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the-bau-quinjet · 3 years

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You Belong With Me

Chapter 5 of In Breakable Heaven!!

Summary: Penelope has a Halloween party!

Warnings: none

Word Count: ~3100

You woke up slowly, not realizing you were on the couch with another human. As usual, you tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but instead of landing on the other side of your bed you land squarely on the floor between your couch and coffee table. Spencer shifted on the couch to look down at you as the two of you burst into laughter.

“Are you okay?” He struggled to get the words out through the laughter.

“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine.” Finally managing to stand up, you grab the trash from the night before and throw it out. Spencer grabs the dishes from behind you and loads them into the dishwasher. You are about to offer Spencer some breakfast when he breaks the silence.

“I should probably get going, but, uh, I can’t find my phone.” You can’t help but smile at the dejected look on his face.

“It probably sunk into the couch, here” you hand him your phone “You can call it while I look under the cushions.” He takes your advice, dialing his phone and holding yours up to his ear.

“It’s ringing.” You can hear it begin to vibrate as you remove cushions from the couch. “Got it!” You hold the phone up victoriously, answering the call. “Hello Doctor. What can I do for you?” You can’t help but tease him a little. He hangs up your phone, trading it for his.

“Thank you. I really do have to go, but I’m really glad I got to see you again.” “Me too. I mean, I don’t have to go. I live here. I just meant I’m really happy I got to see you again too. And now you have my phone number, so we can talk more!” You force yourself to stop rambling before you say something even more embarrassing.

He just grins at you, glad to not be the one rambling for once, and waves goodbye as he says “I’m looking forward to it.”

Around 4 PM a couple days later, you get a text from Spencer. You two had been texting pretty consistently since he left your apartment. But this text feels like a birthday gift from up above when you read the five simple words. Not that you would tell him today is your birthday. That would be weird to just randomly bring up.

From Spencer: “Are you busy right now?”

To Spencer: “Nope. I just got back from the bookstore.”

It takes what feels like eternity for him to respond. Unbeknownst to you, he is pacing his apartment, working up the nerve to press send.

From Spencer: “Do you want go see a movie? There’s a new Scream that just started in theaters and since Halloween is right around the corner, I thought it might be fun.”

You can’t help but squeal a little when you read and reread the message.

To Spencer: “I would love to! I love Halloween.”

From Spencer: “Great, I can pick you up at 5?”

To Spencer: “See you then”

You instantly drop what you were working on to get ready. You have to pick out something to wear that says you’re interested but isn’t too much for going to see a movie. You decide on a pair of dark wash jeans, black combat boots, and a light sweater that ties in the back. It’s cute, comfy, and very fall. Just as you finish your mascara, you hear a knock on your door. You grab your purse and swing it open to find Spencer standing there in a black button up, dark jeans, a maroon cardigan, and of course, black converse. He looks incredible. You can feel the blush on your cheeks as he looks at you. “Ready to go?”

“Yep, just let me grab my keys.” And with that, the two of you are walking back down to his car. You arrive to the theater 15 minutes before the movie, the perfect amount of time to get some snacks! You insist on buying the popcorn and sweet treats since he bought the tickets. You make your way into the theater and see it’s mostly empty except for a few people in the back. You find two seats in the middle and sit down. You’re honestly a little nervous because even though you love scary movies and haunted houses, you still get freaked out pretty easily. The scare is why you love it, but also why you’re nervous.

“Are you okay?” Spencer’s question cuts off your train of thought.

You decide to answer honestly “yeah, I love scary movies. I just… get scared… Wow that was stupid.” You can feel the blush creeping up again as you try to come up with a better way of describing it.

“That’s not stupid at all. It’s really all because of adrenaline and other fear induced hormones. It is common for people to seek out adrenaline inducing situations because the brain itself won’t determine how much danger you are in. It only recognizes the fear and produces adrenaline to combat it.” You inadvertently cut him off when you hug him, muttering a quiet thank you. He’s too distracted by the scent of your perfume to continue on about adrenaline.

Ten minutes in and the movie hasn’t been that bad yet. You can’t tell if you’re disappointed or glad you aren’t screaming like crazy. Just as you let your guard down, there’s a jump scare that has you grabbing Spencer’s arm for safety. He laughs, seemingly unfazed by the cheap scare, and shifts so he is holding your hand. “Just squeeze my hand when you’re scared” he whispers in your ear. You feel the butterflies again as you nod at him. You squeeze his hand on and off throughout the rest of the movie, blushing when his thumb starts to rub circles on your hand.

When the movie is over, the two of you decide to go across the street to a diner for some real dinner. You are right in the middle of eating breakfast for the third time that day when both your phones go off. Glancing down, you see a text from Penelope.

From PG: “Y/N!! I am having an impromptu Halloween party and I do not want to hear it that you are too busy. Get your butt over here by 9!!”

To PG: “You got it! Costume?”

From PG: “Of course! I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

You look up at Spencer “Penelope’s party?” You immediately try to think of a costume you can pull together from what you’ve got at home. It’s already October 27th, but you hadn’t planned a costume yet.

“Yep, I guess I have to go find a costume.” Spencer replies, running his hands through his hair.

“Same here. I have no idea what I’m going to wear.”

“I can drop you back at your apartment if you want? So you can get ready.” You sigh, he is obviously right but you were hoping the night would last a little longer.

“That would be great, thank you.” At least you know you’ll see him soon.

Getting ready goes a lot easier than you anticipated. You pull together a young, country Taylor Swift costume with denim cutoff shorts, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, a navy tank top, and a matching flannel. You decide to grab your acoustic guitar just to add to the look. It’ll work. You finish your makeup and leave in a hurry. Penelope is not one to be kept waiting.

You get to Penelope’s apartment at 9:02. “What took so long? I thought you would be right over after I texted.” She scolded as she opened the door.

“I wasn’t home, so I had to go home and throw together a costume” you laugh as she looks you up and down, doing a little twirl. She looks you in the eye before confirming your costume “Country Taylor Swift, not bad.”

“Why thank you! Might I add you make an incredible vampire!” You say, lifting your hat off your head. Penelope just rolls her eyes and opens the door wider for you to come in. You immediately spot the rest of the team as other the other guests. Emily, Derek, JJ – who brought Will - Hotch, and Rossi. You didn’t know them all that well, but apparently you made a good impression since you were invited back. You aren’t sure if Spencer has told them anything about the two of you hanging out, so you decide not to say anything either. Instead, you admire everyone’s costumes.

Emily is dressed as Black Widow in a tight all leather getup. Derek matches Penelope’s vampire costume, something you are sure she made him wear. JJ and Will make an adorable Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl. You are still trying to figure out Hotch and Rossi’s costumes when you hear them arguing. “I am very clearly a chef. Look at my hat.” Rossi says as he emphatically points to his head.

“And I am from Men in Black.” Hotch declares. You are sure he is glaring from behind those sunglasses. They all turn and greet you when you get close enough.

“Who are you dressed as?” Derek asks as he looks you up and down.

“She’s clearly a young TS. The only thing missing is the signature curly blonde hair.” JJ looks shocked that Derek couldn’t put that together.

“Ooh, since you’re dressed as a singer, you have to go first in karaoke. We can’t start until everyone is here though. Penelope’s rules.” Emily declares.

“I guess I need a drink then!” You laugh as you head to the kitchen. You pour yourself a glass of white wine, not understanding how anyone can enjoy the vinegar like taste of the red, and walk back into the living room.

You immediately spotted Spencer. He was wearing a loose white button up with puffy sleeves, a black vest, black jeans, and he had a red bandana tied around his head. Plus, he was carrying a prop sword. The converse didn’t really match, but you could still figure out the look. He was the dorkiest pirate you have ever seen and you loved it. Derek was giving him a hard time, but before you could do anything Emily was pulling you over to the karaoke machine.

“It’s time to start karaoke!!” She was clearly a little tipsy, but you did not feel nearly drunk enough to sing in front of these people. You downed your wine, earning some whistles, and put the glass on the coffee table.

“Emily! I have no idea what to sing.” You tried to protest.

“Nonsense, you can sing a Taylor Swift song.” JJ chimed in “Something from an old album since your dressed country!”

Emily immediately started a song before you could protest anymore and you were singing almost immediately.

You’re on the phone with your girlfriend, she’s upset.

‘At least it’s an easy song to perform’ you thought to yourself, having done it what felt like a million times. But they don’t know that. Before you knew it, the girls were all singing the end of the song with you.

Have you ever thought just maybe, you belong with me? You belong with me.

You chanced a glance at Spencer as you finished the song. You refused to look at him before that, knowing he would make you too nervous. Before you had a chance to comprehend the look on his face, Derek inadvertently interrupted the moment “Y/N you’ve been holding out on us. That was great!” He said. The others joined in on the praise as you turned red. You managed to squeak out a “thanks” before retreating to fill your wine glass. Spencer met you in the kitchen.

“That really was an amazing performance. You should consider switching careers.” You laughed at his comment, it was pretty comical considering your side hobby. “No really. You would be amazing.”

You turned even redder with the compliment. “Thanks Doc, I appreciate the confidence boost.” You almost told him then and there, but ultimately you were being called back to the living room to hear Rossi sing Bon Jovi.

The night continued much the same until Penelope broke off into the kitchen. You were going to follow her, but Rossi pulled you back into a conversation and you missed the chance. Soon enough she was returning with a huge birthday cake. At first, you were shocked. Then you realized she was the Penelope Garcia. Figuring out someone’s birthday is child’s play to her.

Then you were shocked again, because everyone was singing to Spencer. Apparently it was after midnight and his birthday is October 28th.

Once everyone has a piece of cake, you walk up to Spencer hitting him on the arm, “Why didn’t you tell me today is your birthday?”

He deflects the question easily. “Today only just started, so I really didn’t have time. Plus you haven’t told me when your birthday is.”

You instantly freeze at that. You can’t possible tell him your birthday was yesterday. That would be so awkward. He immediately senses the tensions and asks “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

You practically run out of the room calling “yep I’m fine, all good, 100% a-o-kay.”

Spencer, confused by your quick exit, decided to look at your license to figure out your birthday. Maybe he could surprise you with something. Realization dawned on his features as he read the date, seeing that your birthday was yesterday.

You were relieved when Spencer didn’t chase after you to figure out exactly why you practically sprinted away from the conversation. You decided to just enjoy the rest of the party.

Around 2 AM everyone was heading out. You hung back a little since Spencer hadn’t left yet, hoping you’d be able to walk out with him. God, you feel like a teenager again. Secretly crushing on a guy who clearly only likes you as a friend. Ugh.

“Y/N!” You break out of your pitying thoughts to see Penelope and Spencer standing in front of you. Great. How long were you just staring at the ground? “You okay?” Penelope asks, looking at you with clear concern.

“Yeah, I’m just tired. You threw quite the party!” You tried to joke to clear the air. “Thanks for inviting me, Pen.” You hugged her as you looked around for your purse, grabbing it off the chair. Spencer has been staring at you with a contemplative look on his face during the whole encounter.

“I’ll see you soon, right?” You looked back as you opened the door. “Of course, my lovely!” Penelope smiled as you and Spencer left, him calling a quick goodbye as he walked out after you. You didn’t say anything until you noticed Spencer was walking towards your apartment with you.

“What are you doing?” Ugh, real subtle. What kind of a question is that?

“Walking you home. It’s my birthday, you can’t say no.” You rolled your eyes at his playful tone, but there was something serious in his eyes. “Why didn’t you say your birthday was yesterday? We could have celebrated!” He seemed genuinely confused.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve never been the kind of person who does well with all that attention. My birthday was never a huge deal growing up, so I haven’t really made a big deal out of it now. Pen wanted a Halloween party, not a birthday party. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.” You couldn’t make eye contact with him. You’ve never really talked about these insecurities with anyone.

“First of all, she clearly didn’t mind having a party for both because she had a birthday cake for me. I am completely sure that she would have decorated it for both of us had she known. Second, you deserve to have people make a big deal. You are an incredible person, Y/N. You are extraordinarily kind, selfless, and beautiful.” He pauses for a second before pulling something out of his bag. “I didn’t know your birthday was even in October, but I bought these a few days ago. I was going to give them to you after the movie, but then Garcia called and we split up. If you don’t like them I can take them back I just thought since you twist your earrings around so much, maybe they were bothering you and maybe a new pair would help. Penelope actually helped me pick them out, although she doesn’t know that. She just mentioned how she thought you would like them when we were at the farmer’s market.”

Tears sprung to your eyes as you realized how much thought he must’ve put into this. You couldn’t help but throw yourself into a hug whispering “thank you, Spence. That is so thoughtful.” He rubbed your back until you stepped back from the hug. You opened the box to find a pair of dainty white gold earrings. One was a moon and the other a star. “They are beautiful.” You whispered into his ear as you pulled him in for another hug.

Stepping back again, the two of you made your way to your apartment. Upon arrival, you confessed, “I actually have something for you too. It’s upstairs though, so you have to come inside.” He smiled as you pulled him into your building.

“I obviously didn’t know your birthday is today, but you told me about breaking your watch and when I saw this in the store window I thought of you and it just looked perfect.” You watched as he slowly opened the watch box, pulling out a simple brown leather band with a white watch face surrounded by a silver casing. It honestly screamed Dr. Spencer Reid. The watch face isn’t too modern and the leather band matches his satchel.

“Y/N, it’s perfect. Thank you.” He closed the box, hugging you to say thank you. Looking into his eyes, you realized with 100% certainty you are falling for Dr. Spencer Reid. “Let’s go to sleep” is all you can say in response. You pull him into the bed and snuggle as close as you dare, too afraid to say anything else when you don’t know how he feels. The two of you drift into a restful sleep, not even bothering to change from your costumes.

You wake up due to the muffled voice of Spencer in the kitchen. You can smell the coffee, so you quickly change into some pajamas before walking out to join him. He glances at you apologetically while you pour the coffee into two mugs, adding equal amounts of sugar to both.

As soon as he hangs up, he’s hugging you goodbye. “I’m so sorry, we have a case. We are supposed to be at the jet in 30 minutes.”

“Don’t worry about it Doc. Go save the world.” You decide to listen to Superman on repeat for an hour while you clean.

tag list:

@mac99martin @goldeng1rl8 @eevee0722 @l0ve-0f-my-life @haylaansmi @dinonuggets15 @laurakirsten0502 @green-intervention @burnin-passion @takeyourleap-of-faith @secretpickleprofessordean @awkwardnesshabitat

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #criminal minds x reader #Criminal Minds

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lydias--stiles · 3 years

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Can’t handle the heat? (Try me.)

“Put that AC on, folks! It’s gonna be a whopping 105 degrees today and it’s not going down any time soon! Best to stay inside and keep your head in the fridge! Next up - “Positions” by Ariana Grande!”

The band groaned as the radio host clicked off, Ariana Grande blaring through the stereo. The sweltering heat had them all on the floor, fanning their faces with composition papers and one measly portable fan. It did shit, but there was nothing else available in the studio. Reggie’s face was completely red, Alex’s hair has turned brown from sweat and Julie was this close to begging them to teleport her to the Arctic. Everyone was beat. Well... all except one person.

Luke Patterson would literally be the death of her. And the second death of the boys.

Though sweating like a pig as well, no heatwave could temper that perpetual energy of his.

“Come on, guys!” His foot prodded Alex’s side, the blonde swatting him away. “It’s just a lil’ heat. Nothing we’re not used to.”

Alex groaned. “Dude, those lights in the 90′s were for thirty minutes, max. This has been going on for days.”

“Literally!”, added Reg.

Julie hoisted herself up, cringing at the way her body was suctioned against the cement floor. “I think we just have to wait it out until this ends.”

“It’s LA,” he deadpanned. “It never ends.”

Ugh. He was right. Summers in Los Angeles felt like simmering in an oven for months on end, hot enough to hallucinate, just cool enough to not actually die. It didn’t help that the trees were burning too. There was no shadow or shade for the Californians to hide beneath.

“Come on, Jules,” he grinned, giving her that face he knew she couldn’t deny. It was an unfair move of his, but she had also been secretly hoping to play a little. Days without music felt like not breathing properly, or sleeping on the wrong side and having a kink in your neck afterwards. Music was, despite the heat, still the thing that tipped her over the edge. And when Luke asked her with that sweet smile...

It probably helped he looked good all sweaty like that. She couldn’t even feel embarrassed about it. She was seventeen and he was seventeen and hot and it was the only logical reaction one could have.

She sighed. “Fine.” Holding her hand out, he went to grab it and pulled her up. Too hard. Julie flew forward with a squeak, straight into his chest. Instinctively, she grabbed onto his warm shoulders to steady herself while he gripped her waist. Both froze, mortified.

Because they’ve been here before.

Last summer, after a gig in a tiki bar, the boys and her had been dancing on the beach. Far enough for no one to suspect anything, close enough to still hear the music. Luke and her had been wrapped around each other, executing salsa and tango miserably but having fun either way. She’d been giggling uncontrollably and he couldn’t keep the beam of his face when all of a sudden, their lips were a brush away. If Reggie hadn’t exclaimed he found Patrick Star, she was keenly aware of what would’ve happened. They didn’t talk about it afterwards and Julie filed it in the “Luke Patterson, My Idiot Crush”-map of her brain.

His body was buzzing with warmth and his muscles rippled under her fingers and his shirt clung to his chest. Her physique probably left little to the imagination too right now. As if burned, Julie let go and settled her eyes back on the boys. They were, of course, eating it up like the bastards they were.

She clapped her hands, voice an octave higher than usual. “Come on, guys! One run through!”

Fortunately, everything went back to normal. They were still huffing and puffing, but Reggie was smiling as he found the bassline and Alex discovered that the slam of the drum relieved some heat and Luke was, you know, Luke. Julie pushed the moment to back of her mind. She only allowed herself to indulge in her dreams.

It was hard though. His hair was pushed back and his muscles were glistening like some CW character and with the heatwave, he has somehow become hotter. Did he get a tan? Was that possible? Regardless, Julie’s stomach was in knots. She tried her hardest to give him neutral glances and not like she wanted to slide her hands up his arms. Dios mio, get a fucking grip, Molina.

But then it happened. She should’ve known it would happen. And there was only Reggie to blame.

One run through became five and by then, every pore on their skin was drenched. If only she had a pool. Maybe she should text Kayla after this, beg her to let her use it. As she was debating on that, Reggie pulled of his wife beater. Which was fine. It was Reggie. It was like seeing Carlos run around shirtless after his shower. Five minutes later, Alex exchanged his t-shirt for one of Willie’s crop tops. That also, was fine. She was itching to remove her top as well, a bikini underneath, but she wasn’t sure if her nerves could handle it.

And then Luke set his guitar down with an annoyed puff and threw his muscle tank on the ground. Julie stilled. Was he going to...? Nope. He wasn’t getting another tank. This was it. This was where she joined them on the side of the unliving. His chest was defined and smooth, abs peeking through the skin. This boy was stupidly hot. It felt illegal: a seventeen year old boy sculpted like Apollo. Her breathing quickened just like that.

If she thought her throat was dry from the heat, she was mistaken. Julie swallowed back saliva, licked her lips and forced herself to stop ogling. Her actions weren’t fast enough though, Luke having noticed by now and grinning like he won the lottery.

He sauntered closer, eyes gleaming with mischief and challenge. She held it, levelling his intensity with her own. “Can’t handle a little heat, Jules?”

Internally, she was happy to be sitting behind her keyboard. Externally though, she could not let him win. If his cocky attitude was normally dialled on five, it was now up to eleven. Try me, Luke.

She stood up and gave him an unimpressed once-over. “I’m happy you guys are getting comfortable,” she said to Alex and Reg. “Okay if I do too?”

The two nodded, Alex barely holding in a snicker and Reggie letting one out anyway. Luke’s eyes widened, bravado crashing to the floor as he put the pieces together.

“W-wait, wha-?”

Julie grabbed the hem of her shirt and shed it off her skin. She sighed - finally, some relief from this fucking heat - and let the advantage of surprise push her to throw a prideful smirk his way. Her bikini top was nothing special, but if she had to suffer, then so did he.

His eyes went from her chest to her face again, stammering and paralysed and yeah, she felt pretty damn attractive right now. She was going to be relishing this moment till the end of time. Smiling innocently, she leaned forward.

“Something you wanna say, Luke?”

Frantically shaking his head, he backed away, fingers clenching around his guitar and retreating to his designated spot. The boys were leaning against each other, giggling.

“Nope,” he coughed, fixing a stressed smile. “Let’s keep going, yeah?”

(When later that day Luke and Julie were cleaning up the studio by themselves and he quietly told her she looked pretty in blue, the tension resolved. She then told him his eyes popped in the sunlight and after, they smiled at each other for a beat. Not heated or shy - just smiling. Open and achingly genuine. It felt like a promise, a hopeful wish that their moment on the beach would happen again.)

(It would. Two weeks later, right at the end of the heatwave as they played at yet another tiki bar, Luke pulled her aside. Sweaty and sandy and happy, they met the other halfway for a warm kiss.)

Yeah, they could handle the heat.

@mouse-fantoms @heademptynothoughts @blush-and-books @willexx @unsaid-emily @sophiphi

#i'm such a fool. saying i won't do it and here the fuck i am. y'all can clown on me. please clown on me.#juke #julie and the phantoms #otp: i think we make each other better #jatp fanfiction #jatp: heatwave #((also chloe remember that guy??? yeah....... but all in good fun lmao))

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willyoulovemeinthemorning · 3 years

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The Prodigal Daughter Chapter 3/?

Story Summary: As the secret daughter of Jason Gideon, you’ve always had a certain proclivity towards profiling. After finishing the Academy, you finally have your chance in the BAU- only months after your dad’s passing. Will it all be too much? Will you find yourself sharing another proclivity with your father for a certain genius with big puppy dog eyes? A/N: Thank you all for the continued responses to this story! I’m so happy I’m finally just forcing myself to write for the first time in a decade. Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist! special call out to @candlesandsoftrain for being an especially awesome beta for this one- her suggestions are always amazing! Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader  Category: Fluff/mild anxiety driven angst Content Warning: So much tension, a very anxious Y/N, sexually charged moments. Later chapters will include NSFW Word Count: 3500+

Previous Chapter

Chapter 3

After a night of drinking more than you, well, probably ever had, you woke up with a horrible hangover. You rubbed your eyes and stretched, before suddenly becoming aware of another human being behind you on your bed. You searched your mind for what happened the night prior, only kind of panicking at the idea that you could have… did you?

Said person in your bed made a sound, and you chanced a look without moving too much. “I feel like I’ve been hit by an 18 wheeler.” You heard Emily moan grumpily, which made you giggle lightly. You’d forgotten that she asked for a sleepover. You were so wrapped up in everything Reid, which was absolutely all you dreamed about last night. His hands, his voice, his hair, how he smelled like books and the forest…

“Me too…” you agreed. “Reid said he was going to come and get us this morning, but I have no idea what time it is or even when he’s coming. He said he’d text you.” Emily reached over to her side of the bed blindly, almost knocking her phone off as she tried to grab it. “Are you going to need to go to your place or do you want to borrow some more of my clothes. You seem to fit my PJs pretty well.”

Emily made a noncommittal noise as she put her phone to her face. “Hey Spencer, what time do you thi- You’re five minutes away? Cool cool no of course we’re up and ready to go. No we are not still in bed shut up.” You could assume she was talking to Spencer, and you panicked again, looking down at yourself and imagining what your face and hair looked like right now. Fuck. “Y/N, what’s the apartment number so he knows what number to buzz up to?”

“Um… 364.” You responded, and when she looked at you, she gave you a questioning gaze.

“Yeah, see you in a few, thanks Spencer.” She hung up the phone and stared at you, waiting for you to explain your face.

“I look like a mess!” You shouted, making her wince. You got up and started running around, your own hangover a thing of the past in favor of trying to clean up whatever you could. Your two cats who had been asleep on your feet made some very disgruntled sounds at your dislodging them, and they ran for the hills when you started running around like a crazy person. You imagined that you looked like a hungover hurricane. “He can’t see me like this! I’m in my pjs and my hair is gross and greasy and my makeup is probably smeared all over my face and my head is pounding and I bet I smell and- ugh!” You ran into the bathroom and turned on the shower. You didn’t have long, but you could make a lot happen in five minutes if you tried. “Grab whatever you want to wear!” You screamed, leaving Emily in the dust as you hopped in the shower.

You heard her follow in after you had closed the curtain, fumbling around with your drawers, finding what she wanted apparently. Her hand reached in and handed you what you figured she’d been looking for- a makeup wipe. You took it gladly, scrubbing your face clean with it. “You know, he’s not really like that- shallow, I mean. He’s probably the least shallow person I’ve ever known. And even with smudged makeup and PJs, you’re still bangin’, he’d be blind not to notice. And trust me, he’s noticed that you’re bangin’.” Her voice filled the room.

She was rustling through your drawers again, and you could hear your makeup rattling around as she sifted through it. “I… I’m sure that’s true, Emily, but I still… he doesn’t know me yet. I… I just want to make a good impression. He’s just…” You paused, suddenly remembering that you’d literally just met this woman and you were about to pour your heart out to her. “He’s just… he’s a new coworker and it’s different with men in the workplace. I don’t mind you seeing me a certain way, but I don’t want Morgan or Hotchner or Rossi or Reid to see me anything less than professional.” You finished, knowing she saw right through you, hoping she wouldn’t comment on it.

“Yeah, sure, you want Reid to only see you in a professional light. Sure. Professional.” Emily snickered. “You absolutely don’t want him bending you over a desk in the middle of a classroom while he’s wearing tweed and ramming you until you see stars-”

“Emily!” You would have blushed if you hadn’t already been completely red from the hot water. Even though it was embarrassing that she saw right through you, you laughed. You knew she was teasing and she meant no harm. It was nice to feel so at ease with her already.

“Did you know that he’s a professor in his off hours? Like a real one. At a college. With students.” She continued, and you could almost hear the shit eating grin on her face.

“Oh my god go away!” You laughed, trying to ignore the warmth spreading low in your belly. That image was… incredibly attractive. How were you supposed to get through the rest of the day without picturing everything Emily just described?

“Oh yeah, sure, I’ll go, so you can have some alone time.” Just in time too, because the buzzer went off in your apartment. “I’ll go get it, miss Y/N, enjoy the rest of your shower time.” She sing-songed as she headed to your door. You tried to focus on finishing in the shower and not on the fact that Spencer was on his way up to your apartment right now. While you were naked in your shower, possibly thinking about him in a professor look fucking you over his desk in his classroom…

“You are my favorite person in the whole world, have I ever told you that?” You heard Emily squeal. “Y/N is in the shower, but I’m sure she’ll say the same once she sees.” You were curious, but you needed to finish getting ready.

Spencer laughed softly. The sound excited you, happy to hear it coming from inside your home. A few minutes later, you finished up and stepped out of the shower, only to realize you’d forgotten a towel. “Em? Can you grab me a towel from the closet in my room please?!” You called out to her from the opening in the door. You heard some shuffling outside the door, waiting wet and cold until a towel appeared through the slot in the door. You grabbed it and wrapped it around your body, revelling in the heat of it. “Thanks, Em, I appreciate it-” You opened the door and found a very non-Emily person standing in front of you. “S-Spencer! Oh! I-I thought you were Emily- oh my god!” You squeaked, realizing you were standing in front of him looking like a wet rat, covered in only a towel. You didn’t get a chance to see the dark look on his face as he stared at you, taking you in head to toe, because you slammed the door in his face. He made a noise of disapproval. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know- I asked Em and then it was you-”

“It’s okay, Y/N, I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable. Emily was in the middle of putting herself together something to eat and she asked me to help you.” His voice came from the other side of the door, soft, unsure, and lower than you remembered it from yesterday. “I’ll leave you alone to get ready, I’m sorry.”

After a moment of silence, he walked away, his feet shuffling on your carpet. You cursed yourself for making him uncomfortable. But the towel wrapped around you barely covered anything. He’d seen you soaking wet and you were so mortified. No one ever wanted cute boys to see them less than perfect.

You cursed yourself inwardly, moving quickly to get ready- hair, a touch of makeup- only to realize you hadn’t grabbed an outfit before running in a panic to shower. Sighing, you put your PJs pack on to make the trip back to your room, just a tank top and a little pair of shorts- you hated being too covered up at night, so you preferred minimal clothing to sleep in.

While you were bent over and moving things around in your drawers to find yourself a bra and underwear, you heard a sound from behind you- a sharp intake of breath.

“S-Sorry! Sorry I-I just wanted to l-look at your books! I didn’t- I was sure you’d be finishing in the bathroom I am so sorry!” He said, putting his hands over his eyes. You wanted to be horrified- your shorts were SO short and he had definitely just seen a lot of you… but he looked so cute, like a little kid who saw something he wasn’t supposed to.

“Spencer, it’s fine, really. I’m clothed this time, so it’s… it’s fine, I swear.” He peeked at you through his fingers, making you cover your mouth to contain the laugh that wanted to come out. His eyes fell right to your chest, which you realized was only covered by your thin white tank top- oh. You wanted to cover up pretty badly, but you also didn’t want to make him feel even more guilty. You looked around your room and tried to see if you’d left anything inappropriate out, but couldn’t find anything.

“You just… you have so many books, and Emily said you had even more in your room and I wanted to see- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have intruded. This is such an invasion of privacy wow-” He was now looking everywhere but at you, and you kind of missed the way his gaze warmed your insides up and made you shiver. You should have been mad that he was in your room uninvited, but… you liked how he looked in here. It made you feel alive- to have this man here looking at your most private space, looking at your collection of books and belongings.

You stepped towards him, which made his gaze rise to your face, where he found a soft smile. “Spencer, it’s okay. I… would like some privacy to get ready, though? You’re welcome to take in my book collection some other time, if you want. I never get rid of a book. I’d love to know if you think I’m missing anything that I should own.” You said, playing with the end of your tank top.

Spencer smiled at you, shy and adorable. “I’d… like that.” You both stood there for another moment, your eyes avoiding his as he looked at you. The air in the room felt thick and tense, and your heart kept getting faster as he stared at you. After what felt like hours and no time at all, Spencer seemed to pull himself together and walk out of the room to give you your privacy, and you were finally able to take your first breath since you saw him. You looked at yourself in the mirror and took stock of yourself- your chest was flushed pink, your hands were curled into the bottom of your thin tank top that was leaving- very little to the imagination. You never noticed how revealing it was until now, under his scrutiny. You… didn’t mind, though. You liked how he looked at you like you were something beautiful.

Getting dressed in a daze, you finished up and took a deep breath. Time to face the music. Emily and Spencer were on the couch whispering, Spencer's brows creased together. “Hey guys. Sorry I took so long.” They broke apart, both looking at you.

Emily was the first to speak, Reid averting his eyes from you, a rosy color painting his cheeks. “Hey hot stuff. Reid got us caffeine!” She pointed to what you assumed was yours on the coffee table- an energy drink, and somehow, your favorite brand and flavor.

Your face broke out in a huge grin, and you bounced your way over to it. “Thanks so much, Spencer!” You said, opening the can and downing a few gulps. You moaned in delight. “Oh that’s good. Thank god for chemicals that make my brain think it’s awake.” Emily bumped shoulders with Spencer and made him look up at you. He smiled and shrugged, though that tension that you’d had in your bedroom seemed to come back in spades. Would it be inappropriate to jump your brand new coworker within 24 hours of meeting them in front of your other new coworker that you also just met within the last 24 hours? Because you were seriously considering it, your eyes having been staring at his lips for… well, too long at this point. You shook yourself out of it, your face turning a light pick as you caught his eye and he looked a little… damn, did he look smug? Fuck, smug looked good on him.

“What did I miss, guys?” You were desperate to ease the feeling in the room that was making your stomach twist hotly.

Emily smiled at you like she knew all your secrets and took a sip of her coffee, staring you in the eye the whole time. “You know… just talking. You about ready? You took so long in there.” She accused, blinking at you slowly and teasingly.

“Yeah, well, I forgot a towel and then clothes for the day and it just… took a few extra minutes.” She snickered like she knew there was more, but she didn’t press you. “Thanks for coming to get us, Spencer, we really appreciate it. You guys ready to go?”

