winedrunkwords

[winedrunkwords]

❝I WANNA FUCK YOU LIKE AN ANIMAL❞

synopsis: you're supposed to be healing. mark's supposed to behave. but neither of you are very good at following the rules—and once he starts, he can't stop. warnings: smut, rough/dominant mark, mark being a perv, sub!reader, fem!reader, dirty talk, breeding kink vibes, possessive behavior, praise, overstimulation, soft obsession, light pain kink (due to injuries), oral (fem receiving), oral-to-pentration transition, unprotected sex, creampie, getting caught by cecil wc: 6k

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The room smells like antiseptic and blood.

And you—still beneath it all—you.

Your sweat. Your skin. Your wrecked body calling to him like a fucking siren.

Mark shouldn't be hard right now.

You're hurt. You're bleeding. You almost died. And still, all he can think about is the way your legs are spread—like a dare.

Like a death sentence.

She's hurt. She's half-naked. She almost died. And I'm standing here like I'm about to fuck her in a hospital bed—because I am.

You're sprawled across the GDA medbed—bruised, bandaged, breathtaking. The remnants of your tank top barely cling to you, the shredded fabric sliding over your ribs. The gauze across your side is already bleeding through. One thigh's propped up slightly, bruises painted like ink across soft flesh.

And that stupid fucking blanket is hanging off your hip, one tug away from falling.

You look like sin.

Mark's hands are curled into fists. He tries not to breathe you in again—tries to look away from your thighs, from the blood, the curve of your waist—but his eye betray him.

Everything about you pulls him in. It always has.

Dangerous? No. You're catastrophic.

"You keep staring," you murmur, dry.

Mark's fingers twitch at his sides, his jaw clenched.

Of course I'm staring. Look at you. Fucking look at you. All wrecked and smug like you know what you're doing to me.

"Sorry," he mutters.

"No, you're not."

You don't even open your eyes. Just let your head tip back like you can sense how close he is to breaking.

"You could've died," he says.

"You say that every time."

"You keep almost dying."

"And yet," you breathe, finally cracking one eye open, "here I am. Breathing. Chest rising. Skin flushed. Guts still inside."

A smirk curls your lips. "Guess you'll have to deal with that, won't you?"

And that's it.

That's the moment Mark snaps, hitting him all at once—the fear of losing you, the aching need, the way you're taunting him, bleeding and beautiful.

And he breaks.

"Fuck it."

He's on you in seconds.

Not rough. Not angry.

Just urgent.

Desperate.

I'm not even pretending anymore. I need her. I need to taste her. I need to mark every fucking inch of her until she remembers she's mine.

His mouth crashes onto yours, fingers cradling your face, threading into your hair like he's afraid you'll vanish beneath him. You kiss him back without hesitation—tongue sliding against his, slow and warm and unbothered.

She tastes like heat. Salt. Blood. Fuck, she tastes alive.

"You—fuck, you don't know what you do to me," Mark groans, pulling back just enough to breathe.

His hand slides down your side, reverent.

You flinch slightly when he grazes the bandage on your ribs.

He freezes instantly.

"Not the left side," you murmur.

"Okay."

So he kisses the right instead.

Then just below it.

Then lower.

And lower.

Still, you don't stop him. Still watching him with half-lidded eyes like you're curious what he'll do if you just let go.

She's letting me. She's letting me see her like this. Letting me touch. Letting me taste. I'd drop to my knees for her every fucking time if she just asked.

Mark tugs the blanket down.

You're wearing black panties—thin, snug, and soaked.

And holy shit.

He nearly groans out loud just from the sight.

Fuck. Fuck. I can see the shape of her cunt through these. She's wet. She's wet for me.

"Do you—" his voice cracks. "Do you want this?"

You prop yourself up on one elbow. "What do you think?"

"I need to hear you say it."

You look him dead in the eye.

"I want your mouth between my legs."

Mark chokes on the air, feeling his cock throbbing.

Holy shit. Holy shit. Don't come in your pants, don't fucking come just from that—

He kisses your knee.

Then the curve of your thigh.

His mouth lingers on every bruise like he's trying to erase them with his tongue, every slow press of his lips a prayer to whatever god let you survive.

Finally, finally, he kisses you right over your panties.

"You smell so fucking good," he breathes, inhaling shamelessly. "Been thinking about this for weeks."

You huff a soft laugh. "Knew you were a pervert."

"Yeah," he groans, dragging his nose along the crease of your thigh. "I am. And I'm so gone for you. I'd lick this pussy through cotton, denim, Kevlar. Doesn't matter. I want it like I want air."

I'm a fucking mess. I'd sniff this pussy in public. I'd lap it up in front of a goddamn mirror just to watch myself beg.

He hooks his fingers into the waistband of your underwear and drags them down slow.

And when you're bare?

He dives in.

Tongue flattening against your slit. Then a slow, wet stripe all the way up to your clit. He groans—low, filthy, addicted.

God, she's soaked. Fuck, fuck, I knew it—I knew she'd taste good.

She's warm. Sweet. Salty. Fucking perfect. Mine. This pussy's fucking mine. I could die with my face buried here. I want it on my face, on my chin, want her dripping down my neck. Want to fuck her and lick it off my own cock.

You gasp, hips twitching.

Mark grips your thighs tighter, anchoring you.

"Don't move," he mutters against you. "Let me make you come. Just this once. Let me be the only one who ever gets to see you fall apart."

Then he sucks your clit into his mouth and moans like he's about to lose it.

Lapping. Sucking. Breathing against your folds.

I'm gonna make her scream. Gonna make her drip. Gonna make her beg.

You're panting now. Your fingers curl into his hair.

"Don't stop," you gasp.

"Say my name," he groans into you, tongue circling. "Say you want me."

"Mark—fuck—keep going—"

And that's all he needs.

He starts eating you like a man possessed.

Tongue dragging. Mouth sucking. Breath heavy through his nose as he fucks you with his mouth like it's the last thing he'll ever do, loving the way your hips jerk.

She's shaking. She's coming. She's falling apart just for me. God, I need this. I need her. I need her to come again. Again. Again—

You break.

Your orgasm hits hard, gasping, hips bucking off the bed—and he doesn't stop. He moans into your cunt, nose buried in your folds, licking you through it, chin soaked, tongue fucking you through the aftershocks.

I'm gonna make her come again. I don't care if she's twitching. I want her ruined. I want to fuck her full and then clean it all up with my tongue.

When he finally pulls back, his lips are glistening.

He swipes a thumb across his mouth and licks it clean, pupils blown wide.

"You gonna let me fuck you now?" he pants, voice raw. "Or do I have to make you come again first?"

You didn't say anything. Just watching him through lazy lashes, breathing heavily.

You looked like you knew.

Knew he's seconds from ruining every promise he made to take it slow. Knew how hard he's been since the moment he walked in. Knew you had him.

And let him see everything he needs in your eyes.

She's mine. Mine. And I'm about to fuck her like I'll never get the chance.

He runs a hand through his hair, ragged.

"I shouldn't."

You arched a brow. "But?"

He groans. "But I will."

Mark stands between your legs, breath shaking, hands trembling at your hips.

She wants me. She wants me now. After everything—after almost dying—she's giving this to me. Letting me have her. Letting me fuck her.

He shoves his pants down to mid-thigh, cock springing out and slapping against his abdomen—thick, flushed, and leaking already.

You glance at it, brows lifting. "You've been hard this whole time?"

He grits his teeth. "From just looking at you."

You hum. "Bigger than I expected."

Mark groans, fisting his cock once. Beads of pearl leak at the tip and smears down his shaft as he strokes. Your eyes linger on it, almost curious.

"You're evil."

You grin. "You love it."

He does.

He fucking does.

I love that she teases me. I love that she ruins me. I love that I'm this hard and she hasn't even touched me yet.

Mark slides two fingers between your folds.

You're soaked.

Dripping from the orgasm he just gave you. Warm, wet, swollen.

He nearly whimpers.

"God, you're soaked."

"You made me come," you say, voice lazy. "What did you expect?"

Mark presses the head of his cock to your entrance. His breath catches.

"You sure?"

are you sure?

You shoot him a look. "If you don't fuck me right now, I will break your nose."

That's all it takes.

He slides into you slowly—but he's so thick, so long, the stretch pulls a sound from your throat that's a half-growl, half-moan as your hips twitch.

Mark groans deep in his chest.

Holy fuck. She's tight. She's squeezing me like she doesn't wanna let go. Warm. Hot. Velvet. Fucking heaven.

You're panting, nails digging into his forearm.

"You're too big."

He pauses, buried halfway.

"I can stop—"

"Don't you dare."

He growls low in his throat and bottoms out, cock buried to the hilt.

Fuck. Fuck. She's wrapped around me. All of me. I could die like this. I could stay like this forever.

His forehead drops to yours, breathing hard, trying not to come on the spot.

"You feel—Jesus—you feel perfect."

You clenched around him on purpose, smirking.

"Mark?"

He swallows.

"Yeah?"

"Fuck me like you mean it."

And he does.

He snaps his hips forward, and you shout.

Hard, deep, fast.

No warm-up. No mercy. Just raw, hungry, desperate thrusts that shake the bed and jolt your body with every slam.

Your injured body rocks with each stroke, but you didn't stop him. You gripped him tighter. You moan louder. You meet him thrust for thrust.

You take him like you were made for it.

"You're gonna break me," you gasp.

He growls. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"You're the pervert—"

"You're the one taking me so fucking well—like your pussy belongs to me."

He pulls out halfway, slams back in, again and again, wet slaps echoing in the sterile room, your slick coating his cock.

He grips your thigh, pushes your knee up, angles deeper—and hits your spot.

Your back arches with a strangled cry.

"Mark—fuck—there, right there—!"

He doesn't stop.

He drives into it over and over, mercilessly, grinding his cock deep inside your soaked, pulsing cunt until your eyes roll back.

"Right there?" he pants, drilling into your spot again. "You want me to keep hitting it? Wanna come again on my cock?"

You moan. "Yes—yes—yes—"

"Say you want it," he pants.

"I want it—"

"Louder."

"I want your cock, Mark—I want you to ruin me—"

That's it.

He loses it.

She wants to be ruined? Then I'll fucking ruin her.

Mark grabs the headboard with one hand, the back of your thigh with the other, holding you down while he pounds into you, cock pistoning like he's trying to claim you from the inside. Wet slaps echo in the sterile room, your slick coating his cock as he pounds you ruthlessly.

Your cries get louder. Needier.

He watches your tits bounce with every thrust, watches your face twist in pleasure.

"Come for me," he growls. "Come all over this cock."

You do.

You scream.

You come so hard your thighs seize and your cunt clamps tight, pulsing around him in waves that make Mark sees stars.

And even then, he doesn't stop.

He keeps going.

Thrusting through it.

Grinding into your g-spot like he's chasing another orgasm before you can breathe.

She's not done. I'm not done. I'm gonna fill her. Gonna come inside her. Gonna make her leak for days.

He leans down, panting into your mouth.

"Can I—fuck—can I come inside?"

"Do it," you gasp.

"You're not on anything."

"I said do it, Mark—"

That's all it takes.

He slams in deep—one last time—and lets go.

He spills into you in thick, hot pulses, filling you to the brim, groaning against your neck, body shaking from the force of it.

You can feel it—his cum flooding your cunt, thick and hot, dripping already.

He doesn't pull out.

Not yet.

He just lays there, panting over you, cock twitching inside your drenched, used hole, both of you ruined.

You brush a hand through his sweaty hair, breath catching.

"Still a pervert," you murmur.

Mark grins against your skin.

"Only for you."

And you both know it's not over.

Because he's still hard. Still inside you.

Still hard.

Still twitching.

You're trembling beneath him. Bruised, wet, leaking, Your chest rises and falls with ragged gasps, skin flushed, sweat clinging to every dip of your body.

I just came and I'm still hard. Still deep. Still obsessed.

He doesn't move.

Doesn't pull out.

His cock throbs inside your slick, cum-stuffed cunt, and he feels your walls flutter around him again—like your body can't tell if it's sated or starving.

"Mark..." you breathe, voice raw "You're still—"

"Hard?" he murmurs against your neck, dragging his nose along your collarbone. "Yeah."

"You just came—"

"I know." He grinds his hips, slow, thick, deep. You jolt beneath him, overstimulated. Your moan is hoarse.

"And you're still dripping."

He can feel it. His cum, hot and thick, slid down your thighs, coating your pussy, soaking the ruined medbed beneath you.

He growls low in his throat.

"I filled you up," he murmurs. "But it's not enough."

You twitch—your leg jerks involuntarily when his cock shifts inside you again. Your body is too sensitive, your pussy so raw and full and wet.

Yet, you laugh, broken and breathless. "That's the pervert talking again."

He pulls out halfway—only to slam back in, thick and wet and deep.

"That pervert wants to watch it all leak out just so he can fuck it back in."

He fucks it back in.

Slow.

Heavy.

Deliberate.

You gasp, head tipping back.

Mark groans. "That's it. Take it. Take every drop like the good girl you are."

His hand trails down to your thigh, spreading you wider. His other slides under your back, lifting you just slightly, angling you so he can go deeper.

You whimper.

Fucking perfect. She's already wrecked, and I'm still hard. Still hungry. Still not done.

Your body twitches with every lazy thrust. You try to close your legs—but he grips your knees and pins them apart, burying himself deep again.

"I said lie back," he growls. "Be good. And let me finish the job."

"Mark—"

He cuts you off with a kiss—sloppy, wet, claiming.

You try to breathe, but he doesn't give you the space. His tongue slides past your lips, tasting you, owning you, devouring you.

And then—without warning—he flips you.

I want to see her face while I fuck her stupid. Want to watch her drool and sob and smile while I stuff her full again.

You gasp as he drags your hips back, hands firm, strong, urgent. He pulls you to your knees, forces your ass up, presses your chest to the sheets.

Look at her. Fucked dumb. Covered in bruises and cum and still so fucking tight.

You barely register the position shift before his cock slams back in.

You scream.

"F-Fuck—Mark—there—!"

He pounds into you from behind, skin slapping skin, each thrust harder than the last. Your ass ripples with every impact. Your arms tremble. The bed jerks beneath you.

Mark watches it all.

Your back arched. Your mouth open. Your thighs shaking.

She's mine. Mine. No one else gets to see her like this.

His hand wraps in your hair, yanks your head back so he can whisper into your ear:

"You wanted round two, baby? Then fucking take it."

He slams in again—wet, filthy, relentless. Your pussy's so soaked now that every thrust squelches, obscene and loud.

He watches your juices drip from our slit to the sheets. Watches his cock disappear into your cunt again and again.

"You're—nnngh—you're disgusting."

"You're soaked."

"I just came."

"You're gonna come again."

He fucks you faster, sloppier. His cum is squelching out around his cock now, coating your thighs, dripping off your ass, pooling under you.

It's filthy.

You let him rail you into the mattress like it's what your body was made for.

"You like this?" he groans. "You like being fucked so full you can't hold it?"

You nod desperately. "Yes—yes—Mark—please—"

He groans, hips jerking harder.

She's begging again. Already. And I'm just getting started.

His hand grips your jaw and pulls your face back to him.

"Say it again."

"Please—Mark—please don't stop—"

He fucks into you hard—one perfect, brutal thrust.

Your legs give out.

And then you come.

Again.

A sob rips from your throat as your pussy clenches, your body locking up around him, slick gushing down your thighs.

That's what does it.

Mark gives you everything again.

He slams deep—hips flush—cock pulsing as he comes inside you again, moaning against your neck, spilling himself into your already ruined cunt.

More. Hotter. Thicker.

Your body jerks with the force of it, and he keeps grinding in, like he's trying to push it in deeper.

You both collapse.

His chest on your back. His arms around your waist. His cock still inside you.

Neither of you speak.

There's only the sound of your breaths, your pulse, your soaked skin sticking to his.

His mouth presses to your shoulder, reverent.

"I'll do it again," he whispers.

You don't answer.

But your cunt clenches around him.

And Mark grins.

Eventually, he pulls out. You wince. His cum trickles down the inside of your thigh. Thick and white. Coating your folds. Sliding over your ass.

Holy fuck. That's mine. I did that. I filled her up and she's still leaking.

Mark swears softly under his breath and grabs the nearest towel, but his eyes are locked to your pussy. The stretch. The swollen, wet curve. The pink glistening between your thighs.

I want to push it back in. I want to use my fingers. My tongue. My cock again. I don't care how tired I am. I need to ruin her again.

"Sorry—here, I've got you. Just let me—fuck, you're dripping."

He presses the cloth between your legs gently, kissing your knee.

"Still okay?" he whispers, voice hoarse.

You hum. "Better than okay."

She's going to kill me. Fuck me to death and I'll die smiling.

He wipes you slowly, carefully, holding your legs open, watching his mess drip out of you.

He groans. "I don't wanna waste any of it."

You scoff. "Don't get ideas."

"I already have them," he grins, tossing the towel and crawling back up beside you. "Let me hold you."

"You're heavy."

"I'm warm."

"...Fine."

You let him spoon you from behind, his hand gently palming your bruised waist, thumb grazing your stomach.

"You're mine," he murmurs, pressing his nose into your hair. "No one gets to see you like that but me."

"Jealous?"

"Territorial."

"...Pervert."

"Yours," he murmurs. "Until you beg me to stop. And then I'll stop being a pervert. But now?"

He rolled his hips, letting you feel his already hardened cock grind against your lower back.

Slow.

Heavy.

"i'm not done," he growls.

"Mark..." you breathed, fingers curling against his shoulder. "You came—twice."

"So?" His voice is low. Wrecked. Dangerous. "You're still wet."

His hips grind against yours, cock dragging against your oversensitive walls, slow and thick. You twitch—gasping.

"I'm not done tasting you," he murmurs against your throat. "Not until you forget your own fucking name."

"Mark—" your voice cracks, almost a plea.

He growls.

"Say it again."

You bit your lip and shook your head.

Wrong move.

He grabs your hips, pulls out halfway, and slams back in hard enough to knock the air out of your lungs.

"Say it."

"Fuck—Mark!"

"There she is."

He fucks you slow—agonizingly slow. Each thrust drags slick down your thighs, your overstimulated cunt gripping him so tight he hisses through his teeth.

"You gonna tell me to stop?" he rasps. "Or you want me to keep going?"

"You're obsessed," you pant, nails dragging down his back.

He leans in, lips brushing your ear.

"I'm in love."

You freeze.

Just a second.

That's all he needs—because the next thrust steals your breath.

Harder now. More focused.

He's not fucking you just to fuck you. He's making a point.

That you're his.

That your body remembers him.

That no matter how hard you fight it—you melt for him.

Every. Damn. Time.

"You think I can stop now?" he groans, kissing the corner of your mouth, your jaw, your throat. "After feeling you come around me? After watching your eyes roll back? After hearing you beg?"

His cock slams deep—your moan cuts off.

"You're fucking soaked, baby."

His fingers find your clit again—rubbing it in tight, filthy circles.

You jerk, twitching, trying to squirm away.

He holds you still.

"Nope," he growls. "You don't get to run."

"Mark—I—I can't—"

"Yes, you can." His voice softens for just a moment. "You can take it. You always take it."

You whimper—just a little.

That makes him snap.

He flips you—hands on your waist, dragging your hips back, forcing you onto your knees on the medbed. You barely register the change in position before he's inside again, deeper now, angled just right to hit that sweet, devastating spot.

You cry out—loud.

"F-Fuck—there—!"

He pounds into you from behind, hands gripping your ass so tight it stings.

"Yeah?" he pants. "That's it? That's the spot?"

Your response is a broken sob of pleasure.

He leans over you, his chest brushing against your back as he whispers into your ear:

"Still so tight," he pants. "Still clenching. God—like your pussy knows me now."

His balls slap against your soaked cunt with every thrust. Your legs shake. Your arms tremble.

Your body is wrecked. Ruined. Perfectly fucked.

But you don't beg him to stop.

You take it.

You want it.

"Such a good girl," he pants. "Letting me use you like this. Letting me fill you up again and again."

"Please—Mark—please—"

He doesn't stop.

He growls your name like it's a prayer, a curse, a vow.

And then he grabs your hips—thrusts deep—and stays there.

You gasp.

He's not moving.

"W-Why—"

"I want you to feel every drop when I come inside you again."

"F-Fuck—"

Your cunt clenches around him, trembling, overstimulated, raw and needy.

And then you break.

Your fourth orgasm rips through you like a storm—your entire body locking, hips jerking, breath stuttering into a silent scream.

That does it.

Mark slams deep and stays, cock twitching as he empties inside you a third time—hot, thick spurts that flood your already ruined pussy.

He slumps forward, chest to your back, arms wrapping around your stomach, anchoring you.

Neither of you spoke.

Not for a long, long time.

You're shaking. You're leaking. You're full.

He doesn't pull out.

Not yet.

He kisses your neck. Your shoulder. The back of your ear.

And then—softly, like it's a secret—

"I'll do it again."

You smirk, dazed.

"...Round four?"

Mark grins against your skin.

"Oh, baby."

"We're just getting started."

The room still reeks of sex.

Of sweat, blood, and something filthy—something primal. The medbed's a mess. Your thighs are coated. Your body's trembling. And Mark?

Still inside you.

Still hard.

Still buried to the hilt.

You're slumped against the mattress, one cheek pressed to the pillow, your ass tilted up, both legs shaking from being fucked into another dimension. Your cunt is raw. leaking. Full.

Mark leans over you, lips brushing your spine. His cock twitches again inside your overstimulated pussy.

"...I think I blacked out," you rasp, voice hoarse and barely audible.

Mark lets out a short, ruined laugh, dazed. "Yeah. You clamped down so hard I—"

The door opens.

Both your heads jerk up.

"Mark, I need an update on—"

Cecil.

Fucking.

Stedman.

Stnading in the doorway.

Holding a folder.

Pausing.

Looking right at you.

Your entire half-naked body spread out across the GDA medbed, bruised, flushed and dripping. Hickeys across your neck. Bite marks on your shoulder. Cum leaking out of your cunt.

Mark is behind you. Also half-naked. Also covered in sweat. Cock still buried inside you.

Still hard.

Still twitching.

No one moves.

No one says a word.

Mark slowly lifts his head, mortified.

"...Sir."

Cecil doesn't even flinch.

He stares.

Long and hard.

Then exhales through his nose like he's been through Vietnam and this somehow ranks worse.

You groan, dropping your face back into the pillow. "For fuck's sake—"

"This isn't what it looks like." Mark blurts.

Cecil raises a single eyebrow. "Son. It exactly looks like what it looks like."

Cecil slowly turns to you, deadpan.

"You do realize you're on government surveillance, right?"

You blink.

"What."

He gestures at the corner. "Thermal cameras. Body monitors. Vital sensors. Whole nine yards. And unless I'm mistaken, we just clocked four orgasms, three ejaculations, one dislocated bed railing, and a sudden spike in your heartbeat that almost triggered a defibrillator call."

Mark makes a small dying noise.

You just glare.

"I said don't stop. I didn't say invite your boss."

Cecil pinches the bridge of his nose.

"I was coming to tell you she's cleared for fieldwork in seventy-two hours," he mutters, already turning back toward the door. "Not that you took it as an invitation to field test her flexibility."

"I'm still injured," you mumble into the pillow, hiding your face.

"Clearly not enough to stop you from reverse cowgirl while bleeding internally."

Mark groans.

Cecil turns at the doorway. "Also? You're on cleaning duty. Bed's broken."

He pauses.

"And for the record?" He looks at Mark with one absolutely withering glance. "If you're gonna rail someone so hard they lose brain function, maybe next time... lock the damn door, kid."

He walks out.

Slams it shut.

Silence.

Mark stares at the wall.

