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clean-bands-dirty-stories · 3 years

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Drive By ~ part 3

A/n: HELLO I FINALLY DID IT!! This part was hard until I finally rediscovered a few songs that FUELED this part (namely “Falling” by Harry Styles and “Far Away” by Nickelback) and then I managed to finish it! Hope you guys liked it :)

Warnings: Some depressive tendencies (distancing, slight disassociation, etc.). Internalized homophobia. Demonizing of soulmates. Bigoted opinions (Luke and Reggie make fun of them)

Word Count: 5800+

MASTERLIST

Luke and Reggie hadn't been the same since seeing Y/n again, but in very different ways.

Whatever Luke was on, it could only be described as overcompensating. His energy was higher than ever, and he could never quite sit still. His voice was louder, and he talked more. He never stopped talking. It stopped making sense after a while, but Julie and Alex were too worried to stop him. When they tried, his face went blank and his shoulders seemed to slouch and he stopped dead. It was like he'd been slapped... There was a sort of distance in the way he looked at everyone, and talked, and even engaged. He didn't even really process the whole shebang with Caleb, he just stuck very close to Reggie.

And then there was Reggie. He was already kind of off to begin with. He was smart, but he tended to zone out sometimes, and when he tuned back in he'd missed something important and was super lost as to what was happening. Or, someone would say something and he would get the wrong meaning, like the context of the situation had gone just over his head. It was adorable above anything else, and the boys loved to gently tease him about it... but now it wasn't something light hearted and funny. He did a lot of sitting and staring off into space and being silent, and it was very much not like him at all. Usually when he got upset all one had to do was talk to him about one of the things he really loved, but even that was a dead end conversation these days.

Julie, Flynn, and even Alex were all completely lost on what to do with either boy. They still responded when spoken to, and if they had to pitch in they did. Luke still wrote songs and Reggie still hung out with Ray and had Carlos' back and Luke still visited his parents and they both still performed. Luke still seemed to be there when Julie gave "Unsaid Emily" to Luke's parents. They were both still THERE when they were needed, it was just in the little hours. In the small moments, they were... far away. They looked through people and seemed to drift far too much. They were spiraling in a very hidden sort of way and no one knew how to even begin to help.

It was a relief at the end of the day that they could take comfort in each other. Neither had to talk about it, so still no one knew that Y/n and Reggie - and also maybe Luke and Reggie as well - were soulmates. It was written off as Reggie and Y/n being best friends. The two had always understood each other better than the others did. They had soft conversations and secret jokes that lead to exchanged looks no one could quite catch up on. Losing Y/n had been as much a weight on Reggie as it had on Luke. It had been the most clear in those last days. Luke could see the unsettled, unfinished business resting in Reggie's eyes. It had been the same look Luke had seen in his own eyes after the argument with his parents. Every day he hadn't gone back, and when Julie had called him from the dead and he'd gone home and felt it in his very bones. He saw that look, that feeling, in Reggie clearly. Which made sense, considering that Reggie and Y/n had ended in an argument the same way Luke and Y/n had. The pair had never really recovered after that last argument. Reggie had been the one to encourage Luke to let it go when Luke's tattoo had gone grey... and now it was all a mess.

Reggie understood the mix of joy and pain that Luke felt when he'd seen Y/n. Had realized that Y/n had died around when they did. That he was still their age, a ghost just like them, and within reach... theoretically. That's where the bitter came in.

It was nighttime that was the biggest relief.

Luke and Reggie spent most of it cuddling, clinging to each other like they did when they were kids. That night, both of them were having a hard time sleeping as was usual of recent. Ghosts didn't really have to sleep, but they did get physically exhausted every once in a while. Usually a good sit down with a side of relaxation would be enough, but sleeping lessened the overwhelming amount of down time the boys found themselves in, with no one else to talk to but Julie and nothing else to do but sit around and write music, and nothing else to think about than all the mistakes they'd made and the people they'd lost and the things they'd left behind. When one's mind ran that quickly, sleep would have been a relief. Except that a racing mind rarely if ever allowed one to rest, especially if it wasn't required.

So they stayed awake and they talked and they let the time pass as quickly as possible.

"Do you really think you could still fit in the kid swings?" Luke giggled, nose scrunched in that adorable way that always made Reggie's heart race.

"Oh absolutely," Reggie responded with a warm smile of his own. His insides always warmed in these moments, despite how cold he'd felt since seeing Y/n again. Luke seemed to make that connection Reggie lost feel... whole again. Like the thing that had broken in him since losing Y/n was just about fixed. Y/n really had meant a lot to Reggie, and as amazing as Alex and Flynn and Julie were and how important they all were to him, Luke was just different.

A soft breath escaped between Luke's lips then, and his large, green, sparkly eyes found Reggie's. "Thank you Reggie. I don't think I've really laughed since-" His smile faltered. "In a while." His forehead pressed to Reggie's shoulder. "You're my best friend, Reg. I hope you know."

Reggie hummed. "Yeah sure." He noticed the way Luke's eyes zoned out again, getting duller as they zoomed in on the freckles across Reggie's neck and arms. "You okay, Lu?"

For the first time since being asked that question multiple times every day by all of his other friends, Luke was honest. "No." His voice was suddenly very broken.

There was a mixed feeling about this whole thing. Reggie understood Luke perfectly, and how sideways this whole situation was. He knew nothing could make it better, or ease the pain. Nothing but time, if even that. This didn't stop Reggie from WANTING to help though. To ease that pain, and lessen it. To make Luke feel better. All he could do was offer himself, knowing how much it just wouldn't be enough.

"Come here." Reggie opened his arms and Luke rolled onto his side so their bodies were pressed together. Luke's shoulder nestled under one of Reggie's collar bones; Luke's head pressed into Reggie's neck. He didn't mean to, but Luke was warm and he wanted so desperately to say something that when his mouth opened... "I'm sorry I'm not him."

Luke's head moved back, his shoulder pressing more into Reggie's chest as their eyes locked. "What does that mean?" Luke's head tilted, eyebrows dipping in silent accusation. No, not accusation. Worry.

Reggie's eyes jerked to the side. "I just... I wish I could give you some closure. Or just talk to him. Or just have him back. I wish I could actually help, instead of just laying here every night and settling with just distracting you." He shrugged.

One of Luke's hand rose to hold the side of Reggie's face, maneuvering it so they were forced to look at each other again. "Reggie, you're enough. Just you. You've always been enough, you have to know that." His eyes were so sincere... They were so bright and honest and earnest.

What else was Reggie to do but believe him?

Suddenly there was a warmth where Luke's shoulder touched Reggie's chest. It was that moment both boys realized two things. First, it was the same shoulder that Y/n had touched the night the two boys had met. Second, Reggie's collar had fallen down, pushed aside in all the squirming around so the same spot Y/n had touched the night they'd had that special heart to heart was exposed, pressed to Luke's shoulders. What followed next was a completely new realization. Their soulmate marks were touching, skin to skin, and there was a distinct, familiar feeling because of it. A tingling. The same tingling both boys had felt anytime Y/n had touched their soulmate mark. The same feeling they'd gotten the night they'd received those special marks. The two nights that had become two of three nights that had changed everything. Just as it was all about to change again.

Reggie jerked away very suddenly. He scrambled to his feet and then suddenly disappeared. Luke was a second slower, just behind him. Too late to stop him. He scrambled after Reggie though, appearing on the floor rather than in the loft where they'd been before. Just in time to see Reggie tripping over himself to get to the mirror in the bathroom. Luke followed, just in time to see Reggie yank down his shirt to reveal-

Two roses, stems crossed over the other like an 'x'. Just black ink outline, like a coloring page before it's been colored in. The same exact rose that had been on Luke's shoulder and Reggie's neck, but two this time. The same roses that had been on Y/n's palm the night he'd given Reggie a soul mark as he had given Luke one.

Luke turned his body, showing his shoulder in the mirror as well.

The same two roses in the same exact fashion showed on his shoulder.

Reaching out, Luke pulled Reggie's shoulder so they were facing each other. "Reggie... what the hell?" He was even more nervous when Reggie looked back with eyes that had answers. Answers Luke was worried he might very much not want to know.

"What are you doing?"

The small boy looked up to see another small boy. Both of them had green eyes and brown hair - that was the first notice. "I'm playing guitar," the second small boy answered the first.

"No you're not," the first argued. "That's not a guitar. It's a- a- well, its a stick with string tied to it is what it is. And it has too many strings at that!"

The second boy hid the stick behind his back, his chubby face screwing up in anger. It was like a pouting puppy, and the first small boy had to admit it was... kind of adorable. "It IS a guitar," the adorable boy huffed. "What do you know about guitars anyway."

A smile adorned the face of the first boy. "My mom has one. She said I could have it one day."

The adorable boy tilted his head. "Well I guess you're lucky then."

The first boy laughed. "Would you like to play it some day?" The adorable looked shocked, and the first boy smiled even wider. "Thought so. What's your name?"

"Luke," the adorable boy answered. "Yours?"

"Reginald. I... don't like it though." Reginald scrunched his nose, shaking his head.

Luke nodded. "What about a sort of nickname then? Something you like more." Reginald sat next to Luke, and the not-guitar-actually-a-stick was abandoned in favor of the conversation. "There's all sort of odd, funny ones. Like um, Gin."

"That's even worse," Reginald complained.

Luke giggled. "Uh, how about Ginny?" Reginald only had to glare for Luke to rush out, "Okay okay okay, HUGE no on that then. I suppose... well you could be totally boring and go with Reggie."

"What's wrong about boring?" Reginald asked immediately. "You need a little bit of it to make everything else interesting." As Luke went to respond, Reginald continued, "Plus, look who's talking! Luke is the most normal name I've ever heard."

"It's short for Lukas," Luke defended.

"Even worse!" Reginald declared. "Why go with Luke? That's the most obvious nickname for Lucas!"

Luke nodded. "Yeah, but my name is spelled Lukas with a K. So it's cool."

After a second, Reginald nodded. "You can call me Ginny if I can call you Kas."

That made Luke bust up laughing. "You can call me Kas all you want. It's a fun nickname I think."

"I think I'll stick to Reggie though," Reggie decided.

Another nod from Luke. "That's fair." He hesitated a moment. "Wanna be friends?"

A grin like no other took Reggie's face, and Luke found his insides warm up and soften. "Absolutely."

Luke's mind was reeling.

Reggie was worrying. Exceedingly.

"Are you mad at me?" Reggie had never been known for holding his emotions in, and really neither had Luke.

Which is why it was no surprise when the guitarist suddenly looked up, eyes wide with surprise and expression open and honest. "Why would I be mad at you?"

For second, Reggie didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to explain the emotions in his chest that hurt so much. But then he looked into Luke's eyes, and the words came on their own. "I know things haven't been easy for you when it comes to mixing band members and romance. Or when it comes to soulmates." He shrugged. "It doesn't help that - I mean, we've changed a lot, and being with Julie has taught us so much. We've learned to accept a lot about ourselves, and we're lucky for that. But we were still born and raised in the 90's. And back then, soulmates were... bad."

Immediately, Luke sighed. Reggie realized it was in relief. "I feel like I'm behind. Like I didn't leave those fears behind when he got brought back. I still feel like... sometimes I still feel like loving Y/n is wrong. Like I need to keep it a secret and hide it away and push it down. I got so scared when Julie found about my soulmate mark - and then was so surprised when she was so casual about it. I still expect her to snap at me, or be secretly bitter that I'm asexual, or attracted to men. I don't know." he shook his head, sighing again. His shoulders sagged, and Reggie realized that he must feel so relieved to have lost whatever huge amount of stress he was carrying this entire time keeping that inside. "Does it make me a bad person? To flinch away from things like that? It's not that I hate it, I just-" He was obviously struggling.

Sitting down next to Luke, Reggie placed his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Luke you were conditioned from a kid to hate the things about yourself that are most important to you. Things that are ingrained in your coding." He chuckled, and Luke smiled. "Hell, I think even people who were born nowaday still struggle with it sometimes. It's programming. Subconscious. Your emotions don't make you - the way you react to them do."

At that, Luke finally completely relaxed, resting his head on Reggie's shoulder. "Do you ever realize that the only reason people back then demonized soulmates so much is just because it was one less thing they could control? Like, people back then really cared about power so much. Power over people specifically. Like I remember that week that our school did a campaign for fighting against soulmates-"

Reggie gasped. "Oh my god I remember that! They said it was brainwashing. Wasn't it like... like I remember it was so cool for a while, but then people of the same gender started to become soulmates and everyone lost their minds."

"Men and women balance each other out; same sex attraction is an easy way out and ultimately cheats people who deserve better," Luke mocked, his voice snapping and bitter. "This just proves that soulmates are of the devil!"

Reggie busted up laughing. "Don't remind me of Mrs. Kyde-" He snorted, leaning into Luke more, his face light up with a smile.

Luke shook his head. "People are so weird. Literally what does who anyone loves or marries or whatever have anything to do with anyone not involved in that relationship? You don't like the fact that I'm into men? Fine! Go be straight somewhere else." He rolled his eyes. "I hate thinking about how afraid I used to be. Of people finding out about Y/n and me. GOD we were so happy. And the way people treated him..." Suddenly the mood dropped, and Luke raised his hand to wipe away a tear. He scoffed softly. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry for feeling things, Luke," Reggie reassured, raising his arm to wrap around Luke's shoulders and pull both of their bodies closer together.

Turning his head to thank Reggie, Luke stopped short when he then realized how close they were. "You know," he said softly. "It's so weird to realize you're my soulmate too." He smiled though, so Reggie didn't panic as much as he would have normally. "I mean, you were really right there from the beginning. We met in middle school. I was like. Tiny." Reggie giggled and both of them were suddenly smiling again. "You were there for all my worst phases."

Reggie groaned. "God you were my sexual awakening."

"I wasn't," Luke gasped, eyes wide.

"You were." Reggie laughed again, shaking his head. "I was CRUSHED when you started dating Alex. And then you two were so happy, and I saw how hard it was. Saw you guys figure that out, and then kind of devolve into just being friends. And then we started the band, and I realized it was just so much easier to stay friends with you."

"We took ages to figure that out," Luke recalled. "I don't think we ever really figure out personal space again."

Reggie nodded. "And then Y/n came along and I figured I could just jam with being friends. I was so used to it at that point, and there were so many things to be distracted by. Our band was gaining traction and people were talking to us. To me. You two were so happy, and it was a little dangerous and fun and I was so relieved that I hadn't done anything, because I was watching soulmates interact properly and it was everything I ever wanted. I was glad I hadn't gotten between that." His smile faded. "And then..."

"And then you and Y/n," Luke offered. Reggie nodded. After a few seconds of silence, Luke asked, "So what do we do now?"

Shrugging, Reggie looked back at Luke. "What do you want to do?"

Luke thought about that for a second. "Well I know how happy I was with Y/n, and now the stupid things I was worried about before just won't be a problem. No one can see us unless we perform, and the person who can always sees us doesn't care. We don't have to worry like Y/n and I did. And maybe we'll see Y/n again. But we might not, and even if we do it won't mean things are going to go back to what they were. Do you... like him?" Reggie hesitated, then nodded. "Do you like me?" With less hesitation came another nod. "Can I... try something?" Yet another nod, this time with no hesitation.

His heart racing, Luke took a leap of faith. He knew himself at this point. Knew that there was only really one way to figure out his emotions. If he tried to figure it out via analysis, he'd eventually over think it until nothing made sense and he was just more confused. So he did something he knew would work. He softly grabbed Reggie's face and pulled his best friend to him until they were kissing.

When their lips touched, something seemed to unlock in Reggie. He shuddered and Luke leaned back immediately, eyes wide with nervousness. But then he saw the way that Reggie leaned in after him and he felt his heart swell and his insides warm. Reggie looked at him, unsure, but then seemingly at the same time they both grabbed each other, meeting for a passionate kiss that set them both on fire.

All either of them could think for a while was... Finally.

Luke was so happy to see Y/n getting along so well with his friends. They had met only an hour ago and Alex and Y/n had already bonded over being attracted to men. Bobby was standing back a bit, unsure how to approach Y/n and the situation implied between this new boy and Luke. Bobby didn't mind it, he knew about Alex after all. It had just surprised him because he didn't know about Luke. On top of that, he DID very much know about Y/n and his reputation, so he didn't know what to do with this person that seemed so different than the one Bobby had heard about, being seemingly romantically involved with a dude who Bobby had been sure was straight until today. Reggie and Y/n had distracted from Bobby's awkwardness by hitting it off right out of the gate with how comfortable they were with physical affection, as well as the fact that Y/n just seemed to be so quickly aware of and good with Reggie's little odd ways of doing things that were always so different than how most other people did them. Y/n was extremely insightful, and a fast learner and those two skills came in handy now.

In fact, Y/n and Reggie were getting along so well that Alex and Bobby had settled by Luke. A calm, warm air had settled in the room just like it always did when they were all together. The studio attached to Bobby's house had become like a second home for the three boys. Luke hoped that would carry to Y/n to.

After introductions, Y/n stayed for a little band practice, grinning from ear to ear as he clapped between songs. It seemed to fuel Luke, which only fueled the others. Luke's energy had always been contagious to his best friends, and now was no different. It only took one song for Bobby to warm up to the surprises he'd had tonight and this stranger he wasn't sure what exactly to do with. By the end of it, Y/n was shouting so loud Luke had to come over and gently remind him it was getting late and people might handle a band playing, but they definitely would refuse to tolerate straight up screaming. When the sun began to set, they all headed out to sit on Bobby's roof and watch the sun set as they talked about that day's practice just like they always did. Except, instead of the usual criticism and praises and general discussion, they turned to Y/n to get an third person opinion. Their mistake too, because Y/n grabbed the opportunity immediately to drown them all in praise, sparing no second or word to tell them how amazing they were and how much he loved their music.

"You play at all?" Bobby asked as Y/n began to calm down, blushing as he got self conscious at how long he'd been talking.

Thankful for Bobby sensing his rising awkwardness and distracting him from it, Y/n shot the rhythm guitarist a warm smile. "My older sister did." His smile faltered and the other boys exchanged looks before Reggie - who knew enough about siblings to recognize when someone mentioned something about them they didn't want pressed - shook his head in a firm no.

Luke took that to heart - he always trusted Reggie's instincts - and let it go. "So you've been around music a lot then. Anything you've especially taken to? Favorite band?"

Y/n smirked, but none of them were fast enough to stop him from saying, "You guys of course." The others groaned, but Luke's eyes only widened and he blushed. Y/n winked.

Eventually everyone had to go to bed. Alex, Luke, and Reggie had stayed here hundreds of times easy, but Y/n was hesitant to join them tonight. When Bobby encouraged it, finally he gave in and curled up with Luke on the couch. The first to fall asleep - to everyone's surprise - was Y/n. Bobby, who always slept in the studio when the boys stayed over, smiled at Luke. "So you found your soulmate."

That of course made Luke just beam with joy. "Yeah." Y/n had fallen asleep on Luke's chest and it was the most comfortable Luke had ever been in his light. He loved the weight of Y/n on him, reminding him every single second that this was real. "It's everything I thought it was going to be," he mused dreamily. "He just fits, like a puzzle piece. I totally thought I had everything figured out and then this person drops into the middle of my life and suddenly there's a whole other half of this picture I was sure I'd finished a long time ago..." He shook his head. "It's great."

Reggie chuckled. "So great you took, what, a month and a half to tell us about him?"

Luckily Y/n was a heavy sleeper, because if he hadn't been Luke would have woken him up with how hard he flinched. "I just didn't know how you guys would have reacted. Y/n kind of has a reputation, and I don't care obviously, but he's been through a lot of shit with people who do care and if you guys hadn't all gotten along it would have been the worst." Alex went to say something and Luke rushed to add, "And it's not that I thought you guys were dicks or anything. I just had this... fear, anyway. I mean, I've been standing by the fact that I don't really like anyone for a while and that's why most things like this haven't worked out, and it's still weird and complicated but Y/n is helping me a LOT to figure out that some attractions are different than others and..." He sighed, eyes purposefully looking away from Alex.

Sensing the core of Luke's worry, Alex reached over and touched Luke's shoulder, a genuine smile on his face. "Luke, I'm happy for you. I'm glad you figured out all the stuff you were struggling so much with back then and that you can be happy now." There was an unspoken, 'even if it's not with me' that he didn't have to say.

After that, the conversation died pretty quickly, and Bobby and Alex went to sleep too.

"Do you still think we'll be able to cuddle and stuff?" Reggie asked softly, looking up from where he lay.

Rolling his eyes, Luke answered, "Of course Reggie. The only thing that's going to change is that I might be a little less needy. I'll always be your Kas."

That made Reggie settle more, smiling to himself. There was something about thinking of Luke as HIS that made butterflies flutter in his stomach. "Good because I might've had to fight your boyfriend if that wasn't the case."

Luke chuckled. "Go to bed, Gee." After all those years, Luke had finally come up with his own, original nickname for Reggie that didn't sound stupid, and they both loved it.

Getting more comfortable, Reggie decided to do just that, right after one final, "Goodnight, Kas."

A sleepy, "Goodnight, Gee," came from Luke as they both finally drifted into sleep along with the others.

Things had been complicated, but that had been the case for far too long now, and Reggie and Luke had done everything in their power to make it as simple as possible. With the threat of being erased from existence completely looming over their heads, and no way to mend things between them and Y/n, now was as good a time as ever to let go of the past and hold on to the little time they had now. And they made it work. Despite the fear. Despite the pain. Despite once again losing all of the things that could have been and that they so wanted to be, what they did have was their soulmate mark, and that MEANT something. For now, they'd be fine with that.

Tonight was supposed to be it. They'd said their goodbyes and lined up the performance up so the boys could pass on. But they weren't showing up, and Julie Molina knew her boys well. Too well to think they'd left her again, so that meant two things. They were doubled over in pain somewhere, too incapacitated to play. Or... they were already gone. It had been too late and they'd been destroyed Julie had to do this performance completely by herself. Performing after Panic at the Disco, in one of the most sought after local gigs. In a packed auditorium.

In that moment, Julie did the only thing she knew how to. She went to her mom for help.

Rose Molina didn't show up, but someone did. A boy, maybe one or two years older than him. He was completely decked in white. Just jeans a t-shirt and everyday shoes, except he didn't have even a speck of dust or shirt on him. He was so clean that under the moonlight in the dark, dim alleyway, the boy seemed to glow. He smiled to her and extended his arm, and in his hand was a single flower.

A Dahlia.

She took it, her eyes welling with tears. She'd asked for a sign, and a boy as close to angelic as one could get without causing a scene had shown up to give her the flower that had always been her mother's favorite. He turned around and began to walk away but she rushed after him, reaching to catch his arm. She gasped when her hand went right through him. He turned as if he felt it, that soft, warm smile still on his face.

"Who are you?" She asked with a voice filled with awe.

He seemed to get sheepish. "I'm not an angel, if that's that you're thinking."

"Then what are you?" Julie asked, stepping closer.

For a second, he just thought. "A friend," is what he gave her. "When you need me most, I'll be there. I can promise that." And then he rose a single hand and waved at her before disappearing in a fashion that she had seen more than plenty of times with the boys.

After, when she tried to recall anything special about the boy other than his pristine, perfectly clean white clothes, she remembered few things. She'd been too caught up in the moment that was already packed with stress and heavy emotion and shock to think about anything else. It wasn't until after, when the boys were better and Luke had grabbed Reggie's face and kissed him in pure relief that she thought about the boy again. It wasn't much longer later - just later that night - but that had brought him into her mind was a surprise. For the first time in a long time, Julie was seeing Luke without sleeves, and as he turned to grasp his boyfriend in the heat of the moment, Julie saw his soulmate mark. Except now, it was a little different. It had two roses instead of one.

It was the exact sane mark that had been on the boy in the white clothes' hand as he waved goodbye to her.

She rushed to him touching his shoulder with wide eyes. "Luke, your soulmate mark..."

Reggie got excited, unbuttoning his shirt a little to show the matching one he had on his upper chest. "We're soulmates, Julie. Didn't we tell you that?"

"Well yeah," Julie dismissed, looking between the to marks that not only matched each others' but also the one from earlier that had been on the mystery boy's hand. "But... it changed."

Luke and Reggie looked at each other and decided silently in that moment that they couldn't handle it. Not right now. Not on top of everything else. They couldn't talk about Y/n. So Luke told a half truth. "It changed."

Immediately Julie glared at Luke. "This didn't change Luke, it doubled. Soulmate marks don't do that. They fade at best. There's been three cases total in all of the history of visible soulmate marks that completely disappeared - it's extremely rare for them to even make room for new marks, let alone create a whole new one that looks that similar to the last one you had there." Her face relaxed. "You guys are both soulmates with Y/n."

