#Also i have to walk up like 50 stairs before I get to his office so I'm always out of breath when I go say I'm his daughter

[abstract-crossverse]

Because no one asks for him, I'll just do it myself, this is mainly because I keep associating him with someone and need to fix him in my brain, so bear with me, 'kay?

Also its a bit long, got carried away <3

Cw: loosely described violence, but aside that, nothing

===========================

Hofnarr x Reader Headcanons

→ Hofnarr is... Quite the character if I'm honest, he's way less bad than other grunts, that's for sure, he tries his best not to anger the Director or get himself in stressful situations due to.. well, I'm sure you've seen that one short

→ when you both met, it was while Phobos put him in charge of one of his Lesser Important projects, you were one of the lower-grade scientists who were passing him while he carried one ungodly amount of books and files and a cup in his arms

→ of course everyone knew he was gonna fall with that eventually, and he did, he tripped one of the wires on the ground as he tried to balance the workload Phobos dumped on him

→ you waited a moment while he grumbled to himself and gathered his things, waiting if anyone would help, but no one did, of course, most of these people were just there on autopilot. So you decided to help, crouching to help him gather everything- thankfully the mugs from the Tower aren't porcelain-

→ he kept quiet, giving you slight glances from time to time as you focused on helping him gather the workload up, you felt like he didn't trust you, but that wasn't much of a problem, people barely trusted each other anyway so you didn't take it to heart.

→ after you gathered the paperwork and mug, you offered to help him get all of this to his office. He reluctantly agreed, usually, he'd say no need but by the amount of paperwork, Phobos gave him today... It was bound he'd have an accident by not being able to fuckin see where he was going, it'd be a matter of time until he'd fall down a flight of stairs that way and he would rather not end up in medbay

→ and so you two were on your way, you made small talk by asking how the projects going, or what he thought of his coworkers. To which you were slightly surprised to learn he didn't really like or wasn't that acquainted with most scientists that weren't the other two Head Scientists, or at least ones who didn't work under the Projects he was in charge of. You noticed he had a slight stutter to his speech, something you hadn't heard before when you heard him talk about the projects with the Director or others, maybe stress or anxiety related?

→ after that day, you two talked a lot more, becoming closer and closer, he lost most of his stutters as he didn't feel as anxious around you anymore, only stammering over his words when he was going on about some of his passions, such as Slaughter Time! The way he excitedly talked about the traps and plots for every episode had you both stunned and a little terrified if you'd be honest-

→ he's expressed many times how he wanted to one day participate in an episode with his clown persona, Tricky the Clown. He showed you his costume when you both were hanging out in his apartment, he even put up a small show for you with juggling and acrobatics, you were impressed with his balance and flexibility, and agility even with being on the heavier side. he told you he's been working out, and that about 40-50% of his figure was muscle. he looked very proud of himself with that, flexing a little to show off, it got an amused laugh out of you

→ you suggested he sign up to be part of one of the episodes, though he was hesitant about it- doubting himself if he would be able to take the waves, it scared you a bit too, you didn't want him to walk into his favorite show and straight up die-. Though after a while of him brainstorming with you about how to go about the traps and most possibilities of enemies, he was confident he'd survive, and so, you helped him get him into the show, sending letters to Goyle's studio with the request and recommendation, even with video proof in a pen drive of his abilities

→ while you waited for a callback, he introduced you to Dr. Christoff and Dr. Crackpot- who was a bonus due to finding both of them bickering. The older Scientist was quite serious and distant, though he seemed to approve of you, with how he mentioned Hofnarr would ramble about you sometimes, only good things he assured, much to Hofnarr's embarrassment. It got a small blush out of you too as you chuckled

→ "sometimes? He would mention you every opening he got!-" Crackpot butted in before Hofnarr shoved his mask to the side, cutting him off with a small 'ack!-', face red. Your blush increased at that- making you laugh a bit more in embarrassment, Christoff glared at Crackpot, you felt like Christoff and Crackpot didn't like each other very much

→ you noticed after that day, Hofnarr would initiate interaction a bit more than usual, wanting to be close to you and help in any way he could if you had to fix some system or were struggling with some code you couldn't figure out what you mistyped. He lightened up at your gratefulness when he helped, dare you say you saw a bit of a pink tint to his cheeks when you did, he felt useful as he soon continued on his own work. He'd call for your input on small theories he'd brainstorm as well, or ask for you and Christoff to listen to his presentation practice before he had to show something to the Director, Christoff even mentioned how he seemed to be putting even more effort into his work lately

→ it wasn't long before Hofnarr came running to you as you entered the Tower saying he got a letter back from Goyel, he said wanted to read the letter with you so he waited for you to punch in before running at you, you grew excited and nervous for him as you both rushed off to his office to see what it said. after some back and forth of excitement and him being scared he was denied, he opened the letter and read it, you waited patiently as he read, seeing the light in his eyes grow more and more as he read, and soon, he jumped from his chair happily, exclaiming he was accepted! You cheered for him and celebrated, he hugged you and thanked you multiple times for the help, and you hugged him back, though you still dreaded this wouldn't end as planned, you hid that fear for his sake

→ he told Christoff the news later that day, and as much as Christoff wasn't the biggest fan of the show, he was happy for his friend, you managed to get you and Christoff tickets to see the Episode live with some of your savings, the taller scientist was hesitant but he caved in after you and Hofnarr gave him puppy eyes. Jump cut to the day or the episode, Hofnarr showed up in his full costume, nervous as ever, you and Christoff hyped him up before you were escorted to the crowd

→ Hofnarr- or should I say, Tricky, was amazing, the way he moved around precisely and calculated through the arena was incredible, as much as you and Christoff winced at each gory death, you cheered him on. though there was a time his movements were no longer calculated, feeling a lot more sudden and sporadic, he smiled like a madman.. you almost didn't recognize him as Hofnarr, but you still cheered him on, as much as he seemed to shake with every life he took. you looked at Christoff, he looked concerned, which scared you a bit, something's wrong, you can feel it..

→ at the end, he won. The ratings were through the roof, Goyel thanked him for coming and they said their goodbyes, he met you two outside, greeting you both with a rib-crushing hug, surprising you and Christoff as he squished you. "How'd I do?! Amazing, right?! Did you see the spin I did when I cracked the Brute's neck?!!" He spoke, quickly and louder than normal, he was still shaking as he put you both on the ground, smiling widely. You shrugged it off as him still riding off the adrenaline, he didn't even look tired-

→ "y-yea! You did great, Hof! But- are you okay?-" he cut you off "Okay?? I've never felt more alive!! I wanna go again!!!" He exclaimed, you gave him a nervous smile and glanced at Christoff, he had a knowing look on his face. "Hofnarr, my friend, I believe you need to wind down a little, come on, I'll get you home." He said, placing a hand on Hofnarr's shaking form, the same nodding his head slightly. Hofnarr looked back at you, having a crazy look in his eyes as he hugged you tightly again, you winced and hugged him back "See ya soon, [Y/N]!! Byeee!!!" He let go of you and began heading off, almost too quick for his usual pace, you gave Christoff a concerned look, he returned the same look, mouthing an 'I'll tell you later.' before heading off after Hofnarr, leaving you confused and worried in front of Goyel's studio

→ the next day, Hofnarr was back to his usual self again, apologizing for hugging you so tightly the other day, you said it was nothing even though it bruised your sides. Chritoff pulled you aside at lunch as Hofnarr was getting his food, Christoff vaguely explained that Hofnarr had some issues due to working with Dissonance a lot, very vaguely saying that what happened the day prior with Hofnarr's attitude and shaking was a result of those issues. You felt like he wasn't telling the whole truth but as soon as you were going to ask more about it, Hofnarr came back, asking what you were talking about, Christoff simply stated that it was some boring work stuff, and you rolled with it, especially because Christoff isn't one to lie without a reason, you knew that.

→ you tried asking Crackpot about it but he seemed clueless, as was anyone else that worked with Hofnarr, and asking the Director was off limits so you just resorted to patience, maybe he'd tell you what that's about eventually

→ sometime later, Hofnarr nervously pulled you aside, face red with blush you almost thought he came to work with a fever. He revealed he had feelings for you, listing emotions you made him feel and how special your cheering made him feel back at Slaughter Time, your face grew red with every word, listening intently to his stammering speech, he asked you if you'd be his partner at the end, you smiled fondly at him, saying you felt the same and accepting his request, he was ecstatic, pulling you into a hug again, gently leaning his forehead on yours

→ now that you were dating, you would both walk around the halls of the Tower holding hands or with looped arms, sometimes just hooking pinkies due if the Director was walking around the halls, talking either about life or work as you always did, cracking jokes or anything that could make you smile

→ sometimes when he gets to work earlier than usual and you're not there, he leaves a lil gift at your desk, be it some snacks, lil trinkets he made himself, or whatever he knows you like

→ he puts up small clown performances to try and cheer you up, if it's at work he'll do little juggles with paper balls or just do silly things that could get a laugh out of you, if it's in private he whips out the whole Tricky fit for you and goes as extra as your comfortable with!

→ to him his partner's happiness is his happiness, as long as you're okay and safe he doesn't care what happens to him, which worries you since he's been taking the blows of whatever mistake you accidentally make so Phobos doesn't kill you- since he has a higher chance of being kept alive due to being one of his head scientists and more important to Phobos, with scientists in your grade- Phobos deems you replaceable. You have to give him a light bonk upside the head for him to stop that or else he'll get either demoted or fired and let you deal with the consequences yourself

→ he's a huge cuddle bug, a switch between a little and big spoon, while he likes being held, he loves having you snuggled up to his side/holding you

→ adding onto that, he's a big fan of PDA, likes holding your hand when you're walking together, and just randomly giving you kisses as you pass by each other

→ he has weird ideas sometimes- of course he does- but sometimes you'll be sleeping over at his apartment or him at yours and while you both are about to doze off he just pitches something like "yknow those catgirls from anime? What if they were real?.." "..." You lifted your head up from its place on his shoulder, giving him a look ".. I swear it's not for any of those weird reasons, just wondering how the anatomy and nature would work, yknow? Like would they have the agility of a cat and night vision and stuff? Or would they just be normal grunts with weird ears and a tail?" You hummed, snuggling back into him, a muffled hum leaving your lips

→ kisses with him are very gentle, kisses soft and gentle you can feel all the love he has for you, he has a very soft touch as if you'd break if he's any rougher

→ eventually a few months into your relationship he got the courage to tell you about his.. issue

→ explaining how sometimes he needs to directly inject a substance he found into his bloodstream to keep from going insane because of the dissonance, how he'd need you to run to get the syringes once he showed signs of insanity prominently

→ and like that it was, whenever he began to shake more often and smile more eerily than normal you'd run to get a syringe, even if it wasn't on the point he instructed you to inject it was good to have one on you so you didn't have to run back and forth. Once you forgot to keep one in your pocket and came back with the syringe, he was scratching hard at his jaw, he sighed in relief once he calmed from the 'antidote', giving you kisses and generally being very lovey while you disinfected the scratches. Thankfully you were already at his apartment when he started shaking so the rest of the day you just cuddled, you comforted him as he snuggled up to you

→ as much as it's not his fault his mind is deteriorating slowly, he apologizes every time you or Christoff have to help him keep from harming himself or others, and apologizes for giving you both such stress/anxiety spikes when it happens, you both assure him its okay, he still feels guilty

→ he has humor much like Brandon from the Youtube channel Imbrandonfarris. It's weird but weirdly funny or ridiculous enough it's funny, something like that. He has indeed filled his room with Ballpit balls and you both have indeed gotten lost in it once, then Christoff showed up and was confused about it- even Phobos emerged from the ball pit, none of you know how he got there since Hof didn't let him in, nor did he leave the ball pit since he set it up- Phobos doesn't know either, one second he's in his office, he closes his eye and then he's here-

→ either way, you're always by his side, you help him and he helps you. Through better or worse times.. Hofnarr told you about his and Christoff's plans to take down Phobos, at least to a degree he said he had a hiding place set for you to stay safe while they recked havoc

→ and so when that was to happen, he led you to the hiding place, telling you to lock the door and only open it when you hear the specific knock he made up for you to know it's him, it looked like a small storage room with bed and rations set up for you, as well as some clown equipment, guess that's where he kept his stuff for Tricky, it was also outside of Nexus City, thankfully a good distance from it in an abandoned neighborhood. He said he'd come back soon, you trusted him, giving him a goodbye kiss and wishing him luck as he left, you locked the door after he left.

→ and he did stand for his word, he came back! He was fine, if not a little shakey, he claimed it wasn't the insanity and just adrenaline, believing him- you were still weary about it, he said Christoff told him to look over the city while he needed to resolve some things out of the city. so the weeks past you both(you insisted to go with him) would be gearing up and protecting the city, helping any survivors to stay hidden or fend off any threats you need to kill

→ eventually, Hofnarr was hired by the AAHW to help with the Sheriff's cause as Tricky, which this time Hofnarr insisted you stay home after Hank started fucking around and finding out. He wants you safe, and he won the argument this time, and so you did, Hofnarr sometimes wouldn't come home too late at night, you understood the agent job took a lot of time but it didn't make you worry less for him

→ until one day he didn't come home for a while, leaving you to worry, you were almost going out to find him, mid-gearing up until you felt a shock through your body straight to your head, making you lose balance and hold your head in pain with a groan, hearing loud static in your head and red words flashing in front of your eyes

→ "WHO DIS?" "FRESH MEAT??" "IN CLOWN'S HIDEOUT?!" "INCOMPATIBLE"

→ you heard a small poof to your left and some green glitter float when you looked over, your eyes widened at the zed in front of you, smeared blue and white facepaint, scratched jaw and crazy red eyes, a bleeding gaping hole on its chest and bleeding bullet wounds tainting the so familiar jumpsuit with red shades, the red hair in shape resembling devil horns as it held a stop sign in its hands, it wouldn't. Stop. Shaking.

→ your first instinct was to crawl away a bit until you recognized the clown, "... Hofnarr?..." Your voice is barely a whisper, the clown seemed to pause for a moment, still shaking violently, it blinked, trying to recognize you, you felt familiar... Until it clicked, it perked up, squinting its eyes in a smile as it dropped the sign

→ "[Y/N]!!!" it teleported in front of you with the same green glitter as before, hugging you tight, the static screaming in your head lowered enough that you could think clearly but not enough you wouldn't know its still there, happy words flashing in front of your eyes, all affectionate, but it made your eyes sting, or was that the tears welling up in your eyes? You buried your head on his shaking shoulder, wrapping your arms around him just as tight...

→ it's shaking subsided as it felt your shakey breaths and choked sobs on its shoulder, resorting to changing positions and having you lean against him as he sat against the wall, glitchy purrs and gentle circles on your back with his hand as you cried away, trying to soothe you as much as he's confused as to why you're crying, he just knew to let your get it out before asking what's wrong..

→ nothing hurt more than learning your lover was gone, not only to being a zed but to the insanity too, and you've run out of the antidote recently. You cant get him back, but at least what's left of him is here.. and it seems to remember you so maybe... You lifted your head to look at the clown, he looked back at you, lifting a shaky hand to wipe your tears, giving you a smile with what was left of his lips, speaking of that- he peppered your face with kisses quickly, making you let out a weak giggle before he landed a kiss on your lips, long and loving as he pulled your head with a hand to deepen your kiss, this was still your lover, just- not the ex-scientist you knew before, but he's still there

→ once you separated he leaned his forehead with yours, and you let out another sob, apologizing, "For what? Ya have nothin' to apologize for! I got a little carried away-" he spoke with an inside, not yelling like before, knowing being so close to him with yelling would hurt your ears. he chuckled, placing your head on his chest, thankfully the bloody hole was more down than up.. though the lack of heartbeat and warmth made you tear up again, his green hand playing your hair gently. You let out a shakey sigh and let your eyes close, hoping this would just be a nightmare and you'd wake up with Hofnarr snoring beside you in the morning

→ though deep inside, you knew this was real... this was your new reality, but it's still him... at least he's not completely gone, you'll adapt.. Im sure you will.

===============================

#madcom #madness combat #maskwrites #madness combat x reader #mc hofnarr #madcom hofnarr #dr hofnarr #hofnarr x reader #madness combat hofnarr #madcom x reader #headcanons

[maxillis]

anyway actually i do actually want to explore an elysium with an innoccentic harry. every time he steps foot in that church and looks up at the mosaic of dolores dei, it makes me think. every kind of apocalyptic omen that comes out of nowhere, every superstitious layman that believes harrier du bois is some kind of harbinger, every revacholian that dreads the ground harry walks on...harry is a broken, sad, empty, lonely and desperate man. he has profound and insightful things to say about the world. he observes it with care and love. we have the sodium lights. this is somewhere to be. he observes it with cynicism and deep dissatisfaction. he knows when the numbers are wrong. he knows when the suit at the desk is going to fuck over old widows and their children. sometimes he loses his sense of reality and begins to instead count the days that remain. the city connects to him through the invertibrates. he has done atrocious, unforgivable things. he fights for the people, he's a real common hero. he is a person no one wants, or is eager, to hear from.

and no one that knows him, really knows him, is ever in a position to see an innocentic harry. they see the radiation instead. they see the bloated corpse of a drunk. he survives heart attacks out on the bombed, rotting roads of history and they wonder how he hasn't left himself out to dry in the pale by now. to them, he may as well have been the body in the tree. the imperfection of his chin, from a bout of polio when he was young, is not quite a combat injury like lely's. they both nonetheless had to learn how to speak to the rest of the world through it.

harry is often discounted as a competent person because of his drinking, and the most intense pushback against harry comes from his partner, who was scorned by harry's ego and condescension. jean, a satellite-officer, one of harry's last few believers. but none of it matters anymore, because all of harry's words have been tainted. there is nothing he can say to inspire jean's forgiveness, or happiness, or relief. when i think about THE NEXT WORLD MURAL i think about how jean wanted to keep it, and how it must have been harry, his superior, who agreed to take that back to precinct 41--agreed to debate it and demand to vote whether it should be conserved or removed. of course they couldn't get rid of it. true love is only possible in the next world. for new people. it is too late for us.

in precinct 57, a moralist in a revolutionary jacket wonders if his superiors care that they're sending him to work with the human can-opener. the 50's era, moribund drunk, somewhat of a street legend (or was it a tall tale?) and also a sordid promise that the case would be solved to the ends of the earth. kim had forgotten the man's name somehow. it was only mentioned once before, when kim was determined not to pay attention to who exactly the poor son of a bitch was, getting caught on the short end of the pissing-contest shit-stick, in the maw of martinaise. but even without a name, kim had known what to look for. that goddamn jamrock shuffle. he could have named it as he watched harry shamble down the stairs.

kim is no saint. he is no devout founder's party service boy. but there is no point where he can't bring himself to believe harry's hunches, warnings, and instincts. one of them saves kim's life. another finds a bullet that has already taken a life, in a hanged man's head. harry finds ruby because the wind speaks to him. there is a 2mm hole in the world, and harry has seen it. he knows what it will do, he understands what it is made from. something got you this far, kim thinks. however, he too knows he is not imaginative enough to think of what, in particular, that could be.

this innocentic harry, shrouded in pale and ravaged by the world he was born into, will also likely do nothing but fall on deaf ears that have been both put off by his substance abuse and quite frankly fucked over by dolorianism, and the last vestiges of belief in his word will be those who altogether reject the imposition of the past (AKA the overlap in a venn diagram between delinquents and kim kitsuragi) on any bearing of the present. that's how harry works; he is discounted because people believe he is nothing but a rambling drunk, or a paranoia case. but kim saw his service history. he also saw the startlingly low kill count.

but if the only way for harry to start anew was to rewrite himself out of an old wrecked frame, while older, out-of-date copies of harry du bois were still open on jean vicquemare's desk, then true love really would only be possible in the next world, and harry's infection-by-pale would be the last nail in his coffin. so harrier du bois is no longer permitted to live in the past and he suffers the consequences when he slips back. he can't un-speak jean away from the past where they both once stood. his boon, and bane, is that he must now surround himself with what is to come. and his curse is that nobody believes him. he will not go down in history. he will not live to see the change. nobody has faith in him, even when he succeeds. and he has succeeded so often; statistically more often than he has faltered. just like you cannot call kim a revolutionary for wearing a jacket you cannot call harry a revolutionary regardless of how he chooses to serve the people but "harrier" is a gift from his mother to keep him strong during war and he was born in a hospital where people would usually go to die if you even care

#disco elysium #like do you ever just go a little bit fucking crazy. #anyways #harry du bois aka the cringefail innocence #cd-roms

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

My time as a pinch hitter on my current project comes to an end next Wednesday but I’ve enjoyed the ride.

My next project is undecided at the moment but I know there are two possibilities. I’d be happy to work on either.

Lisa Respers France • CNN

Paul Reubens, who found fame as the quirky man-child character Pee-wee Herman, has died, according to an announcement on his verified social media.

I liked Mr. Reubens as the flatulent “superhero” Spleen in Mystery Men. Pure sophomoric comedy.

RIP 🪦

Naomi Nix and Will Oremus • Washington Post

Initially, the team carried just two product managers and one or two designers alongside dozens of engineers — a flatter and more coder-dominated group than most Meta product teams, Mosseri said. (At launch, it had grown to three product managers, three designers and 50 coders.) Instead of 30-minute presentations on a single design decision, typical at Facebook and Instagram, “It would be like, ‘Here are six things we need to go through this week.’”

Lean teams can often pull off amazing things if they’re extremely talented. I’d imagine this team is extremely talented. The other thing that helped them succeed was the freedom to cut to the bare minimum allowed to make a great 1.0.

Also, 50 engineers isn’t a small team. 😃

Raymond Chen • The Old New Thing

Depending on what version of Windows you have, you might see a body of water where Poland should be.

Mr. Chen has been involved with the Windows team for 30 years and has been sharing his stories on The Old New Thing for 20. He’s a real gift to us old guys who wrote Windows apps.

His title should be Microsoft Historian. 📜

Gleb Tsipursky • Fortune

Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. In other words, employers knew the mandates would cause some attrition, but they weren’t ready for the serious problems that would result.

This doesn’t shock me. Once you settle into a routine at home it’s really difficult to muster the desire to go back to the office. Some folks need to be in an office with other folks but other, like me, don’t need it.

I like the control I have over my environment. My desk, my chair, heck I even bought my own monitor so I could make my setup just the way I want it. Couple that with no commute and the convenience of walking up stairs to our kitchen for lunch or coffee and it’s hard to beat. 🏡

Kim Zetter • WIRED

The backdoor, known for years by vendors that sold the technology but not necessarily by customers, exists in an encryption algorithm baked into radios sold for commercial use in critical infrastructure. It’s used to transmit encrypted data and commands in pipelines, railways, the electric grid, mass transit, and freight trains. It would allow someone to snoop on communications to learn how a system works, then potentially send commands to the radios that could trigger blackouts, halt gas pipeline flows, or reroute trains.

Wow. This is a nightmare. We work really hard to make sure our code isn’t exploitable and here you have a company who intentionally made their software just that, exploitable. If you have a back door it’s an invite to every bad actor to walk right on in. 🫣

Jim ODonnell • Barn Finds

Before I could get this post completed, this 1947 Lincoln Continental cabriolet disappeared from Facebook Marketplace.

I love this car! Design in the 40’s and 50’s was beautiful. Lots of curves and fins and just plain style. Restoring a car like this would be a real honor.

Beyond the beauty of the design it sported a whopping 125 horse power from its 292 V12. 😆

Kylie Robison • Fortune

But in June, Bluesky found itself embroiled in its own controversy after a user signed up for the service with a racist handle incorporating the N-word, and had apparently been permitted to use the platform for weeks without anyone at the company seeming to object.

Bluesky seems to be attracting a lot of the folks who make Twitter so attractive to many and with that it’s also attracting the terrible people.

I miss some actors and writers from Twitter and some seem to have taken to Bluesky. But if Bluesky is going to allow racism and hate to exist on the platform then I really don’t care to use it.

Yes, I have an account but I rarely use it. I’ve found a home in Mastodon.

Joshua Sokol • The Atlantic

One dusky June evening, two days before the 2022 Pennsylvania Firefly Festival, the biologist Sarah Lower sat on a back porch, watching the sky for a specific gradation of twilight. A group of Lower’s students from Bucknell University hung around her, armed with butterfly nets and stopwatches for counting the time between firefly flashes—a way to differentiate between the multiple lightning-bug species that live here at the edge of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest.

I love fireflies! It’s one of the things I’ve come to love and look forward to here in Virginia. Little critters with butts that light up! What could be better?

I feel fortunate to be able to walk outside and watch these beautiful creatures at work. Alas, it seems they’re almost finished for the season but watching them was a real joy while it lasted.🧡

Justine Bateman • The Daily Beast

Hollywood CEOs Would Sooner Wreck an Industry Than Suffer Bruised Egos

It feels like this could get really ugly and I hope for the sake of the writers this whole mess will work itself out in their favor, but I’m not holding my breath. 😮‍💨

Lauren Forristal • TechCrunch

Warner Bros. Discovery reported its second-quarter earnings results Thursday, revealing that it dropped in 1.8 million streaming subscribers across HBO, Discovery+ and its new combined streaming service Max.