"...I'm gonna die," he whispers into your back.

You wheeze.

"You better not," you mutter. "You still owe me round four."

Mark groans again. Deeper. Filthier.

"Oh my god."

You reach back, slap his thigh. "Round four, Grayson."

He grabs your hips.

And thrusts.

Hard.

You scream into the pillow, laughing and moaning all at once.

Your body is limp. Breathless. Shaking.

But Mark—Mark is still hard inside you.

Still thick. Still pulsing. Still possessive.

The aftermath of round three clings to your skin like oil. His cum slicks your thighs, your stomach, the inside of your cunt—wet, warm, and never-ending. And he's not stopping. Not even close.

"You're insane," you gasp, voice hoarse, barely there.

Mark's lips are pressed to your spine, panting against your sweat-slicked skin. His cock throbs deep inside you—so deep it feels like you'll never be empty again.

He doesn't answer.

Just groans.

Long.

Low.

Starved.

I could stay inside her forever. Just fuck her slow until she begs me to stop—then keep going anyway.

"...Still warm," he rasps, hips rocking slow. "Still tight."

God, I can feel her twitching around me. Like her body wants me again. Like her pussy knows it belongs to me.

His fingers dig into your hips, bruising. His forehead rests between your shoulder blades. You can feel the tremble in his thighs, the possessive heat pulsing off of him like a second skin.

And then—

Then he moves again.

Slow. Sinful.

Dragging himself out of your swollen cunt inch by inch, just to slide back in with a filthy, squelching sound that makes you gasp intot he pillow.

"Mark—" Your voice cracks. "Please—"

"Still begging?" he groans. "Even after I fucked you full?"

Look at her. Limp. Leaking. And she still wants more. Fuck, I'll give her more. I'll break her open and stuff her full again until she forgets her name.

Your fingers curl against the sheets. Your whole body twitches.

"You wanted to be ruined," he growls. "So let me finish the job."

And then he starts fucking you again.

Hard.

Sloppy.

Obsessed.

Every thrust punches air from your lungs. Your tits bounce. Your bruised rubs ache. But all you can feel—all you want—is more. More of him. More of this. More of the way he fucks you like he owns you.

"You're still dripping," he snarls. "Fucking hell—look at you. Look at how much you needed this."

My cum's still leaking out of her and I can see it. Thick. White. Mine. Coating her thighs like a brand.

His cum leaks around the base of his cock with every thrust. You're soaked. Ruined. Splattered with it.

"You gonna come again?" he pants against your ear. "Gonna come with my cock still inside you? With my cum still inside you?"

You choke on a moan.

"F-Fuck—Mark—"

He grans your hips and slams into you, voice breaking.

"Say my name. Say it while I'm still fucking you like this."

Her voice—saying my name like that—fuck, I'd come just from that. I want to record it. Play it in my fucking ear every night while I jerk off.

"Mark—Mark—Mark—!"

"You're fucking mine."

This is mine. All of it. Her throat, her moans, her cunt milking me like she never wants to let go.

He grabs a fistful of your hair, pulls you up until your back arches against his chest, his cock still buried inside you from behind.

"You forget your own name yet?" he growls against your throat.

You shudder.

"Because I'm gonna make sure you do."

Then he starts pounding up into you, your ass bouncing off his thighs, your cunt a soaked mess around him. Every thrust hits that sweet, broken spot that makes your knees go weak.

His voice is ragged now—like he's losing it.

"I'll fuck you until you can't think straight. Until you forget what it feels like to not have me inside you."

You're babbling. Barely coherent. Tears sting the corner of your eyes—not from pain, but from overstimulation. From how good it is. How full you are. How utterly destroyed he's making you.

Mark bites down on your shoulder, groaning like an animal.

"You wanted round four, baby? You want everything?"

"Y-Yes—"

"Then take it."

He throws you down again. Flips you on your back. Crawls over you, cock still inside.

He stares down.

You're flushed. Wet. Shaking.

And smiling.

"You're such a fucking pervert," you whisper.

Mark's pupils are blown black. His body is tight, trembling above you. He lowers himself, cups your face.

And then—

His voice drops.

"I love you."

You freeze.

Just a second.

Then—

"I know," you breathe.

And then he kisses you.

Hard.

Deep.

Like it's the last thing he'll ever do.

Your breath's caught somewhere between a sob and a moan. Mark's lips are still on yours—feverish, clumsy, needy. His cock is still inside you. Throbbing. Dragging against your too-sensitive walls like he's trying to write his name on you.

You're so full.

His cum's already leaking out from round three, but he hasn't pulled out once. Just stayed there. Pressed deep. Obsessesd.

"I meant it," he murmurs into your mouth. "I love you."

You breathe in shakily, eyes fluttering. Your legs twitch around his hips.

"Mark—"

"Say it back."

You pause.

Then—soft, broken— "I love you."

Something breaks in him.

Fuck, I'd give her everything. My name. My life. My goddamn soul. Just to hear her say that again with my cock still inside her.

He growls, low and guttural. And then he moves again.

Slower now—but harder. Meaner. His cock drags out soaked and then slams back in until your thighs shake around him. Until your breath comes out in little gasps.

I should stop—but I can't. I don't want to. I want to make her come until she forgets how to walk.

He grabs your wrists. Pins them above your head.

"You love me?" he grits, thrusting again. "You love being fucked like this?"

You moan—nod. You're so wet it's obscene.

"Say it again."

"I love you—f-fuck—I love you—!"

He lets go of one wrist. Brings his thumb down to rub tight, filthy circles against your clit while his cock pounds up into you like a goddamn sledgehammer.

"I'm gonna make you come again," he pants. "I want to feel you squeeze me. Want to feel this perfect pussy milk every drop I give you."

You whine.

"Mark—"

"Yeah? Right there? You like that? You gonna come for me again?"

You're nodding—eyes wide, lips open, breath catching.

"Do it," he groans. "Fucking do it."

You break.

Your body locks up. Your thighs squeeze around his waist, your back arches hard—and then you shatter.

Slick floods around his cock. You're convulsing—again—wrung out, tears in your eyes, mouth open but no sound coming.

Mark doesn't stop.

"Oh my god," he groans. "You're still coming."

He slams in again. Harder. Rougher. His hips stutter. His voice turns desperate.

"You're milking me—fuck—I can't—"

You grab his arm—claw into his shoulder—

"Do it," you whisper. "Come inside. Again. I want to feel it—please, Mark—"

He slams in and stays.

Thick.

Buried.

Deep.

His cock jerks once, twice—

And then he's coming.

Hard.

So fucking much.

You feel every pulse. Every rope. Every drop of cum flooding into you like your pussy was made to take it. Your belly aches with the heat of it, your whole body shaking beneath him.

He moans into your mouth, still grinding his hips, like he wants to push it deeper. Like he's trying to mark you from the inside out.

"I love you," he says again. "You're mine. Mine. Fuck—"

His forehead presses to yours.

You both breathe like you just survived something.

And maybe you did.

He pulls out slow.

You whimper.

His cum spills out of you—wet, hot, shameless.

He watches it and groans.

God, I want to lick it all up. I want to see it on her tongue. Taste it from her pussy. Watch it drop onto my hand just so I can push it back inside.

Then—reaches down, spreads your thighs wider, pushes two fingers back in, curling them to keep it from leaking.

"I'm keeping it in," he murmurs. "Every drop."

You twitch. "Pervert."

"Yours," he smirks.

Your legs won't stop trembling.

You're boneless beneath him, soaked in sweat, skin sticky with bruises and spit and slick. Your pussy pulses with the aftershocks—raw, full, dripping. You can still feel him leaking out of you. Still feel his fingers there—gently plugging it back in.

Mark's forehead rests against your temple.

His voice is hoarse. "Didn't mean to get that hard."

You snort, exhausted. "Liar."

He laughs quietly, arm wrapping tighter around your waist.

"I did," he admits. "You looked too good. All bruised and bandaged and half-naked. And your mouth—God—your mouth was saying stop but your eyes said keep going."

"They didn't."

"They screamed it."

You hum, too tired to argue.

He shifts slightly and you wince, a soft sound escaping.

"Too much?"

"No," you rasp. "Not enough."

Mark groans and drops a kiss to your shoulder.

"You're unbelievable," he mumbles. "Most people want a nap after getting railed."

"Nap after round five," you mumble.

His cock twitches against your thigh.

"...Don't say that unless you mean it."

You crack one eye open. Smirk. "You're hard again?"

"You were clenching," he huffs. "You know what that does to me."

You roll onto your back—barely—pulling him with you. He drapes an arm over your waist, nose burying in your hair.

You both breathe in silence for a minute.

"...It smells like sex in here."

"Yeah," Mark grins into your neck. "Like you. And me. And all the filth we just did."

You feel his cock throb again. He's not even inside, and he's still hard. Still aching.

"Don't even think about it."

"I wasn't," he lies instantly.

If she clenches around me one more time, I'm gonna fuck her into the mattress and come until she's dripping for a week.

"You're twitching.

"So are you."

"...Pervert."

He kisses the shell of your ear. "Yours."

His hand slides up under your ruined tank top. His palms rests beneath your ribs—warm. careful.

You sigh. Sink into him.

"I love you," he murmurs again, softer this time.

You whisper it back.

And finally, your eyes start to flutter closed.

And outside, Cecil orders every camera wiped, every log erased... and a hazmat crew for medbay three.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

a/n: heyooo! sorry for being inactive! i was out on vacation with my family and i didn't have time to post anything ;w;

but don't worry! i'm back and i have a looooot in my drafts that i'm itching to post soon! >:)

[winedrunkwords]

Chapter 1 | Midnight Musings

pairing: Marc Spector x Reader (implied Steven Grant x Reader, implied Jake Lockley x Reader)

summary: Even after a year living with Steven and Jake in the headspace, Marc struggles to quiet the buzzing chatter. He finds himself frequenting Coffee for Two, a place where brewing roasts fill the air and the cookies are as sweet as the barista.

content: coffeeshops, fluff, innuendo (thanks to Jake), poor shy and tired Marc who just needs his drink

wc: 1.2k

a/n: HELLO Moon Knight luvers!! I'm sweeping out this fic since I've had it around for some bit!

Moon Knight Masterlist || Main Masterlist

Coffee Doodles Masterlist

< Previous || Next >

—

Working the closing shift has its disadvantages… and occasional perks. 

People weave in and out of the café from the crack of dawn, then scurry away when the moon is at its highest. Rarely did they stay to settle down on the rickety chairs late into the night, ever so eager to drag themselves home after a long day.

You hardly remember the customers’ faces, usually down-turned with a sour look of annoyance on their phones who impatiently tap their shoe on the wooden floors. 

The man in front of you with waves of hair swept back to reveal his gruff demeanor, albeit a ruggedly handsome one, wasn’t any different from the others. Yet, you try to catch his eye as he sends a text. 

“You work the late hours like me?” You ask and crack a smile, immediately regretting it after realizing how wry it must’ve appeared from your exhaustion. 

He merely grunts in confirmation.

You clear your throat and idly tap your fingers on the granite countertop. “What can I get for you then?”

“Just a cup of coffee. Make it black.” He retrieves a leather wallet from his jacket pocket and pulls out a few quid in exchange for the kick of energy he desperately needs. 

“Your name?”

“Marc.” 

You whisper his name to yourself before reaching beside you to grab a paper cup and scrawling it on there.

Marc watches you catch your bottom lip between your teeth in fierce concentration as you doodle a smiley face next to his name. He wonders if you did this for every customer or if it was a way to keep yourself awake.

Before you made your last mark, you saw him through your peripheral vision staring at you intently. Usually, customers appreciate the little pick-me-up from the drawings you made. You inwardly wince for holding him up. “Sorry, you must be in a hurry”. You quickly cap the pink Sharpie and toss it into a small ceramic pot filled with other writing utensils. 

Marc notes how some were more appropriate or journaling, like the bright glitter pens, than for work. But it was well-loved all the same since it was nearly flatlining from use. 

“I’ll have it out for you in a minute.”

He shook his head, the black locks of curls bouncing slightly. “No rush, really.”

You situate yourself behind the coffee machine, tinkering with the buttons and opening the wrinkled bag of coffee beans. The warm scent permeates the air, even more so when the brown liquid dribbles into the cup. You quietly sigh in relief at the simplicity of the process. You’ve had a fair share of blended and iced drinks often brought back to the counter by unamused customers, claiming that it didn’t taste the same as last week even though there was a clear-cut recipe list plastered in front of your face when you made their orders. 

You carefully fiddle the cap over the cup and hand it to Marc with a tired smile. 

Marc felt your fingers brush along his. It was warm, but he wasn’t sure if it was just from the coffee. Regardless, he nodded in thanks and was soon swallowed by the darkness as he left to sip his coffee at nearly 1 a.m.

The London weather constantly nipped at his fingertips. 

He curses under his breath and shoved his free hand into his jacket pocket. He longed to settle back into his flat and curl up into layers of blankets, which was truthfully a sorry excuse for warmth because of the godawful heater he just couldn’t find the time to fix. His mind drifted to your touch, it was light, brief if anything. But it sparked a warmth that a blanket or a cup of coffee couldn’t quite satiate. 

A snarky voice filled his headspace, Fuckin’ touch starved.

Marc rolled his eyes. Shut your damn mouth, Lockley. 

He crosses the road, not bothering to look left or right, there’s only him, the moon, and some bloke smoking a dying cig by a closed convenience store. When he squints he saw Steven picking at the loose threads of his shirt in the window. 

Quite a looker with a pretty voice. 

Marc sighs in response, Not you too. 

He takes one last gulp at the bitter drink before raising it over the tin can filled with other rubbish. The streetlamp’s yellowish light caught your handiwork on the cup, his name with half a smiley face messily written with your pink Sharpie. He chuckled at the unfinished doodle, remembering how your eyes widened when you realized he was watching you closely. 

Like a deer caught in the headlights, Steven remarked.

Marc chuckles at his words.

–

It was another closing shift. 

You begrudgingly accepted it from your coworker who reminded you with a smirk that the pastries behind the glass was up for grabs the moment you flipped the “closed” sign by the window. Anyone with half a mind would have sticky hands for the chocolate croissant dusted with powdered sugar. Just the thought of warming it up in the oven toaster as you wipe the counters and stocked the shelves with mugs made you a little hungry. 

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to be eating sweet treats considering the time, but said sweet treats were going straight into the rubbish-bin if you didn’t house them in your stomach. 

You happily hum a familiar tune you heard on the tube while sliding the glass door separating you and your beloved reward for the hard work.

A pleasant jingle of a bell rang over the front door abruptly ending your monotonous tasks.

You toss your head over your shoulder. “Sorry, we’re closed—” 

The same man (Marc, was it?) nods down in apology for entering after hours. He truly was a man of few words.

“Oh! It’s you. I was afraid you were a customer with a complicated drink coming in at the last second.” You dusted your fingers down the seams of your apron and beckoned him inside. “But, it’s the same as last night?”

Marc runs his fingers through the tufts of his curls, the strands wrapping around each finger. You wondered what it felt like. The thought in passing rises to the forefront of your mind. It left as quickly as it came when you hear him call your name after reading it across the embroidered stitching of your apron.

The corners of his mouth turn up in amusement, hardly an exchange for pleasantries, but it was more than what he’d given before. He slides a few quid on the counter. “Yeah, coffee. Black.” 

You pluck your pink Sharpie and begin to write his name on it. After a few quiet moments of gurgling from the machine, you hand the cup to him. 

He furrows his eyebrows.

You quip with a grin. “Did I manage to mess up the easiest order known to man?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“You didn’t draw on it this time.”

You almost laugh but the serious crease on his face was a testament to his genuine disappointment. “Well it wouldn’t be very good service if I didn’t complete my job, eh?”

His eyes shift to the glass covering the pastries as if seeing something you couldn't. “You wanna talk about good service?” A playful lilt tugs at his voice, almost unfamiliar. 

Before you can respond, he mumbles a thank you and scurries out of the cafe. 

Did he just flirt? And… get embarrassed?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and my inbox is always open for requests or if you want to chat!

[winedrunkwords]

a lack of caffeine — spencer reid.

writing masterlist | askbox

─── summary: caffeine makes the world go 'round. that's something you and spencer can agree on.

─── pairing: spencer reid x autistic!medical examiner!reader.

─── warnings: fluff, reader is autistic & a mom, spencer's iq gets slashed to sixty when he talks to pretty girls and it's my favourite thing. no use of y/n. swearing. i really fucking struggled with this it's so boring. thank you to everyone who requested a part 2!

─── word count: 1.8k.

     The call comes in at four in the morning.

     The screen reads three missed calls by the time its incessant buzzing rouses you from your slumber, and you pull it out from beneath your pillow. Squinting at the sudden brightness of it, an unlisted number stares back at you as your phone keeps vibrating insistently in your grip.

     When you finally wake up enough to realise it could be work, you answer it. Agent Hotchner's familiar voice is stern and low and only a little apologetic as he informs you that you're going to be required in the field for a new case, and you should be at the airfield within the hour.

     There isn't enough time to ask any questions before the line clicks, and you're left blinking into the dim light of your bedroom as you try to gather your bearings.

     Sleep itches at the corners of your eyes, all gritty and blurry, and though part of your mind recalls reading this little clause in the contract you’d signed, that constant availability takes on a whole new meaning when you work for the BAU, you still take a moment to fantasise about pushing Aaron Hotchner off a cliff.

     You’re not a morning person. And you would argue that 4AM isn’t even the morning, it’s the middle of the night, and why can’t serial killers do their business during normal business hours?

     A new case. Not your first case since joining the unit as their resident independent medical examiner, but the first where you would join the rest of the team in the field. The first where you'll be required to exert federal authority over county coroners, where you'll have to step on toes in order to get the job done.

     You know they won't take too well to an outsider coming in and derailing their whole thing. You know you wouldn't. You used to be one of them, not that long ago.

     Ah, shit. As the drowsiness begins to fade out of your body, a light panic trickles in. Your skin starts to buzz as if you put your finger into a live socket. You grip your phone so hard it leaves a mark on your palm.

     It takes ten minutes to get ready, stumbling around your room and shoving clothes into a bag. You don't really care about matching socks, but you count out your underwear three times and hope you won't run out before the case is done. Do they have laundries you'll be able to use? Have the other members of the BAU ever encountered this problem? Should you pack your hair straightener or is it really going to matter?

     When you've finally dragged a brush through your hair and dumped the last of your toiletries into a ziploc bag, a dull realisation strikes you.

     Jackie.

     Going toe-to-toe with a rabid raccoon might be more appealing than waking up your sister-in-law in the middle of the night, but you don't really have much choice. She has to know what's going on, she'll be in charge of your daughter for however long you'll be gone, and leaving a note on the kitchen counter feels like the wrong move to make in this instance.

     Is there a protocol for this? A single-parent handbook you can check out at the library? This is something you really should've talked about when you got the job, you know that. You'd known it would require you to travel on occasion, often without prior notice, but it hadn't seemed like a big deal at the time. You'd brushed it under the rug, labelled it to be discussed later as if you and Jackie have ever actually sat down and done that.

     A thousand things sit unsaid between you. That rug has got a little mountain under it by now, almost impossible to ignore. It’s really only a matter of time before you trip over it.

     “Jackie. Jackie.”

     Your sister-in-law grumbles when you sneak into her room and poke her, hard and repeatedly, until she threatens to bite you. The news of your leaving doesn't take her by surprise — exhaustion seems to dull the stung of it — and she promises to call twice a day, every day, before she buries her face back into the pillow and starts to snore like a lawnmower.

     You hope she never, ever changes.

     Pressing a kiss to your sleeping daughter's forehead is the last thing you do before you finally manage to drag yourself out of the apartment. A dull ache thuds in your chest, where your heart should be. She'd looked so peaceful, so sweet, and you can't recall a time since she was born that you'd been apart from her for longer than a day. Her bright, happy giggle and wide eyes flash through your mind.

     As your car peels out of the parking garage, you feel distinctly like a piece of laundry someone hung out to dry and then forgot about.

     The sun is just beginning to kiss the horizon as you pull up to the airfield. Long streaks of a pink-fingered dawn creep across the sky. You flash your identification at the security guard and pull up alongside the jet, scrambling to grab your bag from the passenger seat.

     It doesn't surprise you that you're the last to arrive, but you'd hoped that wouldn't be the case.

     The clock just strikes 5AM as you clatter up the steps, practically falling into the aircraft. Technically, you're on time, but it still feels like you're late for class and your teacher is about to put it on your permanent record. A kind-faced hostess greets you, offers to stow your bag, and you flash her a sheepish smile as you hand it over and pass through the curtains into the main cabin.

     "Holy shit."

     You can't help yourself. Every single member of the team turns to look at you, craning their necks to see exactly who they're dealing with, but you can't even bring yourself to care. "This is a jet. It's actually... a jet."

     You blink at the open space as your jaw goes a little slack. Do you sound a little insane? Sure, and ordinarily you'd feel self-conscious with several pairs of unfamiliar eyes gawking at you, analysing your every movement as if it's their job to do so — and it actually is — but this honestly insane.

     You had no idea the BAU had this kind of budget. Do they own the plane? Do they rent it? Is it publically funded by the taxpayer, and why can't they fly commercial? Like, you're not complaining at all, those leather seats look so comfortable, but why—?

     An austere voice says your name once, twice, and you blink, looking up to find the furrowed brow of your boss frowning at you down the aisle.

     "Take a seat, doctor, we're about to take off."

     His tone leaves no room for argument. A flush rises in your cheeks, and you manage to stammer out an apology before throwing yourself into the nearest available seat, buckling your seatbelt.

     "It's a good thing you're the M.E and not a profiler, sweetcheeks." One of the agents nearest to you leans across the aisle. A charming grin spreads over his face as he offers up his hand in greeting. "Derek Morgan."

     "Oh, I know," you reply, shaking his hand firmly. "I, uh, looked you guys up after Dr. Reid paid a visit to the underworld and I didn't recognise him. Figured I should be a little more familiar with the other members of my team."

     "The underworld?" A blonde woman you realise must be Agent Jareau gives you a friendly, if slightly confused, smile.

     You shrug, suddenly a little embarrassed. Group settings have never been your thing. Too many people, too many unfamiliar eyes, far too many voices clashing together until it all becomes a sensory nightmare.

     You much prefer your little lab, and one-on-one conversations, usually with the unlucky cadavers that find themselves on your slab. They never talk back.

     "It's just what I call the morgue," you tell her. A loose bit of skin hangs off the edge of your nail, and you really, really want to pick at it. Fatigue hovers at the edge of your consciousness, and as the plane engines begin to roar, you find yourself wishing you’d made a coffee before leaving the apartment.

     You would have been late, for sure, but life would feel worth living so, y’know. Swings and roundabouts.

     "In Greek mythology, the underworld is where an individual goes after death. Early ideas suggest that someone’s essence, their psyche, is separated from their corpse at the point of death and transported to the underworld. Accounts differ on whether any judgement occurs, depending on which scholarship you’re citing." A familiar voice pipes up from the back of the plane and you glance over. The rich brown eyes looking back fill you with an odd warmth.

     More at ease with a familiar face, you settle back in your seat and lift your hand in a lazy wave. "Good morning, Dr Reid. It's nice to see you when I'm not elbow-deep in someone's intestines."

     Agent Jareau wrinkles her nose. "Now I'm really glad I didn't have time for breakfast."

     Reid's ears turn bright pink and he looks away, stuttering out his reply. "It's good to see you too. Uh, well, not good, given the circumstances, since there's a serial killer on the loose, but good because—"

     "We get the picture, Reid," Agent Hotchner cuts him off, and Reid turns his gaze back to the small window, a little flustered. Hotch looks, bizarrely, like he's trying not to smile. "Welcome to the team. We'll go over the case details once we're in the air."