Reggie sighed, his happiness and relief melting for despair. "Yeah." He shook his head. "But can we please not talk about that? We just barely didn't completely die, and-"

"But I know where to find him," Julie rushed urgently. The two boys froze.

"What?" Luke choked out.

Julie took off, out of the room and returning back again with the Dahlia she'd received from who she now knew to be Y/n. She knew that the boys had seen him when they'd been at Bobby's house, but at the time she hadn't known who to look for and had missed him. She had gotten a description of him though here and there a few times, and from what she knew, this had to be him. If anything, the mark was enough. She didn't know why it hadn't hit her the second she'd seen the two roses, so very similar to Luke's one she'd seen before, right in the place that she knew Y/n's mark to be. Pushing that out of her mind now, she held up the flower to the boys. "When I thought you guys were gone, I went into the alley and I asked my mom to-" her voice got suddenly think with emotion and she cleared her throat, shaking her head. "I asked for a sign. Anything to let me know she was still here and watching me. That she was like you guys, or maybe somewhere else. Helping. And then Y/n showed up with THIS and told me he was a friend and that I could call on him anytime I needed him. That he would be there for me."

Luke ran a hand through his hair. "How did you know it was him?" His voice was strained, but the message still came across.

"He waved at me before he disappeared. He had the same roses on his palm, that you two do. We can find him! We can finally fix what happened all those years ago!" She grinned, her smile making the room brighter. "You guys can FINALLY go and get your man!"

Reggie and Luke looked at each other again, but this time their expressions were unreadable. When they turned back to look at Julie, she thought they were about to have a whole new purpose. Something GOOD that actually meant something. Not struggling for success, or running from life threatening danger, but something purely good that would finally help two of her four closest friends find peace with the one thing they regretted most about their lives before. Then Reggie spoke, only one word. One word that made less sense than anything Julie had heard in her entire life.

Reginald Peters opened his mouth and with complete conviction told her, "No."

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grishaversecommunityyy · 3 years

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The Grishaverse Ship Survey Results

So! After all of that, we finally have the results! What is the general opinion on the ships in the Grishaverse? Well, that’s for you to read below! It’s actually pretty interesting and, while some parts make sense, there were definitely some parts which... surprised me... Anyway, onto the results!

Everything in this post can be split into:

The Grisha Trilogy

Six Of Crows Duology

The Nikolai Series

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

Most Enjoyed Ships

Least Enjoyed Ships

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

Notes from the Survey

(note from mod emily: i tried to bold all of fritz’ comments, but i might have missed a few! be aware there are two of us analysing here :))

The Grisha Trilogy

The first book series we asked about was, of course, the first chronologically: the Grisha Trilogy. The most popular ship, with 83% voters for this series selecting this, was Genya/David (Fritz was glad to hear that; Yes I am). This is likely due to the lack of alternate romantic interests in the series, which seems to be a major issue for Alina’s ships. It also seems to be one genuinely enjoyed by most fans, in contrast to Darkling/Alina and Mal/Alina (each around 30%) and Nikolai/Alina (just under 20%), for which I have definitely seen plenty of debate. The second and third most popular ships for this series were Tamar/Nadia (55%) and Nikolai/Zoya (47%). Interestingly, Genya/Alina (43%) and Zoya/Alina (30%) ranked surprisingly high, especially considering how few of my friends and associates I hear talking about them. Good for them!

Honourable mentions:

Alina/Sun (no doubt inspired by that crack fic I wrote a while back) (Still havent read that out of fear)

Alina alone (a common concept among those surveyed, though most mentioned it later)

Zoya/Genya or Alina/Zoya/Genya

Six Of Crows Duology

This series was a little less divided, I would say. Predictably, Kaz/Inej came out on top with a whopping 96% of voters (:relieved:), with Wylan/Jesper next (90%) and Nina/Matthias just after (83%). None of the others really came close, despite Nina/Inej gathering 35% of the votes and Colm/Aditi at 25% (yeah, I’m not sure why that was so popular on AO3 either, but nobody really has objections so I assume that’s why it amassed so many votes). As Six of Crows is decidedly less divisive about ships and doesn’t have such controversial ships (more on that later), it seems the fandom agrees with canon pairings and the votes are... pretty unanimous.

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper/Wylan/Kuwei

Polycrows (platonic or romantic)

Kaz/Inej/Nina

Whoever didn’t read the instruction about this being for only the book series and put Jesper/Milo. I will never escape.

The Nikolai Series

This one is a little harder for me because I actually haven’t read this... so over to Fritz for analysis! But first, the stats. At 85%, the most popular ship is Genya/David, followed by Zoya/Nikolai at 77%. Tamar/Nadia and Nina/Hanne draw at 61.5% and Nina/Matthias has 56% voters onboard. There’s no real honourable mentions for this one, sadly. Hello Fritz here! Read the books and very glad to see Genya/David as the top ship as it damn well should. Although still a bit surprising since its more of a side-arc of the two and only ties in with the importance of the story at a specific chapter that I feel like I don’t need to elaborate about, if you read Rule of Wolves. (I believe the popularity of the ship also sky-rocketed due to ROW) Following of course Zoya/Nikolai, the high ranking makes sense, it is the main ship and lets be honest they deserve it <3

I think the only really surprising thing about this is the high votes for Nina/Matthias since [SPOILERS CROOKED KINGDOM] he’s dead so I feel like people should move on from that. Nina/“Hanne” having not as high a ranking as I would’ve thought, but with Matthias still being in the frame I guess we shouldn’t be surprised either.

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

This one is really interesting, with the exclusive show watchers now taking part! We have 89% voting for Kaz/Inej, 76% for David/Genya, 71% for Matthias/Nina, 67% for Ivan/Fedyor (that’s a thing???-->Yeah they had a few somewhat sweet interactions in the background-->nvm i watched it you’re right fritz) and 62% for Mal/Alina. What’s really surprising is how high Malina is compared to Darklina, with Darkling/Alina at 36%. Who knows, maybe Fritz’ analysis can shed some light on this?

Yes yes Fritz to the rescue: First of all we have to see their interactions a little different from what we already knew of them by the end of episode 8. I still think it is a surprising number, since the Darkling in the show isn’t as nasty as he was in the books BUT over all his actions are now seen on TV. We all thought the deer antlers were a necklace amirite? Well no apparently not, the darkling used the worst kind of small science to fit Alinas collarbone to the bone and out comes a gruesome sight: a reason why many people might have started thinking: Wow what a disgusting person he is. And on the Malina “ship”: Mal finally has personality!! jkjk :eyes: Mals and Alinas friendship has been portrayed way better in the show and I believe that the people noticed more chemistry between them especially by the end of season 1. So I’m still a little surprised Darklina has such a low ranking (what with him being all sweet and cuddly in the middle of the show) but it makes sense and the Malina ship as well. Their vibes are just *chefs kiss* and thats coming from someone who didnt even like any of these “ships” <3

Loving the quotation marks for the word ‘ships’, Fritz. Over to the honourable mentions!

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper and Milo (isn’t milo a goat? guys, why?)

Nadia/Marie (huh that didn’t appear anywhere else)

One person had several - Kaz/Inej/Jesper, Dubrov/Mikhael, Dubrov/Mikhael/Mal - and yeah, you can really see the show differences in these mentions right? (whose dubrov...and whose mikhael...)

16% actually voted for Inej/Alina which is wild to me because of book context (they did have chemistry in the show tho :cowboi_smirk:)

Another person with several! We have Nina/Inej, Genya/Alina, Zoya/Alina, Zoya/Genya/Alina. Very sapphic. Good for you.

Kaz/Jesper and Nina/Inej all in one

That’s a lot of honour and mentions but it’s so interesting to me and I think you should see too

Most Enjoyed Ships

The most enjoyed ship was Kaz/Inej. This had unparalleled support, being at 35%. Jesper/Wylan, which was next on the list (23.5%) and Nina/Matthias (18%) were also pretty popular. Most of the others were quite low, though interestingly Mal/Alina only had 1 vote (plus one for the show version). Overall, the SoC ships were a lot more popular in this section, which makes sense - this part is really about your favourite ship, and those were more unanimous in the last sections.

Least Enjoyed Ships

Most people said Darkling/Alina, which got 47% of the NOTP votes. A lot more people disliked Darkling/Alina than liked Kaz/Inej. Make of that what you will, but I take it as a somewhat general agreement among many of you guys. Mal/Alina was also strongly disliked at 22%, but around a half or more of these were clarified to be about the book version of the ship specifically. They really must’ve upgraded in the show! Jesper/Kuwei and any other Darkling ships were also voted by a few, but all of these pale in comparison to the anti-Darklina votes. Shoutout to the person who said Apparat/Anyone. I agree, though it’s not something I thought of before seeing this response. Also one person said they didn’t like the poly ships, which I hope meant just the ones mentioned earlier and not all poly relationships in general... Another shoutout to whoever said Kaz/Heleen, because why did I have to read that. A fun question, all in all!

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

I love talking about crack ships, so let’s start with that! This time, I really don’t want to have to count and list because... well, let me show you:

I think that sums up the sheer variety, to be honest. Then again, it would be rude not to mention that the most popular were Jesper/Milo, Darkling/Nikolai and Alina/Sun. (If you’re still confused about that last one, I take full responsibility.)

YES KAZ/KRUGE I SUPPORT!!!

Honourable mention to this:

which was a lot to take in, and:

Now for the discourse. Yep, the part you probably came for.

Actually... maybe you didn’t? Looking at all of these responses, I see a lot of people genuinely don’t care about ship wars and so on, and often enjoyed the books regardless of the romances involved. Quite a few disapproved of the ongoing (though small) wars between Darklina and Malina, and others had a similar line of thinking, saying we should maybe stop focusing so much on it. You guys are right. I know this is a ship survey, and the conclusions should not include that shipping isn’t as important as we make it (Yes it should), but... that’s where it’s at.

And then again, a lot of you guys expressed disapproval for Darkling/Alina, discussing how it is often one-sided and manipulative and overall unhealthy, so I could be completely off with that last one. Some people mentioned that they ship this but as a slightly different version that the one given to us, recognising the flaws of the canon ship.

Someone said they headcanon Tolya as aroace (OMG YES!!). We need more aroace characters, so thank you for that headcanon :) We also have a few gay ships mentioned here, and one person telling us they love Malina. Yes, you’re right - it’s pretty unpopular, it turns out. Someone else said Alina should’ve been single, and I agree, actually!

One person rickrolled me here. Thankfully, Youtube’s ads saved me. *wipes forehead*

I leave you all with this, in the end:

Notes from the Survey

Statistics Stuff:

The top ships were taken from AO3, so some ships may be more focused on in other books and may not provide accurate statistics for an earlier series.

The main circles this was sent around may have had bias as most people are from the same discord server, which has debated these topics in the past. Hence certain ships may have lower-than-average results. In future, this could be improved upon by sending this to other servers and areas of the fandom.

Personal bias may be present in the analysis, though I have tried to minimise this in the more formal sections.

Observations and Notes from Me:

You guys really don’t like Darklina. Or you love it. Usually one or the other. Wow.

Be glad I didn’t talk about any of the cursed ships in this. The things I have seen... (:cowboi_eyes:)

I thought more people would rickroll me, ngl.

What Surprised You Guys:

Kaz/Inej/Jesper

A few of you guys saw some of those cursed ships, and that surprised you. Well, me too!

Nikolai ships being in the TV Show section at all, what with his character not being in the show (yeah what was up with that huh tztz)

Inej/Alina

The existence of The Severed Moon

Darkling/Nikolai(/Alina)

How fun the quiz was :D

Things You Sent Me:

Bee Movie copypasta

“Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!”, except via an AO3 link

A fun fact about enzymes! I liked this one

Fic recs for Feriku and Sarai (esp for Wylan/Jesper shippers)

Another rickroll

Nice compliments :) aww you guys

I asked everyone for some kind of placeholder name and never used it. Sorry! But hey, anonymity, right?

Closing Statements

If you got this far (I feel like ive been sitting here for hours), thanks for reading! This was fun to do and I hope you enjoyed all of this too! The survey is still open for anyone who hasn’t done it but wants to. If I get a huge amount of new responses, I might update this post! But for now, adios!

-mod emily (and mod fritz)

#grishaverse #fandom #shipping #shadow and bone #six of crows #nikolai series #king of scars #the grisha trilogy

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hotchley · 3 years

Note

dkfjsk SUMAYYAH I DEADASS TEARED UP AT YOUR LATEST WEB WEACING POST IM SOBBING NOW BECAUSE IM SAD SKDJSKDJ

everytime i see posts about how the team so readily criticised Hotch in that episode my heart breaks just a little more

not that i think it's wrong or they shouldn't have done that, but the fact that only Morgan was the one to add nuance to his criticism ("sometimes")? for Emily it was kind of understandable since she was still so new to the team, and obviously given the way she started at the BAU, Hotch wouldn't have shown her too much trust & be kind to her, which to be fair, definitely could've made her come to the conclusion that he doesn't trust women. but the one that really gets to me nowadays is how JJ just says he's a bully like, 😭😭😭😭 he's one of the kindest characters with the biggest hearts on the show and I always thought Hotch had this older brother vibes with JJ because he was so protective of & patient with her & all that it actually kind of broke my heart to see that line again 😭

the first time i watched the episode i didn't think much about it because at that time i was younger (around 2 years ago? i mean mentally, intellectually, i feel like I've matured since then) & so i didn't pay such close attention to that scene + the whole Spencer was still in danger part kinda had my attention anyways. i only thought that scene was kinda sad but also showcased Hotch's really amazing intellect + sensitivity/perception i guess, i found it kind of funny/amusing and enjoyed it when they figured out Spencer's hint and that's it but now, as I've grown and matured and especially after I've read more fics about Hotch (fanfiction writers are really amazing at spotting details, you'd know that yourself) i just find the entire scene to be SO HEARTBREAKING 😭 idk i always saw Hotch as this strong, tough alpha male leader figure and to think that in that moment he's getting ripped apart by his teammates, the very people he is constantly putting his life and job and family on the line for, and getting all his insecurities and biggest fears laid out and voiced out and exposed by those he very well considers his second family.....

idk I'm just sad now 😭😭😭😭😭

- 🌙

My answer got LONG so it's all below the cut :)

I am going to sound terrible, but I AM VERY HAPPY!! I was hoping someone would be sad because I had the idea in the shower and was like: AHA

I know, I watched that episode and was like: ohh... well... I mean... and then I watched more and was like: OHHH NOO. And then people will be like: HAHA IT'S SO FUNNY!! Or: well I mean, are they wrong??

And I'm like: first, that wasn't funny, because when I asked my friends what my worst flaw was I got: how honest do you want me to be, you don't have enough faith in yourself, you don't have one and silence. And they were also wrong because PEOPLE SAY THINGS IN ANGER!!

Honestly, look at their comments and it shows so much about the way they view Hotch and the dynamic between the characters, and also how they express their emotions. Morgan already knows that Hotch is up to something, so not only does he add nuance, he goes for something that isn't even that big of a deal like "drill sergeant, SOMETIMES" he's the Unit Chief, of course he is.

Yeah, Emily's makes sense, but the issue I have with that is the fandom interpretation of that comment. It's not that he doesn't trust women- if he really didn't trust women, he would not trust JJ to handle press, or recruited Garcia from prison. Also, look at the dynamic with Blake and with Kate. He never distrusted them. He didn't trust Emily because of the way she was put on his team. Everyone watching knows there's something going on, and most of the fandom have seen the later seasons so it's like: GUYS!! REMEMBER THE CONTEXT!!

I know!! When JJ called him a bully, I was like: I know you're angry, but you know you're wrong and he's going to internalise that, and he's not a bully, because look at their little interactions like when he told her it's okay to lose it, or when he fought to let her stay, or how he thought she was an amazing profiler and AAH

Yeah I watched that for the first time and kinda thought it was funny, if a little sad and problematic because why would anyone look at their boss and think: yeah, I'm going to be honest about this. And I know Reid was trying to give a hint, but it was still sad to hear Hotch so violently deny being a narcissist, because even when people don't mean things, it hurts. That's why I included it in the post, just for the complete set.

I first mentioned that scene in heavy is the head that wears the crown as one of the six times Hotch keeps it together, and people were like: OH MY GOD!! That was when I realised... most people did not take it the same way I did... and then it became A Thing.

So then it got mentioned in... that fic where Hotch got kidnapped and mayhem and maybe that's okay? I'm not sure, but I started working it into as many things as possible because I'm like that.

(But seriously, I will work in Emily's: I need to know I can be human and the Revelations scene wherever possible, it's ridiculous)

It is very upsetting though. Because you have Hotch saying he doesn't have a sense of humour, which is a) not that big of a deal, and b) not true. JJ lashes out, Morgan tries to do damage control, Emily goes too far (there's actually a conversation planned where Gideon tries to explain the truth...)

That was exactly it. Throughout the show, Hotch puts his career on the line- he does also get suspended without pay- and tries to do everything he can for them, only for that scene to never have any follow-up. People on TikTok will always be like: Hotch never apologised for this, JJ never apologised for this, but nobody ever said to Hotch: BY THE WAY!!

Also, it was definitely strange. So much of the non-case moments show the team are also a family, because they talk to each other and they love each other and this and that, but that one scene seems to do the opposite...

Like an UNSUB was able to get Hotch's biggest fear- and therefore his biggest flaw- better than the team were able to. Mildly concerning. But yes. I stand by: these were comments made in a moment of anger, and Hotch is not any of those things so everyone should move on :)

If it's any consolation, I got sad making it....

Does any of this make sense? Idk... ANYWAYS

#🌙anon #people talk to me

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there-must-be-a-lock · 4 years

Text

Spitting Venom (Supernatural x Criminal Minds)

Word Count: ~10,300 yikes

Warnings: Non-explicit violence, nothing more than you’d see on either show. More cursing though. Don’t even try to tell me Emily Prentiss doesn’t swear like a sailor.

A/N: This is for @stunudo and her “Lie To Me” Challenge! My prompt was the Modest Mouse song “Spitting Venom.” Thanks to @fookinghelljensensthighs for reading and exclaiming and also just loving Sam and Spencer with me.

This is part of the “Coffee & Psychopaths” series. It follows the events of Quitting, but you don’t need to read that to understand anything that happens here.

This centers around (and steals dialogue from) the events of “Slash Fiction” (SPN) and “Proof” (CM). In order to smoosh the timelines together right, I had to do some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, so don’t think about it too hard. You should be able to tell from context clues, but for reference, the flashbacks (in order of appearance) correspond to “Shut Up, Dr Phil” (SPN) / “It Takes A Village” (CM), “To Hell... And Back” (CM), “My Bloody Valentine” (SPN), “Amplification” (CM), “With Friends Like These” (CM) / “Unforgiven” (SPN), “Appointment In Samarra” (SPN), and “Memoriam” (CM). Seriously, wibbly-wobbly. So much canon juggling. Just go with it.

“Just for the record, the weather today is partly suspicious with chances of betrayal.”

― Chuck Palahniuk

“Strap in, folks, we’ve got a weird one,” Garcia says cheerily, handing Spencer a paper folder as everybody else opens their tablets.

“I thought the Winchesters were dead,” Hotch says.

“That is part of the aforementioned weird, yes. Okay, for those of you who weren’t paying attention four years ago…”

Spencer opens his file, and Garcia’s words stop making sense, because that’s Sam in the mugshot.

His first instinct is to shout, This is a mistake.

Spencer’s stomach churns. He’s cold all over.

This feeling (betrayal, his brain supplies helpfully) is becoming a little too familiar, lately.

Garcia is showing a video: a bank, a group of people scared and screaming, two men opening fire. That’s Sam. His expression is stone-cold, maybe even satisfied, as he empties the clip into the crowd.

That’s Sam.

Garcia’s talking about M.O. now, or the total lack of a consistent one, and Spencer can’t listen. He forces his features into the bland, neutral expression that has made people underestimate him for years, and he takes slow breaths, trying to calm his racing heartbeat.

“Spence?” he hears, and when he looks around the table he realizes that it wasn’t the first time somebody said his name. They’re all staring.

“You okay, kid?” Morgan asks, brow furrowed.

“I’m fine,” Spencer insists, with a shrug.

“No you’re not, I know that face. Are you feeling okay?” Emily prods, and Spencer hates her for a moment, hates that she can still read him.

He tries to force a smile, but it feels stiff on his face.

“I know him,” Spencer blurts out. “Sam. Sam Winchester. He’s… he was my friend. Or I thought he was.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence all around the table. Spencer looks down at his hands, twirling a pen idly, instead of looking any of them in the eyes.

“Reid,” Hotch says quietly.

“We met at a… meeting,” Spencer says. He looks up at Hotch to make sure he understands, and Hotch nods. “About two years ago. He was only here for a couple weeks. We got along, though. We… he left. We kept in touch.”

“When did you last speak to him?” Hotch asks, frowning.

Spencer swallows around the lump in his throat. It’s taking his best effort to maintain his mask of composure.

“It was eight days ago.”

Hotch nods. “I’m assuming he’s already using a new number, but just in case, we’ll need you to give Garcia any contact information you have.”

Spencer tries to smile. “Of course.”

Emily asks, “And he didn’t say anything that would…”

“That would, what, tip me off that he was planning a massive murder spree?” Spencer says. His voice cracks.

“Anything that might be helpful,” Morgan interjects diplomatically. “Locations, names.”

Spencer shakes his head. “No, it was… we didn’t talk about that sort of thing. It was random, mostly. When something was on my mind that I couldn’t… couldn’t talk to you about, or - when I couldn’t sleep. But there wasn’t much small talk.”

“And you never suspected?” Garcia asks, wide-eyed.

“Do you really think that if I suspected -”

“We know that if there were any hints, you would’ve seen them. Nobody is suggesting that you should’ve known,” Hotch says firmly.

“I should’ve, though,” Spencer insists, with a hysterical edge in his voice. “There were so many things that he just… avoided talking about. He looked familiar, even! I kept wondering where I recognized him from!”

“Enough, kid,” Rossi interrupts. “Getting angry at yourself doesn’t help anybody. It was before you joined the Bureau, there was no reason for you to remember his face.”

“This is a good thing, right?” Emily points out. “The better you know him, the easier it’s going to be for us to catch him.”

“Apparently I didn’t know him, though,” Spencer says hoarsely. “I didn’t know him at all.”

“Are you going to be able to work this case objectively?” Hotch asks. “We’ll all understand if you want to sit this one out.”

Spencer stares at him helplessly. He’s not sure he knows the answer to that question.

“I remember Gideon talking about the Winchester case,” Rossi muses. “Couldn’t make head or tail of it, no apparent connection between victims, witnesses who kept changing their stories…”

“Your insight will undoubtedly be useful,” Hotch adds quietly.

Spencer grits his teeth, shock turning quickly to anger.

“I want to find him,” he says. He wants to know. He wants to hear the confession.

Hotch gives him one more steely, appraising look before nodding.

“Very well. Let’s talk victimology.”

* * * * * * * * *

September 2011 (eight days earlier)

“I don’t understand how she could do that,” Spencer says bitterly. “If I saw one of my friends hurting like that, and I knew something that would stop them hurting…”

“Shit,” Sam mutters. “I’m sorry.”

“Did they not trust me to keep the secret? Did they not think I could handle it? We’re a team. We’re not supposed to keep things from each other. Not important things, not like that.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

Sam leans against the kitchen counter, watching Dean through the window. Baby’s hood is open and Dean’s wrestling with something inside, and Sam wonders, for the thousandth time, whether he’s imagining the wariness in Dean’s face whenever they talk these days. He can’t shake the feeling there’s something Dean’s not saying.

“I don’t know what to do,” Spencer says quietly, and his voice cracks on the last word.

“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do, except give it time.”

“I hate that answer,” Spencer says flatly, and Sam laughs.

“Yeah. But… I think hearing the truth is the hard part, sometimes. Or saying it. Right? It hurts like hell, and it’s going to hurt for a while, but now that it’s all out in the open… now it’ll start getting better. It has to.”

“I guess.”

“She thought she was doing the right thing,” Sam repeats. “Do you really think she’d do that, if she didn’t feel like she had a choice?”

Spencer sighs in a rush of static. “No,” he says begrudgingly. “But I think she had a choice. And now it’s my choice whether to trust her or not.”

“You’ll get there.”

“How do you know?”

“A very smart man once told me that’s what friends do,” Sam says wryly. “They trust each other.”