You turned from them because if you spent one more second looking at that man on your couch, you were going to explode. Or implode. Chances were pretty split on that at the moment. You heard them both get up behind you, and you took the chance to take a breath as you put your shoes on and slipped your jacket on. You really needed to get yourself under control. You worked with the best profilers in the world- there was no way they couldn’t all see through you.

The ride to Quantico was mostly quiet, your head leaning on the window, only answering Emily or Spencer when they directly spoke to you. You were steeling yourself- you were in the process of pulling yourself together. You couldn’t jump your new coworkers bones. You could not continue to fawn all over him. You didn’t join the BAU to get a boyfriend. You joined the BAU to start the career of your dreams, and that was the focus you needed to let drive you. For your dad.

You arrived at Quantico and Spencer parked your car. You all got out relatively quietly, and started heading in, but he put his hand on your elbow and held you back from Emily gently so you two were just out of ear shot. “Y/N… are you okay?” He asked, eyes searching your face.

You couldn’t meet his eyes, but nodded and started walking into the building, hands playing with your bag. “Yeah, of course. Just… excited for day two. Maybe a little nervous. I’ll be okay.” You deflected, pursing your lips. He didn’t look like he believed you, but he didn’t press.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Y/N.” He started, his voice small and his eyes on the ground as he walked beside you. “I didn’t mean to intrude this morning, I just thought- I thought…” He looked at you, and you pretended not to notice. You couldn’t do this right now. You had a job to do, and you couldn’t have… feelings.

You both had stopped walking, and you turned and looked at him, giving him a sad smile. “Spencer, I’m not mad, or even upset. I just… I think I’m a little overwhelmed. Yesterday was my first day, and then everyone was so nice and then they got me drunk and you are just so-” Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath. Your hands were shaking a little, your anxiety making it hard to breathe. You felt his hand take yours, just like last night, and playing with his fingers brought you back down to Earth and made it a little easier to take air into your lungs. “I’m just trying to survive all of this new stuff. It’s all too much and I just… my anxiety can barely take it.”

The sadness in Spencer's beautiful eyes belied his smile. You hated puting that look there. “That’s more than understandable, Y/N. Based on a survey from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, while only 9% of individuals are living with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, 40% experience ongoing stress or anxiety in their daily lives. It’s completely normal. And being a new person on a team like ours… well, I can’t imagine that helps. T-Take your time. You have friends here and we’ll help you through this transition, okay?”

You smiled, looking at him with relief. “Thank you, Spencer.” You met his eyes then, and the pull you felt from the moment you met him surged through the air, tugging you to him, desperate to close the gap between you. But you fought it, forcing yourself to pull away from him completely and drop his hand. “Come on, let’s go. Day two begins now!” You didn’t have to pretend to be excited, because you definitely were. You walked into the bullpen with Reid, only to be greeted immediately by a mildly grumpy and hungover Garcia.

“Genius boy, new girl, we have a case. Pretty butts to the round table, please.” She said, gesturing for you two to follow her. You did, and the rest of the team followed suit. An hour later, the team were all headed to the plane, you behind everyone else. You didn't know where to sit, because everyone paired off--Morgan with Rossi and Hotch to go over theories and ideas, Emily and JJ talking about the case and clearly gossiping too as they sat beside each other. Only Reid sat alone. You nervously stood there, trying to figure out what to do, when Reid looked up and smiled at you, gesturing to the spot by him.

The plane ride went by smoothly after that, you and Reid working together easily- you already had a base geographical profile to work off of by the time you landed. The team was impressed, and you were both proud of your accomplishments. The case was long and hard… the cases with kids were always the hardest for you to hear about when you were young, And this one was incredibly difficult to live through- three little girls lost, and you had only found him after he’d made a mistake and left one alive- just barely, but alive, where he dumped her. She was only 7.

The jet ride home was quiet, everyone dealing with the case in their own way. You sat in your own corner across from Reid, shaking and holding on to your go bag tightly, one hand inside it, your hand on your dad’s journal. You dug your nails into it, trying to find something to ground you. You couldn’t get the images out of your head. The images of those girls…

Suddenly, a note fell upon your lap, and when you looked up, you saw a messy scrawl on a ripped piece of paper. “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them. - Leo Tolstoy” You ran your fingers over the letters, memorizing how his letters looped, how he pressed his pen in differently with each word.

You looked up at him and gave him a small smile, sadness in your eyes. You held your hand out, gesturing for his notebook. He handed it to you along with his pen wordlessly.

“We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all. - Joan Didion” You handed it back to him, tears in your eyes.

He scribbled back quickly. “There is no grief like the grief that does not speak. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow… The first one’s always the hardest, I’m here if you wanted to talk. I’m also here if you just want to sit in silence,” the note read.

You took a moment and thought about it, looking up at him and smiling softly before writing back. “Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is more beautiful than the silence. – Spanish Proverb” His smile in response was absolutely breathtaking, but in the best way- he understood completely. For in this moment, the comfortable silence between the two of you that was everything you needed.

The notebook appeared on your lap again, Spencer not looking at you as you looked at him in wonder. “In the flush of love's light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. - Maya Angelou”

Next Chapter

taglist:

@rexorangecouny @asomers603 @green-intervention @averyhotchner

#Spencer reid #Spencer Reid x reader #Spencer Reid x y/n #Spencer Reid x you #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fluff #Spencer Reid imagine #dr spencer reid #Spencer Reid self insert #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fic #criminal minds self insert #Spencer Reid insert #criminal minds imagine #jason gideon

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gravelyhumerus · 4 years

Text

Criminal Minds College AU

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Title: “I may just take your breath away”

Relationship: Jemily

Summary:

Emily Prentiss, college sophomore, absolutely does not have a crush on the girl across the hall.

Slow-burn Jemily college AU where they live across the hall and despite all odds, the universe pushes them together. AKA they’re silly gay babies who pine after each other for months.

Read it on AO3

Tumblr: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, (bonus scene), Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Epilogue

“Come in, it’s open!” Emily Prentiss yelled out over her music blasting out of the laptop on her desk. She was listening to her pregame playlist, which was chock full of throwbacks, middle-school jams and of course, The Killers to keep things interesting.

Derek Morgan pushed open her dorm room door and waltzed in. He had a pair of light blue jeans on, held up by a brown belt, with a white t-shirt on top. He jumped on top of Emily’s slightly-too-high bed, and bounced as he grinned at her. Derek was many things, shy was definitely not one of them.

“You look hot,” Emily said, with as much sarcasm as she could manage, looking him up and down. She could tell he dressed up.

“You know it, princess.”

Rifling through his backpack, he grinned as he pulled out two blue college-branded metal water bottles, filled with what was probably not water at all.

“I made us sangria!”

Emily laughed, then spun back around in her desk chair. She still needed to finish her makeup. She had her foundation and eyebrows done, but she needed to focus as she applied her eyeliner.

“Did you just mix some juice into the wine?” She asked, taking the bottle from him, having a sip of the fruity liquid.

“Yup! There’s going to be a keg there, but I wanted to give us options.”

Emily laughed before focusing on her mascara wand gliding across her lower eyelashes, trying to finish up so they could start preing for the party. She wasn’t quite dressed yet either, still wearing her class jeans and not her going out jeans (there was an important distinction between these that mostly involved whether or not she could wear them with a belt.) Morgan was about five minutes earlier than she expected. Moreover, the boy had only sprung the invitation to the party during their lab that afternoon.

As much as she hated to admit it, Derek was basically 90% of Emily’s non-academic social life, the second year boy already very well connected due to his football scholarship, letting him in on all of the good parties. Unfortunately that also meant for Emily that he would spring themed parties like anything but clothes, or no cups allowed on her with absolutely no heads up most weekends.

Emily will not wear a tote bag as a skirt again if she can help it.

Despite the excessive drinking and mixed bag of party attendees, Emily genuinely enjoyed the boy’s company. Anyways, he was the best beer-pong partner that she’s ever had.

“Can I hop on aux?” He asked, leaning over her computer before she could even protest.

“Sure,” she replied, knowing he was already on his own Spotify account and putting on his playlist titled ‘FOR THE BOYS and emily’ that he found hilarious. She knew she could get him to sing along to the Mamma Mia! (2008) soundtrack once he was a few shots in, but for now she resigned herself to wordless EDM.

He sat on her desk, bobbing his head along to the beat.

Emily reached into the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a smallish bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, with their college’s crest etched into the glass. For a school that denounced drinking-culture, they had a shocking amount of merch for sale that encouraged it.

She filled each to the line, and slid one towards her friend.

“Bottoms up,” she said, as they cheersed the foul tasting liquid. Morgan grinned and winked at her before shooting it back with the confidence that only a nineteen year old could have.

Vodka still made her queasy, but being underage meant that the college students would take what they could get. Morgan’s senior friends would boot alcohol for them for an extra five bucks, but only every few weeks.

The one thing about the states that Emily still couldn’t wrap her head around was the backwards alcohol policy. Almost everywhere else on earth she would already be legally drinking. Hell, when she was 16 she was passed out in a ditch in rural England, drunk off her ass on legally acquired beer. Even now, if they drove north of the border, Emily could be off to the bars, no questions asked. America was absurd.

“How was the rest of your day?” Emily asked him as she stood up, digging through her dirty laundry to find her other pair of jeans. She tossed aside her fuzzy pjs, a bra and an assortment of band tees but her jeans must’ve been at the bottom. She needed to do laundry but was ripe out of quarters.

“Eh,” he made a face, “I had to finish up that quiz for psych, but honestly I just needed to catch up on some readings. I had like fifty pages of a badly scanned book from like a hundred years ago to annotate.”

“Reading? In this economy?” Emily snarked at him, still rooting through the bin. She knew her blue jeans were here somewhere.

“Well I know you can’t read,” he replied in a haughty tone, “doesn’t mean the rest of us have to remain unenlightened!”

“Ha-ha.”

There they were, right at the bottom of the bin. She changed right then, with Morgan politely averting his eyes, despite the fact that both have seen just about everything in the year or so that they’ve been acquainted.

No, they didn’t hook up or anything, it wasn’t like that.

It was the strange phenomenon that only could happen in college where you get really close really fast. Emily’s RA had explained it to their first-year floor, likening it to soldiers in the war (Emily wasn’t sure if the metaphor was kosher, but it was apt.). Young adults first starting out in the world, free from their family supervision and previous lives, cling on to those around them for stability. The RA explained this as in a cautionary tale, explaining that this can lead to high emotions, to fights, and… a bit more.

This talk led into their floor-cest talk, which was apparently required in every co-ed dorm at their school. Emily was the first to point out the heteronormativity in that policy. Floor-cest, for the uninitiated, was the concept of hooking up with someone on your floor in the dorm. It was formally discouraged by residence life staff. It was easy to have meaningless sex, harder when you have sex with someone you live down the hall from. Things could get messy.

Emily and Derek got this talk on move in day, both sitting cross-legged on the floor of their common room as their RA, a bubbly girl named Carol, explained the fundamentals of dorm life. Emily has been dropped off by her mother’s driver, who helped her unload her things.

Emily was still reeling from being surrounded by happy families, of crying parents and bitter that her mother was too busy to even send her own daughter off to school. Not that Emily wanted her there or anything, but the gesture would have been nice.

She remembered the startling moment when Derek walked straight into her room and offered his hand, introducing himself to his new neighbour.

They shared a wall, the co-ed bathroom down the hall, and most of their free time for their first year at college.

He had assumed that the driver, Paul who was one of Emily’s favourites out of her mother’s staff, was Emily’s father, which started things off on an awkward note. Soon she was swept up in a whirlwind of his family: his mom and sisters who insisted that Emily pose for photos of Derek and ‘his new dorm friend.’

A year later, Emily and Morgan were basically siblings. Emily didn’t actually have any siblings, but after going to Chicago for thanksgiving with the Morgan family, she was pretty sure she had officially been adopted.

Last year, they had a much nicer dorm, one of the newer ones with big windows and nice common spaces. This year they were both living in the oldest residence, a beautiful red brick building, covered with ivy, but the inside was all painted this gross beige, and the paint would chip off whenever Emily tried to hang her posters. There was also no air conditioning, the showers didn’t get too hot and the kitchen smelt like eggs. It was definitely a downgrade, but at least Morgan was on the same floor as her again.

Morgan had lucked out and gotten a corner room with tons of windows, and Emily was right next to the bathroom and could hear when anyone flushed.

After donning the jeans and a black tank top, Emily grabbed her leather jacket and they were ready to go.

“Another shot?” Derek asked, grinning at her mischievously.

“Of course,” Emily said. “Where are we even going anyways?”

“Well, you remember David, the TA from our psych lab? His housemates are throwing a party in their backyard. I heard there was going to be a DJ!”

“David Rossi?” Emily said incredulously, “How did you swing an invite to that?”

“I can’t reveal all of my secrets, you know that pretty lady.”

Emily scoffed. It was probably through their mutual friend Aaron Hotchner, who despite not being much of a partier, was very in the loop about the happenings on campus.

“Did you invite you know who?” Derek asked, a bit too casually as Emily locked her door.

Emily refused to bite.

“She definitely has better things to do than hang out with the likes of us.”

---

“I’m a criminology major,” Emily repeated, the exasperation in her voice palatable.

The boy, who was on the rugby team as she already learned, had asked her what her major was. He misheard her and began asking her how she likes studying biology.

The music was loud and the boy was clearly wasted off his ass. She was pretty sure she saw him do a keg stand in the kitchen earlier.

Emily took another sip of her drink, keeping it close to her chest. She looked around. They were only five minutes off campus at a decent-sized student house. The room was close to being at capacity, the old home creaking under the weight of dozens of students crammed into the living room. Music blared on a strangely impressive speaker system. The party was at its peak in the backyard, and was probably only an hour from being shut down by the cops if it got much louder.

Emily had carefully positioned herself next to the open window, enjoying the slight breeze as the body heat was making the old house steamy with humidity. This also happened to be the location of the bong, but she accepted the trade-off.

Derek was currently playing king’s cup, a game Emily refuses to play, since last time she got roped into it she lost miserably. She was forced to drink the king’s cup: a mixture of shitty beer, whiskey, cider wine and whole cream from the fridge, as she had been a bit too slow with bouncing the ball into the red solo cup. Derek held her hair back as she puked off the porch that night.

Never again.

Emily squinted as a few people she recognized walked into the room. It was only a month into classes, so she really hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know the new random assortment of people in her building, lectures and in her general orbit but she was pretty sure she was starting to recognize some faces.

Entering the party was the blonde from the end of the hallway who always complimented Emily on her outfits when she passed and had the most colourfully decorated dorm in the entire building. ‘Penelope G.’ read her name tag pinned to her door in their RA’s loopy handwriting.

Next to her was a younger boy that she had seen in the cafeteria with Penelope before, and while Emily wasn’t that good at identifying ages, he definitely looked a bit too young to be at college. He was tall, skinny and had a mop of unruly brown hair. He was also wearing a sweater to a house party, which was a major beginners mistake. He looked around nervously.

A few seconds later, the door closed, only dumping an assortment of other boys into the already packed house.

Emily let out a breath she didn’t know she held, as she found herself hoping that Garcia’s other friend might have been joining her that night.

Derek had teased her already about the girl across the hall. Jennifer Jareau. “My friends call me JJ,” she had said. Second year varsity soccer player and communications major. The girl Derek was convinced that Emily had a crush on.

JJ was the kind of girl who propped her door open during orientation week and always waved at Emily when she walked down the hall.

She did not have a crush. She barely knew anything about her besides that she was blonde, athletic and was always smiling. Both had been so busy since school had started, and seemed to have completely opposite schedules that they hadn’t really gotten to really connect.

Whenever Emily was coming back to their floor, JJ always seemed to be leaving. And vice versa. Somehow they were on exact opposite schedules. Probably since JJ was a varsity soccer player with early morning practise, and Emily was a bit of a night owl (that was a polite way of saying insomniac procrastinator perfectionist.)

She seemed to hang out with Garcia around residence, Emily having spotted the two getting coffee or studying in the library together occasionally, hence Emily’s hopes that Garcia may have JJ in tow that evening.

JJ was also definitely, one hundred percent, completely straight. Fairy lights and Polaroid pictures on her walls straight. She even had a high school sweetheart that might survive the turkey dumping season. Emily didn’t know his name but JJ said the key word early on in the year: boyfriend.

Emily turned back to the boy in front of her, who was describing, in detail, how the stock market worked, without realizing that Emily was not paying attention at all.

He was quite conventionally attractive, with mussed curly hair and broad shoulders. He obviously was interested in her—or rather interested in talking at her and potentially sleeping with her—that despite herself, Emily decided to slot him into her roster for that evening.

Emily considered herself a reluctant bisexual. Women could make her heart skip a beat just by looking in her direction, and men could get it when the situation was right and she didn’t have any other options. The second half of this pleased her mother to no end, as when young fourteen year old Emily Prentiss had decided to come out to her mother—at one of their rare dinners together—she watched her mother grit her teeth and tell her to keep that to herself. Her mother had eventually accepted this part of her daughter’s life, but only under the assumption that Emily would eventually end up with a man, and keep the rest to herself.

Emily looked around the room and wondered if she was going to have any other options that evening besides the very talkative boy.

Excusing herself from the company of…Matthew, she thinks was his name, she tries to find Derek, who had disappeared into the kitchen. Emily weaved through the crowd, steering past a couple making out in the corner.

She turned the corner and found Derek filling his cup with more beer from the keg. He grinned up at her and did the same for her.

“I hate beer,” Emily said to him, grimacing at the scratchy taste of the fermented barley in her red solo cup.

“Suck it up buttercup, you’re in college. You also complained about the juice from earlier.”

“Yeah well, watering down eleven percent wine is as bad as this five percent crap.”

“It did taste a lot better,” he agreed. “Who was that guy?”

Emily rolled her eyes.

“Matthew attempted to explain macroeconomics to me.”

“Oh god, is that what men are like out there?” He asked. “Guess you’re stuck with me tonight.”

“Lucky me.”

“Pong?” He asked, gesturing towards the row of tables set up in the backyard, through the open door and passed the crowd milling about near the speakers. The game seemed to be wrapping up, as the two teams shook hands and reset the cups to their original positions.

“Always.”

They found their spot at one of the tables across from their new opponents: Penelope and her very young looking friend.

“Penelope Garcia?” Derek grinned, recognizing the girl from their floor and walking up to her for a hug. Their rooms were facing each other, and they had apparently gotten the chance to get to know each other.

She grinned and hugged him, clearly a lot more sober than him having only arrived minutes earlier. There seemed to be a lot of hugging at house parties, Emily discovered when she moved to America, acquaintances became close friends once alcohol was involved.

She had bright pink glasses and a matching dress, with bright artfully done make-up highlighting her large smile. Emily knew that she was a CompSci major and had loaded her dorm room desk with monitors and the largest computer set-up that Emily had seen in her life.

“Derek, my love,” Penelope replied, gushing over Emily’s friend in an unexpected, but not unsurprising way. “Fancy meeting you here! And Emily! Have you two met my fine young friend here, Spencer?”

She gestured to the boy, who waved awkwardly.

“Hi, I’m Spencer Reid,” he said.

“He’s like a boy-genius or something. He already has a degree in mathematics and he’s currently working on his second degree in engineering. Isn’t that très cool? We met at the club fair last week.”

“I’m double majoring in philosophy,” he added.

“How old are you kid?” Morgan asked him, quick to the punch.

“Uh- sixteen?” Spencer seemed to ask, shrinking into himself a bit. “I skipped a couple of grades.”

He had a pair of glasses perched on his nose, a brown sweater with a white shirt collar poking through and had tucked his brown hair behind his ears. He was still taller than Penelope, but the smattering of acne and wide eyes made it clear that he was very much a kid.

“More than a couple!” Morgan exclaimed.

He shrugged.

“Are you in intro to logic with Williams?” Emily asked, realizing that she had recognized him from somewhere.

“Yes, I am. Though I find his repeated chess metaphors a touch reductive.”

“You’re right about that. Like, we get it Willy, you play chess. Big whoop,” Emily said, then introduced herself.

He smiled at her, slightly less awkwardly this time but with a touch more confusion.

“And this is Derek Morgan,” Penelope piped in, “the most gorgeous football player I know.”

“Do you know any other football players?” Spencer asked.

“Now you hush!” She admonished him. “We have a game to play.”

“Do you two have something to drink?” Derek asked them, moving back towards their side of the long fold-up table, which was crudely painted in their schools colours.

Emily took a sip of her beer, wondering if the boy should be drinking.

Penelope babbled about how it was Spencer’s first college party, and how she was so excited that it was this one because look at the pretty string lights decorating the backyard and the fact that there was a keg, like in the movies.

Smiling at her new neighbour, Emily thought that this might also be Penelope's first college party.

Derek returned with a cup of water for Spencer, and some beer for Penelope. Spencer seemed relieved at the gesture, smiling as he took a sip. Emily marvelled at her friend's kindness, despite what anyone said about drinking culture on campuses either way, it was tough to attend a party and not drink, putting his drink in a matching red cup gave him the appearance of participation.

“Do we all know the rules?” Derek asked.

“The question you should ask,” Emily said, “Is if they’re willing to play by your rules.”

Emily had discovered that this game, depending on the people you were playing with, had radically different rules. While the premise of the game remained the same: there were six cups on each side of the table, into which you threw ping pong balls and whenever you got a ball in a cup, that cup was then taken out of the picture until there were no cups left. Depending on who you were playing with, the cups were filled with water or beer (Emily hated when they had beer in them, it make things sticky and it was very unsanitary), there were specific rules to what defined an airball, when one could get balls back, when you could call island and what was a permissible trick shot.

“Ha ha Prentiss,” Derek said to her, rolling the ping pong ball in his hands. “I wanted to know if they had played before.”

“Oh I’ve played before,” Penelope said, “and I am unbeatable.”

She waggled her fingers in a gesture that implied magic was involved.

“It’s simple physics,” Spencer added, “I’ve memorized the rules and common approaches. We’ll be more than fine. ”

“Ok pretty boy, let’s see what you’ve got. Eye to eye?”

Looking into each other’s eyes, rather than at their targets, the two boys aimed at the cups, with only Reid’s making it in.

“What the fuck Morgan,” Emily exclaimed as Penelope and Spencer whooped, “what even was that throw?”

With the other team having won the privilege of starting first, Emily was forced to toss her ball towards Penelope, who took it with a grin.

She threw first, missing the table entirely.

“Air ball!” Derek announced, leaping forward and waving his hands in front of the cups on their side, the rules granting him the ability to defend their territory.

Spencer frowned, apparently perturbed by this turn of events. He stuck out his tongue, aimed, and launched the ball, hitting Morgan right in the chest. The ball bounced off of it and fell straight down into the cup.

Derek’s draw dropped. Spencer and Penelope whooped in excitement.

“Derek, how did you lose us that cup?” Emily whined, pulling one of their cups to the side. One point to Spencer.

Derek, who had something to prove, lined up his shot. He gazed at his targets with the focus of a sniper, dunked the ball into one of their cups, dousing it with water, and rolled it in his hands, giving it a bit more weight. He aimed and fired off a quick shot into the centre-left cup. It spun around in the cup, floating above the water, but fell in. If the other team were crafty, they would have blown into the cup and Derek would have lost the point, but Emily sighed in relief when she realized that despite their first point, they didn’t know the rules well enough to beat the current reigning beer champs.

It was Emily’s turn. She took a gulp of her beer—she would always swear she was better when she was drunk because she didn’t think too hard about it—and threw. It neatly fell into the back right cup, scoring them two points for that round.

“Balls back!” Derek roared in delight.

Penelope tossed them, and the game continued.

They sunk one more shot on their turn. 3-1.

Penelope got another cup, Spencer missed. 3-2.

Derek’s ball bounced out, Emily sank hers. 4-2.

Only minutes later, after playing at breakneck speed, there were three cups left on the table and Derek and Emily were quite drunk, with Penelope not far behind. Reid, still very sober, was matching the duo with intense concentration.

It was his throw, with two cups left until his victory. He shots carefully, sinking it without a splash.

Derek and Emily had one cup to go. He went first, sending one barreling towards the cup. It hit the rim and instead of going in, it bounced towards Emily, who leaped forward and grabbed it before it fell off the table.

“Trick shot!” She yelled. Derek could try again, but only if he does it in an inventive way. At the frat house they spent a lot of time in first year, the only acceptable trick shot (under this house’s rules) was bouncing the ball off a poster of Obama. This time, Derek takes an empty cup, puts the ball in, and uses the cup to aim.

Somehow, it went in.

They leap into the air, yelling with delight. But they hadn’t won yet. The other team still had a redemption shot.

“How ya feeling kid?” Derek taunted, “Wanna give up now, save yourself the embarrassment?”

“Not a chance.”

He squinted at the table, lining up his shot with precision. With his left hand he licked his finger, sticking it up in the air like golfers do to measure the wind. Emily wasn't sure if this was a joke, something to psych Derek out, or something the boy was genuinely able to do. He frowned, seeming to ponder the information.

He aimed. He tossed it. He sunk the redemption shot.

They were in overtime.

“You can do it princess,” Derek told her, watching her with utmost intensity. Emily adjusted her stance, chugging back the last of that glass of beer, feeling the alcohol with greater focus than before.

She glanced around at the other team, but out of the corner of her eye she caught a familiar face looking at her: Jennifer Jareau from residence. Her not crush.

She was looking at her. Watching her play.

A swell of nervousness flooded up through her lungs, and she forced it out by huffing a breath.

She needed another drink. Moreover, she needed to focus.

Emily threw it. If it made it in, then they won. If she missed, Spencer and Garcia had another shot at redemption. They couldn’t lose this, not now, not in front of… uh, everyone. She was definitely not thinking about JJ in this situation. That would be something a frat boy thought about. She didn’t want to win beer pong to impress some girl, she wanted to win because she had pride.

The ball sailed through the air, Emily held her breath. It caught the lip of the cup, teetered. A splash announced that they had won.

Thank god.

With a whoop, realizing what they had done, Emily and Derek roared with joy, jumping into each other and hugging in their celebration. A few onlookers clapped, noticing how close the game had been.

They pulled apart and reached out their hands to their opponents.

“Great game,” Emily said, shaking Spencer's hand, “Really.”

He grinned despite his loss.

“Honestly I understand the principles, it’s simple parabolas and high-school level physics,” he frowned, “Unfortunately, I need to work on translating those parabolas into the real world.”

“We’ll work on it Spence,” Garcia grinned, shaking Emily’s hand while smiling at her younger friend.

Emily realized that in their celebration, Derek had spilled quite a bit of beer onto Emily’s sleeve and down the side of her shirt and it was currently dripping onto her boots. Emily sighed, handing her friend her cup.

“I’ve got beer all over me,” Emily sighed, “Get me a refill? I’m going to try to find a bathroom.”

Derek nodded and turned back to their new friends, chatting about how impressed he was with their game.

Emily felt a bit sticky, feeling the beer coat her bare arm. Walking back into the house, she glanced at the kitchen sink trying to see if there was any paper towel or something there, but no luck. The sink was full of dishes, the counters covered in assorted empties and cups, without a dishcloth in sight. Not wanting to rifle through their drawers, she made her way towards the staircase.

There was a couple making out on the staircase, which was not something Emily would do herself. It seemed a bit precarious since alcohol was involved, but, to each their own, she thought. Emily opened a couple of the doors upstairs before discovering one of the most disgusting washrooms she’d ever seen.

There was only one thing in the shower: dawn dish soap. The boys who lived here must use that for their bodies. Emily shuddered. On the sink were some toothbrushes, razors and some floss, but for some reason, no soap. Emily found a roll of toilet paper on the floor (ew), and wadded it up to try to reduce the wet spot on her side and hopefully from smelling like a brewery when she returned to residence.

For a moment, Emily found herself gazing at herself in the mirror, feeling hazy and a bit unsteady. She checked her make-up, noting that her dark red lipstick was holding up, but her mascara had smudged under her eyes giving her more of a goth vibe than the alt look she typically went for.

Emily sat down on the tub, patting the toilet paper against her wet clothing, feeling very drunk now that she was seated. Dammit Morgan, couldn’t he have spilled his beer on himself instead of her nice shirt?

The thud of the music was muffled, but there was a ringing in her ears that made everything feel very quiet. That was until there was a thundering of footsteps and the sound of a girl announcing: “I’m going to vom, right now.”

Emily sat, jaw dropped, as a red headed girl threw open the bathroom door, kneeled down on the floor next to the toilet, and relieved herself from the contents of her stomach without so much as a knock. The girl coughed into the bowl, yacking up what was probably way too much beer for the poor tiny girl.

“Oh my gosh,” said another voice, at the door, “I’m so sorry. We didn’t realize there was someone here! ”

Emily looked up, realizing the voice came from no other than Jennifer Jareau.

“JJ!” Emily said, not really knowing what else to do with the girl heaving at her feet.

“You ok?” JJ kneeled down next to her friend, carefully pulling her friend’s long hair back, tugging a hair tie off her own wrist and collecting it so that it didn’t get anything on it.

Emily felt stupid sitting on the tub, not helping anything. She tossed the rest of the toilet paper in the garbage, placing the half-empty roll on the edge of the tub.

“Can I get her some water?” Emily asked, “To rinse her mouth?”

JJ looked up at her and nodded. Emily felt herself blushing slightly as she turned away. Who let one girl’s eyes be so big, and so blue. It was rude.

She returned a minute later having had to rinse her own beer cup out in the gross kitchen sink to make sure that she wasn’t accidentally giving this girl some random person's sketchy cup.

Emily remembered that earlier Derek said that it was a varsity party, so it did make sense that JJ was also in attendance. The whole team probably was. The other girl looked like a soccer player, she had that vibe.

Emily handed the cup to JJ, who gave her a grateful smile. Emily felt their fingers touch for a moment, before JJ turned to attend to her friend.

She tried to get her to take a sip, and Emily took the moment to look JJ up and down, taking in her light blue skinny jeans, black tank and high heeled boots. She was basically wearing the uniform of a straight white girl at a houseparty. Not to say Emily wasn’t also basically wearing the same outfit, pairing the jeans with combat boots and attempting to set herself apart with her black nail polish and eyeliner that her mother once called ‘a lot.’

In contrast to Emily’s fairly undefined thin body, she took note of the strong looking shoulders that flexed as JJ kneeled down on the floor. She was definitely an athlete. Emily looked away, checking her phone, feeling suddenly embarrassed for looking at the girl.

‘Where u go bbg????’ Read a new message from Derek.

‘Girl puknigh up hre’ Emily typed, ‘Got her waterr’

Emily blinked at her typos, pressing the red underlined words, hoping her phone would correct them for her. She wasn’t that drunk.

The two girls were talking quietly, and Emily decided to take her leave, but before she could the red-head beat her to the punch deciding that she wanted to puke in peace.

“Leave me aloooooonnne Jennifer,” she wined. “Get out, I don’t want any more fucking water.”

JJ pulled back, making a face and holding her hands up in the ‘I surrender’ motion. Emily hurried out into the hall with JJ on her heels. The girl kicked the door shut angrily, and the sound of her retching ensued.

“There was a funnel,” JJ offered as an explanation. She leaned against the door. “How has your night been?”

Emily blinked. JJ was making conversation. She didn’t want Emily to leave just yet.

“So far so good,” Emily replied. “Doing better than your friend, at least.”

“That’s not hard to do. So I guess you didn’t chug from a funnel yet?” JJ quipped, smiling and revealing a perfect, white smile.

“Oh I have that scheduled for one-thirty, actually,” Emily said, pretending to check her watch and grinning.

“Let me know before you do, I’d like to watch that,” JJ said casually.

A wave of heat rushed to Emily’s face as she realized that drinking from a funnel would entail Emily on her knees, with JJ watching her… a thought that she needed to push out of her brain immediately.

“I’ll have you know,” Emily said in retort, “I can chug amongst the best. I am no stranger to these sorts of parties.”

JJ grinned. “Oh yeah?”

“I’m a reigning beer pong champ, I’ll have you know.”

They laughed.

“I saw your last victory. Very impressive.”