     “Is there coffee in the air?” There might be a murder mid-flight otherwise. Really, how do they function at this time in the morning? The plane judders as it rolls over the tarmac, heading for the runway. “Or tea, or soda, or— Honestly, I’ll take whatever. I just don’t want to fall asleep in a body cavity later on.”

     Again.

     Reid finds himself nodding, entirely against his will. There’s something about the peculiar medical examiner, something he can’t quite put his finger on, but it makes him want to keep talking. More than usual, at least.

     He wonders if there’s duct tape on board. Or a parachute.

     “There’s coffee,” he confirms. Is his voice a little high?

     “Dr. Reid, I could kiss you—”

     Oh, hell. Judging by the way Morgan has a hand pressed to his mouth, stifling an obscenely loud chuckle, Reid suspects he’s never going to hear the end of this.

[winedrunkwords]

Hi my names Joe 🥲❤️

[winedrunkwords]

TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader

Description: The ONE time the BAU needs you + the FOUR times you need them.

word count: 24k (what on earth was I thinking)

trigger warnings: mentions of spencers addictions + use + side affects. MOMMY ISSUES thankyou ambassador Prentiss. hostage scene + injuries. mentions of forced/pressured marriage. fem!reader. reader and Emily struggle to bond.

main masterlist.

authors note: We never meet Emily's dad nor do we see a picture so while reader is given a nickname of Bugsy, she still keeps her real name (no use of y/n) and is given ZERO physical descriptors. ALL of my fem!readers should feel included here, let me know if this is not the case! also I don't speak any language besides English however she does speak many because of her mom, so I really tried to get it right, message me if I'm being stupid!!

[this] means its spoken in another language.

—

1. the one where you become a translator.

“I’ll make some calls, I may still have some friends in the Eastern countries,” Ambassador Prentiss announced to the room, standing from her place on the plush sofa. 

A case had landed quite literally in Emily’s lap when her mother had come by that morning asking for Hotch, a Russian migrant looking for her father with a ransom note and a sliced off finger shoved through her mailbox, wedding ring still attached. 

It wasn’t every day Emily wished she’d brushed up on her Russian, but today of all days she was struggling to keep up. 

“We don’t have much time, we need a division of labour,” Hotch’s serious face settled, the time constraints making him just that bit more dictatorial, “Morgan, someone needs to go to the Chernus’s house in Baltimore in case they are contacted again,” 

“What about the language barrier?” Derek raised, smoothing a hand over the short scruff of his beard, “We can’t have the unsub speaking with the family directly. He could say anything to them without us knowing,” 

Bugsy would hate to admit she fit the criteria for youngest daughter of a workaholic mother and distant father to a tea, but Emily would say different. 

Elizabeth Prentiss had never been a warm woman; Emily used to tell her the scowl was a side effect of the overplucking of her eyebrows, not the serious nature of her job. Her youngest girl once said her mother’s lips looked like she’d sucked a lemon. Of course they admired her work, but world peace meant jack shit to a little girl wanting nothing more than a mother’s hug. 

Despite the fact she’d pushed away her husband and both her daughters in favour of her career, the one useful thing about being the Ambassador’s daughter wasn’t just the money, but the widespread culture the girls had been crammed full of since they could so much as beg for a sippy cup. 

“Baltimore, you say?” Emily asked Hotch with a somewhat doubtful wince, “I mean you could always-”

“Absolutely not,” Her mother cut her off, rubbing the stress lines already creasing her forehead at the very notion of her other daughter, despite the fact Emily hadn’t even finished her thought.

Emily’s sigh was a reflex, the years of her mother cutting her off sparking the frustration on instinct. 

“She lives right in the city, Mother, it can’t hurt to have her just talk for them-” Emily tried to bargain, only for the sharp mouthed Ambassador shoot her a frown. 

“End of discussion, Emily,” Elizabeth snipped, her manicured fingernails twitching with annoyance, “Your sister is much too young for an assignment so serious,”

Emily rolled her eyes with a scoff, as if the two had slipped back into the role of rebellious teenager and scathing mother without much thought. 

“She's twenty-two, mom. She’s getting her masters degree for Christ sakes, she’s not ‘too young’,” The dark headed woman fought back, clicking her pen a few times as if the spring loaded ink would take away some of the temper Elizabeth seemed to flare up. 

Her mother’s lips pursed, in the way Bugsy hated, in the way that meant she was going to be mean.

“Immature may have been a better word, then,” She replied, and Emily seemed to pause. She couldn’t argue with that. “Or perhaps lazy, or puerile; callow, wild, irresponsible. Would you like me to name more?” 

“Asinine would be a good term; deriving from the Latin asinus it not only means foolish, but to be stubborn and lazy like an ass,” Spencer input helpfully to the Ambassador, only for his bright smile to fade when he saw the daggers Emily stared at him with, “Sorry, I love word games,” He muttered into his lap. 

“Asinine. Perfect, Dr Reid,” Elizabeth said, and Emily could only roll her eyes harder.

Hotch huffed, the victim’s daughter watching between the two women’s quarrel with wet eyes, the ice box with her father’s finger clenched tightly in her lap, the cold of the limb bleeding into his own gaze.

“Unfortunately, Ambassador Prentiss, despite just how asinine your daughter might be, Morgan is right. Having the Unsub possibly speaking with the family without us understanding what he’s saying could prove fatal,” He explained, ignoring the way the older woman’s mouth scrunched in bitterness. They didn’t need to be profilers to see that despite how tempered the relationship between Emily and her mother was, a tension seemed to fall between the women the moment the younger Prentiss was mentioned. 

Spencer was sure he was the only person who even knew Emily had a little sister. 

“Very well, but don’t be surprised when you find your hands full of the girl,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head as she led the victims, a mother and daughter that seemed to cling to one another for comfort as if to rub salt in her matriarchal wound, into the break room to get away from the frosty atmosphere that now lingered around the table.

Emily sighed, picking around her fingernails the way she did when she was bothered. 

“I’m going to hate these next words that are gonna come out of my mouth,” She started with a long exhale, “But my mother’s right. Bugsy is a handful. Just try not to get her wound up, that girl smells fear,” She looked to Reid who seemed none the wiser, “I’m talking to you, wonder boy. She’ll eat you up and spit you right back out,” 

Spencer gulped quietly. 

Derek only chuckled, slapping a hand down onto Emily’s shoulder, “Relax, Prentiss. Your mom’s just got you all worried. Need I remind you I grew up with two sisters? This will be a piece of cake,”

–

Those were the famous last words of Derek Morgan. 

Loud, heavy metal music jumped through the wooden door, so loud Morgan worried his three polite knocks would go unheard as the two of them waited outside her dorm for her to answer. Morgan was about to knock again, figuring the music had drowned out the first lot, when the door swung open and a frown the spitting image of Emily’s stressed expression met their gaze. 

She looked so different to their Prentiss, but the way she seemed already scorned by the two of them told them they had the right woman. 

“Miss Prentiss?” Morgan asked formally, though he felt the warmth grow when he caught sight of a beat up friendship bracelet around her wrist amongst newer gold chains, five white blocks spelling out her sister’s name pulling tight on her skin, as if she’d quickly outgrown the thing but hadn’t the heart to remove it. 

It was then that he and Reid seemed to both reel back slightly at the fact she was standing in a large shirt, ratty around the edges, and what seemed to be a pair of men's boxers covering her bottom half, clearly not suspecting particularly important visitors. 

She looked him head to toe with a frown, a dozen piercings in her ears, her hair highlighted with streaks of cardinal red, as if he was the one confronting her in his underwear, before she moved onto Spencer, who’s face seemed to be getting hotter by the second as he forced his eyes away from her bare legs. 

“Are you guys strippers? Did someone send strippers to my door?” She asked, strawberry gum smacking between her lips as her gaze seemed to finish mulling over Spencer’s tall form and returned to Morgan.

“Emily sent us.” Reid said shortly, the music blaring in his ears making it difficult to focus on what it was she was saying, “As co-workers, no-not strippers. We’re with the FBI,” 

He hated loud noises anyway, cringed at the sound of particularly cutting rock songs, but since he’d developed his … problem, the dilaudid had him feeling like someone was clawing at his skull, tugging his brain through his ears.

“Emily sent you here?” She asked with a scoff, looking the two up and down again. They both easily caught the way her face hardened, “Are pigs flying today or something?” 

“We’re here to ask for your help on a case,” Spencer rushed through a sweaty brow, “Emily said you’d be able to act as a translator for us and some Russian citizens who are being targeted,” 

She sighed sceptically, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame, “Any strippers or non-strippers can fraud an ID. Emily’s name was in the paper just the other week. I’m gonna need a little more than that,”

She keeps track of her sister despite the supposed distance between them. Spencer was quick to profile, his mind whirring at all the ways she reminded him of her sister down to the way she raised her eyebrows expectantly at them. 

“Emily was born October twelfth, 1970 at 7:12am, graduated from Garfield High School in 1989,” Spencer said as if reporting the weather, her eyes narrowing in on him all the more coldly, “She attended Chesapeake Bay University and speaks six languages, as I expect you do from moving so often with your mother. She coined your nickname Bugsy from your childhood love of ladybugs, which she said you grew out of by the time you turned eleven yet the name stuck, though you still like counting the spots to identify their species. Your parents split when you were five and your father moved in with his now wife, born September ninth-”

“Alright- alright. What are you, living in her walls?” She interrupted incredulously, before turning her attention to Derek who seemed to hide a chuckle with a cough. “Either you really are a stripper or you’re a terrible friend,”

“She loves Kurt Vonnegut,” Derek held his finger as if to prove her entirely wrong, although not much else came to him. Maybe he was a bad friend, he thought guiltily, or maybe he simply lacked an eidetic memory like the wonder boy next to him, who had been about to tell her how old she was when Emily’s pet betta fish died, “Slaughterhouse 5?”

Rolling her eyes, she grunted at them, kicking her door open for them to enter. 

“Everyone loves Vonnegut; only losers under a rock dislike Vonnegut,” She drawled, edging back into her room, the heavy bass rock growing in volume as they followed her in, “I’ll be ready in a second- Emily’s always bugging me about wearing pants,” She said vaguely, scanning around the dirty dorm, until she found one particular pair of jeans laying half under her bed, quickly yanking them up her legs. “Come in, come in.” 

She flicked the speakers way down to which Spencer took a breath of relief. His eyes fell to the laptop that had been set up on her desk, the five different textbooks littered around the spare space, energy drinks and empty mugs filling the cracks where he could barely see the generic white of the table top, his nose crinkling. About as gross as he’d expect from a college student. 

“Emily said your Russian was pretty good,” Derek made conversation, his eyes wandering over the various posters plastered over her walls, some fraying round the edges from where she had likely been moved from bedroom to bedroom when the Prentiss’s inevitably had to move country again. 

“Yeah,” She snarked, pulling a nicer top over her head, “Kinda tends to happen when you live in Russia,”

Morgan raised his eyebrows to Spencer who seemed to give him the same look back, though the latter was biting back a snicker at her words. 

How in the hell was she the Ambassador’s daughter?

–

“This all involves Russian Mafia, it’s really beefed up here the last ten years or so,” Agent Cramer, a tall, slim man who looked entirely overwhelmed by the workload on his shoulders reported, as she listened intently. 

She had been somewhat de-briefed in the car, Emily messaging her for the first time since Christmas, the message a simple: “Have you met with Morgan and Reid yet? Make sure to put on pants,” to which she sent her a thumbs up emoji. She didn’t have much to say to her at the moment, barely even knew her sister anymore. 

“It started off mainly in New York and LA but they send lieutenants from the old country,” Cramer went on, and she caught Reid scratching his arm beneath his shirt. She knew it was mozzy weather, and he was already under the blaring sun in a little sweater, it wouldn’t surprise her if he felt a bit prickly. 

“Pahkans,” She interrupted, the man named Gideon shooting her a glance as she dug through her purse. 

“Your Mom do much work about the Mafia?” He asked, as she produced a clear nail varnish. 

“Here and there, I had to sit with her in her office for a whole Summer once when I got caught sneaking out. Picked up a few things, though,” She said, holding the polish out to Spencer, nodding to his arm, “Here. Supposed to help bug bites,”

He looked at her as if he wanted to say something, perhaps question her sources for such an old wives tale, but he stopped himself quickly, taking the varnish out of her hand with a dejected nod. 

“Thankyou,” He muttered, shoving it in his pocket. 

Three months he’d been in this rabbit hole. She had noticed it in a matter of hours. 

“They open up branch offices in other cities. Baltimore, Saint Louis, Chicago, Dallas, the list goes on,” Cramer added, nodding at her words, “They’re mainly offshoots of the Odessa Mafia and they’re especially tough to crack from a law enforcement standpoint. I mean beside being well organised with sophisticated technical equipment, there’s Vory v Zakone to contend with,” 

“The thieves code, eighteen principles they live by,” Reid jumped in before she could, to which she nodded as Gideon looked to her for more. 

“It means ‘thief in law’, or ‘thief with code’. It's a system of repeatedly jailed convicts that have been crowned or ‘made’ with a strict list of ideals, breaking them usually means death,” She explained, kicking a stone between her feet. 

“It’s like bible to these guys. We’re not gonna be turning any of them informer anytime soon,” Cramer said. Gideon seemed to tune the three of them out however, his gaze locking on the house across the street, where a curtain twitched, and a man’s face appeared in the window, watching the crime scene with guilt. 

“Then we’ll need a witness who will talk,” Gideon replied, heading straight towards the neighbour who seemed just a little too invested in what was happening, much more than a concerned third party should be. Though, she had barely noticed, digging through her purse once more for chapstick. 

“So, you study Russian or something?” Cramer asked as she applied it gently, Spencer swore he could smell the cherry flavour from where he stood beside her. 

“I lived in Moscow until I was six, moved back to France, then back to Italy, then Algeria for a bit. Bounced around Europe for a bit longer, but I still speak better Russian than anything else,” She clarified, and she saw Cramer’s eyebrows shoot up, “Military brat except I don’t get the cool discount at the store,” 

“You must have had a lot of friends though, going to so many schools,” Spencer added, and though there was nothing teasing about his tone, she laughed sharply anyway. 

“You’re funny,” She snarked, but smiled at him anyway.

Spencer had never been called funny in his life. ‘Funny looking’, ‘funny sounding’ maybe, but never funny. 

In fact he was so confused by what she had meant, whether it had been a taunt or genuine that he almost missed the sound of the whole street locking their front doors, dead bolting their lives away when a black prius, an expensive one at that, pulled through the street and swerved into park next to them. 

“Guess who,” Cramer bit, her eyes ripping away from where Gideon had the door slammed in his face. 

Detective Cramer aged by about five years when two tall men got out of the luxury car, opening the door for a shorter man in the back seat, their faces thunder. 

“You familiar with them?” She asked, shoulder brushing against Spencer as she turned to watch the men approach, entirely aware of the .9mm on each of their hips. 

“Arseny Lysowsky,” The detective identified, his voice cold, eyeing the two men who flanked the leader, towering over them. 

“Agent Cramer, how are you?” Lysowsky smiled at him, which oddly enough seemed somewhat real, as he also took stock of the three other people around him. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, noting her lack of gun and badge, trying to decipher if she was local or just a very unprepared fed. 

“Lysowsky, what brings you out?” Cramer asked, a tightness to his tone, his hand all too eager to grab his own pistol. 

“I heard Chernuses had problems,” He kept it vague, didn’t reveal too much, and looked back at the victim’s house with a scorned frown. 

“How did you hear that?” Gideon challenged, stance unwavering as the mob leader turned to meet his cold gaze. 

“And you are?” He asked, a sinister smile on his face that flipped her stomach. She didn’t like the tension that had overcome the little patch of sidewalk they took up, and she was quick to notice how Spencer moved towards her. 

He, by far, wasn’t the best shot on the team, but he was sure Hotch and Prentiss would have his and Morgan’s heads if any harm came to her. 

“Churneses said they hadn’t told anyone,” Agent Gideon ignored his question, hands firmly planted on his hips. If he was unnerved by the criminal in front of him, he never showed it, not even when Lysowsky’s grin widened horribly. 

“It is a small community. Word gets out,” He said simply, looking past him to the neighbours house that had kicked Gideon to the curb, “Are you a friend of Gorban’s?”

A second of silence passed between them, neither of them backing down from the moral standoff they’d engaged in. 

“Mr Gorban wouldn’t talk to me,” Gideon admitted, and Arseny only smiled again, flicking a look at the house behind him, as if hearing his dog had obeyed without command. 

“Would you like me to talk to him for you?” The threat was there clear as day, clear enough to have Gideon’s eyes narrow, “I can’t promise something will come of it,” 

“You!” In a second, Natalya, the victim she’d briefly met when Morgan had pulled up around an hour before, had stormed out of her house, her black kitten heels clicking against the concrete, “Where’s my father? He has my father!” 

“Wait a minute,” Derek called, restraining her where she stood, trying to pull his muscled arm from her shoulder, “Do you know he has your father?” 

“He’s responsible for all of this,” She spat, her eyes cold as she glared at the three men with vitriol hate, “Why everyone’s afraid, him and his animals,” She threw a hand up to his bodyguards that seemed barely contained by Cramer’s silencing hand. 

“I am only here to help,” Lysowsky replied, confident and calm in his words, though not as taunting as the agents would have thought, as if he truly cared for her.

A vast difference to the sadistic mob boss Cramer’s team had painted him to be. 

“Help?” She laughed woefully, tears in her eyes, “You’re a dog,” 

“Natalya,” Arseny said in a warning, the way a teacher would to a student, as her breath rattled in her chest through a weep. 

“How exactly can you help them?” Bugsy braved to speak, Gideon and Reid both flashing her a look. She’d always had trouble holding her tongue. 

Lysowsky turned his attention to her then, his eyes running down her figure, still deciphering whether she was armed; she looked much too young to be an agent. 

“In any way that they’d like me to, darling,” He replied, the disdain in her frown clearly not deterring him in the slightest, though again the act of concern held up in his own grimace, “As I said this is a small community. If one is in pain, we’re all in pain.”

Natalya weeped behind Morgan, sniffling as the boss made his way over to her, “Natalya, [you didn’t have to bring in outsiders],” 

The younger woman’s ears pricked up as he spoke in his native language, Spencer’s eyes flicking to her from behind his sunglasses. 

“[Let me help you],” He continued, taking a step towards Natalya, unthreatening yet she saw Morgan tense, his fingers twitching towards his gun. 

“[My family will never come to you for help],” Natalya hissed back, also in Russian, her face contorted in disgust, “[Get away from my house],” 

“[You are not right, Natalya],” He replied, yet again the concern in his eyes was either genuine or very well faked, “[You have made the wrong decision],” 

Taking a step away from the victim that wept with a scorned sneer, he looked back to the agents, noting the way the youngest of them glared at him hotly, before retreating to his car. 

“What did he say? Did he threaten you, Natalya?” Morgan asked, the woman watching the group of men drive away, as if Mr Chernus wasn’t still missing and they hadn’t just bumped themselves up to number one of the suspects list. “Talk to us and we can do something about it,”

“He said I made the wrong decision,” She said wetly, frustration turning on Derek as he pushed her for an answer, “I hope I didn’t,” 

With that she stormed off back into her house, the same stomping of her kitten heels in her wake, leaving the agents to all look between one another before they simultaneously turned to look at Bugsy, questions hovering on all of their lips. 

“What did he say exactly?” Gideon asked without frills, a hand rubbing his brow. Relaying the information, the men’s faces all drew into frowns as they heard Lysowsky’s parting statement. Gideon huffed, turning to Morgan and gesturing for him to follow Natalya inside. 

“Morgan, keep an eye on her, Reid and I are going to Cramer’s office to look over the files,” He looked at her then, worry lines littering his otherwise friendly face, damn near scowling as she looked over at him, “You are here to interpret, you understand? You do not speak to the suspects, that’s our job.” He growled, watching her with disappointment, the same tone a father used when scolding a petulant child, “Do you have any idea how much danger you could put yourself in? These guys won’t hesitate to take you out the second we’re not around, kid,” 

“But-” She started with a bite, though her whole fight left her when he silenced her with a raised hand. 

“Buts are for cigarettes, kiddo,” He interrupted, and Spencer winced slightly, knowing he’d heard that one a few hundred times when he’d first started under Gideon and had yet to mature entirely. Reid watched something rebellious flare in her eyes, and he worried for a moment she might just slap his boss for the patronising tone he took, “Just keep your mouth shut, you’re doing great so far,” 

She opened her mouth to protest, only to then register his words entirely and stay silent once more, appreciating his praise with a guilty smile. For once, she listened. 

–

The grandfather clock chimed to tell them it was merely 11am; two hours until the unsub would start cutting more if they didn’t get the ransom fee, two hours to figure out who wanted Natalya’s family to suffer. 

Said woman paced her living room at the sound of the hour, as Bugsy picked over the knick knacks on her fireplace, a small smile teasing her lips when she saw a picture of three small children grinning toothily at the camera. 

She had never gotten any photo’s similar, Emily being fourteen years older. The majority of their childhood photos consisted of a very grumpy teenager holding her baby sister that seemed to squirm in the tight, formal dresses Elizabeth Prentiss had forced them into, identical scowls on their faces as they were made to sit for the picture. 

There were some good memories, ones where Emily let herself be a sister and not a mom, where she would put makeup on her for fun and do her hair, let her have all the clothes out her wardrobe she thought looked nice, reading to her before bed, even letting her sister keep her pet corn snake when she left home for good. 

But now, it seemed like she was too caught up in her super serious grown up job to give a shit that her sister lived just an hour away. Still messaged each other for holidays, but the last few times she’d braved a call to the eldest Prentiss, it had gone unanswered. They argued the majority of the time they spoke, or there was an awkward long silence in between words, whichever was worse, but they each knew the other would come running if they were to ever need them so desperately. 

“Are you hungry? I could make something?” Natalya offered kindly, Derek having a poke through her collection of books that sat on the end table, though he’d have a tough job reading them as she’d already caught most of them were in her home language. 

“Oh, no thanks. I’m fine,” He replied with a small smile, putting down the books to calm the clearly on edge woman that looked to the twenty-something year old hopefully. 

She shook her head, “I’m good, thanks,” which seemed to deflate her entirely as she sat next to Derek with a sigh.

“I guess I’m like my mother. When she’s upset, she cooks,” Natalya said with a sad huff of a laugh, running a hand through her short, dark hair. 

“Yeah, mine does too. I think that’s just a mom thing,” He replied, and Bugsy felt the two of them look at her as her finger traced the old brass ornaments gently, “How about you, baby Prentiss?” 

She snorted, “You’re kidding, right?” smiling bitterly, “My mom never cooked for us, she said we needed to figure it out for ourselves rather than relying on the staff. Didn’t stop her from trying to end world hunger though,” 

It wasn’t lost to Morgan the way her eyes trained on the picture of Natalya and her mother, cuddled together with genuine love in their embrace, the snarky humour as she spoke, the same longing Emily seemed almost too good at hiding from them. 

“Your mother is a great woman,” Natalya complimented, though she missed the way the girl’s face steeled over, chewing her bottom lip as if to stop herself from snapping at the woman who meant well. She said nothing. “Where is your mother?” She turned her attention back to Derek who seemed the more talkative of the two of them. 

“Chicago. That’s where I’m from,” He replied, watching Bugsy turn away from the two of them to inspect more of the Chernus’s trinkets on their walls. 

“I’m from Dolgoprudny. Just North of Moscow.” Natalya replied. Opening her mouth to add something else, she was cut off by a knock at the door and the three of them froze in their place. 

