, “Gotta manifest it, Nes.”

The two of you existed in silence for a minute while he thawed out. You watched him as he looked around your small home. It wasn’t much, especially compared to the homes of all the people in his circles back in California, but it was yours and you loved it. You had never been someone who needed much. You just needed to feel comfortable and safe, and this house did more than just that for you.

You noticed him staring at the photos on the walls and the fridge, and you smiled. A little bit of weight settled over your heart as you watched him study them, knowing that he was looking at the ones of the two of you. It was all bittersweet to look back on. The two of you hadn’t ever dated, but you danced around the outskirts of it for a long time. There were times when the lines felt a little fuzzy, but nothing ever really happened. You were best friends, and you knew that he’d do anything for you, and you for him. But the timing was just never quite right, life was just never quite calm enough to try and make it work.

When you had told him that you had accepted a job offer on the other side of the country, he was trying so hard to be happy for you, but it wasn’t easy. You were a port in the storm for him, and he had no idea what he was going to do without you around. But he was supportive. He helped you pack, scrolled through apartment and housing listings with you, and found the best deal on a plane ticket. He never let you see how much it had hurt him—those were feelings that he processed in private. He’d thought about coming out to visit you every day since you left, but he worried that if he did, he wouldn’t come back home.

Before either of you could spiral too far into the past, you spoke up with a smile, “So, how long are you in town for?” he didn’t have any bags, so you assumed that he couldn’t be in town for long.

“I’m not sure,” he rested a hand on the back of his neck, “Told Mikey I needed to take some time. And this was the first place I thought to come to.”

You couldn’t hide your surprise—work had always been a priority for Nestor. Miguel was at the forefront of his decisions, always. “Really?” you raised your eyebrows, “You…you can take a leave of absence with…what you do?” you couldn’t quite wrap your head around it.

He shrugged, “Apparently,” he chuckled, “He said alright. So, here I am.”

You could feel that it wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, so you let the topic drop, “Well, you know you’re more than welcome to stay for however long you want to. Although your lack of luggage is a little concerning.”

He laughed, “Got lost in the shuffle. Airline said they’ll mail it here.”

You shook your head, unable to contain your laughter, “Damn, that sucks. Welcome to New York.”

You were on the opposite side of the counter from him, leaning forward onto it, propped up by your elbows. The two of you started to catch up about things that slipped from your minds when you called each other. He told you about some of the chaos that he wasn’t allowed to say over an unsecure phoneline. You listened intently, fighting the urge to reach out and entwine your fingers with his. Everything felt so right with him there with you.

“Sorry,” he chuckled as he took another sip of his coffee, “I don’t mean to do all the talking. I’ve just…I’ve missed having you to talk to.”

You nodded, “I know the feeling,” you drummed your fingers on the surface of the counter, “Well, now that you’re here, normally I’d say we should go do touristy things. But something tells me you’ve had your required dose of snow for the day?”

He laughed, “What’ve you got in mind?”

You shook your head, “Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow. I’m sure you’ve had a long enough day. We can camp out at least until your luggage gets here. Or I can take you shopping, whichever you prefer.”

He smiled at you, “I think I’m alright with staying in.”

“That’s what I figured,” you chuckled, “Well, I was not expecting company. I’m assuming you’ll be alright with ordering in?”

“Sounds perfect.”

“I know this really great Chinese place. Their wonton soup is…perfection.”

The two of you made your way to your living room and sprawled onto the couch. You leaned up against Nestor’s side as you got your phone out to place the order. You picked a few things that you wanted to eat before handing it to him so he could pick stuff as well. While he was looking through the menu, you turned on the television and pulled the blanket off the back of your couch so it covered the both of you.

Nestor handed your phone back to you so you could place the order. He’d hardly noticed how you tucked the both of you in. He smiled as he rested his arm against your side, hand brushing lightly against your stomach.

“Is this…”

“I decided last week that I was going to rewatch all of Law & Order SVU from the very beginning,” you laughed.

He shook his head with a laugh, “Do you have a moral objection to happy shows or…?”

“It’s a good show!” you snuggled into him a little more.

“What has New York done to you?”

You smiled and shook your head, “Given me time to do shit like this.”

“You like it here though?” his eyes were watching the television, but one hand was gently massaging circles into the side of your neck.

“Yea, I do. It’s a nice change of pace—I think it was the right move for me,” you glanced up at him and smiled, unbelievably happy about the fact that he was really laying on your couch in New York with you. Never in a million years did you think that would happen.

Once the food got there the two of you switched up your positions a little bit. The TV was still on but neither of you were paying attention to it. You were each sitting cross-legged facing each other on the couch. You were laughing as you watched him fumble with his chopsticks. You had forks, obviously, but it was a matter of pride whenever you two ate together because he knew that you were extremely good at using them and he didn’t want to be left out.

“Almost two years since we got Chinese together and you didn’t use any of that time to teach yourself how to use chopsticks?”

He chuckled as he struggled with his noodles, “Didn’t make it to the top of my priority list, I apologize.”

“I’ll teach you before you leave. Way better than taking back a cheesy souvenir,” you smiled at him as you picked up a piece of chicken.

As the night wore on, your coffee table became covered in takeout food boxes, and a couple empty bottles of wine that the two of you had managed to drink your way through. You were sprawled across his lap, wine glass lightly hanging from your fingertips as you rambled on about what you had been up to since you moved. Nestor couldn’t take his eyes off of you, soaking up the fact that he was able to be so close to you.

“I’ve missed you,” you veered off your current story completely as you felt the warmth from his hand soak into your leg.

He looked at you, laughing quietly at the sudden admission, “I’ve missed you too.”

“Were you ever mad at me for leaving?”

He shook his head, no hesitation in his answer at all, “Of course not,” he studied your face, the way your skin glowed whenever you drank, the way your eyes got a little glassy when you had more than just one glass of wine, “Doesn’t mean that I don’t miss you, though.”

You hummed in quiet contentment as he reassuringly rubbed his hand up and down your leg, “I think about you all the time.”