JJ, in a controlled fall, slid down the door and sat down in the hall, resigning herself to waiting for her friend. Emily wondered if she should return to Morgan now, but unable to tear herself away from the opportunity for a conversation with JJ.

“I’m awful at pong,” the blonde admitted. “I miss every time.”

“You probably just need a good teacher.”

JJ raised her eyebrows, “oh yeah?”

“I mean,” Emily said, sitting down onto the top step of the staircase, facing her floormate, “it’s all about hand eye coordination. It’s basically a sport. You need a coach.”

They both laughed.

“Well if that’s the case, why don’t you teach me?”

Emily gulped.

The door opened, and JJ fell back slightly before catching herself.

“I’m going home,” JJ’s friend announced.

JJ looked up at her dishevelled friend and nodded, turning back to look at Emily apologetically.

“Another time?” Emily offered, smiling before walking down the stairs and rejoining the party.

Next chapter ->

#criminal minds #cm #criminal minds tv #jemily #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #criminal minds au #queerminal minds #criminal minds fic #emily prentiss x jennifer jareau #jemily fanfiction #my post #my writing #this is going to be a LONG one #mostly fluff #i love college au #gravelyhumerus cm college au

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reidingandwriting · 4 years

Text

Home

Word Count: ~4,100 words

Ship: Emily Prentiss x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Mention of injury (concussion), drinking (all characters of legal age)

A/N: Since there are quite a few flashbacks, and some of them are long, I’ve set off the flashbacks in dashes (------) instead of having big blocks of texts in italics. I might change them to italics depending on how they read!

Emily Prentiss didn’t believe in soulmates. Well, she didn’t believe she had one. Except for the occasional fling, Emily’s love life was practically non-existent. Maybe it was for the better that way. She was a strong and independent woman, thank you very much, and she didn’t need a man or a woman to complete her. Besides, she could always get a cat.

Y/N Y/L/N was a hopeless romantic. You loved the idea of having a soulmate, someone who was made for you, someone who just gets you. You hadn’t met your soulmate yet, but you were a strong believer in fate. When the universe was ready for you to meet your soulmate, you’d meet them. God, you hoped you’d meet them soon. But it’s not like your soulmate was the only thing on your mind. You had gotten your masters degree before you applied for the FBI Academy. You then were assigned to work in the Violent Crimes Against Children department, where you worked your ass off until you got the news you had been waiting for since you graduated from college: you were joining the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Working with the BAU was a dream come true for you. The cases were hard and long, the criminals involved really made you question if there was any good in humanity at times. But the good moments? You would never forget them.

------

You laid back in your seat on the plane and closed your eyes with a sigh. You had just finished your first case and you were on the flight back to headquarters. You couldn’t wait to see your bed again. You opened one of your eyes when you heard someone sit beside you but closed it again when you saw Derek.

“Hey, pretty girl. How do you feel?” You dragged your hand over your face and looked up at the man you would soon grow close to.

“Exhausted. Happy the case is over and that we saved the last victim. I wish we could have saved the others.” You sighed. “But at least the families of the missing women have closure now.”

“Unfortunately we can’t save everyone. But with everybody we save, it makes the job easier. You did great, kid. And you’ll get better with every case.” You smiled at Derek’s words and leaned your head against his shoulder.

“Thanks, Morgan.” You felt your eyes grow heavy and you yawned. “I’m using you as a pillow now, hope you weren’t planning on moving anytime soon.” Derek’s shoulder shook with laughter, and he rested his head against yours.

“Rest up, Y/L/N. You’ve earned it.”

------

Over the last eighteen months, you had grown close to the team you now considered your family. There were many lows and many highs during your career, as well as many unexpected twists. The best unexpected part? Meeting Agent Emily Prentiss. You had just gotten back to headquarters when you met her.

------

“Hey, Y/N. Garcia, JJ, Reid, and I are going to Freddy’s for dinner. We’ve got room for one more if you want to come.” Derek asked as he gathered his things from his desk. You were seated at your own desk, papers strewn across the space.

“I think I’m gonna head home once I handle,” you gestured to the mess, “all this.” Derek chuckled and put his jacket on.

“Don’t stay too late, we don’t need two people living here.” Derek nodded up towards Hotch’s office. You looked up and your brows furrowed when you saw two silhouettes in the office.

“I’ll head out soon. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” You and Derek exchanged goodbyes, your gaze not leaving the window as you heard everyone leave. You shook your head to clear your thoughts and began to organize your desk. You strained to decipher the muffled voices coming from your boss’s office and perked up when you heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

“I promise you won’t regret this.” You heard her footsteps as she walked out of Hotch’s office and you looked up as she walked down the stairs. Your eyes traveled up her body until you saw the box in her hands and then met her eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders, and there was a smile on her face. She looked proud, but also relieved, and she tried to appear neutral. You didn’t know how long you had been watching her before she spoke to you. “Hi. I’m Emily Prentiss.” Emily shifted the box in her hands to prop it against her hip and held her hand out. You stood up, shook her hand, and offered a polite smile.

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N. Oh! You can set your things on my desk.” Emily smiled gratefully at you and set the box down. “Facilities management has probably left already, they won’t be back until morning. You’re more than welcome to keep everything here if you want, they’ll be safe. Unless you have coffee stashed away in there, then I might have to charge a storage fee.” Emily’s laughter filled your ears and your heart skipped a beat at the sound. New life goal, make this gorgeous woman laugh as much as you can. “The coffee here is less than appealing, so I recommend buying your own. There’s a shop across the street, they make amazing lattes. I’m sorry, I’m rambling, and you probably have places to be.”

“You’re fine, I promise.” Emily reassured and her phone buzzed in her pocket. “But I do need to take this.”

“And I should head out. I can hear my bed calling my name from here.” You picked at the sleeve of your shirt subconsciously, which of course Emily noticed. Gotta love profilers. “I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow?”

“Bright and early.”

“Don’t remind me.” You groaned before you grabbed your bag from your chair. “Goodnight, Prentiss.”

“Goodnight.” And if you came to work the next morning with a cup of coffee on your desk, that was no one’s business except for yours and Emily’s. Little did either of you know that you had met your soulmate. You were getting ready for a run the first time you noticed something was off.

------

“Yes, Derek. I’ll be in the lobby in five minutes. You know, you’re really impatient.” You teased as you walked to your closet to grab a pair of shoes.

“And you’re late.”

“Am not! You said we’d meet at six, I still have a few minutes.” As you bent down to grab your running shoes, your brows furrowed when you noticed a red tank top on the floor. “Huh.”

“Everything okay?” Derek asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I just found something I forgot I bought. I’ll be down in a minute, and I’ll buy smoothies after. Since I’m so late.”

“Chop, chop, pretty girl.” Derek hung up and you grabbed the shirt from the floor and examined it. It had been worn quite often, so you knew it wasn’t yours. Or was it? You shrugged but tossed the shirt towards your laundry hamper. That was a problem for another day. You quickly slid your shoes on and left your apartment. You made your way downstairs, Derek and you being the only ones in the lobby at the time.

“I’m here, I’m here. Sorry, late start.” You said as you walked over. “Our usual path?”

“Lead the way, Y/L/N.”

------

You brushed off the shirt as simply being forgetful. You had bought a lot of clothes when you moved for your job, it must have been forgotten in the back of your closet. You figured it was a one time thing, and the possibility of soulmates never even crossed your mind. It had been nearly a month since the red shirt incident, and nothing else odd had happened since. Until…

------

“That’s a new necklace. Where’d you get it?” Penelope asked as you both stepped off the elevator.

“I honestly can’t remember buying it.” You shrugged. “I must have gotten it a while ago, but I don’t remember wearing it before.” As you walked towards the conference room, Prentiss walked out of the mini kitchen with JJ.

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened to it. I thought I had it on my nightstand, but I went to put it on this morning, and it was gone.” Emily said and ran her hand through her hair.

“We can go to my favorite store to look for a replacement tonight if we aren’t on a new case.” Jennifer offered. Emily smiled gratefully at her as the pair walked towards the conference room. Rossi left his office and walked towards the stairs. As he reached the stairs, he met Aaron who stepped into sync with him.

“What are you thinking about?” Hotch asked as he looked at Dave.

“Oh, not much. Just wondering who we’ll be chasing on our next case.” Rossi said. Just the fact two of our profilers are oblivious soulmates, he thought.

------

Over the next couple of weeks, you and Emily both found little things scattered across your homes. It sounded weird to admit, but it made Emily’s days better when she found something of her soulmate’s in her apartment. Everything you had lost helped her understand you more- she really felt like she was getting to know you. Emily smiled when she found (your favorite book) in her room, and she couldn’t help but read the book with a dopey smile on her face. God, she couldn’t wait to meet you, whoever you were. Little did either of you know, that day would come closer than you thought.

*Baddies of the BAU group chat*

Pen: girls!!!

Pen: it’s someone’s birthday monday

Pen: @ Y/N

Jayje: our baby’s turning 30!

Jayje: all grown up

Em<3: we’re celebrating, right?

Y/N: i’d honestly be happy with the weekend off

Y/N: or some of rossi’s scotch

Pen: i can’t promise that, but i can promise you a night of drinks

Pen: our usual time and place tonight?

Jayje: i’ll be there!

Em<3: so will i. Y/N?

Y/N: how could i say no?

Y/N: see you tonight my loves!

*End of chat*

“Derek, I need a favor.” Emily said as she paced across her apartment. Derek’s brows furrowed as he heard all the noise in the background.

“Of course. Is everything okay?”

“No.” Emily groaned. “Well, yeah, just… shit. I can’t find my keys. And yeah, I could call an Uber, but-”

“I’ll give you a ride. Wonder if your soulmate found your keys.” Emily could hear the smirk in Derek’s voice, and she rolled her eyes.

“With my luck, they’re an ocean away. Thanks, Morgan.”

“Spence, what are the odds of me actually meeting my soulmate?”

“Statistically,” Spencer trailed off, “not the greatest. Soulmates aren’t guaranteed to be living in the same geographical area as you, not even the same timeline really. There’s theories about past lives, it’s actually really fascinating.” A pause. “Sorry, that wasn’t an answer. There’s a 3.7 percent chance of you meeting your soulmate. An even lower chance you actually make the connection that they are your soulmate.” “So the chance of me living in the same city as my soulmate and knowing who they are is practically impossible.” You said as you held a familiar keychain in your hand. A keychain that was nearly identical to yours. You had thought it was yours, absentmindedly grabbing the set of keys from your coffee table as you started to leave, until you tried to lock your door.

“You know who they are?”

“Uh huh.”

“Are you going to say anything to them?”

“Oh yeah.” You tucked the keys into your bag before you grabbed yours. “Sooner than later.”

------

You were seated next to Rossi, talking to Penelope from across the table, and you laughed when Rossi chimed in, agreeing with you. You rested your hand on his shoulder and Penelope grumbled something about favoritism under her breath while JJ laughed.

“You’re my favorite person, Pen.” JJ said, which then caused Reid to protest from his seat. Hotch shook his head, but everyone saw the fond smile on his lips. The energy at the table was light and carefree, something that didn’t happen often enough.

“Got room for two more?” You looked up and smiled when you saw Derek walk in, Emily a few steps behind him.

“Hmm, I think we’ll take you. If you get our first round.” Derek playfully sighed.

“Deal. Only because you’re the birthday girl. Almost the birthday girl.” He ruffled your hair before he walked towards the bar, and Rossi stood up.

“I’ll go help him carry everything. Take a seat.” Dave patted Emily’s shoulder as he walked past her to help Morgan. Emily took a seat beside you, and it didn’t take a profiler to notice the change in your demeanor. She noticed how your movements were more calculated and thought out. Any other time you wouldn’t be afraid to be handsy with her, your shoulders would brush together a little more often than necessary, your legs against each other’s. But today, there was distance. Not enough to be noticeable to anyone who didn’t know the dynamic between the two women, but to Emily, you might as well have been worlds apart. After a few drinks, Hotch and Rossi had made their way to the bar, and they watched their ‘children’. Morgan and Garcia were dancing together, Reid in between the pair, much to his protesting.

“Come on, boy wonder, we aren’t leaving until you’ve danced at least once.” Garcia had said as she pulled Spencer to the floor. You stirred your drink as you leaned against the upholstered booth, Emily and JJ on the other side of the dance floor. You smiled at everyone and didn’t notice Dave walk up behind you.

“You can’t avoid her all night.” You jumped at the sound of his voice and looked back towards him. “I’m not the best person to give advice on love, but I have been married a few times. So I know a little something.”

“I’m not avoiding her- wait, how did you know?” “I watched. And she happens to be missing the necklace you wore tonight.” You felt your cheeks heat up and you looked back towards Emily.

“I didn’t know it was her. Not until I found this.” You pulled the keychain out of your bag.

“I’m guessing there’s a story I’m missing.” Rossi took a seat beside you, and you began to explain.

“It started when we had a case take us to Los Angeles.”

------

“I hate how my first trip to L.A. had to be when we’re chasing a serial killer.” You sighed as you opened the case file.

“We’ve been to Los Angeles on a case before. It was your third case with us.” Spencer said absentmindedly as he read, eyes darting rapidly across the paper.

“My second trip, my bad.” You rolled your eyes, but there was a fond smile on your lips. “But we stayed at the hotel, police department, and crime scenes. Not a second of time off.”

“What’s time off?” Gideon asked and you chuckled.

“I really want to go one day, not as an agent, but as a tourist. Maybe when I retire.” As soon as the conversation started, it ended as Garcia popped up on screen to further discuss the case.

“You would be fine if you flew, but it’s up to you ultimately. It is a long drive back, though.” The EMT spoke, and you were seated on the back of the ambulance with Hotch standing beside you.

“Could she fly tomorrow? If she feels up to it, of course.” Aaron asked, and there was an emotion in his eyes that you couldn’t quite decipher.

“As long as her symptoms continue to get better as time passes, she’s clear to fly. It’s all preference at this point. Just be sure to follow the instructions we gave you, and you should start feeling better soon.”

“Thank you.” The EMT dismissed herself to go check on the injured victim, and Hotch turned to you.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I ran into a wall.” You chuckled then winced. “I’ve had worse. The medicine will help, and I’ll feel better after some sleep tonight.”

“I’ll have Prentiss drive you back to the hotel so you can rest.” Aaron paused. “There’s a few tourist-y spots near our hotel, but they’ll be crowded until later tonight. There’s a restaurant on Fifth just a few minutes from where we’re staying, not many tourists know about it. I can send you the address if you want it.” You blushed as you looked up at Hotch.

“Thank you, sir. Uh, how did you…?”

“You said you wanted to visit the city as a tourist, and for the Prentiss part? Let’s call it intuition.”

“Remind me to thank Hotch for sending us to that restaurant. That was the best dinner I’ve ever had.” Emily said and you hummed in agreement.

“If I got this treatment every time I got injured on the field, I’d let our unsubs pistol-whip me more often.” You laughed as she shot a playful glare at you. “Easy, Prentiss. I do not enjoy any restaurant enough to have another concussion.”

“How is your head feeling? We can go back to the hotel if you’re ready.” Emily paused. “Unless you feel up for another adventure.”

“Please, take me anywhere but the hotel.” And in that moment, the whole city seemed to brighten when Emily smiled.

“I’ve got a few places in mind.”

By the end of the night, you had walked down the Hollywood Walk of Fame (and took countless pictures), stopped by the Kodak Theatre (“Em, it’s like we’re a part of the Academy Awards!”), and now you were in a gift shop.

“I remember when I was younger.” You spoke, your voice soft as you looked at a display rack. “I was on a trip to New York, my high school journalism class took the entire group of us up to the city. We went to a little gift shop before we came back home. All the girls went off together, bought those little matching keychains that ‘best friends’ had, except for me. I know it’s stupid to be upset about now, but fifteen year old me felt so lonely. I just joined the school my sophomore year, everyone else had made their group of friends. And I had no one.”

“Look at you now.” Emily said as she wrapped her arm around your shoulders and neither of you mentioned it when you automatically leaned into her touch. “You’re a profiler for the FBI, and we have some pretty amazing people we’re working with. I think it’s safe to say you’ll never have to worry about being lonely again.” Emily reached forward and grabbed a pair of keychains from the rack. “And now, you can show off your glamorous ‘I survived my trip to L.A.’ keychain to everyone.”

“Look, you can even get the back engraved. We can get something matching, we’ll be the best friends of the BAU.” You teased and Emily gasped.

“You, Y/L/N, are a genius.”

------

You thumbed over the engraving and read it out loud. “If you ever feel alone, you can always run home.” And in the bottom corner, yours and Emily’s initials were engraved. “We promised each other. No matter how crazy this job gets, if either of us leave, if we just need a break… We can always go to each other, go ‘home.’” You let your eyes wander over to Emily, who was now dancing with Reid. The smiles on both of their faces made you smile before you turned towards Rossi. “I don’t want to mess everything up.”

“Bella,” Dave smiled sympathetically and rested a hand on your shoulder, “I haven’t ever seen someone look at each other the way you and Emily do. If anyone in the world are soulmates, it’s you two.” You stood up and wrapped your arms around him and hugged him tight.

“Thank you for everything.” You whispered and Rossi returned your tight hug. The man was affectionately nicknamed the dad of the group, while the rest of you (with the exception of Hotch) were his children. But the role of “Papa” Rossi applied especially to you. You two had formed a bond over the months Rossi had been on the team. You were often paired together, your personalities meshing well while working on the field and during interrogations. You often went to him for advice, and Rossi was sure to offer the best hospitality possible. You’d drink the best wine and help him cook dinner while the two of you joked around and talked, Tony Bennett playing over vinyl in the background.

“Go get her, bella.” You smiled before you stepped away from Rossi and walked over to Emily, keys now tucked into your pocket.

“Hey, pretty girl! Look who decided to join us.” Derek said as he saw you walking over, causing Emily to look over at you.

“I will in a minute, you better have saved me a dance. But first, um. Em, can I talk to you?” Emily’s brows furrowed but she nodded.

“Let’s step outside, get some fresh air.” You nodded and walked out with Emily, and you chewed your lip nervously. This is it. As you walked out the door of the bar, the cool autumn air hit your face, and you took a deep breath.

“You know, I had this big speech planned. I dreamed of the day I’d be able to meet someone, and tell them all about how I had been waiting for this day for years. And even though there’s the smallest, microscopic chance of me meeting them, I finally did. I met them. My soulmate.” You pulled the set of keys out of your pocket. “I believe these are yours. As is my necklace, according to Rossi.”

“So the extra remote I found in my living room, that was yours.”

“That’s where it went! I really went out and had to buy a new remote, that was so annoying.” You two laughed and a comfortable silence fell over you.

“Y/N-“

“Emily-“

“You first.” You smiled.

“If I were to ask you on a date, let’s say for tomorrow, would you say yes?”

“I like to think I’m a pretty good cook, props to Rossi for the recipes he taught me. And I’ve finally got my Wi-Fi fixed. Dinner and a movie?” You stepped closer to her. “And maybe,” you gripped Emily’s jacket and pulled her to you. Your eyes flicked down to her lips then back to her eyes. Emily nodded and suddenly your lips were on hers.

You always heard about that first kiss soulmates shared. How it felt like two became one, how in that moment you knew you were where you belonged. Your kiss with Emily? God, it was so much better than that. Neither you or Emily would ever forget this kiss for the rest of your lives.

———

Some time later….

“Move over, Serg. Pretty sure she’s my girlfriend, not yours.” You settled onto the couch, balancing a bowl of popcorn, careful of the black cat taking over the couch. “Diva.” You tapped the cat’s nose lightly, and Sergio swatted at your hand before he jumped off the couch and wandered off.

“You can’t be mean to my child, it’s against the rules.” You shot a playful glare at Emily and covered your body in a blanket, the bowl in your lap.

“Your child? Excuse me, he’s ours.”

“Too bad he likes me more.” There was a taunting tone to her voice and you huffed.

“Alright, Prentiss. You just lost popcorn privileges because of that comment.” Emily wrapped her arms around your waist and pulled you into her, and you squealed before laughing. “Get off me!”

“Oh, you love me.”

“I tolerate you.” You buried yourself into Emily’s side, tucked in between her and the couch, the bowl now in front of her. Emily poked your side and you giggled softly. “What’s tonight’s movie, Em?”

“50 First Dates. Penelope acted like I insulted her personally whenever I told her I haven’t seen it.”

“Well we can’t disappoint our girl much longer. Press play, birthday girl.”

By the end of the movie, Emily had fallen asleep. Sergio was curled up at the end of the couch, and Emily’s back was pressed to your chest. You pressed a gentle kiss to her neck before you laid back and closed your eyes.

“Goodnight, lover. Happy birthday.”

Taglist for CM: @spidey-reids-2003 and @ssa-sugar-tits ❤ If you’d like to be removed/added to a taglist, let me know!! Requests are open but may take a minute, my midterms start soon!

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psychedellic-phase · 4 years

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Fifteen (pt 2)

tw: none, fluffy

wc: 2337

Part one!

Spencer almost ran every red light and stop sign on his drive home. He didn’t even put the radio on. The only music was the sound of his ragged breath and skyrocketing heart beat. It hadn’t sunk in for him yet that you were really, truly, gone. You had only called it quits a few weeks ago, and work was okay. Good even. Hotch was nice enough to split you guys up a lot, sending you with JJ or Derek and Spencer with the newest member, Alex Blake. In the few small interactions you had, the two of you were better than you had been during the last few months of your relationship. It was just like the old days, before everything went sour. He guessed that was just you faking how much pain you were really in, and he was right. He cursed himself for not noticing that either.

He sat on his couch and opened up the box again to find envelope 1:

“Okay, Hey Spence. I’ll try not to be so long winded, but bear with me throughout this. I want you to really understand what happened between us.

These are going to go chronologically, so the story starts before we even started dating. The story starts the day I realized I loved you. November 17, 2010. So please take out:

1. Welcome Interstate Managers- Fountains of Wayne.

Please direct your attention to track 3. Stacy’s Mom. This may be my favorite memento from us. It’s so innocent. We were so innocent then, but not anymore.”

He took the disk out and ran his hands over the case. It had never been opened and still had the plastic film on it. He flipped it over and read the track list to find #3, ‘Stacy’s Mom’. He immediately knew where this was going. The memory hit him like a sack of bricks, knocking the air out of him and making it hard to breathe.

“This also may be one of my favorites because it’s so not you. No one would think that Stacy’s Mom of all songs would be so important to us. But it is, because it was the beginning.

We had just gotten back from that weird, awful case in LA. The one where the taxi driver had the weird smell thing and would remove skin from the victim’s feet? And Emily was being suspicious? Yeah, we had just gotten back from that one and Derek and I had each given you $50 to finish the paperwork for us. We were joking around and arguing about basketball of all things. I don’t have an eidetic memory but I remember that day so clearly.

“Is this really the hill you want to die on Derek Morgan?” I said.

“Yes, Y/N, Michael Jordan will always be the best basketball player of all time,” Derek said back.

“I’m just saying Lebron or Kobe could definitely pass him at some point! Especially now that Lebron’s on the Heat. Him, Wade, and Bosh are going to kill it.”

“Why do you know so much about basketball Y/N?”

You weren’t paying attention to us. You were doing the work we should have been doing. You always were the good one, Spence. When Em or D or I would go off the rails, you always kept it together. I admire you for that. I had a crush on you at the time. It wasn’t full blown yet, but it was enough to make me flustered and blushing any time I was near you.

I told Derek that I was a pretty big basketball fan because my brother had drilled it all into me when I was a kid. He scoffed and told me I didn’t seem like the sporty type.

“Well not everyone can kick down a door in one move like you, but I’m pretty athletic!” I argued.

“Athletic? C’mon Y/L/N, Hotch keeps you and Reid at the stations for a reason. You’re not a bad shot but your specialty is interrogation.”

I faked offense, being dramatic as usual. But, really I was a little hurt and D could tell. You had finished the paperwork then, and handed both of us files.

“Do you think I’m athletic?” I asked you.

You smiled shyly, “I mean, you’re not the most athletic but you’re not bad.”

“See?” Derek said, and I shoved him playfully.

“I’m not exactly athletic either,” You said, and you did the tongue thing that you don’t even know you do. The one where you poke it out of one side of your mouth. It makes me a little weak in the knees.

“I was bad at everything at the Academy Y/N.”

“Yeah? Like what?” I asked, “You’re good at everything.” Derek laughed, but I meant it. You are good at everything.

“Marksmanship, physical training, obstacle course, Hogan's Alley, you know, pretty much everything that wasn't technically book related. They ultimately had to make exceptions to allow me into the field.” You admitted, getting a sheepish smile on your face.”

Spencer stopped reading then, and wiped his eyes. He had allowed a few tears to fall as he read. He remembered this day so fondly. You guys have always been friends; the whole team is a family. But you always stuck more around Emily and Derek when you could. You worked with Spencer well, it wasn’t that you didn’t like him. In hindsight, you avoided him because of your crush on him. The thought made a smile creep up on his face. It was a watery smile, but still a smile. At that time in his life he was so insecure and unsure of himself but you always made him feel validated. When he would go on his rambling tangents about weird facts you always smiled and nodded when the others tuned him out. He needed that then, and, honestly, still needs it now.

All of you, especially Spencer, were still reeling from the loss of JJ to the state department. It was a constant reminder of how quickly everything could fall apart. So, he needed good memories, good days. Days like November 17. A few of his tears smeared the ink and mixed with your dried tear stains. He sighed, how did he get here, only being close to you through mixed tears? He shook the thoughts away and kept reading.

“This is a long one, sorry Spence, but the backstory is important I think. So anyways, we handed in the paperwork you did for us and we all went down to the parking garage together. Derek got in his car and left, probably to meet some girl of the week. Emily was gone, she was still being weird, which we all learned about later. Rossi? Hotch? Garcia? Who knows where they were. All that mattered was you and me, laughing about how not athletic we are as we made our way to our cars that we parked next to each other every day. I don’t even remember how we started the parking thing, but if I got there and I saw your car I made sure to be next to it. And you did the same. Somehow it made me feel safe. And of course, that day your car wouldn’t start. So I graciously tried to help you jump it, but still nothing. You reeled off the facts of how jumping a car works, but alas that did not get your crappy sedan to start. The two of us trying to fix a car is about as ridiculous as it gets. After our third jump attempt we gave up and I said I’d drive you home and we would get Derek to help us fix it tomorrow. You agreed and got in the passenger seat. There was crap everywhere, there always was. You always hated that.

“How do you have like eight outfits just in the car?” You asked, tossing a dress into the back seat.

“I have to always be prepared,” I said back, stifling a laugh.

“Oh? And what does this prepare you for?” You asked me, holding up a tank that would barely cover my chest.

I grabbed it from you and blushed. I was so embarrassed I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m kidding Y/N,” You said and we both laughed. It felt so right. So comfortable.

You had on a very Spencer Reid outfit that day. Purple dress shirt, dark blue cardigan, purple and blue tie. You’re striking. Derek doesn’t lie when he calls you ‘Pretty boy’.

But anyways, before I fall back in love with you just by descriptions—“

He had to put the paper down then. It hurt. Every word hurt. You’d fallen out of love with him? You said the last rule was he had to remember that you loved him. You did love him, you just weren’t in love with him anymore. There is very big difference. He thought he may throw up again but he took a few deep breaths, the same way you taught him to when he’d get overwhelmed, and kept going.

“We were sitting there and I started driving and I turned the radio up. You made that face, you always do when I put on top hits.

“Sorry I don’t have a lot of Beethoven,” I joked at a red light. You looked over at me, and we made eye contact, which caused my breath to catch in my throat.

“It’s alright,” You cleared your throat, “I know every word to every song I’ve ever heard, so I can follow along.”

“Okay, what’s this one?” I challenged, turning up the radio.

“Rolling in the Deep, Adele”

We played that game for a while. You guessing songs and me laughing. You got every single one right.

“Oh! I need to turn this one up! I love this song!” I said. It was the very beginning of Stacy’s Mom.

“Sing with me, Genius.”

You rolled your eyes, “I’m not singing! I-I can’t sing!”

“Too late, it’s starting.”

“As long as you promise to sing with me.”

We had our first pinky promise then. Your pinky was so long and large, mine so tiny.

“Did your mom get back from her business trip?” I started and you added the “business trip” in the background.

“Is she there or is she tryna give me the sli-i-i-i-ip? Give me the slip?”

You took over then, I think the line resonated with you, “You know, I'm not the little boy that I used to be. I'm all grown up now baby, can't you see?”

Then we took the chorus and the rest of the song together, jamming out like teenagers. My heart swelled. You singing, so relaxed with me, just made me so happy. You were comfortable with me. And your singing voice is pretty good too Spen, maybe if you hadn’t been groomed for the FBI you would’ve made a good singer.

“I know it might be wrong but I'm in love with Stacy's mom.”

We finished the song together, practically yelling, and when we looked up we both realized I missed the exit for your place. I made a u-turn and dropped you off, vehemently apologizing for messing up. Directions were always your thing, not mine. You smiled and said thank you, and even pulled me in for a hug. When we came out of the hug, we made eye contact. The steamy kind like in movies before the two main characters make out. I almost leaned in to kiss you, but I pulled back and left. You waved to me from the door.

The whole ride home I was freaking out. My heart was going insane. That’s the day I fell in love with you, Spencer Reid. I was teetering on the edge already, but sitting in my car with you, scream-singing Stacy’s Mom, that’s when I fell into the water. So put the CD in a player, turn it on, and listen to Stacy’s Mom. Every time I hear that song I will think of you, sometimes I even play it on purpose just to remember that day. To remember how complete I felt. Remember the electricity and tension. Remember how that’s the day you fell in love with me too. When the 3 minutes and 18 seconds of the song are done, go to envelope 2.”

Spencer put the paper down and shakily tore off the plastic. You were right, that was when he told you he fell in love with you, but really he had been in love with you a long time before then. He had fallen for you almost immediately after you joined the unit, but he didn’t say anything. He told you he fell in love with you the same moment you fell in love with him because that would be perfect. And you deserve perfect.

Spencer remembers a different day as the one when he fell in love with you. It was the first day you were introduced to everyone and Rossi raved about all your skills to the team. You dressed to impress that day, and impress you had. Not just your beauty, but your brain. That’s what he really fell in love with first. But that was almost five years ago. When his hair was too long and shaggy; a homeless poet was what he liked to call himself.

When the song ended, he started it over.

“She’s all I want and I’ve waited for so long,” Was another line he yelled extra loud, but you hadn’t written about it. He belted that one out because that was how he felt about you. How he still feels about you. He suddenly felt so claustrophobic, ripping off his tie and opening the top few buttons of his shirt. He paced around the room, the song still playing in the background. ‘How did this happen?’ He asked himself again. He lived it with you and still didn’t know quite how this happened. Knowing the answer was hidden in those pages, he got himself together enough to open up envelope 2.

PART 3!

#spencer reid #spencer x you #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fic #fluff #reid fluff #reid #cm #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #mgg #mgg fanfiction

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forever--darling · 4 years

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the frat boy’s boxers - s.m.

college frat au: part five

warnings: 12.9k words of cursing, flirting hockey players, and being a stealth ninja

College was no joke. It was impending, heavy, and made you question everything about your worth. Stressed and unsure of every decision, balancing your time seemed impossible. You had figured that out quickly as your four other classes started and within two weeks the homework started to pile up. The lectures were long and your notes were messy and barely legible. You had no extra time to redo them and it drove you mad. It was all starting to get to your head and you hadn’t even been accepted as a sister yet or moved forward on the black op. mission. If you were already falling apart now, how were you supposed to survive midterms or finals? It might kill you, you were convinced.

From studying to talking strategies with Maggie about Becca’s next planned moves and being an ear for Emily to talk for hours about Geoff, you were easily fried. Maggie wouldn’t tolerate any of Emily’s boyfriend talk, which meant you had to, as your roommate seems too consumed in other things. All having to do with Becca Bradley. You hadn’t heard from her in two weeks. Those fourteen days gave Maggie time to prepare as much as she could, listing any possibilities or conjuring ideas of what to do to Becca once you all got in. She was so sure of the fact that she got used to ditching her usual leather ensemble for sweaters and ripped jeans, but she swore as soon as this was all over she was dying her hair again and putting her lip piercing back in.