“Are you expecting someone?” Morgan asked Natalya in a hushed tone, reaching for his gun and heading for the door. 

She shook her head, “No,” She whispered back. Morgan pulled the curtain back the smallest inch to see a small blonde boy staring back, a box in his hands and a bored look on his face. 

It all happened too fast from there, Natalya opening the door for the neighbourhood kid, opening the box to see a decapitated ear, the blood fresh and pooling in the bottom of the box. It couldn’t have been taken longer than an hour or so ago, unless they were keeping the parts on ice. 

Bugsy’s hand slapped over her mouth, Natalya’s scream piercing through her as she shoved the box into Derek’s hands, fleeing to the toilet, and she heard the woman retching. Part of her felt the same nausea settle in her stomach, looking away from the body part with a wince as Derek got straight on the phone to Gideon. 

“They didn’t wait, man. They sent a box with-” He swallowed thickly, “With Mr Chernus’s ear inside.”

Gideon replied, and whatever it was, it had Derek looking back to her. He agreed, hanging up the phone and rooting through his pockets, producing a set of rattling keys, holding them out for you between the tips of his fingers. 

“Gideon wants you, kid. He said they’re at the Little Kiev restaurant, they’re going to talk to Lysowsky,” Morgan said, grimacing as he held the ear away from her, “You sure you’ll be okay to drive?” 

“I’d rather be on the road than look at what’s in that box,” She said in disgust, taking the keys and heading out to the car.

She thought it best for everyone she didn’t tell him she hadn’t yet got her licence as she made her way over to the restaurant. 

-

“Reid and I will do the talking, just see if anything he’s saying connects with Vory v zakone, think you got that?” Gideon instructed her the second she got out of the car, taking the keys and handing them back to Reid who gave her a small nod. 

“We think the reason it was Mr Chernus who was targeted has something to do with the code,” Reid explained, his hands in his pockets as the three of them approached the restaurant, “You said earlier you understood the tenants,” 

“Why me, though? I thought I was just translating?” She repeated Gideon’s earlier words, almost cocky that they needed her.

“Lysowsky would feel the need to show face in front of men like Morgan and Cramer, even in front of Natalya since she lives locally. Between the three of us, he had less reputation to uphold, less so with a young woman like yourself,” Reid added, holding the door open for her to go in front. 

And so there she was, trailing behind Gideon and Reid over to where Lysowsky sipped a spoonful of borscht, as she tried not to marvel at the grandeur of the establishment inside. Clearly, Arsney had money to build a place like this, and wasn’t afraid to be flashy about it either, that much was apparent from the other clientele that tended to their beers around their own tables, Rolex watches and designer shoes adorning nearly every one of them. She hated to think of how many ears or fingers those suits had cost. 

“Would you like something to eat?” He asked, a chunk of bread in his hand dipping into the thick sauce, seemingly unbothered that they were there, “This borscht is exquisite, it’s my mother’s old country recipe,” 

“Didn’t you forsake all your relatives when you swore the thieves code?” Reid asked, which she guessed was hit foot in to get Lysowsky to talk. 

“I didn’t forsake her recipes,” Lysowsky replied with a shrug, looking to her where she seemed to be staring at his plate, “Borscht?” 

She shook her head, her nose wrinkling, “Much preferred stroganoff, mom used to force me to have borscht to make sure I ate my veggies,”  

His eyebrows raised, surprise written over his face, before he gave a short laugh. 

“[Where are you from]?” He asked in his mother tongue, gesturing for the three of them to sit down, though his eyes lit up as he watched her carefully. 

“[I was born in DC, but my mother worked in Moscow for a few years],” She answered shortly, and he seemed to find it even funnier that the near child they’d brought along on their case spoke as fluently as he did. 

Laughing with a heavy hand smacking on the table, he gestured to a nearby waiting staff to come over. 

“What are you having then, borscht for the gentle man?” He looked at Reid and Gideon, the former shaking his head while Gideon nodded with an awkward smile. 

“I’d love a taste,” He said, though any enthusiasm seemed to have drained out of his voice. 

“And what is the little lady having?” Lysowsky asked, his eyes falling back to her, as she straightened in her seat. 

She chanced a quick glance to Gideon, who nodded at her to play his game. She had not expected to be so deep in criminal territory when they’d said they needed a translator, and truly they hadn’t planned on getting her in the field until they realised she would know much more about this than they would.

“Do you have sharlotka?” She asked, returning his smile wearily as he clicked at the waiter who all but bolted to the kitchen. 

“A sweet tooth. I like it,” Arseny replied, shovelling a heap of beets into his mouth, “Our favourite was always Leningradsky,”

“Ours?” She prompted, giving a polite thanks to the waiter who returned too quickly with a slice of cake. She caught Spencer glancing at the bowl with intrigue, the hunger clear on the quiet man’s face. Gently pushing the bowl and clean spoon towards him, he flicked a look up at her, “Apple cake,” She whispered, sending him a small smile, “Really yummy with the sugar on top,” 

“Mine and my mother’s,” Arseny replied, though Gideon and Reid both caught how he paused before he replied, as if he had to think about the answer he was giving; the oldest tell that it wasn’t entirely true, “We didn’t have much when I was a boy, but that was always our dessert of choice,” 

She stopped for a mere second, missing the moment when Spencer spooned the tiniest bite of the cake into his mouth, trying to ignore the way his tongue exploded in the sweet, fruit taste. He hadn’t eaten anything properly in days, and maybe that was why it tasted so good, but more likely it was just the fact that everything sweet tasted even better when he was on his come downs. 

“We need to talk, Arseny,” Gideon interrupted, ignoring the way Spencer pined to go back in for a second mouthful, but chose to hand the bowl back to her with a small smile. 

“We are on first name basis?” Lysowsky asked, shaking his head, and she took a small bite of the sweet cake for herself, “I still don’t even know who you are,” 

“I think I understand something about this,” Gideon replied, his thumbs tapping together, the waiter returning with his borscht, “You have a problem,” 

“I do?” The pahkan titled his head at the agent, the annoyance clear on his face. 

“That’s why you came to the Chernus’ house this morning,” Gideon answered, unbothered as he began to scoop the borscht onto the spoon, the apple cake in her own mouth going down a treat. 

She kept her head down, took tiny bites of the dessert that certainly tasted like a fresh baked sharlotka. But her thoughts lingered on what Lysowsky had said, about his own favourite pudding. 

It made no sense that he would have ever tasted Leningradsky shortbread, not for the time that he was born, nor with the amount of money he claimed his family lacked. Infact, the way he fully pronounced his vowels, the akanye, the stress he put on certain parts of his words, all pointed to the same dialect you’d heard back in Moscow, more central than anything else. 

So how on earth would he have eaten the so-called ‘Royal Cake’ that had only been made eight hours from there, in the town it grew its name from. 

There was something glaringly obvious about his story missing. 

“A man like me?” She tuned back into the conversation, swallowing another mouthful down as Gideon took another bite himself, though it seemed the topic had turned sour as Arseny wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin. 

“Four watchtowers and a convict signifies a stay in prison,” Spencer cut in, nodding towards the tattoos branded across his knuckles, “Each one of those crosses symbolises an individual sentence,” 

“Twenty three years in prison in the Ural mountains,” 

But she was still stuck on what it was she was missing. It had been such an odd thing to lie about, particularly when he’d even admitted himself that they hadn’t had much money, so he clearly hadn’t been lying to fake a reputation. 

So why lie?

She was ripped out of her stumped silence when Natalya entered the restaurant, her voice grabbing the men’s attention immediately. 

“Mr Lysowsky. You said you could help me,” She said, her purse over her shoulder and her own car keys gripped tightly in her hand as if she’d all but thrown herself out the vehicle to get there faster. 

“Don’t you already have help,” Lysowsky snapped, clearly Gideon had dug under his skin enough to garner a reaction. 

“I made a mistake,” Natalya replied, barely meeting Bugsy’s gaze as she stared at her from her seat at the table. “I talked to my father on the phone,” 

The girl frowned at her, “That’s a lie,” It came out before she could hold herself, brows furrowed at whatever it was she was trying to pull. Gideon said her name in a reprimand, though he too was looking at the woman as if she’d grown a second head. 

“Thankyou for coming, but I don’t need your help,” The woman met her confused look with a saddened expression, nodding to her solemnly. 

Leave it alone, she seemed to be saying, there’s nothing more I want you to do. 

And with that, the two of them left the restaurant, Natalya walking by his side obediently, her purse tucked in close under her arm, as Morgan and Cramer filed in from the parking lot, watching their only leads drive away without a fight. 

–

The team were quick to head back to Natalya’s home, only to find the ear missing and the finger gone too, the only evidence left of any crime being committed leaving with the victim’s daughter herself. 

“She’s not here, and the garbage was never taken out,” Morgan said with a grimace as he walked down the front steps to meet the four of them on the sidewalk. 

“Her dad just went missing, surely we can cut the girl some slack-” Bugsy words were hidden in a huff, rolling your eyes at the man who cut a glance to her. 

“No, no. When Hotch first talked to us, he said she noticed her father’s car in the driveway when she took the garbage out,” Morgan explained, his shades blocking the way the cogs turned behind his dark eyes. 

“Right?” Reid asked, his own sunglasses now covering his eyes that winced at the brightness, surrounding them.

“Garbage can in the kitchen is completely full, she never took it out.” 

“She lied,” Gideon said with finality, the penny beginning to drop for him too. 

“She could be half way back to Dolgo-whatever by now,” Morgan scoffed, his arms smacking against his side as the lightbulb went off over her head, the final puzzle piece falling into place. 

“Dolgoprudny?” Spencer asked, exchanging a glance with Cramer, “Isn’t that where Lysowsky’s from-”

“Yes, YES, of course!” She exclaimed, grabbing onto Spencer’s arm as he spoke. 

He looked at her with wide eyes, not that she could see since his shades blocked the way, only to feel her shake him harder in the midst of her enthusiasm. Part of him wanted to rip his arm out of her grip, waiting for the sickness to crawl up his throat at a strangers germs touching him, but the oddest part of him reasoned she had the same germs as Emily did, that the fifty percent DNA the women shared negated the fact she was a stranger, just as it did when he met Jack. Jack had Hotch germs. Bugsy had Emily’s. He didn’t feel so sick thinking of it like that. 

“I knew I was missing something,” She said, turning to Gideon, “He was lying before, about his favourite dessert. There was no way he could have had Leningradsky with his mother. Given his age, at that time in Soviet Russia, shortbread was incredibly expensive, only extremely wealthy families could have eaten it. That, and given the Central dialect he speaks in, I’d pinpointed he lives somewhere near or around Moscow, which means there was no way he was eating that cake considering it was only ever baked in one shop at first, one way up in Leningrad, where St Petersburg is now, like nine hours away from Moscow-” 

“What’s your point?” Cramer asked, tired of the somewhat slew of thoughts she’d been saving until she knew for sure what she meant. 

“Before when he said it was ‘our favourite’, I don’t think he was talking about him and his mother,” She explained, looking to see if Spencer at least understood what she was getting at. 

“It was him and his own child…” Spencer finished, as Morgan’s phone began ringing.

“Yeah, what?” He asked, the frustration clear in his tone that they were all still without the evidence needed to pin it on Lysowsky, “You’re sure? Uh-huh. Okay, thanks doll,” 

The four of them looked at him expectantly as he nodded to her, “Garcia just got into the bank’s system, somebody wired 500 thousand dollars into the account ten minutes ago,”

“Who wired it?” Spencer asked, though he was still reeling from the way she’d touched him, the way her voice went up about five octaves and a dozen decibels.

“She didn’t say, but the name on the account is Lyov Fulenko. She says that’s Lysowsky’s wife’s maiden name. Fulenko.” Morgan replied, and her brows furrowed. 

“Why did she bring us into this?” Gideon asked, though the solemn look on his face said he already knew, “Because she needed to put pressure on the other victim,” 

Gideon headed towards Mr Gorban’s house once more, though it was clear he had already sketched out in his head who was their unsub and Natalya’s involvement, he simply needed the confirmation. 

Morgan clapped a hand on her back, “Nice job, baby Prentiss. Those were some mean profiling skills out there,”

She frowned at him, scoffing,  “I’m not a profiler, that’s Emily’s job. It was just basic linguistics really; more a display of how I need to lay off cake for a while.”

The man kissed his teeth with a grin, “Don’t put yourself down. What’s your degree even in?”

She shrugged, picking under her nails for something to do, “Individualised genomics and health.” She said as if it were child’s play, though Spencer’s head shot to her. 

“Biotechnology?” He asked, and she glanced at him with a nod, “What’s your thesis on?” 

Gideon had returned by the time he’s asked, and began corralling the two of them back to the car, “We’re heading back to the restaurant. We need to speak with Lysowsky again,” 

But it had fallen on deaf ears as Spencer looked at her expectantly. 

“Just some new research into prenatal screening, nothing too fun,” She simpered, climbing into the back seat as he nodded with her. 

“I read a fascinating paper on the uses of hCG in a woman’s body-” 

“Reid,” Gideon cut him off with a short glance from the front seat, “Continue this conversation once we’ve found Mr Chernus alive,” 

Spencer blushed, feeling like a kid caught in the cookie jar, “Sorry, sir,” He looked over at her, only to see her hiding a smile to herself. 

He thinks it was then he’d decided Emily had been wrong about her.

-

“You paid the ransom already,” Gideon said plainly, the four of them trailing behind him as he followed Lysowsky to a small seating area in the front of the restaurant. She could tell the whole way Spencer had been itching to ask her more questions about her paper, barely contained as his fingers had twitched in his lap, but he seemed to straighten himself out once she’d reached the restaurant, “You paid all the ransoms,”

“Sit,” The boss ordered, barely glancing at them as he held his strong whiskey up.

“Are they going to kill Mr Chernus?” Morgan asked, cutting to the chase as Lysowsky spared him a bored glance.

“No,” He replied shortly, the look on his face about as grumpy as when they’d left. 

“The account is in the name of Lyov Fulenko. Lyov is a man’s name.” Spencer input, crossing his arms as the boss glared at him, “A son’s name. Vory v Zakone. Never have a family of your own. No wife. No children.”

“Lyov,” He looked at her then, gesturing to her with the glass of strong liquor, “You know what it means?”

“The Lion,” She replied gravely, steeling herself against his dark eyes. 

“No one else would be so stupid,” Lysowsky ran a hand over his weathered face, swigging his drink as if it was the only thing keeping him talking. “At first it didn’t mean much. It was a way of letting him earn his own money. I could afford it, it came from the fund. And no one questions the use of the fund-”

“Where is he?” Gideon asked, his elbows on his knees as he leaned in.

“What else could I do?” He was ignored, “I couldn’t admit I wasn’t blessing the kidnappings, I couldn’t even admit my son existed.” He huffed when he saw Gideon’s face unmoving from the glower, his question still unanswered, “Chernus will be home in a few minutes. You should be there, he will need medical attention,” He shooed them away, with his final words, drink sloshing in his hand. His face darkened, impossibly so, and the five of them looked at him, something sad and remorseful shining back. 

“What are you gonna do?” She asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer. 

“Vory v Zakone.” He said heavily, nodding to her, “We take care of our own troubles.”

It was a silent journey back to the Chernus’ house. 

-

Morgan and Reid pulled up to the campus, the younger girl in the back seat almost dozing off with the rhythmic hum of the engine, the evening sun much nicer on Spencer’s sensitive eyes. 

“This is you, baby Prentiss,” Derek’s voice jolted her out of the half sleep she was in, straightening herself from where she had her head pressed against the window. 

“Thanks,” She muttered, rubbing her eyes and unbuckling herself as they did the same, assuming they wanted to walk her back to her dorm since it had gotten dark, “I’ll be okay on my own, campus security should be out by now,”

“You sure?” Reid asked, flicking his watch up to his eyes to see the meagre 6:13pm staring back at him, “I thought they started at 7,”

She blinked at him, her eyebrows quirking for a moment, “How do you know that?”

“Johns Hopkins was my backup option- well actually it was my third, I much preferred Caltech’s curriculum, Yale was my second-” He started, flicking a glance to her where she waited for him to finish, “Not that Johns was bad, there were just better- alternative options out there-” 

“Don’t shit your pants, I’m hardly the dean of the university,” She chuckled indignantly patting them both on the shoulder before sliding over to open the door, “Nice meeting you both, I’ll just get back to my mediocre college with my poor curriculum, nothing like the solid gold bathrooms at Caltech-”

“I never said that!” She laughed again, with her whole chest, at his defensive tone as she stepped out the car, hand on the door to shut it behind her. 

Leaning down to give them both a wave goodbye, Derek’s voice stopped her again, “Baby Prentiss, do us all a favour and enrol yourself into forensics, we need more people on our team,”

Smirking at him, she shook her head, “Very funny. Never gonna happen. I like my little slides and samples, thankyou,” 

Slamming the door on the two of them she headed for the front gates, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, and she quickly realised she’d been too tired to even realise a set of footsteps jogging after her. 

Maybe she should have taken that walk home after all. 

Whirling around, her eyes widened as Spencer had clearly not been leader of the track team as he was half out of breath just from the few feet he’d covered, though she reckoned she could have guessed that seeing his lean ribs beneath his shirt.

He shoved a business card in her face as he caught his breath, though it was more just his name and credentials followed by a phone number. 

“I-I don’t have email otherwise I would-” He huffed, scratching his forehead as she frowned and looked at him.

“I’ve never been hit on via business card before,” She bit her lip with a smile, reading over the card again as he choked on his words even more than before.

“N-no, I-” He spluttered, ignoring the way Morgan beeped the horn for him, seemingly in a debate with a ticket metre that had caught him parked on yellow, “If you needed us for anything, or if you needed a second pair of eyes for your thesis, I’m happy to help,”

“You don’t have faith in the dummy that got into Johns?” She asked, and his head couldn’t shake fast enough, though he seemed to catch her teasing and shared her smile, “Thanks, Dr Reid,” 

“Spencer’s just fine,” He said, giving her a small nod and a wave as Morgan’s palm bounced on the horn a dozen times. She flashed him one more smile, pocketing his number and heading back to her dorm, wondering what the doctor would think about the paper due in tomorrow she’d yet to get started on.

+1. The one where you get arrested.

The case had been heavy. They’d felt it in the car on the way back to headquarters. A little girl, molested and groomed by her own uncle, his own wife covering for him. 

His mother always told him love makes you do crazy things, but Spencer hoped that whatever part of him worth loving would at least stay sane by the time he found the one. He was loyal to his team, to his mother, but that was where he drew the line. He was loyal to his family, undoubtedly so. 

Yet so was Emily. 

The call came to the second SUV, her phone set up to hands free mode, quickly flicking to answer the call on speaker, the other half of the team ahead of them on the freeway. 

“Prentiss, speaking. Who is this?” She spoke clearly to the unknown number, her knuckles going white at the wheel when she heard a nervous laugh.

“It’s me,” Her sister mumbled through the speaker, “You wouldn’t by any chance be near DC would you?” 

She huffed, cursing the knack Prentiss women had for showing up at the worst times. 

“Can’t this wait, I’m on the clock,” Emily hissed, her finger edging towards the ‘End Call’ button, “I’ll call you after,”

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up!” As if sensing her movements, she all but screeched, “This was my one phone call, they won’t let me have another,” 

The car went silent for a moment, Spencer’s eyes narrowing on the dash from his place in the passenger seat, JJ also leaning forward from the back with a frown. 

Emily grit her teeth, her upper lip twitching the way it did when she was mad. 

“What do you mean by one phone call? Where are you?” She bit in a cautious tone, though knowing how reckless Bugsy tended to be, she had a pretty good idea. 

The hesitation on the other end of the line was palpable, as was the way she awkwardly cleared her throat. 

“Fairfax County Jail,” She murmured sheepishly, “But it wasn’t my fault, these assholes don’t know what they’re talking about, I swear-”

“Stay there and keep your mouth shut,” Emily ordered, her expression furrowing into a sneer, “And for the love of god don’t antagonise the officers,” 

The agent didn’t even wait for a response, knowing it would probably be something snarky, her mind already racing at what the hell her sister could have done this time, every worst possible explanation jumping to the forefront. 

“I’ll call Hotch and tell him to turn around,” JJ offered, her fingers already searching her contacts for their boss, as Emily sighed through her nose. 

“Tell him not to worry, I’ll drop you guys back to headquarters, make my way there myself,” She said, picking the skin of her nail softly with her thumb. 

“By the time we’ve reached Quantico, visiting times will be over and she’ll have to stay the night,” Spencer pointed out, his own surprise evident. Sure, she had certainly been a personality when they had met, but a criminal seemed a stretch. 

“Maybe it would teach her a lesson,” Emily mused, shaking her head to herself, “Who am I kidding, that psycho would Shawshank her way out of there by dawn,”

“You don’t actually think she would hurt anyone do you?” JJ said, the dial tone ringing out from the phone she held to her ear. 

“Wouldn’t put it past her. She once cut a girl's pigtail off for wearing the same dress as her on her birthday,” Emily winced as Spencer’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. 

“I thought getting swirlied was bad,” He muttered, watching out the window as Emily made a U-turn at the traffic lights. He and the now twenty three year old had been bouncing research papers back and forth for a few months, the odd one every week, Bugsy even once joking it was much more interesting and riveting than foreplay, which had his face red hot at his desk.

She was like that, he’d quickly realised, had a vulgar sort of humour about her, yet he couldn’t help the snigger that came out whenever he’d receive one of his papers back through the mail with pink writing scrawled all over his ideas. The little hearts that dotted her exclamations whenever she wrote “AMAZING!”, the odd time she’d written “sexy ideas, doctor Reid” which he’d come to understand meant it was really good. He’d even gotten back the drawing at the end of the paper of a stickman of the two of them, his hair a curly scribble and a purple tie which told him immediately who was who, her line of a hand pointing at his caricature with the speech bubble, “everyone point and wave at the smart man,” which had made him laugh. 

She was odd, toeing the line between childish and witty, nothing like the scholars he usually worked with, and the writing he usually sent back on her papers were all in standard black ink, his own pharmacist handwriting staring back at him as he crammed in his every thought of her research into the margins. If she couldn’t read it, she hadn’t said, but he liked to think she took notice of it all, even if it wasn’t strewn with stars and doodles and the occasional flirt he knew meant nothing. He knew her from her writing, knew her from her ideas that sometimes kept him up at night thinking more about them, but the two of them hadn’t spoken directly, most certainty hadn’t seen one another since that day with the Chernus’.

Emily hummed, fingers drumming on the wheel, entirely unaware of the thoughts rattling around in Spencer’s head, then again that’s how it always was, “I just pray to god she’s listened to me for once in her damn life and keeps quiet,”

-

“Fucking bitch. The nuns in Moscow hit harder than you,” She spat, blood dribbling from her split lip. She wasn’t entirely lying, but god did her mouth sing with pain as she tried to muffle a moan. 

“You got jokes, pig lover?” The other woman asked, a tattoo covering half her cheek, her nose crooked from the shiner the Prentiss girl had already given her. “Won’t be fucking laughing when I’m done, bitch,” The woman was quick to tackle the girl around her stomach, slamming her into the hard concrete of the holding cell. Bugsy felt her skull rattle, the wind whooshing from her chest as rough hands grab her shirt and pin her down harder. 

The younger girl reached the nerve under her opponent's armpit, the soft of her ribs, twisting until the woman gave a bark of shock, and she took the opportunity to shove her off, climbing on top of her as they both scrambled for some sort of control.

“I got one for you. What’s got a broken nose, a black eye and doesn’t know what’s good for her?” She swung twice as hard, the other women in the cell rattling against the bars as if watching a matador taunt a bull, the air thick with excitement as the two of them cursed eachother out.