This is a real bummer. Max is my most watched service, but only from the HBO perspective. To see them combine the catalogs of Discovery and HBO feels like a bad idea. Why not have two apps with one set of credentials? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[hereforhalstead]

Hungry Eyes

*Gif not mine, credits to the owner*

• Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader 18+

• Requested: Yeeeess by my bestie @halsteadlover who always sets the bar so high and provided me with this.

reader's friend that come to visit her and Jay is jealous but nobody knows about their relationship so he can't even say anything about it and then he corners Reader when they r alone and shows her who she belongs to iykyk kwnejekwnsked i know this is a shitty idea but whit ur writing bestie it'd be ✨ chef's kiss ✨’i

• Warnings: swearing/Daddy kink/smut references

• Summary: Jay gets jealous after an old friend turns up at the district to ask you out for lunch and reminds you who you belong to.

• Words: 4218

• A/N :lysm you’re the best but pls don’t come after me if this disappoints hahah Enjoy🤭

***

You woke up with that feeling in the pit of your stomach that you didn’t like, instantly feeling sick with nerves for no explanation. You tried to start your morning as best and to routine as you could to try and push out the thoughts but nothing worked. 

You made your way into the kitchen to grab some ice out of the freezer for your drink, you found yourself gazing out of the window being transfixed on cars going by. You flinched as you felt a squeeze on your sides, you looked over your shoulder to see Jay’s mischievous smile grinning back at you, a sight that would always put your mind to rest but on this day it wasn’t doing the trick. 

He softly pulled on the round neck of your tshirt, exposing your shoulder to which he placed a light kiss to your skin “Everything alright?” he questioned, still stood behind you as you filled your glass. You nodded in response but you both knew this wasn’t enough for him, you span to exit the kitchen but he stood his ground to block your path.

“You wanna trying lying to me again?” he probed, gently outlining the side of you face with his fingers. You pressed your lips into his cheek but he still wouldn’t budge “Jay, I’m fine” you attempted to reassure but he simply gave a light chuckle in response.

 “Baby, you know I call out people who lie for a job. Right?” You lean your head forward onto his chest and huff “Just one of those days” you mumble into his shirt and he tuts “And you couldn’t tell me that because?”.

You look up at him and roll your eyes “Because doofus, now you’ll be watching my every move when you need to be focusing on yourself” You push your finger into his chest as you speak, he flicks his eyes down onto your hand and then back up to your worried expression “We’ll be fine. Always are, I know how to look out for both of us” he leans in to place a chaste kiss to your lips but you still feel that sinking feeling wasn’t going anywhere fast.

 “How do you always know what to do to make me feel better?” you tease, trying your best to ignore the wave of anxiousness overwhelming your body “It’s just as much of my job as it is to be a detective” he proudly replies and you can’t stop the smile creeping on your face “Smooth” you compliment, earning another toothy grin from your boyfriend 

“Come on you, the quicker we get out of here the quicker we get home”. He slings an arm round your shoulder before stopping to pick up the drink you had previously poured yourself as he calmly reassures “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s gonna be fine”

***

As normal, Jay drops you off in his truck a few roads away from the district. You’d both decided it was best to keep your relationship between yourselves for the time being as god knows word spreads fast within Chicago and Voight would be less than impressed to say the least. 

Seeing how he reacted to Kim and Adam served as a warning of how harsh he can be and implement punishments for the smallest of things. He often eyes the pair of you so you have an inclining he’s caught on but as far as you’re aware you’d gotten away with it so far which seemed a miracle. There’d been a few close encounters, you and Jay getting carried away in the evidence room, one acting out when the other is in danger or the most popular one being when either one of you is hit on and you can’t say a word. 

Jay found this the hardest as Voight encouraged you to use your charm and sarcastic character on suspects, often helping to break their barriers and admit things they didn’t know they were admitting. This came at a cost, you openly flirting with another man in the interview room was now a regular occurrence and to Jay’s dismay he was often sat right by your side as you did so. 

Most of the time you had fun with this as it never took much to get Jay jealous, a simple double take at you had him aggravated within seconds so for you to have taken on the role as ‘Intelligence flirt’ did not sit well with him. You’d considered having words with Voight about it, expressing how it made you uncomfortable but as much as sometimes you didn’t like it, it did often lead to success so you had to put your dignity to one side and do the job at hand. 

It was another one of those days where you were called into the interview room as soon as you walked up the stairs, Jay handing you a paper file as he passes your desk. Just like every morning, acting like you hadn’t been in bed together just a few hours earlier or traipsing round his apartment in nothing but his T-shirt.

“He’s just your type” Kim calls out to you, smirk beaming from her face “and how do you know what my type is?” you sarcastically respond, eyebrow cocked in confidence “Believe me, I know what your type is” she is quick to reply, already back focusing on a pile of paperwork sat in front of her. You narrow your eyes at her and then cast your eyes over to Jay who is still enthralled by the thought of you.

“Will you just get in there and do you thing. We need to nail this bastard” Voight’s rough voice echos out, hurrying you to hang your coat up on the way to the interview room “Good luck” Jay announces with an amused tone “I think you’re the one who needs the luck” you hit back. He bores his eyes down to you as he leans forward to open the door with one hand and allowing you to enter the room first. 

The suspect immediately slumps back in his chair as you slam the thick paper file onto the desk “Think you better sit up and pay attention sunshine, I haven’t got all day” you jest, Jay remaining stern in the seat next to you as he’s ready to play good cop bad cop. “Oh I can tell I’m gonna like you already” his eyes roam about your body but Jay is quick to harshly click in front of the mans face to distract him “Eyes up here big man”. 

You conceal your laugher, not even 2 seconds in and Jay’s pissed off “Why don’t you let her do the talking pretty boy” the suspect flirts and you scoff “You’re already looking at 25 years in jail if you don’t start talking so we’ll get started if you don’t mind” you open the file in efforts to break eye contact with the suspect but Jay was still showing a disgruntled stare over the table “I’m all yours”. 

***

Safe to say the interview didn’t get much better, no matter how much you leaned into him, he wasn’t saying a word. Forcing you to try and go above and beyond with the flirting technique but still nothing. You marched back into the office with Jay, him stuck at your side but staying silent when usually there would be some form of sarcastic comment but today there was nothing.

 “How could you say he was my type, are you blind? He was about 50 with half a mouth of teeth and I can’t imagine the last time he showered” you call out to Kim who laughs “My idea of fun” she contests, handing you a cup of coffee “Hilarious” you comment under your breath as she returns to her desk next to you. 

You were still reeling from the interview, annoyed at yourself for not getting him to break so you could charge him with more but by the sounds of it, it wasn’t his first offence so knew how to play the game and also play you. You scanned the pages in front of you, head in your hands as you sat propped with your elbows on the desk “He was just a dick who knows how to work the system, don’t let it get to you” Jay speaks as he leans on the desk next to you. 

You huff and sink into your chair “Surprised you’re talking to me” you joke as Jay shrugs “Gotta do what you gotta do” he calmly admits, complete change of attitude to his normal tense and quiet self after these interviews but you still knew him well enough to know he was bluffing “Now who’s the one lying” you raise your eyebrows at him with a slight smirk across your face.

He leans down to you to speak but you hear Trudy clear her throat from behind him “Y/N, you got someone down here for you” she bitterly announces, you both turn to look at her as she spins to head back down the stairs “Did they give a name, or?” you ask after her but as per usual she was hardly in a mood to converse “Do I look like a receptionist? No” she tuts “Was cute though” you’re taken back as she adds her little comment and disappears back down the stairs. 

“Well, best get myself down to this hottie then” you stand from your seat, ensuring you graze yourself along Jay as you pass “Don’t wanna keep him waiting” you quietly add so only he can hear. 

He keeps his arms folded in front of his chest and watches you intently as you walk off, feeling his eyes burn into your back as you follow Trudy’s path down to the main area. Slight grin as you enjoyed winding Jay up and as much as he didn’t want to admit it he also got a kick out of it. 

Him watching you think you have the dominance in the relationship truly amused him, all while knowing he could have you pinned up against a wall and struggling to find words within seconds frequently crossed his mind as he sat watching you work opposite him. 

**

You got to the bottom of the stairs only to be met by an empty room, you look over to Trudy who is aimlessly scrolling on the computer and walk over to her desk “Where is he then?” you ask but get no response, instead she simply looks over your shoulder to the room next to the main doors. 

She glimpses back over to you before returning to her work “Always so helpful Trudy, what would I do without you” you mock, tapping the desk before turning to see who had asked after you.

You didn’t even have a chance to get yourself together before he was stood in front of you, your best friend from college who you hadn’t seen in years was stood before you and Trudy was right, he was looking just as cute as he did the last time you see him all those years ago. “There she is! The hot shot detective” he exclaims before engulfing you in his arms. 

It took you by surprise so took you a few seconds before you could grasp what was happening “Kyle? What are you doing here?” you pull back, leaving his arm still resting on your hip as he towered over you “My folks moved to Chicago a few weeks ago so thought I would come visit. Then remembered you worked here so made it all the more easier for me to take the trip” he happily admits as you nudge his shoulder “Still the flirt I see” you tilt you head and he nods “Can’t help it when it comes to you”. 

You come to your senses that you’re still stood in the middle of the open space at the district, Trudy without a doubt ogling at you from her desk and silently judging with her scowl and condescending manner. 

You take a quick sweep of the area to see if anyone else is around but it was just the two of you which made the silence even more awkward. As much as you wanted nothing more than to catch up with Kyle, this was hardly the ideal scenario as you could basically hear a pin drop and knew Trudy was listening in on every word. 

You check your watch and note it was nearly 1pm which led you to the perfect excuse of leaving “Wanna grab some lunch?” he questions to which you quickly agree “Let me just grab my stuff and we can go”.

Just as you turn to head back upstairs you hear Trudy call out from behind you “Chuckles, get Y/N’s bags for her will you. She's being whisked off for lunch on a hot date” whilst still facing away you subtly shake your head and huff “I’m gonna kill her” you joke, Kyle awkwardly laughs along with you which doesn’t help with the glare Jay was sending in your direction. 

“Thanks but I can get them myself, thanks though” you grimace to Trudy as you pass her desk “Won’t be long” you call back to Kyle who takes a seat on the chairs “Just text me if you need a moment before we go!” Jay shoots him a lingering glare, you nudge his shoulder to pull him from his trance with the aggravated scorn to Kyle.

 You place your hand onto the scanner and feel Jay breathing down your neck from how close he is stood behind you “So you’ve got a hot date?” he whispers, so quiet that you’re sure no one else heard “Don’t start” you warn as the door buzzes and loosens to allow you to open it.

“Don’t know what you mean” Jay innocently responds, still hot on your trail as you make your way up “Jay, your jealousy is showing” you tease with a hint of smugness in your voice “I don’t get jealous baby” he takes you off guard with the pet name but you try your best to act unfazed “A lot of lying going on today, isn’t there?”. 

You make your way over to your desk and rummage around in the drawers looking for the purse your usually leave in there with a few bank cards and loose change. “Who’s the hunk then Y/N?” Hailey asks from her desk on the other side of the room “It’s her boyfriend” Jay answers before you even have a chance to respond. You continue looking through your desk, rolling your eyes at his comment but grateful no one can see as you look down.

“He’s a friend from college” you correct him, shooting him a glare to which he sneers. “And he’s taking you to lunch? Lucky you” Kim adds, earning a less than impressed glance from Adam “I’m right here you know” he mocks and you laugh to yourself of the irony of Adam getting jealous when you knew Jay was sat there reeling and no one knew. 

“Wait, isn’t Kyle the one who-?” Kim starts but you widen your eyes her to give her the message to stop “The one who?” Kevin probes, aware that now everyone was in on this would only add to Jay’s annoyance “He wa-” Hailey speaks up “Uh” you interrupt, admiring the joy she had flashed across her face. Adam pats Kevin on the shoulder as he passes “Girl code bro, we’ll never find out”. 

“I didn’t know I was running a gossip circle? Back to it” Voight demands from the doorframe of his office. The team turn back to their work as you give up looking for your purse and decide to head to the lockers to see if you left it in there earlier in the week. 

Once in the hall, alone you run your fingertips over the creases in your forehead. Partly in trying to remember where you last had your purse but also wishing Kyle hadn’t come to the district or atleast gave you some forewarning that we was in town. 

That soon explains the reason for your gut feeling this morning that something wasn’t going to go right, although you were slightly relieved as it wasn’t half as bad as you expected when you first woke up and felt the anxiety swirling in your stomach but still wasn’t ideal. 

You leant your head against your locker before taking a deep breath, anyone would think you were being overdramatic but with the interview the morning where you had truly pushed yourself with the flirting already leaving Jay on the back foot this was not what you had in mind for the rest of the day. 

Normally, a quiet afternoon with the odd doting look and occasional private moment between the pair of you had you back in his good books but that was clearly out of the window and now with this he was just feeling worse. 

You searched in your locker but still no sign, you pulled out your phone to text Kyle and was shocked you still had his number after all these years. You clicked away on your phone before a presence in front of you makes you flinch. 

You look up to see Jay leaning with one arm on the locker and the other holding your purse “You can text your boyfriend to say your other boyfriend found your purse” he dangles the purse in front of you but snatches it back when you go to grab it “Jay, leave it alone” you taunt but he simply drops your purse on the bench behind you with a swift motion and turns to head out. 

Slightly shocked you don’t get more of a reaction out of him leaves you wanting more, a twisted affect he had on you when he left you craving him if he didn’t give you what you wanted.

“You don’t want me to introduce the pair of you then?” you call out, causing him to stop in his tracks on route to the door. You heart instantly picks up as you know you’ve got him “Do what you want” he spits out, still with his back to you. You make your way over to him and run your fingertip up and down his spine, causing him to shiver under your touch.

 “Someone in a mood?” you innocently ask, knowing full well what you’re letting yourself in for but using it as more motivation to keep going. He hangs his head in laughter and takes a moment before he inhales through his flared nostrils, even facing away from you you can see the bitter look on his face as he bites the inside of his lip in frustration. 

“Why don’t you just go and have a nice little lunch with your boyfriend and we’ll speak about this at home later” his calmness still confuses you and didn’t satisfy your craving and as much as you knew you shouldn’t provoke him you can’t help but continue to do so.

“You don’t Atleast want to know who he is? You could be letting me go to lunch with a murderer for all you know” you joke but he is not amused, not in the slightest. He deeply huffs which, to his frustration you know is a good sign you were getting what you wanted “No Y/N. I don’t want to know who the fuck he is” he finally bursts, turning in his spot and now staring down on you.

“I don’t give a shit who he is, I don’t give a shit what you’ve done together” the way his chest rises and falls in his passion truly awakes something within you and you no longer care how quick you feel overpowered by him.

“That’s not very kind” you respond, innocent tone paired with your eyelashes fluttering as you look up at Jay’s rage filled face.

“Kind? I don’t care about kind when it comes to other men flirting with my girl, baby” he starts taking steps towards you, forcing you to walk back under his demand. 

Your back soon hits the bank of lockers with a thud, his eyes filled his hunger as he rests his arm to the side of your head and leans into you “He was only my first fuck, no big deal” you mumble but his spiteful chuckle tells you he heard it loud and clear, slightly regretting your honesty when you’re truly under his thumb and not getting out of his hold anytime soon.

“Say that again” he taunts, hand gripped onto your waist and getting tighter with each heavy breath. You don’t say a word as you know nothing will help what you’ve just said, he leaves it a moment before he continues. 

“No?” He questions as you remain standing in silence, you shake your head to see the exasperation flashing across his face. “Why did you even tell me that?” He further asks and in all honesty you begin to question that yourself, you just knew it would be the worst thing you could admit and therefore it had to be done.

“Oh, I know why” he drops his head as he smiles to himself, hand running along his jawline as a smug smile makes its way onto his face. Not a second later his attention is back on you with the hunger in his eyes that you now desperately longed for.

“You want me to remind the name that I know you’re wishing you could moan right now” he teases as he pushes himself onto you further “straight up against these lockers, with my hand over your mouth to quieten them desperate pleas”. His eyes search your face for any form of resistance as he darts his knee inbetween your legs to separate them “Tell me I’m wrong baby?”.

You feel your body melt under his slightest touch, his words making you crumble into his grasp on you. With your mind no longer on Kyle or the fact you were at your place of work with the chance of getting caught at any moment “Your team just on the other side of that wall not having a single clue what’s going on”. He was clearly enjoying this as much as you were, his lips finding their way to your collarbone and lightly nipping at the skin.

“My girl wants me to fuck her so hard that she can’t even walk out of this room without me helping her” he proceeds to run his lips along your jawline, leaving lingering kisses as he goes “Not so mouthy now, hm?” He grasps at your hip to straighten you from your slumped position, feeling your legs turn to jelly as you yearn for his dominant touch “Use your words, baby”.

He catches you off guard with a deep and hungry kiss as his lips crash into yours, using his hand on the small of your back to steady you as you stumble from the sudden harshness. As you leaned into his desires, you wanted to use the tiniest bit of power you have left to well and truly push him over the edge. Something you knew that would have you playing this moment over in your head for weeks on end, him falling at your mercy and pushing him over the edge “Yes daddy”.

His eyes widen, something he had only heard you say a few times in the past but only after being encouraged at the height of passion and never on your own accord. The fingers digging into your hips told you all you needed to know, whether he liked to admit it, you’d won this hands down.

You run your to tongue over your bottom lip, now slightly swollen from the rough contact. His eyes follow your movement, the darkness in his eyes turning more intense as every second went by “oh baby” he chuckled, wrapping his arms tightly around your waist to lift you up and secure yourself to him with your legs wrapped round him and your back pushed up against the lockers “you have no idea what you’ve just let yourself in for”.

****

Inbox and requests always open👀 am working through my current requests and one will be up in a few days💃🏼

#jay halstead x reader #jay halstead #one chicago #chicago pd #chicago pd imagine #jay halstead drabble #jay halstead imagine #jay halstead smut #one chicago x reader #jay halstead x you

[dreamingmanip]

"MADNESS LOVE"

*GIF NOT MINE* 

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Warnings: None (if I need one let me know in my ask!)

Prompt: NONE

Word Count: 1,860

A/N: Okay, this time I didn’t use any prompt from my board on Pinterest. I came with the idea last night (thanks insomnia), and I thought I could make it in 2 parts. Let me know what do you think in my ask, is always open for you. If you want t, like it and reblog it. Thank you very much! 

A/N 2: I’m gonna pin this imagine so you can easily find it on my page, I will do the same when posting part 2. :)

A/N 3: This awesome gif is from Pinterest but, it comes from Wattpad. Her account is Ariana-Fic and you can find it in her fic “Soldiers in Intelligence”.

Being a cop wasn't easy, putting your life in danger to protect and serve others sometimes wasn't successful. It was 50/50, every morning you will be walking out home not knowing if you could come back.

It had been three weeks without a person in the unit. Detective Jay Halstead had been wounded in a crossfire in a covert operation; when one of you got hurt everyone took responsibility even if it wasn't that way, only for some it was harder to try not to blame yourself for what happened. You had blamed Hailey for not covering Jay enough even though you knew it wasn't her fault, you even avoided her a few days after that. 

She was her partner way long before you were assigned to Intelligence by Sergeant Voight.

Narcotics helped Intelligence in a case; it was your case but somehow their case intertwined with yours at some point, both departments agreed to work to stop the overdoses in the area. You were the best at CO, so it made sense for Sergeant Voight to pick Jay, one of his best undercovers for a purchase. Your skills didn't go unnoticed by anyone in the Intelligence Unit, even for someone with experience like Jay. After the case was over he offered you a spot in his Unit, you doubt it for a moment, you were good in Narcotics, good pay, accumulated vacation days, Voight wasn't known for being a patient person and some co-workers encouraged you to take that step by commenting on how crazy you must be not to accept such an offer. 

You were well received by all, perhaps except for Sergeant Trudy Platt, who didn't like strangers or new people in the district. Jay was among the first to congratulate you when you arrived, for a moment you thought you'd be partners but Voight wouldn't break his dream team, so he paired you with Kevin Atwater, whom you've been entrusting your life and darkest secrets to ever since. 

Atwater was the first one you told about the nights you stayed late with Jay in Molly's, he was the first to know how those late nights became visiting his apartment, to end up arriving together one morning, to the district. He had told you about Voight's rules and how he was firm with them after Jay's last relationship had gone bad with his partner and that had affected his way of working a bit.

Jay and you decided to go slowly, the only one who would know about you two would be Kevin, it was agreed at least, but Hailey Upton was very good at her job so she soon realized what was happening between you. She had supported you, although she did not agree to hide this from her sergeant, she wanted to see her partner happy.

They were all at their desks, doing paperwork on a case they had closed the day before, when Trudy appeared on the stairs.

"Guess who came back from her mandatory break."

You looked up from the papers in front of you to look at a smiling Jay Halstead, who was looking at Trudy with a raised eyebrow.

"Nice to see you too, Trudy."

"Yeah, now try to get away from the bullets for a while, I don't want to have to worry about any of you for a long time."

Kevin and Adam were the first to approach him, joking and patting him on the shoulder. Kim and Hailey were next, giving him a loving hug before heading back to his places. You had stood up to lean against your desk, your arms crossed over your chest, Jay leaned closer, although he kept some distance, the mocking smile still on his lips. You were the first to speak.

"I see you survived, Halstead."

"Hey, don't say it like that, I'm going to think you're not happy to see me alive."

You pressed your lips together so as not to smile because of his comment, it was the game that both played in front of everyone else, the sarcastic comments to pretend that they were not getting along as well as they should. You nodded and looked at him.

"It's good to have you back."

Jay's smile widened and he put his hands on his hips.

"Look at that, you're happy to have me here."

You rolled your eyes and sat back in your chair when Voight left his office, leaning against the doorframe.

"How are you Jay?"

Jay nodded his head looking at his boss.

"Good, Sarge."

"Good, because I just hung up with the Superintendent and he wants to acknowledge what you did. Tomorrow there will be a public event, downtown."

You all clapped for a moment, before Voight continued speaking.

"Now try not to die until tomorrow."

Without saying more he returned to his office. Jay went to his desk to catch up on all the overdue paperwork, from time to time you looked up to observe him, you were glad to have him back but the moment you knew about the award, you felt a bitter taste in your mouth. Why were they going to decorate him when he almost died? 

You stood up and went to the coffee room, took one of the cups on the wall and poured yourself some, you still felt that bitter taste in your mouth. You heard footsteps behind you and looked over your shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

Jay asked, taking another cup, reaching for the pot and pouring himself some coffee as well. You leaned a little to look towards the door, checking that no one was around to hear you. You started to get tired of that, checking over your shoulders to see if no one could hear your conversations or whatever you were doing behind closed doors.

“Uhm, yes, I’m just a little tired. We have been in some paperwork duties from a few cases from the past weeks.”

You took a sip from the cup, making a little grin at the taste of the coffee.

“Well, just for the record, I know when something’s bothering you. We have been together almost a year.”

He looked satisfied with himself, and you couldn’t deny it because he was right, Jay knew you so well almost since day one. You looked at him and gave him a little smile, his mood was good after dealing with a grumpy man at his house because he couldn’t get back to work after being shot, and you definitely didn't want to be the one to screw it up. 

Kim walks into the room without realizing the interruption she just made or how you take a little more distance between you two, starts a little chat with Jay and you decide to go back to your desk.

Later, in the locker room, you were finishing picking up some things from your little blue locker, putting them in the gym bag you were carrying that day when Kevin appeared next to you, opening his own locker.

"I don't see you so happy today, you were quiet for most of the day, man you didn't even laugh at Ruzek's nonsense. I thought having Jay back would make you feel better."

You sighed and took a seat on the bench, rubbing your hands over your face before looking at your best friend. You played with your lower lip a bit before speaking.

"Kevin, am I crazy for wanting more in this relationship? I mean, we've worked well without anyone knowing, what difference would it make if we did from the knowledge of Voight, of our friends?"

They both fell silent when an officer entered the room and moments later he left the room, you clenched your fist and struck the cold metal in front of you, you felt frustrated and helpless. Kevin sat next to you, rubbing his hands together as he took his time answering you.

"Y/N, you are a pretty strong woman who knows what she wants, don't let anyone make you feel like you can't, not even some of my friends. If you want, I can talk to him, you know man to man" .

His comment made you laugh a little, releasing a bit of the tension in your chest, you bumped his shoulder with yours, pushing him a little.

"Thanks Kev. I don't think that talk is necessary but I will take it into account for future problems."

"Whenever you need me, girl."

You took your bag, Kevin had helped you lift your spirits but you knew you had to do something with your feelings, for better or for worse. 

Jay was in the kitchen when he heard you arrive, a smile formed on his face as he came out to greet you, an ice cold beer in his hand and a hockey game in the background on television. He walked over to you to kiss your forehead, took your bag and set it aside by the door.

"It took you a little longer than usual to get here, I'm sorry I didn't wait for you. Trudy wanted me to fill out some forms for tomorrow and I left earlier."

You couldn't look at Jay without stopping to think about the consequences that your words would have, you knew about his past and you didn't want to be the evil witch who would ruin what you both had until that day. You settled next to him, resting your head on his chest while he watched the game and he made imaginary shapes on the skin of your arm.

