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reidsaurora · 1 year

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Part Seven: "The First Time" ~ S. Reid

Summary: When Imogen visits Spencer for Christmas, he underestimates just how special the first time for everything really is.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Imogen Sterren (bipolar!OC)

Word Count: 3,782

Content Warning: R16+ for a makeout scene and sexual content (fade to black smut), loss of virginity (for Spencer), mild swearing, mentions of the sanitarium, food consumption, lmk if I missed anything!

Genre: Fluff. a lil bit of Fluffy Smut at the end.

Extra Notes: more on this later but this was not AT ALL what i had originally planned for this chapter

Based On the Song: Soon You'll Get Better by Taylor Swift

Originally Written/Re-Written: 07/27/2022 through 08/03/2022 and 12/17/2022

Beta Read By: @theghouligan

Criminal Minds masterlist can be found here!

"Soon You'll Get Better" series masterlist can be found here!

*** - indicates smut

"𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬: 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥." - 𝐑𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐡𝐧

Spencer always hated the airport, but he was sure he hated it a little more when he was waiting for Imogen's flight to arrive.

Normally, he'd have Derek or Elle or JJ to distract him from all the germs and the overwhelming sounds of the loudspeaker. Normally, he'd head into the airport Starbucks for a hot chocolate. Normally, he'd be somewhat OK.

Today, however, was not one of those days.

Between the worry of waiting for Imogen to arrive, the hustle and bustle of a thousand people rushing around, and the ache that had settled in his stomach from not eating breakfast, Spencer was sure he'd pass out before the morning was over.

He paced around the airport, just outside of Imogen's gate. With every step he took, Spencer only became more anxious to hear the words, "Flight DL303 arriving from St. Louis at Gate B16."

The sudden sound of his phone vibrating in his pocket was just enough to break him from his trance. He slid it out of his pocket, nearly cracking a smile as he noticed Penelope's number at the top.

"Hey, Penelope," he greeted, his voice shaky.

"Stop worrying," she told him.

His eyebrows furrowed. "How did you -"

"Because I know you all too well, Spencer Reid. You're probably pacing around the terminal right now."

His mouth scrunched as he stopped mid-pace. "I hate when you're right," he grumbled.

She laughed, a noise Spencer enjoyed almost as much as Imogen's laugh. "Not to mention, your voice had 'panic' written all over it."

He sighed as he sat down, glancing at his watch for probably the thousandth time since he'd arrived at DCA. He'd gone silent, something that didn't go unnoticed by the woman on the phone.

"You OK?" Penelope asked, her voice laced with concern.

"Yeah," he answered, his voice shaky.

Though he couldn't see it, Penelope's face fell in sadness. "You don't sound OK, Spencer."

His breathing started to pick up as his opposite hand started to flail. "Not now," he thought. His hand shook for dear life as he attempted to take a breath. His lungs felt as though they were on the verge of collapsing as he took a string of shallow breaths.

"Spencer-"

Spencer attempted to take another breath, but instead, all he could manage was a gasp.

"Hey, you're alright," she attempted to calm him. Normally, her voice would've been enough to soothe him. But today, he wasn't even sure Imogen's voice could've soothed him, had she been given the opportunity to try.

"What if the plane crashed? What if she got lost? What if-"

"What if," Penelope emphasized, "she's just fine? What if her plane is just running a few minutes behind?"

"Penelope," he managed to say, finally taking his first deep breath all morning.

"Shh, you're gonna be alright. Imogen is gonna be alright," she comforted. "Just focus on my voice, alright?"

He nodded with a deep sigh, hoping somehow that that conveyed he was listening.

"Spencer, everything is going to be OK. You're both going to have an amazing time together. You're finally gonna ask her to be your girlfriend. And though I've never met Imogen, I can guarantee you, she will say yes."

"Why would she say yes, Penelope?" he fretted. "I'm not handsome like Derek. I'm not strong like Hotch. No one should want me."

"You may not be handsome like Hot Chocolate, and you may not be strong like White Chocolate," she joked, "but you know what you are?"

"What?"

"You're sweet like you," she told him, her voice almost as sweet as the words she'd said. "Milk Chocolate, if you will."

He let out an almost inaudible snicker. He supposed there must be a little bit of truth in her words. All his life, he'd been told that he was "the sweet one"—the one who always had kind words for you no matter who you were.

"Imogen loves you, Spencer," Penelope said, her lips pressing into a small smile. "She sees past the things you think are flaws. She loves you for who you are. So, even if not for yourself, never change your kind soul. Because, while we all need it, Imogen needs that the most."

Spencer noticed his stimming had finally stopped. Though Penelope couldn't see it, he gave her the biggest smile he could manage. "Thank you, Pen."

And in an instant, it was like his world stopped spinning.

"Spencer!" an all-too-familiar voice squealed in an inflection he'd never heard before.

Spencer nearly dropped his phone when he heard Imogen's voice behind him. Luckily, he had it in him to say, "I gotta go."

"Go get 'em, tiger," Penelope giggled before hanging up.

Spencer placed his phone back in his pocket before turning around to face Imogen. He wanted to savor the moment and take it all in—take her all in—but the next thing he knew, his oxygen supply had been cut off.

She'd jumped up, wrapped her legs and arms around him, and kissed him.

He nearly shed a tear when he processed what was happening. Between the feeling of her skin on his for the first time in months and the taste of her lips colliding with his for the first time ever, he felt like his senses might go into overdrive.

They kissed for a while. "One minute and four seconds, to be exact," Spencer noted.

Once they'd let go, Spencer stepped back and finally took his moment to take everything in. He noticed her hair, how it was braided into pigtails in front of her shoulders instead of dangling behind her like normal. He noticed her outfit, the way she looked in a leather coat—the way she looked when she wasn't wearing Bennington pajamas. Finally, he noticed her makeup, how it only highlighted the beauty she was already naturally blessed with.

"Hi," she smiled up at him.

Spencer was nearly at a loss for words. Luckily, he was able to get out, "Hi."

"You cut your hair," she pointed out. A grin tugged at her lips as she reached up to ruffle his hair.

He recalled the day he first met Imogen—his long hair, how lanky he looked in those tailored khakis, how he stumbled over those dress shoes he always wore. Now, he sported much shorter hair, a pair of square glasses, and a clean, new pair of black Converse.

"I did get my hair cut…" he answered, flattening out his tousled hair. "And you bought a new outfit," he noticed, looking her over.

Imogen quickly noticed his eyes fluttering from place to place on her body. She giggled as she did a quick, showy twirl of her outfit. "Do you like it?"

Spencer slowly nodded. "Yeah, you look…" his voice trailed off as he searched for his words. "Wow."

Imogen blushed, even as simple as his choice of words was. "I bought it just for you."

His eyebrows furrowed. "For me?"

She nodded quickly. "Yep, I bought five new outfits just for this trip."

"Isn't that a bit extreme?" Spencer chuckled.

"Maybe so. But I was so excited to see you that I couldn't help myself."

Spencer's eyebrows ruffled. He thought her impulsive behavior was strange, but he chalked it up to excitement related to the fact that she was finally being released from the sanitarium. Still, just to check on her, he asked, "Are you feeling OK, Imogen?"

"Yeah, of course!" she smiled. "Now, don't you wanna show me around the city?"

He slowly nodded before picking up her bag off the ground. He brushed off his thoughts about her behavior as he looked her over once again. She was there, in front of him, in his city—not in a mental health facility.

He gave her a silent smile, nodded in the direction of the baggage claim area, and started to walk away.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she asked, grabbing his arm.

"Nothing," he answered. Tears welled up in his eyes as he further explained, "I'm just really happy that you're here."

She gave Spencer an excitement-filled, toothy grin. "Come on. I've got a city to explore."

"Not so fast," he chuckled. "We have to take all this back to my apartment first."

Her lips pressed together into a tight smile. "Ooh, even funner."

"More fun," he corrected her.

She giggled. "Oh well, you knew what I meant." She giggled again. "You're mean in person," she joked, placing a kiss on his jaw as they began walking again.

Spencer frowned as he stopped mid-step, taking her words more seriously than he was meant to.

Imogen playfully slapped his arm before saying, "It was a joke, Spence." His nose scrunched as she leaned up and left a kiss on the tip of it. "I'm serious. I was kidding."

Spencer shrugged it off, placed an arm around her shoulders, and once again began to walk toward baggage claim.

The whole way to his apartment, Imogen barely stopped to take a breath. She rambled about anything and everything she could find to ramble about. What was worse? Spencer didn't even try to stop her.

Instead, he just drove in ignorant bliss, enjoying the sound of her voice clearly—not being broken up by bad cell service.

"OK, I don't think you even understand how excited I am to see your apartment," Imogen said as they made their way to the elevator with her bags. Spencer feared that rickety, old elevator might break down on them, but he somehow felt that taking the elevator would still be a better option than taking the stairs with all of Imogen's bags.

"I'm excited for you to see it too," he smiled as the elevator began its route upward.

"I've always wondered what your place was like," she admitted. "Sometimes, I pictured it like a library, covered in old books with bookshelves that reached the roof. I imagined you sipping tea from a porcelain teacup on a balcony while you read an original copy of Stoker's Dracula," she explained. "Then sometimes, I pictured it as a bachelor pad, like I expected you to have this secret side of you. I imagined it having a fully stocked wet bar and a pool table." She changed the subject, "But I know you, Spencer Reid. I can read you like a novel."

He chuckled as she finally stopped to take a breath. He waited for her to exit the elevator first before following behind her, then showed her which door led to his apartment.

He placed one of her bags on the ground before unlocking the door. "You'll notice that your first imagination is much more accurate than your second."

Imogen's jaw nearly dropped at the sight. Just as she'd pictured: bookshelves from floor to ceiling, a vintage desk with a stack of books piled atop it, and an old leather couch. The only thing that wasn't as she'd pictured was the color on his walls. Unlike her fantasy, which included dark walls that blended into the bookshelves, the walls were painted yellow, a reminder of Spencer's intelligence and his optimism.

"Spencer, this is beautiful," she smiled at him.

"Do you like the color?" he asked, awkwardly scratching the hairs on the back of his neck.

She nodded with a grin. "I love it! You know, I imagined your apartment with dark-colored walls. Or at least a neutral color, anyway. I never would've guessed the walls would be a sunny yellow color. But it's nice. It livens the place up." She stopped herself abruptly as she considered her words for a moment. "Not that your place needs livening. It would've been just as nice with a dark or neutral color. Maybe even better." She cringed, her eyebrows scrunching. "That's not what I meant either."

"Imogen," Spencer stopped her. She was internally grateful, knowing that if she didn't stop now, she'd just continue to embarrass herself. "Do you really like the color?" he asked again.

She gave him a closed-lip smile as she nodded. "It's beautiful. Just like you."

Spencer felt a red tinge come to his cheeks. "Well, the whole reason I picked it was because I thought it was beautiful like you," he admitted.

Imogen's mouth fell agape. "You painted your whole apartment just for me?"

He nodded, much like the way she'd nodded at him.

She placed both of her gloved hands on either side of Spencer's face, pulling him in for another long kiss. Spencer felt a pang in his stomach, a pang of worry. He wanted to ignore her symptoms—to focus on the fact that she was there, in his apartment, in D.C.—but something was worrying him. He wanted to press on, to see if he could finally put his finger on what it was that seemed out of place, but when she pulled away and looked into his eyes, every ounce of worry melted away.

"That's the sweetest thing a guy's ever done for me," she grinned.

He placed a short peck on her lips, something he never wanted to stop doing. "Come on, we've got a city to explore."

After a long afternoon filled with lunch at Spencer's favorite restaurant, a trip to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and a quick stop by a local ice cream shop, Imogen and Spencer made their way into Spencer's apartment with milkshakes in hand.

"Seriously, why didn't you tell me that D.C. has the best milkshakes?" Imogen gushed, slurping down a big gulp of her strawberry milkshake.

"I didn't know to be honest," he commented, unlocking his apartment door. "I've never really been a milkshake kind of guy… Or at least not until I met you," he said shyly, scratching at his neck.

Imogen turned to give him a kind smile. "Well, I'm glad I could put you on to the dairy-filled goodness that is a milkshake," she giggled. "Even if you are a chocolate kinda guy."

He chuckled before taking another sip of his milkshake, sitting down on the couch. He placed the Styrofoam cup onto the coffee table before asking, "Well, is there anything you'd like to do?"

Her eyes wandered in sync with her mind. "Do you like Christmas movies?"

Spencer gave her a small smile. "It might seem childish but one of my favorite movies is A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Imogen's eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas. "Really? Mine too!"

And with that, the two found themselves piled up next to each other, intently focused on the movie in front of them.

Spencer could've sworn they started out sitting further apart than they were, but he certainly wasn't about to push Imogen away. He noticed her hand dangling near his, like she was waiting for him to grab it.

He caught her drift, letting out an almost inaudible chuckle as his fingertips brushed against hers. He almost immediately noticed how much smaller her hand seemed in his.

About halfway through the movie, Imogen let out a content sigh, leaning her head against Spencer's chest.

His face lit up bright red when he registered what was happening, but he suddenly felt compelled to leave a kiss on her hairline.

He let out a nervous, silent breath as he kissed her, earning him an audible hum of satisfaction from the girl lying underneath him.

"This is nice," she smiled up at him.

He managed to reply with, "Yeah, it is."

Imogen's opposite hand began brushing up and down Spencer's knee, earning her a furrowed brow from him.

She seemed oblivious, though Spencer wasn't sure if it was an honest obliviousness or if she was pretending. He hated to assume that about her, but he couldn't help but notice her behavior once again.

Soon enough, the movie had ended, though neither of them seemed to want to be the first to move. Though neither of them said it, they both would have agreed that they were perfectly content the way they were—his arm around her shoulders, her head against his chest, their fingers tangled up together.