“Quoting me back to me doesn’t seem fair,” Spencer grumbles.

“Doesn’t make it wrong,” Sam retorts with a grin.

Sam watches Dean slam the hood shut, and he wonders why his brother has such a hard time trusting him.

* * * * * * * * *

“Are you kidding me right now?” Dean snaps, and the sneer in his voice makes Sam feel all of six years old again.

“No, Dean, I’m not kidding,” Sam says stubbornly. He leans against the doorframe and watches Dean pace back and forth, like a wild animal on a too-short leash in the tiny living room of Rufus’s cabin.

“Dead or alive, Sam. We’re wanted dead or alive. You try to talk to a Fed, which one d’you think it’ll be? They’ll have you pumped full of bullets before you can blink.”

“He’s got a point, Sam,” Bobby says quietly.

Sam rubs his eyes, feeling a headache building. “I trust him.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t,” Dean retorts. “Who the hell is this guy, anyway? When’d you make a friend I don’t know about?”

“Is that what this is about?” Sam asks bitterly. “You’re pissed there’s something about me that you don’t get to control?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you don’t have a great track record here,” Dean spits, and Sam’s throat clogs with anger even before Dean says, “Whenever you’ve made a friend on your own, how’s that gone for you, huh? Meg, Ruby, Amy… two demons, a monster, and now a fucking Fed?”

Sam balls his hands into fists to fight the urge to start swinging. “Why can’t you just trust me? You don’t know Frank, either.”

“I trust Bobby,” Dean says. The I don’t trust you goes unspoken.

Sam clenches his jaw, breathing until he knows he can talk without shouting.

“Just go, then, Dean,” he says, quiet and venomous. “Go ahead. Do whatever you want. I’m going to call Spencer.”

Dean’s frozen for a moment, stone-faced. Then he whirls around and heads for the door. “Fine. I’ll check in when I get to Frank’s.”

Sam sits down on the couch, resting his head in his hands for a moment. He hears the dim rumble of the engine starting outside.

“I’m gonna use the landline, if that’s okay,” Sam says quietly.

“I sure hope you’re right about this, boy,” Bobby growls.

“So do I.”

He finds Spencer’s number on the worn slip of paper in his wallet, written down with the five or so others that he doesn’t want to lose, and holds his breath as he dials. He has a feeling Spencer might not pick up on the first try, if he picks up at all. For all he knows, Spencer’s on the job already, in Colorado with his team looking for clues that aren’t there.

He closes his eyes and thinks, please, and then Spencer picks up.

“Hi, Sam.” His voice is icy.

“Hey,” Sam says. There’s a long, weighted pause before he continues, “It’s not me.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” It’s clipped and robotic and forceful.

“No, look, I - it’s not me, okay? That’s why I’m calling. I’ll turn myself in.” Another weighted pause. Sam clears his throat. “Not to the police, ‘cause I’m pretty sure they’ll shoot me on sight, but. To you. It’s hard to explain, but I’m innocent, it’s someone else pretending to be me, so if you can get to Montana -”

“Montana?” Spencer interrupts incredulously.

“Montana,” Sam repeats. He hesitates. “I figured you’d be tracking the call, I used a landline to make it easy for you.”

“She’s working on it,” Spencer admits begrudgingly.

Sam feels a twist of guilt, wondering how Spencer’s coworkers are reacting to this… even worse than Dean, probably.

He hears a faint female voice in the background, too quiet to make out more than, “...not sure how, but…”

“Fine, then,” Spencer says quietly. “Montana.”

“Wherever you want, okay? I - I won’t put up a fight. Just…” Sam can’t help but laugh. “Don’t let them shoot me, okay?”

There’s a crackle of static as Spencer sighs. “We’ll call you with details when we land.”

A voice in the back of his head that sounds like Dean is shouting, this is a terrible idea.

Sam ignores it.

“I trust you,” he says. “And Spencer?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Thanks for picking up.”

* * * * * * * * *

May 2010

Spencer feels like he’s choking on the thick stink in the air. He looks around the packed dirt yard of the farmhouse and can’t find any relief; he’s surrounded by ugly raw grief, and he can’t stand it. Emily is consoling the crying girl. Hotch is talking to the locals, tying up loose ends. Morgan is staring numbly at the rows and rows of muddy shoes on the ground.

He knows he’s not the only one dealing with the weight of what they saw today. He should find Penelope, give her a hug, face this together, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Sharing this would make it a little too real.

Maybe it’s all the practice he’s had at being alone; his first instinct is to hide, when things start to get overwhelming, and to maintain a certain level of clinical detachment until he can make sense of what he’s feeling. He can dissect his own feelings. When his friends are hurting, though… that’s a different story. When he sees his friends hurting, he hurts too, hurts in a way that chokes him, hurts in a way that crowds everything else out, and all he wants to do is fix it. Even when it’s not something that can be fixed. It’s illogical.

Love doesn’t leave any room for logic, he’s learning.

He slips away, into the barn.

Dust motes and chaff drift in the scattered beams of light that cut through the empty space, swirling around him as he climbs the ladder to the dark drafty loft. Spencer sits down on the floor in front of the wall of drawings. He hugs his knees to his chest and looks, committing the clumsy crayon strokes to memory, because it doesn’t seem right to let all those empty shoes live on without also remembering this: bright color, crushing loneliness, constant fear.

The loneliness is too much, after a few minutes. He pulls out his phone and closes his eyes.

“Hey, Sam,” he says. His voice cracks and wobbles.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“I’m just not having a great day,” Spencer says, aiming for casual, falling short.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Spencer says. His voice is thin and scratchy and small in the darkness of the barn, lost immediately in the blanketing silence.

Sam hesitates, and Spencer waits, hoping he’ll understand.

“If you could have one object from a fictional universe, what would you want? Has to fit in your pocket.”

Spencer lets out a grateful little huff of a sigh. “Obviously the -”

“TARDIS doesn’t count,” Sam interrupts, laughing. “It has to be portable in its normal everyday form, not just temporarily shrinkable.”

“Sonic screwdriver, then. Obviously.”

“Right? That’s what I said.”

“What else would there be?”

“Dean would go with a lightsaber,” Sam says, and Spencer can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

It’s the first time Spencer’s really smiled all day. “Based on what you’ve told me about your brother, that doesn’t actually surprise me.”

“Yeah. That’s Dean…”

* * * * * * * * *

There’s a dial tone. Spencer closes his phone and tries to breathe.

“Do you believe him?” Hotch asks quietly.

Spencer looks down at his hands, twirling his pen again, feeling claustrophobic with all their concerned gazes pinning him in place. There’s too much going on in his head, too many things trapped and buzzing inside him with nowhere to go, and he wants to start running but all he can do is shrug.

“I don’t know,” he says, voice strained.

“Even if he is telling the truth, there are parts of this case that just don’t make any sense,” Morgan says.

JJ adds, “If it’s a ruse, it’s a bizarre one.”

“Gut feeling, kid,” Rossi says softly. “Are we walking into a trap?”

Spencer wants to scream. Instead he says, “I don’t think he’d hurt me, but…”

“If you trust him, that’s good enough for us,” Emily says fiercely.

Spencer can’t help it; he looks at JJ before staring stubbornly down at the table again. The words burn on their way out: “This wouldn’t be the first time I trusted the wrong person, though.”

“We need to make sure we’re prepared for all eventualities, but I think it’s worth the risk,” Hotch says. “We can discuss it more on the jet. Wheels up in thirty.”

Spencer refuses to meet any of their eyes as he gathers up his folder and his bag. He gets out of the conference room before anyone can try to talk to him. His cheeks are burning, and his hands are shaking, and he’s already jittery but he really needs coffee; beyond that singular thought, his brain is stuck between stations, all white noise and useless static.

The coffee pot in the break room is empty. He’s glad; it’s good to have something to do with his hands, a ritual, a tiny piece of his life that he can still count on. Filter, measure grounds, fresh water…

“Spence.” It’s JJ, of course, and Spencer’s first petulant instinct is to ignore her. “Spence. Look, we gotta talk about this.”

“About what? The fact that one of the few people I still trusted turns out to be a serial killer?” Spencer says sharply. “It’s becoming a pattern, me trusting the wrong people. I’m getting used to it.”

“You know what I mean.” Her voice is low and soothing, like she’s talking to a victim’s family.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“I get it, okay?” she says, still in that calm, professional voice. Spencer wishes she’d scream instead. He wants to scream. “You're disappointed with the way we handled Emily.”

He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, focusing on the steady drip of coffee into the pot.

“Listen, I have a lot going on, all right?” he says coolly.

“You know what I think it is?” He doesn’t look at her, but she continues anyway: “You're mad that Hotch and I controlled our micro-expressions at the hospital and you weren't able to detect our deception.”

It hurts. Her words bite down somewhere deep, venomous needle-sharp fangs that sink in and sting, and the toxic ache spreads through his system before he can take a breath.

“You think it's about my profiling skills?” he spits back. “Jennifer, listen, the only reason you were able to manage my perceptions is because I trusted you. I came to your house for ten weeks in a row crying over losing a friend, and not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth.”

Her expression is hurt, confused, and she says quietly, “I couldn't.”

“You couldn't? Or you wouldn't?” he snaps.

“No, I couldn't,” she insists. Her eyes are brimming with tears now, and Spencer feels a sick rush of satisfaction.

He knows it’s cruel, but he lashes out anyway: “What if I started taking Dilaudid again? Would you have let me?”

She recoils. “You didn't.”

“Yeah, but I thought about it.” It’s petty and it’s unfair and it’s vicious, and he doesn’t care, not even a little bit.

It stuns her into silence for a moment, and he turns to pour coffee into his travel cup, hands shaking so badly he almost spills.

“Spence,” she whispers. “I'm sorry.”

He whirls on her, almost shouts: “It's too late, all right?”

“Reid,” she says, but he’s already brushing past her, and he doesn’t stop.

* * * * * * * * *

February 2010

He’ll never forget the look on Dean’s face. He knows it a little too well, by now: disappointment, disgust. I expected better. This isn’t who I raised you to be. You’re not the person I thought you were.

“You know I couldn’t have gotten out of that bathroom on my own,” Sam says. “You know I wouldn’t have - I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to.”

Dean doesn’t trust him, though. He’s not sure Dean will ever trust him again.

Sam lets Dean lock him in the panic room. He doesn’t protest; he goes without complaint, head down, like a dog with its tail between its legs as it waits for a kick that never comes. Detox will hurt. It always does. He feels like he deserves that, though.

Dean almost says something, before he closes the door. The words catch on his lips and die on his throat, and he just shakes his head as he slides the deadbolts into place.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, but Dean’s already walking away, and the hallucinations are already creeping in around the edges of his vision: his mother sighing sadly, his younger self shaking his head in contempt.

Sam sits down, curls up, and looks around at the bare walls and the locked door. The floor is cold under him, and he can already feel the chill sinking into his skin, down to his bones. He leans back against the wall and tries to breathe through the panic.

“I’m sorry,” he says, over and over again, but he’s not really sure who he’s talking to any more.

The hallucinations fade. The bloodstains won’t, not really. Dean will see those forever.

He can barely look at Sam when he finally unlocks the door.

Sam’s still itchy and wired, that night, even though the worst of it is over. Dean’s not even trying to pretend he’s doing anything other than keeping watch outside. He’s sitting in the hallway with a bottle of whiskey for company. Sam can’t leave, and he sure as hell can’t sleep, so he calls Spencer, and he doesn’t realize until it starts ringing that it’s two in the morning.

“Hi, Sam,” Spencer says, staticky and distant.

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

Sam sighs, stammers, stops, tries to start again. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Not really,” he manages. There’s another long pause before he can admit, “I fucked up. I keep fucking up.”

“Oh,” Spencer says softly. “Okay.”

Sam exhales. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. I believe you.”

“You’re the only one who does.”

“I trust you,” Spencer says. It’s so matter-of-fact, so easy, and it’s been a long time since someone trusted Sam like that. He didn’t realize how much he missed it.

“Why?” Sam asks. He tries to laugh, but it comes out wet and choked.

“That’s what friends do, right?”

Sam takes a deep, shaky breath and swallows down the lump in his throat, trying not to wonder if Dean’s still standing guard outside his door.

“Thanks for picking up,” Sam says, barely a whisper.

“Any time.”

* * * * * * * * *

They cuff his hands behind the back of the uncomfortable metal chair. Sam didn’t expect anything less, but he still hates it. They had the entire team except for Spencer there to take him in, and that was a few too many guns trained on him for comfort, but he’s alone now. It’s cold, and the walls are blank, and he shivers.

He’s spent too much of his life locked in cages of one sort or another.

When Spencer finally opens the door, Sam can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, even as his stomach twists with nerves. He’d worried they would insist on sending someone else in.

“Hey, Spencer,” he says quietly.

Spencer doesn’t answer. He avoids eye contact as he sits down, settling in with his posture stiff and his hands clasped on the table in front of him. He looks like a different person from the one Sam first met; the jittery, fidgety, chattering Spencer is gone, and there’s an actual Fed in his place. Even when he meets Sam’s eyes, his expression doesn’t give anything away. He’s ice-cold and completely closed-off.

Sam tries to breathe.

“Where’s Dean?” Spencer asks bluntly.

“He’s at a friend’s, trying to figure out how to clear our names.”

“Why isn’t he here with you?”

“He didn’t think this was a good idea,” Sam says. “We haven’t had great experiences with law enforcement, but… him even more than me. I trust you. He doesn’t.”

Spencer’s eyes narrow. “You trust me.”

Sam shrugs helplessly. “That’s what friends do, right?”

Spencer’s face goes stormy immediately, and he leans closer, glaring at Sam with startling intensity. “Let’s get one thing straight. You and I are not friends. You’re a murderer, and the only reason I’m here is that I want to see what you look like when you’re telling the truth… because apparently you’ve been lying to me since we met.”

It’s not unexpected, but it still hurts. Sam hesitates for a moment before saying softly, “I’m not a murderer, and I haven’t been lying to you.”

“There’s video.”

“It’s not me.”

Spencer stares at him incredulously. “All that stuff you never wanted to talk about. All those times you talked about… being scared of yourself, worrying what you could do. What was that, then?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Sam says. He feels exhausted, suddenly.

“You’ve never even told me what you do for a living!”

“I can’t.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” Spencer asks. He’s starting to lose his composure, an agitated edge creeping into his voice.

“Look, remember when you called me, and told me you might be dying?”

“How is that relevant?” Spencer hisses.

“I figured it out, afterward. Anthrax. Right?”

“How did you…”

“And you told me that you couldn’t give me details, and the details weren’t important anyway.”

“That’s right.”

“And I accepted that, because I trust you, and I trust that if you’re not telling me something, it’s for a damn good reason,” Sam says determinedly. “They tried to keep it out of the news, but later, once I knew you were okay, I did some digging, and I figured it out. Why didn’t you alert the public?”

Spencer looks utterly baffled. “Because people would panic. There’d be mass hysteria.”

“There you go. It’s the same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Spencer exclaims. “I work for the federal government!”

“Look, I know you, okay?” Sam says desperately. “I know that your job is to notice the details that don’t make sense. Even when something seems obvious, you and your team pay attention, and you make sure everything fits, and you figure out the truth, not just whatever bullshit explanation seems easiest.”

Spencer nods slowly.

“That’s why you’re here, and that’s why your team didn’t shoot me on sight,” Sam continues. “And I know you’re good at your job, so I know you’ve noticed that there are things about this case that don’t add up. Okay? Why would I be here talking to you, if I was guilty? Did you ask yourself how I got to Montana so quickly? Did you talk to any of the witnesses from the old cases? Diana Ballard? Rebecca Warren? Did you try to profile us? Find any similarities in m.o. between all those murders? No. None of it made any sense then, and none of it makes any sense now. You know why? Because it wasn’t us,” he finishes.

“Sam. Maybe there are details from the old cases that don’t make sense, but…” Spencer trails off, shaking his head, like he doesn’t even know where to start. Then he stops himself, sets his jaw, refocuses, and when he looks at Sam again, there’s nothing but pure clear anger in his face. “Look me in the eye, right now, and tell me you’ve never killed anyone.”

Sam instinctively goes to tuck his hair behind his ears, but the cuffs cut the movement short. Spencer sees it. His face falls, bitter and disappointed.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he mutters.

“I’ve never killed anything that didn’t deserve it,” Sam insists.

“Any thing? Really? Or any person?” Spencer asks. Sam doesn’t answer, and Spencer continues, rushing, like he can’t stop the words from coming out: “Do you know how many times I’ve heard a serial killer say that? Everybody thinks they have a reason, Sam, whether angels told him the guy was guilty, or… Satan was possessing them, or… a talking dog told them the meaning of life.”

Sam lets out a borderline hysterical laugh, and Spencer just stares like he’s completely crazy. Sam can’t blame him. He’s starting to feel crazy.

“Okay, here, look,” he says, in a sudden burst of inspiration. “Go through the old case files, look at the dates. Every one, I guarantee you, people were dying before we got to town. There’s gotta be a way to prove it, right? The murders started happening before we got there. Everything you’ve told me about Penelope, I bet she can do it, easy.”

“What, so now you’re telling me you’re some sort of vigilante?” Spencer half-shouts.

“Not exactly, no.” Sam’s starting to run out of ideas.

The door opens abruptly, and a stern-faced agent says, “Reid. A word?”

Spencer gives Sam one last look before he gets up. It’s a familiar expression: disgust, disappointment, you’re not the person I thought you were. Then he turns his back, and the door slams shut behind him. Sam can hear the click of the lock.

* * * * * * * * *

April 2010

He writes to her every day, pages and pages of words. He hopes she realizes that they all boil down to “I love you,” because right now, he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Hi, Mom, this is Spencer,” he says, “I just… I just really want you to know that I love you. And -” when he blinks away tears he can practically see her, her smile swimmy through the salt water, same as it looked when he was small and crying over a scraped knee, and if he keeps thinking like that he’ll never make it through this message. He pauses, gulps for air, steadies himself. “I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son.”

She hasn’t taken care of him since he was small. Right now, though, he feels small and scared, and all he wants is for his mom to tell him that she loves him, and that it’s going to be alright.

“Reid?” Penelope whispers, and then he hears Dr. Kimura, and he doesn’t get to be a child right now; there’s nobody there to take care of him.

“I gotta go,” he says, and hangs up before Garcia can ask questions.

“Doctor Reid?”

“You look nice,” he jokes, with a watery laugh, and she smiles. “How are the patients doing?”

“Let’s worry about you,” she says smoothly.

Spencer forces a smile and shakes his head. “I actually… I feel fine.” It’s one of the most obvious lies he’s ever told.

“If you feel any pain, I could give you something,” she offers.

“No, I’d rather not take any pain medication.” His hands are shaking, but at least his voice sounds strong.

She looks concerned. “We can at least make you feel more comfortable.”

“I am comfortable, and I don’t want to take any narcotics,” he says fiercely. It’s not easy to say the words, but he feels better once he does; he feels proud.

There’s someone else he needs to call, Spencer realizes.

“Tell me how I can help,” Dr. Kimura says, and Spencer nods. First things first: if the poison is here, so is the antidote.

“I think the cure for this strain is in here somewhere,” he says, ignoring the way his chest aches.

“Well, shall I start here?”

“Yes, just… I just need a moment.”

Spencer looks down at his phone. He could call Garcia, again, have her save the message as a contingency plan, but he’s not sure he could handle her questions right now, and he can trust Sam not to push for details; he’s always been good about that.

“Hey, Spencer.”

“Hey, so, I can’t explain, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it out of this,” he says, stumbling over the words. “Don’t interrupt, I can’t - I just wanted to say thank you. In case I don’t get to say it again. Recovery was… I don’t… you helped. Thanks for always picking up the phone when I needed you.”

“Right back at you,” Sam says quietly.

It’s getting harder to breathe, and the panicked hammering of his heartbeat isn’t helping.

“Thanks,” he says again, and closes the phone without saying goodbye.

* * * * * * * * *

“Reid, you need to calm down,” Hotch says, as soon as the lock clicks behind them.

“I know,” Spencer says, rubbing his eyes, agitated. “There’s just… there’s so much that doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s more than that.” Hotch gives him one of those piercing glares he’s so good at. “You’re allowing your anger with JJ to cloud what you’re seeing in Sam.”

Spencer can’t really argue with that. He just nods.

“When this is over, I want you to take a couple days,” Hotch says. “You need some time to process.”

Spencer’s instinct is to argue, but one look at Hotch’s face tells him it’s pointless. He nods again, reluctantly.

“Garcia is checking into the pattern that he talked about,” Hotch says, as he leads Spencer back into the observation room. “She may be able to pin the Winchesters’ locations at the times of the original murders. JJ’s talking to old witnesses. There has to be something Henricksen missed.”

Emily, Morgan, and Rossi are clustered in the small, spare room, watching Sam through the one-way glass. Emily cuts herself off mid-sentence as Spencer and Hotch walk in.

“You okay, kid?” Morgan asks again, looking at Spencer like he’s a bomb about to go off, and Spencer tries to smile for him.

“All my time in the Bureau, I’ve never seen a case that made less sense,” Rossi comments.

They all look at Sam, who’s frowning down at the table, deep in thought.

Spencer clears his throat and asks, “Do you believe him?”

“I believe that he’s telling part of the truth,” Hotch says. “It’s what he’s not saying that concerns me.”

Inside the interrogation room, Sam starts, eyes wide, and looks from the door to the one-way mirror.

“Hey,” he barks. “Hey, I know you’re listening! It’s St. Louis. I figured out the pattern, and they’re going to St. Louis next.” He tugs at the cuffs, clearly agitated. “Come on. Can anybody hear me?”

“He’s genuinely distressed,” Emily says, frowning.

“If it’s a delusion, it’s a complex one,” Morgan adds.

The door swings open, and JJ starts talking before any of them can ask: “That was Diana Ballard. She swears up and down that it’s all a big misunderstanding, but she’s not clear on any of the details; she just said that she’d trust the Winchesters with her life. Rebecca Warren said the same. There was someone impersonating the Winchesters, back then, and she swears up and down that someone’s got it out for them now.”

“How did Henricksen not have that statement in his file?” Morgan asks.

“Maybe Sam’s right, as much as I hate to admit it,” Emily says. “Maybe this is a case of agents just wanting the easy explanation.”

“You guys are gonna want to see this,” Penelope interrupts, hurrying through the door as fast as her hot pink heels will allow, holding out her tablet.

“Another one?” JJ asks.

“Unfortunately, yes, and it’s a doozy. This just came in from -”

“St. Louis,” Hotch fills in grimly.

“How did you know?” Penelope asks, but she presses play without waiting for an answer, and they all cluster together to watch the grainy cell phone footage: Sam, leaning in close, giving the camera a smug smile before he opens fire.

“Is that really…” Spencer says numbly, looking from the screen to the window, where Sam is tapping his foot, impatient, undeniably solid and real.

“It’s real,” she confirms. “And to top it off, I found a call that the local brass dismissed, but I just talked to him a couple minutes ago and it sounds like the genuine article. A guy thinks he saw the older Winchester just a couple hours after Sam originally called us. He was at a gas station in, you guessed it, Montana.”

There’s a stunned pause, while everybody tries to digest that news, until Emily breaks the silence with a succinct, “What in the ever-loving fuck is happening.”

“I’m going to talk to Sam,” Hotch says.

Spencer’s acutely aware of everyones’ eyes on him again as he moves closer to the window. His reflection in the glass looks masklike and composed, but he doesn’t feel anything of the sort.

He’s kind of starting to believe Sam. That’s his first instinct, at least. Something deep in his gut is telling him to trust, but it’s being strangled by the suspicion and twisted fear that have been poisoning him slowly since Emily came back. Now that it’s in his system, Spencer’s not sure how to flush it out; it’s just in him now, like some sort of chronic infection.

* * * * * * * * *

March 2011

“I hate how often we see it,” Spencer says quietly. “It’s the first thing everybody thought of, with this kid, even though it wasn’t just schizophrenia, but… what’s the difference, between him and my mom?”

“Your mom has you,” Sam points out. He can hear the murmur of Dean and Bobby’s voices downstairs, constant and comforting.

“The headaches haven’t stopped.”

Sam grimaces. “No answers, still?”

“They all say there’s nothing wrong with me, physically.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “That’s… kinda harder, isn’t it?”

“I hate not knowing,” Spencer fumes. “I hate that there’s no test for it. Even if it was a positive diagnosis, I’d rather have that, you know? I mean, that’d be awful, obviously, but… ”

“At least you’d know,” Sam finishes. “Yeah.”