It took you a few minutes before you could form a sentence, your voice lacking the strength you had gathered all the way to his apartment.

"Jay, what if we tell Voight we're together?"

Your voice caught his attention, looking at you completely confused.

"Y/N, we both know that we can't say anything at the moment if we want to continue working in the same unit."

You slowly sat up again, turning a little so you could face him, Jay was sure of what he was saying, it showed in his face and in the confidence with which he had spoken.

"Jay, I'm tired of having to hide from everyone, like what we're doing is wrong. Voight will understand if-"

"I've been through this before Y/N, I know what I'm talking about. I also refused to hide my thing with Erin, but things changed. If we tell this to Voight he will remove someone from the team and we know it will not be me."

You felt the air come out of your lungs, as if someone had hit you, Jay realized his mistake when you stood up, he began to move his head trying to speak, he left the beer on the coffee table trying to take your hand .

"Y/N, it's not what- it's not what I meant ..."

Unaware of your movements, you started to take your things in a frenzy, Jay seemed to be talking to you but you couldn't identify his words or what he was trying to tell you, you just left.

To be continued...

#Jay Halstead #jay halstead imagine #jay halstead x you #chicago pd #chicago pd imagine #hailey upton #kevin atwater #hank voight #adam ruzek #kim burgess #molly's bar

[lucky-catttt]

Maxwell Lord’s Aphrodite - Pt 2

Summary: When Maxwell Lord’s world comes crashing down, you, his personal assistant bring him back from the pits of despair.

Pairings: Maxwell Lord x Reader (female), Maxwell Lord x You

Rating: Mature 18+ ONLY, NO MINORS ALLOWED TO READ.

Word Count: 3,885

Warnings: Prepare to put a towel down or go touch some grass after, either or LOL Mention of genitals, oral sex, squirting, face fucking, choking, names, foreplay, degradation, aftercare, BDSM, sexism/sexual harrassment.

A/N: This is my first fan-fic, so the writing might not be fantastic, but if you have any pointers/advice please tell me! I’ve also added images and gifs to help readers imagine the scenarios and reactions!

“So what kind of proposal were we thinking of that would save Black Gold corporation?” Max quizzes, leaning back against his chair. You pause to think while finishing your pastry. “Well” you begin “This space is huge, around 4,300 square feet. The lease Black Gold is renting this office floor has no major restrictions on it, so you could potentially sub-let the space on the floor for a monthly or fixed term lease to people who work remotely or teams that don’t want to commit to a larger office space. It's becoming more common because of the GFC, people can't commit to large long term leases for whole office floors anymore. You could also rent out the boardroom by the hour & also lease the private manager offices to businesses that want their own private room. And we already have a reception near the lifts, just re-hire them and make them pretend they work for all the businesses on the floor, answering their calls, doing admin work like scanning and faxing etc. As far as the business’s clients that show up are concerned, each business looks like they own the whole floor.

If we do a cost analysis and then get a small investor to cover the startup costs, we could guarantee them a return if businesses pay contract deposits or pay their lease in advance up front. Plus the landlord we owe money to. And with the top floor with amazing views and location, we can charge top dollar” Max stares at you in disbelief. “Wow, are you sure you don’t wanna be CEO?” He laughs, still in shock. You laugh, blushing. “I started working on a business proposal for one of my university assessments, if we customise it for this project we could pitch it to some investors and banks and speak to the landlord about it as well” You reply. “I could kiss you right now.” Maxwell sighs, gripping his fist. “Please do” you giggle, leaning towards him. Max reaches out both hands to cup your face, before planting a passionate kiss on your lips. “Well, I guess we have a lot of work to do!” Max yells, before striding towards the bathroom to take a shower. Two weeks go by and the proposal is ready. Max calls you from the company car, on the way to your house to pick you up before the big investors meeting. “I’ll be right outside your place in a few minutes my sweet” He coos, beaming with excitement to see you. As his car pulls up, you collect your compendium, presentation cards and your pointer rod. Struggling with all you have to carry, Alfred rushes out of the car and up the steps to the front door, collecting all of your belongings. 

Maxwell peers over the top of his shades but the sun from behind your house blinds him. He shuffles across the seat and opens the car door, the sun now hiding from his view. As he removes his shades and looks up the stairs towards your front door, he sees you standing there, fixing your outfit. He’s stunned. 

It might be 1984, but you’re wearing a stunning outfit pulled straight from the 50s. A black suit dress with a pleat in the front with a thin gold belt around your waist. You accented the look with strap Mary jane heels, a black and gold handbag and a neat beret fascinator. Your hair was curled, accentuated with bright red lipstick and a single set of pearl earrings.

Max looks like he’s about to drop to his knees in awe, but his knees bend into a lengthy stride up the stairs, rushing to your side. “A heavenly vision of beauty'' Max gasps, giving you a kiss on the cheek in an attempt to preserve your makeup. He puts out his arm and you wrap your hands around it, as he leads you down your stairs to the car, staring at you the whole time, letting the universe guide his steps as this absolute goddess graces his presence. You both slide into the back seat of Max’s company car, his large hand immediately passing along your back and resting on your hip and ass, pulling you as close to him as possible. “I dont know how this presentation is going to go, but I can be absolutely certain that myself and every other person in that room will be enraptured by your presence”. he murmurs into your neck, squeezing your ass.

Max was wearing a pinstripe royal blue suit with black laced oxfords. His matching tie and pocket square peeking out. “I would kiss you right now but i don't want to get lipstick on your face just before our meeting” you blush, rubbing your nose against his. “I know. We have all the time in the world after” Max replies, running his nose down your neck, breathing gently against your skin.

 “We should probably prepare for the meeting, Max” you chuckle, seeing the office building not far up the road. You pull out your compendium and flip to an architectural blueprint of the office floor. 

“I had this drawn up by an architectural drafter last week. As you can see the large blank space is your office and private room, you already have the glass frosted for privacy. All the other office cubicles will be converted to private offices, as well as boardrooms, co-working areas and remote working hot spots.” Max’s eyes widen with surprise at the level of detail. “How did you get this done? I certainly don't remember commissioning this'' rubbing his chin. “I paid for it” you respond, nonchalantly. “You spent your money, for me?” Max inquires, now in disbelief. “Of course. I told you I would help you, Max. Consider it an investment”. You wink, flipping through more pages of the presentation. Just when Max thought he couldn't fall more in love with you than he already has, your hard work and giving nature makes his heart swell even larger to make room. After a few minutes the car pulls up to the investor’s office building. “Before we go in there, I want to ask you something.” Your eyes widen with intrigue. “While we're there, I’m not sure how these businessmen will react to a woman being anything more than my personal assistant. I’m not intimidated by you at all, but I suspect some of them might be” He continues, his eyes falling to your lap as he holds your hands. “Max, this project is my dream, but it’s your company, so i’m giving it to you to present. You’re the only person I trust with this”. 

As Maxwell begins to get himself together, you take a seat adjacent to where Max is standing. Although your knees are together with one ankle behind the other, you can feel some of the businessmen closest to you looking you up and down like a piece of meat. You quickly turn to face Max, giving him your undivided attention. “Well, I know you’re all very busy, so lets get started” Max smiles, wringing his palms together. The businessmen listen intently to Max’s pitch for the restructure of Black Gold corporation, before they begin to ask questions on financials. You begin to notice the men losing interest and Max starting to lose his confidence. He looks at you, his expression half pleading and half embarrassed. Without any hesitation, you stand up from your chair, striding over to Max’s side, picking up the pointing rod from the easel and pulling it to full length with one swift pull. 

The men all sit upright at attention from the sound of the rod. “If I may, Maxwell” you butt in, politely. “Gentleman” You steady the pointer rod against the chart on the easel “the profit figures on the project are as follows; 36 external view offices, charged at $3,000 per month each, generating $108,000 gross profit. The 25 internal offices with no view will be $500 per month, generating $12,500. We also have hot-desks with memberships starting at $20 per month. If companies want us to answer their phones, do their mail, bring them coffee, do their shopping, take their dry-cleaning, walk their dogs or bring them lunch, that's an additional fee. Essentially, we are looking at a monthly profit turnover of $150,000+. Our current lease fee is $50,000 a month with about $15,000 in body corporate and utilities, leaving $85,000 per month net profit, $225 thousand per quarter and over a million annually. We currently are looking for a combined setup cost of around $500,000. The more you invest, the bigger your return.” You swing the pointer road and rest it on your shoulder. 

Silence fills the room and you panic. Your assertiveness may have turned them off, so you pretend to be ditzy and dip one of your feet inwards. The men who are all sitting up at attention, look between each other and nod. Your charm and business acumen seemed to have put them under some kind of spell. “Thanks for your time gentleman. If you have any questions please feel free to call” you finish, walking around to hand each of them Max’s business card. The men begin to chat amongst themselves, before one of them approaches Maxwell. They introduce themselves and begin chatting about the pitch “You should be very proud of your assistant Maxwell” they chuckle “she seems very switched on and driven”. Max shoots you a smiling glance, before turning back “Yeah, I’m actually going to make her the CFO” he responds. “Well, we’ll deliberate here and be back in touch with our offer”. The meeting finally wraps up and you both head back downstairs where Alfred is waiting with the car door already open. You both slide inside and Max wraps his arms around you before passionately kissing your lips as the car drives back to his office.

“You want to make me the.. CFO?” you pant, breaking from the kiss. “Yes” Max smiles, staring into your eyes. “You have worked so hard and today at the presentation..I know you’re the woman for the job. Do you want it?” You blush, holding his face “Well how can I say no?”. The company car finally pulls up back at the office and you both head through the lobby and into the lift. Max stands behind you with his arms wrapped around you and his head on your shoulder, talking about the enormous amount of work that will potentially need to be done if this deal goes through. As the lift doors open into the reception area, you both step out and Max hears the phone in his office start to ring. You give him an excited smile, encouraging him to go take the call in private. He begins striding through the empty office before making it to his office, pushing the doors open and heading over to his desk.

You take your time walking back to his office, giving Max time to finish his phone call. As you approach his office doors, you hear the click of the receiver as he hangs up. You watch Max’s shadow behind the frosted glass walk up to the doors and swing them open, a neutral look on his face. You look puzzled, thinking it was bad news before he burst out laughing with a smile, swinging you over his shoulder and carrying you to his bedroom. “You did it baby!” He yells, slapping your backside before throwing you both down onto the bed. “We did!?” you scream, a wave of relief and excitement washing over you. “Yes! I’m so proud of you. You saved Black Gold corporation. You saved me.” Max smiles, brushing a lock of curls away from your face before cupping your cheek and passionately kissing you. 

You kick off your shoes, belt and take off your beret fascinator as Max removes his suit jacket, suspenders and belt, before kissing each other again. “I was so turned on by you today” Max moans, writhing his hands all over your body, before ripping the bust of your dress open, the two buttons pinging off onto the carpet. “Watching your voluptuous ass in that dress walking into that boardroom and how you commanded the room’s attention, took control and sealed the deal. I wanted to put you over that boardroom table and worship you like the goddess you are. But I guess I can do that now”. Something about wearing your favourite suit of his, the unwavering progressive support of women and eagerness to pleasure you unlocks your most ravenous sexual desires. You stop Max, sitting up at the foot of the bed. He gets up from laying down and looks at you, worried he said or did something wrong. “Whats wrong my love?” he asks, looking concerned. ****MAJOR SMUT WARNING AHEAD**** “Max… you’ve shown me the romantic love making version which was so beautiful, but I want to make you feel worshipped” Max gives you an interesting glance. “You’re such a giving person but I want to give back. You’ve suffered neglect and mistreatment most of your life. I want to give you a different kind of passionate sex. I have fantasies and wild ideas that I think will give you immense pleasure. I want you to….” You stop yourself, not sure how he will react. Max's eyes widened with intrigue. “Go on?” Max squeezes your hand. “Well” you begin. The passionate fire is burning hotter and hotter within you. “I want you…” you hitch up your skirt and sit across Max’s lap, with one leg over each side “to straddle my chest and fuck my throat while I rub my clit” you get closer to Max’s face, pulling on his tie “And I want to cum while you’re throat fucking and choking me with your cock” you begin to undo his tie “And then I want you to cum in the back of my throat and make me swallow it”. There’s dead silence, so you bat your eyelash extensions, throwing a sexy yet innocent gaze followed by “hmmm?”. Max’s mind goes completely blank, the blood rushing from every inch of his body straight to his cock, which you feel hardened against your crotch as you straddle him. “Uhh wow honey that sounds very dangerous.” Max chokes, embarrassed he's getting turned on at the idea of hurting you. 

“For you or me?” You giggle, biting your lip. “For you” Max says, wrapping his arms around you. “Are you sure that’s something you want me to do to you Hermosa?”. “Yes Maxwell. I love the way you worship and pleasure me, but I want you to feel the same way. I have a kink when it comes to being dominated. Seeing my man so turned on and using his strength and body to please himself using me, makes me feel incredible. I know you would never hurt me, it’s something I would love for you to experience” You answer before kissing his neck. “You really are too good to me, princessa” Max sighs, running his hands down your back to your ass, squeezing both cheeks. “Of course, we don’t have to if you don’t want to, Max” you give him a reassuring look, worried you might have overstepped. “No baby, I’d love to, if that’s what will bring you the most pleasure” He coos, kissing your neck.

You begin to take off your dress, revealing under a black and gold laced lingerie set. “Black and Gold” you chuckle, watching Max’s eyes widen at the level of detail. “How did I get so lucky?” Max pants, pulling off his shirt and pants, leaving his boxers to contain his rock hard cock. You go to reach for Max’s crotch when his hand stops you. “Before we do this” Max begins “I want you to stop me at any time if it hurts or you can’t breathe or you just don’t want to do it anymore. That is the most important thing to me”. You nod and smile at Max, leaning in to kiss him, before your hands start to remove his boxers.

You reach down and begin to tease his cock, tracing your fingers tips against the tip. With your other hand you guide Max’s hand down, placing it at the top of your panties. As he starts to put his hands under your panties, he notices there’s a hole in them. Max stops to inspect. “Crotchless panties? Me vuelves loco” Max pants before he begin kissing and biting all over your body.

You’re in for it now. Like a virus, you’ve taken over Max’s brain, flooding it with animalistic desire and passion. A switch has been flipped and hell bent on blowing your mind, leaving all of his inhibitions and reservations about what he’s about to do to you at the door. Max climbs on top of you, wrapping his large hand around your throat, gently squeezing as you gasp for air. “Is this what you want?” He growls into your ear, nibbling on your earlobe before kissing down your neck. You manage to nod before moaning, indicating that you’re enjoying it. He’s never treated a woman like this before, but he manages to find the personality and words seemingly from thin air, like it was repressed all this time. “Start touching yourself for me now” Max commands. You slide your hand down into your panties and start rubbing your clit, sparks flying through your body and the slick now leaking out of your pussy. He groans at the sight of you touching yourself. Max moves up the bed before straddling over your chest. With your head propped up on some pillows, you look in Max’s eyes and ready your mouth and jaw for his throbbing cock. Max thumbs your bottom lip before grabbing just under your jaw to keep your face steady. “Open wide like the good little whore that you are” he hisses, smacking the tip of his precum soaked cock on your face.

The degrading name only makes you wetter, as you furiously rub your clitoris whilst pinned under Max’s legs. You moan as Max pushes his cock into your mouth and down your throat. “Oh my god my love your mouth feels incredible” Max moans, his character from before severely altered by the pleasurable sensation. He realises his mistake and compensates by pushing his cock as far as it will fit into your mouth and throat. “That’s it, take it all” he smirks, exhaling with a moan. You use two fingers to scoop up some of your slick and rub it into your clitoris, which is now super sensitive. Your stifled moans humming against Max’s veiny cock cause it to twitch. With your hips bucking from pleasuring yourself, Max takes both of his hands and puts them on your cheeks. “Fuck your mouth feels so good” Max moans, slowly thrusting back and forth out of your mouth, his cock touching your uvula and causing you to gag with each stroke. Your eyes begin to roll back in your skull as you continue to moan & choke, your swollen clitoris edging closer and closer to orgasm. “You like this huh? You like it when Daddy fills your throat up and fucks it?” Max hisses, wrapping your hair in between his fingers, gripping hard as his thrusts gain more momentum. Thick strings of spit is now spilling out of your mouth, down your chin and onto your breasts. “You look

The taste of Max’s precum coating the back of your tongue. You’re fighting to contain your orgasm but Max’s cock and brutal punishing words are sending you dangerously close to the edge. “Mmmmm, mmmmm!” You choke, tears welling in your eyes as you’re trying to nod and send Max a pleasured innocent gaze, driving him wild. You concentrate on breathing through your nose, each time Max’s cock leaves the back of your throat for a split second, giving you enough time to take in air. You decide to start moving your flattened tongue against the shaft, rubbing against the tip as it passes back and forth. Max let’s out a groan “You’re such a good little putá for papá”. There’s no holding back now, you increase your moans to signal that you’re on the precipice of an orgasm. “Cum for me” Max hisses, continuing the ecstasy inducing tempo of thrusts into your mouth and throat. You continue to rub your clit and gesture for Max to keep his cock still inside your mouth and throat for this moment, riding the crashing wave of your orgasm, squirting furiously onto your legs and sheets below. The writhing and shaking of your body underneath him, the sound of your squirting and muffled cries and moans from behind his cock is too much and brings him closer much faster than he ever anticipated. The eye-watering sensation causes the tears to flow down your cheeks, causing your mascara to run.

As your orgasm begins to subside you gesture for Max to continue thrusting, which he does as he moves his large hands to cup your face. “That felt fucking amazing” Max moans, continuing his fast and hard strokes. Your gaze, burning with passion and framed within smudged running eyeliner locks with Max’s, his domineering yet still showing affection. “I’m gonna cum” Max pants, keeping the pace as his grip on your face grows tighter. “Fuckkkk!!!” He shouts, holding your head still as he holds one final thrust as far in as it will go. Your eyes roll back into your head again as you feel the warm thick ropes of cum spurt onto the back of your throat. It was lucky you had taken a large enough breath before that moment, enough to sustain you for the few seconds Max held his cock still inside your mouth, throbbing and pulsing as he moans and shudders, cursing in Spanish. Coming back to reality, Max immediately pulls his softening cock from your mouth and wraps his large hands on the top and bottom of your face, closing your jaw shut. “Now Swallow” he commands, bending down so that his face inches from yours. With a cheeky gaze you oblige and swallow the remains of his cum tangled in your throat, before opening your jaw to allow him to inspect if there was any left. “My good little leche putá” he whispers, before spitting in your wide open mouth.

As if like breaking character on a movie set, Max immediately reverts back to his original self, climbing off to the side to lay next to you. “Was that good for you my love? How do you feel?” Max asks, worried he’s harmed your physical and mental state. “Incredible” you pant, smiling, lying in a pool of your own squirt. Breathing a sigh of relief, Max quickly brings up the blankets to cover you both, embracing you and peppering your spit, mascara and tear soaked face with kisses. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Max quizzes, checking your chest and throat over. “No” you reply, your throat somewhat hoarse. “Okay good. I love you so much” Max sighs, brushing your hair out of your face and kissing your forehead. “I love you too, Max”.

————————

I got impatient and wanted to post it now so I guess this chapter is finished 💀

@anaaaispunk @mandoalorian @pintsizemama

#maxwell lord #max lord #max lord x reader #max lord x you #max lord smut #maxwell lord smut #max lord x f!reader #maxwell lord x f!reader #javier pena #pedro pascal

[procrastinatorimagines]

Evidence

Fandom: Chicago PD / One Chicago

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Warning/s: shooting

Word Count: 1,615

Request:  Hi ! Can you do a jay halstead × reader where jay and y/n are dating secretly but one night jay left a hickey on y/n necks and on the next day y/n try to cover it up before work but can't and the rest of the intelligence team spot it and jay blush but she makes up a story but the intelligence team know and y/n and jay come clean and tell the rest of the team they are together ❤ thank you

All in all, you thought you’d done pretty well, giving your neck one last look in your rearview mirror before turning on the ignition and heading to the 21st. 

Jay had left your place early, neither of you arriving at work at the same time so as to not raise suspicions, so he’d been heading out the door when you’d finally gotten out of bed, already driving away by the time you spotted the hickey on your neck in your bedroom mirror. 

You were not impressed to say the least, what part of a secret relationship had escaped his mind? With an annoyed groan you got to work covering it up the best you could, applying foundation more skillfully than you’d expected as you got ready for work.

There would be time for words later. 

You were still driving in when the call came over the radio, shooting nearby your location with officers in need of backup, one down. Quickly throwing on your lights you expertly did a u-turn and headed back up the street you’d just passed, noticing people running for covering in the opposite direction to where you were going, frightened with their heads down.

It didn’t take long to stop the suspect, mask over his head and gun waving about in his hands as he shot behind him with reckless abandon at the uniformed officer in pursuit. 

Slamming on your brakes you dove out of your vehicle, gun out and ready to engage. “Hey!” You called, diverting his attention from the other officers as his gun swung in your direction, diving behind a nearby car just as the bullets began to fly. 

You poked your head up after a moment, getting off a shot before he realised the odds weren’t in his favour and took off into the garden of the car behind him. Cursing you slid over the bonnet of the car you were behind. 

“I’ll get him, you get your partner!” You told the officer, who nodded gratefully and ran back to his fallen colleague, his led badly bleeding.

“This is 50 21 Foxtrot responding to the 10 1 on West 47th, I’m on the tail of an armed offender fleeing the scene of the shooting making his way South-” you paused, a little breathless as you hopped a fence and quickly dived to the side, narrowly avoiding another bullet as the offender kept running. You gave your most apologetic look to the women screaming in the garden you’d just entered but kept going, you couldn’t stop now - “through the neighbouring gardens, we should be coming out onto West 48th soon.” 

The sound of cars was getting louder as you ran, a tall fence looking like it separated the two of you and the main road as the offender opened for a narrow side path out onto the street. 

You were gaining on him fast as he tried to climb over it, grabbing his coat and pulling him down. His gun fell from his hand and you kicked it away as he scrambled after it, punching him hard in the jaw as he turned back to lash out at you.

“Stay down,” you ordered breathlessly, gun out and aimed square in his direction as the gate opened behind you, back up coming through. “You have the right to remain silent...” you relayed, getting out a pair of cuffs as you read him his rights and passed him off to the unis to bring back to the 21st in their squad car.

And then you were off to work.

-

“Hell of a morning,” Trudy commented as soon as you eventually stepped into the district, pushing her glasses up onto her head as you approached, an eyebrow going up as you reached the desk, “in more than one way I see.”

Your brow creased, “pardon?” You asked, unsure of what she was suggesting with her tone.

“My mistake, you must have got that bruise during the chase,” Trudy said sarcastically, gesturing to her own neck. Your eyes went a little wide, your hand going to where you’d spent way too much of your morning covering up the hickey Jay had given you. 

“Of course,” you hummed unconvincingly, rushing to the bathroom as Trudy laughed. All that effort to cover it up and your sweat had washed it away, hopefully you could cover it up again before anyone wondered why you weren’t upstairs yet.

Barging into the bathroom you riffled through your bag for the foundation you’d brought, just in case you’d needed to touch it up throughout the day, but in all the excitement of the morning you’d forgotten all about it. Oops.

You were putting the finishing touches on covering it up when the door swung open again, too late to hide what you were doing as you found yourself face to face with Burgess. 

“Voight’s looking for you upstairs,” she relayed, clearly amused as you hurriedly shoved your things back into your bag, embarrassed at being caught red-handed. 

You were going to kill Jay.

She didn’t say anything on the walk up the stairs, but you avoid her eye guiltily as she buzzed you both up and you made your way to the bull pen.

“Took you long enough,” Adam commented when you both emerged, a coffee in his hand as he leaned against the breakroom door. 

“Yeah, sorry, Y/N was busy covering up a hickey in the bathroom,” Burgess replied non-chalantly, much to your emence embarrassment. Kev snorted out a laugh and Jay choked on his drink as you tried not to meet his eye. 

“Was she now?” Hailey laughed, the others clearly enjoying how flustered you were getting. 

“I er- no- it was during the call this morning-” you tried and failed to sound believable as the others laughed more, Adam being the first to notice how red Jay had gotten since the converation began.

“No one’s buying that Y/N,” Kim informed you as Adam clapped Jay on the shoulder. 

“Well that’s interesting,” he commented, watching the way Jay awkwardly cleared his throat, not daring to look at you. The others picked up on it too, the both of you looking very guilty in a room full of trained detectives. 

“Got something to share there Halstead?” Kev asked, Jay finally looking at you with apology in his eyes as he finally saw the pourly applied foundation covering the very visible hickey he’d left.

You both hesitated before answering - was there really any use hiding it anymore? A room full of your closest friends who also happened to be detectives weren’t exactly going to drop the subject, or believe whateve bs you gave them in the moment.

Sharing a mutual resigned nod Jay rubbed the back of his neck, sitting up straighter in his chair. “Okay, well, we’ve kind of...”

“...being seeing each other,” you finished for him, realising he was unsure how to put into words exactly what you’d both been doing. If you were honest, you didn’t know exactly what this was either, you hadn’t discussed labels, but you both had feelings for each other, that much you knew for sure. 

