#and then its just expected and demanded of me to go run other people’s errands ??? just fuck off go do it yourself

[endious]

im so fucking goddamn pissed i could punch a wall or stab myself

#— rambles with cadie #holy fucking shit the one time i get to have a small window of time to go get something ive been waiting to get for fucking months #and then its just expected and demanded of me to go run other people’s errands ??? just fuck off go do it yourself #but no i feel bad pointing out the fact i only had a few hours to go get something **i** wanted so i shut up and got their shit #AND THEN ? they got pissed AT ME bcus “why didnt you say anything? why are you like this?” bcus you bitch you fight with me #whenever i want to go get myself something for once in a goddamn blue moon. im not going to argue with you anymore its tiring #yeah sorry im just really pissed and want to scream n’ shit ill log off ig dash is dead anyways #tw rant

[thelukesalvez]

Luke Alvez x Reader: Hostage

Description: request: can you do an imagine where the reader is luke’s wife or girlfriend and she gets involved in a hostage situation at a bank and the bau is called in to help with the situation? thanks, i love your writing so much :)

 Word count: 5.2k

Warnings: hostage situation, gun violence, minor character death

“This came in just a few minutes ago from the Director,” Prentiss confirms.  With the click of a button on the remote, a local news station clip projects onto the screen behind her, illuminating the chaos underway. “There’s a situation downtown that he wants the BAU to take the lead on.”

With bewilderment on his face, a reporter stands in downtown Washington D.C., which was littered with law enforcement and a crowd of people. The headline across the bottom of the screen reads ‘Hostage situation underway at Capital One Bank’. 

Luke drops the pen he was holding, drawing attention from other members of the team as it clashes on the table in front of him.  

“Sorry,” he mumbled. The rest of the team averted their attention back to Prentiss, but Luke’s attention was halted in its tracks. Instinctively, he reaches into his pocket for his phone, quickly checking his messages under the table. He tries to remain calm and rational, but his stomach sinks when he realizes none of the messages were from you.  

Luke had been in a rush this morning, per usual. He was running around the house, scrambling for keys, wallet, coffee, his to-go bag, just in case. He only half listened as you told him the list of errands you had to run that morning, while simultaneously scarfing down a buttered bagel.  Whole foods, the post office, the bank–

Luke swallows dryly. You were okay, he tells himself. You were okay, you were okay, you were okay. He repeats the mantra in his head as he types out a quick, casual message.  

Did you make it to the bank this morning?

Luke forces himself to turn at least some of his attention back to the team, but keeps his phone unlocked and open to your text messages.   

“Local officers have invited us in,” Prentiss informs the group, she sets the remote down gently on the round table. “They’ve informed us of at least two armed man inside the bank, no contact or ransom demand has been made as of yet. Garcia is working to gain access to security footage of inside the bank as we speak.” 

The sounds of Garcia typing frantically on her laptop can be heard throughout the conference room as she works.  

Luke stares back down at his blank screen, waiting for text bubbles to appear, indicating that you were responding– alive and well.  But there’s nothing. Luke starts frantically tapping his foot, why weren’t you texting him back?

“Alvez?” Emily’s voice causes Luke’s head to snap up.   

Luke is quick to realize that the entire team is looking at him again as he sits anxiously in his seat, his phone still cradled in the palm of his hand. 

“Sorry,” he repeats. 

This time no one looks away. 

“What’s wrong?” Rossi asks, his eyes narrowed in concern.

“I’m uh, I’m sorry.” Luke says for the third time. He tries to explain while his brain races. “My wife… My wife told me she was running errands this morning, that she had to go to the bank–”  

The moment of silence feels like an eternity to Luke. 

“That’s our bank,” he motioned towards the screen, still playing news clips on the board. “Do you mind if I just give her a quick call?” He asks, holding his phone up. 

Prentiss nods. “Of course.”

Luke mumbles a quick ‘thanks’ before jetting out of the conference room. He escapes into the hall before dialing you. Luke can feel his heart beating rapidly inside of his chest as the line waits to connect– but he’s sent straight to voicemail. 

Luke tries again. He’s not entirely sure why he expected a different outcome, but again, your cheery voice directing him to leave a message plays. This time he does. 

“Hey, it’s me. I just– I really need to hear from you right now.” Luke swallows the lump in his throat, realizing how dry his mouth felt. “Call me back, please. I love you.” He ends the call and turns his phone over in his hand a few times. You were okay, he tells himself again. 

“I– uh, couldn’t get ahold of her,” Luke states as he walks back into the conference room. He makes eye contact with Rossi, who’s gazing wearily back at him. “But I’m sure everything’s fine.” Luke says with as much confidence as he can gather. He’s not so sure he believes it himself. 

That’s when Luke notices how eerily quiet everyone else is. He glances around the room to see everyone else staring at the screen.  

Garcia had managed to tap into the security footage at the bank. Luke scans the image, his eyes immediately landing on the unsub.  He was a tall man, dressed in all black, strutting around the frame with a rifle.  He’s waving it wildly as he randomly lunges intimidatingly at one of the victims huddled on the floor.  There’s no sound to the video, but it looks like he’s shouting at them. 

Garcia suddenly lets out a gasp, her mouth falling open in unison. “No,” she whimpers, she tore her eyes away from the image on the screen to look at Luke. 

Everything inside of him goes numb when his eyes land on one of the hostages curled up on the ground, her knees tucked tightly into her chest, and her familiar looking hair shielding her face as she hangs her head low. There’s a tense silence in the room as Luke stands motionless near the door. Only his chest moved as he let out choppy, labored breaths.  

He could feel eyes on him as the rest of the team came to the same realization he and Garcia just had. You were inside the bank. 

“We are gonna get this guy,” Prentiss says hesitantly, like Luke might break just by her words. 

Luke just nods slowly. He couldn’t find the words to respond, even if he wanted to.    

“She’s going to be okay,” JJ closes the distance between her and him and places a soft, gentle hand on his shoulder.

Luke should say something. He can’t just keep nodding, but all he could think about right now was you, and the way he rushed out of the house in such a hurry this morning. He didn’t even kiss you goodbye– or tell you that he loved you. What if that was the last time he’d ever see you?

“We have to get to the scene,” Prentiss declares somberly. She eyes Luke cautiously, but the clock is ticking.  

JJ lifts her hand off Luke’s arm, leaving behind a cold spot that made him shiver. She follows Tara, Matt and Reid out of the conference room.   

Rossi, Prentiss, and Garcia remain in the conference room with Luke.  

Prentiss clears her throat before speaking. “Luke, you know you can’t come with us on this one.”

His jaw tenses at her order and he finally breaks his silence. “Screw the protocol, Emily, there’s no way I’m staying back here.”

“Luke, I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now,” Rossi says softly.  He stands up from his chair and looks at Luke sympathetically.  

“Don’t–” Luke whispers. His eyes glisten with unshed tears, but he blinks them back before sighing heavily. “Don’t talk to me like I’m one of the victims’ families.”

Prentiss and Rossi both stare at Luke for a moment, neither one knowing what else to say.   

“Emily, please,” Luke sighs, he lets his shoulders fall slightly. “I can’t stay here and do nothing.”  

She sighs heavily and she turns to face Rossi, like she’s looking to the more experienced profiler for advice. They exchange a mutual nod before she responds. “Look at me, Luke.”  His eyes meet hers. “You have to remain level headed and you have to follow my orders. Or I will take you off the case.”

Luke understands that Prentiss was legally bound to follow protocol. He wishes that rules and regulations could be pushed aside at times like this, but he nods in agreement. He would have to control his emotions in the field.  

Emily nods back in affirmation before offering him a sympathetic look. She outstretches her hand and gives his shoulder a firm squeeze. “If it’s personal for one of us, it’s personal for all of us.” She tells him, implying what Luke already knew: that they wouldn’t rest until this was all over. 

A variety of emotions flood through Luke’s mind as he rides in the back seat of one of the SUVs to the scene.  Luke shared the car with Tara, Matt, and Reid, but didn’t speak to any of them. Instead he stares directly out the tinted window, remaining silent during the entire duration of their trip. 

Spencer kept turning his head subtly towards Luke, in an attempt to gauge how he was doing. It was hard for him to see his friend suffering like this. Luke was generally the confident, reassuring one, but today he just looked broken.  

The prospect of losing you was all too consuming as he thought about the careless and threatening way the unsub had been waving his rifle around. He thought about how you had been huddled on the ground, curled up and hiding your face against your knees. He thought about how you were probably wondering where Luke was, and why he wasn’t there to protect you. 

Luke swallows the lump in his throat and forces himself to blink back tears building pressure up behind his eyes.  

How could this be happening?

…

A round of loud pops rang loudly through the air.

“Everybody on the ground!” 

Confused by the sudden chaos around you, your eyes quickly shift towards the door. Two men in combat gear stand there, their faces covered by ski masks. It takes you a moment to realize that the things they were holding high above their heads were guns. Your stomach drops.

You crouch to the floor in an instant, hastily trying to gauge the situation. Your view is partially blocked by the bench in the middle of the bank, all you can hear is frightened cries and the sound of heavy boots trudging across the floor. You scoot out from behind the bench so that you could better see what was happening.  

Someone is talking with the men, probably a teller, you think. Their voices are angry and harsh. 

Suddenly, in the distance, the sound of sirens could be heard. At first, you feel a wave of relief wash over you, thinking that law enforcement would be able to save you all soon enough. 

But then, you hear someone curse loudly then a pair of boots stride back to the counter.  

“Did you call 911?” One man asks. His voice is eerily calm. You watch as the teller shakes his head, terrified. The man laughs before raising his gun, shoving it near the teller. “Don’t lie to me!” He screams, causing you to jump. 

The teller continues to shake his head, sobbing and pleading now. You watch as the robber rips the mask off, displaying his face. He smirks evilly before spinning his rifle around and jabbing it into the teller’s face. You jump in shock as he falls to the floor, groaning in pain.    

Someone screams, another person sobs.  

Fear floods through your entire body upon realizing that these men weren’t leaving peacefully.  Now that their heist had been cut short, they weren’t going down without a fight. The heavy boots came closer and your eyes quickly became clouded with tears.  

Your eyes remain fixated on the floor, even after the footsteps stop right in front of you. 

“Get up,” the man orders. 

You do as you were told, trying your best to steady your shaking hands. Everyone else gets up too, as the other robber circulates the room repeating the same order. 

“Congratulations,” the man said menacingly. He lifts his gloved hand to trace the outline of your jaw. Your nostrils flare in response to his touch. “You’ve just been upgraded from background noise to hostages. Thanks to whoever called the cops.”

He motions for people to head towards the back corner of the bank. Once everyone is gathered around in a semicircle, (you counted eleven other hostages) the robbers bark more orders.

“Cell phones, now.”

People hurry to throw their phones towards the middle of the circle. You pull yours out, your heart sinking when you see an unopened message from Luke flash across your screen. 

‘Did you make it to the bank?’  

You wonder if the BAU had gotten wind about what was happening yet. You clutch your phone tightly before tossing it on the tiled floor with everyone else's.  

No one speaks, everyone just watches as the two men circulate around the room. You curl your knees into your chest, hugging them tightly. 

“You weren’t supposed to hurt anyone,” you hear the masked man whisper to the other. “You said we’d just take the money and go.”

“There’s cops outside, Diggy, we’re surrounded. The only way we’re getting out of here is a negotiation. Or if we shoot our way out.”

He strokes his beard lightly, another smirk washing over his face. “Now take that off,” he nods towards his partner’s mask. “Don’t matter much anymore if they see your face, does it?”

The man peels off his mask to reveal his young face. His features are furrowed, like he was concerned. “Cops have protocols they have to follow,” he says to the bearded man. “They won’t just barge in here unless you hurt anyone, so cool it. We can figure this out.”

Just then, the phone starts ringing.  

The older man answers, “What?” he barked. 

You hear muffled voices on the other end of the line.  

“Oh yeah?” He said mockingly, “And what can you do for me, SSA David Rossi of the BAU?”

You let out a shaky breath upon hearing the name of your husband’s coworker. The BAU had been invited in– which meant Luke knew. You wonder if he was outside, too. 

It makes your chest ache to know there was such a small barrier between you and his safe arms.   

“I’ll tell you what I need, I need a way out of here, or else people are going to get hurt.”

You hear Rossi’s muffled voice on the other end of the line again, no doubt using his profiling skills to help defuse the situation. You see the man’s brows slide into a firm line, like he’s thinking hard about something Rossi’s said. But in an instant his face contorts into an angry scowl and he clenches his rifle tighter. 

“Get me a way out of here or they die,” he snarls, before hanging up the phone. 

The man walks back over to the group of hostages with malice in his eyes. He scans the faces of people before landing on a scared woman, looking to be in her early 30’s. He bends over and wraps his hand around her arm, hoisting her up on her feet. 

“No,” she pleads, tears streaming rapidly down her face. “Please, no,” she sobs. 

“Shut up,” the man yells, lifting his gun tauntingly, before dragging her from the group.  

“What are you doing?” you can’t believe you were speaking, you even startle yourself with your words. 

But he doesn’t even turn around– doesn’t even acknowledge that you had protested.  

He pulls her towards the end of one of the teller stations and scribbles something down on a piece of paper. The woman stands by, shaking terribly in her shoes. When the man stops writing he hands her the note. 

“Take this to the cops,” he orders. 

“W-what?”

“Take this to the cops,” he repeats, slower this time. 

She nods, her trembling hands accepting the note. 

…

“Guys–” Tara says. 

The team turns to face where her attention was focused. The front doors of the bank were opening.  

Luke hurries to unholster his gun, his shaky hands gripping the handle as he and every other cop in the area draws their weapons. 

Confusion washes over him as a woman exits the bank, her hands above her head. 

“Please,” she sobs.  

SWAT rushes over to escort the woman to safety.  

“He told me to give you this,” she cries, handing a note over to the SWAT member.  

Prentiss rushes over to take the note, reading aloud the demands.

“Two million dollars and an escape plan. Every 30 minutes you keep me waiting, someone will die.”

The knot in Luke’s stomach tightens. 

…

“Tick tock,” the bearded robber states as he struts around the interior of the bank. The younger man had been quietly sitting on the bench, staring at his shoes for the last few minutes or so. 

The robber picks up the phone, dialing the number that had previously reached out. 

“Is this Rossi?” he snarls into the line. “It’s almost been thirty minutes.”

You watch as the robber converses with Rossi. You’re wondering what he’s saying. 

“You just got someone killed.” He hangs the phone up harshly before taking a deep breath, staring at the clock on the wall. 

“And thirty.” The robber made his way back over to the hostages. He doesn’t hesitate before pulling up the older man who had been praying silently next to you. 

“No!” you cry, trying to grab his hand to pull him back, but the robber just yanks him harder.  

The man is dragged across the floor, but he’s still visible to you. He’s slammed down on the floor on his knees, facing away from the robbers. Your eyes widen as the man brings the rifle up, only inches from the elderly man’s head. You know you should look away, but you can’t bring yourself to do it, especially when he turns his head and locks eyes with you.  

You are the last thing he sees before the robber pulls the trigger.  

You’re too terrified to scream, or cry, or do much of anything. You just stare in shock as the man collapses into a pool of his own blood.  

“That’s what happens when these cops don’t listen to me!” He rants, waving the gun around. He fires a couple of more shots into the ceiling, causing debris to fall. More screams rattle the interior of the bank. 

“What are you doing?” The quieter robber stands up fiercely and rushes over to his partner. He looks frantically at the dead body on the floor. “You just killed someone!” 

They get in each other's faces. “I’m doing what I have to do to get us out of here!” he screams back. He postures towards the younger boy, intimidating him into backing down.  “I’m trying to save us, Diggy.”

“But killing someone, man? I didn’t sign up for that, Kalo.”

“You just gotta trust me, okay?” The older man, you now knew was named Kalo, spoke. 

Diggy lowers his head, biting his lip harshly. He shakes his head, still in shock that things had gone so wrong, so fast. 

…

“Were those gunshots?” Reid asks, worry evident in his voice. 

“Those were gunshots,” JJ confirms, strapping her vest on tightly. 

Luke squeezes his eyes shut tightly. “We have to go in there,” he states, trying to remain calm. 

Rossi lowers the phone that he had been talking to the unsub on. “He said we just got someone killed.”

“If they’re shooting people, we have to go in–” Luke speaks up again. He’s terrified. What if it was you?

“It wasn’t her,” Matt speaks up. He’s watching the video footage that Luke had been too scared to check. “It looks like an older gentleman.”

Luke lets out a shaky sigh. He feels guilty for being relieved about someone else’s death, but he couldn’t help it. He looks at the clock stationed above the monitor. In another 24 minutes, it could be you. 

“What’s our game plan, here?” One of the SWAT members asks.  

Emily sighs. “We have to play this smart– these guys are reckless and they’re not going down without a fight. If we barge in there, they’ll just start shooting. Who knows how many hostages could get hit in the crossfire?”

“If we don’t go in there, he’s just going to keep executing them one-by-one.” Matt refutes. 

Emily nods. “Someone get me the layout of this building, I need to see the back entrances and side doors. If we go in, I want them surrounded.”

…

You’d never given much thought to how you would die. But sitting here, on the cold tile floor, surrounded by people you didn’t know and two masked assailants, wasn’t something you think you could have ever imagined.  

You wonder how Luke was doing– you knew how protective of you he was. You just hope the team has convinced him to keep a level head. 

The woman sitting next to you was spinning her wedding band around on her finger rapidly.  

“What’s his name?” you ask, motioning towards her ring. 

She looks up at you, tears glistening in her eyes. “Julian,” she spoke softly, her lips tugging into a sad smile. “And yours?” she asks. 

You touch your finger to your own ring. “Luke.”

You move your hand across the floor and rest it on top of hers. “We’re going to see them again.”

She nods, using her other hand to cover the sob that was escaping her lips.  

“These FBI agents just don’t learn, do they?” Kalo snarls as he struts across the floor. “They’re gonna let another one of you die.”

This time, he came straight for you. His firm grasp hauls you up to your feet, and before you had time to protest or fight back, he was dragging you to where he’d shot the last man. 

Your breath became choppy and uneven as fear flooded your insides. You were going to die. He was going to kill you. 

“Kalo– stop, no one else has to die!” His friend protests. He even reaches out to pull you away from his clutches, but Kalo shakes him off, jolsting you away from the other man. 

“Kalo!” he shouts, but his partner ignores him.

Just as you get to the middle of the floor, an array of loud bangs echo through the bank, causing you to jump. 

“FBI. Freeze!” A voice yells, before you realize what was happening, Kalo is wrapping his arm around you, and pulling you back against him. The hard barrel of his gun presses against your temple, sending shivers down your spine. 

“I’ll shoot her!” Kalo hollers back, his forearm jabs into your throat. 

When you finally get your bearings, you’re able to look around the room. You see a few faces you recognize.  

The first is Emily. She’s got her gun pointed right at you– or the man holding you, you suppose.  Rossi is beside her, he holds his gun up in his hand before holstering it. 

“We just want to talk, Kalo,” he says calmly.  

Of course they figured out who these guys were, you thought. With Garcia’s tracking abilities, she probably had the men identified within the first five minutes of the robbery. 

You also notice JJ and Matt, they were to the side of you. Clearly they’d found a way in through another door. Reid and Tara flank on the opposite side, they made their way around the two of you, ensuring that the robbers were surrounded. You scan and scan for Luke, but he isn’t there.  It was probably against some policy. You are glad he was following the rules, but you still wish he was there– you wish you could see his face. 

“I’m done talking!” Kalo screams back. His grip tightens and you struggle to breathe. “Go away, or I’ll kill her!” 

He was losing control, you can tell. You squeeze your eyes shut and think about Luke some more. You let his face appear in your mind, his warm brown eyes and soft smile came into focus.  It makes you sad, thinking you may never be able to hear his voice again– or feel his touch.    

“You know we can’t do that, Kalo. Put the gun down and we can work this out.” Rossi says calmly. You open your eyes again. 

“I’m not going back to prison.” Kalo mutters. His arm becomes shaky as it is pushed deeper into your throat, you gag as your airway becomes almost completely blocked. 

“Kalo– don’t do this,” Rossi pleads with the man, he senses that he is about to snap. 

“I’m not going back to prison!” Kalo shouts, and you know– you know that this was it. 

A loud gunshot rings out and you feel yourself dropping to the floor. Your entire body goes numb. You’re sure that you’re dead. 

But as you collapse to the tile floors, you slowly realize that there was no pain– or darkness. You open your eyes to find Kalo lying lifeless next to you. His eyes are still open as blood starts to spread across the ground. You push yourself away, realizing the crimson liquid had splattered all over you and your clothing. You scoot backwards until you ram into the bench.  

You look around the room as the agents jump into action. Rossi hurries to Kalo, kicking his gun out of the way before kneeling down to check his pulse.  

Matt, JJ, and Tara rush to gather up the other hostages, still huddling on the floor in the corner.  

Emily crosses the room to put handcuffs on the other robber. Diggy stands with his gun still pointing at his partner. The smoke is still curling off the end of the barrel as he looks at his fallen friend. 

As Emily approaches him, he drops the weapon, showing that he is willing to go peacefully. 

“No one was supposed to die,” he says in shock. “I had to shoot him.” 

Emily starts telling him his rights when you are approached by a soft, calm voice. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Spencer says soothingly. He kneels beside you. “Are you hurt?” he asks. 

You shake your head, your eyes staring blankly at him as you try to regain the feeling in your body. 

“Can you stand?” Spencer asks wearily.  

You nod, slowly getting to your feet, with support from Spencer.  

“Luke–” you manage to spit out. Your voice is shaky. 

Spencer nods, wrapping his around your waist reassuringly, “Luke’s here,” he tells you. “I’m gonna take you to him.”

Spencer leads you outside of the bank. The sunlight is almost blinding and you hold your arms up to shield some of it. You want to search for Luke, to scream out his name, but your senses are betraying you.  

Your knees wobble, and you rely way too much on Spencer’s support to get down the steps of the building. You lean into his side, almost ready to fall, when you hear your name being called by a familiar voice. 

“She’s okay,” Spencer tells Luke as he darts across the sidewalk towards you.   

You barely have time to lay your eyes on him before he’s replacing Spencer’s arm with his own embrace. Suddenly, you’re engulfed by his touch and smell and everything Luke. It takes a moment for you to realize it’s real– that your husband is here and that you’re finally safe in his arms. But when you do, you let it consume you. You collapse into his frame and wind your arms tightly around his neck, squeezing like you just couldn’t get close enough. Your face presses into the nape of his neck and you breathe in his warm, familiar scent. 

“You’re okay?” Luke asks, finally pulling back to assess the damage that had been done.  

He winces when he sees the blood covering your shirt. “It’s not mine,” you whisper, knowing what he was looking so concerned about.

It was his– the man who had inflicted upon you the worst day of your entire life. You scratch at the fabric, suddenly desperate for it to come off. 

“I want to go home,” you tell Luke. 

He nods softly. “I’m gonna take you home.”

…

You stand in the bathroom later that night, staring at the reflection looking back at you. Your eyes were hollow– lifeless. The shower is running, the steam already rising above the curtain and starting to cause the mirror to fog up.  

You peel off your shirt to showcase the deep, discoloration already evident on your neck from where the robber had held you. You were tracing the line of bruises across your skin when the wave hit you. In an instant, you let out an earth shattering sob. The cries come from deep within you and wrack your entire body.  

You’re heaving so loudly that you don’t even hear Luke enter the bathroom. Only when he is behind you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you tightly into your chest did you notice his presence. 