After a moment, Imogen sat up, meeting Spencer at eye level. She glanced between his eyes and his lips, suddenly craving to close the distance between them.

With a simple nod of Spencer's head, she closed the space between them, taking in the now familiar taste of his lips.

Spencer's hands glided down her skin, feeling nearly intoxicated by the flavor of her skin and the softness of her touch. His heart thumped loudly against his chest, so loudly he was sure that Imogen could hear it too.

***

"Spencer," she managed, breaking away.

"Yes?" he asked, nearly pouting as their lips parted.

She stayed silent as she began to think about her question.

His hand moved to gently rub the skin of her arm. "Hey, we don't have to-"

"No, it's not that," she replied, avoiding eye contact with him.

Spencer's eyes wandered as he looked her over. He guided her chin with his thumb. "What's wrong?"

Imogen shook her head lightly. "It's just… I've only ever…" she hesitated. "With one other person."

Spencer's face softened before he left a gentle kiss on her jawline. "It's OK…" his voice trailed off. "This would be my first time."

She felt a pang of anxiety in her stomach. "Are you absolutely sure you'd be OK with me…"

"Being my first?" he finished her question, earning him a nod from her. "Hell yeah. If I have to be honest, you're the first person that's ever made me comfortable enough to even consider it."

She gave him a small smile. "OK," she told him through a reassuring grin as she went back in for another kiss.

They continued to kiss for a little while, taking in all of each other. Spencer wondered if Imogen would feel comfortable if he led her to his bedroom, while Imogen longed for Spencer to take control and lead her there.

Unbeknownst to the other, they both felt a prick of insecurity as things slowly progressed. Spencer's hand played with the bottom of Imogen's sweater, craving to touch the skin he'd never seen.

Imogen took a nervous, deep breath as their lips departed once more.

The two looked over each other's faces for a moment, the room suddenly silent.

Spencer let out a small, awkward breath as their eyes met again. "Would you, uh…" he hesitated.

Her eyes nearly lit up as she waited for the rest of his question. Her hand moved from its current spot on his shoulder to his stomach, giving him a small, reassuring pat.

"Would you like to… take this to my bedroom?" he asked, his cheeks heating up.

Imogen noticed his behavior, giving him a short but supportive kiss. "I would like that. Would you like that as well?"

He nodded with a shy smile before taking her by the hand. As he led her down the hallway to his bedroom, a feeling of nervousness mixed with excitement filled his stomach.

Every couple of steps, Imogen left a kiss on his shoulder. She was almost sad that there was fabric blocking her from his porcelain skin.

Her eyes wandered away from Spencer as they entered his bedroom. She noted the dark green color on the walls, how that was the only room that he hadn't changed for her. She examined his bed sheets and comforter, how the dark gray colors were exactly how she'd imagined he'd decorate his bedroom.

Imogen watched as Spencer glided over to his bedside table, promptly turning on the lamp. She swallowed apprehensively as he turned back to her.

He took her hand once again, walking over to the bed. "Can you promise me something, Imogen?" he asked, licking his lips softly.

She nodded as she watched him sit down before moving to stand between his legs. "What's that?" she inquired, her hands moving up to play with his hair.

"Promise me you'll tell me if I do something you don't like or if I make you uncomfortable in any way."

She kissed Spencer for a moment, taking a deep breath of his scent as she did so. "I promise. Do you promise me too?"

He nodded back, his hands gliding to play with her turtleneck once again.

Things continued to move slowly and sweetly—just the way the two of them liked it. After a few more minutes of simply kissing each other, Spencer slid his hand under her top, finally closing the space between his fingertips and her tummy.

He pulled away, looking up at her for a moment. "Would you like me to take this off for you?"

Imogen shyly shook her head. "Spencer, I know that we're most likely about to have sex… but I don't really want you to see me."

Her eyes wandered to the floor, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Hey, we don't have to do anything that you don't want to. But if it's an insecurity thing, I assure you, that I will love you no matter what you look like underneath your clothes. I'm not going to pressure you, but I promise you that I'm not going to judge you based on the way that you look."

Imogen backed away from Spencer, slowly taking off her sweater. "This is why I didn't want you to see me."

Spencer took in every scar, every stretch mark, every freckle, and every prickle of hair. He hooked his fingers through two of her belt loops, pulling her closer. "You're still the prettiest woman on this planet to me."

Every ounce of worry and insecurity faded away almost instantly and Spencer leaned forward, kissing over her scars and stretch marks.

He looked back up at her, watching as her fingers moved back to playing with the hairs near his scalp. "I'm not good at dirty talk," he stopped to chuckle, "but I'd wager to say that you're the sexiest woman I'll ever lay eyes on."

Though it was his first time, Imogen was quite surprised that Spencer was so good at pleasuring her—"No, pleasure seems like the wrong word," she thought. Loving her.

Spencer could never have dreamed for a more perfect first time—for a more perfect person to be the one who helped him through it.

He never thought he'd find himself in this situation. He'd always heard stories about how awful the first time was: it was sloppy, it wasn't enjoyable for either party, and it sure as hell wasn't meaningful.

But for Spencer? For Spencer, it wasn't like having sex. For Spencer, the first time was making love—making love with the first woman who ever made him feel worthy of that kind of love.

"𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬." - 𝐉𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐧

Happy SYGB Sunday, everyone!!! Yes, I am aware this is a week late but you will be getting two chapters this week because what better way to celebrate Christmas than with these two lovers??

This week was CRAZY BUSY. Appointments, Christmas parties, spending time with my family, like it was hectic lol. But alas, we move 🫡 and now you get two chapters in one day!

So, explanation on my "Extra Notes" section: I had fully planned on this being a SFW series, which other than parts seven and eight, it will be SFW. I will putting everything NSFW under *** so if you see those three little asterisks, just skip over that!

Anyway, I hope you're all having a very merry Christmas. I love you all so so much! Have a wonderful Christmas, my loves! 🫶🏻💛💖

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briarruler · 2 years

Text

Masterpost for all of my Danny Phantom related posts.

Thoughts and Comments

For the Ghosts: why Danny keeps his secret.

Danny turning up at Sam's in the early morning.

Decided I don't like Memory Blank.

Do the students of Casper High know that Spectra was a ghost?

I shall call him 'Plasmius Phantom'.

Ghosts consider a day to be from one Sunset to the next?

Micro Management's Mouse.

King Tuck's eyeliner.

I don't think Freakshow knew Danny Phantom was half-human.

Amorpho did not know Phantom was a Halfa.

Students at camp during Claw of the Wild.

Tucker's reason Danny should keep his powers is logical.

Human to ghost and retaining hair.

Danielle is not 12.

Alternate Universes

Halfa Trio AUs

Halfa Trio AU ideas where their transformations are linked.

The Portal Kawoosh as an explanation for a Halfa Trio.

Ideas for Halfa Trio AUs with Identical Ghost Form.

Three for the Portal AU

Three for the Portal: Half-Ghost Trio Fusing via Overshadowing.

Three for the Portal: Names.

Description of the Trio's ghost-forms.

Ecto-Acne Trigger AU

Ecto-Acne Triggered Ghostification AU.

Other Trio AUs

Halfa Sam and Tucker, Human Danny AU

AU Idea: Half-Ghosts Sam and Tucker.

Lemures and Poltergeist.

Ghost Sam AUs

The Human, The Ghost and The Liminal.

AU where Sam died in the Portal.

Ghost Trio

My Dead Trio AU Masterpost.

Other AUs

Danny actually hides his transformation.

Star Mythology empowered Danny AU.

Sam with the Ring and Tucker with the Crown.

Full Ghost AU but the divergence happening during Memory Blank.

Fenton Crammer AU

Fenton Crammer used to imprison enemies.

Who Danny could uses the Fenton Crammer on.

Thoughts and Questions

Have we ever seen the Fenton Thermos not capture a ghost?

Fenton Thermos and humans?

Overshadowing and the Fenton Thermos?

Request for Overshadowing Theories/Analysis.

Why does Danny get shipped with Dash more often then Tucker?

What would the Fenton Peeler do to Danny?

Fanart

Bad Chibi Avatars: Danny Fenton-Phantom.

Bad Chibi Avatars: Ghostly Tucker Foley.

Bad Chibi Avatars: Ghostly Sam Manson.

Bad Chibi Avatars: Everyday Human and Colour Inverted Ghost forms.

Crossover Related

A pokemon team for Danny.

Masterpost for my Danny Phantom Pokemon fusion idea.

Pariah Dark's voice just gave me sudden Nene flashbacks.

The Box Ghost goes looking for the world of Blue Dragon.

Everyone goes ghost crossover beginning.

Amity Park unaffected in during Young Justice: Misplaced.

Ghost King Danny 'gifted' John Constantine's soul.

A Better World triggered discovery of Amity Park.

Sam Manson and the Justice Lords.

Justice Lords mentoring Team Phantom.

Santa vs Darkseid as the Origin of the Christmas Truce.

Team Phantom's side gig as minor supervillains.

Team Phantom moves to England and Phantom meets Constantine.

Amity Park unaffected by outside nonsense.

Superheroes were taken out by ghostly team up in TUE timeline.

Why Batman shouldn't try to adopt Danny.

Scarab Sceptre Museum Heist Crossover continuation.

Other Stuff

The problem with Sam's plan in Memory Blank.

Reason I don't use the Fandom's Ghost Obsession headcanon.

Straight up colour inverted ghost forms.

Disproven Penelope Spectra Theory.

Draft of a dates given in show-canon canon.

An Ask.

Would Half-Ghost Sam commit crimes?

For Humanity or for Love?

Secret Identity Fight: Ghosts are dead vs Danny's lack of subtly.

A possible limit on Clockwork.

Duplication vs all the other powers Danny could be trying to learn.

The less you know, the more likely to connect Phantom to Fenton.

Tucker is the Team Phantom member with lands in the Ghost Zone.

Dani is useful to a Team Phantom trying to hide.

The Fenton Ghost Portal causes a Ghost Zone population boom.

What does canon gives us about ghosts and food?

Can the Fenton Ghost Catcher create a Halfa?

A reason for Walker's ban of human world objects?

The Ghost King as an anti-mind control role.

Scarab Sceptre museum Heist.

The Infinite Realms declare war on America.

Summoning Circle Duplicates.

Will be updated via editing as needed.

#Masterpost #Danny Phantom

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ultramarine-spirit · 2 years

Note

Do you guys know what spoon was based on to decide the birthdays of the characters? or was it just random?

Some have a reason behind them, some apparently don't.

Jennette and Athy's have to be almost 12 months apart from each other because that's a plot point needed for the timeline to make sense (Penelope dies/Jennette is born -> Claude meets Diana -> Diana dies/Athy is born. Pregnancies are usually 9 months long and Athy is around one year younger than Jennette, so Jennette had to have been born early in the year and Athy by the end of it). This is supported by the novel, because there it was stated that Athy's birthday was late in the year.

In this video, Spoon goes over her reasons for some of the character's birthdays. She said that Athy's might be on early summer, like June or July, and Jennette's around early autumn, like September. That was most likely from a "character point of view" (Athy having more summer vibes and Jennette more autumn vibes? I can see it), but I think Spoon then remembered that they needed to have a year-ish of age difference lmao, so she changed them to the canon ones (January 6th and December 3rd). In the end, both have winter birthdays (but Obelia barely has any cold weather, so does it really matter?)

Claude's stayed on February (though fun fact: his birthday was on the 29th at first. That would have made him have his birthday on leap years, and we would joke about Claude being 10 lmao. Spoon quickly changed it to February 28th).

Original version from a screenshot I took on October 2021 vs Current version

Spoon also said in the video that Ijekiel's should be in spring (around March), Anastasius' in winter (on January), Roger on October (whoops, happy belated birthday, Roger), Felix in summer (on July), and Lily on August since her name is "lily", a summer flower.

And I'm convinced Spoon chose December 25th for Lucas' birthday because all special anime boys were born on christmas (oh, and Jesus too). He's also the only character who had the date 100% decided, with the others Spoon was like "Hmmm around this time of the year" and chose the exact days much later lmao, so it must have been on purpose.

#Spoon i'm sorry for revealing your secret about Claude's birthday #it was just too funny to keep to myself #eeeh iirc some people did joke about Claude being like 10 when that post first dropped #Athy has a summer birthday for me tho. love celebrating christmas with 30° celsius outside haha... ha...#i guess only Lily and maybe Lucas have a super symbolic reason behind their birthdays lmao #but yeah i think Spoon went with the first dates because of the characters' vibes #who made me a princess #suddenly became a princess one day #i suddenly became a princess #wmmap #sbapod #sbap #wmmap meta

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writingwhilecaffeinated · 4 months

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All of the mood board pics for Penelope’s 12 Days of Christmas have been excellent. Not sure if there are a lot of Nicola pics I’m unaware of or you’re just amazing at finding source images that look like her? But either way, the end result is almost as amazing as the fics have been 🥹💗

Awwww thanks!!! @velvetcovered-brick and I have done our best to try and find pics with women who look like Nicola. I do have to be real, we don’t always succeed. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of plus-size models used for stock images of sexy poses for our spicier ones. So, we’ve been having to try and look up like search terms like “plus size lingerie” or “plus size dresses” and that usually renders a result with a model. Not always the case though. While there are many lovely images of Nic herself, they don’t always fit the story theme. So we do our best to find model images that have a passing resemblance. I think so far 3/5 stories up have one image each of Nic in them.

