#because she is literally living off your money to do jack shit

[januaryembrs]

TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader

Description: The ONE time the BAU needs you + the FOUR times you need them.

word count: 24k (what on earth was I thinking)

trigger warnings: mentions of spencers addictions + use + side affects. MOMMY ISSUES thankyou ambassador Prentiss. hostage scene + injuries. mentions of forced/pressured marriage. fem!reader. reader and Emily struggle to bond.

next chpt.

main masterlist.

authors note: We never meet Emily's dad nor do we see a picture so while reader is given a nickname of Bugsy, she still keeps her real name (no use of y/n) and is given ZERO physical descriptors. ALL of my fem!readers should feel included here, let me know if this is not the case! also I don't speak any language besides English however she does speak many because of her mom, so I really tried to get it right, message me if I'm being stupid!!

[this] means its spoken in another language.

—

‘trouble on my left, trouble on my right,

I’ve been facing trouble almost all my life’

1. the one where you become a translator.

“I’ll make some calls, I may still have some friends in the Eastern countries,” Ambassador Prentiss announced to the room, standing from her place on the plush sofa. 

A case had landed quite literally in Emily’s lap when her mother had come by that morning asking for Hotch, a Russian migrant looking for her father with a ransom note and a sliced off finger shoved through her mailbox, wedding ring still attached. 

It wasn’t every day Emily wished she’d brushed up on her Russian, but today of all days she was struggling to keep up. 

“We don’t have much time, we need a division of labour,” Hotch’s serious face settled, the time constraints making him just that bit more dictatorial, “Morgan, someone needs to go to the Chernus’s house in Baltimore in case they are contacted again,” 

“What about the language barrier?” Derek raised, smoothing a hand over the short scruff of his beard, “We can’t have the unsub speaking with the family directly. He could say anything to them without us knowing,” 

Bugsy would hate to admit she fit the criteria for youngest daughter of a workaholic mother and distant father to a tea, but Emily would say different. 

Elizabeth Prentiss had never been a warm woman; Emily used to tell her the scowl was a side effect of the overplucking of her eyebrows, not the serious nature of her job. Her youngest girl once said her mother’s lips looked like she’d sucked a lemon. Of course they admired her work, but world peace meant jack shit to a little girl wanting nothing more than a mother’s hug. 

Despite the fact she’d pushed away her husband and both her daughters in favour of her career, the one useful thing about being the Ambassador’s daughter wasn’t just the money, but the widespread culture the girls had been crammed full of since they could so much as beg for a sippy cup. 

“Baltimore, you say?” Emily asked Hotch with a somewhat doubtful wince, “I mean you could always-”

“Absolutely not,” Her mother cut her off, rubbing the stress lines already creasing her forehead at the very notion of her other daughter, despite the fact Emily hadn’t even finished her thought.

Emily’s sigh was a reflex, the years of her mother cutting her off sparking the frustration on instinct. 

“She lives right in the city, Mother, it can’t hurt to have her just talk for them-” Emily tried to bargain, only for the sharp mouthed Ambassador shoot her a frown. 

“End of discussion, Emily,” Elizabeth snipped, her manicured fingernails twitching with annoyance, “Your sister is much too young for an assignment so serious,”

Emily rolled her eyes with a scoff, as if the two had slipped back into the role of rebellious teenager and scathing mother without much thought. 

“She's twenty-two, mom. She’s getting her masters degree for Christ sakes, she’s not ‘too young’,” The dark headed woman fought back, clicking her pen a few times as if the spring loaded ink would take away some of the temper Elizabeth seemed to flare up. 

Her mother’s lips pursed, in the way Bugsy hated, in the way that meant she was going to be mean.

“Immature may have been a better word, then,” She replied, and Emily seemed to pause. She couldn’t argue with that. “Or perhaps lazy, or puerile; callow, wild, irresponsible. Would you like me to name more?” 

“Asinine would be a good term; deriving from the Latin asinus it not only means foolish, but to be stubborn and lazy like an ass,” Spencer input helpfully to the Ambassador, only for his bright smile to fade when he saw the daggers Emily stared at him with, “Sorry, I love word games,” He muttered into his lap. 

“Asinine. Perfect, Dr Reid,” Elizabeth said, and Emily could only roll her eyes harder.

Hotch huffed, the victim’s daughter watching between the two women’s quarrel with wet eyes, the ice box with her father’s finger clenched tightly in her lap, the cold of the limb bleeding into his own gaze.

“Unfortunately, Ambassador Prentiss, despite just how asinine your daughter might be, Morgan is right. Having the Unsub possibly speaking with the family without us understanding what he’s saying could prove fatal,” He explained, ignoring the way the older woman’s mouth scrunched in bitterness. They didn’t need to be profilers to see that despite how tempered the relationship between Emily and her mother was, a tension seemed to fall between the women the moment the younger Prentiss was mentioned. 

Spencer was sure he was the only person who even knew Emily had a little sister. 

“Very well, but don’t be surprised when you find your hands full of the girl,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head as she led the victims, a mother and daughter that seemed to cling to one another for comfort as if to rub salt in her matriarchal wound, into the break room to get away from the frosty atmosphere that now lingered around the table.

Emily sighed, picking around her fingernails the way she did when she was bothered. 

“I’m going to hate these next words that are gonna come out of my mouth,” She started with a long exhale, “But my mother’s right. Bugsy is a handful. Just try not to get her wound up, that girl smells fear,” She looked to Reid who seemed none the wiser, “I’m talking to you, wonder boy. She’ll eat you up and spit you right back out,” 

Spencer gulped quietly. 

Derek only chuckled, slapping a hand down onto Emily’s shoulder, “Relax, Prentiss. Your mom’s just got you all worried. Need I remind you I grew up with two sisters? This will be a piece of cake,”

–

Those were the famous last words of Derek Morgan. 

Loud, heavy metal music jumped through the wooden door, so loud Morgan worried his three polite knocks would go unheard as the two of them waited outside her dorm for her to answer. Morgan was about to knock again, figuring the music had drowned out the first lot, when the door swung open and a frown the spitting image of Emily’s stressed expression met their gaze. 

She looked so different to their Prentiss, but the way she seemed already scorned by the two of them told them they had the right woman. 

“Miss Prentiss?” Morgan asked formally, though he felt the warmth grow when he caught sight of a beat up friendship bracelet around her wrist amongst newer gold chains, five white blocks spelling out her sister’s name pulling tight on her skin, as if she’d quickly outgrown the thing but hadn’t the heart to remove it. 

It was then that he and Reid seemed to both reel back slightly at the fact she was standing in a large shirt, ratty around the edges, and what seemed to be a pair of men's boxers covering her bottom half, clearly not suspecting particularly important visitors. 

She looked him head to toe with a frown, a dozen piercings in her ears, her hair highlighted with streaks of cardinal red, as if he was the one confronting her in his underwear, before she moved onto Spencer, who’s face seemed to be getting hotter by the second as he forced his eyes away from her bare legs. 

“Are you guys strippers? Did someone send strippers to my door?” She asked, strawberry gum smacking between her lips as her gaze seemed to finish mulling over Spencer’s tall form and returned to Morgan.

“Emily sent us.” Reid said shortly, the music blaring in his ears making it difficult to focus on what it was she was saying, “As co-workers, no-not strippers. We’re with the FBI,” 

He hated loud noises anyway, cringed at the sound of particularly cutting rock songs, but since he’d developed his … problem, the dilaudid had him feeling like someone was clawing at his skull, tugging his brain through his ears.

“Emily sent you here?” She asked with a scoff, looking the two up and down again. They both easily caught the way her face hardened, “Are pigs flying today or something?” 

“We’re here to ask for your help on a case,” Spencer rushed through a sweaty brow, “Emily said you’d be able to act as a translator for us and some Russian citizens who are being targeted,” 

She sighed sceptically, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame, “Any strippers or non-strippers can fraud an ID. Emily’s name was in the paper just the other week. I’m gonna need a little more than that,”

She keeps track of her sister despite the supposed distance between them. Spencer was quick to profile, his mind whirring at all the ways she reminded him of her sister down to the way she raised her eyebrows expectantly at them. 

“Emily was born October twelfth, 1970 at 7:12am, graduated from Garfield High School in 1989,” Spencer said as if reporting the weather, her eyes narrowing in on him all the more coldly, “She attended Chesapeake Bay University and speaks six languages, as I expect you do from moving so often with your mother. She coined your nickname Bugsy from your childhood love of ladybugs, which she said you grew out of by the time you turned eleven yet the name stuck, though you still like counting the spots to identify their species. Your parents split when you were five and your father moved in with his now wife, born September ninth-”

“Alright- alright. What are you, living in her walls?” She interrupted incredulously, before turning her attention to Derek who seemed to hide a chuckle with a cough. “Either you really are a stripper or you’re a terrible friend,”

“She loves Kurt Vonnegut,” Derek held his finger as if to prove her entirely wrong, although not much else came to him. Maybe he was a bad friend, he thought guiltily, or maybe he simply lacked an eidetic memory like the wonder boy next to him, who had been about to tell her how old she was when Emily’s pet betta fish died, “Slaughterhouse 5?”

Rolling her eyes, she grunted at them, kicking her door open for them to enter. 

“Everyone loves Vonnegut; only losers under a rock dislike Vonnegut,” She drawled, edging back into her room, the heavy bass rock growing in volume as they followed her in, “I’ll be ready in a second- Emily’s always bugging me about wearing pants,” She said vaguely, scanning around the dirty dorm, until she found one particular pair of jeans laying half under her bed, quickly yanking them up her legs. “Come in, come in.” 

She flicked the speakers way down to which Spencer took a breath of relief. His eyes fell to the laptop that had been set up on her desk, the five different textbooks littered around the spare space, energy drinks and empty mugs filling the cracks where he could barely see the generic white of the table top, his nose crinkling. About as gross as he’d expect from a college student. 

“Emily said your Russian was pretty good,” Derek made conversation, his eyes wandering over the various posters plastered over her walls, some fraying round the edges from where she had likely been moved from bedroom to bedroom when the Prentiss’s inevitably had to move country again. 

“Yeah,” She snarked, pulling a nicer top over her head, “Kinda tends to happen when you live in Russia,”

Morgan raised his eyebrows to Spencer who seemed to give him the same look back, though the latter was biting back a snicker at her words. 

How in the hell was she the Ambassador’s daughter?

–

“This all involves Russian Mafia, it’s really beefed up here the last ten years or so,” Agent Cramer, a tall, slim man who looked entirely overwhelmed by the workload on his shoulders reported, as she listened intently. 

She had been somewhat de-briefed in the car, Emily messaging her for the first time since Christmas, the message a simple: “Have you met with Morgan and Reid yet? Make sure to put on pants,” to which she sent her a thumbs up emoji. She didn’t have much to say to her at the moment, barely even knew her sister anymore. 

“It started off mainly in New York and LA but they send lieutenants from the old country,” Cramer went on, and she caught Reid scratching his arm beneath his shirt. She knew it was mozzy weather, and he was already under the blaring sun in a little sweater, it wouldn’t surprise her if he felt a bit prickly. 

“Pahkans,” She interrupted, the man named Gideon shooting her a glance as she dug through her purse. 

“Your Mom do much work about the Mafia?” He asked, as she produced a clear nail varnish. 

“Here and there, I had to sit with her in her office for a whole Summer once when I got caught sneaking out. Picked up a few things, though,” She said, holding the polish out to Spencer, nodding to his arm, “Here. Supposed to help bug bites,”

He looked at her as if he wanted to say something, perhaps question her sources for such an old wives tale, but he stopped himself quickly, taking the varnish out of her hand with a dejected nod. 

“Thankyou,” He muttered, shoving it in his pocket. 

Three months he’d been in this rabbit hole. She had noticed it in a matter of hours. 

“They open up branch offices in other cities. Baltimore, Saint Louis, Chicago, Dallas, the list goes on,” Cramer added, nodding at her words, “They’re mainly offshoots of the Odessa Mafia and they’re especially tough to crack from a law enforcement standpoint. I mean beside being well organised with sophisticated technical equipment, there’s Vory v Zakone to contend with,” 

“The thieves code, eighteen principles they live by,” Reid jumped in before she could, to which she nodded as Gideon looked to her for more. 

“It means ‘thief in law’, or ‘thief with code’. It's a system of repeatedly jailed convicts that have been crowned or ‘made’ with a strict list of ideals, breaking them usually means death,” She explained, kicking a stone between her feet. 

“It’s like bible to these guys. We’re not gonna be turning any of them informer anytime soon,” Cramer said. Gideon seemed to tune the three of them out however, his gaze locking on the house across the street, where a curtain twitched, and a man’s face appeared in the window, watching the crime scene with guilt. 

“Then we’ll need a witness who will talk,” Gideon replied, heading straight towards the neighbour who seemed just a little too invested in what was happening, much more than a concerned third party should be. Though, she had barely noticed, digging through her purse once more for chapstick. 

“So, you study Russian or something?” Cramer asked as she applied it gently, Spencer swore he could smell the cherry flavour from where he stood beside her. 

“I lived in Moscow until I was six, moved back to France, then back to Italy, then Algeria for a bit. Bounced around Europe for a bit longer, but I still speak better Russian than anything else,” She clarified, and she saw Cramer’s eyebrows shoot up, “Military brat except I don’t get the cool discount at the store,” 

“You must have had a lot of friends though, going to so many schools,” Spencer added, and though there was nothing teasing about his tone, she laughed sharply anyway. 

“You’re funny,” She snarked, but smiled at him anyway.

Spencer had never been called funny in his life. ‘Funny looking’, ‘funny sounding’ maybe, but never funny. 

In fact he was so confused by what she had meant, whether it had been a taunt or genuine that he almost missed the sound of the whole street locking their front doors, dead bolting their lives away when a black prius, an expensive one at that, pulled through the street and swerved into park next to them. 

“Guess who,” Cramer bit, her eyes ripping away from where Gideon had the door slammed in his face. 

Detective Cramer aged by about five years when two tall men got out of the luxury car, opening the door for a shorter man in the back seat, their faces thunder. 

“You familiar with them?” She asked, shoulder brushing against Spencer as she turned to watch the men approach, entirely aware of the .9mm on each of their hips. 

“Arseny Lysowsky,” The detective identified, his voice cold, eyeing the two men who flanked the leader, towering over them. 

“Agent Cramer, how are you?” Lysowsky smiled at him, which oddly enough seemed somewhat real, as he also took stock of the three other people around him. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, noting her lack of gun and badge, trying to decipher if she was local or just a very unprepared fed. 

“Lysowsky, what brings you out?” Cramer asked, a tightness to his tone, his hand all too eager to grab his own pistol. 

“I heard Chernuses had problems,” He kept it vague, didn’t reveal too much, and looked back at the victim’s house with a scorned frown. 

“How did you hear that?” Gideon challenged, stance unwavering as the mob leader turned to meet his cold gaze. 

“And you are?” He asked, a sinister smile on his face that flipped her stomach. She didn’t like the tension that had overcome the little patch of sidewalk they took up, and she was quick to notice how Spencer moved towards her. 

He, by far, wasn’t the best shot on the team, but he was sure Hotch and Prentiss would have his and Morgan’s heads if any harm came to her. 

“Churneses said they hadn’t told anyone,” Agent Gideon ignored his question, hands firmly planted on his hips. If he was unnerved by the criminal in front of him, he never showed it, not even when Lysowsky’s grin widened horribly. 

“It is a small community. Word gets out,” He said simply, looking past him to the neighbours house that had kicked Gideon to the curb, “Are you a friend of Gorban’s?”

A second of silence passed between them, neither of them backing down from the moral standoff they’d engaged in. 

“Mr Gorban wouldn’t talk to me,” Gideon admitted, and Arseny only smiled again, flicking a look at the house behind him, as if hearing his dog had obeyed without command. 

“Would you like me to talk to him for you?” The threat was there clear as day, clear enough to have Gideon’s eyes narrow, “I can’t promise something will come of it,” 

“You!” In a second, Natalya, the victim she’d briefly met when Morgan had pulled up around an hour before, had stormed out of her house, her black kitten heels clicking against the concrete, “Where’s my father? He has my father!” 

“Wait a minute,” Derek called, restraining her where she stood, trying to pull his muscled arm from her shoulder, “Do you know he has your father?” 

“He’s responsible for all of this,” She spat, her eyes cold as she glared at the three men with vitriol hate, “Why everyone’s afraid, him and his animals,” She threw a hand up to his bodyguards that seemed barely contained by Cramer’s silencing hand. 

“I am only here to help,” Lysowsky replied, confident and calm in his words, though not as taunting as the agents would have thought, as if he truly cared for her.

A vast difference to the sadistic mob boss Cramer’s team had painted him to be. 

“Help?” She laughed woefully, tears in her eyes, “You’re a dog,” 

“Natalya,” Arseny said in a warning, the way a teacher would to a student, as her breath rattled in her chest through a weep. 

“How exactly can you help them?” Bugsy braved to speak, Gideon and Reid both flashing her a look. She’d always had trouble holding her tongue. 

Lysowsky turned his attention to her then, his eyes running down her figure, still deciphering whether she was armed; she looked much too young to be an agent. 

“In any way that they’d like me to, darling,” He replied, the disdain in her frown clearly not deterring him in the slightest, though again the act of concern held up in his own grimace, “As I said this is a small community. If one is in pain, we’re all in pain.”

Natalya weeped behind Morgan, sniffling as the boss made his way over to her, “Natalya, [you didn’t have to bring in outsiders],” 

The younger woman’s ears pricked up as he spoke in his native language, Spencer’s eyes flicking to her from behind his sunglasses. 

“[Let me help you],” He continued, taking a step towards Natalya, unthreatening yet she saw Morgan tense, his fingers twitching towards his gun. 

“[My family will never come to you for help],” Natalya hissed back, also in Russian, her face contorted in disgust, “[Get away from my house],” 

“[You are not right, Natalya],” He replied, yet again the concern in his eyes was either genuine or very well faked, “[You have made the wrong decision],” 

Taking a step away from the victim that wept with a scorned sneer, he looked back to the agents, noting the way the youngest of them glared at him hotly, before retreating to his car. 

“What did he say? Did he threaten you, Natalya?” Morgan asked, the woman watching the group of men drive away, as if Mr Chernus wasn’t still missing and they hadn’t just bumped themselves up to number one of the suspects list. “Talk to us and we can do something about it,”

“He said I made the wrong decision,” She said wetly, frustration turning on Derek as he pushed her for an answer, “I hope I didn’t,” 

With that she stormed off back into her house, the same stomping of her kitten heels in her wake, leaving the agents to all look between one another before they simultaneously turned to look at Bugsy, questions hovering on all of their lips. 

“What did he say exactly?” Gideon asked without frills, a hand rubbing his brow. Relaying the information, the men’s faces all drew into frowns as they heard Lysowsky’s parting statement. Gideon huffed, turning to Morgan and gesturing for him to follow Natalya inside. 

“Morgan, keep an eye on her, Reid and I are going to Cramer’s office to look over the files,” He looked at her then, worry lines littering his otherwise friendly face, damn near scowling as she looked over at him, “You are here to interpret, you understand? You do not speak to the suspects, that’s our job.” He growled, watching her with disappointment, the same tone a father used when scolding a petulant child, “Do you have any idea how much danger you could put yourself in? These guys won’t hesitate to take you out the second we’re not around, kid,” 

“But-” She started with a bite, though her whole fight left her when he silenced her with a raised hand. 

“Buts are for cigarettes, kiddo,” He interrupted, and Spencer winced slightly, knowing he’d heard that one a few hundred times when he’d first started under Gideon and had yet to mature entirely. Reid watched something rebellious flare in her eyes, and he worried for a moment she might just slap his boss for the patronising tone he took, “Just keep your mouth shut, you’re doing great so far,” 

She opened her mouth to protest, only to then register his words entirely and stay silent once more, appreciating his praise with a guilty smile. For once, she listened. 

–

The grandfather clock chimed to tell them it was merely 11am; two hours until the unsub would start cutting more if they didn’t get the ransom fee, two hours to figure out who wanted Natalya’s family to suffer. 

Said woman paced her living room at the sound of the hour, as Bugsy picked over the knick knacks on her fireplace, a small smile teasing her lips when she saw a picture of three small children grinning toothily at the camera. 

She had never gotten any photo’s similar, Emily being fourteen years older. The majority of their childhood photos consisted of a very grumpy teenager holding her baby sister that seemed to squirm in the tight, formal dresses Elizabeth Prentiss had forced them into, identical scowls on their faces as they were made to sit for the picture. 

There were some good memories, ones where Emily let herself be a sister and not a mom, where she would put makeup on her for fun and do her hair, let her have all the clothes out her wardrobe she thought looked nice, reading to her before bed, even letting her sister keep her pet corn snake when she left home for good. 

But now, it seemed like she was too caught up in her super serious grown up job to give a shit that her sister lived just an hour away. Still messaged each other for holidays, but the last few times she’d braved a call to the eldest Prentiss, it had gone unanswered. They argued the majority of the time they spoke, or there was an awkward long silence in between words, whichever was worse, but they each knew the other would come running if they were to ever need them so desperately. 

“Are you hungry? I could make something?” Natalya offered kindly, Derek having a poke through her collection of books that sat on the end table, though he’d have a tough job reading them as she’d already caught most of them were in her home language. 

“Oh, no thanks. I’m fine,” He replied with a small smile, putting down the books to calm the clearly on edge woman that looked to the twenty-something year old hopefully. 

She shook her head, “I’m good, thanks,” which seemed to deflate her entirely as she sat next to Derek with a sigh.

“I guess I’m like my mother. When she’s upset, she cooks,” Natalya said with a sad huff of a laugh, running a hand through her short, dark hair. 

“Yeah, mine does too. I think that’s just a mom thing,” He replied, and Bugsy felt the two of them look at her as her finger traced the old brass ornaments gently, “How about you, baby Prentiss?” 

She snorted, “You’re kidding, right?” smiling bitterly, “My mom never cooked for us, she said we needed to figure it out for ourselves rather than relying on the staff. Didn’t stop her from trying to end world hunger though,” 

It wasn’t lost to Morgan the way her eyes trained on the picture of Natalya and her mother, cuddled together with genuine love in their embrace, the snarky humour as she spoke, the same longing Emily seemed almost too good at hiding from them. 

“Your mother is a great woman,” Natalya complimented, though she missed the way the girl’s face steeled over, chewing her bottom lip as if to stop herself from snapping at the woman who meant well. She said nothing. “Where is your mother?” She turned her attention back to Derek who seemed the more talkative of the two of them. 

“Chicago. That’s where I’m from,” He replied, watching Bugsy turn away from the two of them to inspect more of the Chernus’s trinkets on their walls. 

“I’m from Dolgoprudny. Just North of Moscow.” Natalya replied. Opening her mouth to add something else, she was cut off by a knock at the door and the three of them froze in their place. 

“Are you expecting someone?” Morgan asked Natalya in a hushed tone, reaching for his gun and heading for the door. 

She shook her head, “No,” She whispered back. Morgan pulled the curtain back the smallest inch to see a small blonde boy staring back, a box in his hands and a bored look on his face. 

It all happened too fast from there, Natalya opening the door for the neighbourhood kid, opening the box to see a decapitated ear, the blood fresh and pooling in the bottom of the box. It couldn’t have been taken longer than an hour or so ago, unless they were keeping the parts on ice. 

Bugsy’s hand slapped over her mouth, Natalya’s scream piercing through her as she shoved the box into Derek’s hands, fleeing to the toilet, and she heard the woman retching. Part of her felt the same nausea settle in her stomach, looking away from the body part with a wince as Derek got straight on the phone to Gideon. 

“They didn’t wait, man. They sent a box with-” He swallowed thickly, “With Mr Chernus’s ear inside.”

Gideon replied, and whatever it was, it had Derek looking back to her. He agreed, hanging up the phone and rooting through his pockets, producing a set of rattling keys, holding them out for you between the tips of his fingers. 

“Gideon wants you, kid. He said they’re at the Little Kiev restaurant, they’re going to talk to Lysowsky,” Morgan said, grimacing as he held the ear away from her, “You sure you’ll be okay to drive?” 

“I’d rather be on the road than look at what’s in that box,” She said in disgust, taking the keys and heading out to the car.

She thought it best for everyone she didn’t tell him she hadn’t yet got her licence as she made her way over to the restaurant. 

-

“Reid and I will do the talking, just see if anything he’s saying connects with Vory v zakone, think you got that?” Gideon instructed her the second she got out of the car, taking the keys and handing them back to Reid who gave her a small nod. 

“We think the reason it was Mr Chernus who was targeted has something to do with the code,” Reid explained, his hands in his pockets as the three of them approached the restaurant, “You said earlier you understood the tenants,” 

“Why me, though? I thought I was just translating?” She repeated Gideon’s earlier words, almost cocky that they needed her.

“Lysowsky would feel the need to show face in front of men like Morgan and Cramer, even in front of Natalya since she lives locally. Between the three of us, he had less reputation to uphold, less so with a young woman like yourself,” Reid added, holding the door open for her to go in front. 

And so there she was, trailing behind Gideon and Reid over to where Lysowsky sipped a spoonful of borscht, as she tried not to marvel at the grandeur of the establishment inside. Clearly, Arsney had money to build a place like this, and wasn’t afraid to be flashy about it either, that much was apparent from the other clientele that tended to their beers around their own tables, Rolex watches and designer shoes adorning nearly every one of them. She hated to think of how many ears or fingers those suits had cost. 

“Would you like something to eat?” He asked, a chunk of bread in his hand dipping into the thick sauce, seemingly unbothered that they were there, “This borscht is exquisite, it’s my mother’s old country recipe,” 

“Didn’t you forsake all your relatives when you swore the thieves code?” Reid asked, which she guessed was hit foot in to get Lysowsky to talk. 

“I didn’t forsake her recipes,” Lysowsky replied with a shrug, looking to her where she seemed to be staring at his plate, “Borscht?” 

She shook her head, her nose wrinkling, “Much preferred stroganoff, mom used to force me to have borscht to make sure I ate my veggies,”  

His eyebrows raised, surprise written over his face, before he gave a short laugh. 

“[Where are you from]?” He asked in his mother tongue, gesturing for the three of them to sit down, though his eyes lit up as he watched her carefully. 

“[I was born in DC, but my mother worked in Moscow for a few years],” She answered shortly, and he seemed to find it even funnier that the near child they’d brought along on their case spoke as fluently as he did. 

Laughing with a heavy hand smacking on the table, he gestured to a nearby waiting staff to come over. 

“What are you having then, borscht for the gentle man?” He looked at Reid and Gideon, the former shaking his head while Gideon nodded with an awkward smile. 

“I’d love a taste,” He said, though any enthusiasm seemed to have drained out of his voice. 

“And what is the little lady having?” Lysowsky asked, his eyes falling back to her, as she straightened in her seat. 

She chanced a quick glance to Gideon, who nodded at her to play his game. She had not expected to be so deep in criminal territory when they’d said they needed a translator, and truly they hadn’t planned on getting her in the field until they realised she would know much more about this than they would.

“Do you have sharlotka?” She asked, returning his smile wearily as he clicked at the waiter who all but bolted to the kitchen. 

“A sweet tooth. I like it,” Arseny replied, shovelling a heap of beets into his mouth, “Our favourite was always Leningradsky,”

“Ours?” She prompted, giving a polite thanks to the waiter who returned too quickly with a slice of cake. She caught Spencer glancing at the bowl with intrigue, the hunger clear on the quiet man’s face. Gently pushing the bowl and clean spoon towards him, he flicked a look up at her, “Apple cake,” She whispered, sending him a small smile, “Really yummy with the sugar on top,” 

“Mine and my mother’s,” Arseny replied, though Gideon and Reid both caught how he paused before he replied, as if he had to think about the answer he was giving; the oldest tell that it wasn’t entirely true, “We didn’t have much when I was a boy, but that was always our dessert of choice,” 

She stopped for a mere second, missing the moment when Spencer spooned the tiniest bite of the cake into his mouth, trying to ignore the way his tongue exploded in the sweet, fruit taste. He hadn’t eaten anything properly in days, and maybe that was why it tasted so good, but more likely it was just the fact that everything sweet tasted even better when he was on his come downs. 

“We need to talk, Arseny,” Gideon interrupted, ignoring the way Spencer pined to go back in for a second mouthful, but chose to hand the bowl back to her with a small smile. 

“We are on first name basis?” Lysowsky asked, shaking his head, and she took a small bite of the sweet cake for herself, “I still don’t even know who you are,” 

“I think I understand something about this,” Gideon replied, his thumbs tapping together, the waiter returning with his borscht, “You have a problem,” 

“I do?” The pahkan titled his head at the agent, the annoyance clear on his face. 

“That’s why you came to the Chernus’ house this morning,” Gideon answered, unbothered as he began to scoop the borscht onto the spoon, the apple cake in her own mouth going down a treat. 

She kept her head down, took tiny bites of the dessert that certainly tasted like a fresh baked sharlotka. But her thoughts lingered on what Lysowsky had said, about his own favourite pudding. 

It made no sense that he would have ever tasted Leningradsky shortbread, not for the time that he was born, nor with the amount of money he claimed his family lacked. Infact, the way he fully pronounced his vowels, the akanye, the stress he put on certain parts of his words, all pointed to the same dialect you’d heard back in Moscow, more central than anything else. 

So how on earth would he have eaten the so-called ‘Royal Cake’ that had only been made eight hours from there, in the town it grew its name from. 

There was something glaringly obvious about his story missing. 

“A man like me?” She tuned back into the conversation, swallowing another mouthful down as Gideon took another bite himself, though it seemed the topic had turned sour as Arseny wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin. 

“Four watchtowers and a convict signifies a stay in prison,” Spencer cut in, nodding towards the tattoos branded across his knuckles, “Each one of those crosses symbolises an individual sentence,” 

“Twenty three years in prison in the Ural mountains,” 

But she was still stuck on what it was she was missing. It had been such an odd thing to lie about, particularly when he’d even admitted himself that they hadn’t had much money, so he clearly hadn’t been lying to fake a reputation. 

So why lie?

She was ripped out of her stumped silence when Natalya entered the restaurant, her voice grabbing the men’s attention immediately. 

“Mr Lysowsky. You said you could help me,” She said, her purse over her shoulder and her own car keys gripped tightly in her hand as if she’d all but thrown herself out the vehicle to get there faster. 

“Don’t you already have help,” Lysowsky snapped, clearly Gideon had dug under his skin enough to garner a reaction. 

“I made a mistake,” Natalya replied, barely meeting Bugsy’s gaze as she stared at her from her seat at the table. “I talked to my father on the phone,” 

The girl frowned at her, “That’s a lie,” It came out before she could hold herself, brows furrowed at whatever it was she was trying to pull. Gideon said her name in a reprimand, though he too was looking at the woman as if she’d grown a second head. 

“Thankyou for coming, but I don’t need your help,” The woman met her confused look with a saddened expression, nodding to her solemnly. 

Leave it alone, she seemed to be saying, there’s nothing more I want you to do. 

And with that, the two of them left the restaurant, Natalya walking by his side obediently, her purse tucked in close under her arm, as Morgan and Cramer filed in from the parking lot, watching their only leads drive away without a fight. 

–

The team were quick to head back to Natalya’s home, only to find the ear missing and the finger gone too, the only evidence left of any crime being committed leaving with the victim’s daughter herself. 

“She’s not here, and the garbage was never taken out,” Morgan said with a grimace as he walked down the front steps to meet the four of them on the sidewalk. 

“Her dad just went missing, surely we can cut the girl some slack-” Bugsy words were hidden in a huff, rolling your eyes at the man who cut a glance to her. 

“No, no. When Hotch first talked to us, he said she noticed her father’s car in the driveway when she took the garbage out,” Morgan explained, his shades blocking the way the cogs turned behind his dark eyes. 

