#13 years old me would have been so obnoxious about the fact that she liked this song | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imagining-in-the-margins · 4 years

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Here to Misbehave (Pt. 17 | S.R.)

Summary: Spencer is concerned about Reader’s growing impulsiveness, but Reader is the one who gets a call from JJ asking if she can come get her boyfriend. Couple: Spencer/Fem!Reader   Category: Smut (NSFW, 18+)   Content Warning: Discussions of drugs, death/dying, suicide, overdose; Alcohol, addiction, oral (male receiving), handjob, fingering, Daddy Kink, fights, PTSD, hospital talk, drunk smut w/ blanket consent Word Count: 12.5k

MASTERLIST

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When I opened the front door, I realized that I had returned to an empty home. I wasn’t sure which was weirder; the realization that the house was empty, or the fact that I was referring to her apartment as my home. It certainly had started to feel that way.

It never stopped being a shock that I would find a home in someone so quickly and with such little self-awareness. I'd certainly never suspected that the house we’d be in would also be shared with several other people, all of whom were significantly younger than me and shared almost no similarities with me beyond our love for (y/n).

And even if it wasn’t the weirder of the two realizations, the fact that she wasn’t there was definitely the more troubling one. I tried to gather at least a little evidence before I called her; I wasn’t exactly excited about being blindsided again. Judging by the red solo cups that were scattered in the kitchen, I had an idea of how her friends had spent the night. The fact that no one was here led me to another conclusion that I desperately hoped was inaccurate.

Her phone rang four times before she picked up, which was strange in itself. When she did pick up, she sounded like I expected her to. Tired. Groggy.

“Hello?”

“Hey little girl, where are you?” I hoped she couldn’t hear the fumbling of my keys in my pocket, or any other sign of just how anxious I’d gotten in the last three minutes. “Oh. I’m sorry, Spencer, I forgot I was supposed to see you today.” She mumbled, sounding genuinely apologetic if not a little confused.

“You… forgot?” I repeated, quickly making my way over to the calendar hung on a bulletin board outside the kitchen, noting the nothingness over both the current and following week.

“Yeah, I guess I got carried away with school.”

She was lying. I couldn’t be for sure about what, but it was obvious. If she was really having that much trouble with classes, she would have told me. We’d gotten past the whole insecurity over me thinking she was stupid thing a long time ago, and she knew I would always let her learn it on her own if she didn’t want my help.

“... What are you not telling me?” I tried to make the words playful, although my hand was now nervously patting the side of my hip at an alarming rate.

“Nothing! I just got distracted. I’m... a little busy today so we should just meet up again next weekend.”

“A week?” I knew she was probably getting tired of me parroting her words, but that just seemed like a ludicrous amount of time. Usually, we went barely a day or two without seeing each other when I was in the city, cherishing the time together when I wasn't called away to attend to crimes halfway across the country.

“What’s going on?” My voice was quickly falling into that register that warned her I was about to start profiling her, whether I wanted to or not. And unfortunately, she chose the worst possible reaction to that warning, further tipping me off to the fact that something wasn't quite right.

“Spencer, stop being weird.”

But I wasn’t. I knew that I could be weird; it’s kind of my thing. If you looked up weird in the dictionary, you wouldn’t find my name, but you’d definitely find a description that perfectly characterized my personality.

“You’re the one being weird. Turn on your camera.”

“I can’t. It’s dark in here.” She shot back her answer so quickly, I knew that she had already anticipated the request.

“Then move.” I ordered more than suggested. She understandably didn’t take kindly to my reaction, but I know she also knew why I was doing it. The excuses she was giving weren’t even well thought out.

“What is this? An interrogation?” She scoffed, “Do you think I’m cheating on you with barely dissolved stitches in my intestines?”

I took a deep breath, sitting down at the kitchen table still sticky with leftover sugary liquor and turned the phone onto speaker. “Turn it on.” This time, my voice broke with the order. As much as that didn’t make it sound authoritative, it did make her feel guilty.

As the screen lit up, it all made sense in the worst possible way. She was forcing a fake smile, her other hand resting against her face in a failed attempt to draw attention away from the the mottled skin of her left eye.

“I’m not cheating on you. Happy?” The words were sharp on her tongue, an anger in her features paired well with the understanding that I wasn’t wrong to be worried. I honestly think that was what bothered her the most – that she wanted it to be nothing, for me to be overreacting, but knew that it was a little more serious that she let on.

“I’m definitely not happy. What happened?” I was already at the door by the time the sentence ended... She shut off her camera just as quickly, hearing the commotion from my side. “Where are you? I’m coming right now.”

She sighed, and I could see it clearly despite the fact that she wasn’t on my screen anymore. “I don’t want you to come here. Spencer, I’m fine.”

I might have believed her. I might have honestly given her the benefit of the doubt – let her lie to me a little, and just accept that a black eye wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Eventually, she would tell me how she got it, so I wouldn’t need to worry about it.

But it became very obvious very quickly that it was not just a black eye.

“Ms. (Y/l/n)?” A third voice announced in the background, accompanied by the distinct sound of an alarm sounding in the distance.

“... Are you in a hospital?!”

“For fucks sake. I hate dating a profiler.” She grumbled, implicitly admitting that my conclusion was right. She wouldn’t let me have another word, speedily slurring her goodbye. “I have to go, Spencer. I’ll call you later. Love you!”

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Anyone who has spent a long time in inpatient knows that nosy nurses are both the best and worst kind of people to be assigned to your stay. They were the best because they always had the best gossip and would spend their precious little free time sharing stories about their lives that were always more entertaining than whatever poorly budgeted gameshow was on the old, staticky television.

They were the worst because one wrong move meant that you were the subject of gossip. And boy, were they good at getting it out of you.

“Trouble in paradise?” She sweetly hummed as she pushed my bed down the hall.

I wanted to tell her that there was trouble, and that it was through no fault of my own. If the other people in the hospital didn’t have the audacity to be sick at the same time that I needed a CT scan, then I wouldn’t have even still been here. I could have been back at home, where… well, I guess Spencer would have figured it out either way.

“Yeah, I guess.” I sadly admitted, playing with the string of my gown. “He’s just a worrywart.”

The woman had that glimmer in her eye, the kind that came from years of seeing the same stories over and over again. Although, I had a hard time believing she’d ever been in this exact scenario, I guess they were all kind of the same after a while, semantics aside.

“Well, that makes sense considering your current state.” It was more of a reprimand than anything else, and I audibly groaned to try and get her to stop there. She didn’t, though, having spent enough time with me to know I needed to hear it. “You were very lucky, you know. If things had been even just a little bit different…”

Couldn’t you say that about everything? If things had been even just a little bit different, I never would have met Spencer in the first place. We never would have fallen in love or fought or done any of it at all.

I didn’t like thinking about that. I didn’t like even considering a life without Spencer. No matter how much pain I’d been through, or what traumatic memories were dug up, they were worth it.

That’s what she wanted me to realize, and she had succeeded. Suddenly, as we turned into the room, I was overcome with guilt at the way I’d ended my conversation with him.

The nurse knew it, too, because as she transferred me onto the scanner, she smiled. “I’m just saying, sweetheart. If he woke up next to your hospital bed last time, I understand why he’d be scared.”

Chewing on my lips, I thought about the last time I was in a hospital. I thought about how Spencer had curled his giant lanky body onto the bed and barely slept for 2 weeks. I could see the way his eyes got more sunken by the day, but never stopped shining with relief. I could hear him chewing on ice because he didn’t want to leave to grab food until after I’d woken up, and the cold would distract him from just how hungry he was.

“He must love you an awful lot to be that worried.”

I hated when they did that; when they read my mind and said exactly what I was thinking.

“Yeah, I know.” I tried to smile. It was hard with the stabbing pain in my stomach and the aching in the entire left side of my face, but I managed. It was just one of those things where if I thought of Spencer, my body had to react. It was as natural as breathing.

Which, speaking of…

“Take a deep breath in.” The technician alerted me from the speaker.

The high pitched whines of the CT scanner weren’t as obnoxious as the MRI machine. I was silently grateful that they were still too scared to use the giant magnet. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be stuck in a confined space, listening to loud banging that sounded too much like gun shots for my comfort.

Even just the thought made me nauseous. I felt like a baby, to have such a strong reaction to something so stupid. I’d been in an MRI before. I was a in a hospital. Nothing bad was going to happen to me, and I knew that.

But even now, in a machine that made virtually no noise and barely covered half my body, I wasn’t able to hold in a breath. Each time I tried, it felt like I was choking on Spencer’s lap again. The stinging in my stomach felt so much stronger, even though I knew it was healed.

The world felt like it was closing in on me, and every second that passed felt like days. I couldn’t even trust myself to guess how long it took for them to get images that should have taken no longer than 5 minutes.

I felt like such a burden. Like I was in their way. Like I was doing it wrong. Like I was a little kid, thinking that she knew what she was doing and could do it on her own.

I wanted Spencer.

That was the only thing I could think, and although it should have been comforting, it just left me feeling empty. The thought of him wasn’t enough to stop the tears streaming down my cheeks. The hands of the nurses trying to calm me down didn’t help, either. They felt wrong. They felt cold.

I just wanted Spencer. I wanted him to be there to hold my hand and distract me from my own thoughts. I wanted him to replace them with other things, like he'd promised me. I wanted to make new memories far away from here.

But I couldn’t. I was an idiot and I’d gotten myself back in the hospital, and he wasn’t here because I told him I didn’t want him to be. Why had I told him that? There was no reason that made any sense.

Once we finally did get out of the damn radiology department, I could still only barely function. The ride back to my room was much quieter, and the nurse didn’t meddle anymore. Gossip was only fun when it didn’t hurt like this.

Again, I couldn’t trust myself to guess how long I’d been in the CT scanner, but as we crossed back into my room, an overwhelming sensation of relief washed over me when I saw his satchel in the seat beside my bed. I hated the knowledge that I’d wasted 45 minutes of the technician’s time, but I was just so fucking happy that he had actually come.

Being alone in my room wasn’t a big deal anymore, because I knew it was only temporary. So as soon as I could, I sat up and waited patiently for my favorite mop of curly brown hair to peek around the corner.

He didn’t disappoint. He rarely did.

“Hey little girl.”

All the tension melted from my muscles, my head finally resting against the pillow with a dopey smile on my face. “Spencer.” I sighed, holding my hand out to him to usher him closer.

He gladly took the invitation, taking wide steps so he could be with me sooner.

“You shouldn’t be here.” I grumbled, flicking him on the arm while I locked our hands together. “But I’m glad you are.”

It was obvious from the way he let out a deep breath that he was also relieved to see that I wasn’t angry at him for coming. However, that’s also where his relief stopped. Because he’d seen me an hour prior and knew that I hadn't been crying then. But now, on top of the black eye, he saw the red rimming my sclera.

Taking my hand into both of his, he pressed a hard kiss against the back of it. Without looking up, he muttered into the skin a sad plea.

“Talk to me.”

“About what?” I asked, pulling back on my hand so he would stop with the shameless display of romance in such an awful place.

“Whatever’s going on.” He paused, but was clearly unhappy with the open ended question, and just as quickly specified, “What happened last night?

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t in the giving mood, even when it was information, and even if the person begging me for it was the boyfriend that I’d just cried for in the CT Scanner. If anything, that almost made it worse.

I hated feeling like this. Vulnerable.

“Nothing.”

Spencer was getting fed up, but it was like I couldn’t stop myself from fighting with him. I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell him that I needed him to take care of me and ask him to hold me while I cried on his shoulder about nothing at all, but I couldn’t. He would do it in a heartbeat, but I couldn’t ask him to. I couldn’t ask him for anything.

I couldn’t need anything without feeling too horribly guilty.

“Please don’t lie to me.” He was begging again, looking up at me with those impossibly warm amber eyes. He smiled when he saw the way my lips curled at the sight of him, unable to be angry for too long.

“Am I not allowed to have any stories for myself?” I joked, reaching forward to poke his face. Instead of moving away to avoid my hand, he leaned into the touch.

“You can. I just...”

“I know. You’re worried.” I responded with an exasperated sigh, rolling my head back. I could still feel him watching me, though, with a precarious smile, happy to see my spirits relatively high while also being deeply unhappy about the circumstances.

Wanting to see that full, confident smile again, I realized I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m sure that whatever he’d come up with in his head was much more sinister than what had actually happened.

“Fine. Stop looking at me like that.” I mumbled, gesturing to the childlike pout and laughing when he sucked his lips into his mouth in an attempt to follow my direction. I was glad he was still in a joking mood, because I had a feeling it would disappear as soon as I started talking.

I took a deep breath, looking up and away before I began my explanation of the stupidest night.

“I went out for drinks with my friends–”

“Drinks?!”

It hadn’t even been five seconds and he’d already cut me off. I couldn’t blame him, but it was so freaking annoying. This was exactly why I hadn't told him. Well, that and the fact he could get in serious trouble.

“I didn’t have any! Geez. Chill out.” I yelled back, chuckling a little bit at the conflicting looks of terror and relief. Because while he obviously believed that I didn’t drink any myself, it gave ugly context to the nightmarish guesses his mind had concocted.

“And everything was fine. We were on our way home. But then some asshole started messing with my friend. And she was way too drunk and started crying.” I was groaning internally the whole time, thinking about all the different ways this whole situation could have been avoided. Honestly, I don’t know why she had decided to try and square up with a cat caller when she knew damn well that she would start crying the second he raised his voice.

Which, of course, he had.

“So, I told the guy to fuck off. And he did not like it.”

There was a powerful rage boiling under the surface of Spencer’s skin, which was only betrayed by his clenched jaw and the sheets scrunched under his hand. “Did they arrest him?” He said, trying to calm the trembling in his voice. He wasn’t angry at me for being a victim, even if he was probably a little annoyed that I went out without telling him.

Not like he was even in the state, anyway.

“I didn’t press charges.”

He took a deep breath, clearly about to tell me that I was stupid for not holding him accountable. That I could’ve gotten hurt and he would’ve gotten away with it. That I could’ve died if he’d hurt me the wrong way.

I didn’t want to hear it.

“Stop. I didn’t want to go to court, and I’m fine. I didn’t even need invasive surgery again.”

Spencer was still angry but trying to settle himself down before he spoke. He could hardly even look at me, his hand leaving the bed to run through his hair and shake his keys in his pockets.

I wanted to tell him that the tension of silence was worse than if he’d just raised his voice at me, but I couldn’t even gather the energy to do that. My body and mind seemed resigned to their current state; they’d just given up.

“(Y/n)...” He started, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the use of my name. They didn’t retreat, especially not when he dragged a chair over to my bedside, sitting down and placing a gentle hand over mine again.

“Are you okay?”

It was so sincere. So pure, so unforgivably kind. My hand that had felt paralyzed seconds earlier twitched under his. “I just told you.” I shrugged, fighting the urge to pull my arm away again. I wanted him here. I wanted him to touch me.

So why did it hurt? Why did everything hurt?

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” His voice broke, and I saw the way he was holding back tears with his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. He was biting back so many things he didn’t want me to know.

But again, I was too tired to fight it. So instead, I said nothing.

“It doesn’t take a profiler to see you’re hurting.” He continued, urging me to give him anything to work with. “How can I make it better?”

He just wanted to help. Why couldn’t I let him help?

“I’m fine. Nothing even happened to me.” My throat tried to reject the words, my brain screaming at me that they were fundamentally untrue. But my heart hurt, pounding louder in my chest to tell me that the logic was wrong. Because I was a big girl, and I shouldn’t be scared by things that already happened.

I’m safe, right? I don’t need to be scared, right?

Spencer could see the panic on my face because I couldn’t even have hid it if I'd wanted to. And my brain was telling me to not to. It told me that I needed to talk to him, to let him listen.

“That’s not true. You’ve been through a lot.” He bargained, trying to locate that little voice in my head with his offerings. He wanted to pull that small part of me out and force it to talk so that we might finally be able to start to move on.

“You go through worse every day.”

‘It’s common for patients suffering from PTSD to minimize their suffering or compare it to others. It’s a completely normal response, but I want you to try to resist belittling your own feelings. They’re yours, and no one else’s. Okay, sweetheart?’

The voice was so clear in my head, my body jerked in response. I looked around the room, looking for any sign of the man who’d told me them first. But he wasn’t here; he hadn’t been here for some time.

“Do you know how many profilers I’ve seen leave in my time at the bureau?” Spencer distracted me from the thought. He probably figured my flashbacks were more sinister than what they actually were. As upsetting as they had once been, hearing my dad’s voice in my head was usually oddly soothing.

“No.” I answered blankly, trying to pay all attention to the man who was still here.

“Four. And I’ve considered it myself.” There was a soft chuckle to hide the guilt in the admission.

I didn’t know why he felt bad for it; his job was so ridiculously difficult. On top of constantly having to rearrange his life on account of the various inextinguishable evils in the world, he had to face those evils every day and try to figure out their inner workings in order to thwart them. The only time I'd ever done that, I'd killed all three of them. Not the best track record.

“The first one, she... she reminds me a lot of you.” The soft twinkling in his eyes, much like emotional music in the movies, alerted me that a backstory was coming. Based on the extent of just how nostalgic he was coming, I guessed that whatever he was about to say was deeply important to him.

However, I was fragile enough as it was, and I didn’t need to add jealousy to my current emotional repertoire. “Is this another JJ origin story? Cause I don’t think I can handle it.”

He laughed, shaking his head at the frustrated pout that formed on my face. “No,” He said quietly, taking a pregnant pause to formulate the story. “Her name was Elle.”

The story he told was woven well, although I expected no less. He told it passionately and with absolute sincerity. He told me about the woman who was one of the first people he'd bonded with on the team. The playful relationship he described was painted so vividly in my imagination.

I wanted to meet her. But by the end of the story, it was obvious that it wasn’t an option. He didn’t say anything about it, but from the far off look I could guess that he hadn’t seen her since that last day.

“She was like a sister to me, and to see her fall apart and not be able to do anything to help her... it was one of the worst feelings in the world.”

And I understood then, why he was worried about me the way he was. He was projecting his previous experience on me, but things were different with me. At least, that’s what I told myself. Realistically I should have been reminding myself that she'd had the training and resources to overcome her obstacles, whereas I was basically still a stupid kid. The prospect of facing the reality was too difficult though; I just shrugged it off.

“Well, I already killed the people who did this to me.” I chuckled.

Spencer did not appreciate my humor. There was an even stronger concern that flashed over his features, worried by my flippancy over the death of three human beings.

Fuck, I should feel worse about it than I do, shouldn’t I? But if I thought about it, then it hurt so badly. If I had to pick one, I would pick apathy every time. I would choose the emptiness before the ocean of remorse.

“I’m not worried about them.”

I had drifted away from him again, and the sentence forced me to look at him.

‘I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about you.’

I’d said that before. Those were my words.

I pulled my hand back from Spencer, rubbing my forehead with both hands before wincing at the sharp pain around my eye socket. It took me a minute to focus on the sentence and dive deeper into its implications. But once I remembered why it instilled such a visceral reaction, I nearly gagged on the words.

“Wait, you think I’m going to kill myself?”

“I didn’t say that.” He quickly responded in the most defensive manner possible. If that was his attempt to calm me down, it did not work. It only pissed me off even more.

Because there was only one reason why he would think I was going to kill myself. I hadn’t given him any reason to believe that was a risk. Yeah, sure, I was being reckless and impulsive, but I was a teenager!

“Why would you think that?” I demanded an answer, and he was immediately hesitant to provide one. It was all the evidence I needed to reach my conclusion. “Don’t lie to me, Spencer Reid. You asked Hotch, didn’t you?”

He sighed, leaning back in his chair now that it was obvious, I wasn’t going to want him to touch me. “Yeah, I did.”

“You told me you wouldn’t, Spencer! You promised!” I ground the words out between my teeth, hoping he understood just how much I was holding back my volume.

He looked over at the screen monitoring my heart, noting the way the spikes appeared at an exponentially faster rate. “I know.” He whispered with an evident guilt.

“What did he tell you?” I hated the way my voice shrank with my shoulders, my body insisting that I assume to the smallest position I could. Because as much as I hated that Spencer had asked when he told me he wouldn’t, I was desperate for the information.

I’d always wanted to see the files, to hear the story as they knew it. I wanted to know what happened, and this was probably the closest I’d ever come to that, unless that whole Ouija board thing is real.

“Probably the same stuff that you already know.” He knew he was disappointing me. He shouldn’t have felt as bad about that as he did, but I’d take the implicit apology for what it was.

“Tell me anyway.”

Spencer should have been delighted to have the opportunity to talk at me for such a long time, but I also understood why he wasn’t. They weren’t the best topics of conversation, your ex-best friend and your girlfriend’s dead father. But he was a trooper and a skilled conversationalist, despite people not being able to understand that.

“He told me that there were several missions your father was a part of that ended controversially. That… he reported several violations that were never followed through on.”

The words so easily unlocked memories I had tightly and resolutely locked away, it was unsettling. I could hear my parents arguing about the philosophy of blame and responsibility. My dad always arguing that he couldn’t stand aside and let innocent people get hurt. My mom reminding him that he couldn’t save everyone.

‘We also get to see a lot of good.’ Spencer had said on our first not-a-date.

‘Yeah, but which do you see more of?’ I’d asked, and he’d avoided the question. I remembered seeing the question dance across his vision before he shut it out. He'd wondered why I was so confident in my conclusions.

“And the last mission…”

He didn’t have to wonder anymore.

“I saw the report.”

My breath was knocked from my lungs by an invisible fist to my damaged gut. I swallowed, trying to regulate my heart that was at risk of setting off the damn machine next to me. “What did it say?” I whispered, clutching onto the sheets and my gown, hoping it would be enough to keep me grounded.

“Killed in action.”

“That’s fucking bullshit.” I barked, my brows furrowing regardless of just how badly it hurt to contort my face so badly. “He didn’t– H-He wasn’t–“

“I know.” Spencer responded, a note of pity in his voice that made my face twitch in annoyance.

I turned to him with the same snarl, years of repressed anger resurfacing and wreaking even more havoc on my already destroyed life. “Do you? Do you know?”

“I mean, I can’t ever know for sure but… You weren’t the only one who felt that he...” He couldn’t say the word suicide, and for once, I was grateful. “It seems like all of his team had the same concerns.”

He was trying so hard to calm me down, to placate my fears and rage. He was sympathizing the best he could, but the truth was he would never be able to understand just how fucked up it was. He hadn't been there when it was happening, so the only thing he could do was try to slap a band-aid on a well-settled scar and hope that my not being able to see it made it hurt less.

“I’m sorry.” He uttered the two words cautiously, his heartbreak clear in his eyes. He had nothing to apologize for, but there he was, doing it anyway.

“For what?”

“That you’ll never have your answer.”

I don’t know what I expected him to say, but his answer took me by surprise. Of all the explanations I’d heard after an unnecessary platitudinous apology, I’d never heard that. And even worse, I’d never heard it in such a broken way, sounding for all the world like he believed he'd failed tremendously.

“I’m sorry that... that I couldn’t find it for you.”

I couldn’t stand the sight, and my hand found his cheek like it did so often, returning home to find that it was just a bit more stubbly than I remembered it. “It’s not your job, Spencer. We’re not one of your cases.” I assured him, running my thumb over the rough skin and remembering that he’d only just gotten home from exactly that: a case.

He did so much for me every day, but in the past few months he’d had to do so much more. And as much as I tried not to, I took him for granted so often. It was never as obvious to me as it was in that moment, when a tear slid down his cheek at the tenderness of my touch. He always expected anger and pain. I didn’t want him to feel that way with me.

“But thank you for trying. I appreciate you.” I tried to throw my soul into the words as they formed on my tongue, but all that came out was a pathetic whimper. “I love you very much.”