He holds you like that for a while, muttering sweet nothings into your hair and swaying you gently. When your sobs finally subside, he slowly starts helping you undress. First, he helps you unclasp your bra, then he undoes your pants, and acts as a balance support while you step out of them.  

Once you are finally naked, he starts undressing himself.  He is much faster than you. 

Luke leads you into the shower and piles in behind you. The warm water washes over you causing goosebumps to rise up on your skin as you adjust to the sudden heat. 

Luke is gentle. He helps rinse the hardened blood that was caked in your hair out. You watch the water that falls off your skin turn crimson as it swirls down the drain.  He softly takes a washcloth and runs it up and down your skin, you lean into his touch, grateful that he is here to help you. 

Luke plants random kisses all over your skin as he washes it. On your forehead, your nose, your cheek, your shoulder. When he gets to your collarbone, he stops. Luke’s fingertips ran across the bruise that had been left behind on you. You watch as his face twists in pain. He hates seeing you hurt. He hates the fact that he couldn’t stop this from happening to you. 

You break Luke out of his trance by gathering his hand in yours and giving it a reassuring squeeze. 

“Your team saved me today,” you tell him. “You saved me.”

Luke brings your hand to his lips and softly kisses your knuckles. 

“I thought I was never going to see you again,” you tell him. On the last word, your voice breaks, and you start crying softly again. 

Luke pulls you in closer, his hands winding down your back. You press your face against his chest and wrap your arms around his waist. He holds you like that for a long time, until the hot water causes your fingertips to prune and until the mirror is completely covered in fog. Luke holds you tightly, his head resting against your wet hair as you breathe against his rising chest. 

You sigh heavily. For now, you are content like that. In fact, you don’t think you’d care if the two of you stayed in the shower forever You could spend an entire lifetime like that– wrapped up in Luke’s safe embrace. 

#luke alvez x reader #luke alvez x reader fic #luke alvez fic #luke alvez x reader imagine #luke alvez imagine #luke alvez #luke alvez x reader fanfic #luke alvez x reader imagines #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds x reader imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x y/n

[myfriendcallsmeasickwoman19]

Part Of The Gang

I haven't posted in forever but I missed Tumblr. I also had to take this piece somewhere. Nothing else to say but missed the whump community.

@irathgo @smellofsnoww Keir is not happy.

********************

Keir had finished another one of Jeremy's stupid errands. Breaking into a warehouse was the not the most ridiculous things he had ever asked but its up there.

He said it was important, whatever it is, he just wants it done already.

He pulled his coat up, it looked cloudy outside, could rain. Good the rain's noise could cover for him.

Just as he got into the warehouse through, the lights were turned on. Aimed at him and only him. Keir shielded his eyes from the light.

"happy you made it." A voice behind the light said.

Keir didn't give a reaction to Jeremy's surprise entrance. Another game he figured.

There were more people in the room, he could feel it.

"Finally introducing me?" Keir asked, his tone and expression blank as always.

Jeremy hummed, "you could say that." He replied. Keir could hear the happiness in his tone.

"got anything on you?" Jeremy asked.

Keir put his hands up to show he wasn't armed. He can't try anything here if he wanted to. They'd probably kill him in an instance.

Despite this two men walked up behind Keir, search probably, he thought.

What he didn't expect was the sharp pain he would feel at the back of his head. Then everything went black and he fell to the ground .

****

When he woke up he was in a chair, restrained to it. Jeremy is always playing on his nerves one way or the other but this was different.

He realized he was in a large cage and he was locked down in a chair. Medieval style with his feet and hands as well as the chair locked in place. But everyone else could see him.

Keir tried but of course he couldn't get free from the restraints holding him.

"Look, this is going to hurt." Jeremy said, the cocky smile ever so present. "but it's going to be good."

He wanted to answer the man but realized he couldn't. They gagged him with a piece of cloth in his mouth and tape to keep it in place. Keir could only look at him with fury in his eyes.

Jeremy walked around him, admiring his new member. "I had high hopes for you kid.'' Jeremy said, circling Keir.

It was visible this was a public thing, so many members were here. An initiation.

"And you surpassed them all." Jeremy commended him but honestly this whole thing made Keir sick.

He had to run every errand that this fucked up asshole sent him on. Jeremy still held everyone's life above Keir's head. He knew Keir would never risk the lives of the people around him.

With the gag on, all Keir could do was glare at Jeremy and all the others.

"After everything you've done, I think you deserve to be a part of my family." Jeremy said, motioning to the people around.

There was a sense of ceremony as the people gathered around. The more Keir looked, the more he realized that everyone wasn't wearing their shirts.

The room wasn't well lit but he could swear he was seeing something around them. Something on their chest. He squinted trying to make out what it was. It was circular with a strange pattern in it. He moved his head closer to make it out some more, it didn't look like a tattoo…no it was….

Keir's eyes grew wide when he realized what that was. A brand, they were branded, that's what this whole thing is about.

He began to move around the chair, trying to get his hands and legs free.

"Welcome." Jeremy's loud voice announced.

Two men came and stood beside Keir, holding the chair and him in place.

He demanded they let him go but his demands were muffled by the gag in his mouth.

Jeremy continued as always, a person came closer wheeling what looked like a furnace that had long metal bars sticking out.

Keir's eyes turned to horror when he saw that. He turned to Jeremy, only to see him being handed thick gloves by some other guys.

Keir tried again to get away, but they held him down.

Jeremy proceeded with his business, picking out a white hot branding iron. It had a pattern that Keir had seen on Jeremy a few times.

He gave a nod to the two people holding him and they ripped Keir's shirt away.

At some point when Jeremy was merely a foot away Keir stopped struggling, it was futile,but they didn't let go. Trying to ready himself for the inevitable pain, he wasn't getting out of this.

The branding iron was still so hot that some of it seemed to melt away, dripping to the wet floor. Fizzling out but not before a fight.

That would be put on him and he couldn't do anything about it. It was all too real finally when Jeremy was standing right in front of him. Branding iron in hand and proud grin on his face.

"You're now part of my family." Jeremy told him, Keir looked up at him with cold fury that Jeremy just seemed to eat it up. He looked….proud.

Without warning the white hot iron was dug into Keir's bare chest. He screamed but the sound was mostly caught by the gag.

His struggles were stopped by the men holding him. All he could do was endure the smell of his burning flesh and the pain that came from the heat.

The people around were cheering the new addition but all that was drowned by the explosive burning sensation. Jeremy dug deep and he began trying to shake away some more just wanting it to stop. He begged at some point.

It felt like it went on forever but at some point, Jeremy pulled the iron away and placed it in a bucket of water brought beside him.

The men from before let go of Keir, the young man's head fell to his chest. He felt exhausted, all this just took the energy out of him. He breathed heavily through his nose until someone removed the gag and he breathed through his mouth.

"Almost done," Jeremy said and Keir struggled to look up.

"F…uck…y…ou…" Keir huffed, still unable to even lift his head.

Jeremy chuckled, "just hold on." He put the gag back in Keir's mouth.

Someone came later with a plate, there was powder on it. Jeremy put some on his hand, covering only his fingers.

Keir's mind was fogged up with all of this, sweat dripping from his forehead, wetting his hair.

That's why he couldn't see as Jeremy began to rub the powder along the fresh wound.

"This is to make sure it's visible." He said as he applied the powder gently. Every spread made the pain worse and Keir just wanted it to stop.

Keir began to scream again, trying to move his shoulder away but Jeremy held him with one hand until it had gone full circle and inside the pattern.

All this continued despite Keir's pleas for it to stop. At some point they got quieter, Keir feeling more and more fogged up. His mind shutting down.

By the time Jeremy was done Keir's cries were merely mumbles and barely whispers.

Jeremy removed the gag and lifted the boy's head, feeling proud of Keir. He raised Keir's head by his chin. Keir's eyes were glassy and empty. Unable to focus on Jeremy until they closed.

That's when he lost consciousness. Jeremy smiled as usual. They began to take Keir out of his restraints. Now the next couple of days would be rough, but he knows Keir can handle it.

****

James wasn't expecting such a weird call that day but everything connected to the kid is weird. But this is worse. He took his coat, noticing how rainy it was just minutes before.

They say they found the kid, but he was passed out somewhere in an alley. He always has people around and they know to look out for Keir.

He rushed over, taking his car with him until he stopped at the place Keir was supposed to be.

They didn't touch the kid yet, something was keeping them from doing it apparently.

"Where is he?" James asked immediately as he stepped out of his car.

The guy that called him sighed, "this way." He said and began leading James to his nephew. They all knew who Keir was and they saw him as family just as James did.

James kept following, the guy stopped a few feet from where Keir was propped up against a wall.

The kid looked about alright, he wasn't bleeding, he didn't look beat up and he was alive from what he could see. But that doesn't explain why he was unconscious.

James stepped closer, he knelt down. Before he could even check for a pulse, he saw it. That's why his men were hesitant to get close. That bastard branded the kid and made him a part of his gang. Everyone must have been scared just in case he was dead.

James cursed, but proceeded and checked for a pulse, thankfully he found it. He has no time to think about gang laws right now. Keir would be fine, he probably just passed out from the initiation.

He lifted Keir off the cold floor, the kid was shivering. Well he was soaked right now. They just had to leave him in the cold rain. Fucking pricks.

He got to the car and his friend earlier at least helped him open the door.

James took off his jacket and immediately wrapped it around the kid. They didn't even give him a shirt at least

James hurried upstairs when he reached the loft. He dried and clothed the kid as quickly as he could. He could feel his temperature rising the more he helped him get dry.

Before he could dress Keir however he had to take care of that nasty brand. He couldn't get rid of it, it's too late for that now. He made the hard decision to just treat it so the kid wouldn't get a terrible infection. It's the only way he could make this go smoother.

He started with the painful process of cleaning and dressing the burn. Keir moaned and whimpered as he did it. Trying to get away from pain, James held him down without much effort.

"Yeah I'm almost done." James told him. The kid probably couldn't hear him anyway. But he finished dressing it and put something warm around the kid.

He placed a cold pack over his forehead and wrapped him up to try and get that fever to reduce. Already did all the other necessary things, like antibiotics and pain meds. Just had to wait to see how he takes it.

This won't be easy

#branding #branded whumpee #knocked out #passing out from pain #gang initiation #Keir #Jeremy #James #OC #my writing #whump community #whump #caretaker #defiant whumpee #whumpee #tied down #restrained

[howaboutleeches]

Greetings, hope you are doing well 🌸 I have never sent requests before, so I am a little nervous. Anyway, how would main 6 react to mc who feeds the stray cats on daily basis? Thank you in advance for paying attention 💗

I just have to say, I absolutely LOVED this one. I’ll do my best to meet your expectations 

                                    --  / / --

How would the Main Six React to an MC who feeds stray cats on a daily basis 🐱

Asra:

🔮 He wouldn’t notice the first few times. Not because he didn’t pay attention to you, but it wasn’t something you did for attention, so the quiet gentle action went by almost unnoticed.

🔮 The first sign was the sudden disappearance of the milk bottles from the fridge. At first he though you just really liked milk, so he made sure to buy more, but the speed of which it vanished was way to quick. He became suspicious.

🔮 Then, your absence at the same time, every day. “They may have went to run errands....or maybe Nadia wanted to talk to them?”, was what he though. But every day, at the same time? His suspicion grew even more.

🔮 Now, he wasn’t proud of what he did next. He could’ve just asked you, but he decided to follow you. The worse possible thoughts crossed his mind as he saw you enter a dark alley. But then you knelt down and he smiled at what he saw.

🔮 A larger cat, accompanied by small ones, kittens, care-freely approached you, meowing in happiness as you laid down a tray, pouring the milk. The kittens eagerly started drinking and the larger cat, probably the mother, purred while rubbing herself on you. He left the alley, making sure you hadn’t noticed his presence, and you didn’t

🔮 He could’ve told you he saw, how adorable you looked, or how you had such a kind heart and pure spirit. But he decided not to say anything. Although, when  you came back, a sweet smile was on his face as he sipped a cup of tea. “I was thinking....Faust seems lonely sometimes. We should get her a few friends. I was thinking, how about kittens?” He couldn’t help but chuckle as you excitedly agreed.

Nadia:

👑 She had a keen eye, so she quickly noticed how you quickly rushed away after your dinners, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a few leftovers and came back to the palace with a satisfied expression. That made her eyebrow raise and her mind confused.

👑 Surely, if you had discovered a new fun activity or had made a new friend, you would definitely tell her....right? So why this had happened for the past couple weeks and you haven’t said anything to her?

👑 The though of it drove her crazy, but she knew how to mask it very well. She even asked you if you had found a new hobby, making it sound as if it was just a simple question, with the intention of having a conversation.

 👑 Eventually, she got tired of not knowing. She excused herself first from dinner, obtaining a confused look from you, but you didn’t say anything, thinking that maybe she had something important to take care of.

👑 She went to your shared room, grabbed a cloak large enough to cover her whole hair and simple enough as not to draw attention and went outside, waiting by the palace’s gates, hidden.

👑 Once you came out, she followed your quick steps. She looked around suspiciously as you started to go into poorly-lit streets, turning into the most strange corners.

👑 Then, after entering an alley, you stopped, catching her by surprise. She watched in awe as you knelt down and a bunch of cats came to you, meowing and jumping on your clothes. You grabbed the leftovers and offered them to the cats talking to them as if they were close friends.

👑 She couldn’t help but to chuckle at your actions, making you turn around in surprise, looking up at her. She approached you and knelt down close to you as you watched her with wide eyes and an open mouth.

👑 One of the cats sniffed her and rubber itself on her cloak. She picked it up, rubbing its head with her finger. “You should have told me dear. There’s no need to dirty your clothes coming to places like this, when we could bring them to the Palace. How about we make a special place just for them there?”

Julian:

♠️ As he was used to roaming the streets of Vesuvia, he knew about the stray cats that roamed the area. He also knew that they didn’t like them very much, but the reason was still a mystery to him.

♠️ You waited for him to finish up on the clinic one day when you heard meowing from the outside. You peeked out, seeing a few kittens play-fighting as a larger cat meowed back to them, as telling them to stop.

♠️ You chuckled and grabbed something you had separated to eat later and walked out of the clinic. The larger cat eyed you with suspicion as you walked closer to them. 

♠️ You lowered yourself and extended the snack with a smile. After a few hisses and a lot of sniffing, they gave in, taking the snack from you and eagerly munching on it.

♠️ You kept doing that for the days and only then Julian noticed your disappearance as you were supposed to wait for him on the clinic. As the last client left, he finished earlier and decided to see what you were up to.

♠️ Looking out the window, he saw you approaching the cats casually and he almost let out a screech. He rushed out the shop, running towards you “Y/N STOP IT! THEY’RE DANGERO-” He stopped mid-sentence as he saw the cats curled on your lap, playfully nibbling at your clothes.

♠️ He watched in awe as you played with them, the same cats who had bit his toes once. He stepped closer to you and the cats looked up. He let out a nervous chuckle and extended a daring hand, to pet them.

♠️ The larger cat looked between him and his hand a few times before moving its head, letting itself be pet. Julian laughed with excitement, sitting on the floor close to you.

♠️ After that day, both of you kindly escort the cats to the inside of the clinic, were they would be fed and Julian would sing bar songs to them as they tried to snatch his eye-patch. He would smile just by looking at you, seeing your angelic nature as you took in the cats. For him, you were perfect in every way.

Muriel:

🌿 It’s no surprise Muriel was found of animals. But he never associated with any from the city, but rather his chickens and Inanna, along other animals in the forest.

🌿 The first time you had found the cats, you had gone to visit Asra. You took a bit longer than Muriel expected and once you came back, Inanna circled you a few times, sniffing you with a curious look on her face, making Muriel suspicious.

🌿 That started to happen more and more often, and it was starting to get to Muriel. He even asked Asra why their visits were taking longer, but Asra looked at Muriel with confusion, saying you always left the shop at the same time, thirty minutes before sunset. So why were you so late?

🌿 He kept quiet for a while and became a bit more distant. He didn’t know how to deal with his confusion, his doubts and his feelings at that point, so he ended up trapping himself inside. Full of doubt and unable to say anything.

🌿 You noticed he grew a bit distance, even quieter than before, and he rarely smiled anymore. Then it hit you. You didn’t tell him about it....and now he probably though you were lying to him, seeing someone behind his back.

🌿 You canceled your next visit to Asra and prepared a full basket with snacks and fruits. Muriel silently watched you prepare everything, feeling down as he sat. Once you were done, you just stood at the door. One minute, then two, then five went by until Muriel turned to you, his face clearly confused.

🌿 You smiled at him and asked him to join you, doing the same to Inanna. They looked at each other but obeyed, getting up and following your lead as you walked through the forest entering the city.

🌿 They skeptically followed you as you walked through the streets, but seeing less and less people on them made Muriel feel more at ease. Once you reached the alley, the cats came out happily, but screeched and scurried away seeing Muriel and Inanna.

🌿 You tried to calm them down, which only partially worked. You placed one snack on Muriel’s hands and the other on Inanna’s mouth, gesturing for them to step forward. Both were as nervous as the cats, but got closer, offering the snacks. The cats slowly got closer, eyeing them curiously, but accepted their offerings.

🌿 Not even ten minutes later, the smaller cats played with Inanna as if she was one of them and the other climbed on Muriel’s clothes, meowing at him for attention.  He chuckled while looking at them, so small on his hands. He looked at Inanna and how she behaved with the kittens, then at you, with red cheeks. “I think...we should bring them back. Inanna likes them....as so do I”

🌿 He thought about all the times you would’ve taken care of those cats without anyone knowing, without showing off or demanding praise for what you did. It was an act of pure kindness, and that was one of the many reasons of why he loved you.

Portia:

🐈 You could never hide anything from Portia. Even if you tried, she could sniff you were doing something without her from miles away, and she was always right. You may not even look suspicious, but somehow, Portia always knows.

🐈 So when you find a few stray cats on your way to the shop, the first thing you do when you return to the cottage you both share after doing some work,  is to tell her what you found, the stray cats.

🐈 It would've been a really busy day for her, but once she heard your words, her eyes were filled with determination and she started to gather Pepi's cat food.

🐈 You fed and played with the cats for a good while, and when it was time to return, she couldn't bear the idea of leaving them there.  "Y/n, what if something happens! It would be our fault, cause we didn't take them home! I think my point is valid, so I'll take them either way" She would take all the cats on her arms, some of them tangled on her hair, and return to the cottage.

🐈  Pepi was a bit skeptical and hid behind the couch, seeing the other cats sniffing around. But it only took a few minutes before they were all meowing excitedly together and playing as old friends.

🐈 It warmed up her heart seeing you play with the cats, taking on the responsibility to nurture them, even though you didn’t have to. In her eyes, you were the kindest person she had ever met.

Lucio:

🐐 Imagine both of your's surprise when you entered the room and Mercedes and Melchior barked at you, backing you up against a wall, sniffing you aggressively only to back away slowly, but still eyeing you cautiously.

🐐 You looked down at yourself, noticing some cat fur on your clothes. You patted it and looked at Lucio, who had a confused expression on his face.

🐐 The incident passed, but Lucio kept his eye on you, to the point of following you one night through the streets of Vesuvia.

🐐 He wondered what kind of shady thing you were up to when he saw you enter dark streets over and over, and once your steps became slower and you turned into an alley, he saw you kneeling on the floor, small figures running towards you.

🐐 "Cats!? All of this for....stray cats? Really Y/n!?" He wasn't mad at you, he was mad over the fact he got his cloak dirty while following you, but it's not like you would know that.

🐐 He approached you and one of the smallest kittens wobbled towards him, looked up and let out a soft meow, nibbling the hem of his pants.

🐐 His eyes widened and he turned his face away, slightly flustered. He grabbed the kitten and held it on his arm, turning away from you. "I'm keeping this one, it's mine! You can bring the others back to the castle if you want to"

🐐 Of course, he ended up naming all the cats later on, pampering them, buying fancy cat accessories....even Mercedes and Melchior protected the cats, cuddling them at night to keep them safe and warm. To Lucio, you were an angel. Taking in those cats just made him see it more on you.

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

I hoped you guys enjoyed this one! This request was so sweet and I had a lot of fun writing it, so thank you for the request! ❤️🌻

tag list

@the-chaos-siblings @dcuniversegurl @diamondlight301 @cidadepequena @alliespec @spectrolitecg  @bisexualmattholtstan @kycantina @soft-raine @elysian-mars

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#the arcane game #the arcana imagine #the arcana lucio #the arcana headcanon #the arcana #thearcana #thearcanaimagine #thearcanaheadcanons #lucio smut #lucio imagine #lucio #asra imagine #asra smut #asrathearcana #nadiasatrinava #nadia satrinava #nadia x mc #nadia x reader #nadia #the arcana nadia #asra x muriel #muriel x reader #muriel x mc #muriel smut #portia x mc #portia smut #portia #portia x reader #the arcana portia #julian x reader

[heyitsyn]

Manager!Seijoh Part 5

a/n: we ltr going at 5 parts and i have another part written out and im just drowning in love with these seijoh asks

for more seijoh content, check this masterlist out!

anon request:

Can i ask for cute moments between manager and the boys outside of school, like how she and kyoutani probably bump into each to go feed strays etc??

yes anon!!!!!! these moments made me so soft™

IM CACKLING LIKE BLS THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS OF THE ENTIRE STAGE PLAY BC HE PLAYS OIKS SO WELL AND IWA IS JUST SO IWA AND I LIVED FOR OIKS’ ‘IWA-CHAN!’ AND IWA’S ‘RAAAAA!’ AND THIS GIF JUST SHOWS SEIJOH BEING SEIJOH AND HOW THEY WOULD REALLY ACT IF THEY WERE REAL LIKE UGH THEY DID SUCH A GOOD JOB W THE CASTING

these are the cute little moments and get ready to die of the cuteness

be warned, this isnt a straight plot or no main focus but just bits and pieces of fluff 

keeping up with seijoh episode 3467328937

as mentioned before, they dont really get to hang out a lot w you outside of practice 

youre either too busy taking care of your schoolwork, catsitting for the aizawa’s, or having you time since youve been busy w the boys all week

but there are times where you do have available time to go hang out with the boys

and they know about your schedule so they try to make memories either during practice or after practice

fortunately, kyo lives at the same street as the aizawa’s so he walks you to their house when you have a job 

but sometimes when you are just walking home, you both stop by the convenience store first and find some cat food cans and dog food cans and water 

it was a complete accident when you both found each other standing at the same aisle, holding the same things, with the same intentions, for the same animals

the alleyway where you first met is basically your second home bc thats where your babies live

since you cant exactly take in 5 dogs and 6 cats in your house, you and kyo are taking care of them in that alleyway where you feed them and build them a little shelter with blankets and stuff

this will be explained more in the next manager!seijoh part

after practice, particularly after a really productive one, the guys like to go to the ramen shop near the school to treat themselves after their hardwork

by now, the old lady who owns the shop knows their order by heart and has it ready when you all enter

yall get settled in but you go over to yahaba and snap his wooden chopsticks for him bc he never snaps them properly and ends up breaking them

meanwhile,,

you gather as much napkins as you can and place them beside kindaichi bc he makes such a mess while he eats and you have stand-by wipes for him

you make a special request to add tofu into iwa’s ramen bc the mans loves tofu so much and he still doesnt understand how the lady seems to know this despite him never telling her

your seat is usually next to mattsun bc he doesnt eat all the side dishes up like the others and you can eat some of it too

kyo sit across you and demands you eat at least 2 bowls bc you never seem to eat enough and he gets secretly concerned so he aggressively cares for you

‘kyo-san,,,, im full though’

he ‘glares’ at you

‘what you mean youre full. you didnt even finish the bowl. eat the rest and have another or youre not leaving this table’

pls what

fun fact, oikawa actually has two pairs of glasses and he gave you one in case he forgets to wear his main one and leaves it at home

so he gets to school and he just realizes he forgot his glasses and his contacts were still being shipped so he freaks out and texts you about it

but you always have the case safely tucked in your bag so you wander up to the third year floor and knock on his class door

iwa, who is in the same class as him, glares at the students who stare at you and nudges oikawa who was looking out the window

‘oi, your glasses’

his head snapped to the side and sees your smiling face and the familiar brown box being held out to him

his face scrunches and he launches up his seat and takes you in his arms

‘Y/N-CHAN IS SO RESPONSIBLE! SO NICE! OIKAWA-SENPAI REALLY APPRECIATES YOU!’