“It’s like my brain may or may not be a ticking bomb. No way of knowing what’s hiding up there,” Spencer bites out, with a warped attempt at a laugh.

Sam can’t help but think of his flashback: coming back to reality with Dean pale and wide-eyed above him, the disorientation of feeling the solid floor under his back, the way his skin still burned. It felt so real.

He pushes those thoughts away.

“Like you can’t even trust yourself,” Sam says softly.

“Exactly.” Spencer’s voice is small and thin, and he sounds very young, suddenly. “My mom’s counting on me. What if… if something happened - I don’t know who would take care of her. Of us.”

“Your family,” Sam says, without hesitating.

“My team? Yeah, I… I guess so.”

“Your family,” Sam repeats. “Even if you can’t trust yourself, you’ll be able to trust your family.”

* * * * * * * * *

Sam’s heart leaps at the sound of the door opening again.

“They’re going to St. Louis,” he says, all in a rush, before the stern-faced agent from earlier can even sit down. The guy doesn’t bat an eye, just sits down calmly, pinning Sam with a stare that could strip paint.

“Sam, I’m Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner.” Sam’s heard Spencer talk about “Hotch,” and it all makes sense now. “What makes you think St Louis is next?”

“They’re retracing our steps,” Sam answers. “Dean and I, when we started working together. They’re hitting each town we stopped in. Jericho, Black Water Ridge, Manitoc. St. Louis is next.”

Sam holds his breath, hoping he won’t be pressed on his definition of working. He can see the moment Hotch comes to a decision with an infinitesimal nod.

“We’re too late,” he says. “We just got the news.”

“Shit,” Sam can’t help but mutter, and he tugs instinctively at the handcuffs, frustrated, done with sitting still.

“This means you’re innocent,” Hotch points out, clearly watching Sam’s reaction.

Sam can’t help but roll his eyes. “Yeah, but I already knew that. It’s… Iowa next, then. Ankeny, Iowa.”

“Very well,” Hotch says flatly, giving Sam a critical, evaluating look. “It’s very clear that you’re not what we thought you were, and you may be able to help us end this. Are you still interested in accompanying us?”

“Yes,” Sam replies impatiently.

“First, I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me the truth about what’s going on here,” Hotch says, in such a low, dangerous voice that Sam’s almost intimidated. “Otherwise, if one of my agents gets hurt because you withheld information, or if there’s even a hint that you’re leading us into a trap, I will shoot you without hesitation. Do I make myself clear?”

Jesus. But if the FBI can help him get to Iowa in time, with enough firepower to put a dent in the Leviathans, this’ll all be worth it.

Sam leans forward, as much as his cuffs will allow, meeting Hotch’s impenetrable glare with a determined stare of his own.

“Look, I could tell you more, but you’re not going to believe some of it until you see for yourself,” he snaps. “So as far as I’m concerned, the only truth that matters is this: people are dying, and we both want to put a stop to it. Now, are you going to waste time asking for irrelevant details, or are you going to choose to trust me?”

Hotch holds his gaze for a moment before nodding tersely. “Let’s get going, then. I’ll go get the keys.”

He gets up and Sam grimaces at his retreating back, twisting his wrist uncomfortably to get the bobby pin at the right angle. Then the cuffs fall to the ground with a metallic clatter, and Hotch looks back at him in disbelief. Sam smiles at him, equal parts sheepish and smug.

“I told you, full cooperation,” he explains, and Hotch shakes his head like he might just be a tiny bit impressed.

The rest of the team is waiting out in the hallway, some looking skeptical (tall, dark, handsome, eyebrows; Morgan, if Sam's guessing right), others nervous (pink pom-poms in her hair; that’ll be Penelope), but almost all with some degree of confusion written across their faces. Sam can’t exactly blame them. Spencer’s staring at his shoes, avoiding eye contact.

They’re a very clean, professional-looking bunch, and it’s making Sam incredibly uncomfortable, even aside from the obvious awkwardness inherent in the situation.

“I’m Sam,” he blurts out, and then winces. “Um. You knew that.”

“Yep,” Penelope squeaks. “This is weird.”

“Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, David Rossi,” Hotch says brusquely, pointing to each in turn. “Jennfer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, and you know Spencer. There’ll be time to talk more on the jet. Everyone, grab your things, meet outside in five.” He’s already pulling out a cell phone and striding away as the team scatters, and Sam feels sort of windswept in his wake; the guy’s intense.

Sam and Spencer are alone in the hallway. Sam’s stomach twists. This is familiar. This is another person he’s let down, and the bitter voice in the back of his head whispering you fucked up again is familiar too.

“I’m sorry,” Sam blurts out. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but… I’m sorry.”

Spencer looks up at him with a quizzical frown, head tilted. “I was going to apologize to you.”

Sam blinks. “Why?”

Spencer presses his lips together in a funny little grimace. Sam had forgotten that face, the weird things he does with his mouth when he’s not sure what to say.

“For not trusting you.” His voice is scratchy and uneven and honest, now that there isn’t any anger keeping it strong and sure. “I wanted to believe that you… that it couldn’t be you. When I saw the first video, that was my instinct. But my instincts haven’t been great, lately.”

Sam shakes his head. “No, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“I think maybe I don’t trust myself right now?” Spencer barrels on. “But there’s video, and... I trust Hotch. If Hotch believes you... yeah. I’m sorry.”

Sam’s not used to being forgiven so easily. It takes him a moment to remember how to speak.

“You gave me a chance,” he says. “Most people wouldn’t have even picked up the phone. And there’s still… I still haven’t told you everything, why would you -”

“There are a lot of things going on that I don’t understand, and I want answers, don’t get me wrong.” Spencer looks frustrated for a moment. “But… knowing that you’re not a murderer goes a long way. The details can wait.”

“When I start sharing details is when most people start running in the opposite direction,” Sam admits.

“I think that’s sort of a universal human experience,” Spencer offers. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh, now. “Or at least, the fear is. Nobody likes telling the full truth. It’s uncomfortable at best, painful at worst.”

Sam huffs out a laugh and swipes a hand over his face. “Yeah, okay. Got me there.”

“I’ll trust that you’re not lying if you trust that I won’t run,” Spencer says, and he’s not smiling now. He’s dead serious, determined, maybe a little scared.

“Okay,” Sam says hoarsely. “Deal.”

There’s an awkward moment where they both just look at each other, but then Spencer jerks his head in the direction of the front doors. “C’mon, we should go.”

Sam nods and lets him lead the way. “Should we - do you know where my phone is? I need to call my brother.”

“Garcia will have it.”

They walk out into the bullpen, where the team is bustling around, collecting their things, and Sam’s reminded again of how much they’re risking on his word. It’s overwhelming. His throat feels too tight.

“So, that handcuff thing,” says Rossi, tossing his bag over his shoulder and falling into step next to Sam.

Sam laughs. “Yeah, I can teach you. It’s just a bobby pin.”

“Might help next time I get kidnapped,” Spencer says, with alarming nonchalance.

“Would’ve come in handy a few times during college,” Rossi comments.

“You mean as a party trick?” Spencer asks him.

“Yeah. Sure, kid. A party trick.”

“...oh.”

* * * * * * * * *

November 2010

“Spencer?”

“I… is that you?” Spencer asks, so shocked he feels dizzy. It’s been six months.

Spencer’s first thought had been, ‘Weird, that's the second “just in case” call in a month,’ when he got the voicemail. He’d almost laughed.

Spencer had called Sam from the hospital, though, after the anthrax thing, when the antidote worked and he woke up.

Sam never called. Spencer assumed he never woke up.

“It’s me,” Sam says. “I’m so sorry, I -”

“What happened?”

“I was… sick,” Sam stammers. “Really… really sick. I’m sorry.”

Spencer has to pause for a moment to digest that. His head is spinning.

“What -” he starts, but he cuts himself off. He has some idea of what kind of sickness might cause someone to go away for six months, and it’s not physical. “Oh,” he says softly.

“Sorry,” Sam says again. He sounds miserable.

“No, don’t apologize,” Spencer protests. “You shouldn’t - it’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re okay. I thought…”

“Yeah.”

All Spencer can say is, “I’m really glad you’re alive.”

“Me too,” Sam says quietly.

Spencer’s been wanting to talk to him for six months, but now he can’t think of anything to say. Eventually he just goes with the first thing that comes into his head: “You missed some really good episodes of Doctor Who.”

Sam laughs. “Yeah, I’ve got some catching up to do.”

Spencer closes his eyes and reminds himself to breathe. He’s never been so happy to be wrong.

* * * * * * * * *

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Emily says flatly, as Spencer brandishes the Super Soaker in her direction. “Of all the stupid fucking ideas.”

“Yup,” he says, popping the p and maybe kinda enjoying the way her eyes have gone all buggy. In a low voice, he adds, “Play along, remember?”

She casts a glance over to where Sam is busying himself with the rest of the water guns and a box of Borax. “As long as he doesn’t try to take my fucking Glock.”

“Nobody is taking your Glock, Emily,” Spencer says dryly. She shakes her head and goes over to join Morgan, Hotch, and JJ, who have already been outfitted and are standing at the other side of the parking lot. Garcia is sneakily taking a picture of them.

Admittedly, when Sam insisted that they make an emergency stop between the airstrip and the police precinct, Spencer wasn’t expecting Toys R Us, but he was also pretty gobsmacked when Sam started talking about monsters. He’d waited until they were in the jet to do so, which was probably a smart move. This isn’t the first time they’ve played along with a delusion in order to get answers, but it’s definitely the strangest.

Funniest, also. Spencer hopes Garcia got a lot of pictures.

Sam will definitely be headed to an institution, when all of this is over, and Spencer’s having trouble processing that, but… well, it’s not like Spencer’s unfamiliar with that sort of facility. Spencer’s just glad Sam’s not a murderer, and he’s ready to get Dean, arrest whoever’s framing them, and get some answers. He can deal with the rest later; there’s only so much he can handle right now.

It’s been a weird day.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Sam announces, passing the last Super Soaker to Spencer. “Bobby didn’t know where they’re keeping Dean, but I’m guessing the cells. I’ll lead the way. Don’t trust anyone, we have to assume the local cops are Leviathans, at this point. Stick together, don’t let them touch you. Clear?”

“And I’ll be right here with the emergency radio,” Garcia chimes in cheerily. “Thank God.”

Sam tucks his own water gun into the back of his jeans, hefting the fire axe he’d somehow stolen from the cockpit of the jet without anyone noticing. “Let’s go,” he says authoritatively.

“We’re right behind you,” JJ says, in her warmest, most soothing “placate the crazy man” voice.

Sam leads them around the corner and through the front door of the station, easing the door open without a sound, and they follow, entering the oddly quiet precinct quickly and efficiently.

Spencer can see his teammates starting to draw their real weapons; luckily, Sam’s too focused on what’s in front of him to notice what everyone is doing behind him. Spencer hooks a finger on the Super Soaker and lets it dangle from his left hand, drawing his gun with his right, and most of the team is doing the same, for the sake of appearances. Emily and Morgan just set their water guns on the floor.

“Dean?” Sam calls out.

“Sammy!”

Dean walks jauntily out into the bullpen like it’s a very normal thing to find a team of federal agents aiming their guns at him, but he does a double take, disconcerted, frowning for a moment at all the neon plastic toys on display. Then he recovers and turns a wide grin on Sam, who’s hanging back, wary.

“You brought backup,” Dean says, laughing. “Good, I’m hungry. I’m very glad you made it.”

“You’re not Dean,” Sam says, low and certain.

“No, I am not,” the man says, almost gleeful. “Close enough, though! I have all his memories, and I wanted to chat for a moment, before I eat you. I like my meat a little bitter.”

“What the almighty shitfire,” Emily breathes, but neither Sam or Dean pay any attention to her. Spencer has a hysterical urge to laugh, but he swallows it, heart pounding, not daring to look away from the insanity that’s unfolding in front of them.

“Dean thinks you’re nuts, you know.” The man’s eyes flick behind Sam, taking in the team fanned out behind him. “So do your new friends.”

Sam reaches behind his back to grab the handle of his water gun, but he holds it out of sight, still. Spencer keeps his finger firmly on the trigger of his real gun.

“Where’s my brother?” Sam snaps.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get to the point.” He’s wearing a smug, nasty smile, and this isn’t going the way Spencer expected at all. “Dean killed Amy.”

Sam seems frozen, completely paralyzed.

“There it is,” the man who isn’t Dean says, laughing. “Now I can eat you.”

Sam draws his water gun so quickly it’s just a blur of neon orange, and then the man (thing, Spencer corrects himself frantically) is smoking. He’s smoking and sizzling wherever the water touches, and he’s screaming, looking just as stunned as Spencer feels in the split-second before Sam swings the fire axe and chops off his head with one powerful blow.

There’s a moment where everything seems to slow down, like Spencer’s moving underwater, as he takes in the black goo pouring from the stump where the creature’s head used to be.

“What in the almighty motherfucking shitfire,” Emily says again, into the momentary silence.

“More incoming,” Sam snaps. “Heads up.”

Then everything speeds up, too fast for Spencer to process, and it all blurs together: he’s holstering his gun, spraying water at something that’s wearing Sam’s face, as someone screams. Glass shatters, somewhere. Out of the corner of his eye Spencer sees Morgan pulling the station’s fire axe out of its case, whirling around without hesitation in a spray of black goo, and he keeps getting caught in the water pistol jets but it’s better than all those goddamn teeth, what the hell, in the massive mouth that just appeared, so he shoots, what, how, and then -

And then it’s over as suddenly as it began.

It’s over.

Spencer’s heart is racing. He’s surrounded by puddles of water and puddles of oozing black, Morgan’s clutching an axe like it’s a life raft, and everyone is okay. Spencer looks around frantically, double-checking, but everyone is okay; they’re still standing, at least, although JJ, greenish-pale, looks like she’s seconds away from keeling over in shock.

“Back here, Sammy!” comes a muffled voice from the back of the station. Sam casually wipes the blade of his axe on the side of his pants, expression unreadable. Spencer watches him clench his jaw and take a deep breath.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Rossi mumbles.

Sam’s face is blank as he looks around, taking in the mess and the team.

“I told you so,” he says mildly. Then he steps over the headless remains of a monster and goes to get his brother.

* * * * * * * * *

November 2009

He doesn’t bother trying to go back to sleep after the second nightmare. He goes outside instead, sits on the curb in the parking lot, looks up. The stars are barely visible with the Vegas light pollution, but it still helps to be outside. He can breathe a little easier.

There’s this tightly-knotted mess of rage in his chest, sitting on his ribcage like a tumor, poisoning him slowly.

It’s almost four in the morning, and he has no idea where Sam might be, or what time it is there. He takes out his phone anyway and fires off a text.

You awake?

The phone rings less than a minute later.

“What’s up?” Sam asks. He doesn’t sound like he was sleeping.

“I’m in Vegas,” Spencer says softly, and then realizes that doesn’t mean anything to Sam. “It’s where I grew up.”

“Win big on the slot machines?”

“I guess. I won two thousand dollars today, actually. I… I gave it to a prostitute,” Spencer admits. He adds hastily, “Not for sex.”

Sam laughs. “Right.”

There’s a moment of silence. Spencer could make small talk, now; he could pretend he called for no reason in particular. Sam wouldn’t believe him, but he wouldn’t question it, either.

He takes a deep breath and spits the words out fast, before he can regret letting them loose. “Apparently my dad lived really close by my entire life, even after he left my mom and me. I didn’t know. He never told me.”

“Shit,” Sam says.

“He was keeping tabs on me my whole life,” he says. His voice gives him away, breaking and rasping, and it hurts to keep forcing the words out. “He read all my articles, my dissertation, everything I ever had published. My friends seem to think I should be happy about that.”

“That’s bull,” Sam says firmly.

“Why wasn’t it enough?” Spencer whispers. He’s been holding that question in all day, and it’s been choking him.

His lower lip is wobbling. He’s glad Sam can’t see him. This is the sort of honesty that’s much easier from a distance; Sam might hang up right now, but at least Spencer won’t have to watch him walk away.

“Do you think they know?” Sam asks. “How badly they messed us up, I mean.”

“Do you think they care?” It comes out more bitter than he intended. Spencer makes a face and looks down at his feet in their mismatched socks. “I think that’s the important part. If he cared, I could probably forgive him, but… I don’t think he does. Not really.”

“Yeah.”

Spencer takes a breath. The anger is gone now. He doesn’t like how hollow he feels in its wake, but he does feel lighter. He feels better.

“Thanks for listening,” he says. “It helps.”

There’s a long pause, and Spencer thinks maybe he should hang up, now, try to rest even if he can’t sleep.

“Want to hear a joke?” Sam asks. “I tried to tell Dean, but... I don’t think he got it.”

“Sure.”

“How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“How many?”

“Two. One to change the light bulb and one to to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness.”

Spencer laughs, grinning up at the stars. “That’s good. I’m gonna steal that.”

* * * * * * * * *

Sam sighs as he closes the door of the precinct behind himself. They’re not totally done with cleanup, but all Hotch’s wild-eyed muttering about paperwork is starting to make him anxious.

Also, every time he looks at Dean, he feels sick.

He sits down on the bench that’s out front, under a little awning. The sky is dark with clouds, and the air is thick, threatening rain, so humid it seems hard to breathe… but maybe that’s the shock setting in.

He barely gets a minute of peace before Dean comes out to find him.

“Hey,” Dean says cheerfully. “Ready to go? I’m starving, and I don’t want to be here when that bunch starts asking questions. Pretty cool, though, having an in with the FBI. Definitely makes life easier, bein’ dead again.”

He’s standing there on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, grinning like it’s just another day. Sam’s chest hurts.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

“What’s up?” Dean asks, frowning.

“You killed Amy,” Sam says, and he watches Dean’s face as he realizes, the way he shifts his weight uncomfortably.

“Listen, Sam...” he says.

“No, you know what, don’t,” Sam spits. He knows the drill. Dean thought he was doing the right thing, he made a choice, he had to take responsibility if Sam couldn’t. Sam looks at his feet and says, “I don’t think I can be around you right now.”

“So… what, you -”

“You should go,” Sam says. He looks up and searches Dean’s face for some sign of guilt, remorse, empathy, but Dean just looks resigned. Sam wishes he would just start screaming, or throw a punch so Sam could hit him back. It’s not fair that Sam’s the only one in pain right now.

“Okay, Sam,” Dean says, and he turns to go. Sam watches him walk away.

He’s not sure how long he sits on the bench, watching people pass. The sky is getting darker by the minute.

Spencer doesn’t announce his presence when he comes outside, just sits on the bench next to Sam and waits quietly.

“He killed my friend,” Sam mumbles, without looking at him. “She was a monster, but she didn’t… she didn’t mean to. She didn’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Let me guess, he thought he was doing the right thing?” Spencer says wryly.

The lack of pity in his voice makes it easier for Sam to keep talking, and sarcasm feels better than grief. “Shocking, right?” he says. There’s a low rumble of thunder overhead, and they both look up at the sky. “I didn’t have many friends, but… I liked her.” The grief seems to be creeping in whether he wants it or not.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Sam’s throat feels tight. “He’s my brother, I just… I’ve fucked up in the past, I know I have. But I always feel like I have to earn his forgiveness. It feels like I’m always asking him to give me another chance, to trust me again, and… and he still doesn’t really look at me the same way. Then he pulls something like this, and I know, one way or the other, he just doesn’t trust me. He thinks it’s okay to lie to me, because I don’t deserve the truth.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything, just makes an unhappy, understanding sort of sound. The first fat raindrops start to fall on the concrete in front of them, and they’re both quiet for a moment.

Sam smiles in spite of himself, remembering. “She changed her name, since I met her. Her name was always Amy, but she changed her last name to Pond.”

“Cool,” Spencer says.

“Yeah. I mean, no, she wasn’t cool, neither of us were, but… yeah.”

Sam can breathe a little easier, now.

“What are you going to do?” Spencer asks.

Sam looks sideways at him and sees the way his mouth is twitching. “Don’t.”

“Nothing you can do, is what I seem to remember you saying,” Spencer says innocently. “Give it time. Right? Does that make you feel any better?”

Sam laughs, burying his face in his hands. “That was fucking useless advice. Fuck, don’t ever listen to me.” He wipes his eyes. “This just sucks.”

“Yeah, it really does,” Spencer agrees. It’s pouring steadily now, rain streaming off the sides of their little awning. “Apparently Hotch thinks I should run away from my problems for a little while, give myself time to process, so I’ve been ordered to take a couple days off.”

“JJ, still?”

“Yeah. I think maybe he’s right. But… I was going to rent a car and drive back to DC, instead of taking the jet. Make a couple detours. Get some space. Give it time. You could come, if you want.”

Sam turns to him, surprised, but Spencer looks sincere; he’s giving Sam one of his trademark anxious not-quite-smiles.

“I was just going to hotwire a car,” Sam blurts out, and then winces. “That might be a better idea.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“I guess you probably have some questions,” Sam says reluctantly.

Spencer grins. “Harder for me to run away if we’re in a moving vehicle, right?”

Sam laughs, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Yeah, guess so.”

“After today, I’m not actually sure I want to know all the details,” Spencer says, wrinkling his nose. “But I do have some questions.”

“Anything you want to know,” Sam promises. “The truth. I promise. I should’ve… I should’ve told you sooner.”

Spencer shrugs. “No, I’m pretty sure you were right, I would’ve run away screaming.”

Sam laughs and rolls his eyes, and they sit there in silence for a moment, watching the rain start to slow. The clouds are already starting to blow over.

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”

― Mark Twain

You can now read about the road trip right here!

#criminal minds fic #spn fic #supernatural x criminal minds #sam winchester #spencer reid #spn #cm #crossover

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beca-mitchell · 4 years

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Summary: When Beca and Jesse get married, the second last thing anybody expects is for them to separate soon after. The actual last thing anybody expects is for Beca to move in with Chloe. Set after PP2.

Notes: i told myself i would fucking finish this and mark my words i will even if this ends up being the most horrible thing in the world. fic title from "Cornelia Street" by Taylor Swift

Read below or on AO3.

* * * * *

Beca looks beautiful, all clad in white. The bodice of her dress is snug and fitted. Sleeveless and strapless, baring her delicate shoulders. Her hair, so carefully styled and pinned by Chloe's own hands.

Beautiful, Chloe repeats in her mind. She tries not to stare, but it is too difficult not to marvel at the way Beca just seems to glow. It is reminiscent of so many memories Chloe previously held close to her chest (radiant smiles from across the room, hoisting championship trophies, graduation, smiles from across a flickering campfire), yet here Beca is in front of all their friends.

For all the world to see.

A tinge of joy sparks in Chloe’s chest before spreading into a flame that sends the most pleasant of aches through her body.

She is so indescribably happy for Beca’s happiness...and yet—

It’s just that now, in this moment, there is a kind of impossibleness about Beca that rattles Chloe’s heart. She looks beautiful with a nervous - but unmistakably radiant and happy - smile adorning her face. It’s the kind of smile that art only hopes to capture - the kind of happiness that makes people envious.

Chloe remembers that her brother once told her that a person’s perspective and emotions could change completely by way of simply tilting their head. He had then taken the opportunity to push her into the pool while she had observed an adorable bird flapping its wings in the cool spring air. It had all been a ploy of course, but for some reason, Chloe knew that she would not have seen that bird if not for a change of perspective. A change of heart, maybe.

She wonders if she can tilt her head now if only to right all the wrongs in her life. Her world is already bent and skewed and she navigates through it on shaky legs. She has navigated and navigated and brought herself here. To this moment.

To Beca’s wedding day.

It makes Chloe sigh with how breathtaking Beca looks. She clutches her bouquet a little tighter, watching Beca practically glide down the aisle while holding on to her father’s arm.

Beca is a force in Chloe’s life. She perpetuates this constant push and pull somewhere deep within Chloe’s chest, like she is pulling Chloe to shore, but Chloe resists because she knows Beca isn’t hers - not really. It’s a little akin to self-preservation, but she’s resisting the one thing she knows will make her happy beyond reason.

It’s why Chloe is here today; it’s why Chloe is trying to stop herself from crying, lest she break down very publicly and very inappropriately.

It’s because today isn’t about her, not one bit.

It’s about Beca marrying her college sweetheart.

Or rather, in other words:

Beca chose Jesse.

Beca chose Jesse all those years ago and now Chloe pays the price for never having spoken out; she’s paying the price by watching the love of her life marry somebody else, while she smiles and pretends she’s okay with it all.

And she is - she’s okay, really. She knows that Beca is happy - from what she can tell - and she knows that Jesse will take care of Beca.