“I love you, too.” He sighed into the small embrace, leaning his weight more heavily into my hand. Still holding back, he grimaced at the words he shared. “If I’m going to be honest, I looked something else up myself. Not on any FBI database just... old school research”

I wanted to act surprised, but it was the least shocking thing I’d heard in a while. So instead I just stared at him, with the closest I could come to boredom while still being interested in what he had to say.

“Yeah? What’d you find?” Finally settling into the inevitable resignation, I moved my hand up the side of his face to tangle in his hair. It was so soft despite not having been washed for a few days. I could tell he hadn’t slept much. I wondered why he'd bothered digging into my past in the precious little free time he had.

But then he said it, reminding me of the pain of the cemetery and the events that both preceded and followed it.

“Trent Loughton.”

My fingers stopped in their exploration of his curls for a second, but eventually continued. “I see.” I hummed, trying not to push the conversation any further than he wanted to take it. As emotional as the topic was for me, it must have been harder for him. After all, he was the one who shared the nasty habit with Trent.

“I-I saw how he died... and I think I can fill in the rest myself.”

“Mrs. Loughton did give a lot of clues.” I laughed, mostly to stop myself from crying. That woman didn’t deserve any more of my tears. It was because of her that I’d spent years trying to convince myself that Trent’s death wasn’t my fault. Deep down, a part of me still believed her.

But honestly, it wasn’t my opinion that really mattered to me. It was Spencer’s. If he thought I was a failure, or that it was my fault for what happened, I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to move past it. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be able to move past it.

“The drugs he overdosed on... they weren’t yours.”

Relief washed over me, but my mind told me not to get too comfortable, yet. “No, they weren’t.” My body had such a strange reaction to the words being said without an argument. I didn’t need to convince Spencer; he already knew. He not only believed me – he had come to the conclusion himself.

“So why did you say they were?”

It was such an easy answer, I knew he had to know it already. His hesitance to come to conclusions on my behalf, while appreciated, wasn’t necessary in this situation. “Pretty little girl with no record and a batshit war hero dad stood a better chance in the criminal justice system. I didn’t ask my dad to protect me, but he did.”

Spencer clearly sympathized with my father more so than me in that moment, which made my heart flutter in a remarkably inappropriate manner. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that those damn psychologists were right – We really do sometimes pick men that remind us of our fathers.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Spencer said under his breath, and I wondered which one he was even talking about. It honestly could have applied to my whole life. He would have meant it each time, too. Because to him I couldn’t do anything wrong. I tried to take solace in that, but it honestly caused another voice to creep into the back of my mind.

I’d never be as good as he saw me. I’d never be worthy of his love.

Shoving those anxieties away again, I nodded in solemn recognition of the years I spent working to come to that same conclusion. “I know. It just took me a while to figure it out.”

My hand finally fell away from his face, although he grabbed my wrist to stop it from going too far. There was another hesitancy in his body language. His face turned down and his leg bouncing so gently I almost missed it.

“Is he the one you were talking about? The one you loved?”

Ah, nothing like a subtle hint of jealousy to boost a girl’s ego. I chuckled at the sound, swaying a bit in place to let him suffer a millisecond longer. “No. Not exactly.”

But then I genuinely couldn’t figure out how to say it. How could I describe what we had shared, when I'd spent so long trying to forget it? Had I loved him? Probably. No, I'd definitely loved him, just not in the way Spencer was thinking. Not like I loved Spencer.

“It was like, he always liked me, and I always thought we’d end up together because that’s how it happens in the movies, right? I was supposed to fall in love with him.” I ranted, trying to move my hands that were currently wrapped up in Spencer’s. “But I didn’t, and then he was gone and...”

We both stopped, his eyes trailing after me with questions he didn’t voice yet. He wanted me to finish before he decided whether or not they were worth it. I wanted to explain to him that they weren’t. As important as Trent was to me, he was gone.

“It’s fine. I’m sure he would be glad I found someone who makes me happy.” I was confident in that, at least. Because as I stared into those big hazel eyes, forcing themselves to stay open just to listen to me talk about my life, I was glad, too. “Even if that someone snoops too much for his own good.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

There were many reasons, most of which I didn’t want to go into. But the way he was looking at me shattered my heart into a million pieces, and I knew that if I lied to him now, it would only make it harder to put those parts back together.

He just wanted to help. I knew I should let him help.

“I didn’t want to think about it.” I admitted for the first time out loud. “I didn’t want to consider all the similarities. I didn’t want you to think I was just looking for a man to replace the ones I’ve lost.”

I couldn’t tell when I started to cry, but it was even more exhausting and painful than normal. Which is why I didn’t hesitate to accept Spencer’s offer when he stood up, wrapping his arms around me just tightly enough that it wouldn’t hurt.

“I didn’t want to lose you, too.” I whined, the comforting scent of his cologne filling my lungs and reminding me of all the beautiful moments we’d shared so far. We had so many more to go.

“You won’t lose me. I’m here to stay.” He said, reading my mind like he always did.

“I know.” I started to laugh, but this time it wasn’t held back by secrets. “You’d think a girl could lose you by getting in a bar fight an hour away and going to an unnamed hospital but nooo...”

He laughed too, although his was much more reserved. Spoilsport.

Spencer’s arms tightened around me briefly, holding me closer to him before he backed away, his hands finding home on my cheeks. I anticipated a kiss, which was usually what happened when he held me like that. But he didn’t kiss me, instead giving me a gentle instruction.

“(Y/n), look at me.”

My eyes, bruised and dry, still opened at his command.

“No jokes. No lies.” He asked, clearly enunciating each word. “Should I be worried about you?”

All I could hear was the sound of my heart and the humming of the machines. I was brought back to the CT scanner, the way it felt to be choking on air. Flashes of other men I loved were racing through my mind. I couldn’t save them, I remembered, before my eyes landed back on Spencer.

My stomach twisted at the memory of a wooden box, a check, and suddenly all I smelled was the pine of the forest.

“(Y/n)?” He asked again, although I saw he’d already received half of the answer.

“No. I’m fine.”

The most terrifying part about it was that I believed what I said, but the look on Spencer’s face told me that I was lying. And I believed that, too.

—————————————————

The thing about coming back from a gunshot wound to the stomach is that it takes a ridiculously annoying amount of time. Like, yeah, the pain is something awful, but the wait for things to return to normal was even worse.

I didn’t even know how long it’d been, my brain blocking out anything that reminded me of that day. If I ever really needed to know, Spencer could tell me. I was basically only keeping track of the days by deadlines for school and the dwindling prescriptions I had left.

My follow-up appointment was next week, and it couldn’t come soon enough. Spencer told me he would come with me, but I hadn’t really heard from him in a couple of days. He didn’t even have time to tell me about the case, although I could tell it was one of the “bad” ones – not that there were really any “good” ones.

But still, it was almost 11pm and I was about to go to sleep, but I wanted to wait a little bit longer before I called it a night. I was just hoping that I’d be able to talk to him, even if it was just to say goodnight. I missed his voice like crazy.

So when my phone lit up, I didn’t even look at the caller ID. There weren’t many people who would call me this late on a Friday – my friends were all already out for the night.

“Hello?” I sang into the receiver, already excitedly spinning around in my chair.

But the voice that responded was decidedly not Spencer.

“Hey, (y/n), right? It’s JJ.”

Her voice rang like a record scratch through my head, and I halted in my chair. “Oh, hey JJ... Why are you calling me?” Suddenly, my enthusiasm morphed into an overwhelming anxiety and darkness that threatened to crush everything in its path. “I-Is everything alright?”

But then I heard it. The sound of terrible music, loud laughter, and the general bustle of a restaurant. It was followed by an even more nervous JJ, “Uhh, yeah. Everything is fine. I was calling because Spencer might have had a few too many drinks and—“

Above the chaotic noise that I just described, I heard Spencer Reid loud and clear. Well, maybe not the clear part. His inaudible slurring sounded vaguely like a rant I’d heard before. Then again, hadn't I heard them all at this point? ?

I hadn’t put it together yet, though, and once I did, I couldn’t help but laugh. “My boyfriend is drunk? Cute.”

I was already standing, gathering my things and tossing my jacket on to head out when I asked, “Do you want me to come get him?”

“Please.” I’d never heard a more relieved woman in my life. The very thought of him driving his best friends insane with his drunken lessons was enough to combat my exhaustion. The poor thing was probably humiliating himself one sip at a time.

But for every chuckle, I was really just hiding a deeper concern. Spencer wasn’t supposed to be drinking. Spencer wasn’t allowed to drink, and he knew that. Out of the two of us, he was the one who put himself at risk more often, and I had a goddamn bullet wound.

“Sure thing. Just send me the address.”

It dawned on me somewhere along the 20 minute drive that Spencer had not only finished his case, but also come home and gone out for a drink with his team. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but the fact that he hadn’t told me about any of it...?

I tried not to think about it, knowing that talking to him about it tonight would be a waste of time, anyway. From the way he'd sounded over the phone, he wouldn’t be in any state to talk about the deep nuances of addiction and our relationship.

So I pushed it away, trying to enjoy the fact that I’d be able to see him again. Now that we’d cleared the air about my past, things felt strangely calm. I told myself it wasn’t just the eye of the storm because I wasn't sure I could handle much more excitement lately.

Showing up at one of the bars I used to frequent didn’t do much to convince me otherwise, either. The stench of cigarette smoke and alcohol hit me like a freight train as soon as I stepped out of my car. How did I do this every other night before?

As I approached the door, I didn’t even recognize the bouncer’s figure in the shade of the dim porch light. I recognized his voice, though, that’s for sure.

“Hey Jailbait, haven’t seen you around.”

Shit. Slower now, I hesitantly approached him with the most innocent and well-meaning look I could muster, knowing full well that another part of my life was going to be exposed tonight. At least this time, Spencer was the story and not the listener.

“Hey Tom...” I nervously laughed, drawing out the words while I came to a stop.

“Heard some pretty crazy shit went down to keep you off the scene. Must be bad if it keeps you away from me.”

It was weird to think that they talked about me. But I guess it was to be expected; we were all friends before Spencer Reid. And when someone in those friend groups goes missing suddenly, there’s usually reason to be worried. But in my situation, the worry wasn’t really necessary (aside from the whole being shot thing, I guess).

“Crazy is a good word for it.”

He leaned forward, beckoning for me to move in even closer with a wave of his hand. I complied, although I was a little confused as to why we were being so secretive.

“Hey, sorry, but... I can’t let you in tonight. You know I normally would, but the place is swarming with feds tonight.”

Then I remembered that I actually had to explain the reason for my absence, rather than just think about it in the abstract. “Oh no, I know.” I peered around him, trying to spot the man past the door. It wasn’t hard, considering how goddamn tall he was.

I pointed to him, causing Tom to turn with an amused grin before I explained, “I’m here for the drunk noodle man.”

The look on his face – hilarious, and a little insulting.

“What? Jailbait’s picking up a fed? Damn girl what’ve you been into?” He laughed, barely able to control himself. He laughed so hard, in fact, I’m surprised there weren’t tears in his eyes.

“Stop that.” I whined, but he didn’t listen.

“Does he know who he’s dating?”

The question hurt more than he could have anticipated. I didn’t want to confront those messy feelings, so I bundled them all into an annoyed exclamation. “Yes, he knows!” I huffed, crossing my arms and turning away from him as I stepped towards the door. “So can I go get him?”

He composed himself rather quickly after that, shaking his head and unhooking the rope that blocked off the door. “Please do. If I have to hear one more fact about Ancient Rome, I might quit.”

With the last obstacle gone, I happily skipped through the door, the excitement returning in a bubbling wave through my chest. “Thanks, Tom!” I chirped, barely giving him a glance as I raced through the door.

The only person more surprised to see me than Tom was Spencer. Although, to his credit, I did practically launch myself at his side. We both nearly toppled to the ground thanks to our lack of coordination, but we were luckily stopped by the bar he was leaning against.

“Boo!” I shouted in his ear, hearing a small, surprised gasp from my boyfriend.

“(Y/n)?” He turned towards me now, stars quickly forming in his eyes as a big, goofy smile spread across his face. It took him a minute, but eventually he recognized me in the dim light.

“Hey old man.”

Hugging me back just a little too tightly, he began to gush, “Oh my gosh. What are you doing here?” Of course, before I could answer, he came to several other conclusions. “Wait! This is a bar. You can’t be here! You aren’t twenty one!”

He thought he was whispering, but he definitely, definitely was not.

“I’m here to pick you up, not party.” I actually whispered back, turning to see JJ practically hiding at the table. I’m guessing he hasn't wanted her to call me, although I was pretty sure he wouldn’t care at this point. He seemed pretty happy I was there.

“You can’t pick me up. You’re hurt.”

I didn’t even know where to start with that, so I just chuckled. “Smart as a whip, Dr. Reid.”

I ran my hands over his shoulders, smoothing out the wrinkled dress shirt he'd either had no time to iron, or had worn to bed the night before. I didn’t like either of those options. Spencer must have noticed me analyzing the fact, because his hand came up to stop me.

Trying to quickly change the subject, I blurted out over the terrible music, “Even when I’m hurt, I can probably still pick you up. You probably weigh the same as me.”

He scoffed, looking down at his lanky body compared to mine before shaking his head. “That’s hurtful, (y/n).” He attempted a puppy dog face, which only made laughter burst from my pursed lips.

Grabbing hold of his wrists and pulling him away from the bar, I turned and waved to the few team members I could spot among the crowd before returning to my drunken idiot of a boyfriend. “Come on, love. It’s time to take you home with me.”

When the cool autumn air hit him, I felt the goosebumps ripple over his arm. He leaned a bit closer, resting too much of his body weight on me for my comfort, but I wasn’t going to tell him to stop.

“How did you find me?” He mumbled, trying to touch me more than he currently was. Pushing him away from me was supposed to serve as a gentle reminder that we were in public, but he didn’t seem to care about that at all.

“JJ called me.”

“They all like you a lot. So do I.” His fast responses were a little less impressive considering how spontaneous they seemed, but I let it slide. As long as he was saying nice things, it was fine by me.

Guiding him as gently as possible, which is to say not gently at all considering he was essentially a human giraffe, I sighed. “I’m glad to hear it, Spencer. Maybe I can actually hang out with them one of these days.”

The guilt appeared before I could stop it, but it was the least of my worries at the moment. More concerning would be getting him into his house and in bed without either of us doing something stupid. After all, he was usually the one who stopped me from being stupid. And so far tonight, he’d already done something pretty damn stupid.

As I pulled the driver side door closed, a silence filled the car. Spencer was stuck between staring at me with a lovesick smile and looking away, probably because of his pink cheeks making him look a perfect combination of embarrassed and plastered.

“So what had you drinking, Spencer?”

“A case.” He shot back with that voice he usually reserved for the bedroom. It was the voice that told me not to press, to take his answer and let it die.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really do that this time, concerning this particular topic. . “Good thing or bad thing drinking?” I asked quietly.

I think he wanted to snap at me, to tell me that it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t. The way my hands and words trembled told him that I was just as scared as he was that the answer might be the wrong one.

“I don’t know,” was what he said, instead.

“Okay.” I accepted that answer, understanding that it meant we could talk about it later, when his blood went back to normal and his mind was where it should be. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

And there we were, me sitting and staring at the indicators on the car as the engine turned, and him staring at me in the little light provided. After staring back at him for a moment, I had to ask the glaringly obvious question.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

That’s when Spencer Reid let out an honest to god giggle, his hands reaching out to massage my face that no longer showed any signs of the black eye I'd received a few weeks prior. “You’re sooo pretty.” He drawled, slumping over in his seat so he could rest his face against my shoulder.

I couldn’t help but laugh back, petting his hair for a second before returning my attention to the wheel. “Oooh, I like this.” I whispered, letting my heart skip a few beats as he nuzzled into the warmth that only I could provide him.

“I love you.” He mumbled against my shirt, letting out a deep breath before apparently trying to fill his lungs with the smell of my laundry detergent.

The sensation of his breath hot against my neck caused a familiar desire to stir in me, just barely beaten out by the even more powerful adoration I had for the puppy-like man who was already practically asleep on my shoulder.

“I love you, too, darling.”

He didn’t hear me, his soft breath indicating that he would be out for the drive. Taking my time to avoid the roads with potholes and curves, I managed to keep Spencer on me the whole way back to his apartment. Once we were there, though, I didn’t have any option but to wake him up. Unlike him, I definitely could not carry him out of the car.

It took him a surprisingly long period of time to realize that we were not, in fact, at my place. As soon as he did notice, he rubbed his eyes like it would transform the door in front of him. “Why didn’t you take me home?”

“This is your apartment, babe.” I explained, digging through his pockets to find his keys. He jumped at the contact before letting out a sound that was way too close to a moan for him to be making in the hallway.

“Yeah that’s not home.” He answered, swallowing down other noises that threatened to erupt by the time I withdrew my hand. “But home is–“ He hiccuped, patting his finger on my nose as he tried to stabilize his feet. “Home is where you are.”

“Mmm, so smooth.” I hummed, unlocking the door and shoving his drunk ass into the apartment before he could do something else that made me question whether I should just turn around and go home.

But he just looked so proud of himself, spinning around on his feet and crashing into the table beside the door. “Thank you!” He chirped, reaching forward to grab my hand and pull me closer.

When our bodies pressed together, the first thing I noticed was the fact he was clearly much more excited to be home with me than he was letting on. The thin fabric of his slacks left little to the imagination, and when my hand slid over the tent in his pants, there was nothing left to wonder.

“I brought you here... because I didn’t want to have to be quiet.” I purred, palming his erection over his clothes.

Through his broken moans, he still managed to ask the silliest question: “Why are you going to be loud?”

He was so fucking cute; so remarkably innocent in his drunken stupor, it was hard to remember that he was the same man that once finger fucked me on the metro.

“Why do you think?” I asked just as sweetly, making quick work of the buttons on his shirt.

Spencer still just stared, mesmerized by the way the buttons slipped from the fabric between my fingers. Once they were all open, I ran my hands over his chest before wrapping my arms around his neck.

He was the one to close the gap, coming down to deliver a feverish kiss against my lips. He tasted like honey and whiskey, and I wanted nothing more than to drown in him. His hands were on my lower back, sneaking under my shirt and spreading goosebumps all over my skin.

I moaned into his mouth with the utmost desperation, murmuring words against his lips. “Take me to bed, Spencer,” I begged.

The words awoke something in him, and suddenly, his hands were off of me and raised in the air.

“Wait— I can’t.” He concluded, drawing in heavy breaths.

“Why not?”

I wasn’t sure which part of this situation did him in, although I had my suspicions. As much as I wanted him, I would suppress those urges if he was really, truly uncomfortable. I almost felt bad for a second, but then he spoke again.

“I have a girlfriend.”

With a few slow blinks, I tried to figure out how the hell I was supposed to return a serious answer. Deciding that was impossible, I deadpan replied, “I am your girlfriend, you absolute idiot.”

I took his stunned silence to be permission enough to start leading him into his room. He honestly looked like I’d just told him all the answers to the universe, and he trailed after me like my hand was a leash. Still, once I sat on the bed and pulled his body against mine, he paused again.

“My girlfriend can’t— she’s hurt. She can’t have sex with me.”

I got the impression he was trying to reason with himself more so than with me, which explained the third person. But it was deeply unsettling, because I really needed to know he was here in this moment with me.

“Stop saying 'she'. It’s me, babe.” I gently reminded, and I watched it dawn on him again, his eyes lighting up in the darkness. Sliding my hand up his arm, I pulled him forward to hopefully convince him to climb into the bed with me. “And we don’t have to have sex.”

Funny enough, Spencer was the one who had enough sense to strip off most of his clothes before he stumbled onto the mattress after me. His lack of coordination was even worse with the alcohol, and it reminded me of the virginal teenager I’m certain he once was.

It was strange to consider, that if we’d met each other under different circumstances, at a different time, our roles might have been somewhat reversed. To picture him as an innocent little thing was... kind of exciting.

But he was anything but innocent now, his face hanging over mine while he helped me disrobe, trying to focus his analytical abilities on me in his haze. Finding no pain or hesitancy, he crashed his lips over mine with an energy I hadn’t seen in some time.

And it was so invigorating, to feel his skin against mine without him having to constantly worry about whether or not he was hurting me. It’d been far too long since we shared a bed together like this, and now that it was happening, I could hardly breathe.

“God, I love her.” He whispered against my skin, before quickly correcting himself, “I love you.”

I laughed, the kind that sputters from your lips when you try to hold it back. Pushing the hair from his face, I ran my fingers over his scalp. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m not drunk, I’m stupid.” He replied with a cheeky smirk, diving back down to kiss me again. I wasn’t going to argue with the brilliant Spencer Reid, even if the point he was making was that he was, in fact, stupid.

Maybe it was stupid, the two of us tangling up in his sheets despite the fact that I hadn’t been cleared for it yet by my doctor. I knew that it was coming soon – probably at my appointment in a couple weeks, actually – so why wait? I knew that Spencer would never hurt me. Even now, his hands were gentle in their insistence, raking over my hip and stopping just short of the place where I really wanted him.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful.” He groaned, his hips rocking forward and pressing his erection against my leg.

“Touch me.” I ordered, louder and more forcefully than I intended. I was expecting an argument, but I didn’t get one. In fact, Spencer’s finger had already breached my folds before I even finished talking. Unwilling to let him be the only one to enjoy himself, I reached down to grab his cock.

“Shit.” He hissed, biting down on his lip while he rutted against my hand. “I just want to hold you down and fuck you until you cry.” The restraint was obvious in the fingers slowly sinking into me, his jaw clenched and his eyes barely able to stay open. “But I can’t.”

Through my heavy breaths, I panted out another request. “Tell me more about it.”

He immediately realized why I’d asked, and his fingers began to pump in and out of me faster and with more force, his lips trailing kisses over to my ear. While I tried to keep up the pace of my strokes, it became more complicated when his breath fanned over my ear.

“It’s been so long since I bent you over and had my way with you like I did that morning over your kitchen counter...” He moaned, and I could almost feel the sensations as he remembered them. Although his fingers would never be the same, just having him inside me in any capacity felt like pure bliss.

But he wasn’t done, continuing to speak his thoughts into my ear. “I just want to—fuck, I want to fill you up.” I went to respond, but I choked on a sob, instead. The lewd sounds between us only aided his descriptions.

“God, I love the way you feel. You’re always so wet for me.” He whispered, beginning to make small thrusts with his hips. The movement essentially allowed him to use my hand to stroke himself, and he let out another unsteady moan at the contact. “Think about what it feels like, little girl.”

“I-I am.” I could barely make the words come out; my body too sensitive to his touch after being starved of it for so long. And Spencer was ready to take full advantage of that.

“I still have so much planned for you. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that little stunt you pulled when you got all riled up.” He growled, using his free hand to grab a fistful of my hair. He yanked my head further to the side, laying sloppy kisses along my jaw. “I told you I’d give you triple the marks you left on me, and I can’t wait to cover you with me.”

“Fuck. Please, Spencer.” I hoarsely begged, my hand on his shoulder tightening so that my nails dug into his skin. If his grip on my hair wasn’t so tight, I would have thrown my head back. Instead, I just squirmed underneath him, crying out, “I’m so close, Spencer, please!”

He did not disappoint, his fingers curling inside of me with each thrust, and by some grace of God, he was able to coordinate his thumb over my clit. As if that wasn’t enough, he pulled back to look me in the eyes.

“I want to feel you come on my fingers.” It was more of a demand than a desire, as evidenced by the way his hand tugged on my hair. “Come on, little girl. Make daddy proud.”

Just like that, my body responded to his call, my muscles trembling from the tension as my orgasm hit me like a fucking freight train. It was such an overwhelming experience, to remember exactly how Spencer was capable of making me feel.

And he knew it, too. “Oh, good girl,” he cooed, continuing his kisses against my neck and murmuring the words as they came to him. “That’s my pretty little slut.”

