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whumblr · 2 years

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Everything

Home is where the hurt is: Part 1

Aftermath drabble between the last chapter and the epilogue.

After a few days in hospital, recovering and getting his wounds treated, Jay was allowed to go home. There was nothing more they could do for him there; he just mostly needed rest and time to heal up. Physically… mentally. And someone to help him clean his bandages, which was a bit of a stressor to say the least, as he certainly didn’t want people to see the cuts and lashes (and older injuries) crossing his back.

Laura stayed over to help him out, but he wasn’t going to ask. Maybe he could do it by himself. He’d always managed so far to stave off infection. And in the worst case, he could ask Dennis… Luckily for now, Laura dismissed it as a ‘stupid man thing’.

But unfortunately, he couldn’t always keep things hidden.

“Are you asleep?”

“No,” Jay mumbled, eyes still closed. He was exhausted and really did want to sleep, but there was an uncommon hint of hesitation and tension in his sister’s voice that made him open his eyes and look up.

Laura stood next to his bed, uncharacteristically fidgety, and she was holding up a newspaper.

“Did you… have you seen this?”

“A newspaper.” Not his. Not a very good one. More gossipy. Liberal with the truth. Or a truth obtained in liberal ways.

She handed him the folded paper.

His eyes widened and he sat up as he saw the article her finger pointed to.

Gordon Emery faces trial for abduction and torture.

Even though the article and headline were small, it still screamed into Jay’s face and he paled as he read on.

... where two men were rushed to hospital. Both were severely injured and were visibly bruised and bleeding. Like Emery himself, who had to have a police bullet removed, one of the men had been shot. If battery and gunshot wounds weren’t enough, the CEO will have to explain why the other man carried visible and fresh whip marks on his back. He was identified as a reporter working for the —Jay stopped reading at this.

“Have mum and dad seen this?” he whispered.

“Not yet. I think.”

A small relief. Jay let his arm fall back down with a sigh, let the newspaper fall apart and scatter to the floor. But his co-workers probably had, with their daily tendency to scour every piece of print there was just to be sure they didn’t miss anything. Jay-related or just general news related.

He caught Laura staring at him, eyes practically pleading for an answer and he couldn’t keep ignoring it.

“I didn’t think you’d go for this type of gutter press,” he tried to deflect. “Why did you even pick this up?”

Wrong choice.

“I have to resort to scavenging about shifty news articles for scraps of information, because my own fucking brother refuses to tell us anything!”

“Well now you can see why!”

“So this is true?!”

Fuck.

He didn’t answer. Just closed his eyes and looked away when he opened them again.

“You have a Canadian accent now,” he muttered.

“Don’t you fucking change the—“

“Didn’t have that last time.”

“Jay!”

The choked off vowels as she said (or well, nearly spat) about didn’t escape him.

He’d heard it over the phone before, of course, but somehow now seeing his sister actually standing next to him again – pissed (concerned) and in different circumstances than he’d have liked – reality hit him that they hadn’t seen each other for quite some time now. And not just that, if she still lived somewhere closer they still would’ve kept up over the phone, but she was on an actual different fucking continent. It had been quite convenient that she wasn’t around when he was at the lowest point in his life but now it also really hit him that he had missed his sister and even though he didn’t want to admit it, really needed her. Had really needed her.

He looked into her furious yet intensely concerned eyes, already knowing he wasn’t going to win this staring contest or this stand-off, so he cast his eyes down and gave in. “He wanted to know where Dennis was. Wanted me to sell him out.”

He. Emery. Amazing how he didn’t refer to Zayne anymore…

“And you didn’t know…?”

“I refused to tell him.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Laura turned away from the bed but snapped back in an instant and actually stamped her foot. “You are so fucking stubborn!”

“Look who’s talking!”

“I’m not the one practically asking some psycho for a—!“

“I couldn’t tell him! Dennis was our only lifeline out of there. He was the only one who knew we were taken and if I’d given him up Emery would have killed us all!”

That made them both fall silent in an instant. Though Jay had to admit, for the past months he had been practically ‘asking’ some other psycho to keep beating on him through his stubbornness.

Laura made a small sound as if she wanted to carry on the argument, but cut herself off.

Instead, she sat next to him on the bed. Her hand hovered above his back, but her fingertips twitched and she pulled back.

“What happened?” she asked, again like that first day they visited in hospital, but this time almost in a whisper, almost pleading. But when he remained silent, that softness from her voice instantly fell away and while still in a whisper, she snarled: “I will buy every fucking newspaper from every little rat print in the city and I will draw my own conclusions on what—“

“Okay, okay! Fine!”

He caught himself before he rolled onto his back in exasperation.

Honestly, he wondered, not for the first time, why he even bothered arguing with Laura. She always won. She was ruthless. And Jay could only hold out by sheer pettiness against her onslaught of—

Whoa. A little lightbulb of epiphany lit up. Was this what he had been doing with Zayne? After a lifetime of unwinnable battles, he’d crossed over from childhood feuds into a territory of actual physical fights carrying the same childish strategy that had always worked for him. Knowing he couldn’t win anyway, he could at least cling to a stubbornness to make it as difficult for Zayne as he could. And to fool himself into thinking he stood on a more equal level in the fight.

He’d have to contemplate this nature v nurture debacle another time, because his silence made Laura gear up for another round.

“I’m not going to tell it twice,” he muttered, still petty in defeat. “Wait ‘til mum and dad are here.”

Laura made a grumbling impatient growl in her throat as she exhaled, threw him an annoyed glance, but settled and threw herself in the chair next to his bed instead. Lawyers knew when to settle. Didn’t mean she was going to wait it out, though; she took matters in her own hands and pulled out her phone to text their parents to come over. Faster.

“What about Dennis?” she asked with a pissed side-glance to Jay, hands still on her phone.

“He knows,” Jay just said.

“About this? The—”

“Everything.” Well, mostly everything. Everything he was going to share. For now.

That made Laura look up from her phone and she tilted her head slightly towards him.

While her eyes were concerned, the sudden attention made him uneasy. Wrong answer. It implied there was so much more. And so now he was going to have to tell everything. Well, he probably should. Before Zayne would gladly recount all their stories in candid splendour over a series of columns with the help of some— No. It was time to be honest. However hard that was going to be.

“Good,” Laura muttered, and she pressed send. “Then I can always double-check with him.”

Jay gave a wry smile. Really was time to be honest.

Best that they all hear it from him. Everything. Also, best to spare Dennis from Laura cornering and grilling him.

“Help me up, will you.” He didn’t want to stay in bed. Not to tell all this. He could usually manage when he was alone – which wasn’t often now that Laura stayed over and Dennis visited about every waking hour – but his strength was still sapped and it was easier to have a little help. If the past few months had taught him anything, it was to ask for help.

Laura gave him a hand, pulled him up and let him lean on her as she scooted him towards the living room. Jay could tell she was still annoyed, but her touches were lighter than before and with her new knowledge, she really seemed to treat him as if he were made of glass.

Before she lowered him onto the couch, where he could lean on the armrest against a stack of pillows, she pulled at his shirt.

“Can I…?”

“There’s nothing to see,” Jay grumbled, but he let her lift his shirt. And true, all she could see was his back covered in white, all bandages, padded for extra comfort and protection. He barely felt it when she lightly ran a finger over the padded cotton. Also a courtesy of the morphine, but some deeper wounds were still very sensitive.

The bruises on his abdomen did stand out and spread from his side to his stomach. And before she could turn him to see the scars or swollen blue area over his broken ribs, he slid a hand over hers to slowly pull his shirt down again.

“I thought…” she swallowed hard, “I thought, or maybe I hoped, your back was just… bruised up. You know, from the struggle. Not… not deliberately—” she cut off.

Deliberately carved to shreds to inflict as much pain as possible, yeah. “I was happy to let you think so,” Jay admitted.

“What about these?” Her eyes fell on the scars and pink cuts crossing his forearm as she held his arm to lower him down. Jay suddenly realised that this was the first time in six months that he’d actually worn short sleeves around people (well, except Zayne).

“I’ll tell you in a bit.” His stomach started churning. He was so nervous, scared, having to reveal all this.

“And this?” A finger hooked under the neck of his shirt, further revealing the white dots crossing from his clavicle to his shoulder, the little scars peeking out from under his shirt collar.

“I— That’s…. Those are old, they—“ he swallowed, now chastising himself for never revealing what happened in the warehouse two years ago.

Everything? Was he really going to tell everything? He hesitated. Should he go back that far? If he wanted to be honest and spare his family the things that were going to be brought up in a court case, maybe the power tool trauma could be… left out?

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and instantly caused the chaos swirling around in his stomach to expand. He almost felt nauseous as he heard Laura get the door, heard the soft voices of his parents.

His mother shuffled inside, white as a sheet, clutching that same goddamn newspaper Laura had brought in, and asked in a shaky voice: “Is this… is this true?”

Jay squeezed his eyes closed and took a deep breath.

“I’ll tell you what happened.”

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reidandweep · 4 years

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Stitching

Spencer Reid x Reader (female)

A/N- Much like Adam Driver, I have been a huge fan of Matthew Gray Gubler and criminal minds for years. With quarantine, I decided to re-watch the show from the beginning and I had some inspiration. My writing tends to take a while but if you have any requests or idea for Spencer Reid, please send them my way.

Word Count- 6286 words

Warning- Angst, mentions of violence and torture, fluff, tears, and the usual criminal minds details.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? -William Shakespeare.

QUANTICO, VIRGINIA

“Good morning my lover and friends. As of 8:45 am, yesterday morning, four bodies have been found across the Washington State area. Locations confirmed to be Pomeroy, Baker City, Salem, and Mill Creek. All victims were very similar in physical appearance; Caucasian, red hair, brown eyes, approximately 5ft 4’.”

Garcia swiped her tablet to display family photographs of the victims on the screen. The team watched, in the debriefing room, as they scanned through their own tablets; reading through the details. Spencer’s eyes flittered over the images as his fingers scanned across the words in his paper file; still adamant on not working with technology like the rest of his team.

“What about the cause of death? How were they found?”

Garcia shivered at Rossi’s question.

“It’s not a pretty image. Each victim was dismembered at the elbows, knees, neck, and stomach. Further cuts were made vertically down the stomach and across the face, arms, and legs. Not deep enough to cut through bone, but deep enough to bleed out. Where the unsub cut our victims, he then sewed them back together.”

Emily looked up at Garcia.

“Are you saying the lacerations were made before the victim’s died?”

“Precisely. Each autopsy report came back the same with the cause of death pointing to the direction of blood loss; specifically, from the throat.”

The team looked at the new images before them. Multiple pictures appeared on the screen, showing the bodies of the victims. The pictures showing the women laid out in the same pose, thick thread holding together the pieces of their corpses. All had their eyes closed, except one.

“Garcia, the last victim, zoom into her face.”

Garcia did as Spencer asked.

“Her eyes are closed.”

Spencer nodded, glancing towards JJ as she spoke.

“Meaning that he felt remorse for this murder.”

Derek scrolled through the pictures on his tablet.

“The other three victim’s eyes are open, indicating that he wanted them to look. To watch what he was doing, whatever it may have been.”

Spencer looked across the table at the questioning faces.

“So, what changed between the third and the fourth victim?”

Hotch stood from his seat, indicating the others to grab their belonging.

“We can discuss further on jet. Wheels up in thirty.”

WASHINGTON STATE

Being greeted by the local police department in Clagstone, Spencer and the team began their investigation into the murders. Spencer did not know what it was, but the stitching on the bodies felt familiar. Like he had seen them before.

Looking up from his files, Spencer watched as Derek walked into the room, ending a call with who he could only presume to be Garcia.

“Garcia has just completed background checks on our latest victim. Lily Trent visited local film screenings at the Southview Centre religiously, to watch horror movies in particular. Seems like the girl loved anything horror and Halloween; according to her roommate and her computer history. It seems that are other victims did also.”

Spencer stood from his seat and walked towards the whiteboard at the back of the room. Writing down the details Derek stated, his brain began to filter through the relevant information needed.

“Halloween is ranked the ninth most celebrated holiday in the world. With different interpretations of the holiday occurring according to country and culture. Wearing costumes at Halloween did not even become an occurrence until 1585, with the first instance recorded in Scotland.”

Derek chuckled at Reid’s excitement. He knew the boy loved Halloween.

“Well it all looks like they were pretty huge fans of the holiday and horror films. Maybe our unsub was too.”

Spencer looked down at the photos in his hand, scanning his memory for any correlation.

“Maybe, it’s not just horror, but a particular film. If all the victims were presented in a certain way, maybe the unsub is trying to replicate what happened to a character in a particular film.”

Derek crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’ll call Garcia to search through all the victims search history to see if any particular horror films come up in each one. Do you know of any films that the unsub could have replicated?”

Spencer shook his head.

“I can collate his actions to hundreds of films but, the method of torture and look of the victims, I can’t think of one horror feature that pinpoints all that the unsub has done.”

A thought unexpectedly popped into Spencer’s mind. Derek cocked his head at the sudden halt from the resident genius.

“But I know someone who might.”

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

“The importance of genre in film alters many of the other aspects. The characters and their narrative arcs, the music score, cinematography, the edit, and so much more. Sometimes genre even dictates the director who signs onto the project. Dennis Dugan would not have a directing career if Adam Sandler stopped making comedy movies. Because that is what he directs. He doesn’t direct comedies; he directs Adam Sandler comedies. Which, in my opinion, are a whole genre on their own.”

The class chuckled.

“Genre plays a part in everyday life. Sometimes, your day will be led by romance, or grief, or action. There may be drama, or comedy, or even silence.”

The class looked on in concentration as Y/N walked across the floor. If someone who did not attend the college walked past the classroom, they could’ve presumed that she was a student. She looked young enough.

“It controls the way the characters talk, act, and move. How the plot thickens and pushes forward and…”

The doors at the back of the auditorium opened. Y/N looked up at the sound of the intrusion to see figures that she could not recognise, and one that she did.

Clearing her throat, she continued.

“And how it even ends. We shall leave it at that today. What I want you to do in the meantime is research a genre in particular and come up with examples that counteract the stereotypes that have been enforced upon the genre itself. Hand it in to your professor first thing Monday morning. Thank you.”

Y/N watched as the students collected their things and filtered out of the room. The figures waiting till she was only left before they walked down the steps.

Coming to a stop in front of her desk, Y/N crossed her arms and waited. Spencer stepped forward with a crooked smile on his face.

“Hi Y/N.”

Y/N couldn’t help but giggle.

“Long time no see stranger.”

Spencer’s cheeks burned at Y/N’s words. The team shared looks between them at the unfamiliar display. They had seen Spencer blush at people before, but not for a long time.

Spencer cleared his throat, preparing himself to act professional.

“This is Dr Y/F/N Y/L/N. Y/N travels across the country to guest speak at different universities on her topic at hand. She specialises in film studies, more importantly the focus of characters and genres. If I can’t connect the unsub’s actions to a film, Y/N most definitely can.”