“Right?” Reid asked, his own sunglasses now covering his eyes that winced at the brightness, surrounding them.

“Garbage can in the kitchen is completely full, she never took it out.” 

“She lied,” Gideon said with finality, the penny beginning to drop for him too. 

“She could be half way back to Dolgo-whatever by now,” Morgan scoffed, his arms smacking against his side as the lightbulb went off over her head, the final puzzle piece falling into place. 

“Dolgoprudny?” Spencer asked, exchanging a glance with Cramer, “Isn’t that where Lysowsky’s from-”

“Yes, YES, of course!” She exclaimed, grabbing onto Spencer’s arm as he spoke. 

He looked at her with wide eyes, not that she could see since his shades blocked the way, only to feel her shake him harder in the midst of her enthusiasm. Part of him wanted to rip his arm out of her grip, waiting for the sickness to crawl up his throat at a strangers germs touching him, but the oddest part of him reasoned she had the same germs as Emily did, that the fifty percent DNA the women shared negated the fact she was a stranger, just as it did when he met Jack. Jack had Hotch germs. Bugsy had Emily’s. He didn’t feel so sick thinking of it like that. 

“I knew I was missing something,” She said, turning to Gideon, “He was lying before, about his favourite dessert. There was no way he could have had Leningradsky with his mother. Given his age, at that time in Soviet Russia, shortbread was incredibly expensive, only extremely wealthy families could have eaten it. That, and given the Central dialect he speaks in, I’d pinpointed he lives somewhere near or around Moscow, which means there was no way he was eating that cake considering it was only ever baked in one shop at first, one way up in Leningrad, where St Petersburg is now, like nine hours away from Moscow-” 

“What’s your point?” Cramer asked, tired of the somewhat slew of thoughts she’d been saving until she knew for sure what she meant. 

“Before when he said it was ‘our favourite’, I don’t think he was talking about him and his mother,” She explained, looking to see if Spencer at least understood what she was getting at. 

“It was him and his own child…” Spencer finished, as Morgan’s phone began ringing.

“Yeah, what?” He asked, the frustration clear in his tone that they were all still without the evidence needed to pin it on Lysowsky, “You’re sure? Uh-huh. Okay, thanks doll,” 

The four of them looked at him expectantly as he nodded to her, “Garcia just got into the bank’s system, somebody wired 500 thousand dollars into the account ten minutes ago,”

“Who wired it?” Spencer asked, though he was still reeling from the way she’d touched him, the way her voice went up about five octaves and a dozen decibels.

“She didn’t say, but the name on the account is Lyov Fulenko. She says that’s Lysowsky’s wife’s maiden name. Fulenko.” Morgan replied, and her brows furrowed. 

“Why did she bring us into this?” Gideon asked, though the solemn look on his face said he already knew, “Because she needed to put pressure on the other victim,” 

Gideon headed towards Mr Gorban’s house once more, though it was clear he had already sketched out in his head who was their unsub and Natalya’s involvement, he simply needed the confirmation. 

Morgan clapped a hand on her back, “Nice job, baby Prentiss. Those were some mean profiling skills out there,”

She frowned at him, scoffing,  “I’m not a profiler, that’s Emily’s job. It was just basic linguistics really; more a display of how I need to lay off cake for a while.”

The man kissed his teeth with a grin, “Don’t put yourself down. What’s your degree even in?”

She shrugged, picking under her nails for something to do, “Individualised genomics and health.” She said as if it were child’s play, though Spencer’s head shot to her. 

“Biotechnology?” He asked, and she glanced at him with a nod, “What’s your thesis on?” 

Gideon had returned by the time he’s asked, and began corralling the two of them back to the car, “We’re heading back to the restaurant. We need to speak with Lysowsky again,” 

But it had fallen on deaf ears as Spencer looked at her expectantly. 

“Just some new research into prenatal screening, nothing too fun,” She simpered, climbing into the back seat as he nodded with her. 

“I read a fascinating paper on the uses of hCG in a woman’s body-” 

“Reid,” Gideon cut him off with a short glance from the front seat, “Continue this conversation once we’ve found Mr Chernus alive,” 

Spencer blushed, feeling like a kid caught in the cookie jar, “Sorry, sir,” He looked over at her, only to see her hiding a smile to herself. 

He thinks it was then he’d decided Emily had been wrong about her.

-

“You paid the ransom already,” Gideon said plainly, the four of them trailing behind him as he followed Lysowsky to a small seating area in the front of the restaurant. She could tell the whole way Spencer had been itching to ask her more questions about her paper, barely contained as his fingers had twitched in his lap, but he seemed to straighten himself out once she’d reached the restaurant, “You paid all the ransoms,”

“Sit,” The boss ordered, barely glancing at them as he held his strong whiskey up.

“Are they going to kill Mr Chernus?” Morgan asked, cutting to the chase as Lysowsky spared him a bored glance.

“No,” He replied shortly, the look on his face about as grumpy as when they’d left. 

“The account is in the name of Lyov Fulenko. Lyov is a man’s name.” Spencer input, crossing his arms as the boss glared at him, “A son’s name. Vory v Zakone. Never have a family of your own. No wife. No children.”

“Lyov,” He looked at her then, gesturing to her with the glass of strong liquor, “You know what it means?”

“The Lion,” She replied gravely, steeling herself against his dark eyes. 

“No one else would be so stupid,” Lysowsky ran a hand over his weathered face, swigging his drink as if it was the only thing keeping him talking. “At first it didn’t mean much. It was a way of letting him earn his own money. I could afford it, it came from the fund. And no one questions the use of the fund-”

“Where is he?” Gideon asked, his elbows on his knees as he leaned in.

“What else could I do?” He was ignored, “I couldn’t admit I wasn’t blessing the kidnappings, I couldn’t even admit my son existed.” He huffed when he saw Gideon’s face unmoving from the glower, his question still unanswered, “Chernus will be home in a few minutes. You should be there, he will need medical attention,” He shooed them away, with his final words, drink sloshing in his hand. His face darkened, impossibly so, and the five of them looked at him, something sad and remorseful shining back. 

“What are you gonna do?” She asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer. 

“Vory v Zakone.” He said heavily, nodding to her, “We take care of our own troubles.”

It was a silent journey back to the Chernus’ house. 

-

Morgan and Reid pulled up to the campus, the younger girl in the back seat almost dozing off with the rhythmic hum of the engine, the evening sun much nicer on Spencer’s sensitive eyes. 

“This is you, baby Prentiss,” Derek’s voice jolted her out of the half sleep she was in, straightening herself from where she had her head pressed against the window. 

“Thanks,” She muttered, rubbing her eyes and unbuckling herself as they did the same, assuming they wanted to walk her back to her dorm since it had gotten dark, “I’ll be okay on my own, campus security should be out by now,”

“You sure?” Reid asked, flicking his watch up to his eyes to see the meagre 6:13pm staring back at him, “I thought they started at 7,”

She blinked at him, her eyebrows quirking for a moment, “How do you know that?”

“Johns Hopkins was my backup option- well actually it was my third, I much preferred Caltech’s curriculum, Yale was my second-” He started, flicking a glance to her where she waited for him to finish, “Not that Johns was bad, there were just better- alternative options out there-” 

“Don’t shit your pants, I’m hardly the dean of the university,” She chuckled indignantly patting them both on the shoulder before sliding over to open the door, “Nice meeting you both, I’ll just get back to my mediocre college with my poor curriculum, nothing like the solid gold bathrooms at Caltech-”

“I never said that!” She laughed again, with her whole chest, at his defensive tone as she stepped out the car, hand on the door to shut it behind her. 

Leaning down to give them both a wave goodbye, Derek’s voice stopped her again, “Baby Prentiss, do us all a favour and enrol yourself into forensics, we need more people on our team,”

Smirking at him, she shook her head, “Very funny. Never gonna happen. I like my little slides and samples, thankyou,” 

Slamming the door on the two of them she headed for the front gates, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, and she quickly realised she’d been too tired to even realise a set of footsteps jogging after her. 

Maybe she should have taken that walk home after all. 

Whirling around, her eyes widened as Spencer had clearly not been leader of the track team as he was half out of breath just from the few feet he’d covered, though she reckoned she could have guessed that seeing his lean ribs beneath his shirt.

He shoved a business card in her face as he caught his breath, though it was more just his name and credentials followed by a phone number. 

“I-I don’t have email otherwise I would-” He huffed, scratching his forehead as she frowned and looked at him.

“I’ve never been hit on via business card before,” She bit her lip with a smile, reading over the card again as he choked on his words even more than before.

“N-no, I-” He spluttered, ignoring the way Morgan beeped the horn for him, seemingly in a debate with a ticket metre that had caught him parked on yellow, “If you needed us for anything, or if you needed a second pair of eyes for your thesis, I’m happy to help,”

“You don’t have faith in the dummy that got into Johns?” She asked, and his head couldn’t shake fast enough, though he seemed to catch her teasing and shared her smile, “Thanks, Dr Reid,” 

“Spencer’s just fine,” He said, giving her a small nod and a wave as Morgan’s palm bounced on the horn a dozen times. She flashed him one more smile, pocketing his number and heading back to her dorm, wondering what the doctor would think about the paper due in tomorrow she’d yet to get started on.

+1. The one where you get arrested.

The case had been heavy. They’d felt it in the car on the way back to headquarters. A little girl, molested and groomed by her own uncle, his own wife covering for him. 

His mother always told him love makes you do crazy things, but Spencer hoped that whatever part of him worth loving would at least stay sane by the time he found the one. He was loyal to his team, to his mother, but that was where he drew the line. He was loyal to his family, undoubtedly so. 

Yet so was Emily. 

The call came to the second SUV, her phone set up to hands free mode, quickly flicking to answer the call on speaker, the other half of the team ahead of them on the freeway. 

“Prentiss, speaking. Who is this?” She spoke clearly to the unknown number, her knuckles going white at the wheel when she heard a nervous laugh.

“It’s me,” Her sister mumbled through the speaker, “You wouldn’t by any chance be near DC would you?” 

She huffed, cursing the knack Prentiss women had for showing up at the worst times. 

“Can’t this wait, I’m on the clock,” Emily hissed, her finger edging towards the ‘End Call’ button, “I’ll call you after,”

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up!” As if sensing her movements, she all but screeched, “This was my one phone call, they won’t let me have another,” 

The car went silent for a moment, Spencer’s eyes narrowing on the dash from his place in the passenger seat, JJ also leaning forward from the back with a frown. 

Emily grit her teeth, her upper lip twitching the way it did when she was mad. 

“What do you mean by one phone call? Where are you?” She bit in a cautious tone, though knowing how reckless Bugsy tended to be, she had a pretty good idea. 

The hesitation on the other end of the line was palpable, as was the way she awkwardly cleared her throat. 

“Fairfax County Jail,” She murmured sheepishly, “But it wasn’t my fault, these assholes don’t know what they’re talking about, I swear-”

“Stay there and keep your mouth shut,” Emily ordered, her expression furrowing into a sneer, “And for the love of god don’t antagonise the officers,” 

The agent didn’t even wait for a response, knowing it would probably be something snarky, her mind already racing at what the hell her sister could have done this time, every worst possible explanation jumping to the forefront. 

“I’ll call Hotch and tell him to turn around,” JJ offered, her fingers already searching her contacts for their boss, as Emily sighed through her nose. 

“Tell him not to worry, I’ll drop you guys back to headquarters, make my way there myself,” She said, picking the skin of her nail softly with her thumb. 

“By the time we’ve reached Quantico, visiting times will be over and she’ll have to stay the night,” Spencer pointed out, his own surprise evident. Sure, she had certainly been a personality when they had met, but a criminal seemed a stretch. 

“Maybe it would teach her a lesson,” Emily mused, shaking her head to herself, “Who am I kidding, that psycho would Shawshank her way out of there by dawn,”

“You don’t actually think she would hurt anyone do you?” JJ said, the dial tone ringing out from the phone she held to her ear. 

“Wouldn’t put it past her. She once cut a girl's pigtail off for wearing the same dress as her on her birthday,” Emily winced as Spencer’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. 

“I thought getting swirlied was bad,” He muttered, watching out the window as Emily made a U-turn at the traffic lights. He and the now twenty three year old had been bouncing research papers back and forth for a few months, the odd one every week, Bugsy even once joking it was much more interesting and riveting than foreplay, which had his face red hot at his desk.

She was like that, he’d quickly realised, had a vulgar sort of humour about her, yet he couldn’t help the snigger that came out whenever he’d receive one of his papers back through the mail with pink writing scrawled all over his ideas. The little hearts that dotted her exclamations whenever she wrote “AMAZING!”, the odd time she’d written “sexy ideas, doctor Reid” which he’d come to understand meant it was really good. He’d even gotten back the drawing at the end of the paper of a stickman of the two of them, his hair a curly scribble and a purple tie which told him immediately who was who, her line of a hand pointing at his caricature with the speech bubble, “everyone point and wave at the smart man,” which had made him laugh. 

She was odd, toeing the line between childish and witty, nothing like the scholars he usually worked with, and the writing he usually sent back on her papers were all in standard black ink, his own pharmacist handwriting staring back at him as he crammed in his every thought of her research into the margins. If she couldn’t read it, she hadn’t said, but he liked to think she took notice of it all, even if it wasn’t strewn with stars and doodles and the occasional flirt he knew meant nothing. He knew her from her writing, knew her from her ideas that sometimes kept him up at night thinking more about them, but the two of them hadn’t spoken directly, most certainty hadn’t seen one another since that day with the Chernus’.

Emily hummed, fingers drumming on the wheel, entirely unaware of the thoughts rattling around in Spencer’s head, then again that’s how it always was, “I just pray to god she’s listened to me for once in her damn life and keeps quiet,”

-

“Fucking bitch. The nuns in Moscow hit harder than you,” She spat, blood dribbling from her split lip. She wasn’t entirely lying, but god did her mouth sing with pain as she tried to muffle a moan. 

“You got jokes, pig lover?” The other woman asked, a tattoo covering half her cheek, her nose crooked from the shiner the Prentiss girl had already given her. “Won’t be fucking laughing when I’m done, bitch,” The woman was quick to tackle the girl around her stomach, slamming her into the hard concrete of the holding cell. Bugsy felt her skull rattle, the wind whooshing from her chest as rough hands grab her shirt and pin her down harder. 

The younger girl reached the nerve under her opponent's armpit, the soft of her ribs, twisting until the woman gave a bark of shock, and she took the opportunity to shove her off, climbing on top of her as they both scrambled for some sort of control.

“I got one for you. What’s got a broken nose, a black eye and doesn’t know what’s good for her?” She swung twice as hard, the other women in the cell rattling against the bars as if watching a matador taunt a bull, the air thick with excitement as the two of them cursed eachother out.

Emily’s sigh was audible across the room as the wardens separated the cat fight, the largest of the officers all but grabbing her sister by the scruff of the neck like a feral beast, dragging her over with stubborn feet to where the BAU stood in the lobby, eyes widened at the state of her. 

“You better start acting your age, little girl. Mommy’s not gonna be around forever to save you,” The officer hissed in her ear, manhandling her over to where Emily glared daggers into the side of her head. She knew that look, it was eerily similar to mom’s that time she’d been caught sneaking out of the house, something in the warm brown of Emily’s eyes frosting over into a cold blackness. Fury. 

She chewed her words for a moment, waiting until the man had turned around with a grunt of acknowledgement to the badge Emily had flashed to get his attention, before she spoke. 

“She’s not my mom, she's my sister, dumbass-” Emily slapped a hand over her mouth, gripping her shoulder with the bear-like strength her jagged nails possessed when she was mad, the scoff of disgrace leaving her mouth as her team trailed behind the two of them. 

“What the hell happened, baby Prentiss?” Morgan asked, ignoring the way Emily’s heated gaze turned on him, “What’s got you so worked up?”

“Don’t entertain her, Morgan,” Emily seethed, all but shoving her into the back of the SUV. She looked up at her sister with an open mouth, the guilt flashing in her eyes as she wavered under the pointing finger Emily jabbed in her face, “Don't you even dare,” 

“But-” She stammered, cut off when she saw the glare intensified, if that had even been possible. 

“I don’t want to hear another word from you for the rest of the day unless you’re prepared to give me a good explanation why I’ve dragged my team out here to save your sorry ass,” Emily hissed, and the girl’s mouth bobbed a few times, feeling the rest of the team watching as she got thoroughly chewed out. 

“Wait-” Emily’s hand lingered at the car door, ready to slam it in her face as she rubbed her cuff over her chin, mopping up the damage. Her head tilted for a moment, hoping her sister had something good to say, only for it to be; “He just called you old, I hope you realise that,”

Emily’s gaze darkened, slamming the door shut with an anger she imagined her mother had kept warm for the past twenty three years, whirling around heatedly when she heard a snigger from one Derek Morgan. 

“Damn, mama, hear the girl out.” He said, slapping a hand on the woman’s shoulder as he passed, heading back to their own SUV, “Maybe she’ll surprise you,” 

If Emily was going to bite anything back, she didn’t. Instead she ran a hand over her brow, the group disbanding to their cars now the problem child had been picked up from daycare, except for Hotch who watched the older Prentiss with a scowl, despite the worry in his eyes. 

“Hotch, I’m so sorry, just take it off my timecard, I’ll cover all the costs,” She said shakily, her own frown adorning her face as she felt herself blush from embarrassment under her boss’s gaze. 

“I understand she’s your sister, but this was a gross misuse of agent time and resources, Prentiss,” He said, his gaze drifting to where Spencer sat next to the girl, pulling a packet of tissues and hand sanitizer out of his satchel while JJ rooted through her own purse for a plaster, “Don’t let it happen again,” 

Emily nodded vehemently, flushed with anger, her palms sticky as she wiped them on her jeans. 

“Absolutely sir. Believe me, this ever happens again, she’s on her own,” She replied, though they both knew she didn’t mean it. Emily would never. 

He nodded stonily, deciding quickly that it was punishment enough that she felt so ashamed, he knew from his years of arguments with Sean what it was like to have a sibling stray so far. 

“We can fill out reports in the morning, just get Reid and JJ home,” Hotch said, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder as he passed her to head towards his own vehicle, “And try not to kill each other in the company car. It doesn’t look good on paperwork,” 

She beat off the smile on her lips as she got back into the driver's seat, the air that engulfed the four of them foul as she glared over her shoulder and into the back. Spencer twitched in his seat uncomfortably, his hand still passing over tissues to the bloodied girl. 

“So, you gonna tell me what that was about?” Emily asked, her tone brittle and warning, not in the mood for any snarky response she could give, “Or is this old lady going to have to lay into you some more,” 

The smell of strong ethanol engulfed her nose as she held the soaked tissue to her face, frowning into her lap silently and avoiding the burning stare as Emily stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car.

“Let’s start with why you were there,” JJ input, the same tone of voice she used as when talking to victims, calm and motherly, unlike the pissed off snarl Emily gave, “You wanna tell us why you were arrested?”

“You two really gonna pull the good cop, bad cop on me?” She snapped, her lip swelling around the wound, tongue grazing it softly despite the heavy taste of the sanitizer.

Emily said her name in a warning, her last warning, and she knew better than to push her luck even more, the SUV pulling out of the station and onto the road. 

“I was just shopping for groceries,” She started, fiddling with the bloodied tissue, wincing under her tongue stroke, “Store clerk made a pass at me, I told him I wasn’t interested. So he put a pack of smokes in my handbag while I wasn’t looking; the alarms went off. I didn’t even know what was happening until security grabbed me at the door,” 

JJ flashed a glance at Emily, like two parents deciding an appropriate punishment, the brunette’s lips straightening out into a line. 

“You’re telling the truth?” She asked cautiously, glancing in the rear view mirror to see how her sister balled the mess of paper between her palms. 

Rolling her eyes, she gladly accepted the other packet of tissues Spencer slid over the leather seat between them. 

“I went out for milk and oranges, I was not looking to get picked up, Em,” She bit back, groaning when she felt it jostle the cut, “And certainly not for cigarettes, you know I only smoke on New Years,” 

Spencer looked at her with a frown, and she caught his confusion quickly, pulling another leaf of paper from the packet. 

“Emily and I had a rule after she caught me smoking when I was like fourteen, that we could have one cigarette between the two of us on New Years eve,” She explained, JJ also perking up to hear it, “So that by the time morning came around, it would be last year’s mistake, and it would be like it never happened,” 

JJ smiled to herself, remembering the time she caught Roz sneaking one of her dad’s cigarettes on the back porch back when she was just ten. She remembered the little secrets the two of them kept back then, held them even all these years later. 

“So how did that lead to, well,” JJ gestured to her lip, “That,” 

“Yeah, didn’t I specifically tell you to not antagonise anyone?” Emily chimed in, signalling she was changing lanes as they headed down the freeway for a second time that day.

“Technically you said not to antagonise the officers,” She pointed out, before Spencer had the chance to, shutting his mouth as he caught the glare Emily shot through the mirror.

“Keep talking,” The older Prentiss ordered, as Bugsy sighed and blotted her lip some more. 

“That woman, Mira I think her name was, anyway, she recognised me from that picture mom had us take on Independence Day, the one they put in The Hill, and she asked me if it was true my sister was a fed,” 

Emily’s fingers twitched at the wheel, knowing the status agents and even people associated with agents held in prisons; knowing just being a Prentiss in a jail cell held a big, dazzling price over her head that said ‘kill me, kill me!”

The air sucked out of the car, a look passing between JJ and Reid as they thought the same thing, waiting for her to go on. 

“So then you hit her?” Emily guessed, the bitterness slowly ebbing as she understood maybe her sister wasn’t as unruly as she thought. 

“No, I told her to leave me the fuck alone, but she said you guys sent her brother down for something a while back, and she asked again if my family were all Pigs,” She picked her nails, the blood stain on her sleeve staring back at her, “I told her if she didn’t stop calling you a Pig, I’d make her squeal like one. And then I hit her,” 

Emily tried to pretend she didn’t smile hearing that, her cheeks tightening, lips pulling down as she fended it off. 

“Is that good enough, officers, or will you be needing fingerprints?” The girl chimed after a moment, a weight seemingly lifted from the car as Emily quickly realised she had, for once, not been entirely at fault. 

“I want a handwritten apology to my boss for wasting his time,” Emily demanded, her unforgiving gaze softening when she saw her smile, “And you owe my team coffee,”

“I can do coffee, coffee coming right up,” She agreed, shoving the used tissues into her purse with a crooked smile, “It’s a date,”

Spencers ears turned red, looking over the seat at where she dabbed at her lip gently. She didn’t look much older for six months, but she had gotten her nose pierced since the last time he’d seen her, unless he just hadn’t noticed it before, and the streaks of red were slowly fading out into a blush pink that said it was old, and he wondered if she’d done it herself in that tiny little cubicle bathroom of hers she shared with the four other girls in her block. 

“You finished your stats papers yet?” He made polite conversation, though part of him was dying to know out of curiosity if she could crunch numbers and equations as well as she could in her own labs. 

“Got two more this week, they’re kicking my ass man,” She replied with a huff, and he didn’t think he’d ever been called ‘man’ by a woman before. He knew if he’d known her in college, ignoring the fact he would have been twelve, he would have thought she may just be the coolest person alive, “I miss my labs with my microscopes and watching all the little baby cells move around in the ethanol. Stats are like, just not sexy,” 

He smiled at her as she stared out the window, unaware of the way she’d managed to make DNA sound like a play pen full of kittens. He held off from telling her he found stats really quite sexy, knowing it would never sound the same coming from his mouth.

He pulled a leaf of the tissues from the packet, producing his own pen from his pocket and began doodling carefully so as not to rip the delicate canvas. 

Sliding it over to her after five minutes as Emily and JJ made conversation in the front seat, she didn’t care that the grin tugged on her split lip, the reaction was instant, she couldn’t stop it if she tried. 

Two stick men stared back at her, her hair a close match in texture and a childish triangle drawn as means of a dress, a very tall stick figure next to her patting her metaphorical head, a speech bubble coming from his mouth. 

“Maths is fun!” It said, and she flicked a glance at him, her smile the most genuine he’d seen yet. He just smiled back. 

+2. The one where you graduate

Emily felt the looks on her the moment JJ had mentioned Maryland. The case was a little under their pay grade, nothing more than a stalker, no bodies or bloodshed, but one very rattled woman that had turned to the communications liaison with fear for her life. 

With Hotch and Rossi in Boston helping a case of their own, the rest of the BAU had been twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to come across their desk. 

“This case is in my hands now, and if we do nothing and something happens to her,” JJ took a heavy breath, her eyes lingering on the three names Keri had given her in case of her untimely death, “I’ll be the one notifying her family,”

Derek, despite his own hesitations about using their time for a case like this, caved the moment he saw the guilt on the blonde’s face. 

“Okay,” He shuffled the papers into a pile, Emily and Spencer gathering their own resources on the case and standing from the round table. 

Luckily, one government SUV was more than enough to carry the four of them for the hour drive North, all of them well aware Hotch would flip if they used more funds than necessary.

JJ piled into the front beside where Morgan climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Emily next to a particularly fidgety Reid. It took all of fifteen minutes of the man flicking a glance at her, his mouth quirking as if he were about to use it, before he thought better and looked out the window, and the whole thing would start again. 

Derek, the less shy about his thoughts of the two men, even glanced at her through the rear view mirror, before he too returned his gaze out the window silently. JJ shifted in her seat, knowing she had to tread carefully around mentioning Bugsy to Emily, particularly after the last time they’d seen her. Emily had said they’d grabbed coffee once or twice since then, but that was all she spoke about it, which left her team walking cracked eggshells at the thought of bringing her up. 

It seemed the three of them were bursting at the seams with the same thought, and it wasn’t until Reid cleared his voice, his puppy eyes stuck in his loop, that she had had enough. 

“Does anyone here have something to say?” Emily huffed, Derek immediately reaching to turn the radio up the same time that JJ flicked the AC on for something to do. Realising they weren’t easily broken, she turned to Spencer who already looked slightly guilty, thumbing at his sweater, “Reid?”

“Did you want to see your sister?” He asked without hesitation, as if the words had fallen out of him, “You know, since we’re so close on this case. It would be a good excuse to-”

“You did say she owed us a coffee,” JJ pointed out, spurred on by Spencer’s nerves, “Wouldn’t mind cashing in if we’re coming all this way.”

“Morgan, do you have anything to add?” Emily asked with raised brows, though she already knew what was coming.

Derek chewed over his thoughts a second, “I’m just saying, you only get to see your baby sisters grow up once- you know, and it couldn’t hurt to see her even if she runs rings around you with that smart mouth-”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the case?” Emily cut him off incredulously, but received three knowing looks back. She met JJ’s gaze where the woman had swivelled in her seat to talk to her, and Prentiss was fast to catch the buried grief in her best friend’s eyes. She knew it pained her to even bring up sisterhood, let alone watch Emily throw hers away for the sake of a decade and a half between them. It was the desperation in JJ’s face that did it, knowing she would give anything to spend just an hour with Roz one more time, that had her drawing her cell out her pocket and calling the contact with the little ladybug next to it, “Fine,”

As a profiler she would have been tempted to ignore the way Spencer smiled into his lap; as a sister, her eyes narrowed at him.

The phone rang surprisingly only once before she answered, and she heard an unnaturally tame version of her sister answer.

“Emily?” She asked, her voice hushed, worried almost, “You okay?”

Her brows furrowed, “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” She got no more than a hum in return, somewhat agreeing though Emily could tell clear as day she was holding something back. “Look, we’re gonna be in Silver Spring, I was thinking tomorrow we could grab lunch-” 

“Can’t, I’m busy, it’s an all day thing,” Her sister cut her off, yet it wasn’t rude or demeaning like usual. Nervous almost, sad, “Sorry,”

“What’s an all day thing?” Emily asked, the concern matching her words. 

Her sister swallowed on the other end of the phone, before she found her words, or maybe even the balls to actually speak, “I’m graduating tomorrow,”

Emily’s face lit up, the smile spreading fast on her face, ignoring the way Morgan’s words seemed to ring true in her ears; she was growing up too fast. 

“Graduating, why didn’t you say!” She asked, the joy in her tone unmissable, “How’d your papers go?”

Spencer held himself off from correcting her that she’d only done five papers, that the rest of her results had come from theory and labs, thinking better than to interrupt the one conversation they’d had where there was no underlying argument brewing. 

“Full honours, obviously.” Bugsy drawled with a snicker, and Emily shook her head, the smile never dimming. 

“Look at you, y’little superstar,” Emily bit her lip, ignoring the guilt that tore at her when she realised she barely knew what Bug spent her days doing, “Did Mom and Dad get good seats? Oh god, dad’s not bringing Stephanie is he?”

The silence on the other end had her halting, the light in the conversation wavering for a second, before she understood the nerves, the quick defence her sister had been on the moment the call had been answered. 

“Bug-”

“They’re not coming,” Her heart ached in her chest hearing it, “I sent Mom the details, she said she’s in Ukraine this week settling some papers. Didn’t even get a chance to ask Dad before he and Stephanie were off on their fifth honeymoon in the Bahamas until October,” A painful laugh echoed down the line, as if she were holding back the gravity of the situation. 

“Bug,” Emily tried again, picking her thumb viciously, punishingly, hating herself for being so blind to her sister’s troubles, “Why didn’t you invite me?”

“I figured you’d be busy,” Came the reply, sad and tender, the most honest she’d heard in a while, “You’re always busy,” 

“Never too busy for you,” Emily’s guilt tripled when her sister didn’t answer, knowing if she were to counter the statement with hard evidence it would only hurt both of them, “Look, I have some time today, probably,” She didn’t, not even a few minutes, “Why don’t we get that coffee, you don’t even have to pay,”

Bugsy gave a sad laugh, “Sorry, Em, I gotta get my dress fitted today, and some of the lab techs invited me to a party later. Maybe some other time,”

“A party with biology nerds?” Emily asked with false excitement, the air turned stagnant between them now, “Well, rock on, science freak. Don’t leave your drinks with strangers, and don’t walk home alone, and for god sake use protection-”

“Bye, Emily,” She said with a chuckle, the older of the two gracing her with the same, as they put the phone down. 

The car was quiet, waiting for Prentiss to speak, none of them missing the way her lip pulled between her teeth, a bitterness on her face that told them she was holding in something close to sadness. You’re always busy. It echoed around her head, stabbing at her chest to think her sister was graduating alone, no one to congratulate her, no one to pat her on the back and tell her how clever she is despite the fact Bugsy would happily tell anyone just how smart she was on her own. Never too busy for you. 

“She’s graduating tomorrow,” She said to the three people waiting for an update, Spencer’s brows shooting to his hairline. He hadn’t heard from her since her last paper got sent off, and why would he? They had exchanged a few little anecdotes and doodles, sent each other research papers to be graded like teachers exchanging lecture notes, “She didn’t even tell me. She’s gonna be alone,” 

JJ grimaced, “What? What about your mom- or, or your dad, an uncle, someone-” 

“Mom and dad are out of the country, Mom’s brother lives in Mexico with his seven kids, he can barely get a night’s sleep let alone a day off to travel up to Maryland. Dad’s sisters passed away when I was a kid,” Emily explained, running a hand over her face, “I can’t let her go up there alone,”

“So we don’t,” Spencer said, as if he’d never been more sure of anything in his life, “We don’t let her do it alone,”

-

“Graduating with Masters in Biotechnology; Jasper Adams, Tom Adamson, Kristen Afkins, Gavin Agriths-” 

The dean read off the names of the students as she fiddled with the hem of her dress. 

The dress fit beautifully, her make up done to near perfection, her hair styled neatly, she was graduating with full honours for christ sakes. Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she had? Why had she got to be so spoiled? 