After taking my time coming back to earth, I struggled from the overstimulation still burning between my legs. Spencer hadn’t stopped his fingers, which were diligently stroking inside of me while he continued to buck his hips against my hand.

“I want you to finish inside me.” I slurred in my delirium, withdrawing my hand from his dick while he whimpered.

“I-I can’t. I can’t fuck you.” He was asserting a necessary and understandable hard limit, and it was clear I wouldn’t be able to convince him to fuck me that night.

But that wasn’t the plan, anyway.

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I said between gasps, struggling against his fingers still inside me. “Come up here.” I whined, rubbing my hands on his shoulders while simultaneously trying to sit myself up.

The movement and the words made him withdraw completely. “(Y/n)...” He warned, running a hand through his hair while he sat up on his knees. “I could hurt you.”

“That’s always been a risk with us, Spencer.” My retort was both quick and persuasive, judging by the way he almost moved, but stopped himself yet again.

“Please. Please, do it. I want you to do it so fucking bad.” There was an obvious and deep desperation. I was literally begging him, to the point that I swore I almost cried. It felt stupid, but I needed him like I’d never needed anything in my life before. He’d spent months taking care of me, and I couldn’t do anything in return.

I just wanted to make him feel good, to give him something like we used to share.

Of course, I think those thoughts were also visible on my face, and they were obviously worrying him. With tender touches, Spencer’s fingers lightly trailed over the side of my face. The brief flashes of clarity alerted him of my struggle, and he let out a shaky breath at the war inside his own mind.

“I want to feel you inside me, and this is the only way.” I concluded, trying to lead him to the simplest conclusion. It was the safest, easiest way to solve both of our current problems. And although I could see how hard the decision was for him, my pleading eventually bested him.

“Fuck.” He mumbled, leaning forward to grab the headboard, staring down at me as I shimmied further up the wood.

“Fuck!” He repeated, rolling his head back with a light groan when both of my hands reached forward to grab his hips. “Fine. You’re lucky you’re so fucking cute.”

A giggle bubbled through my throat, and my body actually bounced in excitement as he slowly positioned himself in front of me. I wasn’t even sure which I was more excited for, my own orgasm or getting to finally give him one again.

As soon as my mouth closed around the head of his dick, I got my answer. Spencer’s moan filled the room, his hands holding so firmly on the headboard that the entire bed creaked. Although I figured he’d been taking care of himself in my absence, it appeared that wasn’t entirely the case. He seemed just as starved as I was.

“Holy shit.” He groaned, dropping a hand to the top of my head. I had to remind myself that he was drunk, which explained why he seemed so much more responsive than normal, with whimpers and pants flowing steadily through his mouth. He only got louder as he began to slowly push himself further into my mouth, stopping every few inches to retreat before pressing further.

“God, I need to do this more often. No back talk, no whining.” He said in a low tone under his breath, beginning to settle on a steady rhythm.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t think of anything except how fucking good it felt to be useful again, to feel him struggling to hold himself back as he started to more aggressively fuck my mouth. My eyes could barely stay open, but I needed them to. I needed to see him in the dim light of the streetlights that peered through the window.

He looked so beautiful, so perfect, and so mine. Feeling him slide back and forth against my tongue revived memories from long before and reignited my longstanding desire to do anything to please him. In all his caretaking, I was worried he might have forgotten how to control me.

But he hadn't. Thank god, he hadn’t.

“Come on, little girl. Earn your fill.” He whispered, burying himself in my throat and holding me against the headboard. I only lightly choked on the intrusion before my body complied, swallowing him further until my lips were pressed against the base of him.

Suddenly, Spencer withdrew, beginning a brutal, dizzying pace. Now, my eyes couldn’t stay open, rolling to the back of my head as I used my hands to steady myself against his thighs. The sobs trying to escape felt more like moans, and they shoved Spencer over the edge he’d been riding in his caution.

“That’s it. Take it.” He barked the instruction, looking down at me and smiling, “Don’t you dare spill any of it, do you hear me?”

My answer was stifled against him, just the way he wanted it to be. And with a few more rough thrusts, Spencer buried himself as deep as possible. I swore my heart synchronized with the pulsing against my tongue as his seed spilled down my throat.

I hollowed my cheeks, trying to drain every last drop from him as he finished. It had its desired effect, and Spencer grabbed my hair and forced himself deeper one more time with a growl. “Good girl.”

Once he had enough, he pulled out of me with a satisfied grunt, waiting just a second before clumsily falling onto the bed beside me. I laughed as he hit the pillows, obviously too tired to even reposition himself in the disastrous sheets.

“Thank you, daddy.” I spoke in the silence, gingerly cleaning the spit that had dripped down my chin.

“Fuck.” The curse was muffled in the pillow, but I understood it well enough. He seemed more concerned when I started to sink down into the sheets again, reaching a tentative hand out to him.

Finally rolling over, he grabbed my arm and guided me closer. “Come here.” He said with the tenderness I’d grown used to over the past few months. He turned towards me, apparently not ready for me to sleep on my side just yet.

He brushed my hair from my face, lifting the sheets to look at the now mostly healed wound. I hated it when he looked at it. It just reminded me that I’d never be the same girl he first met. Every time he saw it, he would remember that day. I didn’t want to think about it.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

But even with the insecurity and anger in my gut, I wasn’t lying when I answered. “No, I’m fine.” My heart was so full, my body relaxing for the first time in so long. I was just so unbelievably happy to be together again. Even if it wasn’t like last time, it was still just as wonderful.

“I’m a little better than fine, actually.” I admitted with a bright smile.

Spencer hummed something in thought, but then winced. “Do me a favor.” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes and wiping a heavy hand over his face.

“Anything.”

“Kick my ass in the morning.”

He was caught off guard by my response, which was a full-hearted laugh that was too loud for how close the two of were. But I couldn’t help it, it was just so Spencer to still be punishing himself despite the fact that nothing bad had happened.

Once I calmed down enough to talk, I turned to him with a devilish grin. “I don’t wanna.”

Then were both laughing, and Spencer pulled me close to him until he could rest his chin on the top of my head, curling up against my side. “Spoiled brat.” He whined, running his hand through my hair and down my arm.

When I smelled the whiskey on his breath, the guilt hit me just as hard as any of the pleasure. I'd been so excited to get to experience this with him again, I almost forgot the reason he didn’t want to do it in the first place.

He just didn’t want to hurt me. He just wanted to make me happy.

“I just wanted to be with you again... I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” I whispered, pulling the covers up so that I could hide my shame beneath them.

“I wanted to be with you, too.” He reassured me, half asleep and barely able to talk but wanting to get the words out. “I know it’s important to you, but I need you to know I would be with you even if I never got to touch you again.”

“Please never stop touching me.” I quickly replied, a genuine worry in my eyes.

But when Spencer glanced over, he just laughed, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“No? Even when I get pregnant and have a big ol’ belly?” I playfully answered, bringing his hand to my stomach and pressing it against the side that still remained intact.

The familiar position caused a shift in Spencer’s body language, and suddenly he was even more insistent on being impossibly closer. “You’ll still be irresistible to me.” He said against my hair, running his fingers lightly over the unmarked skin of my lower stomach.

“We’ll see, I guess.” I mumbled, not realizing that I said it aloud until I heard his confused reply.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” The defensiveness in my voice was terrifyingly transparent, and I hoped that if his drinking made him forget anything, it would be this conversation. “Go to sleep, drunk ass.”

“I need hugs and kisses first.” He complained, rubbing his nose against me in a way that should have been irritating instead of adorable.

“Spoiled.” I grumbled, reaching a hand up to play with his hair. I turned to kiss his cheek through the smile that was plastered over my cheeks.

Already half snoring in his sleepy state, he got out one more cringe worthy joke before he succumbed to his exhaustion. “What’s good for the goose...”

“...is good for the gander.” I finished for him, before taking the advice and following him to sleep.

—————————————————

| Part 18 |

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wordsinwinters · 3 years

Text

Then Again, Chapter 7: Implosion at the Pool

Summary: After an intense fight and a forced-to-share-the-bed situation during their junior year decathlon trip, Peter and the Reader examine their faults and failings. As they attempt to fix their mistakes and improve their friendship, that friendship quickly begins to evolve into something else.

Betas: @fanboyswhereare-you and @girl-tips-from-satan

Masterlist (with AO3 links)

Then Again, Chapter 7: Implosion at the Pool

(Word count: 1,580)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29,

I often expect too much, set my sights a little too high. I know this, so I always prepare myself in case nothing goes according to plan.

For example: I had hoped this second annual break-into-the-hotel-pool activity would be easy, that everyone would come willingly, and we would have fun before the tournament tomorrow. Still, I prepared myself for a few bumps. For example, if Peter refused, if the entire thing flopped because everyone was worried about getting enough sleep, or if someone in the hotel caught us and reported it to Mr. Harrington, I was prepared, I had contingency plans.

Strangely enough, everyone crept out on time and Peter barely hesitated at all. Well, Michelle did force him from the start, heading off his first protest too quickly for him to find another: “Dude, just say you’ve been working out. Nobody’s going to get suspicious because you’re jacked. Even Flash can’t turn that,” she motioned to Peter’s entire body, “into a joke.”

Yet I’m more uneasy now than if everything had gone wrong. I’m not even concerned about getting caught. Mr. Harrington is watching Jurassic Park in his room and checking the hallway at ten-minute intervals and I’m almost certain the hotel staff knows we’re here, but doesn’t care.

Nevertheless, I’m just… anxious.

It might have to do with how the boys are stacked upon one another in the shallow end for Chicken and, given the small area of the pool, injuries are on the table. It might have to do with Flash’s new habit of winking at me and being, in general, insanely obnoxious. It might also have to do with the fact that my friends are being abnormally secretive. (I hate to use Flash’s words, but he’s sort of right. It’s the best description. Even once I got back in my room, MJ and Ned kept sending texts— I have no idea who to, though I would guess between them and Peter.)

Admittedly, my nerves might also be connected to Liz, whose face I can see across the water. As our team captain, Michelle thought it would be nice to Facetime her, ask about college, and show her that her pool idea has become a tradition.

Liz’s dorm room is beautiful, from what I can make out. She has calendars and planners neatly pinned up, Christmas lights outlining them. Photos hang from mini clothespins on a string and she even has a little library set up on her windowsill with a porcelain cat-shaped bookend. It’s like a freaking Pinterest photo. I’ve always been somewhat jealous of her, but I know that outside of our past disagreements and my envy for her style and Peter’s (old? current?) crush on her, I am glad she seems happy. Everyone knows how much she’s been going through.

As Abe and Peter pretend to duke it out on Flash and Ned’s shoulders, the light of Liz from Michelle’s phone skips through the ripples, illuminating them like the sunset against the tide. I keep zoning out and staring at the pattern. I feel weird staying on the other side of the pool with her there, but I don’t know Liz that well outside of the team and truth be told, she always intimidated me. Even before our… fight seems like a strong word, our spat? She just… has things together. Even now, after such a horrible year. She’s wonderful and precise and good in every way a person can be. I feel minuscule by comparison.

Then again, it might be the overwhelming smell of chlorine that’s getting into my head and putting me off. Plus, all the glints of light swimming across the glass walls — making them reflect further like a hall of mirrors — are beginning to strain my eyes. Part of me just wants to sleep. To climb out from the water, change into some pajamas, and go to bed and forget this.

But I can’t. So I tread water alone in the corner, watching and listening and feeling like an idiot for isolating myself.

Does anyone really want me here in the first place?

Stop thinking like that.

I try to listen to Liz’s voice as a distraction. It’s muffled with echo, but it’s audible.

“With my AP scores, a bunch of my gen ed credits are already taken care of. But I want to take my other gen eds seriously. I have Global Ethics, Statistics, and World Journalism on Mondays and Wednesdays, then Into to Biological Chemistry and Public Relations on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

The words bounce from wall to wall, shadowing splashes and voices and little bright doses of laughter from the boys. I close my eyes for three seconds as if to catalog the moment. I have to admit, it’s pretty much perfect.

Then why do I feel so nervous?

In the same way that some days just feel so good, some nights just really, really don’t.

Flash catches my eye. God, here we go. He’s smirking.

My stomach drops. I don’t think I can handle him right now.

“Hey!” he calls. “Y/N, you should join in! Hold on, let me clear you a spot.”

He jerks his body back to make Abe fall from his shoulders, hitting the water with a hard splash.

“There, now you have a place to sit,” Flash says, patting his own shoulders.

Abe stands up, shaking water from his ears before shoving Flash underwater. Ned laughs as Flash comes back up sputtering. Peter, on Ned’s shoulders, has little reaction. Michelle rolls her eyes and turns back to the girls’ conversation.

“It’s more fun watching, trust me.” Watching Peter shirtless, my brain adds.

Stop thinking about him. Despite his smile this morning (it was idiotic of me to think it meant anything significant), Peter has remained pretty cold to me today. Just like everyone else.

Michelle looks back our way again.

“Actually, yeah. We’ll play,” she decides.

If I had more energy, if I weren’t feeling so despondent, and if it wasn’t her this-is-happening-don’t-argue voice, I might put up a better fight. Instead, I give a quiet defeated groan and make my way over to the shallow end. Sometimes it’s easier to do as she says.

“Michelle in a chicken fight?” Liz laughs, her voice reverberating on all sides of my head. “I can’t wait to see this.”

“Oh, no,” Michelle answers as she shakes her head. “Y/N is up top. I’m not getting involved in that business.”

I sigh and try to ignore the fact my limbs are starting to shake. Just a little. Not enough for anyone to notice. But enough that it reminds me of the first twinges of body aches from a fever.

“Abe, mind if I fight Flash this round?” I ask.

If I have to do this, I want to be against the one person I wouldn’t mind actually fighting.

“I think I’ll sit this one out,” Abe says. “I’m sick of him. Plus, if he has the chance, I know he’ll piss on me.”

Despite my exhaustion, I can’t help laughing a little. It’s definitely true. But if Abe sits out, there’s no chance that Ned or Peter will team up with Flash.

Flash knows this too. Shrugging, he follows Abe away from the center, saying hello to Liz.

Shit.

I climb onto Michelle’s shoulders, the air making me shiver more, my ankles hanging just low enough to stay in the warm water. I stare blankly at the situation. It’s me and Michelle, Peter and Ned. And I’ve barely spoken to them since they all locked me out earlier. I wouldn’t want to disrupt their texting.

I do my best not to tug Michelle’s hair as I steady myself.

Now what?

Everybody else is talking again, Liz included. I’m glad their attention is elsewhere.

Staring at Peter, who’s staring at me, it’s clear neither of us knows what to do. Things have definitely gotten stale and bizarre between us over the last day, and it's gotten worse than I ever thought possible over the last few hours. I feel like an idiot. But I’d be a moron to think it’s all because of some impulsive hug. Something in our friendship is stuttering, I can feel it faltering and falling away.

Abruptly unstable ground— that’s what it is, I realize, staring at him. And everybody has been able to see it coming but me. How else could Flash see it?

Thinking of all the shitty ways Peter has ignored me today, yesterday, and this past week, I shove him with as much force as I can muster, knowing it’ll be nothing to him anyway.

Peter’s legs are over his head a moment later. If it were a real fall, it would have been instant. The rippling disturbance of the water churns up more chlorine fumes. I can feel a headache spreading from the base of my skull.

“Come on, Peter,” I say while he stands and pushes wet hair out of his eyes. “Don’t pretend to let me win.”

“You caught me off guard,” he replies. All of the prior playful attitude he had with Abe is gone. He’s trying — I can actually see him trying — to seem blank.

What is his problem with me?

“No, I didn’t. Don’t lie. Get back up.”

He does. Ned’s expression is unreadable for once. Michelle pats my leg.

Ned and Michelle actually move around this time, both stepping to one side or the other with half steps backward and forward. Peter keeps his hands on his knees, looking bored and glancing from MJ to her phone behind us. He won’t even look at me.

It pisses me off.

Michelle rolls one shoulder before lunging forward: a little hint. I shove Peter again, now resenting how stiff his muscles are beneath his stupid skin. And again he falls sideways, though faster this time.

Flash is whooping and making some stupid comment. Liz gives a surprised, “Oh, wow.” Sally and Cindy are talking, but I can’t tell whether it’s to me or someone else. Peter’s splash is echoing too much to hear a lot at the moment.

He stands up. His hands go to his hair. He looks at me and shrugs like Got me again, I guess.

The chlorine scent is hanging heavily over the room now like a pillow being slowly forced into my face. My headache pulses and creeps up behind my ear, beating my bone like a thick drum.

“Peter,” I say, teeth grinding, “this is going to get boring pretty quickly if you keep this up. Push back. Don’t you dare ‘let me win.’ I’m serious.”

My jaw is clenching as I try to pack my anger down into a little box between my ribs. A pressurized numbness climbs up my throat.

Shove it down.

Peter says nothing in reply but mounts Ned’s shoulders again. Ned is looking at Michelle, and though I can’t see her face, I know they’re having a silent conversation.

I nudge Michelle with my foot and she lunges forward again. I shove Peter’s left shoulder as hard as I can. Both shoulders hit the water at the same time. I know that no matter how hard I could ever hit him, it wouldn’t bother him a bit, yet the fact he’s clearly not even trying to play this one game that he was just playing with Flash and Abe is burning and biting at my tongue.

Peter stands lazily as if silently offering a forfeit.

Maybe he wants to get this game over with so he can talk to Liz.

“Get up, Peter,” I say, frustration spreading like fire through the ligaments of my arms. My irritation has reached my hairline.

Last week, I would never have doubted my friendship with Peter. Suddenly, I’m almost certain he wants nothing to do with me anymore. It scares me. A familiar dense pain pools in my lungs, a physical weight knocking my ribs into one another.

How did everything go so wrong so quickly?

Peter doesn’t move. I could kill him.

“Peter! Get up! Fight back, do something! This isn’t funny anymore. Why won’t you just do something?”

At last, he looks me straight in the eye.

“What?” he shoots back. “What do you want me to do?”

He’s angry now too, blatantly. It’s worse than last night. I can see it, a red patch of irritation growing from his chest up to his neck. Neither of us has ever gotten like this. We’re not the kind of people who do. Not with one another, and certainly not in front of other people.

It’s a violently refreshing change: honesty.

“Anything! Stop messing around,” I say. “Just play the fucking game.”

“Maybe I’m sick of it,” he says, his hands open. “This whole stupid idea! I’m not playing anymore.”

What is he talking about? It’s been barely a minute of this game.

“MJ,” I say, “let me down.”

“Alright.”

She jerks back like Flash did to Abe. The water stings through my nostrils and the lining of my lungs. Is this just MJ being MJ or is she angry at me, too? And what about Ned, could he be mad at me?

What have they all been calling and texting each other about?

I wipe water from my face and open my eyes, stinging.

“Come on, Peter, play a game,” I mock, moving closer to him. He just stands there. “Play a game.”

I’ve been playing some sort of game for at least 24 hours now, maybe over a week, maybe even longer. He can too.

Peter doesn’t move a millimeter. I shove him. Nothing. His expression remains blank. He doesn’t fall, he doesn’t budge.

“Peter!”

I shove him again.

Nothing.

Michelle and Ned are creeping out of the water. Their waves are the only sound besides my echoing shout in the whole room. God, this is bad. I know starting some kind of fight isn’t going to increase my chances of leaving D.C. with any friends, but I almost can’t stop myself. I have to do something.

I move closer, face burning with an itch of fury.

“What?” he says.

Michelle and Ned, blurry reflections I can see from the glass wall behind Peter, have grabbed their towels and are walking through the door.

Damn it. Where are they going?

Something is crushing inside my chest. I can feel my eyes brimming with tears.

Shove. Them. Down. I will not angry cry in front of my classmates right now. Absolutely not. Especially not with Flash and Liz here.

My hands are visibly shaking as I grapple for a reply.

“Just— just do something, Peter!”

The muscles in his jaw are working and pulsing. I wonder what words he’s chewing— of course, I’ll likely never know because it seems Peter is refusing to tell me anything.

“That’s just it!” he shouts back. “What do you want me to do?!”

That something in my chest is spasming, collapsing.

Peter’s chest is heaving and the red has reached his face. His words are fogging up my already pounding head.

That’s just it. What do you want me to do?

There are too many people here and as I notice their reflections standing over Peter’s shoulders with eyes glued to his face and my back, I realize I’ve just lost them too. In only the span of a couple minutes. The understanding hits me over the head and slices through my gut. I’ve ruined everything with everyone here, not just Peter and Ned and Michelle. They’ve never seen me like this and it’s too late to pretend to reverse it. There’s no way I’ll leave this trip with any friends.

It takes every particle of concentration to not let my emotions get the better of me and cry; especially when I’m still staring at Peter. The brown of his eyes seems darker than I’ve ever seen before and his brow is knotted up, hard.

The moment is so still and static.

Without warning, Peter smacks the water in front of me with one hand. It’s like a lukewarm tidal wave washing over my head, tangling my hair across my face.

My nose and lungs burn again. I gasped at the wrong second. In less than a moment though, it’s doused my nerves. I suddenly feel smaller than a child, humiliated.

“Are you kidding?”

I don’t know if he or anyone hears me. The question was quiet and overcome by countless echoing splashes. It’s for the best: nobody can see my chin shaking at this distance so maybe if they didn’t hear the crack in my voice, I can pull myself together.

Guilt and regret seep into my skin as Peter climbs out of the pool. I want to apologize, but apologize for what? And fear, fear is mixing with those other emotions. A mountain of blurred emotions coated in black dread and red fear.

I take a breath and turn around.

Fuck.

Cindy, Sally, Abe, and Flash are just… staring. Worse, Liz is too. Of course, Michelle forgets her phone this one time.

The door closes with a bang behind Peter.

His towel is slung over one shoulder and water droplets spatter across the hallway floor as he storms through it. If I could get over him, if I could stop thinking about him for one day, stop thinking about him for one minute, my heart rate wouldn’t be leaping off the charts as I watch him. Actually, my heart rate might just be a result of me realizing how serious this is. The fact that four faces are still staring, now waiting for me to explode, likely doesn’t help slow it down either.

“Guys,” Liz’s voice calls. ��Come on. Don’t make this weird.”

Flash laughs. Hard.

“It’s super weird completely on its own! Man, what was that?”

Tension loosening its hold on the room, Flash is back to himself, looking astonished and amused beyond belief.

“Flash, seriously. Let it be,” Liz snaps at him. When she looks at me, her expression softens. “Don’t let Peter Parker get in your head. He can… be like that sometimes. He might just be going through something.”

I know what he’s like, I think. I’ve been friends with him for longer than one Homecoming date. Liz is trying, at least, and maybe later I’ll appreciate the thought.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding.

She mirrors the motion.

“I should go before my roommate gets back to study. And Y/N, if you ever want to talk, I’d like to hear from you again. From any of you guys. Anyway, good luck everyone! I’m sure tomorrow will be great.”

The room dissolves into Goodbye!’s. I use the distraction to get my towel and phone and slip out.

What have I done?

Next chapter

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number5theboy · 4 years

Note

Please elaborate on how Five could've turned into the most insufferable character to watch

Thanks for asking me to elaborate on this text post:

@tessapercygranger, @waywardd1 and @margarita-umbrella also wanted to see a more detailed version of it, and I ended up writing an essay that’s longer than some of my actual academic essays. So buckle up.