On another note, Emily seemed consumed in her newfound fling with the hockey player. After their first date to a drive-in movie, your friend had easily become smitten. Though you all had been warned about the wandering ways of a Washington hockey player, Deja and Kiara agreed that if she were to be involved with any of them, Geoff was the best option. This was deemed true as he seemed to fall just as fast as she did and they had quickly become the news across campus. “Hockey player Geoff Warburton has a thing for freshman sorority pledge” was the gossip. He hadn’t officially asked her out but it was safe to say he would be soon with how much time they had spent together in the last few weeks. In other words, Geoff Warburton was basically a taken man.

The others continued with their fuck boyish ways waving off any idea of a monogamous relationship. As the season was a mere week and a half away, their focus was shifting slightly away from their typical bullshit. They were focused more on early workouts and captain practices. You hadn’t even thought about Shawn or seen him in weeks. Only slight glimpses across campus and the looming meeting of the two of you was still up and coming. As for the other jock, you hadn’t spoken since the scavenger hunt.

Henry seemed uninterested in you at this point and it was like the two of you were stuck in a silent fight, though there was nothing neither of you should be mad about. So he was a part of the hockey team. It wasn’t like he was entitled to tell you or needed to mention that he also was in the douchiest fraternity on campus. You weren’t even that mad about it. It was more about how he seemed to be angry at you for wanting to rush to become a member of ADPi. Was the idea of you being in a sorority that bad? You weren’t sure but you couldn’t waste time thinking about that or his lingering stares during the one class you shared.

As for Becca herself, after the scavenger hunt, initiation had become stone silent. Becca had not sprung on any of you about the next step of rushing and it left you unsettled and waiting for it every second of every day. Until now…. That impending call had come. Finally, the next stage of rushing was going to commence and you were just as nervous as the first. Make any sudden movements and you might be kicked out, killing all of your chances of becoming a sister of ADPi which meant kissing those pretty plans of yours goodbye.

This morning, you had woken up to find a pretty pink envelope slipped under your door inviting you, Emily, Maggie, and the rest of the pledges to a brunch styled meeting. Set in between two of your classes, your mind was a jumbled mess from the moment you left your dorm all the way to the end of your Psychology class that was well forgotten as you couldn’t pay attention.

It was set in the middle of campus at the courtyard near the cherry blossom trees and you had never felt so out of place, more so than the pledges dinner and the scavenger hunt. As always the few sorority sisters present were pressed and perfect without a single hair out of place and like a set of copy cats most of the pledges appeared the same. Which as you scanned the few tables was only six, including you. Your teammates from the scavenger hunt all sat among the few chairs, with combed hair and neat makeup, plates filled with food. Deja and Kiara huddled close together and waved once they saw you appear. Hana was basically in her own little world as she stared at her freshly turquoise painted nails.

Maggie and Emily sat at another table nearby, whispering with their heads bowed low, still oblivious that you finally were there. The sisters themselves stood off to the side of the two tables in a small huddle, all surrounding Becca, the ruler of all evil, herself. You couldn’t help but glance down at your leggings and a three-quarter zip-up hoodie as you saw the Chanel purse in her hand and her blush ruffled skirt. Even Maggie was dressed in a pair of nice jeans and a silk tank top. You sighed, running your fingers through your hair and adjusting any loose pieces before you sneaked over and slipped into the third chair by your friends.

Quickly their conversation died as they noticed you and offered smiles but both disappeared as they noticed what you were wearing. “What’s going on?”

“Dude, what are you wearing?” Maggie gasped, completely ignoring your question, “You couldn’t have changed?”

“I didn’t have time.”

Emily patted your arm softly as over your shoulder she found the huddle of sorority gremlins starting to disperse, “I’m sure it’s fine just act natural. You’ll blend right in.”

“Em, there are six of us, they are bound to notice,” Maggie mumbled just as Becca stepped forward, her eyes trained on the six of you, the final pledges.

“Wait,” you spoke softly, “What do you mean there are only six of us? Where are the rest of the pledges?”

“No idea, but my guess is we are about to find out,” Maggie replied through gritted teeth ending all further comments to form around the table.

You were chewing on your lip at this point, fear making itself comfortable in your stomach. Even as you tucked yourself under the table as far as you could, it didn’t hide you away from their stares. The hawk-like eyes of the power-hungry and malicious girls that you never had to deal with in high school but instead had the pleasure of meeting now. Who knew after high school, girls couldn’t get a pair and grow up. Turns out college was a lot more like high school than you could ever expect, just a much bigger playing field.

Becca clapped her hands together gaining not only the attention of the six of you, the pledges, but anyone close enough to eavesdrop. You nervously gulped too as her gaze scanned over the remaining survivors and did a double-take when they found you. She smirked slightly before clearing her throat which only made the tension so much thicker and unbearable.

“Ladies,” she spoke, putting on that overly fake tone, she only used when she wanted to impress, “It’s so nice to see all of you again. It was longer than I expected our time apart to be but there are reasons for it.”

Pausing, briefly, she snapped her fingers and like a path formed, out from the back of the group, Amanda appeared. Her hair was just as red and bright as it had been weeks ago. She handed a bottle of water over to Becca and silence washed over the courtyard as she unscrewed the cap and went to take a sip. No one else spoke and she didn’t continue until the lid was put back on the bottle and she had handed it back to Amanda.

“I wanted to congratulate you all on being the final six pledges and making it to the last step of rushing. There was one more thing we had for you to do after the scavenger hunt but since the other six pledges were disqualified we didn’t think it would be necessary for you to have to do it.”

Deja suddenly raised her hand, like a student to a teacher, and it was a surprise that anyone would dare interrupt Becca, “If you don’t mind me asking why were the other girls disqualified?”

You noticed at the simple question, Becca’s jaw lock as she took in a deep breath and answered, “They cheated their way through the scavenger hunt. Someone from outside of rushing was following you all around and repeating your answers through a walkie-talkie to the other team. I do not tolerate people who take shortcuts to win.”

The answer alone made your fear and worry disappear for a second. And within that second it gave you a chance to bask in all the glory that was Lindsey getting exactly what was coming to her. You weren’t even in the sorority yet but already Emily’s side of the plan was almost complete. She beat out her roommate and now she was only one step away from locking the deal and making Lindsey go clinically insane. There was a chance. A very slim chance that this all could work out in the end. You had doubts, many doubts but it was already headed in the right direction.

“As for the rest of you, your final challenge is here. Individually over the course of this week, randomly and at any point or time each of you will be given one task. They will all be different and something you must complete on your own. If you decide to pussy out and refuse to do it, then clearly you just aren’t Alpha Delta Pi material. But if you do do it, then you will have successfully made it through initiation.”

Chloe, Becca’s most trusted sidekick who stood proudly attached to her hip, leaned forward a playful look on her face, “From there we will move you into the house and you can start getting comfortable with how things work and the tasks we as a sorority are in charge of.”

The other girls stood silently behind Becca and Chloe, probably too having gone through such a lengthy and crazy process. You wondered if rushing was like this every year for the pledges or if they came up with new ways to torture the initiates so it was always different. Suddenly though the question seemed irrelevant as your questioning was replaced with hoping above all things that you wouldn’t be the first pledge to be given a task. You didn’t know if you could handle that especially when you had no ideas of what they could ask. They could make you do anything and it would be less nerve-wracking to have another girl or two go before you.

“Okay, so I think that’s everything,” Becca announced, pulling her purse higher up on her shoulder, “I will be seeing all of you at one point this week.”

“Good luck,” Chloe added.

“Yeah, they’ll need it,” you heard another sorority sister whisper towards Chloe or tried as it came out far louder than a whisper.

You sighed loudly, hand wiping at the sudden sweat across your forehead as one by one in a line behind Becca they began to leave, not even daring to sit down and eat some of the food. They were all laughing as they left too and you were beginning to think that this was all a scam. That maybe they weren’t trying to find new members at all but a group of freshman girls to force into doing stupid stuff to only make fun of them. It was an idea but it wouldn’t be proven true until you did such a stupid thing and find out if you were accepted into the sorority or not.

Your thoughts and silent worrying quickly came to an abrupt stop as a buzz from a phone on the table filled your ears. Eyes locked onto it, you watched as Emily picked it up with a soft smile on her face not the slightest bit affected by the sisters or Becca. But as fast as the smile appeared it was gone. Her brows furrowed and her lip found a place in between her teeth as she thought deeply. Both you and Maggie had picked up on this and shared a look before your attention solely was put on Emily.

“Em, what is it?” you asked.

“It’s me,” she responded, it coming out like a mumble but enough to get the three other girls at the next table to lean closer in anticipation, “I have the first task.”

“Woah, they work fast,” Maggie commented as she leaned over to read the text message over the blonde’s shoulder.

“What do you have to do?”

She took in a deep breath before releasing it slowly, “I have to set up a car wash on the edge of campus by myself in only a bikini.”

Maggie chuckled but covered it quickly with a cough, “Well, I can already tell that Geoff is not going to be very happy about that.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Oh, Emily, she’s fine. Geoff on the other hand not doing so well,” your roommate said as she took the extra cup of coffee you handed to her.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon and Emily had started the car wash at eleven. She couldn’t be done until four. For five hours, she was supposed to be giving out free car washes while dressed in a hot pink triangle bikini. You remembered earlier this morning the look on the girl’s face after the brunch as she was given the ensemble. She had been on the brink of having a small panic attack, but now as you looked at her across the street it seemed she didn’t even acknowledge it anymore. After three hours of wearing it, she didn’t even notice it or the creepy stares she got from the random old dad’s that stopped as they saw the sign.

As soon as it was eleven, Maggie had claimed a picnic table at the edge of campus, close enough that you could see the show from across the street. For the past couple of hours, people have been filtering in and out, between their classes, checking in to see how she was doing. In the morning it had been Maggie and Kiara. Then Deja and Hana stopped while you were stuck in your back to back classes. Now you finally had been able to stop, only to find Geoff and Marcus there as well. Maggie had mentioned that among all the chaos, Becca had stopped earlier.

She was with a few of the other girls and at the sight alone she couldn’t stop laughing. It took her minutes to calm down before she subtly raised a single eyebrow and gave a nod of approval. The action alone led Maggie to believe that Emily was in and had passed her individual test. Which meant one down, two to go. You weren’t going to lie, you gave Emily credit. You didn’t know if you would have been able to do that which only worried you. If you were scared about the first task, there was a chance they were only going to get worse from here and your’s, the one Becca decides to bestow on you, could be ten times worse than doing a car wash by yourself half-naked. There was that greater chance and it left you completely terrified.

Geoff sat on top of the picnic table, hands folded over his face like he couldn’t even watch. Though he and Em weren’t official official, you had noticed in the last few weeks how he felt just by looking at her. He seemed so much different than most of the other hockey players, even his best friend who stood on the other side of him.

“Geoff, will you take a fucking breath she is fine,” Maggie snorted as she took a long sip from her iced drink.

He shook his head as he sent the smallest glare, like a child who was being scolded, over at Maggie, “I can’t, knowing that some of those guys have already gone through the line twice.”

You laughed underneath your breath, it mixing within the sound of Marcus’s. You were only talking to the pair of frat guys because of one sole purpose, Emily. Since she and Geoff got together, the friend groups were mixing more since they hated to be apart for too long. Which was another thing Maggie was not used to… sharing Emily. She had become slightly overprotective of both her and you. After hearing everything from both Deja and Kiara, she wasn’t ready to trust all of Geoff’s intentions which only led to them bickering like siblings.

“Well, do you blame them? Look at her,” Marcus slapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, ready to push his buttons further, “She do be lookin’ fine.”

Geoff’s glare shifted away from Maggie towards Marcus, except this time it deepened. Then all at once, he raised his fist and punched the other boy hard into the shoulder. Marcus flinched grabbing at the sore arm as a loud groan escaped from his lips, “Oww. What the fuck?”

“Don’t talk about her like that… EVER. You got it?”

Marcus backed down, his smile wiped clean from his face, “Okay, okay. I was just kidding anyway. Blame Becca man, not me, and if you’re going to act like this why don’t you just ask her out already?”

“Yeah, Geoff,” you perked up, sending your own smile over at the guy your friend was crushing on, “Why don’t you ask her out already?”

He shrugged, suddenly becoming a fumbling blushing teenager, “We’re taking things slow. We’re just trying to get to know each other first.”

“Taking things slow, mhmm okay. I didn’t know we were back in middle school! What, are you going to ask her dad’s permission first too before you take her out on another date?” Marcus mumbled underneath his breath, causing a giggle to slip from your mouth

Across the street, Emily was spraying down a soapy Honda civic with a hose, while soaked from head to toe. Her hair was slicked back into a ponytail and though she was no doubt uncomfortable, she smiled at the customer, who was a man, definitely in his early fifties, like she was having a good time.

“I think it’s fine that you guys want to take it slow,” Maggie announced getting a surprised look from Geoff, “But let’s make one thing clear. If you do anything to hurt her, I will fucking kill you.”

“I would never hurt her. Why would you think that?”

“Oh, no reason at all,” she mumbled, not bothering to meet his eye.

“No, what? Because that’s another thing, why do you always make comments like that? Like I’m bad news or something?”

At his question alone, both you and Maggie shared a look, long enough that the two other boys saw it and understood that you two had a mutual understanding. Clearing your throat, you leaned against the picnic table in between your roommate and Geoff, your gaze moving back to the car wash. Marcus and Geoff shared a look of their own before zoning in on you and you alone.

“What was that look about?”

“None of your business, Marcus,” Maggie barked.

Geoff leaned closer towards you, “Y/N?”

You sighed, giving in, “Well... you’re in a fraternity and an athlete. You are pretty popular on campus, and we’ve heard some stuff.”

“Stuff what kind of stuff? From who?” his eyes narrowed and his mouth dropped as his tone was nothing short of offended.

Maggie raised her head high, stopping you from slipping anything else to the pair of hockey players, “We’re not allowed to reveal our resources.”

Marcus rolled his eyes, “That’s code word for my sister and her friends.”

“Pfft, is not.”

“Y/N, you are a shitty liar,” he grinned, leaning over Geoff to get closer to you.

“I am not.”

“You are though,” Geoff said, agreeing.

“I am not a shitty liar,” you replied, jaw tensing.

Marcus smirked, “Okay, whatever you say, but answer me this. Has anything that they’ve said about me ruined all chances of us going out?”

“Oh, yeah,” you replied, laughter laced into your response. It seemed with Marcus the more you talked, the more flirty he got, and you weren’t the only girl he was talking to. It was flattering but you would never go down that road especially with Marcus who you loved turning down daily.

“Point proven,” Maggie pointed over at Marcus as he was shoved off of Geoff back to the other side of the picnic table and away from you.

“What do you mean by point proven?”

“Marcus, you flirt with every girl you meet like you’ll get a prize for each one you can charm into your bed.”

“Okay true,” he admitted, his smirk stretching at his own words, “But we didn’t have to acknowledge it.”

Before Maggie could say anything else to argue because it turned out she liked to argue with both of them and not just Geoff, she bit her tongue as both of your eyes fell back to the boy with long hair. His hands were once again folded in his lap and his icy orbs were focused back on the girl across the street. There was a crinkle in between his eyebrows and his lips were curled up into a pouty look. He was such a puppy dog, you had realized.

“Are you sure she is okay? Maybe, I should go over there and make sure everything is fine,” he announced, moving to stand from the table.

Instantly, as fast as he tried to stand, your arm stretched out across his chest halting all sudden movements. Your eyes were wide as you stared at him, practically begging as Maggie turned with another threatening look forming on her sharp features. “Don’t you dare move!”

“What?” his voice shook and his eyebrows rose to his forehead.

“Becca has eyes everywhere,” Maggie hissed.

“Geoff, if you go over there someone will report back to Becca and they’ll think you tried to help her. Which will kill Emily’s chances of getting in,” you explained, softly and calmly.

Slowly, he relaxed back into his previous position and you retracted your arm that was acting as a seat belt. His shoulders dropped and he went straight back to pouting. You watched his every move carefully, in case he decided to get up and make a run for it. You were prepared to go after him and tackle him to the ground if it meant Emily got a spot in the sorority. Nothing was going to get in the way, especially a love-struck hockey player.

“Look on the bright-side there, Warburton,” Marcus said as he patted his friend on the shoulder, “She’s the first one to go out of the other pledges.”

Geoff sent a cold glare over to his friend, “How is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s only going to get worse from here. You know how Becca is which means that these two are going to get it far worse than Emily did.”

At his words alone, Geoff’s glare softened and was replaced by the largest grin. He laughed and covered it poorly with a fake cough. You and Maggie’s head’s slowly turned away from your friend to Marcus, the guy who had been testing your patience all day. Your mouth fell open slightly and your brows furrowed, wanting nothing more than to punch him in that moment.

His chocolate orbs looked past everyone else once again to you and he smirked proudly, “I’m not making my chances with you any better am I?”

“No, not in the slightest,” you replied, scrunching your nose at him as your glare only deepened.

“Shit! Well, I guess there is always tomorrow. Right, sweetheart?” he winked.

You were not amused in the slightest, though some days you didn’t mind the flirting and on occasion found it funny but right now it was nothing short of annoying. He was entitled and had the biggest ego just because of his athleticism and six pack. Because god forbid, girls actually wanted better for themselves than a fuckboy fraternity brother. You were starting to think finding a boy with an actual personality and a decent bone in his body wasn’t possible. Henry was the single exception but now, you were starting to think that the exception didn’t exist.

Maggie shook her head as she huffed loudly underneath her breath, “Marcus, you are such a fucking dick.”

“Thanks,” he smacked his lips as if he were chewing gum, “Right back at ya, Mags.”

“Okay, I should not be associated with him,” Geoff announced raising both of his hands for it to be noted among everyone else, “I am not like my friends when it comes to girls.”

“Alright, you keep telling yourself that man,” Marcus, cackled only for it to fall silent at the buzzing coming from his phone in his pocket. Pulling it out, he let out a noise of approval at what he saw, “Well, look at that. Okay, we gotta go.”

Geoff’s brows furrowed and annoyance dripped from his words, “What? Why?”

“Shawn’s at the rink and he wants us to come work on some drills with him.”

“Again why?” his tone deepened with both irritation and sass, “He has been on our ass nonstop lately. Coach isn’t starting official practices until next week and the home opener is still two weeks out.”

Marcus took in a deep breath before letting it out, “Dude, chill, you know how he is. He just wants us to do well this season especially since everyone is convinced we are going to win the conference and the Frozen Four tournament again.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Geoff grumbled as he peeled himself from the picnic table. He looked over at you and Maggie expectantly, a single brow raised high in the air, “You’ll keep any eye on her until she’s done?”

You nodded, “Yeah, we got her.”

“In case, you forgot, we’ve been taking care of her longer than you have, Warburton,” Maggie waved, fake sweetness sounding almost too sarcastic coming from her tongue.

He just rolled his eyes at her comment as he was used to her attitude towards him at this point, “Yeah, okay, we'll see you guys later.”

“Bye Geoff.”

Expectantly, Marcus turns towards you, his arms raised as if waiting. Sighing, you send him a soft smile, “Bye Marcus.”

“See you, sweetheart, don’t miss me too much while I’m gone.”

“Oh, I won’t,” you reassured one last time, knowing it wasn’t going to make your feelings any clearer to him. He was a verified flirt and to confirm every thought you have about him, he sent one more wink before he went jogging after his friend and teammate.

Once the two of them were finally gone leaving you and your roommate in peace, you visibly relaxed back into the picnic table, elbows leaning against the table top and a sigh left from your parted lips. Maggie’s actions mirrored yours. She shook her head, drawing your attention as she frustratingly ran her fingers through her dark black hair.

“What did Emily get herself into?” she whispered, eyes once again back on the blonde across the street who herself looked to be getting tired, “You know we were warned about the hockey players and what does she do? Decides to date one. Then she drags us into having to hang around them.”

You chuckled, now knowing Maggie better than almost anyone else as you had spent the last how many weeks together straight. You knew when she was genuinely pissed off or actually bothered. Though her words were nothing short of being annoyed and angry at Emily, her tone gave away that it was not as serious as it seemed. “To be fair, I was the one who pushed her on that date with Geoff and let’s be reminded that all of this is only happening because you wanted us to rush.”

“You’re right,” she groaned, “This whole thing is on us and we are the sole cause of having to deal with Geoff Warburton and Marcus Jackson.”

“It’s not all that bad. Geoff’s kind of nice and I mean Deja and Kiara said he is the best choice if she were to be with someone from the team.”

“Yeah, except I don’t trust him. Look, we can’t deal with Em getting hurt right now. We have to stay focused on the plan,” Maggie explained.

“Yeah, I know,” you mumbled out, looking over at Emily to find her waving off the last car in the line. As soon as it was gone, her welcoming over cheery smile was gone and her exhaustion came out for anyone close enough to see.

“Fuck!”

Your head snapped back over to Maggie as you heard her cuss loudly. She stared down at her phone clutched tightly into her palms. You peered curiously over her shoulder, “What? What is it?”

“Becca texted me, I’m next,” she said as she turned her phone for you to read the text.

“Tonight at 1, teepee the Gamma Gamma Sigma sorority house.”

It was Thursday, the weekend was looming and things were closing in on you. Every single pledge had gotten their task and went through with it. Every single one of the six pledges had gotten a text, gotten through what they were being forced to do and were accepted into the sorority with open arms, except for you. You were the last one standing, the one left waiting for her task. Waiting and worrying about the humiliation that would come with that text and whatever it would say. They only did get worse just like Marcus had said and by Wednesday when you were officially deemed the last pledge he laughed in your face.

On the first day, Emily set up a car wash in nothing but a bikini. That night, Maggie tee-peed another less popular sorority house. The next night Deja egged the least liked professor’s car. Then on Wednesday, Hana had to set up a kissing booth. Hours later that night while at a football game, Kiara had to run out on the field and moon the quarterback.

It only got worse, which meant what were you going to be made to do. It was Thursday and you were the last one. The week played in your head over and over, all of your friend’s humiliation or almost getting into trouble flying around your mind. How they felt and how they all got in and now were a part of the sorority. It was all bringing anxiety into your life, in a way you hadn’t felt in years. You were terrified and beyond scared about a one sentence text you were waiting to get from a college girl.

All of this happened to be on your mind as you sat in your Cellular and Molecular Biology class that morning. You needed above all to pay attention if you had any hope of passing the next lab but all you could think about was hockey players, roommates, and horrifying sorority sisters. You were thinking about how stressful it was which only made you more stressed the more you thought about it. It didn’t help that you got a text from Kiara in the group chat saying that there were videos and pictures of her pulling her pants down at the game floating around online. Your class no longer was of as importance as your worry trumped it easily.

Finally, as the time seemed to pass the professor dismissed the class. Jumping from your seat, you desperately weaved your way through the crowd towards the door. You were running on three hours of sleep and one cup of coffee and were sure that whatever Becca had planned you wouldn’t be ready. A jumbled mess, more texts began to flood in. Emily. Maggie. Kiara. Deja. Hana. You needed to get to your dorm room, as it had become your safe haven from the campus and the world. You would calm down as soon as you were in that room and you could unplug from this college massacre.

As another text came in from Hana complaining about how her bottom lip had gotten cut from kissing the president of the chess club, you began to pick up your pace into a fast walk. The sun was lingering through the clouds and the wind was hitting you in the face which eased the slight panic attack building in your chest. You were glancing up and down from the sidewalk to your phone as you tried to respond to the texts with your notebooks slipped between your side and elbow.

You were not paying attention as your mind was locked onto the phone screen in your hand and each terrifying sentence sent in from your friends. Each getting worse by the second. Suddenly, walking with your phone out seemed just as damaging as out of nowhere you collided straight into someone else like an intersection crash.

Notebooks went flying in the air, loose pieces of paper flew out. They floated slowly down, raining over you as your notebooks slapped against the sidewalk at your feet. Sighing, sadly, you shoved your phone into your pocket and dropped to your knees. Hands dancing for all of your stuff, you were trying desperately to catch your breath.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” you sputtered out as you reached for your scattered notes.

The vibrating from your phone had quickly became ignored and every text disappeared from your head-space as the sound of a bag dropping to the ground let out a loud thud, startling you. Glancing over at the black duffel bag, you felt a sudden intake of breath as the person crouched to help pick up your mess. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all good.”

Just like that, other things were thrusted in your line of sight, making your head spin and shake with all new thoughts. You were no longer worried and on the verge of having an all out panic attack. Your breath was cut short for a whole different ray of reasons and as he spoke, it felt like you would never be able to release the breath you were holding.

You were frozen, unable to move, or think as he continued to pick up your jumbled and barely legible written notes. His head was tilted down, focused on the task at hand but would spare you a glance here and there which only made your stomach lurch up into your chest. You were already a mess way before and he was not making things better in the slightest. Your head was a mess itself so trying to talk or have a conversation at this point was borderline impossible.

The hockey player was dressed in the same white hoodie that he wore weeks ago, his name and number printed on the back. That familiar red flush to his skin was nowhere to be seen like you had seen it at the rink and up close you had to agree with Kiara that he was completely gorgeous. She wasn’t wrong and after so long not wanting to admit it, you knew she was right. It was the way, his hair even when it didn’t look brushed seemed styled and didn’t have a stray of hair out of place. Or how he had a small scar on his cheek that seemed less like a flaw and more like a perfection. Or how the gold chain he wore around his neck and tucked into his shirts was now revealed to be a St. Christopher pendant.

There were so many more things you could name in your dizzy state but you were having an issue focusing on saying them as his eyes, his warm almost golden eyes flicker up at you. His long eyelashes brushed his cheeks with each time he looked back down to his hands where he continued to pick up your shit, that you had dropped upon you running into him because you weren’t paying attention where you were going… again. That single ‘S’ shaped curl fell across his forehead. Except this time, it appeared a little shorter making you wonder if he got a haircut.

You were staring and it was evident as he had picked up the last of your notebooks and met your gaze. He wasn’t even surprised to find you already looking at him and as his warm brown orbs found yours, that aching knee-weakening smile appeared on his face. The kind that will make your body tingle every single time and your brain to malfunction and turn to mush. As you saw that smile, up close, in person, and directed at you, it snapped you back into reality. This was Shawn Mendes.

He wasn’t just some cute guy on campus you stumbled across. He wasn’t a nobody. He was the guy. A somebody. His face was littered across campus on every poster and sign you saw. He was the star who scored the winning goal at the Frozen Four last year. His figure alone demanded attention. He was the frat boy at the party who had all the girls’ attention and usually took one home at the end of the night. He was known as Becca Bradley’s main hookup and forever dream man. He wasn’t just a normal guy as much as you wished he was. And above all things, he was the only man on campus you wished and dreaded to eventually meet because you knew like everyone else you would fall for him and that damn smile.

Blinking, you snapped yourself out of the impending staring contest and lingering silence. You stood up from the ground, clearing your throat and wiping the dirt from your leggings. At the sight, you internally groaned because on this certain day you wore a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie. Your hair was tangled and falling out of the makeshift bun you made quickly this morning at the back of your head. You couldn’t bother with makeup or a mint after your coffee and knowing that the guy was in front of you, you felt very self-conscious.

Shawn grabbed a pen that had fallen out from your notebook and handed you the materials as he stood up. You visibly gulped as you noticed him now looming over you. He was tall, so much taller than you expected, now that he was in front of you.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, glancing around the two of you to see so many people staring at the interaction.

All of a sudden you became very aware of how many eyes were on you. As Shawn Mendes, captain of the hockey team, was seen talking to some girl who wasn’t either Becca or anyone remotely known around here. A freshman instead. It seemed whatever these people were doing, whether it was walking, or sitting and studying or just minding their own business became a thing of the past. They were focused on you, now. Waiting and watching to see if anything happens because god forbid they miss Shawn have a conversation with any girl on campus.

“Yeah, you okay?”

He looked you over carefully from your scattered appearance to your wandering gaze at everyone around you. The anxiety in your eyes had heightened to a whole other level and he could see it. Taking a step forward, he bent forward enough until your gaze snapped back into his direction. Once his golden orbs became what you focused on, you relaxed slightly but not enough to ignore the scratching stares on your back.

You cleared your throat, your next sentence coming out small and quiet, “Uh, yeah. I’m okay.”

He was still smiling as he bent over and picked up the duffel bag from the ground. He swung it over his shoulder, eyes never leaving you. Hugging the books to your chest, you were squeezing them so tight, your knuckles were turning white. Your head was pulsing and it suddenly felt like two worlds colliding that shouldn’t be.

“I’m Shawn, by the way,” he grinned as he scratched at the back of his neck, that pink tint returning to his cheeks suddenly, taking you by surprise, “I didn’t know if you knew that or not but uh yeah.”

For once, since the week had started a giggle had slipped from your lips and from all of the people it was because of him. It still couldn’t process in your mind that after weeks you were finally talking to him and that you were officially meeting him. It just seemed so weird because he had always been in arms length but you could never reach each other. The timing was never right and now by chance you had just ran into him. The world worked mysteriously and quietly and you weren’t entirely sure with how you felt about this action they pulled.

“I knew,” you nodded, that smile seeming to be permanently imprinted on your lips in front of him, “I’m Y/N.”

“You’re a pledge right? For ADPi? I’ve seen you around,” as soon as he began he became a stuttering mess and you were confused if this was actually the legendary hockey golden boy of campus or someone else, “Not that I’ve been actively looking for you or anything. That would just be creepy.”

You laughed again, “Right, uh yeah I am a pledge.”

“How’s that going? I mean it’s Becca so…” he trailed off, shrugging and careful of his words because if you knew who he was, he knew you were probably aware of his involvement with the president of your hopefully soon to be sorority.

“Yeah, it’s uhhh…” just as you went to answer with whatever came to your mind first, your words stopped altogether at the vibrating from your phone in your pocket. It had gone quiet for a while but now it was picking up again as the girls never knew to shut up. You sent him an apologetic smile as you reached into your pocket and took it out.

How the universe liked to pick their moments, you thought. As you stared at that screen, you realized that your bad luck and not been all dished out yet and that God was still saving some to give to you at random. It was convenient that was the only thing you could think as you stared at that text message. Your demeanor had gone back to worried and anxious and a physical mess. That smile, that soft smile you had been unable to get rid of and suddenly seemed reserved for the frat boy in front of you was gone. Your reality had been kicked straight back into your face and you wished that you could go back to sleep in a place where Shawn Mendes was nervous around you and Becca Bradley did not exist.

“Y/N?”

You couldn’t look away from the message and your throat had suddenly become very dry. Your mouth parted slightly and you were convinced the world was ending and that there was no way you could pull this off. “I uh, I’m sorry but I have to go.”

Even as you were on the verge from running away from him, he still smiled that damn large beautiful smile and it made your stomach clench all at once with one look. Suddenly, that shy college guy had turned back into, with the flick of a magic wand, what you expected him to be. He smirked that signature arrogant look and he casually slipped his hands into his pockets. “No, you go. I get it. Becca calls and you run. It’s the drill.”

Silently, you sent him a look of gratitude though you didn’t appreciate his cocky response whatsoever but you couldn’t worry about it at that moment. Just as you slipped past him though, your name once again echoed into your ears, and it was coming from his lips. “Y/N!”

You looked shyly over your shoulder, still consumed with worry and doubt to face that smirk and those gorgeous eyes. He nodded softly and in a single look that smirk dropped into the softest smile you had ever seen, “I’ll see you around.”

The only thing you could muster was your own smile as your heart had been pushed from your chest into your throat making you unable to speak. You shared one more look before you turned and continued to make your way to your destination; your dorm. Even though you could barely fathom that you had finally met Shawn Mendes it did not compare to what you were feeling now as that one sentence alone was now going through your head on repeat.

STEAL sophomore hockey captain Shawn Mendes’ boxers without getting caught…

“Y/N, just take a few deep breaths for me, okay. Everything is going to be fine. Right Mags?”

Emily looked desperately to Maggie for help as they stood in the doorway of the closet to find you sat underneath the clothing rack, your head put in between your legs. Your breathing was scattered and uneven and they weren’t sure how long you had been in there as they had found you when they walked in.