‘oikawa-san, please let me go’

you mumbled, embarrassed at his behavior in front of the whole class

once iwa has you safely on the ground, you excuse yourself and go back to class

the class still stared at the door you passed through and iwa had to bark at them to go back to their business

youre like the seijoh and younger version of goddess kiyoko

before kyo got back to the team, you usually walked home by yourself but makki actually accompanies you when he doesnt have errands to run

‘makki-san, i heard theres a sale going on for puffs’

you would mention as you walked and you would look to see his eyes light up and walk faster towards the bakery

‘cmon, y/n-chan. makki-senpai is treating you today!’

he turns into a child, a contrast to his chaotic energy in school, and he runs over to the glass where indeed, there was a sale going on for his puffs

while he was staring at what flavor he wanted, youd go to the cashier and give her your card

‘when that guy with the light brown hair with the blue and white jacket comes up to pay for his cream puffs, charge it to my card, please. whatever you do, dont take his and use mine immediately, please. ill come by later and pick it back up’

the old cashier lady felt true hope and happiness for humanity at your actions and it increased when she saw the shocked look on the boy’s face when she immediately swiped the card when he finished ordering

‘what? i havent paid-’

‘the young lady that came with you already did, young lad. shes a keeper’

he turned red

‘ahaha, no, shes our team manager’

once he finished paying and went outside, he took out his phone and dialed your number to call you

you smiled from the aisle in the convenience store down the street bc you were expecting him to call you

‘hewwo, makki-san’

he shut his eyes at how cute you sounded

‘y/n-chan, senpai wanted to treat you today!’

he whined but you bit your lip, leaving the store after purchasing a drink with the remaining cash you had

‘hmm, but i did too. you just werent too fast, senpaiiii~’

you teased and he let out a breathy laugh

‘next time i’ll be faster! mark my words!’

‘then im looking forward to it, senpai~!’

did anyone notice that he is the first one she called senpai?

to our baby yahaba

we know how he literally tried to go after yachi in that one episode so you know how flirty he is

but youve made it clear that you reject his advances and he pouts and finally accepts it so he stops it, instead actually just caring for you

ya know how he cares for the others and cheers them on?

he does the same to you

our babie notices that you are so busy taking care of the others that you forget to take care of yourself

like that time they lost to shiratorizawa, you made bentos for them all week to cheer them up

but he saw you not even eating and realizes that you were busy making the food that they like, each different to accomodate to their taste, that you had no time to make your own

he went down to your class and noticed you missing and he asks kindaichi and kunimi and they said that you said you wanted to get fresh air

since he pays attention to you, he knows you like to go to the roof to breathe

he ventures up the stairs and when he opens the door, he notices you just staring up at the sky, sitting down on the floor

‘being in an empty place like the roof doesnt compare to how lonely Pluto must feel to be outcasted in the solar system’

your comment catches him off-guard but he regains composure and makes his way to you before sitting down next to your form

‘hmm, oikawa-senpai talked to me about space one time. he mentioned the vast possibilities that stays hidden in the shadows’

you and him turn your head at the same time and share a gentle smile

‘but its up to us to find those secrets and abilities’

you finished

he nodded and went back to look at the clouds that looked like they were slowly moving but it was really the earth turning

‘i want to be a sports instructor. i want to be able to help others,,, i want to help them find those abilities and perfect them so they could fully love playing’

a chuckle escaped you and you tightened your arms around your knees, following his gaze to the blob of white that was painted on to the blue canvas

‘let other people be your universe, baba-senpai. dont let them be like Pluto. take time to find out who they are so they dont feel so lonely, okay?’

yall im tearing up right now though

as mentioned at the first part of this series, you go to the gym very early to set up for morning practice

sometimes, the four third years arrive at the same time but sometimes, only iwa comes

you noticed him put his bag down and help you with the nets before pushing the cart to finish the task for the morning

‘thank you, iwa-san!’

you thanked and he ruffled your hair

‘can you actually help me with my workout?’

you nodded and you knew his routine by now

as he got in position for a push up, you gently sat down on his back so he could start pushing up

you sat cross-legged and you counted every push up and held a timer so he could beat his previous record of 100 push ups in under 5 minutes

IWA IS LITERALLY ON ANOTHER LEVEL

once he hit 100, he collapsed on the floor and you stopped the timer at 4 minutes and 48 seconds

‘good job, iwa-san! new record!’

you cheered and he grumbled on the floor

you gently turned him over so he could lay on his back

he closed his eyes from the bright light of the gym and he raised his arms as his hands made a grabbing motion

‘hug. i want hug’

he whined and you fake gasped at this

‘iwa-san, i didnt know you could be so whiny’

‘huuggg~’

in my series, its canon that iwa is actually a whiny little babie despite that tough exterior and hes much more whinier than oikawa

you laughed before surrending, mumbling ‘yes, yes’

this wasnt the first time this happened since he asked you to do this before bc hes a touch starved babie and as a manager, you must give your team love

you climbed on him and laid your head on his chest while he mumbles happily with his arms going around you

‘just five minutes’

you offered and he said ‘mhm’

well, you both fell asleep and were woken up by scandalized and jealous yells from oikawa

to our baby libero watari

watari is actually the only player who has been to your house before

you made an off-handed comment of making bentos for the team again and he offered to come and help you make them

so here he was, standing in your kitchen, as you were cooking with him

you were chopping up vegetables and he was waiting for the eggs to boil so he was just stirring it slightly

‘wata-san, can you give me a bowl from the cabinet above you?’

he nodded and gave it to you so you could place the chopped carrots and onions in it

once the timer was done, he scooped out the eggs and placed them into an ice bowl so he could peel them later

you knew his favorite food was boiled eggs so you wanted to boil some so he could snack on them

‘can you peel one and see if theyre perfectly cooked, wata-san?’

his fingers skillfully rolled the egg on the table before peeling it effortlessly

he hummed as he chewed on the food

‘delicious?’

you asked and he turned to you, cheeks still full but he raised a thumbs up

you grinned and went back to chopping the scallions

‘actually, i didnt need any eggs for the dishes. i wanted you to snack on your favorites as i cook. its like payment for keeping me company’

his eyes shone and he hurriedly went to hug you tightly

‘i really appreciate everything youve done for us, for me. but i just want you to keep smiling okay? i know we’re a handful and we can get out of hand sometimes but you always keep us together. you must be stressed and there must be times you get angry with us and must’ve cried because of us but i hope you’ll still stay with us even through all that’

WATARI YOU MAKING ME C R Y 

lmao kindaichi’s made me laugh

so basically, we all know his famous haircut, right

but what if that was actually just a style hes had since he was young but he has naturally down hair?

the stuff he puts in it like this brand of gel is just so tough and sturdy that two washes of hair is the only thing that can get rid of it

even during practice when hes sweating the atlantic ocean, it somehow stays up

he puts gel on it and stuff after he showers to make it stick up and BOOM turnip head

but one morning, he,,,, wasnt turnip head

the boy woke up late and he didnt have time to perfect the sticking up so he went to school with his hair down and everything

you were already there since morning practice has started and kunimi told you that kindaichi texted him he would be late so you were just patiently waiting by the door for your classmate

but some guy just walked in

your eyes widened and you pulled their arm

‘um, this is for seijoh volley-’

then the words died in your mouth

‘yuu-kun,,,’

you stuttered and he placed his hands on his face to hide away

‘dont look y/n-chan!’

his shout attracted the others and then silence before the laughing and howling started

‘THESE FIRST YEARS I SWEAR!’

makki was on the floor, punching it as he laughed

kindaichi turned red and he was about to run out but you held on to him

‘i can fix it for you, yuu-kun. come with me?’

he nodded immediately and hurried away towards the back where the sun was just starting to rise

you rummaged through your gym bag and found the specific gel brand he uses 

kindaichi was SHOOK bc why the hell did you have it?

you noticed his shocked and confused look

‘i knew this would happen. we’ve facetimed before, remember? just in case this would happen, i brought backup’

his eyes glistened with tears of gratitude but you waved it away and started attempting to fix his hair

tbh you dont know why he did this hairstyle because his hair was really soft and nice and he still looked attractive either way

moving on to kunimi babie

lets face it, he probably doesnt sleep at all at night and he suffers from insomnia

and when he cant sleep, he bothers his friends

but he doesnt bother you though

which makes you sad bc you thought you made it clear that he could come to you if he was in need of something

you only found out after kindaichi accidentally blurted out during morning practice of how tired he is bc kunimi wouldnt stop talking to him at 2 in the morning

‘aki,,, you could’ve called me’

you gently said and kunimi scrunched his nose at how sad you sounded

‘you need your sleep, y/n’

‘but i want you to sleep too’

‘kindaichi’s been my contact since i was like 5 so-’

‘so you dont need me?’

your eyes watered and kunimi jumped, frantically fussing over you

‘okay, okay, y/n, okay. ill call you’

then as if they were never there, you cheered up and bounced happily

‘i’m expecting it, aki-kun!’

but at 1:43 in the morning, his finger hovered over the call button on your contact since he really didnt want to bother you

but he could already hear your whines in the morning

‘aki?’

he cursed when he heard your groggy voice

‘sorry y/n, ill hang up-’

‘no!’

you sat up, forcing to wake up

‘stay’

you mumbled and he made a sound of agreement

‘not tired?’

you asked

‘no. well, like im tired but i cant sleep, yknow?’

you laid on your bed with your cheeks puffed out, trying to think how to put him to sleep

‘we can just talk, aki’

‘about what?’

‘anything. just,,, talk to me. i want to know your favorite color, your favorite food, everything about you’

:( morning calls really hit different

last one is our mattsun babie

so like, mattsun is a TREE

im like 5′3 and hes like 6′2 so we a whole dwarf next to him

you are always dwarfed whenever you stand next to him and this little shite takes advantage of that and puts his elbow on top of your head

he likes to poke fun at you but you just pout bc you know hes all fun and games

‘hows the weather down there’

‘so mean, mattsun-san’

but his height did give him a special memory with you though

you were both left in the gym to clean up bc everyone had something to do like oiks had to go home bc takeru got sick and iwa also got sick and you just volunteered to clean up and mattsun stayed behind

you were sweeping the floor and you unconsciously started humming as you swept and started swaying a little

mattsun heard you as he pushed the carts and watched as you just swayed and twirled around and he found himself smiling at you

you noticed him stop in front of you and he bowed down, holding out a hand

‘may i take this dance, m’lady’

you laughed

‘what? whats going on?’

he softly held your hand and pulled you to him

‘you were dancing and i wanted to join you’

you nodded and looked up at him, eyes half-lidded

‘stand on my feet, chibi-chan. i can lead while you sing’

it was a random song you heard from the radio earlier but you complied while he moved with your feet on his

you giggled when he would lean down to softly kiss your forehead and shriek when he would unexpectedly dip you down

either way, at 8:34 PM, you and mattsun danced under the gym lights with no witness except you and him

ughh i really want seijoh now

you and the team share individual memories that are more special than the ones with the others bc its where you could actually be upfront with each other

its just a shame that there are 4 third years in the team that would eventually graduate and go their own separate ways after high school, leaving behind their underclassmen

they could just hope that those memories and special moments would remind them of who you were and how special you were to them since at the prime of their youth, you were their first true love

a/n: ngl i didnt expect to finish this so quick but im just in a really soft mood right now and this is to makeup for the fact that my update schedule could start becoming erratic due to my school so i hope you enjoyed this blurb!! and depending on my asks, there could only be one last part to this series unless someone requests for another specific scenario with the manager!!

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu!! imagines #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! headcanons #aoba johsai #aoba johsai x reader #aoba josai x reader #aoba josai #seijoh #aoba johsai imagines #aoba josai imagines #seijoh imagines #seijoh manager #haikyuu manager #haikyuu!! manager #aoba johsai manager #aoba josai manager #seijoh x reader #aoba johsai headcanons #aoba josai headcanons #seijoh headcanons #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu!! fluff #aoba johsai fluff #aoba josai fluff

[jetaime-jespere]

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

This is for the lovely @sequinsmile-x on her birthday. I started reading her stories back in December and was a huge fan from the beginning. Fast forward a few months, and I am somehow lucky enough to call you my friend. For all the pep talks, the inspiration, and the laughs- you have been a bright spot of 2021. But I stand true to my word if harm ever comes to Theo Hotchner, you know what’s coming your way ; ) Happiest of birthdays, my friend! Enjoy every moment and all the cocktails.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

The Day After Thanksgiving

The fragrant aromas of hazelnut and vanilla waft through the air as Aaron precariously grips two full mugs of coffee in his hands. He sidesteps a few toys and a pair of shoes that were somehow missed in last night’s cleanup as he carefully ascends the stairs. The coffee threatens to slosh over the edge of the mugs and stain the hardwood floors; he slows his steps and tiptoes past closed bedroom doors. He avoids the squeaky floorboards - he knows exactly where they are by now - and kicks another stray toy against the wall in his haste to get to Emily before she wakes up.

Coffee in bed is a sacred routine for them, one they haven’t abandoned even balancing the demands of three children and two grueling careers. It’s one of Emily’s little pleasures, an act so simple Aaron can’t deny her whenever he gets the chance. That alone is how he found himself awake before the sun rises, rearranging the various pyrex containers of Thanksgiving leftovers to locate the coveted bottle of Emily’s favorite creamer in the fridge. It was wedged behind the cranberry sauce and macaroni and cheese they made for Nora, who vehemently refused to eat turkey. Of course, she’d eaten maybe five bites of her specially prepared dinner before she’d crawled into Emily’s lap in the middle of dinner. Yet it still brings a smile to his face; it’s their first holiday season as a family of five - something they never expected, something they’ll never take for granted.

Read the rest here or on ao3

When he shoulders the door open, Aaron finds her awake, feeding Leo. She holds him at her breast, her head tipped back and her eyes closed. She senses his presence innately, attuned to the softness of his steps as he steps over the threshold of the sanctuary of their bedroom. Emily’s face stretches into a brilliant smile when she sees him, but it doesn’t hide the exhaustion that paints her features.

“He’s awake again?” Aaron sets the mug on the nightstand and kisses her cheek then the top of Leo’s head. “I thought you’d at least get another hour of sleep.”

“He had other plans,” Emily murmurs, lovingly shifting their son in her arms. “He’s almost done.” She reaches for the coffee with her free hand, lifts the mug to her lips. “Thank you for this.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” Aaron watches her finish Leo’s feed with unabashed awe. There’s nothing but adoration in his eyes, amazement at how she handles motherhood with an abundance of patience and grace. There have been ups and downs, tears. arguments and fights, her nerves stretched thin and his worn down. But these moments make it worth it, ones he wouldn’t trade. He leans down to take Leo to give her a break. The little boy’s eyes are already closed, contentedly asleep once again.

“You’re spoiling me.” Emily says with a grateful smile. She rests back against the pillows, eyes closing again. “What was I thinking when I agreed to go Black Friday shopping with JJ and Garcia?”

“Might be good to get out of the house. Away from the chaos.”

“Into a whole new kind of chaos. Garcia means business. I’m afraid of her ambition.” Emily rolls her eyes at the thought of the shared document Garcia had sent to her and JJ - essentially a shopping itinerary, with all the best deals and discounts clearly marked.

“You say it like you’re surprised.” Aaron gently places Leo into the bassinet before crawling back into bed with his wife. “It is Garcia we’re talking about.”

“Maybe I’ll learn my lesson next year.” She snuggles against him, seeking a few extra moments of peace.

Christmas Tree Shopping

It’s scarcely a week after Thanksgiving when Aaron caves to the persistent demands from Nora and Jack, unable to hold them off any longer. Less than an hour later, as the sun starts to go down in the early December sky, the Hotchners find themselves at an idyllic Christmas tree farm in Loudoun County. They’re not the only ones, as families make their way through the maize of evergreen, the air thick with the cloying, yet not unpleasant, scent of pine needles.

“We’re becoming those people,” Aaron grumbles good naturedly, Leo strapped to his chest in a baby carrier. “Jack, please watch your sister!” A few feet ahead, Nora runs excitedly through the trees, clapping her tiny mitten covered hands with joy. But Jack looks just as excited and takes off behind her as they search for the perfect one. It’s a tradition he never had growing up; one he’d only ever heard stories about from his classmates as he swallowed an emotion he only identified many years later as jealousy.

“What kind of people?” Emily carefully picks her way through the grass, her hand enclosed in his. Her head falls onto his shoulder every few feet; they quietly murmur to each other in broken sentences, interrupted every few seconds by one of the kids, yet it’s a language they’ve mastered over the last few years. Glances and smiles, words that speak volumes, little touches here and there.

“Those Christmas crazed people. Pretty soon we’re going to have an inflatable Santa on the lawn or something.”

“Don’t say that too loudly.” Emily gives him a quick kiss, stopping for a moment to adjust Leo’s hat to cover his tiny head. “Nora said one of her classmates has one. She’s already talking about it.”

“Great.” Aaron rolls his eyes. “I bet Garcia has one we could borrow. Probably more than one.”

Emily laughs, lightly smacking him on the shoulder as Nora grabs her hand. “Mommy, Jack and I like this one!” They all stop in front of a tree on a corner. It’s bigger than Aaron anticipated - he has visions of vacuuming pine needles for the next four weeks - and slightly lopsided, with uneven branches and a few gaps in between. Certainly not what you might see in a magazine, and in no way picture perfect, but Nora and Jack are beaming, their cheeks flushed pink in the chilly early evening air.

“Oh, you mean you two finally agree on something?” Emily quips, letting Nora drag her around the base of the tree, listening as their daughter explains where she wants to put her collection of superhero ornaments. “Who would have ever thought?” But when her eyes meet Aaron’s, it’s clear they’re thinking the same thing too.

It’s perfect.

A Lesson In Gift Wrapping

“Damnit,” Emily swears under her breath as the wrapping paper seemingly shreds in her hands. How does Aaron make this look so easy? With her bottom lip between her teeth, she folds another piece of paper around the box, trying to mimic the process she’s seen him do so effortlessly time and time again. It’s not quite enough paper to wrap around the box, and she shakes her head in defeat.

“Of all the places I looked, I didn’t think I’d find you here.” Aaron’s baritone voice shakes her from her trance. He’s leaning in the doorway of the guest room, an amused but loving smirk on his face. The remnants of the day are there - a hint of shadow on his chin, tie loosened and sleeves rolled to his elbows.

“Thought I might get some of this done.” She looks up at him briefly before her attention goes back to the mess of wrapping paper, twisted balls of tape, and gift bows. “There’s a lot still left to do.”

“Did the North Pole finally accept your elf application?” Aaron teases lovingly, pushing the door  open and side-stepping a large pile of gifts that still have yet to be wrapped. “Looks like we’re a little behind schedule this year.”

With a roll of her eyes, Emily pushes a piece of hair out of her face. “You’re home earlier than I  expected.” She glances at the mess around her with a sigh, and her voice softens. “Leo needs to be fed when he gets up. I need to pick up Nora from school and Jack will be home in an hour.”

He immediately catches the tension in her voice. As the early days of December melted into weeks, the never ending hustle was clearly starting to get to her, especially since cases took Aaron out of town most of the workweek. Evenings were full of obligations - practices and errands, weekends packed with as much family time as they could manage. All the rest was pushed to the side, a never ending list of chores that was only added to, never subtracted from.

The team had spent almost a week in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, ironically called the Christmas City, searching for an arsonist that had the entire city on edge. Perhaps the nickname was an eerie coincidence yet nonetheless it was a grueling case. Since he’d gotten home he could sense the stress emanating from her, curling like fog around her. She couldn’t hide it from him; she couldn’t hide anything from him. And while he didn’t ask, he somehow already knew.  “I asked Garcia to pick Nora up to give you a break.”

“What about dinner?”

“It’s already been ordered.” Aaron says easily, settling beside her on the floor. “Pizza sounded good.”

Relief floods her face. “Pizza always sounds good.” She kicks the abandoned box out of the way to wedge herself against him, lacing her fingers through his. “We’ve missed you around here.” It’s honest, an understated relief that only years of intimacy can bring. Her head finds its way to his shoulder; she leans against him.

“We’re finished until after New Years.” Aaron holds their hands up to the light, staring at the bouncing reflection of their wedding rings. “You have me here until January.”

“Lucky me,” Emily says dryly.

Aaron picks up a stray ball of abandoned wrapping paper and chucks it at her. “What do you say we finish wrapping these together?”

“I say,” she begins slowly, eyes darting between the neatly made bed and his own. “We take advantage of having the house to ourselves.”

He makes her come three times before they hear Garcia’s car in the driveway, and twice more after the kids are in bed, for good measure.

A Deal With The Devil

The name that appears on the screen of his ringing phone is one Aaron can’t ignore. It’s terrible timing, but he’s not at all surprised. His mother in law had an uncanny knack for calling at the most inopportune moments.

“Hi, Elizabeth,” Aaron says hastily, pressing the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he wedges the final plate into the dishwasher. He barely got to the phone in time before it went to voicemail, and something tells him she’s only a little miffed about that fact. Elizabeth Prentiss has an abundance of patience for her grandchildren, but not much for anyone else, he’s come to learn.

“Good evening, Aaron,” she says crisply yet not unkindly. In the background he can hear the mellow crooning of Bing Crosby. He imagines Elizabeth with a glass of wine in one hand, a thick book in her lap. “Is Emily around? I tried to reach her earlier. She didn’t answer my call.”

“She’s giving Nora a bath.” He glances upward, the muffled squeals and giggles coming from the bathroom just loud enough to hear from downstairs. At least things have calmed down since dinner . He decides not to mention it’s already been quite an evening around their house, thanks to unfamiliar vegetables and a long day in preschool. “Is there something you’d like me to pass along?” Of course Elizabeth would call on the one night this week he isn’t away on a case.

“Actually, Aaron, maybe you can help me,” Elizabeth presses, and he knows whatever she’s about to say is something that’s already caused a disagreement between her and Emily.

“I can try,” he offers tentatively, choosing words carefully. The very last thing he wants to do is get caught between their fires. It’s never ended well for him.

“You sound tired, Aaron. Are you not sleeping well?”

“We have three kids, Elizabeth,” he counters back. “I haven’t slept well in years.”

He hears a soft laugh on the other line; for a moment he has to remind himself he’s not talking to his wife. Sometimes the similarities between them are uncanny, much to Emily’s chagrin.

He’s wrapping up the call, assuring Elizabeth they’ll figure out a plan that works for everyone yet doesn’t add any additional stress, while simultaneously cleaning the rest of the kitchen when he hears soft footsteps on the stairs.

“You’re on bedtime duty.” Emily appears behind him, leaning against the counter with an exasperated huff. “She’s in a mood tonight.”

Aaron comes to stand behind her, circling both arms around her waist. Her hips fit snugly against the cradle of his own; he rests his chin over her shoulder to nip at her ear. “I just made a deal with your mother.” He doesn’t miss how she tenses against him, a combination of frustration, annoyance, and exhaustion seeping through her body. It’s the first time they’ve been alone all day. He presses a palm against her chest, feeling the beat of her heart under the warmth of his hand.