WHY NUMBER FIVE SHOULD BE THE MOST OBNOXIOUS CHARACTER IN TV HISTORY, AND HOW HE MANAGES NOT TO BE

Number Five: The Concept That Could Go Horribly Wrong

Alright, let’s first look at Five in theory in an overarching way, without taking into account the execution of the show. The basic set-up of the character, of course, is being a 58-year-old consciousness in a teenager’s body, due to a miscalculation in time travel. Right off the bat, Five is bar none the most overpowered of the siblings; by the end of Season 2, no one has yet been able to defeat him in a fight. He is a master assassin – and not just any master assassin, but the best one there is – and a survival expert, able to do complex maths and physics without the aid of a calculator, shown to have knowledge of half a dozen languages, has very developed observational skills and, to top that all off, he can manipulate time and space to the point where he can literally erase events that happened and change the course of history. And Five knows how skilled he is; he is arrogant, self-assured and sarcastic, and his streak of goodness is buried deep inside. David Castañeda once described Five in an interview as 90% chocolate with a cherry in the middle, meaning that you have to get through a lot of darkness and bitterness before knowing there is a good core, and I think it’s an excellent metaphor. However, Five is also incredibly, fundamentally terrible at communicating with anyone, and, because he is the only one with time travel abilities, the character a lot of the actual plot - and the moving forward of it - centres around. Also he’s earnestly in love with a mannequin, who is pretty much a projection of his own consciousness that functions as a coping mechanism for all the trauma he has endured. All in all, this gives you a character who looks like a teenager, but with the smug superiority of a fifty-something, who a) is extremely skilled in many different things, b) has a superiority complex, is arrogant and vocal about it, and most of the superiority is expressed through cutting sarcasm, c) has one very hidden ounce of goodness that he is literally the worst at communicating to other human beings, d) is what moves the plot along but is also bad at talking to anyone else, meaning that the plot largely remains with him, and e) his love interest is essentially a projection of himself. Tell me that’s not a character who is destined to be just…obnoxious, annoying, egocentric, a necessary evil that one has to put up with to get through this show. There are so many elements of this characterisation that can and should easily make Five beyond insufferable, but the show manages to avoid it, and I’m putting this down to three aspects.

That Trick of Age and Appearance

Bluntly put, Five as a character would not work if he was anything else than an old man in a 13-year-old body. Imagine this character and all his skills and knowledge, but actually just…a teenager. Immediately insufferable. Same goes for him being around 30, like his siblings, all of which are stunted and traumatised by their father’s abuse. If Five, being comparatively unscathed by Reginald to the point where he explicitly does not want to be defined by his association with his father, were 30 like his siblings, it would just take the bite out of that plot point and also give him a lot less time in the apocalypse, reducing the impact it had on him as a person. And making Five his actual 58-year-old self would make him very similar to Reginald, at least on surface level, with the appearance and attitude. Five and Reginald are two fundamentally different people, but having one of the siblings being a senior citizen that’s dressed to the nines and bosses his siblings around in a relatively self-centred way does open up that parallel, and would take away from Five’s charm as a character. Because pairing the life experience of a 58-year-old with the appearance of a teenager gives you the best of both worlds. You get the other siblings (and a lot of the audience, from a glance in the tags of my gifsets) feeling protective and paternal about Five, but his age and experience also give the justifications for his many skills, his arrogance, in a way, and his ability to decimate a room full of people. It’s the very interesting and not new concept of someone dangerous with the appearance of something harmless, a child. This is also where Five’s singular outfit comes in. I know we like to clown on Five to get a new outfit, but I think what gets forgotten often is how effective this outfit is at making the viewer take him seriously. The preppy school uniform is the perfect encapsulation of the tension between old man in spirit and young teenager in appearance. The blazer, vest and especially the shirt and tie are quite formal, relatively grown up. They’re not something we, the audience, usually associate with a teenage boy wearing; it makes Five just a little bit more grown up. But there is also a reason characters in this show keep bringing up Five’s shorts and his socks, because those are not things that we associate with grown men wearing; they’re the unmistakably childish part of his school uniform. Take a moment and imagine Five wearing a hoodie or a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers; would that outfit work for him as well as the uniform does? Would he be able to command the same kind of respect or seriousness as a character? I don’t think so; the outfit is a lot more pivotal in making Five believable than a lot of people give it credit for.

Writing Nuance

The other big building block in not making Five incredibly insufferable is the writing. Objectively speaking, I think Five is the most well-written, and, more importantly, most coherently written character on the show (which does have to do with the fact that the show’s events are all sequential for him), and his arc and personality remain relatively intact over the course of the two seasons. More to the point, a giant part of what makes Five bearable as a character is that he is allowed to fail. He is written to have high highs and low lows, big victories through his skills and his intelligence, but also catastrophic failures and the freedom to be wrong. His superior intellect and skillset are not the be-all end-all of the plot or his character, just something that influences both. His inability for communication has not (yet) been used to fabricate a contrived misunderstanding that derails the plot and left all of us seething; instead, it’s a characteristic that makes him fail to reconnect with the people he loves. This is a bit simplified, as he does find common ground with Luther, for example, but in general, a lot of the rift between Five and his siblings is that they can’t relate to his traumas and he does not understand the depth of Reginald’s abuse, which is an interesting conflict worth exploring. Another thing that really works in Five’s favour is that he is definitely written to be mean and sarcastic, but it is never driven to the point of complete unlikability, and a lot of the time, the context makes it understandable why he reacts the way he does. Most of the sarcastic lines he gets are actually funny, that certainly helps, but in general, Five is a good example of a bearable character whose default personality is sharp and relatively cold, because it is balanced out with many moments of vulnerability. Delores is incredibly important for this in the first season, she is the main focus of Five’s humanising moments, and well-written as she totes the line between clearly being a coping mechanism for an extremely traumatised man and still coming across to the viewer as the human contact Five needs her to be. In the second season, the vulnerability is about his guilt for his siblings, it’s about Five connecting a little bit better to them. There’s also his relationship with the Commission and the Handler specifically – which honestly could be an essay on its own – that deserves a mention, because the Handler is why Five became the man he is, and this dynamic between creator and creation is explored in a very interesting way – their scenes are some of the most well-written in the entire show. And TUA never falls into the trap of making Five a hero, he is always morally ambiguous at best, and it just makes for an interesting, multi-faceted character, well-written character, and none of the characteristics that should make him unlikeable are allowed to take centre-stage for long enough to be defining on their own. I know a lot of people especially champion the scenes where Five goes apeshit, but without his more nuanced characterisation, if he was like that all the time, those scenes would not hit as hard.

Aidan Gallagher’s Performance is Underrated

But honestly, none of the above would matter that much if the Umbrella Academy didn’t luck out hard with the casting of Aidan Gallagher. I think what he achieves as an actor in this show is genuinely underappreciated. Like, the first season set out to cast six adults having to deal with various ramifications of childhood trauma, and a literal child that had to be able to act smart and wise beyond his years, seamlessly integrate into a family of adults while seeming like an adult, traumatised by the literal end of the world, AND had to be able to create the romantic chemistry of a thirty-year-long marriage with a lifeless department store doll. The only role I could think of to compare is Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire, where she plays a vampire child who, because she is undead, doesn’t age physically, but does mentally, so she’s 400 in a child’s body. And Kirsten Dunst had to do that for a two-hour movie. Five is a main character in a show that spans 20 episodes now. That’s insane, and it’s a risk. Five is a character that can’t be allowed to go wrong; if you don’t buy Five as a character, the entire first season loses believability. And they found someone who could do that not only convincingly, but also likeably. As I said, he is incredibly helped by the costuming department and the script, but Aidan Gallager’s Five has so much personality, he’s threatening and funny and charming and arrogant and heartbreaking. He has the range to be convincing in the quiet moments where Five’s humanity comes to show and in the moments where Five goes completely off the rails. Most child actors act with other children, but he is the only child in the main cast, and holds his own in scenes with adults not as a child, but as an adult on equal footing with the other adult characters. That’s not something to be taken for granted. But even apart from the fact that it’s a child actor who carries a lot of the plot and the drama of a series for adults, Aidan Gallagher’s portrayal of Five is also just so much fun. The comedic timing is on point, he has the dramatic chops for the serious scenes, the mannerisms and visual ticks add to the character rather than distract from him, and his line deliveries, paired with his physical acting, make Five arrogant and smug but never outright malicious and unlikeable. It’s just some terrific acting that really does justice to the character as he is written, but the writing would not be as strong if it wasn’t delivered and acted out the way Aidan Gallagher does. He is an incredible asset for this show.

Alright, onto concluding this rambling. If you made it this far, I commend you, and thank you for it. The point of all of this is that Five, as a character, could have been an unmitigated disaster of a TV character. He is overpowered, arrogant, uncommunicative and could so easily have been either unconvincing or completely unlikeable, but he turned out to be neither. It’s a combination of choices in the costume department, decisions in the writing room, and Aidan Gallagher’s acting skills that make the things that should make him obnoxious and annoying incredibly entertaining, and I hope you liked my long-winded exploration of these. Some nuance was lost along the way, but if I had not stopped myself, this would’ve become a full-blown thesis.

#thanks for the ask again #TUA #The Umbrella Academy #Five Hargreeves #tua s2 spoilers #my meta #i guess #Replies #Anonymous

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starrynite7114 · 4 years

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Two Weeks (Miguel Galindo)

A/N: Tomorrow is my final and I think I’ve reached the point of a mental breakdown that you’re just numb to it. But no matter, positive thoughts all around and hoping my brain isn’t so mean anymore. But due to this, I needed a much needed distraction and finished part one of my Miguel mini series. He may be a little OOC, but I hope you all enjoy this lovely work of mine.

Everything is you, Snapshots, Misconstrued, and two requests will be posted within the next two weeks.

Also may be adding Rio to my lovely writing list, we’ll see.

This is my brain on procrastination, please forgive me.

Love you all and I hope you lovelies are having an amazing week thus far!

Masterlist

Tagged list: @justahopelessssromantic : @ifoundmyhappythought : @carlaangel86 : @marvelmaree : @woahitslucyylu : @encounterthepast : @enamoured-x : @whyisgmora : @briana-mishell24 : @bribri-82 : @briannab1234 : @chibsytelford : @agirllovespasta : @twistnet : @everyhowlmarksthedead : @trulysuccubus : @jadert15 : @sammskellington : @cind-in-real-life : @claytoncardenasbabymama : @sadeyesgf : @thickemadame : @summertimesadnesswithadashofsass : @gemini0410 : @elcococruz : @samcrobae : @sesamepancakes : @iambabyharry : @blackmissfrizzle : @soamayansfangirl : @1-800-imagines : @phoenixhalliwell : @lady-pswrld : @dazzledamazon : @getyourcrayoncas : @fvckthisbxtchup : @lukealvxz : @scuzmunkie : @nakusaych9 : @danie1432 : @cocotheclown : @soaronmywings : @my-rosegold-soul : @buttercup812 : @itskiranbitch : @angelreyesgirl : @sheeshgivemeabreak : @vicmackeybullshxt : @strawberrywritings : @cherry-icetea : @losolvidad0s : @brownsugarcoffy : @courtrae89 : @blessedboo : @dark-twisted-and-mechanical-mind : @fariesandwanderlust : @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead : @xserenax-13 : @whatupitshuff : @aquamento : @justvnash : @maddie-georges : @itskiranbitch

If you would like to be added to the tag list, please leave a comment below or just message me!

CREDIT TO THE ORIGINAL GIF CREATOR!

You couldn’t do this, you were at wits end. You wanted nothing more than to throw your work phone away as it constantly rang, constantly interfered with your life, sanity, sleep, and did you already say sanity? Just in case, your sanity.

“If I ignore it, it never happened.” You looked at the clock and it was three in the morning, you had to be up in three hours to get ready for work to see this despicable man once more.

The ringing stopped, a sigh of relief overtaking your body. Your eyes closed and yet again, it fucking rang.

“FUCK YOU MIGUEL GALINDO.”

You took a deep breath, gathering what remained of your sanity.

“Hello Mr. Galindo, what can I do for you at three in the morning?”

His chuckle rang across the phone, aggravating you more. “Ooh, Mr. Galindo? I’m in trouble, rightfully so. I apologize for calling you so early in the morning, but I’m in a bit of a conundrum.”

“Miguel, I am not picking you up from Alejandra’s place.”

“I gave Nestor the night off.” He argued.

“I’m technically off too you asshole!” You were one of the few who didn’t fear Miguel. You knew of his capabilities, but you figured you were far too valuable.

“Yes, I am fully aware of that, your nights are sacred. But you know I rarely call you on nights.” He countered.

“Correct that statement.”

“Anymore.” He corrected himself.

“Miguel, why do you continue to meet this girl if you’re not interested in her?” Ever since his divorce with Emily two years ago, Miguel has been single and kept it that way. Which in hindsight was for the best. With the cartel, real estate, which he still headed with Emily, and the rebels, he had plenty of things to occupy his time. But you knew why he liked the causality of his relationship with Alejandra.

No strings attached.

No questions.

No commitments.

It fit his lifestyle.

“Because, I have needs and you know, she’s easy on the eyes.”

You begrudgingly got out of bed and made sure to sigh loudly. Miguel chuckled, and you just cussed his name in the three languages you knew.

“Stop cussing me out in your head. Are you coming to get me?”

“I get the day off.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Better cuddle up then.”

“Fine, but we’re having breakfast then you can have your day off.”

“No work talk during breakfast or the ride home.”

Miguel groaned. “Deal.”

===========

You sat across from Miguel at this diner in San Diego, your usual spot whenever you picked him up from Alejandra’s. Miguel rarely indulged himself or let his real self out due to his obligations as a cartel head. He had a reputation to maintain, his playful and joking nature was hardly in display. But whenever he let himself be free, it was easy to see why Emily fell for him.

You didn’t, but you could acknowledge why your asshole of a boss could be charming.

You dedicated ten years to Miguel. He taught you the ins and outs of business along with his illegal activities. If he was ever indicted, you knew you would be a target as well. Miguel always tried to keep you out of the cartel side of things, but that proved to be difficult.

Straight out of college, twenty-two years young with your English major in hand, you applied for Miguel’s assistant position. What was supposed to be an in between job before doing a Master’s program turned into ten years of unfulfillment. You learned much from Miguel. He forced you to learn how to become a business woman, to think like him. You were the brain that wasn’t attached to him.

But you had to walk away.

You were thirty-two years old, with nothing to your name. You wanted to be something. You couldn’t be his assistant forever. As much as he was a pain, you enjoyed working with Miguel, but you could still enjoy his friendship without working with him.

“Do you think I should involve myself in a relationship again? It doesn’t look good for my image if I remain unattached.” Miguel broke you out of your thoughts.

“True, but if you remain single, less people to worry about. Personal relationships in your line of work is hardly ideal.” This constitutes as business talk, but you’ll let it slide.

“You’re right, and this is why you’re my right hand.” Miguel knew that technically belonged to Marcus or even Nestor, but he never made a decision without your input. He was just used to it.

“I wanted to speak to you about something.”

“Go for it.” Miguel gave his full attention to her. “Are you finally going to confess your undying love for me?”

You know she liked playful Miguel, but when he was being this obnoxious, she liked hardened, cartel boss Miguel.

“Right, should I stab you now or later?” You rolled your eyes making Miguel laugh. “I’m going to look for a new secretary.”

“Sure, you need help?” Miguel hardly argued with you. He trusted your judgment after all.

“No, I’m resigning.”

===========

“She has to be in love with me.” Miguel paced back and forth in his office, a few hours after your breakfast.

Nestor watched his boss and closest friend, amused by his suggestion.

“Y/N?” It’s not that Nestor couldn’t see you falling for Miguel, but, that wasn’t it. “You’ve said it yourself that she’s far too bright to remain your assistant forever.”

“That was just insanity talk, of course I expect her to stay by my side.” Miguel stopped in front of Nestor. “She quit right after she picked me up from Alejandra’s. She hated picking me up from there and she never got along with Emily.”

“All circumstantial. You know she cherishes her sleep, most likely the reason she was annoyed. Second, Emily was always a bitch to her.” Emily never liked you since she thought you undermined her with Miguel, which was far from the truth. Nestor witnessed a majority of your fights and it was hardly pretty. “All circumstantial.”

“No, she’s jealous. I know it. No matter, I can get rid of Alejandra.”

Nestor shook his head. He knew this day would come, you spoke to him about it quite often recently. But he didn’t think it would be too soon. He also knew Miguel wouldn’t handle it well. It was hard for him to trust anyone and the fact the person he trusted most was going to leave?

Miguel was at the first stage, denial.

===========

You drove up the driveway of Miguel’s home the next morning, Nestor greeting you by your car.

“You had to drop that bombshell and take the day off?” Nestor shook his head. He loved Miguel, he did, but yesterday was full of theories and bullshit he didn’t want to partake in.

“Well if you’re didn’t take the night off then I could have told him later that morning.” You retorted, glaring at your friend.

“You’re punishing me for taking a personal day?”

“I’m not punishing you, I didn’t think he was going to go overboard with the theories.” Nestor texted you every fucking thing that Miguel had said. It went from you having a secret family, secret boyfriend to being in love with him, which was what he settled with.

“To be fair, I said it was all circumstantial.”

“And it is.” You handed your purse to Nestor. “I’m posting the job later and see if we get any candidates that are,”

You paused. “We’ll see if we can find people that are trustworthy.” It wasn’t about skills. It wasn’t about degrees. It was about being trustworthy.

“How can you even determine that?”

“I have good intuition.”

“Right, forgot, you're psychic.” He teased her.

“Fuck you,” you playfully pushed him.

Nestor opened the door for you and you walked in finding Marcus and Miguel sitting around in the living room.

“There she is,” Miguel greeted you, giving you a hug and kissing your cheek. “How are you?”

“Good,” you gave him an odd look. “You ready, we have a packed day today.”

All three men were looking at you and you gave them a questioning look.

“Am I missing something?”

“I got you something.” Miguel smiled, taking your hand in his. He led you through the house to the garage and before entering he requested for you to close your eyes. “If you got me a car, I swear to god.”

“Wait, why, did you not want a new car?” Miguel frowned. Materialistic items usually appeased women, it definitely kept Emily’s temper at bay when it was directed at him. But he should know how you were by now. Materialistic items rarely impressed you. He found it odd that the little things he did for you was what left the most impression. He got you a rose gold bracelet for your birthday and while you were thankful, he could tell it didn’t impress you much. He brought you lunch from your favorite restaurant, and it was like he gave you the world.

Why the fuck did he get you a damn car?

“I’m not Emily, Miguel, you can’t just wave a shiny thing in front of me and I’ll change my mind.” You crossed your arms across your chest. “Did you get me a car?”

“No,” he closed the door.

Nestor refrained from laughing while Marcus just chuckled.

“You already bought it, might as well let me see.” You nodded your head towards the door.

Miguel indulged you and opened the door. Your mouth dropped. “You got me a Range Rover?” It was your dream car, one that you were saving up for, and now you had it. But you weren’t staying. “As much as I want the car, it’s not going to work. I’ll be posting the job later on today.” You saw that Nestor closed the door as soon as you said that.

“This is ridiculous, why do you want to quit? Am I not compensating you enough?” Miguel was frustrated. He didn’t want you to leave. How could you leave? He compensated you well. Always made sure you were well taken care of and to top it off, you were basically the closest confidant he had. He trusted you with his life, there was no way he could find anyone he trusted as much as you.

“I told you, it’s for personal reasons.” You didn’t understand why you had to give him a reason. In any other job, personal reasons would suffice.

But this was different.

You knew change was not something Miguel was a fan of, he was meticulous and hardly deviated from his normal. He had a schedule and strictly followed it. When the plans deviated, it greatly irritated him, but you always found a way to soften the blow so he wasn’t inconvenienced.

“I think I warrant more than a generic answer.”

“Miguel, I’ve been your assistant for ten years now. It’s just time for me to move on professionally. I couldn’t possibly be your assistant forever.”

“Are you in love with me?”

He blurted it out so quickly that even he was surprised he did. Miguel hardly said anything without thinking of it, but you were an anomaly to him. He spoke before he thought of his words with you.

“No, absolutely not.” You laughed. “No offense, you’re a good looking guy, but I also know you, so no, I’m not interested.”

“Why not?” Miguel was slightly appalled by your rejection of the idea of being in love with him. Was he not worthy? He was a catch if he said so himself.

“What? What do you mean why not? I’m not interested, simple as that.” You could tell your rejection affected Miguel. Not everyone fell to his feet, especially not you. “Look, now that we got that theory out of the way, want to try another? Why is it so hard to believe I just want a better career?”

“I can provide that for you.”

“Miguel, what can I possibly do in your organization that would be a promotion? I swear to god, if you say executive assistant.”

“Come on querida, give me more credit than that.” Miguel chuckled. “You can handle the developmental projects around Santo Padre. You could be my development manager.”

“No, absolutely not, I would have to work with Emily. She already thinks we're sleeping together, the last thing I want to do is deal with Emily.”

“Y/N, come on, I’m sure I can find something in my organization that can fulfill this desire you have.” Miguel was not comfortable with the thought of losing you. He wasn’t willing to accept it.

“Miguel, we have to move on some time, you’ll be fine. I will find the most eligible candidate for this job. I promise.” You gave him a hug.

You needed to do this. You couldn’t stay in this job forever, you had to move on.

“Hand them over.”

“What?”

You stuck your hand out. “You got me the car, it would be rude to not take it.”

===========

“She’s in love with me, it's the only logical reason.” Miguel was sitting down on the couch by the pool, nursing the whiskey in his hand.

“Did she not say she wasn’t?” Nestor wasn’t sure why they were talking about this again when Miguel already spoke to you.

“She’s hiding it.”

“Look, I’m going to ask this at the risk of being killed by you, but out of pure curiosity, are you hoping she’s in love with you so you can confess some deep secret you’ve kept from her?”

“No, absolutely not, I’m not interested in her, but if it keeps her by my side, I can be with her.”

Nestor gave Miguel an incredulous look, chuckling at his friend’s terrible idea. Though, he couldn’t help, but play Devil’s Advocate.

“You know what, you should pursue her.”

“Now you see what I’m seeing. She wouldn’t be able to say no to me. I know her like the back of my palm.”

Nestor had to refrain from chuckling. This was going to be a fun two weeks.

#miguel galindo #miguel galindo fanfiction #miguel galindo imagine #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc fic #mayans mc fanfic

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idratherdreamofjune · 3 years

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@sunheart wrote in her tags on another post:

Genuinely hate being alive ... I completely understand on so many levels why you would hate being a woman. Its horrible. And then as a Christian there's this whole really ugly dynamic- that i know is probably a lie i just haven't worked out how yet- that we're the 2nd best. The afterthought. The mediocre option. Almost everything in life men are better at and it's hard to believe it's just cultural- math logic leadership writing cooking writing physical activities on and on, and women are good at being Nice :) Which ok i like being nice but it's like that's my only option I feel like any other impact i might wish to have upon the world will be paltry in comparison to what i could do if only i was a man. I feel incompetent. Irrational. Emotional. Obnoxious. I feel like I'm supposed to be a plaything for the beings that were *actually* created to be in harmony with God like I'm not supposed to have a connection with God- only through my husband which what does that make me as a single childless bitch? I can't even fulfill the main point of my existence. Jesus interacted with women but did he care about them like he did the men? David and John were named his favorites not Deborah or Hannah. And like i said i'm sure none of that's true but i don't know how and it feels awful. hate it.

Hopefully others have shared encouragement on this already, but just in case I wanted to give some thoughts. Please know that if I sound riled at all (and I’m going to try to avoid that) I’m not upset at anyone who feels this way but am deeply upset by the enemy’s lies that so many are hurt by. As a younger believer I did struggle with some of these questions myself, and for a long time it was difficult to reconcile these concerns with the promises that God loves me.