Lots of peoples parents missed their graduation, lots of people her age didn’t even have parents anymore, she ought to be grateful her mother was increasing famine aid in foreign countries, all the lives she would save, or even be happy her father had found a pretty, rich new wife to tour every known vacation destination with. Or even that her sister had called her just yesterday and told her in a few words she was proud of her. 

But none of them quelled the feeling of loneliness that blossomed inside Bugsy. The kind that had always been there, the kind that just wanted someone in her corner, telling her she was doing pretty good for a kid who raised herself in all those big houses they’d moved to, who saw the au pair more often than her own mother. 

All those rooms were so empty, the houses so quiet besides for her. It was like living in a cemetery. 

“Robert Lewsinsky. Marcus Linford. Tara Lorence. Katie Macauley.” 

P would be up soon. Each name of her classmates drew an applause, some whoops and screams, one family she swore there must have been ten of them in the back row cawing and howling like monkeys at a zoo, proud of their son for making it. 

She willed a smile on her face, hearing Orla Parkins get called up, and she knew just by the steward that directed her where to stand in line she was close. 

“Kenneth Patterson. Joshua Perriman. Harriet Pimms. Lauren Pintons.”

She held a rattled breath as Renly Prackett walked ahead of her, strolling over the stage to collect his degree, flashing the crowd a wide smile and a fist pump. She had always liked Renly, having been his experiment partner for a year, despite the fact he never washed up after himself in the lab. 

Then it was, her name was called. The one no one but her mother and Stephanie ever called her, she solely went by Bugsy courtesy of Emily. It was a family name, a nice one at that. Maybe it had been the fact she had been eight and her cool big sister crowned her the new name, or maybe it just rolled off the tongue better, made her feel less like a Prentiss, that she chose to go by her monika. 

She tried not to think about where or what Emily was doing, only hoping she was safe, as she began walking over the stage, her heels clicking loudly with her hesitant steps. 

To her utmost surprise she heard a loud whistle echo through the auditorium, a group of jeers and screams of her name, even an air horn signing off that had her almost tripping over her own feet turning to see who it was. 

Surely it was a joke, a cruel prank, she barely had any friends in her class. Acquaintances sure, but no one so bold as to make such a fuss over her. 

Squinting down at the audience, her cap nearly slipping off her head as her head turned to the source, she felt her chest burst when she saw the dark hair and bangs, her sisters butchered fingertips in her mouth with a loud cattle whistle, screaming like a firework right to the stage where she graciously accepted her award, despite the fact she barely paid any attention to the dean anymore, more to her sister who smiled at her widely as she clapped. Behind her, her team she’d met on the off chance, the pretty blonde, JJ, who pressed the air horn a few more times, cheering just as loud for her. Morgan, the handsome one who had stood himself on top of his chair, cupping a hand over his mouth to scream “Kicking ass, baby Prentiss!” at her, ignoring the way other people stared wide eyed at them. 

And Spencer, tall enough to be seen over the crowd even without the help of a chair, who smiled at her, clapping those big hands of his loud enough to reach her, his own whoops never ceasing even as she stepped off the stage to head back to her seat. 

The rest of the ceremony dragged, a speech from one of the alumni and the exit music playing, but she simply grinned into her hand, where her degree smiled back at her, counting down the moments she would be allowed to stand. 

And then she was fast walking down the stairs, amongst the bustle of students, the black gowns flurrying around her as she burst out into the square where parents, fiancees, brothers, sisters, cheered their loved ones, pulling them into tight hugs. 

Her eyes scanned the wave of black hats, landing on two dark eyes, the thick sable hair framing the dazzling smile that awaited her with open palms. All but shoving her way through the crowd, she stopped in front of her sister, the urge to jump at her with a hug shying the moment she got close. 

“Told you. Never too busy for you, Bug,” Emily said, pulling her in by her shoulders for a tight hug. She knew her sister wasn’t one to beg for affection, wasn’t one to let her guard drop so soon, but she also knew she’d needed it by the way she melted against her, the way she chuckled into her hair, pulled her closer. 

“Do I owe your boss another letter of apology for this or do I get you guys for free?” The girl asked, as her sister pulled away, keeping an arm around her shoulder as they turned to the rest of the team. 

“No, this one is entirely on us, promise,” JJ said with a smile as she saw Emily beaming maternally over at the girl, the flat of the cap knocking against her cheek as she squeezed her in once more, “We’re very proud of you,” 

She heated under the woman’s words, wriggling in her shoes as bad as Emily did when she felt awkward, Derek chuckling and taking the degree out of her hand. 

“Alright, lets see the creds, Prentiss,” He held it up next to her face as she shrugged, the ‘4.0’ clear as day next to her name, “Good looking, and smart. Those boys in the lab ought to watch out,”

She grinned under his teasing, “What can I say, I got the deep end of the gene pool,” She teased, feeling Emily swat her ear, her eyes falling to where Spencer held a plant pot with a poorly wrapped bow of twine around it, the soil a little displaced from the journey.

“This is for you,” He said, handing her the small green sproutling, his cheeks blushing as her face lit up, reading the small inscription on the front, “It’s-”

“Dionaea muscipula,” She said, biting her lip as she smiled at him, “This is so cool! Where on earth did- I had a paper last semester on the ways to study their electrophysiology you just have to read- oh thank you!”

“English, please?” Emily asked, though the warmth flooded her chest when her sister threw her arms around a very rigid Spencer. 

Thinking she should grab her and warn her the man disliked touch almost as much as she does, she was surprised to see him give her a small embrace back, smiling proudly the way he did when he’d made someone happy. 

“Piège à mouches Vénus,” Her sister responded cockily, tugging herself away from the tall man, to inspect her new plant, well aware that Emily rolled her eyes at her use of French, “Venus Fly Trap. I’ve never seen one so young, still I should be able to pull some slides on the Rhizomes in the soil-”

Emily put a hand to her temple, JJ smiling widely as she saw for once Spencer be the one on the receiving end of an earful, chuckling to himself when she began dishing out name ideas for the sapling. 

“Holy shit, there’s two of them,” Morgan grumbled, nudging his shoulder into Emily who simply sighed, her migraine already starting as Reid began jumping in with his own thoughts, which didn’t take much effort.

“Don’t even,” 

+3. The one where you’re taken hostage

“Tell us about the 911 call,” Spencer requests, flicking through the file himself beside her in the back seat. She had her own set of paperwork in front of her, her pen attached to a clipboard the lanyard around her neck reading her real, honest credentials, unlike the fake ones Emily and Reid were given. She’d been to one of these sects before, invited kindly as part of her research on the effect isolation has on cultivation of crops, knew one of the mother’s well from her last research paper, and had managed to get the group a foot in the door to entering the Separtarian Sect with little fuss. 

Hotch, usually hesitant to allow outsiders in on the job, especially as young and spirited as Bugsy, had to admit it would calm any potential unsubs and make them see the team as unthreatening if they had a friendly face there. He’d signed the papers with a frown that morning, and they were on their way to the little apartment the girl occupied just outside Baltimore, sample tubes stuffed into her pack ready. 

“I believe the he that they refer to is the church’s leader, Benjamin Cyrus,” Nancy, a woman from child protective services, replied from the driver's seat, Emily thumbing through her papers as they neared the compound. 

“Benjamin Cyrus, no criminal record; no record of him at all actually,” Reid replied, watching Bugsy scribbling notes into her lab book, perfecting her report before she had even begun, “What else do you know about him?” 

“The sect I spoke to before, the one in Utah, said he was rumoured to be practising polygamy and forced marriages,” The younger woman said, looking back at him with a frown, “They were much more modern in their beliefs than these guys. Last time I spoke to Marina she was happy there, I can’t see why she would want to move here,” 

Spencer looked as if he were about to answer, perhaps to tell her he was sure her contact would be just fine, when Emily shrugged and turned to Nancy. 

“Do we know who the caller is?” She asked, sipping her now lukewarm coffee out of the disposable cup. 

Nancy’s head tilted in a so-so motion, “Uh, Jessica Evansen is the one who the age fits, but we can’t be sure.”

“Well given their view on outsiders, it would be best if you didn’t identify us as FBI.” Emily instructed, handing Reid his new, fake credentials and his gun she’d kept in her bag through customs. “Just use our real names and introduce us as child victim interview experts.” Nancy nodded, the compound coming into view, the dust flurrying under the car wheels as the road turned into nothing more than a sandy path. 

A guard seemed to be expecting their arrival as he stood, unarmed at the main gate, unlatching the bolt in the middle and opening it wide for their vehicle to pass through. She nodded in thanks, her eyes flicking out the dirty window to see a collection of mobile homes surrounding a large church, a few smaller outbuildings dotted around the compound. It was quiet, not full of laughter like the last group she had been to, the children nowhere to be seen, only a few of the handier members of the flock that were either fixing up walls, trimming trees besides a man sprawled too casually on the steps of the chapel, a bible in his hands he seemed to be catching up on. 

The car pulled to a stop in front of the man that barely batted an eye at their arrival, the safety locks flicking off each of the doors, Nancy collecting her briefcase and exiting the car first. 

She had all but reached for the handle when Emily stopped her, swivelling in her seat to look her dead in the eye. 

“Your job is mediator, you got that?” Her sister had never looked more serious, but then again she did know her almost too well, “You and your field research are a… buffer between our investigation and the unsub. Just try to take the focus off what we’re doing, but do not provoke anyone,”

She raised her hands in innocence, “Got it, jeez, what could I possibly do that could ruin this investigation?” 

Emily stared back at her blankly, unnamused, as if they both knew there was a lot she could, and would, do that would blow the whole thing. 

“You look like mom when you give me that look,” She bit back, leaving the car, as Nancy spoke to the man laying on the steps, “It’s terrible,” 

“I’m looking for Mr Benjamin Cyrus?” Nancy reported, her tight, knee length skirt and blouse entirely out of place amongst the dirt track. 

“You found him,” The man replied, still not so much as granting them a glance of interest as he flicked through his passages. 

“I’m Nancy Lunde, we spoke on the phone regarding the allegation,” She replied, which was the only thing that garnered his attention as he looked up at them behind slightly bent reading glasses. 

“Savages they call us; because our manners differ from theirs,” He said, though it was clear it wasn’t entirely his own words, more likely a segment of his preach he’d repeated a handful of times. Bugsy tried to hide her disgust behind her hand tightening around her lab books she kept tightly to her chest. 

“We didn’t come here to hear you cite scripture, Mr Cyrus,” Nancy snipped as he approached the group, pocketing the glasses though he kept hold of the bible in hand as if it was part of his own arm. 

“Actually it’s Benjamin Franklin,” Spencer murmured to the woman, which had Cyrus’ cold brown eyes narrowing at the tall man, assessing for a motive.

“Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid. They’re child victim interview experts,” Nancy introduced them quickly, the two of them flashing their badges, the unofficial ones at least. Gesturing to the youngest woman, she introduced her with her real name, his gaze flicking to her as he seemed to recognise it.

“Marina’s friend? The plant lady?” He asked, face half amused as she fought her lip from twitching into a sneer. Instead she smiled, holding out her hand. 

“That’s what they call me,” She said, shaking his hand, ignoring the way he flashed her a cheshire cat smile, “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by, Marina said I could take some samples for my research,”

He laughed, shaking his head, looking at Spencer, “Women and their flowers, right?” Spencer swallowed back a retort, shrugging his shoulders, though Bugsy’s eye twitched. Benjamin patted her on her shoulder, “Of course you can honey, I’ll find Jared, our head gardner, and you can run along for your research,” 

He said it as if she were lying, that her degree and endless hours of work would only ever chalk up to a few doodles in a notebook, or a garden full of hydrangeas, or tulips, or roses, because she couldn’t possibly care about anything else but pretty flowers. 

Nodding her head graciously, choking back the hateful response she wished to spit in his face, she gave him a polite thankyou, feeling Spencer’s eyes burning into the side of her head. 

“The children are in the school as I indicated,” Cyrus said, turning back to the other three, Emily and Nancy taking off in the direction he pointed, the former knowing her sister was at risk of blowing a fuse if they were here for long. 

Spencer hung back, partially because he had a plan of distraction in mind to allow the women a chance to speak with the children whilst Cyrus wasn’t around, partially because he didn’t want to leave Bugsy anywhere on her own. Sure, Emily had said they were both trained in self defence when they were kids, but with no weapon of her own, he was reluctant. 

“You're using solar power?” He prompted, gesturing towards where the eight blue panels warmed under the Colorado sun.

“We’re completely self-sufficient,” Benjamin nodded along, catching the impressed look on both their faces, “Electricity, food, water. Ben Franklin said ‘God helps those that help themselves,’ you look surprised,” 

“No, impressed actually,” Spencer replied, and he wasn’t entirely lying. The system was incredibly complex, particularly if they received no help from outsiders, for as many people as there were in the compound. 

“Thankyou; for admitting that,” Cyrus said earnestly, flicking his gaze back to Bugsy who studied the solar panels, “I’ll go find Jared, he can take you to the greenhouses,”

Thanking him again, he led the way towards the school where Nancy and Emily had headed, as the two of them exchanged a look, Spencer smiling half piteously, wishing he could shake her and tell her just how smart she was and that Cyrus knew absolutely nothing. 

He didn’t miss the way she walked closer to him, or how she thumbed the corner of her notebook, or how she looked back at him, biting the inside of her cheek. He thinks he might get slapped if he pointed it out, but Emily had the exact same tell when she was nervous, which is why he bumps their shoulders together in means of reassuring her he was still there. 

It was only then she gave him any sort of smile back. 

-

Jared, as expected, had been just as condescending and patronising as Benjamin whilst she slipped on her latex gloves, scooping no more than a handful of homemade fertiliser into one of her test tubes. It had been a partial cover, their story, but she had been telling the truth when she’d contacted Marina and asked if she could drop by. She’d been meaning to expand her field research in hopes of stumbling on a job opportunity since she spent most of her postgraduate days reading while her cat pawed at her leg for more treats than he deserved, the odd phone call with her sister much more common than it had been before. 

She didn’t miss the way Jared’s hand fell into the small of her back as he led her back towards the school, after having noted down a few more readings, fussing over the state of the carrots that seemed to grow entirely naturally thanks to the systems they’d been smart enough to set up. He seemed rather bored by the whole thing, for a head gardener, more interested in staring at her legs as she leaned down to identify the fat black beetle that crawled along the rockery. 

It wasn’t until they were halfway to the school that the sound of tyres on a dirt path met her ears, and she saw five armoured SUVs out the corner of her eye. 

She hadn’t even the time to question what was going on, before Jared’s face dropped, the hand gently holding the soft of her back grabbing on her forearm hard enough to leave bruises, as he was dragging her to the chapel they had seen when they had pulled up.

 Emily had said the rest of the team stayed in Quantico, if it wasn’t them, who was it. 

“Whats going on- who is that?” She asked him lamely, her feet stumbling as she half fought his heavy hand off. 

That was when the shooting started. 

She thinks it came from the compound first, she’d seen two men stationed on top of one of the outbuildings, thinking nothing much of it, until she saw clearly now the assault rifles they bore, pointing it straight at the vehicles that drew closer. The whistle of bullets, bangs of the chambers emptying their artillery, and it wasn’t until she heard the doors to the SUVs start opening, more gunfire began hitting the wall ahead of them that she started running. Running fast, for the cover the church provided until she figured out just what the fuck was happening. 

Jared all but threw her past the chapel door, where Cyrus and four other men were waiting, a heavy barricade in their hands, her chest pounding with adrenaline, she couldn’t help the yelp that left her as Cyrus whirled on her, grabbing her shoulders firmly and looking her dead in the eye. 

“Did you know anything about this?” He asked, his calm demeanour cracking when she scrambled for a response, “ANSWER ME,”

“No-no not at all.” She shook her head, voice weaker than she’d like, but the sight of more guns in the men’s hands twisted any resolve she had, “Where are the others- the- the experts-”

“Take her into the tunnels,” Cyrus ignored her question, nodding at one of his men to grab her as Jared armed himself. She felt another callused hand yank on her upper arm, and part of her wondered if that was how men handled all women here, as if they were herding cattle, as she was dragged down into the catacombs below the church. 

They’d made plans for a day like this to come, she realised. 

Her heart constricted at the sound of bullets rattling above them, she hadn't been able to tell in that last moment whether Cyrus believed her or not as, nor whether she was being taken to the tunnels for her own safety or to be questioned harder about the gunmen. 

She could only hope Emily was safe. 

She felt her tongue too big for her mouth as the man all but shoved her into the bunker, the nervous chatter of women and children, some of the more elderly men, as they clung to one another for safety, the scathing remark she would have usually made about his heavy hands failing her as she scanned the room for her sister. 

Emily was faster however, and she nearly yelped again as two bony arms yanked her into a hug, a rare one, and she knew by the blazer and the sigh of relief in her ear it was Em.

Usually she would bat her off, tell her to stop fussing like a mother hen, but today she embraced her right back, trying to note if her sister had any bullet holes in her before she allowed herself the same relief. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Emily asked, the whole thing coming out in a slew of worry, and she nodded, pulling away as if she needed to see the proof in person. 

Bugsy’s eyes were wild, as if she were a doe in a meadow hearing a rifle cocking near. No scratch that, she was a doe being chased and shot at and hunted, narrowly escaping being mounted on a wall. 

“They were all shit shots,” Bugsy said, through a laugh she didn’t quite mean, “You would have done much better.” 

Patting her sister on the shoulder, Emily finally released her when she realised the humour meant she at least had her head on her shoulders. Spencer watched her with meticulous eyes, knowing the shock that registered on her face, knowing it was the same one he wore when he first had shots fired at him. He saw her own eyes quickly check him over, satisfied with a breath of relief when she saw they were both fine. 

“Where’s Lunde?” Emily asked, and she realised then Cyrus had followed her down into the shelter, two of his men grabbing handfuls of guns she had never seen before, likely imported out of country, and returning to the ground level, preparing for more shooting. 

“It wasn’t us,” Cyrus replied, as if that negated the fact their recklessness had gotten the agent killed. 

“What? You can’t shoot it out with the cops, you have children in here,” Emily seethed, her voice harsh and incredulous.

“I didn’t start this,” Cyrus bit back, looking towards his men as they grabbed boxes on boxes of ammunition, “I’ll take the front, you take the roof,” 

And with that they stormed their way back through the tunnels, leaving the three of them to look between each other, knowing this could only end badly. Knowing the only people that could figure out how to get them out of this mess was the BAU, all 1,700 miles away. 

–

They’d been in the bunker for fourteen hours when there was finally movement. The shooting seemed to have quietened down, in which Spencer whispered it was around 11pm and it was likely neither party had a clear shot. She’d managed to fall asleep leaning against the wall, Emily’s blazer draped over her legs. She’d regretted wearing cropped pants, despite how the shade of green complimented her eyes nicely, and she’d been shivering by the time she fell asleep, Emily’s hands stroking her hair gently as if she knew she was struggling to relax. 

She hadn’t realised she was staring at her little sister, frowning even as she slept, which made part of her want to laugh, until she caught Spencer’s tired eyes looking between them, something knowing and warm in his gaze. 

“You know, she’s always scowled in her sleep, ever since she was born,” Emily said, quiet enough it didn’t interrupt the hum of small snores, the odd baby cry that filled the bunker, but loud enough for him to smile at her, “She used to sleep walk terrible too. I’d find her in the kitchen trying to make pancakes with a cheese grater. It’s like that big brain of hers doesn’t know how to shut off,” Emily shook her head with a fatigue, rubbing her eyes. 

“Was it weird? Being fourteen years older?” Spencer asked, his own hands shoved into his sleeves to try defend from the draught. Emily thought for a moment, her hand slowing for a second on her sister's hair, before she answered. 

“I felt guilty leaving her in that house with my mom when I went to college,” Emily answered, Bugsy unconsciously tucking her face closer into the jacket, “I think part of her kind of hated me for it for a while.” She went quiet, the shame in her voice thick as the silence that encompassed them, “She’s never been very affectionate you know? Before her graduation I don’t think I’d hugged her in twelve years,”

Spencer held himself back from pointing out that she had been just as touchy with him since they’d met, and that maybe it was Emily’s own regret that seemed to shut the both of them down. He wasn’t one to rub salt in the wound, not since he’d gotten this job and learned to watch what he said. 

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to give her advice, knowing the whole subject of their slowly repairing relationship was a sore one. He had no siblings of his own, had a mother who loved him despite how much she grappled with her own mind, and he had only known the girl briefly enough to consider her a friend at a push. 

“I always thought the two of you were similar,” Emily chose to continue, offering him a small smile. He returned it, his face blushing at the fact that was a huge compliment to him, “Granted, you roll your eyes at me less and don’t act like I’m dumb, but you remind me of her,” 

“Thankyou, I wish that were true,” He replied, eyes flicking to her sleeping form, the way her eyebrows were indeed scrunched in a permanent frown. He wondered if she was actually angry, or if she was just thinking hard, perhaps her dreams were full of equations or labs she needed to sort through. Either way, he wanted to know. “She’s much cooler than I’ll ever be,” 

Emily snorted, shuffling against the wall to cosy herself, “That’s one way to put it,” She said, smiling over at him as he did the same, his head resting against the wall, Bugsy’s legs stretching out to knock against his feet, and he didn’t mind that she scuffed the bottom of his already dirty trousers. “Get some sleep,”

And so they did. 

–

Cyrus had corralled the whole flock into the church, where the shooting had stopped and the bodies had been removed, stating at the break of dawn that there was a hostage negotiator coming in to make sure everyone was safe before they made any deals. 

She sat next to Spencer, the three of them stiff from their sleeping arrangements, and her stomach churned with hunger. It had been over 24 hours since they’d gotten here, and besides the small bit of bread and water Cyrus gave everyone for breakfast, she was starving. 

“Remind me to never leave the house, ever again,” She grumbled, as everyone waited in the pews for the negotiator to arrive, “My cat is gonna be pissed I’ve not fed him,” 

“Since when did you get a cat?” Emily inputted from the other side of Reid, keeping one eye on the door in case any agents start shooting again. 

The girl shrugged, “I got lonely, there’s not much to do now I’m not studying anymore,” 

Reid watched how she clutched her stomach, feeling his own complaining at the lack of nutrition, “Morgan wasn’t lying when he said you should sign up for the academy. We could always use the help, we wouldn’t have solved that case in Baltimore without you,” 

She snickered, nudging his foot with her boot, “You’re being modest, you would have done it just fine,”

He was a little, wasn’t surprised she called his bluff either. “Okay, so probably yes- but it would have taken us a whole lot longer. Mr Chernus likely would have died,” 

She shook her head, glancing at Emily who watched her carefully, “That was all you guys. I just translated.”

Emily and Spencer exchanged a glance, leaning back in their uncomfortable seats calmly. 

“You’re probably right,” Spencer said, dusting the dirt off his trousers, “Probably couldn’t handle it, high intensity mind games and such,”

She blanched, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head, not knowing him to be so brutally honest, realistic yes, but not bordering on rude. 

“And it’s a lot of work,” Emily jumped in, her mouth a straight line, “I don’t know if you’d be dedicated enough,”

Bugsy scoffed, indifferently. “I have a masters degree, I was offered a scholarship to do a PHD, asked to be an assistant professor at Yale, I can work hard, Emily,” She snipped, and perhaps she was particularly just hangry or they had struck a nerve with their doubt, “and I could do it if I wanted to, I’d have the best shot they’d ever seen, guaranteed- mom made me take lessons when you left- trust me I could do it-”

She shut up when she saw their small smile exchanged, as if she’d told them a joke, or moreso they’d had the same identical thought and that alone was hilarious. 

Scowling at them, she looked from where Spencer looked almost, almost, guilty at making her the butt of the joke, to where Emily had a ‘told you so’ smirk, and she kissed her teeth at their childishness. 

“Are you guys reverse psychology-ing me? Seriously, so original guys,” She snapped, crossing her arms and straightening herself in her seat, ignoring the snigger that passed between them. 

“You’re not wrong though,” Emily replied quietly as Cyrus walked past them, his eyes falling to them with a frown. Bugsy kept her head down, heeding Emily’s warning of not provoking anyone, and Spencer eyed the way she leaned closer to him.

If she was going to retaliate, whether agreeing or not, she stopped herself, the doors the church opening and an older gentleman walking through the doors, arms full of supplies she’d figured must have been part of the negotiation. He was patted down by an armed guard, searching for his own weapons do doubt, or a wire perhaps, as he handed the box over to another who took it without a thankyou. 

“Rossi,” She heard Reid whisper beside her, and from the look he shot Emily and Spencer she gathered he was from the BAU, just as they’d expected. His eyes fell on her, softening as alot of Emily’s team did when they saw the two of them, as if they were picking her face apart for the tiny ways in which she resembled their Prentiss, or maybe it was the way she curled up in her seat, tired, hungry, on the defence. He just looked sorry for her. 

 “The children,” Cyrus said with no greeting, the air between them particularly frosty. He gestured towards the three of them, though Rossi had already clocked their tired faces staring at him with worry, “And our guests,”

She saw him trying not to react, guessing they had not let it slip to Cyrus he worked with the two undercover FBI agents, looking away from them as if the sight of their forlorn figures was enough to turn him sick. 

Judging by the way Cyrus and he spoke quietly, tensely, Bugsy just hoped they had a plan to get them out of here soon as he soon left with a rigid handshake to the man keeping them hostage. 

–

The three of them had been moved to a backroom a few hours later. Her stomach ached, the little sustenance Rossi had brought being distributed to the community before they’d been offered anything, which hadn’t left much. Reid and Emily had tried to get her to take some of their sharing, and despite how her insides cried out for it, she declined, stating they would be more use than she would; that they needed their strength more than her if they were going to get out of here alive. 

The two of them hadn’t liked that answer judging by the frowns on their faces, but they sat in their seats with little fuss as they waited for things to quieten down after Cyrus’ staged “mass suicide” that had turned out to be nothign more than a test of loyalty and grape juice. 

They had been sat in silence, aside from her foot bouncing on the floor impatiently, as she picked at the threads on her pants, the material uncomfortable on her skin after a day of wearing it. The door slammed open, Cyrus entering the room with nasty scowl. She didn’t know what had changed in the man in a matter of hours as he stormed over to them, two of his men behind him, loaded rifles in their arms. 

This was not good. 

“Which one of you is it?” He asked almost too calm for his demeanour, his eyes flicking between the three of them, where Emily attempted to brush her hair using her fingers, Reid played with the hem of his cardigan, an she sat beside him, resting against the cold stone wall behind them, her eyes narrowing at his furious expression. 

The three of them remained silent, waiting for him to explain more, though clearly it was not the answer he was looking for as he threw his jacket open, revealing a loaded pistol tucked into his jeans. Drawing it into his dominant hand, her body tensed up, her back straightening like a rod as she looked up at him through fear. 

“Which one of you is the FBI agent?” He repeated in that same calm tone, and her heart fell through her stomach. 

She opened her mouth to say something in retaliation, though the way she saw his hand shaking with fury, she knew it was better to stay quiet in case her voice would be the final straw that made him trigger happy. 

“Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer replied softly, and if he was panicking even a fraction amount she was he held it back, though his eyes flicked to Emily. 

But it was a tell. The smallest movement alone was a tell he was lying, or perhaps it was the fact he’d answered a question with one of his own, distracting from the attention on them with the unsubs own answers. Maybe his quiet and calm showed how trained he was for a situation like this, showed he had gone up against bad guys before and won. 

Whatever it was about him, it had Cyrus cocking the barrel of the gun straight at Spencer’s temple. 

“God forgive me for what I must do,” The preacher murmured, his finger moments away from the trigger, when she lurched forward in her seat, hand shooting out to grab his wrist deathly tight. 

“It’s me,” 

She hadn’t realised she’d said it until the room went quiet. She thought for a moment it had come from Emily, Emily had always been the braver of the two of them, but it wasn’t until Cyrus’ unforgiving, dark gaze fell to her where she froze in her spot, that she understood her mouth had been the one moving. 

Emily looked as if she was about to vomit, Spencer looked dumbfounded, but all she could do was stare back at Cyrus as if to will herself not to back down, knowing all three of them could fall victim if she gave them reason to doubt her; he could kill all three of them just to be sure the mystery agent was dealt with.

“It’s me,” She repeated, voice stronger this time, and she felt her chest relax just the tiniest amount as he turned the gun away from Spencer’s head. 

He stared back at her for a moment, before the weapon smacked across her face in a sharp whip, her cheekbone crying out in a sting she knew was going to bruise. 

He grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her into a stand hard enough she yelped, despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the torture. 

“Watch the other two,” Cyrus barked, dragging her out of the room as she squirmed under his hand, feeling it only tighten into an unforgiving pull. 

She barely caught Emily bolting out of her seat to yell at the other men, all but fighting in their heavy grasp to follow wherever it was he was taking her, only for the door to be slammed shut behind them. 

It was only then she realised how fucked she truly was. 

–

She struggled to breath through the blood clotting in her nose. She didn’t think it was broken, not that she could check where her hands had been tied to the bedpost, tape over her mouth to stop her calling for help, her feet bound. She’d done nothing but give him hell as he’d been laying into her, keeping her cries and groans of pain silent as he’d kicked her in the ribs hard enough to know he’d damaged something at least. 

She’d not made it easy for him to tie her down, worried about what they were planning next, she’d managed to headbutt him in the mouth, and the way he clutched at his jaw when he’d left gave her a sick satisfaction, though her temple now hurt more than she’d like to admit. But they’d only covered her mouth after she’d screamed obscenities at them for an hour or so, hoping to attract attention, hoping if the BAU were on their way, Emily and Reid would be able to find her fast before they could dispose of her. 

Bugsy didn’t want to go like this. Tied up like cattle, gagged and beaten, the spirit kicked out of her as the dehydration gnawed at her limbs, making her too weak to even try wriggling out of the binds. 

She felt herself dropping off to sleep, or maybe it was a concussion, he’d slammed her face into that mirror quite viciously, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had rattled her head around. Fighting with her eyelids to stay open, she jumped in her battered skin as the door unlatched, and she thrashed on the rickety bed to get away from the impending second beating. 

But it wasn’t Cyrus. A fawn haired woman entered, her eyes falling on the girl on the bed, where blood trickled down her cheek, pouring from her nose like a thick liquor. Frowning, she was on high alert as the woman approached, a small, damp cloth in her hand. 

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you honey,” She hushed, approaching the young girl. Bugsy didn’t believe her for one second, her head pulling away from her as far as it could, her eyes wild and distrustful as the woman kneeled down beside the bed. “I’m Kathy,”

Bugsy debated jabbing an elbow in her face then and there, telling her in few words to stay as far away from her as possible, that the moment she was free she didn’t care who she hurt; she was getting out of here even if she had to crawl. 

“That woman’s your sister right?” The blonde said, and the words stopped her heart for a moment, giving the woman the chance to run the cloth over the dribble of blood, “Emily,”

“Where is she?” She tried to ask, but the gag made it little more than a muffled cry, the woman’s eyes turning down in sadness. Pity. Bugsy hated every second of it.

“She’s okay, she’s worried about you though,” Kathy said, wiping under her nose, making her wince at the feeling, “Put up a hell of a fight after they took you away,” 

She must have rolled her eyes, or perhaps it was just telling on her face that that didn’t surprise her as the older woman wiped over the superficial cut on her forehead she hadn’t realised was deep until the cloth went over it and she yawped like a dog having it’s tail pulled. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,��� Kathy cooed, and she seemed genuinely guilty as she did. She tutted, shaking her head, fighting the urge to smooth the girls hair down the way she did when her own daughter was upset, “Emily said they’ll be coming for us at 3am, Cyrus has a mass suicide planned but they think they can stop him, you just have to hold on a little longer honey,” 

“I want to see her,” Bugsy tried to talk again despite her mouth being covered, only for it to come out unintelligible once more. Huffing, she resigned herself to glaring at the ceiling, biting back frustrated tears. Kathy seemed to want to say something else, but thought better of it as the twenty something year old turned away from her to stare out the window, as if she were being dismissed. 