“She called again? I let it go to voicemail earlier.”

“Just now. She wanted to talk to you. Luckily, you’re off the hook, because I talked to her.” He kisses her neck. He swipes at a few stray bath bubbles that have somehow found their way into her hair. Of all the versions of Emily he’s loved over the years, this Emily might just be his favorite.

“Let me guess. She wants us to come to her for Christmas Eve dinner instead of her coming here.”

“Something like that.”

“Does she not understand we have three children?” Emily grumbles. “I’ve been over this with her. She’s not the one who has to put them to bed on Christmas Eve, you know. It’s a whole different kind of chaos.”

“I think we can figure it out, Em.” Aaron chuckles. He holds her a little closer, voice reassuring and calm. “I made her a deal.” She noticeably relaxes, her body melding against his. Proximity is one of their love languages, the subtle touches an endless source of comfort for them both.

“ Mommy!” Nora’s voice is an insistent, urgent interruption, one they can’t ignore. “Mommy!”

Emily sighs in defeat, the moment of peaceful bliss abruptly over.

“I’ll go,” Aaron says immediately, leaving a trail of kisses down Emily’s neck. “I haven’t seen you sit down all day.”

“Have I told you lately how much I love you?” She presses her hips into his teasingly and turns her head to kiss him. It’s a promise of later, another little luxury they still manage to make time for.

“No, but you can show me once the kids are asleep.” He reluctantly lets her go as he heads in the direction of the upstairs.

“Only if I don’t fall asleep first.”

Visiting Santa

“This is not the smartest idea we’ve ever had, clearly,” Emily mutters under her breath as the crowd around them seems to thicken before their eyes. The mall is packed, full of shoppers and families lined elbow to elbow around a colorful, elaborate display to meet Santa. There’s fake snow everywhere, teenagers dressed up as elves supervising the line and a kids’ rendition of a Christmas song blasting from speakers. “What were we thinking?”

“The same as everyone else in Northern Virginia, apparently.” Aaron finds the small of her back through her coat, rests his hand there gently as Emily pushes the stroller a little to soothe Leo. “Not like we had much of a choice, sweetheart. I’ve been gone all week. When else were we supposed to do this?”

“I could have taken them myself one night.” She looks annoyed and rightfully so, as one of the elves announces it’s time for Santa to take a fifteen minute break.

“And miss all this fun?” Aaron jokes. He’s doing his best to hide his own annoyance, yet the flex of his jaw is a tell-tale sign that Emily spots immediately. “Not a chance.”

They’ve been in line for over a half an hour, and will be for at least another half hour. Beside Aaron, Jack grumbles under his breath and rolls his eyes without even looking up from his Nintendo Switch. He’d obliged reluctantly, partly because Aaron had promised him a new video game if he didn't complain. And from where Nora is nestled in the safety of her mother’s arms, she presses her cheek against Emily’s shoulder. “What if we miss Santa, Mommy?”

“We won’t, honey,” Emily soothes, catching Aaron’s eyes over their daughter’s head of dark hair. It’s the third time she’s asked the question, her dark eyes widening as Santa waves to the crowd before disappearing. “He’s just taking a break.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Aaron mutters under his breath. “Even Santa is over it.”

When they finally emerge from the mall almost an hour later, with three cranky children in tow, Emily passes over the photograph to Aaron. “This is an awful picture,” she snickers behind her gloved fist. It’s true. It was taken at the worst possible moment - seconds after Leo started screaming, Nora’s attention anywhere but the camera, and Jack’s eyes closed. “This is even worse than last year’s picture. We can’t actually display this anywhere, you know.”

“We can give it to Dave. He’ll love it,” Aaron jokes as he tucks the envelope under his arm. “Trust me.”

Twas the Night before Christmas

“Move over, Nora!” Jack elbows his sister squarely in the stomach in an attempt to crawl over his sister to get closer to Aaron. “You’re taking up too much space.”

“Ouch, Jack! Daddy, Jack is being mean!”

“There’s more than enough room for everyone,” Aaron says neutrally and cheerfully. It’s clear he won’t pick a side. “Santa doesn’t want to hear the two of you fighting on Christmas Eve. Last time we checked the radar, he was headed to the United States, wasn’t he?”

From where she cradles a milk-drunk Leo in her arms, Emily stifles a laugh in her fist. She makes a mental note to thank Garcia for showing it to the kids earlier that evening. It’s been the only thing to keep them from completely losing their minds with excitement ever since.

“Nora, why don’t you come sit over here next to Mommy and Leo?” He pats the sliver of space between his thigh and Emily’s, covered in matching flannel pajamas as Emily shifts over.

“Okay, Daddy,” she beams, scrambling off the couch and making a point to stick her tongue out at Jack along the way.

“Nora, apologize to Jack,” Emily cuts in smoothly with a sharp look at her daughter.

The little girl pouts even as guilt spreads across her face. “Sorry, Jack.” She breaks off a piece of the frosted cookie in her hand - the one she isn’t supposed to have on the new couch - and hands it to Jack. “Here.”

“Is everyone ready?” Aaron asks once Nora is settled and Jack has stopped kicking his feet underneath one of the many blankets flung around the couch. “No one needs anything?” He grins at the insistent pleas of both kids, hushes them quietly to avoid waking the sleeping baby on Emily’s chest. “Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house…” He begins, as a silence falls over them all.

Emily watches him read, transfixed by the sight of Jack and Nora completely engrossed in the story they’ve heard dozens of times, as if they never have before. Sometimes it still doesn’t seem real that this is their life now. She would have laughed ten years ago if someone predicted her future.

“A happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight.” Aaron closes the book in his hands, looking between Nora and Jack. “I think it’s bedtime, what do you think?”

There are grumbles from them both as they trip over each other on their way towards the stairs, not without frequent peeks over the shoulder to see if in fact Santa somehow materialized behind them.

“Maybe Santa will bring us a puppy, Jack!"

Christmas Eve

“You think they’ll be disappointed when none of these presents bark?” Emily jokes once they’ve finished setting up the pile of gifts. There’s a bottle of wine between them, and It’s A Wonderful Life plays in the background on low.

“I told them Santa doesn’t carry pets on the sleigh.” Aaron tucks his arm around her and brings her into his chest, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head. “Said it was too dangerous.”

“Did they buy that?”

“Seemed to.” He shrugs. “We might have some explaining to do if Allison and Shane end up getting Jude a puppy, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” In the easy silence the movie stretches on; they share sips of wine and leftover cookies and murmur soft whispers over the final few minutes.

“I love this part,” Emily murmurs as George Bailey reunites with his family in a joyous, tearful reunion and the opening measures of Auld Lang Syne begin to play. She doesn't look away from the screen.

“You love this whole movie,” he teases gently. “You always have.���

“You don’t?”

“I have other favorites. But I’ll always watch it with you.”Outside, the snow has started to accumulate; it’s already formed a blanket of white across the grass, and is covering the trees. It doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping anytime soon.

“This never gets old,” Emily says from where they’re snuggled together on the couch, staring at the Christmas tree and the falling snow out the window. It’s been their tradition to do this since having Nora - set up presents and watch the movie.

They watch the falling snow in silence once again, their fingers linked, heads bent together, enjoying the few extra moments of peace. It’s only when Emily’s eyes drift shut does she realize just how exhausted she really is.

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Aaron murmurs as she opens them. “There’s one thing left to do.”

“We did everything. We even answered the note they wrote for Santa. We forgot that last year.” Emily stretches as she stands, her limbs aching. “It’s time for bed, Aaron. I’m so tired.”

“Not quite yet, sweetheart.” Aaron is reaching behind the decorations on the mantle for the small hidden speakers, flicking a button. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

“What?” She yawns, not even bothering to hide it. “It’s so late.”

“You remember,” he says, holding out his hand as the music starts.

Emily rolls her eyes good naturedly, remembering just what he means. “Really, Aaron?”

“One dance, sweetheart. Please?”

“I'm tired.”

He rolls his eyes. It’s a line she’s used many times, yet for some reason, she always gives in. In fact, she’s stepping into his arms before she even stops talking.

“That’s what you always say.” He takes her hand and wraps his other arm around her back, drawing her in close. “Yet you always end up right here.”

“Because I love you,” she whispers, following his steps as he takes the lead.

Some soft Christmas jazz starts to play, a sultry sounding medley that might just lull her to sleep. “This is the song you picked?” Emily rests her head on his shoulder as he sways them in time to the music. “You couldn’t have picked anything more lively?”

“Shhhh,” he murmurs, his hand bracing against the small of her back as he dips her down and brings her back up. “Just go with it.”

So she does, letting him move them both around the living room in a series of smooth, even steps. When the music stops, they still for a few blissful, silent moments. Still wrapped in each other’s arms, they’re close enough together to feel the other’s heart beating in sync. “Merry Christmas, Emily. I love you.”

“I love you too, Aaron. Merry Christmas.”

#hotchniss #domestic hotchniss #happy hotchners #wsne universe #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #aaron x emily #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #birthday fics and Christmas fluff #Christmas in July #for you my dear friend sequinsmile_x #I hope you enjoy

[itsclydebitches]

Until proven otherwise, my headcanon is that both Ironwood and Watts survived and are going to team up again out of necessity lmao.

HI, ANON. So let me tell you about how this simple, silly sentence sent me down a 4k writing rabbit hole. “Lol I’m going to write a little parody about that” I thought to myself and then somehow? It got serious?? I honestly don’t know what this fic is, but I’m chucking it at everyone anyway. 

Also, I changed the whole “Atlas and Mantle are immediately submerged in water” plot point because it’s my coping mechanism and I get to choose the canon we ignore. 

***

Once upon a time there were two villains having a Very Bad Day.

The first, Arthur Watts, had survived an explosion, being buried under rubble, and the threat of a ten-story drop only to find himself suffocating amidst a magically produced fire. A horrible way to go, all things considered. Painful, of course, but more importantly, no self-respecting man should die with soot on his clothes.

Or leave behind a charred corpse. 

In fact, Watts had just begun to acknowledge the full indignity of his death when the momentum he'd felt — just there on the periphery of his awareness — suddenly ceased, Atlas crashing into Mantle and throwing him with a squawk in the process. His head took a nasty hit against one of the desks, the smoky gray of the room growing darker, and by the time Watts had come to, the fire had been replaced by water.

Ice-cold water, lapping up to his knees.

"Well," he said, lifting a sodden boot. "I suppose this is an improvement."

***

Elsewhere, James Ironwood — former General of the now sinking Kingdom of Atlas — was lying facedown on the stone of the outer vault, contemplating his choices. Upon reflection, no, he didn't regret what he'd done, but it would have been nice if things had turned out...any way other than this.

"Fuck," he said to the empty hall, enjoying the reverberation. He deserved that much at least.

In time, Ironwood was able to pick himself up off the floor, supported as much by the fact that he'd been knocked out by his own blast as his shaky, barely-there aura. Up the elevator running on emergency dust reserves, through the corridors that groaned ominously under damaged supports. Ironwood headed towards the military headquarters purely out of habit and as he did the sound of water grew stronger, almost like waves, until there was an inch of it across the floor, more trickling in from the staircase. Ironwood had been watching his boots splash with each step, almost mesmerized, and didn't look up until another pair unexpectedly entered his view.

Watts froze in the act of wringing out his pantleg, eyes wide. His expression, the water, how the hallway tilted downward at a slight angle... it all felt like something out of a dream. Ironwood just watched as Watts watched him, until his eyes traveled to the gun clipped on his belt. Ironwood hadn't even realized he'd picked it up.

"Here to kill me, James?" Watts said.

"No." He knew it was true as soon as he'd said it. The mere thought of starting another fight right now was... exhausting. "Do you intend to kill me?"

"Oh really. Does it look as if I'm in a position to fight you? Do use your head for once. I have no weapon, no aura — damn fire ate it all up — I feel as if I've swallowed a hot coal, I am wet — "

Ironwood turned partway through the ramble, meandering back up the way he'd come. He'd passed through two checkpoints before realizing that Watts was not only still talking, but following him.

"What do you want?" he asked, more to shut the man up than out of real curiosity. If Watts was capable of reading the difference between the two, he didn't show it.

"Cinder."

"Cinder?"

"I don't make a habit of allowing people to try and murder me without consequence, James!"

"She's gone."

"Yes, thank you for that stunning bit of info! There's no possible way I could have realized that for myself. What's gotten into you? They left us, fool. Salem, Cinder, Neo, Emerald, even your so-called allies... they all deserve the worst that we can grant them. Though right now, I'd settle for wringing that idiot Pietro's neck. Ten years I gave to that research and he rendered it obsolete with a single report, all because he wanted to play father to some stupid hunk of metal. I never would have gone to Salem if — " Watts cut off, hands balled into fists.

Ironwood just blinked dazedly, coming to a halt. He searched his uniform, the scroll he'd stashed there miraculously whole. Dimly, he registered that he should be feeling some sort of emotion right now.

"I can do that," he murmured.

"What?"

But Ironwood was already keying in the code, the desire to complete a task, any task, taking hold. Watts looked on, mouth twisted in a deprecating sneer.

"I already took out communications, in case you failed to notice."

"But not the trackers I had installed in my top scientists." Ironwood held up the screen where a small, red dot was blinking. "Pietro's still here. Looks like he's out near the mine with a second aura signature. If you want to...?" He wasn't going to finish that sentence.

"I see," Watts said in a tone that heavily implied he didn't. "And you'd just give me this information out of the evilness of your heart?"

Ironwood considered that. "I killed a man yesterday, tried to kill two others, and was ready to bomb all of Mantle to keep the rest of my Kingdom safe. I don't care what you do with the man who betrayed me."

"...fair enough."

Except after five steps Ironwood realized that Watts wasn't following him. He was looking down at his arms, still as a hunted hare.

"You put trackers in all your scientists?" he asked.

"A requirement I implemented after you went missing."

"Ah! Ingenious. Lead the way then."

***

The way led to the tundra, an environment that neither of them were prepared for. Watts was wet from the waist down and Ironwood had long ago learned that snow and metal didn't mix. Neither had the aura for the kind of storm that was raging either. Luckily, the panic of Salem's invasion had left plenty of vehicles to purloin and soon they were speeding East with the heat on, the faint beeping on Ironwood's scroll growing stronger.

He'd felt the impact of his city crashing down and the two of them had clamored out of Atlas' husk, dropping into rubble and cracking ice. Still, the true destruction wasn't evident until they were moving away from it. Through the rearview mirror, Ironwood could see pillars of smoke from fires that the water hadn't yet smothered, dark shadows that could only be grimm, and Atlas itself, plunged halfway into Mantle. It wasn't noticeable from this distance, but all of it was sinking.

"I was lucky," Ironwood said, his voice hollow. His eyes flicked back to the expanse of snow ahead of them. "If Atlas had tipped the other way, the vault would have flooded. I'd have drowned."

Watts snorted. "I'm lucky. That damned water put out Cinder's fire. I'd have burned."

Neither felt particularly lucky and for fifteen more minutes, neither was keen to discuss it.

***

Once upon a time, two heroes were having a Very Bad Day.

"You've got to be shitting me."

Maria paused in the act of bandaging Pietro's leg, mechanical eyes narrowing at the two figures that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Watts sucked in a breath at the duo. Ironwood gave a small, awkward wave.

Then he nodded his head at the scene: one old, exhausted woman and a paraplegic currently bleeding into his chair. "So... going to kill him?"

Watts ground his teeth. "Well now that just feels like a fool's errand. Look at him. He's pathetic!"

Pietro was slumped at an uncomfortable angle, sporting a gash in his leg and an impressive display of bruises across his face. Maria, in contrast, seemed to have only lost her hair tie.

"Pathetic?" she spat. "Your lackey did this!"

"Who?"

"Angry girl with the creepy arm."

"Ah, it all comes back to Cinder." Watts pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, thank you for recognizing that I was her superior, but no, I didn't send her to kill the likes of you. Must have done it on her own, the little idiot. Don't believe me? I was in jail at the time, if I recall correctly. Isn't that right, James?"

"You were helping me hack Penny."

Maria let out a skin-crawling cackle. "Why do you think the girl was here? She blew a hole in the bottom of Amity! Penny tried to hold us up, but..." she swallowed, still pressing against Pietro's leg, but turned warily towards them. "You hacked her? You did that? What precisely do you think happens when a man who never learned to apply aura as a shield crash-lands in this hunk of junk!"

"I expect most men in that position perish," Watts said smoothly. "The fool is lucky to be alive, but he won't be for much longer if you keep trying to staunch the wound with your soiled gloves. Move aside."

"Get away from me!"

"Oh, put your stick down, you old bat. I'm trying to help."

"Why?" Ironwood hadn't realized he'd spoken until Watts was glaring daggers his way.

"So I can kill him later myself!"

Still surreal. Still dream-like in its absurdity. Ironwood listened to the bickering between Watts and... Mary? Maria? He wasn't even sure. He wandered away, content to gaze out through one of the windows at his Kingdom. Or what was left of it. He idly massaged his left arm, trying to rid himself of a pain that wasn't there, and when the howl of a grimm reached them across the snow, he shivered.

His unlikely companions screamed at each other loud enough to reverberate through the whole building. There were the sounds of two bodies trading blows, but only for a moment. Pietro, voice groggy and high-pitched with terror, demanded to know where his daughter was. 

"She's dead," Ironwood said. He didn't turn to see their expressions, didn't need to. "Winter she... she defeated me as the Winter Maiden. That can only mean one thing."

"One thing to you, perhaps." Ironwood did turn then, watching stoically as Pietro tried to right himself in his chair, Watts cursing as the leg continued to bleed. "Where is she? I want to see my little girl. I can heal her, fix her — " he broke off, doubling over with a cough that splattered more blood into his hands.

"Maybe you could have," Watts said, a cruel satisfaction in his voice. "If her little friends hadn't made her human."

Some of the pieces fell into place then. His Lamp, long missing, had apparently wound up in Neo's hands, then Salem's, before it was finally used by Cinder. Watts described — with immense pleasure — the plan the group had concocted and the wish they'd asked of Ambrosius. He'd been a bit preoccupied with bomb duty to learn the details, but he knew that Cinder lived and Ironwood, it seemed, knew that Penny had perished. What a tragedy. Do you know how to bring back the non-mechanical, Doctor?

Ironwood honestly thought the old woman was about to kill him, murderous intent put on hold only because Pietro collapsed then, curling in on himself as sobs wracked his frame. The only words that escaped the mess of tears were "Penny" and then "Maria," one hand reaching out blindly for comfort. Pietro found it, the two holding onto each other as Watts sat at their feet, grinning up at the display.

Ironwood thought only, So that is her name.

The other, crucial bit of info was that everyone was gone. Dead or evacuated, it didn't matter. As far as any of them knew, they were the last four in Atlas, with Salem on her way to destroy whatever kingdom next took her fancy. It was over. They'd lost. And despite the horror of it, the realization was oddly freeing too.

When Maria asked in a tone edging on hysteria what precisely they were going to do — because it seemed this was a "we" situation now — Ironwood suspected she meant in the short term. What were they going to do about their wounds? The grimm? Finding and reaching the others? But those were foolish concerns, the thinking of someone who'd never had a kingdom's life in their hands. Ironwood knew there was only one answer here, the same one he'd had from the start.

"You can do whatever you like," he said. The metal of Amity sparkled against the rising sun, leaving splotches of color behind his eyes. "I will defend Atlas."

Maria's mouth dropped open and Watts stared. Even Pietro ceased his crying long enough to suck in a breath.

"Defend it from what?" he asked.

Ironwood shrugged. "The grimm. Salem. I don't know. I don't care. To quote a former friend, I have never wavered in defending the Kingdom of Atlas against its enemies and I don't intend to start now. This is my city and I won't leave it."

"It's sinking!" Watts cried, overlapping with Maria's, "We need to help" and though so much softer, quieter, more innocent than the spittle Watts was scattering across the floor... that single word sank its teeth into Ironwood. The woman may as well have stabbed him.

"Help?" he said. "Help? I tried to help! Everything that I have done in the last two days — the last two years — my life! — has been to help not just Atlas, but everyone I feasible could. Don't talk to me about help when you and Ms. Rose did everything you could to stop me. I had planned to help the world and you all lied. You betrayed. You set your weapons against me and kept me from saving what parts of my Kingdom I could. Tell me again: what precisely did you do to help?"

He'd crossed the distance, one hand on his holstered gun and the other leaning against Pietro's chair, using it to leverage himself down into Maria's space. Ironwood didn't need to see her eyes to know the emotion they held.

"I," she spit, "didn't try to bomb a city."

And just like that the fight in him was gone. It had barely existed in the first place. Ironwood straightened, swaying slightly on the balls of his feet. "No. You didn't. So it's as I said, go help if you want. If you can." His gaze slid to Watts. "You were one of her men. That says it all." Pietro. "You helped them reveal Salem to the world. Will she have time to destroy the other kingdoms before the grimm do it first?" Maria. "And I don't know you, but you don't earn a prize like that without seeing combat." Ironwood lifted his metal finger, tapping it against Maria's goggles. She flinched away. "Can you honestly say you haven't made mistakes?"

"You and I are nothing alike!"

"I didn't say we were."

Ironwood turned and walked away, as steady as he could manage as the world grew a little darker, despite the sunrise. Behind him Watts' voice rang out like a shot.

"So that's it then? The captain goes down with his ship? You idiot!"

He paused. "Not quite. It turns out I'm not the only idiot around these parts. Ms. Rose left the vault open." One last turn to savor their shocked expressions. "That's where I'm going. There are still plenty of airships if you'd like to leave, but just remember: they abandoned you too."

Perhaps he should have been surprised that by the time his boots hit the snow, three more footsteps were sounding behind him. Frankly, in fourteen hours time Ironwood would barely remember their conversation, let alone everything that came after it. One of them drove back to the sinking city. Someone tested the ice before they cautiously crossed it. Someone else dispatched the stray grimm foolish enough to get in their way. Ironwood saw and heard none of it. He walked with the determination of a wind-up toy, wobbling now that he'd reached the end of his string. Cool blues, a shining gold, and then beautiful, miraculous grass. Ironwood ignored the murmurs of amazement behind him, dropping directly to his knees.

When his palms hit the ground, only one was capable of feeling how soft it was.

I need to update my arm, he thought, even as he curled into a ball and passed out.

***

When he woke they were already running out of time.

For the first two days Ironwood barely spoke to the others and thus he never quite figured out why they'd stayed. Had it been hopelessness? Spite? The all consuming thought that there was nowhere else to go? That Atlas, for all its rubble and slowly rising water, wasn't any different from what the rest of Remnant would look like soon?

Why not here then?

Especially when the vault, filled with wildflowers and an endless sun, made for such an enticing retreat.

"Soil's farmable," Maria said, running some of it through her fingers. It was a statement of fact, nothing more, and the three of them stubbornly ignored the implications of it.

"There's — " Pietro coughed, self-consciously clearing his throat. "There's plenty to salvage. Machinery to pull water from the humidity in here. First aid supplies. We could section off an area for our wa — "

Watts seethed. "If you finish that thought I will — "

"What?" Maria arched a brow. "Kill him? Like you've been saying for the last day?"

Day? Ironwood blinked. How long had he been out?

"I will!"

"Like you'd be able to. Just try it, beanpole."

They argued, and they threatened, but none raised their hands to one another again, and when they finally dispersed across the kingdom to collect what they could, none of the acknowledged what it was for.

Ironwood waded through the remnants of his home and didn't think about building another. Because the idea alone was absurd.