Your instincts are right - it is a lie that women are second best. And before I go any further let me also agree that yes, we are physically weaker than men and have other weaknesses too. But since when has weakness meant that someone is any way “less than” others? Men have weaknesses too, just different ones. That’s the nature of humanity: every person is a mixed bag of strengths and weaknesses. I’ve never heard before that men are better at cooking?? My dad literally struggles to cook a hotdog in the microwave and has never touched a grill in his life. And okay men may (possibly, not sure on this one either) be inherently better at math, but which gender is drastically underrepresented in the nursing field? I suspect there are fewer male teachers, too, though not as huge a disparity. Men are more prone to recklessness and violence - part of the reason married men live longer (gotta get that stable influence). Again yes men are physically stronger but have you watched ballet dancers (oooh i mean ballerinas, sorry there’re so few ballerinos that I forgot to differentiate) or female gymnasts? Nothing “less than” there! The famous Proverbs 31 woman is a good insight into Biblical support of female abilities and value: “strength and dignity are her clothing”, “she opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” “Let her works praise her in the gates.” (The gates were essentially the city hall or forum of ancient Israel.)

Going back to the beginning - women were created second, true. But did God not know His own plan? He was always going to create women. And the really amazing thing that I learned in the last couple of years is that, when God says He’s going to make Adam “a helper” (Hebrew ”ezer”), that’s the same word that is used to describe God’s actions for His people throughout the Old Testament: - Exodus 18:4 “The God of my father was my help.” - 1 Samuel 7:12 “Ebenezer” means “rock of help” and is a memorial of Yaweh’s help. - Psalm 30:10 “Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me! O Lord, be my helper!” - Psalm 115:11 “You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord, He is their help and their shield” - Psalm 121:2 “My help comes from the Lord” - Hosea 13:9 “‘You are against Me, against your helper.’“

It is a common word for “help” used in other settings, yes, but the fact that it’s used of God illustrates that this is no poor or second-rate role. Helping - aiding - supporting - incredibly important! In fact this article I just found puts it this way:

In two cases it refers to the first woman, Eve, in Genesis 2. Three times it refers to powerful nations Israel called on for help when besieged. In the sixteen remaining cases the word refers to God as our help. He is the one who comes alongside us in our helplessness. That's the meaning of ezer. Because God is not subordinate to his creatures, any idea that an ezer-helper is inferior is untenable. In his book Man and Woman: One in Christ, Philip Payne puts it this way: "The noun used here [ezer] throughout the Old Testament does not suggest 'helper' as in 'servant,' but help, savior, rescuer, protector.'

Moving on to the New Testament, and the topic of John, who is known as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. John is the one who wrote the book which tells us that (under the direction of the Holy Spirit, yes) and he only uses that wording as a title, in place of his name. Nowhere does it say he was the favorite disciple, or even most loved, just that he was loved. To me it seems more as if John is saying “Jesus loved me! Can you believe it?!” It has a feeling of awe and thankfulness as opposed to superiority.

Getting into marriage specifically, I do believe that a wife should be under the headship of her husband ...mainly in the sense of letting him have the last word on decisions and plans. This is in part due to differing areas of strength, and in part because in some situations it’s better to have a family leader - most groups of humans need a leader, and following an assigned (or picked) leader does not make one inferior. All that being said, a wife should be able to provide input, advice, and feedback to her husband, who should take into strong consideration his wife’s needs, insights, and concerns (Ephesians 5:25-29).

The lie that women cannot be connected to God outside of their husband is refuted not only by all the vibrantly faithful single or windowed Christian ladies of history (Amy Carmichael, Gladys Aylward, Mary Slessor, and Elisabeth Elliot are some of my favorites) but also Scripture itself. When Christ spoke with the divorced Samaritan woman the disciples were shocked not because she was a Samaritan but because she was a woman (John 4:27; she was shocked on both counts - John 4:9) - I hope they got used to it because Jesus spoke with women a lot. Despite the culture of the time, Jesus clearly had very warm and caring direct relationships with Martha and Mary, Mary Magdalene, and other women. Anna the Prophetess in the temple had been widowed for decades and was serving God alone “night and day” (Luke 2:37). Incredibly, in a culture where women were looked down upon, the Lord chose women to be the first to discover the empty tomb, and Mary Magdalene to be the first to see the risen Christ! I love that passage so much (John 20:11-18).

Another example is when Jesus stopped on His way to heal Jairus’ daughter (i.e. He put aside a powerful man’s urgent request) to lovingly interact with the woman who’d suffered bleeding for years - a terribly personal and female problem (Mark 5:21-35).

To try to wrap up, I’ll return to David in the OT, who was a “man after God’s own heart”. But again, it doesn’t say that he was actually a favorite - it does say David was chosen by God though, to lead Israel and establish the family from which Jesus would ultimately come. You know who else was chosen? Esther - “for such a time as this”. Once she realizes the task she must complete, she tells Mordecai how it’s going to go, and “Mordecai then went away and did everything Esther had ordered him.” Esther gets a book named after her and is remembered in the holiday of Purim to this day. Also note that Esther was married to an unbeliever. Likewise Ruth was chosen, as a young foreign widow, to be part of the Messiah’s kingly line. As an aside, my favorite thing about Ruth’s story (besides all the faith and beauty of it) is the simultaneous deep respect and protectiveness Boaz shows towards her (okay enough mush). Anyhow what it comes down to is that God chooses and loves both men and women, and both have a place (singly and married) in His plans and kingdom. See also Galatians 3:28 “ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

This post has all over the place, and I probably forgot a bunch of things I wanted to add (if anything else comes to mind I’ll add it later), but I hope it’s been encouraging. Yes I’ve struggled with some aspects of how women are portrayed in the Bible, but what I shared above, plus the love and blessings I’ve known as a single woman are more than enough evidence that we are known and loved. If anything is unclear or anyone has any questions please speak out/send an ask! Anon asks are on too. Also if anyone wants to add or amend anything do so without hesitation!!

#marriage #women in the Bible #Book of Ruth #Book of Esther #singleness #Scripture #lies

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lilmissbacon · 4 years

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Why Jelsa is Ridiculously Stupid

Let me start off by saying that the idea of this ship was cute at first, I have nothing against it. In fact I have a few ships myself that have nothing to back them up. I am not making this to convince people to be anti, stop the ship itself, or spread any form of hate what so ever.

But this Jelsa fandom has gone too far. And when I say "jelsa shippers," of course I don't mean ALL of them, just about 80% of them.

In fact, I'm very appreciative of the few jelsa shippers who don't go around harassing others because "jelsa is life."

Also, allow me to correct you in saying that I'm not a jelsa hater, I'm a jelsa loather. There's a difference. Most jelsa haters, hate jelsa for the sake of hating it.

I genuinely hate it.

And don't go commenting about, "how do you know you don't like it if you've never tried it?" Because you see, that's where you're wrong. I did used to ship it, when I was 11. I was a child, I was new to the internet, I didn't know better. But I do now!

I am writing this so that some who may not know, will now understand why jelsa is bad and because I need to get all of this out of my system. I am slowly dieing inside.

First; I'm gonna go into how all the excuses to ship this are pointless. Next, I'll talk about just how these two would never work out as a couple. Then, will be what the toxicity has done to not just to the ship itself, but to the big four as well. And finally, I'll go into how uncreative the shippers are and just what horrible/stupid things they've done and are still doing.

1) Excuses are Pointless

Excuse #1: They have the same powers.

...Yeah, that's like saying you ship Lavagirl (Sharboy and Lavagirl) and Bolin (LoK) because they can both control lava. That's not a valid reason to ship anyone. There needs to be actual substance and I'll only say that once because that sentence applies to every excuse here.

Excuse #2: They look alike

🤦🤦🤦 First of all: that's also like saying you ship Tiana (Princess and the Frog) and Frozone (The Incredibles) because they're both black. Second of all: no they don't. It may be because I'm an artist so I notice small details, but here's how it is; Jack's hair is white, Elsa's is platinum blonde. Jack has a square chin, Elsa has a round face. Jack is much paler! THEIR EYES AREN'T EVEN THE SAME SHADE OF BLUE!!! Your excuse is null and void. Even so, if characters do look alike, then they're most likely to be related. Especially in animation.

Excuse #3: Jack can teach Elsa to have fun and Elsa can teach Jack to be serious

This clearly proves the point that jelsa shippers don't know these characters. The job of teaching Elsa how to be social and have fun is already taken by Anna. So if anything, Elsa will see Jack as a younger brother. And Jack wouldn't have been chosen to take on such a responsibility of guardianship if he didn't know when to quit. I don't know what it is about playful characters that make people think they're obnoxious. Jack is an immortal teenager with the heart of a child, that's what makes him a good guardian. But he's been alive for over 300 years, he bound to have the mind capacity of an adult and he does know better. He doesn't play when he's in battle, he's dead serious.

Excuse #4: They understand each other because they were both isolated for a long time

I don't know where you come from but people don't really "bond" over their trauma. Infact, if anything, that would make the relationship more unstable. Plus, Elsa isolated herself for 13 years because she was afraid of her powers. Jack was forced into isolation for 300 years! He has never been afraid of his powers and Elsa could still be seen throughout the day by parents and servants. They would never be able understand what the other went through.

Excuse #5: They both have a sister they love

SO WHAT?! At least half of the population have sisters. Simple as that. It's a horrible excuse.

Excuse #6: They both have an enemy in fear

Bruh, almost every fictional character has to deal with their fears, literal or mental. It's not at all unique to these two.

Excuse #7: Jack can teach Elsa to control her powers

She already has control of them by the end of the movie. And even if you mean prier to that, the reason she couldn't control them was because she feared them. I doubt that even if she could see him and if he showed her his powers, she's be irrational, believing that their powers were different.

Excuse #8: William Joyce says he ships it

Really, you're going to base the possibility of a ship because the writer of the 'books' that "inspired" rotg says he likes it. First: the books and movie are not the same worlds. Two: he most likely stated this in order for jelsa shippers to shut up to him about it. And three: his own canon with the books is a mess as it is. With him adding a bunch on random/unnecessary details on twitter that have no relevance or reference in the books. Even if he does ship it, everything that's going on with Jack's character in the books is weird enough as it is. Plus he's physically 14 in the books. I know age doesn't really matter but Elsa would definitely feel weird about dating someone who looks so young when she's currently 24 by the second movie.

Excuse #9: They could've met before the events of rotg

Not a reason to ship them but whatever 🙄 Even if their stories were based in the same world (which it isn't), Elsa never would've believed in fairy tales. Having to grow up so soon and all. She believes in magic, of course, but you need to believe in the individuals themselves in order to see them. Plus it is very clear in rotg that Jamie is Jack's first believer.

Excuse #10: Now that Frozen 2 is out, they are both spirits who followed the memories of their loved ones. They can live forever together!

Once AGAIN, how does this factor to them being a good couple? Plus the title of spirit is different in the Frozen-verse than the Guardian-verse. Guardian-verse; they are un-aging beings who keep the entire world in balance. Frozen-verse; never confirmed to be immortal (especially since 3 out of 5 spirits are inanimate objects), magical things that keep a single forest secure. The only reason the elements needed a fifth spirit was most likely because the one before Elsa died of old age. Plus the idea of Elsa outliving Anna goes against the theme of sisterly love that both movies strive on. This can be changed in fanfiction but I hate how people lie about her mortality for an excuse to ship.

Excuse #11: They're both single

So what? People ship characters who aren't single with other characters all the time. That's not a reason to ship them. Especially since your statement is false because Tooth is Jack's canon love interest.

It is true that jelsa haters will give reasons to not ship that I necessarily don't agree with.

•Like the age gap — Jack has the mental capacity of an adult, as I've said before. He's smart enough to make his own choices.

•Elsa not being immortal — that doesn't mean they can't still date, even if he outlives her. Plus you can change that in fanfiction.

•They come from different studios and will never be canon — Again, this is fanfiction, we can do whatever we want.

•Elsa is independent and shipping her with someone takes her independence away — for one: most of the world is bound to find love at some point in time. I would imagine that Elsa would want to find love like her sister. Two: Mulan, Pocahontas and Jasmine are very independent and they all still ended up with men. Three: she's not that independent to begin with. Independence isn't relationship status, it's your ability to make it on your own and Elsa is clearly, very dependant on Anna and her safety. Which is actually what pushes her to being a bad sister in Frozen 2. In fact it is because they made her more 'independant' in the sequel that Elsa clearly, no longer loves Anna as much as Anna loves her (you can check out Watso Videos' video on YouTube about how Elsa is a bad sister bc I'm not gonna go into it here).

My god that was ALL just part one. This is gonna take forever 😰

2) How they would never work out

For Elsa, she needs someone who is calm and collected. A rock for her to stand on when she's being irrational. Possibly even someone who is very stoic and straight to the point but with enough sense of humor to lighten the mood. And now that I'm thinking about it, Honeymaren fits that description to a tee. I'm not one to push LGBT+ in anyone's face, but I'm not gonna judge ships on characters assumed sexualities either. Even though Honeymaren didn't have much screen time, her personality still showed through and Elsamaren could very well work.

Jack on the other hand needs someone who would be able to keep up with his playful nature as well as be a rock for him to stand on when he's emotional. Tooth is a good suitor even though I don't really ship it myself. Hiccup, Merida and Rapunzel could also fit in this description.

They don't have the ability to be each other's rocks. They can't be stable if they both need someone to keep them so. If they were to date, the relationship would crumble before it even began.

Plus Jack has to be a guardian and there are a lot of fanfics that go into this idea of Jack being the king of Arendalle? First off: I'm fairly certain that you can't marry into royalty to become king. At least in the real world. Second: Jack wouldn't be able to handle that responsibility with him already being a guardian. And he can't just leave guardianship either, it was what he always was and was ment to be. And Elsa has the responsibility of keeping a magical forest in check, she can't leave to become a guardian.

3) The Toxicity

Oh my God! The fanfiction! As I usually say, you can do whatever you want in fanfiction. But if you have to butcher all the characters so much in EVERY fanfic in order to make the ship work, then there's clearly something wrong here! In every fanfic I've ever seen, the characters are so out of character it's insane. Not just Jack and Elsa, every character.

Olaf for example, is practically in love with Jack first meeting, in every fanfic. If he were to actually meet Jack, he would be apprehensive of him.

It's horrifying in not only that, but jelsa shippers will add Rapunzel a lot, just in spite of Jackunzel. They turn Rapunzel into a needy ex-girlfriend of Jack's when in reality, she's a very sweet and kind soul. Even if she and Jack had dated, they would've split on good terms and stayed friends after. There have also been cases where they do the same but with Tooth. Sometimes even both and it's honestly sick.

And let's talk about the sexism as well HAHA! I swear to God, they will rewrite Frozen but where Jack will save Elsa instead of Anna. They write Elsa as a hormonal teenage girl who falls in love with Jack within seconds.

This is from an actual jelsa shipper, my dude. WTF!!! They make Jack super dominant as well as a douche who cheats on Elsa half the time. Jack is not that dominant, he's a very emotional guy. And he'd be the most faithful boyfriend on the planet. He was alone for 300 years! If anything, he'd be clingy but not too clingy because he also understands personal space.

And if you like angsty fanfiction where a character cheats on the other, there are literally no fanfics where Elsa cheats on Jack. As if a woman couldn't possibly cheat. This is very sexist towards men and women and is toxic as hell.

If anything, Elsa would cheat on Jack, she's not exactly trustworthy in keeping promises or being loyal.

I swear, half of the jelsa shippers has never even seen rotg and just go by what they read in others fanfiction.

Jelsa shippers have gotten so bad about this ship that they've low-key harassed people for not shipping it, as well as start shipping wars within the big four fandom. That's the reason the fandom truly shrunk after 2013. I've seen posts about people admitting to leaving the fandom because it got so bad.

4) The Shippers

Jelsa shippers have literally threatened lives, not just to other fans but even to the creators of the movies. Literally threatening them into making the ship canon. They've made patitions to make it canon as if that would work. They've even harassed a lot of recent shippers to Elsamaren because "jelsa is canon."

Oh look at that, they're homophobic too...

...

... That's great 🙃

Isn't it a bigger sin to love a celestial being though? Therefore the fact that you –as a toxic christian– ship Elsa with a spirit it worse.

THEY'RE DELUSIONAL!!! So many of them have shipped jelsa so long that legit think it's canon!

Not only all that mess but there are literally more jelsa games on the internet then there are Merida games. I'm specifying this for personal reasons (aka Merida is my fave Disney princess)

And let's continue on with what really aggravates me as an artist. Jelsa shippers, stealing artwork, mostly from Jackunzel. This is not just a rumor, it's very much real.

And it doesn't help when all of their actual original fanart is just them taking scenes from Frozen and adding Jack. Then to add more salt on the wound is that almost all the fanfiction is the same, whether it'd be based during Frozen, rotg or in a highschool au.

There's literally nothing original about or going on with this ship, even after Frozen 2 came out, the shippers and fanfiction haven't changed. If anything it made the shippers spike up again.

The only thing that could say is original about jelsa is the frost daughter fanon. Oh boy! What we have to unpack here.

This is something that I recently heard about...

...

I am mortified.

Frost daughters is this little thing that jelsa shippers came up with, believing Jack and Elsa (if they could get pregnant) would have nothing but girls. What's scary about it is they're designs. Like they're trying to be original... But it's not really going great.

Most of them are just young!Elsa copies, some are edits of Elsa with Jack's hair color.

For example:

This is fine, this follows genetrical rules. I'm fine with this.

But what has me low-key petrified are some of the other designs.

Like... WTF IS ALL OF THIS!!! Where are this colors coming from?!! I don't understand 😭 You can see in the screen shots that these are literally titled as daughters of jelsa.

The white haired ones are fine. The ginger is understandable. Got it from Elsa's dad's genes. That's okay. A few are wearing pink? They can wear what ever they want. But wtf I'd going on with Nevada? Why is she black? Jack and Elsa the pastiest of white! And you cannot tell me that she got it from Elsa's mom because this was made BEFORE Frozen 2 and her mother is still white as an adult.

Where tf does the blue and pink hair come from? None of these make sense!

I want to kill myself, just looking at these!

That's gonna be the end of this rant

Now I'll say it again, I really have nothing against the ship itself. I too have casual ships that make no sense. But with ALL the fanfiction and fanart being so unoriginal and most jelsa shippers low-key being dangerous, it's hard for me respect people's opinions about it.

I try, trust me, I do! But it's become so murky in my brain that I can't tell the difference anymore and I'm also just not a fan of Elsa's character in general. And I like ships that actually make sense.

And being that I'm an equalist... it's really hard for me to look at this stuff and not get pissed off. I'm sorry if all of this comes off as aggressive because it kinda is.

I'm just very passionate, okay?

I hope you understand where I'm coming from. None of the pictures I used are mine. And I hope you have a good day?

#anti jelsa #antijelsa #jack frost #anti elsa #DreamWorks #disney #ships #hate jelsa #the big five

162 notes · View notes

mxtcha-tea · 3 years

Text

Ruby Chocolate.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Neither bitter, milky or sweet, but a tension of fresh berry fruitiness; 47.3% cocoa solids; doesn’t have a definite trait but rather seen as mysterious and unique.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷summary; looking for lost souls with the laziest person in campus is probably the dumbest idea your homeroom teacher can think of, or is it?

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷genre; one-sided enemies to lover, brief mentions of the afterlife and concept of souls and ghouls (non of it are true and is for plot purpose only), fluff and crack all mixed together at some point, slight angst but not too sed, dark academia au, reader being in denial that they love Suna, slight college au vibes but dark academia theme of course, [if there’s anything else I forgot to add, feel free to remind me :)]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷word count; 10k+ [of confusion]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷featuring; suna rintarou + gn!reader [they/them pronouns] [If they’re any parts that I miss, remind me mkay? :)]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷chef note; AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I don’t know if I like it, my brain kept saying pog at it i mean, sdksdhsk, just read it all by yourself :’) also I’m gonna let you all figure out the timestamps for each section break ;)

“I refuse,”

Those words left your mouth in an instant before the teacher could even finish her sentences. The person next to you took a glance at you before briefly shrugging. Your homeroom teacher looks between you and the male with a frown on her face,

“Don’t be like that [y/n], it’s only for a week. If you don’t have any reports about it, then we’ll get the higher grounds to deal with the case,”

“That’s, not the problem here, Miss Mochizuki. The ACTUAL problem that I have for this case though,”

You turned your head and glared slightly at the almost too familiar, fox-like eyes person with his hands messily tucked inside his jacket, “Is because he’s tagging along with me,”

Suna Rintarou.

One of the, no, the laziest person on the whole campus, might be even the entire land. There are a lot of reasons why you hated him. Suna’s always late to class and doesn’t even acknowledge the teacher nagging at him.

He always eats and sleeps in class whenever he can, not to mention that he’s absolutely irresponsible. You have a hard time trying to study, paying attention to what the teachers are saying with his figure draping over his desk from the corner of your eyes.

Or the loud and obnoxious sounds of him eating the chips he sneaked in. It’s driving you crazy every time, but that’s only the minor reasons.

The real reason you hold a grudge on this immature ‘Tibetan Sand Fox’ is because of that one freshman memory you had with him. Back when autumn already ended, you rolled onto the kingdom’s academies to pursue your career. But this man…

He really had to destroy your first impression in front of the whole academy. You’re on your way to go to your classroom to prepare for the ice breaking session, looking calm as ever.

Unlike this guy, he’s rushing to put his coat on and looks like he’s late for something. Suna at first glance, he looks like a pretty decent person and you’re going to admit that you did find him attractive at first.

The twinkling lights coming from his enchanting yellow irises and the mere look of his soft dark brown hair fits perfectly well with him. That’s what you thought before, until he bumped into you without looking and spilled the coffee in his hands to your shirt.

It stained the white material so badly and left a big spot right on your chest. Both of your eyes widened at that and caught each other’s eyes,

“Sorry,”

That was the last thing and only thing he said before walking away, leaving you to deal with the embarrassment alone. The surrounding students watched you with pity and whispered to each other rather than helping you clean up.

You can definitely feel your cheeks heating at the stares you’re getting, biting the insides of your mouth before quickly picking up the coffee lid that fell down from Suna’s cup and walking away to find the bathroom.

What’s even worse after that is you didn’t know where the bathroom is so you had to ask the students around, while still having the stain on your shirt.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for at least one of them to tell you the direction, giving you a nod of pity because of your condition now. You nodded at them back before speed walking towards the bathroom with your hand covering your face in humiliation.

At least you have spare clothes inside your bag and then after changing, you went on your way as if nothing ever happened before. But the memory still stuck inside your head like a magnet.

Now, you’re standing there with him besides you, because you got called by your homeroom teacher to ask you two for a favor.

From what she said, the lost souls from section 5 escaped and are now roaming the old academy’s library. And she had requested both you and Suna to find all 10 of them. Together.

Albeit knowing your situation with the male, she still pestered you to go with him as a ‘bonding’ moment to ease up the tension between you two. It annoys you, but Suna doesn’t seem to even care about it.

“I’d asked some other students from your class but they declined, and I can’t ask for your seniors because they’re preparing for an exam next month,”

You slightly massaged your temple in frustration, shutting your eyes while you’re at it. You can feel Suna’s stare creating a hole at the back of your head. You don’t really know what he’s thinking since you’re not a mind reader, but you can already tell that he’s looking at you as if you’re a fool in distress.

A groan escaped your lips before opening your eyes again and stare into Miss Mochizuki's eyes with a bored expression, “Fine,”

“I’ll do it,”

You can hear a slight cough coming from your left as you turn your head once again at the fox, “Correction, we’ll do it,”

His pupils shifted from you to your teacher while nodding a little. She clapped her hands in relief, the usual smile she has returning to her face, “Thank goodness, I hope you two stand by your statement and I better see your faces in the dining hall tomorrow,”

Before you can even respond, he cuts you off. Great, “No problem, and you can count on us of course,”

You scoffed, more like you’re the only one doing all the jobs. You nodded at your teacher for the last time before you turned on your heel and walked away.

The sounds of the footsteps behind you are getting louder and louder the more you try to speed walk back to your dorm. You stopped in your tracks and so did the footsteps of a certain person.