Emily’s sigh was audible across the room as the wardens separated the cat fight, the largest of the officers all but grabbing her sister by the scruff of the neck like a feral beast, dragging her over with stubborn feet to where the BAU stood in the lobby, eyes widened at the state of her. 

“You better start acting your age, little girl. Mommy’s not gonna be around forever to save you,” The officer hissed in her ear, manhandling her over to where Emily glared daggers into the side of her head. She knew that look, it was eerily similar to mom’s that time she’d been caught sneaking out of the house, something in the warm brown of Emily’s eyes frosting over into a cold blackness. Fury. 

She chewed her words for a moment, waiting until the man had turned around with a grunt of acknowledgement to the badge Emily had flashed to get his attention, before she spoke. 

“She’s not my mom, she's my sister, dumbass-” Emily slapped a hand over her mouth, gripping her shoulder with the bear-like strength her jagged nails possessed when she was mad, the scoff of disgrace leaving her mouth as her team trailed behind the two of them. 

“What the hell happened, baby Prentiss?” Morgan asked, ignoring the way Emily’s heated gaze turned on him, “What’s got you so worked up?”

“Don’t entertain her, Morgan,” Emily seethed, all but shoving her into the back of the SUV. She looked up at her sister with an open mouth, the guilt flashing in her eyes as she wavered under the pointing finger Emily jabbed in her face, “Don't you even dare,” 

“But-” She stammered, cut off when she saw the glare intensified, if that had even been possible. 

“I don’t want to hear another word from you for the rest of the day unless you’re prepared to give me a good explanation why I’ve dragged my team out here to save your sorry ass,” Emily hissed, and the girl’s mouth bobbed a few times, feeling the rest of the team watching as she got thoroughly chewed out. 

“Wait-” Emily’s hand lingered at the car door, ready to slam it in her face as she rubbed her cuff over her chin, mopping up the damage. Her head tilted for a moment, hoping her sister had something good to say, only for it to be; “He just called you old, I hope you realise that,”

Emily’s gaze darkened, slamming the door shut with an anger she imagined her mother had kept warm for the past twenty three years, whirling around heatedly when she heard a snigger from one Derek Morgan. 

“Damn, mama, hear the girl out.” He said, slapping a hand on the woman’s shoulder as he passed, heading back to their own SUV, “Maybe she’ll surprise you,” 

If Emily was going to bite anything back, she didn’t. Instead she ran a hand over her brow, the group disbanding to their cars now the problem child had been picked up from daycare, except for Hotch who watched the older Prentiss with a scowl, despite the worry in his eyes. 

“Hotch, I’m so sorry, just take it off my timecard, I’ll cover all the costs,” She said shakily, her own frown adorning her face as she felt herself blush from embarrassment under her boss’s gaze. 

“I understand she’s your sister, but this was a gross misuse of agent time and resources, Prentiss,” He said, his gaze drifting to where Spencer sat next to the girl, pulling a packet of tissues and hand sanitizer out of his satchel while JJ rooted through her own purse for a plaster, “Don’t let it happen again,” 

Emily nodded vehemently, flushed with anger, her palms sticky as she wiped them on her jeans. 

“Absolutely sir. Believe me, this ever happens again, she’s on her own,” She replied, though they both knew she didn’t mean it. Emily would never. 

He nodded stonily, deciding quickly that it was punishment enough that she felt so ashamed, he knew from his years of arguments with Sean what it was like to have a sibling stray so far. 

“We can fill out reports in the morning, just get Reid and JJ home,” Hotch said, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder as he passed her to head towards his own vehicle, “And try not to kill each other in the company car. It doesn’t look good on paperwork,” 

She beat off the smile on her lips as she got back into the driver's seat, the air that engulfed the four of them foul as she glared over her shoulder and into the back. Spencer twitched in his seat uncomfortably, his hand still passing over tissues to the bloodied girl. 

“So, you gonna tell me what that was about?” Emily asked, her tone brittle and warning, not in the mood for any snarky response she could give, “Or is this old lady going to have to lay into you some more,” 

The smell of strong ethanol engulfed her nose as she held the soaked tissue to her face, frowning into her lap silently and avoiding the burning stare as Emily stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car.

“Let’s start with why you were there,” JJ input, the same tone of voice she used as when talking to victims, calm and motherly, unlike the pissed off snarl Emily gave, “You wanna tell us why you were arrested?”

“You two really gonna pull the good cop, bad cop on me?” She snapped, her lip swelling around the wound, tongue grazing it softly despite the heavy taste of the sanitizer.

Emily said her name in a warning, her last warning, and she knew better than to push her luck even more, the SUV pulling out of the station and onto the road. 

“I was just shopping for groceries,” She started, fiddling with the bloodied tissue, wincing under her tongue stroke, “Store clerk made a pass at me, I told him I wasn’t interested. So he put a pack of smokes in my handbag while I wasn’t looking; the alarms went off. I didn’t even know what was happening until security grabbed me at the door,” 

JJ flashed a glance at Emily, like two parents deciding an appropriate punishment, the brunette’s lips straightening out into a line. 

“You’re telling the truth?” She asked cautiously, glancing in the rear view mirror to see how her sister balled the mess of paper between her palms. 

Rolling her eyes, she gladly accepted the other packet of tissues Spencer slid over the leather seat between them. 

“I went out for milk and oranges, I was not looking to get picked up, Em,” She bit back, groaning when she felt it jostle the cut, “And certainly not for cigarettes, you know I only smoke on New Years,” 

Spencer looked at her with a frown, and she caught his confusion quickly, pulling another leaf of paper from the packet. 

“Emily and I had a rule after she caught me smoking when I was like fourteen, that we could have one cigarette between the two of us on New Years eve,” She explained, JJ also perking up to hear it, “So that by the time morning came around, it would be last year’s mistake, and it would be like it never happened,” 

JJ smiled to herself, remembering the time she caught Roz sneaking one of her dad’s cigarettes on the back porch back when she was just ten. She remembered the little secrets the two of them kept back then, held them even all these years later. 

“So how did that lead to, well,” JJ gestured to her lip, “That,” 

“Yeah, didn’t I specifically tell you to not antagonise anyone?” Emily chimed in, signalling she was changing lanes as they headed down the freeway for a second time that day.

“Technically you said not to antagonise the officers,” She pointed out, before Spencer had the chance to, shutting his mouth as he caught the glare Emily shot through the mirror.

“Keep talking,” The older Prentiss ordered, as Bugsy sighed and blotted her lip some more. 

“That woman, Mira I think her name was, anyway, she recognised me from that picture mom had us take on Independence Day, the one they put in The Hill, and she asked me if it was true my sister was a fed,” 

Emily’s fingers twitched at the wheel, knowing the status agents and even people associated with agents held in prisons; knowing just being a Prentiss in a jail cell held a big, dazzling price over her head that said ‘kill me, kill me!”

The air sucked out of the car, a look passing between JJ and Reid as they thought the same thing, waiting for her to go on. 

“So then you hit her?” Emily guessed, the bitterness slowly ebbing as she understood maybe her sister wasn’t as unruly as she thought. 

“No, I told her to leave me the fuck alone, but she said you guys sent her brother down for something a while back, and she asked again if my family were all Pigs,” She picked her nails, the blood stain on her sleeve staring back at her, “I told her if she didn’t stop calling you a Pig, I’d make her squeal like one. And then I hit her,” 

Emily tried to pretend she didn’t smile hearing that, her cheeks tightening, lips pulling down as she fended it off. 

“Is that good enough, officers, or will you be needing fingerprints?” The girl chimed after a moment, a weight seemingly lifted from the car as Emily quickly realised she had, for once, not been entirely at fault. 

“I want a handwritten apology to my boss for wasting his time,” Emily demanded, her unforgiving gaze softening when she saw her smile, “And you owe my team coffee,”

“I can do coffee, coffee coming right up,” She agreed, shoving the used tissues into her purse with a crooked smile, “It’s a date,”

Spencers ears turned red, looking over the seat at where she dabbed at her lip gently. She didn’t look much older for six months, but she had gotten her nose pierced since the last time he’d seen her, unless he just hadn’t noticed it before, and the streaks of red were slowly fading out into a blush pink that said it was old, and he wondered if she’d done it herself in that tiny little cubicle bathroom of hers she shared with the four other girls in her block. 

“You finished your stats papers yet?” He made polite conversation, though part of him was dying to know out of curiosity if she could crunch numbers and equations as well as she could in her own labs. 

“Got two more this week, they’re kicking my ass man,” She replied with a huff, and he didn’t think he’d ever been called ‘man’ by a woman before. He knew if he’d known her in college, ignoring the fact he would have been twelve, he would have thought she may just be the coolest person alive, “I miss my labs with my microscopes and watching all the little baby cells move around in the ethanol. Stats are like, just not sexy,” 

He smiled at her as she stared out the window, unaware of the way she’d managed to make DNA sound like a play pen full of kittens. He held off from telling her he found stats really quite sexy, knowing it would never sound the same coming from his mouth.

He pulled a leaf of the tissues from the packet, producing his own pen from his pocket and began doodling carefully so as not to rip the delicate canvas. 

Sliding it over to her after five minutes as Emily and JJ made conversation in the front seat, she didn’t care that the grin tugged on her split lip, the reaction was instant, she couldn’t stop it if she tried. 

Two stick men stared back at her, her hair a close match in texture and a childish triangle drawn as means of a dress, a very tall stick figure next to her patting her metaphorical head, a speech bubble coming from his mouth. 

“Maths is fun!” It said, and she flicked a glance at him, her smile the most genuine he’d seen yet. He just smiled back. 

+2. The one where you graduate

Emily felt the looks on her the moment JJ had mentioned Maryland. The case was a little under their pay grade, nothing more than a stalker, no bodies or bloodshed, but one very rattled woman that had turned to the communications liaison with fear for her life. 

With Hotch and Rossi in Boston helping a case of their own, the rest of the BAU had been twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to come across their desk. 

“This case is in my hands now, and if we do nothing and something happens to her,” JJ took a heavy breath, her eyes lingering on the three names Keri had given her in case of her untimely death, “I’ll be the one notifying her family,”

Derek, despite his own hesitations about using their time for a case like this, caved the moment he saw the guilt on the blonde’s face. 

“Okay,” He shuffled the papers into a pile, Emily and Spencer gathering their own resources on the case and standing from the round table. 

Luckily, one government SUV was more than enough to carry the four of them for the hour drive North, all of them well aware Hotch would flip if they used more funds than necessary.

JJ piled into the front beside where Morgan climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Emily next to a particularly fidgety Reid. It took all of fifteen minutes of the man flicking a glance at her, his mouth quirking as if he were about to use it, before he thought better and looked out the window, and the whole thing would start again. 

Derek, the less shy about his thoughts of the two men, even glanced at her through the rear view mirror, before he too returned his gaze out the window silently. JJ shifted in her seat, knowing she had to tread carefully around mentioning Bugsy to Emily, particularly after the last time they’d seen her. Emily had said they’d grabbed coffee once or twice since then, but that was all she spoke about it, which left her team walking cracked eggshells at the thought of bringing her up. 

It seemed the three of them were bursting at the seams with the same thought, and it wasn’t until Reid cleared his voice, his puppy eyes stuck in his loop, that she had had enough. 

“Does anyone here have something to say?” Emily huffed, Derek immediately reaching to turn the radio up the same time that JJ flicked the AC on for something to do. Realising they weren’t easily broken, she turned to Spencer who already looked slightly guilty, thumbing at his sweater, “Reid?”

“Did you want to see your sister?” He asked without hesitation, as if the words had fallen out of him, “You know, since we’re so close on this case. It would be a good excuse to-”

“You did say she owed us a coffee,” JJ pointed out, spurred on by Spencer’s nerves, “Wouldn’t mind cashing in if we’re coming all this way.”

“Morgan, do you have anything to add?” Emily asked with raised brows, though she already knew what was coming.

Derek chewed over his thoughts a second, “I’m just saying, you only get to see your baby sisters grow up once- you know, and it couldn’t hurt to see her even if she runs rings around you with that smart mouth-”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the case?” Emily cut him off incredulously, but received three knowing looks back. She met JJ’s gaze where the woman had swivelled in her seat to talk to her, and Prentiss was fast to catch the buried grief in her best friend’s eyes. She knew it pained her to even bring up sisterhood, let alone watch Emily throw hers away for the sake of a decade and a half between them. It was the desperation in JJ’s face that did it, knowing she would give anything to spend just an hour with Roz one more time, that had her drawing her cell out her pocket and calling the contact with the little ladybug next to it, “Fine,”

As a profiler she would have been tempted to ignore the way Spencer smiled into his lap; as a sister, her eyes narrowed at him.

The phone rang surprisingly only once before she answered, and she heard an unnaturally tame version of her sister answer.

“Emily?” She asked, her voice hushed, worried almost, “You okay?”

Her brows furrowed, “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” She got no more than a hum in return, somewhat agreeing though Emily could tell clear as day she was holding something back. “Look, we’re gonna be in Silver Spring, I was thinking tomorrow we could grab lunch-” 

“Can’t, I’m busy, it’s an all day thing,” Her sister cut her off, yet it wasn’t rude or demeaning like usual. Nervous almost, sad, “Sorry,”

“What’s an all day thing?” Emily asked, the concern matching her words. 

Her sister swallowed on the other end of the phone, before she found her words, or maybe even the balls to actually speak, “I’m graduating tomorrow,”

Emily’s face lit up, the smile spreading fast on her face, ignoring the way Morgan’s words seemed to ring true in her ears; she was growing up too fast. 

“Graduating, why didn’t you say!” She asked, the joy in her tone unmissable, “How’d your papers go?”

Spencer held himself off from correcting her that she’d only done five papers, that the rest of her results had come from theory and labs, thinking better than to interrupt the one conversation they’d had where there was no underlying argument brewing. 

“Full honours, obviously.” Bugsy drawled with a snicker, and Emily shook her head, the smile never dimming. 

“Look at you, y’little superstar,” Emily bit her lip, ignoring the guilt that tore at her when she realised she barely knew what Bug spent her days doing, “Did Mom and Dad get good seats? Oh god, dad’s not bringing Stephanie is he?”

The silence on the other end had her halting, the light in the conversation wavering for a second, before she understood the nerves, the quick defence her sister had been on the moment the call had been answered. 

“Bug-”

“They’re not coming,” Her heart ached in her chest hearing it, “I sent Mom the details, she said she’s in Ukraine this week settling some papers. Didn’t even get a chance to ask Dad before he and Stephanie were off on their fifth honeymoon in the Bahamas until October,” A painful laugh echoed down the line, as if she were holding back the gravity of the situation. 

“Bug,” Emily tried again, picking her thumb viciously, punishingly, hating herself for being so blind to her sister’s troubles, “Why didn’t you invite me?”

“I figured you’d be busy,” Came the reply, sad and tender, the most honest she’d heard in a while, “You’re always busy,” 

“Never too busy for you,” Emily’s guilt tripled when her sister didn’t answer, knowing if she were to counter the statement with hard evidence it would only hurt both of them, “Look, I have some time today, probably,” She didn’t, not even a few minutes, “Why don’t we get that coffee, you don’t even have to pay,”

Bugsy gave a sad laugh, “Sorry, Em, I gotta get my dress fitted today, and some of the lab techs invited me to a party later. Maybe some other time,”

“A party with biology nerds?” Emily asked with false excitement, the air turned stagnant between them now, “Well, rock on, science freak. Don’t leave your drinks with strangers, and don’t walk home alone, and for god sake use protection-”

“Bye, Emily,” She said with a chuckle, the older of the two gracing her with the same, as they put the phone down. 

The car was quiet, waiting for Prentiss to speak, none of them missing the way her lip pulled between her teeth, a bitterness on her face that told them she was holding in something close to sadness. You’re always busy. It echoed around her head, stabbing at her chest to think her sister was graduating alone, no one to congratulate her, no one to pat her on the back and tell her how clever she is despite the fact Bugsy would happily tell anyone just how smart she was on her own. Never too busy for you. 

“She’s graduating tomorrow,” She said to the three people waiting for an update, Spencer’s brows shooting to his hairline. He hadn’t heard from her since her last paper got sent off, and why would he? They had exchanged a few little anecdotes and doodles, sent each other research papers to be graded like teachers exchanging lecture notes, “She didn’t even tell me. She’s gonna be alone,” 

JJ grimaced, “What? What about your mom- or, or your dad, an uncle, someone-” 

“Mom and dad are out of the country, Mom’s brother lives in Mexico with his seven kids, he can barely get a night’s sleep let alone a day off to travel up to Maryland. Dad’s sisters passed away when I was a kid,” Emily explained, running a hand over her face, “I can’t let her go up there alone,”

“So we don’t,” Spencer said, as if he’d never been more sure of anything in his life, “We don’t let her do it alone,”

-

“Graduating with Masters in Biotechnology; Jasper Adams, Tom Adamson, Kristen Afkins, Gavin Agriths-” 

The dean read off the names of the students as she fiddled with the hem of her dress. 

The dress fit beautifully, her make up done to near perfection, her hair styled neatly, she was graduating with full honours for christ sakes. Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she had? Why had she got to be so spoiled? 

Lots of peoples parents missed their graduation, lots of people her age didn’t even have parents anymore, she ought to be grateful her mother was increasing famine aid in foreign countries, all the lives she would save, or even be happy her father had found a pretty, rich new wife to tour every known vacation destination with. Or even that her sister had called her just yesterday and told her in a few words she was proud of her. 

But none of them quelled the feeling of loneliness that blossomed inside Bugsy. The kind that had always been there, the kind that just wanted someone in her corner, telling her she was doing pretty good for a kid who raised herself in all those big houses they’d moved to, who saw the au pair more often than her own mother. 

All those rooms were so empty, the houses so quiet besides for her. It was like living in a cemetery. 

“Robert Lewsinsky. Marcus Linford. Tara Lorence. Katie Macauley.” 

P would be up soon. Each name of her classmates drew an applause, some whoops and screams, one family she swore there must have been ten of them in the back row cawing and howling like monkeys at a zoo, proud of their son for making it. 

She willed a smile on her face, hearing Orla Parkins get called up, and she knew just by the steward that directed her where to stand in line she was close. 

“Kenneth Patterson. Joshua Perriman. Harriet Pimms. Lauren Pintons.”

She held a rattled breath as Renly Prackett walked ahead of her, strolling over the stage to collect his degree, flashing the crowd a wide smile and a fist pump. She had always liked Renly, having been his experiment partner for a year, despite the fact he never washed up after himself in the lab. 

Then it was, her name was called. The one no one but her mother and Stephanie ever called her, she solely went by Bugsy courtesy of Emily. It was a family name, a nice one at that. Maybe it had been the fact she had been eight and her cool big sister crowned her the new name, or maybe it just rolled off the tongue better, made her feel less like a Prentiss, that she chose to go by her monika. 

She tried not to think about where or what Emily was doing, only hoping she was safe, as she began walking over the stage, her heels clicking loudly with her hesitant steps. 

To her utmost surprise she heard a loud whistle echo through the auditorium, a group of jeers and screams of her name, even an air horn signing off that had her almost tripping over her own feet turning to see who it was. 

Surely it was a joke, a cruel prank, she barely had any friends in her class. Acquaintances sure, but no one so bold as to make such a fuss over her. 

Squinting down at the audience, her cap nearly slipping off her head as her head turned to the source, she felt her chest burst when she saw the dark hair and bangs, her sisters butchered fingertips in her mouth with a loud cattle whistle, screaming like a firework right to the stage where she graciously accepted her award, despite the fact she barely paid any attention to the dean anymore, more to her sister who smiled at her widely as she clapped. Behind her, her team she’d met on the off chance, the pretty blonde, JJ, who pressed the air horn a few more times, cheering just as loud for her. Morgan, the handsome one who had stood himself on top of his chair, cupping a hand over his mouth to scream “Kicking ass, baby Prentiss!” at her, ignoring the way other people stared wide eyed at them. 

And Spencer, tall enough to be seen over the crowd even without the help of a chair, who smiled at her, clapping those big hands of his loud enough to reach her, his own whoops never ceasing even as she stepped off the stage to head back to her seat. 

The rest of the ceremony dragged, a speech from one of the alumni and the exit music playing, but she simply grinned into her hand, where her degree smiled back at her, counting down the moments she would be allowed to stand. 

And then she was fast walking down the stairs, amongst the bustle of students, the black gowns flurrying around her as she burst out into the square where parents, fiancees, brothers, sisters, cheered their loved ones, pulling them into tight hugs. 

Her eyes scanned the wave of black hats, landing on two dark eyes, the thick sable hair framing the dazzling smile that awaited her with open palms. All but shoving her way through the crowd, she stopped in front of her sister, the urge to jump at her with a hug shying the moment she got close. 

“Told you. Never too busy for you, Bug,” Emily said, pulling her in by her shoulders for a tight hug. She knew her sister wasn’t one to beg for affection, wasn’t one to let her guard drop so soon, but she also knew she’d needed it by the way she melted against her, the way she chuckled into her hair, pulled her closer. 

“Do I owe your boss another letter of apology for this or do I get you guys for free?” The girl asked, as her sister pulled away, keeping an arm around her shoulder as they turned to the rest of the team. 

“No, this one is entirely on us, promise,” JJ said with a smile as she saw Emily beaming maternally over at the girl, the flat of the cap knocking against her cheek as she squeezed her in once more, “We’re very proud of you,” 

She heated under the woman’s words, wriggling in her shoes as bad as Emily did when she felt awkward, Derek chuckling and taking the degree out of her hand. 

“Alright, lets see the creds, Prentiss,” He held it up next to her face as she shrugged, the ‘4.0’ clear as day next to her name, “Good looking, and smart. Those boys in the lab ought to watch out,”

She grinned under his teasing, “What can I say, I got the deep end of the gene pool,” She teased, feeling Emily swat her ear, her eyes falling to where Spencer held a plant pot with a poorly wrapped bow of twine around it, the soil a little displaced from the journey.

“This is for you,” He said, handing her the small green sproutling, his cheeks blushing as her face lit up, reading the small inscription on the front, “It’s-”

“Dionaea muscipula,” She said, biting her lip as she smiled at him, “This is so cool! Where on earth did- I had a paper last semester on the ways to study their electrophysiology you just have to read- oh thank you!”

“English, please?” Emily asked, though the warmth flooded her chest when her sister threw her arms around a very rigid Spencer. 

Thinking she should grab her and warn her the man disliked touch almost as much as she does, she was surprised to see him give her a small embrace back, smiling proudly the way he did when he’d made someone happy. 

“Piège à mouches Vénus,” Her sister responded cockily, tugging herself away from the tall man, to inspect her new plant, well aware that Emily rolled her eyes at her use of French, “Venus Fly Trap. I’ve never seen one so young, still I should be able to pull some slides on the Rhizomes in the soil-”

Emily put a hand to her temple, JJ smiling widely as she saw for once Spencer be the one on the receiving end of an earful, chuckling to himself when she began dishing out name ideas for the sapling. 

“Holy shit, there’s two of them,” Morgan grumbled, nudging his shoulder into Emily who simply sighed, her migraine already starting as Reid began jumping in with his own thoughts, which didn’t take much effort.

“Don’t even,” 

+3. The one where you’re taken hostage

“Tell us about the 911 call,” Spencer requests, flicking through the file himself beside her in the back seat. She had her own set of paperwork in front of her, her pen attached to a clipboard the lanyard around her neck reading her real, honest credentials, unlike the fake ones Emily and Reid were given. She’d been to one of these sects before, invited kindly as part of her research on the effect isolation has on cultivation of crops, knew one of the mother’s well from her last research paper, and had managed to get the group a foot in the door to entering the Separtarian Sect with little fuss. 