His hand stilled for a moment and you were afraid that maybe you were saying too much. Maybe the reason that things worked so well was because everything was in limbo. Before you could worry too much he gave your leg a light squeeze, “I think about you too.”

The two of you fell into a comfortable silence after that, resituating yourself so that your head was resting against his chest. It was hard to focus on much of anything when all you could think about was the way your body was pressed up against his. The steadiness of his breathing felt like the only thing that was still grounding you. Your entire body felt warm from the wine, but deep down you knew it was more than just that.

“If you’re tired,” he spoke up after a few minutes of silence, “you can go to bed. Don’t exhaust yourself on my account,” there was a smile on his face.

You stretched, fighting back a yawn, “Come with me,” you sat upright and looked over at him, “I won’t lie to you, my guest room is empty because I have been putting off buying furniture for it,” you chuckled, “And my bed is way more comfortable than the couch, believe me.”

“Yea,” he nodded, his voice soft as he bit back a laugh, “okay.”

He followed you up the stairs and into your room, looking around the house as he did. It was hard for him to wrap his head around what your life was like now that you were so far away from everything that you had grown up with, everyone you had grown up with. It seemed like you had created such a cozy little life for yourself, and it couldn’t help but to think that you might never have had that if you hadn’t taken the plunge to move across the country.

“Don’t mind the clothes,” you apologized as you flicked on the light to your bedroom, “I promise they’re clean—I just hate folding laundry.”

He laughed, shaking his head, “It’s fine.”

You changed into a baggy long-sleeve shirt and a pair of shorts, immediately crawling underneath your blankets. You nestled back against your pillow and looked over at Nestor, who was unbuttoning his shirt, eyes cast down at the floor.

You were lying on your side, scrolling on your phone when you felt the mattress dip as Nestor climbed into bed beside you. He pulled the blanket up over himself and rolled onto his side so he could look over at you. You looked up from your phone, a smile starting to take over your features as you took in how close he was to you. You set your phone off to the side and rested your cheek against the palm of your hand.

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” you said with a laugh.

“Give it a couple days,” he joked, “Soon you’ll be begging for me to go back home.”

You snuggled closer to him, resting your face against his chest, “I doubt it.”

You woke up the next morning to the feeling of Nestor’s arms wrapped tightly around you, keeping you snug against his chest. Taking a slow, deep bre ath you took in the fact that this was really happening. He shifted slightly, arms squeezing you for a moment before he settled back into his sleep. The selfish part of you never wanted him to go home because you would love to wake up like this every morning. The warmth trapped underneath the blanket made you forget about the fact that there was a considerable amount of snow covering the ground outside.

You let your eyes close again as you focused on the steady beat of his heart. You slowly slid your legs and tangled them up with his. A few moments later you felt his fingers sliding lightly up and down your back. You glanced up at him and smiled when you saw that his eyes were still closed, but there was a peaceful smile on his face. You don’t ever remember seeing him so calm, so relaxed.

“Good morning,” he mumbled as he pressed his hand flat against your back, pushing you against him.

You chuckled as you rested your hands against his chest, “Good morning. You sleep okay?”

“Mhm,” he finally opened his eyes, “like a fucking rock,” he laughed.

You smiled up at him, “Good.”

The two of you laid there, soaking up the quiet peacefulness of the morning. You hadn’t woken up wrapped up in someone’s arms in a very long time, and there was something about the clinginess of Nestor’s grasp that told you he was in the same boat. You smiled to yourself as you felt his fingers lazily massaging between your shoulder blades.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come visit sooner,” he said.

You pulled back away from him so you could get a better look at his face, “You don’t have to be sorry—I know your life doesn’t make it easy. It’s hard to find the time.”

“I should’ve made the time.”

“Nes, don’t—”

He cut you off as he shook his head, “I’m not trying to make excuses. I know that I should’ve come out to see you. I just, I knew that it was going to be hard to convince myself to go back home once I did. I like me so much better when I’m with you,” he gently cupped your face in his hand.

You rested your hand over his, “Well, I like you all the time,” you smiled, “And no matter what, I’ll always be here whenever you need a break to recharge and get away from everything for a little while. But listen,” you waited for him to look at you, “don’t spend all of your time here thinking about the fact that you think you should’ve made it out here sooner. None of that matters. You’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

He rested his forehead against yours, “See? That’s what I mean—how am I supposed to go back home after that?” you could see the hint of a smile on his face.

You laughed, “Just remember how much you hate the snow. Short vacations out this way will be just right for you.”

He chuckled and shook his head, “Yea, maybe.”

You gave his hand a light squeeze, “C’mon, let’s go make breakfast and see if your luggage will come in today or if I get to take you shopping.”

He laughed, rolling his eyes, “Can’t wait for that.”

You flung the blanket off the both of you and hopped out of bed. Walking around to Nestor’s side, you held out your hands and pulled him up, laughing as he exaggeratedly stumbled into you and wrapped you in a hug. Your laughter was muffled against his chest but he reveled in the way it all felt.

While you were measuring out grounds into the coffee maker, you saw Nestor out of the corner of your eye looking through your fridge, trying to see what he could salvage to make breakfast with. You smiled to yourself as you set the pot to brew. You leaned back against the counter and watched him pulling things out from the drawers of your refrigerator.

“Playing chef today?” you asked with a smile.

“Better me than you,” he laughed.

You feigned offence, “Excuse you, I am an amazing cook.”

He smiled as he set everything out on the counter, “You are, but I’m better.”

“But I’m better,” you mocked with a laugh, “Cocky.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“How long did you say you were staying again?” you laughed.

“At least until I learn how to use chopsticks,” he chuckled as he looked through your cabinets for a frying pan, “So it might be a while.”

You couldn’t make yourself take your eyes off him, “Good.”

He heard the softness in your tone and looked over at you from his food prep on the counter. He smiled, tilting his head slightly as if to ask if there was something that you wanted to say. You shook your head with a small smile before walking over and wrapping your arms around his middle, the side of your face resting against his back. You didn’t know how long he was going to be staying, but you knew that regardless you were going to be making the most of it.