Sighing, she rose from the bed and headed for the door, praying the FBI would get them out in time, before Cyrus put his plan into action. 

–

Bugsy didn’t start panicking until it hit 2:50. She’d managed to kick the small analogue clock on the beside into working, the red numbers seeming to take a millenia to change over. 

Yet it wasn’t until 3am neared, and the hallways remained silent, did she start to wonder if Kathy had been telling the truth at all. What if they had found out Emily and Reid were FBI and not her? What if they’d already been caught?

She really had wanted to see Emily, wanted to scream at the woman, who had meant well, to bring her sister to her or she would make every damn bible basher in this compound regret the day they were born. She felt helpless. She despised feeling helpless. 

It was only when she heard shots rattling from outside did the cold fear set in. 2:52. Any minute now. 

It was then an even worse thought struck her. What if they didn’t bother to come for her? Reid and Emily were safe downstairs, at least that was how Kathy had made it seem. If they got the women and children, the agents out first, she wondered if they would leave her for last since she wasn’t their top priority. 

2:53 stared back at her. 

At least Emily would make it. She was more important, had more going for her. She was supposed to be an only child anyway, mom had said it herself. Bugsy was the product of a failing marriage and a shared bottle of 1896 Bourbon that had been a wedding gift they’d never opened. 

2:54.

She could have sworn she tore something the way her head snapped to the door as it swung open on its hinges, as if two large men had thrown their weight into it. But it wasn’t two men at all, just one frantic Derek Morgan with an FBI grade assault rifle. 

The relief in his eyes was immediate, and he pulled a pocket knife from his boot, rushing over to where she lay, almost in shock, wondering if he was real at all, her heart pounding as she heard shouting in the corridor. 

“I’m gonna get you out, kid,” The man promised, slinging his gun over his shoulder as he sliced through the rope on her ankles, her eyes trained on the 2:55 that watched them as if to laugh at them. 

She whimpered, cursing behind her gag when she heard footsteps pounding through the hallway, and she was sure they were going to get caught. She thought then it would have been better if they’d forgotten about her, that at least Derek would have been safe, and he could have made sure the children got out safely, could have gotten Spencer and Emily medical. 

Derek whirled on the doorway the same as she did as a tall figure all but skidded around the corner, his legs weak as hers felt, too long and not at all built for running. Clumsy almost. 

Spencer. She should have known from the way he looked white as a sheet the moment he saw her it was him, but maybe she really did have concussion, as it seemed within moments he was fussing over her face, tearing a little too sharply at the tape over her mouth. 

She thinks she groaned, or maybe cursed him out, as he started apologising immediately, his eyes a puppy kind of sad as she stared up at him, Derek handing him the knife to cut her arms free. 

He was talking, but she couldn’t make a lot of it out, just that he was really sorry, it was 2:56 now. It was like her brain switched itself back on when she realised she was free, and the two of them were trying to haul her to her feet. 

“Come on, princess, we gotta get out of here,” Derek said, as Spencer looped an arm around her waist, helping her limp across the room where her weak limbs did little to hold her upright, her ribs throbbing with every step, “We managed to stop Cyrus from detonating it manually, but the circuits are all still live,”

Morgan took the lead with the rifle, knowing some of Cyrus’ men had stayed to look for them, that they would go down with the building even though he’d already shot their leader the moment they’d breached the front door, because that was how loyal they were. They’d proven so already with the wine. 

She kept her groans behind tight lips as they made it down the stairs, knowing Spencer didn’t mean to hold her bruised bones so tight, that he was just worried and her legs were doing the bare minimum to keep them both moving very fast. It wasn’t until they made it within a few feet of the door that they seemed to pick up the pace.

And she saw why. 

Jesse, Cyrus’ child bride that had been the reason they’d come here in the first place was holding the detonator, her face tear streaked at the sight of her husband and prophet dead on the floor, the people responsible all but dragging a lame girl through the foyer and to the doors as if they hadn’t killed a handful of her flock tonight. 

Bugsy saw the moment Jesse decided she wanted vengeance on them, but then, she guessed Spencer had already acted as he slung one of her arms over his shoulder, yanking her out the front door in a matter of seconds as Morgan pulled up the rear, and the two men shoved her down behind the small wall outside the church steps. 

Bugsy expected the bang to be louder as the rubble flew over their heads, the floor shaking with the impact of the bomb detonating, and it was then she realised one of Derek’s large warm hands held her head into his shoulder, protecting her already rattled skull as best as he could. Spencer had done the same, throwing half his body over her back as he covered his ears, the two men tucking into the wall tightly and waiting for the dust to settle. 

Spencer started coughing first, though his position over her never faltered, and she heard his chest wheezing, and knew they needed to move away from the thick smog that blew into their faces. Morgan released her ear, tipping her head back to check her over once more. 

“Kid! You okay?” He fretted, noticing the way her nose had started bleeding again from all the movement; the way the bruise had already started blotching her cheek from where Cyrus pistol whipped her. 

“I didn’t think you’d come for me,” Was all she could say, and Derek thought it was the saddest he’d ever heard her. 

Reid was pulling her to her feet then, where he was still hovering over her, despite the fact the blast had already cleared,  still sputtering and hocking up a lung, but it didn’t stop her from throwing herself at his middle, burying her face in his dusty sweater, not caring one bit if he jostled her aching ribs. 

He was trying to be gentle with her as he squeezed her back, but she knew by the way he pressed his face into her hair he needed it just as badly. 

“You saved my life,” He said, his long arms wrapping around her waist, hauling her whole body against his. 

She laughed through a cough, their cheeks brushing past one another as she pulled him in tighter, thankful, relieved. 

“You saved mine,” 

And then she heard Emily. Emily, who sounded frantic and heartbroken as she called for her, her voice breaking as if she was crying, or atleast on the verge of, and as comforting as Spencer’s long arms around her cracked ribs were, she needed to see her sister was okay. 

Ripping herself from his embrace immediately, she tore off after the sound, and there she was. Her older sister, who had always seemed immovable, like she wouldn’t so much as budge for a bucking horse, like water couldn’t drown her, or however many unsubs she’d faced could stop her from catching them. Her older sister, who looked like she’d taken a few punches of her own, judging by the blood on her blue blouse, that looked around the crowd of fleeing people with watery eyes and a shaking bottom lip.

“EMILY,” She yelled, her voice a bleat, a lamb calling for its mother, as she sprinted down the steps, whatever strength she had left carrying her to where Emily was rushing towards her, taking the stairs in threes, “EM-”

She crashed into her sister’s chest, and it was only then she started crying. 

“I swear I’ll never give you trouble again, I’ll never talk back, I’ll never be a bitch ever again-” It was all a slew of mumbles against her sisters shirt, that was beginning to wet through at the rate the tears were coming, “I thought he was going to shoot you-”

“I was so scared, Bug, oh my god,” Emily murmured into her hair, squeezing the life out of her baby sister that sniffled and sobbed, “You don’t ever, ever do that to me again,”

Bugsy shook her head, clawing at Emily’s back as she pulled her closer, feeling Emily stroking her hair softly to calm her even in the slightest. They stayed like that until she managed to wrangle her sobs into little sniffs, the fire burning her eyes where it burned the rest of the church to ashes. 

She stayed with Emily for a month after that. 

+4. The one where you leave the altar. 

She knew she was turning heads, walking down the street of a drizzly day in Virginia, hair wet and sticking to her face, makeup running down her cheeks, and the sodden, dove white wedding dress clasped in her hands as she paced towards the government building. 

Whether the guards recognised her as the Ambassador’s daughter, or whether they really didn’t want to get into it with a bride looking like that on her day, she didn’t know, but they opened the door for her nonetheless, exchanging raised brows as a trail of wet followed her gown over the marble floors. 

Heading up the desk, she flashed her driver's licence, which was enough to gain her a visitors pass she didn’t bother putting to use as she headed for the elevator, her ballet pumps squeaking under the body of the dress. Waiting for the doors to start closing when she finally let a few tears slip, burying her face into her cold, drenched palms, undoubtedly making the mess of mascara even worse. 

Her heart gave a leap when she heard someone stop the doors, hoping she could get to her sister with little delay, and she quickly wiped her face with whatever was left of her pretty, dobby cloth shawl she had yanked on before she’d ran. 

Whatever excuse she was about to give, whatever one liner she was about to drop to clear the awkwardness this agent was about to walk in on was sucked out of her when she saw Spencer staring at her, his briefcase in his hands he’d used to hold the doors, a wide eyed look plastered on his face as soon as he saw her state. 

“Bugsy,” It was somewhere between surprise and sadness, jumping into the elevator before the metal could shut again, the button for the sixth floor already lit up in a ring of red, “What are you- I didn’t even know…”

“Spencer!” As seemed to be a common occurrence between them now, she threw two very cold arms over his shoulders, tugging him for a hug he quickly reciprocated, feeling like she needed it in the moment, “It was so awful, I just couldn’t all those people staring at me, and he- I just feel so-”

“Hey slow down,” He soothed, slipping his favourite cardigan off his body to put over her shoulders, ignoring the way he cringed as it quickly got sodden, “Let’s get you to Emily, I’m sure we can fix this,”

She nodded, though he could tell she was still shaken up, the elevator dinging to a stop on the fifth floor where an agent looked ready to step in, his face dropping when he saw the sight. 

“Sorry, we’re full,” Spencer said, with little room for discussion, pressing the button to close the doors once more, and taking her by the elbow as she began shivering, “We’re gonna be just fine, you look beautiful,”

She laughed sadly with a roll of her eyes, the tears sticking to her cheeks. She knew she looked no better than a drowned rat, windswept and disgruntled, her dress full of muck from the street. 

“Thankyou, Spencer,” She mumbled, the door sliding open to the sixth floor, where Penelope and her everlasting smile greeted her favourite boy genius. 

She almost dropped her glitter pen when she saw the woman stood next to him looking like Dorothy dragged through the twister. 

“Oh you poor little lamb, what has happened to you honey!” She all but cried, the cute little pom poms in her hair bouncing as she brought Bugsy closer, taking her hands tightly. “Your hands are ice! You’ll catch cold with that wet hair, and your gorgeous dress-” 

“Garcia,” Spencer cut her off, though the woman didn’t seem to mind being manhandled into the kind grip, he guessed her state had her letting her guard down, “This is Bugsy, Emily’s little sister.”

Penelope gasped, her ponytails swishing around some more, the gems on her glasses as bright as the light in her eyes as she yanked the younger girl in for a tight hug. 

“It is so nice to meet you! Emily talks about you all the time,” She said, pulling away and fumbling through her pockets for her fresh pink handkerchief she always carried around, mopping up the girl's eyeliner. 

“She-she does?” Bugsy asked, sniffling, her body trembling as the AC beat down through the water ladened on her body. 

“Of course she does, come on, let’s go get you coffee, I have a new machine in my office that makes the best espresso-” Garcia grabbed her hand as if they were kids in the playground, as if she’d known the girl years, which she sort of had. She had, of course, stalked every single one of Emily’s known relatives, even a distant cousin that never left Europe, and that had thrown up the quiet corner of the internet that Bugsy took up.

“I needed to talk to my sister, if that’s okay,” Bugsy braved enough to say, the swishing of her dress on the carpet making her wince, practically hearing the gallon of rain that soaked the expensive fabric. 

“Ofcourse! How silly of me, I’ll bring it out right to you, little bug. You just go with Spencer,” Handing him the handkerchief, she set off towards her ‘bat cave’ in search of a hot beverage for the shivering woman, “Spencer, clean her makeup!” 

He did as he was told, dabbing the water off her face as he led her to the BAU, where Emily and Morgan sat on their desks, chatting as they finished off lunch, Emily flicking through photos on her phone of baby Henry that JJ had sent over to her that morning from maternity leave. 

“He’s just the sweetest little boy, he’s got the biggest blue eyes just like Jayj,” She said through a smile, “You know Will even said-”

“Holy shit-” Morgan cut her off, and she glanced at him, wondering about his use of a curse. Following his eyes over her shoulder, she swivelled in her position to see where Spencer led a very wet, shaken version of her little sister through the doors of the BAU, a snowy ball gown hanging off her, a veil clinging to her hair that had seen much better days. 

“Holy shit,” She agreed, immediately darting for the girl that tugged Spencer’s cardigan tighter to her body, “Bugsy,” 

“Emily, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t take up too much time- I just couldn’t do it- and I know mom’s always saying ‘Bring home a doctor, bring home a rich man,’ but I just couldn’t no matter how rich his daddy is, he wasn’t even too bad-” It all came out in a slur, not making too much sense, and she didn’t stop until Emily held up her hands, as if easing a wild dog. 

“Woah, take it easy, kiddo,” Morgan hushed, as Emily brought a hand over her sister’s cheek, wiping away the last of the mascara, “What happened?”

Bugsy took a deep breath, looking between Emily and Derek, feeling the rain drip down her back. 

“So a few weeks ago, Mom made me go to that stupid debutante ball,” She started, rolling her eyes already as Emily winced, knowing Elizabeth loved any excuse to dress her youngest up like a Barbie doll. 

“I hated those things,” She confessed, shaking her head, “I thought you’d agreed you didn’t have to go to them anymore,”

“That was while I was in college, she said at least I could focus on my studies,” The girl explained, as Garcia tottered back through the office, a steaming cup of coffee in her beloved Bratz mug. Taking it from the chirpy woman, she took a deep gulp, not caring if it burned her mouth as she wished for the damn chill to go away, “Thankyou- But she made me go to this one on the condition she would pay off some of my college loans, and I was dumb enough to fall for her bribe,” 

She huffed, taking another sip, her stomach warming with the hot liquid settling through her throat. 

“You know how she is at these things, she knows everyone, and everyone knows her. I had four guys asking for my dance card within minutes of arriving there, it was like trying to walk through a dog pound wearing a meat suit, all the hand holding, trying to touch my waist- one guy even called me Madam Prentiss,” She grimaced, shuddering at the thought of it, “Madam? No one even calls mom that-”

“Focus,” Emily reminded gently, and she seemed to nod to herself, setting back on track.

“Right. And then he was there. Byron Hastings.” Bugsy said, wrapping her hands around the mug some more. 

“Oh, isn’t he that super yummy bachelor that just inherited his fathers business?” Garcia jumped in, not noticing how it made her wince, “I hear his dad totally owns a bunch of shares in Facebook and as like just signed a deal with a new company that will change the future of computing-” 

“Not now, baby girl,” Morgan said calmly, patting Penelope on her shoulder when she saw the bride’s crestfallen face.

“Right, sorry. Your turn, little bug,” She said, shaking her head and fiddling with her dozen rings. 

“Yeah, that’s him.” She replied, running a slightly warmed finger over her eyelash where rain even collected there, “And you know, I wasn’t complaining, he was certainly easy on the eyes, and he smelled nice, like he just smelled rich, but man alive he was so boring,” She sighed, “I like computers as much as the next girl, no offence, but he didn’t once ask me what I was into or, and when I tried to bring up my degree he just patted me on the head and said ‘That’s nice’ like I was some child that had brought him a pretty colouring or something,”

“Ouch,” Emily grimaced, rubbing her arms over the cardigan to warm her up a little more, “And then?” 

“And eventually, his dad and my mom cut a deal that we’d make a good pair. He said we could be married within the season, and suddenly everyone seemed up for it, and it was like no matter how hard I tried to dig my heels in, no one would listen, and mom just seemed so pleased with me-” She spluttered, sipping her drink to catch her breath, “I just let it happen and just thought, you know, maybe we could learn to like each other, or we could just be like mom and dad and separate in everything but paper,” 

“It’s your life, who is she to tell you how you’re gonna live it,” Emily was outraged, the tip of her nose pink, her dark eyes stormy as her hands fell to her hips, huffing as if it had been her backed into a corner, “I can’t believe she would do this to you,” 

“I was fine with it, really. It's not like its the fifteenth century when I’d be forced to consummate- anyway,” Bugsy rubbed her face, “I just got there, and mom put on my veil and told me I’d make a lovely Mrs Hastings, and just the sound of it- I couldn’t-”

“What on earth is going on?” A new voice cut through the BAU, and the group disbanded like kids caught trading answers to the homework. Rossi and Hotch stood by the unit chief’s office, brows furrowed at the wet bride and his team that tended to her as if she were a princess. 

“Should we be expecting four wet bridesmaids too?” Rossi asked, the two of them making the steps down to the floor, approaching the guilty faced woman, noting Spencer’s cardigan wrapped over her shoulders. 

“Nope, just me,” Her joke fell flat as she met the stony face of Aaron Hotchner, who looked thoroughly unimpressed, “Nice to see you again, Mr Hotchner, sir,” 

His gaze slid to Emily, mouth opening to share whatever scathing remark bounced around his mouth, but the younger girl beat him to it, everyone’s eyebrows raising when she all but cut him off. 

“This wasn’t on Emily, sir, I just showed up out of the blue, I can go- I’ll go- I just need to figure out where I’m staying since I left my purse at the church- don’t you worry I’ll be out of your hair, Aaro- sir,” Bugsy stammered, plonking the mug onto Emily’s desk, backing away to the doors of the office, clutching her visitor pass tight in her fist. 

Maybe it was because she looked so hopeless, or maybe it was the way his team shot him the same look of horror he would be so regimental, or maybe even it was the fact part of her reminded him of Sean, only his brother wouldn’t have had the courtesy to apologise for his mess. 

Sighing, he gestured her to come back, “Wait,” He said her name, her government name because the other one didn’t fit right in his mouth, “Reid, get her some clothes out your go bag. Emily, tell your mother she’s safe and will be staying in Quantico until you can figure something out,” 

Heaving a sigh of relief, she launched her still sodden form at the chief, wrapping him in a stiff hug, bolder than anyone else on the team had ever dared to be. 

“I swear to god, Mr Hotchner, the next letter you're getting will be the best one yet,” She mumbled into his hard chest, and he fought off the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards. Patting her on the back gently, he ignored the way his dress shirt wet through. 

–

let me know what you think! mAYBE A FEW MORE PARTS COMING UP ??

Edit: This is a part one of 3 or 4 I have planned, thankyou so much for all the love on this I did not expect the reaction 🥺🥺

SECOND EDIT: part two and three are out now!! Have a look at the top where it says ‘next chpt and it’s there bbys!!

#spencer reid x reader #Spencer reid imagine #Spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds x reader #Prentiss #prentiss!Reader #criminal minds fanfiction #dr spencer reid #criminal minds fic #spencer reid fanfiction #mathew grey gubler #Matthew grey gubler x reader

[heavyhitterheaux]

Got Me Thinking

Part 1: Butterflies

Synopsis: a reunion that is well overdue makes your heart flutter once you lay eyes on your first love in more than ten years and the feelings that you thought were long gone come rushing back

Pairing: Jack Harlow x Reader

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

Sighing to yourself, you quickly pulled out your phone and started looking for plane tickets to head back home to Louisville. It had been a little while since you had been back, but your biggest reason for going was to get away from him.

Him being your husband, Xavier.

The two of you had been married for only three years, but you were over it. You had come to the realization that the person you married was long gone and that there really was no hope left. The less that you were around him, the better.

You knew he was cheating on you and you recently discovered that he had gotten another woman pregnant and that she was due in less than a month.

He had no idea that you knew all of that information and since you found out, you had just been biding your time and had since opened up another bank account to save money in order to plan to get away from him.

The goal was to move back to Louisville so that you could be closer to your parents and siblings who stayed there while you were the only one that left.

Booking your flight, you closed your phone to begin packing since you would literally be leaving within the next few hours. At this point, you were desperate and longing for a peaceful environment.

You knew that he wouldn't ask any questions about where you were and it seemed as if it had gotten to the point where the two of you were simply roommates and you were completely okay with that.

It had been almost a week since you had seen him anyway.

A quick text was sent to your mom to let her know to expect you around midnight and she quickly responded back in excitement.

The plan was to divorce him by the end of this year because then you would have more than enough money to live off of for the time being once you moved back. Truth be told, you had enough money now, being a CRNA had its perks and it helped that you lived in California which had the highest pay for nurses because of the cost of living. Moving to Louisville would definitely be a pay cut, however you didn't even care. You just wanted to get away from him.

–

When you had finally touched down in Louisville at midnight, you told your mom not to worry about getting you from the airport but she insisted and wouldn't take no for an answer.

Once you slid into the passenger seat of her car after throwing your suitcase in the back, she immediately eyed you which made a sigh escape from your lips.

“Hi to you too, mother.”

“I'm just waiting until the divorce is finalized so that I can throw you a party.” She said while following behind the other cars headed towards the highway.

“By the end of the year. I told you that already.”

“But what are we waiting for? Anything that you need, you know me and your dad will support you until you get settled back here in Louisville. He is a piece of shit and I'm tired of him treating my daughter as if she isn't the best thing to happen to his ungrateful ass.”

“He wasn't always like this.”

“I know because if he was, ain't no way in hell he would have gotten my approval to marry you.” Your mother replied with her voice slightly raised and you simply sighed.

“You deserve so much more and it is hard seeing my youngest child so unhappy all the time. So, I'm just going to say it.”

“MOM!” You replied turning to her with wide eyes because you knew what was going to happen next and what she was going to say because she said it every single time that you talked to her on the phone or facetime.

“Jack wouldn't have treated you like this.”

“Will you ever let that go? We broke up more than 10 years ago! It was a mutual decision!”

“Well it needs to be a mutual decision for yall asses to get back together. Jack is the only son-in-law that I'm going to acknowledge at this point and I am waiting for the proposal. See? It's meant to be. I don't like his wife and I don't like your husband. There, that settles it.”

Any time that someone mentioned Jack, your heart immediately began to race and the butterflies in your stomach increased tenfold.

The two of you decided to end your relationship after dating from your freshman year in high school all the way up until senior year. It wasn't because either of you wanted to, it just was what was best. You were going to nursing school and Jack was trying to become a rapper and get a record deal and move to Atlanta. When you sat down and thought about it, the two of you could have made it work, but the last thing you wanted was for him to feel like he was being held back by you in any shape or form.

You saw how successful he was and was proud of him and never counted him out for a minute despite what people were saying around the two of you.

“Wait, pause. When did he get married?!”

“Talk about a delayed reaction. But it only happened about ten months ago. You and Xavier were umm… starting to have your issues so I didn't mention it. I met her when I went to meet Maggie for lunch and she gave me… What's that word yall use now? The ick. And in not so many words when Maggie and I went to lunch, she told me she didn't like her either and that he should have married you. Jack even LOOKS unhappy. But you didn't hear that from me. Do what you want with that information. I mean you could always go over to Maggie and Brian's. It seems like he's always there and never at home. I wouldn't be at home either with someone like that.”

“Mom! Quit it. I am here to…”

“Get away from your cheating ass husband who is also about to have a baby on you? Go and get the man who has wanted you since you were fourteen.”

All you did was sigh because you knew deep down that your mother was right. But, you still had hesitations in the back of your mind. You highly doubt that Jack still felt the same about you all these years later. Besides, he had a whole wife and you could admit that your mother could be extra dramatic at times, so why would he marry her if he didn't even like her?

“Okay, changing the subject. What do you want to eat when we get home?”

“Mom, it's one in the morning.”

“So? What time do stomachs open?”

–

Later on in the day when you had gotten some much needed sleep, you had a craving for some Italian food and decided to go to a restaurant not too far from your parents’ house and get your order to go. Your all time favorite, Vincenzo's.

In order to make it so no one in your house had to cook dinner, you took it upon yourself to get something for everyone. You had already placed your order and was waiting for it as you were scrolling on your phone, when suddenly you heard someone call your name from behind.

“Y/N?”

Once you looked up and turned around, you came face to face with no one other than Jack's younger brother Clay. Who you hadn't seen since you left Louisville to go to nursing school.

“Well look who it is and who is all grown up. Hi, Clay.” You responded while giving him a hug. You remember him wanting to be just like Jack and would want to follow him around everywhere.

“Just visiting or moving back like your parents want?” He asked and all you could do was roll your eyes because you knew your mom would tell anyone who would listen.

“Oh, so she's literally made it known to everyone that they want me to move back, but just visiting for right now. Had a taste for some Italian so here I am.”

“What are you doing tonight? Are you busy by any chance?” Clay asked, catching you off guard. Your only plans were to drink wine and watch tv until you passed out for exhaustion.

You simply shook your head no towards him.

“Well, it's Jack’s birthday and we’re throwing a surprise party for him and Urban. You should come. I know he would be happy to see you.”

You didn't even realize that it was in fact March 13th.

“Clay, I don't know. We haven't seen each other in over ten years.”

“All the more reason to come. Just…. trust me on this. He would want you there and I won't get knocked upside the head for his gift not being here on time and I'll just say that you're the gift.” All you did was laugh and shake your head.

It wouldn't totally be a bad thing to see him, but what would you say when you did?

The butterflies were erupting in your stomach again and you looked back up at Clay before you talked yourself out of it.

“What time and where is it?”

—

Your older sister, Janelle was currently with you in your childhood bedroom helping you decide what to wear and of course she was picking out the more revealing outfits while you were simply trying to be modest.

“Put them titties on display! Show him what he’s been missing!” She yelled and you simply looked at her and rolled your eyes.

“You are literally the worst and I should have asked Jeremiah.”

“Should have asked me what?” Your older brother and the middle child, Jeremiah asked as he popped his head into your room.

“What the? Since when do you live here?” You asked, confused by his sudden appearance.

“Well damn, I can’t come and see my baby sister when she’s here anymore? And besides, Janelle texted me and said you were going to a certain ex’s birthday party. So, I needed to find out the details and especially when the wedding date is.”

“Because Janelle cannot keep her mouth shut to save her life and yes I am. And wait a minute, WEDDING DATE? You two are just as insane as our mother.”

“She won’t dress slutty though as I’m suggesting.” Janelle said while rolling her eyes at you.

“You want my ass and boobs out like I’m not going to freeze.”

“Hoes don’t get cold.” She fired back, but you quickly gave it right back to her.

“I’m anemic.”

“You know you’ve always been it for him. I mean my baby sister is the shit and he let you get away and is now married to… umm…. Someone that is not on his level.” Jeremiah said as he went over to your vanity to pick out jewelry that you would wear despite you not having an outfit.

Jeremiah was definitely the fashionista out of the three of you and you knew for a fact if he wasn’t an orthopedic surgeon that he would definitely be doing big things in the fashion industry.

“So, all of you have met her?!”

“And it was not a pleasant experience and one that had left a good first impression.”

Janelle got up to rummage through your suitcase and found a black halter top that she paired with tan cargo pants and proceeded to throw your New Balance 550’s at you that matched.

“Here, go put this on. Your boobs are going to be spilling out the top in this.”

“Did I ever tell you two how much you both get on my nerves?”

“All the time, but it’s a good thing that we don’t care. Now it’s time to catch us a man.”

“He’s married.”

“And so are you. And both of you are miserable. Hurry up and make this happen, we have a wedding to plan.”

It was now 8 PM and you were sitting in the passenger’s seat of Clay’s car and the two of you were headed to where the surprise party was going to be held and he noticed how much you kept fidgeting.

“Y/N, it’s going to be fine. I know he misses you even if he doesn’t want to admit it at times. He is always asking our mom if she had talked to your mom lately and always asked how you were doing.”

“Really?”

All Clay did was nod his head as he slowed down to a complete stop at the red light in the intersection.

“Look, I… know he probably doesn’t want you to know this, but I’m telling you anyway.”

“Tell me what?” Now you could feel your heart rate speeding up.

“When he found out that you were married that broke him even though he was trying to put up a front and now he probably won’t admit it if someone asked him. He has never moved on from you.”

“Clay…. He’s married so, obviously he did move on.”

“Hmm, if you could call it that.” He responded while snorting and trying to find a place to park so that the two of you could head inside.

“Wait, what?”

“You know from the start that we were always rooting for you two to be together. Even our parents were.”

“Clay, I did not come here to break up a marriage.”

“I… it’s already broken despite it not even being an entire year yet, but you didn’t hear that from me. But Jack has to see it for himself. Anyway, we’re here. And if nothing else tonight puts a smile on his face, I know you will when he sees you. His wife might show up, she might not… she’s a piece of work.”

“All of you give me entirely too much credit. I am nothing special.”

“Ask Jack if he feels the same way and I guarantee that he’s going to say that you are.”

The two of you walked in and Clay had mentioned that Jack and Urban were going to be there within the next ten minutes and now your butterflies were starting all over again as they erupted once more in your stomach.

When PG saw you, you were placed into bone crushing hugs and it was expressed how much you had been missed around Louisville, especially from Jack and that once he laid eyes on you that it would be a done deal.

Clay told you to hide to the side in the back corner as PG was in front of you so that when Jack walked in, he wouldn’t be able to see you until everyone moved out of the way. He planned on everyone screaming ‘surprise’ when both of them walked in and then telling him that he wanted to start the party off right by showing him a gift that he had been patiently waiting for, and that gift was you.

It was now quiet in the room that the party was taking place and the lights had been shut off and you heard Jack and Urban mumbling to each other while trying to find the light switch. Once they did, everyone screamed ‘surprise!’ and the two of them were all smiles.

This was the first time that you had laid eyes on Jack in person in more than ten years and the butterflies erupted once more. He looked so good and it felt that your heart was about to beat out of your chest.

Clay had walked over towards him to give him a hug and then whispered in his ear and you were assuming that he was telling him about the so-called “gift” and the two of them started to walk towards where you were casually standing behind Ace and 2fo.

“I know that this will probably be your most favorite birthday gift that I’ve ever gotten you.” You heard Clay say and you simply smirked and laughed to yourself.

“Hmm, I’ll be the judge of that.” You heard him answer and it was now go time.

“Okay, Ace and 2fo, move out of the way so that he can see his surprise. I made this happen by the way, just so you know.” Clay said and Jack immediately rolled his eyes before laughing.

Once Ace and 2fo moved, Jack came face to face with you and it seemed to be speechless and it was as if he couldn’t believe that you were standing in front of him.

“Happy thirtieth birthday, Jackman, or should I say Jackson? Did you miss me?”

#jack harlow #jack harlow fic #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow x black reader #jack harlow fanfic #jack harlow fanfiction #jack harlow fluff #jack harlow imagine #jack harlow imagines #jack harlow angst #jackman thomas #jackman thomas harlow

[babyharleezy]

I got a request based off the song Price of Fame by Brent Faiyaz.

Let’s say Jack’s been with the reader for awhile now but he’s got everyone coming at him and saying how he needs to dump the reader because she doesn’t match his image ( she’s more nerdy and not into the spotlight ) and they tell her that she changes her image or Jack’s leaving her ( jack doesn’t know they told her this ) so they take her shopping ( anybody really maybe Neelam and Metta ) and the following day she dresses up all nice and shit and Jack loves it so the reader gets happy and buys more and more nice clothes but in time Jack sees that she isn’t happy or as comfortable in her clothes anymore like she use to be.