Hotch, usually hesitant to allow outsiders in on the job, especially as young and spirited as Bugsy, had to admit it would calm any potential unsubs and make them see the team as unthreatening if they had a friendly face there. He’d signed the papers with a frown that morning, and they were on their way to the little apartment the girl occupied just outside Baltimore, sample tubes stuffed into her pack ready. 

“I believe the he that they refer to is the church’s leader, Benjamin Cyrus,” Nancy, a woman from child protective services, replied from the driver's seat, Emily thumbing through her papers as they neared the compound. 

“Benjamin Cyrus, no criminal record; no record of him at all actually,” Reid replied, watching Bugsy scribbling notes into her lab book, perfecting her report before she had even begun, “What else do you know about him?” 

“The sect I spoke to before, the one in Utah, said he was rumoured to be practising polygamy and forced marriages,” The younger woman said, looking back at him with a frown, “They were much more modern in their beliefs than these guys. Last time I spoke to Marina she was happy there, I can’t see why she would want to move here,” 

Spencer looked as if he were about to answer, perhaps to tell her he was sure her contact would be just fine, when Emily shrugged and turned to Nancy. 

“Do we know who the caller is?” She asked, sipping her now lukewarm coffee out of the disposable cup. 

Nancy’s head tilted in a so-so motion, “Uh, Jessica Evansen is the one who the age fits, but we can’t be sure.”

“Well given their view on outsiders, it would be best if you didn’t identify us as FBI.” Emily instructed, handing Reid his new, fake credentials and his gun she’d kept in her bag through customs. “Just use our real names and introduce us as child victim interview experts.” Nancy nodded, the compound coming into view, the dust flurrying under the car wheels as the road turned into nothing more than a sandy path. 

A guard seemed to be expecting their arrival as he stood, unarmed at the main gate, unlatching the bolt in the middle and opening it wide for their vehicle to pass through. She nodded in thanks, her eyes flicking out the dirty window to see a collection of mobile homes surrounding a large church, a few smaller outbuildings dotted around the compound. It was quiet, not full of laughter like the last group she had been to, the children nowhere to be seen, only a few of the handier members of the flock that were either fixing up walls, trimming trees besides a man sprawled too casually on the steps of the chapel, a bible in his hands he seemed to be catching up on. 

The car pulled to a stop in front of the man that barely batted an eye at their arrival, the safety locks flicking off each of the doors, Nancy collecting her briefcase and exiting the car first. 

She had all but reached for the handle when Emily stopped her, swivelling in her seat to look her dead in the eye. 

“Your job is mediator, you got that?” Her sister had never looked more serious, but then again she did know her almost too well, “You and your field research are a… buffer between our investigation and the unsub. Just try to take the focus off what we’re doing, but do not provoke anyone,”

She raised her hands in innocence, “Got it, jeez, what could I possibly do that could ruin this investigation?” 

Emily stared back at her blankly, unnamused, as if they both knew there was a lot she could, and would, do that would blow the whole thing. 

“You look like mom when you give me that look,” She bit back, leaving the car, as Nancy spoke to the man laying on the steps, “It’s terrible,” 

“I’m looking for Mr Benjamin Cyrus?” Nancy reported, her tight, knee length skirt and blouse entirely out of place amongst the dirt track. 

“You found him,” The man replied, still not so much as granting them a glance of interest as he flicked through his passages. 

“I’m Nancy Lunde, we spoke on the phone regarding the allegation,” She replied, which was the only thing that garnered his attention as he looked up at them behind slightly bent reading glasses. 

“Savages they call us; because our manners differ from theirs,” He said, though it was clear it wasn’t entirely his own words, more likely a segment of his preach he’d repeated a handful of times. Bugsy tried to hide her disgust behind her hand tightening around her lab books she kept tightly to her chest. 

“We didn’t come here to hear you cite scripture, Mr Cyrus,” Nancy snipped as he approached the group, pocketing the glasses though he kept hold of the bible in hand as if it was part of his own arm. 

“Actually it’s Benjamin Franklin,” Spencer murmured to the woman, which had Cyrus’ cold brown eyes narrowing at the tall man, assessing for a motive.

“Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid. They’re child victim interview experts,” Nancy introduced them quickly, the two of them flashing their badges, the unofficial ones at least. Gesturing to the youngest woman, she introduced her with her real name, his gaze flicking to her as he seemed to recognise it.

“Marina’s friend? The plant lady?” He asked, face half amused as she fought her lip from twitching into a sneer. Instead she smiled, holding out her hand. 

“That’s what they call me,” She said, shaking his hand, ignoring the way he flashed her a cheshire cat smile, “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by, Marina said I could take some samples for my research,”

He laughed, shaking his head, looking at Spencer, “Women and their flowers, right?” Spencer swallowed back a retort, shrugging his shoulders, though Bugsy’s eye twitched. Benjamin patted her on her shoulder, “Of course you can honey, I’ll find Jared, our head gardner, and you can run along for your research,” 

He said it as if she were lying, that her degree and endless hours of work would only ever chalk up to a few doodles in a notebook, or a garden full of hydrangeas, or tulips, or roses, because she couldn’t possibly care about anything else but pretty flowers. 

Nodding her head graciously, choking back the hateful response she wished to spit in his face, she gave him a polite thankyou, feeling Spencer’s eyes burning into the side of her head. 

“The children are in the school as I indicated,” Cyrus said, turning back to the other three, Emily and Nancy taking off in the direction he pointed, the former knowing her sister was at risk of blowing a fuse if they were here for long. 

Spencer hung back, partially because he had a plan of distraction in mind to allow the women a chance to speak with the children whilst Cyrus wasn’t around, partially because he didn’t want to leave Bugsy anywhere on her own. Sure, Emily had said they were both trained in self defence when they were kids, but with no weapon of her own, he was reluctant. 

“You're using solar power?” He prompted, gesturing towards where the eight blue panels warmed under the Colorado sun.

“We’re completely self-sufficient,” Benjamin nodded along, catching the impressed look on both their faces, “Electricity, food, water. Ben Franklin said ‘God helps those that help themselves,’ you look surprised,” 

“No, impressed actually,” Spencer replied, and he wasn’t entirely lying. The system was incredibly complex, particularly if they received no help from outsiders, for as many people as there were in the compound. 

“Thankyou; for admitting that,” Cyrus said earnestly, flicking his gaze back to Bugsy who studied the solar panels, “I’ll go find Jared, he can take you to the greenhouses,”

Thanking him again, he led the way towards the school where Nancy and Emily had headed, as the two of them exchanged a look, Spencer smiling half piteously, wishing he could shake her and tell her just how smart she was and that Cyrus knew absolutely nothing. 

He didn’t miss the way she walked closer to him, or how she thumbed the corner of her notebook, or how she looked back at him, biting the inside of her cheek. He thinks he might get slapped if he pointed it out, but Emily had the exact same tell when she was nervous, which is why he bumps their shoulders together in means of reassuring her he was still there. 

It was only then she gave him any sort of smile back. 

-

Jared, as expected, had been just as condescending and patronising as Benjamin whilst she slipped on her latex gloves, scooping no more than a handful of homemade fertiliser into one of her test tubes. It had been a partial cover, their story, but she had been telling the truth when she’d contacted Marina and asked if she could drop by. She’d been meaning to expand her field research in hopes of stumbling on a job opportunity since she spent most of her postgraduate days reading while her cat pawed at her leg for more treats than he deserved, the odd phone call with her sister much more common than it had been before. 

She didn’t miss the way Jared’s hand fell into the small of her back as he led her back towards the school, after having noted down a few more readings, fussing over the state of the carrots that seemed to grow entirely naturally thanks to the systems they’d been smart enough to set up. He seemed rather bored by the whole thing, for a head gardener, more interested in staring at her legs as she leaned down to identify the fat black beetle that crawled along the rockery. 

It wasn’t until they were halfway to the school that the sound of tyres on a dirt path met her ears, and she saw five armoured SUVs out the corner of her eye. 

She hadn’t even the time to question what was going on, before Jared’s face dropped, the hand gently holding the soft of her back grabbing on her forearm hard enough to leave bruises, as he was dragging her to the chapel they had seen when they had pulled up.

 Emily had said the rest of the team stayed in Quantico, if it wasn’t them, who was it. 

“Whats going on- who is that?” She asked him lamely, her feet stumbling as she half fought his heavy hand off. 

That was when the shooting started. 

She thinks it came from the compound first, she’d seen two men stationed on top of one of the outbuildings, thinking nothing much of it, until she saw clearly now the assault rifles they bore, pointing it straight at the vehicles that drew closer. The whistle of bullets, bangs of the chambers emptying their artillery, and it wasn’t until she heard the doors to the SUVs start opening, more gunfire began hitting the wall ahead of them that she started running. Running fast, for the cover the church provided until she figured out just what the fuck was happening. 

Jared all but threw her past the chapel door, where Cyrus and four other men were waiting, a heavy barricade in their hands, her chest pounding with adrenaline, she couldn’t help the yelp that left her as Cyrus whirled on her, grabbing her shoulders firmly and looking her dead in the eye. 

“Did you know anything about this?” He asked, his calm demeanour cracking when she scrambled for a response, “ANSWER ME,”

“No-no not at all.” She shook her head, voice weaker than she’d like, but the sight of more guns in the men’s hands twisted any resolve she had, “Where are the others- the- the experts-”

“Take her into the tunnels,” Cyrus ignored her question, nodding at one of his men to grab her as Jared armed himself. She felt another callused hand yank on her upper arm, and part of her wondered if that was how men handled all women here, as if they were herding cattle, as she was dragged down into the catacombs below the church. 

They’d made plans for a day like this to come, she realised. 

Her heart constricted at the sound of bullets rattling above them, she hadn't been able to tell in that last moment whether Cyrus believed her or not as, nor whether she was being taken to the tunnels for her own safety or to be questioned harder about the gunmen. 

She could only hope Emily was safe. 

She felt her tongue too big for her mouth as the man all but shoved her into the bunker, the nervous chatter of women and children, some of the more elderly men, as they clung to one another for safety, the scathing remark she would have usually made about his heavy hands failing her as she scanned the room for her sister. 

Emily was faster however, and she nearly yelped again as two bony arms yanked her into a hug, a rare one, and she knew by the blazer and the sigh of relief in her ear it was Em.

Usually she would bat her off, tell her to stop fussing like a mother hen, but today she embraced her right back, trying to note if her sister had any bullet holes in her before she allowed herself the same relief. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Emily asked, the whole thing coming out in a slew of worry, and she nodded, pulling away as if she needed to see the proof in person. 

Bugsy’s eyes were wild, as if she were a doe in a meadow hearing a rifle cocking near. No scratch that, she was a doe being chased and shot at and hunted, narrowly escaping being mounted on a wall. 

“They were all shit shots,” Bugsy said, through a laugh she didn’t quite mean, “You would have done much better.” 

Patting her sister on the shoulder, Emily finally released her when she realised the humour meant she at least had her head on her shoulders. Spencer watched her with meticulous eyes, knowing the shock that registered on her face, knowing it was the same one he wore when he first had shots fired at him. He saw her own eyes quickly check him over, satisfied with a breath of relief when she saw they were both fine. 

“Where’s Lunde?” Emily asked, and she realised then Cyrus had followed her down into the shelter, two of his men grabbing handfuls of guns she had never seen before, likely imported out of country, and returning to the ground level, preparing for more shooting. 

“It wasn’t us,” Cyrus replied, as if that negated the fact their recklessness had gotten the agent killed. 

“What? You can’t shoot it out with the cops, you have children in here,” Emily seethed, her voice harsh and incredulous.

“I didn’t start this,” Cyrus bit back, looking towards his men as they grabbed boxes on boxes of ammunition, “I’ll take the front, you take the roof,” 

And with that they stormed their way back through the tunnels, leaving the three of them to look between each other, knowing this could only end badly. Knowing the only people that could figure out how to get them out of this mess was the BAU, all 1,700 miles away. 

–

They’d been in the bunker for fourteen hours when there was finally movement. The shooting seemed to have quietened down, in which Spencer whispered it was around 11pm and it was likely neither party had a clear shot. She’d managed to fall asleep leaning against the wall, Emily’s blazer draped over her legs. She’d regretted wearing cropped pants, despite how the shade of green complimented her eyes nicely, and she’d been shivering by the time she fell asleep, Emily’s hands stroking her hair gently as if she knew she was struggling to relax. 

She hadn’t realised she was staring at her little sister, frowning even as she slept, which made part of her want to laugh, until she caught Spencer’s tired eyes looking between them, something knowing and warm in his gaze. 

“You know, she’s always scowled in her sleep, ever since she was born,” Emily said, quiet enough it didn’t interrupt the hum of small snores, the odd baby cry that filled the bunker, but loud enough for him to smile at her, “She used to sleep walk terrible too. I’d find her in the kitchen trying to make pancakes with a cheese grater. It’s like that big brain of hers doesn’t know how to shut off,” Emily shook her head with a fatigue, rubbing her eyes. 

“Was it weird? Being fourteen years older?” Spencer asked, his own hands shoved into his sleeves to try defend from the draught. Emily thought for a moment, her hand slowing for a second on her sister's hair, before she answered. 

“I felt guilty leaving her in that house with my mom when I went to college,” Emily answered, Bugsy unconsciously tucking her face closer into the jacket, “I think part of her kind of hated me for it for a while.” She went quiet, the shame in her voice thick as the silence that encompassed them, “She’s never been very affectionate you know? Before her graduation I don’t think I’d hugged her in twelve years,”

Spencer held himself back from pointing out that she had been just as touchy with him since they’d met, and that maybe it was Emily’s own regret that seemed to shut the both of them down. He wasn’t one to rub salt in the wound, not since he’d gotten this job and learned to watch what he said. 

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to give her advice, knowing the whole subject of their slowly repairing relationship was a sore one. He had no siblings of his own, had a mother who loved him despite how much she grappled with her own mind, and he had only known the girl briefly enough to consider her a friend at a push. 

“I always thought the two of you were similar,” Emily chose to continue, offering him a small smile. He returned it, his face blushing at the fact that was a huge compliment to him, “Granted, you roll your eyes at me less and don’t act like I’m dumb, but you remind me of her,” 

“Thankyou, I wish that were true,” He replied, eyes flicking to her sleeping form, the way her eyebrows were indeed scrunched in a permanent frown. He wondered if she was actually angry, or if she was just thinking hard, perhaps her dreams were full of equations or labs she needed to sort through. Either way, he wanted to know. “She’s much cooler than I’ll ever be,” 

Emily snorted, shuffling against the wall to cosy herself, “That’s one way to put it,” She said, smiling over at him as he did the same, his head resting against the wall, Bugsy’s legs stretching out to knock against his feet, and he didn’t mind that she scuffed the bottom of his already dirty trousers. “Get some sleep,”

And so they did. 

–

Cyrus had corralled the whole flock into the church, where the shooting had stopped and the bodies had been removed, stating at the break of dawn that there was a hostage negotiator coming in to make sure everyone was safe before they made any deals. 

She sat next to Spencer, the three of them stiff from their sleeping arrangements, and her stomach churned with hunger. It had been over 24 hours since they’d gotten here, and besides the small bit of bread and water Cyrus gave everyone for breakfast, she was starving. 

“Remind me to never leave the house, ever again,” She grumbled, as everyone waited in the pews for the negotiator to arrive, “My cat is gonna be pissed I’ve not fed him,” 

“Since when did you get a cat?” Emily inputted from the other side of Reid, keeping one eye on the door in case any agents start shooting again. 

The girl shrugged, “I got lonely, there’s not much to do now I’m not studying anymore,” 

Reid watched how she clutched her stomach, feeling his own complaining at the lack of nutrition, “Morgan wasn’t lying when he said you should sign up for the academy. We could always use the help, we wouldn’t have solved that case in Baltimore without you,” 

She snickered, nudging his foot with her boot, “You’re being modest, you would have done it just fine,”

He was a little, wasn’t surprised she called his bluff either. “Okay, so probably yes- but it would have taken us a whole lot longer. Mr Chernus likely would have died,” 

She shook her head, glancing at Emily who watched her carefully, “That was all you guys. I just translated.”

Emily and Spencer exchanged a glance, leaning back in their uncomfortable seats calmly. 

“You’re probably right,” Spencer said, dusting the dirt off his trousers, “Probably couldn’t handle it, high intensity mind games and such,”

She blanched, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head, not knowing him to be so brutally honest, realistic yes, but not bordering on rude. 

“And it’s a lot of work,” Emily jumped in, her mouth a straight line, “I don’t know if you’d be dedicated enough,”

Bugsy scoffed, indifferently. “I have a masters degree, I was offered a scholarship to do a PHD, asked to be an assistant professor at Yale, I can work hard, Emily,” She snipped, and perhaps she was particularly just hangry or they had struck a nerve with their doubt, “and I could do it if I wanted to, I’d have the best shot they’d ever seen, guaranteed- mom made me take lessons when you left- trust me I could do it-”

She shut up when she saw their small smile exchanged, as if she’d told them a joke, or moreso they’d had the same identical thought and that alone was hilarious. 

Scowling at them, she looked from where Spencer looked almost, almost, guilty at making her the butt of the joke, to where Emily had a ‘told you so’ smirk, and she kissed her teeth at their childishness. 

“Are you guys reverse psychology-ing me? Seriously, so original guys,” She snapped, crossing her arms and straightening herself in her seat, ignoring the snigger that passed between them. 

“You’re not wrong though,” Emily replied quietly as Cyrus walked past them, his eyes falling to them with a frown. Bugsy kept her head down, heeding Emily’s warning of not provoking anyone, and Spencer eyed the way she leaned closer to him.

If she was going to retaliate, whether agreeing or not, she stopped herself, the doors the church opening and an older gentleman walking through the doors, arms full of supplies she’d figured must have been part of the negotiation. He was patted down by an armed guard, searching for his own weapons do doubt, or a wire perhaps, as he handed the box over to another who took it without a thankyou. 

“Rossi,” She heard Reid whisper beside her, and from the look he shot Emily and Spencer she gathered he was from the BAU, just as they’d expected. His eyes fell on her, softening as alot of Emily’s team did when they saw the two of them, as if they were picking her face apart for the tiny ways in which she resembled their Prentiss, or maybe it was the way she curled up in her seat, tired, hungry, on the defence. He just looked sorry for her. 

 “The children,” Cyrus said with no greeting, the air between them particularly frosty. He gestured towards the three of them, though Rossi had already clocked their tired faces staring at him with worry, “And our guests,”

She saw him trying not to react, guessing they had not let it slip to Cyrus he worked with the two undercover FBI agents, looking away from them as if the sight of their forlorn figures was enough to turn him sick. 

Judging by the way Cyrus and he spoke quietly, tensely, Bugsy just hoped they had a plan to get them out of here soon as he soon left with a rigid handshake to the man keeping them hostage. 

–

The three of them had been moved to a backroom a few hours later. Her stomach ached, the little sustenance Rossi had brought being distributed to the community before they’d been offered anything, which hadn’t left much. Reid and Emily had tried to get her to take some of their sharing, and despite how her insides cried out for it, she declined, stating they would be more use than she would; that they needed their strength more than her if they were going to get out of here alive. 

The two of them hadn’t liked that answer judging by the frowns on their faces, but they sat in their seats with little fuss as they waited for things to quieten down after Cyrus’ staged “mass suicide” that had turned out to be nothign more than a test of loyalty and grape juice. 

They had been sat in silence, aside from her foot bouncing on the floor impatiently, as she picked at the threads on her pants, the material uncomfortable on her skin after a day of wearing it. The door slammed open, Cyrus entering the room with nasty scowl. She didn’t know what had changed in the man in a matter of hours as he stormed over to them, two of his men behind him, loaded rifles in their arms. 

This was not good. 

“Which one of you is it?” He asked almost too calm for his demeanour, his eyes flicking between the three of them, where Emily attempted to brush her hair using her fingers, Reid played with the hem of his cardigan, an she sat beside him, resting against the cold stone wall behind them, her eyes narrowing at his furious expression. 

The three of them remained silent, waiting for him to explain more, though clearly it was not the answer he was looking for as he threw his jacket open, revealing a loaded pistol tucked into his jeans. Drawing it into his dominant hand, her body tensed up, her back straightening like a rod as she looked up at him through fear. 

“Which one of you is the FBI agent?” He repeated in that same calm tone, and her heart fell through her stomach. 

She opened her mouth to say something in retaliation, though the way she saw his hand shaking with fury, she knew it was better to stay quiet in case her voice would be the final straw that made him trigger happy. 

“Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer replied softly, and if he was panicking even a fraction amount she was he held it back, though his eyes flicked to Emily. 

But it was a tell. The smallest movement alone was a tell he was lying, or perhaps it was the fact he’d answered a question with one of his own, distracting from the attention on them with the unsubs own answers. Maybe his quiet and calm showed how trained he was for a situation like this, showed he had gone up against bad guys before and won. 

Whatever it was about him, it had Cyrus cocking the barrel of the gun straight at Spencer’s temple. 

“God forgive me for what I must do,” The preacher murmured, his finger moments away from the trigger, when she lurched forward in her seat, hand shooting out to grab his wrist deathly tight. 

“It’s me,” 

She hadn’t realised she’d said it until the room went quiet. She thought for a moment it had come from Emily, Emily had always been the braver of the two of them, but it wasn’t until Cyrus’ unforgiving, dark gaze fell to her where she froze in her spot, that she understood her mouth had been the one moving. 

Emily looked as if she was about to vomit, Spencer looked dumbfounded, but all she could do was stare back at Cyrus as if to will herself not to back down, knowing all three of them could fall victim if she gave them reason to doubt her; he could kill all three of them just to be sure the mystery agent was dealt with.

“It’s me,” She repeated, voice stronger this time, and she felt her chest relax just the tiniest amount as he turned the gun away from Spencer’s head. 

He stared back at her for a moment, before the weapon smacked across her face in a sharp whip, her cheekbone crying out in a sting she knew was going to bruise. 

He grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her into a stand hard enough she yelped, despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the torture. 

“Watch the other two,” Cyrus barked, dragging her out of the room as she squirmed under his hand, feeling it only tighten into an unforgiving pull. 

She barely caught Emily bolting out of her seat to yell at the other men, all but fighting in their heavy grasp to follow wherever it was he was taking her, only for the door to be slammed shut behind them. 

It was only then she realised how fucked she truly was. 

–

She struggled to breath through the blood clotting in her nose. She didn’t think it was broken, not that she could check where her hands had been tied to the bedpost, tape over her mouth to stop her calling for help, her feet bound. She’d done nothing but give him hell as he’d been laying into her, keeping her cries and groans of pain silent as he’d kicked her in the ribs hard enough to know he’d damaged something at least. 

She’d not made it easy for him to tie her down, worried about what they were planning next, she’d managed to headbutt him in the mouth, and the way he clutched at his jaw when he’d left gave her a sick satisfaction, though her temple now hurt more than she’d like to admit. But they’d only covered her mouth after she’d screamed obscenities at them for an hour or so, hoping to attract attention, hoping if the BAU were on their way, Emily and Reid would be able to find her fast before they could dispose of her. 

Bugsy didn’t want to go like this. Tied up like cattle, gagged and beaten, the spirit kicked out of her as the dehydration gnawed at her limbs, making her too weak to even try wriggling out of the binds. 

She felt herself dropping off to sleep, or maybe it was a concussion, he’d slammed her face into that mirror quite viciously, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had rattled her head around. Fighting with her eyelids to stay open, she jumped in her battered skin as the door unlatched, and she thrashed on the rickety bed to get away from the impending second beating. 

But it wasn’t Cyrus. A fawn haired woman entered, her eyes falling on the girl on the bed, where blood trickled down her cheek, pouring from her nose like a thick liquor. Frowning, she was on high alert as the woman approached, a small, damp cloth in her hand. 