And @velvetcovered-brick has been AMAZING making the mood boards! They’re fabulous aren’t they??? ☺️

#ask #Penelope’s 12 days of Christmas

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velvetcovered-brick · 4 months

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington Characters: Colin Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, Mentions of Violet Bridgerton, mentions of Anthony Bridgerton, mentions of Eloise Bridgerton, mentions of Kate Bridgerton, mentions of Daphne Bassett Additional Tags: 12 Days of Penelope, Penelope's 12 Days of Christmas, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Snow, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Family Gatherings, Power Outage, based on the song "Baby It's Cold Outside", No heat, snuggles, Colin Bridgerton can't keep his hands off his wife's chest, soft and cute

Summary:

Penelope and Colin are running late to the annual Bridgerton Christmas party, but baby, it's cold outside!

Day 4 of Penelope's 12 Days of Christmas is LIVE!

#fanfiction #bridgerton #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton #polin #polin fanfiction #polin fanfic #bridgerton netflix #bridgerton fanfic #bridgerton fanfiction #holiday fanfic #holiday fanfiction #christmas fanfic #penelope's 12 days of christmas #12 days of penelope

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right-brain-of-froggy2 · 2 years

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Christmas in July: Bonus Day 31

Twelve days of Christmas, twelve days of rescues and all hands are on deck.

This is the official last chapter! Huzzah! I wanted something a bit longer for today and decided to somehow power through drafting 12 different rescues and writing them all out 🥲. A big, big thank you to everyone who commented, reblogged, subscribed, or just all around enjoyed reading my Thunderbirds Christmas in July collection. It's been incredibly fun to challenge myself to write a little something everyday and I've loved having you all along for the ride!

AO3 link here!

December 13th. Scott’s woken up like most any other day except for Alan banging on his door. His tired mind panics for only a second before he checks the date on his alarm clock a second time.

December 13th.

The first day of the twelve days of Christmas.

Right, that’s a thing.

Alan eventually breaks into his room. His youngest brother is wearing a hideous off-green sweater with the sleeves ripped off like a muscle shirt. No doubt that was Gordon’s doing when it was once belonged to him.

“C’mon, c’mon! You can’t be sleeping in this close to Christmas!”

“Yes, I can,” Scott grumbles. His voice is muffled by the pillow his face is currently stuffed into.

“I’m going to steal your advent candy.”

Scott waves a hand. It’s probably chocolate again anyways. The soft electronic chime of John’s hologram pings. Alan- with his mouth full of whatever was in the little box- complains to the brother with the next amount of authority.

“Scott’s not waking up! Tell him he has to get up and participate!”

“Don’t you dare side with that little gremlin.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Actually, Scott, you do have to get up. We’ve got a missing hiker in Canada’s Boreal Forest. Normal search and rescue isn’t going to be able to cut it in time with how thick the trees are.”

That wakes Scott up. He rubs at his eyes to clear the sleep from them. Alan moves to finish off his (Scott’s) treat against a wall, leaving the doorway free for Scott to hop out to his loading chute in his pajamas.

“F.A.B.”

. . .

The second day of Christmas brings a rescue with quick needed action to Glasgow. An old office building is in the middle of demolition so a new office building can take its place. Somehow, by some mistake of schedule, two workers find themselves trapped on the roof with no way down and ten minutes to go on the explosive’s timer.

“Well, I don’t suppose even Thunderbird One could make this in time, Parker.”

“I’d say so, M’lady. Lucky we h’are close enough to manage this on h’our h’own?”

“Quite right. Let’s get going.”

Parker steps on the gas as he diverts power to FAB 1’s main jet thrusters. The car slides for a moment on the wet asphalt before taking to the skies. England’s weather has been quite chilly lately and it didn’t surprise Penelope in the least that the rain has turned to sleet.

She sits in the backseat with Sherbert asleep at her heels. Today was going to be such a relaxing day of bad Hallmark Christmas movies and Dove chocolates. But duty calls. Or, more specifically, John. He had been quite relieved to hear her proximity to the situation and promised that all the Tracy’s would join her for a romcom Christmas movie night. Penelope would have gone to the rescue anyways, but who was she to turn down an offer like that?

At least she thought to bring along some chocolates for the flight over. Penelope pops one into her mouth and enjoys the mix of dark chocolate and caramel on her tongue.

“H’approaching the blast zone now, M’lady.”

Penelope peeks out the window overlooking Glasgow. The city is covered in slushy-snow, not quite white but not quite gray. Atop a building stripped down to its bare supports are two men in orange vests.

“I’d say we’ve found the workers. How much time do we have, Parker?”

“Only three minutes before the ‘ole thing comes down.”

“Leave the car running,” she says. Parker nods and approaches the roof. He leaves the car hovering inches above the rooftop. Lady Penelope steps out with one hand holding onto the car door for support in her heels. “Gentlemen!”

“You here for us, lady?”

“I am with International Rescue. If you don’t mind hurrying along, we can give you a ride down out of danger.”

The tension from the men’s shoulders leaves in an instant. They clamor to get into FAB 1, away from the cold and away from certain death. Parker sneers at the dirt they smudge on the white leather. But the men are polite and don’t try any funny business with Lady Penelope. And for that, Parker lets them get away with it just this once.

With the men out of harm’s way and FAB 1 directed back to the Creighton-Ward Manor, Penelope is eager to rejoin her lonely sales executive returning home to small town Vermont for Christmas and a love-at-first-sight man.

. . .

“I can’t believe these guys have a combined IQ of seventeen,” Kayo sasses as she launches Shadow. Once in the air, she hightails a U-turn towards the west. “I was just getting to add little smiley faces to my sandmen.”

“More like ten,” John sighs. “I’ve got them on the other line and they didn’t even bring spare batteries.”

“And they didn’t even bring spare batteries!”

Kayo cruises in Shadow as ocean turns to land beneath her. December 15th means the Northern hemisphere is cold- something she does not want to get involved in. There’s no point in speeding on this rescue when her rescue timeline had enough wriggle room for a full 24-hour delay. “Please tell me it’s at least not snowing.”

“It’s not snowing.”

“Oh, thank God. Small victories.”

“Mind sending me the cave layout again? I’d rather know what I’m getting into than spelunking blind.”

The controls of Thunderbird Shadow tighten under Kayo’s hand as EOS takes over on autopilot. John slides her the schematic of the entire cave, including where the trapped explorers are stuck. It’s not too deep down in, but some of the passes that the three would-be adventurers slipped through are tiny. Alan’s growth spurt leaves Kayo as the most lithe to passage the cave.

There’s little safety risk so long as Kayo plays by the Earth’s rules. Always have two sources of light and backups, keep a rope tied to the entrance, use the TTE communicator to patch in John through Shadow, and most of all, don’t do anything stupid.

Kayo can handle that.

The cave chamber where the explorers are stuck has a few entrances. Two of them are drops down in, meaning climbing back up will be tricky. But the one appears shallow from the hologram so it may be the best bet.

“Over Montauban now. Another five minutes and I’ll be nearing the cave entrance.”

John acknowledges her position and EOS relinquish control back to Kayo as she swipes away the map. She comes upon the mountains of southern France with wide eyes. The cave entrance is plotted to be out amongst a limestone cliff face. She spots the main opening.

“Umm, John? Where’d you say the trailhead was?”

“It should be over the bluff about two miles north of you.”

Kayo shakes her head. “That’s not going to work. I’ve found the cave entrance and it’s in the side of the cliff with a thousand-foot drop. I’m going to land Shadow near the entrance. Is it stable?”

“It’s all karst and limestone. Stay away from the edge and you should be fine.”

Kayo lands Shadow as John suggested and slides on her harness. She loops a three way rope- one end is around Shadow, another end around a solid looking boulder, and the last is around her waist. Kayo tests the amount of slack she gave herself and nods.

With three extra harnesses in hand, she descends down into the cold cave.

. . .

“Isn’t she a beaut?” Gordon sighs dreamily, his head in his hands. “Write it down! December 16th. Seven nests.”

“It’s a bird.”

“A Wedge-tailed Shearwater, thank you very much.”

“It destroyed our sandmen.”

“To lay eggs!”

“There’s a nest on Alan’s sandman’s head.”

Scott comes in with a cheese stick in his mouth like a poor man’s cigar. He claps Kayo on the back as he looks out to the destruction of sand-people. “Circle of life, little sister. We build snowmen, they melt. We build sandmen, they become nesting grounds for sea birds.”

“Wedge-tailed Shearwaters!”

Kayo still flops over on the couch, borrowed binoculars thrown somewhere in the heap of pillows.

“Why don’t you come with me on a rescue to get your mind off such horrible, troubling things,” Scott suggests. He’s only half joking. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of hands on this mission.

Gordon doesn’t look away from the newly built nests. His eyes are glued to the set of binoculars. “You need Thunderbird Two as well? I’m surprised John didn’t wake up Virgil or Alan yet.”

“We debriefed already. It’s a group of four researchers studying penguins down in the Antarctic ice shelf. The shelf started calving and they’re stuck. The heat from Two’s thrusters and the massive size alone getting that close may send the researchers falling.”

The aquanaut sticks out a tongue as Kayo is roped into duty without much of a say.

Kayo finds herself snug in One’s jump seat back behind Scott. It’s roomier than Shadow; she actually has room to kick her legs out in front of her when not in the pilot’s chair. Kayo grips onto the handle above her seat as One launches.

“MIDAS system active. Accelerating to Mach 12,” Scott says into the automatic recording system. “You good back there, Kayo?”

“I want to go back and get revenge on those birds. I’ve never been a bird person.”

“I’ll help. They like dive-bombing me when I went on my run this morning.”

Kayo is satisfied that at least one brother holds some sense of dislike towards birds. She sits back and relaxes into her seat, content to watch the water turn to ice beneath the see-through hull.

“You know, this glacier mission sounds like it’ll be in and out no problem. The researchers have a base they want to be taken to which isn’t far,” Kayo starts as the ride grows a bit too silent after being with Gordon all morning.

“And…?”

“And it’s ice! Ice skating!”

“I thought you hated the snow?”

“I mean, I do,” Kayo clarifies. “But ice skating is fun. Didn’t you and John used to go all the time at the pond back behind Grandma’s farmhouse?”

“Yeah, right until Virgil got old enough and wanted to join us. He did once, fell, cried to Mom, and she didn’t let us back,” Scott says with a tone that shows he’s still bitter about it.

“Well then Virgil doesn’t have to know!”

“We don’t have skates.”

“It’s solid ice. I think boots will do quite nicely to slide across it.”

Scott doesn’t know quite what got into his sister. Normally she’s the voice of reason. But who is he to complain about getting to go ice skating on a glacier?

“Mission first. Then hell yes.”

. . .

“Oh, hold up Alan. Virgil, you can go.”

Alan skids on heel from activating his suit up sequence. Virgil cocks an eyebrow before disappearing into his own chute, Thunderbird Two bound. Honestly, Alan’s glad that hideous Christmas sweater is out of sight. Hopefully it gets torn on the automatic dressers. It already has paint on it from where Virgil was painting today- the fifth day of Christmas in his series.

John’s distracted, running a hand through his normally neat hair.

“Shouldn’t I, you know, be getting going?”

“Virgil’s handled plenty of forest fires. This one doesn’t appear to be any different,” John mumbles. “EOS just found a Giramit recycler going haywire.”

“Aren’t those the new space junk recyclers that everyone raved about?”

“Yeah, and this one has eaten five needed satellites in ten minutes. Its detection system must be on overdrive. You’re going to need to fix it before it destroys a craft with people in it.”

“F.A.B.”

Alan settles back down into his black launch chair and as it’s loading down, sets the destination for Three’s cockpit instead of Two. Once in his space suit, John’s voice pops up in his ear.

“Are you okay handling this mission with EOS? I can help, but with Gordon out in the Senkaku Islands and Virgil’s fire…”

“No worries, John. Your child is my child.”

“I am not a child, Alan,” EOS pipes in.

“Eh, potato-potatoe.”

Three launches into space with a mighty roar. Alan’s stomach flip-flops in that vaguely comforting way once he clears the atmosphere and hits 0 G. EOS gives him the run down with a track on the runaway recycler. The mission seems easy enough if not a bit tedious for the shutdown sequence the company ahem… “gave”… EOS.

He directs Three over to the other side of the Earth, right above the southern tip of South America.

“I see some big thing with golden rings sticking out and it’s moving pretty fast. Is that it?”

“Correct. There are two possible targets in the way of the detection system that it is heading towards. Careful not to cross the front otherwise you’d be three,” EOS warns. Her hologram lights twinkle against the starry backdrop.

Alan spots the back paneling hiding the control console. He can’t dock Three to the recycler with the configuration, but he can’t leave it close by either. Its best to leave his ‘Bird out of harms way and EVA over with a hoverboard.

“Alright, opening hatch now.”

Alan takes in a deep breath of his spacesuit air. He pushes off and hooks his magnetic boots to the base of his board. The propulsion is smooth and fast, a new Brains upgrade. Alan reaches the panel in no time. This close to the machine, Alan can see why it’s a problem. The thing is twice the size of Three with grinding rotors that stick out from the front. Luckily, it’s only a matter of unlatching and typing in a ten series code to access the motherboard.

“Woah, this is way less to work with than I planned…” Alan says.

“The shutdown sequence should be easy. It’s a matter of flipping the AT-8 switches off. There’s an automatic reboot sequence that will turn it back on, so disconnecting the detection system wires is your best bet to avoid a repeat of this whole debacle.”

“Sure, sure.”

EOS’s instructions work like a charm. The menacing rumble of the recycler peters out after the three subsequent AT-8 switches are turned off. But there’s still a light flashing. It’s blue rather than red or green- that must be the reboot status. Alan snips the wire before it has the chance to fire back up.”

“Status report, EOS?”

“Well, I don’t detect any signals. The whole thing appears to be offline and using no power.”

Alan whoops a “Mission accomplished” like he’s from a video game. “Time to get back to the Island before Virgil to make peppermint hot chocolate.”