Y/N smiled at Spencer’s praise.

“Nice to meet you all. So, what are you here to talk to me about Doc? Obviously, you’re here on a case and if you are asking for my help, I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty gruesome.”

Spencer blushed at the nickname; caught off guard by the word slipping of her tongue.

Sending a raised look towards Reid, Hotch began to explain why they were there.

“Were looking into a case of connected murders. All victims were found to have been mutilated and tortured in the same way. As well as showing resemblances in their physical appearances. With research, we’ve found that each victim was particularly fond of horror films and Halloween. We would just like for you to take a look and see if you could recognise if the ways in which they were harmed stemmed from a film in particular.”

Y/N nodded her head.

“Of course, anything to help.”

She reached for the files from Spencer’s hands, ignoring the tablet pushed in her direction by JJ.

“Sorry, I prefer to use paper. I only really use technology for my lectures or to watch films if they cannot be purchased in physical form.”

Derek smirked, shooting looks to his team, as his eyes landed on Spencer. He never thought he would meet a technophobe like Reid.

Y/N scanned through the pictures and documents, looking in detail at the lacerations at hand. She identified the similarities between the victims, as her mind swirled through the images and characters from the films, she knew held similarities.

“What were the names of all the victims?”

Emily looked towards the woman.

“That information is classified.”

Y/N did not blink at her abrasiveness.

“Were any of them called Sally?”

The team looked perplexed at her question.

“No. Why that name in particular?”

Y/N continued to scan the pages as Rossi questioned her.

“Because the unsub isn’t replicating anything from a horror movie. The unsub is replicating the physical appearance and staging of a character from an animated movie. A Disney one to be more specific.”

A light bulb flickered in Spencer’s mind as he stared at Y/N in realisation. The hair colours. The stitches. It made sense now.

“The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT

“The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical Halloween-Christmas fantasy film directed by Henry Selick and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. It became a cult classic during the early 2000s with orchestral concerts occurring every year to celebrate the spectacle of the film.”

Spencer indicated for JJ to change the monitor as he and Y/N stood in front of the team to explain the information.

“Originally, the story began as a poem written by Tim Burton. Both narratives follow the protagonist, Jack Skellington, into his journey to Christmastown, and how he tries to make Christmas his own. The character in question that your unsub is replicating is the love interest of our protagonist. Created by Dr Finkelstein, Sally is a ragdoll-esque character whose body is covered with stitches to keep her together. The form in which all the women were found is identical to this scene in the movie.”

The screen changes to show the scene in question; paused at the precise moment to prover her point.

“All red haired, all Caucasian, all eerily the same. The stitches are exactly the same and the pose in which they are in the pictures are also.”

“We now know which film our unsub is mimicking, but how can we produce a distinguished profile of our unsub? All we can say is that between his third and fourth victim, he suddenly began to feel remorseful of his crimes.”

Y/N looked towards Spencer, waiting for him to speak as he knew more details about the case.

“Garcia checked into the victim’s computer histories and found that all four victims attended a horror convention in the Washington state area over the course of the past month. The convention in particular runs every other weekend, focusing on different horror films to highlight. However, they always make an exception for one film; The Nightmare Before Christmas. Whilst reviewing receipts for the tickets, they were all brought through the convention’s website, which is run by its board of organisation every year. Up until recently, the board has held the same members.”

Derek tapped on his tablet to the convention’s website.

“Last month, the website released details stating that a distinguish member was no longer part of the board due to unforeseen circumstances.”

It suddenly dawned on Y/N who Derek was talking about.

“Dean Faulkner.”

Spencer whipped around towards Y/N.

All eyes laid on her as her breath increased.

“You know him?”

Y/N nodded at Hotch.

“I guest spoke at a panel with him a few years back at a separate university. We were both there, amongst others, to talk about the works of a genre that are expertise were in. I was there to basically provide loose ends for what they could not answer. Dean’s specialised area was horror. The whole time he spoke about what he described as the true villains of horror and of the world.”

Y/N gulped, her mouth going dry.

“Women.”

The wheels began to turn in the team’s heads.

Spencer stepped closer towards Y/N in assurance, seeing that her thoughts were becoming overwhelmed. He quickly stepped back after he realised what he had done.

“He went on a raging tangent about the damsel in distress and the final girl. Going on and on and on about how women are weak and would never be the last one standing if faced against the monsters in real life. How they manipulated the men and made the monsters seem worse than they truly were. The only time he spoke positively about women was when we finally calmed him down and, during a Q&A session, a student asked him who the perfect horror movie character was. He said Sally because she was forgiving and would do anything for Jack; even if that meant falling apart and being sewn back together. I tried to justify that the film does not necessarily fall into the genre of horror. But he rebutted saying that it most definitely did, because of the fact that Jack’s dream did not come true.”

The room was silent for a second, taking in the information.

Suddenly, Y/N grasped the pen from Spencer’s hands. Her finger scribbling across the whiteboard.

“I need to know the names of the victims. Get Penelope on the phone and tell me the names.”

The team shocked at her erratic movements, sat in silence.

“Do you want to capture this guy?”

Spencer licked his lips and repeated the victim’s names.

“Susanna Cole, Alice Dawes, Liberty May, and Lily Trent.”

Y/N swiftly wrote the names on the boards. Each name below the other. Underneath the last name she wrote the letter Y.

“Can you ask Penelope to track any females with the first name beginning with Y who have purchased a ticket to the next convention?”

Derek quickly began to type to her. The rest of the team looking on in disbelief.

“There were twenty-three purchases, but with cross referencing with the similarities in the other victims, one matched. Her name is Yasmine Driver.”

Y/N wrote the name on the board. Circling all the first letters of each name, it became clear there was another connection with the victims.

“Their initials spell Sally.”

Y/N nodded at JJ’s disbelief.

“Reid, when is the next convention being held?”

Spencer diverted his attention to Emily.

“Their schedule every two weeks, so that would make it… tomorrow.”

The team swiftly moved into action.

“JJ bring together the police force for a debrief. Derek and Rossi, go to the convention centre and question the board about Dean. Ask them how often he visited and if they have any knowledge of the victims visits to the convention. Spencer and Emily, contact Penelope for Faulkner’s address. Once you have visited the home, if he is there, bring him in. We’re going to try and catch him before he gets close to his goal. I will locate Yasmine and bring her to the station for safety. We don’t know how far he is going to go and what the end goal of his fantasy is. But we are going to stop him.”

The team swiftly did as they were told, leaving the room with only Spencer and Y/N behind. Just before the door shot, Hotch leaned back in.

“Thank you, Dr Y/L/N, for all your help. If possible, could you stay here with JJ and look through the documents? You know this guy more than we do, so any more information that comes to mind, please let us know.”

Y/N and Spencer watched as Hotch left the room, the door shutting behind him.

As the silence engulfed them, Y/N and Spencer were hyper aware that they were now alone and had been for the first time in weeks.

Spencer swiftly walked towards Y/N and embraced her in a tight hold. Wrapping her arms around the slender man, Y/N breathed in his scent.

“I’ve missed you.”

Y/N chuckled at Spencer’s muffled words, as his head rested on top of her own. Pulling back, Y/N slowly released Spencer, letting her hands drop to her sides.

“I’ve missed you too Doc. We can catch up later, I will be waiting right here. Now, go and save the girl.”

Spencer chuckled at her words but did as Y/N said. Throwing her a smile, Spencer quickly walked out the room, leaving Y/N behind.

Y/N sat in the room, looking over the files as the time passed, waiting to see Spencer return with the rest of the team. A knock on the door startled her from her search.

Looking up at the door, Y/N saw JJ walk into the room with two cups of coffee in her hands. JJ outstretched the one hand, placing the cup in front of Y/N, as she took a seat and began to sip at her own.

“I didn’t know how many sugars you took so I estimated.”

Y/N smiled at the woman’s kindness.

“Thank you. Have you heard anything from the others?”

JJ sat up in her seat as she watched Y/N look over the documents. Her fingers moving across the pages ever so quickly. Her hand that wasn’t tapped continuously on the table in a rhythm.

“Spencer and Emily located Faulkner’s home, but it was vacant. They’re looking around the premises for clues for where he may be; as we speak. Hotch and Derek just called saying they are on their way down with Yasmine now.”

Y/N nodded at her words. Glad to hear that the girl was safe, but the main priority now would be to locate Faulkner. She wanted to truly help them, before anyone else could get hurt.

JJ grabbed her tablet and began to search through the files for any missed out information. Silence befell across the pair, until JJ could not help but ask what they had all been dying to know.

“How did you and Spencer meet?”

Y/N had been waiting for the question. She had seen the looks the team had shared throughout the day. The questioning gazes towards the pair.

“Spencer and I were both guests speaking at the University of California a few months ago. He must have finished his lecture early as he was wondering the halls when he came across the class I was teaching. I was stood on the desk, encouraging the students to do the same. Spencer thought I was a student causing trouble whilst the professor had left the room. He ran in sprouting facts about the percentage of people who fall and severely hurt themselves whilst standing on tables. Telling me that I should get down before he reports me to my professor.”

JJ chuckled at Y/N’s story.

“Sounds like Spence alright.”

Y/N giggled in agreement. As she spoke, Y/N couldn’t help but smile at the memory of their first encounter. JJ noticed the smile on the woman’s face. She knew what that smile meant.

“So, I told him that he better stay there to catch me, just in case I fell, as I was trying to teach my students about the importance of character actions, and how doing something as simple as standing on a desk can amplify the tone of the scene. Like in the film Dead Poet’s Society. Spencer finally realised that I was also a guest speaker and he actually stood there for the next 40 minutes of my lecture. I didn’t need to stand on the desk that long, but I wanted to see if he would stay. Once the lecture had finished, he apologised for jumping to conclusions. I apologised for making him wait for 40 minutes in case I fell. He told me I didn’t make him wait; he chose to. We’ve been in contact ever since.”

Just as Y/N finished her story, the door to the conference room opened once more. Looking towards the door, Y/N watched as Hotch entered, followed by Yasmine. The young woman looked scared, but unharmed.

Y/N stood from her seat, unsure of what to do as Hotch insisted for Yasmine to take a seat.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Hotch nodded his head.

“We shouldn’t be long. The rest of the team are outside in the bullpen. You can go ahead and join them. JJ and I will take it from here.”

Y/N nodded her head, leaving the room. She watched as Hotch and JJ questioned spoke to Yasmine through the glass, before she turned and walked down the corridor to find Spencer and his friends.

Turning the corner, Y/N failed to stop herself before bumping into a tall figure. Looking up to apologise, her eyes suddenly widened at the familiar face. Before a sound could leave her lips, a blunt force knocked her out cold.

Spencer and the team discussed where Faulkner could be when Hotch strode into the bull pen.

“How did it go?”

Hotch walked towards his team, ready to answer Derek’s question.

“It seems that Faulkner had been stalking the victims for some time. Yasmine detailed seeing him turn up at the conventions, even though he was no longer allowed. She had previously complained about his behaviour to the board before his dismissal. Stating that Faulkner had sexually harassed her. Rossi, did anyone at the convention mention anything about Faulkner that we don’t know?”

“It seems that Yasmine wasn’t the only one. The other board members went into detail about why he was fired. It turned out that all of our victims, including Yasmine, had filed lawsuits against Faulkner for sexual harassment. The charges were ultimately dropped and never recorded to keep the convention’s reputation clear. But they fired Faulkner and banned him from being able to attend any further conventions. Taking away the Nightmare Before Christmas dedicated stand was just a coincidence. They felt that the convention needed something new as they had been celebrating the film for over eight years.”

Just as Hotch was about to declare what the next step would be in finding Faulkner, JJ burst through the ball pen.

“Guys, you have to come quick.”

The team, in shock, watched as JJ ran back towards the conference room. All quickly on her heels. Entering the room, she took control of the laptop, streaming the image to the projector.

Spencer could no longer breathe as he looked at the image on the screen.

“Y/N.”

The screen showed Y/N tied to a chair and bent forward; clearly in pain. Her surroundings empty and dark.

Suddenly a voice was heard.

“I sense there's something in the wind. That seems like tragedy's at hand isn’t there Dr Y/F/N Y/L/N.”

The team watched in horror as Dean Faulkner yanked Y/N’s head back, her body letting out a strangled cry at the pain caused by his actions.

Spencer felt sick, he felt like he was watching himself when Tobias Hankel had held him captive.

“Emily, call Garcia to track his location. We don’t have much time.”

Emily did as Hotch told her to. Talking as quickly as she could on the phone.

“She can’t track it; he’s re-routing the IP address every thirty seconds.”

“She needs to track it. She needs to find her now!”

They all jumped at Spencer’s outburst, watching as tears filled his vision and his hands began to shake.

“Spencer, you need to calm down, we are going to find her. He can’t have taken her far.”

Spencer took in Derek’s words. Taking a breath, he looked back at the screen as he tried to distinguish any recognisable features of where she may be.

Faulkner moved his face to rest against Y/N’s hair, smelling the tresses. She tried to pull away only for him to yank her back again.

“Why did you kill them Dean?”

Faulkner let go of Y/N’s hair. Walking to her side, he grabbed her face in a vicious grip. Yanking her to look at him.

“Why? They ruined my life, everything I ever worked hard for. You all did.”

Y/N looked at him in confusion.

“I did nothing to you.”

Y/N’s breath increased at the vicious look he sent her way. Her eyes flickered to the camera, knowing that Faulkner was streaming what was happening to Spencer and his team. She had to find a way to tell them where she was.

“You made them question my authority. My position. My integrity as a member of the board. You ruined my reputation by belittling me in California.”.

“That’s because you know nothing about horror Dean. You think you know everything about it, but you don’t.”

Spencer couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Why was Y/N taunting him?

“Garcia’s looking to see if there’s any abandoned properties around the area that he could have taken her to.”

Spencer didn’t even acknowledge Emily’s words.

Faulkner reeled back at Y/N’s taunt.

“I know everything there is to know about horror. I’ve seen it all. I’ve lived it. I’ve created it. Ask me anything about it, I know the right answers.”

“But you don’t. You have an idea of horror, your own idea, that is wrong. You believe that women are the reason you lost your job and became the monster that you are. But they’re not. The reason you’re a monster is because of your sick and twisted fantasies. You made those girls feel small and weak, didn’t you?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

The team watched in apprehension.

“Garcia, the location, we need it now.”

Rossi looked between the screen and the phone in Derek’s hand.

“I can get the area he’s holding her, but not the specific building. The whole town is basically abandoned. She could be anywhere from a shop to a house.”

“Keep looking.”

Spencer chewed on his lips. He had to think rationally. If the unsub was upset about the changes and losing his job, what could have been the last straw?

“Derek what was the film they replaced Nightmare Before Christmas with at the convention.”