But she would absolutely be lying if she said “being okay” meant that it didn’t hurt at all, because it does hurt. It hurts like a bitch, and that’s putting it lightly if Chloe’s being honest.

So Chloe lets her heart bleed out, not caring that she leaves remnants of her love for Beca along this path they’ve walked together: she’ll accept whatever fate comes to her, even if it means just being Beca’s friend because it’s better than not having her in her life at all.

They’ve all known each other for years at this point.

Chloe’s world has been spinning slowly from the moment Beca told her she was engaged and now...watching Beca kiss Jesse softly—tenderly—Chloe’s world slows so much that she thinks she stops breathing for a moment.

Though all eyes are on the happy couple, Chloe’s world slows and blurs until she’s the only one there, witnessing this unfold before her eyes. She feels an unreal sense of nothingness well up inside her while happiness struggles to fill the void, a happiness she struggled to find for as long as she can remember.

And here, Jesse and Beca are, having found that happiness for themselves.

So she borrows some of that - thrives tragically off the love her life being happy because it’s what she deserves. It’s what they all deserve.

Then, when Chloe comes back into herself, her world is bent and twisted - tilted on its axis in all the wrong directions.

Beca is smiling at her with tears in her eyes, holding on to her husband’s hand and there’s nothing Chloe can really do about it.

Beca turns with Jesse and hand in hand, they float back down the aisle. Chloe watches them as they go—float seems like the only apt word because they seem to drift, like they are simultaneously fading from her own conscience.

She marvels at how quickly they became Jesse and Beca. No longer Jesse-comma-Beca.

Chloe’s hands are numb from clapping, watching from her own perch as the maid of honor, though she finds little honor in her position, considering she is kind of sort of very much in love with the bride herself.

Still. Clapping. She plasters a smile on her face even as her heart thrums uncomfortably, like a warning sign. The only real physical reminder that she’s present; that she’s there.

* * * * *

It wasn’t even that long ago—

“Are you happy?” Chloe had asked. Well before the wedding. Well before the preparations for the wedding. Something that Chloe had always enjoyed about her relationship with Beca was their ability to communicate with each other, mostly because of all the struggle they had endured to get to this point. They talked often and sometimes for hours at a time. It brought—continues to bring—joy to Chloe whenever they managed to steal away into their own world for a few moments. The distance between them, distance which only grew with time, was a buffer, but nothing permanent.

Chloe was and still isn’t good with boundaries.

The distance was somewhat of a buffer, but Chloe was never good with boundaries. She had allowed herself to be sucked in by Beca and consumed by Beca's wants and needs, even if Beca hadn't wanted her. It hadn't mattered. Didn't matter, especially not then as the precious minutes ticked on by.

Even less than an hour ago, when Chloe had been staring at the back of Beca’s head for an entirely different reason, hair brush in her hand, ready to help Beca become the bride she wanted to be.

“Are you happy?” Chloe had asked, once again.

She was Beca's maid of honor. She had duties to fulfill. Hair to comb and brush. A smiling and happy bride to please.

It was a special kind of hell, waiting for Beca to respond. It felt like a stupid question, in retrospect.

So. Hell. A special kind of hell for those who inappropriately fall in love with their best friends.

As for Beca—

Beca’s eyes had lifted to catch Chloe’s in the mirror and for a moment, their breaths had stilled. Beca always prided herself on knowing Chloe well. Probably better than she knew herself at times. Still, the question had jarred her - but not because of the context. It had been the way Chloe asked: trepidation and emotion bleeding through the three simple words, like another set of three words that set people's hearts aflame.

(There had been times where Beca found herself instinctively wanting to respond with another three words. Equally simple, but equally capable of setting people's hearts aflame, much like her own. How natural that would have felt.)

A range of possible answers flooded through Chloe's mind as the silence stretched. She imagined and imagined, combing through Beca's hair with slow, gentle fingers. Then, Beca finally turned to face her and the imagery changed. Chloe imagined all kinds of things that Beca could say – all the ways Beca could have broken her heart.

The happiest, Beca could say.

Or-

I love him with all my heart.

He’s everything I want and more.

Instead, all Beca managed to do was hesitate; all Beca managed to do was say a soft - the softest - “yes” and that had been the end of that conversation.

Chloe hadn't been sure if she should have breathed a sigh of relief or if she should have sucked in a breath of despair.

* * * * *

Shockingly, at a wedding reception for two of her friends (Jesse is a friend, Chloe tells herself), Chloe finds it difficult to pick out a familiar face.

She is seated between Benji and one of Beca’s cousins. It’s one of the odder tables she’s ever been a part of, but Chloe can’t complain, being a part of Beca’s life.

“Hey,” Benji says quietly.

“Where’s Emily?” Chloe asks, equally quiet as they watch Beca and Jesse share their first dance as husband and wife. Something heavy rests on her shoulders.

Benji laughs, a little self-deprecatingly. “We’ve been over for a while now.”

Chloe thinks she could facepalm at that exact moment if she weren’t cradling her wine glass precariously. “I...I’m so sorry. Yes, I knew that,” Chloe murmurs, embarrassed. “I totally knew that and I just…” her gaze flickers, practically automatically, back to Beca and Jesse.

Now, somehow, her eyes lock on directly to Beca’s eyes. Beca’s eyes which are glistening as clear as day.

Beca’s voice rings in her head, suddenly drowning out all other sounds.

“I...I’m sorry,” Chloe repeats. “Got caught up in memories, I guess.”

She misses Benji’s sympathetic expression. He pauses before speaking. “I totally get it if you don’t want to do the song.”

And there’s that.

(Also, it figures that Jesse’s best friend is as intuitive as ever. Chloe thinks that her and Benji must make a fine pair.)

“No,” Chloe murmurs. “We’ve practiced it enough and it’s on the itinerary. Aubrey will kill me if I don’t sing the song.”

Benji grins, as boyishly handsome as ever. “Weren’t you the maid of honour?”

Chloe cuts him a playful glance. “You think Aubrey Posen would pass up an opportunity to plan something? Especially for a fellow Bella?” She clears her throat. “And...it was probably for the best that she ended up taking control of the whole thing.” At Benji’s inquisitive expression, she falters. “I’ve been busy with work. New school year and all.”

He nods, but doesn’t push. Instead, he rises to his feet and holds out a hand. “Dance?” he asks. “Just to get the pre-performance jitters out.” His smile is genuine. “I know it’s…” he lowers his voice. “...it’s been a while since you’ve performed.”

Chloe snorts, already feeling something unclench from around her heart. “And who won Nationals three times in a row?” She accepts Benji’s hand nonetheless.

“Okay, super senior. Win any awards for that?”

The laugh she lets out is one of the easiest ones she’s let out in a while.

* * * * *

Watching Beca and Jesse grow together was in itself a long and tumultuous road. As with most college relationships, they had their ups and downs, had their moments apart, but somehow - always somehow - Beca would talk herself (and Chloe) back into the idea that her and Jesse were meant to be together.

If Chloe had to pinpoint important moments from her college experience, she’d use the markers of Jesse and Beca’s relationship to pinpoint specific moments where she felt like her and Beca were something more. The way Beca’s eyes would flash or change whenever she looked at Chloe - or even the way Beca’s body always somehow angled towards her, attentive and caring and confusing all at once.

As for Jesse and Beca, there were many times where Chloe believed they would separate permanently, but they somehow always forced themselves back together. Forced. Not found. What that meant was that Beca would find herself distressed and huffing and pacing in Chloe’s room, nearly rubbing a hole into her floor with how frequently she did that.

Chloe privately thought—feelings shared by Aubrey and Amy from time to time—that Jesse and Beca were better off as friends, but there was something a little romantic, she supposed, about marrying your significant other from college and building that idyllic life together. There was something a little picturesque about that - about growing together to the point that they were ready to spend the rest of their lives together.

It didn’t take a genius to realize that Jesse and Beca were that couple: they were both successful and talented and both agreed to live together in Los Angeles. It was almost annoying how well they worked together, but even Beca, on a drunken whim at Barden during her junior year, had confided that she sometimes had felt that something had never really clicked between them.

Chloe never pursued that line of thought because Beca had still been happy.

So they graduated, won the Worlds, and everybody went their separate ways.

That’s the short story.

The slightly longer story is that Chloe planned and planned until she grew so terribly weary of seeing her career advisor between classes. She grew weary of dragging half-eaten sandwiches into her equally exasperated career advisor’s office. She studied until she saw black spots in the corner of her vision.

By the end of her senior year, she had plans to leave Barden and never look back.

She contemplated moving home. She contemplated Portland and her parents’ comfortable home. She contemplated the fair weather, the nice trails, and the free meals.

She thought of stability and mediocrity and everything that came with the idea of settling - not even settling down.

Just, settling.

So, instead, she called her brother and asked whether she could stay with him in San Francisco. She called her brother because she barely talked to her sister. She called her brother because he was where she wanted to be.

(California. She wanted to be in California. Beca’s determination and drive bleed into Chloe, as expected when two bodies exist in such close proximity. Chloe is helpless to stop the ebb and flow of Beca’s spirit and drive into her own body.

She craves it.

It makes her better—makes all of them better.)

Despite Aubrey’s insistence that she take up a position at Fallen Leaves with all associated perks and benefits, Chloe declined that offer and finally settled on working towards being a teacher.

(“In California?” Aubrey asks, trepidation in her tone. Disapproval, maybe. Chloe doesn’t want to get into that now.

“Yes. Eventually.” Chloe responds because what else is she supposed to say?)

* * * * *

“You’ve always been weirdly good with kids,” Beca says lightly. They’re folding their blankets while the last embers of the fading campfire flicker away.

It surprises Chloe because Beca had been oddly quiet while the rest of the Bellas made their way back to the tent for their final night. Taking pause, Chloe watches Beca’s face for any clues as to why she’s bringing this up now or if Beca’s going to continue her train of thought.

“I guess,” Chloe says slowly. “I mean, I don’t really think that I could find a steady job teaching underprivileged children how to sing.” A small smile works its way across her face. “That’d be nice though.”

“Not just that,” Beca says quickly. “I just...think you’d make a really good teacher. Of the general sort. Like, teaching kids...how to read. Or do math.” Beca seems to grow more embarrassed as more words flow from her mouth. “You know what I mean. You’ve always had the most ridiculous patience with the Bellas and you’ve also always managed to…” Beca’s voice grows quieter. “You’ve always helped me believe in myself. So, that’s...yeah.”

That little monologue is surprising enough that it’s Beca who is rambling nervously in front of Chloe. But it’s the added touch of Beca being bashful - shy almost - as if she’s revealing something intimate about herself that really makes Chloe’s cheeks warm.

“And maybe,” Beca suggests casually, evening her tone out like she’s talking about the weather, but Chloe knows better. “Maybe that’s a job you could do in California.”

And there it is. The blurry lines and deep-seated emotions finally rising to the surface.

Chloe adores this side of Beca. It’s rare to see such vulnerability shine through. Chloe thinks she can count on two hands the amount of times Beca’s walls crumbled in front of her, enough so for her to seek comfort in Chloe’s room in the dead of the night, or to find Chloe at her favorite spot in the library.

“Yeah?” Chloe asks, almost too afraid to break the silence.

Somehow, Beca looks younger, standing in front of her. Like she's standing in front of Chloe in her freshman year, asking for a chance somehow.

“Yeah,” is Beca’s equally soft reply.

Chloe gently tugs the half-folded blanket from Beca’s hands. She smiles and helps Beca refold it without saying another word.

There really isn’t much more Chloe can say.

* * * * *

And even since then – since that fateful evening, sitting around the campfire without a care in the world – she says nothing and does nothing. The memory of one of their last nights together as college students and as Bellas is seared into Chloe's mind.

It’s not like she can do or say anything, really. For all intents and purposes, Beca is happy and Jesse is sweet. They work together and Chloe isn’t in the business of breaking up solid couples.

So she throws herself into work after Jesse proposes. She buries herself in work after the wedding. Buries and buries like an ostrich with its head in the sand because it is easier to pretend than face the reality.

Chloe is terrible at coping mechanisms. A product of how she grew up, she supposes.

Amidst all this – amidst the hurt, the separation, and the desperate bid for happiness, she completes her teaching certification. Even worse, she moves to L.A.—fully moves, boxes and all—and she goes out to dinners with Jesse and Beca like some hapless third wheel, pretending everything is fine and she is completely and totally okay with seeing Beca and Jesse hold hands like they’ve done so a million times before.

Chloe is nothing but resilient and maybe a bit of a masochist. She wills her crush away (prays for some kind of reprieve for sinners like her) but she learns the hard way that it is useless because she can’t will away something that doesn’t exist.

Because she doesn’t have a crush.

It’s not a crush and never was. She’s just hopelessly in love with Beca Mitchell and she’ll have to spend the rest of her life figuring out how to deal with that.

* * * * *

Regardless, it doesn’t take long for things to go to shit.

* * * * *

It starts with Beca moving in with Chloe. The irony is that Chloe had assumed the end of Jesse and Beca's wedding meant the beginning of their life together—a new life without Chloe, all things considered. It ends up being the beginning of something, just not quite the life that Jesse likely envisioned. Chloe had prepared herself to be completely boxed out because a married couple, she assumed, typically didn't have time for a tragically single woman who were in love with one half of said married couple.

Or maybe it starts with Beca and Jesse’s relationship souring entirely, prompting them to split hastily and messily. It sends Beca right to Chloe and her new Los Angeles apartment, having finally found her footing in the teaching department.

Or maybe it starts with the beginning of Jesse and Beca’s relationship, all those years ago.

Chloe isn’t sure, but she thinks maybe—just maybe—she isn't remiss in thinking that the story starts and ends with her and Beca somehow. She just has difficulty figuring out how the pieces fall.

* * * * *

Beca is only living with her for about two weeks when it happens.

When Chloe comes home one Friday afternoon, she isn’t expecting to see a mess in her living room. The rumpled blanket, headphones haphazardly scattered across the floor. Beca's laptop perched precariously on the edge of the coffee table as if its owner couldn't be bothered to put it away neatly.

She knows Beca and this isn't Beca's usual behaviour.

Panicking, Chloe darts around the corner, calling for Beca’s name. She is worried that Beca hurt herself somehow. Her brain immediately conjures up the worst possible scenarios - all of them worse than the previous ones.

She stops in each bedroom before she realizes there’s a quiet sort of sniffling happening behind the door to the guest bathroom.

“Beca?” she calls softly, not wanting to startle Beca.

She hopes it’s Beca. The thought that Beca might have been harmed makes her heart pound and it spurs her into action again. She reaches into her purse, resting her fingers on the small canister of mace (a gift from Aubrey) and tries to still her racing heart.

The crying becomes more apparent as Chloe nears firmly-shut door. "Beca?" she calls quietly. The sniffling stops for a moment before it starts again. Chloe is both relieved and upset: relieved that Beca is safe, but upset that Beca is hurting for whatever reason. She rests a palm against the wooden door, her heart aching at the sound of Beca’s quiet crying.

“Bec,” she tries. "I'm coming in, okay?" She waits, listening for protest. Upon hearing none, she finally pushes open the door. “I – what’s going on?” she asks, trying to stay calm when she sees Beca huddled in the furthest corner of the room, hastily wiping away her tears. Even after years of knowing each other, Beca Mitchell is still self-conscious of her own tears in front of Chloe Beale – Chloe, who is an avid crier herself. It would be cute if not for the fact that Beca doesn't look like she's about to calm down anytime soon. Chloe bites her lip, unsure as to what she can say. “What…happened to the living room?” Chloe finally asks tentatively. “I-I’m not mad. I’m just concerned,” Chloe says hastily. “We can clean it up later, I’m just…” Chloe trails off, gesturing vaguely with her hands.

This moment is rare. She’s not sure whether Beca wants her to approach or not.

Beca finally makes a sound other than a sniffle or a sob. She laughs, but it’s dry and void of emotion. Not quite the sound Chloe is expecting. The sound is jarring and echoes in the space around them. It alarms Chloe because Beca has generally either been sad or happy since moving in with her. The two solid emotions are at least something that Chloe can deal with. This Beca is scared – terrified, maybe – and a little hollow. It makes Chloe’s chest feel tight, as if she’s about to have some kind of bomb dropped on her.

“Beca,” Chloe says softly. She finally kneels in front of Beca and puts her hand on her shoulder in an attempt to get her to look up. “What’s wrong? Did...Did Jesse say something to you? Say something about you?” It's the only thing that Chloe can think of as the most recent trauma in Beca's life – her separation and subsequent divorce proceedings from Jesse. She lets the question hang in the air, hopes it doesn't upset Beca too terribly, and waits.

Chloe doesn’t have to wait long. It feels as if time stops for a moment when Beca’s eyes flick up to hers, but they’re filled with pain and sadness and a kind of longing that Chloe doesn’t know what to do with. She can’t dwell, however, because Beca’s mouth is opening and she takes a deep, pained breath-

“I-I’m pregnant, Chlo.”

Chloe’s world tilts all over again.

tbc.

#mine #bechloe #bechloe fic #my fanfic #pitch perfect

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jaggedwolf · 4 years

Text

TSCOSI Ficlets #3

Ghost of your loved ones judging your choices

Three hours after that headache-inducing call with the Rumor, Violet's still working. Their answer had come soon after the call ended. She's not sure what the point of the delay even was. But like Thasia said, they're in no position to refuse help.

Small chance of success. Doesn't mean Violet won't pull on the webs she can, thread some others together. She keeps typing. Hadn't she-

"You should sleep."

Violet's fingers still. She reluctantly drags her head up to acknowledge this occasional guest.

In life, Emily Craddock had been a wisp of a woman. In death, it makes her a picture-perfect ghost, ethereal and untouchable.

(In dying, it had made her terrifyingly small to hold, thin voice growing thinner. Her grip on Thasia's hand had only slackened at the very end.)

"I'm working," mutters Violet. She doesn't start typing again.

"I'm quite sure you are." Craddock floats closer. Her voice is whole, the words flowing together, and Violet is once more annoyed at herself for her computer-induced slip in front of the Rumor crew.

Raising an eyebrow, Craddock says, "Surely some of it could wait. Thasia wouldn't be asleep otherwise."

Both their gazes drift to the softly snoring Thasia on the bed a few feet away from them. Violet grimaces. "Thasia could sleep for a thousand hours and they'd probably still be on a deficit."

Craddock's eyes narrow. "They're not helpless."

"I know," snaps Violet tiredly. "That's not what I said. I-Do you want me to wake them?"

"Not unless they've suddenly gained the ability to see or hear me." Craddock lets out a high laugh. "I didn't come by to make you play intermediary."

"Then what?" The universe has always been low on sense, but Violet can't help think it a particularly absurd choice for her to be the one seeing Craddock, not Thasia. Even if personal history was put aside, Violet's confident the spiritual sort's a better fit for ghost whisperer than the biologist-slash-spy.

"You need to sleep. You're terrible in the mornings when you haven't had enough sleep."

"I'm terrible in the mornings when I haven't gotten enough work done."

"That's true." A thoughtful expression on her face, Craddock sits cross-legged next to Violet, sinking to float only an inch off the ground. "Another half hour then."

"Fine."

As Craddock begins humming, Violet resumes her work.

Invading someone's dreams

Brian doesn't feel great about this. Not like they've got a whole lot of options.

That Dwarnian artifact easily knocked Arkady unconscious shortly after she put it down, left her sweating and twisting and murmuring in the medbay bed, and then it as easily offered an avenue into her.

Krejjh's busy piloting. Captain's busy coordinating with their contacts. Violet's busy taking care of Arkady's body.

That leaves Brian with Arkady's mind.

He doesn't know if he really expected anything in particular, but he's relieved to find himself in the Rumor. Would have felt kinda grubby seeing somewhere new.

Ahead of him, Arkady stalks down the hallway, her footsteps cautious. When she touches her comms, it sparks and she swears. She has a gun out.

Brian almost instinctively shadows her the way she likes it - three steps behind, angled so that she's always between him and the next turn. He lingers further back, and watches.

She takes another step, the hallway suddenly replaced by the slightly bigger mess. Classic dream logic. Brian squashes his fascination at that bit, what it'd be like to roll out the progression of someone's dream.

Arkady stands in the center of the mess, dark eyes sweeping across the doors in front of her. Brian's against a wall to the right of her, but she doesn't seem to notice him. Maybe he's like, invisible in here? Cool, but would probably make persuading her to wake up kind of difficult.

A door slams open, and Brian sees a flash of purple the same time he hears Arkady's gun go off.

He hears the gun clatter on the ground, but he doesn't look at Arkady, not now, not when his heart is freezing at the sight of Krejjh collapsed in the doorway, green blood oozing from under where their hand clutches their chest.

It's not them, he reminds himself, They're in the Iris's cockpit now. He still can't look away.

"First...Mate...Pa"-Krejjh's slurred words are cut off by a cough.

"Shit, no." Arkady scrambles towards Krejjh, gun on the ground forgotten, skidding on to her knees once she's close enough. Her voice turns ragged. "Not again, I didn't-"

Brian blinks, and the scene resets.

Arkady in the middle of the mess, gun in her hand, no sign of Krejjh anywhere. Her expression is once again as carefully neutral as it was at the start.

A door opens. Brian winces, expecting another gunshot. Instead, he hears his own voice.

"Hey, dude, have you seen any of the others?" Dream-Brian peeks his head through, an unsettling replica, and looks hopefully at Arkady.

"No." Arkady scowls. "Come on, stick close. I don't like this."

"I'm not the biggest fan of not knowing where the others are either." Dream-Brian joins Arkady in the middle of the room, and when she slides in front of him, still keeping a lookout, Brian feels a familiar relief.

Dream-Brian's hands are in his hoodie pocket. That isn't odd - Brian's hands are in his own hoodie pocket right now.

Then Dream-Brian pulls a knife out from the pocket and stabs Arkady in the lower back. Arkady crumples to her knees, twisting around in a way that jars the knife in her. She's not looking at Dream-Brian but past him.

Dream-Brian shrugs. Pulls out the knife. "Should’ve watched your back, Kady."

The pain in Arkady's face gives way to confusion. "Wh-"

The scene resets, and Arkady is once more whole and standing in the middle of the mess.

Okay, no. Brian doesn't know what's going on here, how much of this is the Dwarnian artifact putting Arkady through a messed up test and how much of this is Arkady's own ridiculousness, but he is done playing witness.

"Arkady," he says loudly, striding up to her.

When she looks at him, he thinks: That's a start.

Non-americanizing your canon

Violet's sense of professional ethics was never about saving face. Saving face would have been never taking this case on in the first place, never having the government's quiet ire about Ms Patel's - no, Arkady's claims extend to Violet's untarnished medical reputation.

So. It's only after Violet has proven herself useless, and Arkady has no need of her expertise, that she finds herself sweating through her blouse in a hawker centre with Arkady.

Yishun is a longer drive for Violet than it is a train and bus ride for Arkady. It seems fair, given the length of Arkady's regular journeys to her office.

"Sana's satay recommendation was good," says Violet, after her fifth stick. She's already considering another plate, fishing around in her purse for the tell-tale purple of loose two dollar bills.

Arkady pauses tearing through her own stick - mutton, not chicken. "Of course it was. It's Sana," she says, like that explains everything. Her right hand stays deliberately limp on the bright yellow plastic surface of the table.

Violet cuts straight to the point. "The police appeared at my office yesterday. They confiscated all our computers. And scared off a few patients."

"What." Arkady's head snaps up, a growl to her voice.

"I have backups. And I had good security on all the records, after that discussion with you and Sana."

Arkady's expression is question enough.

"Connors."

"Huh." Arkady tears off another bit of satay. "Guess the expat would be less scared." Arkady frowned. "What did the police say?"

Violet snorts. "Nothing. Said I could come down to the police station to pick up the hard drives."

What comes out of Arkady's mouth is a series of colorful curses. No stranger to Arkady's verbosity, Violet instead notes that Arkady's command of Hokkien is much better than her own command of Cantonese.

The SAF can take some credit for that. Just like them and their training accident could take credit for Arkady's ruined right hand, shaking and inconsistent and yet somehow, never with quite enough paperwork done to warrant an official investigation. Even less than there would have been if Arkady had been an NSman or a reservist.

No outrage for those who chose their duty.

"Fuck, Violet," is the final bit of Arkady's tirade. "Don't try to hide shit from them."

"I wasn't planning on going down there, " says Violet. She picks up the next stick of satay, ignoring Arkady's unmoving gaze on her. "As I said, I have backups. If they want to interrogate me, they'll have to actually detain me."