“Why does Virgil need to be absent?”

Alan pouts. “He always steals the marshmallows! Kayo found ones shaped like reindeer and there’s only a handful left.”

“Ah. A true tragedy.”

. . .

“Oh, hold up Alan. Virgil, you can go.”

Alan skids on heel from activating his suit up sequence. Virgil cocks an eyebrow before disappearing into his own chute, Thunderbird Two bound.

Virgil enjoys the slide down to Two as the machine throws on his uniform. He slams the top hatch shut and initiates the pre-launch sequence. Once Two is in the air, Virgil opens his channel with his older brother.

“Talk to me, John.”

“We’ve got a multi-hundred-acre forest fire in south Wyoming that’s spreading out of control of local services. Everything’s pretty wet with snow so I can’t imagine it will take more than a good dousing from the water cannon to places they can’t reach.”

“Any civilians?”

“Everyone was evacuated. The only danger right now is to wildlife. Including a group of late migrating Canadian geese. Or so the report says.” John rubs at his eyes.

“Didn’t one bite you when we were little?”

“Two. And would it really be such a bad thing to lose a couple of geese? They’re the devil incarnate.”

“Don’t tell that to Gordon. He’ll come straight over and adopt one and name it John.”

“Gordon’s already dealing with that old fishing net,” John groans as he thinks about their Fish brother being left to his own devices on this mission. “He’s gotten stuck twice and went out swimming another three times to ‘commune with his family in their natural state’.”

Virgil barks a laugh. No wonder John looks exhausted. Gordon’s been out there for three hours already and he knows John hasn’t been able to catch more than five minutes of silence.

“Oh, and sorry about pulling Alan away. We’ve got a space emergency that needs to be dealt with.”

“What, did Santa crash his sleigh?”

“First of all, Christmas isn’t for a week. Second, Santa is a part of an alien species that travels by teleportation, not ship.”

Oh, John must be real tired if he’s getting this sarcastic. Virgil holds his tongue behind a smile at another quip. “You good handling three missions on your own? I’m sure Scott would jump at the chance to take over on one.”

“He and Kayo need to not be involved right now. For my sanity. I’m still mad that they both thought that ice skating on the glacier rescue was a good idea last night.”

“Hey! You’re not the one that had to carry their sorry asses back to the Island after Scott twisted his ankle and Kayo hit her head. But I give it a day before they’re out again. Speaking of, you should come down until Christmas. I know, duty calls and all that, but you can monitor from home and EOS can keep an eye on the station.”

Virgil’s about to argue with all the reasons that John should come down. He needs gravity to help restore his bone density, Alan has a new game to show him in person, (Virgil doesn’t want to be the one to take care of the hospital twins), how he stashed away those cute reindeer marshmallows in a place Alan won’t find right before leaving. And honestly, Virgil just misses his brother.

“Sure.”

“Man, you must be exhausted to agree that easily.”

John shrugs and Virgil knows it’s true. Back-to-back-to-back-to-back rescues all during the holiday season are not what he would call fun. And at least Virgil gets a break from the callouts if Two isn’t needed. But John is needed in virtually every mission.

The astronaut turns away and mutes himself. He says something incomprehensible with lips moving in an exasperated way. When he returns his attention to Virgil, the engineer can only guess that it was Gordon on the other line.

“Please tell me I’m allowed to smother Gordon with a pillow when I see him.”

“You’re allowed to smother Gordon with a pillow when you see him. As long as it’s a holiday one.”

“Deal.”

. . .

“Mmh… hey John,” Gordon mumbles. He doesn’t open his eyes, too comfortable from his midmorning nap. He’s stretched out on one of the loungers by the pool like a cat basking in the sunlight. “Is it lunch time already?”

“Looks like you’ll be having lunch in Four. I’ve got a mission for you.”

“Lay it on me, John.”

“Luckily, there’s no people involved here. An old fishing trawler net unfolded itself from ocean sediment and is now causing a huge issue for the sea life around the Senkaku Islands. A Japanese patrol boat went out early this morning and called it in. Unless we get another callout, it’ll be best for the environment and about one hundred migrating sea turtles if you get out there.”

Gordon’s once sleepy eyes light up like the Christmas tree inside. “Oh Johnny Boy, this is the best present you could have ever given me!”

“You’re welcome. And-”

“-don’t call you Johnny. Yeah. Yeah.” Gordon waves off John as he shucks off his pajama shirt before heading to his chute. “But sea turtles! And solo ocean environment mission! Best day ever.”

He hits the button to begin the suit up sequence. John’s hologram fades away as he switches into his aquanautics gear. The quick dive into Four’s cold water tank drives any tiredness lingering in Gordon’s body away. Gordon hums to himself as he goes through all checks. With everything in order and Four shooting out of her on-island launch track, Gordon sets his sites for Japan.

The Senkaku Islands are a chain that Gordon is decently familiar with. Back in the day, it was a hotbed for political and resource disputes between China, Japan, and Taiwan. But now the islands are home to a small animal conservatory and outreach post.

Gordon sets Four on autopilot in the calm waters to enjoy a lunch of Celery crunch bars. The trip is going to take a while; Japan isn’t exactly in their backyard. But with the others on downtime and no immediate peril, sailing the seas for a few days will have to do. Gordon pushes the pilots chair back to stretch out his legs. His mind runs through a list of things he could do in the meantime.

Finish his nap.

Take inventory and plan out his meals.

Watch Buddy and Ellie.

Call John.

A smile creeps over his face. That last option is mighty tempting. Gordon taps on his console until it connect with his ginger brother. He’d due down dirt side in a few days but that never stopped Gordon before.

“Heyyy John. Did you know that there’s an octopus that farms bacteria…”

. . .

“I cannot in good conscience bring you two on this mission.”

“Okay then, have a guilty conscience. We’re still coming.”

John really wants to fight Scott on this one. He and Kayo are still supposed to be on bed rest after that ice skating accident. A call came in about an earthquake in a rural farming county with a few farmers trapped in their crumbling homes. John normally has no qualms about going on rescues, but this is definitely a job for multiple hands and his preferred, non-injured brothers are out in Jamaica.

“Virgil cleared you both of concussions?”

Kayo is already strapping herself into one of the two passenger seats in One. “Just a few pulled muscles. He really over exaggerated.”

Scott moves to the pilot’s chair. John grabs his arm and points him in the direction of the spot next to Kayo.

“John, there’s no way you’re flying my ‘Bird.”

“Over exaggerated or not, Virgil was worried about you two. I’m already going to get an earful for bringing you along. I pilot alone or I pilot with you two in the back.”

That earns John a round of grumbles but no more protesting.

The launch is clunky and nowhere near as smooth as Scott would be able to pull off. John hopes it makes Scott and Kayo both rethink coming along. EOS pops up on the holographic display. The two behind John crane their necks to listen in on the debrief.

“The earthquake was registered as a 7.9 as of one minute ago.” EOS’s soft voice updates the trio. “I have done multiple scans of the area and all of the families but three managed to get to safety. There are no deaths reported and the families appear to be in stable locations but trapped amongst rubble.”

“Thanks, EOS. We’ll see to it that they get out safely.”

John waves away EOS’s display. There’s no need to strain One’s engines in a rush to get to the scene.

They arrive in time for the noon sun to blaze its heat down on their backs. Scott rips his helmet off immediately after touching down on the ground. So much for protocol. Kayo drags her hand down on her helmet to pull up the electronic display.

“Scott, there’s a family over that way,” Kayo says. “John, go to the left. I’m picking up life signs buried beneath the old barn you can see in the distance. I’ll search around for the last group.”

John nods at her directions. His own helmet fits snug around his skull. EOS’s voice guides him to the trapped family. It’s a bit of a jaunt over. John knows he’s not so much on the athletic side when it comes to rescues with gravity so he walks to conserve as much energy as possible.

He finds a herd of cattle milling around, as if to watch what happens to the barn and the people inside. John shoos them away. He never did like cows, even when Uncle Ron would send them out to their fields for a wider pasture.

“Can you hear me? I’m with International Rescue,” John calls out in Spanish. He listens for any response from the collapsed building.

“Down here!”

With a closer range, John runs a scan of the area. He finds four life signs huddled together in a low pocket of the barn. It all appears to be made of wood and stones. Not great for support on getting the folks out of danger, but he’d take wood over metal beams any day.

John slithers through the openings he finds. At certain points, he stops to check the integrity of the groaning structure. When his scans show up red, he adds in portable support beams from his baldric to keep the barn from collapsing quite yet. John descends down until his light flashes over a pair of eyes.

“Are any of you injured?”

“Elisa has a broken arm,” the older woman says.

“Alright. That will be best treated up above. Anyone else?”

A chorus of no’s has John sighing in relief. He back crawls out of the space so there’s room for the group to exit.

“I want you to follow me out.”

John checks back. All four people are following his moves exactly. They’re too scared to try and rush. A good thing, too. Rushing adrenaline is never good in a precarious building collapse. A girl moans in pain from the middle of the group.

“Just a little while more. The nice man will get us out safe,” the woman says to a teenager. John doesn’t respond. He spots the sunlit hole where he entered an arm’s length away.

John crawls out first. Each person comes after him. The astronaut helps to guide their bodies out of the hole to avoid scrapes and splinters. When the girl Elisa is ready to pop out, John braces her torso and pulls her out himself. The final person is a man that waves John off to help Elisa. He manages to escape the collapse on his own.

“Why don’t we sit to fix your arm?” John asks. Elisa is ashen in the face. She nods and the older woman by her side helps her to sit. The last thing John wants to deal with is trying to get her back to Two after passing out. Her break is a clean one. John’s scanners pop up that the bone cracked in half in an even line and the bones fragments didn’t separate any. He splints it and offers up some water from his baldric.

As the group takes turns with John’s water, the astronaut calls up the other two. “Thunderbird One, Thunderbird Shadow. How’re we looking?”

“Good here, John. None of mine have injuries. They’re requesting to leave to a friend’s home.”

“And you checked them out?”

“Affirmative. No injuries, visible or otherwise.”

“F.A.B. Let them go.”

Scott signs off, leaving Kayo. “I have one older gentlemen who’s having pain in his hips. The rest are fine.”

“I’ve got a younger girl here with a broken arm. You and Scott stay here, I’ll run them over to the nearest medical center.”

An easy, straightforward rescue for the eighth day before Christmas.

John hopes Virgil’s posse is having as easy of a time as they are.

. . .

Virgil and the accrued help are not having as easy of a time.

“Oh my God, that lady didn’t have on any pants!”

“Allie, shh!”

Virgil turns his communications to direct only. Beside him, The Mechanic chuckles at the antics of the youngest two. It’s a low sound that Virgil hasn’t heard often.

“Those two don’t get off the Island much, do they?”

“Nope. Internal thermocoupler.” The Mechanic passes over the device. Virgil scoots further up on his back to reach the port. “To be fair, I would have the same reaction.”

“I am just thankful you didn’t make me do crowd control. Dynamic fuse,0.22 millimeter.”

Virgil holds up the half installed thermocouple with one hand and digs around his baldric with the other. His fingers brush the fuse. It’s a delicate act passing over the glass fuse to The Mechanic’s waiting hand without breaking it.

“My question is: who thought that building a night club, strip club, whatever on the same island as a nuclear reactor would be a good plan?”

“Someone who doesn’t know how nuclear reactors work.”

The Mechanic isn’t wrong. Virgil finishes up with the repairs on his side of the coolant engine. The Mechanic continues to tinker. Only his feet stick out into the abandoned control room. Virgil taps away on his wrist controls. Radiation levels are dropping and their hazard suits aren’t close to their limit. But the core is hovering at the high end of critical. Waiting any longer to restore the plant’s shut down systems risks having a supercritical reaction on their hands.

“Virgil,” Alan says. His voice cuts through his mute function. “Um, we’ve got a situation. No one here has like… any clothes.”

“Ha! This reminds me of Olympics.” Gordon’s voice is tinny as it drifts through Alan’s speakers.

“I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

“Try dropping the shut down valve levers by two inches. I need to see if this is the problem,” The Mechanic says. His voice is muffled by the machine.

“This reminds me of the Olympics.”

Virgil does as Alan chimes in. “First off, because I’m uncomfy. I don’t think I like girls anymore.”

“Thanks for sharing with the class, Alan.”

“Second, I’m picking up a spike of radiation. EOS is tracking a change in the wind pattern and it’s bringing everything right over here.”

“Is it Beta?”

“This definitely reminds me of the Olympics.”

“Yup!”

One problem solved as The Mechanic gives Virgil a stoic thumbs up.

“Okay. I don’t love this idea at all mind you, but load everyone up into Two. Those that don’t fit, give them shock blankets, safety blankets, anything they can wrap their skin in. Take the first load of people to the main island and come back for the second. We’re still a ways out from pulling the core to subcriticality.”

“F.A.B. I guess.”

The Mechanic takes lead of guiding himself and Virgil through the maze of reactors. Virgil’s running stats through EOS and distracted enough that he runs face first into The Mechanic’s back. The man doesn’t acknowledge the blunder, he only points to the door labelled 73.

“This is the meltdown center. Are suits are still good?”

“We’re at 57% integrity. As long as this doesn’t go horribly, horribly wrong, we’re in the clear.”

The Mechanic nods. He counts to three and opens the door to the other side.

. . .

“So, I heard you had quite the fun night?”

Gordon cackles like a madman. “You should have seen Alan! Classic!”

“I had nightmares about it last night,” Alan says. Kayo peeks over the edge of the ouch to find where he’s been hiding. His legs are sprawled out on the backrest of the couch while his head dangles upside down.

“Dancing isn’t your thing, huh?”