Derek and Spencer shared a look.

“Cabin in the Woods.”

Spencer ran across the rooms to the files at hand.

“In the location that Garcia has tracked her too, there are three cabins, all within a walking distance of the other.”

The team began to rush out the room, transferring the livestream to a tablet so they could monitor Faulkner and Y/N.

“You’re weak Dean. You’re just like all the horror movie villains. Ghostface, pinhead, jigsaw, all of them. You feed of fear and feeling in control. But the only thing you have in common with them is that you’re not going to win.”

Faulkner scream in rage. Pulling Y/N’s head back, he punched her in the jaw. Striding to the camera, he pushed his face to the lens.

“The party’s over!”

Spencer watched in horror as the feed went off.

“Hotch we have to hurry!”

Hotch sped up the car. Quickly arriving to the location, the team split up into pairs, taking a cabin each to inspect. Hotch and Derek, Rossi and JJ, and Spencer and Emily veered off to their targeted locations. Spencer followed Emily, trying to stay calm, as he slowly walked into the cabin to find it empty, when suddenly a gun shot was heard. Looking in the direction, the pair ran to the cabin that Derek and Hotch had been assigned. The rest of the team already there, looking into the cabin in shock.

“No, no, no, no. Y/N.”

Spencer pushed in front of them, tears pooling in his eyes as he a waited to see the horror before him. He looked in disbelief as Y/N stood from her position on the floor, the gun dropping from her hand as they shook. Faulkner laid a few feet away, in a pool of blood, no longer breathing.

Y/N looked towards the team. Raising her shaking hands towards Spencer.

“I didn’t want to kill him but he was going to shoot whoever walked through the door.”

Spencer rushed forward, grabbing her in a bone crushing hug. His hands stroking her hair as he soother her cries. Leading her out of the cabin, he allowed his team to sort out the rest as he continued to calm Y/N down.

The movement of the team were a blur as ambulances and police cars came. Taking them to the hospital as they sat in the waiting room as Y/N was checked over.

Spencer sat in the waiting room, his leg bouncing up and down with nerves.

Derek excused himself from the groups conversation as he went and sat next to Spencer. Clapping him on the back, Derek squeezed Spencer’s shoulder in re-assurance.

“She’s going to be fine pretty boy.”

“Physically, she has a concussion, bruising along her jawline, and needs stitches on her forehead. Mentally, I don’t know how she is going to handle this. When I suggested asking for her help in the case, I didn’t presume the risk of her being hurt. I should have.”

“Spencer, listen to me. We would have done everything to make sure she lived okay. She not only saved herself but she also helped save Yasmine and this team. Any one of us could have been shot if she had not thought fast and got the gun out of his hands. You know, better than anyone, how to help her deal with this.”

Spencer took in Derek’s words, nodding his head in appreciation, as he leaned against his friend in a comforting hug.

“Probably wasn’t the ideal way to introduce your girlfriend to the team though.”

Spencer stuttered at Derek’s teasing.

“We’re profilers Spencer. We’ve all noticed how you’ve been happier these past few months and seeing how persistent you were for us to consult Y/N, it gave us all an idea why. Seeing you together only confirmed our suspicions. So, how long has pretty boy had his pretty girl?”

Spencer chuckled at Derek’s words. Ringing his hands together as he spoke to Derek.

“Tomorrow is actually our six-month anniversary. She was going to be flying back today so we could celebrate; unless I got called on a case.”

“We can still celebrate.”

Spencer looked up as Y/N walked through the waiting room, fresh stitches on her forehead and an ice pack resting in her hands.

“The nurse said that there was no internal damage. That my body will just be sore for a few weeks. My concussion is light, so I am alright to travel home.”

The team gathered around to check on her. But her eyes could not leave Spencer’s as he rose from his seat. Spencer walked forward slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. Carefully he cupped her face in his hands, and to the surprise of Y/N and his team, Spencer bowed his head and placed a careful kiss on Y/N’s lips. Slow, protective, and full of love.

Pulling back, Spencer wrapped his arms around her as he looked at the beaming smiles of his teammates. Y/N couldn’t help the blush across her cheeks or the giggle that followed. Soon, everyone was chuckling at the pair.

“I would like to thank you Y/N. From the entire team. Your actions saved a young woman’s life, and what could have been one of our own.”

Y/N smiled in appreciation at Rossi’s words.

“You’re Spencer’s family. I would do it all again if I had to.”

“Statistically speaking, around 2,000 people a day are reported missing in the US. Approximately, 600 of those would be reported or considered kidnappings. It is highly unlikely for you to be put in a situation like that again.”

Y/N looked up at her boyfriend.

“I never thought I would say this, but your talk about me being kidnapped again is really attractive.”

The team laughed at the girl’s statement, seeing Spencer become physically embarrassed.

“Just to inform everyone, the jet will be ready to depart in forty-five minutes. As I was informed that today you would have been heading home, Y/N we have sent for your belongings to be collected; you can fly back with us.”

Spencer smiled at Hotch in gratitude, the older man knowing he would have only worried if she had flown home alone.

“Thank you, Mr Hotchner.”

Hotch let out a brief smile.

“Call me Hotch. Your part of Spencer’s life, that means your part of this family.”

BAU JET

It had been an exhausting few days for the team, and it showed, as they all were sporadically asleep throughout the jet. Silence encompassed the steel capsule, with only the sound of sleep filled breaths being heard.

Y/N laid fast asleep, with her head on Spencer’s shoulder, as the boy genius sat up wide awake. Looking down at the woman next to him, all Spencer could imagine was what could have happened if they weren’t quick enough. How many days he would have lost with her. All the things he wanted to tell her.

As though she could sense his deep thoughts, Y/N slowly awoke, rubbing her eyes as a yawn escaped her mouth. Blinking her eyes rapidly, she waited till she was fully conscious before she spoke.

“What time is it Doc?”

Spencer jostled out of his thoughts to check the watch on his wrist.

“It’s 2:36 am. You’ve been asleep for approximately 3 hours and 22 minutes.”

Y/N quickly sat up in her seat, wide awake.

Spencer turned towards her in worry, wondering what had made her so alert.

“What wrong? Are you feeling nauseous? Do you need some painkillers, as your due to have…”

Y/N grabbed Spencer’s face and placed her lips flush against his own. Their mouths moved in unison, as Spencer’s own hands moved to circle around her waist, bringing their bodies as close as they could be in the small space they had. They hadn’t kissed since the hospital, and before then it had been weeks. Spencer never realised until then, how much he truly missed her touch, her taste, her as a whole.

Coming to a point where they both lacked breathe, the pair pulled apart. Their eyes fluttering open as Y/N’s hands caressed Spencer’s face. Her one hand travelled to his hair, feeling the tresses that had grown since she had last seen him. She looked at him in a way no one had before. Spencer shared the same expression.

“Happy six-month anniversary Spencer. I love you.”

Spencer looked at Y/N in disbelief.

“Before you start spouting of facts about transference and how I am probably only saying this because you saved my life, you’re wrong. Because then I would be telling Hotch and Morgan the same thing.”

Spencer couldn’t help the watery smile that graced his face. For the second time in the past day, his eyes filled with tears. But this time, they were good.

“I’ve known I have loved you for a long time. For five months actually. I knew I loved you when we made pizza in your apartment and we ended up burning it, so we ordered one instead.”

Spencer laughed at the memory. It was the first time Spencer had initiated their make out. He had watched her cooking, in his apartment, and he had never found her more attractive than he did seeing her in his home.

“I knew that whilst you were spouting of facts about the invention of the pizza that I loved you and that I could listen to you forever. I love you Spencer.”

Spencer pulled Y/N closer to him as he rested his forehead against her own. The pair basked in each other’s presence.

“Past surveys show that men wait just 88 days to say those three little words to their partner for the first time, and 39 percent say them within the first month. Women, on the other hand, take an average 134 days. You knew after 31 days that you loved me. I knew after our first date that the way I felt when I was with you is a feeling that I could not even describe with my vast vocabulary. I knew after 8 days that the way I felt was stronger than liking you and that was a frightening thought. But its scarier to think what could have happened to you yesterday. That I could have lost you without you ever knowing. I made that mistake before. I will never make it again. I love you too.”

Y/N couldn’t help the smile and giggle that overtook her. Spencer, feeling high of the serotonin that was coursing through his body, couldn’t help his laugh either. Soon the pair were a giggling mess, unaware of the team who had all begun to awaken whilst the pair were talking.

The team congregated to the back of the jet, allowing the couple to stay in their own bubble.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him truly happy.”

The group nodded at Emily’s words.

JJ smiled as she watched her best friend rattle of the possible movies that he and his girlfriend could spend their anniversary watching as she recovered. Her smile growing even wider at Y/N’s enthusiasm to watch the film’s in their original language. None of them could miss the look of adoration beaming between the pair.

“Yeah, it really has.”

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. -Lao Tzu

A/N- It isn’t the best but I really enjoyed writing this one.

#spencer reid imagine #spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds imagine #matthew gray gubler #matthew gray gubler imagine #matthew gray gubler x reader #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid imagines

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boredfanwrites · 3 years

Text

Buddie #1

There is not a bone in my body that can accept that in any other universe they wouldn't be perfect together. Post 4x14 so SPOILERS for that. This got so much longer than I thought it would be. Sorry in advance, there's much more under the cut.

· Eddie tells him about the will. Chris goes to Buck if anything happens to Eddie. Which it very nearly did.

· It causes Buck to actually stop and think things through before rushing into danger.

· The rest of the team question it while Eddie's recovering but he just says there's someone relying on him now.

· They take it to mean Taylor - well Chimney and Albert do, Hen and Bobby are more clued in.

· Buck talks about Eddie and Chris like he did when they quarantined together - like they're living together again.

· They are.

· Buck moved in to help Eddie and his recovery, with Ana stepping in when he was on shifts - even if she tended to undo everything Buck had done.

· He tells himself it's because she's not used to the way he and Eddie do things - yes that one singular bowl and plate live in the lower cupboard, it's so Eddie can reach them easily. Chris always picks the movie on movie nights, Eddie and Buck alternate when he's gone to bed.

· Eddie is stubborn as always, but has managed to allow Buck to help him dress and shower - Ana is very much not allowed, despite her protests they're barely in a relationship.

· Eddie explains to Buck that yes, they've been together for six months but they've not really been togetherand he quietly admits that he regrets telling Chris so soon.

· Buck calms him and says that it was right to introduce Chris to the idea of Eddie dating, but yeah, maybe it wasn't smart to spring Ana on him so early - especially because she decided she had to be a bigger part of his life now he was aware.

· Chris manages to get to the station once while Buck is on shift.

· Buck comes back to Albert making him pancakes and Chris scribbling with the things they keep for the school trips.

· 'What are you doing here, bud? Does your dad know?'

· 'Kinda.'

· 'What does kinda mean here?'

· 'He knows I wanted to see you. I don't think he knows that I came here.'

· Albert quickly jumps in saying he's texted Eddie and he and Carla are on their way, it just happens that the rig got back before they got there.

· Buck sits down with Chris, leaning his head on his arms and looks at the picture. It's him, Eddie and Buck with Carla and her husband in the background.

· 'What's wrong, Chris?'

· 'Ana.'

· 'Ok, what did she do?'

· 'Tried to get me to bath before I ate and then said I had to do my homework before TV time.'

· 'Buddy, you always have to do your homework before TV time.'

· 'But she tried to help me.'

· 'Your dad and I try our best to help you. She's a teacher, she's better use than us.'

· 'No that's not it.'

· Chris has tears in his eyes and a death grip on his crayon.

· 'She told the poor boy his handwriting was ineligible and took his pencil, tried to get him to tell her the answers and that she would write them for him.' Carla sighs.

· She stands with her arms open and Chris runs into them. Eddie looms behind them, looking sad.

· Well, neutral really, but Buck knows his micro expressions well enough.

· After that Ana is banned from the house in the afternoons/evenings and Carla steps back in. The new problem is Ana turning up when Buck has days off - their schedule was she was here when Buck wasn't, for multiple reasons.

· Ana's great, there's just something about her that Buck doesn't like and she definitely doesn't like Buck. Maybe it's because they're just opposites.

· Eddie tries to gently tell her that he barely gets to see Buck anymore and he needs it for his mental health. Ana starts pestering about the fact that he should want to see his girlfriend more than his best friend.

· It's one of their biggest fights and turns into a screaming match one night (Chris is at Hen's with Denny but Buck is hiding away in the guest room) where Eddie shouts that she had decided that she was his girlfriend without asking Eddie if that was what he wanted and she was suffocating.

· She leaves pretty quickly after that and Buck is incredibly happy as their paths never cross again.

· There's an emptiness settling in his chest when he finds out that the two are still together and are treating the relationship as though they're just dating again. He hates that he really doesn't like the idea that it's working out now that they're on even footing.

· He decides to push it away and starts getting reckless again. Taylor's hanging around the station more like she wants more from Buck, but he'd given up. She liked being chased and now that he's tired of it, she wants him. He knows she'll get bored if he shows interest again.

· It's interest he doesn't have. Eddie had called him Evan and told him he deserved more. How was he supposed to go back to normal after that?

· Why doesn't Eddie see how life changing that was?

· Eddie does. But in typical Eddie fashion, he pushes it deep down and replaces it with his content being with Ana. She makes his parents happy, which makes him happy. She gets along with Pepa and Isabel and his sisters, but they act a lot more familial with Buck.

· It makes sense, he tells himself - they've had years with Buck.

· Nothing really changes for Buck until TK and Judd find themselves in LA. Buck hastily explains to TK that he wasn't asking him out back in Austin, he just wanted a friend and really he wasn't attracted to guys.

· TK just straight up laughs at Buck.

· 'Buckley, you checked me, Carlos, and the barista out in the span of like five minutes. You're a little attracted to guys.'

· 'Wait, you mean you and Diaz ain't datin'?'

· Judd's question throws Buck through a loop.

· 'What? No...we're just...we're friends. Best friends.'

· TK laughs again, patting Buck on the shoulder.

· Once they're on their last day, TK takes Buck out for a drink like he'd promised. Buck tries to ignore the fact he's brought him to a gay bar.

· He gets hit on at least three times in an hour, not to mention the building collection of beers for both him and TK and he decides he doesn't actually mind it.

· 'Ok, I want you to do something for me. Scan the crowd and pick a guy, any guy, and tell me what you find attractive about him.'

· Buck picks out a shorter man, tanned skin and dark hair.

· 'He's got a cute smile.'

· 'Oh boy, you have a type.'

· 'Huh?'

· 'He looks like Eddie.'

· And he does. Like a Walmart version of Eddie though. He didn't laugh like Eddie, didn't have the same laugh lines. Or frown lines. His eyes weren't as warm when he met Buck's nor did he smile as fondly. And...

· 'Fuck.'

· 'You just now realizing your feelings for him?'