“For how long?” Hailey asked, looking at her partner with slightly narrowed eyes, wondering how long he’d been keeping this from her more than anything.

“A couple months,” Jay said, glancing back up at you with a little smile.

“Months?” Adam was shocked you’d both managed to keep this a secret from them for so long, “and this is the first we’re hearing about it?”

“Well, we didn’t want to get our wires crossed,” you shrugged, gesturing to try and get your point across, “we work together.” That had been one of the first things you’d talked about the first time you’d spent the night together, keeping your personal and professional lives as separate as you could. 

“Yes, you do,” you heard your Sergeant say, jumping as Voight emerged from his office, leaning against the door frame with his arms folded. Uh-oh. “Is this going to get in the way of doing your job?”

You swallowed and shook your head, “no, sir.”

“We’re good Sarge,” Jay said at the same time.

All the teasing and joking smiles from the unit had vanished, waiting for Voight’s reaction with bated breath as he mulled it over in his head. 

“Good,” he nodded, much to your relief, though you knew the conversation was far from over, “because we’ve got a case to get back to.”

He was right, this was work, there’d be time to think and talk about this more later - right now you had a dead city official and a cop in the hospital.

Burgess winked at you as you made your way to your desk, picking up a scrunched up piece of paper you had lying around and throwing at her once Voight’s back is turned. He paused, shaking his head, but didn’t turn back around as he went back to his desk. 

You rolled your eyes at her and settled into your chair, knowing you had a report to write up about this morning’s incident, your perp down in holding at that very moment. 

Still, you couldn’t help but look over at Jay, who was looking right back at you, offering you a small smile which you returned in kind. Voight wasn’t the only one who’d want to finish this conversation later, you and Jay had a lot to talk about now too, given that everything was out in the open. 

Still, as you turned back to your desk and tried to focus on the task at hand, you couldn’t help but feel like everything was going to turn out okay.

#jay halstead #chicago pd #one chicago #jay halstead x reader #jay halstead imagine #chicago pd imagine #one chicago imagine #jay halstead imagines #chicago pd imagines #one chicago imagines #jay halstead one shot #chicago pd one shot #one chicago one shot #one shot

[extremelyblackandwhite]

scrubs - 5.

pairing: doctor!sebastian stan x biomedical scientist!reader

warnings: medical check up (please do not follow any of the medical advice described her)

a/n: this will have another chapter aside from this one because yes. 

< previous chapter

    - Y/N, stop being childish. - Sebastian rolled his eyes at the scientist now holding herself against reception, deciding she’d rather be seen by anyone but him. - Y/N, c’mon.

    - I don’t want to be seen by you. There are over 50 nurses on shift today and any of them can do a basic exam better than you. - she held onto that counter for dear life, knowing the moment she decided to let go, her ankle would give up on her. Nevertheless, she knew what nurses were capable off and most of the times they wouldn’t even need a doctor’s opinion so she definitely didn’t need him. 

    - Yeah but ... - he approached her, a smug smile forming on his entirely way too handsome face. - But I know your body so, so well, darling. I think I can figure out if something is wrong.

Y/N smiled sarcastically, cocking her head to the side before kicking his leg. Sebastian bite down onto his lip, back hunching slightly as a few nurses passed by. He waved at them, smiling as if his tibia throbbed due to her kick. For a small woman, she sure had a powerful kick. He straightened his back, pulling one of the wheel chairs from the back of the reception and rolling it up to where she was but she remained as stiff as one could be with a swollen ankle, with one hand against her hip while the other one firmly gripped the counter of the reception. 

   - Sit down, Y/N. Don’t make me write you up as unfit to work today.

   - I am not unfit to work today, I am unfit to look at your face for more than 5 seconds.  

   - Okay, Y/N then walk in a straight line for me, straight spine, shoulders back. - he stepped out of her way.

She considered trying to do that, surely she could deal with the pain of her own weight on her ankle for at least a few minutes. Yet again she considered the options of successfully doing so and getting away from him until another doctor or nurse passed by and the option of falling flat on her face in front of him. Her resolve quickly wore down as she remembered just  how small her tolerance of pain was and how much she did not want to embarrass herself in front of him by falling on her face.  Unlike him, she could be professional. After all she wasn’t the first staff member to sleep with a doctor and certainly wouldn’t be the last; besides, she was nothing if not a professional. She sighed, sitting down on the worn out fabric of the wheel chair. She’d give him this one, she thought to herself as he wheeled her into his office.

Despite her constantly nagging him about his results, she’d actually never gone up to his office that often. Dr. Stan was normally the one who’d made his way to her laboratory not the other way around. As a long time doctor, he had his own little office to receive his patients and as such, he decorated it how he pleased it and despite her wanting nothing but to compliment him after his past actions, she had to admit it was probably one of the calmest more inviting offices she’d seen before. Instead of the scary almost macabre posters of human anatomy and regular pathologies, he had some abstract art on his walls with one or two models on his desk and a most likely fake plant on too. 

     - Want help getting onto the stretcher? 

     - Fuck off, Stan. I can do it myself. - she couldn’t do it herself. 

She looked at the stretcher as a goal keeper looks at a football. The stretcher couldn’t be taller than the height from her feet to just slightly above her hip, yet it seems as if that height was now taller than Mount Everest. Y/N calculated her movements and put her hands on top of the stretcher, pulling herself up with her arms and dragging herself into the middle of the stretcher, legs and arms out but her torso was in so she wiggled herself into laying down completely on the stretcher before pulling herself up.

    - We could’ve done that in a second if you’d let me help you. - he rolled his eyes, stepping in front of her and the stretcher.

    - I can help myself, Doctor.

    - Oh, is Doctor now? - he replied rather sarcastically, pulling opening the glove compartment in his office. - Are you allergic to latex or any ingredient in regular plastic gloves I should know about?

    - Shouldn’t you know if I am allergic to latex? - she cocked her side to the side much to his displeasure. - No, no latex allergies. 

    - Okay ... - he put some bright blue gloves on before walking back to her. - First, I’m just going to palpate around the top of your scalp to check for any trauma or signs of injury. 

    - My ankle is hurting, not my head.

    - You hit your head, it’s standard procedure. - her shoulders slumped as he proceeded to palpate around her head. It felt ridiculous, she was fine, she did not need an examination of her head. - Looks good, no bumps, so the fall probably wasn’t harsh on your head.

    - I could have told you that. Do they not teach you to hear to your patients in med school?

    - How would you know? You didn’t go to med school. 

    - I’m starting to think you didn’t either. 

    - Okay. - he rolled his eyes once more at her snide remark. - The next thing I am going to do is have a look inside your ears to see if there’s any bleeding, just to make sure we’re covering all our bases.

    - Why are you telling me? You’re the doctor. - Sebastian ignored her, taking his otoscope out of the pocket of his coat and placing a rubber disposable tip on the end before putting it up to her ear and switching to the other one. 

   - Everything looks good in both ears, no signs of bleeding. Your tympanic membranes look clear and I didn’t see any fluids or blood behind them. No defects and if it interests you to know there’s also no excess wax build up. Can you just tell me if it was painful or sore when I looked into your ear?

   - Shouldn’t you have asked that while you were looking into my ear?

   - Y/N if you don’t start taking this seriously, I ...

   - You will what?

   - Do you seriously want me to call a nurse on you? I normally only have to do that with children and elderly patients.

    - You wouldn’t. - she squinted, hands gripping the material of the stretcher.

    -  Try me. - he crossed his arms. - I’ll ask again. Was it painful or sore when I looked into your ear?

    - Yes.

    - What?

    - No. - she held in a laugh, bitting the inside of her lip. 

    - Y/N ...

    - Glad to know you have not forgotten your patient’s name, doctor. Doing great.    

    - Okay, Y/N. I need you to be serious with me now and answer truthfully or I’ll order a CT scan for you.

    - I hate CT scans.

    - I know. - he smirked. - So, what’s it gonna be?

    - Would you seriously make the hospital cover an expensive CT scan to check for a concussion that I don’t have just to upset me?

   - Oh, no, sweetheart. If you continue to be a brat, I will order a full body CT scan and if they ask I’ll just say I’m covering all my bases. So, what’s it gonna be? You’re gonna play nice or do you prefer to get an exam done?

    - Call me sweetheart again and you’ll get a concussion. How about that? 

    - You can do whatever you want to do to me after we’re done but until then you will answer the questions I have truthfully. Deal?

    - What other option do I have? - she crossed her arms at him. Y/N knew she was being unnecessarily difficult with him but she also knew that there was a 0.1% chance she had a concussion. Nevertheless, he looked dead serious on ordering a CT scan for her and the last thing she wanted was to have a claustrophobic attack because she refused to answer a few questions. - Fine.

   - Good. So, what time did this happen?

   - I don’t know, I don’t exactly look at my watch after falling down the stairs. 

   - Y/N ...

   - Like ... 20 minutes ago. 

   - What did you feel when you fell?

   - My head was pounding, my ankle felt hottish and I felt a bit nauseous.

    - Do you feel nauseous when you feel pain or is that something new for you?

    - No, it happens when I get hurt. 

    - Any dizziness or blurred vision? Metallic taste in the mouth, almost blood like?

    - I don’t think so.  

    - Any tingling or weird sensations around your face and neck?  

    - No. 

    - Okay, so ... I’m gonna have a look in your eyes. - he took his light from the same pocket he had taken the otoscope from. - I need you to look at me and not at the light. Don’t focus on it, okay?

She nodded, deciding it would be best if she went along with it before she was stuck in his office for a whole hour. He turned the light on and she did as was required of her by staring at him. She thought she could make him feel uncomfortable but it ended up being her who felt uncomfortable as flashes from last night picked that exact moment to return to her brain. Y/N told herself to cut it off and tried to continue to stare at him but gave up after a few minutes of her now sober brain deciding to show her exactly what she had been doing last night. She turned her head to the side, closing her eyes forcefully.

   - Are you okay, Y/N? - he put a hand on her shoulder but she shook him away, turning her face back to a neutral position. - Too bright.

   - Well ... uhm, yeah it is shining directly in my eyes.

   - Okay. I don’t need to look more into them, they look fine. Nothing to worry about. I just need you to open your mouth now?

   - What? No.

   - Why not? 

   - Because ... - because my brain has decided that sounds much less innocent than it actually sounds. - Because I don’t want to.

   - Y/N, c’mon. I just need you to open your mouth and then check your ankle and you can be out of here just like you want to.

   - I don’t want you looking into my mouth. 

   - I have seen you naked and that’s what you’re worried about? Me looking into your mouth? 

   - You are not a dentist, you don’t need to be looking into my mouth.

   - Your answer was unclear so yeah, I need to. Open your mouth. 

   - Stop asking me that. Can you pose the question in a different manner?

   - God, I swear if you’re doing this on purpose. 

   - I am not. 

   - Fine. Say ah, then. 

   - That just sounds worse. - she felt her cheeks heat up. 

Sebastian rolled his eyes, pulling the chair from behind his desk. This surely was going to take longer than expected. He knew she’d be defensive but he didn’t know she would be so difficult. In all honesty, he didn’t even know why she was mad at him. The only thing he could remember was being hit by her files before she stormed off. Yet again, Y/N was almost always annoying with him so it wasn’t a new occurrence. The new occurrence was a patient asking him to reformulate the question. 

   - Y/N what are you ... oh. - it finally dawned on him. - That’s not work appropriated, Y/N.

   - I swear if you keep on talking I will throw you off your own window.

   - So dirty. - he took one of the wooden spatulas from the stand on his desk. 

   - Fuck off.

   - Come on. - she reluctantly opened her mouth and had it not been for the wooden spatula holding her tongue and jaw down, she would’ve probably closed it as fast as she had opened it. - Looks good. I just need to repeat some numbers back at me, okay? 55, 10, 40, 9, 1.

    - 55, 10, 40, 9, 1. 

    - Good. I don’t think you have any concussion. I just need to check your ankle now. Can you put your foot on my lap and please not kick me?

     - I’m tempted to. -  she rose her ankle and placed it on his lap. He proceeded to take of her shoe and sock before starting to palpate around her ankle which was visibly swollen. 

    - I’m gonna turn your foot to the left and to the right. If anything hurts, let me know, okay? - she nodded as he turned her foot carefully to the lift and to the right, but it didn’t hurt, it was just sore. - No pain?

    - No.

    - Good news, I don’t think it’s broken, just strained. Some ibuprofen for inflammation and some ice and in a few hours you can at least limp without pain. 

    - I don’t have some hours. Unlike you, I have work to get done.

    - So do I, Y/N. You think I enjoyed having you take longer than 30 minutes in what should’ve been a 15/20 minute exam? 

    - Oh, I’m sorry. - she interrupted him. - Did my injury overstep on your gossiping about sleeping with me? I’m so sorry, I’m sure the whole hospital will still be waiting for you anyway.

    - What?

    - Can you please give me a minute so I can limp out of here in anger?

    - You think I’m telling the hospital staff I slept with you?

    - Well, the whole hospital knows and I didn’t tell them so unless we had a threesome I have recollection about then there’s only two of us who knew and if I didn’t tell them, guess who did? And before you can answer it’s you, the answer is you. 

    - I didn’t tell anyone, Y/N. I have better things to do than discuss my sex life with the whole hospital. 

   - That’s just dandy. - she jumped of the stretcher, ignoring the pain which started in her ankle and climbed up her leg but she didn’t mind. Now she was upset, one thing was him telling everyone and the other one was denying he had done as such. - You know what Sebastian? I get it, you slept with the lab girl who annoys you and you wanna tell everyone about it. Fine, but at least admit it. 

   - Y/N, I didn’t tell anyone.

   - Fine, say whatever makes you feel better.  

taglist: @rebekahdawkins​

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan/reader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan/you #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan/y/n #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan drabble #sebastian stan au #doctor!sebastian stan #doctor sebastian stan #doctor AU

[itsallyscorner]

💌 Requested by: @real-kate-bishop-aka-hawkeye

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader ft Marvel Cast

Request: Age gap! Reader is in a relationship with Sebastian Stan and they’re in a movie together that has been nominated for the Oscars. Both of them are up for best actor and actress.

a/n: I hope you like this, I’m so sorry for the long wait, love! Enjoy!💖

Double Win

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m a bit nervous. But I’m excited to be here. It’s gonna be a good night.” You reply with a smile as Sebastian squeezed your hand. The two of you were currently in the car on your way to the venue that hosted the Oscars.

“Hey, whatever happens tonight, whether we win or loose, I’m proud of you.” Sebastian says as he brings your hand up to his lips and presses a kiss to it.

You and Sebastian were both nominated for your first Oscars ever. The movie you guys both starred in has been successful in the box office and has snagged multiple nominations during awards season.

You first met Sebastian during a table read for a disclosed Marvel project. You were a new actress in the business having been in small movies and had some parts in tv shows, but being casted as Kate Bishop was your big break (I know she’s like 16 in the comics, but for the sake of this request let’s just assume the actress casted is in her 20s). You and Seb instantly clicked at the table reading. From there on a beautiful friendship formed which slowly grew into a relationship. Despite the age gap, everything you guys did together felt natural. Natural in a sense where it was familiar, as if you guys have known each other for years. When you were with him everything fell into place.

“I’m so happy that you’re finally getting recognition for your work. You work your ass off on these movies, you deserve it so much.” You admitted as he strokes your hand with his thumb. Sebastian tilts his head at you with that crooked smile on his face.

“After all, you were robbed for I, Tonya.” You added as you nudged his shoulder with yours. His smile breaks as he laughs.

“Are you still mad about that?”

“YES! Oh my god, it irritates me so much. Like how did you not get nominated for I, Tonya? You were amazing as Jeff!” You exclaimed waving your free hand in frustration.

“Well that doesn’t matter anymore. Because now, I’m nominated for a movie I starred in alongside my girl. To me, that’s all that matters.” He said as he leaned in closer to you. You hum contently as he nudges your nose with his. He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, careful to not get any of that sinful red lipstick on his lips.

The moment was interrupted by the driver announcing that you have arrived at the venue. Before leaving the car you quickly fix your hair and make sure Sebastian didn’t have any lipstick on his lips. Sebastian buttoned up his suit and looked back at you before opening the door.

“You look beautiful, by the way. I just wanted to tell you before everyone starts shouting it at you.” He tells you with a boyish grin on his face. You playfully roll your eyes and thank him. He opens the door and you guys are met with the flashing lights and chaos of the red carpet.

🕓 Time Skip

Half an hour into the awards show and they’ve announced the awards for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Your nerves were getting the best of you, making your leg bounce in anticipation. You tried having a few glasses of wine to help you loosen up, but it was no use. Sebastian, who had been beside you the whole night, noticed your nervous tic. He placed a reassuring hand onto your leg to help calm you down. He didn’t say anything but his silent gesture was appreciated. His hand helped ground you and tell you that he was there for you.

Chris Evans and Brie Larson walked out from backstage and entered the stage. The audience clapped as they approached the mic.

“Hello everyone! Of all the movies that have been nominated for this category tonight, something that they all have in common is a female lead who is a force of nature and captures the attention of the audience with their strong presence on screen.” Brie starts.

“Here are the nominees for Best Actress.” Chris continues as they announce the names of the nominees. As your name is announced you feel your heart beat quicken and squeeze onto Sebastian’s hand, a smile hiding your anxiousness.

When they finish the names, Brie excitedly opens the envelope. She and Chris share are look before they announce the winner.

“And the Oscar goes to..”

“(Y/n) (Y/L/N)!!” They scream into the mic.

You freeze as you hear your name. Around you the people clap and stand as you remained seated in your seat in shock. Sebastian is the one to pull you out your state of shock, leaning down and gently pulling you up.

“Baby, you won!” He exclaimed as he pulls you into his arms. You come back to your senses and wrap your arms around him quickly pulling away. You make your way up to the stage as people congratulated you as you passed by the aisle. When you approached the stairs, you hold the train of your dress to avoid pulling a Jennifer Lawrence. Chris is quick to help, lending you a hand up the stage. He hugs you and congratulates you over the audience. Brie approaches you with open arms and hands you the Oscar. The two move to the side to give you your moment. You face the crowd with a big smile, Oscar in hand.

“Thank you guys.” You start as you glance at Brie and Chris. You look back to the crowd and quickly spot Sebastian, who has the most proudest look on his face.

“This is unbelievable, I can’t believe this is happening! I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a little kid.” You mused as you looked at the Oscar gleaming in the light.

“I guess I should start by thanking the Academy. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you to the cast and crew who have been part of this movie’s journey I love every single one of you. Thanks to my team, who have been so kind and supportive to me from the start and have helped me get to this moment. To my family, I owe you all so much you have been so supportive of me and pushed me to follow my dreams and have been there every step of the way. Also, to the women who were nominated alongside of me tonight, you guys are amazing and continue to inspire me to become as talented as you all are. Lastly, I want to thank a special person. My co-star in this movie, my best friend, biggest supporter, my rock, my lover. Sebastian you have done nothing but been there for me through thick and thin. I don’t know what I did in my past life to deserve someone as special as you, but I’m thankful that I have you. Without you I don’t know how I would survive in the madness of this, I love you.” You looked at Sebastian through blurred eyes as you made your speech.

“Thank you!” You finished as you excitedly held the Oscar up in the air. The usher instructed you to stand by the side as Brie and Chris walked to the mic.

“And now for Best Actor!” Chris says as they announce the nominees. When Sebastian’s name was called you clapped and cheered as he gave the camera a shy smile.

“And the Oscar goes to!”

“SEBASTIAN STAN!” They announce, Chris screaming it a bit louder than Brie. You gasp and clap as you see Sebastian being congratulated by your fellow co-stars and director. He makes his way up to the stage instantly looking for your eyes. A giant smile is on your face as your eyes connect. He’s hugged by Brie and Chris. Chris moves to hand him the award but Sebastian is already striding towards you. The audience laughs at Chris’ reaction. Meanwhile Sebastian brings his hand to cradle your face and pulls you into a passionate kiss. The crowd cheers and whistles as you wrap your free arm around him. For a moment it feels like it’s just you two in the whole venue. You pull away, lovingly smiling at each other.

“Go get that Oscar, champ.” You teased and nudge him towards Chris, who claps him on the back as soon he approaches him.

“Sorry, got caught in the moment.” He chuckled making the audience laugh.

“Man, I—. This is just an honor, thank you so much for this. I don’t know what I did to get here, but thank you so much. Thank you to the Academy. Thank you to the cast and crew who’ve worked hard day and night to make this amazing movie the way it is. My team, thank you for dealing with me, I appreciate it. I wanna say a very special thank you to two of the most important women in my life. My mother, who sacrificed so much to give me a better life, I’m up on this stage because of you. I love you and I’ll make sure to give you a call as soon as I’m home. I think you guys know who the other woman is.” He exclaims as he turns to you with a twinkle in his eyes, the crowd cheering him on.

“When I say this I’m being dead serious. I’m gonna marry that woman one day.” Sebastian points at you making the crowd go wild. You laugh, looking down as your face turns 50 shades of red.

“(Y/n), you keep me going everyday. You inspire me to better myself and become a better man. For the two years we’ve been together, you’ve been beside me through it all and I just want to thank you for everything you do. You’re my safe place, I love you.” He said while looking at you the entire time. He thanks everyone again before the music begins to play.

🕓 Time Skip

As the show came to an end everyone headed towards the after party. The cast and crew of your movie celebrated over champagne, some speeches, a little crying, and lots of hugs. The whole night Sebastian never left your side, his hand was either around your waist or the small of your back. Constantly whispering sweet nothings into your ear as he pressed kisses to your face.

“Seb! (Y/n)!” You and Sebastian turned to the voice to see Chris pushing through the crowd along with Scarlett and Brie.

“Hey!” You greet them as you all pull each other into hugs.

“Congratulations you two! You must be on cloud nine!” Scarlett said as she squeezed you as tight as she can.

“The look on your face when you won, oh my goodness! Priceless!” Brie laughs as she held onto your arm.

“I honestly can’t believe it! It’s just so surreal like what the fuck? I’m still processing it!” You rambled, eyes wide with shock. The two laughed at your reaction.

“I’m guessing Seb is gonna be getting some as soon as you guys get home?” Scarlett teased. You rolled your eyes glancing at Seb who was talking to Chris and Samuel L. Jackson. He caught your eye and sent a quick wink towards you.

“I don’t kiss and tell, Scarlett.” You winked at the blonde. Your name is suddenly being called across the room by Chris.

“When’s the wedding?” He asked, a few feet away from you and the girls.

“As soon as he gets the ring!” You answer teasingly making Seb blush. Chris turns back to Sebastian pointing at you.

“You heard the lady, Seb.”

“Who says I don’t already have the ring?” Sebastian shot back making everyone sound like a bunch of teenagers.

When you guys got back home, you and Sebastian celebrated in the early hours of the morning between the sheets. When you wake up the next day you see a blue Tiffany’s box paired with a rose resting on Sebastian’s side of the bed.

And you said yes.

#ally’s requests #marvel #mcu #avengers #sebastan stan #sebastian stan oneshot #sebastian stan headcanons #sebastian stan drabble #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan imagine #Bucky Barnes #winter soldier #bucky barnes x reader #marvel cast x reader

[tinyboxxtink]

"Not My Yacht" *Chapter 2*

Yes, for two days this is a semi short chapter, but I had another long today and have one more tomorrow and I wanted you to have SOMETHING. Weirdly though I had an entire different chapter written in my head, but when I started typing this came out instead. My original idea is still coming, this just added a fun little bonus getting there. I promise, tomorrow you will get a longer chapter.

Thank you loves for sticking by me through everything! I love you all.

Also, I'm finally using CHAPTER. I kept wanting to use it instead of PART but I just kept writing PART and was like WELP. But they're chapters, right?!

Ok I'll shut up.

Part 1 Here

Part 3

Tag List

@madamsnape921

@lolliepopsicle

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@milkshqke

@wanniiieeee

@word-scribbless

@gibbs274

@sassyada

@aprildecker-blog

@bookishfanfic

@stars-in-the-skies-world

@stars-trash-18

@omgsuperstarg

@objection-argumentative

And @storiesofsvu for Rita check. lol.

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

When five o’clock rolled around, Rita came walking out of her office with a stack of papers and her briefcase, balancing her purse on her barely free arm.

“Y/N, Why are you still here? Did I not unlock your chains?” She laughed.

“Haha….no, ma’am” You nervously laughed. “I um, I think I’m waiting for someone,”

“You think?” She raised a curious eyebrow. “If you’re waiting on Barba, you’re going to waiting a long time, sweetie,”

“Wha-? How--? Why, exactly?” You asked her totally flabbergasted by the insinuation that not only had Rafael asked you out, but was bailing already.

“He tends to get a little...involved, in his cases. Poor man is a workaholic,” She feigned pity for him.

“Right,” You nodded to her comically overflowing briefcase and papers. “Something you know nothing about,”

“Touché,” She winked. “I’d give him a call, make sure he hasn’t forgotten about you, dear. Before the cleaning staff shows up,” She laughed and sauntered out of her office, leaving you alone in the dark.

You glanced down at your phone. He hadn’t really specified a time, just-- “Tonight”. What did that even mean? Tonight. Like early evening dinner, or a midnight snack after he was done with his cases? You should probably text him. Or call him. Or text him.