“I don’t think Alan even knows how to dance,” John adds from his perch at Dad’s desk. His deftly flicking through ha holographic report from EOS.

“Uh, excuse you Mr. I Can’t Even Walk On My Own Two Feet. I’m better than you I bet,” Alan snaps back.

“Didn’t you take dancing classes in college?” Kayo asks.

John claps his hands together in a beat of finality as his wrist communicator beeps. “Well, looks like I have to go on a rescue. See you three later.”

“Liar!”

John lets his siblings feel superior in the idea that he’s retreating form the conversation. In reality, he really does have to go on a mission. He winds his way downstairs to the space elevator. His spacesuit is tight an familiar in comparison to his loose dirt side clothes.

“What do we have, EOS?”

The question is rhetorical. John’s already pulling up the data of the distress call as his AI connects to the space elevator computer system.

“The new Greening Space Villa sent out an EVA tour group that has disconnected from the tethers due to space debris.”

John rubs at the crease between his eyes. “This is why we shouldn’t let civilians do whatever they want in space. Can you track the group’s location.”

“Of course, John,” EOS responds. Her voice is proud and sassy. “I already have.”

“Physical status of everyone?”

“All appear of positive health. No injuries. They are simply drifting.”

“And need to be rounded up. I got it.”

The space elevator shutters as it docks with Thunderbird 5. John slips into the loading dock before making a sharp turn into his exosuit launch chute. His slides on his helmet before gripping the metal rungs to allow the suit to attach to his body. The suit automatically ramps up in acceleration to launch John out of Five.

The Villa is a hop, skip, and short spacewalk away from Five. John spots the reflective silver of their suits almost immediately. EOS patches him into their frequency.

“Hi there, this is International Rescue. It seems you guys are in need of a bit of assistance.”

Every person’s head snaps to look at John. The relief is palpable behind their heavy eye shadow and five o’clock whiskey shadows.

“Yes! Oh thank God! I almost missed my tennis match with Lord Bradford.”

“Ooh, and a handsome young man they sent.”

“Mind bringing us there now? I do have a gala to attend.”

John uses his hands as a social shield when a rush of socialites all come to him with their problems. He’s thrust back to that day of the gala with Penelope and how horrible that had been. Luckily, the instructor is there to save him from the panic of conversations. She’s a gruff old woman that certainly isn’t paid enough to be taking these folks out on space EVAs.

“If you’ve got the acceleration, I’ve got the tethers,” she says. The instructor pulls a long interlocking tether out of her suit pocket. “It ain’t much, but it’ll save you a few trips.”

“Uh, sure.”

John takes the rope in hand. It’s similar to the cables older astronauts used before magnetic boots could adhere to the sides of satellites. He gives it a few test tugs. Nothing seems to be fragile or in risk of snapping. John nods his thanks to the instructor. One woman much too old to be space rated latches onto John’s arm.

“Well I’ll be! This hunk is looking to tie us right up.”

“Here here!”

“I must ask ma’am,” John pauses to clear his throat. “Are you drunk.”

“As the day is long, I am.”

Great. Now it’s a rescue and business affairs mission. John switches his mic over so only EOS can hear him. She’ll look into revoking the entire Villas space operations permits. With more thing to worry about, John looks to finish this mission with record time.

He grabs a hold of one of the men who had been less rowdy than the women. John hooks the tether to his suit first before floating to another waiting in the back of the group. It’s a pattern of the louder drunks that could cause issues if they interfere with his flight in between the folks who look to be out here by pure bad luck. John stops at the instructor last.

“I’ll tie you to the back. Keep me updated if anything is looking funny.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The group is secured. John gives an experimental boost of propulsion. Everyone ‘whoa’s!’ into their helmet mics; and the most important part, no one flies off.

John aims himself for the villa and takes off.

. . .

The eleventh day of Christmas.

Virgil can’t believe one of them isn’t hurt by this point.

It’s almost inevitable, especially around Christmas. Winter in the Northern hemisphere means widespread snow and a greater likelihood of encountering the blistering cold and ice. Virgil honestly can’t remember the last year someone wasn’t in the infirmary long term. Kayo and Scott don’t count as that was their own doing- not a mission’s.

The holocom beeps with an incoming call. John’s quick turnaround mission not the villa and back down left him drained vertigo ridden. Virgil can’t blame him.

Gordon beats him to the answer button and patches the line through.

“International Rescue, Gordon speaking. How may we be of assistance today?”

Virgil rolls his eyes. The Fish gets a kick out of using a customer service voice when the call is voice only. Virgil grabs the last mug of coffee from the pot and settles in on the lounge couch as Gordon handles the details. Brains joins them as the initial panic of the caller settles once he realizes he’s speaking to International Rescue agents. It’s a heavily accented man speaking English to the best of his abilities.

“We’ve got trucks of anhydrous ammonia tankers that were coming. The ice caused one crash and others followed. We have little amount of time before the wind blows it to town.”

“Anhydrous ammonia?” Gordon asks.

“Mmh. Dangerous to breathe in.”

Virgil traces where the call is from. Mykolaiv, Ukraine. The dots connect in his head. “Makes sense. You’re using it for crops and farming?”

“Yes. We are moving it to store. Safer than pipelines.”

“We’ll be out there shortly. If anything gets worse, don’t hesitate to contact us.” Gordon disconnects the call.

Brains is tapping on his chin, deep in thought. “W-wait, Virgil!”

Virgil has to do a sidestep to avoid triggering his chute. “What?”

“I’ve been working on a n-new aerosol collection system. It’ll b-be useful. I don’t how long your f-filtrations can work against the am-ammonia.” Brains runs down to his lab. Virgil shakes his head at the other engineer’s antics.

“F.A.B. Brains.”

. . .

“And where did you say this rescue was?”

Alan wants to be sure he heard correctly. There’s no way he missed it.

“At the Sightman concert in Tokyo.”

“You mean… the one at the Dome? The one with 75,000 fans? The one that even I couldn’t get a ticket for? And you wouldn’t let me go ‘cause it’s Christmas Eve?”

Scott bites the inside of his cheek. “Yes. That one.”

“Oh my God!!”

Kayo walks into the scene with the rest of the three Tracy boys hot on her tail. “He does realize this is a serious rescue, right?”

John flicks through the statistics and his face darkens. “And 75,000 sold out seats means 75,000 people in the way of an incoming tsunami?”

“Alan!”

“This is like a Christmas present…” the youngest mumbles. But he settles down all the same for Virgil to grip at his shoulders and stare at him eye level.

“This is a job. We are helping people, not listening to death metal. Okay?”

“Can I be the one to help Kimo Miyakani?”

“Sure, if you can get suited up and in Two before he and his drums get caught in a panicking horde fighting their way to safety,” Kayo deadpans. She sits in the black leather seat next to Alan’s. Alan flings himself in the seat and triggers the chute.

His whooping can be heard even after the floor seals.

#thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #scott tracy #john tracy #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #alan tracy #kayo kyrano #lady penelope #parker #the mechanic #brains #I tried to include most everyone #Grandma Tracy slipped away from me :(#christmas #christmas in july #now to take a year long writing break

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ineedahugesticktobeatyou · 4 months

Text

2023 Reading Challenge - COMPLETE

Master Post

01. A book you meant to reas in 2022 - Il filo infinito

02. A book you bought fron an Indipendent Bookstore - Il purgatorio dell'angelo

03. A book about a vacation - Fuga dal Natale (Skipping Christmas)

04. A book by a first time author - Mrs. March

05. A book with mythical creatures - American Gods

06. A book about a forbidden romance - La torre in fiamme (The Warlord Chronicles)

07. A book with "Girl" in the title - Quelle belle ragazze (Pretty Girls)

08. A celebrity memoir - Friends, amanti e la Cosa Terribile (Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing)

09. A book with a color in the title - The Nightmare of Black Island

10. A romance with a fat lead - Certe ragazze (Certain Girls)

11. A book about or set in Hollywood - Dalia Nera (The Black Dahlia)

12. A book published in Spring 2023 - Oscura e Celeste

13. A book published the year you were born - L'amore ai tempi del colera (Love in the Time of Cholera)

14. A modern retelling of a Classic - Il Mistero di Penelope (Ithaca, The Songs of Penelope)

15. A book with a song lyric as its title - Anime di vetro

16. A book where the main character's name is in the title - In fondo al tuo cuore

17. A book with a love triangle - Il cuore di Derfel (The Warlord Chronicles)

18. A book that was banned or challenged in any state in 2022 - Aristotle e Dante scoprono i Segreti dell'Universo (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe)

19. A book that fulfills your favorite prompt from a past challenge - Il tradimento (The Warlord Chronicles)

20. A book becoming a Tv serier or a movie in 2023 - Rondini d'inverno

21. A book set in the decade you were born - I Goonies (The Goonies)

22. A book with a queer lead - Aristotle e Dante si immergono nelle Acque del Mondo (Aristotle and Dante Dive in the Waters of the World)

23. A book with a map - Il Re d'Inverno (The Winter King, The Warlord Chronicles)

24. A book with a rabbit on the cover - Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?

25. A book with only text on the cover - L'estate che sciolse ogni cosa (The Summer That Melted Evrything)

26. The shortest book (by pages) on your TBR list - Vipera

27. A #BookTok recommendation - Caminito

28. A book you bought secondhand - Il pianto dell'alba

29. A book your friend recommended - Duma Key

30. A book that's on a celebrity Book Club List - Fuorilegge (Outlawed)

31. A book about a family - Soledad

32. A book released during the second half of 2023 - Ten Days of Christmas

33. A book about an athlete/sport - Serenata senza nome

34. A historical fiction book - La spada perduta (The Warlord Chronicles)

35. A book about divorce - Quello che non ti ho mai detto (Everything I Never Told You)

36. A book you think your best friend would like - Touched by an Angel

37. A book you should have read in High School - Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)

38. A book you read more than 10 years ago - Il giorno prima della felicità

39. A book you wish you could read for the first time again - Canto di Natale (A Christmas Carol)

40. A book by an author with the same initials as you - Il paradiso degli orchi (The Scapegoat)

#2023 reading challenge #popsugar reading challenge #dani reads book #listed by prompt #personal

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pretty-boys-book-club · 2 years

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Hi, friend! Congrats on this milestone and i hope you have an amazing time doing this celebration! ♥️

Here’s my prompt:

4 - The Santa Clause: Person A being Emily Prentiss and person B being Penelope Garcia. (it can be more on the funny/cute side, but i'm good with whatever you want to write!) For the song, it can be "Have yourself a merry little Christmas"!

(I might send a second one later if that’s okay!!)

Thank you sm and once again congrats !!!! <3333

Make the Yule-tide gay

Pairing: Penelope Garcia & Emily Prentiss (platonic)

Warnings: Car accident, injuries, character death (Santa Claus) - I swear it's not sad.

Word Count: 4.6k

Prompt: Person A accidentally kills Santa and unknowingly agrees to become the next Santa Claus. Now, they have to deal with Person B’s suspicions while trying to keep their secret safe.

Author’s note: I had the best time writing this! It’s very indulgent and I had moments where I couldn’t stop laughing, I hope I managed to portray Emily and Penelope in an accurate way. Anyhow, hope you enjoy this as much as I did! Thanks for the request, Ana!

This is part of my 12 Days of Christmas (100 Followers Celebration, which turned into a 250 followers celebration and now a 300 followers celebration!). Requests are now closed and will reopen at 2022.

Once upon a time, there was a woman by the name of Emily Prentiss.

Her father was gone; her mother, a U.S. diplomat, moved all around the world, so Emily grew up living in several countries, you name it: Ukraine, France, Italy, and most of the Middle East. Emily was raised through summers with suitcases, looking out of the window and thinking how she wished she had a place to call home. It felt like Emily was in a treasure hunt that never ended. It was exhausting. Moving to new places, making new friends, trying to find new lovers, only to have to repeat it all after a few months.

But that was many years ago and Emily had grown up to be a very smart lady, for she was an FBI agent and a pretty good one. Most of her career she had spent investigating sleeper cells, recruiting confidential sources and exposing terrorist networks. For many year now, though, she had been part of the BAU, an elite group of FBI agent profilers who travel the country assisting local law enforcement on diverse cases.

Every December, while her colleagues took breaks and travelled to meet their families, Emily Prentiss made sure to work. For most people, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are for family, celebrations and relaxation. To her, it just meant another day when she could pour herself over her work. Running through the mental checklist of cases and meetings and phone calls, the things that generally made him feel as if her life was in order. And pour she did.

Though I can assure you that Emily had never been visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, or Future, she still lacked what most people would call the holiday spirit. It was a fact: Emily Prentiss did not like Christmas.

It was late on a December night when Emily drove from Quantico to her apartment in D.C., her mind more worried about work than anything else, not paying much attention to how fast she was going.

Winter in Virginia brings meant days and cooler temperatures, so even if it was only 6 PM, the sky was dark and the only source of light were the headlights of her car. But driving in snow is a tough task no matter who you are. The first step to safer driving is knowing what kind of winter weather you'll encounter. The second is not to panic or slam on the brakes. So when Emily found herself doing exactly that, she knew she was screwed. As her car quickly turned into a curling stone without anyone there to steer her in the right direction, the last of her worries was if she would hit someone.

Her little car rolled over several times, breaking glasses and inflating the safety bag. Her head made contact with the cement ground not a moment later, blood pouring out of her noggin. Poor thing.

But she was a tough cookie, so she got out of the car, nearly falling over, dizzy. The smell of fuel leaking from her car didn’t help the situation much, she had to cover her nose in order to breathe properly.

What had just happened? In the distance, on that cursed road, Emily saw cars driving by completely unaware of what was going on. She tried to yell but her voice was muffled by the snow. Her neck hurt a bit and she had a sprained wrist but aside from some nasty bruises, that was it.