A glance was brought to Suna’s view before you fully turned your body to face him, slouching slightly with his terrible figure, “What do you want?”

“Aren’t we like, you know, supposed to find out how to catch these so called ‘souls’,”

“They already thought us how in the class session just a week ago,”

He tilted his head slightly, rubbing the back of his neck, “I didn’t hear what the teach says,”

Of course. You scowled at him before looking away, “Well, you can learn it again all by yourself before tomorrow comes-”

Before you can even walk away again, he got a hold of your wrist and spun you around to face him. His eyes stares into yours for a slight second before he opened his mouth,

“You know that I have trouble studying alone, so I need your help to teach me about these souls things or whatever,” “And why would I?”

You yanked your hand away from his grip, rubbing your wrist slightly. Suna sighed,

“Look, I may not know a lot about this, but catching one of ’em seemed like a tough job for only one person to handle, isn’t it?”

No responses from you, but you didn’t seem to deny it by the look on your face, so he continued,

“If you can teach me how to catch these souls back to where they belong, it would’ve been easier and you don’t have to spend your precious time on me for too long,”

As much as you hate to admit it, he has a point. Suna always knew about your hatred towards him, whether it’s from your cold stares at him to you brushing him off every time he approaches you to ask a question.

It’s pretty obvious, since you always avoid him no matter what. He doesn’t take it to heart cause he had experienced it when he was a kid. But at some point, those indifferent you have towards him felt slightly painful.

As if he doesn’t really like it that you hate him, or the fact that he looks up to you. How can anyone not?

You’re enchantingly alluring not to mention one of the top students in his year. You never fail any tests and seem like a people magnet, always talking to everyone you come across to.

He felt small around you and to be paired in a case together? He thought you can just stomp on him like he’s nothing.

But, it’s a great opportunity too. Like what Miss Mochizuki said, it could be a bonding moment for the two of you. And for him to prove you that he’s not a bad person like what you see him to be.

Suna can feel his heart beating a million times an hour, locked in your unwavering stare before you shake your head, “After lunch break, we’re going to the library,”

He blinked in surprise and before he can react, you started walking away but stopped again, standing there for a second,

“Don’t be late,”

That’s the last thing you said before leaving him dumbfounded on his spot. He watches your figure fade away from his vision as he sighed. A small smile twitched upon his facial features,

“Can’t promise that,”

“This simpleton, I swear to god,”

You tapped your foot with impatience, looking at both your left and right trying to find the slouching figure of Suna Rintarou but he still hasn't come even after 13 minutes of you waiting inside the library.

The people inside quivers a bit at the dark aura radiating from you and literally anyone from a 5 miles distance can certainly feel it.

A chuckle can be heard besides you as you turn your head around to see none other than your friend from the same classroom,

“Still waiting huh?”

“That’s the problem here, Keiji! He’s so irresponsible with whatever task was given. I told him to arrive after lunch break and yet, that fool still haven’t show his head anywhere,”

You ranted to him before going back to tapping your foot while having your arms crossed, huffing frustratedly. Akaashi Keiji, who is also one of the top students of the academy and your closest friend in the classroom,

“I think I saw him still being in the dining hall, talking with his friends from the other class,”

“HE IS?!”

Akaashi flinched at your sudden outburst, you realized what you had done and mumbled an apology before looking away. The male sighed, a small smile appearing on his face, “You shouldn’t go hard on him. I mean, this is the first time he had ever agreed to study,”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?” you caught his eyes, showing a small glint of mischief, “What I’m saying is that Rintarou always decline my offer to have a study session with him,”

“Yeah, I know that it’s not surprising that he declined it since he’s not the type to study as you can tell. But what’s bizarre is that Rintarou asked you to tutor him without a second thought when the case was brought to you two, and without hesitating. Don’t you find that weird?”

You shrugged, “It’s good that he got that inside his head but to be honestly, it is kind of weird. Also, why did you even offer to tutor him in the first place, Keiji?”

The ravenette chuckled slightly, turning his head around to look back at you, “Well, did you actually know that-”

And before he can finish his sentences, the tall brunette that you had been waiting for arrived in front of you. Both you and Akaashi stopped your conversation to look at his panting form, probably from the running he did.

Suna quickly put his head up and looks between you and Akaashi before opening his mouth, “Hey,”

Without even hesitating you aggressively pull his collar shirt and drags him inside the library, nagging him for being late,

“You’re late, I told you not to but you didn’t listen to me and decided to hang out with your friends at the dining hall,”

“What, how did you know that I was there?”

“Don’t change the subject,”

“Geez fine, also i’m not really that late,”

“I’ve waited for 13 minutes,”

“Doesn’t seem too long for me,”

“Just go grab a book so that we can start already,”

“Yes, ma’am,”

Akaashi watches you walk away with the tall lad before snickering to himself, going back to finding another book to read.

You slam the book down as you can see the male’s figure flinched at your action from the corner of your eyes. You did nothing but give him a cold side eye, sighing and proceed to open the book.

Suna watches you flip through the pages, brushing your thumb on the title every second to check the words before finally finding the subject you’re looking for.

You slide the book to him to show the page you’re in, “Here it is. Go read it by yourself,”

The male looks at the book, then at you and then back to the book. He held onto the cover and scanned the words one by one. After reading for a minimum of 6 words, he puts the book down.

You confusedly look at him, “Why did you stop reading?”

“Too many words,” he can hear you sighing for the nth time before the pages of the book are squeezed up to his face, “There’s no way you can just catch the souls without reading what they are, just read it! It’s not that hard,”

“Pfft, yes it is. I don’t even like to read books in the first place,” both of you struggled with each other, him trying to push the book away from his face while you’re trying to smack on it.

He finally got a good hold on it and put it down back on the table, “I already told you that reading is no good for me, I literally can’t learn anything by just looking at words,”

You glared at him with a black aura coming from you. Suna shivers at that, sweat dropping before putting both of his hands up to show mercy. Your eyes then turn back to its original annoyed look as you rest your forehead on top of your palm.

His eyes stare at your figure, blinking a few times, “You know, you can just properly tutor me on how these souls work, explaining it or something,”

Suna flinched when you shot your head up and directly turn your pupils at him, “Yeah, sure, I don’t mind,”

But he did certainly saw you rolling your eyes, taking the book in front of him and scanned the sentences for only a few seconds before putting your eyes back at him,

“Do you have a notebook and a pen with you?”

“Am I seeing this right?”

Akaashi turned his head to his senior, resting his arm over the table he’s sitting at. Konoha stares at both of you and Suna’s figure talking about the subject in hand, and surprisingly enough, the brunette even has the energy to write what you’re explaining to him.

“Is the infamous Suna Rintarou is actually studying with the person who hated him the most?” “We live in a weird world, Konoha. Maybe this is god’s work to get them to be nice with each other,”

Konoha snickered before turning his head at a certain owl like person and after a few minutes, his face contorted into an annoyed look,

“Bokuto, how long are you going to pick a book??”

“Sorry! Wait, I think I found one!”

“Well, then hurry up,”

“No need to rush me out, I got this!”

A chorus of ‘shhh’ filled in the room as Bokuto sheepishly mumbled an apology before quickly grabbing the book. Akaashi sighed while Konoha shakes his head at his classmate’s antics.

Suna tapped his pen onto his notebook, filled with words that seemed like only he can understand and a few doodles, looking back at you explaining the concept of souls to him,

“Now you know what souls are?” The male nodded, briefly taking a glance at his notebook again,

“These souls are basically dead people from the past that didn’t make it through the barrier between this world and the afterlife. They’re harmless so it won’t be a problem for people to encounter them,”

You snap your fingers at his response, “Correct, and are souls and ghouls the same thing?” You asked again, “No, not at all,”

“A ghoul is more like an entity that robs graves and feeds on corpse, they’re pretty harmful so hafta avoid ‘em at all cost,”

A hum of affirmation and nod was sent his way as he sighs in relief, finally understanding the concept. And thought to himself, that you’re a pretty good tutor, not that he’ll admit it in front of your face though.

You read back the content inside the book while waiting for Suna to finish writing the remaining notes down. And to slightly collect your thoughts. Despite never hearing anything in class, he’s actually a quick learner and is a good listener when he tries to be.

Not to mention that he sometimes crack a joke or two to lighten up the mood, and unfortunate enough, he caught you snickering at one of his bad jokes,

“Are you actually laughing right now?”

“What are you talking about,”

“Oh playing dumb now huh? I didn’t know you’re that kind of type but you totally did laugh at my jokes,”

“No, I didn’t,”

“Pfft, yes you did, ma’am. There’s no need to deny it,”

You hit his head with his notebook with a small ‘oof’ in response, “Shut up and get back to work,”

And you’re actually...enjoying tutoring him right now- No, you’re only here to teach this idiot of a person about souls and how to catch it and that’s it. You have also tutored a few students before inside the library and at the same spot,

But why does it feel different with him?

“Now that we already covered that part, let’s get to the real point here; how to catch souls,”

You hold out your hand to him as Suna puts his notebook onto your palm, watching you take it and start sketching onto it. He leaned a bit from his spot to see you drawing out a picture of a gas lamp.

After finished sketching it, you show the book to him and started explaining again, “As you can tell, this gas lamp is the main tool of catching the souls,”

“Basically, when we light up the lamp, it’ll absorb any type of lights surrounding it which includes the souls. It’s confirmed souls are made out of lights so when exposed to any main source of lights, they’ll get trapped inside it, which is also the reason why…”

You waited a bit, averting your eyes at him. He does the same, but with confusion before it clicked right into him. His mouth turned into an ‘o’ shape, continuing your statement,

“-they roam at night, so that they won’t be exposed and absorbed by the sun,”

“Exactly,”

Suna nodded, feeling a little bit smart and it might be just him but he thought he saw your mouth twitched into a small smile just now. But it’s barely even visible so he won’t trust his brain this time, though he hoped that you’re happy that he’s finally understanding it,

“And that’s all,” “That’s all?” “Yep, tomorrow we meet up at the dining hall after dinner, then we can start preparing for the search,”

You close the book and put it back to it’s shelf, you hand him his pen back as he takes it from you. His cheeks tinged a bit at how briefly your fingers brushed his. He tried to not make it obvious but he can’t help but fluster at the mere touch,

“I hope you won’t be late this time…” He flinched at your tone to see you glaring at him, but it somewhat, a little bit toned down than what you usually do. Then again, he still nodded as your stare softened almost too quickly,

“Good, see you then,”

And then, something that he didn’t expect from you happened. You hold out your hand and wave at him before walking out of the library. He blinked, did you just wave him goodbye?

No, that seemed impossible coming from a person like you, the one that hated him the most. You didn’t care about him or even acknowledge him in the first place, you’re only doing this for the case. Or did you even hate him in the first place?

Suna blushed bright red at that thought before hearing Akaashi said to him,

“Well, that doesn’t seem very [y/n] at all, don’t you think,” He turned around to see the ravenette smirking at him, taking a seat at where you previously sat at, “Do you know what that means Akaashi?”

“Hm, maybe they started getting comfortable with you, but you’ll never know right? Maybe you should watch them closely more often,”

The brunette looks down at his note, scanning your sketch of the gas lamp while brushing the thin lines with his fingers.

Do you even hate him?

You walked through the halls after exiting the library but then stopped next to the big glass window. You stood there, frozen as if you had turned into stone,

“[Y/N], WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS??”

You whispered yelled to yourself while lightly slapping your face to get your head back to reality. Sure, you do hate him right? You hate him so much because of the freshman memories and the way he’s just very ignorant in class.

And the way his lean body figure just draped over his desk, showing his toned muscles behind his tight white collar shirt. And the way he’ll just lean over you whenever he wanted to ask a question, his handsome face and beautiful eyes scanning your figure-

“NOOO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???”

Your hand tugged the hem of your shirt, biting your lips at the thought as your face heated up. You scoffed, shaking your head before speed walking away from the halls with a hesitant smile on your face, truly believing that you hate Suna Rintarou.

It’s true that you hate him, you even admitted it to yourself and everyone else. You really hate him for the things he’s irresponsible for and the things he’d done to you,

So, why is it so hard to hate him now?

“DUDE, YOU WHAT??”

“TSUMU, STOP BEING SO LOUD, I’M TRYNA TO MAKE SOME FOOD,”

“WHY’RE YA EVEN MAKIN’ FOOD INSIDE OUR DORM IN THE FIRST PLACE,”

A pillow smacked into Atsumu’s face as he glared at Ginjima who threw it at him, “You both are too loud, quiet down or else we’ll get nagged again!” “Sheesh,” the blonde scoffed before launching onto his bed and throwing the pillow back at Ginjima,

“So, back to Mr.hated-by-[y/n]-[l/n] situation-” “-that name’s suck-” “-shaddup, samu- anyways, do y'all start going good or something? Hm?” he rested his head onto his pillow, looking into his friend’s eyes,

“Nah, we’re still on the bad side I think,” “Pfft, you think? Suna, we heard the news, they’re literally into you now that you show yer ‘cool’ side to them,”

Suna cringed at that before rolling his eyes and reading back the book in his hands, “Also, when did ya even start reading books all of the sudden? I thought you hated eating words,”

“Eating what?” Osamu looks at his twin brother with a confused expression, the bowl of rice in his hand was half eaten along with the omelette in front of him,

“That’s literally what Suna said when he read books for the first time,”

Ginjima snickered at that memory and looks at Suna, “Pfft yeah, he even said that it doesn’t taste good,”

All of them, except Suna, laughed at that while the brunette just scoffed before the door of their room was opened, “Omi-omi! How's the bath? Hm?”

“Shut up, Miya,” Sakusa spite at him as he can see Osamu looking up from his bowl of rice with an offended look, “ The blonde Miya,” and with only that, he softened up and went back to chewing his food.

Komori followed him from behind before plopping down onto his bed, which is next to Sakusa’s. He then looks at Suna with a mischievous smile,

“Heard the news Rin, is it true though?” “It came from Akaashi, of course it’s true,” Atsumu answered for him, having his hands behind his head while staring at the top bunk, where Ginjima sleeps at,

“Well, technically and no, I wanna hear it from the man himself,”

“Am I seriously getting interrogated right now,”

“Apparently,” Ginjima shrugged, turning his body around to look at Suna. The latter sighs before quickly closing the book he’s reading, “I don’t want to answer more stupid questions so, good night!”

He turned off the only lamp switch, that is miraculously next to him as the room turned dark. The sounds of the groaning and slight screams of frustration can be heard inside as they complained,

“SUNA, TURN ON THE LIGHT BACK ON, I’M NOT FINISHED EATING YET!”

“THAT’S WHY I TOLD YOU TO EAT OUTSIDE, FOR GOD SAKES,”

“RIN, IT’S NOT NIGHT TIME YET, OPEN THE LAMP BACK ON,”

“SHUT UP, TSUMU. I EAT WHEN I WANT TO,”

“Rintarou, open the lamp,”

“WHY THE HELL DO YOU ALWAYS DO THIS RIN??”

“YOU’LL GET YOUR STUPID RICE EVERYWHERE ON THE FLOOR,”

“THEN, HOW ABOUT YOU BE A USEFUL THING AND CLEAN IT UP,”

“WHAT?! NO, THAT GROSS,”

“IF NONE OF YOU SHUT UP, I’LL CALL MR.OYAMA TO YELL AT YOU ALL!”

The sound of their senior’s voice shuts them up in an instant as Suna quickly turn the lights back on and pretend to read the book he’s reading just now, though it’s upside down,

“This is why I propose that I’m the one who should sleep next to the lamp switch,”

“Oh, shut up you would literally do the same,”

“NO, I WON’T,”

“YES, YOU WOULD,”

“WHY’RE YOU TWO EVEN ARGUING ABOUT THIS, OH GOD-”

“WHAT DID I JUST SAID?!”

And then they’re back to silence. Sakusa sighed, opening his notebook to study back the last session.

You walked through the dark halls, lighted up with only candles as you turned to the right to head towards the dining hall. And much to your surprise, Suna’s already there.

Leaning against one of the pillars while lightly tapping his foot. Then he caught your figure and hold out his hand to greet your arrival, “Hey, you’re late,”

You scoffed at that, standing in front of him with your hands on your hips, “I just came right on time, so I wasn’t late. But you came earlier than last time, did your friend just ditch you?”

He hold up a hand to his chest, pretending to be offended by your words, “Ouch, at least compliment me for being earlier than you,” Which earns an unamused sigh from you as you look around the halls,

“Whatever, do you have all the preparations?” “Yep,”

The male patted the bag wrapped around his shoulder as he lifted up a gas lamp from his other hand, “Good. Now, should we get going?”

“Obviously, but do you actually know where the old library is?” “Of course,”

You motioned him to follow you as you walked towards the end of the dining hall room, a door was placed at the very corner as you searched through your coat’s pocket and pull out a key,

“How come I never saw this door before,” “I didn’t notice too at first, but I think the more you look around, the more you notice things,”

The lock let out a click as you removed the lock from the door before opening it as the fresh night air hit Suna’s face. He shivered slightly, shaking his head a bit and started following you out from the door.

And just like that, the view of the old academy’s library came to his view as he looked up at the tall building. The sound of the crows can also be heard, a murder of it can be seen resting on one of the tree’s branches.

It’s a full moon today so it gave both of you enough light to see around the dark and lonesome night.

It was mere silence between you two as you walked through the plain grass towards the library’s main gate, looking rusty as ever. You tried opening the metal gate but unable to by how rusty it became after years of abandonment, “Let me,”

Suna put a hand up to try to open it and you let him, retreating a bit. But you didn’t know that his method of opening is this.

Without a second thought, he kicked the metal door open as the ear screeching sound echoed through the skies, making the crows fly in fear, “You idiot,”

You smacked his shoulder as he groaned in pain at the surprisingly hard smack, rubbing his shoulder while he’s at it. You went inside the gate without sparing a glance at him and walked straight towards the library’s entrance.

Suna quickly follows from behind and stares at the big and gloomy door. You did the same, you knew that these souls were absolutely harmless and had no way of hurting both of you.

But you truly can’t deny the eerie feeling by just the look of the door, “What, you’re scared?”

You flinched at his statement, turning your head around to see a small smirk plastered on his smug little face. You scoffed at that and shook your head, “Good riddance,”

Why’re your heart beating faster right now? Is it because you’re actually that scared with what’s about to come? You had come this far from tutoring him to trying to find the right tools and yet, you find yourself in a slightly shivering form.

Or is it because you’re nervous that you would be truly alone with this brunette. You hated him, so why would you be nervous to be around him all alone. Hated…

How weird. You tried to calm down your beating heart and wonder if Suna’s actually feeling the same thing-

‘No, [y/n] focus, now’s not the time,’ you thought, shaking your head a bit.

Little did you know though, the person next to you is feeling the same emotions as yours. Finally, alone with only you and himself, he’s quite nervous isn’t he? Awfully obvious, he can already hear Atsumu mocking him for that,

Oh well, at least he had to be ready for what’s about to come.

“Hey, we’re going to turn on the lamp now, you’re ready?”

“Always has been,” Suna said almost too quickly while still staring at the library’s door.

You look at him with surprise at his quick response. Why’s he suddenly confident with all this? But you took it no mind as you just nodded and pulled out your lamp and a box of matches. You light one of it before gently burning the rope inside the lamp.

You did the same with Suna’s before taking a deep breath. You look at Suna for one last time as you get a nod of affirmation from him. He slowly opens up the door as it creates a terrible screek before hitting the wall.

And the last thing you hear from the male is a chuckle with a smirk on his face,

“This is gonna be interesting,”

It was silence. Only silence and the sounds of your footsteps roaming around the lonely and empty library. The insides of the building are horribly dark as you can see books scattering all over the place with the only lights coming from the lamp.

Torned up completely. Suna takes the lead, shining every corner of the room you’re in to try to find a familiar white light floating around, “Hey, you found anything?”

The male stopped on his tracks before turning around to look at you, shaking his head as in he hadn't found anything. You sighed, moving the lamp in your hand around a bit more before finding a stack of stairs heading to the second floor,

“Let’s check the next floor,”

Suna just nodded and headed towards it. He checked for any cracks or holes before confirming that it’s safe. He sent a nod at you as the two of you started going up stairs.

And at that moment, he remembered back what Akaashi said to him back at the library. Why do these unimportant flashbacks always happen during the baddest time? He sighs quietly to himself as he recalled what the ravenette had said;

“If you really want to impress them, show them that you’re responsible for any kind of situation, no matter what. I know that you’re a very lazy person but at least put some effort in making yourself look good to them,”

“Also, I think you should just tell them the truth when you get there, It’s better than keeping it a secret no matter how painful you felt admitting it,”

At that exact moment, he can instantly hear a crack spreading and in an instant turns his head towards you, catching a glimpse of your face contorted into fear. Without any hesitation, Suna quickly grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards him as the staircase collapsed underneath you two.

Both of you tried to catch your breath from the sudden event, sweating profusely but thankfully, you’re safe without a scratch. When you finally collected your minds, you realized the situation you’re in with him,

You’re awkwardly on top of him, with your legs in between his thighs and your head rested on his shoulder, his hand is on top of your head while the other is still gripping your wrist.

A blink before you quickly stand up from that position and look for your lamp. Thankfully, the glass didn’t shatter but Suna’s though…

“Sorry, uh, wait, where’s your lamp?”

He sat up, rubbing his head at the impact it had with the floor before looking at you and turning his head to his right, finding the lamp shattered as the pieces scattered all over the floor with the flame died out.

A sigh escaped his lips before standing up and dusted himself, “I guess we had to use yours now huh,”

“Unfortunately, c’mone, the more we find it, the less we had to spend our time here,”

Suna nodded at that, but tilted his head a bit when your figure’s still standing there in front of him, “Hey, you okay? Do you want to take a rest? We can like, I don’t know, maybe sit here for a bit then we can-”

“Suna,”

He froze when he heard his name rolled off from your tongue as he watched your back with his eyes widened. You never said his name before, it’s always ‘you’, ‘idiot’ or ‘Tibetan Sand Fox’, for some weird reasons. But now that he really heard his name,

His real name coming from you, he felt weird but it’s...nice,

“Thanks for just now. For me to say that I was surprised, was obvious but you do have fast reflexes so, yeah, thanks, I guess,”

You can feel his stare at the back of your head as you bite the inside of your cheeks and start walking away to the room in front of you.

He still stood there, completely dumbfounded with the change of behavior that you’re having right now. But it’s fine, he might get used to it, the more often he stay in this old library with you-

“SUNA! HURRY UP!” His mind got cut off before slapping his face slightly, “Coming!”

“Are we seriously going to be here all night…?”

Both of you sat on the wall near the now 3rd floor, you covered your face with your hand in frustration while the latter searched through his bag and pulled out a bar of chocolate.

He opens up the wrapper, cutting the bar into two but accidently making it uneven. He hummed, looking at both of the pieces before shrugging and handing you the bigger piece.

You look at the chocolate before hesitantly taking it from his hand. The chocolate looked slightly bizarre than the ones you had seen before, the color is not typically chocolate like all chocolates should be,

But rather in a pretty shade of pink, “Where did you get this?”

Suna looks at you while taking a bite of his chocolate, “Well, one of my friends is a good cook so we made this inside the dorm,” “Inside the dorm??”

He can see the confusion plastered on your face as he chuckled, “Yeah, he’s hungry all the time so we do this often inside our room. Got nagged a lot by seniors but all's well. Also, if you’re wondering, we’ve actually put some berries inside it, got a bit of a fruity taste,”

You look back at the chocolate with suspicion before going to take a bite. Your eyes widened as you bite the piece off and started munching on it,

“This...tastes pretty good,”

“I know right? He’s a bit of a weirdo tho but means well,”

You coughed at his statement and let out a laugh. Suna stopped mid biting the chocolate, watching you laugh your heart out as he could feel a slight pain to his chest.