"Don't let the door slam shut," he'd said when they’d first left, nodding to the stone slab that had appeared after Penny had first arrived. Ironwood watched the three exchange glances, unsure if he was joking.

Fuck if he knew.

***

Those four days — or five, if Ironwood counted the one he'd lost — were conducted in a strange state of frenzy. None of them were in a position to be working on such a project, but when had the world ever cared for their needs? Pietro stayed behind in the vault, cataloguing what they'd found and making lists for what was still needed. His chair, while dynamic, wasn't meant for the sort of terrain Atlas had become and his wound was still healing.

He also seemed to appreciate the privacy, frequently mourning his daughter with an honesty that made them all uncomfortable. 

Maria went off to do the Gods only knew what, disappearing for hours at a time, then coming back wet, cold, and carrying little. Though she always had information. Which parts of the city were too grimm invested to traverse, which were now completely underwater, which were too unstable as Atlas tilted like a ship, disappearing beneath the waves. It gave them all focus and, surprisingly, something like hope. Whatever else she carried was usually small, such as the seeds filched from the bio laboratories.

"Couldn't take them all," she said, critically surveying the land, "what with so many of the labels getting lost in the crash. Don't want to eat something your lot has experimented on."

"You should. If we're lucky you'll mutate into someone bearable." Watts, taking stock of the clothing they'd gathered, didn't seem to realize that Maria was flipping him off.

He went on a deep dives (sometimes literally) for salvageable tech, most of it of a practical nature, but other pieces... not. Nothing had shifted Ironwood's world view quiet like day two, walking in on Watts looming over Pietro, assuming there was another fight brewing... only to overhear them exchanging theories, the conversation filled with as many insults as legitimate claims. Still, the seeds of camaraderie were there, and were perhaps easier to grow than originally thought. After all, Watts had once been one of them and Pietro, for all his heroics, had once entered Ironwood's office with a manic gleam in his eye, rambling about giving an aura to a machine. Defense technology at its finest!

 What was it Glynda had said? Ah yes, agreeing with young Ms. Nikos about how "wrong" it all was. But desperate times, desperate measures and all that.

They'd had that discussion, of course. Soon after Ironwood awoke, talk of Amity began again, this time about whether it was possible to send another message. With enough time and effort, not to mention luck... a short one, perhaps, and only sent to an individual scroll.  But what was the point? Who would they call? When no one could — or would — answer that question, the idea was dropped.

In the days since, Ironwood had fantasized about messaging Glynda. One of the few who'd ever been a true friend, perhaps the only one left alive who might care that he was still among the living... if Ms. Rose's message hadn't killed that too. Not that it mattered. Even if Amity wasn't a hunk of metal gathering ice, Ironwood hadn't a clue what he might say to her.

Dear Glynda,

Thank you. Sorry. Good luck.

Sincerely,

General James Ironwood

P.S. If things had ended differently, I would have asked for a second dance.

How ridiculous.

So he walked the broken streets of Mantle and climbed the streets of Atlas, more and more of it disappearing every day. Their hoard grew though, born of not just military property, but personal belongings as well. It wasn't as if anyone was coming to claim them. Unless more magic was at work, both cities would be miles beneath the ice before anyone crossed the border again. Still, Ironwood would always pause before packing away what he found in the hastily abandoned houses. Bedding. Utensils. The literal shirt off someone's back. He'd changed into jeans and a thick sweater the second day, taken from a collection of civilian clothes he'd placed into a locker years ago and promptly forgot about. The uniform felt... obsolete now, no matter that his goals remained the same.

He'd encountered Maria on one of those trips, admiring a basket of yarn in some nameless Atlesian's living room. Her shoulders had tensed at his approach, but she just snorted at the sight of him.

"You knit?" he asked, unsure of what else to say.

"No."

"Crochet?"

"No."

Ironwood didn't know any other crafts that involved yarn. "Then why are you taking it?"

Maria hummed. "Just a thought. That I might, someday, try to learn." She shook a book she’d pulled from the basket: Knitting For Beginners.

A stray thought indeed. The thing they still didn't talk about. The closest they got was on the fifth night when an explosion sounded outside, massive enough to unsteady them even deep within the vault. By the time all four of them had made it out and onto one of the roofs, the sky had turned a sickly yellow, followed by black tendrils that raced, turning, back and around on each other until everything went dark. The only light came from what little electricity they had running on generators and a red aura, pulsing from the West.

From Vacuo.

Realistically, it might have meant that they'd won. It wasn't as if Ironwood had any idea what the death of an immortal witch looked like. But the night wore on and they had no idea because that unnatural, starless black never receded. In time, Pietro wandered off and returned with two bottles he'd pilfered from somewhere, cracking the tops off on the side of his chair and passing them around.

They still didn't say it aloud, though the sky and the alcohol said enough already. Ironwood kept his eyes on the watch his mother gave him, hours ticking by until sunrise was long overdue. Atlas felt even colder now and that red, seeming to inch closer, sent a different kind of chill down his spine. The grimm that still prowled below had taken off hours ago, summoned by some unheard call.

Ironwood downed the dregs of his bottle and threw it into the city.

"Come on," he said. Ordered maybe, or asked. He wasn't sure he knew the difference anymore.

Blankets. Glasses. As many non-perishables as they could find. Generators. Tool kits. The building blocks of renewable energy. Clothing. Decorations. Wood to build small, individual dwellings.

Watts hoarded laptops and a small mountain of batteries, never showing them what he was working on, intensely protective.

Maria grew obsessed with entertainment, snagging every book, game, and video until there was a veritable library piled on the grass. She kept muttering about deserving a real retirement.

Pietro built a shrine to Penny, a simple stone monument to the left of the doorway. He tended to organize their supplies there, occasionally reaching out a hand to brush the code he'd inscribed with a laser. Whatever meaning it held, Ironwood couldn't read it within the ones and zeros.

And he... he found a cat. His last day, picking his way across dwindling islands until his eyes found the small, electrical fire just out of the water's reach. The cat had wedged herself into the rubble above it, trying desperately to keep warm.

She was as black as the sky above them and Ironwood was sure, when he reached out, that she'd run, terrified of his prosthetic hands. They certainly weren't any warmer, but she weakly crawled into them nonetheless. Ironwood held her securely against his left side, where his heart and flesh were, and thought with an absurd, internal laugh that he'd at least saved one.

There was so much left to do still, but their time was gone. That evening, eating what little they had the stomach for, water began to pour from the vault's elevator. First a trickle, then a deluge, until there was a sizable waterfall to admire. Ironwood sat on the steps with his unnamed cat on his shoulder, watching inevitability creep towards him.

He could still lie though.

"There's still time," he said, addressing the three behind him. "If you head up the elevator shaft and down the west hall, you can still break the surface. Find one of the remaining airships. Fly away."

Watts scowled, avoiding his gaze. He remained leaning against the doorway though. 

Maria and Pietro exchanged glances.

"I'd carry you," Ironwood offered to Pietro. They both knew it would be a death sentence with their combined deadweight, but he'd do it anyway.

"No," he said softly. "I did all I could already."

Maria. She was harder to read with those goggles, but it wasn't peace on her face. Guilt, more likely, but that had never stopped any of them before.

"It's damn cold out here," she muttered and marched back to the grass. Pietro followed her, Watts trailing not far behind. He turned back though.

"You coming?"

Ironwood didn't answer and eventually Watts left, heading into the meadow that stretched until you lost sight of where you'd been — and then reappeared there. A tiny pocket dimension, born of a magic now lost to this world. Ironwood figured that a bit of water and ice couldn't break it.

Probably.

He watched the flood cover the floor of the vault, then lap upwards, one stair at a time. There was a part of him, a part unimaginably tired, that thought he might just sit there. Keep rooted until the water was so high it was too late to do anything. That would be easy. Fitting, even. Shouldn't he go with his kingdom?

But then the cat — his cat — dug nails into his shoulder and Watts said something that made Maria screech. Ironwood sighed.

There were still things to protect, simple as that had become.

He turned his back on Remnant, now encased in an eternal night, and walked to the three who remained, cowering in an eternal day.

Ironwood allowed them one last choice and when they all nodded, he kicked the vault door shut.

#tw suicidal thoughts #rwby #fic things #rwby fic #Ironwood #Watts #Maria #Pietro #idk what this IS #post-apocalyptic RWBY I guess #with a side of questionable people not talking to each other #Anonymous

[cosmiclatte28]

Guns and Roses (Assassinator Yuta x you)

A quicky imagine scenario i am trying to challenge myself  (4 am thoughts)

a/n ; mentions of killing, a killing demand, and much assassinator related. do not follow anything written here, it’s pure fiction and I don’t recommend you to read if those topics do not suit your taste. Mentions of rape, sorry but please do not force yourself to read this. 

The theme is a bit dark but it’s basically fluff I guess- idk you name it after reading (just be sure you are not bothered by the warning)

no tags because this theme is sort of the darkest I made (said the girl who tried to make a superm mafia au in wattpad please check them out lol, but anyways it’s me trying new genre tell me if i should stop because this suck)

---- 

You curled up beside the red-raven haired man laying down on the bed next to yours. 

With a wild grin, you crawl on top of his well built strong body and plant a small kiss on his cheek. 

“Do you know how much I love you?” 

He sighs and opens his eyes “Who do you want dead this time?” 

You chuckle, “Do you think I only say that when I need you to kill someone? Am I that cold hearted , Yuta?”

Yuta, the best private assassinator who was first sent to kill you but instead fell for you, gently roll you over his body so you were under him.

“Listen, as much as I hate to admit it, yes you are cold hearted. You asked me to finish a lot of people honey.” his soft gaze falls to your eyes. 

Your lips tremble, “So are you not going to help me?” 

He closes his eyes one more time and shakes his head, “You shouldn’t mess with this job-”

he taught you on how to be a great assassinator, Yuta saw the potential in your soul when he was ordered to finish you that one cold night. He remembered your fierce bravery to not simply accept death. 

“I will go and finish them by myself then-” you blurt out the words with emotion. 

Yuta holds your hand and pins you down on the bed before you can leave the bed full of emotion, “Listen, who are they I will finish it for you.” he sounds hopelessly strict but still soft and caring. 

You throw your gaze to the other side, “My parents.” 

Yuta groans, “Not them, we’ve talked about this.” 

You shake your head, “They have tortured me Yuta! They sent you to kill me, just because I- I-” your lips trembled and you cannot finish your sentence. 

Yuta quickly falls to your side and pulls you into a hug, he runs a hand through your back and caresses your hair. “You don’t have to talk about it if it only brings pain to you.” 

You bite your lips and suck your tears up. “They were ashamed of me, if it was - not for that unfortunate night... It- it was rape! I didn’t want it.” your red eyes look into his calm but painful eyes. 

Yuta kisses your temple, “I know, I know it is hard for you...” 

“They locked me up in the attic, they pretended I was not their family, they wanted to kill me slowly but because I- I don’t know why I still live with that condition- they sent you to kill me. How can I forgive them?! Shouldn’t they offer me a safe place after that horrible traumatic incident.” your hand slowly hits his sturdy chest constantly. 

Yuta remembers clearly the night he was ordered to kill you, he saw your small fragile dying body on the cold street, running an errand to buy some groceries, Yuta thought this was gonna be quick and clean, but he couldn’t bring his finger to pull the trigger when he sees how pained yet afraid you were in the cold lonely world. 

So he did what he never even expected himself to do, faked your death and brought you into his secret house. You were trained to protect yourself but Yuta kept maximum security around you. 

“They are still your parents, you cannot finish them.” he whispers to your ear. 

“I hate them, and I hate you for not allowing me to finish them.” 

“No honey, I will never let you! Those clean hands should never have blood on them, even worse your own family’s.” he gently takes your hands into his, giving it a small squeeze and kisses the knuckles lightly.

“I also will not do your wish, you were emotional and you will regret this choice. Trust me, I’ve seen people regret  their choices and I don’t want that to happen to you. Now, if you want, I can make you some hot chocolate drinks and we can cuddle for the night.” Yuta pulls you to stand up. 

Your face still shows no emotion, but Yuta pulls you up and carries you to the kitchen. 

“I know I cannot heal your heart,  but I hope this warm chocolate can at least make you feel better tonight.” Yuta stirs the small spoon in the warm glass and hands it to you. 

You gulp it down and your tension goes down, you suddenly cry and Yuta lets you have your time. He only sits across you while giving you the tissues to wipe your tears. 

Once you don’t have tears left, you look at him and he smiles “Better?” 

You nod “Can I go to the beach tomorrow? I want to let my stress out.” 

Yuta nods in a heart beat, his hand extends to tuck your hair away from your face “We can! I am free this week.” He lies to you without doubt. 

Tonight he actually had to do a task, but seeing you like this made him stay back. After all your safety and feeling come first, he would blame himself if you ever did something so silly both of you will regret. 

“Don’t lie, I saw your planner you actually have one tonight.” you speak slowly between hiccups of your sobs. 

Yuta smiles “I’ll accompany you to bed and wait for you now until you are calm, then I’ll think of a way. Don’t worry about me.” 

Your smile come back to your face just a little but its there “Thank you Yuta, I am glad you stopped me, you’re right I may regret my decisions.” 

He leans over to kiss your lips, “I know the feeling darling, don’t hesitate to let your emotions out okay. Now do you want to sleep or you want to do something?” 

You pull his hand to follow you to the bed, “Cuddle me please?” 

He giggles “One cuddle coming through, my princess.”

--

“Stop staring,”  you say as you yawn while waking up from your deep sleep.

Yuta quirks his eyebrow, “I am not staring.” 

You groan “Yes you are not, you’re gawking over me...” you move your body to face him. Judging by how neat his hair is and his body is covered with another tee shirt, you knew Yuta has been awake for long. 

“Did you finish it?” You ask

He smiles “I did not do the last task. I resigned from the company, I decided to stoop doing this.” 

You want to question him why, but you know he has his own reasons and he will tell you once he is ready. For now, you will just accept his choices, for Yuta is the better one in making choices. 

“What are you going to do then?” you look up into his pretty face. 

“I will enjoy a break and maybe start my own flower shop.” 

You scoff “From assassinator to a florist! You really have many surprises.”

He kisses your lips quick, “Both are sexy, and you know I love flowers.” 

You roll your eyes, “Whatever, I love you!” 

He grins, “Do you want me to make you a bouquet now?” 

You laugh, “Did you always associate my i love you with a request of your job?!” 

He shrugs his shoulder, ‘I don’t know, you’re hard to understand!” 

You flick his head “Say that again and I’ll finish you.” 

He rolls over on top of you and his eyes glint with lust “Not before I finish you.” he licks his lips and winks to you. 

end

#yuta scenarios #yuta imagines #yuta x reader #yuta x y/n #yuta x you #imagine yuta #yuta fluff #yuta headcanons #yuta drabbles #yuta #nakamoto yuta #yuta oneshot #yuta fanfic #nct 127 mafia au #nct 127 imagines #nakamoto yuta imagines

[dwellordream]

“...By the 1920s, only the very poorest Danish families had to depend on the economic contributions of adolescent children for survival, but in most households daughters were still expected to help supplement the household income by handing over their pay. Especially in their first years as wage earners, parental control over children's income was considerable. Mothers in charge of the family budget generally kept most of the wages, permitting adolescent wage earners only a limited weekly allowance for personal expenses. Young women's family responsibilities continued in other ways as well. 

While sons were given much more leeway, daughters were generally expected to contribute their labor to the household after they arrived home from work. "In my family, all the children were sent out to work after their [Christian] confirmation [at the age of thirteen or fourteen], and we all had to give mother some of the money we earned for housekeeping," Gerda Eriksen recalled of her working class youth in the early 1920s. "But," she continued, "the girls also had their chores—running errands, peeling potatoes, setting and cleaning the table, doing the dishes, bringing up coal from the basement. My brothers never had to do any of that. That was women's work."

But if contributing wages and labor to the household continued to be the unquestioned norm, young women's sense of their rights and obligations vis-a-vis the family was nevertheless changing in other ways in the early decades of the twentieth century. When earnings were sufficient, some daughters decided to strike out on their own and live independently in rented rooms, small apartments, or boarding houses, but given their low wages this was a possibility for the very few. More frequently, young working women sought to use their earnings as leverage to negotiate a stronger position within the family. Especially after World War I, when most families were able to place themselves safely beyond the poverty line, the necessity of individual sacrifice for household survival began to fade.

This allowed even working-class daughters to assert their right to new privileges in exchange for their economic contributions, and in the 1920s they did so in increasing numbers. Young women's sense of what they could legitimately demand from their families clearly sprang from their status and experiences as wage earners outside the home. In the labor market, and particularly in jobs other than domestic service, young women learned a rhythm of time and labor that divided daily life into paid work and one's "own" time. This was a rhythm already familiar to most men, whose lives had long been split into realms of work and leisure. Therefore, (male) wage earners were the obvious beneficiaries when Danish government regulations in 1919 limited the work day to eight hours, allowing working men more free time than ever before. 

Married women, on the other hand, did not experience a similar shortening of the workday. Whether they worked outside the home or not, housework, child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning were never ending tasks, and unlike their husbands, they had to snatch their few leisured moments in between domestic responsibilities. As working women, daughters were precariously positioned between these different patterns of daily life. Even though they took on wage labor much like their fathers and brothers, young women were simultaneously expected to share the steady burdens of domestic work with their mothers and to devote their nonworking time to household labor. 

It was this discrepancy between expectations fostered by labor market participation in the context of increasing standards of living, and the realities of family life that became increasingly intolerable for many young women in the 1910s and 1920s. In their minds, earning a living and bringing home money positioned them on a par with male members of the family, entitling them to at least some of the same prerogatives. Consequently, while they did not resist having to hand over a substantial part of their earnings, they more and more openly resented that their financial contribution did not always earn them what they considered its reasonable counterpart, namely the right to free time. As a result, families with adolescent daughters were plunged into conflicts about the degree of personal autonomy that labor market participation and wages ought to bestow. 

Intrafamilial conflicts are often difficult for historians to document, but in this case tensions between parents and children are easily discernible. They surface, for instance, in the immensely popular advice columns of the 1910s and 1920s. Convinced of their right as wage earners to at least some free time and exasperated by their parents' unwillingness to grant them this privilege, some young women turned to advice columnists, hoping for replies that would affirm the legitimacy of their demands. 

Among the correspondents was "Betty" who openly questioned her parents' authority. "I work from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. every day," she explained. "When I come home, I am tired, but I still have to fix dinner and look after my younger sister. In the evenings my parents say I have to do needle-work, but I would rather read or go for a walk. Can they really demand that I stay at home? I am seventeen and a half years old, and I pay my mother Dkr. 8 every week."

Similarly, "a Copenhagen girl" found the relationship between rights and duties in her life unreasonable. "Before I leave in the morning," she complained, "I have to light the fire, make coffee and pack lunches. When I come home, the dishes are still sitting there, and there are errands to be run. Sometimes I want to meet my girlfriend at night, but my parents will almost never let me go. They say there is no reason to 'gad about,' but I don't understand what is wrong with having a little bit of fun at night when you work all day." Other evidence also suggests that many young women openly struggled to obtain the right to leisure and independent activities they thought they deserved. 

Personal narratives often reveal both the intensity of such conflicts and the ingenuity of young women bent on getting their way. Emilie Johansen, who grew up in a middle-class family in a suburb of Aarhus recalled, for example, how she and her sister enlisted the help of an older aunt in their conflicts with an authoritarian father. "He was so strict. He would never allow us to have any fun, never allow us to go anywhere. It was hopeless. But then my aunt—I guess she was feeling sorry for us— we talked to her, and she hired us to do some cleaning and stuff. And we would get there and she would say, 'Why don't you girls run off to see a movie?' I don't remember if we ever actually did any work."

Equally resourceful, Copenhagen native Anna Eriksen depended on the backing of an older brother, who, in exchange for small favors, would promise to act as her chaperon outside the home only to vanish as soon as the siblings were out of their parents' sight. In addition to such evidence, numerous magazine articles and newspaper columns from the 1910s and 1920s chronicle the anger and bewilderment of parents who found themselves in constant conflict with their daughters. For mothers, this seemed particularly difficult. Not only did their daughters' desire for a "modern" life seem a rejection of their own norms and values, which in itself was hard to bear, but on top of that, some girls directly flaunted their disrespect of maternal authority, especially if fathers were absent, indulgent, or merely lackadaisical.

"When my daughter is not at the office, she thinks life has to be lived in a cafe, or in other places where people are judged according to their dress and style," "Ninka's mother" wrote to a women's magazine in 1921. "If I tell her to stay home even a few nights a week, she acts as if I've just imposed a life sentence on her." "She doesn't listen to me," another mother complained of her seventeen-year-old daughter. "When I tell her to stay home, she just laughs and says that you are only young once, that this is the twentieth century and not the Middle Ages, and that she is already wasting too much of her youth in a dirty factory. Besides that, she has her own money."

Even more desperate, the mother of one of the much maligned Langelinie girls told a newspaper journalist that she had "begged and pleaded with [her daughter] not to go there, but it doesn't help. I have to go to work, and my neighbor tells me that as soon as I am out the door, she takes off." Using whatever means it took, many young working women who came of age in the late 1910s and 1920s thus pushed for new personal freedoms and especially the right to free time. While some parents never gave in to their pressure, most young women seemed gradually to succeed in carving out of daily life at least some uninterrupted time devoted to relaxation and their own enjoyment. 

From the mid-1920s, the frequency of daughters' publicly voiced complaints declined dramatically, and coming-of-age stories no longer featured such conflicts. Apparently, Ernestine P. Poulsen, born in 1902, described a phenomenon that extended beyond her family when she explained that "I fought a lot of battles with my parents [over the right to leisure]. Perhaps I cleared the way because when my [younger] sisters came along, they did not have to do the same. My parents had kind of accepted that girls also needed time of their own."

This did not mean, however, that conflicts between parents and daughters faded. Rather, the grounds of conflict merely shifted. Much resistance to giving young women free time derived from the material conditions of daily life—the practical assistance of grown daughters was still important for the well-being of many working-class households—and from a more general reluctance to give up control over children. But parents' reluctance also stemmed from their misgivings about young women's actual use of their leisure time. 

Had daughters simply demanded more time to pursue leisure activities within the home, had they insisted on participating in cooking classes and sewing circles, or had they wanted to attend lectures on hygiene and housewifery, they would probably have been met with more understanding. But these were not the kinds of activities young women longed to engage in, and therefore the question of female leisure remained a contentious issue throughout the postwar decade.

Working-class and middle-class daughters had of course not been entirely without time of their own prior to the 1920s. Nor had they been completely confined to the home. Girls from the countryside had always been allowed to participate in regional fairs, celebrations, and local get-togethers of young people. Urban working-class daughters had long socialized outside the home on staircase landings and front steps, in backyards, and on city streets or in neighborhood parks, and many middle-class daughters belonged to women's clubs and organizations. 

What constituted the major departure from convention in the 1910s and 1920s was young women's insistence on their right to "go out," an activity significantly different from the kind of casual socializing that took place outside their parents' windows or in clubs and organizations under adult supervision. "Going out," Regitze Nielsen recalled, "that was when we got dressed up and went somewhere." More specifically, "going out" meant pursuing pleasures that took young women away from home and family, into the public, and, in particular, toward new forms of commercial recreation, including movie theaters, cafes, dance places, and amusement parks. As a social practice, this form of "going out" challenged older norms for female behavior in several ways. 