· 'Yeah. How did I not know?'

· 'Honestly, it was probably such a subtle shift. From what you've told me you've basically been a couple for a year and a half, so you didn't realize anything had changed for you.'

· 'I've never denied it.'

· 'I mean you clearly must have.'

· 'No. I meant that there have been so many times people assumed Eddie and I were a couple and I never denied it, I went along with it all.'

· 'Shit man, you had it bad before you even realized.'

· Buck groans as TK throws an arm around him, leaning against his shoulder.

· Things change after that. Buck is hesitant with physical touch with Eddie - it's his main love language and he needs to make sure he's not overdoing it and making Eddie uncomfortable.

· Eddie notices because of course, he does. Buck has pulled away from him for seemingly no reason. The second Eddie can dress, shower, and reach the high cabinets himself Buck is talking about going home.

· He is home.

· Eddie doesn't say it, he just hums, not really agreeing. He's gotten used to Buck being around and so has Chris. They'd easily fallen back into their quarantine routine and now Buck would be leaving again.

· A quick thought of getting shot again fills Eddie's head. Though this time it's nothing to do with his PTSD and more so that he doesn't want Buck to leave. So he exaggerates just a little.

· 'You know, my PTSD is still acting up. Maybe, you could stay until it balances out a little?'

· 'You'd want me to?'

· 'Yeah, you're great at getting me out and calming me and Christopher down.'

· 'You don't think Ana should start taking up some night shifts?'

· 'I don't really want her to deal with that side of me yet.'

· 'Okay.'

· 'Okay?'

· 'Yeah, I'll stay.'

· Eddie keeps an eye on Buck just as much as he keeps an eye on Eddie. He quickly realizes that Buck is holding in his own troubles. He knows from experience that Buck does not think his problems are anywhere near as bad as everyone else's. He has a lot of unlearning to do.

· Subtly, Eddie starts talking to him about his mental state, his worries, trying to let Buck know it's ok to do the same.

· When he and Ana inevitably break up not even a month later, it's Buck that he tells first.

· Buck, who has his back.

· Buck, who loves Christopher as his own.

· Buck, who is insecure about everything he does except saving people.

· Buck, who thinks he is unworthy and undeserving of love.

· Buck, who shows his love through acts of kindness and physical affection.

· Buck, who Eddie is so unapologetically in love with and probably has been for years.

· The revelation doesn't shock him like he thought it would. More so, it was a natural progression of their relationship.

· Friends. Best friends. Co-parents. Co-habiting. Partners. Partners.

· Eddie sees a future with Buck, a future he'd only ever seen with Shannon but it's so much brighter.

· He comes home from his first shift back - Buck wasn't working and offered to look after Christopher so Eddie knew he was safe - to find Buck on the couch, staring into an empty beer bottle.

· 'Hey?' it's broken and Eddie drops his things to rush over to him.

· 'You good?'

· 'No. I'm not.'

· Buck looks up, tears in his eyes, cheeks red and puffy.

· 'What's going on, Evan?'

· That's all it takes. He breaks. He babbles about watching Eddie die over and over in his dreams. How sometimes the shower will splash his face just so and he's thrown back with Eddie's blood on his face. How he was trying to get through it with Dr. Copeland but it wasn't helping.

· Nothing was helping.

· 'It's ok. I'm here, I'm okay.'

· 'You weren't. You died, Eds. You died on me.'

· 'You saved me.'

· 'What if I hadn't? I don't know a life without you anymore. I can't lose another person I love.'

· 'You love me?'

· 'Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?'

· Buck registers his words, quickly backing away from Eddie and tries to make a break for the open door. Eddie isn't letting him run away anymore. His wrist snakes around Buck's.

· 'Evan. I told you there wasn't anyone else I'd want to look after Christ. I told you you weren't expendable. I said that because I love you and you needed to hear it. You had to learn you deserved love. Love that Chris shows you. Love that I can show you. I love you so much, Evan Buckley.'

· Buck crumples in Eddie's arms, Eddie rocks him gently until the sobs subside.

· It's not an immediate or obvious change. There are still things the two need to work through.

· It's different but the same. There's more contact now; hugs, tactile hands on waists, and backs at work. Kisses in the bunk, soft and slow.

· It's new and exciting. Especially when they finally get together, officially and exclusively.

· Chris loves telling everyone about his two dads.

· Eddie and Buck are happier, closer.

· Buck had always been a Diaz. He'd always had a family who loved him. The big change was he got to love them both endlessly in return.

#buddie #911 #911 headcanons #buddie headcanons #evan buck buckely #911 fox #firefam #buckley diaz family #buddie fic #buddie drabble #christopher diaz #edmundo diaz #eddie diaz #eddie x buck #christopher diaz is an absolute angel #slow burn #oblivious idiots #oblivious buddie

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loverdrew · 3 years

Text

Do It For Me | b.b

Synopsis: Y/N may never be able to forgive Bucky if he goes through with his decision. (pre-endgame with a twist, very inaccurate storyline and writing I know but it’s all fiction)

Warnings: a few cuss words here and there

Based off of Greys Anatomy (between Izzie and Denny)

My first ever Bucky Barnes fanfic! I’m getting more into writing for Marvel characters.

I had been sat up in my room at the Avengers compounds for the whole day at his point; harnessing my magic, drawing/reading to calm me down, and just enjoying a nice day off. Everything seemed quiet, a little too quiet for my taste. No one had come knocking on my door to talk or check up on me. After a few minutes I started to hear talking through my headphones and it was coming from outside my door. I slowly let my earbuds drop from my ears, silently opening up my door and creeping downstairs. It had seemed to more I got down the steps, I saw more people come into view. All backs were turned, some arms crossed, but voices were definitely raised. It felt like more than one person kept trying to speak and once at the bottom step, I saw the one person who was the center of it all.

Wanda was the first one to see me, cutting her sentence short, and soon everyone followed. Steve’s face dropped, biting his lower lip and looking at the floor. Bucky stood up, eyes almost bulging out of his head. I looked around stunned at everyones faces as they all made a collective sigh.

“W-what’s...what’s going on guys.” Wasn’t so much of a question, but more of a ‘tell me now or I’ll crush you guys with just a thought’. My powers were growing, everyone knew this. With one scream, a whole city could go deaf. With no swipe of my hand, I can send more than 10 men flying 100 feet. Most of the time they wouldn’t dare bother me in fear of my emotions becoming heightened and possibly destroying something. But something tells me right now might be the first time that happens.

“I said, what’s going on.” My hands glowed purple, the color of my powers. Wanda immediately rushed in front of me and looked me in the eyes, rubbing her hands over mine. When she found out I also harnessed powers from an infinity stone, Tony made it a point to have her help me maintain my magic. Her touch softened the glow, instantly calming down my heart rate. She repeated the same phrase to me; ‘don’t let it take control of you, take control of it’. The purple glow went away, as she guided me towards the group.

“Thanos is coming, Y/N.” Tony spoke up.

“And we’re trying to figure out how to stop him once and for all but...there was an idea brought up.” Bruce chimed in, and I followed his gaze right to Bucky. His head laying low. My mind went to the darkest of places. Bucky had never looked so ashamed. All I wanted to do was hug him and rub up and down his back, he always liked that. The last time I did that for him was a few nights ago when he had yet another nightmare and I found him downstairs watching TV even though I knew he was exhausted. He was too afraid to fall asleep. I remember that night, thinking about how badly I wanted to tell him how I felt. He had been my rock since coming into the compound, even if nobody else saw it. Our friendship consisted of late night snacks and conversations, training together making each other stronger, and always communicating and tell each other the truth no matter what. But oh, how I wanted that friendship to mean more to him as it does to me. But I would panic, thinking I wasn’t ever going to be good enough for one of the best people I’d ever met. He deserved a woman who was just as great as he was.

“Tell her.” Natasha spoke, anger laced in her voice.

“Bucky...” I whispered.

“My greatest wish in life is to take back every bad thing I did in this world. Every person I had killed, hurt, ruined their life.” He looks at Tony with deep regret. “And I can’t ever do that physically, but maybe in another way, I can.” He was rubbing his hands together avoiding my gaze.

“Okay? Bucky that’s great that you’ve figured out how you want to do that-”

“You didn’t let him finish.” Sam said with a monotone voice.

“We need to be ready whenever Thanos decides to come. And the only way for me to get my wish is to...be the one that’s sacrificed during the battle.” My heart stopped and the ringing in my ears began to pick up. Wanda could see my hands glowing much brighter and more rapidly this time. I could feel her hands come up to the sides of my arms but within a flash my whole body shook the entire room like an earthquake.

“What!!” I walked over to him and slammed down on the table. “Are you out of your god damn mind Barnes!”

He tried to reach out but I raised my hand, stopped his movement and moving his arm to stay at his side, unable to move it.

“No, no, no you’re not doing this. You guys please tell him he is NOT sacrificing himself! You have no idea how much power those stones are! Just look at me! I have the same powers as a stone yet I can’t control shit Bucky! It’s out of control you’ll be dead before you can even use one stone to fight off Thanos!”

“I’ve been working with Tony and Shuri on a way to help me harness the power. They’ve been working on a suit for me that is stronger than Tony’s. Y/N you have to understand that this is my way of righting my wrongs, if I die then I die a hero who saved the whole world, not someone who use to kill hundreds of people with no remorse.” I turned towards Tony, his eyes becoming scared as he held his breath.

“You...” I throw my hands up and thrashed Tony into the wall, shattering it. He couldn’t move, paralyzed by fear at what I could do to him. Wanda yelled out to stop, but I couldn’t hear anything over my own boiling anger. “You knew about this. You knew he wanted to die and didn’t try to stop him!”

“I-I was just doing what I thought was the only option.” I slammed him again into the wall.

“There’s other options Tony!” I began to cry out, tears instantly springing from my eyes so quick it took me a second to realize I was even crying. With each puff of my chest my powers weakened as I wasn’t paying as much attention anymore, my brain becoming overstimulated with dark thoughts.

Bucky came up behind me and brought his arms around mine, his cheek pressed up against the back of my head.

“You’re not doing this Buck, we’ll find another way.” I said in between cries. I looked around seeing everyone else become emotional at my breakdown. Natasha was like a mother figure to me, this was the first time I was seeing her tear up. Wanda was my protector, but she didn’t know how to protect me from my own feelings. And everyone who surrounded me, who watched me grow from a 20 something year old uncontrollable witch to a grounded and a fantastic Avenger, wore heavy hearts and hooded eyes. I turned around quickly wiping my eyes of any tears and stood tall. My breathing coming back to normal. “It’s okay we’ll-we’ll find another way. There’s gotta be another way right?”

“Y/N...” He said sadly, clutching my hair. I pushed him off and walked away giving some distance between us, actually, between the whole crew. I stood on one side of the room while the rest remained where they were.

“Don’t do that. Don’t try to make me okay with this. Alright, you did some shit in your past Bucky, so what we all don’t have the best track records as angels. And I’m sure you don’t feel like you deserve to live with all of the trauma you’ve endured but guess what? You do! You know how you get the fix things? You become a better person, a fighter and protector of the world! People change Bucky and I’ve seen it first hand in you! You deserve to live just as much as anyone else!” Everyone remained silent, so I assumed they agreed with me. “And if you tell me one more time about sacrificing yourself because that’ll right your wrongs in this world, so help me God, I will kill you myself right now!” And without thinking, my hand shot out a purple beam of light, latching onto a glass vase and chucking it around the room, creating a whole in the wall and the glass shattering everywhere.

He walked up to me peacefully with his hands held in the air.

“Y/N, please. I’m going to be alright, you don’t have to worry this much. You should be more concerned about protecting yourself. I definitely wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t do this and something worse happens to you.”

I laughed in sadness.

“What about me? What about me when you die!” I saw multiple people begin to shed the same tears I was. We had all grown fond of Bucky when he joined us. He really proved and showed deep down, behind the trauma HYDRA had left him, he was a great man. That’s why I fell so deeply in love with him. “That’s the worst thing that could ever happen to me Bucky! I will die inside if you don’t exist in this world!”

“Y/N-” more tears sprang from his eyes. His voice cracked and got lower. It’s like he couldn’t find the words to describe the pain in his heart at the thought of leaving you behind. Without having told you that he loved you too.

“No I get it! You’ll be okay, you’ll be fine with it but what about me? Please, don’t do it for yourself, do it for me please!” I hunched over, the grief and pain overtaking my body. I felt too weak to even stand and continue yelling at him. “Please Bucky, please do this for me! Don’t leave me please don’t do this, I can’t take it please! You have to do this for me, because if you don’t I will never be able to forgive you!”

He stepped closer at a slower pace.

“For dying? For saving the world?”

“No for making me love you!” I began to cry out harder, the ring in my voice shaking the room once again, making everyone’s hands fly up to their ears as I got louder and louder. Natasha at this point was full on bawling, along with most people in the room. I think it was safe to say everyone knew of my affection towards the man at the center of attention, and maybe that’s why everyone had left me alone today. Afraid of this exact situation. The one person, the one thing in this world that can bring me to tears at my feet.

Bucky’s eyes filled with adoration as he ran up to me and held me on the floor in between his legs. I clutched at his arm crying into his shoulder. He looked back at Tony, who only gave him a nod. They had agreed together that one of them was bound to be the sacrifice when it came to defeating Thanos. Bucky of course still wanted it to be him, he felt it was the most right option. But when he looked back at Tony, clutching the love of his life in his arms, Tony took that as a final answer. Tony was okay with the decision he had come to long ago. He was ready to die for the good of everyone else, but nobody knew that yet. Bucky wasn’t giving up the fight, but now it only became that much harder to leave her behind. It was easier not knowing her feelings, but it had come to the light. Bucky wanted a life like Tony, the kids, the wife, everything. But at what cost? He was still going to fight to the death if he had to, but the decision to be the one to end it all was fading away.

“It’s okay Y/N, I promise we’ll talk more about it and find another way if we have to.”

“We have to Bucky, we have to.” My cries didn’t stop, but my voice lowered. My eyes caught everyone else’s, almost embarrassed at my sudden outburst of devoted love to Bucky, but everyone knew, they just never heard it from me. “Just hold onto me please.” I pleaded.

“I’m here Doll, I promise I’ll stay right here.”

#marvel #marvel imagine #bucky barnes imagine #bucky x you #bucky barnes #bucky fanfic #the avengers #avengers imagine #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x you #bucky barnes x reader

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hacash · 3 years

Note

Colin and family for the headcanon meme

So I wrote this far more eloquently in this fic, but what it all boils down to is I think Colin gets on with most of his family. I think his family are standard working class Welsh folk who've been in Swansea for generations and so everyone knows him as 'Katy Philipps' boy who made good': he has a mum who loves him and who hangs Richmond flags outside her window every time he plays despite the fact that as a true Welshwoman she only really cares about rugby. Colin's parents divorced when he was a teenager and his step-dad is a nice, jovial sort of guy who likes Colin and whose obsession with classic cars may or may not have something to do with The Lamborghini. He also has two or three sisters who had kids young and never left the area; he's a good uncle to them and teaches them footie and all that. And when things got difficult, he was very close to his nan (his mum's mother, not the angry Cardiff supporter) who taught him how to make welsh cakes and bara brith, and got him into music. (Although Drake came later...she doesn't approve of his language, no matter how much Colin's tried to get his nan to listen to him.)