[tropes-and-tales]

Every Unhappy Family, Chapter One

Characters:  Nick Amaro and F!Reader

WC:  2855

Other Pieces:  This is part of a series.

CW:  Language.

________________

Work at SVU was never exactly fun.  By its very nature, dealing with traumatized victims and some of the most heinous crimes meant that it was neither the time nor the place for joking around.  Still, when you were paired with Amanda, there were plenty of stolen moments for inside jokes and laughter and gentle teasing.  It was like the release value on your Instant Pot.  It helped discharge some of the day-to-day pressure.

You still saw Amanda all the time, but it wasn’t the same.  She didn’t sit across from you anymore, so you couldn’t cock a suggestive eyebrow at her when Barba said something obnoxious.  Instead, you sat across from your new partner now, and Nick Amaro was a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

His moods were impossible to read.  Sometimes he came in the morning, all smiles and with a box of donuts for the squad because he like to hew close to stereotype.  Sometimes he shed his coat and sat down without a simple “good morning,” his scowl warning you off from small talk.

When he and Liv had been paired off, they had some terrific fights blow up between them.  It had always made you uncomfortable, reminded you too much of your parents fighting when you were a kid, so you always found an excuse to leave the bullpen when it happened.  As the weeks passed with Nick as your partner, you kept waiting for a similar fight to break out between the two of you.  You felt anxious all the time, on eggshells, like a wrong move or misplaced word might set him off.  

You were sitting together in an unmarked police car, camped in front of a brownstone in Gramercy Park in a low-level stakeout.  You were waiting for a certain nanny to appear; she had been a key witness in a case you were building, but she refused to return your calls.  She was likely undocumented and afraid of ICE, so the two of you sat and waited and pretended that the stilted small talk was normal.

You tried to break the silence with some line about the cooling weather, but Nick sighed heavily without answering.  It was becoming a habit with him, like he was irritated by your very existence.

Any other day, you’d let it slide, but it had been a month already – an entire month! – of tiptoeing around him and absorbing his heavy fucking sighing and you were over it.  Liv was off creeping up the NYPD ladder, and Amanda and Fin already had a fun comradery going.  Yet here you were, sitting next to Sergeant Mood-Swings.  

You had a long fuse, but when it blew, it blew up spectacularly.  It was a family tradition.

“Stop fucking sighing at me when I try to make small talk,” you snapped.  “I wanted this about as much as you did, but let’s just try to get through a shift without you huffing at me like some put-out teenager.”

“I didn’t sigh,” he countered, but he looked surprised when he turned to face you.

“Yes, you did.  You have been since Harris paired us up.  I make a joke – heavy sigh.  I say I want to take the lead on an interview – heavy sigh.  I say that it’s getting cold – heavy sigh.  You have some sort of fucking lung condition?”

If you were expecting his own temper to flare up like it did with Liv, you were mistaken.  He only shifted in his seat more to face you.  “I didn’t realize I was.”

You stared at him a long moment, and without a counterpoint to your argument, you felt your own temper start to cool.  “Whatever.  Let’s just sit in awkward silence until one of us transfers out or retires.”  You turned away to face the passenger’s window, but you could feel him watching you for a moment longer.

“Do you really - ” He started to say, but your elusive witness peeked her head out of the street level door of the brownstone then, and you cut him off by climbing out of the car to go intercept her before she disappeared again.

*****

Nick only ever had two women as partners at work, and both partnerships started out rocky.  

Admittedly, Olivia Benson had a truckload of baggage when it came to her partnerships, so half of the issues there revolved around the sense of abandonment from her previous partner, Elliot.  

And he couldn’t get his footing with you either.  You had a sharp intellect and a keen instinct for police work, and you hid both under a layer of flippant comments and jokes.  He used to watch you and Rollins together, snickering at some joke or rolling your eyes at each other.  

With him, though, you were largely silent, as if you were waiting for something from him – until you snapped at him during a stakeout.  He hadn’t realized that he was sighing at you – like a teenager, you had snarked – but it was probably only the small thing that pushed you over the edge against a pile of larger things.

He was failing at home too.  His wife, Maria, was in the army and overseas, and it seemed that every time they actually got to talk, they fought.  Even his small daughter, Zara, seemed irritated by him.  She acted out in little ways, throwing tantrums about what was for dinner or when her favorite shirt wasn’t clean in time for school or when he tried to enforce rules like brushing teeth before bed.

He couldn’t fix things with Liv and her issues with Elliot leaving her abruptly.  He couldn’t fix things with Maria until she returned home.  He could try to fix things with Zara, but brushing teeth before bed was non-negotiable to both him and five out of five dentists.  

He swore he’d fix things with you.  Powerless to fix much else, it was the least he could do.

It was a quiet Tuesday, late morning.  Half the squad was out on other cases, and you and Nick were in the bullpen and plowing through paperwork and case summaries for Barba.  Harris was off somewhere, probably kissing some chief’s ring at 1PP.  Nick watched you for a moment.  Your head was bent over your paperwork, and you had a faint scowl as you wrote out the relevant points of your latest cases for the ADA.

“Hey,” he said.  You didn’t look up and only gave him a murmured “hmmm” in response.  “Did you bring your lunch?”

Your head stayed bent.  “I always bring my lunch.”

“Anything good?”

A quiet snort, which was sort of like a laugh, which Nick counted as a tiny victory.  “Cheese and tomato sandwich, so…a real delicacy.”

“Let’s go out to lunch,” he said, but you shook your still-bent head.  He added, “my treat.”  At that, you looked up at him.  You narrowed your eyes in suspicion.

“Why?”

He shrugged and pushed his chair back from his desk, and the legs scraped against the floor with a tortured squeal.  “Because no one is here, I want some fresh air, and my hand is cramping from all this paperwork.”

You looked at him a long moment, and Nick was uncomfortably aware of how it probably felt to be interrogated by you.  Staring in silence was one of your favorite tactics.  Perps couldn’t help but spill their secrets when you let those purposeful, uncomfortable silences bloom in the interrogation rooms.