"Then that's what they're going to do," hisses Arkady. "Violet, give them what they want. Be the innocent doctor misled by a lying delinquent who blew a good chance when she had one."

"I'm not, though."

Violet doesn't mean recently, because of her involvement with Arkady.

Violet's never been innocent.

There's a hypothetical she toys with in her head, one more illuminating in how it doesn't differ from reality than how it does. If Arkady and her were men, Arkady would have done her two years and likely ended up enlisting anyway ; Violet would have gotten a deferment for medical school.

This isn't guilt. Guilt guiding one's decisions, in Violet's opinion, is dangerous both in a medical context and outside of it. It's not about righting the scales, hurting herself as if that would lessen the hurt Arkady's endured.

It's this: Violet doesn't want to imagine a world in which she doesn't have the back of the woman in front of her, a woman made of disbelieving words and hopeful eyes and a smidge of peanut sauce on the front of her white singlet. Violet doesn't know if she can become the kind of person that has that woman's back.

She wants to try.

Five Names Arkady Chose, and One She Didn’t (300 words 5+1)

First name's easy. Three syllables, like her current one. Slips out with a pained grunt. It's from some stupid vid she loved as a kid. Who's she kidding, from some stupid vid she loves.

Last name's a joke. Tantalizingly identifying, till they realize how many people they gotta search through.

There's one that never gets turned into a proper alias. An idle thought during another night in the deep, indulging in an old habit because it might have a use. Alternate name and alternate life.

But this one's not a soldier, and the war will always be visible on her

"I didn't know there were duchies nearby," says the bearded guy easily. His eyes say otherwise.

She’s got three guns and two knives hidden in this fancy suit. He's not carrying anything, but if he's stayed alive in Neuzo...

"Krejjh." The guy turns away. "Did you?"

A Dwarnian ally, shit.

She gives the coif a tug. Good thing it's not a different religion's building they need to sneak into, or they'd be shit out of luck.

Okay, not really, bullshitting's a part of the job description, but at least if she gets caught here, less risk of quoting something wrong.

She’s no knight in shining armor, but she'll use his name easy enough.

Only this biologist chick seems to have cast herself as the rescuer, little room elsewise. Full of reassurances that it's okay. Don't beat yourself up over my inevitable death.

Stupid. Now, what can the Iris still do?

It should be a relief to give it up. It isn't.

Spitting out its replacement doesn't stop it pulsing in her ears, a cacophony of voices and tones: joking, relieved, apologetic.

None from the bright-eyed woman kneeling next to her in the back of this shitty truck. Too late now.

Pick Who ̶D̶i̶e̶s̶

Sana knew her crew. She thought she did. She thought she knew Arkady best of all. When the mercenaries said they’d let Arkady meet up with the Iris to deliver the ultimatum they had for Brian, that Arkady could pick one person to go with her and the other would be left behind as leverage, Sana had felt a sense of calm at the grim way Arkady and Violet’s eyes immediately met, nods exchanged. They were clever and resourceful. They’d get back to the others, figure something out. Sana wasn’t calm at all when she was the one shoved out of a shuttle with Arkady.

“Arkady!” Sana fought to make her voice heard over the sound of the shuttle taking off behind them. Arkady paid no attention, trudging forward through snow towards the lights of a city that looked to be a mile away. If it wasn’t the capital, their route back to the Iris would be even more circuitous. Sana pushed herself forward, landing a hand on Arkady’s shoulder that was immediately brushed off. Arkady snapped, “We need to keep moving. We’re easy pickings out here, and I don’t have a weapon.” “We can walk and talk,” said Sana, doing just that when Arkady grunted and carried on. “About what happened back there-you didn’t have to…” “What?” scoffed Arkady, only Sana could hear the underlying hitch in her voice. “Sana, are you honestly telling me I should’ve left you both back there? Stupid of them to let me go at all, once I get a gun-” “Kady,” interrupted Sana quietly. “Why?” Arkady’s shoulders sank. Her strides grew shorter. “Do we have to do this now?” “It does seem to be bothering you.” Sana slowed to match her pace, bumping Arkady’s shoulder with her own. “No shit,” retorted Arkady. She sighed. “She made it easier than it should’ve been, okay? Violet was pretty clear that if I didn’t pick you to leave, she’d be mad at me. Like, really mad.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Sana. “You know how you hate all that stuff about calculating lives against each other, trying to reduce individual people to cost-benefit equations or whatever?” Arkady’s mouth twitched. Sana nodded. Arkady looked half-defeated, half-proud. “Violet doesn’t feel the same way.” “What do you mean?” An uneasy feeling settled in Sana’s throat. “Violet thinks that in light of current circumstances,” said Arkady, her tone implying a direct quote to follow, “the crew needs a captain more immediately than it does a medic.” Sana opened her mouth. “I…” “Yeah, I’m not happy with her either. Figure that can wait for when she’s not held captive by a bunch of mercs. How the hell did Brian piss off these guys?” Arkady started listing possibilities, and Sana knew she was done discussing Violet for now. A memory came to her mind, of the small smile with which Violet had accepted the crew jacket Sana had finally gotten around to making. Somehow, the moment felt tainted.

#ficlets #tscosi #tscosi ficlets #other violet liu #arkady and brian #violet and arkady #arkady patel #arkady and sana

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onepunchman · 4 years

Note

re: gin hour: i wasn't here for the Dishonored blog phase; plz ramble freely about whatever Dishonored things you like rambling about

MAN they picked the wrong lead for Dishonored 2 (only gonna acknowledge Emily here bc Corvo does at least make sense in a way that Emily doesn't but he's the boring choice and also he amst old deserves to Rest). Even keeping most of the surrounding story intact, I think you could dramatically improve it by changing the protagonist. I bitched a bit about this when the game came out but I don’t think I ever did a full thing so uh here goes [major dishonored 2 spoilers ig]:

Dishonored game has two major roles to fill: a support character who frames the story by assigning targets and gives us some exposition in the process, and a protagonist who goes out and creates a pile of bodies and/or unconscious cuddle puddle.

What do I want in the support character?

-Seems like a delegator, someone highly connected with a broad knowledge of the overall conflict we're acting in. Gives us context for our place in the conflict and what effect we're having. -Someone with a lot of heavy decisions weighing, such that we can see them being pulled in any direction as our decisions and the chaos system affect them.

What do I want in the protagonist?

-Top-shelf athlete/fighter, not just good but exemplary, implying a level of training and experience that you're not gonna get if you have like, a day job (like, say, running an empire) -Some kind of a freak recluse, even if they're capable of delegating they often find themselves working alone, especially for anything important to them. -Relatedly, and probably the reason they have trouble making friends: they are accustomed to solving problems personally and with force. In times of crisis they do not expect to be able to count on allies or appeal to their social milieu, at the end of the day the only thing they trust is their own strength (otherwise they might solve their problems in literally any way more sane than running around with a knife) -Ideally, they have at least some personal involvement with the targets, especially the big finale ones. This character is going to a lot of effort, make sure we're invested in the stakes on their behalf!

Who are the two major characters for Dishonored 2?

Emily Kaldwin, recently-deposed Empress attempting to win a civil war from a place in hiding, and Billie Lurk, a former professional assassin who's been an outcast her entire life, victimized by two shitty violent cults in a row.

You see where I'm going? Billie makes more sense in every way. In the broad strokes, it makes way more sense for Billie to be trawling around on foot knifing dudes, she used to do this for a living! Emily doing that made her look both insane and incompetent. And Billie is also much more personally involved in events at the ground level for most of the major missions.

She was involved in Dunwall's underworld for a huge part of her life and appears to have gotten into similar business (if not at scale) after she fled Dunwall to Karnaca. She knows who's who, imagine if we could have talked to Mindy and Paolo in a familiar way and actually learned a bit more about Karnaca that way? She was a close personal friend of Aramis Stilton, imagine how much more weight A Crack in the Slab could have carried if it was Billie going through the manor?

And of course, her relationship with Delilah is a gold mine that was completely passed over. The kind of complex relationship where I could imagine her trying to find some sort of peace or redemption for Delilah despite the harm done to her, but where it would also be like, really satisfying to just go to town on the bitch and watch one of those custom kill animations play.

Emily got told all of these things, but she was always several degrees removed from everything in a way that made it hard to get invested.

Billie has an interesting dillema to play with in the overall low/high chaos decision too that isn't quite a good/bad ending situation. Billie grew up poor and is pretty outspoken in her frustration with the upper classes in the Isles. What do we do in the end? Restore the old order in an attempt to stop the chaos, knowing that instability always hurts the most for those who are already the worst off? Or let it all burn in the hope that you can at least create a chance for something better to be built (or because you've gone full nihilist and fuck 'em, fuck 'em all)?

Seriously you could keep all the same levels, just have The Outsider mark her instead and nudge her toward whatever ship Emily skipped town on after the coup.

This role swap has the added bonus of making Emily better too! If she's the support/framing device character, we get to actually see her act as a delegator and administrator, with us playing as one of many allies. It would be possible to portray her as someone you might actually want running a country, instead of coming across as some combination of naive, incompetent, and entitled.

#dishonored #dishonored 2 #emily kaldwin #billie lurk #ash and salt #kat.txt #hey thanks for giving me an excuse to think about this instead of my problems for a bit

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opheliacassiopea · 3 years

Text

CHAPTER 6.

TW: Mature language, mentions of alcohol consumption.

Flopping down on your sofa the next morning, you find yourself grinning at the thought of last night as you look through the many pictures that had been taken to document the events of the evening. You insisted on using your Polaroid camera to capture most of the evening, the walls of your apartment were littered with small snapshots of your life; the team, your friends outside of work, nature, anything that made you feel at peace. Your apartment, much like your appearance was how you expressed yourself and it was your sanctuary.

Looking through the photos, Hotch plays on your mind. He looked good last night, so much so that you had to fight with yourself to stop stealing glances at him. You knew it was wrong to think about him like that, but it was nearly impossible when the man looked that good. Especially his hands, the prominent veins and the polished silver Rolex that sat on his wrist making him look even more attractive. Pulling out a photo of the both of you laughing at Spence’s attempts to beat Derek at a game of snooker, you think back to the conversation at the table.

“You did good, you did good, Pais”. ‘Pais’. Not Selwyn, not Paisley, Pais. As you repeated it, it sounded strange at first, or at least it did until you imagined Hotch being the one saying it and then it felt right. Did he realise the significance of giving you a nickname? The very word is defined as ‘a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person and often used to express affection, it is a form of endearment and amusement’. Surely he must have done, he wasn’t the type of person to do that sort of thing, something that..intimate. Plus, he knew you weren’t one for your name being shortened by just anybody. Was he trying to say something, to tell you something? Of course he isn’t you tell yourself, he’s your superior for God’s sake. Pushing thoughts of your boss to one side, you carried on about your weekend. Despite your plans not being thrilling, you were looking forward to them nonetheless. You had dedicated the time to catch up on much needed sleep and general self care and you were incredibly glad of the opportunity. Always valuing time to yourself, you couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed that the weekend vanished at a frightening pace.

Flipping through the information brochure, you don't bother looking up at JJ who speaks to you “Spence tells me you’ve picked lecturing for the last module of your doctorate?”. The team, well you JJ, Prentiss, Morgan and Reid were currently sitting at the round table on your lunch hour, which was a rare occurrence with your schedules, you were nearly always working a case, or too swamped with paperwork. Garcia was hidden away in her lair doing who knows what, Rossi out for some fancy lunch and Hotch locked away in his office.

“Yeah, figured it couldn’t be too difficult and the genius himself has offered to help me prepare in the library so it seems like a win win if you ask me” you reply to her as you finally stop reading and look up at the faces around the table “what? It’s not like he’s writing my thesis, I’m just being resourceful and making the most of what's available, y’know?” you defend yourself, shrugging your shoulders.

“Oh so you’ll accept Reid's help, but not mine? You wound me pretty girl” Morgan teases, throwing an empty bottle at you, which you catch effortlessly and throw it into the bin, but not before you roll your eyes at him, sending him a cheeky smile as you do.

Disconnecting herself from JJ’s embrace, Emily stands and crosses to you, picking up the brochure you were reading and scans over the information, before discarding it and spinning the chair you were sitting in toward her, clearly she could sense your apprehension. “You’ll do great Paisley, you’ll hit every inch of this criteria, I doubt you even need Reid’s help and besides, it’s not like you need another qualification to prove yourself, you’ve earned your place here” she tells you and you find that you have to force yourself to hold her gaze so you give nothing away.

One of the reasons you had multiple degrees was because on some level, you did feel the need to prove yourself, to prove you were doing something with your intellect and to prove that you did have a place on this team. Never did you want to be looked at as the baby FBI agent, who simply followed the others on the team like a shadow. On the other hand however, you genuinely loved learning and felt it was only natural to continue your studies to the highest level

and you were proud of yourself for doing so, you’d come a long way since your childhood, but you didn’t want to dwell on that for long. A few weeks pass and you soon find yourself sat in one of your favourite places; the older, dustier and lesser well known section of the bureau library, scanning over various notepads and books whilst feverishly typing at your laptop planning your first lecture. Looking across the table at Spencer, who kept true to his word and accompanied you to the library for assistance, you voice your initial plan for your first lecture in a few weeks.

“I’m thinking of starting with nineteenth-century literature with the themes of crime and detection as a general focus and then work my way into psycho-linguistics with instances in literature, before moving on to case specific examples”. Whilst you held a close bond with Derek, you were good friends with Spencer too. The two of you would often hold mini academic debates between yourselves on the way home from a case, or on the phone in the early hours of the morning. From an outsider’s perspective it may look like something more, but that wasn’t the case, you genuinely just had a lot in common and it was nice to be able to watch Harry Potter over and over with somebody who gave no complaints.

“What texts are you thinking of using? I personally think that Arthur Conan Doyle’s, Sherlock Holmes stories would be a fine choice. It’s more of an obvious one as the element of crime is incredibly apparent and the style of writing is fascinating on it’s own, so it would break the students in nicely I think.” Spencer reveals and you nod in agreement, returning to your typing.

The weekly sessions in the library seem nothing more than distant memories as you find yourself standing at the front of the lecture hall listening to Professor Moore’s introductions. You begin to wish you’d chosen a different final module. Why were you so nervous? You chased serial killers down on a day to day basis, surely you could give a lecture to a bunch of hopeful students for an hour?

“Much to your enjoyment, I will not be lecturing you for these next three months” Professor Moore informs her students in a lighthearted tone. You knew firsthand she was a good teacher and hoped her students didn’t expect too much from you. “This fine young woman will be taking over as part of the last module for her doctorate in criminology and psychology, so please be kind to her and don’t even think about any kind of tomfoolery in my absence, I will be dropping in and keeping in direct contact with Paisley so don’t think it will go unnoticed.” she looks at you and winks as she tells them “plus, she’s one hell of an FBI agent so she won’t tolerate it anyway”.

“Right well, thanks for that Professor. Uh, I’m Paisley and as you know I’ll be taking over for these next three months, hopefully you’ll find it as quick and painless as possible” you tell them, hoping it will break some of the tension and it does, you find the students take to you well as you dive in to the job you’re there to do. “We’re going to start with looking at nineteenth-century literature through the themes of crime and detection. I know this isn’t the big stuff right away and I apologise for that, but I find it’s better to develop a general understanding of the topic first, before delving deeper.” you tell them as you begin to pace the lecture hall out of nervousness.

“This is the century which saw the creation of the Metropolitan Police Force in London, the birth of private and police detectives, and the rise of investigations into the psychology and social causes of crime. The genres of detective fiction and the dramatic monologue which both emerged during this period will be largely focused on, but we’ll also take a look into less frequently studied genres like journalism to give you a full flavour of the period’s insatiable taste for crime”. Switching to the next powerpoint slide, you take a breath and steady yourself, maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.

“Fictional texts are studied in the context of contemporary debates about crime, policing, criminal responsibility and madness, including legal texts and those related to the emerging science of psychology. We will be studying the texts through genre theory and cultural and historical perspectives”. As you look out to the back of the lecture hall, you’re able to make out the familiar figure of Dr Spencer Reid. He’d taken one look at you that morning in the bullpen and knew how nervous you were; you’d paced back and forth to the break room countless times, drinking far more tea than usual and barely uttering a word to anybody as you fiddled with the two necklaces that always hung round your neck.

You bite back a smile and continue speaking to the students “indicative primary texts for the semester will consist of a selection of popular crime ballads and the dramatic monologues about murder and madness by Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, along with a selection of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s absolutely essential that you all keep up with the reading. And with that, I’ll leave it there for now. Don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions and I’ll see you all next time”.

Watching the students disperse from the room, you breath out a long sigh of relief and throw yourself into a nearby chair and by the time you get back to the bullpen, Spencer is practically screaming at the top of his voice as he tells anybody that would listen about how well you’d done in the lecture, speaking in just the right tone to be authoritative, but relatable and approachable. In short, he was incredibly proud of you and pride radiated off every inch of him.

Two months had now passed and much to your surprise, it had now become part of your daily routine that Hotch would sit on the chair beside your desk during your twenty minute break at eleven o’clock each morning. At the start of your break you’d always find a cup of tea, perfectly made on your desk and each day you’d find yourself smiling as you knew who it was from. If Hotch was in a particularly good mood, he’d surprise you with a vanilla milkshake and raspberry muffin like he had done that very first time. If the team hadn’t picked up on it at first, they definitely had now, but they chose not to say anything.

Some days you’d talk in depth about all manner of things, whereas other days you would find yourselves both working away in a comforting silence. Today was one of his chattier days and he greeted you with a smile as he placed a mug of tea down for you, and a mug of coffee for himself. “You’ve never told me the story behind all these little cartoon frogs pinned to your noticeboard” he begins, tracing his fingers over them as he looks to you for an explanation.

“You never asked, I’m surprised you didn’t use those profiling skills of yours to figure it out” you reply in a joking manner as you set your mug down. “To answer your question though, Spence asked me what my favourite animal was when I first started and when I told him it was a frog, he started to draw me one for each month of the year to help me settle in. I’ve got one of them tattooed on my ankle, I’m surprised you’ve not noticed it” you finish telling him.

“Can I see it? The tattoo?” he asks and you notice the nervousness in his voice and it makes you smile, seeing him almost shy is so unnatural you’re not quite sure how to act. You comply, kicking off your doc martens and pulling your left trouser leg up to reveal the image of a frog wearing a hat, sat on the edge of a teacup. It’s not the most conventional tattoo in the world, but you love it nonetheless. “It’s very you, I’ll give you that” he tells you as he helps you back into your shoe.

You share a small laugh and you begin to pick up a file, ready to get back to work as the break comes to an end and the team filter back into the room and head to their desks. It’s Prentiss who asks you first “how’re feeling about your final lecture next week, Miss almost Dr Selwyn?” as she maneuvers a huge stack of case files from one side of her desk to the other.

“Pretty good I think, just want to find out who the assessor is and get it over and done with to be honest” you tell her as you begin looking for a case consult you’d lost in a stack of folders.

“Doesn’t Hotch normally assess some of the final modules? He used to guest lecture with Rossi and Gideon quite a lot” JJ asks as she collects a pile of completed files from the table.

“Actually no, he stopped guest lecturing once Gideon..uh...left” Reid fills you in “he thought it took up too much of his time and it was more productive to focus on leading the unit”.

“Huh, well at least you know it won’t be Hotch” Emily tells you and you smile in response as you dial the internal number for a copy of the police report for the consult you were working on. The rest of the day passes easily as you work through your files, thankfully not being interrupted by a new case and the rest of the week sailed by smoothly.

This was it, the final week of your doctorate. You’d been allocated reduced duties to allow time for the final hand in of your thesis, along with the multitude of exams you had to complete and you now you just had your final assessed lecture to complete. Arriving slightly earlier than anticipated due to your nerves, you decide to busy yourself replying to emails at your desk in the relatively empty bullpen, mulling over the happenings over the past week in the process.

Hotch had been keeping his distance and you didn't have it in you to figure out why, you’d just presumed it was just work and left it at that. Realistically you had far too much to worry about; the past week had left you feeling the most stressed you’d felt in years.

Shifting your gaze to Hotch’s office, you’re able to see him talking on the phone, eyebrows furrowed together and jaw clenched. Clearly he’s not in a good mood and you’re thankful you’ll be out of the office all day. Checking through your notes one last time before you make your way to the lecture hall to set up, Hotch’s voice alerts you to his presence, you’d been so caught up in going over your notes that you didn't notice him leave his office. “Don’t you have a lecture to teach, Selwyn?”.

Before you can even look at him, he’s turned his back and retreated to his office. Pushing through the glass doors, you furrow your brows in confusion; what was his problem? It was only on your arrival to the lecture hall that your nerves began to kick in, this was it, once you’d finished teaching this class, your doctorate would be complete. Beginning to set up the powerpoint slides and distributing the resources for the lecture you find yourself slipping into a state of calmness as you worked, you could do this and you could do it well. Treat it like a case briefing you told yourself. Ten minutes later students begin to file into their seats and you’re pleased to greet Professor Moore who’s acting as the assessment supervisor. Toward the end of the lecture, you noticed an extra body had slipped into one of the seats on the back row and you knew who it was instantly. Aaron Hotchner. You’ve got to be fucking joking. He’d spent the better part of a week avoiding you and when he did speak to you, it was mostly dismissive and now he had the gall to show up to your final assignment. Swallowing the urge to throw one of the bulky textbooks at him for his sheer nerve, you continue explaining your current point to the students.

“We’ve already been over the idea that psycholinguistics is the study of how the psyche responds to words and languages and this is how it’s distinguished from sociolinguistics. One focuses on the social dimension of language, and it’s stylistic patterns, whereas the other focuses on the expressive functions of language”.

You begin to bring the lecture to a close, but not before thanking the students for their patience and hard work throughout the semester and you’re quick to express your gratitude to the professor for all her help and support. And just like that it was over, you were done. Hastily, you start to pack away the resources from the lecture in order to avoid a conversation with Hotch, his dismissive attitude had annoyed you all week and you weren’t thrilled at the sight of him in your lecture after the way he’d spoken to you this morning.

“Can I help you with something?” you ask him in a cold tone, your eyes focused on shoving your laptop in your bag as you wait for his response, but you don’t receive one. Scanning the room one last time for any of your belongings, you promptly turn on your heel and exit the room, ignoring his calls as you melt away into the sea of scurrying students.

Things between the two of you eventually returned to normal, you weren’t even sure what ‘it’ was at this point and you didn’t care to ask, you weren’t even sure that it was normal. Hotch didn’t do these kinds of things or so you thought, but you knew better than to question it. Recently the team had been pushed in all directions, working case after case with little to no breaks, so it came as no surprise to you that the month of your graduation arrived in no time at all, acting as the perfect distraction for you all.

Pulling the garment onto your body, you admired the satin fabric of the deep purple dress you’d chosen to wear that day, it’s strappy sleeves allowing the many tattoos that graced the upper

half of your left arm to be shown off, along with the low neckline displaying the delicate tattoos on your collarbones. Before slipping on your graduation cap and gown, you add the finishing touches to your makeup, deciding to go for more of a dramatic look, if there was a day to go all out, it was definitely today. Giving yourself the once over, you feel a bubble of nerves form in the pit of your stomach, today was the day you were graduating and whilst you were excited, you felt apprehensive. Now that you were about to graduate, the pressure to live up to your new title was immeasurable and you were keen not to disappoint.

“Miss Paisley Anora Selwyn”.

You stand as your name is called, focusing on not falling over in your heels as you walk across the stage to receive your doctorate. There were no words to sum up how you felt, the moment was indescribable and as you walked back to your seat, you could hear a chorus of cheers and shouts from the team who insisted on buying tickets to watch the ceremony and later celebrate at one of the slightly fancier bars in the area. Luckily you’d managed to talk Penelope down from doing anything over the top and she very reluctantly agreed, making you settle instead for a compromise that allowed her to buy you a extravagant gift instead.

“Tonight we’re here to celebrate Dr Paisley Anora Selwyn, many many congratulations” Dave begins the toast and you inwardly cringe at the use of your middle name.

Midway through the pleasantries, you feel Hotch’s hand resting on your lower back and you resist the urge to turn and smile up at him, instead opting for shuffling closer, a slight blush creeping onto your cheeks as you do so.

“Dr Paisley Anora Selwyn” the team echo as they raise their glasses to you, all grinning from ear to ear.