TO BARBA: Heyyy….

Wait. Was three y’s too many? Wasn’t that a rule? You show affection by how many y’s you use? Is that a thing kids do these days? Wait, no you’re not a kid. And he certainly was NOT a kid. No. Be a grown up about this.

TO BARBA: Hi I’m just...checking in.

Checking in? What did that even mean? And why the ellipsis? There doesn’t need to be a pause in a text. That’s why it’s a text. You pause in your mind before typing. Idiot.

TO BARBA: What’s up?

Ok. Short and simple. To the point. No pressure, no demanding. Just... ‘checking in’. You hated yourself. Alright fine, good enough send it. SEND IT. HIT SEND NOW.

MESSAGE SENT.

Your phone shook in your trembling hand as you waited for the ellipsis of him writing back. That was too much, no no just put it back in your pocket and he’ll text you when he--

BARBA CALLING

Oh god, a phone call? Who calls people anymore? Grown ups, that’s who. Answer the phone like an adult.

“H-Hello?” You answered it as if he had the wrong number.

“Hey, Cinderella,” His smooth voice came through your earpiece. “I’m so sorry, I should have been more specific about the time,”

“Oh, yeah no-- no big deal, I’m just here at work….alone, in the dark…” You muttered the last words to yourself as you looked around the dark office.

“Right. Well, I’m kind of wrapped up in this case right now--” He started, making your heart drop. Well, Rita called it. He’s just married to his job, no time for women, let alone you. Time to just--

“....Would you hate me if I asked you to come help me?”

“...I’m sorry, what?” You blinked in confusion at your phone. So, was he actually asking you out or trying to snake you as an assistant from Rita? Is that what he meant by ‘dinner’? “Hey come bring me food and help me file these cases, because I’m so sexy and cocky and--”

“You know what, I’m so sorry I just heard how that sounded. You’ve been doing this all day, the last thing you wanna do is come--”

“Sure!” You cut him off a little loudly. What were you doing?! You’re just going to lay down and let him use your services for free? Well, when you put it that way it sounded pretty skeezy about yourself.

“....Are you sure? Because we can just have dinner another night--”

“....Yeah I have a feeling that will never happen,” You cut him off with a laugh.

“Wha--no, it will! I just--”

“Your wife comes first, I get it,” You cut him off again.

“My wife?”

“Yeah you’re married to your work,” You smirked into the phone.

“Wow, quippy Cinderella. Guess you’re more confident on the phone without my gorgeous face tripping you up now, aren’t you?”

“Do you want my help or not, Casanova?” He was totally right; without those green emeralds staring into your soul you were actually a pretty funny and smart person. Maybe it would be better to just have this date on the phone.

"Yes, absolutely," He sighed with a smile.

“Did you want me to bring food, or am I just supposed to eat paperclips and vending machine leftovers??”

“I’ll order some pizza, do you like pizza?”

“....I live in New York Barba. Obviously I like pizza,” You teased.

“Right,” He chuckled. “Well I’ll be here--”

“I know where your office is,” You cut him off for the third time.

“Oh, do you?” He asked in a sneaky tone, as if he thought you’d been googling him or something.

“Um, yeah,” Your voice fell an octave softer. “Actually I’ve been there several times, dropping off stuff from Rita for you,” Of course he wouldn’t remember that. Why would he remember that? You weren’t anything special.

“Shit,” He muttered as if chastising himself. “Y/N I’m so sorry, I--”

“It’s fine,” You assured him as you headed down to the subway. “I’m uh, I’m getting on the train so I’ll see you soon,” You hung before he could reply.

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

It wasn’t that far to Rafael’s office from Rita’s, just a few stops away. You quickly hurried up the stairs back into the Manhattan air as you swiftly walked through the sea of people leaving corporate America to go home to Suburbia. Finally you reached the building, went for the door and-- it was locked.

Well of course it was locked, nobody else in their right mind would be here this late-- so clearly you and Rafael were out of your minds. Shit. Should you call him? Was there a buzzer? Before you could think of another solution a pizza delivery man was walking up to you. Maybe ‘man’ was too generous, he was probably around 16 or 17.

“Delivery for Mr. Barba,” He handed you the pizza. Did you look like a “Mr. Barba” to him?!

“I um,” You stammered as the hot pizza burned the sides of your arms you were holding it on. “I’m not Mr. Barba,”

“Are you taking it to him?” He asked you with a slight attitude.

“I um,” You thought a moment. Well you were going to see him, so yes theoretically you would be taking the pizza with you to him. “...Yes,”

“That’ll be 46.57.” He whipped out a credit card scanner on his phone.

“E-Excuse me?” You were taken aback. Now Barba had you buying him dinner? And what kind of pizza costs basically 50 bucks?!

“2 Large pizzas, an order of cheesy bread, a dessert pizza and delivery fee,” The kid read off the receipt from his phone. “I only accept credit or debit cards, and please tip generously,”

“Yeah right,” You muttered with a roll of your eyes as you pulled out your credit card and swiped it across his phone. The light turned green and a receipt printed off an attachment to his phone. He ripped it off and handed it to you, then nonchalantly walked back down the stairs to wherever he was parked.

“Awesome,” You sighed. You still didn’t know how to get inside, and now you were carrying all this hot food. All of this for a pair of green eyes?!

To make matters worse, your phone started going off in your purse. You groaned and tried to put all of the boxes down softly, but the night wind blew them onto the pavement, HARD.

“Shit!” You groaned louder as you tried to salvage the food while pulling your phone from your purse. Of COURSE.

BARBA CALLING

“I can’t get in,” You simply stated as a greeting on the phone.

“What?”

“I can’t get in the building, Barba,” You grumbled, now on a 8 on the annoyance scale.

“Oh! Oh God,” The line went dead. Awesome.

After a few minutes while you were trying to rebalance all of the boxes in your arms, one of the big glass doors swung open right into you. The boxes all pressed against you, their hot, saucy, cheesy and chocolatey goodness smearing all over your work outfit.

“SHIT!!!!!!” You screamed in horror.

“Oh my god, Oh god Y/N I am SO--” Rafael started to apologize profusely, but you noticed he was trying his best not to burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry, do you think this is funny?!” You asked angrily while you peeled a pepperoni from your hair.

“No, not at all,” He shook his head vigorously, but kept giggling behind his eyes.

“You do!” You stomped your heel, causing marinara to roll down your legs. “You are absolutely laughing at me being covered in all of your stupid food that I had to pay for by the way--”

“Oh no, really?” He suddenly turned sincere.

“No, Rafael,” You scoffed as you tried pulling cheese from your skirt. “I just had sex with him in the parking lot and we called it square,”

“Really--?!”

“NO NOT REALLY!”

“Okay! Okay I’m sorry, really I am,” Rafael tried to show you sympathy, but you looked so damn cute covered in a tasty meal.

“Yeah I can see that, you’re grinning like a five year old,” You rolled your eyes.

“I’m sorry, Y/N I really am,” He gave up trying to hide a laugh. “But you have to admit it’s pretty funny--”

“I DON’T THINK--” You started to scream at him again, but his smile made these cute little crinkles in his eyes, and his laugh was like an angel’s chorus. You might have been covered in food, but you would be covered in manure if it made him laugh like that.

“For what it’s worth, you look delicious,” He teased you, pulling an actual full piece of pizza from your chest and biting it.

“Oh my god, you’re so gross,” You did your best not to laugh, you were still supposed to be angry.

“Yum, Y/N flavor, my favorite,” He laughed for a moment just as you both realized what he had said. “Uh, I mean--” He looked away in embarrassment, and you swear you saw his face flush red.

“Um no counselor,” You bit your lip with a smile. “I’m pretty sure I taste better than a mix of pizza sauce and chocolate,”

“I’m sure you do,” Rafael bravely retorted, now that he knew you were in the playing mood.

“....But seriously, now I have to go home and get this shit off--”

“I have a shower in my office,” He blurted out.

“....Excuse me?” You blinked, not believing you heard him right.

“I...I have a shower in my office,”

“Oh my god, Rafael Barba are you that addicted to work that you live here?”

“No!” He rolled his eyes. “It’s for emergencies,”

“Emergencies? Like what?”

“Like a beautiful woman covered in pizza toppings and chocolate,” He smirked. “Now come on, I don’t want anyone around here thinking I’m dating a crazy person,” He opened the glass doors again and escorted you into the lobby of the building.

Your mind didn’t know what to focus on first; the fact that he had this mysterious office shower, that he had offered for you to use said shower, or the fact that he just referred to you as a ‘woman he was dating’. You just followed him silently into his office with a smitten grin on your face.

He wasn’t lying when he was in the ‘middle’ of something. Papers were strewn all about his desk, a white board with bullet points for arguments and cross examinations scribbled on it. You finally got a good look at him without the anger of having food all over your judgement. He looked tired, not the usual smooth and pristine Rafael Barba you were used to. But when he looked back at you to show you where his shower was, his green eyes sparkled gazing into yours.

“So, I have some spare suits in a closet here, would you mind hanging out in one of my dress shirts while I wash...these?” He gestured to your dirty clothes. Wait, wash?

You suddenly realized he had led you into a secret room to the side of his office, behind a bookcase.

“Wha…” You looked around the room. There was a shower, a wardrobe, a washer/dryer combo, and a suit steamer. “Jesus Barba, are you sure you don’t live here?”

“No I promise I don’t,” He shook his head with a laugh. “...But I may have on occasion fallen asleep here enough to invest in this,”

“And what happens when this office is passed on to a new ADA?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Then I’m sealing this place off like a mausoleum,” He stated very seriously, causing you to giggle. He loved your giggle, it was so small and soft, just like you.

“Anyway,” He shook off his momentary daze at your giggle hoping you didn’t notice. “Like I said-- Shower, dress shirt. Just put your dirty clothes in the washer and we’ll pop them in the dryer later,”

“Right,” You nodded, definitely having noticed his dreamy stare at your giggle. How had you gone from completely under his radar to making him giddy like a school boy in two days?

“Right,” He nodded back. “I’ll just be out here...ordering another pizza,” He smirked. “By the way, I’ll totally reimburse you for the one you’re wearing,” He stuck his tongue out at you with a huge grin.

“Oh you better,” You gave him the same face back. “Or I’ll cover you in it,” You lightly pressed a marinara sauce covered finger into his perfectly white dress shirt. He glanced down at it in horror.

“Oh that was so--” He started to tickle and attack you, but realized that would only make his outfit dirtier. “This isn’t over,” He wagged a finger at you as he pointed you to the shower. You gave him one last cheeky smile as he walked out and shut the door to his secret room.

What was happening? Why were you getting to him so easily, so fast? How could he have not even remembered that he had ‘met’ you several times? Well, one thing was for sure. He was never going to forget this night.

#rafael barba #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba fanfiction #rafael barba x you #rafael barba x reader #law and order svu #law and order svu fanfiction #not my yacht

[imagintheworldaway]

Used Pt 2

Anonymous said: Hello i loved your post “used” with Harry and i just wanted to know if you are planning a part 2 in the future?!?

Anonymous said: Loved your most recent imagine of Harry! Can you plzzzzz make a part 2 of used, where she’s a bad B and becomes even more successful and she’s better off without him? Thank you!

A/N I loved that you guys loved the first one! I went through a few different ideas / endings for this one and I think I'm happy with the outcome! warning it is a long one so strap in!

Used Pt 1 can be found here

Requests are open!

That night at Harrys apartment felt like a life time ago. The breakup wasn’t messy as neither of us addressed it really, I archived all of my posts of him and he had done the same for me and that was about it. It didn’t take the fans to catch on but what can you expect, they know more about me than I do. it had been almost 6 months to the date, not that I was counting or anything but I honestly felt like Harry was my soulmate at the time. Oh how love can blind you. 

The past few months I had submerged myself into my channel and my fans. I had done an array of meet and greets and was interacting more with them, and honestly my love for YouTube was restored and I felt like a whole new person. I had had a full make over and due to this my channel had grown immensely and I had hit 50 million subscribers, a huge achievement which I never though would happen. it was amazing to see the amount of support I was gaining from my fans and how much I had grown, from a naive teenager to a young adult. I had received an overwhelming amount of support from my friends. When Harry and I broke up they tried not to take sides but It was evident that that couldn’t last forever and I was ok with that. 

I had just finished a meeting with my manager at her office. With my new look and attitude brands seemed to swarm at me and I was gaining so many new opportunities it was kind of crazy. It was like I was a completely different person and it seemed to be working in furthering my career. I got in my Uber and made my way to my new apartment, after the break up I felt like starting a new was best and so I moved into my new multi million apartment in knightsbridge. It was nice to be in an area by myself as it meant that I had more privacy and was able to truly live my best single life. Plus a tour of new apartment left many of my friends in awe, and honestly I loved that I could show off all my hard work. 

I thanked my Uber driver and made my way to my apartment, once inside I collapsed on my sofa and kicked off my heels, which I was still getting used to in all honesty. Having changed from living in baggy jumpers and old trainers was a bit of a shock but I loved wearing my more out there wardrobe, with tighter clothes and higher heels, my makeup always done to perfection, I always felt like people had their eye on me and I felt amazing.  My change in personality and look hadn’t gone unnoticed either, although they didn’t say anything I could tell my friends liked my new attitude, after wallowing in self pity for a few months I think they’re happy that I’m back and stronger than what I was before. 

I still thought about Harry from time to time. How I not so secretly still had one of his jumpers and when I was alone id wear it, just to feel his embrace once more. When we had initially broken up it took him less than two days to send Freezy round my apartment to drop off my box of things and to request his stuff back. I know Freezy felt bad but what choice did he have if Harry wanted to erase me from his life then so be it. More fool him, I had grown so much and if he was truly clout chasing then he should’ve stuck around a little longer. 

I woke up to my doorbell ringing. I must’ve fallen asleep on the sofa. I stretched a little when the doorbell kept ringing. “Jeez I’m coming” I mumbled to myself. I pressed the array of buttons for who ever it was to get through the front gate and after a few minutes I opened the door to reveal Talia. “Have you been sleeping?” She giggled at me as she walked into my apartment, propping herself up on one of my breakfast stools. “Hmm, oh yh, busy day” I laughed closing the door and standing the other side of the breakfast bar looking up at her. 

“Soooooo” I edged her to start talking. “Oh right sorry, your release party, Simon was pestering me to ask you if a certain arsehole could come?” She said the last part in a sheepish tone. Fuck, my release party I completely forgot, I had had so much on my plate that I forgot I was opening a club and releasing my own line of spirits. I stood up looking at Talia with a confused look “why the hell would I invite my ex to my release party?”. I reached up and grabbed two wine glasses pouring us each a glass of rosé. Passing over a glass to Talia as she pondered her reply. “Honestly I said the same but apparently all the lads feel bad as everyone we know is invited except for him” she swirled her glass of wine and took a sip as I copied her mentioned. In all fairness it was rude that I invited everyone but him, plus it was going to be the event to beat, and I had a few spaces on the guest list. “T, I don’t know” I shrugged at her sighing. “If I was you id tell him to stick it where-“ Talia started before I cut her off “I know, I know, it does seem a little harsh, I have invited so many people and, well, you know what fuck it, I’ll get my manager to add him to the list if you let him know” I decided. Talia looked gobsmacked, I had never seen her this speechless in our lives. “Are you sure, he’s a dick like you really don’t have to” she said cocking an eyebrow at me. “Look its not fair, plus there’s going to be hundreds of people there and the likelihood of us actually interacting are practically 0” I stated. Which was true, there was going to be just about the whole British YouTube community there, as well as some celebrities and journalists, and I would have my team around me at all times so the chance of him even getting near me is slim. 

That night Talia and I had gotten wasted, watching movies and just have a nice little girly night. However, right now I was shaking in my heels. My hair and makeup had been done to perfection and I was in a body hugging dress which showed off all of my curves perfectly. I looked almost like a model that’s how good I looked. I of Course was going to be the last to arrive at the venue, I needed everyone to be chatting with flutes of complimentary champagne when I entered so all attention was on me, as conceited as this sounds my publicists and manager had worked months for this to run as perfect as possible. I arrived at the venue and I could hear the music from outside “you ready?” My manager, Lucy asked. I nodded my head and made my way through the back entrance. I stood behind the stage door with a mic in one hand and a bottle of my own vodka in another. “Deep breaths, you’ll smash it” Lucy smiled at me, I just nodded and plastered on a smile, I heard the music die down a little and the door opened and I made my way on stage. An eruption of applause and cheering began from my friends and guests. I smiled taking it all in for a moment before I raised the mic to my mouth. 

“Thank you all so much for being here today and supporting me in my new business venture. If you would have told me a year ago that this is where I would be I would have laughed. These past few months I’ve grown more than I ever have, my channel, my business and more importantly myself. I can’t thank you all enough for the continuous love and support, without you guys or my fans I wouldn’t be where I am today. So id like you to all enjoy a complimentary glass of my new Vodka and enjoy yourselves. Because tonight is about friends and loved ones. So let’s get wasted!!!” I recited my speech cheering at the end. I got a mass amount of applause and cheers and I smiled looking over the crowd. I could see all my friends together happy, the way it should be and I smiled until I saw him, he actually came. My smile faltered slightly and my breath hitched in my throat. I quickly shook it off and made my way to the stairs, exiting the stage. I was quickly engulfed in a mass of hugs and bodies, people I knew and some I didn’t all congratulating me. 

I had done it I had made it and all on my own. 

After about half an hour I made it over to my closest group of friends. They all cheered when I went over and I did a mock curtsey, careful not to reveal too much. I got handed a glass of something and started polite conversation. “We’re all so proud of you” Gee gushed “you’ve done so well I can’t believe that you are basically the most sought after name at the moment” freya added. “ I couldn’t have done it without you guys” I smiled. “Oh shut up little miss humble” Ethan who had clearly had a bit much to drink already. “You’re  the queen of UK YouTube, you have your own empire going and you built it all yourself” he grinned at me before smothering me in a hug. “You need to be in more of our vids then maybe we’d be doing just as well as you” Simon commented earning a laugh from the group. “Here’s to Y/N the baddest bitch I know” Talia toasted and everyone joined in. I smiled as we fell into polite chatter. “I’m just nipping outside” I informed my friends smiling at them before making my way to the balcony. I leant over the edge and smiled, nothing could ruin my life right now. I thought to myself. That was until I heard footsteps approach me from behind and the body heat of someone I could recognise in an instant next to me. “Before you say anything I’m here to congratulate you” Harry said. I kept my gaze forward, not wanted tears that I didn’t know still existed for him to spill. “I’m so proud of you, honestly I am, so are my family, they miss you, I miss you” I turned my body and met Harrys gaze. I studied his face, he had bags under his eyes and the usual scruff on his beard was longer than he usually kept it, his hair was also scruffy, not scruffy like usual but tangled and unkept. He was wearing smart trousers and a nice button up shirt, no blazer, Harry hated formal clothes. “Thank you” was all I was able to say as I smiled at him. “You know, with every day that goes by someone reminds me how I fucked up and should have kept a death grip on you, that you were the best part of me and now I’m just some boring kid who plays Fifa” I half chuckled at the end. I felt sorry for him, it seemed that I had grown and succeeded and that Harry had stayed stagnant in his life. “Harry, I, I don’t know what you want me to say” I looked at him with sorry eyes, I think maybe I still loved him, but I had been doing so well without him I just I didn’t know whether I wanted to kiss him or kill him. “No I, I get that, I was a dick. I was in a rut and I took it out on you. And well honestly seeing you do so well without me just shows how I was holding you back. I’m proud of you, I’m happy for you, honestly I am bear, sorry Y/N” we had made eye contact at this point. So many memories came flooding back to me. Our first kiss, our first date, the nights we spent talking about what we wanted to name our children, and how we wanted to have a house in Guernsey and one in London. How we were going to grow old together and never let the other go. 

I broke my gaze when I heard Lucy call my name. I took a deep breath. “I loved you harry, with all my heart, with all my being and I was willing to stay and love you no matter what. I think I still do love you. But right now I need to focus on me, my empire has only just started and I don’t want us to back peddle. The only way for me is forward no mater if you’re there with me or not.” I spilled my heart out to Harry before I heard Lucy call me name again. “Sorry” was all I could say before I headed back inside. I wiped a stray tear from my eye and took one last look at harry, I had left him so broken. But now was time to put me first Y/N is number one in my life and as much as I wanted to fall back into my old self I couldn’t. I had made promises and shown that after heartbreak you can build and make yourself stronger than before. And I was not about to throw it all away.

#sidemen #Harry Lewis x reader #Harry Lewis one shot #Harry Lewis imagine #wroetoshaw #harry lewis #w2s

[study-coffee-chicago]

Undercover (A Jay and Will Halstead x Halstead Sister! Imagine)

This is super long so hang in there! It’s also my first imagine I’ve posted on Tumblr, so feedback would be amazing! (Also posted on my wattpad)

Mini synopsis:  In which something horrible happens to Y/N's best friend, Emma, so Y/N goes undercover to get her justice. She's under and everything's fine...until it's not fine at all.

Huge trigger warning for sexual assault. Please do not read if this makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable! Also, please remember there are people out there to help you if you or someone you love has gone through this. Just google the sexual assault hotline and the number for your country should pop up.

Can you pick up chicken wings? No bluejays game on tonight, tho.

Below that text, your best friend, Emma, had sent you her location, which was turned on to send location indefinitely.

Back when you were both only freshmen in high school, you had come up with code words in case you needed help. This was mostly for unwanted attention from boys. Chicken wing(s) meant that you needed help ASAP. Bluejay(s) was code for Jay or cops.

"Fuck," you muttered as you tried to quickly piece together a plan. You couldn't call Jay or any cop for that matter. But, if she had sent you her location, that meant that she was definitely in trouble. You looked down at the location and could see that the red pin was moving further and further into the heart of the sketchiest part of the south side of Chicago.

Then it occurred to you: the safe in Jay's room under his bed where he told you that he kept a spare gun in case of emergencies. You ran into his room and dove under his bed, quickly pulling out the safe. You groaned as you realized he had forgotten to tell you the pin number to open it.

"Maybe Mom's birthday?" you thought aloud. You punched in the six numbers, causing a green light to turn on, and you yanked the small door of the safe open. "Dumbass," you muttered, thinking about how easy it would be for anyone in your family or anyone who was close to you, Jay, or Will to get their hands on the gun or other things like Jay's backup badge that were hidden there.

You grabbed the gun and your car keys and sprinted out of the house. "Hang on Emma," you said as you jumped in your car and pulled out your phone to see her location. The pin had been at the same location for two minutes now. Your stomach dropped, knowing this couldn't be good.

***

Jay dropped his keys in the ceramic dish on the table and headed into his room to change into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He practically stopped breathing when he saw that the safe had been pulled out from under his bed and was open. He threw himself to the floor and looked in it. "Fuck," he muttered as he saw that the gun was gone.

He sprinted to the front of the house, only to see that your car was gone. "Ruz, I need you to ping Y/N's phone. Now," Jay said into his phone as he ran out of the house and to his truck.

Jay heard the clacking of keys on the other end of the line. "Okay, I sent you her location. What's wrong?"

Jay put his truck in drive and turned on the lights and sirens. "I think she's in trouble. She took my spare gun."

"Okay, Hailey's still here finishing up paperwork. We'll come for backup." Then the line went dead and Jay drove the fastest he ever had in his life.

***

"Are we announcing?" Hailey asked as she finished putting on her vest.

"No," Jay answered as the three began to walk closer and closer to an abandoned warehouse.

Jay tried the knob and to his surprise and everyone else's, it was unlocked. They heard crying as they walked inside and Jay pointed out directions.

Adam walked toward the sound of the crying, while Hailey and Jay worked on clearing areas behind huge shelves.

"Someone's here," Emma whispered to you as you heard a door open. You had given her your coat to wrap around her body. You knew you had to get her to a doctor, but she had told you no cops, which meant no Jay and you had no idea how to get her out safely. You had thought about calling Will, but when you tried to call him, the call only rang once and then stopped. You only had one bar, so the call didn't go through.

With shaking hands, you picked up the gun and pointed it directly at the door. "Put the gun down!" Adam yelled as he looked through the small crack in the door. From his vantage point, all he saw was a gun. He couldn't see that you were the one holding it. "Jay, I need backup over here," he whispered into his radio.

"Copy," he answered and walked down the stairs, gun drawn. "Ready?" Jay asked. Adam nodded and Jay proceeded to kick in the door.

"CPD hands where we can see 'em!" Adam yelled the moment Jay kicked the door. But then he saw who was there and he turned to Jay.

"Y/N," Jay started slowly and calmly, "put the gun down."

Slowly, you lowered the gun and placed it on the floor. Before Jay or Adam even had a chance to get a word in, Emma yelled out, "I said no cops!"

"Emma, I promise you that I didn't call them. Why would I have a gun if I called them, huh?"

That's when Adam and Jay turned to Emma, who was clearly in need of medical attention. Jay nodded to Adam. "This is 50-21 Ida," Adam spoke into his radio, "We have a girl here in need of medical attention. I need you to roll an ambo to my current location. Roll crime scene techs, too. Be advised there are three plain clothes officers on scene."