Finally, you pushed away from your own desk and stood up.  “Okay,” was all you said, but Nick smiled anyway.  It was a start.

He took you to a nearby tavern, so unobtrusive that people could walk past and not even notice it.  It was within walking distance, though, and Nick had been a regular during his narcotics days.  He thought it’d be a nice change from your daily packed lunch of leftovers and sad sandwiches.  Sometimes he watched you on the sly as you picked at your depressing lunches, and the spirit of his dead abuela moved him to want to feed you up.

The waiter took your orders, and Nick added an order for nachos for you to split as an appetizer.

“Detective Moneybags,” you joked, dead-pan.  “I should have ordered the lobster.”

“Order two,” he joked back, and he made sure to smile when he said it.  He had thought about it, and he realized that you might be misreading him.  Many times he was joking back at you, but you didn’t seem to realize it.  Maria told him more than once that he came across as too stern.  Maybe that was the issue with you too.

The waiter brought your drinks, and Nick filled the silence with his own awkward small talk about the baseball playoffs.  You were from Boston, and he assumed you were a Sox fan.  He said as much, but you shook your head ruefully.

“I hate the Sox,” you said.  “Actually, I hate baseball in general.”

Nick held a hand over his heart in mock-offense, and you continued.  “Too hot, too humid usually, too long. And who can attend a noon game on a Wednesday?  I’m more of a hockey girl myself.  Climate-controlled, fast-paced.  I played in high school.”

“Yeah?”  Nick could picture it, you brawling with another player with that patented scowl you had.

You nodded.  “Yeah.  Boston College actually was scouting me, but I tore my ACL during my senior year and that was that.”

He hummed in sympathy.  “That’s rough.”

“It was fine.  Northeastern was scouting me too, for my brilliant brain.”  You grinned at him then, like you used to grin at Rollins, and Nick felt the thaw between the two of you start.

The waiter brought the nachos and plunked them down in the middle of the table, and the two of you chatted a bit about the squad and what it was like to transfer into such an exclusive group.  Eventually, just as your meals were coming out, the conversation circled around to the issue at hand.

“I’m sorry we got off to a rocky start,” Nick said.

You shrugged.  “It’s not your fault.  Partnerships always start off a little awkwardly.”

“You and Amanda seemed to hit it off right away,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but you didn’t see us on our first case.  We were both circling each other like a couple of cats deciding whether to fight or not.”

Nick chuckled at the mental image.

“Besides,” you continued as you eyed your sandwich for the best way to attack it.  “Harris switching everyone around was pointless.  I know every regime change brings pointless bureaucratic stuff, but everyone was happy where they were.”

Nick gave a little cough, then admitted, “Actually, I was the one who asked Harris to change things up.”

The look you gave him was comical – your eyes widened, and your mouth half open as you raised your sandwich to take a bite.  Instead, you lowered it a fraction.  “Really?  Why?”

“Because things with Liv were strained after the whole Delia Wilson case, and it was affecting the work.”  Nick didn’t add that when he sat down with Harris, the captain had asked if he had a preference for his new partner.  And Nick, who had thought about it, had said yes – you.

There was no point in telling you, because he was still on shaky ground with you and he’d likely mess it up somehow, say it wrong.  But Nick had wanted to be paired with you because you were easy.  If he said that out loud, you’d definitely take it the wrong way and not hear him out.

Even when things were good with Liv, there was still tension there.  They respected each other, worked well together, but Liv was a crusader and Nick was an old-fashioned, hammer-out-every-possibility type of cop.  He could never play devil’s advocate or even question the veracity of the victim’s story without Liv riding in to chastise him.  

Nick had watched you work enough to know that you were more like him.  You liked to explore every angle, every implausible situation.  How many times had he eavesdropped on you and Rollins as you bounced scenarios off of each other?  You questioned the victim’s version because it helped you build a better case for Barba, forestalling any defense tactics before it even went to trial.  

And it didn’t hurt that you were easy-going.  You had a calm temperament that made you instantly likeable, and you got along with nearly everyone:  Barba, the technicians in the lab, the medical examiner’s office, the junior detectives and beat cops.  It made your difficult work just a little easier.

But Nick had learned that your easy-going nature had a limit, based on how you’d snapped at him the other day, so he kept all that to himself.  Instead, he just worked on his own sandwich and watched you chew your own thoughtfully as you processed this new information.

“I can see that,” you finally admitted.  “But that was no reason to break up my comfortable work-marriage.  I don’t even get visitation rights with Frannie.”

“Well, my daughter has a hamster,” he teased.  “You’re welcome to come change out the wood chips any time you want.”

For the rest of the meal, you traded information about yourselves.  He told you about his wife in the army, his daughter, his troublesome younger sister.  He didn’t mention his awful father or his martyr of a mother.  

You told him about your own family – a mother, older sister, and young nephew still in the Boston area.  You were conspicuously quiet about your own father, and Nick noticed it but held his tongue.

Nick mentioned how hard it was, essentially being a single father while his wife was away, and how he worried when he couldn’t get ahold of his wife.  You clucked in tongue in sympathy.

“She’s due home in a month though,” he amended.

“That’s good,” you replied.  You pushed your plate away and drank the last of your water, and Nick knew you well enough by now that the thoughtful look on your face meant you were about to say something but were working out the wording in your head first.  He’d seen you make that face many times, usually to Barba when the ADA was being especially intractable.

“When your wife – “

“Maria,” he cut in.

“When Maria is back stateside and settled in, I’d like to meet her.”

Nick flagged down the waiter for the check and handed the guy some cash.  “Why?” he asked you.

That thoughtful look again, and a pause.  “Well, married partners can be tricky,” you finally said, and you didn’t quite meet his gaze.  “I’ve had a few, and things can get…. rocky with the wife.”

Nick let out a surprised laugh at the implication, and it made you look at him askance before you smiled back.  “You sleep with your partners?” he asked.

Your smile widened.  “Only Amanda.”  You watched him laugh and then your smile faded.  “But our line of work is pretty intimate.  You know, we see each other at our absolute worst.  Life and death stuff.  Long hours.  Close quarters.  It’s easy to misconstrue the closeness of partners from the outside looking in.”