“Y/N, you’re going to be fine. This is nothing we can’t handle,” Maggie said, staring down at you intently.

You sniffled and lifted your head to face your two friends. Emily’s eyes screamed worry as Maggie waited patiently. Tears filled your waterline as finally after weeks from being away from home, everything was finally setting in and you were beyond overwhelmed. You shook your head wiping the water from your eyes before they could fall down your face.

“Nothing, we can’t handle, you’re joking right?” you laughed sadly, “How am I supposed to steal his boxers? Anyone have any ideas because I am the clumsiest and loudest person. Nothing about me screams stealth ninja. Which means, I’ll get caught and he is going to think I am some weirdo and tell all of his friends. I will then become the laughing stock of the whole school.”

“At least, we’ll all be getting laughed at together,” Maggie shrugged.

You stared at her silently, a small glare evident in your eyes. Emily glanced between the two of you before she dropped to her knees and rubbed your arm softly and comfortingly, “What she is trying to say is that none of what any of us had to do was easy. We were all forced to do these things we didn’t want to do and we all are getting made fun of because of it.”

“Yeah, in case, you forgot Emily was basically naked and cleaning strangers cars. And Kiara showed her butt to the quarterback in front of most of the school and Hana kissed all the guys from the chess team twice. We’re all embarrassed and we’re all getting laughed at,” Maggie tried again, sinking down to sit on your other side, her back leaning against the closet door, “And this is all because of Becca which means we haven’t gone this far for you to back out and ruin everything. I almost got in serious trouble for this so let’s stand up and pull ourselves together and do this because I know that you can.”

Taking in a deep breath, you closed your eyes and sniffled one more time, letting for the first time all day your anxiety slip away. When your eyes fluttered back open, you nodded with a soft smile which brought one on each of your friends’ faces. Maggie’s quickly grew into a huge grin, one where her eyes squinted and her dimples showed. You had yet to have seen one so big.

Sending you a wink, she clapped her hands together, “Okay, so now that we have that settled we need to get you ready. If you are going to be going on a black op. mission, that means you also need to dress the part.”

“Oh god, what do you have in mind?”

She didn’t respond but only wiggled her eyebrows up and down.

Hours later, at dark, the three of you found yourself making your way back over to the sorority house as Becca demanded to see you beforehand which was different from what she had done with the other five pledges. After all, you were the last one though. You were feeling better since earlier that day when you previously had gotten the text. Once Maggie and Emily had given you a pep talk, you realized that you couldn’t go into this thinking you couldn’t do it or that you weren’t going to be able to do it. You had to go into this being positive and doing everything you can to make it possible to steal those boxers.

Your confidence had come on quickly and as promised Maggie wanted you to look the part. Putting on a pair of black leggings and black long sleeve shirt, you suddenly felt like you looked the part. Your hair was pulled tightly into a sleek high ponytail and there were two smeared lines of eye black under your eyes, reminding you of the softball days. At first you protested, knowing that Becca was going to make fun of you but as you left you decided to not give a shit because all that mattered was that you proved her wrong and got through this final task of initiation.

Entering into the house, you found the girls littered out into the living room, no doubt waiting for you. Stepping in, you stiffened up. You crossed your arms over your chest and stood with your head held high. Maggie and Emily stood off to the side from you grinning like two proud parents. As for the other three pledges, they were busy getting their stuff ready to move into the house and once you told Maggie that Becca had texted you, it was getting sent out into the group chat ASAP. They were sending wishes of luck and love your way from across campus.

The sorority girls’ attention finally fell to you and their phones and boring conversations had quickly been forgotten. Some of them laughed, unable to control themselves while others whispered. Becca appeared from down the hallway, dressed in her typical attire. Short skirt and cropped shirt. Heels on her feet, clicking against the tiled floor, though there was no one there besides her sisters to judge on what shoes were on her feet.

As soon as her eyes fell on you though, a loud laugh bursted from her mouth, “Oh wow, this is too good. I knew I had given you the right task. Love the outfit.”

Taking in a deep breath, you let it out as your arms fall slowly to your sides, “Okay, so what else is there?”

Her head tilted to the side innocently as her manicured fingers folded together over her stomach, “What do you mean?”

“Well, you called me here so I have to believe there is more to this than just having to steal Shawn Mendes’ boxers. So what is it?”

“Oh, honey, no,” she waved you off as another icy giggle made its way from her lips into the air, “I just wanted to come with and watch. Each pledge gave me some sort of show and secretly this has been the one I have been waiting for. I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss it.”

It was late, dark, and the sun was no longer looming over campus. Your pulse quickened and your palms were dripping in sweat as you stared up at the three story house. The window was left cracked open and you watched as the breeze swayed the white curtains from side to side. This was insane and beyond anything you had ever done but you knew it was unavoidable. If you wanted to get into Alpha Delta Pi, it had to be done.

You could feel the lingering eyes of the sorority girls as they crouched behind a line of bushes and you internally cursed. Emily had to set up a car wash by herself, Maggie had to teepee another sorority house, and those both sounded better than this; standing in front of frat boy central, forced to steal sophomore and hockey player Shawn Mendes’ boxers

You almost couldn’t breathe properly and everything was hitting you at once as you finally had a minute to process the whole thing. Even then as you stared up at the brick house and the lights that illuminated from inside, you knew you could do this. You weren’t sure but you were pretty sure. After all, what was this? Really? How much of this was going to decide your future or even matter in the next five years. The answer was nothing. It would mean nothing. Instead, it all just felt like a game, a shrivel in time that seemed completely irrelevant against the bigger and more important moments in life.

There was no way you weren’t going to do it. You knew it as you stared up at the slightly cracked window and were aware of your two friends behind you. It was maybe not going to matter in a year or maybe even now but that wasn’t going to stop you. Not even the exhaustion or the emotional wreckage would keep you from getting inside that house. Almost a month into the semester and you were drowning yourself.

Shaking your head to rid all of your thundering thoughts, you squeezed your fists together and decided to say fuck it! Taking a deep breath, you darted forward without so much as looking behind you at the girls hidden in the bushes. Tiptoeing forward along the side of the house, you hopped up and over the short fencing that led to the backyard. You landed softly in the grass on the other side and suddenly, you were on high alert. Hugging the wall as you walked, your eyes were darting everywhere from the backyard to behind you as you now felt like you were on the verge of being caught.

The large backyard was empty besides the trash cans full of beer cans, the white fold out table used for ping pong, and the bonfire pit. No, Pi Kappa Alpha boy was in sight and it eased your worries somewhat. Sliding around the corner, the back of the house came in view exactly with one sliding door and three possibly unlocked windows. You took a risk and headed for the glass sliding door and peered in. The basement was carpeted with leather couches, a bar, and a pool table. As for the large room, there wasn’t a person in sight. Grabbing at the outside handle, you sighed with relief as it gave away when you pulled and it opened slowly. Once the opening was large enough, you slid in and pulled it shut behind you as quietly as you could.

You looked left and right before you began to make your way slowly across the lit room to the staircase and walked up them. The door at the top of the steps was left open and ajared. Leaning forward, you stuck your head out to again be met with a silent hallway, lights all on and not a voice or other person heard.

Your nerves had returned and the hair was sticking up straight on the back of your neck as you stepped into the hallway. It was short as on one side led to a kitchen where there were uncleaned counters and the sink was full with dirty plates. On the other side there was a bathroom and a bedroom or two. Checking once more that those rooms were clear and didn’t appear to be the hockey captain’s, you walked forward and the hallway brought you straight out into the front living room which was the first thing seen when you entered through the front door.

Just like the basement it was littered with a few nice but slightly torn up couches and a big screen TV. Empty cans and cups were left scattered across the coffee table and there were random articles of clothing tossed around the room. Your nose scrunched up in the air as you finally took notice of the musty and suffocating smell that appeared when a bunch of boys decided to live together in a barely cleaned house. Another staircase caught your eye right next to the front door that led upwards to not doubt the third and final floor of the house and where the remainder of the bedrooms were. You cracked out a smile as you made your move for them.

Before you could even make it to the first step though, the front door opened. Panic appeared on your face and your eyes widened like saucers as two voices filled the otherwise quiet room. Just as it swung open, you dropped to the floor behind a large L-shaped black couch.

“Dude, why did Mendes have to schedule another evening practice? We already had three this week,” the first guy said, the voice unrecognizable to you.

The other one responded quickly as the sound of two bags being dropped onto the hardwood floor echoed in the room, “I don’t know because whatever captain says it goes. At least it’s over and we’re the first one’s home because I want a shower.”

“I want a pizza, should I order one?” the first one asked.

“Fuck yeah.”

Crawling to the right end of the couch, you peeked from behind it to see the two hockey players' backs as they headed for the back hallway you had come from initially. They were sweaty and practically limping showing just how exhausted they were from being pushed day in and day out by their team captain a week before official practices were set to start. Once they disappeared from sight, you glanced back at the front door to see no other hockey players appear and knew this was your chance. Standing, you darted for the stairs and climbed them quickly and as you hit the top step you heard the door fly open again and a chorus of more voices filled the house.

A loud gasp ripped through your throat as you heard a few pairs of footsteps following you up the stairs. Your head began to snap back and forth at each doorway you saw on either side struggling to pick one to go through. You stumbled down the hallway until you grabbed at the knob of the last door on the left. With one push on the door, you were falling into the dark room so out of breath as the voices only seemed to get closer from the staircase. You couldn’t recognize who the players were and weren’t worried about it as you were solely focused on running and not getting caught.

Peering through the dark, you were able to piece together the room from the large queen sized unmade bed to the desk pushed against the opposite wall and an additional door to the room’s very own bathroom. Stepping forward your foot suddenly caught on something sending you tumbling to the ground. You mentally cursed as a loud thud sounded in the room meaning whoever stood on the other side of the door and in the hallway would have heard. Face smooshed into the carpet, your fingers touched lazily at the object you tripped over which happened to be a small pile of laundry. Through the dark, your fingers traced over what appeared to be a t-shirt and as you squinted, you were able to see the familiar number eight and Mendes written across the back of it.

By chance you had stumbled into the right room and then of course tripped and fell, but at least you were in the right room. Then with the amount of clothes scattered along the floor that meant there had to have been a pair of boxers somewhere. You freeze though as fast as you had fallen, the fabric of the t-shirt threaded in between your fingers as the sound of the door handle being turned set off an alarm in your head. Then when the light clicked on, you crawled and crawled for dear life until you were under the bed.

The shirt was still clutched tightly in your fist and you were holding your breath as the voice you had heard hours ago for the first time once again filled your ears. “I think that was a good practice. Do you think that was a good practice?”

The second voice turned out to be just as familiar as the first and you couldn’t help but smile knowing exactly who it was. Geoff. “Yeah, except for the fact half of the guys almost passed out on the ice.”

“Okay, my bad,” Shawn sighed as that duffel bag he had been carrying earlier was dropped onto the ground right next to the bed. Your eyes followed it before they went back to the two pairs of feet in the room. “Man, I just want to have a good season. I don’t mean to be THAT captain but I just-”

“No, no I get it. You don’t have to explain. I want to have a good season too.”

“Thanks, Geoff. So...” Shawn clapped his hands together before changing the subject all together, “How’s things going with Emily?”

You swear you could hear the smile in Geoff’s voice when he talked which gave away truly how crazy he was over your friend, “Great, amazing, I don’t know. Dude, she’s just... I don’t know. I really like her.”

“I’m happy for you, man! You deserve it.”

“Thanks, except I might have to have a word with Becca though. I mean what she made Em do was crazy and humiliating,” Geoff snapped his voice rising slightly at the end.

The hockey captain chuckled slightly, “Well what did you expect? It was the same way last year for the pledges and she will do it again to the ones next year. That’s just how she is.”

“Yeah, but still Emily just isn't like Becca or the other girls. Neither is Y/N or Maggie. I just don’t get why any of them wanted to rush.”

“Speaking of, I met Y/N today.”

At the mere mention of your name, your eyes widened and your hand clasped even tighter around the shirt. Your mouth parted slightly, waiting and completely on edge wanting to know what this drop dead gorgeous guy was about to say about you.

“Shawn!” Geoff warned.

“What?”

“I know that look on your face and don’t!”

“Don’t what,” Shawn said, laughter heard in the simple two words he said.

“Do what you always do. Okay, she’s not like every other girl you get involved with,” Geoff explained and in that moment there was nothing you wished more than to see the look on either of their faces as they spoke, “Y/N is nice and one of Emily’s best friends, so stay out of her pants.”

Was Geoff seriously being protective of you? It sounded like it and suddenly everything you had thought about him; being a hockey player and frat boy meant he couldn’t be boyfriend material. Or that he was just using Emily. Or that he was built like all of his friends. All of that disappeared because in that sole moment you knew that he was a good one. Geoff Warburton was a good guy and deep down more than anything you hoped that Shawn Mendes was too.

“Yeah, Geoff I know Y/N is different and you’re so right. Even with just meeting her I realized she isn’t anything like Becca or any of those other girls. I don’t know there is just something about her-”

Your breath was stolen and you knew this was a position you never expected to find yourself in; hiding under the hockey star’s bed as he gushed about you to his best friend and teammate.

“Which is why you should stay away from her. I have enough to deal with keeping Marcus away from her and I can’t be in charge of you either.”

“Okay, but honestly, we both know I would be a better option for her over Marcus any day,” he joked.

“Shawn!”

“Okay, fine, alright. I’ll stay away from her since you asked me too.”

Geoff’s feet stepped for the door and a moment of silence passed between them and you were starting to worry that maybe they saw you or they finally remembered the thud they had heard earlier. You were toast. That’s what you thought, but when you thought you were going to be pulled from under the bed with all chances of becoming a sorority member of ADPi being ripped from existence, it never did happen. “Okay, now that we are on the same page. I am going to shower because I need to meet Emily and she won’t like it if I’m late.”

“Have fun!” Shawn called out as Geoff stepped out of the room and into the hallway, “Do you need any condoms? It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Goodnight Mendes.”

Shawn laughed, one of those belly laughs that instantly could make anyone else in the room smile and happy. You were trying to hide your own smile from under the bed as his previous words about you were being repeated over and over in your mind. Suddenly, though the task at hand became your focus once again as you heard the door shut and then lock. He walked forward towards the bathroom and the sound of the shower being turned on made you tense up all over again. This was it, you decided as you found no pairs of boxers slipped under the bed or on the floor. Music filled the bathroom, Drake’s voice filing out into the next room. The hockey player spit the words of the song underneath his breath as he kicked off the shoes on his feet. Each one being placed at the bottom of the bed and then one by one his socks.

The process was painfully slow and you were close to sneezing from the amount of dust bunnies tickling at your nose. You also knew deep down that if you weren’t hidden underneath his bed and you were there able to watch the show, it would be less painful. Instead, you had to imagine what each sight was when a new article of clothing was stripped off. When the sight of his sweaty practice t-shirt hit the ground, you had to fight a groan from slipping out because of how much you wanted to peek your head out and look.

It became even harder as that shirt was joined by his sweatpants. You were starting to count the seconds of how long it took him just to slip off those boxers and by the time you got to five they were at his ankles. He kicked them off his feet and the black Calvin Klein boxers were left near the rest of his discarded clothes.

A small smile lifted at the corners of your mouth because of how close you were to pulling this off. That smile dropped quickly though and your jaw hit the floor as he moved away from the bed to the bathroom where you were able to see his full backside. His curls were fluffed up and at each step, you could see the way his back muscles rippled and tightened. Not to mention his ass, oh god, you swear you were close to drooling. Athletes and guys who worked out really did have the best butts.

As he pulled back the shower curtain and stepped in, you turned your eyes back to the prize sat right before you. Shawn Mendes’ boxers. This was it, you decided. Sliding out from beneath the bed, you hopped to your feet and snatched up the black thin fabric. Bunching it into your hands, you made a beeline for the partially cracked window in his room, knowing you wouldn’t be able to face trying to go back downstairs to the sliding door. Plus, you remembered seeing a ladder leaned up against the side of the house up to the roof. Your escape plan was now put into motion. Glancing back over your shoulder one more time to make sure he was still safely in the shower, you slowly pulled up the window enough for you to climb out.

You stepped out onto the roof and moved slowly towards the side where you remember where the ladder was sat. Except when you peered over to where it was initially standing you found it nowhere to be seen. You looked over to where the girls had been standing before behind the line of bushes to see they were no longer there. Not even Maggie or Emily was there. You knew that Becca must have taken the ladder because there was no way it had just disappeared. She wanted to make this as hard as possible for you and was set on you failing which only made you determined in the end.

Taking in a breath to resettle yourself, you began to move around the top of the roof to try and find a second escape route. You didn’t know how long you had been up there for but as you tried to sneak past Shawn’s window again, you jumped as you found him standing in his room, towel hung low around his hips and staring at his phone. You suddenly couldn’t move, unable to run as you stared at him, water dripping down his chest and curls pushed back out of his face. He was a daydream and a drop of heaven and you had his boxers in your hands.

You were snapped back into reality as he moved towards the window and he lifted his head. Without thinking you dropped to your stomach but as soon as you landed on the roof you began to roll. Unable to grab onto any of the shingles, you rolled right off the roof and in mere seconds of falling off the three story house into the yard, your hands caught the very edge.

You hissed as the material scratched at your fingers and your feet swung back and forth. Looking forward, you found yourself hanging right in front of a window on the second level of the kitchen. You peered down to see that ground still seemed so far away, but it became your best bet quickly as one of the boys moved past the window. It was Marcus, and just as he went to look out of it, you let go and dropped. It felt endless and like you were going to die for sure before out of nowhere your feet meet the ground. Your knees bent slightly and from the harsh pressure, your left ankle rolled from under you.

Collapsing to the ground, pain shot up from the area and you cursed loudly. Your hands reached at the skin feeling it pulsing and already starting to swell. Of course. Bad luck. This was stupid. Stupid. Why did you sign up for this and why would you go through with it?

Rolling your eyes, you took a minute or so before you picked up the pair of boxers on the ground next to you and slowly pulled yourself up. Walking was brutal and you had acquired a limp as pain shot up from your ankle with each step you took. You had risked something so much worse for a pair of boxers and what could only resemble a DARE. If you didn’t get in, you were going to kill Becca for sure.

The whole walk back to the house felt horrifying and like your foot was being ripped from it’s socket. As you limped up the front sidewalk, you found your two most trusted companions sat on the outside step completely silent. They waited for you, worry shown on their faces. Maggie tapped her foot against the concrete ground while Emily chewed relentlessly on her nails. Both of their heads lifted from their gaze on the ground at the sound of your dragging steps.

They jumped from their spots on the step as they quickly noticed you struggling to move. Rushing over, Maggie grabbed you by your arm while Emily stared down at your wrecked ankle. “Oh my god, what happened?”

“Em, I’m okay. I’m fine, I just took a small fall.”

“A small fall,” Maggie scoffed, “You can barely walk.”

“Okay,” you half smiled, “It was kind of a big fall.”

“Look,” Emily started her brows furrowed in that way they did when she was scared, “We wanted to stay until you came out but Becca forced us all to come back and when we tried to stay she said she would automatically just end your rushing process.”

“No, no, it’s all good, but I’m guessing she was the one who moved the ladder that was on the side of the house.”

“Uh, yeah,” Emily cringed, “We’re sorry.”

“No, seriously, Em it’s okay I understand.”

Maggie rolled her eyes and butted in once she knew you were alright, “Well?”

“Well,” you repeated her word, putting on your best poker face.

“Did you get them?”

A large smile tugged at your lips revealing your teeth as a small giggle slipped out, “Damn straight, I got them.”

Revealing the pair of boxers you were hiding from behind your back the other two girls squealed and pulled into a bone crushing hug. You had done it. All three of you had successfully faced and passed the god-awful tests that came with Becca Bradley and you were oozing with pride for yourself. High school you would have never been able to do something like that. You would have blushed, denied such an offer, and gone back to reading your books. Here you were though, even with a swollen ankle you were smiling and genuinely happy.

After a few minutes, Maggie and Emily pulled away from the hug and helped you up the front steps and into the house. Laughter echoed from the living room and as you slowly made your way into the full room, it all became silent. Becca was sitting in a white chair facing the doorway and when her eyes met yours, she quirked an eyebrow curiously. Her slow gaze scanned you from head to toe. From the grass sticking to your knees to the way your leg buckled from simply standing.

“Oh, you’re back,” she smiled, it was fake.

“Yeah, thanks for waiting by the way,” you replied, unable to hide your annoyance or glare.

“Well, we weren’t going to wait all night for you. Which reminds me so?”

Unfolding the black boxers in your hand, you held them up to her and sent a proud smirk her way, “I’ve got your boxers.”

Glancing to Maggie and then Emily on either side of you, you found them looking at you the same way. Excitement gnawing on them on the inside as they tried to hide it with their smiles aimed towards you. Your attention though was brought back to the sorority president though as she tutted softly.

“Mhmm, there’s just one thing though.”

“One thing?” you asked, a frown lacing over your lips.

“Where’s your proof?” she raised a hand and a few of the other sorority girls nodded in agreement as they found amusement in the current situation, “I mean, how do I know these aren’t from one of the other player’s? How do I know you didn’t just pick up a random pair once you walked in. Where’s your proof that these are actually Shawn Mendes’ boxers.”

You clicked your tongue along the roof of your mouth, trying to hide the feeling of wanting to run her over with a bus. Instead, you pulled a sickening grin on your face and aimed the back seam on the boxers towards her. You had her right where you wanted her and this time you were destined to win. It made it so much sweeter that her face screamed success.

Like she had outsmarted you as she had done to so many others but under all that confidence you knew she was scared. There was a crack seen behind her smirk and her entitlement. She was actually worried that you had come out on top of her. Letting a second pass as the tension prickled at your skin, you hummed and thrusted the piece of clothing in her direction. And at your next sentence, her facade crumpled to pieces.

“How about the fact that there is a number eight written on the back tag in sharpie.”

a/n: let me know if you wanted to be added or removed from the taglist.

taglist: @particularnarry @magicalmugshepherdpony @probablyshouldbesleeping @gamma-xi-delta @imbjapan @itrocksmysocks @thatkidwhodreams @fandomlolzor @wwyitm-mendes @brook1232 @fanstories @burkylover @badreputationlove @imsuperawkward @bubbashawn @shawnsreputation @littlebabymendes @avsensio @bluebellwoods

#shawn mendes #shawn #mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes imagines #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fanfic #my writing #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes au #college au #sorotity #fraternity

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stxrrywildflower · 4 years

Text

brother

pairing - spencer reid x reader

summary - you lose your brother to the hands of a killer

warnings - cursing, blood, injury details, character death (not major, just mentioned)

word count - ?

note - this was kinda just a little idea i had and wanted to write it :)

the team walked into the conference room on monday, ready for whatever case was presented. once sitting down, everyone seemed to notice that you were missed.

“where’s y/n?” morgan asked, looking over at spencer for answers. he shrugged, “i haven’t talked to her since last night.”

the second strange occurrence was that hotch motioned for garcia to sit down. he took the remote and stood in front of this team. all eyes were on their boss as he took a deep breath.

“i have to warn you, this case is going to impact us all emotionally,” hotch spoke. just as he hit the first button, pictures of two victims appeared on the screens and tablets; one male and one female. “is that?” j.j. started.

“lake placid, new york. two victims, clara smith and benjamin y/l/n. yes, this is y/n’s younger brother. she took the first flight out this morning upon hearing the news. we were called in due to the fact that benjamin had y/n’s name carved into his right arm.”

with the information presented, the team felt like a bomb was dropped on them. everyone met benjamin at least once. for spencer, he had met benjamin on multiple occasions.

“of course y/n is going to be affected by this, that is obvious but we need to be there for her. she is also most likely going to bring her in for questioning. then, she can pick whoever she wants to talk to and we go from there,” hotch spoke before adding, “wheels up in 20.”

after the team briefed on the plane and got their assignments, spencer moved away from the team and over to one of the seats in the corner. derek noticed the younger agents absence and sat down in the seat across from him.

“what’s on your mind kid?” morgan asked.

spencer rubbed he bridge of his nose before speaking, “y/n, she lost her brother to a killer. we saw how that affected hotch, i can’t imagine what’s going to happen with her.” derek leaned forward and rested his arms on the table between them.

“kid i know you’re worried about her, and you have every right to be. and i know you lost someone too, don’t act like i don’t know you and benjamin were friends. but right now, we really just need to be there for her and catch this unsub.” spencer presses his lips together and nodded. he thanked the older agent before going back to his own thoughts.

the team arrived in lake placid an hour and a half later. j.j. and hotch were going to the police station to set up, rossi and spencer were going to the morgue to look at the first victim, and derek and emily were going to where the latest victim was found. the body of benjamin remained there due to how little time had passed since he was found as well as the markings on his arm.

derek and emily pulled up to the hill overlooking the lake where benjamin was found. a couple local police officers were scattered around, checking for other evidence. however, they noticed a familiar figure, squatting down by benjamin’s body.

you stood up upon hearing a car pull in on the dirt being you. you then turned around to see derek and emily stepping out of the suv. you kept your eyes on the grass hill as the other two agents took in your appearance.

you were dressed in leggings with a white simple tank top and your black combat boots. a tan knitted cardigan that fell long down your back and was a little oversized in the sleeves. your eyes were red and puffy, no doubt from crying.

emily took a hesitant step toward you as derek moved past you to the body. no words were exchanged between the two of you as emily pulled you into a hug, cradling your head with her hand as you pressed your forehead into her shoulder.

“why don’t you go to the car. we’re going to the police station after we are done here,” emily spoke in such a calm and reassuring voice that you followed her orders and sat in the back of the car.

the other two agents made their way back to the after just a few short minutes. the body was being brought to the morgue for further inspection. the drive back was painfully long. as emily drove, derek noticed you in the back seat visible shaking. your head was pressed up against the window as you bounced your leg.

once arriving at the police station, derek jumped out of the car to alert the team of your presence as emily helped you out of the car. she kept her arm around your waist as she led you into the building. you felt all eyes on you as you walked in. you pressed your lips together and slowly looked up at your team. off to the side you noticed your parents, talking to one of the police officers. honestly, you weren’t close with your parents at all and you already greeted them.

spencer was the first to notice the tears begining to fall down your cheeks. he tossed down the file onto the desk before slowly walking over to you. “y/n,” he spoke in a soft voice. you didn’t say anything but instead wrapped your arms around him. he pulled you into a tighter embrace, not caring that his shirt was getting wet from your tears.

the team watched on as spencer whispered something in your ear. it was inaudible to them but upon seeing him lead you over to a chair before sitting down and pulling you into his lap was explanation enough.

“when she’s ready we’ll see who she wants to interview her. for now, morgan and j.j. interview the parents. find out what you can on the personalities and social life of these victims. rossi, head down to the morgue and find out the similarities. everyone else, victimology,” hotch ordered.

it took you close to a half an hour for you to fully calm down. rossi was just walking back in the doors when you had told spencer you wanted to do the interview.

“i’m ready,” you told your boss with a slight smile, trying to put on a brave face.

“alright who with?” hotch responded. you looked around the room at your team who were all doing their own things. “you,” you responded.

hotch nodded before leading you to the interrogation room. once entering, you took a seat as your team gathered in front of the window to watch your interview. they wanted to get better information but at the same time, wanted to be there for you.

“alright y/n, just for record, what is your relation to benjamin y/l/n,” hotch asked first. “older sister,” you simply stated.

“why don’t you start out with telling me anything about benjamin. then we will go into actual questions, okay?” you nodded to hotch’s words as you mentally prepared yourself.

you took a deep breath before starting, “benjamin and i were always close, practically best friends. since we’re two years apart, a lot of my friends were his friends and the same with my friends. we never had the cliche of not wanting to be around each other in high school. when i committed to nyu, he was so proud. prouder than my parents i would say. i was just so scared of leaving him. we really relied on each other. but deep down i knew he would be fine. benjamin wasn’t exactly popular but he was so nice to everyone. kinda became what he was known for,” you let out a slight chuckle at that.

“and then when i was 20, he committed to university of south carolina. being so far away from my brother was difficult but we made a habit of talking two or three times a week. and that stuck to today. when i told him i was applying and then got accepted into the fbi acadamy, i wasn’t sure who was more excited, me or him. he told me that he knew i would be such a good agent because i loved helping people. i moved to washington, d.c. and him to new york city. i didn’t get to visit him as much as i would like but again, we called. he was only supposed to be up here on a visit. he loved meeting the team so much. him and spencer got on so well because they both had such similar interests. and it really made my so happy to see them bonding,” you spoke.

“deep down you always have a fear that this job is going to take someone you love. whether it’s a significant other and a family member. i just never thought it could happen to benjamin and i don’t know what to do. should i be mourning him or jumping right back into work? nothing feels right. i just feel so fucking guilty that he’s dead. the killer wanted me here and took away my brother because of that. my own name was carved into his arm. i just don’t know what to do,” you managed to choke out. hotch stopped for a moment, moved slightly by your speech. before he would have to ask you the tough questions, he decided to give you advice.

“when i lost hayley, i felt like there was such a big gap missing. foyet took away someone i loved. but, i had jack and the team. both kept me going and helped me grieve but also move on and continue a sense of normality. the team is all here for you as well as your parents,” hotch said to you. he was about to respond but stopped when you rolled your eyes and laughed slightly. “i doubt they really care,” you grimaced.

“excuse me?” hotch responded, confused on your comment.

you leaned forward and rested your elbows on the table. “you know know deep down you have the feeling someone doesn’t like you? with both their body language and words? that’s how benjamin and i felt growing up. our parents made sure that they were around just enough that was legal and allowed but they never really seamed to care about us. when benjamin and i both went to college, they absolutely didn’t care. didn’t get a goodbye either. didn’t even show up to our graduations. they always hated us for not visiting but benjamin and i agreed that we wouldn’t unless we both felt that it was right to do so. i’m shocked if their mourning right now,” you revealed.

derek suddenly stepped away from the integration room just as hotch was asking you more questions and went over to the phone. just as the team followed, they heard him ask garcia for records on your parents.

“i think we need to look into y/n’s parents. i got a bad feeling from them when interviewing and i think what she said might be a key,” derek spoke in a hushed voice. from there, the team dispatched.

you and hotch exited your interview twenty minutes later. you were mentally exhausted from having to recall all these memories about your deceased brother. j.j. was the only one in the station. you heard her tell hotch where each individual member of the team went. you sat down at one of the desks and looked at the case file of the first girl. she was a high school senior, you had no clue who she was or why she was the first victim.

you decided to do some digging and dialed garcia number. “hey pen,” you spoke softly into the phone. “oh y/n, how are you feeling lovie?” the technical analyst responded. “i’m coping. this is just a curiosity question but did clara have any siblings?” you asked.

“she had an older brother. he moved to los angeles from new york and is currently on a flight back home,” garcia informed your. “alright thank you penelope, you’re the best,” you said as you hung up.

“hey hotch,” you spoke softly, gaining the attention of your boss. “clara had an older brother who moved away from home. i think that this might connect our victims,” you informed him. hotch obviously didn’t like that you were doing work but he dismissed it and looked at the file. “maybe he’s punishing the older siblings for leaving their younger sibling,” you suggested. hotch nodded and with a quick ‘good work’ to you, he was on the phone and out of the room.

days later, the team had a lead. your parents had rushed to the police station upon hearing this. the unsub wasn’t working alone but if they found one, they could find the others. as the team was begining to grab their gear, you reached to your side to make sure your gun was there. instead, you found nothing but an empty holster.

“hotch where’s my gun,” you asked sternly. hotch glanced up and motioned with his head over to where rossi stood. the oldest agent had your gun secured to the other side of his hip. “you aren’t coming,” was all hotch said as a response.

“like hell i’m not!” you exclaimed.

hotch as well as the team looked at you. “you are too emotionally invested in the case. we do this to any agent who is directly linked. stay here and we will be back soon.” with that, the bau team rushed out the door and to the cars.

you collapsed into a chair and put your head in your hands. all you could do was wait.

an hour later, the team walked into the station holding a man in his early 20’s. he held a wide smirk as morgan pushed him in. you stood up, stoned face with shaking hands.