First, it obviously entailed their deliberate desertion from the domestic world, if only momentarily. Second, "going out" meant young women venturing outside familiar neighborhoods and beyond the realm of adult control and surveillance, claiming for themselves the right to an independent, unsupervised social life distinct from familial traditions. Third, as opposed to more traditional forms of leisure for women, "going out" was a strictly peer-oriented activity in which kinship ties had much less significance than freely chosen and carefully cultivated friendships among girls and young women who usually met in school, at work, in clubs and organizations, or in the neighborhood where they lived. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, "going out" meant women's entrance into public spaces traditionally defined as male territory and often imagined as sites of immoral activity where men and women freely mingled, potentially transgressing social and sexual boundaries. Because each of these four aspects seemed to pose a fundamental threat to the social and sexual status quo, intense controversies between parents and children over young women's new leisure activities reverberated throughout the postwar decade. Years after families had conceded to daughters' demands for more time of their own, parents struggled to control or at least influence their use of that time. 

By dictating curfews, prohibiting particular activities and specific locations, insisting on being introduced to friends and companions, and demanding the chaperonage of brothers, parents sought not only to protect their daughters against potential dangers but also to maintain at least some authority. Consequently, when young women ventured out into the public sphere, they generally did so under the intense scrutiny of parents who continued to hold some power to revoke their newly won privileges. Thus, even as "going out" gradually became a regular part of young women's lives, treading carefully remained an often perplexing prerequisite.”

- Birgitte Soland, “Good Girls and Bad Girls.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

#1920s #history #danish #birgitte soland #becoming modern

[olivinesea]

In the Golden Dark, pt. 4

pt 1, pt 2, pt 3

a/n: Everyone better have their toothbrush ready bc this is about to rot your teeth right out your head. This concludes my brief flirtation with happiness, I hope it’s everything you wanted. Back to regular programming after this. ~2.4k

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. - Sarah Williams

Dysania, Hotch thought to himself, dysania is what Spencer said it’s called. Before he’d started spending so much time talking with Spencer he’d never known there were official terms for so many of the things he took for granted, things he thought were just a part of life. This one for example, “dysania”: the state of finding it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Surely everyone found this hard to do he had countered. Not really, I guess, Spencer had shrugged. Not everyone. They had both grown quiet, considering the spaces between the words, the information unintentionally shared. These types of moments happened often and Hotch wasn’t all too sure how he felt about them. It was uncomfortable to share about himself, but it seemed to happen so easily with Spencer. Like some piece of him was reaching out, pushing past his normal guard to grasp at the other man, to try to pull him close with details he’d never intended to share with anyone.

Spencer responded kindly, often matching with his own stories, his own fears. It felt so natural, the exchange of ideas and the flow back and forth between mind and heart. Spencer, who so often found it tricky to connect the cues some people were born understanding, had no trouble understanding Aaron’s small hesitations, his silences following the realization that he’d just said something out loud that would normally remain internal. Spencer was guarded too, in different ways and for different reasons, but the walls were there nevertheless. He’d had trouble all his life understanding what people expected from him so he’d learned to minimize, to live inside his own head. He’d grown in his time at the BAU, found friendship and family where he hadn’t realized he was lacking. But there were always some things he held back.

People loved to be dazzled by his intellect, by the way he could remember the most inconsequential detail in a text or connect an obscure reference to its source. He didn’t mind, he enjoyed that part of himself as well. But sometimes it felt hollow, just a party trick he was brought out to perform and then put away until wanted again. The other things, the personal things, he had never learned how to share those and had always figured no one was that interested anyway. Somewhere along the way it became a compulsion to hide certain details, convinced that if everyone knew they would reject him. His mother and her illness, his own doubts about his stability, his need for help at times; he pulled those secrets in close, wrapping his fingers around them and squeezing until they stopped squirming so much. It wasn’t until he listened to Aaron haltingly give context to an offhanded comment that he dared to pull out some of his own worries. So they clumsily exchanged confidences, slowly building a new structure with each brick they pulled out of their walls.

Knowing the term didn’t help with the issue though. Didn’t change the fact that without the pressing responsibility of a weekday, where people expected him to be certain places at certain times, Hotch was finding himself unable to get out of bed. He stared at the clock, narrowing his eyes, disbelieving what the numbers were telling him. How could it be that someone who slept so little could spend so much time laying down?

He rolled away from the cursed illumination and glared at the wall instead. He could see Rossi’s confrontation played out on the blank white surface. As if he had been outside his own body, he watched his reactions, studying the degree of sincerity. Was he really making logical decisions or was he only wishful? He needed to talk to Spencer, needed to come up with a plan before this got out on its own. He had considered that option too—not doing anything and letting everyone else deal with their own feelings. He was tempted but he knew in the long run that would not work out well. He was still the leader of his team, despite whatever feelings he was finding himself caught up in. If he acted soon, he could still control this.

His thoughts returned to scolding him about how he should get up, take care of some errands he had been putting off. At least do some laundry after being gone all week. He closed his eyes imagining the laundry, the clean warm fabric pressed against his face. One of the few reliable pleasures in life. He rolled onto his back and stretched his long limbs away from himself. He could do that at least.

There was a brief moment of anxiety as he willed his muscles to contract, to pull him upright, unsure if they would cooperate this time. Thankfully they did and he shuffled around the room, collecting errant socks and emptying his go-bag that he had left on a chair the night before. He had managed to get the laundry started and was fumbling with the coffee maker when he heard a knock at his door. He spilled the grounds as his head snapped up to glare at the sound. He swore and did his best to sweep what he could salvage into the filter, placing it correctly and flipping the switch before going to investigate the intrusion.

He found Spencer standing outside his door looking a little guilty. They eyed each other, Hotch in sweats and t-shirt, hair standing up at odd angles, Spencer dressed for a day out in cool late winter sun, his favorite purple scarf wrapped around his neck for luck. Spencer’s eyes darted around the room behind Hotch. It was dark, the only light coming in from one small window. The rest of the curtains were drawn and he hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights, not needing them to take care of basic tasks.

“Sorry, I tried to call,” Spencer wrung his hands as he made an effort to stop staring at the gloom in front of him.

Hotch thought about his phone, how he had purposely turned it off, something he rarely did. He had been so tired last night, he’d needed to ensure a few hours without someone requiring his attention. He’d felt a thrill of rebellion as he’d tossed it aside but he must be really out of it to not have checked it yet today. After a moment of awkwardness while they both contemplated how they ended up here, Hotch invited Spencer in for coffee.

“It should be ready in minute,” he said while waving him inside.

Spencer walked toward the kitchen where he remained standing, hesitant. There had been a wild impulse that drove him here, even when Hotch didn’t answer his phone. He’d been repeating conversations with himself, things he needed to say, imagining all the different responses he might get. His mind had been so full of these scenarios as he made his way from his apartment, but now that he was here he wondered if maybe this hadn’t been better left alone. Who was he to demand things?

“You can put your stuff down,” Aaron said with a slight smile.

“What?” He looked at his bag that he was clutching tightly, his knuckles turning white. Thoughts unmistakable as they ran across his face, he glanced around, trying to decide where to put it. Trying to get his bearings in this unfamiliar environment.

“Here,” Aaron held out his hand, offering to to take it. Spencer shrugged it off and handed it over to Aaron who set it on the dining table. Meanwhile Spencer sat on the edge of one of the bar stools and unwound his scarf, hands too nervous to stay still, and set it on the stool next to him. Aaron returned to the kitchen and pulled out a pair of mugs. He didn’t bother to ask how Spencer liked his coffee, everyone already knew that deviancy. Instead he just handed him the box of sugar, a spoon and a full mug. Spencer kicked his heels against the rungs of the stool.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling into the warm curls of steam. Hotch hummed, leaning back against the counter, his own mug wrapped tightly in his fingers. He was awake but he wasn’t fully registering what was happening. He hoped the coffee would alleviate that feeling.

“Sorry to just show up, I was going for a walk and…” Spencer trailed off, hearing the excuse he had prepared out loud, he found it sounded false. He rubbed his thumb against the warm mug. He inhaled deeply, then said, “I wanted to see you.”

He looked up to check Aaron’s reaction. Frustratingly he didn’t appear to react at all, looking back steadily, absorbing the information. Then he nodded, as if he was answering a question, maybe a response to something in his own mind.

“It’s ok, I wanted to see you as well. We need to talk.”

Spencer’s eyes went wide at that but Aaron waved his hand and tried not to laugh outright at the horrified expression. “It’s nothing bad, I promise.”

Spencer relaxed a little, enough to sip his coffee again. Hotch could tell he wasn’t completely convinced. He rubbed his head, worsening the disarray there and sighed. He needed to level the playing field somehow. Spencer made a risky move coming here unannounced. The power imbalance of the situation, already uneven for so many other reasons, was not going to help them get through this conversation. They needed neutral ground, somewhere they were both comfortable, or at least distracted enough, to talk about their feelings without becoming so anxious they never really said anything.

“Let me take a shower and then we can get out of here.”

“Oh, ok, we don’t have to, I just…”

“Spencer, I’m sure you didn’t want to spend the day in my apartment,” he said firmly. He let his eyes scan around the room, seeing it from another’s perspective. It was barely lived in; even when he was physically present he wasn’t living there. There were no personal touches, no paint on the wall, no photos. It was only the shell of a home. He had done all his living in the home he’d shared with Haley and Jack. There had been no reason to try to build any of that again on his own. “We could go to the Science Museum?”

“Oh, I love that place,” Spencer sounded both excited and relieved.

Hotch gulped the rest of his coffee, ignoring the burn on the roof of his mouth. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

Spencer stayed put for several minutes after he left the room. Frozen in his seat, afraid to touch anything else, certain someone as deliberate as Aaron would notice anything out of place. But he had been welcomed in, a voice in his mind argued. It was the same voice that had pushed him along all the way to this point. The same voice that insisted what was happening was real and wasn’t going to let him worry it away.

He forced himself to stand up, carrying his coffee cup through the room, drawn like a magnet to the bookshelves. It was a little dark but up close he could read the titles. They had talked about books plenty during their late night conversations, he knew Aaron was a big reader. But there was something different about seeing the tangible evidence of that, the wrinkled bindings, the books stacked horizontally where he had run out of space on the shelf so he’d had to fit them where he could. There was an organization to the shelves, though it wasn’t immediately apparent. Perhaps the only thing in the apartment that felt alive, it was obvious that someone was regularly pulling books off and replacing others. He ran his index finger along the spine of one, thinking about the discussion they'd had about it. He was about to pull it off the shelf when there was a voice just behind him.

“Find anything good?”

He twitched, pulling his hand back, thankful that he’d finished his coffee so the movement didn’t cause any spills. He turned to look at Aaron, dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, hair still a little damp. They smiled at each other.

“Do you want any more? I probably have some to-go cups.”

Spencer shook his head and passed the empty mug to Hotch’s outstretched hand.

“Ok, I’ll be ready in a minute.”

He left to take the mug to the kitchen and grab his keys. Spencer’s scarf was still on the stool so he grabbed it and headed to the front door. There Spencer was standing holding his bag, not looking quite as nervous as before.

“You forgot this.” Without warning, he stepped in close to loop it carefully behind Spencer’s neck. He could feel Spencer staring at him but he avoided his gaze, operating on instinct. He didn’t let go of the tail ends of the scarf, playing with the fringe between his fingers. Neither man moved, their bodies dangerously close. He risked a look into Spencer’s face and found him watching intently. Aaron started to inhale, to say something to break the tension, when Spencer leaned forward and pressed his mouth against his lips. It was surprisingly soft, traces of mint and coffee mingling pleasantly. Aaron couldn’t help the smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth.

Spencer rocked back, looking for approval in the other man’s face, tentative but also absolutely certain that he’d done the right thing. He barely had a second to confirm the happiness on Aaron’s face before he was pulled forward by the ends of his scarf, this time to be met with a deeper kiss. A kiss that left no room for questions about where they stood. Spencer wrapped his arms around the other man’s neck, breaking away from the kiss and burying his face in the hollow of his shoulder. He felt overwhelmed as his blood pulsed loudly through his veins. Eyes closed tightly against the warm skin, he did his best just to breathe.

Aaron rubbed his back lightly, understanding, waiting for Spencer’s senses to calm. After a minute, Spencer pulled away a little, just enough to see Aaron’s face. A large hand cupped his face, thumb running softly along the cheekbone. He closed his eyes, focusing everything on that touch. He’d thought about this moment a lot, anticipating the multitude of different outcomes. Now that it was real he needed to remember every detail exactly as it was. He covered Aaron’s hand with his own, looking into his dark eyes again.

“Let’s go.”

#criminal minds #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #spencer reid #hotchreid #fluff #so goddamn sweet it kills me

[allthingsfern]

In order, my responses to comments in Reply of my COVID19 era post that was my answer to my question “My answer to my questions: Has the era of COVID19 changed your photography? How? And perhaps also, why?“ I am so confused now...

adventuresofalgy

Algy thinks you are lucky and - certainly if compared with Europeans - perhaps quite unusual in not having experienced a more profound effect on your creative outlets and expression. Many of Algy's creative friends have experienced wide-ranging and often severe impacts on their creativity and associated motivation - and therefore on their mental health as well.

themazette

As @adventuresofalgy Jenny said.... you are lucky...

I am indeed very lucky, or as I think of it, blessed. However, it is no way a US thing, nor even a California thing. I add California, because I know many in the US and around the world think of the Golden State as a haven, a progressive, hippie filled state that is all about peace and love and marijuana. However, that is far from the truth. California is like Germany in the 1920s and 30s. There was Berlin, where there was a wildness in the city that was not shared, and was often looked-down on, by those in the majority of the country, who lived in more conservative areas and who, often, economically could not afford the grand life of partying Berliners. In California it is the same. Except for a few urban areas, the state is full of very conservative folks, and for them, like for those in the cities (and in the rest of the world) this COVID19 era has been devastating. Well, and the fires for Californians have been too.

Even in this cool college town where I live, which is lovely and quiet and inspiring, the painfully empty streets, movie theaters, restaurants, shops (think of all those unemployed people) is (still) staggering. In mid-March last year, right after lockdown, I took several phone videos of the deserted street in our town and the campus, but I could not bring myself to share them, since I knew that so many others here on Tumblr were experiencing the same desolation in many different ways. (I figured: “Why add to the sorrow we are living, almost globally?”) I was overwhelmed by the emptiness of the major (well, major for a small town of around 65,000 people) street where I live and the empty bicycle trails and street on campus. And by empty, I mean that even now, I see maybe 3 cyclists per hour, and very little car traffic. Remember, this is a bicycle town; I do not own a car, doing most all my errands on my bike with its 2 fordable baskets in the rear.

And now, over a year later, that same heavy, oppressive emptiness persists. And no, I am not used to it. And yes, I traveled over the last year, but I found the same suffocating blanket of emptiness in each city I visited, even in Las Vegas. It was unnerving. As a matter of fact, last year when I drove to San Francisco 2 months after lockdown for my birthday, I wound up getting depressed and disoriented, in a city where I lived for almost 7 years. Driving back home across the Golden Gate Bridge with tears of sadness in my eyes on my birthday was not what I expected. However, I did get some solid photos of the malaise that hung thick in the air, a malaise that physically took up the space that once was taken up by crowds of people.

Now, I am also very aware that my situation is unique. (Not a fan of the word exceptional, since it can mean both unique and special, and I do not see my situation as special.) My life situation is very unique in that I have a job I love and I work with a great team of characters. We get work done and we have fun, share about our lives. My job is often, especially since COVID19 first got noticed in early 2020, stressful and demands my colleagues and I learn (and sometimes then teach) lots of new technology and that we adapt to the vagaries of the technology gods, which are sometimes unfriendly and unresponsive. And a big part of my job is trying to figure out how to get the technology gods to like us again and grace us with their gifts. (I never realized, until now, with this discussion, that the troubleshooting that is a big part of my job is creative and probably fuels my photographic creativity. Who knew?) Yet, as a group, my colleagues and I support each other. And I am fortunate to count my closest colleague, Steve, as a friend. We have been a great emotional support to each other over the years and now through this COVID19 era. And I recently was reminded (as if I needed reminding) just how unique my work situation is because I participated in a committee that was going over responses to a UC Davis-wide survey exploring levels of employee satisfaction. My 2 colleagues who were also on that committee and I did not have the complaints that others from other departments shared. We work well together, have supportive management that share what is going on and include us (as mush as possible) in the decision making process. And as a department, we get stuff done.

Possibly the best example of how blessedly unique my situation is is what happened this morning when I was talking (yes, on ZOOM) with my immediate supervisor. We discussed the work related stuff, including how at around 10:30 pm the night before I figured something out about an online tool integration I had never done before that I knew was easy but I did not see as easy until I reread the overly complicated instructions a couple of times and just figured out how and where to cut and paste the lines of code (it was that easy, just fucking cut and paste some lines of JSON code) that got the fucking thing to work. Then we talked about his dealing with his young children returning to school and how “normal” now is not “normal” from before and how disruptive the whole thing has been, yet since we work in a supportive atmosphere (and are both salaried), he was able to deal and keep living.

Then, and you are gonna love this, I shared about my original COVID19 question post and the responses and pretty much said to him what I am sharing here.

We talked for a little over an hour. That kind of rapport is rare, for any job, anywhere.

And then there is another way my situation is unique. In some ways, previous “bad things” were actually a preparation for this era of physical distance and uncertainty. In mid-2019, from July to August, first because of my work related bowling concussion and then an antibiotic resistant infection, I was bedridden for about 5 weeks and then had several absences because of concussion issues, like sudden and extreme anger flare ups, nausea, headaches. But however bad I thought that concussion and infection were, the concussion induced forgetfulness and my desire to sharpen my mind and nurture and nourish it have lead me to become, in my old age, organized. I now often take notes of important stuff, add work and personal dates and notes to my Outlook calendar, and even know what day it is, which bugs my colleagues who often find they have no idea what day and/or date it is. Yep, unique, but the bad concussion shit got me to be organized in ways that I was never able to be before, no matter what I tried. This time, I just fucking get organized, without thinking about it too much. And if I fuck up with my being organized, like I did the other day for work, I admit it, fix it, and move on.

Preparation for isolation (and unexpected natural threats) came by way of the 2018 Northern California (the region where I live) fires that year, which caused the campus to shut down for about a week. (As my friend Steve called it, the smoking break.) And for work, my colleagues and I faced a couple of long term, emergency technical outages that impacted all of the UC Davis faculty, one of them for over a month. Pretty much on a professional and personal level, I was, if not ready, at least getting used to the WTF of whatever life decides to surprise me with. (And lets not forget the really bad fire last September, seen in this video I posted of ash “snow” falling. We did not have to shut down the campus because there was no one there anyway.)

Another aspect of this last year, and one that has been present in my life for a few years now, is the BLM movement and the brutal police violence against Black people in this country. As someone who was a teaching assistant and taught in African American Studies and worked closely with students of color on campus in a student run organization, I was and am still devastated, in part because I know, from hearing so many personal accounts, the pain many of my friends, former colleagues, and former students, are still facing and how overwhelmed they felt and still feel. I understand, if as an outsider, their emotional exhaustion. This has been going on for a while, plus add the years of anti-immigrant hate against the Latinx in the US and the rising tide of violent hate against Asians, and yes, it has been sorrowful. Heartbreaking. And I have, in several ways, including my photography, tried to capture the sorrow and resilience of US people of color. It hurts, almost physically, that many people of color are just tired of talking and dealing with the hate.

So, yes, my situation is unique, but with its own emotionally draining weight. And yes, I am extremely grateful. This leads to the other 2 comments in Reply:

kkomppa

Thank you for sharing, Fern. Very interesting. Like you, I would say my output hasn’t changed much. However, I have sought locations deeper in the wilderness. This has been fulfilling.

schwarzkaeppchen

Really interesting thoughts. We live in strange times, but creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons. My photography has changed a lot. I used to work as a photographer at events and took portraits for fun... Now I'm officially a portrait photographer.

Both of these comments point to another unique aspect of my life situation: For some of us, our photography and how we do it, has not changed much, and if it has, that has been a part of our overall experience with this art form we love so much.

For me, because of my depressive tendencies, the Zen of photography, at least the way I do it, is therapeutic. And I do not use the  term “Zen” lightly here, because my spiritual life has helped me come to terms with the WTF surprises that are pretty much life, if at times the WTF of it is more impactful, as it is during this COVID19 era. And that is part of what I was trying to share with my original post: Before this period of isolation and disorientation, I was already coming to grips with the gospel truth that “creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons.” as @schwarzkaeppchen​ said. In no way do I diminish the anguish flared up by these bleak times that impact so many around the world. And really, when you think about it, bleak times have been a norm, at least here in the US, since late 2016, though, of course, lockdowns and physical distance make it all worse. But, at least for me, I try to learn from the bleak times, even if I abhor going through them. And when dealing with the highs and lows of creative energy, at least for me, I have a calm certainty that photography is part of my life and I do not have to worry, since I only love it more each day. And the other side to my certainty is that if someday my love of photography fades, some other treasure of creativity will replace it.

Let’s be real, because of photography. I think about stuff like this and get to have discussions with so many great Tumblr original photographers.

And I am grateful for it, and no, this is not unique to my life situation. I know many of us love being here and sharing the good, the bad, the confounding.

Please think about joining @tvoom and me for InConverversation this month. It has been a long time since we talked, and this COVID19 era will be our topic.

I am grateful for all y’all.

[pascalispretty]

feral

Maxwell Lord x Female Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Name-calling, hair-pulling, rough sex, slight choking, biting, unsafe sex, spanking, damage to clothes and furniture, Maxwell Lord should be his own warning.

Summary: Max has been in a foul mood all day, so why has he sent one of his bodyguards to pick you up? He’s never asked to see you outside of work before. Unapologetic filth (though I am sorry it took me so long to finish!). (ao3). 

The sun has already set by the time you hear the knock at your front door. It had been a long day; Max had been in a foul mood from the moment he had stepped foot in the office. You had been relieved when he had left early, having spent most of the day simply trying to keep out of his way.

Yet when you had settled in for the evening, a bottle of wine opened and some mindless movie playing in the background, you found your thoughts straying back to him. Max Lord occupied more of your thoughts than you cared to admit to these days.

Even as you sat curled up on your couch, sipping your wine, you found your thoughts wandering back to Max, wondering what had set him in such a bad mood earlier. You had tried to catch yourself; he was your employer, first and foremost. It wasn’t your place to wonder about his moods, what troubles might be causing the furrow in his brow and the tension in his shoulders.

Of course, it wasn’t really your place to be fucking him either.

You couldn’t even pretend to yourself that you had known what you were doing, when you had finally slipped and crossed that line. You only knew that something deep and primal had been sparked within you, a hunger that demanded to be satiated no matter what the cost.

The knock at the door came while you were still deep in thought, a staccato rap that startles you into alertness. A brief glance at the clock informed you of the late hour, and you rolled your eyes, half expecting it to be the cantankerous old lady who lived next door complaining of the sound of your television.

Something about the lateness of the hour made you glance through the peephole. To your surprise, it was not Mrs. Thomas, ready to scold you over the noise of a movie that was barely audible as it was. Instead, you were greeted by the sight of one of Max’s guards, the younger one of the two he usually had on his day shift.

Another knock on the door made you jump again. You had no idea what he could possibly be at your apartment for, especially at this hour. Max had sent things to your home before, but they always came by courier; what could be so precious that he would have sent one of his bodyguards to watch over it?

Your fingers fumble with the chain on your door as you hurry to unlock it, not wanting to keep the guard waiting.

“Good evening, miss.” He says as you swing the door open, standing with his arms folded behind his back, the rigid posture of a former soldier. It doesn’t appear as though he’s carrying anything, and you find yourself wondering again why he is at your door at this late hour.