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you honey,” She hushed, approaching the young girl. Bugsy didn’t believe her for one second, her head pulling away from her as far as it could, her eyes wild and distrustful as the woman kneeled down beside the bed. “I’m Kathy,”

Bugsy debated jabbing an elbow in her face then and there, telling her in few words to stay as far away from her as possible, that the moment she was free she didn’t care who she hurt; she was getting out of here even if she had to crawl. 

“That woman’s your sister right?” The blonde said, and the words stopped her heart for a moment, giving the woman the chance to run the cloth over the dribble of blood, “Emily,”

“Where is she?” She tried to ask, but the gag made it little more than a muffled cry, the woman’s eyes turning down in sadness. Pity. Bugsy hated every second of it.

“She’s okay, she’s worried about you though,” Kathy said, wiping under her nose, making her wince at the feeling, “Put up a hell of a fight after they took you away,” 

She must have rolled her eyes, or perhaps it was just telling on her face that that didn’t surprise her as the older woman wiped over the superficial cut on her forehead she hadn’t realised was deep until the cloth went over it and she yawped like a dog having it’s tail pulled. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Kathy cooed, and she seemed genuinely guilty as she did. She tutted, shaking her head, fighting the urge to smooth the girls hair down the way she did when her own daughter was upset, “Emily said they’ll be coming for us at 3am, Cyrus has a mass suicide planned but they think they can stop him, you just have to hold on a little longer honey,” 

“I want to see her,” Bugsy tried to talk again despite her mouth being covered, only for it to come out unintelligible once more. Huffing, she resigned herself to glaring at the ceiling, biting back frustrated tears. Kathy seemed to want to say something else, but thought better of it as the twenty something year old turned away from her to stare out the window, as if she were being dismissed. 

Sighing, she rose from the bed and headed for the door, praying the FBI would get them out in time, before Cyrus put his plan into action. 

–

Bugsy didn’t start panicking until it hit 2:50. She’d managed to kick the small analogue clock on the beside into working, the red numbers seeming to take a millenia to change over. 

Yet it wasn’t until 3am neared, and the hallways remained silent, did she start to wonder if Kathy had been telling the truth at all. What if they had found out Emily and Reid were FBI and not her? What if they’d already been caught?

She really had wanted to see Emily, wanted to scream at the woman, who had meant well, to bring her sister to her or she would make every damn bible basher in this compound regret the day they were born. She felt helpless. She despised feeling helpless. 

It was only when she heard shots rattling from outside did the cold fear set in. 2:52. Any minute now. 

It was then an even worse thought struck her. What if they didn’t bother to come for her? Reid and Emily were safe downstairs, at least that was how Kathy had made it seem. If they got the women and children, the agents out first, she wondered if they would leave her for last since she wasn’t their top priority. 

2:53 stared back at her. 

At least Emily would make it. She was more important, had more going for her. She was supposed to be an only child anyway, mom had said it herself. Bugsy was the product of a failing marriage and a shared bottle of 1896 Bourbon that had been a wedding gift they’d never opened. 

2:54.

She could have sworn she tore something the way her head snapped to the door as it swung open on its hinges, as if two large men had thrown their weight into it. But it wasn’t two men at all, just one frantic Derek Morgan with an FBI grade assault rifle. 

The relief in his eyes was immediate, and he pulled a pocket knife from his boot, rushing over to where she lay, almost in shock, wondering if he was real at all, her heart pounding as she heard shouting in the corridor. 

“I’m gonna get you out, kid,” The man promised, slinging his gun over his shoulder as he sliced through the rope on her ankles, her eyes trained on the 2:55 that watched them as if to laugh at them. 

She whimpered, cursing behind her gag when she heard footsteps pounding through the hallway, and she was sure they were going to get caught. She thought then it would have been better if they’d forgotten about her, that at least Derek would have been safe, and he could have made sure the children got out safely, could have gotten Spencer and Emily medical. 

Derek whirled on the doorway the same as she did as a tall figure all but skidded around the corner, his legs weak as hers felt, too long and not at all built for running. Clumsy almost. 

Spencer. She should have known from the way he looked white as a sheet the moment he saw her it was him, but maybe she really did have concussion, as it seemed within moments he was fussing over her face, tearing a little too sharply at the tape over her mouth. 

She thinks she groaned, or maybe cursed him out, as he started apologising immediately, his eyes a puppy kind of sad as she stared up at him, Derek handing him the knife to cut her arms free. 

He was talking, but she couldn’t make a lot of it out, just that he was really sorry, it was 2:56 now. It was like her brain switched itself back on when she realised she was free, and the two of them were trying to haul her to her feet. 

“Come on, princess, we gotta get out of here,” Derek said, as Spencer looped an arm around her waist, helping her limp across the room where her weak limbs did little to hold her upright, her ribs throbbing with every step, “We managed to stop Cyrus from detonating it manually, but the circuits are all still live,”

Morgan took the lead with the rifle, knowing some of Cyrus’ men had stayed to look for them, that they would go down with the building even though he’d already shot their leader the moment they’d breached the front door, because that was how loyal they were. They’d proven so already with the wine. 

She kept her groans behind tight lips as they made it down the stairs, knowing Spencer didn’t mean to hold her bruised bones so tight, that he was just worried and her legs were doing the bare minimum to keep them both moving very fast. It wasn’t until they made it within a few feet of the door that they seemed to pick up the pace.

And she saw why. 

Jesse, Cyrus’ child bride that had been the reason they’d come here in the first place was holding the detonator, her face tear streaked at the sight of her husband and prophet dead on the floor, the people responsible all but dragging a lame girl through the foyer and to the doors as if they hadn’t killed a handful of her flock tonight. 

Bugsy saw the moment Jesse decided she wanted vengeance on them, but then, she guessed Spencer had already acted as he slung one of her arms over his shoulder, yanking her out the front door in a matter of seconds as Morgan pulled up the rear, and the two men shoved her down behind the small wall outside the church steps. 

Bugsy expected the bang to be louder as the rubble flew over their heads, the floor shaking with the impact of the bomb detonating, and it was then she realised one of Derek’s large warm hands held her head into his shoulder, protecting her already rattled skull as best as he could. Spencer had done the same, throwing half his body over her back as he covered his ears, the two men tucking into the wall tightly and waiting for the dust to settle. 

Spencer started coughing first, though his position over her never faltered, and she heard his chest wheezing, and knew they needed to move away from the thick smog that blew into their faces. Morgan released her ear, tipping her head back to check her over once more. 

“Kid! You okay?” He fretted, noticing the way her nose had started bleeding again from all the movement; the way the bruise had already started blotching her cheek from where Cyrus pistol whipped her. 

“I didn’t think you’d come for me,” Was all she could say, and Derek thought it was the saddest he’d ever heard her. 

Reid was pulling her to her feet then, where he was still hovering over her, despite the fact the blast had already cleared,  still sputtering and hocking up a lung, but it didn’t stop her from throwing herself at his middle, burying her face in his dusty sweater, not caring one bit if he jostled her aching ribs. 

He was trying to be gentle with her as he squeezed her back, but she knew by the way he pressed his face into her hair he needed it just as badly. 

“You saved my life,” He said, his long arms wrapping around her waist, hauling her whole body against his. 

She laughed through a cough, their cheeks brushing past one another as she pulled him in tighter, thankful, relieved. 

“You saved mine,” 

And then she heard Emily. Emily, who sounded frantic and heartbroken as she called for her, her voice breaking as if she was crying, or atleast on the verge of, and as comforting as Spencer’s long arms around her cracked ribs were, she needed to see her sister was okay. 

Ripping herself from his embrace immediately, she tore off after the sound, and there she was. Her older sister, who had always seemed immovable, like she wouldn’t so much as budge for a bucking horse, like water couldn’t drown her, or however many unsubs she’d faced could stop her from catching them. Her older sister, who looked like she’d taken a few punches of her own, judging by the blood on her blue blouse, that looked around the crowd of fleeing people with watery eyes and a shaking bottom lip.

“EMILY,” She yelled, her voice a bleat, a lamb calling for its mother, as she sprinted down the steps, whatever strength she had left carrying her to where Emily was rushing towards her, taking the stairs in threes, “EM-”

She crashed into her sister’s chest, and it was only then she started crying. 

“I swear I’ll never give you trouble again, I’ll never talk back, I’ll never be a bitch ever again-” It was all a slew of mumbles against her sisters shirt, that was beginning to wet through at the rate the tears were coming, “I thought he was going to shoot you-”

“I was so scared, Bug, oh my god,” Emily murmured into her hair, squeezing the life out of her baby sister that sniffled and sobbed, “You don’t ever, ever do that to me again,”

Bugsy shook her head, clawing at Emily’s back as she pulled her closer, feeling Emily stroking her hair softly to calm her even in the slightest. They stayed like that until she managed to wrangle her sobs into little sniffs, the fire burning her eyes where it burned the rest of the church to ashes. 

She stayed with Emily for a month after that. 

+4. The one where you leave the altar. 

She knew she was turning heads, walking down the street of a drizzly day in Virginia, hair wet and sticking to her face, makeup running down her cheeks, and the sodden, dove white wedding dress clasped in her hands as she paced towards the government building. 

Whether the guards recognised her as the Ambassador’s daughter, or whether they really didn’t want to get into it with a bride looking like that on her day, she didn’t know, but they opened the door for her nonetheless, exchanging raised brows as a trail of wet followed her gown over the marble floors. 

Heading up the desk, she flashed her driver's licence, which was enough to gain her a visitors pass she didn’t bother putting to use as she headed for the elevator, her ballet pumps squeaking under the body of the dress. Waiting for the doors to start closing when she finally let a few tears slip, burying her face into her cold, drenched palms, undoubtedly making the mess of mascara even worse. 

Her heart gave a leap when she heard someone stop the doors, hoping she could get to her sister with little delay, and she quickly wiped her face with whatever was left of her pretty, dobby cloth shawl she had yanked on before she’d ran. 

Whatever excuse she was about to give, whatever one liner she was about to drop to clear the awkwardness this agent was about to walk in on was sucked out of her when she saw Spencer staring at her, his briefcase in his hands he’d used to hold the doors, a wide eyed look plastered on his face as soon as he saw her state. 

“Bugsy,” It was somewhere between surprise and sadness, jumping into the elevator before the metal could shut again, the button for the sixth floor already lit up in a ring of red, “What are you- I didn’t even know…”

“Spencer!” As seemed to be a common occurrence between them now, she threw two very cold arms over his shoulders, tugging him for a hug he quickly reciprocated, feeling like she needed it in the moment, “It was so awful, I just couldn’t all those people staring at me, and he- I just feel so-”

“Hey slow down,” He soothed, slipping his favourite cardigan off his body to put over her shoulders, ignoring the way he cringed as it quickly got sodden, “Let’s get you to Emily, I’m sure we can fix this,”

She nodded, though he could tell she was still shaken up, the elevator dinging to a stop on the fifth floor where an agent looked ready to step in, his face dropping when he saw the sight. 

“Sorry, we’re full,” Spencer said, with little room for discussion, pressing the button to close the doors once more, and taking her by the elbow as she began shivering, “We’re gonna be just fine, you look beautiful,”

She laughed sadly with a roll of her eyes, the tears sticking to her cheeks. She knew she looked no better than a drowned rat, windswept and disgruntled, her dress full of muck from the street. 

“Thankyou, Spencer,” She mumbled, the door sliding open to the sixth floor, where Penelope and her everlasting smile greeted her favourite boy genius. 

She almost dropped her glitter pen when she saw the woman stood next to him looking like Dorothy dragged through the twister. 

“Oh you poor little lamb, what has happened to you honey!” She all but cried, the cute little pom poms in her hair bouncing as she brought Bugsy closer, taking her hands tightly. “Your hands are ice! You’ll catch cold with that wet hair, and your gorgeous dress-” 

“Garcia,” Spencer cut her off, though the woman didn’t seem to mind being manhandled into the kind grip, he guessed her state had her letting her guard down, “This is Bugsy, Emily’s little sister.”

Penelope gasped, her ponytails swishing around some more, the gems on her glasses as bright as the light in her eyes as she yanked the younger girl in for a tight hug. 

“It is so nice to meet you! Emily talks about you all the time,” She said, pulling away and fumbling through her pockets for her fresh pink handkerchief she always carried around, mopping up the girl's eyeliner. 

“She-she does?” Bugsy asked, sniffling, her body trembling as the AC beat down through the water ladened on her body. 

“Of course she does, come on, let’s go get you coffee, I have a new machine in my office that makes the best espresso-” Garcia grabbed her hand as if they were kids in the playground, as if she’d known the girl years, which she sort of had. She had, of course, stalked every single one of Emily’s known relatives, even a distant cousin that never left Europe, and that had thrown up the quiet corner of the internet that Bugsy took up.

“I needed to talk to my sister, if that’s okay,” Bugsy braved enough to say, the swishing of her dress on the carpet making her wince, practically hearing the gallon of rain that soaked the expensive fabric. 

“Ofcourse! How silly of me, I’ll bring it out right to you, little bug. You just go with Spencer,” Handing him the handkerchief, she set off towards her ‘bat cave’ in search of a hot beverage for the shivering woman, “Spencer, clean her makeup!” 

He did as he was told, dabbing the water off her face as he led her to the BAU, where Emily and Morgan sat on their desks, chatting as they finished off lunch, Emily flicking through photos on her phone of baby Henry that JJ had sent over to her that morning from maternity leave. 

“He’s just the sweetest little boy, he’s got the biggest blue eyes just like Jayj,” She said through a smile, “You know Will even said-”

“Holy shit-” Morgan cut her off, and she glanced at him, wondering about his use of a curse. Following his eyes over her shoulder, she swivelled in her position to see where Spencer led a very wet, shaken version of her little sister through the doors of the BAU, a snowy ball gown hanging off her, a veil clinging to her hair that had seen much better days. 

“Holy shit,” She agreed, immediately darting for the girl that tugged Spencer’s cardigan tighter to her body, “Bugsy,” 

“Emily, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t take up too much time- I just couldn’t do it- and I know mom’s always saying ‘Bring home a doctor, bring home a rich man,’ but I just couldn’t no matter how rich his daddy is, he wasn’t even too bad-” It all came out in a slur, not making too much sense, and she didn’t stop until Emily held up her hands, as if easing a wild dog. 

“Woah, take it easy, kiddo,” Morgan hushed, as Emily brought a hand over her sister’s cheek, wiping away the last of the mascara, “What happened?”

Bugsy took a deep breath, looking between Emily and Derek, feeling the rain drip down her back. 

“So a few weeks ago, Mom made me go to that stupid debutante ball,” She started, rolling her eyes already as Emily winced, knowing Elizabeth loved any excuse to dress her youngest up like a Barbie doll. 

“I hated those things,” She confessed, shaking her head, “I thought you’d agreed you didn’t have to go to them anymore,”

“That was while I was in college, she said at least I could focus on my studies,” The girl explained, as Garcia tottered back through the office, a steaming cup of coffee in her beloved Bratz mug. Taking it from the chirpy woman, she took a deep gulp, not caring if it burned her mouth as she wished for the damn chill to go away, “Thankyou- But she made me go to this one on the condition she would pay off some of my college loans, and I was dumb enough to fall for her bribe,” 

She huffed, taking another sip, her stomach warming with the hot liquid settling through her throat. 

“You know how she is at these things, she knows everyone, and everyone knows her. I had four guys asking for my dance card within minutes of arriving there, it was like trying to walk through a dog pound wearing a meat suit, all the hand holding, trying to touch my waist- one guy even called me Madam Prentiss,” She grimaced, shuddering at the thought of it, “Madam? No one even calls mom that-”

“Focus,” Emily reminded gently, and she seemed to nod to herself, setting back on track.

“Right. And then he was there. Byron Hastings.” Bugsy said, wrapping her hands around the mug some more. 

“Oh, isn’t he that super yummy bachelor that just inherited his fathers business?” Garcia jumped in, not noticing how it made her wince, “I hear his dad totally owns a bunch of shares in Facebook and as like just signed a deal with a new company that will change the future of computing-” 

“Not now, baby girl,” Morgan said calmly, patting Penelope on her shoulder when she saw the bride’s crestfallen face.

“Right, sorry. Your turn, little bug,” She said, shaking her head and fiddling with her dozen rings. 

“Yeah, that’s him.” She replied, running a slightly warmed finger over her eyelash where rain even collected there, “And you know, I wasn’t complaining, he was certainly easy on the eyes, and he smelled nice, like he just smelled rich, but man alive he was so boring,” She sighed, “I like computers as much as the next girl, no offence, but he didn’t once ask me what I was into or, and when I tried to bring up my degree he just patted me on the head and said ‘That’s nice’ like I was some child that had brought him a pretty colouring or something,”

“Ouch,” Emily grimaced, rubbing her arms over the cardigan to warm her up a little more, “And then?” 

“And eventually, his dad and my mom cut a deal that we’d make a good pair. He said we could be married within the season, and suddenly everyone seemed up for it, and it was like no matter how hard I tried to dig my heels in, no one would listen, and mom just seemed so pleased with me-” She spluttered, sipping her drink to catch her breath, “I just let it happen and just thought, you know, maybe we could learn to like each other, or we could just be like mom and dad and separate in everything but paper,” 

“It’s your life, who is she to tell you how you’re gonna live it,” Emily was outraged, the tip of her nose pink, her dark eyes stormy as her hands fell to her hips, huffing as if it had been her backed into a corner, “I can’t believe she would do this to you,” 

“I was fine with it, really. It's not like its the fifteenth century when I’d be forced to consummate- anyway,” Bugsy rubbed her face, “I just got there, and mom put on my veil and told me I’d make a lovely Mrs Hastings, and just the sound of it- I couldn’t-”

“What on earth is going on?” A new voice cut through the BAU, and the group disbanded like kids caught trading answers to the homework. Rossi and Hotch stood by the unit chief’s office, brows furrowed at the wet bride and his team that tended to her as if she were a princess. 

“Should we be expecting four wet bridesmaids too?” Rossi asked, the two of them making the steps down to the floor, approaching the guilty faced woman, noting Spencer’s cardigan wrapped over her shoulders. 

“Nope, just me,” Her joke fell flat as she met the stony face of Aaron Hotchner, who looked thoroughly unimpressed, “Nice to see you again, Mr Hotchner, sir,” 

His gaze slid to Emily, mouth opening to share whatever scathing remark bounced around his mouth, but the younger girl beat him to it, everyone’s eyebrows raising when she all but cut him off. 

“This wasn’t on Emily, sir, I just showed up out of the blue, I can go- I’ll go- I just need to figure out where I’m staying since I left my purse at the church- don’t you worry I’ll be out of your hair, Aaro- sir,” Bugsy stammered, plonking the mug onto Emily’s desk, backing away to the doors of the office, clutching her visitor pass tight in her fist. 

Maybe it was because she looked so hopeless, or maybe it was the way his team shot him the same look of horror he would be so regimental, or maybe even it was the fact part of her reminded him of Sean, only his brother wouldn’t have had the courtesy to apologise for his mess. 

Sighing, he gestured her to come back, “Wait,” He said her name, her government name because the other one didn’t fit right in his mouth, “Reid, get her some clothes out your go bag. Emily, tell your mother she’s safe and will be staying in Quantico until you can figure something out,” 

Heaving a sigh of relief, she launched her still sodden form at the chief, wrapping him in a stiff hug, bolder than anyone else on the team had ever dared to be. 

“I swear to god, Mr Hotchner, the next letter you're getting will be the best one yet,” She mumbled into his hard chest, and he fought off the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards. Patting her on the back gently, he ignored the way his dress shirt wet through. 

–

let me know what you think! mAYBE A FEW MORE PARTS COMING UP ??

[winedrunkwords]

❝nocturnal animal❞

plot: okay, maybe the caped crusader is a vampire. and maybe you just want to know what it would feel like for him to sink his teeth into you. it's not weird. pairing: vampire!battinson!bruce wayne x detective!gn!reader. cw: vampires (duh), vampire-typical erotic descriptions of blood drinking, vampire hypnotism/compulsion, teasing martinez (lovingly). words: 2.6k.

a/n: I had a rough month last month and writer's block was the icing on the cake, but I picked up a vampire encyclopedia at the library and found out batman has been turned into a vampire... several times. more times than I thought, actually. this is what came of it. happy halloween month!!

"How does it feel?"

Gordon cuts his eyes to you for a moment, still thumbing through rows of manila folders. You sort of do the same just to appear a little less eager. "How does what feel?"

"The... well, you know." You awkwardly gesture to his wrist where the sleeve had fallen back a hair.

Your lieutenant flicks back his coat sleeve as if he were checking the time, but the watch face is laid flush against the inside of his wrist. He tugs at it. Frowns. Shrugs. "Feels like nothin'."

"Oh, do not bullshit me."

Gordon looks at you again. Then he glances around the storage room, quieter and emptier than every other room in the precinct right now. It's just the two of you here. You'd made sure of that before you decided to ask.

He props his arm on the box of cold cases and gives you a hard, judging stare. "I'm not describing what it feels like to have a grown man sucking..." He glances around again just to be sure no one had slipped in all of a sudden, "...if you wanna know, go ask him to bite you."

You... hadn't considered that. "He'd be okay with that?"

"I don't know, probably. It's not like he has a preference."

"I thought he didn't like Martinez."

"Well, you've seen Martinez. He eats like a high schooler."

You press your thumb into your own wrist, clenching and unclenching your fist until the veins show. You're possessed with a shiver as the draft from the vent above cools the skin. "So I... what? I just go up and ask?"

"Yeah, sure. Worst he can say is no."

"Detective."

About a third of your coffee goes flying, splattering milky brown onto concrete. You're lucky it had gone cold on your way up here or else it would've singed the skin off your ankles, but you're still not happy.

"Christ- get down from there. I'm not talking to you like that."

The Bat is perched comfortably above the doorway, looking down on you from above, but makes no move to get down. He keeps himself crouched, "Where's Lieutenant Gordon?"

“Night off with Barb. He’s been overworking lately, you know how he is. I told him I’d take care of you.” You stare up into the darkness and feel your heartbeat pick up a bit. You force yourself to still it, keep it tamped down under the years of poker face your career had honed for you. “I’m serious. Come down and talk to me or I’m making Martinez do this.”

You usually negotiated with people on the other side of a table, and none of them could ever hear your heart going ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump… so this was fairly new to you.

He drops down in front of you, cape fluttering gracefully. The first time you met him, Gordon had warned you to keep your cool. I mean, six foot something unknown, dressed in all black armor with innumerable resources and connections, endlessly prowling the night sky, whose intentions were murky and who was only on your side until he decided he wasn’t? Everyone thought Gordon was crazy. You were the first to give him a chance.

You noticed the little things. You rarely saw him during the day, never could get him to come out of the shadows when you did, always skulking about and never seeming to slow down. Weekdays, weekends, holidays. At one point, you’d wondered if he was even human. You’d wondered it out loud, in front of Gordon, expecting him to rip off the cowl to reveal a labyrinth of wires and then-

And then you’d realized you’d been paying an awful lot of attention to the Batman, and absolutely not enough to Jim Gordon.

He doesn’t sway or make faces like other people, doesn’t give away his thoughts like you’re used to. Instead, you’ve noticed very minute ticks: prolonged staring (even worse than his normal staring), not bothering to take a breath, the stillness of him and around him. The cityscape in the background might as well be a wide, empty plain when you’re standing next to him. Eventually, he lies, “Martinez is fine.”

"Worst he can say is no," your ass.

You try not to be offended by that. “You don’t like Martinez.” You sound pretty offended, against your best efforts.

“That’s not true.”