“he did it?” you asked morgan, your voice barely above a whisper. derek nodded grimly.

“oh so you must be ben’s older sister! shame mommy dearest had to kill him. i don’t blame your parents, it really was your fault after all,” the unsub taunted.

your parents? you turned around to where your mom and dad were now standing. the pieces slowly clicked in your mind. you stormed over to your mom, pushing her into the wall and holding her neck against it with your arm.

“you killed him?” you asked sharply. your mom didn’t respond but you instead pressed your arm further into her neck. “answer me!” you yelled, tears welling in your eyes. the team had never seen you so angry and aggressive before.

j.j. and spencer rushed forward, pulling you away from your mom. spencer wrapped his arm around your waist and led you out of the police station. once in a more secluded area, you broke.

sobs racked your body as tears openly fell. spencer kept you in a tight embrace the entire time. you cried for your bother. you cried over the fact that your parents had murdered their own son. you didn’t even consider them parents anymore.

it had taken you awhile to calm down. spencer’s phone had started ringing, causing you to pull away. you managed to catch a glimpse of the caller i.d. and once seeing your bosses name, you nudged spencer. he shot you a smile before standing up and answering the phone.

a minute later, he returned. “hotch wants to know if you are staying here or returning back to d.c. with us tonight,” spencer spoke softly. “d.c.,” you responded blandly. your boyfriend spoke to hotch again briefly before hanging out.

“i don’t think i ever want to come back here again.”

on the jet that night, the team was in one corner, talking quietly amongst themselves, while you were in the other. spencer was convincing you to try and sleep. he stayed by your side, rubbing soft circles on your thigh as you slowly drifted off. once you were fully asleep, spencer stood up and took a seat next to emily.

“you think she’s going to be okay?” morgan asked.

spencer sighed, “i don’t know. her brother was murdered and she found out it was by her own parents? there’s a lot of trauma there.” hotch looked at his team. “i’m making her take two weeks off minimum. then, after a psych evaluation, she can return,” he informed them. they all knew you wouldn’t want to take a longer break than you had to.

spencer looked over at your sleeping figure before standing up. he was satisfied with the teams short conversation and made his way back over to where you slept, taking a seat next to you. you immediately leaned into his side as his arm draped around you. j.j. tossed spencer a blanket, smiling at the two of you.

spencer sighed, content before shutting his eyes and drifting off beside you.

#criminal minds #criminal #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid #derek morgan #aaron hotchner #jennifer jareau #emily prentiss #david rossi #penelope garcia

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stina-is-a-punk-rocker · 3 years

Text

stephanie perkins: ‘anna and the french kiss’

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Then again, if you’ve read any YA book, ever, it’s fairly obvious what’s going to happen.

I was going to go easy on this book; I really was. It’s really unfair how media aimed at a female demographic is seen as frivolous and vapid, and more often than not bashed and bullied when it comes to reviews. “People actually enjoy this crap?” ask the powers that be. “It’s worthless! Pulp! Dreamy-eyed nonsense only complete nimrods could ever like!”

And I take offense to that. There’s nothing wrong with liking romance or happy endings or stories about cute European boys. I was ecstatic when I stumbled across Anna and the French Kiss upon a chance trip to the bookstore. The cover was… meh (Century Gothic? Really? There were no other fonts?). But I’d heard nothing but praise about the book, and I was prepared to stay up all night and into the wee hours of the morning to finish it.

Admittedly, I was far from impressed upon the first reading. The characters were unlikable, the plot would’ve worked better for less shitty characters, honestly fuck these characters am I supposed to like them, fuck Anna, fuck Étienne, fuck Bridgette, fuck Toph, fuck Dave and Meredith and Amanda and Seany and every other stupid character in this stupid book.

The second time around, I expected to not hate it as much as I did when I first read it. It’s happened- I hated Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda when I first read it, and when I read it again, all that red-hot anger simmered down into an overall dislike. I thought To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was trash at first, and then I read it again, and it got promoted to recyclable waste matter.

I found Anna and the French Kiss horrendous the first time I read it, and then I read it again, and… yeah, it’s still pretty awful.

Le Sommaire:

Anna Oliphant is a seventeen-year-old wannabe film critic who is #NotLikeOtherGirls – so she’s exactly like every other female YA lead. To her credit, she never explicitly says she’s special… everyone around her does.

She has a pretty meh life in Atlanta, Georgia with her mum and little bruv Sean- and then her dad decides to ship her off to France for her final year of high school. I’m not judging Anna for bawling her eyes out on her first day; I’m a huge mummy’s girl myself and I’d probably (definitely) do the same.

Meredith is Anna’s next-door neighbor, who does that thing which only happens in YA where she’s like “Oh, newbie? Let’s be friends!” (Or maybe it does happen irl and I tend to make a bad first impression which is why no one has ever approached me.)

Meredith’s friends are: Rashmi and Josh (who are a couple), and Étienne St. Clair. Guess which one is the love interest.

Étienne is cultured in that white person way where he’s half American, one quarter French and one quarter British. A true international.

But- *gasp*- American-British-French boy has a girlfriend, Ellie.

Anna has an absolutely gorgeous punk rocker (yum) boy with sideburns (yikes) back home named Christopher. Also, Christopher’s nickname is ‘Toph’ instead of ‘Chris’ because he too is #NotLikeOtherGirls. Anna tells us that nothing will happen between her and Étienne.

Anna is wrong.

Meredith has a crush on Étienne. So does the Regina George of the school, Amanda.

Étienne and Anna have some moments ™.

♫ Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but Anna ♫

I tear my hair out in frustration.

Several other white boys vie for Anna’s heart. Anna remains blissfully unaware (♫ that’s what makes you beautiful ♫). Étienne (who is still dating Ellie, mind you) is unreasonably agitated by this.

Étienne’s mum has cancer btw, which excuses all the shitty things he does, because he’s just a poor, misunderstood boy.

Ellie dresses up as a, quote unquote, ‘slutty nurse’ for Hallowe’en, though- so it’s perfectly okay to dislike her (even though, in the first interaction she had with Anna, where Ellie meets Anna and Étienne, after Étienne takes Anna to the movies, Ellie is perfectly sweet).

Anna, however, is NOT a slut. Amanda is, though. And Rashmi’s cold. And Meredith’s desperate. And Emily’s a slut, too. And her friend Bridgette from Atlanta is a traitor. Anna has an intense case of internalized misogyny.

Anna’s friend Bridgette from Atlanta is screwing Toph, and Anna throws a fit.

Étienne and Anna have some more moments ™.

A truly chaotic series of events befall Anna. She somehow winds up dating Dave (one from the harem of white boys who likes her) to spite Étienne, she gets into a fight with Amanda, more drama ensues, there’s a hint for a spinoff, Étienne and her kiss, Meredith sees and feels betrayed… several misunderstandings and more bullshit later, Étienne and Anna wind up together, because true love conquers all.

Mes Réflexions:

(If the French is off, blame Google Translate.)

Usually, it takes me half a page of my notebook to scribble down my thoughts about the book I’m reading. This motherfucker took me almost an entire page.

Granted, a solid 30% of those notes are me throwing insults at Étienne, but still. ‘STOP STOP STOP YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND YOU DICK’ counts, right?

(That was #17 in my notes, by the way.)

For the record, I like Stephanie Perkins’s writing. It’s not as over-the-top and unnecessarily introspective as Jenny Han’s in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and the interactions between Anna and her classmates were natural and not the “How do you do, fellow kids?” style of Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. The pacing is decent- I didn’t feel like it was too rushed; not the insta-love trope most YA romances unfortunately fall prey to.

And yet. AND YET.

Anna: “What’s your problem?” Amanda: “You.”

Same, Amanda, same.

Anna Oliphant is one of my least favorite leads in a book, ever. Étienne’s even shittier. And it’s not like Nick or Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, or any of the main characters from The Secret History, where readers pretty much unanimously hate them. You’re meant to relate to Anna, you’re meant to find Étienne charming and dreamy. I literally had to put the book away and calm myself down several times- especially in the last quarter of the book.

One of my main gripes with Anna is how… dumb she is. I guess Anna’s “Oopsies, silly me, I don’t know French!” is meant to be relatable to the readers. And some parts (like her not knowing how to order food because she can’t speak French) are plausible, but- sis, you didn’t know how to spell oui? And my idea of a cinematic masterpiece is Kung-Fu Panda, but even a dumbass like me knows that France is the film appreciation capital of the world. And yet Anna, a self-professed film freak, doesn’t?

Of course, Anna’s gorgeous, but she has no clue, because of course she doesn’t- even though she has multiple guys falling head over heels for her.

I’m in a short skirt. It’s the first time I’ve worn one here, but my birthday seems like the appropriate occasion. “Woo, Anna!” Rashmi fake-adjusts her glasses. “Why do you hide those things?”

Étienne is staring at my legs. The scales covering them throb under his intense gaze, and the pincers sticking out of my thighs start clicking rapidly in arousal. My hooves shiver in ecstasy.

… sorry, that’s not funny.

Her friends think Anna’s weird for wanting to write film reviews (which is the most contrived thing I’ve ever heard) instead of being the next Margot Robbie or whatever, but of course Étienne doesn’t and he thinks it’s not weird and cool and that Anna is such a special snowflake.

(Man, I sound like Amanda.)

And then we have this spiel by Anna about how she got into film critiquing (?), because we the readers need to know how special and #NotLikeOtherGirls Anna is.

To this, I say, “Piss off, you pretentious fuck.”

Of course, Anna’s a virgin and she’s never gotten drunk before or worn short skirts- she’s not a slut, she shaves below the knees only.

And would YA really be YA without several hearty helpings of internalized misogyny?

First up, we have the bimbo; the Barbie doll archetype whose only goal in life is acquiring the main guy (who is quite obviously uninterested in her), and making life hell for our protagonist. Amanda Whatsername (is she ever given a surname?) has this coveted role in Anna and the French Kiss. She’s blond (because of course she is); the first time we meet her, she’s in a, quote unquote, ‘teeny tank top’, and she also ‘positions herself for maximum cleavage exposure’. She’s always flipping her hair, getting her grubby paws on Étienne, giving Anna the stink-eye, being homophobic and a grade-A bitch.

Meredith goes batshit when Anna and Étienne kiss, and is very pouty and unhappy during prior Anna x Shittiene moments. Honey… he’s just not that into you. Rashmi’s the Ice Queen reincarnate and halfway to bitchdom. Anna doesn’t go as hard on them as she does on literally every other female her age in the book, though.

Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend.

Anna, hate to break it to you, but not everyone’s a possessive fucking weirdo.

About Cherrie, her ex-boyfriend Matt’s new girlfriend:

And maybe Cherrie isn’t as bad as I remember. Except she is. She totally is. After only five minutes in her company, I cannot fathom how Bridge stands sitting with her at lunch every day.

Her lifeless laugh is one of her lesser attributes. What does Matt see in her?

Even Bridgette, Anna’s best friend from Atlanta, isn’t immune to Anna’s anti-female propaganda. She’s screwing the guy Anna used to like, and Anna, the hypocrite, throws a huge fit.

For context: Bridgette and Toph are in a band called the Penny Dreadfuls (why is it with YA books and horrible band names? ‘Emoji’ from Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda was bad enough), and Anna + Matt + Cherrie go to a bowling alley to see them perform. After the performance, Toph announces that he’s sleeping with Bridge, and Anna confronts Bridge… onstage.

“… You’re welcome to move in when I leave again, because that’s what you want, right? My life?”

She shakes with fury. “Go to hell.”

“Take my life. You can have it. Just watch out for the part where my BEST FRIEND SCREWS ME OVER!” I knock over a cymbal stand, and the brass hits the stage with an earsplitting crash that reverberates through the bowling alley. Matt calls my name. Has he been calling it this entire time? He grabs my arm and leads me around the electrical cords and plugs and onto the floor and away, away, away.

Everyone in the bowling alley is staring at me.

I duck my head so my hair covers my face. I’m crying. This would have never happened if I hadn’t given Toph her number. All of those late-night practices and… he said they’ve had sex! What if they’ve had it at my house? Does he come over when she’s watching Seany? Do they go in the bedroom?

I’m going to be sick.

Give me a goddamn break.

Anna, about Ellie:

To my amazement, Ellie breaks into an ear-to-ear smile. Oddly enough, it’s this moment I realize that despite her husky voice and Parisian attire, she’s sort of… plain. But friendly-looking.

That still doesn’t mean I like her.

“Anna! From Atlanta, right? Where’d you guys go?”

She knows who I am? St. Clair describes our evening while I contemplate this strange development. Did he tell her about me? Or was it Meredith? I hope it was him, but even if it was, it’s not like he said anything she found threatening. She doesn’t seem alarmed that I’ve spent the last three hours in the company of her very attractive boyfriend. Alone.

[about Ellie’s Hallowe’en costume] Slutty nurse. I don’t believe it. Tiny white button-up dress, red crosses across the nipples. Cleavage city.

If I didn’t like Ellie before, it’s nothing compared to how I feel now. It doesn’t matter that I can count how many times we’ve met on one hand.

I fantasize about their break-up. How he could hurt her, and she could hurt him, and all of the ways I could hurt her back. I want to grab her Parisian-styled hair and yank it so hard it rips from her skull. I want to sink my claws into her eyeballs and scrape.

It turns out I am not a nice person.

YOU DON’T FUCKING SAY.

Emily Middlestone bends over to pick up a dropped eraser, and Mike Reynard leers at her breasts. Gross. Too bad for him she’s interested in his best friend, Dave. The eraser drop was deliberate, but Dave is oblivious.

One of the juniors, a girl with dark hair and tight jeans, stretches in a move designed to show off her belly button ring to Paul/Pete. Oh, please.

And I’m meant to like this character? I’m supposed to root for her?

I’m not saying every girl in the book should be perfectly sweet and friendly- that’s just not realistic. But when Anna has something judgmental to say about every other young female character… maybe she’s the problem.

In fact, the only girl I recall getting a pass is Isla Whatsername. And why do you think?

Brilliant.

And now we have the amalgamation of almost every fanfic boyfriend trope from 2014, Étienne St. Clair. Brown-eyed Harry Styles. I can’t fucking wait.

Étienne could’ve discovered the cure for cancer, or abolished poverty, or volunteered at animal shelters in his spare time. He could’ve been the most virtuous guy around (fret not; he decidedly isn’t). And I still wouldn’t’ve thought of him as the man of my dreams because HE HAS A BLOODY GIRLFRIEND.

I mean, which girl doesn’t want her boyfriend to say:

“I cheated on her every day. In my mind, I thought of you in ways I shouldn’t have, again and again.”

Fuckin’ smooth, bro.

“No matter what a terrible boyfriend I was, I wouldn’t actually cheat on her. But I thought you’d know.”

Such a gentleman!

“So you can keep dating Ellie, but I can’t even talk to Dave?”

Étienne looks shamed. He stares at his boots. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t even know what to do with his apology.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. And this time, he’s looking at me. Begging me. “And I know it’s not fair to ask you, but I need more time. To sort things out.”

And this gem:

“If you liked me so much, why didn’t you break up with her?”

“I’ve been confused. I’ve been so stupid.”

*me, banging pots and pans together* F U C K Y O U

“Ellie’s not like you, Anna; she’s a slut and a whore even though I’m the one who’s been thinking about another girl inappropriately and I’m the one who gets my knickers in a twist when another man glances in your direction because my masculinity is extremely fragile and I’m a total hypocrite and a dickhead.”

I mean, he didn’t actually say that, but that’s the gist.

WHILE DATING ELLIE: he gets Anna a book of sexual love poems, he calls her attractive (“Any bloke with a working prick would be insane not to like you.”) multiple times, he gets jealous whenever another guy so much as breathes in Anna’s direction and constantly interrupts such interactions, he’s been ditching his friends for his girlfriend but suddenly decides he prefers a new girl over said girlfriend, he thinks bread pudding tastes good- in conclusion, he is a Massive Fucking Prick. Though in hindsight, him and Anna deserve each other. They’re awful.

I had loads more notes taken down (Anna using Dave; “The important thing is this: Dave is available. St. Clair is not.”); the implication that cheating is okay because Ellie is bad or whatever, even though the sudden change in her character seems contrived because she was perfectly okay with Étienne and Anna hanging out before; how my blood boils whenever I read an American book and American girls are like “oOoOh AcCenT!!!1!!1!!”; me reading “DAVE SAYS YER A SLUTBAG” in Hagrid’s voice; the sheer atrocity of the name ‘Étienne St. Clair’ (sounds like a caricature of a French person)… but this ‘review’ is already pushing 3k and I can’t be fucked to expand on any of those points.

Verdict (which is apparently the same in French):

Who needs Christopher when Étienne St. Clair is in the world?

Speak for yourself.

#books #book review #anna and the french kiss #Stephanie Perkins #french #france #parisian #paris #YA #young adult #romance #teen fiction #bad books

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gamergirl929 · 4 years

Text

Take A Picture It Will Last Longer (I Just Might) (Emily Sonnett x Reader)

Anonymous Request: Okay hear me out... A sonnett imagine where the reader is a new worker for the photography company and the r keeps getting distracted while watching sonnett play but sonnett also get distracted by the r and after a while of CONSTANT flirting one of them makes a move plz and thank u ur amazing

“SONNETT!” Kelley yells, just as a ball smacks into the side of the blonde’s head, her hazel orbs wide as she glances around.

“Wha...?” She glances around, turning to Kelley who’d just ran up to her.

“Where’s your head at?” She asks and Emily clears her throat, her eyes darting to where you’re kneeling down on the ground, holding a camera.

Kelley follows her gaze with a toothy grin.

“AHHH! I see.” She winks and Sonnett rolls her eyes, giving her a shove.

Off field, you’re watching the pair with a smile, your cheeks flushed.

Emily Sonnett had, had her eyes on you for the entire practice, hazel orbs darting your way each and every opportunity they could.

Honestly, you couldn’t keep your gaze off of her either, it was your first day taking pictures of the USWNT and it was going to be a regular gig, you traveling alongside them to take photos, the photos you yourself had always seen scattered online.

You glance down at your camera’s screen, giggling when you realize you’d caught the moment the black and white ball had hit the side of Emily’s head on camera.

Your laughter draws the attention of those nearby, as well as a few players on the field and you cover your mouth in an attempt to stifle your laughter.

On field, Emily is grinning, cheeks red.

“Awwwwwww.” Kelley pokes her in the cheek and she swats her hand away with a pout.

“What’s going on here?” Alex walks up with a grin, and Kelley turns to her.

“Sonnett’s got a crush on the new camera girl.” She bites her tongue between her teeth and Emily rolls her eyes.

“I do not.” She grumbles as she stomps away, but as she glances out of the corner of her eye and sees you looking her way, she can’t help but blush.

***

It’s time for your first USWNT game, and you couldn’t be more excited.

The fans cheering as the anthems sound on field, you snapping pictures of the team, some singing along, while others, Megan Rapinoe in particular stands for what she believes in.

You were absolutely giddy when the teams took the field and the game had begun, taking shot after shot of each and every player, catching a few that you knew would catch the public’s eye for sure.

You turn towards the bench, still staring through your lens when you see a familiar pair of hazel orbs on you.

Your eyes widen as you glance over the top of your camera, Emily Sonnett still staring your way, eyes wide when she realizes she’s been caught.

You surprise her by giving her a thumbs up and the woman grins, nudging her teammates beside her, Mal Pugh and Lindsey Horan, the three posing for a photo.

You take a few snapshots before turning back to the field, sending Emily a wink before you go back to taking pictures, unaware that the blonde’s eyes are still on you, her friends teasing her about her obvious crush on the new photographer.

***

You circle the team in their huddle, the game well over as Vlatko talks with his team.

You snap a number of memorable shots, and hope they’ll be enough to impress as you move down field, completely unaware that you’re about to slam right in to the woman who’d been plaguing your mind the entire day.

“Shit.” You mumble under your breath as you run straight into the woman who’d stopped in front of you.

“I’m so sorr-

You go silent, smiling when you realize the woman standing in front of you is the one and only Emily Sonnett.

“Uhhh, hi.” Emily shuffles nervously from foot to foot and you grin.

“Hi.” You bite your bottom lip, your cheeks flushed.

The two of you stand still, eyeing one another intently before you both nod.

“Well bye.” You both at the same time, turning and rushing off in opposite directions, Sonnett’s team watching on with wide eyes and confused expressions.

Lindsey snorts.

“Ummm, what the hell was that?”

Ashlyn walks up, her hand in Ali’s.

“Gay panic?” The blonde asks and Ali nods.

“Gay panic.”

“Where’s the gay panic?” Megan asks when she walks up at the couple nods to where Sonnett is running, completely in the opposite direction of the locker room.

Megan nods.

“Looks like gay panic to me.”

Kelley snorts.

“Better get her before she wanders off and we have to put out an Amber Alert.” Kelley shakes her head cupping her hands around her mouth.

“SONNETT! OUR LOCKER ROOM IS THE OTHER WAY!”

The blonde stops before glancing around, cheeks blood red.

“I KNEW THAT!”

***

Needless to say, your encounter with Emily a week ago didn’t go exactly as you had planned your first meeting with her would go, so sadly, there was no turning back but you planned on making your second encounter with her a bit better than the first.

“Uhh, hi.” You whisper, Emily glancing around, still spraying her water into her mouth. When she realizes it’s you she completely forgets about the water, spraying it all over the front of her tank top.

“Jesus Christ Sonnett.” Kelley whispers to herself, but when you start to laugh, she smiles.

Emily shakes her head running a palm down her wet shirt.

“It’s not funny.” She pouts and you shrug.

“Pretty funny from where I’m standing.”

Emily crosses her arms across her chest with a pout and you grin.

“I’m Y/N, sorry I didn’t really uhhh, introduce myself the other day.” You shrug, fidgeting nervously.

You smile, holding your hand out and Emily grins, dropping her water on the ground in favor of taking your hand in hers.

“Emily, and yeah I didn’t really introduce myself yesterday either, I was uhhh... Late for a meeting.” She shrugs, taking a step towards you.

Unfortunately for her, she steps on the water she dropped moments before spraying the bottle’s contents all over the place.

“Oh my god.” Ashlyn snorts, face palming on field along with the rest of her teammates gathered there.

“What are we going to do with her?” Mal whispers, but before anyone can answer you start to laugh, a laugh that Emily can’t help but return.

Tobin grins, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Nothing, seems like she likes Sonnett just how she is.”

***

It’s in the next game against England when you find you can’t keep your eyes off the defender, who is tearing up the field, letting fans of the USWNT see the side known as Saucy Sonnett.

You just so happen to get a few pictures of Emily Saucy Sonnett in all her glory, a particular picture of Sonnett sitting on the turf and glaring at a ref, bottom lip protruding has you laughing so hard tears are streaming down your cheeks.

By the time halftime rolls around you realize that a wide array of your photos are only of Emily Sonnett and your eyes widen, cheeks blood red.

You clear your throat quick to hide your camera, from whomever may be walking past.

“Whatcha hiding there?” You hear a voice behind you and you nearly jump out of your skin, flipping around to find the one and only Saucy Sonnett standing in front of you.

“Uhhhh, nothing at all.” You shrug innocently, and Emily’s eyes narrow.

“I don’t know you’re displaying suspicious behavior.”

You let out a hum, shrugging.

“Guess you’ll just have to see when the pictures come out.” You wink and Sonnett’s eyes widen.

A sudden arm slips around Sonnett’s neck and she’s pulled away in a headlock by Tobin Heath who sends you a grin as she drags the blonde into the tunnel, the woman attempting to wiggle out of her hold the entire way, but to no avail.

You glance down at your camera with a smirk, biting your bottom lip, contemplating if you should post the picture or not.

***

“OH MY GOD.” Kelley wheezes a few days later as she shoves her phone under Emily’s nose, showing her the photo, you’d taken of her glaring at the ref grumpily.

Emily’s cheeks flush bright red, her eyes wide.

“Ohhhh, and look your girlfriend posted it.” Lindsey teases and Emily grumbles.

“She isn’t my girlfriend.”

It’s just then you come into view, kneeling down to snap some pictures of the players on the field for practice.

Sonnett jumps to her feet and marches over to you, unbeknownst to you considering your face is hidden behind your camera, but when you do spot her, you grin.

“Hey.” You grin and Emily huffs, you snicker.

“I guess you saw my picture.” You wink and the defender pouts.

“Oh, come on.” You nudge her playfully. “It was cute.”

Your eyes widen, Sonnett’s following close behind as the two of you glance away from one another, your cheeks flushed pink.

“What I mean to say is...” You glance away biting your lip, a foreign courage stirring in you before you turn back to the blonde with a smirk.

“No that’s what I meant to say.” You wink and Emily’s eyes double in size, cheeks flushing a darker shade of red.

“Sonnett!” Someone calls out and the blonde blinks rapidly, clearing her throat before she glances over her shoulder.

“Ye-Yeah, that.” She points before turning around and rushing off, back towards her teammates.

You watch her go with a giggle, grinning when the woman glances over her shoulder to look at you one last time, stumbling over her own feet as she does so.

You shake your head watching as she moves to talk to one of her coaches, her hazel orbs darting your way every few seconds.

You glance down at your camera, smiling softly as you focus your lens on the blonde, taking a picture of the two of them, though to be honest, you may or may not zoom in to only get Emily into the picture.

The sunlight hits her just right, her hazel orbs shining almost as bright as her smile when you snap the photo and you glance down at it.

You swallow hard, cheeks flushing dark red.

This was one photo you’d be sure to save and though you weren’t about to admit it just yet, it wasn’t just because the photo was beautiful, but the woman in the photograph as well.

***

You were mortified, of course they would want the picture of Emily Sonnett you took released, the photo of the blonde’s shining hazel orbs and dazzling smile on full display.

A minute part of you was hoping that Emily hadn’t seen the photo, but when you saw her Instagram you knew she saw it, considering she was gushing about it and about the photographer who took it, AKA, you. She even went as far as to make it her Instagram's profile picture, displaying your photo to the entire world, a photo you weren’t sure you were ever going to share in the first place.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite photographer.” You jump at the sound of a familiar voice, putting on a smile when you turn to the hazel eyed blonde with the dazzling smile.

“Your favorite? That’s a pretty high honor.” You wink and Emily laughs.

“Well, with you in the running, no one else could stand a chance.” She shrugs and you blush.

Emily smirks, taking a step closer and your eyes widen.

“You always take close ups of all the players like that?” She asks and you bite your bottom lip, that foreign courage again swirling in your chest.

“Only the cute ones.”

Emily blinks rapidly in surprise, the tips of her ears shifting from pink to red in a matter of seconds. She opens her mouth, but is cut off when someone’s hand settles on her shoulder, the owner of said hand revealing themselves to be Kelley O’Hara moments later.

“So, this is the person behind that Instagram photo you can’t stop talking about.” Kelley smirks and Emily turns to her eyes wide in horror.

“What do you mean?” She asks, scoffing dramatically and your brows raise.

“She means... ‘Oh my god, look at the picture she took of me, isn’t she so talented.’” Lindsey mimics the blonde who rolls her hazel orbs.

“’Do you think she takes pictures like that of everyone, do you think it means something?’” Mal squeaks and Emily throws her head back with a lengthy growl.

Suddenly, Alex appears somehow reining in the trio and dragging them towards the bench, towards her other teammates.

“Carry on.” Alex grins, sending Emily a wink that has her cheeks flushing. She turns back to you, rubbing the back of her neck nervously as she digs her heel into the turf.

“So I was-

Sonnett is suddenly cut off by the sound of a whistle and she throws her head back with a growl, throwing her hands up in the air.

“CAN I JUST TALK TO THE CUTE GIRL IN PEACE!?” She shouts, stomping towards the bench and her teammates who are watching her with wide eyes, the woman completely leaving you behind in utter shock, cheeks blood red.

“Subtle Sonnett. Subtle.” Kelley shakes her head, patting the woman on the back when she reaches her.

“Did I just say that out loud?” She asks the USWNT veteran who slowly nods.

“Yep.”

***

The next time Sonnett approaches you, she’s much stiffer than before, albeit nervous.

“He-Hey.” She sends you an awkward wave and you grin, moving to your feet from where you were knelt on the sidelines.

You smile, your own cheeks flushed.

“Hey stranger.” You wink and Sonnett’s cheeks flush.

Luckily for the two of you, it was nearly time for the second half to start, leaving just a sliver of time for the two of you to talk.

“Ho-How’s my favorite photographer?” She stammers and your brows arch.

“Great now that her favorite defender is here.” You wink and Sonnett blushes bright red. Her tongue slips between the tight line her lips have formed and you bite your bottom lip.

“Something on your mind?” You ask and Sonnett shrugs.

“Maybe something...” She mumbles and your brows furrow as you take a step towards her.

“What’s on your mind?” You ask worriedly and Sonnett takes a deep breath.

“I was wondering if... Maybe...” Emily shuffles nervously from foot to foot and you cock your head to the side, smiling at the endearing sight.

You take another step towards her, placing your hand gently on her forearm.

“You can tell me.” You whisper realizing the blonde’s eyes are as wide as saucers as she stares down at your hand, your thumb running back and forth across the flesh of her arm.

Goosebumps sprout beneath the pad of your thumb and you smile softly, Y/E/C orbs locking with Emily’s hazel ones.

Emily opens her mouth, immediately snapping it shut before doing the action again, trying to find the words she’s searching for but unfortunately, she comes up empty.

Also, unfortunately, she’s waved over by her team, giving you a singular nod before she rushes away, the phantom feel of your palm on her forearm.

***

The game against Sweden is brutal, as per usual some of the tackles to Sonnett sends a shiver down your spine and twisting your stomach in worry.

Needless to say, you’re relieved when the game ends and everyone, is mostly intact. What you don’t expect however is Emily Sonnett literally bypassing everyone and running towards you. She throws her arms around you, pulling you into a surprise, sweaty hug that you’re more than happy to reciprocate.

“DOYOUWANTTOGOONADATEWITHME!?” Emily shouts, her words running together like word salad.

Your brow furrows when you pull back, eyes wide.

“Come again?” You laugh and Sonnett takes a deep breath, swallowing hard. She’s about to clam up again, but when you boldly tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she finds the words she’s been searching for, for so long.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” She asks, nervously fidgeting and you grin, surprising her and yourself by gently taking her hand.

“I’d love to.” You whisper and the smile that takes up half of Emily’s face is dazzling, her eyes shining as she bites her bottom lip.

“Uhh... Cool...” She nods, and your brow arches.

“I’ll uhhh, give you my deets later.” She gives you a thumbs up, backing away slowly.

You watch her go, the woman throwing a fist in the air before she is even a foot away. She glances over her shoulder, cheeks dark red as she gives you a charming smile.

You shake your head, your own face split in half by a massive smile.

You had a date with THE Emily Sonnett, and you couldn’t believe it.

#uswnt #uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #emily sonnett #emily sonnett x reader #emily sonnett imagine

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brideofedoras · 4 years

Text

Under Covers, pt 2

Rating: 18+

Warnings: mentions of masturbation, arousal and sex dreams

Word count: 2900+

Under Covers

Thank you all for the lovely responses to Under Covers, I know that surprise twist was evil of me (but I don’t regret it, it just felt right!). I received a few requests for a part two, and a suggestion for it to be Cooper’s POV.

So... here is Uncer Covers, as told by Cooper...

And, because I’m just as horny for William Cooper, there will be a part three! Mwuah! Love all of ya!

@urban-trek-thru-middle-earth @emily-strange @nora-hewlett @to-boldly-nope @pandaqueen7799 @bakerstreethound @portals-to-a-new-world @below-average-fangirl @writerdee1701 @ladyreapermc

Cooper reached for the travel mug in the console… but his fingers curled around nothing. A quick glance away from the early morning traffic showed an empty cup holder. “Well, that’s just typical,” he snarled grumpily.

His morning was off to a fan-fucking-tastic start, with a burnt Hot Pocket, his much-needed second cup of coffee forgotten on his desk at the office, and a restless night filled with some incredibly hot dreams of the only person he could one-hundred percent trust at work.

Ember.