He leaned forward a bit.  “You sound like you speak from experience.”

“Eh,” you replied, and you ducked your head like you were embarrassed.  “When I was with Family Justice in Boston, my second partner was this older guy.  Good looking, I guess, in a silver fox sort of way.  But he was a serial cheater, apparently, and his wife caught him with some compromising evidence.  When she checked his phone, there were two people he texted more than anyone – me and his girlfriend.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah, uh-oh is the understatement of the year.  I never slept with the guy.  I never even touched him other than to shake his hand the day I met him.  But that didn’t stop his wife from making accusations.  And you can’t really prove a negative.”

“Any blowback on you?” Nick asked.

You shook your head.  “Nah.  He had a reputation already.  They called him ‘the Hound’ behind his back.” Nick tilted his head in confusion.

You amended, “for ‘Pussy Hound,’” and you stammered on the phrase and blushed a bit, and Nick thought it was endearingly cute.  “Anyway, now when I get a married partner, I try to meet the spouse.  It’s harder to hate someone you know.”

“Good policy,” he replied.  “When Maria is back, we’ll set something up.  She makes a mean chicken tetrazzini.”

“That sounds good.”  You both stood and pulled on your coats, and you made your way outside.

“Certainly better than whatever sad Wonder Bread and bologna sandwich you probably eat at home,” Nick joked, and when you made an outraged noise, reared back, and punched him in his arm, he finally knew that you’d gotten over your awkward stage and were proper partners at last.

~~~Tag List~~~ @thesandbeneathmytoes​   @permanentlydizzy  @mgarner1227​  @beccabarba​   @sonnybarisi​   @storiesofsvu​   @zizzlekwum​  @welcometothemadxxhouse   @neely1177​   @bananas-pajamas  @rachelxwayne​   @stardust-fray   @massivecolorspygiant​   @imspillingcoffee​   @amneris21​  @paintballkid711​   @mad-girl-without-a-box​   @bestattempt​

[blue-bird-kny]

How You Spend Days Off

I stuck to only the three main peeps, but I’m looking forward to writing for more JJK characters. It was actually really nice to write for them, so I hope you enjoy~Amanda

P.S: Be safe out after dark!

Warning: N/A

( 2.1K+ words)

   ↳{shenanigans you and your S/O get up to on days off}

Yuji:

Days off with Yuji are unpredictable and always either involve something thrilling and very energy consuming or it can be some of the simplest things a person can do- no in between.

Yuji usually is the one who makes plans during your spare time (though he always gets your opinion, of course), he just really values time with you and wants to experience so much together while he can

It was common knowledge that this coming Friday, all the students would have the time off to rest as a reward for all their hard work with the recent influx of curse activity. Yuji wasted no time in planning the perfect day together, from the moment you woke up next to him to when you both fell asleep, he had something ready.                               

“Ah that was delicious Yuji, thank you” you cheered, arms stretched high above your head in an attempt to work away the sleepiness the food had made you feel. “No problem! Only the best for you, princess” Yuji’s smile reached past his shining eyes, thrilled you enjoyed the assortment of plates and bowls filled with your breakfast favorites he’d surprised you with. “Well then, my prince, to what honor do I owe your company today?” you asked leaning against your balled fist and bent elbow on the table, amusement and adoration laced on all your features. “For one day only, yours truly scored us tickets to…! Drum roll please!” Yuji posed dramatically, eyes cast down while crouched and pointing in a funny manner.

You proceeded to bang your fist against the table, laughing lightly, “We’re going to spend all day at Monster Con!” he pulled out two floppy pieces of paper from his back pocket as you gasped, “Oh I’m not finished yet, princess, we’ll also be wearing matching costumes I hand selected” You stood quickly, clapping at his theatrical performance as he bowed, repeating, “Thank you, thank you”. You made your way to infront of the boy, your arms wrapping around his broad shoulders while he enveloped your waist tightly, pressing you against him. “Not going dressed as your pesky alter ego, huh?” you joked staring up at the taller kid, earning you a slight pout, “No, he’s not invited” he grumbled. “Sorry, that joke was in poor taste” you apologized, shifting to run your thumb along his juted bottom lip to smooth out the lines.

“No worries, I know ya didn’t mean anything by it” your hand stayed cupping his cheek, both star-filled eyes trained on each other as you both wore the cheesiest grins. Just as you stood on your tip-toes to close the space between each other, a warm gust of breath blew against the palm holding Yuji still, “I was wondering why you hadn’t spoiled the moment” you sighed, lowering yourself to lean your forehead against Yuji’s chest instead. A small mouth carved into its host cheek frowned, now free to speak without your hand suffocating it, “I can handle the women’s teasing, however what have I done in my many lifetimes to have to suffer through this painful love-sick puppies act” Sukuna complained. “Many things actually” you responded, muffled by Yuji’s shirt that smelled of a citrusy-warm blend you couldn’t get enough of. “Why do you always kill the mood?” Yuji  groaned up towards the ceiling, earning himself a scoff from the demon king. “Oh? You mean like that I wouldn’t let y-” “SHUT UP!” Yuji slammed his hand against his own face to silence the man, his cheeks inflamed.

Now clad in matching costumes, you as frankenstein's wife and Yuji as Frankenstein, from the hair to the clothes to the make-up, you both spent the day without any further hiccups; how Yuji kept Sukuna at bay, you didn’t know, but I didn’t really matter. The stares from passengers on the train to the convention center was obvious to everyone but you two, lost in your own little love-sick world of old-fashion horror movies, delicious food, and pure, unfiltered content.

Megumi:

Megumi is a simple guy who likes simple things; he’s overworked and more exhausted than he even realizes, however he doesn’t acknowledge that...ever. In fact, you could run a mile ‘too quickly’ by his standards and he will have you take a break and drink his bottle of water (though you had your own and he knew that).

On your rare days off together, Megumi would silently stick to you like glue; he wants to do something for you in the creative way Yuji does and definitely wants to spend the time with you, but he can never come up with a complete idea of how to ‘wow’ you.

Except you didn’t need to be wowed, in fact you really were burnt out, so when the day came when you had  nothing to do but be together, you planned a whole day of nothing with a side of Netflix and take-out.