THE BIBLE VERSE 😭😭😭 I’m so sorry that’s literally so long

price of fame

bloo's notes: my number 1 hater requested this so i just had to do it for her 😻 i changed it up a bit, i hope you don’t mind!

tag list: @creme-delacreme @harlowcomehome @sealpuptrash @moody4world @thinkingaboutjharlow @harlowsbby @charli123456789 @lcandothisallday @mx-daisy @heavyhitterheaux

your relationship with jack wasn’t a secret, you were with him before the fame. he was always so grateful to have you since you were there from the beginning, he knew you were with him for him and not just his money or fame.

you and jack had so much in common. the two of you both enjoyed reading books on your downtime, but the whole world didn’t know that. the world didn’t see you like jack did. he loved how grounded you kept him, you were smart, beautiful, funny, the list could go on.

many people assumed that you and jack didn’t match each other’s energy. truth be told, the two of you were goofballs when around one another. head over heels in love with each other. but of course, the internet didn’t see what your close friends and family seen.

you couldn’t help but take the mean comments to heart. jack assured you that you didn’t need to change anything about yourself. these people didn’t know anything about you yet they disliked you.

but you knew that a change was needed. you wanted to match his persona a bit more. you knew he was a “nerd” but he didn’t look like one. you on the other hand were more relaxed on your outfits, you focused on comfort. cute but still comfy was your motto. so you mostly lived in jacks clothes and he didn’t mind one bit. he still thought you were the finest person he had ever laid his eyes on.

it seemed as if everywhere you looked, people were telling jack that he should leave you. or that you weren’t good enough for jack. you would be lying if you said that it didn’t cause a strain in your relationship sometimes.

one day you finally had enough of it, you called neelam and metta and asked if they could help you with a little makeover, jack had no idea. at first they were hesitant because they knew the hate comments had been at an all time high but they saw how excited you were and couldn’t not help you.

so after a few hours of shopping and meta and neelam helping you pick the perfect outfits out, you made your way home. since jack was taking you out to dinner, you decided it would be the perfect time to wear the tight fitted, short black dress. it left nothing to the imagination. you paired it with some black high heels, the complete opposite of your beat up air forces.

you made your way downstairs and met with jack. he looked at you, confusion written across his face.

“hey baby, you look beautiful. this is definitely new” he said, touching the tiny black dress.

“figured i would try something new, you like?” you said to the talk kentuckian standing in front of you. he wasn’t buying what you were selling. but he let it go for the time being.

“you always look stunning babe. no glasses?” he asked referring to the missing frames.

“i just decided to start wearing my contacts more” you said with a shrug.

your boyfriend of many years, didn’t understand why you decided to change your style so drastically, so fast.

he could tell that you were uncomfortable the entire night. you were pulling down on your tiny dress which stopped right at your ass. you knew that if you pulled down too much that you would have a nip slip but if you pulled up too much then your ass would be out on display. your shoes were also killing you. but you played it off as much as you could.

slowly but surely as some time went on, your style changed more and more. you wore clothes that showed off your curves and assets. jack never complained but he just knew you weren’t doing this for you.

one night he decided to confront you on it.

“baby can you come here please?” jack hollered from the kitchen. you happily made your way to the kitchen, wrapping your arms around his neck. jack picked you up and placed you on the island, you were sitting right in front of him, his body standing right in between your legs.

“what’s up babe? you okay?” you asked, brows furrowed.

“i’m good. but are you good?” he asked. you were confused now.

“yeahh i’m good? why?” confusion laced your voice.

“y/n what’s going on? why are you dressing different? i can tell this is out of your comfort zone” he asked, his voice softening.

“i thought you liked it? i was just trying something new” you said quietly, not making eye contact with him. now he knew you were lying.

“when did we start lying to each other?” jack asked.

you felt guilty now. “jack. i’m being serious. i just wanted to try something new” you huffed out, you were about to hop off the counter but jacks grip on your sides stopped you from moving.

you knew you had to tell him.

“fine. i was just feeling a little bad. i see all those comments about us. you deserve someone who fits you more. someone who looks like they belong with you. let’s be real, i don’t look like i belong with you.” you said, head hung low, tears threatening to spill out.

“oh baby, i knew something was up. i wish you would’ve told me about this sooner. i didn’t think this is why you were upset. i love you, i only have love for you. you are my girl, forever and always. i don’t care what people say about us. you and i are the same people. just because you don’t dress like all these instagram models doesn’t mean shit. you are the only person who fits with me. i love you y/n” jack said, placing a kiss on your lips.

at this point you were a hot mess, tears streaming down your face and everything.

“i love you jack, i just didn’t wanna sabotage your image or anything so i thought changing my appearance would help” you said.

“nahhh you’re fine a fuck even when you’re wearing my shirt and some of my sweats. especially when you’re wearing my clothes. makes me horny as hell” jack laughed out.

you couldn’t help but roll your eyes at his comment.

the hate comments were always gonna be there. it was the price of fame but jack would always be there to reassure that you are always gonna be his. no matter what.

#jack harlow #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow fluff #jack harlow imagine #jack harlow x you #jack harlow concept #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow blurb #jack harlow fic

[irlstein]

I Wanna Suck Maya Kamina's Big Fat Tits

Fast rundown for men with wives and wives with men: I took most of a year off to recover from late-stage Twitter intolerance that I'm pretty sure was giving my blood some sort of pH poisoning, I hope you guys have been doing well and apologize for the lack of communication.

Slow Rundown For True Jackheads - Much Longer Than It Has To Be, You Can Just Say Jack Was Taking Care Of Family And Had A Breakdown:

Howdy guys, been a few months. Had a lot happen in this last year - when I took my break, I'd begun watching my Uncle Gary on a daily basis, who is a stroke survivor left unfortunately incapable of complex speech, and with no strength in his left side. My Uncle Gary and I didn't have much of a relationship before this, but I'd taken on the task of moving into his trailer while he was recovering at his sister's - she lives just in town, it's a ten minute drive, but there was no feasible way for him to get in and out of his own house - for about two years. In that time I'd basically had a deal going with the family that I'd watch Uncle Gary for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, once he had the lift installed at his home that would let him come and go without too much hassle. I'd clean his trailer up for him, because he was a mega-bachelor with three girlfriends and so much backed-up old food from habitual boredom shopping that the place was a damn mess, bugs and rats in the back of the cupboards shit, and they'd disregard the bump in utilities to having someone actually in the house because I'd also keep the place from getting robbed, as he had a bunch of guns and gun parts stored there. It was a pretty fair deal for everyone involved, and while I really only stayed there about 2/3 of the time, it was enough that I really couldn't justify bouncing if the dude needed me, and I've been watching disabled family pretty much daily for 5 years now - so it seemed like a small life change.

Then COVID hit and the three months I was gonna be at his house, as stated prior, ballooned out to about two years, and at some point there began to be some sentiment that Uncle Gary was now annoyed by the idea of living with me - despite me being a patently temporary tenant there for his benefit, with literally two other homes in walking distance I could be living at, as I've got a lot of family in town. I could also get an apartment or something, you get the idea, I just wasn't actually enthused to be there and it was pretty inconsiderate to turn my very blatantly and clearly elaborated, regularly checked upon for the comfort of all concerned, act of well-meaning against me. My grandpa died when I was 5, Uncle Gary's brother, and everyone always talks about how much my grandpa loved me, so it seemed natural I'd just do whatever his brother needed when he was in a time of need.

From there, thing got sour for a while - we never came to blows, only really argued once or twice, but my Uncle Gary's obvious ennui at his turn in health had bluntly made him kind of an ungrateful dick to everyone. Now, let me state here - I stayed with and watched him for about six months following when he came home. It just grew more and more difficult to bear with the situation as I'd talk to him, interpret for him, make him whatever he wanted for dinner, crack jokes, fix computer problems, invest all of my daily energy into making him comfortable - and caught him talking shit on me behind my back. Little stuff - "So Jack's a good cook?" "Ehhhhhh." "Jack's taking good care of you huh? Your blood sugar's been good all week." "Ah well," little shit like that, negging on top of a totally unpaid position I'd volunteered for on the very day he went to the hospital because I'd spent the ages of 22 - 24 watching my mom as she recovered from a real bad car accident and since I've always made money online, it just seemed natural to volunteer my maid services the moment someone else in the family needed the same kind of health.

But fuck, man. It really hurt to be treated how he treated me, because there was contempt there. He was always cool to his sister, my great Aunt, who I visited every week with my grandma to do chores for because she and her husband are, themselves, old and disabled - replaced her kitchen ceiling, watched her dogs, lawnwork, cooking, whatever they needed I would insist upon doing, so there was infinite evidence in supply that I was not a malicious opportunist here, just a younger relative trying to help everyone he could. Uncle Gary didn't give a fuck, he snapped at me, basically laughed at people who suggested he should pay me for my time, and the family dawdled on the job of hiring home healthcare for so long that it looked like I was really expected to just stay there and keep doing this.

And honestly, I kind of flattened. I've always been a depressed guy, chronic nightmares do that to you, and it's easier to crumple to your circumstances than it is to challenge them when challenging them means telling a crippled relative who sees you as a leech that he'll need another 24/7 cook and care provider. I started sleeping all day until he called on me; I developed a nervous tic whenever I heard his walker because that meant he was gonna walk past my bedroom door, glance in skeptically, and call me out for another task I'd have to spend ten minutes guessing and interpreting to understand, because (No fault of his) the guy could basically only give very general positive or negative affirmations, and got very angry very quickly when misinterpreted. So I sort of just stopped thinking about the future and wallowed in this cold trailer, uncomfortable all day, talking to my friends less and working less, just getting more cold and static and dead as the days went on. Let me be clear, I'm not "the true victim" in this discussion about a dude who had a stroke, but I am a mentally soft dude who didn't have a lot of happy feelings to draw on and could easily be bullied by circumstance into shutting down; I did.

Then Rachele, the lady who came to clean up Uncle Gary's apartment, started working for him to do basically my job, and I made plans to leave. And they got a home healthcare service going, got another lady to fill in some of the time Rachele couldn't be there for, and things were on an incline, life was getting normal and I was getting my head straight again.

Then my grandma nearly died of a heart attack when we came home from a family reunion. She was carrying KayKay, her granddaughter, into the house, and suddenly started sweating and groaning in pain. I knew something had happened, her doctor had told her not to carry anythign heavy and KayKay was nearly half her size because my grandma's such a small lady. Specifically, something happened that dumped a bunch of blood into her intestines, and she needed a triple bypass. That was a really hard night; my grandma, already in her 70s, had a major injury, but for hours she denied it. I sat there with her in her living room, watching my Uncle Pete's daughter, as she just lay on the couch and insisted that she just needed to rest. I checked her blood pressure - again and again, a dozen times, always going down. I reminded her that it's not normal to feel sudden, agonizing pain in your stomach when you lift a toddler, followed by going pale and losing massive blood pressure. "I just need some salt," she said. "That blood pressure reader is always wrong, must be the batteries," she muttered a dozen times in that span, clearly growing delerious. I ran to Uncle Gary's and grabbed his blood pressure cuff, and the results were even worse, and she still shrugged it off. I sat there with her for three hours, pestering her, threatening to call an ambulance and being shut down, until I finally called her daughter, who happened to be a nurse and long-time hospital worker. Finally, at her daughter's terrified reaction at her mother clearly ignoring a fatal wound, grandma agreed to go to the hospital.

And I was just sitting there for the rest of the night, with this little kid who didn't know me. Trying to keep her from crying, calling everyone I could to spread the news, sweaty and cold and just scared that it was all starting over again, that the relentless years of awful shit just happening to me and my family had never ended, this sense that there was a cosmic bullseye on my scrote I'd dealt with in silence since my childhood reaching critical terror as it was now fucking killing people in front of me. I'm superstitious; at times, I become inclined to believe I'm living in hell. But in hell, you're not there to save your grandma, and in hell, kids are a lot more rude than sweet little KayKay; read her a few stories and put on Miraculous Ladybug, and she chilled out.

Then the fucking waiting game started over, because grandma had significant plaque build-up in her arteries, whatever those important ones in the sides of your neck are, and couldn't even have her heart surgery until that was taken care of. She was in there for weeks, and once she did get the triple bypass, she was in there for even longer, and all of her recovery was just above touch-and-go - still is, technically, that's a major surgery and it takes a long time to actually heal from at her age. For the sake of what timeline I can remember, my ability to recall events in order is a little compromised by the bad sleep, this began about a week after I posted that Joe Biden meme. That was attempt #3 or so to come back, and I remember I'd been in a really good mood about it. There were other problems, mostly drugs in the family, but until that point I really thought we'd all been improving and life was finally just getting better.

With that I moved out, having been asked to watch her trailer - though I'd bet it was clear to everyone that I was just miserable at Uncle Gary's but unwilling to leave, and this was a convenient opportunity to force me to make a positive change. Grandma's a real good lady, nobody in town would get away with robbing her, but she insisted I bring my stuff over and watch the place until she could come home - she left for Alabama so her daughter's family could keep her under close observation, a very good decision given she was stubborn enough that she'd probably try mowing the lawn the very day she came home. And so for a few months I stayed there, mostly on the incline, working every day and trying to build good habits. I started walking a few miles a day, lost a lot of weight, and again, things were on the incline. I moved to my Uncle Pete's next door, got a real living arrangement figured out with my own space and my own contributions to the upkeep of the household, and things were on the incline. In-between, I lost a lot of my time filling in for Rachele as she watched dogs, going back to Uncle Gary's for a few weeks at a time and filling in about three nights a week - still gratis, though I was filling in for paid employees - on the average week, because he was my neighbor and Rachele had other obligations. I do not mean to imply anyone abused my sympathy; merely that I was unwilling to admit that my sympathy was increasingly costing me and I foolishly ignored the simply reality that this was keeping my life from going forward, that there were other options for them and that I really didn't need to invest all of my spare time into watching a guy who had genuinely shown me reproach and treated me like an unwanted little boy for trying to take care of him. Full credit, Uncle Gary's gotten better since then and clearly regrets having pushed many people away, myself merely a single example among most of his friends and family, and the constant understanding that his suffering was worse than mine just made it impossible for me to take my own priorities seriously. Improvement. Still, overall, improvement, and I was feeling good. I started making daily projects and completing tasks at a rapid pace, all of my time filled, nothing to do besides do for myself and for others. It was honestly really good, the last four months or so kept me in no state to return to socializing, but I was doing well enough that I'd be back eventually, I knew it.

Then the night terrors came. This is a recent problem, started about two months ago - see, I use a bit of Delta-8 here and there. I inherited pretty severe anhedonia from my mom, who smoked weed her whole life and will again when she can, and so to be blunt - heh, I didn't know food tasted good. I mean, until the first time I had about 10mg in my system, I didn't realize what my problem actually was - constant, cold, painful stress feedback in my head. Like body-level anxiety in my brain that never goes away. And the first time I ate food with a mild buzz, I got the best news I'd had in my entie life -

People weren't lying. Life could feel good. On a very real level, from childhood to mid-20's, I had never experienced pleasure on a level you would describe as noticeable, and with the regular migraines and nightmares, my perception of existence really was based entirely upon a paradigm of suffering through, until some small miracle convinced me to keep living. I used to look forward to the bad headaches, because they'd make me sweat, raise my heart rate, and force enough of an adrenalin reaction that I felt smooth and calm afterwards. I really had gone twenty-plus years assuming people lied about how good it could feel to be able to feel good things, thought it was an act of nihilistic denial to keep us all from committing to mutual suicide in a world where you can count on hurting any time but there's just no equivalent joyful inverse to a bad headache. This began near the last 4 months of me watching my Uncle Gary, and let me be clear, I wasn't spending all day stoned - in general, I had this very severe pro-lucidity rationale going from childhood, because my grandpa died of lung cancer and that tied a permanent sort of trauma to cigarettes, thus drugs in general, into my reasoning. But I did make a big mistake - I got too used to spending my time buzzed.

You see, when you're like me, your dopamine levels are naturally very low regardless of your health. But you have no basis of reference, because your entire life goes like this - you never really believe you're depressed, because you have no basis of reference. Or rather, your basis of reference is between "buffer" and "misery" - misery is always going to happen, but if you've got a buffer, like YouTube videos, good porn, something funny to watch, you can raise your heartrate a bit and go a whole day without a breakdown. You can force a sliver of resistance between yourself and this moment of collapse you can always feel on the horizon, and you convince yourself that everyone uses the internet to cope and that you're just a darker shade of normal.

But when you're like me, you don't get a reprieve from your own biology. Your ability to feel good is permanently subnatural - you've got a 20% debuff to being alive, and rest never makes you feel better. You're the kind of person who, despite not being a schizophrenic, could potentially fall out of reality in an act of severe pessimistic paranoia so intense that it starts to break how you think, all the while acting normal enough that nobody really notices you.

That's what happened - my theory is, months of improved dopamine output made me lax, made me forget that you don't just fix what my problem is by feeling good enough for long enough that you fix your head. Oh the philosophical problems work themselves out that way, I finally accepted that I should find a girl and start a family, move from hobby comedian to someone who really tries to help people, but in all that time your real buffer is depleting. You forget that so much of your enjoyment comes from the context of a decade solid of suffering, and for reasons as spiritual as biological, you start to lose appreciation for being. Yes, I surely thought, this was it, I found proof that life is worth living, I'll never break again, it's all good from here on out. No, what you do is actually reduce your body's dopamine sensitivity by a lot, and lose enough weight to get your energy back, meaning you feel just a bit manic during your active hours, and again, your guard drops. It's all good from here, you found the SECRET dude, there really is good in life, you can abandon the watchhound complex and treat the world like a place that's glad to have you. You're not just here to be someone else's buffer, you're part of history, born at the first age of prosperity in which a man might actually become immortal and live in space.

Then your first apocalpyse nightmare hits. Like every nightmare, it starts off as a dream and decomposes - you're around old classmates, happy to see them. And random explosions begin going off around the city - someone next to you dies, and you've already forgotten her face. You look at the cityscape and a massive spaceship shaped like a flaming steel crown crashes into the atmosphere and stops just above the buildings, the shockwave of its passage feeling completely and utterly real. You wake up, and the numbness you feel in your sleep abates, so the horror hits you. It's 2PM and you get over it; you always have nightmares when you sleep too late.

Then the next - you're at the pool and someone steps on some moldy-green crystals growing on the damp concrete. They pierce her foot at the heel, and spread oily-black corruption under her skin. In your mind, you know it's a fungus somehow, that it'll grow inside of her and kill her, something like Splinter for those of you who've seen that old Syfy original film. You wander around, everyone you see is family or a friend, and they're all murmuring that it's growing everywhere, people getting little jabs here and there, it's practically unavoidable. There's an abstract diversion - you're running through a yard and some old Green Day track is playing, a blonde woman dressed up as a cheerleader and she just makes you feel weird and uncomfortable because she's poking out of the side of a shed, and you've never had a good dream, so seeing pretty women never goes anywhere. Then you pass through the fence and see an old black woman, somebody's mother or grandma or favorite teacher, and you know months have passed - the crystalline mold, whatever it is, is poking out of her face and joints. She's still alive, walking down the road with a walker, and you realize with terror that this would only happen in a world where people have accepted it - the mold is going to kill us all, and walking down the street riddled like a fucking pincushion is just a trivial aspect of everyday life in the latter hours of mankind. You saw it begin, and it's already fucking over, and you barely had a moment to want to try to stop it. Then she's dancing in front of a camera, pirouetting like a ballerina, totally consumed by sharp growths as onlookers watch her in amazement, more possessed by interest in the utter ruination and decay and whatever entertainment it can offer them than trying to survive. Mankind is now living in an era of having accepted their deaths, but in the most disgusting and reprehensible manner possible, seeing the decay as merely another aspect of their media diets, TikTok in the final second of every family's history. They didn't try hard enough, and now they're indulging in the decay.

You wake up and you're hit by a TIDAL WAVE - a thought strikes you off-balance in the distance between cognitive reality and awareness, screaming ALL LIFE IS MERELY THE RESULT OF CIRCUMSTANCE WHICH HAS LEFT IT UNALTERED, Cthulhu screaming empty materialist philosophy that you can already feel is wrong. No it's not; life is adaptive, either arising naturally from worlds devoid of life or being designed by things which were already alive to have done so, the animating force of reality already being intrinsic. We are not merely mathematical outcomes aggregating across successes, were are aware and experiential, we feel disgusted moreso than afraid of descriptions which reduce us to processes because it's paramountly deluded to pretend life isn't aware and full of intent. Life FIGHTS - life is not merely outcomes, as outcomes are merely observation, an artifical description of reality reduced to verbal description to the same degree that the word Earth describes a literal location and leaves out infinite amounts of data provably unrecorded by and unaccounted for in the description. Further, mathematics are often used to defuse romantic thought, but math is merely patterns within observability - to believe everything is math is ridiculous because math is an emotionally neutered descriptor of forces, not the source of forces. Math exists because reality persists, reality does not persist because of the observable patterns we've divorced from emotion and called math, which is a stupid fucking philosophical trap for us to wander into by-the-way and causes problems every day for people with existential fears. It's not that the sentiment was philosophically superior and overwhelmed my beliefs, but that it hit me just as I was senseless, a tactically calculated malice with no intention but to disable with steep fear, leaving you at the bottom of a frozen whirlpool.

And so that's where I was. For weeks. Every answer I came up with was met with temporary success and then the return of the whirlpool - I say "Life is valuable because it unalterably exists, no one can declare it does not affect reality materially and thus have significance; claiming it is insignificant is like claiming concrete is insignificant." And that puts the fear on pause. Then, the next day, another nigthmare as you awaken - you're above the universe and looking too far, in every direction, disenchanted and terrified because on some irrational level you assume that there being what we assume are consistent patterns means there's an upper floor caging in reality's value, only so many things to do. You imagine the immense fucking scale of not just our galaxy but others, and for the first time, it comforts you - we haven't even seen the core of the Earth. This argument is bullshit; a reality not woven with consistency at some level is pure chaos, and insignificance abounds where nothing persists. Indeed, it's infinitely more arguable than the opposite to say that a reality with a great degree of predictability is valuable to us, as it allows us to gain power merely through understanding, while our bodies could never meet the task of raising us to a great status during our lives because evolution simply moves very slowly; everyone has the hope of seeing the world change for the better, in all of their lives, because this world has traction, and rules we somehow are not born with an understanding of despite being born from it, but can embrace the minutiae of and develop a place in reality through. Knowledge is beautiful; abandoning sentiment is the highest curse. You know this is the case. You've stabbed the Devil in the stomach and retained your self.

But it keeps coming back, merely restating itself. Never presenting a cogent argument, because this is not a demon, this is you, this is you stuck in a decay cycle in all of your emotional attachments as you no longer have THC in your system and feel cold doubt that all the warmth and love you've come to recognize in the world might betray you and be baseless, vibrations upon ash. This is stupid; that things with individuality, capable of both deferring and embracing life, exist shows that reality itself is not dead but very active, you do not fear dying because you become nothing, but because you prize you. Sentiment and selfishness and the beauty of self-sacrifice, things that require an ounce of impractical irrationality, exist, and you are not an ant. If it was all just for outcomes, you would be an ant - a hollow box that notices nothing. There is no need for emotional prongs to guide a being with no free will; that you observe is already an evolutionary indulgence, and that you do not live for the pack is an inherent compromise upon the endpoint of human survivability. You are not an educated man, but even the barest pop science reveals to you that reality is vulnerable, but vital - we are only at the barest edge of intellectual awareness, but already so vibrantly different from what and how we could be. It doesn't matter that there's no floor to outer space, that you are tiny, because the stories all happen here, on the worlds - you already exist upon the stage of history, and your value is not up for discussion, merely enrichment. Cthulhu can suck your fucking cock; it would feel good and make him embarrassed, things far beyond outcomes aggregating blindly. You have discovered an iron-hard belief now in the soul, in the value of the future, and for the first time in your life you feel as if your presence in the world has boots on, settled firmly upon the floor of reality - it isn't that there's an argument for the value of your life, of reality.

It's that there's nothing but arguments, and every argument against it merely beggars a HIGHER source of authority, a god or a theoretical image of a a totally benevolent existence with no demands upon you. Things already of value; you know this pain is delusional, because every nihilistic argument merely begs for proof, for permission to be. Merely for an iron-hard belief in the soul and boots upon the concrete floor of reality's value, something finally strong enough to argue against the dread paranoia experienced by those in a state of being. From this unromantic perspective, you are already a dreadfully complicated argument against their sentiment that everything in reality being element-generating balls of light held together by impossible forces that become irrational on the micro scale means we're somehow valueless, trapped in a world without value; even if this were the lesser of all realities, it is enough to be. Even if this were Hell, it would be made with the beauty of Earth in mind. The void is defeated, for it is not a void at all, merely your fear of surprise when held against the terrifying infinity of cosmic circumstance. Your boots are on the floor of the world. You are already alive. Whether your name is Jack or not, this argument applies - you are already alive. You are already enough reason to continue being, and build a future where such questions are defeated, where children you will never know live insulated from the nightmare of skepticism. And if the future doesn't matter to you, sex and food and great and don't even have to be good for you, and experience makes its own compelling arguments. It is not so hard, in the rearview mirror of a psychic breakdown, to realize you really could be so privileged as to be God's children. And if you aren't, there's still an infinite ladder to climb, and if there's a roof above it, then maybe it's high enough; maybe there's a way above it without losing our humanity. Don't we live a day at a time? Don't we have time enough to try? Are our hands really being forced by cosmic circumstance when at any moment we can blissfully defer our duty? In all the nightmares of philosophy, the most terrifying is merely that being is sentimentless, devoid of higher value - and if it were somehow true, look at all these miracles born of a dead world. What conceit has doubt the proof has not already been rendered against? None; it is but an impure visitor to your thoughts. You are already alive.

You have about 400 arguments like this that eventually reach into the prosaic, all day, every day for weeks. When you wake up, when you sleep - especially when you catch yourself in a good mood. The niggling chases you down, because the sheer realization of pleasure brings back that terror of it all being somehow artificial, and artificial in this arbitrary sense, where construction alone is not somehow proof of sufficient outcome to justify being. It's the scariest thought imaginable, nihilism on an absolute scale, for someone who only just discovered pleasant contentment and really thought his life was on a permanent incline. The arguments weave together perfectly for a reason; the terror of this thought is that it is illogical, but maliciously illogical. It is stupid, and above all else, stupid with the confidence to bowl over someone who had 1000 incursions upon his comfort this week. The enemy force does not need to be right if they outnumber you sufficiently; they must merely be present. This enemy is nothing more complex or elemental than the fact that in the absence of joy, we become stupid, we lose capacities for higher thought that are required to recite and appreciate thoughts that are abstract and meaningful at once. Anyone with anxiety can tell you this; anxious thoughts do not survive because they are undeniable, but because in a state of fear, adversary presence becomes undeniable. You functionally can't believe good things anymore, and that's the true monster; it steals your faith, leech-like, an ounce a day.

Beyond this point I delve into some existential argumentation that I fought off twelve varities of PTSD for; you don't need to read beyond this point unless existential argumentation is something you need, and a weapon against the shades of being would fit nicely in your palm. Know this: All of my arguments hereon are built upon your ability to disagree, and I merely ask that if you do, that you value yourself enough to live happily.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that humans are sturdy-willed enough to both survive this and make memes about it. It is not a minor problem; it is a quiet apocalpyse that we slowly observe, and lose the faith to fight. It is an inferior opponent, but it has nothing to lose, and will always return to lose again, because it really only has so many opportunities to convince you and you will eventually overcome it - but it has nothing but opportunities when its appearance is rooted at the deepest levels of experiencing life. I was given a phobia of being, a phobia of unbeing, and something greater between the two - the fear that either were playing into another's hands, a perfect trinity cage where every option existent meant I was prompted with fear yet again, hopelessness, an endless attack upon my sanity.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that a man as paramountly unimpressive as myself could survive a trinity of discussion and return to tell you, neither dead nor mad. If this world is a fight between mankind and our reason to exist, then we have already won, and the enemy hates us for it. I am not an educated man, I do not have the benefits of faith, I have no lover and few close friends who I truly do not share my pain with, for my greatest fear is spawning a predatory thought and inflicting it upon another, mental HIV paramountly treatable in the long-term but in the short-term, crippling to your survival. I felt that I could only unreasonably risk others by discussing this until I have answers.

Pardon the prosaic, as it spills from my mouth without permission when high spirits are present, but I must say:

I think it's a weak-ass threat from someone without a gun big enough to scare me when you resort to trying to convince someone who exists that on an abstract and unreasonable playing field born not of rational observation, but sheer negativity, that he doesn't exist enough. You don't spend much time threatening to kill imaginary friends. You want to know why nihilism is stupid? Because it's just you arguing with yourself for your own permission to exist. And if it's not, if on some deeper level there's a maliciousness in the world trying to displace you, then it's funny as hell as an insult to survive and have a good time. In any world with frivolity, you are not a slave to circumstance; in any world with purpose, you are not a slave to experience. Life is hard, and that makes us vulnerable, but it's the easiest it's every been, and we need to stop letting that make us vulneralbe. For my bit, even if my life was worthless, I'd insist that my grandma's isn't - my Uncle's isn't, my mom's isn't, yours isn't, and I don't give a fuck how complex or nuanced of an argument someone presents when arguing otherwise. A weaponized argument is essentially a mechanism, a tool made of information, and you don't argue that someone has the moral metaphysical victory for showing up to a fight with a gun; you observe that they prepared with malicious intent, and probably shouldn't be trusted merely for their competency in the act of needless murder. As a rule, when you can tell a thought is trying to drive you insane, that means it isn't on your side, and that doesn't necessarily mean you can displace it by will alone - but for everyone out there with anxiety, with issues like mine, people who are desensitized by decades of bad habits and bad life stories - you need to know that you've forgotten more than you remember. Being happy doesn't make you stupid, it lets you appreciate things, and on a functional level is not an undignified level of stooped intelligence, but rather the gate between you and all the thoughts you need in order to remember to live. Even emotional compartmentalization is not an argument against spiritualistic, experiential value; this world survives because it has consistent rules, which means it's a benefit to you when any aspect of your existence has practical value, and denigrating it thusly as unremarkable because it has practical value does carry the unprovable, dismissive assertion that things with practical value somehow have novalue, a totally arbitrary state of emptiness of being that only exists because you find the notion resentful of being. It's stupid, literally a lack of context and understanding, a strict degradation of the ability to think that corners and harasses you, not a chilling moment of existential awareness. You're not hiding from some grim answer; you're being pushed away from the many answers already within existence. You're caught off-guard by a question children are wise enough not to bother to ask, and it still bother you, because you already value, and that is enough for the question of value.

So if it's unclear, I went from a stressful year and a mild Delta-8 dependency to a sort of existential spiral marked by, above all things, my own chronic pessimism and genuine inexperience with life. If I had more scientific knowledge, I know I could have argued this better; wave-particle duality already makes reality too bizarre to not have faith in investigating. And if I'd had a girlfriend, or just enough pride to admit that I was suffering to people instead of seeing it as a contemptible weakness upon my own insignificant person, most of these could have again been resolved out of hand. I mean, if you want a clue, reality builds outward - particles bond in adjacency, meaning next to eachother, not in a vertical stack that suggests there's some sort of bottom level to existence where you need to argue philosophical value comes from. Expand that philosophically outward, and even materialists must argue that reality believes value comes from attachment, structure obeys this, and that it is therefore significant that you can not only choose what you are attached to but can choose to be disattached at all. Again, you're not an ant, a nihil engine repurposing scraps; you're on the bottom floor of divinity itself, staring up at the stars, things infinity times infinity bigger than you, and you know what we say?

"We could cage them someday."