“Evening. Is everything alright?” You ask, keeping one hand on your door. To your surprise, the guard seems a little uncomfortable, swallowing thickly as though the words are sticking in his throat. You see him almost every day, yet you’ve never seen him anything other than professionally stoic before.

“Mr. Lord would like to see you.” He manages. For a moment, you think you’ve misheard him somehow. Max has never sent for you outside of work, has never expressed any interest in seeing you outside of the office, or occasionally his car.

“He wants to see me?” The question even sounds odd as you ask it. You try not to let the idea run away with you. It was more likely that he had misplaced something urgent at the office, some contract that needed signing or an invitation to an event that night, than he wanted you for anything else.

“Mr. Lord asked me to bring you to him right away.” The guard replies stiffly.

“Can you give me a moment to change?” You slip back into your apartment before he can answer. As much as you don’t want to worsen Max’s mood by keeping him waiting, there is no way you’ll go to him in your pyjamas.

You redress quickly, pulling on a pretty button up dress for ease. The summer is on its way out, but the nights are still warm enough that you can get away without stockings or a jacket. Something tells you that neither the guard nor Max would be patient enough to allow you the time to redo your makeup, so you settle for touching it up. In your hurry to leave, you knock over a chair, sending it clattering to the floor as you grab your purse from where you had dropped it earlier.

The guard appears to have barely moved when you emerge ten minutes later, his arms still folded behind his back as he stands sentinel outside your door. He doesn’t say anything as you lock the door or make your way downstairs. His silence surprises you; usually the guards don’t mind talking to you, especially if Max isn’t around.

It doesn’t surprise you to see a sleek town car idling outside your building. Max never liked you taking taxis, especially if you were running an errand for him. Yet when the guard goes to open the door of the car for you, you nearly stumble off the curb.

The guard’s knuckles are red and split, barely dried blood crusted over the bone. The sight makes you stop in your tracks, hovering beside the open car door. Your eyes linger for a second too long on the cuts, and you have to hope that the guard hasn’t caught you looking.

Once you’ve slid into the backseat, your mind returns to those bruised and bloodied knuckles. Had someone tried to harm Max, and had come off the worse for it? You had never really seen the guards in action, except to discourage overeager paparazzi at events from time to time.

It makes you wonder what sort of a mood you’re going to find Max in. Would it have worsened his already-awful temper? A little anger from Max can be thrilling, but you’ve never experienced him truly furious before.

You keep a close eye on your route as you’re driven through the city, hoping to glean some sort of idea about why Max has asked for you. As tempting as it is to hope that he’s asked to see you for something more intimate, it’s entirely possible he’s misplaced something urgent at the office. 

Certainly it seems to be the more likely option. He could have any woman he desired if all he wanted was company; if he wanted something at the office, he would have to call you.

Yet some small part of you can’t help but hope that he wants you. As much as you might try and tell yourself not to get in over your head, some small spark of yearning deep within you wants to lose yourself in Max again, no matter what mood he’s in. When you realise that the car isn’t headed towards the office, that small spark flares a little larger.

The car finally halts outside a looming art deco building, and you realise when you step out that Max has summoned you to the Roark Hotel. You’ve been here before; Max has hosted business lunches in the private dining room once or twice, and you’ve always been the one sent to make sure everything is perfect.

It’s cool and quiet in the lobby; the only noise comes from your heels clicking on the marble floor and the hubbub of dinner and drinks coming from the direction of the restaurant. For half a moment, you expect the guard guiding you to direct you towards the noise, the familiar sounds of the hustle and bustle of people.

Even the idea that Max wants more than stolen moments in his office or his car feels foreign and unexpected. Max only really exists to you in those stolen moments. At all other times, he’s Mr. Lord. He’s not much more than a stranger; your boss, your employer. You can’t even imagine his home life, or what he does outside of the office, he’s such a stranger to you.

And yet when the guard ushers you through the lobby towards the bank of elevators, you can’t help the nervous fluttering of your heart. You don’t want him to be a stranger; you want him; to have more than stolen moments bent over his desk or pressed against the seats of his car.

The elevator is silent as it carries you more than thirty stories upwards. As soon as the doors slide open again, you catch sight of the older of the two guards standing sentry further down the hall.

Like the guard who has been escorting you, the older guard is unusually silent. You get nothing more than a stiff-necked nod from him in greeting as he swings the hotel room door open for you.

You step into the suite, the sound of your footsteps muffled by the plush carpet. The overhead lights have been left off, leaving the rooms lit only by lamplight and making the large, luxurious space feel more intimate. Stepping around the door, you attempt to peer further into the dimly lit rooms. It startles you when you see Max waiting for you just beyond the threshold.

It startles you even more when he grasps the nape of your neck and kisses you, crowding you back until you fall heavily against the door. It slams shut behind you as you fall against it, though you barely notice the noise. You’re too consumed with Max, the way his fingers are pressing against your neck, the faint taste of wine on his mouth, the feeling of some sort of taboo being broken by something as innocuous as a kiss.

Has Max ever kissed you before? Certainly he’s never kissed you like this before. Like it’s not just an excuse to nip at your lower lip, or push his tongue into your mouth, but a real kiss. You’re not quite sure what to make of it, your mind rendered hazier when he presses one of his thighs between your legs and rocks into you.

You practically whine when he breaks the kiss, reflexively attempting to recapture his mouth with your own for half a moment before you remember who you are with. Max smirks at you, hovering so close to you that your noses are practically touching. His eyes, rich and dark and deep, search your face for a moment while his fingers trail along your throat.

As suddenly as he’d kissed you, you find yourself being pulled away from the door. Max uses the hand he has around your neck to move you, and you know that you shouldn’t find the gesture as attractive as you do. With his free hand, he opens the door just wide enough to be able to lean his head out.

“Unless the building catches fire, I don’t want to be disturbed.” He informs the guards, and moves to duck back inside the room. Another instruction seemingly occurs to him, and he pauses on the threshold, his hand still loosely around your throat.

“And if you hear screams, don’t be alarmed. I’ll be fine.” If it were anyone else saying it, you’d want to smack them for being so smug. Coming from Max, it just makes your heart hammer faster against your ribs.

“Screams?” You dare to ask once Max has closed the door again. You try to make it sound nonchalant, but the crack in your voice makes Max chuckle darkly. 

“Screams.” He confirms, his fingers catching a fold of your dress as he presses you against the door. His thigh slips back between your legs, giving just the barest hint of pressure against your centre. “Sobs.” Max adds, his hands moving up your sides to catch at your collar, moving the fabric aside so he can see more of your skin. His mouth glides along your jaw, until his soft lips are close enough to brush against your ear. “Slaps too, if you can’t behave.” 

A shiver slips down your spine, arousal coiling even tighter in your core. You’re nearly tempted to risk whatever punishment he’d dole out to grind down against his thigh, you’re so desperate for some sort of relief. Before you can decide, a sharp ripping sound fills your ears. Max seizes the collar of your dress and pulls. Buttons bounce across the carpet as he tugs at the fabric, until it hangs in tattered halves from your shoulders. 

It makes your blood practically sing as your pulse pounds in your ears, adrenaline and arousal making you clumsy as you try and shrug the remains of your dress off. Before you’ve even freed your arms from your dress, Max is on you again. His mouth ghosts along your neck, sharp nose bumping against your jaw as he finds the perfect place to bite you. You finally shake the ruined dress off, letting it crumple on the floor as Max drags his teeth against your sensitive skin. 

While he roams your neck with his mouth, his fingers find their way to your underwear, pulling and tugging at the delicate silk pieces until you hear stitches popping. It’s all you can do to kick your shoes away. The feeling of Max’s warm bulk pressing against you into the door, his hands roaming your body, and the scrape of his teeth on your neck makes you shudder. 

When Max leans back, you’re barely able to catch your breath. For one lingering moment, he seems content simply to look at you. The combination of his self-satisfied smirk and the way his eyes are glittering in the low light of the room gives him a predatory, leonine quality as he looms over you. For half a moment, you wonder if he might kiss you again. 

Without warning, Max ducks down and lifts you. You find yourself hauled off your feet and over Max’s shoulder. Months of him manhandling you around his office has taught you that he is surprisingly strong, but you never expected him to carry you. Yet he does, his arm resting against the backs of your legs as he carries you into the bedroom as though you weigh next to nothing. It’s so primitive, and you know that it shouldn’t excite you the way that it does. 

The bed creaks alarmingly when he drops you onto the mattress, but you wouldn’t care if it gave out underneath you. You’re too preoccupied with Max, the hungry way he’s looking at you sending arousal flooding through your veins. 

“I should really fuck you in beds more often.” Max tells you nonchalantly, stripping off his blazer and tie. “You look so good like this, all laid out for me.” The praise alone would have been enough to make your heart flutter, but you can’t help but seize on the idea that this will not be a one off. As quickly as the idea hits you, you fight to dismiss it. One encounter in a hotel does not mean that Max wants more from you, more than stolen hours in his office and his car. 

“I wouldn’t complain, sir.” You manage teasingly, forcing yourself to focus on him, on the way he looks as he stands in front of you. Your eyes drift to his hands as he rolls his shirtsleeves up, those big broad palms and thick fingers that you spend an indecent amount of time fantasizing about. It makes you jump when those broad hands close around your ankles, dragging you down the mattress and bringing you closer to him. 

“Spoiled little brat.” Max smirks wider. His blonde hair, usually pomaded to within an inch of its life, has started to fall across his forehead. If you were feeling more daring, you might reach out and touch it. The rolled up sleeves of his shirt show off tanned forearms, and his collarbones are visible thanks to his open collar. It’s probably the most you’ve ever seen of him, of his body. How absurd, when you’ve been fucking him for months. 

Max doesn’t give you time to wallow in your thoughts. With the grip around your ankles, he pulls your legs open. You can’t help the hiss that escapes you when the cool air hits your exposed core; Max hasn’t even really touched you, but you’re already soaked. His fingers slide up your calves, catching the backs of your knees and pushing your legs up.  

“Look at you.” Max murmurs, holding your thighs so that your knees are practically pressed against your shoulders. “Always so ready for me, aren’t you? Such a good little slut.” His fingers trail briefly down the backs of your thighs, before giving you a harsh smack. His palm comes down over an old bruise, and you arch your back at the heady twist of pleasure and pain.

“Mm, thank you.” You gasp out. He makes a low sound in the back of his throat and catches your jaw in his hand, forcing you to meet his gaze. He’s impatient, despite his improved mood from earlier, in no mood to tease or drag out some painstaking punishment. 

“I want your hands up against the headboard. You move them, you’ll regret it.” The fingers at your jaw give a little squeeze before letting go to undo his trousers. You do as he says, bracing your palms against the elaborately carved wood. 

Max crushes into you with one swift movement,  the sudden stretch of him making you sob and squirm underneath him. Your fingers slip against the headboard as you try to steady yourself, try as best as you can to push yourself down further on Max. 

You don’t know how you could ever bear to give this up. He fills you so perfectly, his broad hands pushing down on your thighs as he bends you in half. You hope his grip leaves bruises. You want them so badly, for Max to press himself under your skin and into your veins. 

“Fuck, you feel even tighter like this.” Max growls out, his hair falling freely into his eyes as he sets a brutal pace. It takes all of your self control to keep your hands steady, not to grab him by his shoulders and pull him further into you. The position he’s holding you in allows you almost no movement; you can only lie there and take him as best as you can. 

Your breath escapes you in little, juddering sobs. You feel utterly drunk on Max, arousal scorching through your veins like wildfire. His eyes rake down you, drinking in the sight of you underneath him. His fingers squeeze at your thighs as he builds a relentless rhythm, the sound of your blood roaring in your ears almost enough to drown out the sound of his skin meeting yours. 

Part of you wishes you were allowed to move your hands. You want to touch him, to reach out and drag your nails down his back, to claw at him until you break the skin and brand yourself on him in the same way that he makes his marks on you. 

But you can’t, unwilling to risk whatever punishment you would get for disobeying a direct order. It’s not worth the chance that he might stop. That he might kick you out and send you home, unsatiated. Not when you can feel the beginnings of an orgasm coiling in your middle. 

“Can I- Will you let me come, sir? Please? I’ll be so good for you, such a good girl, just please-” You beg incoherently, your fingers slipping against the wood of the headboard. It feels as though electricity is sizzling beneath your skin, and you hope desperately that Max is feeling indulgent. 

“Yes. I want to feel you come around me, grip me even tighter, fuck-” Max grunts, one of his hands slipping from your thigh to curl around your neck. The brush of his fingertips against the delicate skin above your veins only brings you closer, and you squeeze your eyes shut against the blinding pleasure that’s tearing through you. 

A sharp cry rips its way free of your throat as you come. You can feel tears seep out from beneath your eyelashes as you shatter around Max, helpless to do anything other than lie there and submit to the pleasure, to him. The idea alone is almost enough to push you over the edge again, to send you toppling into another orgasm. 

“So pretty when you cry. Perfect, filthy little thing.” He rasps, a choked sound escaping from low in his throat as you bear down on him. Your whole body tenses, all of your muscles taut and straining as Max fucks you through your orgasm, waves of pleasure rolling over you until you fear you might drown in it. It’s almost unbearable, and your eyes ache from how tightly you’re squeezing them closed. 

It only seems to spur Max on. He puts more of his weight into his thrusts, fucking you further into the mattress until you can hear the bedframe thudding. Your world shrinks to the size of the hotel suite, to the bed, to the two of you tangled together. 

His hands press against the backs of your knees and push down until they touch your shoulders. The shift lets the head of his cock shred up against something exquisite inside of you, pleasure coiling so tightly in your belly it makes your skin feel too small for your body. 

It’s enough to fulfil Max’s wish from earlier; you scream when you can gather enough breath, when he isn’t stealing the air from your lungs with the force of his thrusts. Your vision is blurred when you finally open your eyes again; Max is watching you intently, his pupils so dilated that you can’t see the brown for the black. 

Low, rumbling groans are spilling from Max’s throat, almost his full weight bearing down on you and forcing more sharp little screams out of you. Everything aches, and it’s so overwhelming, and you can feel another orgasm coiling tighter and tighter-

It’s then that you hear the wood splintering. 

Your pleasured cry turns into a shriek as you feel the bed give way, the mattress sagging underneath you as you hear more slats snapping. You forget your promise to Max, hands darting towards his shoulders and twisting into the fabric of his shirt as you try and steady yourself. 

The bedframe giving way beneath you doesn’t seem to bother Max as much as you moving your hands. With a sound like a snarl, he shoves them back above your head. 

“What did I say?” He snaps, the collapsing bed barely checking his pace as he carries on pounding into you. “I told you to keep still.” More of his weight comes to rest on you, the familiar weight and warmth of him almost enough to make you forget the ache in your thighs and the sheer need burning in the pit of your stomach. 

He lets your calves rest against his shoulders as he yanks your hair back to nip at your neck. You’re so lost in the feeling of his teeth dragging against your throat that it takes you a second to hear the knocking. 

“Shut up for a second.” Max doesn’t give you a chance to obey; he simply covers your mouth with his hand even as he carries on fucking you. 

“I said, is everything alright sir? We heard...something break.” The guard calls through the door, though you can barely hear it, you’re so focused on the drag of Max’s cock against that spot that makes your vision whiten. 

“It’s nothing!” Max shouts back, not taking his eyes off you for a moment. His hand slides down and grips your neck, pressing just hard enough to make your breath catch. It’s not long before you’re hurtling over the edge again, dragging Max with you until the two of you are nothing more than a shaky tangle of limbs curled around one another. His breath is hot against your ear as he groans, coming as deeply inside of you as he can manage. 

It takes more than a moment for either of you to catch your breath. Max buries his head in the crook of your neck and mouths at the marks there even as he starts to soften inside you. A soft chuckle escapes him, the sound vibrating against your tender skin and taking you by surprise. 

“You made me break a bed.” He murmurs, pulling out of you with a low groan and lying down next to you. The sudden emptiness and lack of weight pinning you in place feels strange, and you wince as you let your legs fall against the bed. 

“So I did. Oops.” You sound drunk; you feel drunk, dizzy and sleepy and content. If Max were any other lover, you might let yourself drift off to sleep. Instead, you’re intensely aware of him lying beside you, half expecting him to tell you to leave at any moment, and half expecting him to want another round. 

The mattress is sagging comically in the middle, but it's still incredibly comfortable, especially given the ache starting to make itself known in your legs. 

You don’t look up when you feel Max get off the bed; you don’t think you’ve ever been this relaxed in his company, and you want to draw the moment out for as long as you possibly can. You’re in so deeply over your head, but you can’t bring yourself to care tonight. 

Fucking your boss might be a cardinal sin, but it’s one you’ll never repent. You hear doors open and close, and eventually a faint murmur of conversation, but you’re too blissfully worn out to care. 

Only when you feel eyes on you do you look up. Max is standing at the foot of the bed, sipping from a glass of red wine as he looks at you. That half-feral smirk of his curls around his lips, and you almost hate it for how much of an effect it has on you. After a heady pause, he drains the glass and sets it down.

“Get dressed. We’re moving rooms.” Max sits on the end of the bed as he pulls his socks and shoes back on. You don’t entirely register what he has said at first. You’re still lying on the sagging mattress, tentatively stretching out your legs and wincing at the burn in your thighs. When you realise this means that the night isn’t over, you try to sit up, only to regret it instantly and flop back down. 

“Max, I can’t. You tore my dress, and my legs hurt.” 

“Oh, you poor thing. Am I going to have to ask one of the guards to carry you?” He coos in a faux-sympathetic tone. “Get up. You made me break a bed; I feel like you’ve earned those slaps I promised you earlier.” His fingers curl tightly around your ankles and he drags you down the bed until you’re almost nose to nose with him. “Or do you think you deserve a harsher punishment than a spanking?” 

It’s not long before you find yourself trailing behind Max, wearing nothing but a hotel bathrobe as you move rooms. Your whole body aches, and you’re not certain you’ll be able to walk tomorrow, but you never want the night to end.

Taglist: @lannister-slings-and-arrows​, @pascalisthepunkest​, @coffeeandtodd​, @lokiaddicted​, @zeldasayer​, @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa​, @roxypeanut​, @theindiealto​, @space-floozy, @dindisneydjarin​, @thesadvampire​, @a-killvr-queen​, @headsindreams​, @lizzabex​, @miss-leto​, @imgrullas​, @cable-kenobi​, @mandalwhoreian​

#maxwell lord #max lord #maxwell lord fanfiction #maxwell lord x reader #ww84 #wonder woman 1984 #wonder woman fanfiction

[regrettablewritings]

Modern!Jaskier x Reader Ship Meme

Prompts taken from this ship meme

Which one texts like a straight white boy?: Of course it would have to be our resident white boy. It isn’t even that he necessarily means to, there’s just an embarrassing amount of overlap between the messages a straight white boy tends to text, and those of your rising star boyfriend. You’d look more into it if it weren’t for the fact that you know there’s no actual malice in it, and because it’s just so sad that it’s funny. If one were to go into the photos saved on your phone, they would’ve surely come upon an entire album of screenshots you’d taken over the years, from when Jaskier would be on tour without you to when he’d just be resting at home while you were out at work. Things like: “Wat r u up to 2nit, cutie? ;)” “I’m probably just gonna play whatever’s on my Watch Later backlog on youtube until I conk out.” “Wild!!! anyway wat would u do if i was there rn~?” Or “Do u miss me? :(” “Of course I do ya dingus!” “Ok....Can we do a quickie over videochat?” “Jas i’m at the store.” “The point still stands.” Or “Watcha thinkin bout? ;)” “About how The Great Gatsby becoming public domain means there’s nothing stopping anyone from making a drag show interpretation called The Gay Dragsby.” “Aaww w/o me? ;)” “...” “WAIT NO I THOUGT YOU’D SAY YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT ME SHIT NO.” “BUT ACTUALLY DO GO ON IM KINDA INTERESTD.” If it were anybody else, you would’ve blocked them. But this wasn’t anybody else. It was your Jaskier: Your foolhardy, constantly horny, but never-short-of-loving Jaskier. And besides, not for nothing, at least they were something you could get a laugh out of.

Which one cried during a fucking Disney movie?: Once again, Jaskier is the guilty party. It’s no secret that he’s the more emotional of the two of you -- he wore his investment in Titanic with pride, after all. But it is a secret that the particular Disney movie to make him cry was Hercules of all things! Not Bambi, not The Lion King, not even Beauty and the Beast, but goddamn Hercules! (On another note, he also cried to Coco. But that barely counts: Literally everyone and their mother has cried during Coco. The only difference here was that Jaskier could relate to being a young man so in love with music while coming from a family that discouraged the pursuit of it.) This isn’t a knock on anyone who enjoys the movie, mind you, but let’s be honest: Out of the Disney animated canon, Hercules isn’t exactly the most . . . emotionally cathartic or heart-string-plucking of the bunch. But just because it didn’t go out of its way to create a crying frenzy doesn’t mean that it’s lacking in some humanity. It is, after all, still a Disney film. The problem is, Jaskier can’t even quite express why it made him cry the night you both decided to watch it. Maybe it had something to do with a young man most people took as a joke trying to achieve greatness? And to be fair, “Go the Distance (Reprise)” and “A Star is Born” differently when you’ve done some growing . . .

Who put a goddamned fork in the microwave?: It only happened once, but you’d never let him live it down. You like to joke that you’d left him to his own devices for just fifteen minutes so that you could take a shower -- of which was completely true -- and that was all he needed for things to go downhill. Nobody wants to think they’d be in the wrong for trusting a 20-something year-old to not be his usually somewhat distractable self. But that particular day, said 20-something year-old decided to occupy that little spot of time to himself with TV and a plate of leftovers. And normally this would’ve been fine and dandy. But normally, Jaskier would’ve just waited for the food to heat before searching for something to watch. It shouldn’t have been too big of an issue that it went the other way around that day, but apparently it was. As much as he wanted to (which honestly wasn’t by much), Jaskier just couldn’t tear his eyes away from the images flashing on the TV. The baby blues were set on the screen the entire while -- up until he heard a faint popping. Followed by a sound he normally only heard in a cheesy sci-fi movie. The problem was, he wasn’t watching anything even remotely science-fiction-y . . . All you were doing when you exited the bathroom was going to grab your lotion. That was literally all you had any expectations for. What you hadn’t expected to come upon was your boyfriend, hollering and diving over the sofa in order to scramble into the kitchen and stop that strange, not-good-sounding sound. Suffice to say, you had to put your shower on hold; it simply had to wait for you to finish fussing, then again for you to finish laughing your ass off. And again because if you entered the shower still laughing, you’d probably slip and break your head open and then Jaskier would have to deal with another possible emergency caused by himself.

Who does the silly hands-over-the-eyes “Guess who?” thing?: You can both be guilty of it, but Jaskier without a doubt does it more. Sometimes he’ll emerge from “his cave” (aka the little nook in the apartment where he likes to mess around and write lyrics or arrangements) on a break and catch an unsuspecting you sitting on the couch or at the dinner table. Other times, it could just be when he comes back from running some errands or doing a quick interview at the local radio station. You don’t mind it much . . . Especially since you can get a rise out of him by purposefully guessing the wrong person. (“Hmmm . . . Could it be . . . my mail-order husband? Boy, that was quick. And all the way from Russia, too . . .” “Uh, no.” “The milkman, finally accepting my invitation to commence a torrid love affair?” “Okay, you know damn well -- ” “Or better yet: My hopes and dreams have manifested, oh, Waluigi, could it really and truly be you!?” “What in the absolute fuck --”)

Who puts their cold hands/feet on their partner?: Because it’s usually himself who presents as being the more mischievous of the two, and because he tends to run the warmest, it always shocks Jaskier when you decide to play dirty and put your cold limbs all over him. Is it childish? Yes. But are his reactions to the sudden feeling of icy flesh hilarious? Also yes. You love to creep up on him when he’s tuning his guitar or scribbling down lyrics, or just minding his own damn business by trying to actually turn in relatively early for once. You love even more to watch him jolt and release the most high-pitched yip a man of his build could ever even joke about making. You’ll still be laughing about it as he scowls at you, cursing your “ghoul hands” and demanding to know if he’s dating a corpse at this point. Of course, no matter how peeved he might be, you can always count on one other thing from his dramatic reactions: Him huffily grabbing your hands into his own and rubbing them warm, or him forcing a park of fuzzy socks on your feet. And just for extra measure, you can be sure that he’ll spend the rest of the night holding you close or cuddling you -- “For exchanging bodily heat purposes,” he will always reason.