You knocked on the door to Megumi’s dorm that was just a few paces away from your own. It was almost noon and you still wore your pj’s from last night, cookie monster shorts and an old shirt of Megumi’s you took last week, having made no attempt to fix your hair. “Umi~!” you whined, banging on the door a little harder, the plastic bag from the convenience store rustling at your side. “Coming” Megumi opened the door in a similar state; pj’s still on and hair sticking in even weirder directions than normal.

“Mornin” you greeted with the faintest grin, “sorry to wake you” “ I was just getting up” he yawned while he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Sure I can tell by the bed head” you teased, earning a playful eye roll from the boy. You waved the bag of goodies in front of his face, “Let me in, I’ll make it worth your while~” he chuckled, “I doubt it” despite his words he stood to the side, letting you past and closing the door behind you.

His dorm was dark and a little stuffy, clearly Megumi hadn’t had time to do the in depth cleaning the little neat-freak was so fond of. The continents of the bag clacked together and scattered around as you tossed it onto the small table in the corner, making your way over to his comfortable futon that smelled of his signature eucalyptus soaps. You flopped about for a moment, stretching, snuggling into the sheets still warm from Megumi, who was watching the small scene from the door, “C’mon Umi’ I wanna get through at least two episodes of SVU before we inevitably fall asleep wrapped in each others arms” you called dreamily with lidded eyes, already tired again as you buried beneath his sheets and pillows.

Megumi could feel his chest ache and stomach flutter at the image of the one who he cared for so much that it physically hurt laying there in his bed with soft, kind eyes just for him- it was almost too much. “Umi, I will eat all the sour snakes if you don’t come over here, your sheets are getting cold” Megumi was cut off by his own thoughts of admiration by your voice. He chuckled at the cute way your face cringed a bit at the sour-sweet taste of the candy before sliding into bed too, your head laying on his chest as he held you close. A small, genuine grin spread across his lips as the sound of Netflix starting rang from the TV, holding you even tighter, ‘this is perfect’

Nobara

Be ready to put on your best dressed because you and your girlfriend are hitting the town! Of course Nobara would find her way into the city whenever she could, foreign to the endless wonders the busy streets had to offer and luckily for her, you happened to be far more native with the many sights to see.

She’d let you sleep in, holding you tender as she traced her nails across your skin to form intricate patterns until you woke. You both would totally be the couple that wears matching outfits, the same colors and patterns tailored to your personal styles- of course this would also lead to thousands of pictures for Nobara’s instagram.  

You two would laughed, eat delicious foods, and would spend way more than either of you cared to admit nor did you want to because the price of absurd, unfiltered laughter and the feel of just a good time, was one both of you could pay a thousand times (and a new pair of shoes too)

The sun hung lower in the sky than it did when you started this little adventure before noon, having been sold on the idea by Nobara that she “only needed a few things” this morning. Now, exhausted perched on a steel chair outside some cafe you’d never heard of with your sore feet elevated on the other empty one you waited for your girlfriend who was inside somewhere.

“Jeez even my fingers are cramped” you groaned flexing your numb digits; shopping was a grueling vice because no matter how much you’ve already bought, more cute sweaters, tops, and matching accessories called to you by name and the art of saying ‘no’ wasn’t exactly in Ms.Kugisaki’s vocabulary. “Here ya’ go babe” Nobara emerged from the shop with two cups, handing one to you before sipping gingerly from her own. You brought the plastic straw to your lips, sighing in relief as the contents quelled a thirst you didn’t even know had been building up. “I don’t think we did too much damage” your face fell and eyes bulged, flailing your arms out around at the brightly colored parcels that littered the table and surrounding floor, “Nobara there are at least fifteen bags here”

She laughed, her hand falling on top of your thigh, giving a gentle squeeze, “Still no that bad”. She scooched her chair closer to yours, her thumb rubbing nonsense circles into the denim of your jeans, “What next?” she asked leaning into her seat, her brown irises watching yours fondly, “Food? We haven’t eaten since a lot earlier and I could turn into a wolf any second and eat you” you teased, though food sounded better and better the more you thought about it. “Eat me? You promise, baby?” Nobara’s smirk earned herself a not-so-graceful, but light kick from you.

“An impromptu picnic sounds great” Nobara decided, tapping against you in finality. It became a game: You both had 30 minutes to run around the delicious food district to pick out each other's favorites, as many as you liked (which would be more food than two can eat), then you’d reconvene at the same cafe. Nobara offered to pick up a blanket at the convenience store because she ‘knew you so well she wouldn’t need the whole half hour.’ The game was on and time was ticking as you both rushed in opposite directions with several bags and a hunger to please the other.

You scurred around each vendor, selecting different meat dishes and veggies, cakes and watermelon, and even splurged on some fancy sushi from the place she'd wanted to try. Your arms quivered under the weight of the many shopping bags and take-out boxes, but you were determined to get back first. “Just around the corner- Are you kidding me?!” you yelled. In the exact steel seat she sat in earlier, was Nobara with an array of bags around her, boxes and the blanket stacked neatly on the table with dark sunglasses adorning her face and her legs crossed cockily as she spoke smoothly, “Beat ya”

Both of you grossly overestimated the amount of food you could eat in one sitting as practically unopened boxes lay stacked on top one another on the blankets while watermelon rinds and used plates were thrown into a garbage bag. The sun was low, almost at the horizon, painting the sky in pastel oranges and pinks with hints of purple and blue; the spring chill had blown a little heavier now that the sun was setting and it was getting harder to stop the shivers. Nobara laid against the trunk of a tree with you between her legs, holding you as her manicured fingers idly massaged your scalp quietly- you would have fallen asleep at the small gesture had you not been actively keeping your eyes open. “The boys will be grateful for the food, I’d hate wasting it” she yawned to which you only hummed.