She was a blessing, whether she knew it or not. Quiet, intelligent, efficient, with an uncanny ability to anticipate his needs. Beautiful. Sexy. A big flirt who had done a lot for his ego and self-esteem these past few months, and making him remember he was still a red-blooded man.

Last night’s solo sex on the back deck with a cigar and bourbon, fantasizing about having her on the glider swing or spread out on the patio table… bent over the deck railing…

“Down, dammit,” he glared down at his crotch when he felt that familiar stir.

Evidently that quick wank in the shower earlier hadn’t helped.

God, he hated waking up horny.

It was going to be a dreadfully, painfully, long weekend, he thought as he signalled to pull into the parking lot for Ember’s apartment building.

When the file detailing the op landed on his desk he had immediately known he would assign Ember as his partner. She did not have a lot of field experience, and had zero undercover experience, but she was a quick learner and self-sufficient. He’d seen her wipe the floor during hand-to-hand combat training under Kordesky (he was supposed to be teaching that course, but at the time he’d been recovering from busted ribs from an op gone wrong). Men three times her size hadn’t stood a chance.

It had both terrified him and turned him on.

But an entire weekend, maybe a tad longer, pretending to be a couple on a romantic getaway to nail a bad guy, with her…

Fuck, I’m screwed.

With a frustrated sigh he plucked his phone from the holder on the dash (strictly for GPS reasons) and pulled up the last text thread.

I’m outside.

His hazel eyes flickered to the old limestone building built in the ‘30s and remodeled, what, twenty years ago, into an apartment complex, wondering which part of the structure her apartment was in.

His phone chirped in his hand.

Be down in a minute.

He groaned, his eyes dropping to his zipper once more. I won’t.

If he survived the weekend, it would be a miracle.

He started to put the phone back on the clip when he realized he needed to tell her he wasn’t in his SUV.

Black Mercedes sedan.

Her response popped up a second later. No Porsche?

He chuckled. “No, no Porsche,” he mused out loud. He’d thought about it, the sweet little Roadster the CIA had confiscated a while back. Gorgeous car… but not ideal for a six hour drive to North Carolina.

Didn’t want to look like a man going through a midlife crisis, he texted back.

A classic sports car and a sexy young woman would most definitely make him look like he was. Well… so would the Mercedes, but it drove like a dream and wouldn’t kill his back or ass for the long trip.

You’re too young for a midlife crisis.

“Oh, you’re flirting, Sweetheart,” he groaned. He shook his head to clear it before pressing his hand hard against his crotch. “Behave, dammit, stay down.”

He had no idea when he’d find the opportunity to handle that particular issue. The little bungalow on the beach they’d be calling home for the next few days only had one bedroom. Light, airy, lots of windows and a door opening out onto a veranda, a king size bed--

He pulled himself from his thoughts when he saw Ember step out of the building.

“Fuck.”

God damn was he screwed.

Ember was dressed in a snug, scoop neck tank top and cutoff shorts that showed off her long legs.

Legs he’d dreamed of wrapped around his hips. Draped over his shoulders. Hooked over his elbows.

“Now is not the time to rehash your favorite fantasies, William,” he scolded himself as he climbed out of the car. He took the opportunity to adjust himself and straighten his plaid shirt to try to conceal the ridge in his jeans before he walked around to the trunk to open it.

Did she nearly trip over her own feet?

He kept that question to himself as he took her suitcase from her and stowed it next to his. He carefully shut the lid before turning his attention on Ember.

“Get in the car, Kid.”

She immediately bristled before storming off.

Oh shit, he sighed heavily as he watched her yank open the passenger door. He quickly rounded the car to climb into the driver’s seat. “Easy there, Tiger,” he looked over at her. “You okay?”

She shut the door and buckled up before taking in a deep breath.

Yeah, Cooper, you hit the wrong damn button by accident, he realized. Better salvage this and fast!

“Yeah. Sleepless night.” Her smile was faker than the phony IDs his buddy had made for them in high school.

Yup, wrong button.

He frowned in sympathy. “Worried about the op?” He was giving her a bullshit excuse for her temper flareup and he knew it, but he also knew Ember would not admit him calling her “kid” had upset her.

Her smile fell, allowing him to see how tired she was. “You could say that.”

“You’ve got the easy job,” he reminded her as he started the car. “Look pretty, flirt, be coy.”

Inwardly he flinched. Wow, Cooper. That was smooth.

“You call that easy?” The blush staining her cheeks was downright adorable. “I can’t flirt my way out of a paper bag if I tried!”

He grinned. Either she’s in denial about flirting or she’s clueless that she’s a natural.

“‘Your tie brings out the gold in your eyes, Boss’ ring a bell? Or ‘You’ve got a bit of powdered sugar on your cheek’?”

God, he could still feel her hand cupping his jaw and her thumb brushing over his cheekbone.

Her blush grew brighter. “A compliment and a gentle warning before a meeting are hardly flirting!”

“You were flirting,” he grinned even more. “And the plate of extra cookies left over from your Christmas dinner?”

“Figured your kids would like some cookies, and I had more than enough left over!”

Uh-huh. A whole plate piled high with monster cookies, his favorite fucking kind?

“That’s what break rooms are for,” he couldn't help but chuckle. “Pretty sure Sanderson would ask you to marry him if you bring baked goods in.”

Please forgive me.

Ember shuddered and turned a little green. “Pretty sure he lives in his parents’ basement.”

“Yeah, he has that personality,” he slowed for a stoplight. “Not your type, then?”

Please say no. You deserve so much better than him. Or me.

“Have you ever heard me flirt with him?”

He busted out laughing at her sassy rebuttal. There’s my girl, he struggled to get the mirth under control so he could speak again. “No, no, I haven’t,” he shot her a look. “You can give Wilkes a run for her money in the ice queen department when you’re dealing with him.”

She finally smiled. “I hope you’re giving me a compliment and not calling me a frigid bitch,” her own voice was laced with a touch of humor.

“She’s the frigid bitch and she wears that badge with pride,” he pointed out. “She made Sanderson cry a couple of times. You’re at least polite.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be,” she mused. “And I don’t flirt.”

Oh, Honey.

“‘You’re too young for a midlife crisis’?” He struggled to keep another grin at bay.

“Not flirting!” She twisted away from him.

But not before he glimpsed the splotching blush dotting her chest.

His mind went south before he could stop it. Does she blush like that after an orgasm?

God dammit.

“What is it, then?” He mentally shook himself to get his mind back on the conversation. He winced when her head thumped against the window.

“The truth. Thirty-five is still young,” she sighed. “Age is only a number. What matters is how you feel inside. Take Grandpa-- er, Henry, for example. He’s eighty-five, still working downstairs, running circles around the younger desk jockeys.”

“I need to find out what his secret is,” he joked. Sometimes he needed more energy to make it through the day.

“No!” Her voice squeaked. “You don’t want to do that!”

His jaw dropped as he looked at her. “Wait, he really has a secret? What is it?” He needed to know.

She blushed again. “Nope,” she shook her head as if she were trying to shake off an unpleasant thought. “It was bad enough overhearing it. I’m not telling you.”

Oh.

Must’ve been something dirty if she was blushing like that.

“H-how long of a drive is it again?”

Did her voice just crack?

“Six hours if the traffic isn’t bad,” he answered.

“Straight through, no stops?”

He chuckled. “I’ll make a couple of stops, I’m not a monster. You have breakfast yet?” He glanced over to see her shake her head.

“There’s a coffee shop up ahead,” she pointed out. “They have donuts and breakfast sandwiches.”

His stomach grumbled quietly. “Any recommendations?”

“The omelette sandwiches are to die for,” she paused to cover her yawn. “They come with sausage and cheese. You’ve already had their donuts.”

His mind tripped back to the massive powdered sugar donut that had led to her soft touch that fateful afternoon. His unintentional groan at that memory bordered on sinful. “Might have to order a dozen for this weekend.”

“Better make it two dozen. I’m not crawling out of bed before ten a.m. this weekend.”

No, down, he stubbornly told himself off at the images popping into his head. “You’ve already claimed the bed, huh?” He inwardly grimaced at the husky and teasing tone in his voice. Who’s flirting now, Cooper?

“Figured it was a given since I’m a woman and you seem like the kind of guy who would take the couch.”

She had his number. Damn, she really is good. “Sweetheart, my back can’t take sleeping on couches even for a little catnap anymore,” he signaled to turn into the lot for the coffee shop.

Liar, he ratted on himself. He’d spent too many nights on the couch before Michelle asked for a divorce when she finally decided she couldn’t take being a CIA agent’s wife anymore. If it weren’t for his kids he would not have gotten the couch for his new place.

“The bed’s a king, isn’t it? We could share it. I promise to be on my best behavior.”

He coughed to cover a strangled groan. Share a bed with Ember? All weekend?

Fuck.

“What?” She asked.

“You’re flirting again.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she frowned at him. “My brain loses its filter when I’m running on very little sleep.”

“Always an excuse,” he rolled his window down. “What kind of coffee?”

“Just ask for the Emberleigh special, they’ll know.”

Cooper was pretty sure the barista, Tomer, was eye-fucking him. Not the first time that had ever happened, but it sure as hell was the first time a guy was so bold about it. And the not-so-subtle looks he was giving Ember were poorly hidden.

Oh, yes, I’m gonna be the topic of conversation the next time she stops in, he chuckled to himself. It was both amusing and flattering.

By the time they hit the freeway his two breakfast sandwiches were demolished and she was barely finished with hers. He shifted to get comfortable. Long trips by car were never fun, the miles monotonous and the seat unforgiving.

Flying had not been an option. The department could not justify using the jet for a weekend op, which left commercial flights. He personally hated that option. Checking weapons and other tools of the trade through security was a headache he did not want to deal with. It was easier to drive.

“Should we go over the parameters again?”

It never hurt to go over plans a few times, and with this being Ember’s first undercover op he wanted her prepared.

The breathy “no” from her caught him off guard.

He shot her a quick glance. “Seat reclines if you want to take a quick nap,” he swallowed the groan at the mental images of her stretched out on her back in that leather seat, him leaning over her… He shifted in his seat when his jeans grew a little tight again. “If you want to turn the radio on, go for it,” he cleared his throat (and his head). “I listen to just about anything. Except for the new crap.”

“Yeah, I can’t listen to that stuff, either.”

Thank god.

“I can Bluetooth my phone if that’s okay?” She asked softly.

“Go for it,” he nodded.

When the opening guitar licks for one of his favorite songs began to play he grinned.

God, if this song wasn’t the ultimate euphemism for sex. And the tempo. Jesus Christ.

And the fact that Ember had the Scorpions on whatever playlist she had? His crush on her grew that much more.

It reminded him of his high school days, his first car, T-tops off and cruising the strip rocking out to AC/DC, pretty girl in the passenger seat.

Sometimes he missed those days, not having any responsibilities other than keeping his grades up for football.

He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel and sang along off-key. He found himself really getting into the music and tried to tone it down, but after catching Ember trying not to stare he decided to put his all into it.

And all bets were off when his favorite Def Leppard song came on.

They played random road trip games when he wasn’t rocking out. Counting state license plates. Slug bug (or punch buggie as his little Katie loved to holler, especially when she saw the blue ones). Billboard alphabet. Count the road kill (gruesome but it worked). I spy.

When she yawned for the tenth time in about as many minutes he realized why she was playing the games. She was trying to stay awake despite repeated suggestions to recline the seat back and take a nap. He even threatened to sing her to sleep.

She stubbornly insisted she needed to stay awake to help him watch traffic.

Somewhere along the way she did fall asleep. He smiled to himself when she sighed in her sleep and shifted to get comfortable in her seat. As carefully as he could he reached over to slip her sunglasses off and laid them on the dash.

No way was he waking her up any time soon. She needed to rest up.

He was humming along to “In The Air Tonight” and miming the drum solo above the steering wheel (it was a federal offense to not perform the drum solo) when a soft whine came from the passenger seat. He quickly glanced over at the distressed sound. “You okay over there?” He pressed the button on the steering wheel to turn the volume down even more for the radio.

She shifted in her seat, head lolling toward him before a quiet snore reached his ears. He chuckled and shook his head before he turned back to watch the road. They were ten minutes from the nearest fast food restaurant and despite still being full from breakfast he needed to go to the bathroom and stretch his legs. He just didn’t have the heart to wake Ember up quite yet.

A few minutes later she drew in a deep breath and moaned.

That moan sounded suspiciously like his last name.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

Ember shifted and moaned again. “We… shouldn’t…”

He felt his cock begin to stir at the soft little sounds coming from her. Sounds he had fantasized about more than once.

“Oh… god…” she squirmed.

Fuck, his jeans were uncomfortably tight. Cooper flipped the turn signal and checked his mirrors before exiting the freeway.

Her moans and gasps were more frequent now, with his name whined out a few times. He drew in a shaky breath, that last guttural moan damn near making him cum right there.

It would be cruel to wake her up, he thought as he pulled into McDonald’s parking lot. But he could not sit in the car and listen to her have a sex dream about him.

“Oh… god… Cooper…”

The way she was panting.

The way his cock was throbbing dangerously.

He hated himself, for having no choice but to listen to her pretty little sex dream sounds and for waking her up before she could…

No. Do. Not. Think. About. It.

“Ember,” he gently squeezed her shoulder before he chickened out. “Wake up, Sleepyhead,” he murmured gruffly when she blinked her eyes open. “We’re stopping for lunch.”

She looked disoriented, and he kicked himself for interrupting that dream.

He pulled away, breaking contact before his body could overrule his brain and pounce on her. “I’m surprised you fell asleep with my singing. Never worked on my kids when they were little.”

When she remained quiet he looked over. “No comment?”

“No!” Damn, that blush was beautiful on her. “N-no, I… I guess a smooth car ride combined with a sleepless night put me to sleep.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” he agreed as he pocketed the keys. “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”

#william cooper #william cooper x ofc #red #sex dreams

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keepswingin · 4 years

Text

i want your heart to beat for me

She’s twenty-four and sings for Caleb Covington during the week, microphone clutched tightly in between her sweaty palms as she stands before an audience that’s paid to hear a beautiful voice she doesn’t want to provide.

They all wear leers, and some flash yellow teeth and tattered bills in disgusting taunts, but she does her best to ignore it all and just sing like she’s always wanted to.

(She never imagined it would be like this.)

Her voice is shaky tonight, strained in all the wrong places from singing three songs a night five times a week, and her heart is beating fast, torn between anger at the men who look at her like she’s a piece of meat on display and anxiety at disappointing Caleb for not bringing in the money he needs. Her voice is the biggest seller at his club, she knows it is, and she doesn’t want to know what happens to those who don’t sell well at all.

(She had been a hit from the moment she had walked on stage, dressed in a pretty purple dress she had pulled from her mom’s old chest, her hair curled to one side, a small butterfly pin - her good luck charm - clipped to the corner of her sleeve. Caleb had been watching from the front row, a buffet of every food you could imagine spread out on the table before him but his eyes were instead locked steadily on her, watching and waiting.

The crowd had cheered wildly as soon as they had seen her, and she had been embrassed by the attention back then, blushling under the spotlights. Then she had met Caleb’s eyes, and he had nodded her on with a crooked smile, and she had opened her mouth and sang the best she ever had in her life.)

Tonight was different.

She was exhuasted, and her voice was cracking on the high notes, and she barely had the energy to hold a microphone and sing, let alone jump around the stage and try and hype up the audience like she was supposed to.

She can’t find Caleb in the crowd, and her heart jumps with joy at the thought of him not being here. Maybe she could throw tonight’s set and get away with it. Maybe she could request the rest of the week off through Willie and avoid having to talk to him at all.

(When she had first arrived at the club, she wondered why someone as kind as Willie was working there among men and women who were so opposite to him.

As the weeks dragged into months, she had grown closer to Willie, and realized that he was trapped there in the same way she was.)

She finishes Finally Free - irony not lost on her considering she hasn’t been free since the day she had put her life on the line for her brother - and her heart aches at the thought of him, and a faraway part of her wonders how he’s doing. She hasn’t seen him since--

“Brava, brava!”

Caleb walks on stage, clapping his hands loudly, even though the men tonight had ceased their clapping early so that they could reach for their drinks, and Julie’s entire body tenses as the older man moves to stand next to her, his arm brushing against hers as his hand slides down to grab hers.

Red hot fear catches in her throat as she waits for his gaze to turn to her, but instead he avoids looking at her and keeps his eyes on the audience, gauging their reaction. Some are still looking toward the stage while others have moved onto their entrees, forks dipping into fettuccine and lagansa - tonight’s special. His grip on her hand tightens, and she holds back a cry.

He’s not happy.

She knows he isn’t happy, which means this could be the end of her tonight, because if Caleb wasn’t happy then the club wasn’t happy and if the club wasn’t happy then how would money continue to flow and if there was no money then she couldn’t pay back her brother’s debt and--

“I’m glad you all enjoyed tonight’s show,” he calls, catching the audience's attention once again. “Enjoy your meals, and if any of you would like to spare the cash for a one of a kind encore, please feel free to form a line at the stairs. Thank you!”

He lifts the hand that holds her own high in some sort of praise, and there’s a roar of applause, and men who tumble out of their seats at the thought of Caleb’s type of ‘encore’ and Julie feels sick.

Encores were for the acts that failed, last minute attempts for Caleb to earn some money out of a moneyless night, and if he was offering her up then that means she failed and if she failed then - then--

She doesn’t fight Caleb as he pulls her backstage, the velvet curtains closing behind them with a sense of finality. The thought of it makes her insides churn and her head pound, and another wave of nausea floods her as Caleb corners her against the wall a second later, slamming her back into solid brick.

“For someone so keen to pay off her brother’s debt, you aren’t taking your job as seriously as you should, Julie.”

His words are as threatening as the hand he uses to keep her arms pinned above her head, his other hand pressed into a white-knucked fist at his side. His face is twisted into an angry sneer, and though threatening, his words are as calm as they always are, and that alone is enough to send chills racing up her spine.

Pain radiates from the center of her back, and panic closes around her throat, making it hard for her to breathe. She struggles for words. “I-I am, Caleb, I swear, my voice - I’m just starting to lose my voice from singing so much, and I didn’t want you to - to be disappointed if I asked for some time off and, and I-I tried my best tonight, I--”

He silences her with a look, her mouth snapping shut. And God, she hates this, hates him more than she’s ever hated anybody in her life, because she hates how much power he has over her, and contuines to hold over her, because she’s in this deep and there doesn’t seem to be any way back out.

“You really think,” he starts, slow and deliberate, “that I’m going to belive that?”

Before she can speak he’s squeezing her wrists hard enough that it hurts, and she bites her lip as he moves closer to her face, his eyes dark with an anger she only sees when he’s talking about his failed acts.

“You will sing until you lose your voice, and every performance until then will be up to par, or you will never see your brother ever again. Is that understood?”

She hates this. She hates this, she hates this, she hates this, she--

“Yes.” She says, as firmly as she can.

Caleb doesn’t smile or nod or play his violence off like it’s nothing. Instead he realeases her and takes a step back, straightening his collar. His eyes are still dark as he stares at her, and it makes her fingers shake.

“You failed me tonight, Julie, and I’m sorry to do this to you, especially considering you are my best act in this entire place, but you will be doing as many encores as they pay for tonight and that’s--”

“I’ll take ‘em.”

Julie startles at the familiar voice, looking over and seeing no other than Luke Patterson standing by the exit door, guitar strap slung over one shoulder.

Caleb audibly scoffs in disbelief. “You’re going to take all her clients tonight?”

Luke’s eyes flick from Julie’s to Caleb’s before he nods and makes his way over to them, his hand tight around the neck of his guitar. “Yeah. You’re cool with it, aren’t you?”

Caleb sighs, obivously torn.

Julie stares, shocked, at Luke. She doesn’t know much about him, and hasn’t interacted with him at all nearly the entire time she’s been at the club, besides a head nod if they passed each other on stage. All she knows about him is infromation from Willie and that’s that Luke has been at the club longer than he has, longer than anyone else at the club, and no one knows why. He’s also the only one who Caleb has - if you could call them at - civil conversations with.

He doesn’t bring in as much money as he used to, but he was a good buffer to newer acts like Julie, and whatever Caleb had to keep him there with everyone else...it had to be big, for him to be stuck there for so long.

“Of course I’m cool with it.” Caleb finally says, slapping Luke on the shoulder with a broad grin. He leans in to whisper in his ear, but Julie overhears what he says anyway. “They’ll pay more for you anyway.”

He pulls back with a laugh, followed by an easy smile from Luke, but if Julie looks close enough, she can tell it’s fake, can see the strained edges and jagged peices.

Caleb turns back to her, his eyes no longer as carefree as they were a second before. “You’re free to go tonight. Rest up that voice now, Julie. I expect an amazing performance two days from now.” He smiles, wide and grand, before disappearing through the curtains with the announcement of Luke Patterson’s encore offer for later tonight.

Julie stands there, rubbing her wrists, unsure what to say to Luke. Should she thank him from saving her from something she knew she’d never be able to come back from? Apologize for allowing him to give himself up instead?

“You don’t have to say anything,” he supplies, as if he’s reading her mind. She looks up and catches his honest eyes, a different smile covering his lips now. It looks...almost happy.

Happy to be talking to her?

No, no. She shakes that thought from her mind.

“I’m, I’m sorry,” she grapples for other words, “you didn’t have to do that. For me.”

He readjusts, allowing his guitar to lean against his hip. His hair is short and half-hidden under a grey beaine, he’s wearing a white tank-top that’s obviously seen better days, and weathered jeans. The strap his guitar clings to is decorated with names written in black sharpie. She’s able to read a few - Reggie, Alex, Bobby, Emily, Mitch, TJ, Tim - and he catches her staring, chuckling quietly.

“I uh, before this, I’d have people sign my guitar at my first shows. Got filled up pretty fast. Guess you could say I was a sort of teen sensation?” She can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her, and he laughs softly with her, watching the way her fingers fumble over one another. His heart falls, just a little bit. “I’m sorry. About Caleb.”

“It’s not your fault.” She dismisses, her hands falling to her sides.

She swears she can still see the man’s eyes in the shadows behind the speakers and old lights. Silence surrounds them for a moment, but then the crowd roars, and Caleb announces Luke’s name again, and he sighs, gesturing with his head toward the curtains.

“Guess it’s time for my gig.” He says wryly, and she nods and moves out of the way so he can walk past her. Her eyes catch on red marks across his skin as he passes, hidden poorly behind his tank-top, and her stomach rolls.

“Wait!” she calls just before his hands touch the curtain. She turns around and walks over to him, grabbing his hand in hers. “Thank you. For saving me from...from that.”

She can feel the callouses on his fingers from picking at a guitar, and the scars that decorate his palm from his time spent in the club. He’s far too young to have scars, she thinks, but then Luke is smiling wide, and the corner of his eyes are crinkling, and Julie’s heart is soaring for some reason at the way he looks at her then.

“Anytime Molina,” he whipers, and then he’s disappearing through the curtain, and for some reason, she misses the feel of his hand in hers as soon as he’s gone.

#jatp fanfic #jatp fanfiction #keepswingin writes #mine #this a human au by the way #luke is the same age as her #and that's all the information you're getting lol

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basiccortez · 4 years

Text

Defenseless Ch. 3

synopsis: CJ Jackson, looks like she has it all. Fancy car, fancy house, name brand clothing. Her parents, top boosters to Beverly, with money to make all sorts of situations go away. As well as the Jackson family looks put together, past secrets haunt them. With the new transfer student catching the eye of CJ Jackson, can old friendships be fixed. Or are somethings just meant to stay broken.

“I told you, as long as I live, no one would know."

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pairing: Jordan Baker x OC (CJ Jackson)

word count: 3.1k

warning: language, talk of a teen being arrested, talk about a car accident, mentions of death, panic attack

tag list: @thevelvetseries

Tears ran down CJ's face as she held the picture frame in her hands. She had dug through the box, something she hadn't done since she packed everything up about 3 months ago. The smiling boy looked up at her, and CJ's heart was broken all over again. It was like she was reliving that day all over again, and she hated it. ------------------------------------------------------------

"Where is he? Where is he at?" CJ said, shooting up from the bed she was in. The nurses quickly walked over to her and tried to calm her down, "No! Don't touch me! Where is he?! Where is Kordell!? Someone tell me where Kordell is at!?"

"Hun, you need to calm down." A female nurse said.

"BP rising." Another nurse said.

"No! No! What happened!? Where the hell am I?!" CJ screamed.

"You were in an accident, your parents on the way. Christine, did you take anything? Are you on anything currently?" The female nurse asked again.

"No, no! I need to see Kordell!" CJ asked again, as she pulled the oxygen canula at of her nose and caught a glimpse of a familiar person, "Jordan?" The lightskin boy turned and looked at his friend in a hospital bed, cuts and bruises all over her face, and a cast on her left arm, "Where is Kordell!?"

"CJ. . . Kordell, he-" Jordan spoke, but a police officer came into CJ's room, and blocked the view of Jordan Baker.

"Christine Jackson? You are under arrest for the vehicular murder of Kordell Morgan, and driving under the influence of illegal narcotics." The officer said and placed a pair of handcuffs to CJ's free wrist

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It was like a nightmare. CJ stood in front of her mirror in her dance uniform, ready for her first game. The navy blue uniform looked good against her tan skin, and her mother had done her hair. CJ took a deep breath and grabbed her bag, before heading downstairs. Carver and Roman were both waiting for her, so she could ride with them together. After the accident, CJ had her license suspended for a whole year. It sucked being a high schooler with out a car, but she understood why she didn't have the car.

"You ready for this? First game, in front of a big crowd." Roman asked the Jackson girl.

"Ready as I'll ever be. As long as Emily doesn't try to make me look like a fool." CJ answered. ------------------------------------------------------------

The field was lights were bright, as CJ stepped on to the track for the first time in almost a year. The Beverly football team wore their navy blue jerseys and were already starting to warm up for tonight's battle on the gridiron. The dancers were on one side of the track, while the cheerleaders were on another. CJ could feel the glares of fellow students in the stands as she made her way towards her team.

"Hey! First game! You ready!?" Hadley asked her with a bright smile on her painted red lips.

"As ready as I can be standing in front of a whole school who hates me." CJ said sitting down her bag. Hadley just smiled and sighed.

"Coach put you in the middle, just thought you should know. She wants you calling shots. She knows Emily can't do it."

"I'm not even on the team yet, and they're making me shot caller?" CJ asked as she slipped on her white high top Nike Air Force One's.

"It's cause we want your mom back, Miss Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Pauline Jackson." Hadley laughed and CJ rolled her eyes.

"She hates Beverly, only reason we are still here is because they kiss our ass and get on their knees to suck our cocks when we try to pull money out of the school." CJ said frankly.

Before Hadley could respond, their coach called all the girls together, to get ready for the boys to run out. CJ was instructed to tumble across the field as the boys were getting announced, something she used to do at every game. The girls stood on the field and danced along to the hype song before the boys ran out. CJ did as told and did what she could and flipped her way across the field. ------------------------------------------------------------

It was a terrible game. Beverly looked terrible, and the other team was running circles around them. CJ did her best to keep her spirit high as the team would dance along to the music over the loud speaker, or what the band would play. She also did her best to ignore the glares of various students and parents in the crowd. Pauline and Anthony had sat right in front of her, to give her some positivity to look at.

"She looks just like her mama." Anthony said smiling at his wife.

"Of course she does, she got her talent from me." Pauline sassed back. Anthony faked hurt and held his hand to his heart. Pauline laughed and gently shoved her husband, "Oh shush, Carver is just like you. Out there being a tank."

Beverly had turned it around, trying their hardest to match up to the opponent. Spencer was working as hard as he could to make his name. They were all working hard, CJ could smell the sweat rolling all off of them as they walked to the sideline.

Spencer was running back on the field, which confused CJ, knowing that he was a defensive player. The boys broke their huddle and got on the line of scrimmage. Jordan hung in the shotgun for as long as he could, as his teammates scattered around the field. Spencer ran wide to the right, getting in the line way of number 54. As the player was running towards Jordan, Spencer dropped his shoulder into the player. Jordan held on to the ball and ran down the sideline, his teammates protecting him as he made a clear drive to the end zone.

CJ let out a loud scream as Beverly won the game. The crowd was cheering loud, and the whole football team ran out on the field. Carver took his helmet off and pointed to his parents and then to his sister. CJ blew her brother a kiss, and waved to him. Jordan took his helmet off and looked over to where his mother and sister were, but also to where CJ stood cheering on the boys victory. CJ caught his glance and smiled brightly at him. Jordan nodded and then turned to greet his dad, who just ignored him and hugged Spencer.

"Hey, man, can I talk to you for a second?" Jordan asked number 40 for the other team.

Spencer took a deep breath as he was walking off the field. He stood in front of CJ and smiled at her. She was about to congratulate him, when Leila jumped in. CJ just nodded to Spencer and walked over to where her bag was. She changed out of her shoes, and zipped up her blue dance team jacket, before going over to where her parents were talking to Carver and Roman.

"CJ," Her dance team coach said stopping her in her tracks, "I want to officially welcome you back to the dance team. We are looking for you to be a co-captain."

"Thank you, coach." CJ smiled.

The ride home for the Jacksons' was an exciting one. Talk of the game filled the car as the siblings all rode with Carver and Roman. CJ sat in the back of the SUV and watched the cars as they passed by. She wasn't surprised when they pulled up to Hadley's house for the after game party.

"Hey, we don't have to stay, Carv said I can take the car home if you don't want to stay." Colton said to his twin sister. CJ took a deep breath and looked at her brother.

"I know how bad you want to be here, but I just. . .it's been enough high school interaction for one day." CJ said honestly.

"That's okay C, let's head home ight?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CJ couldn't sleep that night. She sat on the roof outside her window and held a picture in her hand, and had a bottle of pills sitting next to her. She just wanted to swallow them and forget the images replaying in her mind, but she knew she couldn't. His bright smile looked up at her, and she felt guilt drown her. She quietly climbed back into her room, and headed down the stairs. She knew she her ass was grass if she got caught, but she couldn't sleep.

CJ prayed that her parents or brothers hadn't heard her start her car. It had sat idle in the garage for months since she was sent to juvie. The streets of Beverly Hills were almost abandoned at 3 in the morning. CJ drove effortlessly, her mind on autopilot as she navigated through the down town streets, on to winding side streets until she saw the big black gate. She wasn't surprised not to see a car in sight, who else visited a cemetery at 3 am?

Tears flooded down her face, as she parked her car, her head lights beaming on the grey stone in front of her. The name seemed to jump off and stab her in the heart. More memories of that tragic night in her mind. The screaming sounds, the breaking glass, the bending of metal, and the metallic smell of blood in the air.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I told you not to! I told you, I told you!" CJ screamed as she pounded her fists against her steering wheel. "It wasn't my fucking fault! I told you! It wasn't my fault!"

CJ could feel her lungs feeling tighter and tighter, as it seemed the car was caving in on itself. She put her hands on the glass and the roof, as she was trying to keep it from coming in on her. Before she realized what she was doing, she pushed her door open and ran out of the car. She ran to the grey stone and fell to her knees in front of it.

"You did this! It was all you! You told me to get in that car! You knew what would happen to me!" She screamed as sobs racked her body. CJ hadn't cried like this, she hadn't allowed herself a moment to break. She was thrown around from place to place, to treatment centers and juvenile detention center, and now back in the same school that her beloved boyfriend walked the halls of.

CJ looked up, and saw the same smiling picture of the boy she loved. She gently ran her fingers over the picture and closed her eyes. She picked herself up off the ground and staggered back to the car. She grabbed her phone and called the one person who wouldn't judge her. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Olivia Baker wrapped her jacket around her, as she walked over to CJ sat in her car. Jordan watched as her sister bravely faced the one person she hated more than herself.

"Hey. . ." Olivia said quietly. She looked at CJ, who's cheeks were red with tear stains, "I had the same reaction, my first time out here. It just felt. . . too real being here, and seeing. . .that" She said pointing to the headstone. CJ didn't say anything, but stare straight a head, "Listen, if you're fucking high right now, I can't be here-"

"He was driving that night." CJ answered, "Everyone thought it was me, thanks to your brother, Aiyden, Asher, and Leila. Kordell, he would've told the truth, taken the blame, but he wasn't there."