That’s when she saw it. The old man she'd hit had not been so lucky. There he lied, his black leather pointing to the sky as his body was slumped against the white snow. Emily noticed how he his red coat with white fur collar and cuffs was ripped, his arms bent in a weird position. Emily was confused by how it got that way, but it didn’t look pretty. She took note of how his matching red trousers contrasted against the white snow, his red hat… wait a second, was that men dressed as Santa? Well, indeed. Emily looked for some type of l.D. on him.

“Sir, if you can hear me, I'm just looking for your identification. Once I figure out who you are, I'll-- I'll give you a lift…”

She searched his pockets, only finding a piece of paper that read: "lf something should happen to me, put on my suit. The elves will know what to do."

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” she said to no one but herself. For over two minutes, she simply sat there. It did not occur to her to make any texts or phone calls, to get out of the car, or to ask any questions. The situation seemed so absurd. For some reason, though, part of her wanted to put on the suit, just to see what would happen. Even if she know best not to mess with evidence, she decided to try it out. Leaving the poor man on just an undershirt and a pair of boxers, she put the fluffy coat on. Somehow, and Emily was very confused about this, it fit her perfectly.

It was only when a sound of bells began to ring, seemingly from nowhere, accompanied by bright lights, that Emily became convinced that she had a concussion. It was the only possible explanation.

"Hello, Emily," she heard. Looking around and seeing no one, she thought she must be hallucinating. How could she have been so careless? She felt a small hand touching her shoulder, and when she looked back, she saw a... kid?

"What the fuck?!”

“Excuse me ma’am, we do not tolerate this kind of language!” the child said.

“Hey, kid, what you’re doing here? This man is hurt, I’m just trying to help him, please stay back.”

“Excuse me, I'm not a kid. I've pointy shoes that are older than you. I'm an elf.”, the child, well, elf replied in a distinctive British accent.

“You’re what now?! Where’s your parents?” Emily looked around, now convinced she was delusional.

“Pleased to meet your acquaintance, Santa.” The kid, or elf, whatever it was, stretched their tiny hand for her to shake. Now that Emily paid more attention, she could see how his pointy ears and rosy cheeks were just like the ones in every single children’s movie. On his tiny nose hung a pair of glasses, his tiny hand, the one that did not touch her, holding a scroll, covered in glitter. “I’m Alabaster Snowball, also know as Elf-in-Chief, Administrator of the Naughty or Nice List and other legal matters.”

“I must be dreaming.” Emily thought out loud.

“I can assure you that you are not! It has been a couple of decades since we’ve had a female one, but I’m sure you’ll do great.”

“What? I'm just gonna call the police. Or an ambulance, whatever comes first.”

“No, no, there’s no need, ma’am! You see, I’m qualified to deliver first aid.”

“You’re qualified?” she scoffed. “What kind of qualifications could an elf have?”

“I will not tolerate this kind of slander against my kind. I’ll let you know that all elves are highly intelligent, and I even hold two university degrees. From Cambridge that is. One of them is a medical degree.”

“Okay, whatever you say, totally real elf who’s talking to me and not a figment of my imagination.” she joked.

“Oh, you humans, always so skeptic.”he retorted, walking over to the man who lied dead on the snow. He took his pulse, coming up empty. Emily rubbed her eyes, in hopes that it was, in fact, a dream. “Well, poor old Christopher here will be missed. I’ll make sure Pepper is reprimanded for letting something like this happen, but I suppose it’s only the natural circle of life.”

“What the f-“ Alabaster gave her a reprimanding look. “What the fudge is going on?”

“We must not delay, the time for explanation will come later. We must hurry if we are to have you ready by tomorrow.” he answered, pulling a tiny phone from his pocket - it must have been the size of Emily's finger. "Initiate the Jingle Bells protocol," he said into the phone. In a magical step, a dozen other elves appeared. Unlike Alabaster, they were wearing black clothes and holding tissue paper, blowing their little noses and drying the adorable tears coming out of their eyes.

“Oh, Mary, I told you to cool down with the mourning the last time.” Alabaster said to one of the elves, with dark hair and skin and awfully pretty. “Please, we need you to do the ash ritual.”

"From the ashes of a chimney he came and to ashes of a chimney-ee, he shall re-return." the little female elf cried. In an instant, the man's body was gone.

"Okay, I'm still waiting for that explanation, because none of this is making sense.” Emily said loud enough for all the tiny creatures to look at her. “What on Earth is going on?”

“You’re the new Santa.”

After what seemed like hours to Emily, the elves explained to her how the whole scheme of selecting a new Santa worked. Alabaster, now walking around Emily’s apartment (to where they had arrived in a sleigh ride), was trying to calm her down. Other elves littered around her house, opening drawers, eating some fruit she had on the corner, one of them even seemed to be drinking a bottle of wine, which made Emily very confused, as they looked just like a child. Sergio, her cat, was hissing at them, clearly distressed. Emily grabbed him and put him on her lap, petting him in a poor attempt to calm him or, actually, both of them.

“But I don’t even believe in Santa, how could I become him? Her? They?”

“Santa is a gender-neutral term, established ever since Santa Nancy Bird Walton, assumed it for the first time on 1935.”

“What?”

“The children don’t even notice, we just issue a statement saying that will be a subtle change in the person of Santa Claus this year and they roll with it.”

“This is bad. Oh, this is really bad!” Emily could feel the sense of panic growing inside her. “I can’t be Santa!”

“I thought you didn’t believe in Santa.”

“I don’t! But Santa is really the only cultural icon we have who's male, does not carry a gun, and is all about peace, joy, giving, and caring for other people. And you’re telling me I killed him?!” Sergio jumped off her lap, hissing at one of the elves.

“Replaced is the preferred term. And could you keep this… beast on a leash?”

“Sergio is a sweetheart.” Emily said, just as her cat scratched one of the elves. “Okay, I guess you’re right.” She took Sergio and put him on her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

“Animals are usually jumpy with us elves. But them and children are the ones you should worry about, adults can’t see us. Unless they are true believers, but that’s rare.”

“Whatever, how am I supposed to balance this out with being an FBI agent?”

“Well, Santa Chris was a surgeon and he managed just fine.”

“Look, I am not Santa Claus!” Emily tried to reason.

“Did you or did you not read the card?”

“Yeah, I read the note.” She patted her pocket, where the piece of paper was.

“Then you're the new Santa. By reading the note, you accepted the contract.”

“What contract?” Emily was confused, pacing around her house.

“The Santa Clause.”

“The Santa Claus? Oh, you mean the poor guy you made disappear into thin air?”

“No, no, no, not Santa Claus, the person. Santa Clause, the clause.” Alabaster explained.

“What in the flying—“

“Language.”

“What in the flying… fudge are you talking about?”

“Look, it’s clause, as in the last line of a contract. You still got the note?” Alabaster asked, and Emily took out the paper out of her pocket.

“Okay, here it is, the Santa Clause” he took the paper from her hands, and in tiny letters it read: “ln putting on this suit, the wearer waives any and all rights to any previous identity, real or implied, and fully accepts the duties and responsibilities of Santa Claus, in perpetuity until such time that wearer becomes unable to do so by either accident or design."

“What does that mean?”

“It means you put on the suit, you're Santa.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Let me explain something to you, okay? Toys have to be delivered, children all around the world are counting on it. I'm not gonna do it. It's not my job. I'm just an elf.” Alabaster took of his glasses for a moment, clearly losing his patience with Emily. “In fact, it's Santa's job, but Santa was just hit by a car, your car. And you read the card, you put on the suit. That clearly falls under the Santa Clause, so now you're Santa, okay?”

“A question.”

“What?”

“For how long do I have to do this?”

“Emily, listen, if you don’t give this your best shot, there would be millions of disappointed children around the world. You see, children hold the spirit of Christmas within their hearts. You wouldn't want to be responsible for killing the spirit of Christmas, now, would you, Santa?”

“Ugh, fine, what do I need to do?”

“I look ridiculous in this suit!” Emily complained, the elves had fashioned her a blend of the typical Santa outfit with something more suitable for the office. It was the same material, but it looked like jumpsuit.“How am I supposed to work in this?” She was on the elevator at the FBI headquarters, trying to figure out how she was going to hide this from a team full of profilers. “Maybe I should just call in sick.”

“Well, I think it suits you very well. And also, weren’t you supposed to be an international spy?”

“I was one, but that was a long time ago, Alabaster. Now, will you please explain to me what I have to do?”

“Well, since we still have a couple of days before Christmas, you just have to get acquainted with the terminology and be ready on the 24th, and we’ll handle the rest for you.”

“Let’s hope we have a couple of slow days at the office then.” Emily finished the conversation as the elevator stopped at the floor of the BAU. She walked into the bullpen, being welcomed by the rest of the team.

“Love the new outfit, boss. Very festive.” Luke joked.

“Someone’s hoping to get started on the festive season earlier this year.” Tara joined in.

“Yeah, yeah, if you guys need me I’ll be on my office, okay? Have a lot of paperwork to sort through.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Matt replied.

Emily had been inside her office for most of the day. If she had to lie to a team of profilers, she figured it would be easier if she just avoided them altogether. The team had a slow week, mostly just dealing with paperwork, so she didn’t have to worry about acting off in a crime scene.

She was trying her hardest to focus on the reports she had to overview, but she found, for some mysterious reason, she could only think about having a cold glass of milk and a couple of warm cookies. Emily’s stomach grumbled as someone knocked on her door. “Come on in.”

One of the elves from before, Judy was her name, Emily has pretty sure, walked inside her office with a tray and a mug, some hot beverage inside, evident by the steam coming from it. The tiny elf said: “I brought you some cocoa.”

“No, thanks.” Emily quickly refused. “I told you guys not to show up at my office. People might see I’m talking alone, they might think I’ve lost my mind.” Part of her was convinced she already HAD lost her mind. It had to be all part of a bad dream, right?

“Are you sure? It’s my own recipe. Took me 1200 years to get it right.”

“1200 years?” she couldn’t believe that.

“That's right. Not too hot, extra chocolate, shaken, not stirred.” The elf put the cup down on Emily’s desk and she couldn’t help but smell the wonderful chocolate aroma it exhaled. She stood up to close the blinds, making sure no one could see her talking to, what most people would assume, a child. “You look distressed.”

“Distressed? I'm way past distressed.”

“Why's that?”

“Well, for starters, I’m talking to an elf. Secondly, I’m supposed to be Santa Claus, but I stopped believing in Santa Claus a long time ago.”

“That's not surprising. Most grown-ups can't believe in magic. It just... sort of grows out of them. Only true believers can see us after they grow up.” the elf sat on one of the chairs, her little feet dangling around. Emily could feel the panic setting in on her. How would she tell the team she was hallucinating?

“Look, you're a nice little elf.”

“Thanks.”

“But this is a dream. I mean, this is fabulous, but—“ Emily was cut off short when someone opened the door.

Penelope walked into the office, files in her hand, a spring in her step. She stopped in her tracks once she had a look around: “Hey, Emily, I was just wondering— Oh, who is this little cutie over here? I KNOW! It’s your cousin’s kid, isn’t she?” Penelope walked over to the elf, crouching so they were at the same level. “My name’s Penelope, I work with your auntie here.”, she stretched her hand. “Love the costume, by the way!”

“I’m Judy.”

“YOU CAN SEE HER?” Emily was dumbfounded. “I mean, I’m so glad you got to see her! Judy here was just having a look around the office, but she needs to go, her mother just called me to tell me she’s picking her up.” Emily tried to be casual about the whole thing/

“Uh, okay! Wait a second, wasn’t your niece called Hanna?” Penelope raised her eyebrow, suspicious.

“It’s another niece, it really doesn’t matter. We have to go now. Judy, say bye to Penelope.”

“It’s a great pleasure meeting you, Miss Penelope, true believers are few and far between these days.”, the elf curtsied to Penelope, jangling from the bells that decorated her skirt.

“True believers?” Penelope looked at Emily as if to search for an explanation.

“She’s on this phase where she’s reading so many fairytales, must be one of those silly books. Okay, bye, we have to go.” Emily dismissed it.

After they were out of earshot, inside an elevator, Emily turned back to Judy: “I told you not to come to my office. Alabaster is gonna hear about this.”

A couple of days passed. It was hard for Emily to hide her secret from the rest of the team. For starters, they were all profilers, so they picked up on her nervousness - Reid and Tara had asked her if she was fine more times that she’d like - and, even worse, the elves apparently had no idea of what a work/life balance looked like.

The first day, Emily came up to the office only to be met with the sight of the bullpen filled to the brim with red boxes with silver trim. The whole team was confused. Emily had to come up with an elaborate excuse on the top: someone must have misplaced an order, no doubt about it. It didn’t look like the other agents bought into that lie.

Penelope, in particular, had way too many questions for Emily. How come all those presents were delivered by mistake? Who orders all that much gifts anyway? Why did the delivery man suspiciously look like a twelve year old and why were all of them addressed to the North Pole?

On the second day, Emily, blissfully unaware, walked into her office, only to find piles upon piles of paper. She knew she had filled most of the paperwork for the day, so what could it be? Penelope quickly walked in, holding another pile of paper, puffing up air.

“This is the last one.” Garcia put the papers on the only vacant space on Emily’s desk.

“The last one? What’s all of this?”

“You tell me, apparently some of the higher ups requested your help with something called the…” She took one of the pages.

“N4UGHTY-ZERO-N1CE project” Emily almost laughed. Of course, duh, the list. “Oh, yeah, I just remembered, yes. It’s a consultation for the Crimes Against Children Unit.“

“Ugh, those are always so sad. I’m impressed they sent you so many files, though.”

“Yeah, me too. Well, I suppose I need to get into it, then.” Emily said, glancing down at the papers, finding a long list of names written in fancy calligraphy, with a check box beside them.