“Hey” you turned your head up slightly, only enough to meet her gaze, “today was really fun” she smiled, slithering across your arm to grab your cheeks gently in her fingers, forcing your lips to pucker, “yeah it was.” Your wobbly smile made Nobara feel things, too many things at once, and a lump began to form in her throat, “I love you” you mumbled, Nobara’s breath caught for only a moment, whispering a thick “me too.”

Masterlist 

[australiancarisi]

12 with olivia benson please!

Words: 2550 Remember when I said these were gonna be drabbles… also Nick, Rafael, Mike & Kat are in this because I love them all thx for coming to my ted talk

‘how is my wife more badass than me?’

You groaned as you rolled over to Liv’s side of the bed to turn the blaring alarm off. It took a lot of effort and tries but you eventually managed to turn it off with a huff. You wrapped the blanket around you, closed your eyes and snuggled into Liv’s pillow. You peeped an eye open when you heard Liv chuckle.

“What” you mumbled

“You are just adorable” Liv smiled from the doorway to your bathroom

“Why are you out of bed?” you whined rolling onto you back

“Because although it is your day off my love, it is not mine” Liv said and headed back into the bathroom to continue getting ready.

“But the alarm only just went off. If I’m going to be woken up early on my day off a mere five hours after getting home from my shift, I should get cuddles” you demanded. “I’m not joking” you said as Liv laughed at you. You sat up slightly when you noticed your bedroom door slowly open “here’s my cuddles”

“y/n” Noah ran up and jumped onto the bed and got straight into your arms

“Hello sweet boy, how do you have so much energy at 6 in the morning” you grinned smothering his face with kisses. Noah’s laugh had to up there as one of your favourite sounds, so pure, so innocent. Liv leant against the door frame and watched the two of you together. She had been so nervous when the two of you had started dating about how Noah would take to you, but from the moment he met you, he was glued to your side and you were wrapped around his little finger. Even now, two years into your marriage and nothing had changed.

“See this could have been all yours but now Noah gets all the cuddles” you squeezed him a little tighter making him giggle.

“Alright you two” Liv playfully rolled eyes “Come on Noah let’s get you ready for school before Lucy gets here”

“Nooooo”

“Yesssss” Liv teased him

“But I wanna stay with y/n” 

“I can get him ready” you said with a yawn

“The only thing you are going to do is go back to sleep” Liv said

“But-“

“No buts. You didn’t get home until 1am you need to sleep my love” Liv pecked your lips and reached out to Noah, who just snuggled into you “Noah” he whined again. Your schedule had been all over the place lately. You had been doing doubles and night shifts for the last few weeks, you had barely seen Liv let alone Noah, it was no wonder he was clinging to you

“Go on sweet boy, I promise I’ll be there to pick you up after school” you kissed his forehead

“Promise?” He asked holding his pinkie up. You wrapped yours around his.

“Pinkie promise. 3 o’clock. I’ll be there” with the promise of seeing you later agreed on Noah left.

“Get some sleep my love” Liv smiled kissing you again before turning off the lights leaving you to catch up some much-needed rest.

When you woke up again it was nearly 11am. You jumped up pottered around the house, cleaning up Noah’s toys, putting away any dishes and things that were lying around and doing some laundry. These were your favourite type of days, where you just chilled at home, cleaned and were able to do things at your own pace.

“To what do I owe the pleasure Captain” you grinned, answering your phone

“Do I need a reason to call my wife?” Liv asked. You could basically hear her rolling her eyes.

“No, but it is out of the ordinary”

“What are you doing?” Liv asked, changing the subject

“Just about to leave actually, going to meet Jas for lunch at the café down the street. Even put on jeans for the occasion” You locked the door as you headed out to meet your friend.

“Wow fancy…” she trailed off and you could hear her talking to Sonny and Amanda

“How busy are you today?” you asked when you heard her lift her phone back to her ear

“You don’t even want to know… that’s why I called I doubt I’ll be home for dinner”

“It’s okay- “

“No, it's not” Liv cut you off with a frustrated sigh “I need to be home more, I need to spend more time with you and Noah and- “

“And you need to work. Because it’s what you love, because you are helping the people that need it. You are a good police officer, the best actually. Noah and I can handle a few late nights. Besides Noah needs something to be mad about when he’s a teenager” you joked. You smiled as you heard Liv chuckle a little. You hated how much pressure put on herself to be perfect at everything.

“Have I ever told you how much I love you?” Liv asked

“Once or twice but I’ll never grow tired of hearing it”

“I love you”

“I love you too, I’ll see you when I’m looking at you, be safe”

“Always”

“You know you have a stupid look on your face” your friend and co-worker Jas said as you met out the front of the café while hanging up the phone

“It’s called love, you should try it sometime” you teased

“No thank you” Jas replied with a laugh. The two of you sat in the busy café and caught up on everything outside of work. Jas told you about one of the many guys she had on the go at the moment, you gushed about Liv and Noah.

“I mean seriously if I could I’d shove my foot where the sun doesn’t shine” Jas huffed bitching about one of your co-workers.

“I should probably go, need to run a couple of errands before I pick up Noah” You looked at your phone double-checking the time, an hour before you had to get Noah. You and Jas went to stand up when all hell broke loose. Everything changed in a split second. One moment you were sitting there with your friend having an amazing day and the next you were hiding under a table as a man held the café at gunpoint.

“NOBODY MOVE” he screamed turning in a circle with his gun pointed and ready to shoot. “NO ONE MOVES NO ONE CALLS THE COPS” You slowly and quietly got your phone out.

“What are you doing?” Jas whispered, her voice shaking in fear “did you not just hear him?”

“There’s no way I’m not texting Liv” you huffed

Liv sighed as she waited for the coffee machine to brew a new jug. Her eyes felt like they were going to fall out after all the paperwork she had been doing all day. All her detectives had been out either talking to victims or following leads so all she had done today was sit at her desk and do paperwork and reply to emails. Picking up her cup, Liv headed back out to the squad room as she heard everyone return. As Amanda was filling everyone in on the lead that she and Sonny had been following when everyone’s phone buzzed, and officers began moving.