However.

There's a reason Colin is a bit flash and a bit brash and a bit of a bully in season 1, and a reason that facade seems to give way to some serious insecurities in season 2, and that reason is his dad. There's some very good reasons why Colin's dad is so cold - he was born in Aberdare, which is a very poor town in Wales which lost a lot of money with the decline of the coal industry, and he worked his way out to become a teacher in Swansea, and he places a lot of emphasis on hard work and education because that's what worked for him, and he believes that the only way to make something of yourself is to be responsible, respectable, keep your head down. And that leaves Colin's dad regarding Colin - with his poor school marks, and (headcanoned) dyslexia, and insistence on prioritising football over education, and interest in boys as well as girls - as something of a disappointment. He doesn't use physical violence like Mr Tartt, or cruel works like Mr Shelley...but he makes his point clear.

I also headcanon that Colin has an elder brother who's very academic and very professionally sound, who saw the way their father regarded Colin and ran with it. (That 'I am not a piece of shit' had to come from somewhere; Colin's brother could be quite nasty when he wanted to be.) Of course, by that time Colin was very athletic and very popular in school, so he was more than happy to fight back (his bullying of Nate probably wasn't the first time he'd bullied someone else; academic types who Colin knows are smarter than him just...set something off in him) - but still, it's not particularly pleasant to realise you and your brother wouldn't give each other the time of day if you weren't related, and a lot of the things Dennis has said over the years, Colin has internalised.

So yes, I think a lot of Colin's flash and brash comes from trying to prove to himself that he doesn't care what his dad and brother think of him, even if he knows deep down that he does. I think his mum and stepdad and sisters are all good to him and provide him with enough stability to not let him become a complete S1Jamie Tartt - but for a long time his mum was worried that he was becoming someone she didn't quite recognise. Hearing about the way Ted Lasso is looking after his boys, together with seeing the slow change in Colin whenever he comes home, goes some way to reassuring Mrs Philipps that her boy's doing ok again.

Headcanon Meme!

#colin hughes #ahhh my problematic welsh fav #ted lasso

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pigtownchronicles · 3 years

Text

Chapter 2.4 - The Broker

The phone call on Monday had been cryptic:

“Brokerage,” a rather deep voice had said on the other end of the line, after Barry dialed the number he’d been given.

“Yes, hello. My name is Barry Gersholm. I was given a card with this number to contact a Mr. Ian Miller.”

There was a bit of silence. “Who gave you the number?”

“A fellow named Hugh.”

“Are you buying or selling?”

“Excuse me?”

“Buying or selling?”

“I guess...I’m not sure? I was told that I...uh...had some assets that might be valuable. Selling, I guess?”

A little more silence than before. The man asked him for his name again, gave Barry an address to write down, didn’t repeat it, and then hung up.

It was not the sort of business contact Barry was used to dealing with, but then, nothing about Hugh, or Depot, had been anything like he’d expected. The more he thought about it, though, the less likely it seemed like something he ought to do. He had no idea who this person was. If he told Dennis where he was going, he would have a conniption--taking a drug dealer up on a possible job offer with a third party, without knowing anything about what they did? Was he an idiot? Maybe he was, he thought, but at the same time, it was exciting. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d taken a risk--an actual risk, barebacking while on PrEP didn’t really count, not that Dennis could know about that either. That evening, he thought about telling him, but didn’t. Tuesday morning, at the office, he spent all day trying to figure out how to get out early. He had never been good at believable excuses. Richard checked in with him again, and his smarmy fucking demeanor made him want to be there even less.

“Hey Richard, I’m gonna take off early, get a little work down at home this evening,” he said, “I got a doctor’s appointment, hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, any meetings you might miss?”

“Nothing on the schedule.”

“Then no problem. Oh, but in exchange, you have to promise to come out with the rest of the team on Friday. I want us to have a little party, you know, to celebrate our near completion of the project.”

More likely, it was to celebrate his own promotion, but Barry agreed to go. If nothing else, it would be beer he didn’t have to buy on a Friday night. Around three-thirty, he packed up his stuff and left the building, and about ten to four, he arrived at the address that had been given to him. It was a rather dilapidated house, looking like it had survived a few rezonings in its time--on one side was a liquor store, and on the other, a little string of businesses being run out of repurposed buildings like this one, until they ran up against a sizable apartment building that took up the rest of the block. Unlike those other little shops, this one didn’t seem to have a sign anywhere around it, but the address was right. He walked up the steps, gave a knock on the door, and after a moment, it opened up, revealing a rather tall fellow in business casual, maybe a bit younger than Barry was. “Barry, right?” he asked. It was the same voice from over the phone, but in person, he was putting off a little more charm.

“Yeah, you must be Ian,” Barry said, and the man nodded as they shook hands.

“Come on in, let’s have a chat.”

Barry followed him into the living room, which still felt more like a living room than the meeting room it might be used as. There, sitting in a sagging armchair, was Hugh. Ian sat in a second armchair, leaving Barry the couch in front of them both. He gave a little nod to Hugh, but he wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. If he’d been suspicious that they were selling drugs before, he was almost certain of it now, and he wasn’t sure this was the sort of move he wanted to make. Best to go through the motions, though. He pulled his resume out and handed it to Ian, who set it aside without looking at it. “Hugh and I have been talking about his impression of you on Friday, and I asked him to join me for our chat today, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Barry said, “I suppose I just feel a bit in the dark about all of this. What exactly is it you do here?”

“The growth in this part of the city over the last year has opened up a number of possibilities that would have been unimaginable before,” Ian said, putting on a tone not unlike half the tech startup gurus who were rotated through his office for various seminars each year, “I have found myself in a rather fortuitous position, to be able to offer folks the ability to take part in a commodities trade unlike anything that has been in existence before this.”

Barry nodded along, and then decided he didn’t quite feel like nodding. He was being sold a line of bullshit already. “That all sounds very fascinating, but it doesn’t tell me anything--I’ve been in sales long enough to know a pitch when I hear one. Just be straight with me.”

Ian looked over at Hugh, and gave him a look that could have meant a number of things, part shrug, part curiosity, perhaps.

“I’m a broker, as it says on my card. But what I buy and sell isn’t anything...physical, exactly. I’m in the business of buying and selling emotions, experiences, pasts and futures. Livelihoods.”

“Sounds like drugs.”

Ian gave another one of his little shrugs. “You sound like that’s what you were expecting, but no. I know Hugh has many hustles, but this isn’t drugs, not exactly. Like I said, I’m merely a broker, trying to help men find their way to happiness. Everyone has things they don’t like about their life, of course. But to someone walking down the street, perhaps that life you have is exactly what might make them happy. You in turn, might desire aspects of another. My services and skills help men like this connect, and make one another happy. To give each other the assets that they no longer appreciate.”

“That...what does that even mean?”

“Here, let me show you something,” Ian said, picked up a remote control, and turned on the TV hanging on the wall.

Barry recognized the location--it was the couch where he was currently sitting, but instead, a rather slender, twinky fellow was sitting there. “I’ve tried to gain weight all my life, I guess. I’ve always just had this strange desire to be...fatter. I can’t really explain it. I know I should be happy with how I look, but I’m not,” the young man said, “Can...you really help me?”

The video cut to the young man lying on a table in a sterile looking room. It looked like hyperlapse, what came next, but it was too smooth. The man’s body began to swell, packing on weight while he laid there, seemingly in a matter of moments. He went from a lean 170 to well over 300 pounds, and after the strange transformation, the video cut back to the couch, where the...new man was sitting, grinning with delight.

“How are you feeling? Adjusting well?” Ian’s voice said from off screen.

“Fuck, I’ve never felt better man, I finally...feel like I have the body I was supposed to have. I know that sounds a bit sick, but I can’t thank you enough.”

Ian paused the video, and waited a moment while Barry digested what he’d just witnessed. “That’s just one of many, many testimonials I could show you. Some changes are physical, like this young man. Others want a different persona. Others want a different line of work, a different past, a different family. Anything that you want to sell, I can try and find a buyer to connect you with, or if not, I’m also happy to take unwanted aspects in exchange for payment.”

“I...that’s unbelievable.”

They watched a few more videos, and either Ian should have been in Hollywood doing special effects, or he was telling the truth. Hugh slipped in then, and made a pitch. “I could see that you wanted another chance there at the club. A younger body, carefree, able to dance the night away, resilience and vigor and all of those wonderful things. You, in turn, have a respectable career, a husband who you seem at odds with. But those things could be an asset to someone else, and you, in turn, could have what you wanted on Friday night.”

Ian had gotten up for a moment, went to a glass display case on the wall, pulled a little jar from it, and returned to where they were sitting. He tapped a small bit of the powder out from inside the jar, and made a small line on the coffee table. “Here, this isn’t the real thing, but I’ve managed to...synthesize, some of what I do downstairs for folks. If you want a little taste of what I can offer you, try this.”

“So it is drugs.”

“It’s an emerging product line, still in development. I merely want to help you fully understand what I can offer you. I assure you they’re completely safe. The effect only will last a few minutes.”

A bit suspicious, and thinking it would probably be just a little bit of coke, since all of this had to be a very complex ruse, or scam, or...something. He took the hit anyway, because he felt like he deserved a little coke for listening to this bullshit, but what happened when it hit him was unlike any drug he’d experienced before.

He wasn’t...in the house anymore. He was in a club. What club didn’t matter, what did matter was the pounding of the music, the throbbing energy in his body, and when Barry looked down at himself, it wasn’t...his body he was looking at. He was slender, and young, and vibrant, with a...sizable bulge in the front of the skimpy underwear he was wearing with nothing else. But he wasn’t there to look at himself, he was there to dance, and vibe, and it felt like he could do this forever. The euphoria that washed over him wasn’t from a drug, it was the sheer thrill of that moment, and just as he grasped it and held it, believed it, it was gone--and he was sitting on the couch again, eyes tearing up slightly, while Hugh and Ian watched.

“Now do you understand? That could be you. For real.”

“I think...I think I need to go,” Barry said, wiping his eyes. That had been....too exquisite. Too tempting. He needed some distance to think about this.

“No worries, my offers are always open ended. You take the time you need to come to the decision that would make you happy. You wouldn’t be the first to walk away from it--sometimes, knowing what you could have is enough to make you appreciate what you already possess. I’m merely offering you the possibility of something else, alright?”

Barry retreated back to his car, and just sat in the silence for a while. He could feel it, the pulse of the music in his bones again...but was that really what he wanted? It would be pleasurable, sure. Fleeting, maybe. But what was really missing from his life didn’t seem like something that could be bought and sold. But then, what if it could be?

***

Want more Pigtown Chronicles? Support me over on my Patreon, and you can get early access to new chapters, along with loads of other content!

#pigtown #age regression #drugs #hallucination

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hockeylvr59 · 4 years

Text

Bruises Part 2 || Mat Barzal

Requested: [x] yes [ ] no

Authors Note: So it’s been a year since I posted the first part of this and back then people asked me for a second part. It took me a while...I had three pages worth of this sitting stagnant in a word doc for six months...but for anyone that may still be interested here you are. I can say for certain that this is the end of this one. I can’t really think of a better way to end it than you’ll find below and hopefully, this answers a few of the many questions that were posed after part one. My heart aches just a little knowing that this piece is finally finished because it’s an intense one and there is certainly a little part of me embedded into it. I’d love to know what you guys think about it because it is certainly different than a lot of my other writings.