As the night progresses, you lean back against the bar, taking stock of the day. It was hard to believe that only three months ago that you were sat up till the early hours of the morning studying, the end seeming to be miles away, and now you’d finally done it. That wasn’t the only thing on your mind though, much like usual, Hotch occupied your thoughts. All throughout the night there had been subtle touches, stolen glances, and silent conversations between the two of you, and you loved it. Appearing next to you at the bar, Hotch’s arm slips round your waist, pulling you closer into his side as he congratulates you.

“I’m proud of you, well done, Pais”.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fandom #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #fbi #behavioural analysis unit #aaron hotchner #aaron #aaron hotch hotchner #ssa aaron hotchner #hotch #ssa hotchner #hotch x you #hotch x reader #hotch x oc

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kateyandthecloset · 4 years

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Paris Sunsets and DC Nights . emily prentiss . 1

Emily Prentiss X Reader

Warnings: none.

After receiving the call from JJ, Emily knows she needs to go back to her team. But something makes leaving Paris more difficult for the agents than they could have ever expected.

From the moment she received the call from DC, Emily knew that she had to tell you the truth. She would be leaving within hours and couldn't leave you with only a phone call or note left pinned to refrigerator; you deserved a clear explanation not a fleeting goodbye. With everything that happened between you both, she knew that lying was not an option at all. For you, she had to be honest. For you, she had to share every detail of her life, no matter how unimportant it was to the context of her move to Paris.

Immediately after she had finished the phone call to JJ, she had text you. Her words hadn't made much sense to you at the time, the lexicon being different from what she had always used before. To you, she had always spoken so eloquently, as if each work had been specifically chosen. That was why you had left your desk the moment you received the message, arguing the excessive over time you had done since the beginning of the month.

She hadn't told you where to meet her, but you knew. People stared as you ran through the streets, the sun still blaring the way it had been for the last three weeks of the heat wave. The two of you had been planning a get together with your friends, in order to make the most of the hot weather before it disappeared once again. However, from the look on her face when you reached your usual table and the suitcase by her side, you knew that the garden party was not going to go ahead.

Emily didn't know what to expect as you took a seat opposite her, having placed a soft and hesitant kiss to her lips, the same location that you both met almost a year ago. When she had seen you, holding a book that simply reminded her of Reid, she knew she had to talk to you. You reminded her of everything she had left behind, your smile mimicking Jennifer's as she had complemented your literary tastes, but she had fallen for you even after she stopped feeling home sick.

Your face fell as soon as you saw her, a tenderness to your voice as you said, "Jess, what's going on?"

"y/n, I need to tell you something, and I need you to listen until the end." You nodded at her, biting the inside of your cheek as your fingers tapped rhythmically on the table. Emily's face fell, it had taken you so long to trust her in the first place, now she was sat before you with her bags packed and ready to leave. It didn't take a profiler to know that the situation had triggered your anxiety.

Letting out a sigh, Emily whispered, "I haven't been completely truthful with you."

"As long as you don't have a secret family, I am good." You joked lightly, your eyes fleeting around the café as the waiter brought your usual drink, the spot in front of your girlfriend remaining empty. That was the first sign that this conversation wasn't going to last long.

Taking your hand in hers, Emily tried to pull your gaze back to her meet her own, knowing that if you could see the sincerity in her eyes that you wouldn't react as harshly, "y/n, I am not from her. And I'm not a librarian, or at least I wasn't before I came here."

"Jess, this isn't funny." You stated, your voice shaking with disbelief. Internally, you prayed that this was simply a joke, but you knew, from the tears that were already sitting in her eyes, that you were not going to be relieved.

She took in a breath, tilting her head to the sky the way she had done on the nights where you would sit on the balcony talking for hours about your families. You had never understood how she could talk with such fondness about the family who had rejected her, after she had shared her true heart and identity with them. Her tears, on those nights, had been caused by the remnants of what had been and the potential future's she had lost when she lost them. But she had always ended those conversations by telling you how all the hurt had been worth it, as she met you when she was wallowing in the ashes.

"Please, baby, just listen for a moment." You nodded, blinking back the tears that were threatening to over flow. "When I was in DC, I, well I, I died. I was an FBI agent and a case from before I joined my team came back to haunt me; I died protecting a little boy from his father. However, the father of the boy got away, and it wasn't safe for me anymore. I was given a new identity here, for my protection."

Fear stopped you from meeting her eyes, you weren't afraid of her, you could never be afraid of her, but you were afraid of showing her the pain that was building in your heart. For the last year, you had trusted her with every part of you, each and every metaphorical scar had been shared with the woman who sat before you. Jessica DeMonde has become a stranger to you within a matter of seconds.

Noticing the shaking of your hand and the way your lips trembling as you tried to form a sentence despite no words being auditable, Emily continued to explain, "I wanted to tell you, but I had been sworn to secrecy. Not even my family knew I was alive, my mother thinks that she buried me in the ground a year ago."

Somehow, everything made more sense now that you knew the truth. How she had smiled as she compared your love for classic literature to her younger brother - who you now dated had any biological relation to her - despite her story about why she had come to Paris.

You picked at you nails as you asked, your voice so soft that she could barely hear you, "What's your name?" She looked at you shocked by the lack of expression on your features, every emotion having cancelled out the last as you continued on your rollercoaster conversation. Emily had been so taken back by your lack of expression that she had remained silent, having forgot that you had even asked a question. You grit your teeth, snapping slightly as you repeated, "What is your name?"

"Emily Prentiss," she whispered, causing your tears to overflow in realisation. She had lied to you about everything, she hadn't even told you her real name.

Letting out a sharp breath, you shook your head in disbelief as you questioned, "Was everything a lie?"

"Not when I told you I loved you," she replied, causing your sobbing to increase. Knowing that she loved you made the discovery that she had lied sting that much more, no matter how justified her deception was.

"How can I trust you," You asked, unable to think straight. "You lied to me about everything for a year. Why are you telling me the truth now?"

Emily knew that the truth would be what hurt you the most now, but she had decided when you had begun the conversation that you deserved the full, undiluted truth. That was why she had put herself through the heartbreak of seeing your trust in her disintegrate before her, even if the pain she caused herself was a hundred times that it saved you she would take the pain. That was why she wiped her tears away as she explained, "I have to go back to DC. The boy I was protecting, he's been taken and I may be the only person to understand the man who took him."

"So, if you weren't leaving, you would still be lying to me." You asked, knocking your glass over as you flung your hands into the air in disbelief. Everyone around you was now staring, and you muttered an apology before drying the spill with the pile of napkins at the table. Emily tried to help, but you batted her hands away, closing your eyes as you whispered, "I can't Je- Emily. I have to go."

"(Y/N), please don't go." Emily responded, her face trailed with tears the pair of you being the opposite from what you were sure the tourists around you expected when they booked their holiday to the city of love. Taking your hands in hers, she added, "I didn't lie about who I was beyond my past; I told you the truth about who I am. The people who I said were my siblings and my cousins, they are my team and closest friends."

"Jess, I trusted you." You yelled, no longer caring about the people around you hearing your conversation, this sudden change in character caused Emily to recoil in shock. "I trusted you and I loved you. What were you going to do after you went back to DC, Je-Emily? Were you going to come back on the weekends, hope we could make it work?”

"I wanted you to come with me." Emily whispered, causing you to look at her shocked. "I meant it when I told you I loved you. You are the one person I have felt comfortable with for a long time, I can't lose you."

"Emily sorry, I can't. Not right now." You declared, pulling yourself away from her. Putting a physical distance between you created the illusion in your mind that there was an emotional distance as well, despite the fact that your heart was still very much intertwined with hers. "I need time, please accept that. I will call you soon, and we can talk about everything. Can you give me time to process this?"

Taking a deep breath, Emily nodded at you, "Of course, I'd wait forever for you."

Turning around, you looked up at the Eiffel tower denying the tears that were cascading over your eyelids. Without thinking you declared, "Do you know what's funny? I'm still in love with you, despite the fact that I don't know how to trust you anymore."

Emily didn't say anything, what could she say? In the last half an hour, she had given you every explanation she could and, even though she wished you could see the situation from her eyes, she understood why you were still unsure. She turned away from you, collecting her suitcase as she walked away from you, the place you had met and your last year.

Both of you fought not to look back at the other, the pair of you knowing that if you did you would give in and change your minds. Emily wouldn't go back to D.C; you would run into her arms and forget the heartbreak you were currently feeling. For that reason, neither of you looked towards the other. You simply wished you could forget the Paris sunsets that you had shared together from your balcony. But to forget that was to forget the best year of your life.

Series Tag List: (Message to be Added)

#criminal minds #criminal minds imagines #criminal minds x reader #wlw emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss imagines

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chelsfic · 4 years

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Chapter 10 - Inherited - Dracula/OFC - Dracula 2020 fanfic

A/N: The last chapter ended with a door closing. This one will end with a door opening. Also the requisite vampire looking in through the window scene. The chapter *after* this one will have a smut scene, I promise! If you like this and would like to be added to the tag list just let me know! Also, all of my love and respect to everyone who has read, liked, commented, reblogged, sent messages, and just generally interacted with this fic from the beginning. Readers like you are why fanfic writers keep creating. So, thanks!

Summary: An angsty interlude of lovers parted. Dracula works out how not to be a douche. The last chapter ended with a door closing. This one will end with a door opening. Also the requisite vampire looking in through the window scene.

Each morning since she left Emilie rose from bed with a listless spirit and went through the motions of dressing and preparing for her day. She’d taken a job at the hand laundry workshop in town and she spent long hours each day soaking, scrubbing, drying and ironing. It was exhausting work that left the delicate skin of her hands cracked and her back aching. She never returned home until after sunset. Emilie supposed it was good to be so busy for she had no energy for anything when she got home other than a quick supper and getting into bed. There was certainly no time to think about the Count. About the taste of love in his blood, the flare of joy she’d felt at the discovery, so quickly extinguished by his...horrible, pig headed cruelty. No, she didn’t have time even to dwell on the confection of emerald green silk that still hung up on the wall in the corner of her room: a ghost of a life that seemed so long ago, so far removed.

She told herself these lies to get through the day. But at night, in the darkness of her little bedroom, she let the tears fall for her love. She still loved him though she was also furious at him. And she felt him still, too, through the ethereal connection that bound them together. His emotions were a whirling confusion of impressions without context that she couldn’t interpret into any meaningful idea of his actions or thoughts. Sometimes she felt waves of lust and exaltation from him. She assumed he must be feeding at those times. But other times she felt his weariness, his amusement, his boredom, his anger...and his sadness. His sadness was like a bruise on her soul. She longed to reach out to him and comfort him. Sometimes she tried, sending her thoughts in his direction and trying to inject them with warmth, comfort and love. She was always met by the sudden slamming shut of a barrier between them. It sent an icy chill down her spine when he cut himself off from her--it felt like losing one half of herself. And it would invariably send her into a black mood of mourning for the rest of the night. In her most desperate hours she prayed to God and asked, demanded to know what she’d done wrong. All she ever did was love and serve Dracula. Why had he forsaken her? But it was not the word of God she heard in response, but her mother’s words echoing back to her from that last day at Carfax. Men of power may play with our lives, our affections as they wish.

***

Dracula rose each night with the ghost of a sob in his throat as if he’d swallowed a suicidal songbird before going to sleep. He knew it belonged to Emilie. He could taste her emotions through their connection just as surely as he’d tasted her blood. Since...that night she tasted like poisoned happiness and bitter regrets. He tried to harden his heart towards her, to occupy himself with pleasure, blood, lives, but she was still there, always. Like an annoying little spark inside his chest that at times burned and other times seemed to suffer and wither.

He felt her reaching for him sometimes, a psychic assault of goodness and warmth that made his skin crawl in self-loathing. He tried keeping her out, putting up his mental defenses. It did work. But he was weak and each time he shut her out the hollow emptiness on the other end of the connection would unnerve him. It was like she wasn’t there, like she was dead. He always came back, drawing back the curtain just for a peek at the other side. To know she was safe. And each time he felt the black oppression of her sadness at being cut off from him. It was suffocating.

So, in keeping with his recent trend, he ran from the overwhelming emotions. In a fit of stubbornness and to prove to himself that he belonged to no one and certainly not a silly housekeeper, he met with his solicitor to inform him of the cessation of payments to the Andrews family. Renfield was pleased to scratch that expense from his ledger book. The sycophant was always gratified to improve his master’s wealth and cut expenses.

“Very good,” he sniveled, smiling like the cat who’d caught the canary. “And what about the house?”

Count Dracula raised his brows in question, “What house, Renfield?”

Here the solicitor chuckled, “The Andrews’s residence, of course. We--that is, you are the landlord.”

Dracula looked into the man’s eyes, gleaming with delight and greed, and felt the sudden urge to snap his neck.

“The house, well...they’ll remain living there, I expect. I don’t think the family has designs on moving anywhere else.”

“Yes, but the rent. The rent was included in Miss Emilie’s salary,” Renfield prompted.

Dracula felt the meanness go out of him. The idea of throwing Emilie onto the street... This whole meeting was a mistake. His shoulders sagged and he waved a dismissive hand as he responded, “Nevermind, Renfield. Forget about this meeting.”

The force of suggestion in his words left the solicitor gazing at him with a look of blank happiness for a moment before he came to his senses again. The Count tutted sympathetically as he led the man out of his office and down the corridor to the front door. He probably should try to cut back on glamouring Renfield. The man was starting to go a little...off.

Before he ushered him out the door he paused and asked, “Renfield, you arranged for company tonight, didn’t you?”

“Oh!” Renfield beamed, “Yes, master, a visiting Countess from France. She has a distant cousin who lives in town but she’s taking her leave of them tonight and departing very early in the morning. So…”

“So,” Dracula agreed. “Very good.”

He stood back from the doorway as Renfield opened it to the daylight and took his leave. Fresh blood tonight, he parted his lips and salivated at the thought. She wouldn’t compare to Emilie, but he’d make do.

***

The Countess turned out to be such a vulgar gossip that if he weren’t weary from his talk with Renfield he would have snapped her neck on the spot and flew off to the next county to find some suitable shepherd boy to sate his appetite. Instead he urged the Countess to indulge in seconds at dinner, hoping to quiet her ceaseless chatter.

“Where are your servants, Count Dracula?” the woman demanded impertinently. “You’ve no one to serve the table? How odd!”

Dracula showed her his teeth in a menacing smile, “I’m between housekeepers at the moment, Countess.”

She lifted a knowing brow, “Ah, yes, I think my cousin may have mentioned something along those lines. One of the daughters of that Andrews woman? You recently sacked her? What was it, theft? It’s a shame we can’t expect virtue in our servant class anymore, isn’t it?”

Dracula put his arm on the back of her chair and clenched his fingers into the wood, “It seems that nothing is beneath your notice, Countess.”

She sniffed haughtily, “I like to get to know the places I visit….You know, I think I saw that girl the other day. Yes, I did! I remember my cousin remarking, ‘There goes the Andrews girl. She’s sorry she lost her cozy spot with the Count now, I reckon.’ And he was right. She was dreadfully thin and worn out looking. Her hands were bright red! From working with those chemicals they use in the laundry houses. Well...she won’t steal again that’s for sure…”

Dracula made it hurt when the time came. He relished the horrible woman’s cries and struggles as he quenched the life from her. All the while his mind’s eye supplied him with the image of Emilie: tired, starved, and maimed from hard labor. When he finished he drew back and let the blood run down his chin and drip onto the corpse’s ashen face. He was the picture of a pagan god feasting on a human sacrifice. He cracked her spine with a twist of the neck and let her drop to the floor in an undignified heap.

***

The Andrews family house was located on the main road in a section of town primarily occupied by merchants. It was a place they’d never have been able to manage without their special arrangement with the Count. Dracula, who came so infrequently into town, had never been inside. He stood across the wide street and regarded the modest brick dwelling. The windows in the parlor were illuminated and cast cheery yellow light out onto the dark street. He could feel Emilie’s presence inside the home and it lent the whole scene an air of fragile beauty. A loving home, glowing with hope and goodness against the forces of the night. Dracula rolled his eyes at his own train of thought and crossed the street. A force of the night coming to call.

Before approaching the door he detoured through the flower bed and stood outside the parlor window looking in. Emilie sat by herself beside the fire. There was a pile of knitting in her lap, but her hands were still. She gazed into the fire and he saw tear tracks on her cheeks. He regarded her critically and admitted that the Countess’s observations had been accurate. Emilie looked weak, thin and tired. Her hands were raw and cracked and her face looked despondent. He had never seen her like this. Not even when she’d first come to him and she was too frightened to stand in his presence without trembling. The Count felt a deep self-disgust that he was the cause of her unhappiness. He did not know at what point he’d begun to care but there was something forged between them that he could not deny.

He turned away from the sad scene and went to the door. He heard a rustle of commotion at his knock. Shortly the door creaked open allowing the cheerful light from within to spill out illuminating the tall, dark form of Count Dracula.

Emilie stood with one hand on the doorknob and the other over her heart. She gasped upon seeing him there, conjured, it seemed, from her own yearning.

“Vlad?” she breathed.

“Hello, Emilie,” he replied, aiming for cavalier.

Emilie took a beat to recover before asking, “Won’t you come inside?”

Dracula grinned in response but didn’t yet move forward.

“If you’ll invite me,” he replied.

Emilie smiled, dimples appearing in her cheeks although her eyes remained sad and guarded.

“Come inside, Dracula.”

Tags:

@charlesdances @mr-kisskiss-bangbang @dracula-s-bride @haleyea @irrelevantwriter @felicityofbakerstreet @festering-queen @kaddis-world @leah-halliwell92

#dracula x ofc #dracula x oc #dracula imagine #claes bang imagine #bbc dracula #count dracula x ofc #count dracula x oc #chelsfic

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sarah-wants-to-write · 4 years

Text

Searching My Dreams for a Lifetime; Chapter Two (Criminal Minds)

“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” -Abraham Lincoln

◊

“She did WHAT?” Rossi asked, surprise written all over his face.

“Wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it myself,” Derek replied, folding his arms over his chest “just popped it right back in place like it was nothing.”

“Well it makes sense,” Reid declared, turning to see Shira talking to one of the detectives “people with EDS have problems keeping their joints in place all the time. Makes sense she’d know how to put them back where they need to be without medical help.”

“What was weirder was how much Hotch knew of her condition,” Emily added, voice quiet “rare enough that it doesn’t seem like something he’d need to know off-hand.”

“Maybe researching genetic conditions when Hayley was pregnant,” Rossi mused “and it stuck.”

“Well, no matter how you look at it, Hotch definitely gained her respect with showing he knew about it,” Derek said “starting to look more like you might be right, Rossi.”

Shira was tucked into her own corner of the conference room, where the team was set up to work. Sketching out the crime scene, with the sigils, and the distances, Shira couldn’t figure out what was going on. To the untrained eye, it seemed like a complex ritual layered with meaning. Yet to Shira, who had done her masters dissertation on ancient blood rituals with a focus on the Norse, she was just confused.

They didn’t mean anything. Not in context. Though the arrangement was definitely familiar.

Ehwaz, Othala, Ansuz, Gebo.

“Loyalty, home, communication, gift,” she muttered “nothing to do with…wait…”

She knew those positions anywhere. How hadn’t she seen it right away?

Getting up, she made her way to the white board, quickly mapping out the scene with the runes and positions.

“Make a connection there, doctor?” Rossi asked, watching her “what’s the meaning behind the symbols?”

“I still can’t figure out the one that’s directly ahead,” Shira replied “but the others I recognize. Looking at them by themselves, their meaning is totally unrelated, but together? It’s one of the interpretations of the runed Helm of Awe.”

“A Norse symbol that serves like a compass,” Reid added, looking at the board “not much is known about it.”

“In mythology, it’s also been known as a symbol of protection, for those who cause chaos,” Shira continued “in the Poetic Edda, the dragon Fafnir gave the Helm credit for his seemingly being invincible. 'The Helm of Awe I wore before the sons of men in defense of my treasure; amongst all, I alone was strong, I thought to myself, for I found no power a match for my own'.”

“So, he’s basing the staging off something that gives power to those who cause chaos,” Hotch mused “he’s declaring himself invincible to our efforts. Getting off on the torture and the lack of progress from the officials.”

“He likes watching the police squirm,” Shira muttered “hopefully you’ll find a pattern with the victims before the next abduction.”

“That’s something we needed to speak with you about,” Rossi declared, earning cautious attention from her “all the victims; they’re women in their early thirties, with dark brown hair and blue eyes.”

“You fit the victimology to the letter,” Hotch added “and with your involvement in the case, that makes you more of a prime target. Needless to say, if you’re leaving the station, it won’t be without one of us or a detective.”

“You’re telling me this like I didn’t make the connection already,” Shira told them, smiling to reassure, though the glint in her eyes was a bit cheeky “a woman sees six of her near-doppelgangers dead, she connects the dots.”

“This could also mean that you might be the intended target,” Hotch continued, watching her “if it comes to that, we’ll have to interview you, and ask you to step away from the case.”

“Then I best do as much as I can, shouldn’t I?” she countered “give you all the help I can. After all, he isn’t gonna wait. Though if my presence hasn’t been made public or obvious, then that might buy some time, or it might make him angry. Either way, he might slip up.”

Watching the two talk, Rossi was both impressed and amused. Shira didn’t seem at all fazed that she might be a target. More that it seemed like fuel for her work. With her knowledge of profiling, as well, she almost sounded just like Hotch when she was talking. A quiet authority that had people listening whenever she spoke.

“I’ll bet you’re a favorite among students,” Rossi declared, earning a pleasantly surprised smile from Shira “direct and personable. How quick do your classes fill up?”

“Don’t even make it to the end of the first day of enrollment,” she replied, straightening up in pride “most students love having a younger teacher, and I like to think that I’m quite good at what I do.”

Rossi smiled at that, catching a quick glance at Hotch as Shira spoke. The slight smile on the younger agent’s face was a surprise, gone just as quick as it was seen, but Rossi was certain he saw it.

Already Rossi knew one thing for sure, about those two; Hotch was doomed, in the best way.

It was late, and the team was taking a break for dinner before calling it a night. Still at the police station, in case a call came in, Chinese food and small talk were the order of the night, as a reprieve from the work throughout the day.

Most of the talk was directed at Shira, the team wanting to get to know their consultant better.

“One of the youngest professors at the University, huh?” Morgan huffed, smirking a bit “starting to give pretty-boy here a run for his money.”

“Ah, I couldn’t measure up to the famous Doctor Reid,” Shira laughed “not many people who could! I was lucky to be granted one PHD.”

“Those committees are vicious,” Reid agreed, laughing “makes staring down an unsub look like nothing, sometimes. Takes guts to stand in front of people and have them question everything about your work. Give yourself credit, Doctor Amell.”

Shira laughed at that, dipping her head a bit in thanks at the compliment.

“And how about your personal life?” Emily asked “any pets?”

“One, a dog, though I definitely want more,” Shira replied “his name’s Michael. He’s a retired MWD.”

“Adopted a military working dog?” Rossi mused “good on you. They’re loyal and incredibly smart. Malinois?”

“German Shepard,” she answered “poor thing’s still skittish sometimes, but it makes sense. Most loyal man in my life, being the only one.”

“No soul mate yet?” Morgan wondered, noticing Hotch starting to watch her more closely “someone as smart and pretty as you should have found him by now.”

“Been busy,” Shira replied “master’s thesis, doctoral dissertation, books, teaching, and guest lectures. I noticeably value and show my intelligence. Most men are intimidated by that, and even if they aren’t…”

She trailed off for a moment, sitting up and rolling her shoulder a bit, before it audibly popped. Her smile was sad as she looked to Morgan.

“Even if they aren’t,” she continued “who would want to be saddled with all this?”

She gestured to herself, her joints, and shrugged. Looking down as she continued eating, she missed the surprise on most everyone’s face, including Hotch.

How much had she been through?

It was early morning, and the team was preparing to leave the hotel and go back to the station. Wanting to get in some quiet time to eat and think, Hotch made his way down to the dining room for some breakfast. Not many people were there, and he knew it wouldn’t be that way for long. Going to the coffee pots and water kettles, Hotch poured himself a mug, as someone came up beside him. Glancing over, he saw the person was in a sling, and was forced to do a double-take when he realized who it was.

“Doctor Amell?” Hotch felt his eyebrows go into his hairline, seeing her turn to him with a confused look “your arm?”

“It’s my shoulder, actually,” she replied, smiling sheepishly “won’t stay in easily, and it hurts. Afraid I won’t be doing any hiking today.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” he mused “I imagine it must hurt quite a bit.”

“Nothing more than I’m used to,” she promised, reaching with her left hand for a mug “though it sucks that it’s my right, being right-handed and all.”