“Sure, I’ll leave you to it.” Garcia walked out of the office.

Emily felt a strange type of knowledge seeping into her mind. Without even realizing, she grabbed a pen and began making marks, a bit astounded at how easy it was. How the hell did she know who was naughty or nice? She seemed to have a feeling in her gut telling her where to mark. For some of the names, she even could picture what the child looked like.

The hours passed, and Emily was already done with the list. Feeling sleepy, she looked outside of her office to find that most of the team had already left. She decided it was a sign for her to go home as well. Paying special attention to the road this time, she managed to make it back to her apartment in D.C. in less than an hour.

She was surprised to find it empty, but decorated from top to bottom with Christmas lights, baubles and tinsel. Seems like the elves had a good time there. Emily walked over to the kitchen, in search of something to eat. Cookies, milk and eggnog filled her fridge.

“Of course, they’d throw away my wine.” she huffed. For some reason though, the sweets seemed really appetizing to her. “A couple won’t hurt.”

After watching TV for a while, Emily ended up sleeping on her couch, Sergio curled up by her feet. She woke up with her back sore from the odd position. Groaning and stretching her body, Emily barely heard a knock on the door. The elves were back.

"Good job on the list! You caught on to that pretty fast," Alabaster encouraged her. “I suppose being an FBI agent does pay off. Well, now, this was the last thing we needed from you before the big night. Just remember, if any of the kids ask - tell them that Santa can be anyone.”

“Sure, okay. Is that all? Why did you come here only to tell me this?”

“Oh, I didn’t come here just for this, no, you’re correct. I came here to ask you where we should park the sleigh.”

“WHAT?”

“Well, Christmas Eve is tomorrow and we need to park the sleigh somewhere.”

“I… I suppose you could park it on the roof. The landlord won’t care.”

“Duly noted. We’ll be in touch.”

And then he left.

The big day had arrived. And, of course, the team had been more than suspicious of her. First, it was Spencer inquiring a bit too much for comfort about what Emily’s plans were. Then, it was JJ taking Henry and Michael to wish a Merry Christmas to all of the team, only for the boys to walk up to Emily and start telling her about all the Spiderman dolls and toys they wanted.

Then, it was Tara asking about where she’d bought that delightful red suit. There was Rossi gifting her a bottle of wine, only for Emily to spit it out after having a taste. What was wrong with her? Her body seemed to crave milk and cookies instead of her usual favorites.

And, of course, there was Penelope. The most joyful, merry, cheerful member of the BAU. She’d asked Emily countless times if she was sure she wanted to spend Christmas alone. She’d gifted her a knit sweater for Sergio. She brought her more and more cookies, that, to be completely frank, Emily had gladly accepted. But she was, by far, the one who’d seen her slip up the most.

Emily was glad that the whole team had been given a day off, so she could prepare for the night by herself. She was pacing around her apartment, trying her best to memorize what do and what to say when the time came to deliver some gifts.

Emily was so focused on trying to calm the nervous feeling down her body that she didn’t have any time to think when the doorbell ringed.

There, with a perfectly curled hair, some pine tree earring, a very ugly but endearing Christmas sweater and a skirt that looked like a candy cane, stood Penelope Garcia.

“Penelope, what are you doing here?”

"Just checking on you," Penelope offered, shrugging. "You're not exactly brimming with Christmas spirit the last few days.”

“If only you knew…” Emily whispered.

“Besides, I thought no one should have to spend Christmas alone.”

“Oh, I’m not alone, there’s…”

Suddenly, a crash sounded from the kitchen. Smoke coming from the oven, elves scattered around trying to put out the fire inside it. Emily ran to it, grabbing a fire extinguisher on her way there. “Oh, my god! What have you done?”

“We were just baking some cookies for you, Santa.” some elf answered.

“C’mon, guys, I told you not to bake cookies in there!” Emily

“What is going on in here, Em?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Emily Prentiss. You’re in you living room surrounded by… children? Wearing a red suit, there’s some type of tinsel I’ve never seen before, and I’m pretty sure there’s a reindeer in the balcony. So, I repeat: what is going on?”

“Okay, and this is gonna sound insane, but I swear it’s true: I’m Santa Claus.”

“I KNEW IT!” Penelope squealed.

“What?!”

"Look! Let's all calm down," Alabaster urged, impatiently. "The last thing we need is anyone freaking out during Christmas Eve.”

“I am not just a pretty face, Emily. I’ve spent way too many hours with you profilers to not learn any tricks. Besides, I could feel it in my gut. And the little elves running around your office didn’t help.”

“So you are a true believer after all. Well, I suppose that’s fair.”

“I believe, I believe, it’s silly, but I believe. Are you kidding me?! I spent all of my childhood staying up late to see Santa, up until I was way too old to believe in Santa, well, to believe in… You, I suppose.” The blonde pointed at her before she continued to ramble on. “Wait a second, does that mean we get to see the North Pole? Oh my! And Santa’s workshop? Do we get to ride on the sleigh? Does that mean other mythological creatures are real too?!” She squealed in delight.

“I am not sure.”

“Is she taking this role seriously or not?" Penelope asked Alabaster, who was checking the gifts.

The elf shrugged, “She's been keeping up with things so far."

“She better. You really shouldn’t risk ruining Christmas.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare. So, Penelope, what do you say about being my little helper tonight? I could really use someone who knows their way around tech, I swear, the elves have some really complicated systems.”

“YES, yes, of course, a thousand times yes!”

“Okay, that’s more excitement that I expected.” Emily laughed. Taking Penelope’s hand, she said: “Let’s deliver some gifts”.

🎄❤️🎁✨My merry little taglist🎄❤️🎁✨

-> @alexontheinternet@beeblisss@breedablespencie@brilliantbimbo@broken-booksmart-prettyboys@broken-stardust@captainbarness@dudeitiskarev@ellcsgreenaway@emmyraebird@fbiwindbreakers@fightingdragonswithreid @foggyblues-ralvez@lesbian-of-nine@lil-stark@madsgraygubler@masterwords@matthewgraygublerwife@meganskane@meggie-m00n@mrsobrien888@nocturnal-spence@ofpoppiesandpietro@peter-beter-barker@ralvezhq@reesespieces10123@reidirect@reidsbookclub@reidsbookmark@reidsgublerwife@reidsmilf@rexorangecouny@ropoto@safespacespence (aka @brainextension)@sideblogforcrimpy (aka @jjongs-tae-and-biscuits)@silverhetdanes@simmonsmilf@sinfulspencer@softreidx@spence-der@spencerreidat3am@spookydrreid@ssa-sarahsunshine@ssahotchnerxx @ssavanessa22@still-dead@sweetandsunny@tobias-hankel@whispering-woods@writer-in-theory@writing-my-mind-off@writingquillsandpainpills

Click here to join my taglist

#ana🧣#cat writes #12 days of christmas #criminal minds fic #emily prentiss fanfiction #emily prentiss #i love her your honor #penelope garcia #my cinnamon roll #too good too pure

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wrestler-smash-or-pass · 4 months

Text

Weekly Wrapup 12/31/23 (late!)

Top five smashable wrestlers this week:

Athena - 90.2% smash

Minoru Suzuki (Young Variant) - 88.7% smash

Swerve Strickland - 88.3% smash

Bret Hart - 71.0% smash

David Finlay - 69.1% smash

More stats under the cut, along with my observations, commentary, and some of my favorite tags...

Bottom five smashable wrestlers this week:

Marty Scurll - 23.8% smash

Jake the Snake Roberts - 31.6% smash

Neckstrong Roderick Strong - 32.8% smash

Trent Seven - 40.8% smash

Carmella - 47.8% smash

Most total votes this week (most enthusiasm)

Swerve Strickland - 444 votes

Athena - 337 votes

William Regal - 311 votes

Minoru Suzuki (Young Variant) and Bret Hart - 300 votes

And least total votes this week (least enthusiasm)

David Finlay - 152 votes

Trent Seven - 157 votes

Raven (ECW Variant) - 184 votes

Marty Scurll - 193 votes

Carmella - 205 votes

The closest match was Raven (ECW Variant) who won 95-89

Top Five Overall

Kris Statlander - 91% smash

Athena - 90.2% smash

Minoru Suzuki (Young Variant) - 88.7% smash

Swerve Strickland - 88.3% smash

Hangman Adam Page - 86.4% smash

Bottom Five Overall

Vince McMahon - 3.9% smash

Kane (Corporate variant) - 10.1% smash

Triple H (Terra Ryzing variant) - 18.6% smash

The Boogeyman - 22.6% smash

Brock Lesnar - 23.2% smash

Top Women Overall

Kris Statlander - 91% smash

Athena - 90.2% smash

Rhea Ripley - 84.2% smash

Julia Hart (Spooky Variant) - 81.9% smash

Chyna - 78.2% smash

Penelope Ford - 72.9% smash

Top Men Overall

Minoru Suzuki (Young Variant) - 88.7% smash

Swerve Strickland - 88.3% smash

Hangman Adam Page - 86.4% smash

Hikuleo - 86.0% smash

Jon Moxley - 84.8% smash

Top Tag Teams

The Golden Lovers - 80.4% smash

Best Friends - 66.7% smash

Motor City Machine Guns - 65.5% smash

Young Bucks - 43.8% smash

Ink Inc. - 25% smash

Average Smash Rating

Week 1: 52.7% Week 2: 57.7% Week 3: 54.4% Week 4: 62.9% Week 5: 58.4% Week 6: 55.9%

Holy shit you guys are horny for Minoru Suzuki. That was impressive. When the Swerve poll was posted, I was like "Oh yeah he's gonna go to the top of the men's rankings." No. Minoru Suzuki's bare ass from 30 years ago is what does it for Tumblr.

In other news, the Raven fuckers are vindicated. ECW era-Raven has been deemed smashable, but it was close. Four votes made the difference. I commented to my husband that trying to find a good photo of him was stressing me out, so he had a look and commented, "He seems like the kind of guy that is remembered for being hotter than he actually was."

On average, women are 73.2% smashable. Carmella has the dishonorable distinction of being the least smashable woman so far, and being one of two women to be voted not smashable (the other being Cheerleader Julia Hart). Sorry, anonymous person who called her "the most beautiful woman in the WWE." For those who are curious, men are 55.0% smashable on average. Also, this blog's women's division is comparable to the AEW women's division in that women have been featured in 10 polls total, compared to 82 polls for men.

Thanks for bearing with me through the Christmas and New Year holidays. I full on forgot what day it was for a few days there, then I got home from traveling and my keyboard broke??? so please excuse any typos because I am typing on the worst keyboard in the world.

And now for some of my favorite tags and comments

@booboo-eyedbambi on Athena: #not only would i smash i would let her kill me like a praying mantis if she so pleased

@grimdarkfandango on Swerve: #yes I know about the blood drinking and it was hot thank u

@arthausen on William Regal: #if I’m being honest. smash that old British cunt till he screams tally ho lads I’m arriving!

@arthausen on Neckstron Roderick Strong: #I love pathetic men and I would love to re-break his neck. smash

@saturatedsinset on Minoru Suzuki: #like yeah but you only deserve to fuck young suzuki if you also wanna fuck old suzuki. cowards

@pavlovean on Jake the Snake: #he literally has a mustache and a snake what more could you want

@theringleader on Bret Hart: #twirls hair heyyyyyyyy wanna talk about ring psychology?

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reidsaurora · 1 year

Text

Part Six: "Paint The Kitchen Neon" ~ S. Reid

Summary: In preparation of Imogen's Christmas visit, Spencer decides to employ the help of Penelope in an endeavor to paint his apartment. Little did he know he'd also be employing her for some much needed advice.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Imogen Sterren (bipolar!OC) and platonic!Garceid

Word Count: 3,122

Content Warning: one (1) explicit swear word, light mentions of food, light mentions of the sanitarium, a light mention of medications, lmk if i missed anything!

Genre: Fluff? i guess Angst if you squint but it's really just Spencer being an overthinker

Extra Notes: none that i can think of right now!

Based On the Song: Soon You'll Get Better by Taylor Swift

Originally Written/Re-Written: 06/27/2022 through 07/13/2022 and 12/11/2022

Criminal Minds masterlist can be found here!

"Soon You'll Get Better" series masterlist can be found here!

"𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐝𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐭." - 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐫𝐚𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐥

Christmas was now only a week away, and Spencer couldn't be more excited. The sound of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer could be heard on the television, probably fifty presents lay underneath the tree, and the smell of Spencer's favorite cinnamon candle wafted heavily in the air.

There was only one thing missing, and she'd be there in only a matter of days.

Spencer's every thought was filled with Christmas cheer. It wasn't until a certain blonde knocked on the door that he was shaken from his thoughts.

"Merry Christmas week," Penelope smiled as Spencer opened the door for her.

He gave her a small, closed-lip smile as he closed it behind her. "Merry Christmas week to you as well, Pen."

She grinned thankfully as she hung up her coat, noticing Spencer's favorite cardigan hanging from the coat rack. "Hey, I was wondering where that went," she said, pointing to the sweater. As she looked it over, she noticed three gold stars stuck to the pocket area. "That's a new addition."

He blushed as he remembered his lunch date with Imogen and Diana. "When I visited Mom, she quizzed me and Imogen on Margery Kempe. She gave us gold star stickers every time we got a question right. Those are the only ones that haven't fallen off yet."

A puzzled look came across Penelope's face. "Huh, that's a strange coincidence. Three gold stars for three golden people."

Spencer chuckled, almost silently, at his friend's comment. His lips puckered as if he'd gone off into deep thought about something, though Penelope was unsure what the subject of his thoughts was.