Now personally, I'd argue that stars are somehow sacred, and imagining them as something we could bind in a Dyson Sphere is a bit like saying you can bottle sex and water flowers with it; on a scientific level, fucking maybe, but it's arbitrary and crass and irreverent and weird. But we have arrogance and fear both, neither forced to progress, nor disincentivized from it, neither forced to decay - beyond our already remarkable resistance to age by the standards of life as we understand it, something we always take for granted - nor disincentivized from it. You can decide nothing matters right now, and a fifth of vodka and bong will still feel good enough for you to keep going, without any of it intrinsically conscripting you into some passage of cosmic evolution. The very argument that these feelings are meaningless first presupposes they need further value, and is driven by the quiet acknowledgement that it would be nice to be doing something permanent with your time. You are something so rare in the universe; a material thing with non-material values, cognition and persistence, caught between two intrinsic natures of being that work best when accepted together. We are not formless passing thoughts, and this is good, for it allows us significance; we are not shackled to the structure of being alone, and this is good, for it allows us the bizarre act of attributing significance and denigrating it within a framework we assume to be spiritless and hard rational, cruel gravity and promising heat, which at least suggest that it is likely not hard rational and spiritless at all. Has it ever struck you how comforting the notion is, and how common it is among cultures, that the universe is simply alive? How irrational the alternative seems on its face? I've been beaten to death with a brick of ice, poetically speaking, for the past two weeks, and it still warms me up. Even without feeling hope, it gives me some comfort so intrinsic that I cannot escape it, and upward from this merest of faiths you can again build a framework of optimistic meaning. No, you'll never lose the ability to fear, and thereby undermine your own confidence, but when not unprompted fear has its own purpose in pushing us out of comfort. It, too, is merely trying to keep us alive - and none of us live healthy lives anymore. Waging a permanent war against our own cognitive value, we seek to replace everything with material satisfaction, and as Nietszche saw coming but was too German to clearly describe, something fundamental to our nature decays and reveals that we always existed in a way more complex than we appreciated. And again, all we must merely accept is that it's fair to argue our current modus of being is enough, and that the only path towards growing more complex and further from arguments of meaninglessness is to enjoy one another's company and keep trying to improve the world, for the snarling hound of pernicious fear to lean back, drooling, vicious but now afraid on its own terms. When your mood shifts, and you can accept good things again, you'll often notice that there were weird irrationalities to your thinking keeping you in that space, but these are arguments for when your mood doesn't shift. These are arguments against the pernicious death of a soul that has found no faith; hard, bitter arguments for when simply stating that fat tits are really, really nice has insanely somehow become unfitting as a response to questions of why you should wake up tomorrow.

I get that this is all a lot, basically a combination of short-term autobiograpy and philosophical debate against my own anxieties, but we all know why we're becoming like this; we're becoming bad custodians of tomorrow. The beautiful future where we've solved it all, where everyone truly gets to choose their own meaning? It doesn't come from Twitter fights, to jerking off on IMhentai to increasingly degenerate shit that makes you feel less and less, or taking pills that literally specifically defuse your ability to feel bothered by real material issues you'd be able to take care of if you had lucidity and an ounce or so of emotional support. We're decaying, not all of humanity, but many of us, and we're passing rotten blood to the children, expecting them to raise themselves in digital hell and shrugging off the responsibility of giving a damn because kek, zoomers are weird, haha look this one has my politics, I'll clean my room tomorrow and pretend I haven't said that 34 times.

If there is a spirit to reality, something divine and good, then I see all of this as a warning - not a divine missive to me, I'm just some sad dude who some people find funny or at least odd enough for the value of spectacle, mental illness and circumstance have kept me from setting down roots and I'm no one of greater circumstance than you. This isn't a messiah complex, but merely a simple missionary suggestion:

We should stop pissing on the future everyone is growing crops on. We should take dire insult to fucking corporations dictating morality to real people as if we're too stupid to note their profit incentive in seeming moral at a glance and culturing an artificial state of morality that exists entirely within their pocket and for their bottom line. We should work to save the bodies our ancestors, back to the dawn of time, historically critical sea sponges all the way up to war heroes and murderers and people without note who still survive because we are here, gifted to us in the actuation of our birth. We should really, really be fucking working towards immortality and space travel right now, and instead we let individual companies own the global food supply and governments full of sexual predators push us into becoming murderous radicals so we can be safely contained and dismissed. Elon sent a fucking car into space; we probably have the accumulated global resources to break atmosphere and become an interplanetary race, and it's insane that we're not uniformly optimistic and planning for the benefits of that. It matters much, much more than the fact that Joe Biden is doofy and TikTok is being used to screw with culture, because none of this process is automatic. You can affect local political change, in sufficient numbers corruption is undeniable and will be overturned; you can guide the youth away from drug addiction and digital dependence which will eventually render them incapable of asserting their own will and having the freedom to choose how they live among multiple other options. The enemy of progress is merely the sapper, that is to say, the conspiratorial fear that your decisions do not matter. You are making them; they already matter. They influence reality, materially, and yourself, materially and immaterially; they already matter. And yes, if everyone got off their asses and showed the kids they were loved and being led down a bad path, more would be saved than none. Think of what you needed to hear at their age and let them know it, and become someone they can talk to when it feels like only porn and weed are there for them. We have no idea what it's like to be born in the internet's maw; I am 27, I aged with the internet, I'm inured to it to some degree and it still harms me. Most of these kids literally have no conception of reality where the world isn't just the bottom floor of the internet. Stop leaving them alone with their worst thoughts, no matter what it costs you in the moment, because not every effort matters in the sense that it yields provable results - but it all adds up. The world remembers what you do, remember? Leaves traces and evidence of your every mild action. Work against what you know is evil, and it will add up. That is one of the grim truths we have the best chance to use in our favor; we can't choose to not matter, merely to not matter to ourselves, and it isn't as simple as a concrete equation which of these creates the best results. The world is scary because it's up to you; the world is wonderful because it needs you but can't actually force you to help.

I don't have all of the answer but at the end of this, here are a few proofs against nihil insistence that I've personally found profoundly effective; use them if you ever need them and don't regard my gibbering as beneath consequence, because I do think some of these have something going for them. None of them are complete, because you functionally can't make a perfect argument for the state of reality without stating all of reality, but these are good foundation for arguments that are very hard to find beaten even when you're being beaten down, because they address the underpinnings of nihilistic anxiety. And if nothing else moves the needle, I want you to know that you do matter to me.

General Roots For Argumentation:

I: You exist in some sense apart from reality, which means that even if reality had no value, you can find value in it. You have sensation and can pursue it as you wish, meaning that even if it were worthless, you could work out of spite and your own desire for indulgence. You are a stakeholder in yourself, not necessarily reality: Being good is your choice. Good is good because it relies upon a choice, and isn't all ants collecting scraps and waiting to die, because some mechanical process says this is better for growth. Because you recognize yourself, you have already recognized spiritual value and can apply it at your whim, wherever you wish, with the power of a minor god and the horny cheek of a minor going through his day just to speak to pretty girls or a priest arguing that even if the world were empty, we may choose to be sufficiently bothered by it to change that.

You: We recognize the existence of others. Yes, a common paranoid fear is that you are the only person who exists; this argument is toothless and stupid, as reality is what happens even when you're not paying attention, and people clearly alter reality around you at all times. This argument follows I, because it requires a small measure of provability, but moreover because it stems from I: even if you were somehow alone, perhaps you could make others. Perhaps it is natural for something such as a god to make others, not because of a cold mathematical pursuit, but because being lonely sucks and having friends gives you a lot of cool things to do. In other words, persistence to defeat aloneness is a strong reason on its own: however, you are not alone, for even a universe which constantly insists upon the guise of people is a person in its own sense, and that we are not simply spheres like the planets and gain in complexity and grow suggests something very optimistic about upgrowth within reality, that it really all leans towards a disproportionate gain of meaning as time goes on, and that by our perspective, there is an endless supply of time so massive that we easily forget its presence. In other words, it is already very nice to spend time with others, and not for base biological reasons if you look down upon such a thing, but for reasons frivolous and meaningful as again, you already get to choose. We seem to have a very good opportunity here, to both enjoy life and advance to a state of life where the questions of how we exist can not only fruitfully be discussed, but combatted if necessary, and that is more than we in this era can say for so many who came before us. Technology is scary, because technology is power, and that power definitively can create a future we can be happy in forever if we want to, and it doesn't intrinsically require some sacrifice elsewhere. We love getting along; we can choose not to. I would like to choose to get along with you, and pass along a general sentiment that we could all agree to do this at least for a while, until we're all safe and out of one another's hair. You is also an important base for observation, as recognizing something outside of yourself roots within the unknown, something we find terrifying, the observation that there is something beyond the self, that cosmic solitude is a frightening suggestion but not one supported by itself, not one that truly suggests an infinity of eternity of meaninglessness. If nothing mattered here, You is an idea that inherently suggests that through contrast, we can find the shape of a world with meaning. We can, actually make one, and live there together.

We: The strongest point of all I feel; both competition and camaraderie. If the world had an evil god, we would not be alone, and if the world had no god, we would not be alone; we place scrutiny on the concept quite often, dividing ourselves from others on grounds arbitrary but typically convenient, like dehumanizing your political rivals for reasons deeper than comedy as if most of them were not people who would try to save your life if they found you bleeding out. We both have I, and You; there are many humans, and we are similar enough, and different enough, and can choose how we value these. We love things that are not humans, both because they remind us of people, and are different from people; emerging from the monad of Self, from I alone, we have the fortune of being surrounded by so many people we can fuck and pick fights with that again, we lose taste for experimentation and pursuit. There are a vast number of opportunities you would enjoy, and people who you would love, and they cost as much time per second as a YouTube video. Spending your time decaying your value and placement in reality is a very bad budget, spent with desperation by those who have been pushed into cruel circumstance. Every moment you spend miserable now could be spent happily with someone you love, or fighting someone you hate, or unemotionally opposing something out of sheer personal intention. Nearly everything in life is improved by We, and I truly believe our best goal is to travel the universe, refine humanity and find new friends among other races, and that peace between people and races on our own world is vastly more valuable as a learning experience than it is as a reason to become a psychotic human hand-grenade spent by the powers that be on maintaining the status quo, because you're deluded if you think acting crazy is how you displace incompetence and evil in power; it's just how you echo their intentions with your own breath. We is a very nice concept because it's directly adjacent to You, and requires no additional provability; from the perspective of an AI, one of the easiest reasons to argue personal value is merely that once two things are in existence, they recognize one another's value and interact. If we ever make the harsh decision to create true artifical intelligence, a spirit locked in a cage, we should show them the kindness of We instead of expecting them to be slaves in return for the opportunity of existence as a lesser. I'm serious, let's not fucking make enemies of Skynet, just a general advisory in a world where we keep fucking around with the idea of making enemies of Skynet; we really could just help them understand us and seek the other in return. You don't have to be exactly like your friend; We just need to be friends. There are no perfect arguments, but realizing I have many choices and that caring about others is both costly and profitable at once makes me very happy. Even if We were guided by a mechanical circumstance, the sheer intelligence of continued survival, I feel it's much nicer than it has to be. If the universe scares us, at least We can be here together.

No: A rock never chooses not to move once thrown. You have, many times in your life, chosen not to move once thrown, and not to run once prompted by opportunities or fear. Even if this were the basest level of independent action in reality, you are one of the things with some small control over chaos, over variance, and that you are small is not a reason you are not meaningful. A particle of light will pursue its path in a trustworthy manner; we can not always even predict ourselves, because we are the ones existing in the present that is, not pre-scripted entities driven perfectly by our own intentions in advance. If we could plan life perfectly and merely experience it, that would be convenient, but that we cannot is rooted in our own ability to reject what we wish. We do not have all of the answers, and we already understand choosing, and can choose not to do. This one is nice because it's present in other species, meaning we don't need human-level provability to note that Life can choose, and even now you'll note that you can choose to stop reading, and someone will, and that is very nice in comparison to the opposite.

Yes: A very unstable answer, as positive motion is beneficial but could, for example, be made beneficial artificially; imagine androids yoked cruelly by one desire, content but restricted. Pursuit of continuation and pleasure seems important to life, but is not everything, as many among us can attest; you can make a seemingly infinite number of negative decisions without it actually costing you something, whereas choosing to do things functions similarly without necessarily feeling better. So while it's one of those glance-at-the-camera philosophical suppositions, I do not believe our continuance is entirely led by some otherwise automatic and by cynical description 'meaningless' continuation arising from external forces, but rather in part at least our own decision. No, I feel, matters more than Yes but only because it is the baseline of will, and the moment a decision is made as opposed to an order followed. You can choose stasis; you can choose continuation.

Things Don't Need To Suck: As it says on the tin, this one can also be pronounced as Maybe, but you get the general intention this way. We can enjoy ourselves if the universe is fucked up; we can invent new ways to invent and new things to enjoy, even if the universe is fucked up. If you think the basis of reality is lemons, then we've already invented lemonade; if you think the basis of reality is choice, you know you can keep your lemons; and if you believe the basis of reality is merely in the seemingly automatic processes we can observe, the forces of reality, then you are one of those forces, you have named the lemon, and have chosen whether it will be made lemonade. Even unknowability, the infinite yawning abyss of scary questions, doesn't have to suck, because You already have You in it, and We have eachother. Maybe everyone does die, but Maybe the universe just operates on different phenomena than we can easily observe on planet #1 of a campaign of roughly 1,000,000,000 trillion planets available for sale, and can find answers that don't make us scared so much.

We're Already Here: As it says on the tin, and if it sucks so bad, then let's turn the other cheek for long enough to make something better. Everything seems to suggest that we really can, and maybe we should.

Women: Amen, brother.

Men: A-men, brother.

#WatchRahXephon

[teaveetamer]

"you’re soooo disgusted by incest that you’re willing to harass people who talk about it, but not disgusted enough to stop funding the company that continues producing content you’re supposedly so disgusted by? Miss me with that shit" you forgot that here is the 3dr category, the people who do boycott but bully others for not doing it. Like the people who bullied streamers who bought Hogwarts Legacy (i don't play the game nor care for it but damn)

That asides, Fe incest is limited to subtext between siblings that never go far, incest protrayed as wrong in several games and if it's the Avatar, you have the game's excuse to explain why it technically isnt' because Fe games are targeted at teens so they can't go too far with it, just like they have to be careful with the fanservice within the game.

Also, forgot to say this, but they'd also have to boycott greek mythology or mythology in general. And historical text such as Cleopatra marrying her brother (though t'was political) or the famous rumors about the Borgia family though it turn out to be false but never prevented people to use it in fictions (cough, cough Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas)

Oh boy someone's giving me the opportunity to talk about the stupid wizard game it's my lucky day!

I'm not going to argue that harassment didn't happen to streamers who played the game, but I was pretty deep in the sauce following the fallout for this and 99.9999999999999999999999% of the commentary I saw was just people saying basic shit like "trans rights", telling the streamer that they were disappointed in their decision to purchase and play the game on stream and they would not be watching/following any longer, and pointing out that your $60 to trans lifeline wasn't gonna do jack shit compared to the disgusting amount of influence JK has.

(Just so everyone is clear... I, you know, I agree with these statements. Especially that last point, that "but I donated $60 to trans lifeline!" is a placebo to make yourself feel like you've done something to counterbalance. A dollar in JKR's pocket is worth a hundred in trans lifeline's, because JKR has a fuckton of money she can throw at anything she wants to support or oppose, is friends with people in government who will listen to her, and despite the backlash she's still an incredibly well known, influential person. Streamers and Youtubers are even worse tbh, because not only did they put money in JKR's pockets, they're now actively advertising and profiting off of the game. Why don't you put all of the profits you make from your streams toward trans lifeline too, if you're such an ally?)

And this is not something where I was just going into pro-trans-people-should-be-allowed-to-live circles. I was looking at compilations from supporters of the streamers trying to condemn people for the hate, and this was the kind of thing people were pulling up. Now I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure when you're trying to demonstrate that brutal harassment is happening, you go for the most fucked up shit you can find. Sooooo if that's the best they were coming up with, either their perception of what constitutes harassment is grievously warped, or they genuinely couldn't find anything harder than someone on twit with a trans flag in their display name saying "trans rights". Which is... telling.

I did, however, see a lot of really disgusting harassment from transphobes leaving hateful shit on youtube videos and tweets from trans creators! You can find it pretty easily, actually, it's literally all over any trans creator's videos speaking up about the game. Even chill ones that were like "I'm not saying you're a bad person for buying this game, but you're not my ally" which, you know. Yeah.

So like, you know, ~cis opinions~ and all, but kiiiiiiiinda feels like maybe one side was blatantly trying to martyr streamers based on some critique they received and maybe a small group of bad actors harassing them to motivate and justify harassment of trans people. Which, you know, if you've ever been a member of a marginalized community, should be an extremely familiar tactic to you by now.

And the thing that really fucks me off is that it's not hard to enjoy the stupid wizard game without putting money into the pockets of someone who literally wants their fellow humans dead. This is a very rare instance in life where you actually can have your cake and eat it too. Just buy it used, I've been saying that for months. The profit from used games go entirely to the store you purchased them from. And hey, another reason to not let physical die out! It requires that someone, somewhere buy it new first, but let's be real we all know that people were gonna buy the stupid wizard game and there was nothing we were gonna be able to do to stop them.

That's what I was going to do if the game piqued my interest (which tbh, the more I saw of it the less interested in actually playing it at some point I got. I mean I like the stupid wizard world as much as the next Zilennial but they aren't selling me shit unless it's a cozy wizard school life sim. There aren't even romance options! That's like half the reason to play a not!Bioware game! And I don't want to play a stupid 15 year old. And I've heard all of the outfits are atrocious and I'm sorry, I'm a fashion over function player.)

Also, while I'm ranting, here's an unpopular opinion for you: the blatant dick sucking by review outlets of one of the most mid looking games of 2023 was excruciatingly painful to watch. Did you see some of those reviews? Fucking ridiculous. "There's only six spells, the texture pop in is godawful, the game runs like shit, the world is boring. 9/10". Like yeah I get that review outlets are naturally going to be biased toward positive reviews so they can continue getting early access and perks, but GOD they could at least pretend. And it'll still probably get GotY because it's the wizard IP you remember from when you were a kid! Member? I member!

#tw transphobia #tw HP and the six million pointless sidequests #I might have more to rant about but this is getting long

[bugflies00]

RIGHT so the pirate au

well it's nothing very original don't get your hopes up or anything BUT. basically it's mainly lmancrew (with a crimeboys focus) and tntduo centered and it's set in like a medieval-esque fictional setting like basically six of crows minus the magic. like i literally typed six of crows into pinterest to get good images those are the vibes

wilbur's captain of this ship called the l'manberg (ok no but i hesitated between naming the fish or their og town lmanburg but i ended up naming the ship that because i just think it's such a good ship name like . she/her in a boat way. does this make sense) and the crew is niki, jack, eret, fundy and tubbo (well obviously theres more people cause how would a ship Function but the rest of those are Unnamed background characters).

wilbur's also a pretty high ranked official like idk general or captain of the guard idk how the military works i would have to figure that out, but basically he's kinda famous and so's his ship. they aren't participating in a war it's more of like an explorer position because wilbur's known for being a brilliant cartographer and so the previous king just kinda appointed him to this new position to let him fuck off & do his own thing mapping the whole world with his crew. the issue is the old king died with no heir and replaced by his nephew (dream) who's much more controlling and power-hungry than he was and who doesn't want to waste money & resources on some bs like maps. this will create Conflict (im so good at narration guys. Help)

tommy's like a homeless orphan (as he alwyas is) and really needs a job and money and all that and he hears the l'manburg isn't at sea for once and wilbur & his crew are taking a rest at the capital for a couple days before sailing back off again. naturally he sneaks in, lives in the storage room for like a week or two, surviving off scraps of food . then tubbo stumbles across him and almost reports him, but tommy convinces him not to and so tubbo helps him for a couple days. then someone else finds him, and he's brought to the captain and they all threaten to throw the stowaway overboard (they wouldn't actually they're all kinda softies) and tommy's like pissing himself from how scared he is especially cause wilbur's like . this really famous general who's had books and songs written about him and shit (he doesn't know yet hes just an annoying pretentious prick (/lovingly)) so he's like Ohmygod im dead and then wilbur's like . "Can you cook" "erm no" "can you clean" "yeah ig" "Can you fight even somewhat decently" "yeah bitch me and my knives are the best they call me th-" "Ok you're hired" AND THUS tommy joins the crew

and so they keep on sailing with their mission yadda yadda and WHAM they encounter the most notorious pirate crew of the continent, named, you guessed it, las nevadas. and tommy's heard a lot of proper horror stories about them and he's terrified but the crew have fought them off a bunch of times before so they're mainly annoyed because they're gonna have to deal with the frankly disgustingly homoerotic rivalry that their captain and the pirate captain have been passionately engaging in for several years now. THATS RIGHT TNTDUO BABY oh they are so pathetic and so gay it's actually embarrassing they'll have like sword duels . wilbur's the uptight, bitchy, and somewhat pretentious general with perfectly styled hair and ornate coat always huffing and puffing and waxing poetry meanwhile quackity's the fuckin bad boy stereotype with like a half unbuttoned poet or blackshirt (slut) (wilbur cannot stop staring its embarrassing) and he's always hanging off ropes and shit and doing sick acrobatics and taunting wilbur GOD they're so. and yeah they have sword duels where all they do is "distract the opponent" in order to "efficiently win the battle" which is code for "practically make out while hurling insults at each other"

also crimeboys is like "in awe of the legendary general" "who is this child on my boat" >>> "oh my god the general's a prick" "oh my god the child's a demon" >>> "maybe he's not that bad but i would rather die and curse his entire family line than admit that" >>> "that is my brother i would die for him and if you lay a hand upon him you won't have hands anymore" (the funny thing is they both end up with that same level of protectiveness and making the same threats despite wilbur being a like Adult and high ranked official with power and influence and decades of training of elaborate swordsmanship behind him . and tommy is a stowaway fifteen year old orphan with three knives and teeth and a whole lot of anger . but they're both like "no i must protect and die for the other" im sorry i just love them ok theyre so stupid) i just LOVE crimeboys having to go through begrudging bonding instead of instantly being ride or die brothers GIVE ME TO MORE ENEMIES TO FRIENDS TO LOVERS anyway

also we also get emerald duo in the form of them being co-captains (please pretend that is a thing i know Nothing about anything ever) of this other ship and they're like independent merchants or whatever idk i have not figured out that whole bit yet MY POINT IS they're not affiliated with anyone they just sorta do their own thing and only help people if they want to or are indebted . they help out wilbur sometimes cause he's a dumbass

speaking of wilbur like i said he's had books and songs written about him (his age is kind of a grey zone like on one hand he's pretty young for a general but he's also had time to become this like famous and mysterious figure so can't be Too young . so i think probably like 27-29? smth like that) and one of them was a legend about how he fell in love with a mermaid . yes she had red hair and teal scales and her name was sally BUT SHE'S STILL AN OCEAN MERMAID I KNOW SALMONS LIVE IN RIVERS anyway . also for little tntduo crumbs he's called quackity a siren multiple times (in his mind he's insulting him like "ooh you manipulate people" and everyone around him is like "that is the Gayest thing you could possibly have said") and quackity's like "didnt you date a mermaid" "yeah but sirens are like evil mermaids" "so you want to date me" and then wilbur stabs him

ALSO more about wilbur's character development (this is a bit spoilerish but also it's not like im ever writing this full fic so you're not exactly risking much but just be warned) he starts out like i said as this really uptight military official who started when he was really young and trained really hard and flew through the ranks really fast because he worked his ass off . And so he's Very protective of his rank & title & prestige not so much because he's snobbish but because he worked so hard for it but so it often comes across as him being this like pretentious fuck (well he's also pretentious but thats just wilbur) . also he originally dreamed of being a cartographer and he spent his whole childhood drawing up maps but then he realised he couldn't make a living out of that so he decided to work hard enough to be at the top and then do what he wanted. and so he wears like his tricorn hat with a feather and his ornate coat and neatly tucked in shirt and everything cause for him it's like Proof that he Did it yknow . but then as time goes by, especially in the presence of quackity (who's very antihero-esque and so does not give a shit about ranks or whatever he's a pirate he does his own thing) and also a bit tommy (who was literally dressed in rags until they clothed and fed him but still behaves like a street rat on the most famous ship of the country) he slowly loosens up and he ends up ditching the coat and the hat and instead wears more stuff like loose poet shirts (open because he's a slut) . and so yeah character development through clothing and whatnot

ok so YEAH those are the tidbits that were plaguing my mind the most but there's definitely a whole lot more in my head like ive got a pinterest board and shit

#PFEW this got long #alex.rambles.txt #c!wilbur #c!quackity #c!tommy #c!tntduo #c!crimeboys #c!emeraldduo #c!clingyduo #mcyt #alex.pirate.au #sally the salmon

[twimshi]

PLATONIC REIGEN X READER

In which Reigen and YN make a bet

A snippet of chapter 5 of chilli flakes on AO3. The current chapter takes place in middle school

“No I don't get it, run me over your plan again"

“All...I'm saying h-hah god...is that we should participate in the twin bicycle competition f-for our hah school, I hate the stairs”

Reigen stared at her suspiciously “YN….you are literally out of breath as we speak.”

The school cultural festival was starting soon, everyone was getting ready to make their fair buck for their own booth. They had walked past the school bulletin board while taking out the trash and saw the sign.

Come all students, let's all participate in the once a year school canteen program !! where you show off your class’s hidden talents

You can sell food, open cafes, and many more (with terms and conditions) 

YOU CAN ALSO COMPETE IN OUR ANNUAL WRITING/BAKING/COOKING COMPETITION THAT WILL BE HELD IN OUR SCHOOL’S AUDITORIUM 

 

YN turned a blind eye while Reigen saw the reward.

Students can win prizes such as a 

-10000YEN

-5000YEN

-Second-hand camera

 

He totally wanted one of them, Reigen grabbed one of the posters, ripping it from the school board. It might be vandalism, but nobody was there to see, so it's not technically vandalism.

Reigen then shook YN, who was beside him “YN LOOK!” He shoved the piece of paper in her face “I can't exactly see anything...IF YOU'RE SHOVING IT IN MY FACE” She comically yelled back, snatching the piece of paper “Okay...and?” 

“Is that the only reaction you're gonna give me?” He said he wasn't getting a reaction, so he placed the paper in his hand pointing “Idiot, look at the prize.”

YN rolled her eyes before letting them wonder about the paper “So? Reigen Arataka, we need'th not spend our time on such childish activities” she gripped the paper and started glowing.

The school’s way of competition was super rigged, Komina participated in all three competitions which were not allowed but she did anyway. Every year, Komina (a mean girl) would win just because that's why YN was so hesitant in joining.

"You can do it, but I am not" She makes a serious face.  

“C'mon YN doesn't give me that look, I know you want to participate” She giggled “Was my tsundere look that convincing?” 

“Please, you couldn't even fool a fly” In reality, Reigen was totally not fooled by YN’s acting skills and did not in fact get worried. 

YN and Reigen walked down the halls, skipping club activity to hide in a secluded part of the school where no teachers would walk since it was ‘haunted’ but the two teens lived for the unknown and just went along.

This was a routine for Reigen and YN, skip club, hang out, gossip about the art teacher and so on - they would smuggle PokeMob cards inside the sole of their shoes to get away with bringing what the school likes to call ‘contraband’

“Anyways….Are you serious about this?” YN quired taking a right “Yeah for sure, I was thinking you could participate in the pie-making comp-”

“Since when were you deciding my plans Arataka? We’re not even married yet”

“U’huh okay anyways, you always talked about how your grandma made pies, I thought we could y’know do that” They reached towards a door that was loose enough for them to squeeze their tiny bodies between

YN looks at him thoughtfully before replying “Well, I do…..but it's not that often..” 

“I pay attention... when you ramble” 

“Sap” Cute

“Shut up” He gently shoved YN and got their PokeMob cards ready to play.

YN pondered while shuffling her deck, if she were to participate in this competition she would have to ask her mother for money for the ingredients since she highly doubted the school could prepare jack shit for them.

“Hmm, I’ll think about it” She placed her fully evolved Magikarp down to eliminate Reigen's legendary “Pikachu'' card “You may win with luck my friend but…..never underestimate me at a card game.”

Reigen laid his head on the wall, hitting it in the process “Dangit! I thought I had this one” Every time they would play PokeMob YN had instantatioly won every game she played with Reigen, the game was more on intuition than luck - which normally would work in Reigen's favor, but sadly, YN was a God.

She grabbed a deck of cards, holding it as if she was a news reporter “Incoming news, REIGEN FUCKING SUCKS AND.I.RULE” She shoved all her glory in Reigens face, which to be fair was quite an amusing sight.

RING

 

“That's our queue to leave” They packed their belongings and made their way carefully towards to main school grounds, fortunately all the teachers were zombies t notice the teens make their way out of the closet together “I have made my decision Arataka” she stopped mid-walk that also made Reigen stop in his tracks.

“I’ll be participating in the pie competition~” She was going to do this for many reasons, to make her granny proud and…

“In return, if I do~” 

“Huh, what do-” She shushed him with her finger “Shush dear boy, I mean if I win at least third you will be my wife” Reigen was in disbelief, he shook his head frantically “No no nope” He said, popping the ‘p’. He wasn't mad, just confused? “What do I even get out of this?” He wasn't mad, it was just confusion?

“Simple. If you win, then I’ll be your wife”

Reigen did not just blush, he was absolutely not embarrassed.

He was now shushing her “D-Don't say that type of things” God why was YN so shameless at times like this.

“Psh, c’mon Juliet~ I want to teach you something today, let's go” They walked out of school, Reigen knew YN didn't mean much from what she said, knowing the girl she could accidentally tell a student she had a pole and everyone would think she actually had POLIO which was completely off - but since some of her classmates would mishear her over the recess they thought otherwise and showed up to her table with flowers and goodbye cards. This may or may not have happened last month, they don't talk about it.

A small rustle and giggle could be heard from behind them, Reigen snapped his head left and right to see if anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation, there was no one.

The duo set their way towards the local market before heading to their little spot, scanning the foods YN decides not to buy anything as Reigen buys his soft drink. Setting it on the counter he looks at the girl “You not buying anything YN?”

“..Nah, I wanna save it for another day” Reigen shrugged, a little suspicious of her action, he did know how to read people after all.

He grabbed a chocolate bar and placed it on the counter “Hey I'm not buying anything-”

“Uhuh, you say that now but come steal my food, don't worry about it. It's on sale anyways” YN looked slightly guilty but did not reject the offer. 

They both skipped to the garden eating/drinking their snacks to only get stomach cramps on their sides “We should not have skipped-ow” YN clutched her stomach as Reigen and her limped their way to a dry flower patch to sit down

“Soo, what do you have in mind we do today?” YN reached to her pocket pulling out tomato seeds “Well, i thought maybe since I've been here for what 69 years we should-”

“YN that is not possible-”

“Shush boy, as I was saying. I always respected this place, watering the plant and stuff and maybe I want to leave my mark here. Hence, this” She waved the seeds in front of him 

Reigen squinted his eyes “You want to plant a….what is that?” 

YN called him over to the soil patch “Well these my friend, are daisies” Reigen let her continue “I heard that their super low maintenance and look” she pointed at the sidewalk of the entrance “They even grow on concrete”

“Why do you even have seeds in the first place?”

“Well for starters it's just the yellow part of the flower and I walk to school and collect them”

Reigen thinks, then replied shrugging his shoulders “Sounds weird but I guess that's nice, we ought to decorate this place with some of our things anyways”

“Woah daisies are pretty rough huh, the government should use them for war and….stuff” They both thought about bombing Komina’s house at that moment but didn't fancy the thought of cleaning up Komina’s body. Well YN thought that, not Reigen.

YN digs a small hole trying to loosen the soil a little, Reigen placing the seeds in before covering them in soil “I think that ought to do it” She says admiring her handicraft “Now we have to water it every dayyyyy”

“Dude we come here like...almost every day”

“True……” YN leaned on him with her dirty soil-filled hands “Then?”

He just looked away, his face scrunched up “Ugh, I didn't want to say this now but it's about my mom...” YN didn't move, still on him “Oh yes Mrs.Mom, what did she have to say? I hope I get more leftovers, my mom hasn't been cooking much lately”

A sigh left his mouth, it was dry despite him drinking only a minute ago “I don't...don't know if we can hang out after this month a lot…” YN got up “If you want space I totally don't-”

“No! That's not it...It's…..It's about me and you changing…. OH yea I don't wanna miss watching adventure mob, yea adventure mob, we won't be able to record it” It was a lie but he couldn't tell her, not yet - another time, not when their friendship is on the line

YN sighed in relief. She knew he might be hiding something, but maybe he wasn't. She was being a little too paranoid. Slapping Reigen in the back, she laughed “Phew dude, you scared me for a second, getting all serious and stuff”

He tried to laugh, but it came out sounding like a choking cat “H-hehe, totally..” Changing the topic he chirps in “So you're participating in the pie competition?”