The laugh soon died down as you turned your head at him with confusion, he quickly looked away with hot red cheeks, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,”

You watch him biting off his chocolate rather aggressively with a frown on his face, and now red cheeks. Thankfully, the room is dark enough to cover the redness spreading across his face,

“Don’t lie to me, idiot. You thought my laugh was ugly didn’t you? So much for me to finally warming up to you,”

“I didn’t say that- wait, what,”

Why’s everything happening so fast for him to comprehend. You averted your eyes at him while eating your chocolate, you realized what you had said before blushing a bit, “Uh, I didn’t mean that, no, wait- the point is that,”

He watches you looking away from his view while crumpling the wrapper, “I, think I enjoyed spending my time with you, no matter how truly impossible it is to believe, I actually...”

Your beautiful eyes stare into his as a small smile plastered over your face, “..don’t hate you anymore, in fact, I, really wanted to be by your side all the time after that stupid, problematic study session that we have that I started realizing,”

He swallowed down the saliva collecting up on his throat as he can feel his heart is about to beat out of his chest, he’s afraid that you might hear it too,

“But I still won’t forgive you for that terrible freshman memory,” and just like that, your smile fades away as if it’s never there in the first place. Suna frowned at that as he recalled the old memory,

“Oh, you mean that time I spilled my coffee onto your shirt?”

“Obviously, and it annoys me anytime I think about it,”

Your tone was back to how it was, like how you used to talk to him before. You stand up from the floor and dust yourself, grabbing the lamp that was next to you. But this time, you’re giving him a hand as he, without a doubt grabs it and stand up as well,

“Well, I’m sorry about that but can you, actually hear my part of the story?” You tensed up at that,

“Your part?”

He merely nodded before opening his mouth,

“Sorry,”

Suna said with panic lacing his voice as he looked around for a brief second and walking away from the direction you came from. He jogged slightly, finally deciding to throw the coffee cup away and try to find-

He stopped in his tracks before finding a box of tissue near the canteen. He grabbed a few of them before jogging back to where he left you. But you’re nowhere to be seen, only a puddle of coffee left on the floor as the students tried to avoid stepping on it,

“Oh god,”

“YOU REALLY ARE AN IDIOT, AREN’T YOU??”

He flinched a bit when you smacked his shoulders a couple of times after he explained, “You could’ve just help me clean up and not walk away trying to find tissues,”

“I was late for my class and I was panicking okay?? I wasn’t thinking straight and again, I’m sorry!”

You huffed, smacking for the last time before speed walking away towards the 4th and last floor with Suna trying to catch up to you, “Honestly, on second thought, I think I can go back to hating you,”

“What do you mean by that?? You already told me that you didn’t hate me anymore,”

“I take it back, not only you’re irresponsible but you’re truly unable to make the right choices at a given time,”

“Oh c’mone, how many times you’re going to say that-”

His footsteps stopped as he stood there frozen in his tracks and eyes widened. You heard him get cut off by himself as you hesitantly turned your body around to face him,

“Suna?”

He, can hear them. It’s been years now, but now that he heard them again, it felt awfully strange. His ears started ringing a terrible high pitched scream before it turned into silence again with your voice calling him out,

“Suna! What’re you still standing there? Hurry up, we need to finish this-”

The male grabbed your wrist that was holding the lamp, opening the glass’s cover and blow the flame out as only pitch black welcomed you two,

“SUNA! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?? NOW WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THE 4TH FLOOR AND EXIT IS! WHY’RE YOU LIKE THIS-”

“Just shut up and follow me,”

You immediately stopped your yellings and shivered slightly at how close his voice is next to your ear. You wanted to deny that and just start nagging him again, but something in his voice says that...he knows what he’s about to do.

You nodded slightly and let him drag you around. His hold on your wrist is still there, squeezing it in reassurance before he slowly walked towards the right side.

Both of you walked for what felt like an hour with only silence surrounding you two as he came across another staircase. Suna released the grip on your wrist, wrapping his hands around your back to guide you up,

“We’re gonna go slowly, okay?”

You nodded, and with that, you two started going up the stairs one by one. He gave you a small push from the back as a sign you’re going up the stairs. And when you two finally came to the 4th floor, you could see a small light coming from the corner of your eyes.

And there you finally see it. All of the 10 souls roaming around the library. It’s sad and lonesome faces look around everywhere and their liquidity like body twitched every second,

“Stay right here,”

You shot your eyes at Suna before he let go off his grip from your back and walk towards the souls. What is he doing? Both of you have no light source right now so it’s impossible to catch them with mere hands-

“Hey,”

The brunette started, looking at the white entity as it’s body slowly turned around to face him. The two of them stare at each other for a bit before Suna started talking again,

“You are? Huh, don’t worry, you’re safe with us,”

He wrapped his arms around the soul and, it didn't go through. Your eyes widened at that, did he really just...touched one? But it’s impossible for a mere mortal to just touch a dead being just like that,

“Almost every single human can’t touch a soul because of its non-existent matter since they’re basically dead. But there are rumors going around that there’s at least 1 in each kingdom that can touch a soul, and while they’re at it, they can also-”

“Suna, you can talk to souls?”

He turned his head around to look at you, watching him petting the soul slowly before stopping. The soul that he hugged looks at him, as a statement on why he stopped before looking at you,

You flinched at the eye contact but softened when it tilted it’s head in confusion. Suna takes a deep breath before looking at you with an unwavering stare,

“Yes, I, in fact, can talk to souls, and even touch them. I’m that 1 person in this kingdom,”

He hated that he had to admit it to you. He wasn’t so fond of this so-called ‘skill’ that he had since birth. He can totally admit this to anyone but to you? He’s back to feeling small, feeling like he holds no purpose in this world at all once you figured it out.

The male closes his eyes and expect the worst as your response,

“Don’t play with us, you don’t belong here,”

“I bet his only friends are those ghosts things,”

“What, you’re gonna cry? What you’re gonna do now huh? Cry it out to your dead friends?”

“Oh my, your son can talk to...dead beings…”

“Yes, and I’m planning on leaving the kingdom and him behind, he’s so lazy too so I don’t think I need him anymore,”

“I hope you have fun talking to yourself,”

“When he reaches the age of 13, I’ll leave him behind with the house. It’s his now and his other...friends,”

“I hate you, we all hate you, don’t even think of coming here again,”

“Don’t you-”

His mind got cut off when he felt a painful punch to his guts as he let out a scream in pain and kneel down, clutching his stomach. The soul that was next to him flinched and it’s face contorted into fear.

He looks up at you, glaring at him with tears staining your eyes,

Wait.

Before he can process his thoughts, you embrace him into a hug as you hold him tightly as if he’ll go away. He just stayed there, letting you engulfing him into the hug as his hands released his stomach.

Twitching a bit as he hugs you back, slowly gripping on your coat hardly while fighting back the tears that’s about to spill out. Unfortunately, you let go of the hug but then make eye contact with him.

Your tears stained eyes stared into his glossy ones before you opened your mouth,

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I could’ve just forgive everything you had done all those times,”

His breath hitched at the close proximity between you two. But he felt like he’s at home, a better one, “I’m...afraid that you’ll try to avoid me when I admit that-”

“Stop it stupid, I won’t avoid you for that. I was actually looking for you,”

Looking, for him? Suna watches you wiping the tears that fell down and continued, “I heard about that one person in the kingdom from an old friend of mine, they said that this person live in the same town as me,”

“I was, really intrigued that there’s actually someone that can talk and touch souls, I tried doing it on my own but failed every time, that’s why I was trying to find someone like that, to say that I think they’re incredible for something a mere person can’t do. But then again, I thought that, maybe they’re having a hard time trying to fit in by their unique trait, being an...outcast,”

An outcast huh? He had heard that name for him a lot of times,

“I personally don’t think that THAT person was an outcast just because they’re different from the others. I think that they’re special, they deserved better, they deserve every love they can get and yet…”

You bite your lips, “They still treat them differently. It’s not fair and will never be. So I tried searching for that person all around the kingdom when I was still in the age of 12, but I couldn’t find them,”

“But I did now, but I didn’t think that it would be you…”

What’re you trying to show him right now? Pity? Amazement? He didn’t know, your eyes just showing too many emotions at a time yet, he can still understand it.

And he thought, how should he react? After what you said just now, maybe he know what,

“What I wanted to say is that…”

You scoffed, but not in a hateful way like you always done and with a smile,

“You’re amazing Rintarou, and will always be. You’re never an outcast, cause you’re just the same like all of us, only…more special,”

Suna can feel your hand caressing his cheeks as he unconsciously let out a tear slide down. Your tears started spilling again as you hiccuped, trying to steady your breathing and brain,

“And, I’m sorry...for everything I have done to you, I’m...hah...so stupid…”

You let out a shaky laugh as the brunette hesitantly put a hand on the back of your head, letting you rest on top of his chest while he lay down on the floor. The souls surrounded you two in curiosity but you both paid it no mind and just enjoying each other presence,

“You’re not stupid, you never are. What you did to me all those months, was not stupid, but resonable,”

He bite the inside of his cheeks and let out a weak smile,

“And I had forgiven you a long time ago,”

And now, the only thing filling in the library is silence and the sound of both of your breathing, peaceful and unbothered.

You walked out from the dressing room and buttoned up your white collar shirt, fixing the jetblack coat you're wearing before looking around,

“Hey, has anyone seen my tie?”

“Oh, here!”

You turned to your right and smiled at Akaashi, taking the tie from his hands. You loosened up the zip and put it around your collar before zipping it back up, nice and tight.

Flattening it a bit before looking at your appearance on the mirror, “You already look dazzling, [y/n]. No need to pose in front of the mirror,”

“Oh shut up will you,”

You playfully yelled at Mai, who’s wearing the same kind of outfit like yours but with a knee length skirt.

Today’s the day, the time for your graduation. After a max time of 6 years surviving the academy, you’ve finally made it to graduation. It all felt so fast now that you think about it,

All those memories from the first day to the last day of the exam and now, here you are. And you’re going to admit that, it’s really hard not to feel emotional, after all that time spent with your friends and...lover.

You shake your head at that title, blushing a bit as you can feel a slight tap to your shoulder. You turned around to see none other than Suna,

“[y/n], help me put on this tie,”

“Why can’t you just put it on yourself?”

“I can’t tie a tie,”

You snorted, “Did you seriously just say a pun?” he shrugged, “Maybe,”

A sigh escaped from your lips as you took the tie from his hands and started tying it around his collar. And from the corner of your eyes, you can literally see Akaashi smirking at you along with the other 2nd years, who’s now seniors of the academy,

“Woah, Rin, didn’t know you’re the advantage taker type,”

“Yeah, are ya up to something Suna~?”

Both Atsumu and Komori snickered as the latter sigh, rolling his eyes in annoyance but you can definitely see the slight pink on his cheeks.

You finished tying his tie and patted it lightly, “There,” “Thanks,” “Anytime,”

“Haha, aren’t you two gonna kiss or something?” Ginjima pried in at the two of you, before almost everyone inside the room laughed with Suna’s cheeks turning red as he walks away to cover his face away from the crowd,

“We’re graduating now, aren’t we?”

You then looked at Eri as you two sit on the chair next to each other, Mai joining in to your other side, “It certainly is, I honestly can’t believe that 6 years had passed since we first started arriving here,”

“True, and I did remember the time Eri first arrived during our 3rd year, she’s so cute and shy~”

Eri blushed and huffed at Mai, who giggled at the noirette cute pout. You laughed along with them, watching Tanaka and Noya pestering Suna to tell them what’s going on between you two.

Ginjima and Atsumu join in on them, talking almost too loudly and you can tell that the teachers that’s out from backstage can hear them too.

Komori just watches them while his cousin just rolls his eyes at their antics, Osamu’s struggling to put on his tie as Ennoshita helped him out with it.

Kyoutani is actually having a relaxed conversation with Aone, which seemed very odd but very interesting to look at. Kenma’s just cramped up at the corner of the room with Fukunaga sitting comfortably next to him.

Yamamoto’s now joining in the Suna banter and you swear that the room gets noisier and noisier, much to Sakusa and Kenma’s dismay. Taichi and Shirabu are going through the script since both of them are going to give a speech later for the whole class.

And the others seemed to fix their appearance and clothes. You sighed, a small smile creeping up on your face. This all feels so nostalgic and heartwarming and you can’t help but feel pained that all of you had to separate from each other.

And it honestly felt like you have done wrong to them now that you reminisce the memories all at once. In a second, you clapped your hands loudly as it takes the attention of the whole room, their eyes and attention are now at you.

You missed this. You've been assigned to be the class monitor in the 4th year of the academy and they’ll always put their attention on you when you do this. You cleared your throat before opening your mouth, smiling as wide as you can,

“Now, that I have your attentions, I think I should make the last class meeting,”

Class meeting. It’s when all of you discuss anything regarding the class situation whether it’s about the exam or the class condition or upcoming events.

And the event now is to say goodbye to each other,

“First off, I wanted to say that, I’m sorry,”

All of them flinched at your words with surprise lacing their facial features as you continued, “I may haven’t realized it yet during our academy years but I think I’ve done at least something bad to every one of you, no matter how small or big it is, I do think it’s my responsibility to apologize, and I hope you all can forgive me,”

Then, you shrugged, “Or not, I don’t mind being someone you hate, you know,”

Your eyes caughted Suna as he did nothing but stare at you with disbelief, as if you said something terribly strange, “What’re ya saying, you never did anything wrong to us, [y/n],”

Atsumu started, having a frown on his face as you chuckled at his expression, “Maybe, but I just think that, since this is the last time we’re gonna be with each other, I think it’s best for me to apologize, even if I did nothing wrong, so, again,”

You bowed in front of all of them before sitting straight on your seat with a smile,

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I had done,”

Suddenly, you feel a heavy weight crashed into you as you widen your eyes at the impact and see who it was,

Suna Rintarou.

“Stop apologizing, stupid,”

Ah, the old name that you addressed him in. It felt nostalgic for a moment, and a little ironic. Because you remember doing this to him back when you still hate him,

The man you once hated.

“WHY’RE YOU GUYS ARE BEING SO EMOTIONAL THIS EARLY?? I CAN’T-”

Yamamoto cut off his own sentences and ran towards yours and Suna’s direction and hugged you two. And then one by one, everyone else inside the room started hugging you and started forming a group of hugs.

It takes a while for Fukunaga, Taichi and Aone to pester Kenma, Shirabu and Kyoutani to hug you but they did. Cause they also think you did nothing wrong and doesn’t need to apologize,

Is now the man you cared for dearly.

“Has everyone finished changing into grad clothes?”

You heard your homeroom teacher say from the outside of the backstage as all of you let go of the hug before looking at you, every single one of them while having a small smile on their face.

A quiet sigh escaped your lips as you wipes out the tears that had fallen before mirroring their smiles back,

“Let’s go,”

“And I hope…”

Shirabu stopped in his reading, steading his breath a bit as his eyes started watering, much to his dismay and continued on quietly and shakily,

“...we all can meet again in the nearest future,”

Everyone clapped their hands loudly as Taichi hugged Shirabu while guiding him back to the bench. You can see everyone you had met before, from the teachers of the whole academy, a few retired teachers that make it to the ceremony, to the old 6th years who were once your seniors and all of your juniors from 5th year.

They’re all here, to celebrate all of your 6 years of being here together. You bite back the tears but it’s no use as it falls down on it’s own.

Bokuto and Konoha cheered from their seats while Washio just lightly clapped his hand along with Yukie and Kaori. Miss Mochizuki, who’s sitting next to you all too clapped her hands while fanning herself from the tears that escaped.

The principal, too, is clapping his hands and even shows a small smile on his face no matter how strict he is. It all felt so heartwarming but it doesn’t stop the pain in your heart that you’ll be separating after this and going back home…

‘Going back home…’ that mere thought echoed through Suna’s head as he can feel like he’s the only one there, in the darkness. His mouth is turned into a straight line as his thought was suddenly interrupted by Atsumu, who’s now sobbing while leaning against his shoulder,

“Sunaaaaa, I’ll miss you! Don’t forget me okay??”

“Geez, yeah I won’t,” he hiccuped, “forget you, idiot,”

“Yeah, do you even think he would do that?” Ginjima said on his right, wiping away his tears and putting on a small smile while biting his lips, “Of course you won’t right?”

The brunette laughed before hugging them, along with Osamu whose breath is ragged from the excessive crying he did,

“It’s hard to forget you all anyway, so I won’t, we’ll see each other again, and that’s a promise,”

He patted their backs as his eyes wandered around the crowd to his classmates, and friends from other classes and then,

Suna caught your eyes, staring at him back. Both of you give each other a smile and nodded,

That’s a promise.

The sound of the train engine can be heard miles away as Suna covered his ears at the loud sound, chewing his cake. They packed some of the food from the graduation party to be eaten inside the train since it’s going to be a long ride before they separate at the main town hall.

Smokes came up from the top as the conductor gave them a welcoming smile, hearing the news of the graduation while briefly congratulating all of them.

You nodded, thanking the conductor before he went back to his spot to let all of you come aboard. Kenma’s the first to go up the staircase as he picked a comfortable spot near the seat railing.

And then, one by one, the others started climbing up the staircase, some of them holding the railing for support until it’s your turn to climb up but stopped near the doorframe of the train.

You look down, making eye contact yet again with Suna before holding your hand out. He briefly snorted and gladly took in as he started going inside the train too. As Eri and Mai finally got into the train, they closed the door before tapping the walls of the it.

The conductor understands the signal and lets out the horn sound coming from the train before starting the journey back to the main town, away from the academy and near to home.

You’re seated comfortably next to the seat railing with Suna next to you. And apparently, only you two. You glared at Atsumu and Osamu when they smirked at you but then your attention at them got cut off,

“So you’re going back home now?”

Suna asked, biting the last bits of his cake before closing his food container and putting it inside his bag,

“Yeah, I had one of the seniors to build me a place to stay when I get back home thankfully,”

“Is that so,”

Then, it’s just silence between you too as you started opening your mouth again,

“Do you want to come with me?”

He froze at that and looks at you with a bewildered look while you just smile at him, “I mean, if you’re comfortable staying with me, it’s fine if you decline-”

“Yeah sure,”

You blinked at his quick response and just sighed, “That’s good,” You fidgeted with your fingers while still holding onto your graduation paper, softening the hard edges before a tap to shoulder breaks you out of your thoughts,

“Hey, [y/n],”

“Yes Suna?”

His breath hitched when he heard you calling his name again, it never gets old and it always make his heart beating a lot louder, “Come closer, there’s something I need to tell you,”

You stare at him for a bit with curiosity, leaning in to his face as the gap between you two is almost non-existent. You hummed, asking what he’s going to say.

And in between that moment, Suna holds up his graduation paper to cover both of your faces and close the gap between his lips and yours. You squealed slightly in the kiss, blushing heavily at the action and just like that, he pulled away with an affectionate smile and red cheeks on his facial features,

“I love you,”

#chocolate; a valentine's series #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #suna rintaro #suna x reader

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baoshan-sanren · 4 years

Text

Chapter 41

of the wwx emperor au that’s back to being called Emperor Wei WuXian And His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Birthday

The South Lakes courtyard is wrapped in gloom.

Wei Ying feels guilty for his late arrival. For the second day in the row he had promised A-Yuan that he would visit, and had failed to show before the boy had been put to bed.

The lingering feeling of regret over placing Jin ZiXuan in the dungeons disappears completely. Had the ridiculous peacock not made a scene outside the council hall, Wei Ying would have gotten at least fifteen minutes with A-Yuan, even if those fifteen minutes only allowed him to put the kid to sleep with an obnoxious fairytale or two.

He comforts himself with the knowledge that tomorrow is the Gifting Ceremony, which means that every clan and sect should be preparing to leave the Immortal Mountain. Of course, having placed Jin ZiXuan in the dungeon, Wei Ying must bear Jin GuangShan’s presence a little longer. He is sorely tempted to release the brat just so he can see Jin GuangShan’s backside pass through the Five Phoenix Gate with all the other sect leaders.

He will not do so. He cannot show lenience to someone who had so blatantly disrespected him in front of half the Council.

It does not bother Wei Ying so much that Jin ZiXuan had drawn his sword; they had seen each other compete mere days ago, and Young Master Jin had to know that he had no chance of winning, even if Wei Ying had been alone and unprotected. It does bother him that Jin ZiXuan had acted in such an unreasonable and stupid manner. Perhaps the engagement had meant a great deal to him. Perhaps Jin ZiXuan does care for shijie more than he is capable of displaying thought that thick veneer of narcissism and arrogance.

But despite his earlier words to uncle Jiang, Wei Ying has never truly believed Jin ZiXuan to be stupid. Smug and self-important, yes. Vain and haughty, heavens yes. But stupid enough to attack the Emperor in front of dozens of guards and Sect Leaders? Sect Leaders who may fawn over his father on good days, but are perfectly capable of turning on him the moment the Jin Sect fortune begins to decline?

Wei Ying does not think Jin ZiXuan stupid, but he does think the boy’s pride and arrogance are likely to leave him vulnerable to the wrong type of influence. He would wager that the true instigator of today’s events was not Jin ZiXuan, but someone standing directly behind him.

But to what purpose?

“Finally,” Wen Qing’s voice comes from the darkness, “I was about to send guards in the search of you.”

Wei Ying pauses, half-way across the courtyard, his stomach twisting in anticipation, “Wen Ning is back? We have a response?”

“We do,” she says, and he can read nothing from her voice, or her vague silhouette near the pavilion door, “come inside. It has taken me nearly an hour to decode it; I had to ask Granny to help. She is very upset with you, by the way.”

Wei Ying grimaces. It is not that he does not trust her, or Granny Wen, or Wen Ning and Uncle Four, but the more there are of those who know a secret, the less likely it is to remain a secret. He supposes that all the years of Nie HuaiSang’s influence could be blamed for his overabundance of caution. A-Sang is a firm believer in telling people only those things that they absolutely needed to know.

“Jiang Cheng knew,” she says, her tone now accusing.

“I was not the one to tell him,” Wei Ying says.

He leaves out the part where he would have told him, regardless. He would have felt guilty about keeping anything of such magnitude from Jiang Cheng, but it had been A-Sang who had decided that Jiang Cheng should be informed. Wei Ying had simply... not questioned the decision.

“Get inside,” she says “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

Wei Ying expects to meet Granny Wen’s accusing glare the moment he steps into the pavilion, but the only people waiting for him are Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng. He heaves a sigh of relief, even as he habitually moves to prevent Wen Ning from bowing.

“Uncle Four?” he says.

“Stayed behind,” Wen Ning says, then rushes to explain, “we were not sure what the message said, and he would not try and decode it in YiLing. We thought-- if things turned out badly, it may help to have him outside the Immortal Mountain.”

“The message,” Wei Ying says, impatient, “Where is it?”

Jiang Cheng hands him a piece of paper. Wen Qing’s lovely lines are obvious in each character, the ink still slightly damp in places. He takes care not to smudge it; A-Sang will want to see it as soon as possible.

It is an agreement. Wen RuoHan has agreed to his proposal.

Wei Ying’s knees feel weak; he fights the urge to sit down on the floor.

“Where is the original?”

Wen Qing is the one to hand it over, Wen RuoHan’s signature large and stark, his personal seal nestled next to the red Sun Seal of the Wen Sect.

He grins at Jiang Cheng, and finds Jiang Cheng grinning back. The grin is wide, making him look young and careless, the way he had not been since all of them were children together, hunting imaginary demons through Iron Palm Palace halls.

“Uncle Four has gotten two more messages from his men in the Nightless City,” Wen Ning says, “The rumor is that the Second Young Master of the Wen Sect has gotten himself into some trouble with the YingChuan Wang Sect. The Sect Leader’s youngest daughter. Some rumors say that he has already been married, quickly and quietly, as the trouble is-- uh-- time sensitive. Other rumors state that the wedding will take place soon."