“I- you know what I meant. You said it yourself. Gordon told me.”

“It's fine."

You squint, “Am I not good enough for you?” A rare look of surprise flickers in his eyes. "You just said you’d prefer the guy whose blood you don’t even like.”

“I said he’s fine.” You hear a little edge to his voice that gives you pause. You’ve heard it before, coiling around the margins of his words. A tell-tale sign, Gordon had said, that you were trekking into dangerous territory.

You press your lips into a firm line but stand your ground, “I already made my choice. If you really want Martinez, say so. Clearly. Use your words and mean it.”

The Bat stares, unreadable.

You know how this goes with Gordon. It’s nothing intimate. The wrist most of the time, other times the neck when it’s closest. Or when Gordon’s busy on his computer. It’s always quick. You don’t even see Gordon flinch.

But with you? You don’t know how it’ll go with you. You don’t know where to start, only that you’d been thinking about it all day after you’d finally called Gordon and promised “I can take care of him.”

Batman takes your wrist, brings it to his nose, and flinches away. You panic at the thought that it might really be he prefers Martinez to you until he plucks the coffee out of your hand and sets it down on the ledge. His eyes follow yours as his mouth falls to the inner wrist and you feel wet, cool breath against it. It tingles all the way up to your ears. Those eyes flicker away a millisecond later, inspecting your arm in its entirety.

His leather-gloved thumb caressing your skin should make you something other than what you’re currently feeling, that’s for sure.

“Thank you,” Batman starts, sounding reluctant. His eyes quickly flicker to your throat and then away again, “Do you have a preference? Anywhere I should avoid?”

"Avoid?"

"Anywhere someone might look. A friend... or partner, perhaps."

Your lips part, sucking in a breath, “No, uh- no. No one like that. Wrist is fine. O-Or neck. Whichever is… easier.”

He doesn't say anything more. His lips curl up. Two pointed fangs reveal themselves behind the parting of his mouth, fangs that weren’t there before when he spoke. You ruminate on that, a reminder that the man under the mask could be anyone if he could hide so easily like that.

You watch—transfixed, barely registering the pain—when those fangs pierce skin. Blood beads where his teeth push in slow, and the icy sting you're expecting is no more than a needle prick at best. But the strangeness of a mouth pressed there, suckling at the wound as blood dribbled out of it… you stretch your fingers and stiffen. It was all you could do not to scare yourself and rip that hand back, tearing a vein in the process.

His tongue unmistakably presses to the flat of your inner wrist and before you can question it, he’s got his eyes on you. All of it goes quiet after that.

You no longer feel the sting, nor his lips pillowing around his teeth, nor the grip of his hands holding your wrist to his mouth. All you see is blue. Endless, reeling pools of blue. Not red like they were in the movies, or yellow, or black all over. Blue. Human blue. Wondrously beautiful blue. Had you ever liked blue eyes this much before? It felt like this was your first time truly seeing them. They were just so… radiant. And here he was, swathed in night, with pale skin peeking out like a waning crescent. Had you ever seen skin so pale? It felt like this was the first time truly seeing it. It was just so...

Your train of thought wanes. Sweeping over you is a dizzy spell so abrupt that you think you gasp. Or whimper.

Feeling returns to you as soon as he breaks your gaze. All at once, your skin is flush, your breathing concernedly slow, your knees weak. It’s so shocking that you buckle at the slightest gust of wind.

Just as quickly, the Bat clings to your wrist and pulls you flush to his chest, holding your bleeding arm in between the both of you while he holds you in a half-dip (like a pause in a waltz), suspended over you. Your eyes catch on the darkness staining his bottom lip where his fangs are still poking out, and you watch as a drop of blood gathers, swells, and falls… right onto your cheek. It’s still warm.

You feel a subconscious warning thrum through you. Perhaps it was because you were so close now, that the blue looked more hypnotic than radiant and his skin looked more undead than celestial. You understand in one sweeping, chilling second, what you’ve just let sink its teeth into you. “What the fuck was that?”

“You were starting to panic,” he explains, low, using no effort at all to hold you, “I calmed you down.”

“How? It’s like… it’s like you hypnotized me. Did you hypnotize me? Do you do that to Gordon?”

You don’t mean for it all to come out like an accusation, but the feeling had been akin to walking on a cloud, only to wake up the minute your foot falls through. In the time that you’d been lost in his eyes, waxing poetic about his otherworldliness, he could’ve… well, he could’ve… he could’ve done anything.

The feeling was untethered. Wild. Alien.

When he’s sure you won’t hurt yourself, the Bat lets your hand fall back to your side, straightens you up but never pulls away. Your eyes keep glancing between his and the points right above his brow, unsure that he wouldn’t draw you right back into that place if you looked directly at him again. “Gordon doesn’t panic.” He simply answers.

You go to defend yourself but you had felt it; the mounting pressure of it, the strange pain toggling on the instinct to get away, get away, get away. Your heartbeat was so slow when you came back to, like he'd damn near put a stop to it. “I panicked?”

The Bat doesn’t laugh at you, even when the answer is so obvious. “It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's a common phobia.”

You're struck by his implication, “Are you seriously trying to say I’m scared of blood?”

“Maybe just your own.”

“I'm a detective. I see blood all the time. Maybe it's because you're a fucking vampire and my ooga booga brain is rightfully terrified.”

“You offered.”

Your ears burn, “As a favor to Gordon.”

“I can hear you lying.”

The sureness of his statement stops you quick. You feel yourself choke on nothing, sounding strangled as you respond, “Excuse me?”

“I could hear it,” your heartbeat thrums in your ears as the Bat continues to hold you, less waltz now and more hostage situation, “I heard it when you lied just now. I heard it earlier, on your way here. And I heard Gordon on the phone… not with Barbara.” He's blocking the wind sweeping over the ledge, making your flush feel hotter than before. “I don't prefer Martinez to you, but I know why you offered.”

You swallow, exposed. He'd make a damn good detective. "And?"

Your offended wrist is seized once more, and he studies the small holes there, as well as the teeny-tiny drops of blood still lightly flowing from the wound. It looks like it'll stop soon.

Achingly slow, Batman brings it to his mouth and licks away the last of you.

You have no choice but to watch, of sound mind and body, because he refuses to look you in the eye. You're forced to see him in his entirety. Forced to keep down that mounting pressure. A test, to see if you're just a little bit better than Martinez.

You steady your breathing and stare, trying to make this unnatural thing feel natural. Trying to not like it so much.

When he peels away, your skin is clean, and you can tell your blood is beginning to coagulate. "If you come back to me, I won't stop you. But if we're going to do this, I'd prefer somewhere with less concrete. In case you faint."

Your eyes narrow in on the slight pursing of his lips. Almost as if he were trying not to laugh. "I'm not scared of blood." You can’t tell if it’s because he’s so good at his poker face or if he really just doesn’t want to tease you further, but something about the clearness in his expression convinces you to speak up for yourself, “It’s probably because I missed dinner. That's all."

For one single moment, his face shifts. Then it smooths out again. You watch him climb onto the ledge, next to your long-forgotten excuse of a coffee, and turn back to you, "Will you be alright?"

You want to be annoyed about it, you really do, but the concern in his voice is true. As a compromise, you take a seat on the ledge, "Well, if you see the signal in the sky tonight, just assume I ate shit going downstairs."

As one final surprise, he smiles at you. Then he's disappearing into the darkness below.

You can hear Gordon in your head as you slip a bag of chips out of Martinez' upper drawer. After the vending machine had eaten six of your dollars, you'd given up just short of kicking a hole in the glass. You didn't want to think about what kind of hell Chief Bock would put you through for that one.

After the Bat left, you'd stumbled your way down several flights of stairs with the hopes of ending your shift only a little past midnight. There were still cops around, most unusually idle for a night in Gotham, and you supposed they had Batman to thank for that. Not that they ever would.

The very thought of him flashes images of his tongue on your skin, lapping at your blood, and you immediately force yourself to think of anything else. That was going to be a long-lasting memory.

If you were lucky, you at least wouldn't see him until tomorrow night, and that might give you time to get some sense into you. And food, too. The chips in your hand are no Michelin star dinner, but they'd hold you over until you made it home.

Just as you turn the corner to your office, you notice that something isn't quite how you left it. The door, for starters, is cracked where it was once closed.

You take a beat, then two. You listen for movement in your office, careful not to cast a shadow under the door and give yourself away, but hear nothing.

You push the door open in a rush, staring into the dimly lit room searching for the barrel of a gun staring back at you. Or, considerably worse, a person.

Instead, on your desk where it definitely wasn't before, is a bag of something that smells suspiciously like good food. You approach cautiously. Sure enough, you recognize it from Gordon's favorite lunch spot... your go-to, as only Gordon would know it.

A note is stuck to the side of the bag, a message written in neat curves and lines. The penmanship of a steady hand, not at all like your lieutenant's fast-moving scrawl. You read the note and feel a phantom sting where your wrist is patched up in band-aids.

Thanks for dinner.

taglist: @yikes-buddy @alexxavicry @theclassicvinyldragon @marina-and-the-memes @angxlictexrs @moonlightreader649 @geekyfer @thescarletfang @navs-bhat​ @yehet-moi-ohorat @bluestuesday

[winedrunkwords]

when i have a crush i dont kick my feet or twirl my hair instead i am in my kitchen at 3am pacing in circles with my hands clasped behind my back like a middle-aged divorced detective haunted by a cold case he just cant crack

[winedrunkwords]

He just looks so good. (as always, i know)

(don't repost my gifs or edits)

[winedrunkwords]

oh my god

[winedrunkwords]

i need this man. biblically.

[winedrunkwords]

wearing peter’s fingerless gloves because your hands get cold when you’re walking around, and while his fingers fit them perfectly, yours barely break the top. he’s seen you drool over how long his fingers look in them and yours are just tiny. he sees you making typos you’d never make when you’re trying to text him a joke abt someone else on the subway and can’t help giggling at it.

[winedrunkwords]

Andrew Garfield on The Late Late Show with James Corden

[winedrunkwords]

without you

matt murdock x f!reader

A/N: made myself hurt with this one tbh. I'll think about a part 2 if enough are interested, but I'll warn you - it won't be a happy ending lmao. Enjoy the angst-fest loves! x

Summary: You return after the 'blip'. Five years is a long time, and a lot of things can happen in that time.

Word count: 2.1kish

Warnings: ANGST. ANGST ANGST ANGST. i got sad af writing this. i don't even know what to put in the warnings. the events of infinity war & endgame, brief mention of the avengers, severe and utter fucking heartbreak, i would lose my fucking mind coming home after an apparent 5 years and finding the love of my life *******, lots of anxiety/panic, severe panic attack, passing out. no hate to karen here - she's a fucking babe.

-

It happens within a blink.

One moment there’s no one, and the next, an older woman is suddenly standing in your way and you can’t help the brief twitch of annoyance that she’s there. You have a meeting, you have groceries to get… you can’t just play chicken with a stranger on the pavement all afternoon.

She freezes, like many others you notice, and your frown deepens, confusion starting to take over the irritation. They all look at you, but not just you.

Time seemingly comes to a momentary freeze and you just don’t understand. Why is she looking at you like that?

The next minute—panic.

There’s a rush.

People scramble for their phones, they run. Cars swerve and there’s chaos. There are people crying, people start screaming, but there’s also awe, laughter. People embrace strangers. You know they’re strangers by the way they look around in complete bewilderment in the arms of the other, seemingly just as confused as you.

Five years.

Why do you keep hearing ‘five years’? Why are shop fronts different? What the hell has happened? 

“You’re… you’re all back,” the woman utters, tears starting to build along her lash line.

Back?

You feel it in the pit of your stomach, a sick feeling of dread slowly building until it feels like it sticks uncomfortably in your throat. Something happened. You don’t know what, you don’t know how, all you know is that you need to go home immediately.

It’s halfway back to the apartment, after passing things that weren’t there previously, shops that you had passed just hours before now different, and your phone simply refusing to connect for unknown reasons, that you break into a panicked run.

You want home, you want somewhere familiar.

Matt left for work the same time as you—would the new mayhem taking over the streets bring him home to you? Maybe he’d already be waiting, sensing the frenzy before you?

The view of your building is a welcome relief, and you slow as you reach the door, heart pounding in your chest as you take the stairs as quickly as possible. The apartment is unlocked, and you berate yourself for forgetting to lock up earlier, but Matt’s cane resting by the door turns your inward irritation to understanding.

He’s home. He got here before you. He must be waiting, maybe he’d have answers—

“Matty?” you call, “do you have any idea what’s—”

A clatter, a sweep of air, and then he’s on you.

He’s curled around you before you can even finish, his arms so tight and constricting you struggle to take in a full breath. He’s talking, muttering incoherent words into the skin of your throat and all you can do is stand there, mind whirling in a maddening rush, not even able to lift your arms to return his embrace due to his restrictive hold.

“You’re here,” he breathes, almost disbelieving, “you’re here. I didn’t want to have hope but—God, I—”

“Matt, I’m so confused,” you breathe, unsure of why tears are starting to gloss your eyes or why your heart suddenly feels like it’s beating in the back of your throat, “what’s going on? It’s crazy out there, I don’t know wh—”

“I know. I know, sweetheart. I’ve missed you. God, I’ve missed you. It’s been so long, I didn’t think I’d ever—” he trails off, unable to finish his sentence and a few more panicked kisses press into the side of your throat.

He’s crying.

You feel the wetness of his tears smear over your skin and it’s enough to bring your own falling heavily from your eyes. What is he talking about? You saw him this morning, only mere hours ago. You made breakfast, you kissed him goodbye like every other day, nothing had been different. 

“Matt,” you whimper, “what the hell is going on?”

—

Five years. You were gone for five years. Just one day—poof. Out of existence, never to be seen again. The city had been clouded by dust, remnants of those also taken disappearing with the autumn breeze. So many people just lost. You don’t remember any of it.

There was no pain, no suffering. You had no recollection of the time lost at all, and yet for Matt it had been years.

Years since he had touched you, kissed you, felt you. He tells you that he looked for you for weeks, months. Even went to the damn Avengers—or what was left of them—and found out what had happened. He’d been distraught, falling into a deep, dark pit of despair and heartbreak from the sudden loss of you.

You cry for him, for the time you’d lost together.

Nothing could ever make up for it. Sure, you’re here now, but could you ever truly make up for the loss of time? What had he gone through during your absence?

The two of you don’t part for what feels like hours.

Matt clings to you, inhaling you deeply and kissing whatever inch of skin he could reach. He doesn’t pull away to answer your questions, instead letting the low rumble of his voice melt through the fabric of your shirt and flooding warmth along your shoulder.

His hands still roam over you, almost as if they’re retracing your dips and curves to remind himself of how you felt when you disappeared five years ago. You catch his fingers with a sweet flutter in your chest, lifting his hand to press a tender kiss to the back of it when the smooth feel of metal catches your attention.

It’s a simple gold band, fit snug around the fourth finger of his left hand and you rub your finger over the shiny surface of it in curiosity. He wasn't wearing a ring this morning...

A ring. 

A wedding ring.

You feel sick.

He senses the moment you realise it, picking up on the sudden quicken of your heartbeat and the clammy sting of sweat that builds along the back of your neck.

His tongue darts out to moisten his lips as you stare at the smooth gold band in shock, feeling as if the room had suddenly gotten ten times smaller. He starts to shift, his fingers quickly flipping to wrap around your wrists to keep you from moving away.

“Let me explain—”

“You… are—are you married?”

“Sweetheart, please—”

You hurriedly stand, wrenching your hands from his and stumbling on your quick step back as he advances after you. He’s married? How can he be married?

Maybe he’s not. Maybe he just slid the ring you both picked out onto his finger when you disappeared in an effort to keep your memory fresh… but with the shine of guilt starting to seep into his features, you fear it’s not as sentimental as you hope.

Panic consumes you. Your eyes flitter around the room, your ears filling with a dull ring that drowns out whatever words fall from his lips as he cautiously steps after you.

It’s your apartment, but it’s… it’s not.

You start to notice the little things you had missed upon coming home so quickly. That throw over the back of the couch isn’t yours. The coffee mug next to Matt’s on the kitchen counter isn’t yours. Your trinkets aren’t lingering on the shelves where you’d placed them. Your shoes aren’t thrown by the door. Your photo with Matt isn’t in its usual spot on the wall.

Instead, another picture hangs there.

Bile burns the back of your throat. Your heart thunders away in your ears. You know what it is, you can see the general feel of it and who stands within the frame through blurry eyes, but you simply can’t accept it.

It’s morbid curiosity that makes you take those few steps towards it, a part of you screaming to not look, to turn away before it really hammers that final nail into the coffin and fucking destroys you. Maybe your mind needs to truly see it in order to make sense of it… but no. It only makes you more confused, more distressed.

What the fuck?

Oxygen is impossible. You can’t fucking breathe. You can’t—

“Sweetheart—”

It’s a wedding photo.

Matt’s wedding photo.

Matt and Karen’s wedding photo.

“Oh my god,” you whimper brokenly, clutching a hand to your chest in an effort to keep yourself together. You press where you feel the rapid beat of your heart, half wondering if you’d be able to feel the break of the frantic organ under your palm.

The room starts to spin.

This morning you’d woken up with an apartment and a fiancé, and now, only a few hours later, you have nothing. How can you have nothing? The apartment is home to you—you left your pyjamas on the floor of the bathroom this morning. You had your coffee at the counter. The love you feel for Matt is present as it always had been, there in the centre of your entire being, so sweet and consuming and yet, his love for you had seemingly vanished.

Disintegrated, along with your body apparently five years ago. Maybe with a clearer head, you’d come to understand that five years is a long time and it’s understandable that he had to move on at some point, but in the moment you feel nothing but hurt—rage.

Matt’s hands are frantic on your body, grabbing at your arms and keeping you from falling to the floor as a sob tears its way out of your chest. You can hear him try to soothe you, hear his worry that your heart is erratic and you just need to breathe.

Breathe, sweetheart—please, breathe.

You can’t. You simply can’t.

Oxygen isn’t coming as easily as it should. Your lungs burn. You’re shaking, unable to stop the tremble taking over your body as you choke on your tears. They burn your skin, painting your cheeks with the bitterness of your heartbreak and they just won’t stop. 

He supports you as you sink towards the floor, legs no longer having the strength to hold you up. He goes down with you, hands cradling your head to his chest and you can’t find it in you to push him away and escape his touch.

It’s Matt. Your Matt. 

You shouldn’t want to shrug him off. You shouldn’t feel guilty at his touch. He’s your Matt, has been for the eighteen months you’ve been together. It was meant to be you in that frame, swimming in white with a smile stretched along your lips, Matt dressed to the nines in an immaculate tux and his ever present red shades beside you.

But it’s not. It’s… it’s Karen.

It’s not you, there’s no trace of you anywhere to be seen. Had you been that forgettable? Foggy’s there, Marci a step behind holding a beautiful little girl with ribbons in her hair. They had a baby? You’ve missed so much.

You start weeping for the life you’d missed out on, for the chances and opportunities of growing older with them and the sweet potential you had had with Matt.

Gone.

All of it, just—gone.

Where would you be now had your soul not been chosen? Married? Promoted? A godmother to the sweet little angel cradled in Marci’s arms? 

“Sweetheart, come back to me,” Matt’s voice cuts through your despair, low and soft in your ear and you cling to him tighter, “breathe. I’ve got you, I’m here.”

“I-I’ve lost so much,” you choke out, hiding your tear stricken face in his throat and desperately trying to get ahold of your body jerking with each difficult inhale and broken exhale, “and I didn’t even know—”

You didn’t know. You didn’t know anything when you apparently ‘returned’. It’s all so haunting and overwhelming and so fucking confusing. 

He stills smells the same, feels the same, despite all these years. You cling to him, desperate for comfort in the moment of your utter heartbreak, but it doesn’t work like it used to and that only makes your pain increase tenfold. His hold feels wrong now. His hold isn’t for you anymore. He has a wife.

You still don’t understand. You can’t comprehend the fact that he’s married, that the arms that hold you are now meant for someone else. They were yours this morning. It’s not possible. You had him this morning; you felt him this morning, you kissed him—

“Sweetheart,” he’s urgent now, manoeuvring you in his hold until you sit in front of him, your back pressed up against his chest and his arms tight around your torso, “breathe with me. Feel my chest, listen to me and follow—in… and out. Come on—”

You pay attention to the exaggerated feel of him breathing against your back, focusing on every expansion of his chest and attempting to match the pace of your inhales. It doesn’t work. Your heart still thunders away against your ribs, your mind still runs fucking wild, and your eyes threaten to roll back from the rush of it all.

“Stay with me,” he begs, but his voice starts to sink to the back of your mind, taken over by the high pitched ring sounding in your ears.

It’s not long until black fully engulfs your vision, and Matt’s voice calling your name is the last thing you hear, frantic and terrified. Maybe you'll find peace in the darkness.

-

matty tags: @javier-pena, @dihra-vesa, @a-reader-and-a-writer, @radiowallet, @januarystears, @danidrabbles, @amneris21, @acourtofsnakes, @mstgsmy66, @evyiione, @stardust-galaxies, @kelseyxyeslek, @greeneyedblondie44, @you-got-me-starry-eyed, @withasideofmeg, @mad-girl-without-a-box, @fangirl-316, @xoxabs88xox, @federleichtefreiheit, @lavenderluna10, @mindidjarin. @stardustingold, @androah, @itwasthereaminuteago, @wildmoonflower, @naughtynecromancer, @h-hxgirl, @Unabashed-lover-of-fictional-men, @juletheghoul, @punkerthanpascal, @itswanktime, @omlwhatamidoinghere, @celestinemuse, @chaoticemz, @alexxavicry, @mylifeispainandiloveit, @cran-berry-vodka, @nishi-reads, @mandocrasis, @lawfulgranola, @ew-erin, @fuckoffbard, @spaceserialkiller, @captain-jebi

[winedrunkwords]

he’s not just some guy… he’s my girlfriend

[winedrunkwords]

well, my boyfriend’s in the band

[winedrunkwords]

prompts I am orphaning/putting up for adoption

Nobody seems to know anything about the Bugle's newest employee. She keeps to herself, and that makes increasingly unkind rumors spring up every day. Peter notices just how wrong everyone is through simple observations.

"It's typically cats that find themselves in this predicament - stuck in a very tall tree that they fearlessly climbed, yet soon unable (or unwilling) to get back down. Also typically, the fire department is the one to call in these situations. You have your own rescue service on speel dial."

After a night out, you arrive home with a fever and general weird behavior. The next morning, you're so drunk on Peter's scent and touch that you won't let him leave the bed.

Peter has a hard time asking you for help, so you spend the day taking care of him.

You let Peter know that he can come to you for anything. A week later you're comforting him as he cries into your arms. (roommates AU)

The abusive ex-boyfriend you once escaped tries to break into your apartment. Unfortunately for him, Spider-Man is your roommate.

You're never anyone's first choice, until you meet Peter Parker. Still, it's hard getting used to it.

You always leave fresh cookies out for Spider-Man like he's Santa Claus. Peter doesn't have the heart to keep disappointing you. It's this mistake that makes you discover his secret. (roommates AU)

Dressing rooms - the embodiment of hell, only with less fire and more fluorescent lighting. Peter finds a way to make them not as horrible.

Looking carefully at all the options available, Spider-Man's professional opinion was that she was fucked - at least, if she continued to unadvisedly try to help him.

So, feel free to use any of these for a fic or an imagine if you'd like. Personally, I don't think I'll be writing any of them, but maybe if I shout into the void, someone might scream back. Do tag me if you end up writing something off the list, I would love to read it!

[winedrunkwords]

when will someone give me their number on a friendship bracelet to try to get me to date them smh