"Copy that, 50-21 Ida."

"Hey, Emma." Adam slowly moved towards Emma. "I'm Adam. I work with Y/N's brother, Jay. Can you stand up for me?"

She looked down at her body, the coat you had let her borrow barely covering her and you knew that when she stood up, it wouldn't cover all her most vulnerable place. Jay must've got the message too. "Hailey," he said into his radio, "Offender's in the wind. We've got a victim down here. If you see anything to cover her up, bring it here."

"Copy." There was a pause as shuffling could be heard on the radio. "I found a blanket. Coming down now." You heard footsteps on the ground and Adam and Jay immediately raised their guns. "Upton!" Hailey yelled as she opened the door.

The boys lowered their guns and put them back in their holsters. You heard sirens in the distance. "Hi, honey," Hailey said as she walked over to Emma. "I'm Hailey. What's your name?"

"Emma."

"Okay, Emma. We're gonna get you to a hospital. Can you wrap this around you so you can stand up?"

She nodded and stood up and took the blanket.

"Do you wanna go with her?" Jay whispered to you.

"No." You didn't want to see your best friend in a hospital bed knowing that you could have prevented this from happening if you only called Jay. "I'll call her mom, though."

"I'll do that," Hailey offered and Jay forwarded Emma's mom's number to Hailey. Hailey and Emma walked away, leaving you, Adam, and Jay.

"You mind waiting until Voight gets here?" Jay asked.

"Crime scene techs are here so I won't be alone if what you're worried about is me not having backup," Adam answered, humor in his voice.

"Thanks, man. I'm gonna take Y/N to the district to get her statement."

He dropped the magazine out of the gun and laughed. "What's so funny?" you asked.

"It's a good thing you didn't have to shoot anyone because the mag's empty."

"The what's empty?"

"The magazine. It's where the bullets go."

"Oh."

"Jeez, Jay. When you said you kept your work away from Y/N you really weren't kidding."

"Shut up," Jay joked as you followed him out of the warehouse and into his truck. He turned the heat as high as it could go, seeing as you were without a coat in the middle of a Chicago winter.

"Now, I'm not mad, I just want to know what happened," he said as he started to drive.

"How'd you find me?" you asked, knowing that you hadn't broken your promise of not calling the cops.

"I went home and saw the safe was open and the gun was gone, so I had Adam track your phone."

"Oh."

"Can you please tell me what happened?"

"You promise you won't be mad?"

"Unless you were doing something illegal, then I won't be mad. I'm assuming you had a good reason for taking my gun?"

"Emma texted me our code word for if a guy was creeping on her and she said no cops. She also sent me her location. So, I grabbed the gun and I came here."

You took a deep breath as you started to cry. "We can finish this at the district, okay?" Jay suggested.

"Yeah," you agreed.

***

You were sitting on the couch next to Jay, slowly sipping your water as he flipped open his notepad. "Take as much time as you need."

"You're talking to me like a victim, not a witness," you quipped.

"How would you know that?"

"I watch enough crime shows in my free time to know that's how cops talk to the vic."

"Okay, yeah, but you're my baby sister. Do you know how hard it was for me to walk into that room and see you holding a gun? Can you please tell me what happened?"

"Like I said, Emma sent me her location, so I went to the warehouse. When I found her, she was laying on the floor, naked, and I ran over to her. H-He raped her, Jay. I-It's all my f-fault," you stuttered, beginning to cry.

"It is not your fault. Not in a million years is this your fault."

"If I would've called you, this wouldn't have happened!"

Jay wondered why you didn't call him, and he wasn't going to ask. But, if this went to trial and you became a witness, you knew the defense would ask you. So, he knew he had to ask you, too. "Why didn't you call me?"

"She told me that she had to go to the bathroom. The guy let her, but didn't know that she had her phone on her. He said if she tried to run or call the police that he'd shoot her. She said that while he was, while he was you know, doing things to her, that he held a gun to her head. He said that if she screamed, he'd kill her."

Jay ran a hand through his hair as you continued. "I tried to call Will, I really did, but I didn't have good enough reception in the warehouse."

"We got a hit on the offender!" Kim yelled as she rounded the corner into the breakroom.

Jay stood up, but not without looking at you. "Stay here. I don't want you anywhere near this," he said as he walked out and shut the door.

"What do we got?" Jay asked, seeing all of Intelligence gathered in the bullpen.

"We think the guy is James Mason," Voight started. "Did a year in Stateville for rape. Released for good behavior three months ago."

"Good behavior my ass," Adam chirped.

"How do you know it's this guy, Sarge?" Kevin asked.

"He just so happened to walk into a neighboring bar where I know a guy. Guy said he didn't think the two were together, but then they went off somewhere, they came back, he ordered her a drink and she seemed to be comfortable around him."

"He check her ID?" Jay asked.

"I assume so," Voight answered. "Why?"

"Emma's not 21 yet, so she had to have had a fake or he used his ID to buy both drinks." Then a thought occurred to him. "You got the surveillance footage from the bar?"

"Yeah, right over here," Kim answered.

Jay looked at the footage. "Pause it." He watched as Emma walked away from the perp and rounded the corner, following a restroom sign. "That had to be the time Emma texted Y/N her location because she told her that he let her go to the bathroom and he told her that if she tried to get help, he'd shoot her because he had a gun."

"Okay, see if Mason's got a registered firearm," Voight said. "Better yet, pull up his address. Atwater, Burgess, and Ruzek get a search warrant and find it."

"Copy that, Sarge," Kevin said, grabbing his jacket.

Hailey ran up the stairs as Kevin, Kim, and Adam ran down. "Any update on the victim?" Voight asked.

"She's been through trauma, that's for sure," Hailey answered. "Lacerations on her wrists and ankles, bruising on her stomach and thighs, and vaginal tearing."

"Like she was tied up." Jay pieced it together.

"Halstead, your sister ever mention anything about having to untie her?"

"No, Sarge."

"Maybe he undid the ties himself," Hailey suggested.

"Why would he do that? Then she could just call the cops and run away." Voight asked.

"He gets off on it," Hailey answered. "He unties his victims so that they can leave, but they're too traumatized to leave. So, he knows even if he's not there, he's still controlling them."

"Sick son of a bitch," Jay said.

"Voight," he answered as he picked up his phone. "Find anything at the house?" There was a pause as someone on the other end talked. "That's good, we can use that but, we'll just have to find another way to nail him." Then he ended the call.

"What's up, Sarge?" Hailey asked.

"They didn't find anything at Mason's house, but his car was gone. They went through his financials and found out his car just got a new license plate today, which is why it wasn't updated in the database yet. But, they found the paperwork for that new license plate, so we can use that. Burgess also said that they found his calendar with bar names on each day."

"So, he goes to a bar every night and we just need to get him in the act?" Hailey suggested.

"I'll call up a rookie," Voight said as he started to walk towards his office.

"I'll do it!" you volunteered.

"Y/N! I thought I told you to stay in there!" Jay admonished.

"It's not like the walls are soundproof."

"She's got a point, Jay," Hailey agreed with you.

"You're not going in there regardless and that's final!"

"Jay, she's my best friend. I gotta help get this guy. And, if you can't get him on the rape, you can at least get him on distributing alcohol to a minor," you suggested.

Jay looked over at Hank. "Sarge, you can't be considering this!"

"She's got a good point, Jay."

"There's no way Will will agree to this, either."

"Let me call him," you suggested and walked away to talk to your other older brother.

"Hailey, there's no way she's going in there," Jay said to Hailey when they were both seated in the breakroom.

"Jay, you know Hank will put me or Burgess in as ghost in the bar so that things don't get that far. And she'll have a safe word." She paused and reached for his hand. "If it were your best friend, you'd do the same thing she's doing and you know it."

"Will said it's okay," you said as you walked into the breakroom.

"He what?" Jay jumped off the couch.

"He said it's okay on one condition: If he's in the car with you so that if I need medical attention, he can do it without having to wait on the paramedics."

"Then it's a go," Voight said as he heard that.

"It's not a go!" Jay yelled. "Sarge, she's a civilian! You can't be serious about this!"

"Jay, she's no different from a CI. We'll have Upton be her ghost and we'll all be right outside. The minute she says the safe word we'll nail his ass."

***

"Sarge, I'm not okay with this," Jay said as he walked into Voight's office, leaving the door open.

"Jay, we are not having this discussion again! She's okay with it and I'm okay with it. I'm your boss, so you listen to me."

"Do you see what she's wearing? She's asking for it!"

The bullpen went silent the second the words came out of his mouth. "A word," Hailey hissed, roughly grabbing Jay's arm and leading him into the breakroom. This time, he closed the door.

"You're lucky Y/N didn't hear you, Jay! You're a cop, you know it's never the victim's fault!"

Jay raked a hand through his hair. "I know. I messed up," he sighed. "I just, I can't let anything happen to her. She's my baby sister, Hails. I already buried both of my parents. I can't bury her, too."

"Will it make you feel better if you went in and stayed in the bar with me? I can talk to Voight," Hailey suggested.

"Actually yeah, that would make me feel a hell of a lot better."

***

"Hailey, Jay's not gonna like this but I need you to make sure he doesn't come after me until there are obvious signs of a struggle," you said. "Let him hit me a bit; I can handle it. Will's on scene and will fix me up if anything happens. But I have to get justice for Emma because right now, she can barely sleep."

She squeezed your shoulder. "Copy that."

"Vests good?" Voight asked as he entered. Everyone nodded. "Y/N, there's still time to put one on if you want it."

"He'll know something's up if he feels it. I gotta do without it."

"Alright roll--" Voight couldn't finish his sentence because Jay cut him off.

"Just give me five minutes with Y/N, Sarge. Five minutes, that's all."

"Okay, everyone load up." Voight turned to Jay. "Five minutes Halstead, and that's it."

When everyone was gone, Jay turned to you and bent down so that he was eye level with you. "You can still back out now. No one will blame you."

"I can't. I need to do this for Emma and for all the other girls this has probably happened to."

Your brother nodded and reached into his pocket. "Just don't get this mixed up with your regular lipstick, okay?" You started to ask why when he took the cap off to reveal a knife.

"Jay, Voight said no weapons."

"You didn't think I was just going to let you go in unarmed, did you? And relax, Platt gave it to me. So, if Voight figures it out, she's got my back."

"So where's the best place to, you know..." you trailed off, hoping that you wouldn't have to stab Mason, but wanting to know the best place to do it if worst comes to worst.

"I'd say thigh or his, his uh..."

"Penis," you finished.

"I was gonna say man parts, but penis works, too."

You took the lipstick from him and stuffed it in your dress. "Is it noticeable?"

"Never in a million years did I think I'd have to inspect my sister's boobs for a weapon. But, no, it's not noticeable."

"Halsteads!" Voight boomed. "We gotta go now!"

"Okay!" Jay turned back to you. "Safe word?"

"Vodka Cranberry." You and the team decided on that since it would be easy to weasel into a conversation.

"Hey, I love you." He hugged you and you swore you could hear his heart beating despite his vest. You assumed this was the most nervous he'd ever been about an undercover operation.

"I love you, too."

***

"Suspect approaching. You guys copy inside?" you heard Kevin's voice through the wire hidden in your ear.

"Yeah," you answered and you heard Hailey and Jay agree.

Hailey walked up to you, as she was posing as your friend and Jay was posing as the guy that she would flirt with so that Mason could get you alone, even though the thought of that made you sick.

"And remember, if he gets you alcohol, don't drink it," Hailey warned. "This entire investigation could go out the window."

"Not to mention she'd be grounded," you heard Jay come in through your hidden earpiece.

"Jay, if you make comments like this through your wire the entire night, we're gonna have a problem."

"Copy."

You and Hailey pretended to be talking about some people from your neighborhood when you heard Jay talking to you. "I've got eyes on him. He's headed your way."

Hailey shot a glance at Jay, and then reached for your top, pulling it down a bit more to reveal more of your boobs. "Hailey--" Jay started into his wire, but Hailey shot him a glare to make him shut up.

"What are you two ladies doing here all alone?" James Mason asked, coming up and sitting beside you.

"Oh, you know, just chatting," Hailey said, taking a sip of her drink.

"Mind if I join the conversation?" he asked, waving a bartender over.

"Actually, I've got my eye on someone over there," Hailey said as she stood up. "You're just her type," she whispered in his ear as she made her way over to Jay.

"Can I get you a beer? A shot maybe?" Mason asked you.

"No, but I'll take a pop if the offer's still on the table."

"Sure." He ordered a pop for you and a beer for himself. "So, what's your name?" he asked.

"Layla," you answered. "Yours?"

"James."

"Nice to meet you James. You from around here?"

"Chicago born and raised. You?"

"Just here visiting family," you answered.

You had finished your pop by now and James noticed. "Want another one? Maybe a Captain and Coke this time?"

"Just a Coke's fine," you replied.

"Y/N, say you have to go to the bathroom and leave your phone on the table. We gotta get him getting alcohol to you at least," Jay said.

"Actually, I have to go use the ladies room." You got up, not before turning to him. "I'm expecting that Coke when I get back." You sent a wink his way.

Along with the wire and camera you had in your dress, you had also been given a UC phone so that it could record and take a video of things in case you had to leave.

James Mason had a feeling that you were going to be uptight about leaving with him, so he figured he'd solve it his own way. "Hey, she said a captain and Coke," Mason said to the bartender.

"Last I remember she said just a Coke," the bartender replied, doing his due diligence to make sure a girl who said she didn't want alcohol didn't get it.

"She told me she wanted some before she left," he argued.

"I didn't hear that."

"She whispered it," he growled.

Reluctantly, the bartender gave in and make a captain and Coke, switching it out for her previous stand-alone Coke.

"Mason just put alcohol in Y/N's drink," Jay said into his wire. "Y/N, whatever you do, make up an excuse not to drink it, or else our investigation goes down the toilet."

You looked under the stalls in the bathroom, making sure that no one was there before answering. "Got it. I think I'm gonna make the move to leave with him after. He'll think I'm not interested if I keep holding out."

"She's not getting in a car with him!" you heard Will yell. He was currently sitting in the van with Atwater and Burgess, watching this whole scene go down in case he needed to treat any injuries. "That's not the plan!"

"Will," Kevin started, "this is part of the plan. She just didn't tell you because she knew you wouldn't agree to let her do this if she told you."

"But what if she--"

"If you're gonna keep arguing, turn off your mics!" Voight yelled.

"Sorry, Sarge," Kevin apologized.

"When she leaves with this prick, me and Adam will follow them and Jay and Hailey will follow us. And before you can argue with me Jay because I know you will, I can't have you first on scene."

"Copy that," Jay said.

You exited the bathroom and walked back up to Mason. "Hey I was thinking," you started, running your hand up his arm. This made you want to vomit, but you knew you had to do this to help Emma. "maybe we should go back to your place?"

"You don't want to finish your drink?" he asked.

"No, we can get some at your house, can't we?"

"I guess I have a few things, vodka, tequila, beer."

"Alright, let's go." You grabbed his hand and you started walking to his car. You took a deep, shaky breath as you entered the passenger side. You closed the door, hoping this wouldn't cost you your life.

"Damn Halstead," Adam said, "your sister's good."

"Shut up," both Jay and Will said at the same time. If you weren't undercover, you would've laughed at them having the same response even though they weren't together at the moment.

Jay and Hailey entered Jay's truck, then proceeded to velcro their vests on over their clothes. "Jay, Hailey, you following?" Voight asked.

"Copy that," Jay said as he started his truck and began to drive. He knew he should be off this case, but here he was, adam's apple bobbing up and down, trying to stop from breaking down. It's his little sister in that car with a rapist. His little sister who he swore to protect from the moment she was born. His little sister who saw him as more of a father than their actual one. His little sister who used to come to him in the middle of the night for help finding her teddy bear when Will stole it. His little sister who he taught to drive. His little sister, who he was terrified to lose to this monster of a man.

"You okay?" Hailey asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he lied.

"No, you're not." Hailey paused, not wanting to pick a fight with him. "I know you're worried about her, Jay. But, we'll protect her. None of us will let anything happen to her. I promise."

"You can't make promises you can't keep, Hailey."

Back in the van, Will was seeing everything. And he wanted to explode. He saw Y/N clench her jaw the moment his hand touched her thigh, but then quickly regain her composure for the sake of the case. He knew she was uncomfortable, and it broke him that he couldn't do anything to stop it. It was his little sister in there. His little sister who he helped with her homework. His little sister who always stole his coffee. His little sister who spam texted him at four in the morning when she knew he had to be up for a long shift during his residency to make sure he wasn't late. His little sister who he had held as she cried when Jay left for his second tour in Afganistan. His little sister, who he couldn't allow anything bad to happen to.

"Where are we going?" Y/N asked, looking around at the rundown industrial part of the city they were entering.

"I make my own beer, so I'm just gonna make a quick pitstop," he answered as they pulled in behind an empty warehouse.

"I'm not so sure--"

In one swift motion, he pulled a gun from his waistband and held it to Y/N's head. The team heard a gasp through their wires.

"What's going on in there, Kevin?" Voight asked.

"He's got a gun to her head, Sarge."

"Screw the safe word, I'm moving in!" Jay yelled, but Hailey grabbed his hand.

"Halstead stand down! She hasn't said the safe word yet, so we are not moving in. Is that clear?" No answer. "I said, is that clear?" Voight repeated.

"Clear," Jay mumbled.

"Scream and I will blow your brains outta your pretty little head," Mason growled, pushing the gun further into your temple. "Now hold out your hands."

You held out your shaking hands and he put zip ties around your wrists. Tight, effectively tying them together.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

"Move." He pushed you forward and you walked through the black night and into the empty warehouse.

"Please," you pleaded as he pushed you forward still. "Please just let me go and we can pretend none of this happened."

"Too late now. I thought you wanted this." A sick smirk appeared on his face.

In your silent panicky state, you didn't see that there was a pipe on the floor and you tripped over it, scraping up your shin and barely catching yourself with your zip tied hands. You hissed as you hit the ground with a thud. "Didn't see that there, oops," Mason said sarcastically.

In the few seconds on the floor you had left, you reached into your dress and pulled out the lipstick, trying to upcap it while being discreet. Once you got the cap off, you tried to discreetly hide it in your hand, but were roughly pulled up by your hair, causing you to yelp and drop the knife.

"You stupid bitch!" he roared. "You thought you could try and get away from me!"

"No, no, I- I promise. I must've grabbed that by mistake when I grabbed my lipstick."

"Bullshit." Before you could react, you felt his fist connect with the side of your face.

You fell to the ground once more, catching yourself with your tied hands once more. But this time, it was harder, like you wrenched your wrist the wrong way. The pain stopped almost immediately though when you felt his boot-clad foot kick your back, effectively knocking the wind out of you and leaving you gasping for breath.

"I can't listen to this," Jay said, pulling out his wire.

"Jay, what are you--"

"Hailey, just tell me when she says the safe word or when we're told to move in, okay? I can't listen to him beat my sister."

Hailey sighed. "Okay, but you have to put it back in as soon as I tell you to."

"Fine," Jay huffed.

"What's her location?" Voight asked.

"As far as we know, they're still in the main space of the warehouse," Kim answered, looking at the video feed from the camera that was embedded in your dress. "They entered through the front, can you see a side or back entrance?"

"Ruzek and I got a side entrance. Upton and Halstead, I need you to go find a back entrance. And bring the snipers. Atwater and Burgess, you take the front. Stay on video for now. I'll tell you two when to exit the van and move in."

"Wire," Hailey said as she handed Jay's wire back to him. "Voight said to find a back entrace and bring the snipers."

Jay put his wire back in and they exited the truck and grabbed the snipers, in search of a back entrance.

You were roughly pushed down to the ground. He held you there. He reached for your dress and ripped it.

You felt your heart beating in your chest, but couldn't do anything except look into the eyes of your captor. You saw his blond hair wave wildly about as he breathed heavily with adrenaline and watched his lips twitch into a sick smirk. You wanted to kick him, try and fight back. But you couldn't, it was like you were frozen. You parted your lips to scream, but he covered your mouth, effectively shutting you up. It wouldn't have mattered anyway; you were frozen in your current state of shock.

"Sarge, something's wrong," Kevin said. "He pushed her to the gound, and ripped off her dress, but she didn't fight back. At all. She didn't even try to say the safe word before he covered her mouth."

"Frozen," Hank muttered to himself.

"What?" Ruzek asked.

"She's freezing!" he yelled into his radio. "There's fight and flight but there's also freeze, we gotta move in! Now!"

You stared up at James Mason. He kissed your neck roughly and then took his hand off your mouth and fiddled with the zipper of his pants.

"No," you whispered, almost inaudible, as that was as loud as your body would allow your voice to go. It took all your strength to yell, "Vodka--"

"Chicago PD!"

James Mason was ripped away from you, but you were still frozen.

You screamed as someone touched your arm. "Please, no, please," you begged.

"Y/N, Y/N come back," you heard someone say in a soft voice. "It's me, it's Jay, you're safe Short Stack, we're here."

At the mention of your nickname, a switch flipped inside you and you had control over your body again. "Jay?" You looked up.

"It's me."

"Y/N, I'm gonna cut these off you. Hold still, okay?" Burgess said and then cut the zip ties off your wrists.

"Here." Kevin quickly handed you his shirt to cover yourself up with.

"Thank you," you whispered, holding back tears.

"Can you stand up?" Jay asked a minute later.

You slowly nodded, taking his hand to help you stand up.

"We're gonna get you back to the district and let Will have a look at you, okay?"

Jay wrapped a hand protectively around your waist as he, Hailey, and you exited the building.

"Y/N!" Will yelled, running towards you. His loud voice made you flinch, which didn't go unnoticed by Hailey or Jay who shared a look.

He slightly crouched down to your height and enveloped you in one of the tightest hugs he had ever given and that you had ever received. "Ow," you squeaked as his arms wrapped around the very place Mason had kicked you.

"Sorry," he said, quickly letting go. "Pain scale, one to ten?"

"I- I don't know," you answered, the adrenaline haven't worn off yet.

"Let's get back to the district," Hailey said.

You all got into Jay's truck, with Jay and Hailey in the front, Jay driving of course, and you and Will in the back. You snuggled into Will's side, finally starting to realize how cold it was. Will started to move, but you whined. "Please don't leave me," you whispered.

"I'm not leaving you, I'm just giving you my jacket."

You nodded and Will removed his jacket and draped it over your legs. He wrapped an arm around you and pulled you closer.

"I'm sorry," you started to cry, the adrenaline finally starting to wear off.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, nothing at all," Will reassured you.

"If I would've said the safe word earlier--"

"Y/N, you were frozen. There was nothing you could do." Jay said, trying to keep his attention focused on the road. "None of this is your fault."

***

"I have an emergency overnight bag in my locker," Hailey said as soon as you entered Intelligence. "Come with me."

Slowly, you followed her into the locker room, to be met with a few beat cops. "Everybody out! Now!" Hailey commanded.

A few seconds later, it was only you and Hailey sitting in the locker room. "I was so scared," you said to Hailey, feeling a familiar lump begin to rise in your throat. "He almost- If I didn't- Hailey!" you wailed.

"Shhh, shhh, it's okay, it's okay." She paused. "Can I hug you?" she asked, knowing that the only people who touched you since the encounter were your brothers.

You nodded and she gave you a side hug and rubbed your back. When you didn't stop crying, she wrapped you in a hug and swayed back and forth. You ended up swaying along, too. You laughed.

"What's so funny?" she asked quietly.

"My mom used to do this to me when I was little. She said it was the only thing that actually calmed me down."

You stayed like that a moment longer. "I think I should change so that Will can check me out."

"I'll keep watch and make sure no one else comes in here."

When Hailey left the locker room, she was met with the Halstead brothers. Jay was crying. She'd never seen him cry before.

"The minute she yelled out Hailey, I just lost it, Will. If I would've just went in earlier, I could've stopped it. I'm supposed to protect her."

"We both are, Jay."

"Well, we both did a shitty job!"

Will reacted faster than he thought he could, catching Jay's hand before it slammed into the wall. "Y/N is right inside there. Don't do that."

Jay took a deep breath and just nodded. "Will?" The three turned when they heard a small voice.

"Hey kid," Will replied. "Let's get you patched up, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Me and Jay are gonna get some coffee," Hailey said. "Come get us if you need anything."

Will gave them a curt nod and then the two of you walked into the locker room. He unzipped his medical bag. After putting on some gloves, he walked over to the sink and got a washcloth wet. "Tell me if it's too hot, okay?"

"Okay."

He began to wipe the dried blood away from the left side of your face and then proceeded to put butterfly bandaids on both your eyebrow and cheekbone. "Follow the light with your eyes, don't turn your head."

You did as he said and followed the flashlight with your eyes. "Can you roll up your sweatpants?" he asked. "Just so I can take a look at your shin. That looked like a pretty nasty fall."

"You were watching?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Since you saw, do you- do you know why I froze?" you asked weakly, looking down at your feet. "I thought I was stronger than that."

"Hey, hey, look at me, Y/N." You looked up at your brother. "You are one of the strongest people I know, okay? I don't know anyone else who would volunteer to do what you just did. You're a hero, Y/N. A true hero."

"Then why did I freeze up?"