Warnings: discussions about domestic violence, cursing

Word Count: 4,151

~~~~~~

Around 4am you awoke again, the steady throbbing in your side having returned full force. Clearly, the medicine you’d taken had worn off. Gingerly sliding out of Mat’s bed, you attempted to stand, quickly throwing a hand over your mouth in an attempt to silence your cries of agony caused by the change in position. Grabbing your phone to use its screen as a mild flashlight you glanced back to Mat, thankful that he hadn’t woken. You’d caused enough trouble already and he needed a full night’s rest.

Five minutes later you had managed to tiptoe the fifteen feet to the downstairs bathroom, quickly closing the door and flipping on the light to search for the pain medicine you hoped Mat kept there. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for your eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room and once they had you quickly spotted the bottle of extra strength ibuprofen. Taking two pills from the bottle, you popped them into your mouth before gathering a handful of water to help swallow.

Since it was unlikely that you would be able to fall asleep until after the medicine kicked back in, you made your way to the couch, curling up and pulling a blanket over your lap before sending an email into the district office in order to call out sick for the day. Thankfully you were giving tests in a few of your classes, something a sub could easily administer for you and for the remaining classes you’d planned a lecture, something that you could replace with a documentary. Emailing another teacher that you were close to with a list of plans, you asked her to print it out to leave for the substitute.

It wasn’t long after that when you heard footsteps and looking up saw Mat leaning against the door to his room looking at you with concern.

“Are you okay?” He mumbled, his voice deep from sleep.

“Fine Mat. Needed to call into work so they could get a sub and I took some more pain meds.” You assured him forcing as much of a smile as you could manage under the circumstances.

“Come back to bed then…” He pleaded softly, stepping closer to you to offer a hand.

“I might just stay here…” You whispered not wanting to concern him more with your inability to move with any sense of speed. His brows furrowed for a moment before he sighed and dropped down onto the couch next to you. Rubbing at his face he reached out to cup your cheek in his free hand.

“I get that you don’t want to go to the hospital but please y/n...at least let me take you to our team doctor in the morning and let him check you out?” The way his thumb brushed against your skin as he stared at you, fear in his eyes made you shiver. “I know that if something was as bad as I’m thinking we’d know but I’m scared to death that you’re bleeding internally.” He admitted.

Tears filled your eyes as you watched one of your best friends struggle with all of the drama you’d dropped into his lap. Shuffling across the couch the six inches between you and cringing all the while you nodded.

“Fine...I’ll let you take me to the team doctor.” You agreed. “Then I need to go to the police station to file a restraining order.”

“I won’t leave your side.” Mat swore, standing slowly before once again reaching for your hand so the two of you could go back to bed.

“Go ahead, I’ll be behind you.” You urged him not wanting him to wait on your temporarily crippled self. When he refused to move, you bit your lip, trying to fight back the pain as you stood up again and attempted to take small steps forward. With a careful eye, Mat watched you for a minute before stepping to your good side and slipping an arm under your legs, slowly and gently lifting you into his arms. There was an initial wave of pain from being jostled, but it had faded for the most part before you even reached the bed, Mat setting you down just as carefully.

“There you go gimpy.” He teased softly, crawling back into bed himself before wrapping his body around yours once again, pressing a soft kiss to your head. “Now try and get some more rest, it’s still ungodly early.” With his warm body surrounding you and his fingers tangled in your hair, you finally drifted back to sleep as the pain medicine kicked in, dulling your pain from a hard 8 to a 4 and a half.

____

It was shortly after nine when your body stirred in the way that signaled you needed to get up and use the bathroom. Slowly easing yourself into a sitting position, you glanced over at the nightstand where your phone was and spotted a bottle of water and two more pain pills. Taking the pills and drinking half the bottle of water, you then slowly worked your way to the bathroom, returning to find a made bed with the sweatshirt you’d worn last night as well as a pair of drawstring sweats and an islanders t-shirt laid out on it.

Evidently, Mat was a little ninja elf this morning as you hadn’t heard or seen him at all but clearly, he had been in and out of his room at least twice.

The bruises on your wrist and arm didn’t look quite as bad as they had the night before as you glanced at yourself in the mirror. Your side, however, was a different story, having darkened to a deep blue almost black color. Changing clothes, you slowly made your way upstairs, finding Mat, Rebecca, and Dennis all sitting at the table eating breakfast. Thankfully the kids had already left for school so you didn’t have to worry about any prying questions.

“How are you feeling?” Rebecca asked softly, standing up from the table with her now empty plate. “And what would you like for breakfast?” Before you could answer Mat was pulling out a chair for you to sit down next to him.

“I’m hurting. My wrist and arm aren’t as bad but my side is another story.” You admitted, still feeling slightly ashamed for drawing all of them into your problems.

“I’m taking her to see the team doc.” Mat added, jumping into the conversation.

“As for breakfast, I’m not really hungry.” By the looks you were getting from everyone in the kitchen that wasn’t going to fly and so you sighed, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. “Just a bowl of cereal would be fine.” Holding up choices, you nodded at the box you’d prefer and shortly after, a bowl was being placed in front of you. As you ate, Mat and Dennis talked about the game from the night before and you let out a silent sigh of relief that the conversation was about anything but you.

After finishing breakfast, Mat asked if you were ready to go, stating that he’d drive and you could come back for your car later. Murmuring that you just needed your phone and shoes, you nodded and like a flash, Mat was back with both items. With deft fingers he slid your phone into the pocket of the sweatshirt you were wearing before he knelt down to help slide your feet into your shoes, actually doing them up properly, something you hadn’t bothered with in your frantic rush last night.

A large part of you felt guilty that he was having to take care of you, you were sure this was the last thing he needed to deal with today. At the same time though, you were relieved that you had someone you trusted completely to rely on because you weren’t certain that you could get through this on your own.

With a gentle hand on your lower back, Mat helped you out to his car, easing you into the vehicle as tears pooled in your eyes from the pain. The moment Mat was settled into the driver’s seat, his hand found yours and he squeezed gently. While the physical pain was unbearable, the settling emotional pain was nearly as bad and you hadn’t even realized that you’d started crying until you heard Mat curse softly from beside you.

“Please don’t cry.” He whispered, his hand squeezing around yours more firmly as he pulled up to a red light. “I don’t know if I can handle seeing you cry.” His words were barely audible and you whimpered as you tried to fight back the tears.

“What did I do wrong?” You questioned softly, so unsure of how a relationship that seemed so solid had crumbled into violence so quickly. The second the question left your mouth Mat was pulling the car over into a parking lot so that he could focus his attention on you.

“Nothing... you did nothing wrong.” He insisted, his tone one of pure disbelief that your actions could have caused this. “This is all on him...please know that.” When your own expression told him that you weren’t fully convinced, Mat sighed audibly, leaning closer to drop a kiss to your forehead. “I know you don’t believe me…but I need you to at least trust me.” He stated softly.

“I do trust you.” You responded and if nothing else said in this car was true, that was. You wouldn’t have shown up at his door last night if you hadn’t trusted him. Of all of the people in your life, you had turned to him and though you weren’t 100% sure why you knew that had to mean something.

“Alright.” Mat eventually breathed, brushing your tears away with his thumb before turning back to the wheel and pulling the car back onto the road to take you to the Isles practice facility to see their doctor.

The rest of the drive was spent in silence, Mat’s thumb brushing back and forth over the back of your hand until he had parked in the player’s lot. “Don’t move.” Mat instructed and you were in enough pain still that you weren’t going to argue with him on that. After opening your passenger door, Mat leaned in to undo your seatbelt, ever so gently pulling it back across your body until it was hanging loosely behind you. Then he gently reached for your feet, swinging them out of the door before offering a hand to you. Standing back up made you feel like you were being stabbed, and you practically collapsed against his chest. With his hand on your good side, Mat supported your weight until the intense pain had waned and you were able to stand on your own.

Slowly and gingerly, Mat helped you walk into the building, guiding you down empty hallways until you reached a set of rooms occupied by the team doctor and training staff. Waiting inside the room was a younger man with reddish hair, his nose in a medical file until he heard the sounds of your footsteps approaching.

“Morning Doc. Thanks for doing this.” Mat stated, stepping away from you just enough to reach out and shake the doctor’s hand. “This is y/n….she’s too stubborn to go to the hospital so she’s in your hands this morning. Please take care of her.” His voice had started off teasing and confidant but by the end of his statement had dropped to one of pure worry and concern.

“Of course Mat...my pleasure.” The doctor quickly responded, introducing himself to you as Dr. Brian. Now that you were here you were worried that you should have gone to the hospital because what if something was really wrong. Knowing your anxiety could be read differently you tried to force a pained smile onto your face. Seeing your expression made the Doctor’s lips furrow and he motioned for Mat to help you over to the exam table in the room.

“So Mat didn’t really give me any details as to what had happened...can you fill me in?” Dr. Brian asked, voice gentle as if he sensed the need to approach this treatment gingerly.

“Um...my ex...he...he hit me.” You finally managed to stutter out a response, blinking quickly to keep the tears from pooling in your eyes again. All of this made you feel so weak and you hated that because you knew that you were supposed to be stronger than this. Though your gaze was pointed downward, you were sure that Mat and the Dr. were exchanging looks above you. After settling you onto the exam table, Mat had taken a spot at your back, there to support you if necessary and to provide moral support.

Sensing that you would be unable to speak, Mat once again provided a voice for you.

“She’s got bruises on her wrist and upper arm from where he grabbed her trying to keep her from getting away but it’s her side that we’re really worried about. As you can tell she can barely move and he hit her three times on the left side of her abdomen.” Reaching for a pair of gloves, Dr. Brian nodded, a pensive look on his face.

“Alright...can we get that sweatshirt off so I can get a better look?” He questioned. You nodded and started to reach for the edge of the sweatshirt only to be stopped by the feeling of Mat’s fingers at the hem.

“Let me help.” He murmured, insistent on trying to prevent you from experiencing as much pain as he possibly could. With Mat tugging the sweatshirt over your head, all you had to do was gingerly lift your arms up, the bulky item of clothing now resting beside you on the table.

Approaching the table, Dr. Brian first looked at your wrist and arm, checking them for signs of a sprain or spiral fracture. After a moment he appeared to be satisfied that they were only bruised when you were able to comply with his directions on moving and twisting them without much complaint.

“Good. Now let’s get a look at that side. Mat, if you wanna just hold her shirt up out of the way for me.” Dr. Brian requested, moving around your body to take a good look at your side. Mat hadn’t seen the bruise since last night and the moment his eyes caught sight of your skin he gasped audibly.

“Fuck y/n…” He choked, his voice suddenly moist like he was going to start crying himself. “I seriously wanna kill the bastard.” He added, his body tensing behind you while he attempted to keep your shirt out of the doctor’s way while preserving your modesty. Mat’s distress had your breathing becoming more unsteady by the moment and once more you cursed yourself for dragging him into this.

“Take deep breaths for me y/n.” Dr. Brian murmured as he conducted a visual examination of your side. “And you too, Mat.” He added as an afterthought. Slowly you focused your attention on breathing, knowing that losing it would only make your side hurt worse than it currently did.

“Mat. Help me lay her back gently. Y/N I want to make sure that you aren’t bleeding internally though I feel like we would know if you were by now. This is going to hurt though and I’m sorry.” It hurting was the understatement of the year as Dr. Brian pressed as gently as he could into your side while still feeling for what he needed to. The moment he had first pressed down once you were on your right hip you cried out in pain and both men surrounding you winced. Whimpers followed as Mat ran his fingers over your scalp. Even once Dr. Brian was done, the pain lingered and you weren’t certain you’d be able to move right away. With your eyes closed, you didn’t see Dr. Brian walk across the room before returning, an ice pack wrapped in a towel in his hand.

“She’s gonna be fine Mat.” Dr. Brian insisted as he gently laid the cold pack over your bruised side. “I’m not feeling or seeing any signs of internal bleeding. Just relax here for a few minutes with the ice pack. I’ll write up a script for a few days of a slightly heavier dosage pain killer and then you can take her to get some rest.” You were honestly glad the doctor was addressing Mat and not you because you weren’t sure your brain was capable of processing anything right now. You must have zoned out because one moment Mat was right beside you and the next he was in the corner whispering softly with the doctor.

“Mat…” You whispered. You felt silly that even having him this far away had you feeling so unsteady but it wasn’t a feeling you were strong enough to control right now. Glancing over at the sound of your voice, Mat quickly finished up the conversation before pulling a stool over to sit right in front of you.

“Hey...it’s okay. I’m right here.” He insisted, his fingers lacing with your own. The look in his eyes was still filled with concern but compared to just a few minutes ago, they had softened and his expression helped put you at ease. “Doc is writing up a report for you to give to the police regarding your injuries...and either you’re staying with me tonight or I’m coming to stay with you because you shouldn’t be alone just yet. Doc insists that if anything changes...if the pain gets worse than it is...that we go to the hospital.”

You wanted to express to Mat just how grateful you were to him for being here, for putting up with all of this but there didn’t seem to be words that would be enough. This had been arguably the worst 14 hours of your life and you didn’t know if you’d be able to get through it without him.

By the time it was time to take the ice pack off of your side, Dr. Brian had finished his report and after making a quick copy for his records, he handed off the original to Mat for safekeeping. Your prescription was also tucked safely into Mat’s pocket along with a work excuse and after getting back into your sweatshirt with instructions to try and take it easy for a few days, Mat helped you back out to his car. After a quick stop at the pharmacy to drop off the script so that you could pick it up later, you headed to the police department. You really didn’t have any idea of how this whole process worked and you were scared. Scared that no one would believe you. Scared that you would be blamed for your own injuries. Scared that even a restraining order wouldn’t keep Nick away if he truly wanted to hurt you.

Of course, merely filing a police report wasn’t enough. After taking your report the officer had told you that you needed to go down to family court and file a “family offense petition” in order to have a restraining order issued. As if telling your story once wasn’t enough, now you had to go do it all over again before waiting for a court date where there was a possibility that you’d have to fight it out with your ex over last night’s events.

Through both the stop to the police station and the courthouse, Mat was a saint, physically holding you up when you needed him to and letting you sob into his shoulder soaking through his shirt. There were so many things that you needed to do just to make sure that Nick couldn’t hurt you again….though there was no promise that he would even follow a restraining order...and you were overwhelmed and confused at all of it. Mat insisted that everything was going to be fine and though you weren’t sure you believed him, he’d asked you to trust him earlier and so you were going to do your best to trust him now.

By the time you left the courthouse with a date to see a judge for a preliminary hearing in a few days, you were absolutely exhausted even though it was only two in the afternoon. As you slid back into the car once again you looked up at Mat with sad eyes.

“Can you take me home now?” You whispered.

“Of course.” Mat responded. “Just let me call Marty...he only lives a few blocks from your place and he can provide some backup in case we need it.” The second his words processed you shook your head, teeth biting down onto your lower lip.

“No...take me to your home please…” You whispered, not ready to go back to your own place yet. Today had been so emotionally exhausting that anything more was going to push you over the limit of what you could handle without completely falling apart. Mat quickly nodded in understanding and you felt his thumb brush against your cheek before he climbed back into the car himself.

“Is there anything you want from your place though?” He asked softly. “I can get you settled back into bed and then run over to your place when I go out for your prescription…” Softly you murmured that you would love some clean underwear at least as well as your personal hygiene products and Mat squeezed your hand once more, silently assuring you that he would do whatever it took to make you comfortable again.