“Café being held at gunpoint” Fin frowned

“Unknown gunman, unknown reason” Kat read from her phone

“I wonder which one” Sonny thought aloud

“Café 98” Liv almost threw her coffee on the nearest desk running into her office to grab her gun and badge.

“How do you know?” Fin asked

“Y/n is there”

Half an hour had passed, you could now hear the sirens of police officers in the distance, Liv responded and told you she was on the way and it was going to be okay. It was only words, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t make you feel better. The gunman was shouting at the café workers, blaming them for everyone being taken hostage because they didn’t give him money. You took deep breaths and tried to stay calm. The café phone rang, then again and again.

“Someone shut that fucking phone up!” the man yelled

“It’s going to keep ringing” your mouth said before your mind could stop you

“What was that bitch?” He started moving towards you. You slowly stood up, hands in the air.

“The p-phone. It’s the police. They want to talk, and they are going to keep calling until you answer” you stuttered, your confidence slowly falling.

“How would you know?” He sneered “you a cop?”

“No!” you quickly exclaimed “uh no I’m not but I am married to one. My wife is the captain at the 16th” you pulled your phone out of your pocket to show him your lock screen. It was a picture of you and Liv – her in her uniform - when she promoted to captain.

“You answer it then” he motioned with the gun towards the phone. You slowly walked over to the counter, focused on the man and the gun and picked up the phone.

“Hello” you said

“Hello, this is Captain Mike Dodds who is this?” you breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar voice.

Olivia jumped out of the car at the scene, almost before Fin had actually stopped the car. It was chaos. Uniforms were holding back the public as well as journalists. There were lights flashing and being screaming. Olivia could hear people asking if it was a terrorist attack but right now, she didn’t care about motive, all she wanted was to get you out of there. Flashing her badge, she and the rest of the squad were let through and they headed towards ground zero.

“Who’s in charge?” Liv asked a nearby uni who pointed her in the direction. She had a small smile when she saw Mike and Nick hunched over a table. “Captain Dodds, Sargant Amaro”

“Liv” the pair frowned “what are you guys doing here? This is major crimes’ not svu”

“y/n is in there” Fin said

“So what do you know?” Liv asked

“Not a lot. No contact has been made yet. We’re about to try again” Nick said as Mike lifted the phone to his ear.

“Hello, this is Captain Mike Dodds who is this?” Mike asked, his eyes met Liv and he quickly put the phone onto speaker. “y/n is anyone hurt?

“No, no one is hurt. There’s probably about 30 of us in here” hearing your voice was music to Liv’s ears. Mike asked you a few more questions, not that you were able to give him much more information.

“Mike, I need you to tell Liv someone has to get Noah, I was supposed to pick him up from school and he’s going to be so upset if I’m not there” Liv turned to her squad, she hadn’t even thought of Noah.

“I’m on it” Sonny nodded pulling his phone out and moving away from everyone.

The fact that Mike was the person on the other end of the line made you a little less anxious. You tried to give him as much info as possible, but the gunman was not giving you anything, he wouldn’t even tell them what he wanted. 

“Mike, I need you to tell Liv someone has to get Noah, I was supposed to pick him up from school and he’s going to be so upset if I’m not there and-“

“Alright that’s enough” the gunman grabbed the phone out of your hand and hung up. You quickly moved back to your spot under the table. The gunman was growing anxious, pacing around the room, it was clear he didn’t have a plan.

“There’s a back door” Jas whispered “a few of us could get out”

“I’ll distract him”

“I think Liv would kill me if I left you in here” Jas huffed

“If you get out the police can get it, she’ll live with it” you slowly stood back up “you should really stay away from the windows”

“What?” the man spat at you

“The police, they’ll be looking for a spot for a sniper to take you out” you walked towards him, moving around so he kept his eyes on you. Jas and a couple others started to creep towards the door. You were racking your brain trying to remember everything Liv had ever told you about hostage situations.

“Shouldn’t you stay away from the windows to then?”

“My wife’s a cop. You don’t think she’s out there?” you chuckled “And the guy on the phone before? He was her number 2 not too long ago, he got promoted not too long before my wife, he goes to my son’s dance recitals, he’s not gonna let anything happen to me. I doubt there is an officer that doesn’t know what I look like. They aren’t going to shoot me, but they will shoot you” your eyes swept the room quickly, Jas was out.

“Then maybe I should just shoot you” he held the gun to your face. You held your breath and closed your eyes. You thought of Liv and Noah and how much you loved them. Suddenly the back door opened and your eyes shot open.

“NYPD!” the gunman’s attention turned to the police officers, then, without thinking you grabbed the gun and his arm, flipping him to the ground. You quickly ripped the gun from his hand and took it apart.

“Seems you learnt some tricks over the years” Mike grinned coming up to you as one of the other officers handcuffed the man. You wrapped your arms around him and relaxed, you were okay, everyone was okay.

“She’s out there right?” you needed your wife right now

“did you expect her to be anywhere else?” Nick smirked joining you and Mike. He wrapped his arm around you too “took almost everyone to keep her from busting through the door herself” you grinned at that. Classic Liv. Mike and Nick lead you out the front door of the café. The moment you stepped out you found Liv. She was standing with Jas and the rest of the squad. Her eyes locked with yours and you thought you were going to start crying. The two of you ran to each other, throwing your arms around the other.

“Oh my love” Liv squeezed you “are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay” you whisper into her neck

“She’s more than okay” Mike said, you pulled back from Liv’s arms. The rest of the squad joined you. “not only did she distract him to get those guys out, when we came in she grabbed his gun and disarmed him”

“Nice” Kat grinned, clearly impressed

“How is my wife more badass than me?” Liv grinned and kissed your forehead

“Learnt from the best” you responded “Noah…”

“All covered, Raf’s got him” Sonny said “He’s no y/n but I’m sure Noah was just as excited to see Uncle Rafa”

“Probably more” you laughed, you grabbed Liv’s hand and squeezed “Let’s go see our son”

“Anything you want my love” Liv kissed your lips “I’m so proud of you”