"Everybody reacts to anxiety-provoking or traumatizing events differently. Some people just freeze. It's nothing to be ashamed of; it's just how your nervous system was wired."

He put a bandaid on your shin and felt around the area, causing you to wince. "The good news is that nothing's broken. But, you'll probably have some bruising tomorrow." You nodded in response. "We just gotta make sure we ice it. Now, I'm gonna have to lift up your shirt to look at your back," Will warned you.

"Can we get Hailey?"

"Of course."

He stood up and began to walk towards the door, when you stopped him. "I- I don't wanna be alone." You stood up and walked to him.

He wrapped his arm back around you again. "Don't worry, I'll protect you. You're also in a building full of cops, so I think you're in one of the safest places in the city."

You and your brother entered the bullpen, to be faced with all of Intelligence knee-deep in paperwork. "Hailey, can we borrow you for a sec?" Will asked.

"'Course."

"Okay, all I need you to do is lift up the back of Y/N's shirt...well, Kevin's shirt," Will said once the three were back in the locker room.

"I'm gonna lift this up now," Hailey told you. You nodded, letting her know you were ready.

Soon enough, you felt a stethoscope on your back. "Deep breath." You did so and then repeated the action a few times while Will moved the stethoscope around. "Lung sounds are good."

"So, no hospital?" you asked hopefully.

"No hospital, just lots of ice. You can put her shirt down now."

You stifled a yawn, exhaustion finally hitting you after the night you had. "I'll go get Jay and see if Voight'll let him leave. I don't see it being a problem," Hailey said before leaving.

"Hey Sarge, think you could let Jay get out of here?" Hailey asked.

"I gave him the option of leaving as soon as he came back in here."

"Why'd they need you?" Jay butted in.

"I just needed to lift up Y/N's shirt while Will checked out her back. And, no, she doesn't have to go to the hospital. But, she's exhausted."

"Sarge?"

"Go home, Jay."

***

"Y/N, you need to eat something," Jay pleaded.

You had been home for half an hour and all you had done was take a shower. Now you were staring down Jay because eating was the last thing you wanted to do. All you wanted to do was go in your room and sob into your pillow while Will was asleep on the living room couch and Jay was asleep in the room across from yours. You were afraid that if you ate something, you'd just end up throwing it up if you cried too hard...very irrational, but that was your thought process. And, besides, you weren't hungry anyway.

"I'm not hungry," you answered, moving the ice pack around on your shin.

"Listen, I don't care what you eat. Hell, you can eat Oreos for all I care."

"We have Oreos?"

"I hid them on the top shelf so you won't eat all of them because they're your favorite," Jay answered, heading over to the cabinet and grabbing the package. He put them back on the table, pulling them open. You took three and started to eat them.

"I'm gonna go to bed now," you said a few minutes later once you had finished the Oreos.

Will exited the bathroom at that exact moment. "You sure you don't wanna have a sleepover in the living room like we used to when we were little?" Will asked, going into big brother mode once again.

"I'm sure. I just want my own bed. Goodnight."

It had been a few hours and you had finally fallen into a restless sleep. Will was currently asleep on the couch, but Jay wasn't in his room like you expected him to be. He was sitting outside your room, drinking a cup of coffee. It was enough that it would keep him awake, but if he really wanted to sleep, he'd actually be able to. Jay knew how bad nightmares could be. He also knew how to wake someone out of a nightmare without getting himself injured if they tried to punch him, so he figured it would be best if he stayed up, just in case.

He started to hear more tossing and turning coming from your oom. It wasn't the usual sounds of someone trying to get in a comfortable sleeping position...even if they did have multiple injuries to contend with. It was the sound of not having conscious control of movement.

Slowly, as to not wake you yet, Jay opened your door. As he moved closer to you, he could see that your eyes were moving back and forth beneath your eyelids, a telltale sign of REM sleep, aka a dream sleep. Or, in your case, nightmare sleep.

"Y/N," he whispered. "Y/N, wake up." Gently, he touched your shoulder, causing you to jolt awake, your breathing jagged. "Y/N, it's just me. You're at home, it was all a dream," he quickly said.

"Jay?" you asked, darting your eyes around your dark room.

"Yeah." He noticed your breathing still hadn't evened out. "Breathe with me, okay?" Then, he overexaggerated his inhales and exhales, effectively getting your breathing back to normal. "You want the lights on?"

"Please."

Jay turned on your light and the sight he was met with absolutely broke his heart. Your eyes were red and puffy from crying and you had dark circles under your eyes from exhaustion. "I'm so tired. Why can't I just sleep?" you began to cry, this time it wasn't from fear or coming down from adrenaline, it was from pure exhaustion.

Jay sat on the other side of your bed. When you moved to push yourself up, you winced, pain shooting through your right wrist. "What's wrong? Is it your back? Leg?"

"No, it's my wrist," you answered. "I must've hit it harder than I thought when I fell."

"Need me to wake up Will?" you shook your head, no, you could move it. It was just sore and putting weight on it hurt, but you knew it wasn't broken or fractured. It didn't take a medical degree for you to know that. "Okay, I'll go get you some ice and ibuprofen."

Jay left your room and you stood up and grabbed a book from your bookshelf.

He came back into your room, carrying a glass of water, ice, a bottle of pills, and to your surprise, Oreos and a jar of peanut butter. "Figured a late-night snack never hurt anyone," he said, sitting down next to you once again.

"Thought you hated Oreos and peanut butter," you said, unscrewing the lid to the PB jar.

"I do, but you like it...even though it's disgusting."

"You can thank The Parent Trap for that one."

Jay chuckled but then sighed. "Listen, Y/N, if you have nightmares, you can always talk to me about them, okay?"

"Yeah." You shrugged.

"And I'm not just saying this because I'm your brother and it's my job," he continued. "I'm saying this because I know how it is."

"What do you mean?" you asked, furrowing your eyebrows while grabbing another oreo and dipping it in peanut butter.

"Remember when I got home from overseas and I wouldn't let you stay over late?"

"Yeah, always thought that was weird. But why are you bringing this up?"

"Because," he paused, wondering if he should actually tell you. "I'd have nightmares. And, if someone tried to wake me up, sometimes I'd still think I was there and I'd throw a few punches. I didn't want you over at night because I didn't want you to wake me up because I didn't want to hurt you.

"And, I didn't mean for it to go as far as it did tonight. I wanted to move in, but I couldn't--"

"I told Hailey to leave me in."

"You what?"

"I told Hailey to let him get rough with me before moving in. I just wanted you guys to have enough evidence so that Emma didn't have to testify against him."

"Testify? Y/N, what are you talking about?"

"I know how this goes, Jay. Not enough evidence, equals no case. And, we both know how hard rape cases are to prove. It's a he said she said. I- I just, I couldn't let my best friend relive the worst night of her life."

"Y/N, once we get him into interrogation tomorrow, he could take a deal. You don't know it's gonna go to trial."

You grabbed the pills next to you and popped an ibuprofen. "I know, but I knew I had to try and protect Emma...just like you and Will always try and protect me."

"When did you get so grown up?" Jay asked, putting an arm around you.

You shrugged, you wanted to say when your dad died, but you knew Jay didn't have the best relationship with him--neither did you for that matter--so you decided not to go there.

Jay looked down at the book next to you. "Prisoner of Azkaban? Thought you read it already?"

"I've read all of them. I thought, maybe you could read it to me? Like you did when I was little?"

You forgot how old you were when it started. You had to be in bed by eight o'clock on school nights, much to your dismay because as far as you knew, both of your brothers could stay up as late as they wanted. One night, you couldn't sleep and you knew your parents would just put you back to bed, so you peeked into Will's room. He was sitting on his desk, writing in a notebook. Assuming he was doing homework and not wanting to bug him, you hugged your teddy bear to your chest and walked to Jay's room, seeing as his light was still on as well.

Upon hearing his door creak open, Jay looked up from what he was reading. "Now what are you doing up?" Jay asked with a smile. "It's past your bedtime."

"But I'm not tired, Jay Jay," you whined, climbing on his bed to sit next to him. "That's a big book," you said, referring to the chapter book he held in his hands.

"It is. But you'll be able to read them soon, too!"

"I will?" you asked, cuddling your teddy bear, who you had named Teddy, to your chest. You looked up at your big brother with wide, hopeful eyes.

"Yes, you will."

"Will you read to me?"

"But you don't know what the book is about, silly."

"Then what's it about?" you asked curiously.

"It's about a wizard named Harry who has friends, Ron and Hermoine, and they have to fight the bad guys."

"Oooooh," you said excitedly. "Read it to me, Jay Jay."

"But we have to be quiet so we don't wake up Mommy and Daddy. Because then you have to go to your room."

"Okay, shhh," you put a finger to your lips.

"That's right, shhh," he mimicked, reopening his book to the previous page he was on.

You snuggled down into the covers with Teddy and listened to Jay tell you the story of Harry Potter and this guy named Sirius. Within five pages though, you were asleep.

"Course I'll read to you," he answered, taking an Oreo.

"Mine," you joked, swatting his hand away.

"Last I checked, I bought them. And, you didn't even know we had them until earlier."

You huffed. "Fine."

And just like when you were little, you fell asleep within one chapter.

***

"I'm here to see Intelligence," Emma said as she walked up to the desk sergeant in the 21st District the next morning.

"And you are?" Trudy Platt asked, annoyance laced in her voice, after all, it was only 8:30 on a Monday morning.

"Uh, I'm Emma. I'm here to make an ID," she answered timidly.

"Oh, so you're Emma!" Emma gave Platt a confused look, how did she know who she was? "Y/N's here a lot, so I've heard a lot of good things about you. You two are thick as thieves."

"That we are," Emma answered with a small smile.

Platt picked up the phone and dialed Jay's extension. "Halstead, Emma's down here to see you."

"Copy that, be right there," he answered. Then, he turned to Hailey. "Emma's here to make an ID. Mind telling Voight to get a lineup ready?"

"Got it," Hailey answered and then Jay left the bullpen.

"Hey, Emma," he said as he jogged downstairs. Normally he'd go and hug her since she was like another little sister to him and Will because of how long she and you had been best friends, but after everything that had happened, he knew to keep his distance.

"Hey, Jay," she answered.

"Where's your mom?"

"Oh, she got called in. You know how it is for first responders," Emma shrugged. Her mom was a paramedic and was first on scene, so Jay understood how demanding it was.

"Are you sure you're okay to do this alone?" Jay asked, concerned once they were up in the bullpen. "I can always text Y/N so that she can be here with you?"

"No, thanks though."

"Hailey, lineup ready?" Jay asked.

"Yeah, Voight's in there already. I'll come with you."

Jay and Hailey led Emma into the room. "You can see them, but they can't see you," Jay told her. "Just take as long as you need; there's no rush." Emma nodded. "Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Emma answered nervously.

Voight knocked on the glass and Kevin let the men in the lineup enter. Emma looked at them one by one, her heart beating out of her chest. When her eyes landed on number three, her breath hitched and she turned to Jay. "Number three."

"Are you sure?" He put a hand on Emma's shoulder comfortingly, just like he'd do for Y/N if she were here.

"I'm positive. I'm gonna--"

Before she could finish her sentence, Jay's black t-shirt had vomit dripping down the front. Y/N has nightmares, Emma vomits. That's how it's always been, whenever Emma got overwhelmed or nervous, she'd puke. Same for Y/N, but with nightmares.

"I'm so sorry, Jay," she apologized, feeling tears of embarrassment prick her eyes.

"Hey, it's okay, it's okay," he rushed, not wanting to make her feel even the slightest bit bad. "This isn't even the worst thing I've been covered in. I've got a change of clothes in my locker, so don't worry about it."

"C'mon, Emma," Hailey said. "Let's get you some water."

***

You were brushing your teeth when your phone vibrated on the counter next to you.

I just puked on your brother. Please come down now.

"Oh my God," you laughed after spitting out your toothpaste and then leaving the bathroom.

"Well that's a nice sound," Will said as he sat at the table, sipping his morning coffee. After everything that happened last night, he didn't know if he'd ever hear his little sister laugh again because all he's heard since last night are her worried voice and quiet sobs.

"Emma just puked on Jay!"

Will almost choked on his coffee. "Did someone get a picture?"

"Probably not. Good to leave in 15?" Jay didn't want you driving alone after what happened last night, and since you didn't get a lot of sleep, you didn't blame him for that. So, Will was going to drop you off at the district before his shift at Med started. He tried to get someone to cover it, but it was the middle of flu season, so no one could.

Will nodded and half an hour later you walked into the district. "Hey Trudy," Will said, waving to the desk sergeant. "Buzz us up?"

For once, Trudy didn't give either of you a snide remark, she just unlocked the gate to the bullpen and let you up.

"Sleep at all?" Kim asked as soon as she saw you.

"Not really," you answered truthfully. "Anyone know where Emma is?"

"Last I saw she was in the breakroom with Hailey and your brother." Will looked up. "Your other brother, the one who works here," Kim specified.

"Thanks, Kim."

You entered the breakroom to see Emma sitting at the table on her phone with Jay and Hailey. "Hey, Em," you said as you sat down next to her.

"Hey," she answered.

"I gotta go," Will said.

"Thanks for bringing her. Now go save some lives," Jay said and then hugged his brother.

Emma furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "You didn't drive yourself?"

"Why don't you guys go grab yourselves coffee or something? On me," Jay said and then pulled out his wallet and handed you some money.

You knew what this was. He wanted you and Emma to have a chance to talk alone without the threat of people walking in on your conversation. "Can we take your truck? It's freezing out, Jay," you said.

"You've never driven it before," he pointed out. "And, are you sure you're awake enough to drive?"

"I'll be fine. The coffee shop is just a few blocks away."

He sighed and pulled out his keys. "Fine, but no speeding."

"Copy that, detective," you joked, causing him to roll his eyes. "You want anything? This is more than enough to get us coffee and you and Hailey something, too."

"Yeah, sure. Surprise me. Hailey likes--"

"Just black. I know. Thanks for the money."

Then, you exited the district with Emma behind you. "What was that all about? Why was he so worried about you? I mean, more worried than usual that is," Emma said once both of you were safely inside Jay's truck.

"Are you sleeping?" you asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah, it's just hard to get to sleep."

"Well, if you need to talk, call me okay? I barely slept at all last night."

"What? Why?

You sighed, knowing there was no way you could get out of this conversation. And, you knew that Emma deserved the truth and she deserved to hear it from you. But, if you were going to tell this story, you knew that you shouldn't be driving while doing so.  "They needed more proof to charge the guy that raped you, Emma. So, I volunteered to go undercover."

"Y/N, you didn't."

"I did. I'm fine though."

"Is that why your makeup is so thick on one side? Did he hit you?"

"I guess I'm telling you the whole story, then." And so, before you even started driving, you told your best friend everything that happened to you.

Meanwhile, back inside, Jay and Hailey were giving James Mason hell on your behalf. "Lawyer," Mason stated calmly.

"The minute you get a lawyer in here, James, all of your help from us goes out the window, so if I were you, I'd start talking," Hailey told him, crossing her arms.

"Lawyer."

"Listen here, Mason," Jay spat. "We have you on video hitting and trying to rape that girl from last night. We have you on video trying to give alcohol to said girl who is a minor. So if I were you, I'd talk. Not that you're going to get a deal, though."

"What part do you not understand? The law or the yer?" He moved to stand up, but Jay roughly shoved him back down.

"Sit your ass back down now."

"This is police misconduct!" he yelled. "I'll sue all of you!"

"Yeah, good luck with that. It's awfully hard to sue from a prison cell. And that's where you're gonna be spending the rest of your life."

Hailey pulled out some pictures. It was Emma in the hospital after she had been raped. "You recognize her?"

"Never seen her before," he said, not even glancing at the picture.

"Look at the damn pictures!" Jay slammed his hands on the table. He wanted to break this prick's neck, but he didn't want to lose his job over this prick either.

Mason looked down at the pictures and he started to smirk. "Don't know her."

"Yeah, that look on your face says otherwise. And, the DNA we got from under her fingernails says that you were the person who did this."

"That's impossible!" He yelled, jumping out of his seat.

"And why is that?" Jay's face was so close to Mason's that Mason could almost feel the spit coming from Jay's mouth as he yelled back at him.

"Because she was tied up!"

"We never mentioned anything about her being tied up, James. And, that sounds like something only the person who did this would know," Hailey said calmly, knowing that they had him. James Mason sat back down.

"You know what they do in prison to people like you?" Jay asked rhetorically. "As soon as word gets out about your charges, one of the big tough guys in there is gonna make you his bitch. They don't like rapists in prison, Mason. They'll get you in the showers, anywhere. They'll use anything they can find, a mop, soap, anything. But, if you cooperate with us, we'll make sure that you don't have to go into general population and that what I just mentioned won't happen. So, what do you say?"

"Fine!" Mason yelled. "I did it! I raped her and I enjoyed it, too! Seeing her struggle just made it even better and seeing the fear in her eyes when I held the gun to her head and told her that if she screamed, she'd die, well that was the best part."

Jay roughly pulled him back up. "C'mon, let's go."

Emma had stopped to go the bathroom but said she'd meet you back up in the bullpen as soon as she was done. You started to walk up the stairs when you heard someone yelling, telling another person to move. It sounded like your brother.

You looked up and it was as if you had forgotten how to move. Right in front of you, stood the man who did all of those horrible things to you last night. You wanted to run away, to spit in his face, anything to get away from him, but you couldn't move. You were shocked you hadn't dropped the drink carrier you were holding, either.

"You bitch!" He yelled.

Before Jay knew it, he swung. He didn't care that there were cameras or that he was a cop. At that moment, you mattered more to him than this job. No one called you a bitch in front of your brother and got away with it.

"Jay!" Voight yelled. "Let go!"

Jay let go of Mason and roughly pushed him over to Voight. Gently, he grabbed your arm. "Y/N, can you come upstairs with me?" he asked quietly.

"What?" you had snapped out of your frozen state but hadn't registered what Jay had said.

"I asked if you can come upstairs with me?"

"Uh, yeah. Here's your coffee by the way," you handed him the caramel mocha you had picked out for him.

"This tastes more like hot chocolate than coffee," he joked.

"I promise it's got caffeine. And, I'll go ask Platt for that footage to be erased. She likes me more than you."

***

It's been a week since everything has happened and you and Emma were slowly coming to terms with the fact that what happened, happened. You still got nightmares and Emma still had trouble sleeping, so she drank coffee like it was water. Jay finally felt comfortable to leave you alone, after changing the pin to the safe, though. He knew what thoughts went through people's heads when they went through a major trauma like you and Emma. And, he didn't want to lose either of you.

Voight walked upstairs to Intelligence and he did not look happy, to say the least. "Halstead. Upton. My office," he ordered.

Both gave the other a confused look but followed their boss.

"What's up, Sarge?" Jay asked as he closed the door.

"What's up? What's up is we don't have a case!" Voight practically yelled but quieted down because he didn't want the rest of the unit to think something was wrong, not yet anyway.

"We just got a case this morning. What are you--"

Voight slammed his hands on his desk. "Not this case, dammit! Your sister's case!"

"We got a confession! What's wrong with it?" Hailey asked, watching as Jay clenched his jaw in frustration.

"He asked for a lawyer and you didn't give him one!"

"That's never stopped us before! And it's damn rich coming from you!" Jay pointed an accusing finger at his boss.

"Jay," Hailey said, placing a hand on his chest and gently pushing him back before he did something he'd later regret. "So, what happened, Sarge?"

"What happened is that we needed that confession."

"We have the DNA from under Emma's fingernails and it's a match to Mason's. And we have a positive ID from the lineup," Hailey said, wondering how the hell they needed that confession to make the case when they had two pieces of evidence against him.

"The problem is that his lawyer's arguing that the DNA under the nails was from consensual sex and the lineup is just because she saw him before! We can still make Y/N's case because we have video and audio evidence of the entire thing, but there's no case against Mason when it comes to her friend."

"So, we bring him back in, this time with his lawyer," Jay suggested.

"No. You're way too close this case, Jay," Voight told his detective.

"So what do we do?" Hailey asked.

"Emma will have to testify."

"Testify?" Jay ran a hand down his face and walked across the room and sat on the couch. "You saw what happened when she made a positive ID, Sarge. She can't go through that again. And, Y/N will have to testify too since she's a material witness. We can't put them through this. We just can't."

"How much would he get if we just press charges for Y/N's case?" Hailey asked.

"With the attempted sexual charge, assault charge, and distribution of alcohol to a minor, he'd be looking at five years. But, he'd probably be out in three."

"Shit," Jay muttered. "I gotta go. I gotta be the one to break the news to the girls." He yanked Voight's office door open and quickly grabbed his coat.

"Hailey, go with him. And don't take no for an answer because I don't trust him enough to just tell them and do nothing."

"Copy you, Sarge."

Hailey left and grabbed her jacket, running down the stairs and out of the 21st, just in time to catch Jay. "I'm coming with you. And it's not up for discussion."

You and Emma were sitting on the living room floor, each working on your respective assignments for school when the door opened, causing both of you to jump. "Jay? Hailey? What are you guys doing here?" you asked, wondering why Jay was home at only nine in the morning and why Hailey was with him.

Jay grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and set it on the table. "What's that for?" you asked.

"Come sit at the table. Me and Hailey have to tell you something. Something really important. The bowl's for Emma."

"What's going on?" Emma asked as she sat down.

"We can't make your case against Mason," Hailey said.

"What do you mean you can't make the case?" you asked.

And then they launched into why they can't make the case. "So let me get this straight," you said after they finished. "We can't make the case because you fucked up?"

"We've done it hundreds of times, Y/N. It just didn't work this time," Jay said quietly.

"But Emma's case isn't just one of those hundreds, Jay! How did you let this happen? She's not gonna testify, and you know this!" you yelled, speaking as if Emma wasn't even there. "I mean look at her!" You motioned to Emma who was hunched over the bowl in front of her, trying to keep her food down.

Emma looked up. "How long would he get for what he did to Y/N?"

"He'd do three years," Hailey answered.

"Three years? That's it? That bastard deserves life!" You knew if it were any other day, Jay would've told you to watch your language. But, it wasn't just any other day.

"I know, I know he does, Y/N," Jay agreed loudly. "We'd get Peter Stone, one of the best attorneys around and he'd prep you and Emma so well that there's no way this case could go under!"

"Wait, Y/N has to testify, too?" Emma asked.

"As a material witness, yes, she would have to testify," Hailey answered.

"No, we're not doing this," Emma said adamantly. "Maybe he'll change in prison, okay? I can't put her through this."

"Emma, I can handle it. But, if you don't want to do this, just tell me. I won't blame you at all."

Emma took a deep, shaky breath. "I can't. I'm sorry." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she jumped up and made a beeline for the bathroom.

"So, Mason does five years, out in three," Jay said, looking at his sister.

"That's it? You're just giving up?" you yelled, standing up and walking over to your brother.

"Y/N, there's nothing else we can do. I'm sorry."

"Oh don't give me that I'm sorry bullshit! You fucked this up, so you're gonna fucking fix it!"

***

"What'd she say?" Voight asked as soon as Hailey and Jay entered the district once more.

"She's not testifying," Hailey answered.

"Sarge, are you sure there's nothing else we can do? You know as well as I do that this monster doesn't deserve to take another breath as a free man."

"Listen, let me make some calls and I'll see what I can do."

Voight picked up his phone and dialed a familiar number. "Tyler, it's Hank Voight."

"Hey Hank, what can I do for you?" Tyler answered into one of the blue phones in the county jail.

"How's your son doing?"

"He doing good. I miss him though. My girl sent me some pictures of him yesterday though."

"That's good. That's really good. Mind if I see those pictures tomorrow during visiting hours?"

"It'd be a welcome visit, Hank."

***

"200k and we have a deal," Tyler said to Hank as they sat at one of the cold, metal tables in the visiting room.

"150," Voight argued, increasing the payout 50k.

Tyler sat there for a moment, thinking it over. "150k would be able to pay for his house or college. And, hey, I'm stuck here for life anyway. You got yourself a deal."

"Money'll be in a trust fund a few months after, just to be safe." The two shook on the deal and Hank left.

***

There was a knock at the door as you, Jay, and Emma were eating dinner. She had come over to your house once more to do homework and Jay picked up some food on his way home from work.

"I got it," Jay stood up and pushed his chair in.

"Sarge? What are you doing here?" Jay asked.

"Are the girls here?"

"Yeah, they both are. Come in. What's going on?"

"Hi, Y/N," Voight greeted you. "Emma, Sargent Hank Voight, we met a week ago."

"Yes, I remember you," Emma replied.

"What's up, Sarge? It's gotta be important if you came over here."

"James Mason was killed in county."

You dropped your fork. "What?" Jay asked, as stunned as both you and Emma. "When?"

"About an hour ago. I figured that you should be the first to know."

"Wow," Emma breathed out.

"I gotta go, though," Voight said.

Jay walked him to the door and followed him out onto the front steps. "Please tell me you didn't do what I think you did?" Jay asked.

"If you're asking me if I killed that man, no Jay, I didn't do that."

"Do you know who did?" Jay asked, not being able to believe that this was just a coincidence.

"Tyler," was all Voight said.

"Tyler? As in the Tyler we put away for a double homicide six months ago?"