Arriving back at the Seidenberg residence, Mat helped you from the car for what was hopefully the last time today. As the two of you walked inside, Danielle simply sent a weak smile your way, no one needing to even ask if it was okay if you stayed another night.

By the time you reached Mat’s bedroom in the basement, you were completely exhausted and though your side was still throbbing, the second your head hit the pillows of Mat’s bed you were passed out, your body seeking an escape from the pain.

___

You didn’t stir until you felt fingers brushing through your hair ever so gently. When your eyes opened to reveal Mat, you sent him as much of a smile as you could. It had been almost an hour and a half already from when you laid down and as you blinked away the sleepiness you realized that Mat had a glass of water, your prescription, and a string cheese in hand knowing that you hadn’t eaten since breakfast and would likely get sick if you took the strong medicine on a completely empty stomach.

Sitting up as much as you could, you took each item from him in turn until they were all gone. Even though sleeping so much meant that you probably wouldn’t sleep tonight, your body still wanted nothing more than to roll back over and close your eyes. Sensing that you had no intention of getting up, Mat rounded the bed and slipped out of his own jeans before climbing in with you and wrapping you gently in his arms.

Laying in silence until the medicine started to kick in making you groggy once more, you found yourself whispering softly as you drifted to sleep.

“I don’t deserve you.” Your statement was met by Mat nuzzling his nose into your hair, his warm breath spreading over your cheeks.

“You’ve got that the other way around.” He murmured back. “Plus...you don’t have to deserve me for me to love you...that’s not the way love works.”

Though you were nearly asleep, you were awake enough to hear him and his words were certainly going to be a topic of conversation later. As if he knew a more conscious you would protest he continued.

“I know today has been beyond shitty and that my timing is far from great but I need you to know that I love you, y/n and I will wait for however long it takes for you to feel the same way. And if you never do that’s okay too...but I need you to know that I will always be here for you. You deserve nothing but to be loved and adored and whether I get to do that as a friend or something more...I’m going to make sure that you know that every day from here on out. There is no bruise that I won’t be here to help heal.”

Though it may take some time for both your physical and emotional bruises to heal, knowing that Mat was waiting...well, you couldn’t ask for anything more.

#domestic violence tw #domestic violence cw #mat barzal #mat barzal imagine #new york islanders imagine #new york islanders #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #nyislanders #009 #1k celly

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skimblyshanks · 4 years

Note

mungojerrie!!

Something this character is truly proud of.

Getting Teazer and himself out of Macavity’s tribe in one piece

Who they want to please the most.

Teazer first and foremost, then (though he’ll deny it) Skimble, and, more out of obligation than a genuine desire, he strives to keep Macavity satisfied enough to leave him and his family alone.

Who depends on them.

He and Teazer depend on each other more than anyone

What they would do if they had one month to live.

He’d fight Macavity in a Denny’s Parking Lot.

...Ok, ok, but he probably would,,,hurry along the process. He’d give Teazer a game plan for after he goes, make sure she knew how to follow it, hope whatever she’d inevitably do instead would work too, and get it over with, preferably by fighting Macavity in a Denny’s Parking Lot. Or their bio dad. Or both of them. in a Denny’s Parking Lot.

A cherished personal belonging.

A well-worn teddy he’d found on the street when he was a little kitty. It’s one of the few remaining mementos of his young kittenhood.

Something they lost, but would love to have back

When he and Teazer had first come to live with Skimble, his humans had gotten them pristine new collars. They were taken back to Macavity’s tribe and the collars were disposed of. He’s fine with the one he has now, but he’d like to have the first one, too.

This character’s favorite character

Teazer, duh.

What kind of car they would drive.

He wouldn’t drive a car, he’d ride a (stolen) motorcycle that Skimble doesn’t know about.

What calms them when they are upset.

physical closeness, validation, and just,,,someone listening to him

How they deal with pain.

He isolates.

This character’s favorite piece or pieces of clothing.

His collar. He especially likes the spikes.

How they sleep.

He sleeps like he’s ready to pounce. The longer he sleeps, the more it becomes a loaf.

What kind of parent they would be.

Good question! He doesn’t wanna find out!

How they did in school

He went to school for maybe 3 months and had no idea how to do anything, so...not the best

What cologne or perfume they would use

Bold of you to assume he wouldn’t be his sweaty, stinky self unabashedly

Their sexuality

He hasn’t given himself the time to really figure that out, but possibly bi?? Maybe Pan?? Hell if he knows

What they’d sing at karaoke

“We’re not gonna take it”

Special talents they have

Silent and stealthy as fuck, really good at getting through narrow spaces, a hypnotic way with words, and a general ability to talk himself out of most everything

When they feel safest

When he knows Teazer is safe; bonus points if he’s fairly certain Skimble’s ok, too

Household chore they hate the most

Cleaning the house; he always has to try and make sure he doesn’t reveal any stashes of loot while rearranging true junk and

Their fondest childhood memory

He’d never admit it, but, the first night he and Teazer spent in Skimble’s home. It was the first time they’d gotten to stay in a well-kept, roomy kind of shelter, and the first time he wasn’t entirely terrified at the thought of an adult cat being in the same space as Teazer and himself.

How they spend their money.

He spends it on what he wants; if he runs out of cash on hand he can steal uwu

What kind of alcohol they drink

Anything he can get his hands on

What they wish they could change about themselves

He’d like to be braver; to stand up to Macavity all by himself, no one else fighting before him. He feels like he can’t actually protect Teazer, or anyone atm.

What other people wish they could change about them

Most obviously, a lot of the Jellicles, especially Skimble and Munk, would love it if he’d just,,,idk,,,stop stealing shit?? Teazer wouldn’t mind that either, to be honest; she likes the thrill of it, but she’s not the biggest fan of how often they do out to steal. They left Macavity’s tribe so they wouldn’t have to do all this, right? Aside from that, she’d like him to be more open, with her and with Skimble. Pounce Carbucketty would like him to be nicer, just a little bit?

#character ask #skywalkerangst

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disappearinginq · 4 years

Note

for the writers ask thing: (3) What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway) AND (6) What character do you have the most fun writing?

Hilariously, the first one is a Prodigal Son scene between the team (specifically JT) and I just wanted a...merger? scene between beginning season JT & Malcolm, where they just like to harass one another, to basically an embodiment of the Kink!Tomato explanation. I like that they’re not cozy with each other, but they go from purposefully hurtful banter to just off beat teasing, and I had a scene where that was spelled out. I wonder if I can find it...or possibly actually getting around to writing the fic that i wrote three lines of dialogue for when @rohanrider3 gave me a prompt for it. As for most fun -ooo. Hmm. Snarky ones. And family relations. I think one of my favorite things to write was between Bellamy and Kane for Left Behind, despite not watching the show for years now, and that fic sits languishing in writing purgatory.

And I really, really love to write unexpectedly smart/badass characters (or make canon characters into unexpectedly smart/badass characters, because no one can prove I’m wrong). Edit: FOUND THE PRODIGAL SON THING.

“No, JT, really, I want to know,” Malcolm snapped, holding his hand out – steadier than JT could remember ever seeing it – jabbing accusatorily at him. “What exactly was I supposed to do? Hmm? If you know, I’d love to hear it, because I haven’t got a fucking clue. I’m a bit of an outlier, you see – people aren’t good with things they can’t categorize. They want to stuff you in a box whether you fit or not, and I’m guessing as a Hispanic male combat veteran, there’s a couple boxes people like to tick off for you, right? Suicidal. PTSD. Temper problems. Into drugs and alcohol. Anyone ever tell you you’re a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off?”

JT didn’t answer – it was rhetorical and both of them knew it. Veterans today had a rate of suicide comparable to WWII, and instead of trying to curb the trend by digging deeper to find out why, Washington just swept it under the rug – denied treatment, refused disability claims, shoved people out on the street like Monday morning garbage. The only time people cared enough to even Google the statistics were November 11th and the last Monday in May.

“Oh look,” Malcolm barreled on. “Finally, something we have in common. We don’t like it when people try to shove us in boxes to make us something we’re not. But you know what? You’re at least not alone. You can feel it, and it can seem it, but you’re not – one point three million people in our military, odds are at least one of them feels like you. Can understand what you’ve been through, why you are the way you are. Wanna know how many serial killers had kids? Huh?”

Malcolm’s pointed finger became a splay of five.

“Five. In the last half century, with their kids still alive today – five. Six kids total. Ted Bundy’s daughter has vanished so completely not even the FBI knows who or where she is. Dennis Rader’s kids? His daughter fucking wrote him a letter forgiving him for what he did and that she ‘hoped to see him in Heaven one day’ and that she still loved him, and her brother told the newspapers that despite killing ten people in utterly horrific ways, he was a good dad. And nobody comes close to the Surgeon’s body count – maybe the ones he was convicted for, but not what he’s suspected of.”

“Look, Bright, I – ” JT tried to cut in. Bright’s glare stopped him midsentence.

“No, no, no, no, you don’t get to derail this train now,” Malcolm snapped. “Not when you’re the one who keeps looking at me like I’m only one conviction away from being Martin Whitly’s sequel because I’m good at my job. And you know what, literally anyone else who is a profiler, or a criminal psychologist, or even a forensic psychologist is supposed to try and interpret the criminal mind, but I don’t see you avoiding Dr. Tanaka. My father was the monster, not me. I was fucking ten years old when I turned him in. All the other Serial Killer Kids were adults when the police found out their fathers were killers, but I don’t see the FBI keeping tabs on them, waiting for them to pick up where Dear Old Dad left off. So why me? Because I annoy you? Because it bothers you that because I can’t solve my own problems, I try to solve others? I have twenty three lives that were cut short because of the Surgeon that I have to make up for, and yeah, there’s only so many ways I can atone for my father’s sins.”

JT wasn’t the only one who noticed the change in Malcolm’s voice as he almost choked on the word father in relation to Martin, his already pale features turning slightly green at the mention of being related to the Surgeon.

“Since you seem to have all the answers, why don’t you clue the rest of us in? Hmm?” Malcolm threw his hands wide to encompass the whole room. “What should I be doing that would make you believe that I am not my father’s son?”

Dani shifted in her chair, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here, but gave him a side-eyed glare that clearly stated she was actually on Bright’s side for this one. Gil hadn’t said a word the entire argument, but then, if he’d known Malcolm since the day he’d turned in Martin, then he’d probably heard it more than once.

Malcolm must’ve said it more than once, because that was a lot of statistics to rattle off that fast.

JT sighed, picking up a pen and tapping it against the notepad just to have something to do with his hands as he met Malcolm’s eyes.

“It’s not what you think,” JT said. “It…” he considered his next words, weighing the sound of them in his head before he said them aloud. “I think you’re so good at this, it’s killing you.”

Whatever response Malcolm had braced himself for – because that’s exactly what he was doing, keeping his hands firmly over his chest, hunching slightly like he was expecting a physical blow – that wasn’t it. The kid’s eyebrows almost shot into his hairline before they narrowed back in suspicion, and JT couldn’t really blame him.

“I knew these guys – combat guys, all of them. Saw some serious shit over in Syria. Afghanistan. Iraq. You name the shit storm, they were in it, boots on the ground. They didn’t fare much better than you. Nightmares. Depression. The twitchy hands. The mania. The insomnia. Insisting they were fine.” He absently let the pen in his hand doodle across the notepad, and he watched as Malcolm’s gaze couldn’t help but flicker towards the movement more than keep JT’s gaze. “Hyper vigilant. Some of them saw counselors, but you know how that goes…seeing them doesn’t mean they followed their advice. Sometimes it’s just a band aid on a bullet hole. A couple of them got jobs where they thought they could do some good – use those skills, those…habits, at work. Thought it gave them an edge. Kept them vigilant.”

JT clicked the pen, putting it down as he leaned forwards, his elbows on the table, interlocking his fingers as he caught Malcolm’s piercing gaze. “It burned them out. One put a gun in his mouth Christmas Eve in his basement while his kids were asleep upstairs. The other one stepped in front of train during the morning commute. The other one gave himself a heart attack – he’s the one that lived. And you may not believe me, Bright, but I don’t want that to be you on the evening news. You may be good at this job, but I think it’s bad for you. Trying to make up for things you had no control over, keeping some tally in that head of yours of if the life you saved is equal to the one he took. That’s not healthy, and if your stupid habit of haring off after murderers without backup doesn’t kill you, then this life will. I don’t think you’re anything like the Surgeon, because if you were, this wouldn’t bother you at all, instead of eating you alive from the inside out.”

The room was quiet enough you could hear a pin drop.

Dani shot him her half smile reserved for special occasions and people she particularly approved of. Gil’s expression was still hidden by his hand over his mouth, but JT realized he wasn’t looking at him – probably hadn’t been for most of the conversation.

He was watching Malcolm.

Malcolm who was completely silent.

He didn’t think Bright did silent. He pretty much non-stop jabbered on, even when he wasn’t supposed to. Perhaps even especially when he wasn’t supposed to.

And now that piercing blue stare was levelled straight at him, and JT fought the urge to fidget under the intensity of it.

Malcolm’s eyes widened slightly, a funny little gasp that would’ve made more sense coming from someone who’d just had ice water dumped down their back passing between suddenly parted lips as he pulled his head back as if physically slapped. “You’re…not lying.”

JT frowned, glancing over at Gil who was still zeroed in on Malcolm. The older man hadn’t decided if this was good or bad, which put JT even more on edge.

“No, I’m not lying. Why would I lie about something like that?” He tried to catch Gil’s attention without getting even more of Malcolm’s, but the older detective ignored him.

#asks answered #games we play #prodigal son #prodigal son fic #sort of #one day maybe #malcolm bright #jt tarmel

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ashwayssunny · 5 years

Text

carry that weight.

hello! here’s a lil fic that nobody asked for. aka, dennis spends the night on the couch. set during “the gang gets romantic,” so it’s tagged for spoilers! warnings for brief mentions of v*miting, drug use, and dennis-typical creepiness.

Like most nights, he couldn’t sleep. He’d felt a headache building for hours, had known it would be a nasty one as soon as the woman Mac had unceremoniously decided to pair him with revealed she was no single woman after all. He wasn’t sure if he’d lost interest in the scheme then, or if he’d simply never had any to begin with. Either way, he’d had to swallow his complaints. It would’ve been so simple - should’ve been so simple - for him to crawl into Mac’s bed, drift away, and forget the scheme altogether, but the way his skin burned like he’d laid down on a bed of hot coals told him it simply would not be.

The couch was not meant to host an overnight guest. It was uncomfortable on the best of days, and today was not one of its best days. It was cold, the leather warped and torn in odd places, and so lumpy, Dennis felt as if he were trying to get comfortable on the head of a giant mushroom. He was cold, too, as he always was, and the throw blanket he must’ve stolen from his sister no less than ten years ago offered him no support. He dreaded the way his back would ache in the morning, and the thought of it was almost enough to send him running back to Mac’s room with his tail between his legs. Almost.

The woman - Lisa, he remembered vaguely, though he’d thought he’d made it a rule for himself that knowing their names cheapened the experience - was attractive enough. Slender figure, inauspicious features, a face he’d forget once it wriggled out from underneath him. He liked redheads. Mac knew that, of course. Mac seemed to know many things about him; Dennis didn’t know why that surprised him after nearly twenty-five years of cohabitation. I know you, man, Mac had said to him once in a way that sounded quite like he was saying something else. Dennis remembered fighting back tears for the first time since childhood. Mac was so close, he thought, just in the other room, nothing but paint and drywall between them. If Dennis concentrated hard enough, he could make out the sound of him snoring obscenely; he pictured Mac’s arms and legs tossed haphazardly over themselves, knew he was drooling into his one and only pillowcase-less pillow. He wondered, if he had stayed, if Mac would be drooling into his shoulder instead.