Who had that embarrassing reality TV marathon?: You both are guilty of it, actually. The question should really be, who is the least shameful about it. As with most things regarding a lack of shame, it was, of course, our dear Jaskier. Being a musician with a growing following, the little attention whore just can’t miss out on an opportunity to show himself off to his awaiting public. A rising star with relatability and a taste for trash? People eat that shit up! So you’ve learned to be less surprised every time he decides to liveblog himself watching things like Love Island or any of the 90-Day Fiancee spin-offs. In fact, in more recent times, you’ve come to join in with him, adding your own corresponding Tweets and commentary. Though don’t be too shocked once he starts holding polls and letting the public decide what show the two of you should watch next.

Who laughs more during sex?: You do, completely through Jaskier’s own efforts. Jaskier’s always had a pretty lax view of sex. This didn’t change when he met you, of course, but how he specifically portrayed that laxness did undergo some metamorphosis. Before, the entertainer was much more intent on his bedroom experiences being a display of power and an ability to please. Something dramatic and to be taken seriously. He still sees the importance of satisfaction in the bedroom, mind you, but with you, he can’t help but feel more . . . comfortable. With you, it’s a little more okay if he accidentally makes a dumb noise that in no way can be salvaged as sexy. With you, it’s a little more okay if he struggles to get his or your pants off, or if he struggles with removing your bra. And with you, he’s come to find that he’s a lot more okay with sharing a giggle or being a little more loose about things. It’s fine if your fingers tickle him or if he struggles to think of something proper dirty. But it’s even more fine if you think something he says or does makes you laugh, but not in a way that discredits his efforts. When you laugh, it shows that you’re comfortable with him. Comfortable enough to be with him, and be truly vulnerable. So do forgive him if he can’t help but run his fingers up your sides in a tickling fashion, or sloppily string together an innuendo. He simply loves how golden your laughter sounds, even in the throes of passion, intermingled with sweet whimpers and pleas of his name. How the heave of your chest and rippling of your tummy bumpily sync in with the rhythm of his thrusts . . . He just wants to see your smile, your genuine mirth, and bask in it with you. Besides, it serves as excellent song inspiration for him . . .

Who is the little spoon?: It depends on the sway of the day, really. As a whole, you both take turns without much thought simply because you tend to just fall into your positions. Some days, you just happen to lay into him in a way that makes you the little spoon. Other days, he conks out next to you in a manner that most could consider would make you the big spoon (or jet pack). Neither side really fights how it plays out unless one or the other may feel small and vulnerable, or just plain tired and in need of comfort. You often find yourself playing the role of the more dominating position during those first few days after Jaskier returning home from either a quick tour, or after finishing a long week of hours upon hours in the studio, or whatever kind of press-related nonsense his management team told him he needed to do. For as much as your boyfriend loved the spotlight, the truth was he was still quite capable of burning out and needing time to himself. Or, at the very least, just time with you. Even if that means he’s asleep for most of it, with you clinging to his back as he drifts off into a much-needed sleep. He makes sure to return it tenfold when you need just the same. Sure, your occupation may not be of the same nature as his own, but that didn’t mean you were in any less need of his cuddling. In fact, with him being gone as often as he was, Jaskier couldn’t help but feel almost guilty for not always being able to provide you with the basic comforts of being a constantly present boyfriend. Hence why the moment he would see your fatigued body crossing the threshold of your apartment, he would be all over you, ushering you into a quick shower, followed by a quick and simple dinner or snack, and capped off with him cuddling about you from behind. It didn’t matter if you’d come home right in the middle of a writing frenzy, or even if he’d been in the middle of searching for a breakthrough with an arrangement -- for as vain and bullheaded as Jaskier could be, he knew he owed you at least this much. You already put up with so much of his nonsense; this was quite literally the least he could do, both for you and for himself. Besides, he who was he to fight against the feeling of you wiggling closer into his hold, to deny himself the sound of your soft breathing as you lay yourself vulnerable to him? The fact of the matter is that he simply isn’t. He couldn’t be. Maybe in the beginning when things were still so unsteady and uncertain, but never now, when things had become so . . . well, what he could only describe as being “the both of you”. The both of you, molded and entwined, never wanting to let go. Never planning on it, either.

#jaskier x reader #modern!jaskier x reader #jaskier imagine #jaskier imagines #the witcher imagine #the witcher imagines #regrettablewritings

[thesevillereport]

In Focus: Oil to $100

Almost a year ago I advised investors to avoid this trade. My warning came during Wall Street's celebration of Warren Buffett's deal to purchase Dominion Energy's (D) natural gas and transmission assets. Wall Street was happy to see a deal taking place during the pandemic and also ecstatic that Buffett was spending some of the $36 billion sitting on Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK-A) balance sheet at the time.

Several months before my advice and Buffett's purchase, oil prices had turned negative making me question the future of oil. Others however only saw really cheap oil prices. At the time of my advice to avoid the oil trade the U.S. Oil Fund (USO) was trading for just under $30 per share, a year prior, in July 2019 it was trading for ~$93 per share. Investors who ignored me and invested in USO are up more than 60% after taking advantage of cheap oil prices in 2020. That's a very nice win for a 12 month hold.

My instinct to avoid oil trades wasn't because I disliked oil or oil companies, it's because I saw alternative energy stock prices rising. I also saw electric car manufacturer Tesla (TSLA) growing in popularity, and several new electric vehicle companies ready to break into the market. I also expected the work-from-home phase to continue for the foreseeable future, prompting less demand for gas. 

Increasing Oil Prices

In 2021 gasoline producers in the United States have wisened up, they no longer drill all day and stockpile oil all night. Instead, they've taken a wait and see approach by watching the national demand for gas and oil and waiting to drill. This has translated into higher prices at the pump for consumers and a higher price per barrel of oil for investors, because there's no longer an oversupply of oil and gas.

This time last year Crude Oil WTI (CL=F) was trading between $40 and $41 per barrel. Oil supplies were high and demand was low with many parts of the U.S. and the world still in lockdown. Now, crude oil is trading at $74.63 per barrel as of this writing and supplies are dwindling as demand ramps up.

The question for investors now is can oil hit $100 per barrel again? Analysts at Bank of America seem to think so. Analysts for BofA believe oil prices could hit $100 per barrel by mid 2022. Crude oil WTI hasn't seen $100 a barrel since July of 2014.

Bank of America believes that the work-from-home trend is also a work-from-car trend, and that people who are working from home also have errands to run, and then there's the pent up demand for travel. Both cases create an increase in demand for oil.

The post pandemic reopening has seen Americans as well as others around the world take road trips and flock to the airports for much needed getaways and reconnection with family and friends. This need to get away has caused gas prices to jump from $2.19 per gallon a year ago to $3.22 per gallon for the week ending July 5, 2021 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). 

For investors playing the markets for the $100 barrel of oil there are a lot of balls in the air that they need to keep an eye on like OPEC+ and Saudia Arabia. 

OPEC's proposal to add 400,000 barrels per day to the oil supply through the end of this year was rebuffed by the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is seeking an updated production quota for itself, and isn't willing to agree to an OPEC increase without securing a favorable production increase of its own. Assuming all OPEC+ players stay in line with the current agreement, global oil supplies could remain below demand, keeping oil prices high.

Last year, OPEC and Russia failed to come to an agreement on a production cut, which was intended to level out inventories created by the shrinking demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. When Russia refused to cut production Saudi Arabia flooded the markets with cheap oil. Saudi Arabia's move last year displayed that OPEC members are willing to take matters into their own hands if necessary.

Investors also have to keep an eye on the weather. In the summer of 2007, Hurricane Humberto caused refineries in the Port Arthur, Texas region to shut down which created supply issues that sent oil to over $80 a barrel, a 31% increase from where it started the year in 2007.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted 13 to 20 named storms and three to five hurricanes in 2021. So far we've seen five tropical storms according to the Palm Beach Post.

A major tropical storm or hurricane could add to the oil supply issues and push oil prices to the triple digits once again. Not that I'm advocating for a hurricane or even triple digit oil prices, but the reality is, with a bit of bad luck, we could get back to the $100 per barrel price soon.

What's in the way of the $100 Target

There's the coronavirus, the Delta variant has been another headache for some countries in addition to the headache already created by the original strain of the coronavirus. Delayed re-openings and more lockdowns could impact global oil demand. While the United States is on its way to a full reopening, places like the U.K. and Australia are still having to lockdown to contain the spread of the Delta variant.

Another round of major lockdowns could bring us back to where we were in 2020 with a large supply and little demand for gas and oil.

Going back to the OPEC / UAE issue, former U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette  says we could see a collapse in oil prices from current levels if countries were to go off and "do their own thing, or do their own production."

Brouillette, did also state that oil could easily hit the $100 per barrel mark or even higher in the aftermath of the failed OPEC+ talks.

While oil investors would love to see another 30% plus gains in oil prices this year, the $100 barrel of oil comes with some downside for oil producers. At $100 a barrel, governments could be motivated to increase their investments into electric cars and alternative energy. Higher gas prices could force traditional combustion engine car drivers to start shopping electric.

Being a long term investor my instinct is still to avoid the oil trade. I don't see American refiners maintaining a wait and see approach for a sustained period of time. I believe their instincts will kick in and they'll start pumping out oil and in turn create more supply than demand. I also think after the initial wave of what I call reopening travel - travel to make up for not traveling in 2020 -  has subsided, oil will find its way back to around $50 - $60 per barrel.

I'm still on the train of thought that alternative energy is the future, maybe not this year, or the end of next year, but it is the future. I have a fear of being stuck in an oil trade when the first functional electric plane rolls out or being in an oil trade on the day EVs outsell gas powered cars. For those reasons and reasons similar to those I will miss out on oil's possible run to $100.

#oil #OilStocks #Stocks #Investing #Investments #WallStreet #StockMarket #Oil Market #Commodities #Money #Investment Education #Financial Education #Tesla #WarrenBuffett #OPEC #saudi aramco

[queen-bitchs-posts]

My Baby

This story is based on events from my own life. 

Warnings: Miscarriage

Pairing: AvengersXPlatonic!OC

If anyone wants me to write something just send an ask. :) Thank you to @every-marveler-ever​ for editing for me.

Ever since the news of my pregnancy was announced everyone in the tower was walking on eggshells around me. They’re acting like I’ll bite their heads off if they talk to me, and it was starting to bother me a lot. One day it got to the point where I told Jarvis to summon everyone to a meeting room. There I would explain everything about my feelings and listen to their concerns. 

Surprisingly everyone was sitting down when I walked in the door, they weren’t even arguing about the silly things they usually would. “Good Morning everyone!” I smiled at everyone and sat down at the head of the table. “Why are we having a meeting Dawn?” Tony asked me annoyed I dragged him out of the lab. “Because I’m tired of you guys treating me like a china doll,” I say it as simple as I can without insulting them.

We had a long discussion on everything concerning the pregnancy I was experiencing at 19 and the fact that the father wouldn’t be in the picture. To which Natasha said something along the lines of “We should castrate him” and everyone laughed at that. After the meeting, I decided it was time to tell the rest of my family since I had only told my mother about it beforehand. 

I decided to just send them a message because having as many siblings as me with different reactions is exhausting. As soon as everyone saw it I got a lot of congratulations from almost everyone. My ringtone startled me and I looked to see that my slightly older sister was calling. “Are you serious?” was all she said and I assumed she was talking about the pregnancy “Yes, I am,” I tell her firmly so she would know I was. 

The other Avengers were sitting around me in the living room “You’re ruining your life. You won’t get a good education. That thing doesn’t have a heartbeat yet, you should get rid of it.” she started to ramble on and on about how I was never going to succeed in life unless I took an abortion. “Just because you gave up doesn’t mean I will” I snarl through the phone before I hang up and start to cry. All at once, I heard feet run to me and everyone was hugging me all at once saying they would be here for me.

------ A few days later ------

These past days I had been gathering information for a mission the others were preparing for. A new Hydra base had been found and they were planning on raiding it sooner rather than later. Right now I was on my way to brief them on what they should expect when it suddenly felt like my stomach was cramping. “It’s probably the worry for the others” I mumble to myself as I open the door to the meeting room hearing Steve and Tony argue about something. “Guys shut up” I demand as I give them their tablets so they could see for themself what they would go into. “Good luck on the mission, come home safe” I smiled at them while holding the left side of my lower back as I walked out.

Hours had gone by with a pulsing like pain going through my lower back and stomach, and it was starting to worry me. Therefore I decided to book an appointment at the doctors for tomorrow just to be sure everything was alright. I had talked to my mother about it earlier today and she told me that I needed to relax and not do any heavy lifting like I normally would when the others are gone.

Midnight came, and I woke up to sharp pains, and when I looked down, I was bleeding slightly. Picking up my phone I called my mom freaking out and asking her what I should do “Put in a pad, and if it isn’t better by tomorrow you go to the hospital” she then hangs up. Deciding to do what she said I went to the bathroom and did my business then went to bed trying and failing at getting any more sleep. 

Driving to the doctor’s office I was nervous and hoping for some good news despite the dread I was feeling. The secretary soon called my name and she showed me the room I was supposed to be in. “Thank you” I try to smile at her but based on the look of pity on her face it must have looked like a grimace. “The doctor will be here any minute” she then closed the door leaving me here alone to my thoughts. “Hello, Ms It says here you’re pregnant and have experienced some cramps and bleeding” the doctor greets me and goes straight to business. “Correct” I answered every question he had before he decided to take a blood test and schedule an ultrasound. 

Changing into the usual hospital gown I sat in bed twiddling my thumbs realising I was all alone without any of my friends or family around. Picking up my phone I asked the others for a status report on the mission only to find they were four hours away from home. Not wanting them to worry I told them I had a few errands to run and that I would be back sometime later. As soon as I sent the text my doctor came through the door and told me that he was going to perform the ultrasound now.

---- A couple of hours later ----

I took a taxi back to the tower and went right past the others without saying anything and just went to my room. “Friday, don’t let anyone come in here” I sob out and lock the door and lay down on my bed. 

---- Tony’s P.O.V ----

Dawn had told us that she was running some errands earlier today, yet when she came back she didn’t have anything with her and she didn’t say hi to any of us. “Am I the only one that saw that?” I ask and look at the others while I point in the direction she left in. “We saw” Natasha confirmed that we all saw the heartbroken look on Dawn's face “Should someone take a look?” Steve asked with a worried frown on his face. “Let her be while we order dinner for everyone” I decided we didn’t need to crowd around her all at once. Secretly I made a gesture to Bucky telling him to have a look since he was the sneakiest out of all of us.

---- Bucky’s P.O.V ----

Tony gestured for me to check on Dawn, and I happily did, seeing as she was one of the first people here to welcome me with open arms. Knocking on her door I only heard Friday tell me that she didn’t want anyone. Knowing she only did that when something was really wrong I decided to do something drastic and broke the door off its hinges. 

Dawn was laying in her bed looking at the roof completely spaced out “Dawn?” I ask in a whisper not wanting to scare her. She didn’t even look at me “Are you okay? What happened?” I sat down on the bed beside her and touched her head. Only when she felt my touch did she look at me and the look in her eyes was nearly breaking my heart. Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but all that came out was sobs and she buried her face in my stomach. I stroked her hair and tried to calm her down. “Friday get Bruce and the others” I ordered worried for her and not knowing what I should do. 

While I was waiting for the others I heard a tiny whisper “I failed her, I killed her” it was all she said again and again. “Huh? Who are you talking about?” I ask looking at her hair “I lost my baby girl” she hiccuped and put her head down again. I didn’t have time to respond before the others came through the broken door “You broke the door!” Tony asked, looking at it with big eyes. “Emergency,” I said and whispered to Bruce what she told me so he could help me calm her down while I told the others “Hallway now” I pointed with a serious face. They all went out after me “What’s happening?” Clint asked looking at Dawn and Bruce. I didn’t know how to tell them “Based on what she told me I think she lost the baby” I then explained exactly what she told me. 

Tony had gone to get a Stark pad or whatever so he could look at her medical records and it said right there that she had suffered a miscarriage. “Poor girl, she was so excited” Clint and Natasha went in to comfort her “Sorry about the door,” I told Tony before the rest went in “Don’t worry” he shrugged. 

We all were sitting or laying somewhere in her bed just touching her so she knew she wasn’t alone. “We’re here for you, it’s okay to be sad,” Natasha said and we all made noises showing we agreed. No matter what we would be there through this chapter in her life and help her with the grief. 

----- THE END -----

#avengers one shots #avengers x oc #avengers imagine #pregnancy #miscarriage #one shot #imagine

[tealin]

Basler to the Beardmore 1: You See a Plane, You Take It

As always, the original post is up at the official blog – the formatting definitely works there, if you are having issues with it here.

When planning my research trip with the Antarctic Artists & Writers Program, I had to make a wishlist of places to visit.  One of the more important ones was the Beardmore Glacier, the route by which Scott and his men climbed from the Ross Ice Shelf (or, as they called it, the Barrier) to the Polar Plateau.  It's one of the largest glaciers in the world, but is hardly visited anymore so is rarely photographed, and despite the blessing of Google Image Search, I had too poor a sense of it to draw a journey up or down it with any confidence.

Setting foot on the Beardmore turned out be prohibitively demanding, logistically, but there are regular LC-130 flights between McMurdo Station and the Pole which traverse the Beardmore en route.  The plan we made was for me to get on one of those, and snap as much as I could from one of the small windows as we flew.

November 2019 turned out to be a terrible time for Pole flights – if the weather was OK at Pole, there was a problem with the planes, or vice versa.  However, the weather delays worked in my favour, because they affected not only Pole flights, but one particular season-opening flight, which had been bumped so many times that it still hadn't gone when I turned up. That meant I could get a seat.

The big flights ffor the USAP’s operations in East Antarctica – cargo and passenger flights on/off continent, and to major stations like Pole and WAIS Divide – are handled by the New York Air National Guard, and their fleet of enormous military airplanes, namely a C-17 and small handful of LC-130 Hercules.  There are lots of smaller trips from McMurdo to satellite stations, and these are serviced by Kenn Borek Air, a Canadian company which operates out of Calgary, Alberta.  At the start of every season, they fly their fleet of Twin Otters and Baslers down the length of North and South America, then leapfrog depots down the Peninsula and thence to various hubs including McMurdo.  From there they move people and stuff where they need to go, and also restock those fuel depots.  There was one depot flight that remained to be done, and it happened to be to a cache near the base of the Beardmore, so they agreed to take me along.

I was not the only extra job tacked on to the flight. After depoting the fuel, we were to scout out a camp in the Transantarctic Mountains which had been in regular use until a some fierce winds a few years ago had scoured great furrows in the landing strip.  Was it landable again?  What state was the camp in?  We would find out.  They also wanted to scope out a historic site that left no physical trace, to get updated intel on its condition.  Then we would fly north again via the Beardmore and the coordinates for One Ton Depot.

As soon as the Basler had finished her more pressing engagements, we were put on alert for the depot run.  Everything in Antarctica is weather-dependent, and that can change on a dime, so one is always on standby.  Because they needed to make the most of the Basler's time, they would put two missions on for any given day, then the one with the best prospects would be activated.  For five days I was ready to go – breakfasted, fully suited up, lunch packed, ECW bag to hand – at 7 a.m., in case my flight was the one that was going.  Flight status would be announced on the screens at the entrance to the Galley.

For four mornings I joined the poor Thwaites Glacier team anxiously hanging on the screens – they were trying to get out to WAIS Divide (the high point of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, from which they would catch a flight to the Thwaites camp) where the weather had been abominable for a month.  One of those mornings my flight was activated and I got all the way out to the airfield only for it to be called off at the last minute because of a change in forecast for the depot site.  But finally, the fifth morning, it was all systems go!

There are two airfields that serve McMurdo: Phoenix, which is designed to take the massive C-17s on a packed snow runway where they can land with wheels, and Williams Field, of groomed snow, for ski'd aircraft.  The extra special thing about Williams Field is that it's more or less where Scott's 'Safety Camp' was located – so named because it was far enough onto the ice shelf not to break up and float out to sea – so the view to Ross Island from there would have been very familiar to our explorers.  On the day of my false start, while waiting to find out that the plane wasn't going after all, I got to take some good pictures of the view from there.  It was also a good day to get a sense of the 'bad light' that obliterated contrast on the snow and made navigation difficult:

The Sea Ice Incident took place between us and the conical hill to the left!  Wild!

Anyway, Try no. 5 was on a much nicer day.  Here is the magnificent bird with her spanking new paint job:

It was a funny experience – I mean, besides sharing the fuselage with many hundreds of gallons of flammable liquid – in that it was an island of Canada amidst all the Americans. The crew all lived in BC when they weren't in Antarctica, and next to my seat were the usual set of flight safety brochures, in English and French, just as if we were flying out of Calgary.

Our pilot was named Steve, and I learned from him that, if you're training to be a pilot in Canada, you have to do your qualifying hours in the North.  Most people put in their time and then get a comfortable job flying passengers between major southern cities, but Steve liked the North so much he stayed and stayed, until he got the job with Kenn Borek and ended up South.  As much as I feel obliged to make a facetious quip about my flammable fellow passengers, I can honestly say I have never felt safer in an airplane than this one.  This was just as well, as one of the first things we did once we were in the air was rather exciting.

The Basler is a workhorse, and one of the Antarctic planes (though I never found out if it was this one) had actually flown in WWII – they just keep going and going.  However, the hydraulics that lift the landing gear were designed to lift just the landing gear, not the landing gear plus 650-pound skis, so in order to get them up we had to lose some weight.  And we did this by climbing steeply up and then nose-diving, bringing us temporarily closer to zero G.  We had to do this every time we took off, and it took 2-3 goes to get the skis up successfully.  You'd expect someone with a history of nervous flying and a sensitivity to motion sickness to find this unpleasant, but it was just plain awesome.

This post is getting long already, so I will describe our errands in detail over the next two posts.  I really must take the time here, though, to give my regards to Kenn Borek Air. I don't think anyone in Canada knows how absolutely vital they are to everything that gets done in Antarctica; their vermillion planes keep camps supplied and people moving around, and are the everyday lifeblood of the continent, in the most literal circulatory sense.  Steve and the Basler may possibly have saved the Thwaites Glacier project this season – after a month of delays getting people and freight out to the field camps, it was reaching a point where they might have called off the massive international project for this year.  But they allocated the Basler to the WAIS flights and Steve landed it in conditions that the NYANG wouldn't – the Basler couldn't fly nearly as much cargo as a Herc, but they got enough out there that some work could begin.  I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the Thwaites coverage and I'm sure it hasn't been covered in Canada, but for a country that doesn't even have a national Antarctic program, they should be mighty proud of the central role their people play in making other countries' programs happen.

#antarctica #travel #airplanes #aeroplanes #beardmore glacier #mcmurdo station #usap #kenn borek air #basler #dc-3 #aviation #williams field #photos