"That doesn't make any sense. If he was driving he would've been... he was thrown from the car." Olivia said in realization, "Why didn't you tell anyone!?"

"Everyone already saw me as the trouble maker sense that night at Asher's party. I was so overcome by guilt for making Kordell drive me home after..." CJ paused as her voice cracked and Olivia hugged the broke girl. CJ cried into Olivias shoulder, as the Baker girl tried to comfort her.

"You could've plead not guilty, could've explained what actually happened." Olivia said, "Your truth deserves to be heard."

"How do you explain what the most popular guy in school did to you? I am nobody, but the girl who deserves to be locked in a prison cell for the rest of her life."

Olivia sighed and looked around the quiet cemetery, "At least let us take you to our house. You can spend the night-"

"Your mother sees me as the girl who killed someone and almost killed her daughter and son within a 12 hour time period. It doesn't take a genius to know I'm not welcome at your house anymore."

"Then let Jordan take you home. Please CJ, you're in no shape to drive home." Olivia pleaded. CJ reluctantly agreed and Olivia nodded. She walked back to her car and opened the door to tell her brother the new change of plans, "Hey, can you drive her home?"

"What? No." Jordan said looking at the white mustang in front of him.

"Jordan, she's a mess. She can't drive home." Olivia pleaded with her twin. Jordan shook his head, and got out of the car.

"You owe me." He grumbled as he walked up to CJ's car. The Jackson girl was already sitting in the passenger seat, when Jordan climbed in the driver's seat. He didn't even look at her, but started up the car, and began to leave the cemetery.

"There a reason for this mess?" Jordan asked her. CJ didn't say anything, but let the silent tears run down her face. Jordan sighed, realizing how harsh his words were, "Listen, I'm sorry."

"It's okay." CJ whispered. The rest of the drive to CJ's house was quiet. When they arrived at the Beverly Hills mansion, her parents ran out into the driveway, still in their pajamas. Her mother had pulled on her pink silk robe, and still had her silk wrap over her hair.

CJ had barely gotten out of the car, when Pauline wrapped her daughter in a tight hug. Anthony sighed and looked over at Jordan Baker who climbed out of the Mustang. The Jackson brothers, and Roman were standing in the front doorway, watching their parents dote over CJ.

"Thank god," Pauline sighed, and released her daughter from the hug, "You're grounded, so fucking grounded."

CJ looked at her orange Nike Jordan 1's. Pauline was pissed, and they all could tell. She never cursed in front of her children.

"Inside. Please." Pauline said to her daughter and CJ nodded. She quietly moved past her mother and into the house. Colton pulled his sister into a hug, when she walked through the door.

"Are you okay? Under anything?" Cobe asked CJ.

"No. I promise you guys, I'm not on anything. I just want a bath, and go to bed." CJ said and all the boys backed off, letting her walk up to her room.

"Why is Baker here?" Carver commented, seeing his mom and dad talking to Jordan.

"Who even knows. Let's go." Roman said, grabbing his boyfriend's hand and leading him away from the window.

Cobe and Colton stood still, watching Jordan talk to their parents. They didn't trust Jordan, not after all their sister had gone through. Cobe and Colton were basically security for CJ, they were not going to let Jordan Baker waltz back into their lives so easily.

Pauline watched her daughter walk into the house, and then turned around to talk to Jordan. The young man stood with his hands in his pockets, nervous to be back in the presence of the Jackson family.

"Thank you, Jordan, for driving my daughter home." Pauline said, folding her arms across her chest, "Where was she?"

"Cemetery. She actually called Olivia, and Olivia wanted me to come, for back up. She was worried CJ was high. . ."

"Was she? Did you see anything?" Anthony asked, pressing the young man.

"No, sir, I didn't. Olivia said she didn't see anything either." Jordan responded.

Anthony sighed and looked around, "It's pretty late. Why don't you stay here tonight? The boys wouldn't mind having you here."

"Thank you Mr. Jackson." Jordan said and walked behind Anthony and Pauline into the house.

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When Cobe and Colton saw their parents and Jordan walk towards the house, they took off running into the living room, to seem like they weren't spying. Cobe turned the TV on and Colton pulled a blanket over his head. Pauline looked at her boys and crossed her arms over her chest, she did not believe for a second that those boys weren't spying.

"Uhem!" Pauline cleared her throat, and both boys looked up at her, "Jordan is staying the night, and I don't want to hear any grief from you two. He's staying in the guest house, Colton, you'll show him the-"

"No! Mom, I can't, abosuletly can't!" Colton said standing up and arguing with his mother. He couldn't be around Jordan, He hated Jordan Baker. Pauline gave him a glare and Colton stood down, "Fine. But no promises the Baker's won't put a target on me next."

Jordan stood awkwardly in the kitchen, hearing every word that came out of Colton's mouth. Chris instructed Colton to walk Jordan over to the guest house, and show him around. Colton didn't say a word but turned towards the door. Jordan thanked the Jacksons before following the twin boy. Colton opened the white barn-style cottage house and flipped the light on. A bright chandelier lit the living room.

"You've been here, and don't act like you haven't. I know the shit you and my sister used to do here. I'm too disgusted to take a black light and look around." Colton sneered and set the keys to the cottage on the marble counter top. "Whatever room you use, just tell me and I'll fix it."

"Hey, thanks Colton, I know you don't like me-"

"No, I fucking hate you. If it was up to me, I'd kick your ass to the curb and not think twice. You, Jordan Baker, are scum on the bottom of my shoe, you can fool a lot of people but you can't fool me." Colton said and pushed past Jordan towards the door, "Hope you sleep well."

#all american #all american cw #all american imagine #jordan baker #jordan baker imagine #jordan baker x reader #spencer james #asher adams #olivia baker

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derl30 · 3 years

Text

ALTERED STATES REVIEW TIME!

OK, this tumblr is, today, a vehicle for me to review ALTERED STATES. And you (the one person who stumbled on this review two-hundred years from n- oh who am I kidding, when the aliens from A.I. who show up to thaw out Haley Joel Osment and the teddy bear who was the real hero of that movie find this) should be very excited about this. Because this movie is insane. And highly entertaining.

Yes, the movie poster looks like ass. If I told you this was a movie where William Hurt (not the William Hurt from that awful 90's Lost in Space remake, or the one who slept through an entire performance as Duke Leto in the Syfy miniseries of Dune. This is before the body snatchers got him) took ayahuasca and got in a isolation tank and it blew his mind so hard he started devolving into a neanderthal and creating dimensional portals and he couldn't stop because he was addicted to finding the truth of existence... Well you wouldn't get that from this poster, would you? So let's move on. Shall we?

The film opens in 1967 with William Hurt's character, psychopathologist Edward Jessup, already immersed in a sensory deprivation tank, whilst his colleague and “buddy” Bob Balaban (he's just Bob Balaban in everything I'm not giving you his character's name look it up yourself if it's bugging you so much) oversees.

Now, you may notice I put buddy in quotes. The reason for that is that Jessup is a self-obsessed ass who seemingly has no reason to be around other people unless he can expound to them one of his various monologues. Bob Balaban barely gets a word in edgewise throughout the entire film. Bob Balaban.

See, Jessup loves the sensory deprivation tank experience. Unsurprisingly, as it allows him to be completely alone with himself for hours.

Later, at perhaps the lamest party ever, a bunch of faculty are chilling out and listening to the Doors. Everyone we see is talking about Jessup. Why? Well, much as Jessup is obsessed with himself, everyone else seems to follow suit by being obsessed with him. One young woman, Emily, (Blair Brown) is introduced to him in this very shot below as he arrives at the party:

Notice how is framed in holy light? There is a closeup after, of him framed in blinding glowing light followed up with a zoom in on Emily's face, enraptured with this incredible dynamic man. So much so that the moment he tries to make a goddamn sandwich she starts grabbing his celery (get your mind out of the gutter) and flirting with him. Which for these two that means talking science, immediately. Talking more at each other than with each other. This is often the way with Paddy Chayefsky's scripts.

PAUSE

Paddy Chayefsky is doubtless one of the great American writers for the screen. He wrote Marty, The Hospital and Network (which is a fucking incredible piece of work). He got an Oscar for all three. He also wrote this movie (Altered States, remember? Good lord) and disowned it completely three weeks in to production. His scripts tend to have very intelligent, driven characters at the center, who monologue extensively at each other. These scripts are not attempting to sound naturalistic.

Ken Russell, however, directed the film. He, like Chayefsky, is top notch at what he does (Direct. I said he directed the film like a second ago, come on keep up). His films, like Women in Love, The Devils, (which was banned in several major countries upon release and has never been shown publicly in its full, uncut form (by the way it's a masterpiece)) the Who's Tommy, Gothic, and Lair of the White Worm are all fucking gonzo nuts. I mean like, when you gave this guy the reins, you were going to Overthetopsville and there will be no stops on this trip. And god bless! I love directors who GO for it!

You're getting the chance to make a movie. Stop hemming and hawing and hit me over the head with what you want to say! Film is a visual medium, USE IT!

I feel I might have made my feelings clear here. So, moving on...

Ken Russell and Paddy Chayefsky immediately started butting heads, right from the start. Chayefsky was a BIG deal, and he wanted control over the picture in a BIG way. Ken would listen to his suggestions on everything to lighting and set dressing, and politely tell him, “No.”, and continue being the director of the film. Chayefsky hated him pretty quickly.

He had much more control over films like The Hospital. Which, if you watch The Hospital, well, it shows. You've got great actors (George C. Scott, Dame Diana Rigg (Dame may be the greatest official title of all time)) saying great dialogue. But its just two very witty bitter people sort of expounding on topics and speaking at each other and suddenly admitting they are in love and discussing what drapes they will have to buy for their new home. It's utterly preposterous, and it doesn't work in the way Sidney Lumet got it to work in Network, by literally making one of the lead characters realize his life is turning into a ludicrous soap opera.

So of course Ken tried to humanize, naturalize, the dialogue sequences. And it works! The film feels more human than the Hospital or Network. Despite the fact that Jessup is literally becoming more and more inhuman throughout the film. One of the ways he does this is by having the character's eat, drink, and work on other things during the dialogue sequences. This is perfectly normal in film, it's called giving the actor “business” to do, during the scene. Chayefsky HATED this. “They are mumbling my precious dialogue! Chewing through it! Sucking it through a straw!” Sorry, Chayefsky buddy. It works for the picture. Chayefsky also felt the actors were too emotional with his dialogue. Right. See, they call that acting.

UNPAUSE

Which brings us back to the first meeting of Emily and Jessup at the party. They are eating during this important scene! I can just picture Chayefsky seeing this, and running to the studio brass to tattle and get Ken Russell fired (as he got Arthur Penn of Bonnie and Clyde fame fired before Ken Russell came on board).

Emily and Jessup are, true to Chayefsky form, extremely intelligent, driven people and hearing them discuss topics such as anthropology and schizophrenia is quite interesting. It's just that what is to come, film being a visual medium, will eclipse just about any dialogue, no matter how good, from our mind thingys.

The two give up on the science talk and go straight to banging on her couch. After, she asks what he was thinking about. His answer is priceless. “God. Jesus. Crucifixions.”

She smiles.

Bwahahaha! Oh Paddy Chayefsky, you sure know women.

He admits he used to have religious visions. She listens to him from the sweaty couch whilst he sits naked on the floor, and starts going on about his father's horrible death of cancer and his loss of faith. And he admits to her that he's a nut. Her response is to call him a fascinating bastard. I think Lucas may have taken notes for Padme and Anakin.

So naturally, they get married immediately.

But none of that matters because Jessup gets back in the sensory deprivation tank and has his first vision. A nightmare of his dying father and lost faith in christianity. It's pretty great, filled with foreboding hospital rooms, his father's face being covered in a burning Shroud of Turin, everything covered by horrible blood red clouds and then THIS FUCKING THING SHOWS UP AND ITS ALIVE AND WRIGGLING

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

excuse me...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The many-eyed goat is slaughtered over a gold bible and suddenly Jessups screwing Emily again and we enter a blood vessel looking thing and the vision ends and he never mentions this again. Oh. Okay,

Emily continues on about what a nut Jessup is as they make marriage plans. Her monologue:

“You're an unmitigated madman. You don't have to tell me how weird you are. I know how weird you are. I'm the girl in your bed the past two months. Even sex is a mystical experience for you. You carry on like a flagellant... Which can be very nice, but I sometimes wonder if it's me that's being made love to. I feel like I'm being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of receiving God. (Emphasis mine)

"And you are a Faust-freak Eddie! You'd sell your soul to find the great truth. Well, human life doesn't have great truths. We're born in doubt. We spend our lives persuading ourselves we're alive. And one way we do that is we love each other, like I love you. I can't imagine living without you. So let's get married, and if it turns out to be a disaster, it'll be a disaster.”

It's a disaster.

As in, by the next scene. It starts off happy enough looking, they have kids and people are smiling. And hey, wow it's seven years later! But, well, see, whoops, they are getting a divorce. Well, not they. See, he is divorcing her because he considers the seven years with her a complete waste.

She still loves him, desperately. He doesn't give a shit about her or the kids. He tells Bob Balaban this, straight up. And then starts bugging him about deprivation tanks and Hinchi Indians in South America who have sacred mushrooms that can really fuck you up.

It's at this point you would like for Jessup to be hit by a Mack truck. But the movie continues on. By the way, this is one of the kids he doesn't give a crap about:

That's right. Drew Barrymore's first role is a kid that William Hurt doesn't give a shit about. Something that William Hurt would make a career out of with narcoleptic performances in Lost in Space and Syfy's Dune. So, Emily takes the kids to Africa for her anthropology work while Jessup goes to South America to go deeper into his own creepy mind.

The Hinchi Indians agree to allow him to participate in the drug ritual. They enter their holy cave.

This shot is beautiful. At this point the film becomes increasingly gorgeous. Ken Russell has started to go into overdrive, ladies and gentlemen. Buckle. Your. Seatbelts.

The Indians grab Jessup's hand and cut him, freaking him out. They pour his blood into the drug mixture. They begin to drink. Then he takes a sip. The intensity of the film here has quadrupled. The vision begins, fireworks going off all around him. He sees cave paintings of humans and komodo dragons and this:

The proper life he left behind with Emily. He's convulsing, sweating. The Indians are all around, masked. Snakes. He's laughing in pain. Energy spills from the void. A snake under the parasol strikes and begins to strangle him. He and Emily march toward a nuclear explosion as energy pours from the cut on his hand, becoming a lizard. From within a sandstorm, Emily watches him, naked. Jessup looks at her, entranced, as the soothing sands cover them both, slowly.

It's a beautiful sequence. A perfect film sequence. I can't overstate how strong the vision sequences are from this point forward. Great visual effects work and the madman mind of Ken Russell create something unforgettable, with it's own pace, independent from the rest of the film.

Jessup awakens with a komodo dragon laying before him, ripped to pieces. The Indians and the others all claim he killed it in rage. Jessup remembers nothing, takes samples of the drug to reproduce it, and goes back home.

Back home, Jessup keeps doing as much of the drug as he can and having Bob Balaban record results. They can't up the dosage any more so Jessup hops back in to the self deprivation tank to create a more extreme experience.

In his next session, Jessup states he is having a vision of early man, hunting a deer and killing it. Suddenly he states he is one of them, killing the deer. He begins to grunt like an animal. The two pull him out. He's incredibly pale, blood seeping out of his mouth. He can't speak, and has difficulty breathing. He insists they do an X-ray. It shows that there is a vocalizing lump in the front part of his throat. Jessup claims that his body had begun to revert to a simian state. The medical doctor agrees, stating the throat X-rays looks like that of a gorilla.

Luckily his throat returns to normal. So Jessup finishes up his day by having over a student of his and sleeping with her.

Our hero, people!

At this point we hardly feel sorry for him as his body suddenly begins to twist and bulge in the middle of the night, shifting in and out of neanderthal shapes. It's a horrific sequence, disturbing as hell. You certainly didn't expect the film to shift into body horror.

Jessup feels normal after a while. but sees visions of lava explosions, the birthing of the Earth all around him. Not a good sign.

He goes to pick up Emily from the airport the next day. She asks how he is doing.

“Oh, fine.”

Yeah right.

Emily has been told what Jessup has been doing and is worried, which of course pisses off Jessup even more. The guy is obviously obsessed with reaching the truth and root of existence, much as Emily surmised earlier, and we see he has no fear of even losing his own soul, again true to her word. The only thing that allows us to give a shit about him at this point is that Emily cares for him and she's decent people, okay?

So back Jessup goes into the tank with his ayahuasca or whatever it is. Alone. The tank door opens from the inside.

The hand that pushes it open is covered in thick hair. He's devolved.

Ape-Jessup escapes the tank room and chases a janitor around the building. Again, this scene is fucking freaky as hell. We can't get a good look at this screaming animal that was Jessup.

The janitor gets a guard to help and chases after him into the boiler room, where we finally get a good look at him when he assaults the security guard and escapes.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ape-Jessup runs through the city at night, making his way to the zoo where he kills a antelope and eats it. The Ape-Jessup sequence goes on way too long, but is nonetheless unforgettable. The makeup is much more convincing than the above picture suggests, and whoever performed Ape-Jessup did an admirable job.

The cops find an unconscious Jessup in the zoo and bring him in. Emily picks him up and questions him. Jessup admits everything that he can remember. He also admits that he probably killed that security guard. And once again doesn't seem to give a shit. Prick. He calls it the most supremely satisfying time of his life.

Even Emily seems disgusted with him. But, she's also fascinated with what he's accomplished. As an anthropologist, his transformation fascinates her. And so, she agrees to help oversee his next session. Big mistake.

Before the big session Emily and Jessup romantically reconnect, and then into the climactic session we go!

Get your popcorn ready!

After a few hours in to the session, the video monitor shows Jessup begin to literally melt apart like goo, reverting to primordial ooze, the very beginning of existence. An attempt to open the isolation tank doors blasts everyone unconscious, as light and energy pour forth. Emily is the only one left. She sees Jessup's life energy pulse from within the tank.

Rain pours down around them. The pipes on the walls twist and turn like jelly. The ground is covered with a pool of swirling fog and energy. Emily advances toward the vortex of the tank.

In the emptiness of the beginning of everything, Emily seizes the energy before her and reconstitutes Jessup.

They take him home. While he sleeps, Emily rages over the fact that she loves such a insane bastard, and can't get over him. And, then, after Bob Balaban leaves, leaving Emily alone, Jessup wakes up.

He sweetly admits that the truth he learned was that there was no learnable truth, just unknowable horror, and all that's real is human experience. And he'll be a good boy from now on. Well too bad!

Because that horrible truth isn't done with him, and it's back to goo-Jessup! Emily tries to help him, grabbing him, but this in turn effects her, turning her into a shimmering lava form of herself. Both of them begin to self-destruct as Jessup, enraged, watching her in pain, struggles to retake his humanity, slamming himself into the wall, reforming himself through sheer will and physicality. He grabs her and brings her back, mirroring what she did for him during the final session. They embrace naked in the hallway. He finally admits, “I love you, Emily.”

Fade to credits.

Awww true love!

What can I say to sum up? Awesome 80's practical effects. Genius wacko go-for-it Ken Russell directing. Out of this world vision sequences. A awake and actually remarkable performance from William Hurt. An occasionally turgid but often fascinating script by the ever ornery Paddy Chayefsky. Whats not to like?

Well, the ending is a little rushed. The ape sequence goes on for a little too long and takes up perhaps too much of the films overall running time. The central love story is, well... a little hard to swallow, but hey, I guess there really is somebody out there for everyone. Even self-absorbed, deadbeat, cheating, sensory deprivation loving, ayahuasca dropping, Harvard teachers with a messiah complex!

And on that note, aliens from A.I. Artifical Intelligence, have a good day, and don't leave poor Teddy alone with no one to keep him company!

Sayonara!

#altered states #ken russell #movies #review #funny?

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myownsuperintendent · 4 years

Text

New Fic: “Wedding”

The Mulder-Scully family comes together to celebrate Emily's wedding. Set after the previous fics in the "Welcome" universe. Rated G, also here at Ao3. The whole series is here.

.....

Emily’s smiling when she walks through the door. “Hi, everyone!”

“Hi, Emily!” Will’s the first to hug her, which he thinks is fair. Since she moved to Washington a couple of years ago for grad school, their parents get to see her a lot more often than he does; he only gets to see her at times like this, vacations and holidays.

Not that he doesn’t still know her pretty well. When she’s hugging their parents and putting her things down, he studies her face; he can see that she has something to tell them. Something good, he thinks. And he’s right, because the next minute she’s taking off her gloves and holding out her left hand, and her smile is even bigger than before. “Steve and I got engaged.”

“Emily!” Their mom hugs her again, for good measure. “Oh, that’s wonderful news, sweetheart!”

“I know. I’m so excited,” Emily says, and then they all sit down in the living room to ask her questions. Will would be lying if he claimed to be super into either proposals or wedding planning, when in fact they are very low down on his list of interests. But he knows this means a lot to Emily, that Steve makes her really happy, so he can’t even be bored by the conversation right now.

Steve asked her when he came to visit over the weekend. “He didn’t do one of those crazy proposals. I don’t think I would have liked that. He just asked me over dessert.”

They haven’t thought that much about the details of the wedding yet. “It’ll be after I graduate. We’ll probably do it in Wyoming,” she says. “Since Steve’s there and a lot of our friends. I’m looking into jobs there, too.” That gets Will’s attention—the thought of Emily moving back. He likes Virginia, has gotten used to it, but Wyoming’s still really home for him. It would be nice to be able to visit Emily there, to have someone to stay with who’s unquestionably family. He’ll miss having her here, though. “But we haven’t really thought about a lot of specific plans yet. I just know I want all of you there.”

“Well, that’s good,” their dad says, laughing, “because you probably wouldn’t be able to keep us away.”

“I mean I want you all to be part of it,” Emily says. “Mom, would you help me choose a dress? I’d really like to do that together.”

“Of course,” their mom says. “That sounds wonderful.”

“And Dad,” Emily says, “will you walk me down the aisle?”

Will looks at their dad; he can tell this means a lot to him. He’s not Emily’s dad in the same way that he’s Will’s; usually it doesn’t seem to make any difference, but Will thinks it does a little now. Like it’s even more important that Emily’s asking him to do something that dads always do. “That would be an honor,” he says, and he leans over to hug her quickly.

“What do you want me to do?” Will asks.

Emily smiles at him. “I definitely want you to be in the wedding,” she says. “You can be my brides-man. Or whatever they call it when it’s a guy.”

“You don’t want one of your friends for that?” he asks.

“No,” Emily says. “You’re my brother. You’ve been with me forever. If you were my sister you’d be on my side, so why should you have to go on Steve’s side? I want you up there with me.”

He’s glad that she’s asking him. Because it’s true what she says: they have been together forever, as long as he can remember, anyway. And he wants to be a part of this, on this day that’s going to make her happy. “That sounds great, then,” he says.

.....

“Can I ask you something?” Emily says. They’re eating lunch in a café, before heading to try on dresses.

“Of course,” Scully says.

“I was wondering…why didn’t you and Dad ever get married?”

It’s a fair question and not necessarily one she knows the answer to herself. “I’m not sure,” Scully says. “Maybe it hasn’t seemed…we know we love each other. With or without the legal commitment.”

“Oh, I know,” Emily says. “I just wondered…didn’t you ever want to? I mean, I love Steve even if I’m not married to him. But that’s why I want to get married.”

“Well, there was a practical side to it,” Scully says. “For a long time, we were separated or hiding out or all kinds of things. And once it was possible…it just wasn’t our priority, I guess. We’d been together without it for so long by then. There wasn’t anything that could really bring us closer.”

Emily nods, thoughtfully. She takes a bite of her sandwich, chews, and swallows. “Do you think you ever would?” she asks.

Scully thinks about it. She’s never felt anything lacking with Mulder because they’re not married, especially now: the two of them are better together than they’ve ever been. She doesn’t doubt that he’ll always be there, doesn’t doubt their partnership. She doesn’t think waking up next to him every morning would be any sweeter just because they were wearing rings.

But she knows why Emily’s asking. She sees the excitement in her daughter’s eyes so often these days, when she’s planning this public commitment to someone she loves. Maybe that’s the one aspect she might envy: the public side. The two of them have spent so much time hiding.

“Nothing’s impossible,” she eventually says. “But we’re very happy as we are, really, sweetheart. I hope you’re not worried we’re going to split up or anything.” She smiles.

Emily smiles back. “Oh, of course not,” she says. “I know you guys are really happy.”

It sounds so simple, almost too easy for them, and yet today it’s true. “We are,” she says.

“There’s actually something else I wanted to ask, about that,” Emily says. “Do you have any advice for me?”

“What kind of advice?” Scully asks.

“Just about…being with someone,” Emily says. “Living together and being together all the time. And being happy.”

That’s a tricky one too; she’s not sure she and Mulder have set up a road map that she wants Emily to follow. Maybe they needed the journey to reach the destination, or whatever that crap is, but she’d just as soon have skipped some steps of the journey, taken a shortcut to get to where they’ve ended up. Still, there must be something she can tell her daughter. “You have to talk to each other,” she says. “Be open about how you feel. It took your dad and I forever to get to that point. I wish we’d done it sooner.” Emily nods, watching her. “And don’t let things get in the way of what you have.”

“What kinds of things?” Emily asks.

So many kinds. “Other people,” she says. “Sad things. Life.” She’s wanted her kids to know the truth about their lives, the decisions they made, and she’s told them a lot over the last few years, the ones she’s had with them. But there are still times when she doesn’t want to go into too much detail. They shouldn’t have to share that hurt.

And today shouldn’t be a day of hurt, especially. Not when it’s beautiful out—one of the first really nice days of spring—and when Emily’s about to try on dresses to get married in, and when she’s so happy and in love. Not when Scully’s happy too, with the life she’s living now: with a partner and a daughter and a son who all make her inexpressibly glad.

“And,” she says, “one more thing for living together. Make sure he doesn’t leave food in the refrigerator until it molds.”

Emily starts to laugh at that, and Scully laughs too. And then they finish their lunch and go. Emily looks beautiful in the dresses she tries, her hair bright red against the white fabric.

.....

He hasn’t been to that many weddings, Mulder realizes. Some when he was younger, after college and in grad school, but since then not a lot. He guesses it’s because he didn’t have that many friends, and the ones he did have weren’t exactly the marrying kind. (He tries to imagine a wedding for any of the Gunmen. The thought makes him laugh, and miss them a little, as he often does.) That may be the reason that the trappings they’re dealing with—all this catering and balloons—seem pretty bewildering to him.

But he wants to give Emily everything that will make her happy. This isn’t going to be a big wedding, and Emily and Steve are putting a lot of it together themselves, with help from their families. Steve’s parents seemed suspicious of Mulder and Scully at first; he assumed it was because Emily and Steve had grown up together, because they’d known Emily for so long as the daughter of the Van de Kamps. But now they’ve warmed up. They talk about the weather, and baseball standings, and mostly about their kids. “I still can’t believe they’re old enough to get married,” Steve’s mother said the other day, and Mulder had to agree. He still remembers little Emily drawing her potato. The next time he saw her she was in her twenties. It’s a lot to wrap your head around.

They’re having the wedding at the house where the kids grew up, the one they’ve kept on. Once a year or so they discuss selling it. So far, they haven’t decided anything. But it’s a beautiful place, anyway, with a big yard. A great place to get married, everyone’s agreed.

And now the wedding’s tomorrow. The balloons are in boxes on the porch, waiting to be blown up. The food will be delivered in the morning. It doesn’t seem like there’s much left.

“Not much left to do, huh?” It seems like Scully’s read his thoughts, which isn’t a new sensation. She’s standing in the doorway by the porch, looking out at him.

“Nope.” He pats the spot next to him, and she settles down. She’s wearing a tank top and shorts; her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and her cheeks are a little flushed from the sun. She smiles at him. She still makes his heart skip, maybe even more so now: these past few years, when they’ve finally been a family, them and the kids, and there have been so many new things to make her happy. He kisses her temple. “Where’s Emily?” he asks.

“With Steve,” Scully says. “They’re going to get dinner and go over everything one last time before tomorrow.”

“And Will?”

“With some of his friends,” Scully says. A lot of William’s friends from growing up are still around here; he’s been hanging out with them every day, since he doesn’t get to see them as much anymore.

“Just us then,” Mulder says.

“Mm-hm,” Scully says. They’re quiet for a minute, just enjoying each other’s company. “I can’t believe it’s tomorrow,” she says. “I’m going to miss her.”

“I know,” Mulder says. “Me too.” They want Emily to be where she’s happy. But they wish that was somewhere closer to them.

“But I guess…I know it’s a normal thing,” Scully says. “Kids growing up and living their own lives. I should be glad about it.”

“I know you’re glad for her,” Mulder says. “No doubt about that. But you’re allowed to miss her too. I don’t think she’d mind that.”

“I hope not,” Scully says. “And we can visit, of course. When we pack it in.” They’ve been talking about retirement more recently. It would be nice to keep traveling with her, for pleasure instead of work or flight. To keep seeing the world together. To have all the time with their family they could want.

“Would you want to move out here?” he asks. “We’d be near her then. Will might like it too.”

She doesn’t answer right away; she’s studying the landscape. “I like our house,” she says eventually. “But this is a nice place too.”

It’s not yes or no, but then he’s not sure either, and they don’t have to jump to anything. There’s no big hurry. The kids are here now, part of their lives, and they’ll stay that way, even if, on days like today, they seem to be growing up crazily fast.

.....

Emily was nervous about choosing an outdoor wedding, because you never knew about the weather. They’d picked it in the end, because it would be really nice if it worked out, but she was still a little worried, even so.

But today is perfect, so there wasn’t anything to worry about. She can see the blue sky through the window when she’s getting dressed. Her mom is helping her.

“You look beautiful,” her mom says softly, when she’s in her dress with her hair done, standing in front the mirror. She’s craning her neck a little to look over Emily’s shoulder. Emily’s taller than her mom. She doesn’t know why. “My baby,” she says, hugging Emily gently so that the dress won’t crinkle. Emily doesn’t know if she’s ever called her that before. She was never a baby for her mom, not really. But she hugs back. She likes hearing it today.

Her dad’s on the porch, ready to walk with her. His face looks serious. “Are you nervous?” she asks him.

“Oh, he’s been up half the night practicing,” her mom says. It says something about her dad that Emily’s not one hundred percent sure she’s joking.

“I’m all right,” he says, holding up his hands. “Just a big day, that’s all.”

“It is a big day,” Emily says. “That’s why I’m glad you’re here.”

When the music starts, she takes his arm. She watches her mom sitting down, watches Will walking ahead of them. Mostly she watches Steve, standing there at the end of the aisle. They walk towards him together, her and her dad.

When she and Steve are saying their vows, she knows with a certainty that this is right.

They have the food on the lawn too, and the weather stays beautiful; everything’s worked out today, which might be a miracle, if the stories on wedding planning sites are anything to go by. She talks to everyone, but she keeps coming back to Steve, winding her hand through his, kissing him quickly. Maybe even not so quickly. They’re married now, after all.

But Will is the last person she talks to before they go. She finds him by the buffet, wrapping cookies in a napkin. “How many of those are you taking?” she asks.

“Five,” he says, and when she makes a face at him, “It’s almost over anyway. Besides, I won’t get to eat stuff you bake anymore, so I’d better stock up.”

“You’ll still get to eat things I bake,” Emily says. “Marrying Steve doesn’t mean he gets all of my cookies. Just seventy percent or so.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “Still. I’ll miss you,” he adds, quickly, as if he doesn’t want to make too big a deal out of it. But Emily knows.

“I’ll miss you too, Will,” she says. “But we’ll still visit a lot. And we’ll video chat and everything.” She hugs him. “Thanks for standing up with me today.”

“Of course,” he says. “You’re my sister.”

“Always,” she says, and he smiles at that. She sees him put another cookie into the napkin, but she doesn’t say anything.

She waves to him and her mom and dad as she gets into the car, and then she winds her hand through Steve’s again. It’s been a beautiful day.

#my fic #alternate universe #the x files

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