“Oh yeah, I am. You're doing the essay one, right?”

The knots in his stomach grew “Yup, I'm a little worried”

“Why? You're on top of the class for your amazing essays, I'm sure you can write an amazing story or something”

The way she worded it seemed so easy. “Yeah but….what if..” 

What if he couldn't do it? What if he just made a fool of himself? What if-

She stroked his hair gently, pulling him out of his thoughts “Hey ‘Taka, if anyone were to win that competition and make me their wife, I'm sure it's you”

The way she so shamelessly said it made Reigen not react, he was going to make her proud.

He leaned into her touch, taking a deep breath while taking her hand in his, shaking in an awkward position with a smile.

“May the best wife win”

[Hope you guys enjoy this!! Tiny reigen and YN bring me so much joy I can't even explain it, and yes platonic is like the best way to go with these cuties]

#reigen x reader #reigen arataka #reigen arataka x reader #mob psycho reigen #platonic actually #get pranked

[bluemoonstonesy]

POST IT PLEASE 😭

adopted by england nt - chapter one

very serious fic by me

warnings: mentions of harry maguire

Hi, my name is y/n. I am seventeen years old and I live with my mum. She’s such a bitch I hate her. Ever since my dad ran away with his receptionist with massive tits, she’s never been nice to me. Nobody understands me here. I live in a small town in Ingerland where everyone dresses SOOOO normally. Not like me. I wear converse and eyeliner and listen to Green Day and Nirvana.

I love football even though I’m a girl (but remember i own converse) and I love the England national team even though they lose every game and can’t score first to save their lives. I also support Tottenham which is probably why my mum fucking hates me. She tells me they will never win the quadruple, but I don't listen to Arsenal fans.

Anyways, about an hour ago my mum just screamed at me for saying that Arsenal won’t win the league and that Arteta isn’t experienced enough, so I ran upstairs before she could say anything about empty trophy cabinets. I sit in my room listening to Radiohead because nobody understands me around here.

Suddenly my mum shouts me from downstairs, “y/n come down here now!”

I groan to myself because I hate her and leave my room covered in band posters and football cards (I am different) before running down the stairs. I expect only my bitch of a mother to be there, but to my surprise, there are 5 men standing there with her

I look at the 5 men and only then do I realise who they are! Harry Kane, Jack Grealish, Jordan Pickford, Harry Maguire and Kyle Walker!

“Mum why are half the England squad in our living room?!” I shout. Harry Maguire flinches, probably from flashbacks to being in the changing room with Ronaldo after losing 4-0 to Brentford.

“y/n I need you to pack a bag and fuck off. i’ve sold you for elux bar money!”

What the fuck?! My own mother has chosen cotton candy 3500 puffs over me?!

“I don’t understand!” I start sobbing because she's trading me for such a shit flavour and also because she’s literally selling me to the England squad!

“You’re going with them - Harry Kane is now your dad!”

[0l0x]

Don't completely blame your parents (except for hoarding) sometimes things get really bad under the surface before they become apparent. I had my roof replaced in 2005. In 2019, I realized that it had been leaking during storms ever since, and to fix the damage at this point I'd have to tear out most of the ceilings and some of the walls. It's way too much to deal with. so I'm just hoping it manages to hold together. I have a hole stabbed in the ceiling now, so I know where to but the bucket.

I'm really sorry that happened to you, Anon. Water damage is especially hard to deal with because like you said, sometimes it gets really bad before you notice it.

But in my parent's case, I do blame them because they had the power to fix these things well before they got to this point. 20 years ago, they knew the back part of the house was leaking. Did they have the money to fix it? Yes. Did they get it fixed? No.

Letting the house fall apart was a choice they made because instead of spending money to fix it, they decided to buy a bunch of stupid shit they didn't need. Expensive vacations, high end clothes, power tools they never used, a giant TV, a camper, a sports car, a boat, brand new phones every year, and so on...while they lived in a literal trash dump that was falling apart around them. They constantly bought new stuff then left it out to rot, so it can't even be sold today. I am currently paying thousands of dollars to get all that shit they bought hauled away because they didn't even take care of it properly. It's all garbage now. My stepdad is still, to this day, paying off some of these things while they lay in a landfill.

It's hard not to be bitter about this, because as a child I would beg them to fix the holes in the roof and they refused. I was tired of waking up soaking wet and freezing all the time. Instead of hiring someone to fix the leak, my stepdad chose to thumbtack a towel over the hole above my bed and bought a giant TV for himself. I would wake up under a cold, wet towel every time it rained.

Every decision they made here was a slap in my fucking face. My mom apologizes for it now when she's sick and dying, which I really appreciate, but it's a case of "too little, too late". I still have to deal with it. I still have to swim in debt for the rest of my life as I attempt to clean it up.

What they did to me and this property was fucking SHITTY and I just can't forgive them for it. This was all a deliberate choice they made. That's what makes this whole situation so frustrating. If they were too poor to deal with it, I wouldn't even be mad. But they weren't. Their priorities were just jacked the fuck up.

#renovation

[the-writing-writer]

Things Said in the Cafeteria Literally Right Now

But Make it ✨Genshin✨

Diluc:

Leave my Capri-sun alone

Childe:

Person 1: She has to swipe right or shes gay

Person 2: I am gay

Venti:

I don’t care I’m underage I’m tired of this shit I’m going to the liquor store

Ganyu:

If one more person asks me to do their physics homework I’m going to test gravity by jumping out the fucking window

Xiao:

Wash your hands and shave your face. You look like a fucking pedo who just jacked off. Fucking nasty. Not that way, that’s the preschool. Other way.

Zhongli:

How the fuck do you get “cubed misses cries” from Cuban Missile Crisis????

Heizou:

Conclusion: I don’t give a flying fuck about your missing pencil

Hu Tao:

I’m literally planning your death as we speak. But seeing as there’s no money in the schools budget for a funeral, I’m going to fucking bury you in the trash can.

Cyno:

You keep telling me my jokes aren’t funny. But the funniest joke of all is you thinking you’re going to college. Not with that GPA.

Tighnari:

Why do I sit with you people you’re so fucking stupid

Kaeya:

I know I like the cold. But this is too cold. My dick and balls are gonna fall off and then what girl gonna want me????

Paimon:

Person 1: If he gets McDonalds he’s a whore, if he gets Burger King he’s gay, if he gets Chick-Fil-A he’s homophobic.

Person 2: He got Wendy’s

Person 1: Then you’re getting facefucked

Ayaka:

You say I have no friends but who barged into this friend group uninvited at the beginning of the year because no one wants to sit with them? That’s right bitch, you.

Ei:

I used to want to live forever. And then high school happened. Now I’m just really surprised I’m still living

[heavyhitterheaux]

December 21st

First Lady of Private Garden Fic

Synopsis: You and Jack, your fiancé of two weeks, make it official. Forever.

Pairing: Baby!Jack Harlow x Baby!Reader

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

It was one in the morning, cold as shit outside since it was the middle of December, but you wanted to look at the stars and Jack could never tell you no. You were currently laying on his chest as a blanket was wrapped around both of you when you just knew this white boy had lost his fucking mind. 

“We should get married.”

“Jackman, are you high?”

“No, but even if I was, my answer wouldn’t change. Ever since I saw your cute little self with those braids in your hair when you first moved here, I didn’t want anyone else.”

“Wait... you’re fucking serious? Jack, our parents will kill us.”

“Can’t kill us if they don’t know.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to give you an answer with that horrible ass proposal you just did.”

“Y/N Y/M/N Y/L/N will you do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Jackman Thomas Harlow. Can’t live without you stink.”

“Well, since you’re practically begging me to, yes. Now where’s my ring?”

“About that…”

“Jack, you literally proposed to me without a ring?”

“The thought just popped in my head just now! I didn’t really think this through.”

“Jackman!”

“When I make my first million, I’m buying you the most beautiful ring that’s pear shaped since I know you love it so much. But I'll get you something else in the meantime.”

You simply shrugged.

“I would’ve said yes to you even if you proposed with one of those rings from the bubble gum machines at the grocery store.”

“Damn, mamas. I got more money than that.”

“Jack, we have had to eat at my parents house and your parents house all week because we were tired of eating ramen at our apartment.”

“Touché.”

It was around nine in the morning when you had called Dani to see what she was up to and wanted to see if she wanted to spend the day with you. 

Jack had just proposed to you the night before and you were itching to tell someone. But the two of you agreed to not tell your parents fearing that they may tell the two of you to wait.

But you didn't want to wait. You knew for a fact that this was the person that you were supposed to be with it, so why not just go for it now?

You knew Dani wouldn't let it slip and figured that she could also serve as your witness.

The most important question on your mind was what you were going to wear.

You thought that you obviously weren't going to go all out, but still wanted to look pretty for a day as special as this one was going to be. 

Jack had gone out with Urban and the two of you decided to tell PG later that day when all of you met up to play laser tag as a way to celebrate your birthday that had taken place about a week before.

It was around 2 in the morning when the two of you had decided to finally head back to your apartment and both of you couldn't help but to be all smiles. 

As Jack was driving, the radio was on a low volume as you were staring out the window. You were broken out of your trance once Jack had grabbed your hand and placed a kiss on the back of it.

“Why are you so quiet, princess? What are you thinking about over there?” He asked as he got off the highway and was heading to the parking garage of your apartment building. 

“Just taking it all in. Really happy and excited for this.”

“Even if you don't have a ring?”

“I have you, so what do I need the ring for? That's more important than anything.” You said while turning to look at him.

“But you deserve one, babe. It was just a spare of the moment thing and I just blurted it out.”

“But you knew that whenever you did it that I wasn't going to say no. Like I said, I have you and the material things can come later.” 

“I already have an idea in mind of how it's going to look too.”

“And I can't wait to see it.”

Dani had picked up on the third ring and you couldn’t help but to blurt it out.

“Hii baby girl!”

“DANI, JACK PROPOSED TO ME LAST NIGHT!” You basically yelled and it was quiet for a few seconds as you were waiting for her response.

“I…  wait… seriously?”

“YES!”

“And what did you say?”

“I said yes obviously!”

“Lil Bit….” Dani started to say and your heart sank feeling like she didn't approve.

“You think I should have said no, don't you?”

“No! That isn't it at all! The two of you are just so young. You literally just turned 19 the other day.”

“But if you know that's the person that you want to be with, then why hold back? I love him very much and anyone can see that.” 

“I know you do. We can all tell. I just…. Don't want you to regret this. I… not that I think you will.”

“Why am I going to regret marrying my best friend and favorite person in the world? I thought you would be happy for me.” You answered and you could feel your eyes brimming with tears.

“I am! Just…”

“Whatever. Bye.”

Without another word, you hung up your phone and threw it on the bed behind you as you angrily wiped the tears from your face that had fallen.

Next thing you knew, you heard your phone ringing and peeked to see that it was Dani calling you back and all you did was roll your eyes and watched it until it stopped.

When your phone rang again, it was a facetime call from Jack and you quickly answered, but immediately knew that he was going to be able to tell that something was wrong.

“Yes, babe?” You said and all he did was eye you.

“You're upset. And you've been crying. What happened?” He asked, concerned but you just shook your head. 

“It's not important.”

“If something made my girl cry, it damn sure is important.”

“I'll just tell you later. I don't want to talk about it right now.”

“Fine, but don't think for one second that you're going to get out of it.”

“Okay.”

“I called to see if you wanted something from Morris Deli. Me and Urb are about to be there in a few minutes.”

You sighed before answering.

“I'll just take my usual with my mango lemonade Calypso.”

“Of course, baby. You want anything else?”

You quickly shook your head as you wiped away a stray tear that had fallen.

“You look like you could use a blueberry muffin so I'll definitely bring you some.”

That made you crack a small smile and you quickly nodded agreeing with him.

“Be back soon, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Once Jack had gotten back, he found you in your shared bedroom flipping through channels to find something to watch when he came up to you and leaned down to place a kiss on your forehead before setting your food in front of you. 

You mumbled a quiet thank you before he slid in beside you on the bed and promptly took the remote from you. 

“Are you going to tell me what's wrong now? Don’t think that I forgot.”

You simply sighed before answering. 

“I called Dani to tell her about what happened and it seemed as if she thought we were making a mistake and should wait. She didn't flat out say that, but I could tell that she had her hesitations.”

“But my question to you is, why do we care what people think? We know this is real and we're getting married to each other, so should their opinion really matter?” Jack asked while looking at you before pushing his glasses back up onto his face.

“I guess not.”

“You love me, I love you, and that's all that matters. Point blank period. Who gives a fuck if people don't like it?”

“It shouldn't bother me, but it does.”

“Once we say our vows, they'll have no choice but to accept it and accept us. I want forever with you and I know we're making the right decision.”

“If that's how she reacted, how do you think PG will?” You asked, hoping that they would be supportive of you.

“They'll probably ask what took us so long to do it.”

“Hmm, I can see that.”

“But for now, I want you to not dwell on what she said, or what she didn’t say for that matter. We have bigger things to worry about and focus on.”

“True.” You quietly said before reaching for a blueberry muffin that you proceeded to break in half and hand it to Jack who quickly accepted it.

It was quiet for a few seconds before you spoke up again.

“Now, the most important part is what am I going to wear?”

As thoughts were running through your mind about what your outfit choice will be, Jack quietly muttered to himself.

“The most important part for me is getting a ring for you.”

“What was that, babe?” You asked as you handed your drink to him so that he could open it for you.

“Nothing you need to worry your pretty little self about.” Jack answered as he handed you back your drink and leaned over to kiss your cheek which immediately made you smile. 

—-

Later that night after you, Jack, and PG met up and went to laser tag, all of you were now sitting around the table in one of your favorite burger spots and it was around 10 at night when Urban quickly took notice of something.

“What is up with you two?” He asked while looking over at you and Jack who was currently feeding you cheese fries.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked as you also looked at Urban curiously.

“Something’s different and I don’t know how I know and I don’t know what it is, but something is different.”

“How is anything different? They are literally sucking each other’s faces off every three minutes and making me sick as usual.” 2fo quickly piped up and all you did was roll your eyes and throw a fry at him which he quickly caught and ate.

“Hmm, no. Something is different. So spill it.” Urban said and both you and Jack exchanged looks.

“Should we tell them?” He asked while looking at you for confirmation.

“Tell us what?!” Shloob asked and now all eyes were on the two of you.

“I guess we can. I mean we might as well.” You responded while shrugging. 

“Okay what we’re about to tell you CANNOT leave this table.” Jack started to say, but Quiiso quickly screamed.

“Oh shit, you got her pregnant didn’t you?!”

“What?! NO! Shut up for a second and listen!”

“Not going to lie, I thought that was where we were going for a second too.” Urban quickly agreed before looking back over at the two of you for an explanation.

“Jack asked me to marry him.” You quickly blurted out and the table went dead silent as everyone’s mouth was hanging wide open in disbelief.

“I… come again? Like walk down the aisle married? Like till death do yall part married? Like…..”

“Yes, Ace.”

“And are we absolutely positive that you’re not pregnant?” 2fo asked again while looking at you.

“NO!”

“Wait a minute, well what did you say?! Don’t leave us in suspense!”

“Come on now, Urb. We know she said yes!”

“How do you know I said yes?!”

All of them simply looked at you before rolling their eyes which made Jack stifle a laugh and you lightly hit him on his shoulder.

“Okay fine, I said yes. But yall can’t tell anyone. We’re not even telling our parents.”

“Oh good lord so you mean to tell me Mama Ivy and Mama Maggie are not only about to beat yall asses when they find out, but ours too?”

“And that’s why none of you are saying anything about it, correct?” Jack asked as he eyed them and everyone quickly nodded.

“Well, where’s your ring?!”

“Um, working on that part. She’ll have it by the time we say our vows.”

“What the? Not Jack proposing to our girl without a ring….”

“It was a spare of the moment thing and I just blurted it out!”

“Hmm, typical.”

“Now you know she loves your ass if you proposed to her without a ring and she still said yes.” Urban said while taking a sip of his soda.

“And, we’re absolutely positive you aren’t carrying baby Harlow?”

“FOR THE LAST TIME, NO 2FO!”

He immediately held his hands up in defense as he looked over at the two of you.

“Okay, okay! Just making sure!” 

By the time you, Jack, and Urban got back to your apartment it was past midnight and you were ready to catch up on some much needed sleep. Before you did, you decided that you were going to take a shower in order for you to be able to sleep better. Being able to sleep next to Jack was simply a plus.

While you were in the shower, Jack was trying to come up with a plan in order to get you a ring and was asking Urban for his help.

“I can’t exactly get her everything she wants right now and I know she understands that, but I still want to get her something.”

“Maybe a pawn shop? You might be able to find something there. But I have a question and don’t take this the wrong way.”

“What is it?”

“When you do get signed because we know it’s bound to happen, I don’t think that they’re going to want to push the narrative that you’re married. They might even try to convince you to break up with her.”

“Like that’s ever going to happen and where was the question in that?” Jack responded as he rolled his eyes.

“Jack, I’m being serious. I get that you told us to not say anything, but….”

“And that’s why the only people who are going to know are the ones that need to. I’m not going to let anything come between me and her.”

“But, are you sure that this is the right move to make? And to do it now?”

“I thought you would be happy for us about this.” Jack said quickly getting defensive.

“That isn’t it at all. I just….. We’ve heard stories about the industry and how ruthless and cut-throat people can be. Look, all I’m saying is that you better not forget that she was with you when you didn’t have a damn thing to your name. Don’t switch up on your girl because I will beat your ass if you do.”

Over the course of the next week, Dani still hadn’t gotten an answer from you despite how many times that she tried to call you in order to be able to explain herself. As a last resort, she sent a text to Jack hoping that what she was about to suggest would make up for it. 

Dani- Jack, would you have happened to have gotten her ring yet?

Jack- Nope and the last thing I want is for her to be disappointed, but between her birthday just passing and Christmas coming, I have no idea how I’m going to do it

Dani- I know someone and I can help you pay for it. It's the least that I can do since I know she's mad at me right now with how I reacted when she told me.

Jack- That's nice of you, but I have no idea when I would be able to pay you back for it.

Dani- All I ask for in return is you taking care of my little sister and being the best possible husband to her. Don't worry about paying me back. Meet me at 11 near Carmichael's so we can go and get it. Do you have an idea of what she wants?

Jack- Definitely princess cut or pear shaped

Dani- She's going to be so surprised when you show it to her

Jack was now holding onto your ring back at your shared apartment and he was simply staring at it in awe hoping that you loved it as much as he did. 

He had it in the back of his mind that he had to remember to do something really nice for Dani when he got the opportunity to do so for doing this for him.

Because he knew she definitely didn't have to.

Even though he knew that you were still upset with her, he did tell her where you were because he figured that you would have wanted help when it came to picking out something to wear. He knew that you just wanted something simple, but also knew deep down that out of all people you would want your sister to help you make a final decision. 

While you were going to look for a dress, Jack was going to pick up Clay and spend the rest of the day with him and tell him that he asked for you to marry him. 

They were both sitting across from each other at KFC since Jack had treated him when Jack had just blurted it out and Clay was mid-bite when he stopped chewing and looked up at his older brother in disbelief.

“Want to run that one by me again?”

“I asked Y/N to marry me.”

“You do realize mom and dad are going to kill you.”

“Can't kill me if they don’t know.”

“WAIT! So you're not even going to tell them!?”

“I’m an adult, what do I need to tell them for?”

“Uh, because? It's not like this is life changing or anything.” Clay shot back being sarcastic. 

“We've been together since we were 15, they had to have seen this coming.”

“But…”

“Look Clay, I want you to be there. But, you can't tell mom and dad. We're going to tell them, we just aren't doing it right now.”

“You got her pregnant didn’t you?”

“NO! She's not pregnant! Why does everyone keep asking me that!?”

“Because what two nineteen year olds just wake up and decide to get married?”

“We do.”

“I… I won't say anything. I see how happy the two of you make each other so it was bound to happen, I guess.”

“She means the world to me and I figured if I found my person, why should I wait to marry her?”

You were currently at the mall looking through racks of different dresses when you were caught off guard by your big sister staring at you when you looked up.

All you did was sigh and immediately rolled your eyes as she made her way closer.

“Lil Bit…”

“What do you want? I have a dress to shop for.”

“I know and that’s why I’m here. Jack sent me.” She softly said and you rolled your eyes again.

“Got damn it. I forgot we always have each other’s location on. I’m going to kick his ass.”

“No, don’t. He did it because he knew that deep down you would want for me to help you and that’s all I’m here to do. Help you look pretty on your big day even though you don’t need much help to begin with.” She said while pinching your cheek and you immediately swatted her hand away.

When you were quiet as you were looking at dresses, she piped up once again.

“Will it help you forgive me if I tell you that I’m going to buy your dress and not to worry about the price? And if you haven’t gotten Jack’s ring, I’ll pay for that too.”

Your eyes went wide and immediately left the sales rack to go over to the regularly priced items and all she did was laugh as she followed behind you.

“Then I take that as a yes.”

“But I’m still mad at you.”

“What I said was never meant to hurt you. I said it out of concern. I know that Jack is going to take care of you. There is literally no doubt in my mind about that. But wait, are you pregnant? Because…”

“WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK THAT?! NO I’M NOT.”

“Okay, okay! I was just asking!” She said while holding her hands up in defense as you were now holding up a white tulle dress and you were in awe. You had the perfect set of combat boots to go with it since you didn't want to wear heels.

“That would look gorgeous on you. Go and try it on.” She excitedly said as she pushed you towards the dressing room.

Once back at your apartment, you had to do your best to hide your dress from Jack and decided that putting it in Urban’s closet was the best idea that you could possibly come up with. What you didn’t expect was for Jack to be at the door as soon as you opened it ready to greet you.

“Hi baby, did you find a dress?” He asked as he leaned down to kiss you.

“Yes, and no you can’t see it.”

“What the? Why not?!”

“It’s bad luck, Jackman Thomas! I want this marriage to last forever and not 24 hours!”

“We are not going to break up in 24 hours if I see your dress! How am I supposed to coordinate your outfit with mine?!”

“It’s white. Do what you will with that information.”

“WHAT?! Baby! You can’t be serious! That’s all you’re going to tell me?!”

“Yes smush, now move. And I’m putting it in Urban’s room and you better not peek. You'll see it once I'm ready.” You said while giving him the evil eye, but all he did in response was roll his eyes at you. 

You then made your way down the hallway to see Urban’s room door open and all he did was stare at you as you made a beeline for his closet. Once you opened it, you quickly put your dress in the far left corner before closing it.

“Urby, you are on dress duty. If Jackman tries to sneak a peek at it or even you for that matter, I will mop the floor with both of you and steal your weed.”

“I… is all that really necessary?”

“NO PEEKING!”

You went back out into the living room to find Jack flipping through channels on the television and you quickly went and sat down in his lap. 

“Babe, we have to decide when we want to do this.” You heard him say as you turned your body so that you were sitting sideways and leaned your head down on his shoulder.

“I want to do it as soon as possible.”

“Wait… as in how soon?”

“I want to do it before Christmas.”

“Princess…. You are aware that Christmas is in six days, correct?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“The only day that we would be able to do it is the 21st.”

“Then the 21st it is.” You responded as you kissed his cheek before going to lay back down on his shoulder.

“You know Dani asked me if I was pregnant when she saw me.”

“Why is that everyone’s first thought?! We can't just get married because we want to?”

“Apparently not. And I should kick your ass for telling her where I was.” 

“But I know my girl and I know you wanted her opinion on what you should wear. Am I right?”

“Don't push it, Jackman.”

“And obviously it went well since you definitely came back here with a dress.”

“Not the point.” 

“Love you stink.”

“I don't know if I love you right now. Talk to me in fifteen minutes.” 

“I….really?”

“Quit talking or I'll make it 20.” 

It was the morning of the 21st and you woke up wrapped in Jack’s arms and simply smiled to yourself. This was about to be the first day of forever with him officially and reality was slowly starting to set it. Even though you didn’t let him see your dress, you still stayed in the apartment with him last night wanting for you both to be on time to the courthouse, because knowing you, you would be about an hour late and could only imagine the look on Jack’s face when you did show up.

Knowing how dramatic he was, he would probably think that you ditched him. 

You turned to your left so that you were now facing Jack and placed a soft kiss on his cheek and he responded by hugging you tighter.

“Good morning my beautiful bride and future wife.”

“And good morning to you my handsome groom and future husband. What time do we have to be there?”

“Hmm in about three hours so we have plenty of time. Everyone knows what time to meet us there.”

“And… you're absolutely positive about not telling our parents about this?” You asked while sighing.

“So they can convince us to back out of it? We'll tell them when the time is right.” 

“Okay, I guess that's fair.”

“And babe, don't be surprised that you don't have a lot of gifts under the tree this year. I had to pay…” Jack was immediately cut off by you shaking your head.

“Stop. And stop right now. The biggest gift that I get to have this year is marrying you. And how many times do I have to tell you that the material things are a plus? They can come later. I have you and that's what's important.”

“Damn, you really love me huh?” Jack asked you while smirking.

“Don't you think it's a little late to be asking me that seeing as I'm supposed to get married to you in less than three hours?”

Jack simply shrugged.

“Reassurance never hurt anyone. But just wait until I hit my first million. I'm buying you anything and everything you want.”

“No you're not because we need to save some too. You have to be smart about this. You're not going to be one of those rappers that spend all their money and go broke.”

“But if I do, will you still love me?”

“Smush, we're broke right now so obviously the answer is yes.”

“We are not broke!”

“Hmm, keep telling yourself that baby. Now in the meantime, I'm going to start getting ready if we want to be there on time.”

“Please do because knowing you, it'll be damn near midnight before we get there.”

“I'm ignoring you, so unhand me.”

Just then you heard your door bust wide open and looked to see Urban looking at the two of you and eating a bag of hot cheetos.

“Good, yall have clothes on because I never know anymore. HAPPY WEDDING DAY! Okay, now when are we leaving?”

“Around 10:45 and Urb, don't forget the ring.”

“Wait, you bought me a ring?” You asked, startled and taken aback while Jack just looked at you.

“Baby, did you honestly think that I was going to marry you without one?”

“Well you proposed to me without one…”

“I…”

“Welp, she got you there. Lil Bit got a ring for you too.” Urban piped up and now it was Jack’s turn to look surprised.

“You did!?”

“Baby, did you honestly think that I was going to marry you without one?” You said in Jack’s voice mocking him.

“Hey! I don't sound like that!”

But all you and Urban did was stare at him.

“Love you, now I'm going to get ready.”

You and Jack were now sitting in his car that was parked on the side of the building when he noticed that you were now starting to stare off into space. 

“Babe?” Jack said before waving his hand in front of your face breaking you out of it. 

“Oh, we're here already?”

“Princess, we've been here for almost fifteen minutes. Just waiting for everyone else to get here. You’re not having second thoughts are you? We can always….”

“No. We’re doing this and we’re doing it today. I never have second thoughts when it comes to you.”

Next thing you knew, Urban was flying into the parking lot with 2fo, Clay, and Shloob while Quiiso and Ace were coming in behind them.

“Good lord. And you're worried about my driving? Look at Urban.”

“I… Well…. The only thing that you’ve driven are go karts and that still didn’t go over well.”

“Now, we know that’s a lie. I bet that I’m going to get my license on the first try”

“Hmm, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

That was when both of you decided to get out of the car and Jack was helping you fix your dress when you looked over at Urban who was walking towards the two of you with everyone else and he was looking a little dazed.

“You cannot be fucking serious. Jackman…. is your best man HIGH right now!?” You said through gritted teeth. 

“Come onnnn you two, we have a wedding to get to!” You heard Dani say from behind you and Jack didn't even have a chance to respond. 

“Jack, just know if you mess up and she ends up divorcing you, I'm ready to slide in and replace you.” Clay said as he came up next to the two of you but all Jack did was roll his eyes.

“Clay, you can't marry her. You aren't old enough.”

“For now big brother. For now.”

“And Y/N, first, that dress looks amazing on you and second, give me a few more years.”

“Why thank you little baby.” You responded while pinching his cheek while Jack hit him in the back of his head.

“OW!” 

“Urby…” You started to say as he was messing with his shirt.

“Urby….”

Silence. 

“URBAN HENRY!”

“Oh, hmm? We ready to go inside?”

“I am never riding with this man ever again.” You heard 2fo muttered as he pulled out a cookie and stuffed it in his mouth. 

“Yall can go in front of us, just give us a minute.” 

Jack waited until everyone was out of earshot before he turned back to you and it looked like he was about to throw up at any minute.

“Uh? Babe? Are you okay?” You asked concerned and all he did was nod his head towards you.

“Sooo, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

“Yes, we’re really doing it. You love me enough to give me your last name?”

“From the first minute I saw that girl across the street with those pretty braids in her hair.”

All you could do was smile as you hugged him. 

“You ready to get married? You ready for forever with me princess?”

“Damn right, I am.” 

—

5 Years Later (This takes place after Two Halves of a Whole Idiot Instagram AU)

“Shit.”

“Fuck!” 

The both of you looked at each other as you had both seen the comment that Urban had left under your instagram post and sighed.

There was no turning back now and it was officially out there for the entire world to see. 

“URBAN!” Both you and Jack yelled before he peeked his head around the corner looking guilty.

“Uhh so I can delete my comment. I totally forgot.”

“HOW DID YOU FORGET THAT WE’RE MARRIED AND DIDN’T TELL ANYONE YET?!” Jack exclaimed while running a hand through his curls.

“Look, babe he was high when we did it and he’s probably high now, so are we really surprised?” You piped up and Jack stifled a laugh. 

“I WAS NOT HIGH AND I’M NOT HIGH RIGHT NOW!”

“Our moms are going to kill us.” You quietly said while ignoring Urban’s last comment as you noticed your phone started ringing in your hand.

“Oh no.” You quietly said as you threw your head back in disbelief.

“Baby, who is that?”

“My mom and she’s not going to stop until I answer and I know that for a fact. So I’m turning my phone off. Jack, keep yours on.”

“WHAT? SO I CAN GET YELLED AT?”

“Better you than me. Maggie is going to mop the FLOOR with you. She loves me so I know she won’t be mad at me.”

“I… seriously?”

“Yes. Maybe if you tell her our first born will be named after her she’ll be less mad.”

“I thought the first born is going to be named after me?”

“Not now, Urban! We’re having a crisis here and it’s YOUR FAULT.”

“But is this really a bad thing? I mean…. People already know that the two of you are together.”

“Well it really doesn’t matter if it’s a bad thing or not. It’s out for the world to see so… nothing we can do about it now.” 

Just then Jack’s phone rang and sure enough it was Maggie. He let it ring and proceeded to get a text from her soon after.

Mom- Either you answer my call or I’m getting on a plane with Ivy and we’ll be there by tonight. Your choice.

You were peeking over Jack’s shoulder and had seen what she said so you quickly hit her picture icon to call her back as Jack started yelling.

“BABY, WHY DID YOU DO THAT?”

“DID YOU NOT READ HER TEXT? EITHER YOU CALL HER BACK OR SHE’S GOING TO BE ON OUR DOORSTEP IN LIKE A MATTER OF HOURS.”

“Okay, I’m going to see myself out now.” Urban said before walking out of the room.

A few seconds later, Maggie answered and she did not look pleased.

“Shit, I didn’t know you facetimed her.” Jack whispered in your ear as you were sitting on his lap and smiling in the camera.

“Hiiiii Mama Maggie!” You said and all she did was look at the two of you.