Hotch watched as she grabbed the mug, reaching for a hot kettle as she picked out a tea bag. When she had the package open, and bag in the mug, he went and filled her mug for her.

“Oh, thank you,” Shira declared, smiling, as he finished “my arm definitely couldn’t support that for long.”

“Least I can do,” he replied “we should eat while we can, before the rest of the team wakes up.”

The way he said ‘rest of the team’ was something she definitely noticed, yet she didn't get her hopes up. Clearly, he was referring to his relationship with the team, and not her.

“Are you always up before the rest of them?” She asked “burden of leadership, I imagine, getting ahead of everyone so you can stay on top of your game.”

“Doesn't help that I don't sleep much,” Hotch replied, taking her mug as they went to a table “hard to sleep in new places.”

“Yet you're used to it, from how you're handling this,” she mused, smiling “not all professional experience, I think. Kids?”

“Pity you weren't able to join the Bureau,” he declared, amused “just one. My son, Jack.”

“You fight for justice and come home to your son,” Shira grinned, sitting and taking her mug with a grateful nod “a family man. Regular Captain America.”

“Just a man raising his son on his own, trying to make the world safer for him,” Hotch countered, sitting across from her “hardly have time for much superhero work.”

“Says the one who's basically a superhero,” she teased, smile widening as she saw him smile “your son has a wonderful role model to look up to, with you.”

“Thank you,” he replied, dipping his head slightly “it’s been tough, especially after his mother passed, but we have a good support network.”

“I’m sorry to hear she’s gone,” Shira declared, eyebrows knitting together as her heart went out to him “was she your…”

“No,” Hotch shook his head “but we both didn’t think our marks were the be all, end all. Love is love and can last a lifetime no matter what, or so we thought.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” she reassured him “I’m sure she’d be happy, when you do find the one.”

The silence wasn’t as tense as Shira expected, and she was surprised when Hotch straightened up and looked her in the eye.

“Doctor Amell,” he started “I wanted to apologize for my behavior back at Quantico, and on the plane. You’re here to help us, and I was disrespectful.”

“Believe it or not, I figured it might have been out of character for you,” she replied, smiling to try and comfort him “though I had chalked it up to how bad this case is. Besides, you came around eventually. In my mind, there’s nothing to forgive, but I know it helps to hear it, so I’ll say it; I forgive you, Agent Hotchner.”

Shira watched as his eyes softened, and a small smile came back to his face. A soft, vulnerable, almost happy glance that showed more than she was sure any of the team saw on a normal basis.

“And please,” she continued, smiling as a twinkle came to her eye “you can call me Shira. If you want to, that is.”

“And you can call me Hotch,” he replied, giving the smallest chuckle “the rest of the team does.”

“The way you keep saying that,” Shira mused, slightly hesitant “it’s a bit strange…”

“Because you feel like you’re not part of the team,” Hotch mused “that I’m just referring to their connection to me, but it’s entirely the opposite. It’s temporary and new, but you’re doing just as much work to solve this as we are. We brought you in. You’re just as much a part of the team.”

The way her heart fluttered made Shira blush, and she smiled for him.

“That’s sweet of you to say,” she replied “thank you, Hotch. We should probably eat something, before we head into the station. Don’t know about you, but a muffin of any kind sounds great.”

Hotch smiled, turning to look at the tray that he could see she’d been eyeing. Going over and grabbing two, he brought them back to their table. Shira smiled wider when she saw the flavor that he brought for her.

“Blueberry?” she asked, immediately taking the top off so she could enjoy it last.

“Fruit tends to go better with black tea, in my opinion,” he answered, watching her closely “balances it out.”

“Only someone who enjoys tea could come to that conclusion,” Shira laughed between bites, grinning “blueberry’s one of my favorites.”

When he came down for breakfast, Rossi was distracted by thinking on the case. Yet when he heard familiar voices engaged in conversation, he was jolted to clarity. Looking around, he saw Hotch and Shira tucked into a corner, deep in conversation. The smile on Hotch’s face brought one to Rossi’s, seeing the way that the two were relaxed around each other.

“Is that Hotch…smiling? And eating?”

Rossi turned to see Morgan and Reid behind him, both looking equally shocked.

“This whole case just got more interesting,” Rossi chuckled “but we’ve got work to focus on.”

As the rest of the team came down, and everyone was able to eat something, they were getting ready to head in before Hotch got a call. Watching as he took it, expression falling, they knew it was bad news.

“Unsub’s taken another woman,” he told them “let’s get going. We have work to do.”

◊

“A heart worth loving is one you understand, even in silence.” – Shannon L. Alder

∞

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #soul mark au #aaron hotchner fanfic #hotch fanfiction #searching my dreams for a lifetime

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readersguidetotheuniverse · 4 years

Photo

Beach Read, by Emily Henry

Beach Read was a ridiculously well written view on the tragedy of losing one’s father and dealing with a very well-kept secret.

Cover-content

Alicia: Okay, so let’s start with the name. How delusional of me was it to expect an actual beach and people reading in it? Also, the cover does not help at all to make you think you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t think this cover fully represents the concept of the book, to be honest. I mean, spoiler alert, they do read in a beach. At the very last chapter! If you have to read the whole book for the cover to make sense, maybe it’s not the right cover.

Ariadna: I found it quite misleading. I expected sand, sunscreen and ice lollies, but it turned out to be… a lake. A bit underwhelming (the cover, not the book). A romance novel coming out in May, expected to be a Beach Read. Ok, marketing team, we see what you did there!

Marina: I expected a summer romance on a beach in, say, Florida and got an enemies-to-lovers on a lake. I get that they live right on the beach (lake-shore more like) but they barely spend any time (reading or otherwise) there except for the last chapter when they read each other’s books. I guess they must have chosen it because of the title.

Past- vs. Present-January

Alicia: In my opinion, past January was a bit too naive for her own good. She sees the world through rose-colored glasses and that’s okay while you’re young, but at some point you have to grow up and see that life is not that simple. Happy endings don’t just happen to everyone. Not everyone has the luck to have good supportive parents, a career in something you love, loving partners or friends… people are a spectrum and sometimes you just lie there in the grey middle and that’s just how it is. Now, I think the change in January’s ‘personality’, or just her way of interacting with the world, is simply the consequence of life hitting you with the worse it’s got. She has not only lost two of the most pivotal people in her life, she has also found out that she has kind of been living a lie, and also she’s stuck in her career and money is starting to run low. That changes you whether you like it or not. And even though I would not wish that suffering and pain to anyone, I think she really needed it to finally grow and find herself.

Ariadna: Me being a single, unemployed, 28yo romantic booknerd born in January whose father died a bit more than a year ago, January’s description in the first chapter felt almost like a personal attack. Overcoming her emotional turmoil post her father’s death, all the doubts, the anger, the sadness… Imho, all that makes the new January much more plausible character-wise than the “rose-colored glasses” Janie from before. I really liked her evolving through the chapters into a less naive, more realistic and emotionally intelligent adult.

Marina: Even January says it during those first few chapters: she was living in her head, a life that could be but never was. I can only imagine what it would have been like had she not lost her father or never discovered his affair. Then again, she was wound to find out eventually as he writes in one of his letters. This “new January”, as she keeps calling herself, to me is a medium point between the January that believed her life to be a romance novel and the January that knows her life is not perfect and that’s ok. Throughout the book January explores herself, the character development is there, though subtle.

The families

Alicia: It was a bit hard for me to relate to January’s family issues. The same way I don’t believe in perfect love stories, I also don’t believe in perfect families, so the fact that January’s family is represented as such a perfect unit just makes it a bit too unreal for me. And I don’t need a cheating husband, which felt a bit too shoehorned in the story, to know that it just couldn’t be that good. It’s definitely a ‘too perfect to be true’ kind of situation that only really happens in novels. And I know romance novels are labeled as ‘fiction’, and this is not supposed to be an accurate depiction of any real family. But still this kind of perfect people with perfect relationships makes me not connect as much to the story or characters, ’cause I don’t believe in perfect anything. Gus’ family, on the other hand, seems painfully real, damaged, abusive,… which is not nice. But family is not always nice.

Ariadna: Even though both Janie’s and Gus’ family stories are crucial to the plot, both “alive” families seemed too artificial to me, put there by the author just to help move the plot forward, as could have been any other character. I felt the relationship between January and her mother could have been explored a great deal more, and it would have helped her make sense of her father’s secret without the deus-ex-machina in shape of letters. Gus’ aunt and her wife felt a bit neglected to me too. I understand the journey of mutual understanding and openness between the two main characters, but I think Pete’s big mouth could have been a greater catalyst for the big fight… which actually wasn’t either. Too random, too vanilla for my taste.

Marina: Can I just start by saying I think it would have been way more realistic if the author had introduced more interactions between January and her mother and Gus and his aunts. The reader barely gets any context on what’s going on with January’s mother. She is also a grieving person and I feel like the author centers too much attention on January’s feelings about being betrayed by her mother and too little time exploring how to deal with those emotions, or how THEY dealt with those emotions.

The romance

Alicia: I’m about 0 percent romantic. I don’t like romance. I don’t believe in it. I believe in love but not fairytale romance. So I am always a bit dubious when I read romance novels ’cause it just doesn’t seem realistic to me. And this was a beautiful love story, there’s no denying that. And I’m a sucker for an enemies-to-lovers story. But this one in particular felt, maybe, too cliché? Maybe. For starters, what was the chance of her moving next door to her college enemy? This is the US we’re talking about. Over 300 million people. My scepticism was too strong for this. Cliché #1. Then, turns out, he loved her basically from the get go. She thought he hated her so she ‘hated’ him as well but they had been ‘thirsty’ for each other the whole time.. The ‘I look at them all the time but they never looks back at me’ type of thing. #2. Then little clichés all over the place. Confessions and kissing in the pouring rain. Notes through the window Taylor Swift style (I did love this a lot to be honest). Letting her go because she is too pure for this world and he doesn’t deserve her… Anyway, this book kind of failed at making me believe in romance, but still made me root for them and their love story which is a lot.

Ariadna: Maybe I’m a bit cynical –which I am, why lie– but I found the romance between January and Gus to be a bit forced, for the sake of the plot. Nemesis turned lovers, both writers, both living next to each other, both developing feelings the second they see each other… I think it would have been nice to use the family stories, the secrets and subplots, to make them connect more, and not fall in love because they already fancied each other but because they really came to understand the other in depth and fell in love with that “new” version of them.

Marina: Not going to complain about this, enemies-to-lovers is one of my favourite tropes in romance fiction. Though at times it felt like reading YA, not Adult Romance because January acts a bit like a teenager at times. For example, when she hides from Gus at the bookstore. And ALL THE DRAMA, by God, the drama! That reads YA through and through. But, oh well, if there weren’t drama it wouldn’t be a romantic novel, would it? Even though the romance is a bit weird, to be honest. The reader knows from the beginning that January is halfway in love with Gus and that’s not really an enemies-to-lover theme, is it? I would have liked it more if January actually despised the guy and then, slowly, came to the realization that “oh, this guy is not so bad!”.

Light & dark personalities

Alicia: There is this part of the novel that especially resonated with me, in which Gus describes his parents as a black hole and a bright light. It took me a moment to digest this ‘scene’. First ’cause I think the concepts of black hole and bright light as types of personality are really good metaphors and I was a bit wowed. Second because I sometimes see me as a black hole myself, and this hit too close to home. It made me reconsider some aspects of myself I do not like very much. I have doubted myself and my relationships with other people one too many times because of this. And seeing a character go through the same process and describe himself in a way I can see myself in, it was hard. I have bright lights in my life and day after day I think ‘one day they’ll get tired of me, one day their light will outshine me forever’. This book, in some way, made me feel seen and understood. And somehow that made me feel better. Gus sees himself as a black hole, but I could definitely see the light in him. January is a bright light but I could definitely see the darkness in her. This book gave me hope that it is possible to find someone that sees my darkness and doesn’t reject me for it, but finds light in it. I’ll hold onto it.

Ariadna: At first, I identified with January because of all she was going through. But as soon as I saw her “real” personality, all rosy and bubbly and outgoing, I fell out of love with the character (see above). However, it hit right in the heart when Gus opened up about his feelings, specially about how he felt about himself. I’ve personally felt like a black hole so many times in my life that, well, I literally cried while reading that. I think that passage is what really made me root for the love story and specifically for Gus. It made him much more realistic than “early-thirties-crisis” Janie, and I love how Emily worked their story and developed both characters to the point where they realise that “bright light” and “black hole” coexist in a person, but don’t actually define them, as a sign of emotional maturity and a glimpse of hope for those who feel lost and broken. Repeat after me, those feelings do not define us!

Marina: When January first started telling her story I saw her anger. Not just towards her parents but the world she had had to survive in. Those first chapters shaped her to be almost embarrassed to have felt that way. I think growing up and seeing how much her parents loved each other and then to suddenly discover that her dad had been cheating on her mother the whole time must have been a huge shake to her world-view. Emily Henry made a wonderful job describing the reticence of losing that last part of your loved ones, the last thing you have that belonged to them. Meanwhile, there’s Gus: a morally grey character who failed at showing his emotions towards January when they were younger because of the way he was brought up. And this brings me back to what I was saying about the families: there’s not a whole lot of background even if at the same time you get parts of their lives before they met.

Overall

Alicia: It is a pretty good novel. It was definitely enjoyable, relatable, funny, dorky… It’s not a novel you have to take seriously word by word. But at the same time it does touch some dark topics and it can be a bit painful to read at times. It surely was a bit overwhelming to me at some points. But I think the tougher themes and the lighter ones are well balanced, and these darker topics give the story a depth that many romance novels do not have. I liked it quite a lot.

Marina: Would recommend exactly for what the title says: as a beach read. It’s funny, it’s light and you can easily read it in a couple of days while sunbathing and/or drinking your favorite cocktail!

#beach read #emily henry #book #book rec #romance #group reading #book club #feel good #book recommendations #book review #rg2universe #rg2u #readers guide to the universe #goodreads #group read

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jq37 · 5 years

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thoughts on this week's ep?

**spoilers for broadway brawl**

***Before we start, I remembered as I was typing this one of the important notes I lost from last week’s recap: Interesting that Christmas seemingly went off without a hitch. I expected Santa to come back into play somehow (like, someone would check on him to make sure Christmas was still on or he’d call them in to help or something) but he hasn’t, at least not yet.***

My guys, my guys, my guys. Was that something or was that something?

I think I am on record as saying that combat is my least favorite part of ttrpgs generally speaking because I’m here for the RP but when a combat episode shines it really freaking shines (see eg: that first combat ep of Bloodkeep where everyone went full Galaxy Brain except for Matt who couldn’t hit a single thing) and this is such a good example. This is easily a top five ep of the season for me, maybe top three so let’s get into it and break down why it was so awesome.

We start right where we left off with Titania and members of her court having come into the theater to beat the tar out of Misty mid-show.

Quick note: At the end of last ep, it was set up so that Misty was thrust on stage right after hearing the mirror was on stage which would place this fight right at the top of Act 2 but at the start of this ep, Brennan seems to indicate that it’s taking place during what would be the closing number. Which would make more sense but imagine you go see a play, the first act is super dope, and then the second act is an insane, minute long fight that’s pretty unconnected to the plot and then a buff, naked, beautiful man tells you the show is over and you should leave. Wild. Anyway.

Pixies with tommy guns in inherently funny.

So one of the things that makes this fight really great is the way it directly ties into the story in a way besides “These bad guys are in our way.” Misty is using this show as a part of her reincarnation spell so if the show is messed up, it fails and she’s on her last life. Brennan has a cool mechanic of making her roll death saves every round at a difficulty lower than her modifier (which is s/t crazy like 11) but that gets harder with damage done to her and performance checks failed by other players who decide to jump on stage. It’s a great way to make the battle feel like it has more personal stakes and it’s my fave original Brennan mechanic since the Family in Flames Sophie’s Choice situation.

(I love that the death save counter is changed for theater comedy/tragedy masks for this. Nice touch.)

Em, Esther, and Wally are also at the fight which is clutch.

Also, Sondheim is specifically here which is an insane detail to add just because.

WILD that no one knows what’s going on with the ritual initially because, as Lou almost does, getting all the civilians out is the smart move and it would COMPLETELY ruin Misty’s plans instantly.

Lou having Kingston take the stairs bc’s he’s 50+ years old and has no time for that nonsense has equal but opposite energy to him doing extra rolls for Fabian to do unnecessary parkour before a simple attack because Fabian’s Like That.

Murph fireblasts the hell out of Titania’s foot soldiers right off the bat from outside of counterspell range which is very cool.

“Give me a performance check for the cockroach.”

“You’re upstaging me bitch?”

Another great thing about this fight is that because of it’s theatrical nature, everyone’s RPing it more than a usual battle ep (or more intensely maybe is what I mean).

Titania hypnotizes Don Confetti and his goons into fighting for her.

“She doesn’t know she’s in a play but she does sing most of her dialogue which is helpful for you.” Titania is just Like That.

Pete drops an erupting earth and drops a sick 37 damage on those same minions Kug got.

I didn’t notice before but yeah, Ally does roll die like a f-ing beyblade champion.

Emily hearing Murph’s low key, offhand comments and cracking up is great.

“Get Sondheim!” (Emily and then Ally: WHAT?!)

Actual living dude Stephen Sondheim being involved in this fight is just so ridiculous and fun and crazy.

We go around to Misty’s turn and she has to beat a 28 (upped from 10) and she fails which feels worse than a normal failed death save somehow.

Lou, in a very good RP move, tells Pete to tell Misty to end the show so she can tell them not to so the group has a valid reason to not evacuate which is a thing they (or at least him and Ricky) would obviously want to do.

Sophie, the madwoman, jumps out of the balcony, grabs a costume, then runs on stage. Emily’s glee at being told that her grabbing the costume will give her advantage is great. She’s always trying to figure out how to make the most of her moves. She is the living embodiment of the concept of method to madness (which is from Hamlet since we’re talking Shakespeare today).

Ox is constantly dying (Brennan!) but also it’s like, why was he even there before the fight started? I’ve never seen a non-service dog in a theater.

Ricky: Is this part of it?

Oh, forgot to mention that everything that happens on stage is kinda shielded by the Umbral Arcana so everyone watching thinks it’s part of the show, which is a cool plot detail.

Ricky gets fULLY NAKED (Emily, with perfect comic timing: Now do I roll with disadvantage?) and leaps into the fray. He casts Protection from Evil and Good on her which (1) He does by Magic Mike body-rolling on her while he’s naked and considering how much shorter she is that her raises some interesting questions about positioning and (2) is the most clutch use of this spell I’ve seen in a while. It’s a spell I always wanna take as a Paladin because it makes sense character-wise, but I’ve never been able to actually use it because we’re never fighting fiends, fae, or celestial.

Brennan’s dime change change reversal of the critic’s comments on Ricky’s body rolls when Zac re-rolls his 11 makes me glad I never had to face him in a debate team setting.

Ally: What’s Esther’s deal ;)/Brennan: *Esther’s Weapon Stats*

“Your only secret you’ve ever had in your life is that you have a crush on her.”

Wally has a beautiful singing voice and a working knowledge of Midsummer's which is wild.

Lou’s periodic, “My man”’s when Ally/Pete does something cool. He’s very dialed into being Kingston.

Ricky’s aura keeps everyone near him from being charmed and Misty saves everyone else w/ a nat 20 counterspell. Few things in D&D are more satisfying than a well executed counterspell.

Titania trying to get Pete to be her consort or something when he just over the super posh Priya is very funny.

“I mean between me and Sondheim, get Sondheim!”

“DO WE HAVE HOMEWORK TONIGHT?” (“We did have homework.”)

Anyway, Misty has one success now!

Misty tries to use puppet to get Titania to drop her crown and it doesn’t work. Brennan says the crown is Crown of Stars which I looked up and it’s actually a spell, not a physical crown, but I’m assuming he used the mechanical effects of the spell on a physical item.

Brennan doing all these musical/singing bits when he absolutely doesn’t have to. I love it.

I love Ricky and Sophie being the two martial fighting heavy hitters of the group. Like, the two fighters, having the spellcasters’ backs.

I hope the one kung fu fan in the back of the theater never sees another Broadway show again because he’s gonna be so disappointed.

“I’m just so inspired by that beautiful penis.”

Murph, out of character, verbally acknowledging how insane what they’re doing is. I love when someone pauses in a game of D&D to just recite what’s currently happening out of context so everyone can appreciate how crazy it is. D&D. Gotta love it..

Emily and Siobhan have a quick conversation in the background about whether Sondheim did Les Mis or not (not, that’s Claude-Michel Schönberg) while Brennan and Murph are Ring nonsense.

I also was mildly suspicious of Alyssa so I’m glad Kingston checked her out.

The entire roast of Brennan when he’s selecting D6s is an instantly iconic D20 moment. I can’t do it justice. You kinda just have to see it.

“Someone call Wizards of the Coast!”

Em, Wally, and Alyssa go out when Titania puts out a huge spell that blinds Kug.

“Yummy, yummy, tastes like ass.”

On Misty’s next turn, she rolls a fail which makes it 2 failures to 1 success. Brennan mentions that a nat 1 counts as 2 failures and a nat 20 counts as 2 successes. I’m sure that won’t be relevant later because you can’t foreshadow things when dice rolls are completely random.

Misty fails on puppet again again and Titania goes full Wicked Witch of the West on her and starts Jonesing for those shoessss.

Emily’s Emily(tm) move of the session is doing a flying leap at Titania, hitting her with a stunning strike and having Brennan retract the Box off Doom he was pulling out because she can’t save when she’s stunned. She just plummets out of the sky.

Don Confetti respecting the sacrament of marriage as he goes full Opera ghost and tries to garrote Sophie.

Ricky (still naked) grabs the crown from Titania, tosses it to Misty, and, with some improv and a good charisma roll, makes the show suddenly make sense to the very confused but entertained audience.

I’m so glad that Murph decided to turn into a bear and that they made the Winter’s tale ref. I should have had faith in Brennan and Siobhan, the theater nerds. Exit pursued by a bear y’all.

Lou and Emily bonding over being proud of their die for rolling well when they lend it out for a big roll.

Really wish Pete had wild magic surged in this fight. Just to add that extra bit of chaos.

With a very good turn (no damage taken, no performances failed) Misty only has to avoid snake eyes to get through this turn. She leapfrogs over that low bar and rolls a nat 20, instantly fulfilling her win condition. At this point, the play is superfluous and Titania is still down.

“Brennan lost and now he knows reddit is gonna eat his ass.”

OK, remember how I said earlier that Misty seems like the kind of character you nudge a little temptation at just to spice things up? Yeah, her killing Titania and getting the crown of the Seelie Fae makes me a liiiitle apprehensive, but we’ll see how that turns out.

“I killed my queen! This is America we don’t have royalty here.”

“Bear, I don’t know who you are, but take me on your back, let me ride on stage.” —creator of West Side Story, Stephen Sondheim

Misty charms the critic at the show to make sure they get a good review which is such a fae thing to do.

Kingston’s clearly not loving attacking Don and Co. post “real fight” what with his whole Do No Harm thing (well, that’s Dr’s but same principle applies I assume) is a good character detail. For that matter, so is Ricky just taking Titania’s crown and not beheading her which he super could have done while she was down but it would have been very incongruous with everything else about him.

Brian “This isn’t Loony Tunes” Murphy throws Sondheim as a projectile weapon at a pixie who snaps the pixie’s neck and then does a monologue at the audience.

I love it when someone rolls low on an insight check and Brennan gives them useless info and then they repeat it in their character’s voice.

4 mins from the end of the ep, Siobhan realizes there are two Perrys in this story for the first time and has a bigger reaction to that than almost everything else in this ep except her nat 20.

Ricky looks for costume faun legs to cover his fully out dick instead of costume pants or even his own pants.

Misty starts glowing with reincarnation energy and she runs into her dressing room for privacy. Also, she still super hasn’t told anyone what’s going on. (ALSO, assuming she’s gonna make the world think she died, it’s gonna be wild for the company of the show to have their leading lady put on the performance of her life and then die on opening night).

“Who am I to refuse a crown when it’s placed so deftly upon my head?”

You know that behind the scenes thing where Brennan is like, “Yeah, I knew Siobhan was gonna steal that book,”? I got some of those vibes during the crown scene.

The implications of what Misty did are gonna be left until next ep but Brennan says something about her creating her own court and it looks like she’s recruiting followers in the promo. IDK how I feel about that (these stories tend to have great power--especially tied to powerful magical items--as a corrupting force) but I am very excited to see how it goes down! See you then!

#the unsleeping city #dimension 20 #asks #galfast

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