"That's the one."

"And you had nothing to do with it? Because if IAD finds out anything against you--"

"Jay, I had nothing to do with it. Tyler must've found out the charges and killed him just like he killed the two men who raped his sister."

"You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?"

"He's gone, Jay. Those girls can sleep peacefully now. Just let it be and be there for Y/N. None of this will come back to me."

"Why didn't you tell me? I'd gladly put a bullet in that bastard's head!"

"I know you. You do everything with your heart. And that's what makes you a good cop, a good detective, and a great brother to your little sister, Jay. I know you couldn't live with yourself if you did it. Now, go back inside before your food gets cold."

Voight turned and left, leaving Jay wondering how the hell this happened. But he knew one thing: No one would find out about this. Y/N wanted justice for Emma and she got justice, even if it wasn't the right way to go about it.

Later that night, Emma fell asleep within fifteen minutes, the first time in a week and a half that she had fallen asleep that fast. Y/N slept soundly without any nightmares for the first time in a week and a half. And Jay slept in his own bed, instead of slumped against the hallway wall, waiting for the inevitable when he'd have to comfort his sister. He wouldn't admit it, but he was thankful for what Voight did for him. He always said family was everything and he was right. You were Jay's family and Jay was a member of Voight's Intelligence family. Because of this, you were a part of the Intelligence family, too. And, Voight would do anything for family...even if it meant putting 150k in a trust fund for Tyler's son so that you and Emma could both sleep through the night and move on with your lives.

A/N comment and tell me what you think!

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@xhaliemax @alievans007 

#chicago pd #chicago med #jay halstead #will halstead #imagine #writing #jay halstead imagine #will halstead imagine #chicago pd imagine #chicago med imagine #halstead sister #halstead brother #one shot #undercover #this is long

[joisbishmyoga]

Ok, to go with my headcanon about the Hogwarts Founders (to wit: based on etymology, they can't be contemporous), I have headcanons about Hogwarts castle itself.

Number one! It, like the Founders, was ALSO not all contemporous. (And my apologies that I still can't find the goddamn keep-reading option.)

Helga never-actually-Hufflepuff's Hogwarts, c. 990-1090:

The original and oldest part of the school is the tower that now houses the famous moving staircases and the Headmaster's Office. (It wasn't alone, though: it had a number of outbuildings, stables and smithies and such, that have long since vanished.)

The tower was not, at the time, a hollow column full of moving staircases. It was a defensive watchtower akin to Threave Castle in Scotland, though somewhat taller and a little bit larger. It was also not round at the time, which can still be seen in the fact that the interior is square; later generations simply added walls to make it round. There are almost certainly late medieval and Renaissance defenses, as well as secret passages, built into the space between the original tower and the rounding walls.

The tower's long-since-removed floors:

Cellars (wine and cold storage).

Ground floor (entrance, reception, kitchens).

2nd floor, in the American style of count (dining, Helga's room).
3rd floor (classrooms)

4th floor (dorms: divided by gender and class rather than age)

5th floor (servants and defense).

The cellars expanded regularly over the centuries, a new room or corridor or floor built every time the castle's population (or political demands, see below) needed more cold storage.

The conical roof and the modern Headmaster's suite were added at a much later date.

Rowena Hraefenclew's Hogwarts, c. 1050-1150:

The first expansion of the castle was the modern-day Great Hall, though it lacked the enchanted ceiling attributed later to Ravenclaw. The recieving of guests was transferred to this space from the original tower, and the grand entertainments of medieval feasts and banquets were added to school life -- a requirement of any social networking, as Rowena steered the school through the political mess of the era without getting entangled in any of it.

(The enchanted ceiling was a Renaissance creation, adding light to what had been a very dim space. The original enchantment wasn't of the sky, though, and the modern ceiling would appall the people of the 1400s: what is so grand or impressive or artistic about just making the roof invisible?

(Not having a masterpiece of Christian religious art looming over the heads of hundreds -- thousands -- of magicals who'd just lived through zealous persecution, is what. The people who charmed it all invisible considered the frescoes to be quite gauche and impolitic.))

Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor's Hogwarts, c. 1150-1250:

The High Middle Ages brought a massive amount of upheaval to England (and France: half of the modern nation was ruled by England at the start of this period), as well as the rest of Europe. This is the era later connected to Robin Hood, the age of the Magna Carta and Richard the Lionheart and Prince (King) John... and that is where we begin, with Richard faffing off to join the (many, many, MANY) Crusades, and King John losing the entirety of the French regions of his rule. Loss of land = loss of wealth --> spikes in taxes and fees on nobles --> furious nobles --> Magna Carta + King John's reputation forever in the toilet + the absentee and therefore not interfering with nobles' power and money King Richard getting lauded as the best king ever (spoiler: he v much was NOT).

Richard's career included internecine rebellions, uprisings, cruelty in what provinces he bothered to rule (in France), and widespread Jewish persecution. (Things that are pretty much always in Europe: Jewish persecution. The Crusades were mostly massive disasters that did very little to Islamic rule and population in the Holy Land, but exterminated some 90% of Jewish Europe on the way. HSST.)

All of this is to say that Salazar and Godric's Hogwarts expanded to accomodate thousands of Jewish, wandering-poor, and magical refugees from the Continent: Hogwarts was still the only formal, centralized school of magic in all of Europe, and would be for several more decades.

The school still didn't reach the modern extent by the end of this building period, but got up to about 50 percent, adding almost everything on one side of the ravine that cuts through the bluff. Except for the clock tower, the Great Hall's half of the school was complete.

This is also when Hogsmeade changed from being a House-Elf farming settlement to a human town, and for the same reason: Continental refugees, largely from the Childrens' Crusade -- thousands of people of all ages, later thought to all be children due to a misunderstanding in language. (The word for "child" was co-opted to mean "the working/wandering poor": basically, "the (socially) powerless".)

The post-Founders' Hogwarts, c. 1250-1900:

The second half of the school, the conical tower rooftops (and rooms inside them), the internal plumbing for baths (but not toilets), and all the bridges -- both the stone ones across the ravine and the wooden one to Hogsmeade -- were all built in a hurry in the late 1500 and early 1600s, this time to handle refugees during the last few decades before the Statute of Secrecy. The modern Headmaster's Office was also built at this time, as high as possible to cover all approaches to Hogwarts.

Unlike the stone bridges of the ravine, the bridge to Hogsmeade has always been made of wood, in order to be easily destroyed should the castle come under attack. (And in fact it actually has been destroyed several times, most recently in the 1970s as a pre-emptive measure against Voldemort. It was then rebuilt in 1982 with more nostalgia than construction skill.)

As mentioned before, this -- the early 1600s -- is when the Great Hall's enchanted fresco ceiling was rendered invisible.

The T-shaped clock wing on the Great Hall's side, being a six-story pendulum-type clock, was built in the early 1800s, and improved in the late 1800s for accuracy and not whacking students around like golf balls. (The restrooms were also added and improved at these times.)

The greenhouses were built around 1900: Dumbledore might well have had Herbology classes before they were put in.

Now then. That is all headcanon #1. Construction headcanon #2:

Hogwarts is in TERRIBLE condition.

The famous enchanted ceiling is perhaps the most obvious damaged spot. Or it would be if it hadn't been charmed invisible. While it had Owl Post holes in it. (For the record, the easiest way to bring down, say, a barn? Chop a 3x3 ft. hole in the roof and wait ten years.) For the last four or five centuries, every time someone on staff noticed they were getting dripped on, they just threw an Impervious Charm up at the ceiling and considered the leak magically fixed. There's literally nothing left but the Impervious charms and a few scraps of gold leaf.

The stairs are another trouble spot. Centuries of people walking on them should have them worn down in the middle to look like you cut a bowl in half vertically. Would have, but the House Elves have been pulling the stone up flat again for centuries, and eventually started using magic to color-match and add enough support to the remaining stone to take people's weight. Some of the well-known trick stairs that like to disappear? That's not the magic being playful. That's the magic of late House Elves fritzing out to show there's no step left. (The moving stairs have also ground down their joints to nothing.)

It's the same across the entire castle. Centuries of manipulating the materials and covering wear with illusions and throwing Impervious Charms at drafts and drips means a lot of Hogwarts is nothing but swiss cheese and fading spells cast by long-deceased magicals anymore.

(Or it was, until the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998 disrupted enough of the remaining spells to drop them. Voldemort's forces were powerful, but not THAT powerful.)

(A large percentage of the two generations following Harry's were saved by the Battle of Hogwarts. Slytherin House was a misaimed hex away from flooding, and most of the towers were going to collapse with a few more winters of ice picking away at the mortar. Of course if the previous several centuries of magicals had just bothered to check...)

#harry potter #hogwarts #headcanon #how i wish i could quit you #tl;dr #history is more interesting and complex and gives you a lot more material than standard fantasy tropes do

[dontshootmespence]

Home Again

Summary: Spencer and Luke are happily married when the world goes to shit. In the chaos, they’re separated. After years, each one presumes the other dead. Until one day.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Luke Alvez

Word Count: 3,564

Warning: Zombie apocalypse shit. Character deaths. 

A/N: This fulfills my apocalypse au square for @cmbingo​. 

Inside their mid-size apartment, Luke dances to his favorite music as he moves about the kitchen, getting dinner ready for when Spencer comes home. A medical researcher’s work was never really done, but in the years since they’d gotten married, Spencer made a commitment to be home by every night at 6PM unless they discussed otherwise. 

Turning on the nightly news, Luke saw what looked like a pretty severe car accident on the road that Spencer normally took on the way home. He pulled out his phone and dialed, hoping to give his husband a head’s up about the driving conditions, but it went straight to voicemail. “Hey, Spence, it’s me. I mean, of course it’s me,” he laughed. “But anyway, I’m working on dinner now and I just saw the news. There’s a big accident on I-275 so you might want to take another way home if you can. I’ll see you in a little bit. Love you.”

As Luke slipped the chicken into the pot, he heard what sounded like another car wreck and ran to the window, sticking his head out to see a car on its side and one man running clumsily after another. A knock at the door distracted him from the damage on the street below. 

“Luke, it’s Steven. Open up.”

Steven was their neighbor and a college student. They rarely ever spoke. “Steven, what’s wrong?”

“There’s something wrong, man. People are going crazy out there. They’re attacking each other and...and eating each other. It’s like there are...”

Luke couldn’t help but laugh. “Do not say zombies. There’s no such thing, kid.”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Steven insisted. “Something is happening. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll pack up some essentials and get moving. Apparently, it started at the Recovered Exploration Lab downtown and people, zombies, whatever they are, they’re headed this way. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

Steven sped down the stairs in a panic, leaving Luke’s focus to drift back to the television. “We’re here just above Recovered Exploration Lab where the breakout of what looks like zombies seems to have started,” the news anchor started. “On the ground, people are ripping and tearing and eating each other in what seems to be a real-life apocalypse, folks. At this time we don’t know what caused it, but we can assume that the staff at Recovered Exploration have been keeping secrets. This is WLVW Channel 2 News. Back to you in the studio.”

Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing and ran back to the window to see even more people than before ambling down the street. Cursing under his breath, he pulled out his phone again and dialed Spencer again. “Spence, have you heard what’s on the news? Are they talking about it on the radio? They’re saying it’s a real life zombie apocalypse out there and I’m, I’m, I’m, uh, looking out the window and people are attacking each other. There’s a swarm of people heading toward the apartment so I’m grabbing some essentials for us. Meet me at our diner okay? Then we can figure out what to do. Be safe, Spence. I love you.”

Running into their bedroom, Luke grabbed the biggest backpack he could find and anything he thought they might need. Spare clothes, toiletries, canned food, a can opener, toilet paper, some sharp knives and his guns from work. “What else?” He spoke into the empty room. On the wall hung their favorite picture from their wedding. He and Spencer wore matching tuxes and walked hand in hand along a lit-up, tree-lined path. Lost in thought, the commotion brought him back. He stuffed the picture into the backpack and ran downstairs, hoping that this was all a dream.

----

Having heard both of Luke’s messages, Spencer took an alternative route home, but unfortunately, he ran into another accident, slamming on the brakes as two cars crashed into stopped cars in front of them. With traffic at a standstill, he pulled his phone out and tried to call Luke. Obviously, there had to be another explanation for what was happening. 

As he was about to try calling for a second time, he saw someone in the wreckage ahead, who he’d previously assumed to be dead, jerk back to life. Slowly, she go up from the ground and shuffled toward an office that had his back turned. When an ear-shattering scream resounded through the air, Spencer dropped his phone. She wasn’t the only one.

A man from a nearby car knocked on Spencer’s window. “Buddy, we need to get out of here. You have anything that might help?” 

“Like what?” Spencer asked, voice quivering as he picked up his phone from the car floor and shoved it back in his pocket. Quickly, he searched the car for anything that might be helpful. His keys.

“Anything in the trunk?” The man asked, grabbing Spencer’s arm and yanking him away from the incoming crowd. “We need to move now.” 

His mind had blanked. After grabbing the emergency preparedness bag from the trunk of the car that Luke insisted he have, he and the unnamed man ran over the highway barrier and away from the traffic. “I need to get to the diner on Jones and Washington,” Spencer said. “Do you know it? My husband said to meet him there.”

Staring back into the growing see of screaming and ambling bodies, the man replied. “I don’t think you’re going that way, kid.”

----

Stumbling down into the street they lived on, Luke looked around in horror. He ran. He ran as hard and as fast as his body would allow, staying clear of any of the infected like his life depended on it. Right now, it did. 

Luke wavered between walking and running in the general direction of the diner he knew so well. For five years, every Friday, he and Spencer would head there for a greasy burger and fries and some of the best milkshakes either of them had ever tasted. 

The farther he traveled from the apartment, the less insanity he seemed to encounter, but still, his heart beat with reckless abandon as he peered around every corner. If whatever this was didn’t get resolved soon, every street, every city, every state would be something to fear. No longer would he and Spencer be able to go to the local park and bask in the sun. No more walks on the beach. No more calm and colorful sunsets. “You’re getting ahead of yourself,” he muttered to himself. “Just get to the diner.”

Using landmarks to guide his way (so that he could keep his phone on and pray for a call from Spencer), he crossed what he believed was the halfway point between the apartment and the restaurant. They now lived in a world where people ate each other and rose from the dead, but it was the groups of human beings taking this whole situation as a free for all that he had to avoid most of all. 

As he hurriedly turned the corner, Luke bumped into a group of nervous but determined young adults. The youngest couldn’t have been 16 and the oldest topped 25 at the most. By the looks of the straggling adults, most of them had already lost someone or taken this new world as an excuse to ditch their families and fend for themselves. The most self-assured of the bunch stepped in toward Luke and looked at his bag. “Seems like you’re well stocked.”

“For a couple days,” he replied, carefully taking a small step backward. “For my spouse and I until this whole thing blows over.” He spoke the words, but something told him ‘this whole thing’ wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. 

With each step Luke took back, the young man stepped forward and tried to yank the bag from his grasp. “Sorry, kiddo. That ain’t happening.” Before the other man could swing his gun from his back and into his hand, Luke had his pulled and aimed. “Don’t. I don’t wanna hurt people. You walk away. I’ll walk away and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

The next moments passed by in a blur - kids running, bullets flying. Luke didn’t glance back, running away from the screams and toward the diner with tears in his eyes. He just shot a kid. A kid who was just trying to survive in whatever the hell this new world was. 

----

Days passed before Spencer and his party of misfits arrived at the diner. Jim was the man that shook him to reality. On the way they’d also run into a single mother named Avery and her 3-year-old son, Chase, who were being harassed by a couple of guys who just didn’t want to take no for an answer. Although they tried to resolve things peacefully, Jim killed the one that pulled a gun on him and the other ran away. From there, they all went to Jim’s former precinct and grabbed whatever guns they could find. Unlike Luke, Spencer wasn’t used to holding guns, but he was going to have to get accustomed quickly.

Normally, the diner looked reminiscent of the 50s. Crisp black and white checkered floors, red leather seats, clean white tables and chrome chairs at similarly colored bar-tops. Now there were skid marks on the floors, dinged counters and bits of food all over the floor. The kitchen had already been ransacked so very little decent food was left, but they stocked up on what they could and waited. 

Nearly a week went by before Jim insisted they leave. “I know your husband was going to meet you here, Spencer, but if we stay any longer we’re putting ourselves in danger. We don’t wanna use all our gunpower to defend this place when we can’t stay here.”

Spencer knew he was right, but the thought of leaving hurt his heart. “I’m never going to see my husband again, am I, Jim?”

The older man just looked at him sadly, resting his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Call him. You’ve still got a little power left. Leave a message. And hope for the best. I’ll give you a minute before we head out.” 

Spencer thanked him softly and went into the back room before pulling out the phone. Shakily, he dialed Luke one more time. “Hey, babe. I’ve been at the diner for almost a week. I don’t know what happened to you...or,” his voice broke, “or if you’re even still alive, but if you are, I’m headed toward my mother’s nursing home. I need to see if she’s okay. I have no idea if we’re ever going to see each other again. I hope we are. But if we aren’t, I need you know that the years we’ve been together, the years we’ve been married, they’ve been the best and happiest of my life. Studying what I study, it can suck the life out of you, but seeing you in the mornings, the sun shining on your face, it gave me that little push I needed to go do what I do. You changed my life, Luke. I love you so much. If you’re out there, and you can’t get to me, just know that, I love you with everything I have.”

Quickly, he ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket before breaking down sobbing. He allowed himself a few minutes and then met Jim, Avery and Chase outside. They’d all agreed to head in the direction of his mother’s nursing home. Spencer prayed that Luke and his mother were still alive. And safe.

----

After shooting the kid, Luke ran into a building a melted down. Sure, he’d had to shoot people before. He’d killed people before. But this was different. This was practically a kid whose only crime was trying to look out for the group he was with. Between dodging zombies and dodging other people, it took Luke almost two full weeks to get to the diner, but by the time he arrived, if Spencer had been there, he was gone. 

Despite the possibility of nearby zombies or walkers or whatever he’d heard people calling them, Luke screamed at the top of his lungs and lost it. Without finding him here, there was no guarantee that they were ever going to see each other again. In his search for any salvageable supplies, he came across random papers, broken glass, ripped bandages - but nothing of use. 

When he glanced down at the floor, he saw Spencer’s signature and hurriedly picked it up, but the other pieces of whatever note he left were too ripped up and dirty and stepped on for him to make out what it said. As his fingers slid over his husband’s name, a tear fell from his eye. If Spencer was still alive, he was likely headed in the direction his mother lived. 

“Hello?” A small voice broke Luke from his train of thought. He spun around, his hand on the gun in his holster. “Please don’t hurt me,” the girl said. Dirt and dried blood covered her face and her eyes conveyed a lifetime of hurt. “Please.”

Luke lowered his gun. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

Luisa had been right in the eye of the storm at the start of this whole thing weeks earlier. “My papa died trying to save my mama. And then she was bitten trying to save my sister and I. She saved me, but it was too late for Josephine. My mother lost too much blood. She fell asleep and never woke up and I had to- I had to put her out of her misery. I’m all alone.”

“Not anymore, kiddo. “You’ll stay with me.”

“Thank you - “

“Luke.”

“Thank you, Luke.”

----

The weeks that followed put Spencer’s band of misfits went through the ringer. After detouring around a group of people that would’ve outnumbered them three to one had they decided they wanted trouble, they had to fight their way through a hoard of walkers. Though they had few weapons, they managed, but not without Jim being bitten. 

“Kid, you know without a medic around this tourniquet is just stopping the inevitable. The bastard nicked my brachial artery,” Jim said, heavily drawing in each breath as it came to him. “You’ve got to take the weapons and keep those two safe for as long as you can. Maybe find your husband again.”

Spencer swallowed the lump in his throat. “I could go find-”

“No way. There’s a hoard at our backs and only Lord knows what up ahead. I won’t have you risking that for me.”

Over and over again, Spencer tried to reason with him, but in a way Jim was right. He had no idea what was up ahead and even if he found a medic there was no guarantee that he’d get back in time to save Jim. “I’m sorry,” Spencer said, placing a handgun in his palm. “I really am.”

“I know, kid. I have you find your husband again. Now get going.”

Once Spencer grabbed the weapons Jim had, he gathered up Avery and Chase and headed out into the unknown. A gunshot rang out and the crows fled into the sky. Hope was waning fast.

----

On their way to Diana’s nursing home, Spencer, Avery and Chase faced no further challenges. As soon as they detected voices, they headed away from them, preferring to stay in their small group of three than risk bringing other people into their ranks. They crossed the occasional zombie, but they were quickly dispatched.

Finally, they reached Diana’s home, but they were too late. Spencer found her alive, but too bloodied and bruised to move. “Mom, I’ll find someone. I won’t let you die,” Spencer said softly as he cried. “I can find someone to help and we can get you out of here.”

Diana was nothing if not a realist. “I’m going to die, Spencer. Soon probably. I just hope I can keep my wits about me until the sleep sets in. How’s Luke? Where is he? Is he-?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer sobbed. “You really want to talk about my life right now?’

“Yes. When I first saw this on the news, I thought I was having a nightmare, but it’s real and it’s unreal and I just want a sense of normalcy.”

Spencer radioed Avery to tell her where he was before curling in next to his mother. “I was on my way home from work when this all started. Luke was home. I-I haven’t seen him since and I don’t think I’m ever going to see him again. Mom, I’m so scared of being alone.”

“You’ll find him again,” Diana said weakly. 

“How do you know?”

“A mother knows. Remember?”

Spencer grabbed her hand and started reading the nearest book he could find. “Spencer...” she said, whisper soft. “It’s time for me to go to sleep.”

“No, mom, just a little bit longer.”

“Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

Diana fought for each breath. “Don’t let me turn into one of those things.”

Spencer choked out a sob. “I won’t.”

“And stay hopeful.” 

He promised he would, though he wasn’t sure it was a promise he could keep. “Mom?”

Nothing.

Before she could come back, he took a small gun out of his pocket, aimed, and fired. “I’ll try, Mom.”

----

Days passed into weeks passed into months passed into years. In a world changed, it changed those within in. Luke, once a confident and self-assured government agent, turned inward, going from one “safe haven” to another and sheltering himself and Luisa until their hideaway was discovered and they needed to move on, never once fighting for a place to call a makeshift home.

Through the years he lost himself, finding that instead of helping others, he did only what he had to do for he and Luisa to survive, never once taking a life, only dispatching zombies when need be. 

On the other hand, Spencer found himself hardening against the world. More than a year after everything began, Avery was overtaken by a hoard they passed, shoving Chase out of the crowd and toward Spencer. With her last breaths, she begged Spencer to take care of her son. Five years later, he and the almost nine-year-old boy headed a group of nearly 50 people, though numbers dwindled and rose from month to month. 

Spencer became a leader, but he confided in no one, killed if it was necessary to defend his “home”, and rarely spoke, shutting down in the face of any emotional connection. To connect was to lose, and he had lost enough. 

“Daniel and Alexa, you’ll accompany me into town for some supplies.” In addition to defending the makeshift community they’d developed, Spencer always sent out scouts to ensure that no one touched the supplies in surrounding towns. Less-looted stores were low in number and eventually he would need to conduct another reconnaissance mission to find supplies, but for now they would survive. “We leave within the hour.”

Smiles were few and far between, for Spencer more than most. However, the little boy he’d ended up raising as his son brought him a sliver of joy, along with his memories of Luke. They coaxed him to sleep at night and in the morning, he used them to make it through the day. “Chase, you know I love you, right?”

“I do, Spencer. Be careful okay? I can’t lose you.”

“I’ll be back.” He never promised, knowing more than most that sometimes the world was cruel. “Be good for Sandra.”

Though he was born before the world went to shit, Chase had essentially grown up in this new world. He was disciplined and trustworthy and more an adult than any almost nine-year-old boy should ever have to be.

On the way to gather supplies, Spencer zoned out, only gathering little bits of the conversation going on behind him. Both Daniel and Alexa had lost spouses at the start of the apocalypse and something told Spencer they were seeking comfort in one another now that they were “safe.” Funny how the meaning of a word could change in such a short amount of time.

While out for supplies, Spencer had insisted that no one go anywhere alone, so the three entered the hardware store in search of anything they could use as a weapon. As he gathered ropes and zip ties and wrenches into his supply bag, he heard Alexa and Daniel call for him. “Boss!”

Spencer approached the two, their guns raised and ready to fire. In the line of sight was a young woman, sheltered by a man. He closed his eyes and begged the universe for this not to be a joke, his mind playing tricks on him. When Spencer opened his eyes, he remained. “Luke?”

He smiled and immediately broke into tears. “Spence? You’re, you’re-”

Pushing past Daniel and Alexa, Spencer ran into Luke’s arms on the verge of tears, pressing his lips to his husband’s for the first time in nearly seven years. “I’m alive. And you’re here. How are you here?”

“Because I’m a different person. You?”

“Me too,” Spencer said sadly. “Everything’s changed. Except what I feel for you. I’m finally home again.”

#cmbingo #cmbingo21 #criminal minds bingo #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #spencer reid #luke alvez #reidvez #ralvez #spencer reid x luke alvez #luke alvez x spencer reid #dontshootmespence #home again