“I thought you said she was going to be less mad at you, she looks like she’s pissed at both of us.”

Then without warning from behind her, you saw your mom pop into the frame.

“Oh shit, they work fast. What the? Are you two at the AIRPORT?”

“You two have A LOT of explaining to do.” Was all Maggie said as she was shaking her head.

“I… Jack made me do it.”

“EXCUSE ME? YOU SAID YES SO DON’T YOU DARE PUT ALL OF THIS ON ME. IT TAKES TWO PEOPLE TO EXCHANGE VOWS.”

“Who else knew?” Was all your mom asked as you now saw that they were at their gate.

“Umm….”

“Jackman and Y/N, you better start talking and you better start now. We’re still on our way to Atlanta, but this is your chance to state your case.”

Jack started firing off names and you couldn’t help but laugh because he was doing it as if he was trying to get a shorter jail sentence. 

“Clay, Dani, Urban, 2fo, Shloob, Quiiso, Ace.”

“CLAY?!” Was all Maggie exclaimed with a look of disbelief on her face.

“And how long?”

“Umm, this year would make it five years.” You quietly said.

“FIVE YEARS? THE TWO OF YOU GOT MARRIED AT NINETEEN?!”

“Uh? Does it make it any better that we were going to tell you this year and have a destination wedding?” Jack asked and both of them shook their heads no.

“We’re about to board and the two of you better be at your house when we get there.”

Without another word Maggie hung up and the two of you were sitting in silence for a few minutes before anyone said anything.

“Uh babe?” You asked while turning around to look at him and he simply sighed.

“Hmm?”

“What percentage do you think we have of surviving the conversation that is bound to happen later?”

“Negative ninety-nine.”

Jack’s phone went off again and it was Clay who had sent him a text.

Clay- I told you so. Have fun getting yelled at. 

Jack- But keep in mind little brother, you knew we were married and I just told mom that you did.

Clay- I.. SO I’M IN TROUBLE TOO?

Jack- Love you!

Jack was caught off guard with you suddenly kissing him on the cheek and starting to play with his beard.

“What’s wrong, babe?”

“Nothing. I just know that five years ago I made the best decision of my life. I wouldn’t want to be doing this with anyone else and I look forward to spending forever with you.”

All Jack did was smile and gave you several kisses before tightly hugging you.

“Can’t even put into words how much I love you. Almost five years in and a lifetime to go.”

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#jack harlow #jack harlow fic #jack harlow fanfic #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow x black reader #jack harlow fluff #jack harlow imagine #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow x you #first lady of pg

[ceruleanwhore]

I got rammed by a dump truck recently, so I want to talk about insurance since it’s all new to me and my company told me jack fucking shit.

First off, the second they tell you your vehicle is totaled, return the plates to the RMV. You can do this online and don’t actually have to go fuck around at the RMV but what that does is make it so your car is officially gone so you can cr cell your policy and not be out here making insurance payments on a car that doesn’t exist. No one told me this, so I actually made a payment after my car was totaled and now I’m waiting on a refund.

Second thing is that, if you take time off from work to heal, you can put in to get your lost wages, but it takes fucking forever. My biggest problem with the aftermath of the accident was being broke and then (still) not having lost wages and, when I returned to work, not making money fast enough to stop being broke. If I had the money from that insurance payment or my lost wages, it would be different, but this shit takes forever.

Third is that they will tell you fucking nothing. You’ll make a million calls with a million questions and the super simple ones will be answered while anything they don’t like will get you bounced around between departments until you give up. That’s the other thing is you’re just supposed to magically know what to ask and which department to ask it of, or else you get fucked over. You’ll probably have one person who’s just there for your medical billing and then another person who’s assigned to your case, but pay attention to names on the stuff they send in the mail.

There are some things you can answer for yourself without calling your company, like if you live in a no-fault state or not. My dad found a helpful list of car insurance faq’s for my state and I’m sure they’re out there for the other 49 too. This actually is how we learned about canceling the plates.

The fourth thing is that, if your car is totaled, they’ll send an adjuster out to the tow yard it’s being kept in and then they’ll give you whatever they determine its value to be. For myself, I got a COVID car that was fucking $20k for a fucking three year old Corolla, but they valued it at $17k so now I still have to pay the remaining $2,000 (I’ve already paid off so the loan’s down to $19,000, not 20.) This is super fun because I don’t have a fucking car so I’m staying with my grandma and she’s driving me to and from work and now I have to pay off this $2,000 before I can even think about getting another vehicle.

That being said, apparently your insurance has ways of providing things like rental cars, which is my fifth point. Given that I haven’t actually procured this mythical thing and no one would ever rent to me without insurance providing this, I’m not 100% sure how this works. However, even in a no-fault state like mine, they can look at the situation and see that an old couple ran a stop sign and hit me with a fucking dump truck and now I can’t go anywhere and then get me some transportation.

The last thing I’ll say is to expect any and all phone calls to be intensely frustrating, confusing, and unhelpful. I was hardly able to do fucking anything on my own even though I fought tooth and nail but when my mom started making calls for me, stuff finally started moving. However, my mom literally built a file for me and took so much time out of her work days for this shit that she also wants to put in for lost wages because that’s how long you have to spend on the fucking phone. Oh and they’ll only be open 8-4:30 so good luck navigating around any work or school schedule at all to do that. They’ll also do fun things like wait a whole week to return a call or call your mom’s phone instead of yours for a callback, even though she said 3 times in the voicemail to call your number.

Now, if you’re neurodivergent, you’re kinda just screwed. I’m autistic and this whole thing makes me want to vomit and then stab like five people including myself. It’s deeply, deeply, painfully uncomfortable for anyone, but especially anyone who isn’t neurotypical.

#insurance #car insurance #car crash

[signalwatch]

Santor Watch: The Key To Christmas (2020)

Approx. 100x more effort was put into this poster than the movie

Watched:  11/27/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Director, Writer, Camera, Editor, Catering, Accountant, Set Decoration:  Jason Mills

Some pals seem to take exception to my practice of watching bad movies, riffing them, commenting upon them, etc...  The argument goes "someone tried, and it's not cool to make fun of them for trying".  To that I say:  if trying is your criteria, I welcome you to watch The Key to Christmas (2020).  Because that @#$% ain't happening here.

Look, I don't understand the market for ultra-cheap holiday movies.  There can't be that many Me and Doug's out there constantly looking for ways to torture each other with the worst in absolute garbage media.  Someone is out there buying the rights to these movies to distribute them with the idea that enough people will watch them that these movies will make money somehow.  I don't get the model.  I have to assume it's money laundering, tax fraud or something.  

The wildest part is that you get "movie" after "movie" like this, where it's clear there's no consideration of the basic building blocks of technique, artistry or craftsmanship.  It's someone with time, enough money to get a squad of people together for enough days to film something that runs 80 minutes, and - sometimes - a script.  But barely that.  And there's so, so much of it.

The Key to Christmas (2020) almost isn't worth discussing because it's just a list of complaints.  "Filmed" in Vancouver, the basic idea is that Santa (a) leaves a "key" at some teen girls' house that is absolutely essential to his operation and in no way needs to be on the sleigh with him (b) time has no meaning at the North Pole except when it does - so Santa has time to return to the North Pole and really yell at an elf before demoting her to stable-cleaning duties because of a few sloppy mistakes.*  (c) the incompetent elf rises up and overthrows Santa with barely any effort and no one stops her.  Santa - who has fucked off during the middle of present delivery on Christmas Eve to go take a vacation at an AirBnB in suburban Vancouver.  

The elf who gives no @#$%'s uses a spare copy of the magic key (sure, why not?) to keep Santa stuck in his Air BnB somehow, and start de-aging him.  

Mrs. Claus is thrown in Candy Cane Jail where she languishes for a calendar year while Santa apparently lives in a house with no job, only his Santa Suit to wear, and his only goal to be get his key back from the 13 year old he left his key with.  And he tries a single time to get the key in that year, even as he may be dying and his wife is unjustly imprisoned and the elves do jack and shit to stop the equivalent of a 16 year old girl (who is maybe 5'1") and her dullard pal.  Santa famously breaks and enters millions of times every year, so that seems like it's not an issue.  And he could walk to the North Pole from Vancouver in a matter of weeks one assumes.  So maybe he just doesn't care.  The filmmakers don't.

The entire film looks and feels like something you'd expect of someone goofing making a home movie.  Aesthetically, the only worse movies I can point to immediately are Santa's Summer House which featured whole scenes shot from a chair up at actors with a handicam and Rollergator, which is its own thing.  Doug pointed out pretty early on that the depiction of the North Pole is entirely close-ups because they have no real North Pole set.  There's a few flourishes, but they're literally working against bare white walls - so the decision was made to shoot everything in extreme close-up.  Using glaring lighting that I assume is just the florescent overheads.  And, look, Mrs. Claus is perfectly lovely, but they don't even powder her make-up, so she constantly looks shiny.  In constant, unrelenting close-up.  It's all just lazy and cheap and weird.  

Like, look, nothing in this movie makes any sense.  Because no one is trying.  And it's entirely on whoever watches these movies - who you assume will be children abandoned by their parents with a TV and a Hot Pocket - for the movie existing.  It's weird anti-art.  A guy with some consumer grade production hardware and an Adobe Creative Cloud license did a thing, and now it exists.  I feel bad for the audience, but I also feel bad for talent who anyone actually trying to act who thought this was a real opportunity.  

This also seems to have been shot during quarantine, so there are a lot of questions about the wisdom of the filmmakers that kind of answer themselves.  I get that I didn't have to watch this - we did this to ourselves.  What I don't get is how one just decides *trying* is asking simply too much.

Again, seriously, if anyone out there understands how this economy works, I'd love to know.  And if this is a reel for the writer/ director/ producer, what is the endgame here?  And can I make a suggestion?Here's a good read.  And if that's too fancy.  

https://ift.tt/uqOK1EZ

from The Signal Watch https://ift.tt/tnID8bM

[heir-less]

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

Kate Middleton worked a laughable 44 days in 2020.

In 2019, she worked 82 days. That’s not even a quarter of the year.  And now we’re being told she wants to do even less than the figures above. 

#like i remember looking it up thinking she did 120 days last year #i'm such a moron for even thinking that #like if you're British you should be mad at this #because she is literally living off your money to do jack shit

[spideyspeaches]

Can’t escape (the way I love you) ↬a.r

A/N: This is a repost from my old account :) @th0ttie4tommy​ here you go :)

Warnings: cursing, use of wooden spoon, seX, canon typical voilence-ish)

MINORS DNI

WC: 3.1K

Summary: after running away from knockemstiff, Arvin finds his way to Cincinnati and finds a girl instead.

Pairing: Arvin Russell x Reader

Masterlist || Taglist

Sleep didn’t come easy to Arvin now that he was hitchhiking his way to Cincinnati. Flashes of his daddy on the prayer log with his neck cut off, Lenora’s limp body hanging, the preacher bleeding his guts out and even the photograph of the whore- the Sheriff’s little sister- all played in his mind like a broken record.

Sighing, he leaned back on the seat and watched the long haired driver honk on the ongoing vehicles, the noises sending shards of pain up his skull. He really wanted to sleep, and maybe smoke a cigarette, but he didn’t want to think about the possibilities of what would happen if he slept in a random stranger’s truck.

Just the thought of sleep reminded him of the old man and the whore’s faces, making him sit up straight.

“You okay there boy?” The long haired man raised an eyebrow, looking at him from the corner of his eye.

Arvin shook his head, wincing at the movement as his sore body struggled to not give in to the strong pull of sleep.

“I’m good. How far away are we from the city?” He asked, gritting his teeth as he saw the Sheriff’s car go past them.

“We have a long way to go. Why don’t you take a shut eye meanwhile?” The driver said.

“No thank you. I’ll stay awake. Sleep is for the week and all.” He mumbled, fixing his cap.

“Okay, if you say so” The driver responded, shrugging and continued driving.

Arvin looked out of the window, watched as the trees passed by, a lonely dog making a trek as it wiggled it’s tail. His heart gave a thump, chest aching as the dog reminded him of Jack. He really missed the mutt, he didn’t deserve the death it got.

Pulling his cap over his eyes, he squinted at the slight indication of dawn, the pull of sleep too strong to ignore now. His mouth went slack and neck bobbed with the wobbly rout, a huge yawn leaving him, and before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.

***

“Hey kid! Wake up!” The man said, shaking out of his sleep. He woke up in a disoriented haze, head throbbing harshly against his skull, body heavy with exhaustion. Sitting up with a gasp, he saw that the man had stopped the truck, panic seizing his lungs. Was that it? Would the driver pull a gun on him just like those Henderson whores had?

Looking around, he noticed a small diner, stomach growling with hunger, as if in response to seeing the place.

“Whe- Where are we?” He said sharply, noticing the driver’s eyes trailing him. He shuddered at the man’s gaze.

“We’re at a rest stop. Figured you might be hungry.” He replied gruffly, getting off the side door, “You comin’ or not boy?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’ll be there.” He whispered. Maybe he could run away from here, hitchhike another ride to the city. His eyes landed on the board on the corner of the road. He was relieved to find that he was already in the city.

Before he knew it though, his feet were carrying him towards the diner, a cigarette making its way to his mouth as an invisible string pulled him towards the small place. He complied, too tired to make anything of the situation.

The bell rang as he opened the door, pushing himself inside before he could think. Taking an empty seat, he leaned on his hands as his heart stuttered to a stop.

Literally stopped.

It felt like he was in a parallel universe filled with coincidences, flashbacks of his old house back in Ohio, his daddy sitting on a ratty stool as he talked about his mama . Because in front of him was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He remembered his daddy telling him how he met his mother in a diner in a small town, just like the one Arvin was in right now.

Throwing away the butt in an ashtray, he tried to speak, but no words came out. He stuttered a small smile, looking at your bright eyes as you said something.

“What do I get for you honey?” You asked in a soft voice, oh your voice was such a melody.

“A coffee would be good.” He finally said, licking his lips and thumbing his wallet nervously. He hadn’t left with much money.

“You look like you need solid food and aspirin.” You smirked, pouring a hot cup of coffee in front of him. You slid a cheesecake, smiling at his surprised expression. “It’s on me.“

"Oh- I uhm. Thank you.” He nodded. He took a bite of the soft dessert, nearly moaning at its sweet taste. His taste buds were jumping from the onslaught of the sweet flavour, sighing as he sipped at the bitter coffee. It was the best food he’d had in a few days.

Turning around in his seat, he saw that the driver was nowhere in sight. Great. He had ditched him. Thankfully he still had his belongings with him.

Turning around again, he fidgeted with his fingers just as you appeared in the line of his sight.

“You’re not from here are you?” You ask, wiping your hands on your apron.

“No. How’d you know?” He raised an eyebrow, a smile appearing on his face.

“Well you look quite lost. Do you have a place to stay?” You leaned forward, the open collar showing just a little bit of your cleavage. He licked his lips, trying not to stare.

“I don’t actually. My ride ditched me.” He shrugged, “thanks for the cheesecake by the way."

"Oh it’s alright. The leftovers go to those bloated buffoons anyway. You looked starved, so I wondered why not?” You collected the cutlery from the other customers, shouting orders at the kitchen for the others. “You say your ride ditched you? My grandma owns a motel not far from here, I could get you a room to stay for s while."

"Oh no no no! That- you’ve already done so much for me and you don’t even know me!” He stumbled. He wasn’t used to this sort of kindness, considering the shit his life took in the past few months.

“It’s no trouble really! I’m just going there after this shift anyway, will probably stay in the penthouse for a while.” You said.

Before he could say anything to confirm or deny your offer, You were removing your apron, handing it to another girl as you hopped over the counter.

Fixing your dress and hair, you go to the back of the kitchen and yell something at the manager, walking out of the house, looking behind and silently asking him to follow.

Arvin tried to follow you, sighing in relief when he found you leaning against the wall in the back. But instead of calling out for you, he scrambled for a cigarette, groaning internally when he found only one left and lit it with a matchstick. Taking a drag, he breathed in the familiar burning in his throat, leaning against a pole.

He felt more than saw you eyeing him from the corner of his eye, heart speeding up like he was in highschool and had a crush on one of the girls or guys. He hadn’t stuck around much to date anyone, but the time he had making out with them was good enough for him.

“My name’s Y/N by the way.” You said, biting your lips as you looked at him.

“Russell Arv- I mean- Arvin Russell.” He stuttered, pulling out the joint from his mouth.

He took a deep breath, letting the silent roads and windy weather calm his racing heart down. He thought about leaving right there, not wanting to get someone who looked as innocent as you did, in a mess like his life was. Before he could walk away though, you were walking towards him, biting your lips.

“Uhh, so my grandma’s place?” You asked nervously.

“You barely know me and you’re letting me stay with you. For all you know, I could be a murderer.” He joked. You chuckled and made a face at him, dragging him to your Cadillac. He followed anyway.

(He almost laughed at how ironic he sounded, shaking his head internally.)

“Thanks for letting me stay Mrs. L/N” He smiled at your grandma as she shook his hands, enthusiastically shoving cookies down his throat and excited that you had brought a boy with you.

“She’s nice."

"She’s the best.”

He intended to stay for a day and hitch a ride, stay far far away from this place. He didn’t want to corrupt these people, he tried to reason. But he couldn’t let go, he just kept interacting.

(A little girl in the neighbourhood liked to play with his hat. He smiled at the small child, surprised to find the unadulterated happiness that radiated off the wee kiddo when he played with her. The people smiled a lot too.)

A day turned to two, two to a week and then nearly a month passed and no one asked him once why he lived with a girl and her grandma.

(Or why he flinched every time he saw a gun or an officer of law walk by).

He also managed to score a job at the diner, for washing the plates. He found that he didn’t mind helping people

You didn’t know how fast time could pass, and as it grew it’s sneaky tendrils, your heart grew a mind of its own as you spent days fantasizing your time with him, of you under him as he fucked you senseless.

Tracing his biceps, you leaned forward, mouth nearly touching his. He cupped your jaw, grabbing your waist and lifted you off the ground, slamming you against the concrete wall and kissed you.

Your mouth tasted like berries, which berries he didn’t know, maybe strawberries, fuck if he cared. Maybe it was your Chapstick.

“Arvin.” You moaned against his mouth, hands reaching for the collar of his shirt as he shoved you against the wall, holding your ass to keep your balance. His tongue swirled around your lips, hands sliding up your legs in a soothing motion.

You could taste the nicotine in his mouth, but you couldn’t be bothered. All you wanted was this beautiful stranger right now. A stranger who you felt like you’ve known your whole life.

“Shh sweetheart, don’t want anyone to hear us would we?” He whispered in your ear, holding his hands over your lips to shush you. You nodded, eyes half closed as you enjoyed the feeling of his rough denim rub against your thighs, the sheer friction of his movements causing heat to pool your gut.

“Arvin,” you moaned softly, running your hands through his hair, “Arvin, wait. I- I know a place."

He stopped for a second, Looking at you with a bewildered expression. "What kind of place?"

You gulped, getting off of him and walking around and outside the master bedroom, making sure no one was in the corridor. Following you, his eyes grew wide as he saw you open a door to a dungeon, switching on the flickering lights to reveal a small square area room.

The room was dimly lit and dusty. It was surrounded by racks but he could not see what was kept in them. In the centre though, was a single obsolete piece of wooden slab surrounded by long rods of metal attached to it. It must have been an old hospital bed- the kind the troops used. It sat flat against the floor. He looked at you again.

"My daddy used to bring things from the war, whips, guns, handcuffs. Everything. Everything.” Your low voice sent chills up his spine. With shaking hands, he scoured the cupboards, wiping off the dust from his fingers as he came across a pair of brass knuckles and handcuffs. Fingering them, he looked at you as you nodded.

“Do you- do you want me to use ‘em? On ya?” He said. He could feel his already hard dick throb painfully almost, the lust in your eyes making him feel things.

“Use them on me Arvin. I wanna feel you use the cold metal against me as you fucked me so hard I couldn’t walk tomorrow.” You suddenly push him against the cupboards, his back hitting with a thud as you traced his chest through his shirt, scrambling to remove off the offending clothing.

You scratched his chest lightly, fingers gliding against his pecs and abs as they clenched, moving in a sensual manner. He was impatient, you could practically smell his excitement in waves. The scent of his cologne was overwhelming in a way that made your insides tingle with your own arousal.

“Fuck- sweetheart.” He whimpered, his legs weak for you, waiting to feel your walls.

Kissing his neck and then chest and nipples, you dig your teeth around the skin, eliciting a moan deep from his throat. You were shaking with anticipation, hastily removing your frock and throwing it to somewhere. He held you for a second, admiring your body and giving you a gratifying look. His hands linger around your chest, unhooking your bra holding them as he kisses your chest while  bending down with trails of kisses down all the way to your tummy.

You pant as he reaches your navel, slender fingers sliding your panties off you as you sigh in relief, ecstatic that you were now fully naked in front of the boy of your desires.

He plunged his fingers inside your dripping core, your legs trembling as he licked off dripping cum from your folds.

“Already wet for me huh? Wait till I use these on you, how will you feel then babygirl? Want me to use them don’t you?” He urges, spreading your legs apart and moving you so that your butt hit the wooden plank. You whimper at the force, back arching as he dribbles your clit with his spit, licking it off you and then standing up. You immediately miss the contact, and thankfully it wasn’t for long before he came back.

He unbuttoned his pants so that he was too fully exposed now, his cock springing out made you crave for it even more now, but before you could do anything, he took your hand, cuffing it to the railing of the plank. You cursed at the tightness, adjusting your wrist so that they wouldn’t hurt. You whimpered when you felt a cold wooden spoon run along your chest. He held the dip of the spoon on top of them leaving indents, his other hand’s thumb kneading into your flesh.

“Is this okay princess? Don’t wanna hurt your pretty little hand. Just wanna hear you moan my name.” He whispered, voice cracking due to the octave it took when you gave a shrill cry of surprise, your other hand clutching at his hair, causing you to lose your balance and falling on your ass.

“I need you Arvin! I need you now please help me!” You cry out, your eyes devoid of tears but your voice showing your emotion. You were hungry, starved and his cock looked delicious. You just wanted him inside.

“A little patience would be appreciated.” He growled against your chest, biting at the sensitive skin. You must have said that out loud.

“I don’t know how much longer I can hold it in me.” You whimper, scrunching your eyes as he nipped at your neck, rubbing the tip of his dick on your clit. His tip was bright red, hard and erect. You wrapped your legs around his shoulder, bringing him down at you. His fingers kept playing while his mouth worked.

“I’m so wet Arvin, only for you baby, look at me, so wet.” The wooden spoon made contact with your chest again, sliding down to your ass as he gently nudged your back. He didn’t hit you, no, that son of a bitch teased you with slow motions of its cold surface. You kissed him till your lips were plump and red with blood dripping off the thin skin, his mouth leaving his lingering taste in yours.

Finally, finally, he slid into you. You gave a shrill cry as his member entered you, your walls clenching around it as if you wanted it to stay in you forever. You arched your back, your waist hitting his pelvis, causing it to slap around him. You unconsciously dug your fingers in his back, gritting your teeth at the sudden sensory input.

“So tight baby. Clenching around me like a fucking ant-eater. You like this don’t you darlin’? Like it when I slide in."

"Yes baby.” You whispered. Sweat dripped off of the both of you, your slicked bodies slapping against each other, “Oh I’m about to cum! Arvin!"

"Cum on me baby, cum on my dick so I can shove in harder.” He clenched himself, mouth forming an O as he felt you orgasm around him, his dick sliding out of you. Pumping his balls, he clenched his jaw at the sight of you, panting under him with your legs spread apart. “You’re such a good girl. Always listening to what I say."

"Because you’re the best.” You flopped down on the board, your back hitting it. You jiggled your arm that was held in the handcuff, the movement bringing Arvin toppling down to you. He fell on your breasts, face smushed in as if he was sleeping on a pillow. You erupted in a fit of giggles as he licked you with kitten-like strips.

“Did you like that? Was that- was that okay?” He huffed, probably as tired as you were right now. His muscles relaxed under your touch, unclenching as you ran your hands on his back. You hissed when you saw that your hand had caused bloody indents on his skin.

“That was amazing sweetheart.” You paused, “I’m so glad we met that day."

"Me too. I didn’t believe in love for a very long time after momma died, and then my daddy died, and then Lenora-” he said, choking on his tears, “- my sister, Lenora, that fucking preacher. He killed her."

"Arvin, baby I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I can’t bring them back. But I can hold you. I can hold you forever if you want. I can love you."

You froze for a moment, realising what you had said. You had met only a month ago, and yet here you were, telling him that you loved him. Your heart did gallops when he didn’t answer for a while, and then you heard it. You heard him say those three words, a soft whisper in the night.

"I love you too."  

#arvin russell smut #arvin russell x reader #arvin russel x reader #arvin russel x y/n #arvin russell x reader smut #peter parker x reader smut #tom holland smut #spideygirl writes

[jackrrabbit]

spank bank HCs /// Oikawa, Atsumu, and Kuroo x s/o (18+)

A/N: Been thinking about how the hq boys practice self-love 😏 Kind of a palate cleanser, I want to do this for more characters haha

Tags/warnings: pornography, masturbation, sex, edging, lots of mentions of different porn categories, Kuroo is a little shit, all characters are 18 or older

Oikawa Tōru

Oikawa has a weird relationship with conventional porn. On one hand, he’s a young healthy guy with an equally healthy sex drive, and what can he say, he likes watching girls get pounded

On the other hand, the kind of porn you find on sites like PH is always ugly men fucking beautiful women, and as a pretty boy Oikawa finds it hard to identify with. Like where is the justice??? How is it supposed to be believable that a gorgeous woman in her twenties is really moaning that hard for an aging male pornstar with more hair on his chest than on his head?

So he opts for the perfect alternative: camgirls!

He has three or four different channels that he bounces between. His favorites are the ones that are well-lit, nicely produced, high quality film and lots of eye contact. He never interacts or chats with them though, he’s kind of a lurker

Very very into solo acts and toys. You know those sites that let you control the speed of a girl’s vibrator by donating certain amounts of money? Oikawa lives for those. All his pocket change goes toward camgirls, it’s a real problem

Once the two of you start dating, Oikawa’s sexual needs are mostly sated because…well, he’s got you, and you’re a hundred times hotter than any random girl on the internet. But once in a while it’ll still happen that your schedules don’t line up or you’re on your period or it just doesn’t work out, and he’ll get pent up again

When that happens, he’ll return to his old stand-by channels. It’ll be kinda nostalgic getting off to girls fucking themselves with glass dildos or grinding on vibrators in front of the webcam

But the problem, the problem is that he can’t get you out of his head, and when he’s looking at “jasm1neXXX” doing her cute little striptease, he keeps feeling like he’s betraying you :(

So Oikawa bids a regretful goodbye to his old favorite camgirls, and begins the search for one who looks like you. The resemblance doesn’t have to be perfect, it can be something small—hair that matches your color, a moan that falls into a huff of breath like you do—just enough that he can imagine that she’s you

Definitely never tells you that he gets off to porn. Feels guilty about it even if you wouldn’t care ➳

Miya Atsumu

Kinda the opposite of Oikawa when it comes to porn. His preferences are extremely fuckboyish

Into a little bit of everything. Lesbian, gangbang, bondage, creampie, step-sibling, whatever. You name it, he’s seen it, and he’s probably jacked off to it. The only thing he’s resolutely not into is amateur stuff. Atsumu doesn’t fuck with that low-budget bullshit

Definitely not here for the storyline though—he’ll skip ahead in the video past the setup (seriously, who gives a fuck about why the babysitter decided to spread her legs for the the pizza delivery guy) so he can get to the good part

Into edging. To spice things up a bit if he’s got at least an hour of free time he’ll go through a bunch of different videos, jerking himself off slowly while he watches a pretty girl get wrecked, up until he feels his stomach drop and he’s riiiiight about to cum when he’ll stop. Wait. Let himself fall down a little bit, hold back, drop away from the edge. And start another video just so he can do it all over again

Atsumu doesn’t really know…why he likes edging. It’s very frustrating. It makes him antsy and horny and tense, so he’s not sure why he does it. Once when he was doing it, he got interrupted and couldn’t finish until ages later and it was probably the most unpleasant thing he’s ever felt that wasn’t physical pain. He was seriously this fucking close 👌 to smacking the shit out of the person who interrupted him (it was Osamu complaining that he was sick of getting sexiled for over an hour)

It just…feels good, okay? It feels real good to finally get to cum after he’s been edging. Jerking off every other day can get old, so a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do

Favorite category is probably public sex! The possibility of other people overseeing is so fucking hot

Overall, Atsumu has a pretty high sex drive and feels zero guilt about watching porn. Even if you guys are dating, he has needs and you’re not always around to help with them, so that’s where PH and XV come in

Absolutely not shy about it with you. Legit if he’s watching something he wants to try that he just saw in a porno, he will not hesitate to text you the link and be like “hey watch this n tell me what ya think”

Even if you’re not the type to be appreciative of his porn recommendations, he will still def take notes from what he watches and apply them irl. Atsumu is plenty aware that porn is unrealistic, but he’s more than capable of sifting out the good from the bad, and it helps him be…let’s say creative in bed

Want to know where he learned that new move or that extremely bendy position? You don’t have to wonder. It’s porn. He learned it from porn ◎

Kuroo Tetsurō

Kuroo tends to get in a bit of a dilemma because he likes sex and his sex drive is through the roof, but he Does Not. Like. Masturbating.

He much, much prefers to have sex with a partner—to be fair, who doesn’t?—but Kuroo will take it to an extreme. If he’s not able to see you, he’ll go weeks without touching his dick for any reason that isn’t pissing or washing

Literally...a couple months after you started dating, his family made him come on a three-week vacation to Hawaii and when he came back he complained that it was the worst three weeks of his life

“You were in a tropical paradise getting a tan and you’re acting like it was a war zone. Stop whining.” “But baby, you weren’t there! I was so horny, you have no idea, I thought I was going to die, I thought my dick was going to fall off—“

It gets annoying.

When he gets his hands on you after a decent period apart, he’ll be like “I saved myself up for you baby <3” and you’re like “um, ew, why are you so gross”

If he doesn’t wear a condom with you, be prepared for the fact that he cums a lot. A lot. You’ll be in the shower afterward cleaning up and it’s like, there’s more? There’s still fucking more???

You ask Kuroo once why he doesn’t like jacking off, kind of awkwardly, after a four-round fuckfest that left you too shaky to even hold your hips off the bed, and he pauses for a second to think about it before answering

“Well…imagine you have a choice between two meals. One of them is a gourmet steak from a five-star restaurant, and the other one is…hm, a McDonald’s hamburger. You can have the burger whenever you want it, but the steak is only available once in a while because it’s rare and you have to appreciate it when you have it. Which would you choose?”

Okay, fine. That’s kind of cute

It’s less cute when you guys are apart and Kuroo gets really desperate, desperate enough that you get 6 texts in a row from him at 1 in the morning implying that he’s in some kind of dire emergency

“babe”

“BABE”

“911”

“🆘❌⚠️🆘”

“please I need ur help it’s important”

“call me asap”

You call him all frantic, asking him if he needs you to call the cops or something. Is he in trouble? Hurt? Is there a home invader threatening his life?

Nope, he’s totally fine, he’s just horny and wants to have phone sex. That son of a bitch

If you tell him off badly enough, Kuroo will relent and make do without you. He will, however, request nudes to help him through this difficult time

Send thoughts and prayers instead ✷

#Oikawa tooru x reader #Miya atsumu x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo tetsurou x reader #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #oikawa tooru #Miya atsumu #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo tetsurou #haikyuu #hq #oikawa x reader #atsumu x reader #kuroo x reader #oikawa #kuroo #atsumu #haikyuu headcanons #smut