Dennis rolled onto his side, pushing those thoughts away. The current occupants of his room seemed to still be awake; the walls in their apartment would certainly win no awards for protecting anyone’s privacy, and despite his best efforts to soundproof the room, sound escaped just as frequently and as forcefully as so many failed sexual escapades that passed through that very same door. Twenty-five years’ worth of sexual escapades. Dennis tried not to think too hard about how long twenty-five years truly was. Until recently, he’d been twenty-five in his head, willfully ignorant of the passage of time, but now as he stared down the reality of being nearly twice that age, the bliss that came with his willful ignorance had all but disappeared. At twenty-five, he could shoot tequila till the sun came up, sleep for a few hours, and go on about his day, rinsing and repeating each night in a pattern that became as comfortable and familiar to him as waking up and falling asleep. He would always vomit, of course, because a weak stomach and an easily triggered gag reflex was something, among other things he didn’t care to admit, he shared with his twin sister. Now he was lucky if vomiting was all that came of nights like that. After thirty-five, his hangovers seemed to evolve, lasting days and robbing him of usefulness for what seemed like weeks, like months, like years. Now, pushing forty-five, it was not so easy to rinse and repeat.

A brief but unmistakable sob came from his room, and Dennis rolled his eyes but was secretly grateful for distraction. His thoughts returned to the woman, Lisa. He remembered trying to stare at her. It wasn’t unusual; he often studied his targets, drank them in like a smooth crème de menthe. He knew it made them uneasy, and he’d liked it that way. But his eyes kept drifting, and it was jarring to him in a way he could not pinpoint. He didn’t feel anything when he looked at her; then again, he didn’t feel anything when he looked at any of them, but a deep, burning lust that boiled in his brain and in his stomach and told him he would combust if he didn’t touch someone was ever-present. Or it had been. It wasn’t now, and that was most jarring of all. Lisa was attractive enough; sweet-faced, red-haired, curvy in the best places, and totally, completely uninteresting to him. He wondered if something in him was broken for good this time, if he could never get it back, if he even wanted to get it back. If he even wanted anything at all.

Another sob choked its way through the silence of their apartment, grating on Dennis’s eardrums. He groaned aloud, hating Mac for putting him through this. He considered turning on the TV in the living room and popping in a Rambo DVD just to rattle him awake with the sound of gunfire. When more muffled whimpering made him clench his fists tightly to his body, he decided he needed some other noise, anything else, to drown it out. He reached for his phone across the coffee table, sliding past the home screen and opening his Spotify app. With shaky hands, he pressed the ‘shuffle’ button on a Rock Classics playlist, closing his eyes and placing his phone next to his ear. Soft, simple piano chords started to loosen the knot in his chest, and when Paul McCartney’s sweet voice began to dance against his eardrum, he smiled in spite of himself. His eyes drifted shut. “Once there was a way to get back homeward,” Paul sang, “once there was a way to get back home...”

He’d tried to look at her legs. He’d forced himself to stare. They were nice enough, as was the curve of her ass, but he felt no familiar twinge of desire. Why couldn’t he just look at her legs? Instead, he felt fear. Months could by at times without him feeling anything at all, and though that frightened him, he knew he could substitute physical arousal for emotion with a relatively high rate of success. It didn’t make him feel happy, but it made him feel something. And that counted. Every drop of water in the desert of his emotional terrain was appreciated, was needed. Like any desert, he could dry up for months, not a feeling in sight, but once the rainy season began, it ran its course with such forceful agony, he wondered if the therapist he’d seen with Dee so many years ago was on to something after all.

“Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry...”

Why had he agreed to the scheme at all? As the verses repeated, he turned the question over and over in his mind, poking holes in his own arguments, tearing down his own defenses. Obviously he’d done the scheme to satisfy Mac, but... why? Dennis bristled at the thought of Mac having purposefully booked a married couple to force Dennis into his room, but his reaction to the unfortunate existence of Lisa’s husband seemed genuine. Dennis knew Mac well enough to know when he was lying. He paused, considering that thought. He’d seen Mac lie through his teeth a thousand times, and he was bad at it because Dennis knew that he wore his heart on his sleeve, but how many others knew that about him? How many others could sniff out Mac’s lies, pick his laugh out of a crowd of a thousand, recognize even the faintest hint of his scent when Mac’s clothes inevitably mixed with some of his own in the wash? I know you, man, Mac’s voice whispered in his head.

Lisa, he said to himself. He needed to think about Lisa. Lisa, with her red hair and her red, snotty nose and her husband. Dennis nearly scoffed. What a ridiculous thing to want to have. Perhaps if he tried hard enough, conjured Lisa’s face above Jackie DeNardo’s chest, it would work. He could rub out a quick one and be asleep in twenty minutes. For whatever reason, however, his mind’s eye could not linger on her. Lisa’s face warped and changed shape, shifting into something so unrecognizable, he could not remember it at all. What was it he’d said to Mac earlier? That this whole thing felt desperate, felt unlike him? Odd, he conceded, for a man who once purchased a boat to help him attract women. But Dennis had run the same course, danced the same steps so many times between twenty-five and forty-five, he’d finally begun to dream about packing up his tap shoes and retiring the show for good. Performing, yes, it was all a performance - albeit an excellent one, he gave himself - but a performance nonetheless, and one he feared may finally be better left to a younger man. But perhaps he could do it. Dennis Reynolds had done everything in his life with grace, with poise and mystique. Why should aging be any different? He could retire the skin of his old self like a baseball jersey; some ill-fitting thing at which he could look back and smile but no longer had the power to squeeze him to fit its mold. Yes, that would be nice.

The drums cascaded like a waterfall down the track and forced in a new tune. “Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time...”

And what would be left there, in the empty space between the old Dennis and the new? Dennis swallowed hard without meaning to as another face took shape in his mind, a much more familiar face. Mac smiled at him so sweetly that morning, his giddiness about scheming together again palpable in the air. Mac smiled at him earlier, too, lying next to him silently, their arms brushing just enough to set that part of Dennis’s skin on fire. Mac had always looked at him that way. It made him seem younger. Dennis wondered if perhaps that was because it reminded him of high school, of smoking pot underneath the stadium bleachers, of Mac staying late at his house and beating him for fifteen rounds of Killer Instinct just so he wouldn’t have to go home. Mac still looked at him that way, even when that Dennis and the Dennis he was now seemed lifetimes apart.

“Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time...”

Feet moving before he even made the conscious decision, Dennis slinked off the couch, feeling his way through the darkness until his fingers curled around Mac’s doorknob. Yes, maybe he’d done the scheme to make Mac happy, to spend time with him, to make-believe their friendship hadn’t taken a turn for the worst in recent years. Dennis knew he had to shoulder most of the blame, but perhaps it didn’t have to be that way. He was so tired of performing, so tired of playing a character that nobody, especially Mac, believed in anymore. And if Mac already knew him, truly knew him in the way that he had so long feared being known, then why play the character at all?

Dennis assuredly but slowly creaked open Mac’s door, shuffling forward until he nearly tripped over the bare mattress. Mac was snoring, but the sound was familiar, and Dennis was suddenly tired enough to deal with it. He laid down as quietly as possible, but Mac’s cheap old mattress practically screamed beneath him, and Mac rolled over, eyes wide and stark white in the darkness, searching until he found Dennis’s face.

“Den?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

“Shhhh, go to sleep,” Dennis said, slipping his legs underneath Mac’s blanket. He curled his arms inward on his chest, contouring his body to fit around Mac’s shape without actually touching him. Mac didn’t protest, only sighed softly and inched just a bit closer. “The couch was killing my back,” Dennis whispered, and Mac chuckled.

“Figured,” he yawned, rolling back over. Dennis’s eyes popped open, and he stared at the back of Mac’s head for a long moment before swallowing and letting out a little yawn himself. He released the tension he’d been holding since that morning in his jaw, and with the familiar scent of Mac’s hair gel on their shared pillow consuming him, sleep finally came.

#iasip s14 #s14 spoilers #the gang gets romantic #iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #mac mcdonald #dennis reynolds #macdennis #macdennis fanfic #fanfiction #WOW #i'm uhhhh #idk what to say about this one #i just wanted to write some macdennis shit for abbey road's 50th anniversary ig #anyways stan macdennis #and stream abbey road!!!!#personal #lonely girl queue are my world

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glassesaremyonlyweakness · 5 years

Text

Literally about all of my Music Meister headcanons

This is really fucking long I wrote this over the course of a few days for another thing that will probably take a few more days and I went overboard If you decide to read this; bear with me (Also send me questions about him I’ll add the answer to my next entry in this big ass clusterfuck)

- The Music Meister’s real name is Dennis Neville Prowell, but he changed it to Alastor Prowell because people made fun of him as a child for being named Dennis Neville. Plus, he always says it's so uncool for a slick guy like him’.

- He kept his last name cause Prowell is his mother’s name and the guy’s a mama’s boy, he’s soft, give him a break.

- The Meister is actually Welsh on his mother’s side. He’d learn how to speak the language, but the guy knows how to play *every* instrument. They say the brain can never be full but it sure as hell can be cramped.

- Alastor has a little sister, she’s a little baby, well not really, but she’s like nine. Her name is Jacqueline, and her big brother calls her Jackie.

- Jackie was born thanks to a sperm donor, since the father is no longer in the picture. Jokes on him, Ms. Prowell is the one with the fortune now.

- Alastor isn’t the best with kids (they’re annoying and he’s impatient), but Jacquline is his little princess. His mother has to stop him from spoiling her rotten all day with dresses and jewelry and sweets.

- High-key, he really wants to get her a pair of musical note glasses like his.

- (I might make Jacquelin her own headcanon page tbh)

- Of course, the family doesn’t know that their beloved son/brother is the corrupt conductor himself, y’know until he gets arrested.

- Strangely enough, no one of the Meister’s direct family are affected by his singing voice. By direct family, I mean his father, his mother, and Jackie. Aunts and cousins are affected, definitely, Alastor proved such on one of their many family trips back home when he was thirteen and edgy.

- He believes it has something to do with his dad, maybe, but he can’t be too sure. If only he knew the guy more than he does right now…

- Anyway.

- If musicals was a religion, Alastor would be the cool local pastor who preaches on Sundays and actually *bakes* brownies for the fundraiser instead of buying them from the store, *Linda.*

- He loves almost all of them (almost), but will not divulge which one’s he dislikes. He’s gotta stay on brand.

- The man will go fucking off though if you let him, whether or not he’s talking about one he likes or dislikes. He has a lot to say.

- Some of his all time favorites that were on Broadway are Phantom of the Opera (it’s a classic) and Wicked. If were were going to categorize it by how good the songs are, he likes the songs from the Waitress, and Something Rotten, and the recent Beetlejuice musical.

- I think it’s safe to say that he sings those songs all the time no matter where he is or what he’s doing, even the collar that Arkham Asylum gives him that makes is so he can’t sing can’t stop him from humming them at the very least.

- When he gets upset he talks a bit faster and then the gap in his teeth gives him a front lisp.

- Whenever he starts lisping, everyone will know, cause once he realizes what he’s doing he’ll cover his mouth and look super embarrassed. (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t really like his angy lisp.)

- This is getting too long isn’t it

- What else is there I know there’s more…

- Real time, I’m fucking blanking right now

- Oh yeah I wanted to talk about kid Meister too

- Alastor, from birth to eleven, was practically an angel. He always listened to his mother, he did his homework, he ate his vegetables, and he even got that bowl haircut that his mother insisted on him having for a few years because it made him ‘Look like a little gentleman’.

- Yeah his mom was really good at embarrassing him in public.

- Speaking of his mom again, she was the one to give Alastor his first singing lesson.

- He had a heavenly set of pipes and she made sure that he knew so every day.

- His father was less than eager to do so.

- In fact, he wasn’t really involved in Alastor’s life other than having a hand in conceiving him. He always had ‘better things to do’, which always struck up arguments whenever he mentioned it to his wife.

- Alastor has never explicitly *heard* his parents argue, but he would always be able to tell when they did because his mom would send him outside to play for an hour or two. By the time he’d be back, both of his parents would be avoiding each other for the rest of the day.

- Legally, his father lost full time custody of Alastor when he was around twelve.

- It went from Mom on Sun-Wed and Dad on Thur-Sat, to Mom on Sun-Thur and Dad on Fri-Sat, until eventually, Mom obtained full custody by word of the court. Alastor doesn’t recall hearing from him ever since then.

- When it came to the bullies, Alastor was picked on for pretty much everything about his person. I mentioned his name earlier, but there was how he dressed in a sweater vest everywhere and always had a little green bowtie, his bowl cut, the gap in his teeth, his lisp (which was much more prominent until he lost his baby teeth), even his tube socks aren’t safe from them, just cause they’re a bit frilled at the tops. As explained in his very first villain song though, the main reason he got picked on was because he was a boy who sang in choir.

- At first it was rather simple bullying, verbal stuff about how much of a nerd he was, how stupid he looked, calling him a momma’s boy (as if that was a bad thing). But it quickly escalated to threats and physical violence.

- The worst was *about* to come when they were going to ruin a choir show during his solo, until the strangest thing happened.

- The bullies decided that they would let him sing a bit before enacting their plan, but as soon as Alastor saw them, he got stressed very quickly, and wished that they would just leave him alone. And to his surprise, they did. They just stood there at the last row of chairs and didn’t do anything. They didn’t even like…..emote..or move like,,, at all? Alastor really thought he’d see the guys get impatient and start fidgeting and moving around until someone gave some sort of signal and let everything go to hell, but nope. They stood there patiently during the whole solo.

- They started avoiding him after that incident, strangely. Like when you’re walking on the sidewalk, and you see someone really creepy person walking towards you on that same sidewalk, so you take the time to move to the other sidewalk? That, except Alastor was the alleged creepy person and the bullies were the person who took the time to exchange sidewalks.

- The only other time he caught them again was around half a month later? That was after class outside the school when he was waiting for his mom to pick him up from choir class. The bullies really couldn’t help themselves but make fun of his choir robes on their way out, but he was a bit more prepared for this encounter than they had anticipated.

- He started singing again, belting simple commands and making them pick things up and walk around and

- Listen.

- The power could not have gone to his head any faster.

- He made them dance intricate ballets and sing along to some of his chords, all until his mother finally drove up.

- He released the bullies, and went on with his day, solidifying his brand new status as someone to be feared.

- During his teenage years he fully embraced this status.

- Boy became a 100% certified hunk

- I mean punk

- But actually though I didn’t mean to type hunk

- All of his clothes were either ripped or leather and he grew out his hair, and he kept his sick musical note glasses from when he was young (he just got a bigger pair is what I mean, his head still grew).

- Really, he was the kid that no one would want to mess with, as well as the one your parents warned you about when you were six.

- He was a bean pole until puberty literally turned him into a box man.

- Literally though.

- His shoulders got broad, his muscles got big, and his assssests became uh, more ideal for a villain? Yes let’s go with that.

- What I’m saying is, bean became box and also he’s a part time criminal.

- He kind of just stole little things, like a pack of gum that wouldn’t be missed from those racks of stuff near the cash register at a Stop and Shop or something.

- And then he robbed a bank over the intercom, that was pretty impressive.

- Am I uh

- Am I done?

- Honestly I’m sure I’ll come up with more things eventually.

#Music Meister #long post #meister meist and the music bunch #headcanon #batman: the brave and the bold

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eirian-houpe · 4 years

Text

What the Actual Fuck! - Chapter 4

Fandom: Cobra (TV 2019), Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Belle (Once Upon a Time)/Robert Sutherland (Cobra)

Characters: Robert Sutherland (Cobra), Belle (Once Upon a Time), Neville (OC) Anna Marshall (Cobra)

Additional Tags: Angst, Betrayal, Extramarital Affairs, Politics, Drama, Eventual Smut, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Violence, Explicit Language, UST, Adding to this list when necessary

Summary: Prime Minister Robert Sutherland is feeling pressured, and isn't prepared to acquiesce to the repeated challenges from within his cabinet nor the wider circle of those around him. He resorts to drastic measures to ascertain who can be trusted, turning to an 'old friend' to help him separate the wheat from the chaff. Said friend promises to send in his best operative to assist the PM, the trouble is the operative finds out more than Robert necessarily wants to know, and all this just as all hell is breaking loose around him; people hurt, Britain in chao and multiple deaths push him into making some hard hitting decisions in order to safeguard himself, the country, and the people he cares about.