"So," she said with a smile in an attempt to distract him, "You told me to throw my hair up and put on some clothes that I didn't mind getting dirty. What fun and messy activity are we attempting today?" she asked, her braids flopping as she turned to face him.

"We…" his voice trailed off dramatically as he grabbed a bag from the kitchen counter, "are going to be painting my apartment."

Her jaw flew open in surprise, her brows raised in confusion. "You, Spencer 'I hate change' Reid, want to paint your apartment?"

"Is there a problem with that?" he asked, a laugh threatening to roll off his tongue.

"No!" she panicked. "I'm just… confused," she corrected him. "I mean, in all the time I've known you, I've never once heard you talk bad about your hunter green walls."

He supposed she was right. In the three years they'd known each other, and in the almost four years he'd been staying in that apartment, not once had he complained about the wall color. In fact, he believed that the wall color was part of what attracted him to the homey feel of the unit in the first place.

"I just thought it was time for a change," he answered. "A good change," he clarified.

Penelope could tell there was a hint of a hidden message in Spencer's statement, but chose to ignore it. "Well, lucky for you, boy wonder, I painted my own apartment all by myself, so now I know what mistakes to avoid this time."

He chuckled quietly. "That's awesome, Pen. I'm just gonna go change my outfit, but I'll be back ASAP."

And with that, Spencer jogged off to his bedroom to change into some painting-appropriate clothes.

As he tossed his shirt onto the floor, he noticed he'd left Imogen's last letter laying atop his dresser. He inspected it for a moment, noting the gold star she'd drawn on the bottom corner beside her name.

He half-smiled, his lips going into their signature scrunch as he re-read the letter.

"Dear Spencer,

Is it any coincidence that when I tried to pull the stickers off my sweater, three of them seemed to be perpetually stuck? It got me thinking—about the number 3, that is. First of all, there's three of us: you, me, and Diana. Then, there's the fact that my room is the third door on the left side of my hall. I'm writing this on the thirteenth, and it's the third weekday of this week. I met you during the third week of October.

I don't know. Maybe it is all just a coincidence. But that pesky little number seems to be following me everywhere.

So, that got me thinking about this book. Have you ever read "Angel Numbers" by Doreen Virtue? Well, just in case you haven't, she says that seeing the number 3 means the ascended masters, like Jesus or Ganesh, are near and listening to your prayers.

I suppose it's true. I have been praying every day since I met you that I'd be able to see you outside of this stuffy place. And now, I'm going to see you—flying in on the twenty-third and staying for three days.

Anywho, I suppose this letter is getting about as pesky as the number 3. I can't wait to see you next week!

I <3 ya, - Imogen 𖤐"

Spencer smiled as he placed the letter back on his dresser. He thought about her words—what the number three meant. He supposed, too, that there must be some truth in it. After all, he'd also found himself hoping and praying for some way to get her out of that sanitarium.

He turned his attention back to the task at hand, quickly changing his clothes before re-entering the living room.

By the time he'd made it back, Penelope had already started to cover the baseboards and electrical outlets with painter's tape.

"I was beginning to think you'd forgotten where your own closet was," she joked.

Spencer shot her a small smile before grabbing the extra roll of painter's tape and crouching down in front of the baseboards.

As he stuck a piece of the bright blue tape to the wall, he called, "Hey, Penelope?"

"What's up?" she replied, her words nearly running together as she focused on covering the light switch.

"Do you believe in angel numbers?" Spencer asked as he looked up at her.

Her eyes narrowed as her lips pressed tightly together—her pondering face. After a couple of seconds, she nodded. "I suppose anything is possible if you have enough faith in it," she answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason. I've just been researching a ton of religions lately," he lied. "For light reading."

He'd noticed himself doing that—lying—a lot since he'd met Imogen. He didn't blame it on her, but he did wonder why the two felt the need to be so secretive when they weren't even dating.

He wondered about that, too—if he'd ever have the courage to actually ask her to be his girlfriend. He thought about it every day, even promised himself he'd ask her in person when she visited. Still, the idea of having a girlfriend that lived 2,423 miles away from him worried him beyond belief.

"You mean you've been studying a ton of Imogen lately?" she kidded, smiling to signal that it was a joke.

He sighed, hanging his head. "Yeah, actually," he admitted.

Penelope gave him a half-smile before taking him by the hand and leading him to the couch. "I was going to ask if you were OK, but I realize that's a stupid question," she said as she sat down. "So instead, I will ask: what's eating at ya?"

Spencer fiddled with his fingers, avoiding eye contact with Penelope. "Imogen mentioned in her last letter that the number three had been following her around," he started, still fidgeting with his hands. "She explained to me that it means a higher master, like God for example, is watching out for you and hears your prayers."

Penelope nodded so as to show him she was intently listening to him, though she was genuinely curious as to where this was leading.

"She told me she prays every day that she'll be able to see me for Christmas. She told me a few days ago that she'd like to move in if she ever gets released," he further explained. "It's got me thinking: do soulmates really exist? And if so, how do I know she's mine? I mean, what if we've just convinced ourselves that we're soulmates, when in reality, it's just infatuation fogging up the windshield?"

"Spencer," she sighed, grabbing one of his hands in both of hers and rubbing the skin with her thumb.

Tears pricked his eyes, a couple spewing over his eyelids. "Penelope, I'm scared that one of us is gonna turn the wipers on and realize that it was all just infatuation fog."

She grabbed a tissue from the coffee table, placing it lightly in his hand as she said, "OK, first things first, that was actually a very cute analogy."

A smile—a genuine smile—found its way to his lips. For a split second, he almost felt content, like he was in the most comforting place known to mankind.

"Secondly, I think you don't give yourself the credit you deserve. You're a good person, Spence. Yeah, that means you're more likely to get burned. But it also means you have this uncanny ability to see the best in people. So, when everyone else might be looking at Imogen and all they see is a mental illness diagnosis, you, boy wonder, are gonna see anything but that," she smiled. "You're gonna look at her and see all of her quirks—like how she refuses to go to the bathroom with the door locked. You're gonna see her imperfections—like how she can't make a grilled cheese sandwich for shit," she said with a giggle, which earned her a giggle from Spencer too. "But most importantly, you're gonna see that that's what makes Imogen Imogen."

Spencer chuckled through his tears. "OK, seriously, why didn't you become a therapist or something?" he laughed lightly, dabbing his tears away with the tissue.

Penelope gave him a kind smile as she answered, "Because then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of knowing you."

He smiled as the two stood up from the couch. He gave her a quick hug, leaving a soft kiss on her hairline. "Thank you, Penelope."

"No problem, string bean," she kidded. As she pulled away, she asked, "Hey, can I play some Christmas music while we work?"

"You wouldn't be Penelope without it," he chuckled.

Eight hours, multiple cups of coffee, lots of Ella Fitzgerald, and several deep talks later, Spencer's living room and kitchen were finally painted "Sunburst" yellow. Sure, they'd have to apply a second coat the next day, but even halfway through the process, the room already felt more cheerful.

"I love it!" Penelope squealed, signaling how proud of their work she was.

Once again, Spencer found himself grinning from ear to ear. "I love the way it turned out."

Penelope turned to face him before giving him a kind smile. "Imogen's gonna love it, too."

"How did you -"

"Spencer," she started hesitantly, "I've never seen you act this way before."

He blushed, looking away. "Is that a bad thing?"

"It's a beautiful thing," she informed him. "I don't know anyone else who'd paint their house for someone who may never get to see it," she said, immediately regretting her words. "Uh, that's not what I meant," she panicked.

He chuckled, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I understand what you meant, Penelope."

"Anyway," she continued, "I think it's beautiful that you'd do this for her. The way you treat Imogen…" she searched for her words for a moment, "It's like she hung up the moon and stars for you."

Spencer stayed silent, opting instead for a closed-lip smile.

"You said before that you were worried about the infatuation fog," she brought up. "Maybe that fog is caused by the clouds of love."

Spencer gave her a toothy smile this time, wrapping her up in a tight hug. "You will never understand how much I cherish you, Penelope Garcia."

She giggled into his chest. "I love you too, you big dork."

After a moment, Penelope let go and walked over to the door. As she grabbed her coat from the coat rack, she said, "Remember to take your meds tonight, drink plenty of water, and don't sweat the little stuff."

Spencer's lips turned upward as they scrunched. "You too."

"Love ya," she grinned.

"Love you too," he grinned back as she grabbed the door. Quickly, he spoke back up. "Hey, Penelope."

"Yeah?" she asked, turning back to face him.

"She may get to see the new paint job sooner than you think."

Penelope's eyes grew in wonder as her jaw dropped. "Really?!"

He nodded, his lips pressed into a tight smile. "Mhm," he answered. "Her doctor is releasing her for Christmas."

Penelope stuttered some form of words that Spencer understood were congratulatory, before running over to hug him once more.

"Will I get to meet her?" she practically shrieked in excitement.

"Maybe," he told her. "I made a list of all the things I want her to see while she's here. You're pretty high up on it."

Her bottom lip puckered out in gratefulness. "You do love me!"

He chuckled, "Did you ever doubt it before?"

"No, but now I know you really love me," she grinned as she let go.

He chuckled as she walked toward the door, rambling a PowerPoint presentation's worth of ideas she had for when she finally got to meet Imogen.

She rambled the whole way out the door, only stopping to say, "I love you," once more.

Spencer chuckled as he closed the front door behind her. He turned to take another look around the room, taking in the new pigment on the walls.

As he looked around, he remembered the one thing, or rather, one person he'd been avoiding. He felt a wave of guilt come over his stomach—the kind of guilt that, no matter how hard you tried, you'd never be able to swallow it back or simply shrug it off.

He sighed nervously, grabbing his phone. His hands shook as he regretfully dialed the number he dreaded most at that particular moment. "Yes, this is Dr. Reid. I'd like to speak with Diana Reid, my mother," he exhaled, apprehension almost audible in his voice.

He waited anxiously as he was placed on hold, attempting those all too familiar breathing exercises both Penelope and his therapist reminded him of every time they spoke to him.

"Yes, this is Ms. Diana Reid," his mother answered.

Spencer almost let out a chuckle at her formality. "Hey, Mom, it's me."

"Oh, hi, Spencer," she replied. He could almost hear a smile sitting on her lips.

As he remembered the reason why he was calling, his previous feeling of guilt started to flood his stomach again. "I have a sort of a strange question for you."

"Damn, not even a 'How are you?'"

Spencer let out a shocked chuckle. "Language, Mom."

"Sorry," she laughed along. "Though, if you can't ask me how I am beforehand, it must be important."

Guilt. Horrible, wretched, sin-filled guilt. "Has Imogen said anything to you about Christmas?"

Diana thought long and hard for a moment. "Not that I can remember, no."

He braced himself, knowing his mother would appreciate best if he just ripped the bandage straight off. "Well, she told me in her last letter that she won't be home for Christmas."

"Oh," her voice fell in what Spencer assumed was disappointment. "Well, that is rather sad. Though, I'm more upset that she didn't tell me."

Spencer wondered why Imogen never told Diana. He wondered if it was out of secrecy or sheer forgetfulness. He attempted to ignore his thoughts before moving forward. "The problem is, Mom," he paused to nervously lick his lips, "she says she wants to come visit me for Christmas."

"Oh, how wonderful!" Diana exclaimed.

"Now, I know that it's tradit-" he stopped mid-sentence when he processed her reaction. "Wait, what?" he asked, feeling like his eyes would bug out of their sockets.

"I think it's a wonderful idea. I think she'll really enjoy herself in Washington."

"You do?" Spencer couldn't recall another moment where he'd felt remotely this befuddled. He'd braced himself for impact, but nearly forgot that there was a possibility of his mother being happy for him.

"Spencer," she said, using that tone she always used when she was going to give a lecture, "even I can tell that you love her."

Spencer thought about her words for a moment. He wondered if love was too strong a word, if what he felt for Imogen was just infatuation. But his mind wandered back to the first time he laid eyes on her, then that night when he helped her through her panic attack—that's when he realized it was quite the opposite. Love couldn't even compare to the feeling he had for her.

Still, he replied to his mother with, "I'm not sure I'd say that just yet, but she is pretty special to me."

Diana stayed silent for a moment. Unbeknownst to Spencer, she had shed a few silent tears. Though her tears were filled with slight sadness, the most significant emotion fueling her tears was joy—absolute joy that her son had found what she believed was true love. She'd wondered if Spencer would be luckier than she was in love, and when she saw the way he and Imogen looked at each other, she knew. He'd found the Catherine to his Heathcliff.

"Spencer, I remember when you were a little boy, when I'd read all those novels to you. I remember hoping and praying that you'd get luckier than I did. Now, it feels like it's happening right before my eyes."

Cold, wet, gratitude-filled tears fell from Spencer's eyes. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, Spencer. Don't think for one second that I'll be upset that you won't be here for Christmas. You deserve it. Imogen deserves it too."

Though she couldn't see it, he gave her a bittersweet smile. "Thank you."

Diana was the one who hung up first, much to Spencer's relief, because he wasn't sure he had it in him to say goodbye to her. In all honesty, he might've stayed on the phone with her all night just to make up for everything.

He placed his phone back on the coffee table, taking another teary-eyed look at his new wall color. He sighed contently as he thought of Imogen, knowing that in a matter of days, he'd finally be in the same room as the girl who made him fall in love with the neon color that now lived on his living room and kitchen walls.

"𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭." - 𝐖𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠

CAN YOU GUYS BELIEVE WE'RE HALFWAY THROUGH THE SERIES ALREADY 😭😭

Buckle up because something is coming very very soon!! You'll have to wait until next week... or maybe the next week... or maybe even the next week to find out what I mean. But it's coming, and you'll know.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed this week's chapter of SYGB! I look forward to seeing you guys in the same place, same time next week!

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☆𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒☆

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