“Granny thinks that Wen RuoHan will send an official letter to the Immortal Mountain,” Wen Qing says, “as a means of informing the Emperor of his youngest son’s indiscretion, apologizing for the Wen Sect absence, and asking for forbearance in these trying times.”

“That old fucker,” Wei Ying says in delight, and does not even mind when Wen Qing slaps him on the shoulder.

Even a year ago, he would have thought it impossible to feel even a grudging sort of respect for Wen RuoHan, but the man has managed to throughly impress him.

“He should be in prison for treason,” Wen Qing says, “Instead, you have provided him with everything he has ever wanted.”

She sounds vaguely disapproving; it is impossible to tell if she objects to the plan, the methods used, or the fact that he had not consulted her ahead of time. Still, Wei Ying is far too happy with the outcome to feel guilty for keeping secrets.

“Good,” he retorts, tucking the letter into his sleeve, “and may we never see another war or a rebellion as a result. Where is Granny? I am more than prepared to be scolded now.”

“She is with Song Lan,” Jiang Cheng answers in Wen Qing’s place, “he arrived not long before you did.”

“Song Lan? Why is he here?”

Before anyone has had a chance to answer the question, the man himself is already hovering at the entrance to the receiving hall. Elated by their success with Wen RuoHan, Wei Ying does not immediately notice the tightness of Song Lan’s features, or the wary set of his shoulders. The moment he does, however, his earlier euphoria vanishes in an instant.

Between Lan Zhan, the Council, and Jin ZiXuan’s stupidity, he had forgotten the initial reason behind Song Lan and uncle XingChen’s arrival. Now, seeing the troubled expression on Song Lan’s face, he feels a heavy sense of foreboding.

“He is here,” Wei Ying says, “the person you are hunting. He is in the Immortal Mountain.”

It is not a question, and Song Lan’s curt nod does not fill him with surprise. It seems expected somehow, that this news would come at the heels of the other, as if the string of events was somehow predestined.

He grins humorlessly, and rubs the side of his nose.

Destiny is not set in stone. Perhaps in the course and culmination of human life, there exists some objective certainty that is both transcendent and beyond human control, but his approach has always been a rational one, and now that same rationality offers a different answer.

This is no preordination. Wei Ying has simply come to anticipate that any success, any accomplishment, any occasion in which he may find joy and contentment, will come with a cost.

The realization is bitter and unhappy, and he pushes it away.

“Tell me what you have discovered.”

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #ficlet #m #wwx emperor au #they made me stay up to get swabbed AGAIN today #my nose is suffering #but no sleep means some writing #about 5 chapters left #i've stopped adding up the word count i don't think i wanna know #ily chickens

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scribeofred · 3 years

Text

Thanks to @onereyofstarlight for the tag!

1. What fandoms have you written for?

This is embarrassing but I actually had to look at both FFnet and AO3 because I couldn’t remember all of them. TRON: Legacy, Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Sherlock, Final Fantasy VII and XV and Kingsglaive, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Merlin, Skyrim, and, of course, Thunderbirds. I have a couple other fandoms that crop up in various wips, including a Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover that I really should finish.

2. How many works do you have on AO3 &/or FFNet?

FFnet has 45, and AO3 has 41. There’s also a couple stories lurking on tumblr, notably a final chapter for Reflection.

3. What are your top 3 fics by kudos on A03 &/or Favs on FFNet?

AO3 dominates in this area, if I can use a word like “dominates” for stories that have less than 125 kudos each haha. Oh well, the numbers don’t matter!

1. 118 kudos on tell the shades apart (my world is black and white)

2. 94 kudos on Reflection

3. 91 kudos on The 43rd Hour

4. Which 3 fics have the least kudos & Favs?

Again on AO3:

1 kudos on I Am You (And You Are Me)

5 kudos on The Dragonborn Chronicles

6 kudos on cynosure

5. Which Fic has the most comments and which has the least?

Reflection has the most at 29 threads, and I Am You (And You Are Me) has the least at zero.

6. Which complete fic do you wish had gotten more attention?

Lodestar, definitely. Sure, it’s for something of a rarepair, but they aren’t that rare, and I just really really like the way the story came together. On the other hand, of course my unfinished Merlin fic has gotten probably the most attention, because that’s just the way it goes, eh?

7. Have you written any crossovers?

None that I’ve published! I have various crossovers lurking in mostly unfinished states, including the aforementioned Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover, and an Assassin’s Creed/Thundeerbirds crossover that is very good and I should also finish. There’s an Expanse/Thunderbirds fic lurking in my brain that I may or may not ever commit to paper, who knows. I’ve also very vaguely toyed with a Batman/Thunderbirds crossover, in the sense that “nebulous” is too strong a word for the kind of toying I’ve been doing.

8. What is the craziest fic you’ve written?

I don’t really write crazy or crack or humor in general, so probably the closest thing to “crazy” is On the Lam, which was the result of wanting to throw Scott and Penelope toward an Egyptian stud farm. It ended up being the host for a bad joke about that, courtesy of one @thebaconsandwichofregret, who consistently gives some of the best dialogue advice I’ve ever encountered.

Actually, the true answer is probably a chapter in Glimpses into a Supernova, maybe the one about blood? It seems bonkers when I think back on it now, but I admittedly haven’t read it in many years. Possibly I am misremembering. Glimpses has some weird ones, though.

9. What’s the fic you’ve written with the saddest ending?

It’s a tossup between The Painting and a place where the water touches the sky. The former deals with a prior off-screen death; the latter is (maybe??) an on-screen death. People seemed upset by it, at any rate. I said it was ambiguous!

10. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

“Happy” is probably a matter of perspective? Depends on the overall reading experience and the ending within that context. Either septet or Three Towels and a Tracy, they’re both pretty fluffy overall.

11. What is your smuttiest fic?

protoinstincts, which I completely forgot I wrote and then rediscovered like a year later and realized “hey, this is actually pretty good” and you know what, despite it not being overly spicy, it is pretty good.

12. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate, per se, but someone left a review on Less Than Nothing saying they “didn’t like” that I “wrote the story as a series of drabbles.” Cool, I didn’t write the story for you, random guest reader, and the back button exists, friend 😂 It didn’t bother me on a personal level because I wrote the fic for an audience of one (incidentally, not myself and rather the recipient of a secret santa event), but I was mad because the reviewer had no way of knowing where I was at as a writer, and I know from longtime observation how that kind of comment can crush less experienced or confident writers.

Don’t leave flames, kids, you don’t understand the power your words have. Don’t like, don’t read.

13. What is the nicest comment you’ve received?

The nicest? Goodness. Hmm. I’d have to go hunting to find the nicest, but in recent memory, @ayzrules sent me a couple passages from Spanish texts she’s been studying that reminded her of my writing, and I was honestly so touched by the fact that she even thought to make such comparisons, much less mention them to me. Taking the time to familiarize yourself with someone’s style until you can make comparisons between it and someone else’s work is so much more meaningful to me personally than a basic “Nice story!” or “Loved this!” type of comment ever could be. <3 Ayz <3

14. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve never gone looking on any sort of copycat site or whatever either.

15. How many fics do you have marked as incomplete?

Two. First is The Dragonborn Chronicles, which is a retelling of Skyrim from Lydia’s perspective via her journal, to complement the in-game journal. It’s a slog of a style to write, though, even for someone who loves writing first person and doesn’t really want to write a lot of dialogue, and the outline is huge, and the story will be many times more huge, and just. Some day. Some day.

Second is tell the shades apart (my world is black and white), which has always been unfinished because the outline itself is over seven thousand words and the fully written story would undoubtedly land between 100,000 and 200,000 words, and there’s no way I’m writing that. I’ve always meant to upload the outline, but I got kind of self-conscious about the way I formatted it, and ugh I just haven’t bothered. One day, one day, right?

Moral of the story is I’m intensely a short story writer, and I’ve really found myself settling into that role over the last couple years. Better a clipped, punchy short story than a bloated slog of an epic.

16. Which of the WIPS will most likely be finished first?

Literally no one knows that. I wrote 95% of the observable entropy of a closed system over five years ago, and then I proceeded to pull it out roughly once a year and write and rewrite various endings until last month, which was when I finally figured out how I wanted to end the story. septet, too, languished for about five years before I finally remembered it existed and managed to wrangle an ending. Endings are hard, man. So are those third plot points. Terrible creatures, those, bog me down every time.

17. Which WIP are you looking forward to finishing?

Uh... mm. See. If I were looking forward to finishing any of them, I’d be actively working on them. At this moment, writing fic isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities, but I am also coming off a four-day idle game bender, so I still feel like I haven’t quite reengaged with myself as a living person. Give me another few days and I might have an answer.

(I am always most looking forward to finishing this ridiculous Ignis-drives-the-Audi-R8 fic that’s been languishing in my wips for literal years. As mentioned above, third plot points. Killer, man.)

(oh and also the working-titled the art of murder. Scott and Penny attend a private art auction. Things don’t go to plan. It, too, is stuck at the third plot point. I know, I know I have a problem, shush.)

18. Is there a WIP that you’re considering abandoning?

Any wip has the potential to be revived—this year and the old wips I’ve unearthed, dusted off, finished, and posted have been proof of that. I don’t intentionally permanently abandon anything for that reason, some stories just probably will remain dusty old wips forever because I didn’t actually need or want to write the full story for one reason or another.

19. Which complete fic would you consider rewriting?

Now that’s an interesting question. Hmm! Honestly? None of them. Once I finish a story, I’m not inclined toward rereading it again any time soon, to the point of years in some cases, and I feel like I’ve moved on from the stories I wrote one, two, five, eight years ago in the actual writing sense. They’re finished stories, and on top of that are relics of their time, which doesn’t mean the stories don’t have any ongoing significance on a reading level—I just don’t have any interest in rewriting those particular stories. I’ve gotten them out of my head, to the point of not remembering at least a third of them on demand anymore, and I don’t have any desire to “retell” those exact stories. I do tend to tighten the wording and fix perceived errors/weaknesses whenever I do end up rereading an old story, and I usually silently update the AO3 version if I make any significant changes because AO3 makes it a breeze to update a posted fic. I might do FFnet too if I’m feeling up to it or have the time.

20. Which complete fic is your favourite?

Once upon a time I would’ve said Holding On, but I honestly find it kind of unbearably melodramatic now. the observable entropy of a closed system is equally melodramatic, as it was written in the same era, but at least it has the excuse of being told in second person and via a style that is a half step away from being poetry. Possibly I will reread it in a few years and find it equally obnoxious and overly dramatic, but it received some shockingly positive comments, which I wasn’t expecting at ALL, and I’ve been honestly blown away by the amount of praise it’s received. <3 to everyone who’s said anything about it!

21. What’s your total published word count?

141,000 on AO3, 160,000 on FFnet, but technically the light of my life SS wrote fifty thousand words of each. It’s too late for math.

I tag @velkynkarma, @lurkinglurkerwholurks, @writtenbyrain, @thebaconsandwichofregret, and anyone else who wants to play!

#tag games

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ot7always · 4 years

Text

Fractured (part 1)

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Word Count: 2.8k

Pairing: OT7 x Reader (platonic); future Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Mafia AU, angst, fluff, (future) smut

Chapter Warnings: Mentions of violence including murder (non-explicit). Mentions of sex (non-explicit). Mentions of drugs, guns, neglect, physical abuse, parental death. Toxic household, implicit mentions of mental illness (depression).

Rating: 18+

Summary: You’d always known something was strange and different about your “family,” but it wasn’t as though your environment encouraged curiosity from you. You thought you wanted to know all the answers, but nobody ever told you that the more you learned the more pieces of yourself you would leave behind.

A/N: This is my first story in this fandom, and I haven’t written anything for any fandom in years. This plot came to me all of a sudden last night and I decided I needed to write it. Please let me know what you think!

Masterlist

You used to be naive.

You were 11 when you first held a gun.

12 when you first made every shot through the centre of the target.

13 when you first noticed the fathers’ proud eyes rather than empty ones.

14 when you first defeated one of the boys in a spar.

15 when you first learned the details of why this was all necessary.

16 when the boys last saw you smile for real.

17 when you first participated in a mission, knuckles bloody for the first time.

18 when you first gave yourself to a man, only to later drug him and strangle him in his sleep.

They say ignorance is bliss, and you can’t help but to agree. Knowledge is not always power – you understand that better than anyone. Because the day you sought more knowledge was the last day you might have considered yourself truly happy.

“I said no. You’re not going anywhere.” The man looked at you, stone-faced in the doorway to his office. You had sought him out for permission to attend a classmate’s birthday party, but already regretted trying. It wasn’t as if you were ever allowed to go anywhere but school and back, escorted by the man’s driver.

Your neck had to crane upward to give him the pleading looks that often worked on his wife, but to no avail. With your head barely reaching the man’s waist, his cold stare had your six-year-old heart pounding, tears filling your eyes.

“But-“ you started, however it appeared there was no room for negotiation. The door was slammed in your face, door rattling in the frame. The noise was enough to make you jump, hands rising to wipe away the wetness that you could no longer hold back after being denied again.

Wanting to hide under your covers for the rest of the night lest you run into the man again, you turned around but instantly collided with another body. Gasping, your eyes immediately fell to the floor, hands falling to your sides.

“I’m sorry,” you uttered with as clear of a voice as you could manage, unwilling to invite the anger of another in the household, especially not the other adults. But the response was not one you expected.

“Y/N?” a soft voice questioned, reaching for your trembling hands. Your eyes rose to meet those of Namjoon’s, who only looked at you with more concern once he properly saw your state. His eyes swept over you quickly, assuring himself you weren’t hurt. He was only a few years older than you, but he worried for you greatly. “What happened?”

Hearing a kind voice after such an icy rejection only caused you to cry harder, stepping forward to wrap your arms around Namjoon’s waist, head buried in his chest. He accepted you without hesitation – it isn’t as though this is the first time this has happened. His hand rose to rub at your back, his warm touch calming you down some. But still, you did not offer an explanation. You knew the rules in this house, and it was your own fault for wanting more, after all. As you begun to pull away, still seeking the safety of your bed to avoid the rest of the world, Namjoon’s hands remained on your shoulders.

“Did my father say something to you again?” he questioned, sympathy in his gaze. You breaking eye contact was answer enough for him. And while he wished he could do something more for you, approaching his father about this would only invite him to unleash his anger on both of you.

Instead, he grabbed your hand, lacing his fingers with your own. When you peered at him inquisitively, he was glad to see that while your eyes were shiny and nose runny, you were no longer crying. Unwilling to let you mope for the rest of the day, he begun leading you away.

“I’ll make you some pasta, okay? I’m sure you haven’t eaten dinner yet,” he said, continuing the long trek from the upstairs rooms down to the kitchen.

While no, you hadn’t eaten, the last time you ate Namjoon’s pasta you ended up throwing up into the toilet hours later. But unwilling to reject his kindness, you allowed him to seat you at the dining table as he looked for ingredients in the fridge. You had planned to sit and watch him quietly, until you felt somebody collide with you from behind, arms wrapping around your neck.

“Y/N! We need one more person for Mario Party!” an excited voice yelled right by your ear, making you wince. After giving you the appropriate 0.3 seconds to formulate a proper response, hands begun shaking you at the shoulders hard enough to whip your head forward and back.

“Taehyungie…” you started, ready to deny him, unsure if you could handle the raucous of three young boys yelling at each other for stealing stars.

“Pleeeeeease! Please please please pleaseplease,” he begged, rocking your smaller body back and forth in the chair. His enthusiasm had you cracking your first smile since returning home from school.

“Y/N! We’re waiting for you!” a softer voice called from the living room. While you had been thinking about denying Taehyung, you never would’ve been able to deny Jimin. While mischievous, he had never been anything but kind to you growing up, leaving a huge soft spot in your heart for him.

Namjoon let out a small laugh from the stove, where he was stirring a pot that seemed to be letting out a suspicious amount of smoke for what he claimed to be pasta.

“You’d better join them or you’ll never hear the end of it,” he chuckled, giving you a wide grin when he saw you looking significantly happier than before. He was thankful that even if each of their parents might give you a hard time, at least you had seven brothers who only wanted to make you happy.

By the time you were ten years old, you had grown to accept that your life would not be like the lives of your classmates. You would not bake cookies at other girls’ houses, you would not join the after-school volleyball team, and you would not walk with friends to the ice cream shop down the street from school. That isn’t to say you hadn’t been invited. You had, years ago, but a child can only be told no so many times before they stop trying. After all, who wants to ask a question knowing the answer will always be rejection?

You were friendly with your classmates, but they knew you were some type of untouchable. You heard the whispers. She says she likes us, but why won’t she hang out? Why does the same car with tinted windows pick you up everyday? Why were you always alone on Parents’ Day?

While others had always wondered about your life, nobody dared to ask you. Whenever anyone mentioned family, the friendliness stopped. “It’s none of your business,” you would always answer, ending the conversation then and there. If your teachers ever tried to get information out of you, you would tell them not to worry. You always had an excuse for your parents not being there.

“They’re away on a trip.”

“My mother is ill.”

“They need to work during the day.”

The staff at school thought your parents were government officials, and you had likely been instructed not to talk about it. They were half right – your entire living memory you have been instructed not to talk about your family or your living situation no matter what.

It was easy to lie about why your parents weren’t there when your parents were dead. After all, who was there to refute your claims when the only family you had to speak of wasn’t even related to you by blood? The seven young boys – teenagers now, you supposed – had always been close to you, but you weren’t family.

No, you had been told that your parents were business associates of the seven families, but they had unfortunately died in an accident shortly after your birth. Unwilling to send their friends’ newborn to an orphanage, they instead took you in and allowed you to live with their families, where they raised you.

If raising you was the right term. In fact, many of the boys’ fathers ignored your existence. Namjoon’s father seemed to loathe you, though you didn’t think you did anything to cause such hate. However, you supposed that since he was not a kind man to his own son either, you could not complain. He was the head of the household, after all. You didn’t dare anger him, preferring to keep out of his way than to risk his booming voice and hard gaze.

It was not an ideal life. This much you understood, after seeing your classmates boast of their grades to their parents, happily shoving their report cards in their faces. When you see fathers raise their sons above their head, making obnoxious noises and pretending they’re an airplane, something deep inside you mourns something you’ve never had. You’ve never laughed at your father’s jokes, nor picked out an outfit with your mother.

It was not an ideal life, but at the very least you had the boys. They were perhaps the only people you could ever call a friend. They were loud and annoying, but also the only people who made you feel that you had a home.

By the time you were eleven, you had become curious. After all, every television show you’ve seen only had one family in one house, sometimes two. Seven was unheard of as far as you knew, and your adolescent brain with a newfound passion for science and mystery novels needed to know why this was. Of course, nobody could know about his goal of yours. This was top secret.

It started with casual eavesdropping. Before, you had tried to avoid the men in the house at all costs. Their serious looks scared you, and though the majority never specifically targeted you with their anger, you dared not risk it. However, you knew the men of the house frequently gathered behind closed doors, sometimes their wives too. It almost seemed like a business meeting, based on the dramas you’ve seen Seokjin watching in his spare time.

It was surprisingly easy to sneak around in the house, considering your presence was ignored by most. Even the maids didn’t look twice at your antics, knowing how teenagers always seemed to play weird games.

It was difficult to listen well, and you didn’t want to risk getting caught. You’ve only heard snippets of conversation, but it was enough to raise suspicion. The words you’ve been able to catch recently – “mission,” “warehouse,” “armed,” had you furrowing your brows, but what confused you most was “Bangtan,” or what you thought was Bangtan. You didn’t know what that meant. But what surprised you most was how often the others boys’ names seemed to come up, particularly Seokjin and Yoongi, the two eldest.

Your sleuthing continued through the weeks, but the words were hard to hear and you didn’t gain much from it. In fact, you considered giving up and trying to figure things out based on what you already had, but you figured one more try couldn’t hurt.

Perhaps you should have stayed in your room. Not that you knew now whether that could have helped you or not.

On one Wednesday after school, you returned home quicker than normal, traffic having been light for some reason. You figured you may as well use the opportunity to listen to any conversations that might be going on. After all, you made it home earlier than expected, so perhaps nobody would think you to be there to hear anything at all. Not that anyone paid attention to your schedule at all.

So there you sat – squatted, more accurately – outside Namjoon’s father’s office. You heard two muffled voices inside, but could not place who the other belonged to. What you did not expect, however, was to hear your own name coming from their lips.

“We’ve waited long enough. Y/N is useless right now, a liability more than anything,” a gruff voice said. The domineering tone itself told you it was Namjoon’s father, even if you couldn’t see anything at all.

“She’s still young-”

“And your son was years younger than her when he learned of everything. Stop babying her.”

Hearing a conversation centered around you was definitely not the norm. You leaned closer, hoping to hear better, but that was your downfall. Your shoulder brushed against the door – barely a touch at all, but enough to shake the door, and clearly noticeable to the men inside. Before you could even think to stand up, the door swung open, your eyes meeting those of Taehyung’s father like a deer in the headlights.

You felt as though your chest was going to explode, bracing yourself for the worst berating of your life. Would they kick you out? Would they hit you?

“I-I’m sorry,” your voice trembled along with the rest of you, “I thought I heard my name and I was curious, I promise I didn’t mean to,” you let out all in one breath, flinching and preparing yourself for the yelling, the fists, for anything.

What you didn’t expect was laughter. Namjoon’s father’s laughter, to be exact.

“The choice has been made for us,” he declared, directed toward Taehyung’s father.

“Sit.” he instructed you harshly, gesturing toward a chair across from his desk. There was just enough distance between you and him to feel that you were miles away. It made the man seem even more powerful than before.

“Do you remember what we told you about your parents?” he said as he fixed his stare on your wide eyes, more a demand than a question. You nodded, afraid a verbal answer would only get caught in your throat.

“Then you know we were in the same business,” he continued. You nodded again. This is the nicest he’s ever been speaking to you, and that had you relaxing some.

“You see, the boys here are all involved in this business as well. That is their responsibility to their family. Their duty. And it is time for you to fulfill your duty as well. This is what your parents would have wanted, and it is what we need from you in return for sheltering you all these years,” he went on, taking in your expression. The confusion and wariness must have been apparent on your face, because he kept on without waiting for a reply.

“You will train. After school for four hours everyday. You will become part of this business. The boys will help you,” he stated firmly, and you clearly knew these were not requests. These were commands, and you had no place to deny them, despite the questions you wanted to ask. You turned your head to look at Taehyung’s father, who had been one of the only people in the house who treated you as human. He nodded at you reassuringly, hiding his own hesitation well.

“Yes, sir,” you managed to get out, the first words you’d spoken since you entered the room. Even those were a struggle considering your shock.

“Good. You start tomorrow. Now leave.”

And train you did.

You were 11 when you first held a gun.

12 when you first made every shot through the centre of the target.

13 when you first noticed the fathers’ proud eyes rather than empty ones.

14 when you first defeated one of the boys in a spar.

15 when you first learned the details of why this was all necessary.

16 when the boys last saw you smile for real.

17 when you first participated in a mission, knuckles bloody for the first time.

18 when you first gave yourself to a man, only to later drug him and strangle him in his sleep. That was the first night you’d made yourself vulnerable in years, sobbing into Hoseok’s arms lamenting what you had done.

19 when you finally seemed to earn the respect of Namjoon’s father.

19 when you finally seemed to realize you would never be happy, never hold a real job, never get a real education.

You were no longer just part of the house, invisible to the powerful men and their wives who lived there. You had skill, talent.

No, you were no longer just a thing. You were a weapon, an asset. A tool to be used.

But a tool can only be used for so long before its shine fades.

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#bts fanfic #bts series #bts x reader #bts mafia au #ot7 x reader #yoongi x reader #bts angst #bts fluff #bts fic

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